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AOL Straw Poll shows commanding McCain lead


libertyworld

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"Straw polls like this are important because they are done in a random fashion without questions that can be tainted by any bias from the pollster."

Sept 11 - Sept 18: McCain 60% Obama 40% (Over 320,000 votes)

Sept 25 - Oct 2: McCain 61% Obama 39% (Still running, will restart when finished)

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008...-sept-25-oct-2/

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Only pols closer to the election really count.

Then again, I was at dinner last night with a bunch of people (middle class and white) and all said they squarely would vote for Obama.

But, like the pols show, it wasn't that they so loved Obama as much as they didn't like Bush. When I pointed out Bush wasn't running in this election that didn't seem to matter. :whistle:

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I concur Ceasar.

Some are just more reliable than others, and of course there is a built in bias of only sampling AOL readers...

Edited by libertyworld
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This is ridiculous. In order to believe this poll is accurate, then ya gotta believe Obama's own state, Illinois, is voting for McCain. LOL. This poll is a waste of time.

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So how are these polls different from all the others?

No choosing who to poll.

No polling only those with a land line.

No pollster to inject any bias of their own which many have.

No cleverly worded questions designed to produce a certain outcome.

No questions at all except for the most basic choice.

Totally random outside of only sampling from AOL users.

Huge samplings.

Not the last word by any means, mind you...

And I am at the head of the line cautioning against putting too much stock in any poll...

But just the simplicity and randomness and size sets it apart significantly from most others.

Edited by libertyworld
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During the 2004 election year I was called a 3 times for polling. Each time it was very clear from the questions which way they wanted me to answer.

By the time they called me the 3rd anf inal time they asked me 4 rather basic questions then said I did not meet the profile of the kind of person they wanted to include in the poll and they hung up on me.

To this day I haven't receive another polling call.

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Couldn't you link this poll to conservitive sites and get higher republicans voting? I think I've seen this on a Puma site for pro hillary supporters

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I wonder how a "straw poll" at msnbc would turn out? or at fox news? The whole idea of a straw pole is to get a generalized cross section of the voters.

There is an old saying about, "lies, damned lies, and statistics"... Anyone who has actual taken a statistics class can see the flaws in the poll. There is a reason why polls use telephones to call people at home an ask questions. It allows you to create a more accurate sample pool that reflects the voters. Having a poll hidden on aol website limits access to anyone who doesnt spend time on the computer(Who would that possibly be?).

But hey, if it makes you guys happy, who am I to burst your bubble.

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The point is that a straw poll is never representative, to be representative everybody concerned should have an equal chance to respond.

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No choosing who to poll.

No polling only those with a land line.

No pollster to inject any bias of their own which many have.

No cleverly worded questions designed to produce a certain outcome.

No questions at all except for the most basic choice.

Totally random outside of only sampling from AOL visitors.

Huge samplings.

Not the last word by any means, mind you...

And I am at the head of the line cautioning against putting too much stock in any poll...

But just the simplicity and randomness and size sets it apart significantly from most others.

Have you ever take a statistics class?

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Have you ever take a statistics class?

Is the Pope Catholic? Why would you ask the obvious?

ED, if you want to see representative figures see here

Edited by questionmark
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This poll is completely unscientific. For one thing, as Fluffybunny pointed out, it's a self-selecting group; the only people who vote in it are those people who visit the AOL website and bother to pay attention to AOL straw polls. That's not exactly representative of the whole population, now is it? That's why real pollsters actually use randomly drawn samples of sufficient size in order to get an accurate representation of the populace's views.

This reminds me of when Ron Paul supporters would tout that Ron Paul "won" the debates based off of self-selecting online "polls" like this.

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There is no way McCain is winning this election. Unless Palin blows the socks off of Biden in a debate, which you know I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, that would be truly interesting from a historical perspective. :huh: But unless that happens there is no way McCain is going to win. Barr would win before McCain does. And interestingly, Gore won the popular vote, so I don't know why they keep polling the popular vote as if its an indication of who is going to win. :rolleyes:

Tennessee would be a better indication than all of this. Interestingly Tennessee has voted for nearly every candidate that won the election. And more interesting is that they didn't vote for Gore, even though he was from there! Here are some other ways of predicting the winner! :lol:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blpredict.htm

http://www.maddogproductions.com/ds_election2004.htm

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If I may add...you don't have to look on a website for the poll if your server is AOL. It has been on their main page for months.

For the record, I don't put a lot of stock in polls, but isn't AOL one of the largest servers in the world?

Edited by Michelle
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Tennessee would be a better indication than all of this. Interestingly Tennessee has voted for nearly every candidate that won the election. And more interesting is that they didn't vote for Gore, even though he was from there! Here are some other ways of predicting the winner! :lol:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blpredict.htm

http://www.maddogproductions.com/ds_election2004.htm

Being from Tennessee I'm proud of the fact that we didn't vote for someone just because he is from here. :lol:

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This poll is completely unscientific. For one thing, as Fluffybunny pointed out, it's a self-selecting group; the only people who vote in it are those people who visit the AOL website and bother to pay attention to AOL straw polls. That's not exactly representative of the whole population, now is it? That's why real pollsters actually use randomly drawn samples of sufficient size in order to get an accurate representation of the populace's views.

This reminds me of when Ron Paul supporters would tout that Ron Paul "won" the debates based off of self-selecting online "polls" like this.

No, Ron Paul "won" the debate via the hosting news channel counting via text. Ron Paul received more text. This simply says that Ron Paul supports are more likely to text CNN, Fox News etc after debates than the average person.

In fact, I quote Sean Hannity, "I don't care what our poll says, Ron Paul didn't win that debate." This is following the Fox News debates for the republican primaries.

Edited by BlindMessiah
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This is ridiculous. In order to believe this poll is accurate, then ya gotta believe Obama's own state, Illinois, is voting for McCain. LOL. This poll is a waste of time.

I am from Illinois and I would not vote for Obama no way no how. If he were the only candidate I simply would not vote.....

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If I may add...you don't have to look on a website for the poll if your server is AOL. It has been on their main page for months.

For the record, I don't put a lot of stock in polls, but isn't AOL one of the largest servers in the world?

Where everybody, concerned or not, can vote... very "scientific" and easy to manipulate, all you have to do is delete the AOL cookie and vote again....

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Where everybody, concerned or not, can vote... very "scientific" and easy to manipulate, all you have to do is delete the AOL cookie and vote again....

Okay, so shoot me....I'm not a computer geek. :D

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Never claimed it was scientific or perfect or the last word.

On the contraty, I acknowledged such things right off.

Just different in some ways than most conventional polls.

And (I think) more democrats are online and use AOL than repubs anyway.

Just an interesting addition to the mix, and interesting as always to see how UM'ers respond.

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No, Ron Paul "won" the debate via the hosting news channel counting via text. Ron Paul received more text. This simply says that Ron Paul supports are more likely to text CNN, Fox News etc after debates than the average person.

Either way, it is still a self-selecting group; only those people who could be arsed to actually text in their vote were counted, and they aren't exactly representative of the whole population.

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