On Aug 13, 2008, at 7:01 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> ....There is basically no support for third-party candidates in the
> U.S. this year, though you'd never know that by reading some left-
> wing forums...
>
Gallup admits its falsification--only using questions that cast no
doubt on the "horserace" propaganda of the MSM. As I wrote recently
(July 29):
"Such polls are just noise, and not only because they have never been of any use so far from the election. The fact is that the pollsters, nearly all of them capitalist firms, have an enormous financial interest in the outcome of their polls: the demand for their product depends on a perception that the election is *close*. And their control over their own methodology, especially question formulation and weighting of respondents, enables them to get as close a result as they want every time. Incidentally, an honest question--used by no poll as far as I know-- would be this:
"do you expect to vote for: -the Republican candidate -the Democratic candidate -a Third-Party candidate -no preference yet"
And an honest weighting would be no weighting at all. A truly random survey needs none if large enough (another example of profit-seeking trumping honesty is the inadequate sample size of all the polls)."
I repeat: the *only* honest question was not asked by Gallup--and will not be. Gallup is, in this respect, an organ of ruling-class mindfucking, nothing more. The only issue of importance to them (aside from keeping the horeserace as close as possible) is to keep third-party candidates out of the presidential debate, and, above all, out of the "Presidential Debates."
Shane Mage
"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30
> Here's some more from Gallup:
>
> <http://www.gallup.com/poll/109435/Support-ThirdParty-Candidates-Appears-Limited-Thus-Far.aspx
> >
>
>> Measuring Third-Party Support
>>
>> There are certainly trade-offs in trying to get an accurate read on
>> third-party candidate support. Each election year, Gallup uses a
>> variety of approaches, including third-party candidate name
>> identification, the open-ended question reported here, and prompted
>> ballots, in which the names of all candidates who will appear on
>> the ballot in most states are read, to try to assess the level of
>> third-party voting. These questions help inform Gallup about the
>> level of third-party voting but they also inform Gallup about
>> whether a third-party candidate merits inclusion in its standard
>> presidential trial-heat question.
>>
>> The standard closed-ended Gallup trial-heat question used in Gallup
>> Poll Daily tracking and USA Today/Gallup polling has thus far in
>> 2008 not included the names of minor-party candidates. Doing so
>> runs the risk of overestimating their actual support and affecting
>> poll accuracy, based on a comparison of final pre-election poll
>> estimates to the actual vote on Election Day. Typically, unless
>> there has been a well-known and well-funded third-party candidate
>> running (like Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996), minor-party candidates
>> have accounted for about 1% to 2% of the actual vote on Election
>> Day. Recent polls by other firms that have included the names of
>> minor-party candidates in their presidential trial heats find total
>> third-party support ranging from 5% to 10% among registered voters.
>>
>> Even though Gallup does not read the names of minor-party
>> candidates in its standard question, it does accept volunteered
>> responses of minor-party candidates in its closed-ended questions
>> (about 1% in tracking so far this year). Still, it is possible that
>> individual respondents might think they can choose only from among
>> the names read when the question is asked, and thus may not know
>> that they can volunteer the name of a third-party candidate.
>>
>> The open-ended question gets around this potential pitfall by
>> putting all candidates on equal footing, so to speak. No names are
>> read, and therefore there can be no presupposition that the
>> respondent should make a choice between the two major-party
>> candidates. Thus, if there is significant unmeasured support for a
>> candidate outside of the two major parties that is not being
>> detected through volunteered responses in the standard closed-ended
>> question, the open-ended question should pick it up -- particularly
>> if voters are highly committed to voting for a third-party candidate.
>>
>> Gallup's standard measure of listing the candidates when asking the
>> presidential trial-heat question dates back to the 1936 election,
>> and attempts to mimic the act of voting as closely as possible.
>> When voters cast their ballots on Election Day, the candidates'
>> names and party affiliations are listed on the ballot for them to
>> see. The open-ended question thus requires a higher standard of
>> knowledge of the candidates running than does voting itself, but is
>> a useful secondary approach to make sure the standard ballot is not
>> missing any undetected third-party support.
>>
>> Implications
>>
>> While it is not out of the question that third-party voting could
>> be higher this year than it has been in most recent elections, the
>> new Gallup Poll clearly suggests there is no unmeasured groundswell
>> of support for any of the minor-party candidates running at this
>> point in the campaign.
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