Not so fast

People are all a dither because of the poll numbers out there. Ankle biting pundits has a good post up on polls and how they are used to drive stories.

In the NYT poll, 14% of respondents aren’t even eligible to vote. And of those 86% that are registered, a full 41% didn’t vote, and an additional 10% don’t remember. And while I’m no math major, it would seem to me that of the total respondents to this poll, a full 50% of them either aren’t registered to vote or didn’t vote in the last midterm election. So again, please tell me, how it is that any conclusions can be drawn from this poll. Further, a full 21% of registered voter respondents didn’t even show up to vote in the 2004 Presidential election.

Further, just looking at the demographics should give you pause. The poll is made up of 35% Democrats and only 30% Republicans, even though in 2004 party ID was even. While that’s not to say that it will be exactly the same this time, it should give pause.

Further, of the poll respondents that voted in the 2004 Presidential election, 38% voted for Kerry or Nader, while only 37% voted for Bush. President Bush won in 2004 by about 3.5%.

14% of respondents had no religion. In 2004, only 10% of voters had “no” religion” and voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.

Even more telling is that in the NYT poll, 50% of respondents either “never” attend church or do so only a few times a year. In the 2004 election, those people made up only 43% of the electorate and voted for Kerry by about a total of +15%. (In fact in this poll 20% of voters “never” attend church, while in 2004 that number was 15%, and Kerry won them by a whopping 26%.

When it comes to the age of the poll respondents, 22% were between 18-29 even though in 2004, only 17% of voters came from this age category, and voted for Kerry by +9%.

The Demographics of the WP poll are even more ridiculous. In that poll, Democrat respondents outnumber GOP respondents by a full 11% (38-27%). Plus, 3 of the 4 nights in the WP poll are weekends, and the poll director of the WP has previously admitted that weekend polls favor Democrats.

And yes, the numbers in both polls are dismal for the GOP, except that these polls are meaningless because we don’t know the Congressional districts of the respondents. Only about 40 CD races are competitive. Where are the respondents in these polls from?

Rasmussen has also increased the number of Democrats they contact for their polls by 5%, they say more people self identify as Democrats now. But what does that really mean in terms of how people vote?

Is the purpose of these polls to inform or disenchant? Are Republicans supposed to think the Democrats are the strong horse and jump ship and vote for them?

Ya know for two days I have been listening to Democrat blather on about North Korea. Now does anyone really believe that Pelosi would have backed anything harsher than a stern finger wagging for the North Koreans? I remember when Bush included them in the Axis of Evil and the Democrats treated the man as if he were so provocative. Why he might make them mad. And now I am supposed to believe they are big and bad.

Gimme a break. The only people the Democrats will stand up to are their fellow Americans who happen to have an R behind their names.