Polls: The Fix is In
It looks from here like Public Policy Polling is working for John Boozman in the U.S. Senate race. I say this on the basis of their recent poll results where they start by saying "John Boozman will enter the Arkansas Senate race this weekend as the frontrunner." They say this as if he had no primary opponents. Its true that he has a large lead over the unpopular Senator Blanche Lincoln (Sellout, AR), but one little problem. They did not poll Lincoln against any of her other Republican opponents! Or if they did, they dared not release the results.
************UPDATE*********UPDATE***********UPDATE
Looks like they DID poll Lincoln against "little-known State Senator Gilbert Baker, viewed as the GOP frontrunner before Boozman's entry, leads Lincoln by a 50-35 margin." That little snippet was in this more obscure PDF. The-name-they dare-not-mention (Holt Holt Holt Holt Holt) is who I considered the frontrunner, since the only poll which compared both Holt and Baker to Lincoln had Holt beating her by a wider margin.
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The failure of Public Policy Polling to compare Boozman-Lincoln with Holt-Lincoln makes the poll more valuable as a propaganda tool for John Boozman and the DC based GOP than it does anything else. All it tells us is what every other poll for the last four months has told us- about anyone can beat Blanche Lincoln. Even they give this away when they admit, "Boozman’s strong early standing probably has more to do with voters strongly disliking
Lincoln than necessarily liking him."
Then there is the issue of his high negatives-"Boozman is not all that well known- a 43% plurality of the state's voters have no opinion about him one way or the other..... Among those who do 32% view him favorably to 25% unfavorably."
That favorable to unfavorable ratio is significantly lower than that of any other Republican candidate in the race (I guess the people who DO know him know about his support of the Big Banker Bailouts). His favorable to unfavorable ratio is 1.28 while every other candidate on the Republican side has a favorable to unfavorable ratio higher than two. Jim Holt for example has a ratio of 2.71 while Gilbert Baker is at 2.2. Clearly, among people who know Boozman, there is a much higher percentage of people who view him unfavorably compared to his two main rivals. Boozman also ranked behind Holt in total name ID 54-62. Those figures are from two different polls, since PPP was pretending that there were no other Republicans in the race against Lincoln, still the gap is significant.
The Morning News had Mason-Dixon conduct a poll that actually included Jim Holt. This poll showed Holt had the widest margin of any of the other candidates against Lincoln. The poll had the race closer than the Rasmussen polls have had them, but Holt and Baker still came out ahead of Lincoln, Holt up by seven and Baker up by five. The lesser known candidates were a little behind Lincoln in this poll.
Even though the Morning News paid for the poll, they blew their coverage of it. The guy who made the graph reversed Holt's numbers so it looked like he was the worst candidate against Lincoln when in fact he was the strongest. Is the fix in? Is it a conspiracy or simple incompetence? Hey newspapers in this state, please do something to make us believe that you are playing it straight!
Then comes the new Rasmussen poll. For a long time the Holt camp complained that Rasmussen did not include Holt in their polls. Critics countered that Holt had not yet announced. So he announced. A new Rasmussen poll comes out. Holt is still not in the poll, but John Boozman, who has not yet announced, is in the poll. This one showed that Boozman's spread over Lincoln was no greater than Gilbert Baker's. That lends more credence to the idea that the PPP poll was skewed toward Boozman.
So am I crazy to say the fix is in or is it crazy to deny it? Time after time one thing after another keeps skewing coverage so that the citizens of this state are repeatedly denied access to this one critical piece of information: Jim Holt is currently the strongest candidate for U.S. Senate. You have to go to a blog like this one to actually be able to look at the links and put the facts together.
At least that Rasmussen poll compared Boozman to SOME other GOP contenders. And the results of the poll showed that, contrary to the PPP's contentions, that Gilbert Baker had just as big a spread against Lincoln as Boozeman did. Of course in the Mason-Dixon poll, the only one that dared mention the existence of Holt, Holt had a spread two points greater than Baker. So if Baker ties Boozman and Holt beats Baker then does that mean........
Why yes it does Virginia. But you have to go here to read it.
PS- Holt even out-raised "frontrunner" Boozman last quarter.
PSS- If you want to hear audio of your humble reporter "going off" on Boozman for his defense of his loathsome bailout vote then click here.
************UPDATE*********UPDATE***********UPDATE
Looks like they DID poll Lincoln against "little-known State Senator Gilbert Baker, viewed as the GOP frontrunner before Boozman's entry, leads Lincoln by a 50-35 margin." That little snippet was in this more obscure PDF. The-name-they dare-not-mention (Holt Holt Holt Holt Holt) is who I considered the frontrunner, since the only poll which compared both Holt and Baker to Lincoln had Holt beating her by a wider margin.
*****************************************************
The failure of Public Policy Polling to compare Boozman-Lincoln with Holt-Lincoln makes the poll more valuable as a propaganda tool for John Boozman and the DC based GOP than it does anything else. All it tells us is what every other poll for the last four months has told us- about anyone can beat Blanche Lincoln. Even they give this away when they admit, "Boozman’s strong early standing probably has more to do with voters strongly disliking
Lincoln than necessarily liking him."
Then there is the issue of his high negatives-"Boozman is not all that well known- a 43% plurality of the state's voters have no opinion about him one way or the other..... Among those who do 32% view him favorably to 25% unfavorably."
