Legal Commentary

The Trouble With Polling, Part XXX

By Big Tent Democrat

About a week ago, Kevin Drum wrote about a new book that discusses polling fallacies. Kevin quoted Taegan Goddard discussing "The Opinion Makers by David Moore:

The author — a former senior editor of the Gallup Poll — says that today's opinion polls misfire due to an intrinsic methodological problem: survey results don't differentiate between "those who express deeply held views and those who have hardly, if at all, thought about an issue."

I would have framed the issue differently. The problem with polls on issues is they rarely describe how intensely a respondent feels about an issue and how they will vote because of that issue. Case in point - today's Ras poll on Hillary as VP:

[A] new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% of Democrats still say Obama should not pick Clinton to be his vice presidential running mate, although nearly the same number (42%) think she should be on the ticket. When likely Obama voters are asked, 40% favor choosing her, but 46% are opposed. Voters overall say no to a Clinton vice presidential selection 50% to 31%.

Whether voters support or oppose in general terms having Clinton on the ticket is not the issue - the issue is how many voters will vote for Obama if Clinton is on the ticket and how many will not vote for him if she is on the ticket.

My strong sense is that the number of people who will NOT vote for him because she is on the ticket is virtually nil. Most of those who oppose her are either already committed Obama supporters or committed NON-Obama supporters. On the other hand, for many of those who favor her being on the ticket, their vote will very much depend on her being on the ticket.

Let me give you a hypothetical using Ras numbers on this question. Likely Obama voters constitute 47% of the electorate according to Rassmussen. Also according to Ras, 40% of Obama likely voters favor Clinton on the ticket and 46% oppose it. What percentage of that 40% is Obama putting at risk by not picking Clinton? What percentage of that 46% would Obama be risking by putting her on the ticket? I think the answer is obvious - Obama's risk comes with Clinton supporters, not Clinton opposers.

And this does not even touch the issue of undecideds. As the CBS poll I discussed last night demonstrated, Obama's underperformance with Democratic voters is largely due to reluctant Clinton supporters. Obama's performance with Clinton supporters (just a 55-15 advantage with 24% undecided) is incredibly weak.

This is where Obama can gain votes with his VP choice. I think it is obvious, as I have been saying for a while, WHEN Obama does not pick Clinton, his Democratic support will DROP. It is that simple.

Of course Obama is free to choose who he wants as his VP, but let's not blind ourselves to the consequences of his choice. The VP choice will NOT be a good moment for Obama politically for one reason, and one reason only, he will not pick Hillary Clinton.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 07, 2008 (boomark / email).