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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pompsander who wrote (23160)	10/3/2008 4:05:27 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 25737

Yep.... Since all "non-randomized 'polls'" AIN'T really scientific polls... but are more akin to spam-friendly propaganda vehicles, I'd ignore all of the unscientific ones. (That means: ignore all of the 'on-line' beauty contests which --- by definition --- are non-randomized and subject to self-selection bias... i.e., the viewers of FOX will tilt their online results one way, and the viewers of CNN will tilt results their way, etc.) And, since we are generally looking to scientific polling to tell us something that we don't already know, we should probably not spend to much time 'navel-gazing' at the replies from OBVIOUS partisans from either side... since most often their opinions of these campaign events are preformed, and not changed very often by debates and such. So, that leaves us with the scientifically sampled, preselected groups of non-aligned and or 'undecided' and or Independent voters. If we are looking for predictive utility (& not just crass 'bragging rights' for dinner table arguments) then THOSE are the polls that we should be paying attention to. Since it is only 'at the margin' among the yet-undecided voters where these debates may play a role in deciding the election results....