Thread: Obama campaign: New York Times poll is 'biased'

This is heady stuff.

The bastion of Liberal Progressive biased reporting comes out with a poll NOT in Obama's favor, and camp Obama calls it "biased" and "flawed".
How DARE the NYT publish a poll which shows team Obama made the obvious decision to support gay marriage for political reasons. Clearly, the NYT has it in for Obama Campaign.


Obama campaign: New York Times poll is 'biased' | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner

I've heard of politicians saying polls can be misleading, or that polls change, but to flat out say "it's wrong 'cause it's biased and flawed" isn't one I think I've heard before (please show me if I'm wrong, seriously).

ballsy.

Originally Posted by tessaesque

I've heard of politicians saying polls can be misleading, or that polls change, but to flat out say "it's wrong 'cause it's biased and flawed" isn't one I think I've heard before (please show me if I'm wrong, seriously).

ballsy.

Obama, unlike any other president in our history, has shown a total lack of respect for the American free press by making a practice out of attacking any and all media outlets that don't tow the administration line. It's very unbecoming of the office of president.

Originally Posted by Ockham

This is heady stuff.

The bastion of Liberal Progressive biased reporting comes out with a poll NOT in Obama's favor, and camp Obama calls it "biased" and "flawed".
How DARE the NYT publish a poll which shows team Obama made the obvious decision to support gay marriage for political reasons. Clearly, the NYT has it in for Obama Campaign.


Obama campaign: New York Times poll is 'biased' | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner

Bias whining comes form all areas, because it tends to work. Look at yourself, calling the Times biased. Bias is all too often in the beholder and not the media.

You are (perhaps intentionally) confusing two meanings of the word "biased". You're responding as though you think that means "the NYT prefers that Obama look bad so they are distorting the poll". Obviously that isn't the sense the Obama campaign means it in. They mean that the methodology used would produce results that don't represent the overall population. I don't think the NYT would disagree with that. It's a "callback poll", not a poll intended to represent the population as a whole. They do those to look for trends over time, not to try to represent the population as a whole.

Let me give an example. Say that you know that there are 50 men and 50 women in a district. You call 20 people to get their opinion. 8 of the folks you get a hold of are men and 12 are women. So, what you do if you want to find out what the population as a whole thinks is you cut out 4 of the responses by women, so you're back to a 50/50 split. That would be "controlling for gender".

Now, say you do a poll today where you cull it down to 8 men and 8 women like you did before. Then you call them all back in 1 month. Of the 16 you get 12 responses- 8 men and 4 women. Your new result will no longer represent the whole population. That's what Cutter is referring to, not like some kind of intentional distortion. She is just pointing out that it isn't a poll intended to describe the population as a whole.

Originally Posted by Grim17

Obama, unlike any other president in our history, has shown a total lack of respect for the American free press by making a practice out of attacking any and all media outlets that don't tow the administration line. It's very unbecoming of the office of president.

Except it wasn't the President who said it. A deputy campain manager does not always speak for the President. That said I agree that the poll was dumb. The idea that political reasons are not part of any discourse in a election year is ludirous from the start. The total lack of respect for the President is what I find unbecoming from the GOP.

Originally Posted by iguanaman

Except it wasn't the President who said it. A deputy campain manager does not always speak for the President. That said I agree that the poll was dumb. The idea that political reasons are not part of any discourse in a election year is ludirous from the start. The total lack of respect for the President is what I find unbecoming from the GOP.

You know, that respect thing goes both ways. Republicans don't have a monopoly on disrespecting standing presidents (or past presidents) from an opposing ideology.

Originally Posted by tessaesque

You know, that respect thing goes both ways. Republicans don't have a monopoly on disrespecting standing presidents (or past presidents) from an opposing ideology.

Funny but I don't remember a Dem Senator saying that their ONLY goal was to make the President lose re-election. Especially right after his inauguration.

Originally Posted by iguanaman

Funny but I don't remember a Dem Senator saying that their ONLY goal was to make the President lose re-election. Especially right after his inauguration.

So now you're setting the benchmark for acceptable disrespect?

Remember the treatment of Bill Clinton? Remember the treatment of George W. Bush? See the treatment of Barack Obama?

See a pattern? The pattern is called political culture. It's now the way the folks in America do business politically. The same thing will happen to the next president.

Each democracy throughout history, representative or otherwise, has committed suicide. I know it's difficult to get one's arms around that fact. I remember when it wasn't this way.