Hmmm. I always thought that the football game was the election, not the poll. The poll is like a preseason game to me. Doesn't count for anything.
I see entire seasons, and politics to be a similar thing, like a soap opera. The pre-season in football was akin to the 2+ years all the candidates spent running before the first primary. The games are the primaries. The SuperBowl is the election. Each one ends, and you later talk about the 1978 season, or the 1960 election, in very similar manners.
I see. I just don't read into polls before an election. I think that there are too many ways to spin them into different perspectives. Also, you really don't know how they are gathering their votes, or any other way of solidly verifying a particular poll. There is zero deviation in election results though. Election results are the be all, end all. Polls change by the minute, by the county, by the state, etc, etc, etc, and get pasted into national news as a representation of what people actually believe. I find them unreliable.
The score of a football game is unreliable until the final whistle blows, no? I remember a couple of seasons ago, the Bears won a few in the final seconds with fluke type plays. The polls are what the polls are - as close as we have to an accurate "current score" of the game. Elections ARE a big game in many respects, too. Obama, for example, has a coaching staff.
You are saying that the game is going on before the game starts. I look at all this as practice or preseason. For me, the football game is election day. ** 1st quarter: It's 4pm EST, and the current election results show Obama up by 10% in New York, with only 25% of precincts reporting. Score: Obama 1, McCain 0. 4th quarter: It's 8pm PST. Current election results show McCain leading Obama 10%. 100% of precincts reporting. Score: McCain 5, Obama 3 That's the analogy that I offer.
Biden ran for president until midway through Q1 when he quit, in your analogy. I am saying that just like in football, there's a pre-season (before the 1st primary), a regular season (the primaries), and the SuperBowl (general election). When people look back and talk about the 2008 election, they're going to remember Rudy ran, and Hillary, and Fred Thompson, and so on. Just like they're going to remember New England was undefeated until the SuperBowl loss. (and maybe they lose 'em all in 2009, it's not the exact same team).
LOL. Guys. Please. Stop watching pre election polls. They are garbage. What are you expecting to glean from bouncing back and forth between everyone's polls? Four days ago, McCain was leading by the same amount Obama is leading. Do you understand what is going on? I do.
I just thought it was a funny juxtaposition with Huevon's statement that he'd believe the gap was closing when he saw polls with McCain ahead, which I read immediately after reading a poll showing McCain ahead I wouldn't so much call them garbage as noisy data points. Adding them together and tracking them over time is certainly worth doing. Reading too much into an individual one certainly is not.
What's even funnier is the Democrats a few years back wanted to do away with the census canvasing and use the same math and technology as polls use instead.
