Did pollsters Pat Caddell and Douglas Schoen sleep through the Bush years?
January 15, 2010 2:05 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
The only reason I ask is that on today's WSJ opinion page, Caddell and Schoen write a piece announcing how unseemly and disturbing it is that liberals have been criticizing pollster Scott Rasmussen. (You don't say.) For Caddell and Schoen, the polling criticism indicates a "disturbing attitude toward dissent" and is akin to "intimidation."
In other words, it's all very bad and liberals should stop [emphasis added]:
As pollsters for two Democratic presidents who served before Barack Obama, we view this unprecedented attempt to silence the media and to attack the credibility of unpopular polling as chilling to the free exercise of democracy.
"Unprecedented"? Oh brother.
So again I'll ask, did Pat Caddell and Douglas Schoen slumber through the Bush years, because what they may have missed was the fact that right-wing bloggers and activists routinely and emphatically attacked polls that they didn't like; they demeaned and insulted pollsters for producing "bias" and "skewed" results if those results were not sufficiently pro-Bush.
Right-wing poll bashing was an epidemic, but I don't remember hearing boo from Caddell or Schoen. Plus, the right-wing attacks were often wildly dishonest and factually inaccurate, unlike most of the criticism being leveled at Rasmussen today.
There's nothing wrong with Caddell and Schoen sticking up for their polling pals. But why didn't they do it during the Bush years?
Translation from Conspeak: we don't like people criticizing us, so we'll scream about cenorship any time someone does...
Hopefully they both have decent health insurance that will cover the medication and therapy needed to prevent an irreversible descent into dementia.
I expect to hear a lot more of this as we march toward oligarchy.
oligarchy: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes
So, with majorities in both the House and the Senate, along with the White House, you could hardly call Democrats a 'small group'. Further, their attempt to pass legislation which is supported by a significant majority of Americans, like health coverage reform, is hampered by an obstructionist minority party, who are acting out of purely partisan motives.
Guess it's actually Republics that are closest to the definition of oligarchy. How about that?
You got two "thumbs down" for your comment.
And some of the comments seem to imply that you are OK comments that Caddell and Schoen made.
Funny, I didn't read it that way.
"How very dare you question the credibility of my friends push polls",
You were talking about Caddell and Shoen's remarks, right?
I expect to hear a lot more of this as we march toward oligarchy.
I interpretted this too mean the right wing/religious sect that thinks they should be the one telling everyone else how to live, in the U.S.
Maybe my "sarcasm detector" is skewed.
I wonder if I put the battery in backwards?
I think people are just sort of sensitive about claims regarding the "march to oligarchy" occurring in the US. Usually, when people say that, they really mean "there's a black guy in teh White House! Oh Noooes!"
My comment was in reference to this absurd statement.
"...we view this unprecedented attempt to silence the media and to attack the credibility of unpopular polling as chilling to the free exercise of democracy."
Perhaps there are those who are unaware of the corporate media, and have never read Chomsky among you?
I don't know, but I am way too old to get all head explody over misunderstandings on the interwebs.
Having read many of your posts I didn't need one.
;o)
No, they have an agenda... and it ain't integrity.
They get slammed around with some spot-on criticism and then they start crying, whining about somebody trying to silence them.
Step 2: They go run and hide under the kitchen table.
Whilst I think that polls are beneficial most of the time, there are some that are push polls, as in, pushing an agenda, and trying to get people to point to a certain answer. Check out any non-scientific FoxNews poll for examples of this.
There are of course, scientific ways to do polling, and lots of polling organizations do a decent job of doing this. When looking at a poll one has to look at the exact wording of the questions that are being used, and then base some sort of judgement off of those questions.