>>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>>
>>[This si one of the most depressing polls I've ever read. Bush
>>looks to be suffering no political damage, at least on first read.
>
>[I think GWB's public support, like Lake Pontchartrain itself, is
>broad but shallow. In any event, Doug, I thought you were a
>connoisseur of polling techniques. I'd like to take the liberty of
>posting the following from the Marxism list:]
500 is a small sample, but if 70% of the US pop were blaming Bush to some degree, it would come across. So this is essentially hair-splitting:
> The poll was done of 500 people, and supposedly had a margin of
>error of 4%. Statistical science says it ain't so. According to the
>sample size calculator here:
><http://www.isixsigma.com/offsite.asp?A=Fr&Url=http://www.raosoft.com/sa
>mplesize.html>, the real margin of error is 4.34% at a 95% confidence
>level. Of course, ABC News doesn't say what the confidence level is.
>
> In addition, there is a rounding error introduced by ABC News
>and its pollsters of 0.5%, which makes the overall error 5% or as close
>to as makes no difference. Assuming, of course, a perfect sample. Which
>this could hardly have been.
It's also a first read. No doubt there will be lots more polling to come - with larger samples, and with more thought-out opinions. But given the magnitude of the federal fuck-up, the numbers should have been lopsided. They're not. And I wouldn't be surprised to see the right conclude from this: see, you can't trust the feds to do anything right. Privatize disaster relief!
Doug