Redstate

While it's true that the MSM polls probably understated Reagan's support, don't forget that they only had one debate, it was just days before the election and Reagan cleaned Carter's clock.  So it's not implausible that there really was a big last minute shift in Reagan's favor.  Dales had a lengthy analysis of this in 2004.

It was probably very close.  I mean c'mon.  Reagan only won 44 states.

...that election in one of their retrospectives.  it went something like this:

Meet the candidates

James Carter

"Let's talk better gas mileage"

Ronald Reagan

"Kill the bast*rds"

Which message will resonate better with voters?

Moe

Carter`s pathetic `Let the people go` plea? Just seeing his name and recalling the hostages is demoralizing. Streiff, do you think the rescue attempt was really intended to succeed or just a ploy to get the public off Carter`s back?

I really don't think Carter was duplicitous enough to do that. I say "sadly" because I can understand duplicity, I can't fathom abject stupidity.

Hm.  Elizabth is, um, right.

Time magazine did a poll ending the Friday before the election which showed 42% Carter, 41% Reagan, 12% Reagan.  Go read the archives if you want.

The debate was held that weekend.  In its aftermath, Carter held to within the margin of error, got 41% of the popular vote.  Reagan picked up virtually all the undecideds and half of Anderson's voters, ended up with 50.7%.  Anderson held onto %6.6.

As Reagan himself used to say, quoting John Adams, "Facts are stubborn things."  Why be so dismissive of them?

That's 12% Anderson in the pre-election poll.  My bad.

you make my point which you would know if you had read the graf in question.

As I said, the press was in the tank for Carter. I do dismiss the results as either incompetent or cooked because absent a seismic event, and the debate was not such an event, public opinion doesn't shift 10 points in 4 days. Never happened. Can't happen.

When the press reports something you agree with, you laud them for finally telling the truth.  When they report something you disagree with, you say they are "in the tank," which apparently means "lying."  Heads you win, tails I lose.

Go read the record.  The Time poll was similar to others reported at the time.  A substantial number of American voterss withheld their judgment about Reagan until the last three days of the campaign.  It is sensible to infer that the debate, the major campaign event of those three days, played a major role in the judgment they made.

Perhaps you think all the polls were slanted, or all the reporters were lying.  If so, there's no evidence that would change your mind.

From what I read on the matter, is was an absolute cluster.  Keep mind, Delta and SEAL Team 6 were still in its infancy.  Charlie Beckwith was in charge per se, but the whole thing was terribly micromanaged in a Robert Mcnamara sort of way. Beckwith took the blame, but the mission was set up to fail. The Israelis were better prepared to make the rescue, but we all know that was not going to happen.

beating W also.  They are sooo worthy.

Forgive me for dismissing polls as nothing more than futility.

I encourage you to do the same before shooting your mouth off.

1. I've never lauded the press. So I call BS on that right now.
   
2. BS on 10% of the population "withholding judgment". That doesn't happen. Now you are free to disagree with decades of research into public opinion formation if you will. But it doesn't happen.
   
3. No, it is not sensible to infer that the debate moved 10% of the electorate based on what we know of the impact of debates.
   
4. If you don't believe in slanted polls then I can only assume you go into a coma each election cycle.

...well, it's not actually a problem from my point of view, because it usually ends up rebounding to the GOP's benefit.  But it is a situation that needs to be recognized: polls generally aren't worth it until the very last minute.  Ask the Democrats in '02 and '04 who stood there fruitlessly waiting for rescue by Team GOTV.

As to the specific situation at hand; I don't see why we have to be binary about it.  It could have easily been a situation where bad polling and a last-minute boost contributed to the final results.

See http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls.html

The polls didn't show Kerry beating Bush.  Just the opposite.

And if polls are so futile, why does the White House  commission so many of them from the RNC?  Accurate polling is highly valued by professionals across the political spectrum, in both (or all) parties.  We may not like what that does to our democratic republic, but it's a fact of life.

by the ones that ask the questions and get the raw data.  It is the way the results are presented to the public that makes them unreliable.

why did the ancient Romans read goat entrails? Why do people go to astrologers? To predict the future is my guess, but that's just me.

And more to the point, we aren't discussing "accurate polling" we're discussing a poll that was obviously in the tank for Carter.

by the movement over the weekend in 1980.  It was certainly an outlier, and everything I had read to that point and have read since tells me that it is a pretty big outlier.

Still, facts trump everything.  Well-executed non-partisan polls using best practices showed a dead heat and lots of undecideds going into the final weekend of the campaign.  Reagan won a landslide.  Just because we can't explain it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

BTW, I'd also urge you to look into the press coverage of Carter throughout his presidency.  It was increasingly skeptical of his capacity to govern to the point of being dismissive and insulting.  

[see for example, the NYT headline writer who got in trouble for draft headline on a story covering a Carter speech.  He put in "More Mush from the Wimp" as a place-holder, and it accidentally(?) got left in for many of the papers the next day.]  People thought it was funny because it was so accurate.

I would hardly say they were "in the tank" for him.

Polls at a certain point indicated that Bush was beating Kerry.  Clicking on the history of your link will indicate that, prior to the conventions, Sen. Kerry was routinely winning them - and this ended up being a real headache for the Democrats when the shift happened.  After all, they weren't doing anything differently: why the sudden change?

I'd be more sympathetic if it didn't keep surprising them so.

Moe

PS: As to why the GOP uses them; because the other side does, too.  If the fad were for reading the entrails of sheep, well, they'd go get a ground cloth.

...I say sheep, either way would be more interesting than the current methods.    :)

I followed this website daily.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/2004/pred/index.html

The webmaster took several different polls from different agencies, analyzed all the results, and then gave the results of the combinations.  Interestingly enough, in the last day leading up to the election, he had Kerry winning as did the exit polls on election day.  His site was recemmended in many circles as being one of the best predictors.  Was his methodology skewed by his views?  Maybe, but I gotta tell ya, he had me sweating bullets.

You make many assumptions when you use the term "accurate polling".

Nice way to slam the WH for polling.  I notice you didn't mention Bill "I gotta see what the polls say" Bubba Clinton.  IMO-he is the one that changed the landscape wrt polling the nation for political decision making.  For all the polling they do, the WH doesn't seem to take it to heart too much.  At least nothing like the last administration did.

And just because it is a fact of life, it doesn't mean I have to give it any credibility in my decision making process.  I followed polls very carefully in the fall of 2004.  But after the farce of them wrt that election and to some degree 2000, I have sworn off of them.  Never again will they get much thought from me.  

make this kind of a statement if you ignore the press coverage of Reagan. When push came to shove, who did the major papers endorse? This in the day when their endorsements mattered. The WaPo and NYT endorsed Carter. The Chicago Trib was the only major endorsement I can find for Reagan.

I don't want to play nanny-nanny-boo-boo anymore. You can take it to the bank that I believe that the media has been in the backpocket of the Democrats since the Kennedy Administration when it comes to elections. From Evan Thomas' statement that the media wanted Kerry to win and that would be worth 15 points to KE04 I don't think I'm alone in my view or in exclusively the company of conservatives.

This is the 25th anniversary of when americans began to lie to polsters.

That mission was fated to fail before they ever lifted off.  It was as complicated as a Rube Goldberg machine.  I hope whoever assembled it wasn't in charge of writing mission plans after that...