THE IOWA POLLCATS
First, let me rapidly concede I have no idea who's going to win in either party's caucuses--none, zero, zip, zilch, nada, stickum.
But I have read a poll or two in my time and I differentiate among the polls on how they qualify the respondents. The questions I want to see are the ones which identify likely caucus-goers. "Did your parents caucus," "Did you caucus in 2004, 2000" "Do you know the name of (fill in party) Chairman?", "Do you know the location of your local caucus?", "Do you know who is going to accompany you to the caucus?" It isn't rocket science but there are a series of questions which have been proven to identify the commitment of a respondent to actually go and do the Round Dance that is a caucus.
The polls that really get my attention, year in and year out, allow for this by either only including the truly likely or by establishing a multiplier for likelihood.
Interestingly, this year the polls that do that uniformly show that Obama is not ahead at all and the Huckabee is not ahead nearly as much the conventional polls suggest. Don't bet the house (unless you have subprime you can't make anyhow) on these shining stars continuing to shine next week.
posted by UMRBlog @ 10:07
2 comments
2 Comments:
I agree with you totally on this. That's why I think Hillary will win the nomination. She has the backing of most of the Party Leaders and Chairmen. That's all well and good to appeal to the young and the independents. But you and I both know that they don't vote in primaries, if at all.
You are right. The best predictor of future human behavior is past human behavior. (Interesting thought if you're an Iranian soldier).
The only thing I'll say in the other direction is that the media vastly underrates Obama's ground force. He's viewed as inspirational but not organized and that's not the case. He has a pretty good ground game in the population bases. Maybe that drags a few outliers to the polls. Still, as you point out, caucuses are more like a county convention (populated by insiders) than like a primary (public invited and encouraged).
A lot of polls don't recognize the difference.
TYFCB
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