In the comments to the previous post, Tom Hilton notes that Paul Mirengoff of Power Line believes the Public Policy Polling survey showing Todd Akin still leading the Missouri Senate race is a sham:
As Ed Morrissey points out, PPP significantly oversampled Republicans. Republicans made up 39 percent of those surveyed; Democrats were only 30 percent. Ed notes that even in the 2010 election, exit polls showed the GOP with only a 37-34 percent advantage.William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection agrees, asking whether this is a "troll poll":
PPP is a Democratic polling company that partners with the leftist outfit The Daily Kos. Typically, it’s polls do not significantly oversample Republicans.... I suspect that the latest PPP poll oversampled Republicans for the purpose of providing encouragement to Akin to stay in the race.
The Democrats have already done what they can to boost Akin. During the primary, they reportedly spent more than $1 million in advertising designed to help Akin defeat his two more electable rivals.
If I were a cynic, I might suggest that PPP -- a Democratic pollster -- did the flash poll knowing it was too soon for the effect of the controversy to make its way into the electorate in the hope of keeping Akin’s hope alive before he makes his decision overnight whether to step aside.Um, here's the thing: Claire McCaskill did think Akin would be the easiest opponent to beat. She did run ads that attempted to help him win his primary.
So if Public Policy Polling were a partisan-hack operation pretending to be a reputable polling firm, surely it would have done what it could to aid and abet McCaskill in that effort. So what did dirty, deceitful PPP do as that GOP primary approached? Did PPP put its filthy partisan thumb on the scale?
No. PPP blew the call in its final poll on the primary:
PPP's final poll of the Republican Senate primary in Missouri finds a close race with John Brunner leading the pack at 35%, followed by Todd Akin at 30%, and Sarah Steelman at 25%. 10% of voters say that they plan to choose someone else or that they're undecided.Yeah, PPP said Akin could conceivably win in an upset -- but a truly cynical hack outfit would have shown him surging, no?
I think Jacobson and Mirengoff have PPP confused with Rasmussen. I think they have liberals confused with themselves.
3 comments:
You have to love Conservatives - there's always a plot against them. Some conspirary.
Hillary Clinton was correct when she talked about a "right-wing conspiracy.'
They knew that - so, they had to create countless left-wing ones to throw the scent off of theirs.
The jokes on them!
We Liberals can never organize ourselves long enough to get even ONE good conspiracy going, let alone all of the ones they accuse us of.
I sometimes wish we were more like them, but we don't do stupid AND evil well.
Let's see. It's evil for Democrats to hope for, and even encourage, the weakest Republican candidate to win in order to boost McCaskill's prospects. It's perfectly fine for Republicans to push for the (now even weaker) Republican candidate to step aside in order to boost their prospects. Got it.
I think they have liberals confused with themselves.
That we know for a fact.
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