That favorable to unfavorable ratio is significantly lower than that of any other Republican candidate in the race (I guess the people who DO know him know about his support of the Big Banker Bailouts). His favorable to unfavorable ratio is 1.28 while every other candidate on the Republican side has a favorable to unfavorable ratio higher than two. Jim Holt for example has a ratio of 2.71 while Gilbert Baker is at 2.2. Clearly, among people who know Boozman, there is a much higher percentage of people who view him unfavorably compared to his two main rivals. Boozman also ranked behind Holt in total name ID 54-62. Those figures are from two different polls, since PPP was pretending that there were no other Republicans in the race against Lincoln, still the gap is significant.
The Morning News had Mason-Dixon conduct a poll that actually included Jim Holt. This poll showed Holt had the widest margin of any of the other candidates against Lincoln. The poll had the race closer than the Rasmussen polls have had them, but Holt and Baker still came out ahead of Lincoln, Holt up by seven and Baker up by five. The lesser known candidates were a little behind Lincoln in this poll.
Even though the Morning News paid for the poll, they blew their coverage of it. The guy who made the graph reversed Holt's numbers so it looked like he was the worst candidate against Lincoln when in fact he was the strongest. Is the fix in? Is it a conspiracy or simple incompetence? Hey newspapers in this state, please do something to make us believe that you are playing it straight!
Then comes the new Rasmussen poll. For a long time the Holt camp complained that Rasmussen did not include Holt in their polls. Critics countered that Holt had not yet announced. So he announced. A new Rasmussen poll comes out. Holt is still not in the poll, but John Boozman, who has not yet announced, is in the poll. This one showed that Boozman's spread over Lincoln was no greater than Gilbert Baker's. That lends more credence to the idea that the PPP poll was skewed toward Boozman.
So am I crazy to say the fix is in or is it crazy to deny it? Time after time one thing after another keeps skewing coverage so that the citizens of this state are repeatedly denied access to this one critical piece of information: Jim Holt is currently the strongest candidate for U.S. Senate. You have to go to a blog like this one to actually be able to look at the links and put the facts together.
At least that Rasmussen poll compared Boozman to SOME other GOP contenders. And the results of the poll showed that, contrary to the PPP's contentions, that Gilbert Baker had just as big a spread against Lincoln as Boozeman did. Of course in the Mason-Dixon poll, the only one that dared mention the existence of Holt, Holt had a spread two points greater than Baker. So if Baker ties Boozman and Holt beats Baker then does that mean........
Why yes it does Virginia. But you have to go here to read it.
PS- Holt even out-raised "frontrunner" Boozman last quarter.
PSS- If you want to hear audio of your humble reporter "going off" on Boozman for his defense of his loathsome bailout vote then click here.
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Tuesday, February 02, 2010
3 Comments:
I called Rasmussen and their explanation for who they put in the polls is done by them talking to the Media in Arkansas and Republican "heavyweights" in the state.
Anybody want to take a gander at who said certain heavyweight(s) might be?
My guess would be someone who is an establishment big government Republican(ino-of course because of his record of growing government in Arkansas surpassed only by Baker's track record of voting for more gov't / big gov't) who also is in the media with a prior relationship / business connection to Rasmussen.
Oh, and Rasmussen is regularly a guest on Fox News.
That is my guess at who is behind the fix.
My opinion of Rasmussen's ability to remain objective just took a nose dive.
But I almost forgot to remind myself, thanks to Rep. Jon Dismang (now the establishment candidate for state senator), that there is no Establishment Republican apparatchik(sp) here in Arkansas. That kind of thing only happens elsewhere.
William Wallace
I honestly just got off the phone with Gilbert Baker (who I strongly support) and he was inviting me to a fundraiser and saying how all this big government and control being crammed down our mouths has to end! Rather contridictary to your opinion of rumors you have heard saying the opposite. He is the perfect candidate. Bill Clinton and other huge democrats tried to sabotage his last re-election but they can't find dirt on a guy who is clean. Of course, he still won his "State Senate" seat. Seems kind of like overkill for the democrats to put that much effort into beating a state senator? My guess, they are very afraid of this man because once people know the real Gilbert Baker like I do, the sky will be the limit for him.
Let me just say, not only did Gilbert Baker vote FOR, he also co-sponsored the Education Legislation of '03, which is CLOSING Rural Arkansas Schools!!! What's worse is, when he was asked about this in Walnut Ridge a couple weeks ago, he had the AUDACITY to play dumb, and ask if he voted for it!!! I'd like to inform him this was rather STUPID on his part!!! When you kill the HEART of a community-the community DIES! You know, SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS have to CLOSE their doors! Hey, Thanks GILBERT! GOOD JOB BUDDY! If that wasn't bad enough, he adds insult to injury by implying he doesn't remember?!? He had to ask, "DID I VOTE FOR THAT?" How could one NOT remember voting FOR laws that have NEGATIVELY impacted so many lives, businesses and communities! Not to mention how many YOUNG CHILDREN are riding buses 3-4 hours a day, now! Is YOUR child one of those??? WOW! Yeah, he has a clean record alright! Now, can you just help me get this KNIFE OUT OF MY BACK?!?! All that for the sake of the 13 largest businesses of Arkansas! THAT'S what I call a CORPORATE SELLOUT!!!! And as far as the sky being the limit, we hope he'll GO FLY A KITE right on out here; because his head must be in the clouds when it comes to RURAL Arkansas Children!!! Since you know him so well, maybe you could cut his party-puppet strings! And, for the record Hendren ALSO voted for every one of these laws, except for the Omnibus Act. But guess who voted AGAINST every one of them? That's right! JIM HOLT did, because he is the ONLY ONE who thought of the children that would be affected! Boozman voted for TARP AND NCLB! So as far as I'm concerned, all 3 of them NEED TO GO!!! Should I go on, because I can????
http://www.wpaag.org/Holt%20-%20voting%20record%20compared%20to%20Baker%20and%20Hendren.htm
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