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Politics : John Kerry for President Free speach thread NON-CENSORED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (1153)	6/25/2006 10:15:03 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1449

"So polls mean nothing?...LOL" The pollsters are laughing too. But they laugh at the gullible. Here is a sampling: April 12, 2000 Professor claims polls manipulate public opinion By Liz Bogut Contrary to some experts' claims, President Bill Clinton might not closely rely on opinion polls to help make policy decisions. Instead, he uses them to change public opinion. At least that's what one University professor has concluded. mndaily.com The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America (Paperback) by David W. Moore Editorial Reviews From Library Journal Moore, director of the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire, presents a highly readable history of opinion polling, describing the promise and problems created by pollsters' influence on the political process. With his provocative introduction, an account of professional pollsters' reaction to a presentation by Shere Hite on survey response, his book covers the major players and their role in the development of techniques such as "Hierarchical Values Map," the empty ballot, focus groups, and random digit dialing. Moore analyzes the impact of exit polling on election results, as well as the emergence of negative campaigns resulting from pollsters' negative influence on campaign tactics. He also examines the emergence of media polls and their role in events such as the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries with politically active and aware patrons. amazon.com Autumn 1990 The Impact of Public Opinion Polls Do they shape or measure opinions? By Bill Kovach At the AAPOR meeting 10 years ago I talked about a user's view of the polls. I talked then about my experience as an editor of The New York Times... Advertising by candidatesfine-tuned on a daily basis, when necessary, by continuous tracking polls and combined with the ability to create targeted audiences about whom increasing amounts of information is knownoffers constantly expanding opportunities to manipulate public opinion on the basis of narrow, tightly focused, and highly emotional issues. And into this volatile atmosphere the American press contributes what? Essentially a measure of the relative success of the manipulations. A study by Gary Orren at Harvard University found that almost 50 percent of the political stories which ran in three newspapers during a period of 22 days preceding the 1988 presidential election, cited poll results. ... nieman.harvard.edu Constructing Public Opinion: How Politicians and the Media Misrepresent the Public Featuring Justin Lewis ... ... 2. Polling your students This exercise takes the form of a public opinion poll ? actually two polls. We?ve constructed two polls that can be accessed by clicking the links below. Each one asks questions about the same issues, but in each the questions are phrased differently in an attempt to elicit different responses. The point of this exercise is to provide students the actual experience of being polled, while at the same time showing them first-hand how volatile public opinion is ? how informed responses depend on good information, and how pollsters, media and politicians alike can manipulate opinion to achieve the results they desire. The point of this exercise is to encourage students to begin thinking about polling before seeing this film, and the questions that follow it are designed to spark discussion about a number of specific themes treated by Professor Lewis. ,,, mediaed.org Public Opinion Political Science 319 CRN 13788 Chambers 215 Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 9:20 a.m. Fall 2003 This course is designed to introduce students to the principles and dynamics of public opinion in the United States. A central theme will be the interaction between the American public and political elites. Do our political leaders manipulate public opinion, follow it, or both? To address this question, the course begins with an examination of central components of public opinion. In the second part of the course, we turn to the difficulties of measuring and interpreting public opinion data. The third section focuses in detail on the efforts of the presidents and other political elites to manipulate public opinion, as well as the constraints on those efforts. (I suspect they ar refering to Clinton when they discuss President manipulating opinion. He certainly proved the master of the technique.) davidson.edu ...In too many instances, it seems that polls are being used to manufacture or manipulate public opinion rather than to measure or reflect it. This latest CBS poll is not a model of perfect polling, and it is legitimate to question the weights it applied to the raw results from the actual interviewing (see last page here), as was noted on The Corner last night. ,,, It is typical to repeat a survey statistic when it reinforces one’s own opinion or hope and to attack a statistic (or polling generally) when the opposite is true. ... some of the questions in the CBS survey seem designed more to test messages and possible headlines than to gather a clean read of American sentiment, ... conways.nationalreview.com

To: RMF who wrote (1153)	6/25/2006 10:26:02 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1449

Wilson said that Iraq wasn't trying to buy "yellow cake" from Niger. Bush said they WERE (in the State of the Union no less), even though HIS OWN intelligence people said that story had NO validity. (Rememeber the 16 words they told him NOT to include in the State of the Union)...So WHO was the LIAR there? "The bitterest irony here is that this case should never have been investigated in the first place. Ms. Plame is the wife of Joseph Wilson, the CIA consultant who wrote a July 2003 op-ed in the Times accusing the Bush Administration of lying about yellow cake uranium ore from Niger. The allegation became a political cause celebre at the time, though a year later both a British and a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee probe found that the White House had been accurate and that Mr. Wilson was the one who hadn't told the truth." Message 21074971 Murtha is a decorated marine and I'd have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe YOU think a soldier doesn't deserve respect after he leaves active duty, but apparently I'm more conservative than you when it comes to our veterans. So was Benedict Arnold. Lets talk about what a good man he was. Murtha has become politically incontinent. I give everyone more respect than they deserve. "The difference between Clinton's meetings on health care and Cheney's meetings on energy policy? The meetings on health care were intended to help the PEOPLE of the country.." The Clintonistas were trying to grow government and destroy one of the leading medical systems in the world. Hillary Scare threatened to criminalize (as a felony) providing health care outside of the socialized system. If you are trying to disincentivize excellent health care you could come up with a better system. Ok, so we would all get equally bad health care, except those that could afford to fly to Switzerland. How you can say that destroying the quality of health care is helping the people is beyond my ability to comprehend. "Could you clarify your stuff about WMD's, Al Quaeda training facilities and meetings in Romania?" No need, it is all over everywhere but the fMSM.