The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer is a two-time Emmy award winner, both for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq.
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Spin, or Something
January 04, 2008 9:17 AM
A funny thing happened on the way to the Iowa caucuses. A good name for it is, well, spin. But there are other words that might fit even better.
It happened Tuesday, after the Des Moines Register released its poll showing Barack Obama in the lead in the Democratic race. Mark Penn, chief strategist of the Clinton campaign, put out a fairly blistering memo attacking the survey’s methodology.
The DMR poll, wrote Penn, was "out of sync with the other polling done in the race... depicting an unprecedented departure from historically established turnout patterns... other recent polls all show Hillary trending up... and having the momentum in this race." See his full memo here.
We advised our people internally at the time that this argument had no merit. Penn in effect was saying the DMR should have altered its data to get a different result. Political pollsters do that all the time, but it's voodoo. In reality we were not re-living any previous caucus, so weighting the data to prior parameters was not warranted.
The criticism of DMR's work was out of line – but we didn’t learn how far out of line until this morning. On the press plane flying from Iowa to New Hampshire, our off-air reporter Eloise Harper reports, “Mark Penn admitted to knowing that the trend was shifting towards Obama this past week.”
That means that at the very moment Penn was accusing the Des Moines Register of producing unreliable data, and saying it was Clinton who had the momentum, he knew otherwise.
The lesson in all this is less about Mr. Penn, and more about political campaigns. They are focused, admirably perhaps, on winning. What they’ll say to get there needs, always, to be taken with a grain of salt. Or maybe a five-pound bag.
January 4, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (12)
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Maybe Penn's cynical and disingenuous trashing of the Des Moines Register poll will reveal him, once and for all, as the charlatan he truly is.
Posted by: David | Jan 5, 2008 12:45:12 PM
Bill lies. Hillary lies.
So Mark Penn lies for them.
No big deal. It's about money
Posted by: walter | Jan 5, 2008 1:48:12 PM
If Penn had any honor, he'd have resigned yesterday morning.
It will take a while to decide which was a greater error; hiring Penn or accepting a fund raiser dinner from Murdoch. Clinton lost more than could ever be gained by those two moves.
Posted by: moondancer | Jan 5, 2008 6:30:24 PM
Voting to designate a part of the Iran Army a Terrorist group did it for me.
Thank God for the NIE.
Posted by: Langx | Jan 5, 2008 7:00:18 PM
Didn't Marc Penn also poll which way Hillary should vote on Iraq? He is a convenient scapegoat (and deserves all of the flak he is getting) but he didn't hire himself. The Clintons did. Good riddance!
Posted by: BILL G | Jan 5, 2008 7:15:16 PM
Both Hill & Bill were for the Iraq war & supported all of shrub's war initiatives. = And she talks of change??? They've never changed being hypocrites.
Posted by: hawaiilaw | Jan 5, 2008 7:29:27 PM
"The lesson in all this is less about Mr. Penn, and more about political campaigns. They are focused, admirably perhaps, on winning. What they’ll say to get there needs, always, to be taken with a grain of salt. Or maybe a five-pound bag."
Why not come out and say Penn is a liar rather then dancing around it?
Posted by: banco | Jan 5, 2008 8:58:07 PM
I wonder if they will report the correct numbers tomorrow?
Posted by: tony petruzzi | Jan 5, 2008 9:45:15 PM
Hillary's "You hurt my feelings comment was not at all Presidential
Posted by: Tracy | Jan 6, 2008 10:56:06 AM
The reason is simple. I'll bet a high
percntage of people doing the surveys on
the phones were Afro-Amercicans, A
percentage of those surveyed said Obama
because they felt they would offend the
the Afro-American interviewer or were
intimidated for fear of being thought
racist by choosing Hllary. Easy way to
prove it Compare number of people interviwed by blacks who said Obama, compared to a similar sample from White interviewers. Race is now a hidden factor in survey accuracy
Posted by: Bill P | Jan 9, 2008 10:27:57 AM
People the polls were right. They lied, and stuffed the ballot box. The boxes in NH have been photographed with slits along the topp half of each side. And the offical "seal" is nothing more than a post-it note. On behalf of Hilliary, and McCain, a personal thank you to ABC and all the other bastions of the MSM for NOT even touching this story. You should be ashamed! There is no democracy. The majority makes up the rules and breaks them at will.
Posted by: ugh! | Jan 26, 2008 9:33:42 AM
People have to be concerned about NH result which has shown Barak up and Hilary down this is the only one result which contary to the polls.
Posted by: BKMC | Jan 27, 2008 8:55:45 PM
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