hahaha! when did tig turn into the onion?

this is a joke... right?

I wish we were half as funny as the Onion.

And I wish this were a joke. But I don't believe it is:

Read more over at Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, and the LA Times.

I guess the actual article is in a print-only publication. How backwards is that?

By the by, you do know that polls are meaningless?

@Erik -- I think individual polls are meaningless. I think trends over numerous polls over time start having meaning.

But you're the scientist. Can you clarify why you think they're meaningless?

Well, mostly because they are trying to come up with an idea of who is voting based on a very small sample size that usually undercounts: (1) people with only mobile phones; (2) people who move a lot and change phone service; (2) people who don't have time to take a phone poll; (4) people who are working a lot and not able to answer the phone; (5) people who are at school/college; (6) people in the military. So really, you're polling people who want to be polled and can answer the phone when the call is made. Ask yourself this: have you ever been called for a political poll? Any of your friends?

This doesn't even enter into the part I really hate, and that is that polls are ruining democracy. This horse race mentality means that people are apt to flock towards the person who looks to be heading towards victory -- it is the bandwagon effect like you see in sports. Then, combined with the fact that if your candidate gets a "big lead" in the polls, people might think they don't need to go out to actually vote because it is obvious who will win. Polls need to be banned from at least a month before the election and let us decide who is better based on something beyond the trending in the polls.

I have likewise heard most of those caveats above... but in general, doesn't that translate to an advantage for Obama? (younger, urban voters don't have land lines, etc).

And I can totally get behind what you're saying in paragraph two, but then what would we all obsess about for the next month without fivethirtyeight.com? ;)

I guess my problem isn't whether the polls are better/worse for Obama, but whether they mean anything at all. They just make the election seem more frantic when you have poll updates every day.

First, I find it amazing that after an article filled with what is in fact hate speech from an official campaign representative for John McCain, anyone would choose to focus on the one sentence at the end. (That is, considering that sentence is not "April fools.")

Next, anyone who believes polls are meaningless isn't looking at the bigger picture. There are very smart people who understand the science of polling and the need to aggregate and weight polls (538's Nate is a highly respected baseball statistician who has turned his hand to politics) and they're actually quite enlightening to read.

I have been called by polls before - previously by Gallup, and this year by a state GOP "push" poll (first framing the questions negatively for the opposition and positively for themselves, then asking my opinion).

And yes, the severe undercounting of cell-phone-only citizens is no doubt underreporting likely Obama voters (538 has a great dissertation on this). It's probably the largest missing factor in polling now.

Wait wait wait... NONE of that is true?

Obama just lost my vote. I'm endorsing the first person who can promise freedom for goats in Africa.

Thanks Michael ... I actually did some poll research in college, so I have some experience with the science of polling. However, I never put 2+2 together (no pun intended) between Nate Silver and 538 ... which makes me like it a lot more. I've have to take a closer look at what he has to say about it.

@Erik -- Oh my, you are about to become obsessed. FiveThirtyeight.com RULEZ.

I've actually been called for a poll too, by ABC News in 2000. I don't remember what they asked but I was for Al Gore and answered accordingly.

What my concern though about this overtly racist article is the idea that Obama would hire Ludacris to paint the White House black. George Clinton has been angling for that job for YEARS!

While I'm more for Obama now than I have been in the past it's hardly fair to link McCain to what the Chairman of his campaign in Buchanan County VA. Buchanan County has fewer than 30K people and is among the poorest counties in the United States. It's in Appalachia and Mr May, maybe one of it's more progressive thinkers. I've been in that part of VA, it's creepy. I doubt anyone with any connection of any significance to McCain had anything to do with the selection of Bobby May as Republican Party Chair. What is scary is that people think like Mr May. What is comforting is that his kind of thinking is not really going to gain anymore influence regardless of which party wins.

Wow. I can't believe anyone would think saying something like this would do anythign but backfire.

I've been called by pollsters pretty much every election cycle since 2004, but that may be because I live in a very, very hotly contested congressional district. I'm pretty sure they've been more locally geared polls, though.

This doesn't even enter into the part I really hate, and that is that polls are ruining democracy. This horse race mentality means that people are apt to flock towards the person who looks to be heading towards victory -- it is the bandwagon effect like you see in sports. Then, combined with the fact that if your candidate gets a "big lead" in the polls, people might think they don't need to go out to actually vote because it is obvious who will win. Polls need to be banned from at least a month before the election and let us decide who is better based on something beyond the trending in the polls.

I totally agree with you, Erik. I was a journalism major in college, and the media's impact upon an election for all the same reasons you list above was a huge ethical dilemma. It's even more problematic when, on election day, networks start calling/revealing results of races back East when western polls still have hours before they close, which tends to push late voters into apathy because their "vote doesn't matter at this point."

That's just irresponsible journalism, period. All the TV networks need to come together and agree not to do this, because, as long as one network's pulling this stunt, the others pretty much have to follow or risk losing their audiences.