Poll Trutherism & the Conspiracy Trifecta

[Dick Tuck]

Every Monday morning all the major pollsters, meet in the basement of their safehouse, and decide what they want this weeks polls to be. None of them really employ senior statisticians, and since no wingnut seems to have been phoned for their opinion, aren't even polling. They just decide what the outcome will be, and divvy up the numbers within their margin of error, so it doesn't look too suspicious.

Poll Trutherism & the Conspiracy Trifecta | TPM Editors Blog

I don’t remember who coined it. I didn’t. I saw someone use the phrase a few days ago. But I’m starting to think “Poll Trutherism” may become a big deal post-election. The polls can’t tell us what the outcome is going to be on November 6th. But they show pretty clearly that if the election were held today Mitt Romney would lose.

Unless, that is, you think the pollsters are conspiring against Mitt Romney and the Republicans to get them so bummed out that … well, I’m not really sure what the idea would be. Because if the liberal pollsters really have conspired with the liberal media to hurt Mitt Romney the main effect would probably be to make Romney into the biggest upset winner in like forever.

 

[Dick Tuck]

Fox & Friends: The Polls Are Rigged! | TPM2012

It’s clear that Fox & Friends has a tricky relationship with data. But on the show Thursday morning, the hosts took that relationship to a whole new level.

After a raft of new polls showed Obama opening up leads in swing states, the Friends flew in to full-blown conspiracy mode about what’s really behind the data.

Parroting the latest Republican meme that national polls oversample Democrats, host Steve Doocy threw in to the mix the possibility that pollsters are using voter turnout from 2008 to guide who they should be asking. And why would the “left-based mainstream media” do this? Doocy had an answer.

“Well, two reasons,” he said. “One, perhaps, to keep Mitt Romney’s donors from coughing up more cash. And two, to keep people from doing early voting.”

What a bunch of conspiracy loons. Did they miss last weeks FOX poll, showing Obama with big leads in the swing states?

Obama has edge over Romney in three battleground states | Fox News

Obama tops Romney by seven percentage points among likely voters in both Ohio (49-42 percent) and Virginia (50-43 percent). In Florida, the president holds a five-point edge (49-44 percent).

I guess FOX must be in on the scam.