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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (51909)	10/7/2004 3:31:38 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 81568

'Google With Judgment' _______________________ By David Ignatius Columnist The Washington Post Tuesday, October 5, 2004 washingtonpost.com Imagine for a moment that you could study the ebb and flow of public discussion about American politics as if it were a computer graphic. What would this database of "aggregated thought" tell you about the presidential campaign debates? It happens that a former Republican campaign strategist named Charles M. McLean has created just such a database. His consulting company, Denver Research Group Inc., monitors more than 7,000 sources on a constant, real-time basis -- giving him a window on what he estimates is about 80 percent of all original political content around the world. Using a combination of computer algorithms and human analysis, he sifts this mass of information to discern the "tonalities" that shape global events. This approach has identified key political trends one to two weeks before those changes appear in traditional poll numbers, he says. And what does McLean's giant Wurlitzer of information tell him about the debates? Like the conventional pollsters, he rated last Thursday night as a giant victory for John Kerry. The difference is that McLean's methodology allowed him to see this shift coming. His "tonality" measure for Kerry began to move up sharply just after Kerry gave a speech Sept. 20, outlining a four-point plan on Iraq. When Kerry performed well Thursday night, he was pushing on an open door. What's driving this election, argues McLean, is something he calls the "unease factor." He estimates that more than 20 percent of the electorate is worried about America's security in the world -- and is looking for reassurance. It's a large group -- much bigger than the usual measure of undecided swing voters because it includes a lot of Bush supporters who had been comforted by the Republican candidate's certitude about Iraq and the war on terrorism. Kerry couldn't reassure these uneasy voters until he had an alternative explanation of what the United States should do in Iraq. His "tonality," by McLean's measure, had collapsed in early August after the ad campaign by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged his trump card of Vietnam service. It didn't recover until his Iraq speech, which reassured voters that Kerry had an alternative "plan" for the war, as he kept repeating Thursday night. The poll numbers didn't show the swing before the debate, but McLean's indicators did. "The uneasy voters want to hear how it's all going to be okay," McLean explains. "They've been waiting for something to grab hold of with Kerry. Bush's greatest strength was his sense of assurance, comfort, confidence -- but his performance Thursday took all three away. All Kerry had to do was stand there with a catcher's mitt." I've been exchanging e-mails with McLean for the past year, pestering him to let me write about his methodology. Since he's selling the system to various Fortune 500 corporations, he's wary about sharing too many details. And I should note, as a caveat, that he's shared information this year with the Kerry campaign. McLean says he's applying to politics something he learned doing commercial research: By the time a new product shows up in sales data, it's too late for another company to compete effectively. An aggressive competitor must analyze the technical and market environment and then develop products for that space. It's the same in politics, McLean says: By the time you see a candidate's weakness in poll numbers, it may be too late to fix it. McLean has applied his intriguing approach to the Middle East, helping build an organization called Access/Middle East, which automatically monitors and translates more than 400 sources covering Israel and the Arab world. This database also includes information from more than 50 think tanks. So what does McLean's survey of "aggregated thought" in the Islamic world tell him about the possibility of terrorist attacks? The likelihood of an attack on U.S. soil now stands at 46 percent, the highest level since Sept. 11, 2001. But the risk is even higher, at 54 percent, in the six months after the November presidential election. And for better or worse, McLean sees a high likelihood (68 percent) that radical Islamists will make a political push in Iraq -- perhaps focusing on winning next January's elections. McLean describes his system as "Google with judgment." To me, it sounds almost like an electronic "marketplace of ideas" that allows you to track the direction and momentum of what people are thinking, 24 hours a day. If the system works as well as he says, it could eventually change the way people analyze politics, and a lot of other things as well.

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (51909)	10/8/2004 8:10:54 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

BATTLEGROUND STATES POLL Analysis online.wsj.com Run the Numbers: Recovering From September's Stumble? A look at how the results of the latest Battleground poll by Zogby Interactive could play out on Election Day. OCTOBER 6, 2004 [Return to Battleground Poll] The presidential debate has lifted John Kerry back to where he was in our battleground analysis before the Republican convention energized the Bush campaign. The latest Zogby Interactive poll puts Mr. Kerry ahead of President Bush in 13 of the 16 closely contested states -- two more states than the Massachusetts senator led before the debate and the most since August. The latest survey was conducted between last Thursday, after the debate ended, and Tuesday afternoon, before vice-presidential contenders Dick Cheney and John Edwards debated. Mr. Kerry moved ahead in two states (Ohio and Nevada) and increased his lead in seven others -- though Mr. Kerry's margin over Mr. Bush in Ohio, Arkansas and Florida was negligible -- less than one percentage point. Mr. Bush's lead narrowed in the three states (Missouri, Tennessee and West Virginia) that he remains ahead of Mr. Kerry. Overall, seven of Mr. Kerry’s leads are within the margins of error, while all of Mr. Bush’s leads are. If the results on Election Day matched Zobgy's numbers, Mr. Kerry would win. Here's how: To analyze Zogby's results, we begin by assuming that the District of Columbia and the 34 states that aren't in the battleground poll will vote for the same political party this November as they did in the 2000 election. Thus, Mr. Bush starts with 189 electoral votes and Mr. Kerry with 172. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win. To those numbers, we add the electoral votes from the latest poll, regardless of the margins of error or the spread between the candidates. Mr. Kerry's 13 states have 150 electoral votes, while Mr. Bush's three have 27 votes. The bottom line: Mr. Kerry would have 322 electoral votes and the president would have 216. That 106-vote margin is far wider than the last analysis, on Sept. 20, the president was just 56 electoral votes behind Mr. Kerry. It is important to remember, of course, that the results from 10 of the 16 states fell within the margins of error in the latest poll. All six of the states whose results were outside the margin show Mr. Kerry in the lead. Among those is Pennsylvania, which has become more closely contested since the Republican convention. It is also crucial to note that Zogby's numbers are just one snapshot of where sentiment stands. Nationwide and single-state polls this election season have shown wide divergences and Electoral College calculations from this hodgepodge have been just as volatile. For instance, an electoral-college calculation by The Cook Political Report has the race about even. Adding the states that it finds solidly, likely and leaning for each candidate, it puts Mr. Bush ahead 208-207, with 123 electoral votes in the middle. The newsletter, which says it bases its calculations on information provided by both parties, names Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin among toss up states. A count by Web site Slate, which relies on a variety of polling sources, puts Mr. Bush ahead 321-217. It includes in Mr. Bush's column states such as Arkansas, Florida and Nevada (in which Zogby shows narrow leads for Mr. Kerry) and Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Mexico (which Zogby says the senator leads firmly). Of course, the timing of polls can play a big role in disparities between Electoral College calculations. Of the six states in the Slate analysis mentioned above, the leanings of only Florida and Nevada were based on polls that were conducted after the debate. Nevertheless, the Zogby results gibe closely with those from some other state polls that have come out since the presidential debate. For example, Mr. Kerry’s 5.4-point lead in Pennsylvania is just a bit below the senator’s 7.3% lead shown by a poll taken by West Chester University. Similarly, the narrow Florida lead for Kerry in Zogby is close to that shown by the latest American Research Group poll. Yet, Zogby numbers also differ from some state polls. For example, while Zogby finds Mr. Kerry up by one point in Nevada, a SurveyUSA poll has Mr. Bush ahead by four points.