Interesting story for political junkies this AM in the
NY Times featuring Matthew Dowd, the Bush Administration's spinner-in chief, pollster and 'chief campaign strategist' (Rove? Never heard of him...).
Amidst the obvious points that when Bush says he doesn't pay attention to the polls, he's merely delegating that to every other member of his staff, there's some nice points brought up about poll interpretation based on a widely circulated criticism of the LA Times poll (in Thursday's Note by Dowd, response Friday by Pinkus).
Susan Pinkus, director of polling for The Los Angeles Times, dismissed the Bush campaign's sharp questions about her newspaper's poll as "negative spin'' in a public response posted on the ABC News political website, "The Note.'' The Los Angeles Times poll was similar to several others, showing Mr. Kerry as leading Mr. Bush in a direct match-up by seven percentage points. Mr. Kerry's lead was just outside the poll's margin of error of plus or minus three points.
Mr. Dowd complained during an interview that while 38 percent of voters who responded to the Los Angeles Times poll identified themselves as Democrats, 25 percent identified themselves as Republicans. He argued that the poll results should have been adjusted to diminish what he said was an overly Democratic skew. It is an argument he has made about other polls, as well, including a New York Times/CBS News poll in late April that found that Mr. Bush's approval rating had slid to 46 percent, the lowest level of his presidency in that poll.
Mr. Dowd's argument is part of a wider debate within the political community over whether such adjustments to a polling sample should be made if a random survey appears to count too many people of one party or the other. Those opposed to such adjustments, including Ms. Pinkus, say that doing so would possibly undercut accurate findings.
You've heard that argument here, but note that there are actually folks out there with weak party ties who self-identify based on who's up and who's down, and will switch with the prevailing winds. No one likes supporting a loser.
In fact, that's why Dowd has a job in the first place. His private job is to poll for the WH, and his very public job is to convince the gullible that down is really up.
Reflecting on the week-long Reagan funeral, I think one of his his most lasting gifts to the American people may well be the legitimization of political spin.