*Chuckle* Yes, the president's media allies are at it again.
There are two new polls out today showing a dramatic increase in President Obama's poll numbers...and they're similar enough in their results that I wouldn't be surprised if they were, you know. 'coordinated' to come up with the desired results...and headlines, of course.
The first one, from CNN, claims that "49% of Americans approve of the job Obama's doing in the White House, up five points from last month, with 48% saying they disapprove, down six points from mid-November."
When you look at the actual poll, it claims it was conducted December 16-18 with 1,015 adult Americans by telephone, over 90% with registered voters rather than likely voters. And the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points, fairly large for such a small sample.
The poll gives no actual mechanics on who was asked and how they identified themselves, so cherry picking and oversampling of certain groups to get the desired numbers - like registered Democrats - is a given.it also includes a 'moderately approve' category, almost a given if the pollster's looking for manipulation room.
What it doesn't hide is that those who 'strongly approve' of President Obama's job performance has gone down over the past year from 30% to 26%, while those whom strongly disapprove has increased from 28% to 33%..and that's with the obvious cherry picking.
The second one, done by the Washington Post/ABC News was conducted by telephone December 15-18 2011, among what the WAPO calls a random national sample of 1,005 adults. It has a 3.5% plus or minus margin of error, again rather large for such a small sample. According to this poll, the president's approval rating in 49% versus a 47% disapproval rating.
The WAPO/ABC poll includes a 'somewhat' category. If we look at those who strongly approve of the president versus those who strongly disapprove, the number is 25% versus 34%.
Even more revealing is the mechanics of the poll, which the WAPO/ABC at least had the honesty to release. They oversampled Democrat by a mere 7%, admitting to polling 32% Democrats to 25% Republicans. The rest of the numbers were made up of 'independents', a very handy catch all for a pollster to make whatever he wanted out of the respondents.
Even more revealing is the breakdown of ideology. According to the poll, the respondents questioned are identified as 23% 'liberal', 36% 'conservative' and 37% 'moderate'. Since we already know that 'moderate' in dinosaur media speak means 'Republicans and others who aren't democrats but normally vote like Democrats', the poll sampling could be as much as 50% to 60% weighted towards the Left end of the spectrum!
Just to show you how doctored these two polls are, by comparison Gallup show the president over the same time period with a 43% approval rating versus a 50% disapproval rating. Rasmussen shows him slightly higher, at 47% approval to 51% disapproval..but with only 21% 'strongly approve' as opposed to 39% 'strongly disapprove'. That's very different, as Emily Latella used to say.
Yes, figures lie and liars figure, especially when it comes to polls. It's all in what you ask and whom you ask.
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