Some new polling numbers on Iraq

"Moderate Plurality" doesn't have quite the same ring to it...

"now identifying ass independents"

Freudian slip?

The results confirm some of my past observations:

1. Media has done a very poor job explaining the consequence of a failed Iraq and AQ resurgence (and note the recent Democratic cry to "get AQ" in Pakistan).

2. 62% think Congress should decided when to pull troops despite both leadership groups claiming that the military should have a big role to play in this decision (also this is not what the ISG reports says)

3. 56% obviously ignore reports of the new Tribal Shia/Sunni alliance against AQ AND ALL EXTREMIST MILITAS as well as our recent siege of Shia strongholds.

4. Although the poll does not go into related subjects, it is clear the majority of Americans have little clue about the interconnectedness between events in Iraq with activities in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Gaza.

I attribute the numbers to years of Kosian ranting and more importantly, the media negligence to present the FACTS and strategic considerations involving our Middle East and anti-terror policies. Has prime time focused on Turkish readiness to invade, arms merchants ready to supply extremists, the consequence of Musharraf's ouster, Iran with more weapons, etc.? No. My opinion that the media meltdown and the rise of pseudo-Democratic Blog World pundits has marginalized facts and seems the primary culprit, beyond the failings of the present administration.

I have been predicting Hillary's strength for some time. As Simon stated, she has already pissed most people off and has managed to spin this as toughness. She has barely used Bill's power yet. She is also one of the few that has tried to be consistent on policy while fauning some pandering at times. Her questioning the details of a withdrawal plan was a typical misdirection that enabled her to respond with a crowd-pleasing rebuttal to the DOD (which has taken numerous derogatory shots at her). She resisted a government run universal healthcare system last night while Edwards and Obama thought otherwise. You have to give her credit for braving the venom from the Left and Right. My prediction is still Hillary/Obama with a centrist face come general election time. I don't know how Obama and Hillary reconcile their differences over Iraq. The worst mistake however, would be for Republicans to go after this ticket in a personal and nasty way. The demographic outrage will hand them a shocking loss with little dignity. The American people, as polls suggest, are tired of the venom. They will not like a Republican flip flop (regarding military force) on issues and personal attacks. They should understand that now the Left is nuttier than the Right (some Right nuts have gone Left).

I don?t see how Fred can just appear and change the numbers.

The paradox is no paradox--The NARAL/NOW position of unrestricted-elective-abortion-until-birth has never been a majority position in the electorate. Nor has the Operation Rescue every-sperm-is-sacred position.

ain't no facts more stubborn than statistics

Bull. And for polling stats, extra bull--raw data is factual, but has to be properly assessed to mean anything. I wouldn't put too much weight on that particular poll (or any particular poll) as we do not have the raw data, just the "weighted" percentages. And the weighting constructions and designs make much difference, as do the sampling techniques. Just knowing how the poll was weighted can tell us about much about problems with the sampling techniques and sample bias.

On top of the usual problems we've noted of late with trends in landline phone polling in the cell phone age, they've seriously oversampled blacks (and thus, Democrats) in this one. They even say so in the first paragraph. But no adjustment weightings are noted, and yet we know they were used in some fashion, as the survey claims only 12% blacks in the weighted base, when the first para has the sampling at near 19%.

(Also on a first run-through, just from a general knowledge of current ACS census distributions there's an over-representation of the widowed by roughly double the true population percentage or more, which in turn implies an over-representation of women over 65. Also, Catholics appear to be somewhat undersampled, and the income figures imply that the sampling population is higher on the household income curves than the population averages, which implies sampling of mostly larger urban areas, likely coastal states. This also supports a presumption of Democrat oversampling.)

Now, where we can find some meaning is if we make the assumption that the poll construction and survey technique has been consistent with past polls referenced in the poll. Then any significant and persistent timeline trends can be taken as indicative of real trends. But how meaningful are they? Look at the Congressional approval ratings for October 1994 for both parties.... ;-)

Lastly, I note that "conventional wisdom" and "reality" are only coincidentally congruent at times.