Just when I thought the AP couldn't sink any further, they are pushing the notion that the race is even because of the fact that those "deemed" likely to vote in their poll chose Obama over McCain 44-43.
The AP, led by "writer" Liz Sidoti, is just determined to have a close race, whether the facts bear it out or not.
Those "deemed" likely to vote represented 800 out of the 1,101 people questioned; the pollsters throw out over 25% of the results because they didn't "deem" the individuals likely to vote. What's missing, of course, is the criteria used to qualify likely versus unlikely to vote.
More unbelievably, they polled people who aren't even registered to vote. Why? They can't vote; they don't have a say in this. Anyway, among all those questioned, Obama has a 10 point lead -- this is buried way down in the "column" of course. Among registered voters, Obama has a 5 point lead.
This survey was conducted late last week into Monday, capturing the mini-bubble for McCain, and missing most of Obama's bounce following Powell's endorsement.
What I love most, though, is this quote from an apparent expert on polling. This is placed after the column identifies several other polls showing Obama leading by double-digits, and after they admit that, "[t]he new AP-GfK head-to-head result is a departure from some, but not all [emphasis mine], recent national polls":
Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people.
"If they all agree, somebody would be doing something terribly wrong," he said of polls. But he also said that surveys generally fall within a few points of each other, adding, "When you get much beyond that, there's something to explain."
Well, me thinks the AP poll has something to explain.
Now, to be fair, Liz admits that most of the Powell bounce had been missed, and that things could be much different now. But this begs the question: why did they wait so long to get these numbers out? If they had released this on Monday, I would have no problem with it; many polls were showing that the race had tightened a bit. But they waited until Obama had built his lead back up, which makes them look silly or slow, or both. And I guess I do have a problem with the "even in the homestretch" title. At least say Obama holds slim lead, or even that his lead has slimmed or slipped, but to call it even when he is leading in every aspect of your poll is misleading.
Here's the link for this "great" piece of journalism:
http://news.yahoo.com/...