OH YEAH! Romney Campaign Is Train Wreck in Slow Motion. Campaign/Pollster fight revealed

[berni_mccoy]

Saw this story on Politico yesterday...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83288.html

The man behind Mitt Romney's poll questions

Neil Newhouse, Mitt Romney’s campaign pollster, suddenly finds himself in an unfamiliar place — out on a limb.
The survey-taker, who helped build Public Opinion Strategies into the largest Republican polling firm and has a solid reputation among operatives and colleagues, is growing increasingly vocal with reporters and Romney supporters in the campaign’s closing days about what he sees as examples of flawed public polling, and his sense of the race — particularly in Ohio — as basically even.

Newhouse is not known for seeking attention, but through the course of the presidential campaign, his profile has risen. He has been part of some public state-of-the-race calls, and is a frequent fixture on calls and in conversations with Romney surrogates and donors, telling GOP elites in one discussion last week that a Quinnipiac University survey with The New York Times and CBS was “crap.” (Newhouse said he didn’t recall using that word.)

Basically, the article goes on to say two things: 1. Newhouse is trusted by the GOP politicians and 2. He's been applying a different turnout model than that used by the Public Polls and that is why his numbers are so different.

This to me wreaks of hubris of a guy who thinks he knows the answer and is trying to find the right combinations of parameters to make the data match his expectations. The article seemed odd to me. Defensive on Newhouse's part in fact. Which I thought was interesting since I hadn't heard of anyone openly criticizing him.

That is until today. Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks Newhouse's method is highly suspect. In fact, someone in the Romney campaign thinks this because someone in the campaign released the internal numbers today.

NO ONE, and I mean, NO ONE, in a campaign should ever release internal numbers. Ever. But here we have the Romney campaign doing this. Why? Well, let's see what the article about the internal poll numbers says first:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2228359/Romney-campaign-internal-polling-puts-Republican-nominee-point-ahead-Ohio.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Exclusive: Romney campaign internal polling puts Republican nominee up ONE POINT in Ohio and TIED in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin

Mitt Romney is ahead by a single percentage point in Ohio, according to internal polling data provided to MailOnline by a Republican party source.
Internal campaign polling completed last night by campaign pollster Neil Newhouse has Romney three points up in New Hampshire, two points up in Iowa and dead level in Wisconsin and - most startlingly - Pennsylvania.
Internal poll show Romney trailing in Nevada, reflected in a consensus among senior advisers that Obama will probably win the state. Early voting in Nevada has shown very heavy turnout in the Democratic stronghold of Clark County and union organisation in the state is strong.
Romney is to campaign in Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on election day, reflecting the tightness of the race in Ohio and the tantalising prospect of success in Pennsylvania, which has not gone Republican in a presidential campaign for 24 years.

So, let's get this straight. In PA, where Romney has not campaigned until this week, not setup a substantial ground game and no Republican has won in 24 years is suddenly tied. The Romney campaign strategists *know* they cannot win PA because they have not run a campaign there. At least one of those strategists doesn't like being fed a bunch of bullshit data. So they are covering their ass by letting the cat out of the bag. This isn't bravado, this isn't "see, we're right". It's, "hey, I was going on this guys data all along until he really tried to sell us some seriously stinky horse shit. Don't blame me for the coming epic loss." If it was one of the former reasons, then it would be the pollster himself releasing the data, but as we know, he does not like attention and would not risk being publicly wrong.

These internals counter not just one poll in one state, they counter all the polls in all the states. All of these polls have slightly different LV models and weights for voter partisanship.

Another tell: if Romney was up by three in NH, a state that has a heavy libertarian base, why would he be campaigning in NH this late in the game with such a lead for 4 EVs when he could be spending even more time in PA getting 20 by pushing past the tie? That's because the campaign strategists don't believe those internal numbers themselves.

The first piece in politico was basically damage control because he probably (correctly) predicted someone in the Romney campaign would release the internals when they discovered how wrong they were. The second article in the Daily Mail is basically a CYA move by the campaign strategist.

This is a major open wound in the Romney campaign, exposed in its ugliness for all to see.

It also says to me, by committing this cardinal sin of revealing the internals, that the Romney strategists believe the campaign is going to lose.

Yes, this is the Romney campaign going out with a bicker.

[exboyfil]

1. This Neil Newhouse can write his own ticket if he is right

What happens to him if he is wrong though?

[klook]

2. "Going out with a bicker" - LOL!! (n/t)

[docgee]

3. I suspect Romney doesn't watch tv or the news and gets

all his information from his handlers. I bet they feed him jacked poll numbers to keep his confidence up.

[Mr.Bill]

9. He's so rich he doesn't even watch TV.

He's got people who do that for him. I'll bet he hasn't answered a phone in over ten years.

[BainsBane]

4. skewed polls don't help the Romney campaign

If Newhouse has been giving Romney skewed results all along, he is doing them no favors. Pollsters help campaigns make decisions on how and where to campaign. If Newhouse is just telling Romney what he wants to hear, what good is he?

I understand the point of spinning the polls in the media. But I wonder if there isn't a more serious problem at work. Romney is so used to being surrounded by yes-men, he can't even handle accurate internal polling. If that's the case, it's little wonder his campaign has been so bad.

[SoapLovah]

5. Some thoughts. I remember the McCain camp claiming they were only down 1 in IA late in 2008, when

Polls showed O pulling away. And many laughed and laughed.

This certainly seems like another act of desperation. Even Ras couldn't wank a lead for R$ in NH or PA, with their ridiculous R+1 weighting.

Another thought...winning campaigns do release internals all the time, notably in congressional races. Not that I think their models are anything but wishing this is still 1988. But releasing internals is normal practice in some races.

However, a question. How do we know that NN didn't release these himself? Do u think Politico would have said that? Just curious.

[berni_mccoy]

7. Showing Internals is like showing your hand in Poker, when you lost but weren't bluffing. The rule

in poker, is you don't do that unless you had a bad beat and weren't bluffing.

Romney showing these internals is like showing he had 4 in a straight but was missing the last card, went all-in and lost and now shows his hand. The only good that comes from showing your hand at that point is to show how bad of a player you are. And that's what the Romney campaign has done here.

Unlike Poker, there really is no good reason to show internals.

[socialindependocrat]

6. He may try to support a computer vote switch!

He may know what the SOS in Ohio is doing with his new computer program installation

and

then he can point to his bogus poll results and say that he was right and they justify the
bogus computer count!

Of course, it may simply be that he is trying to bolster the enthusiasm of the Rongny
troops and also try to prove that the hired staff is really worth what they are getting paid
(or at least, keep Rongny confused until he can cash his paycheck)...

[diane in sf]

8. They are making the mistake of believing their own bs

[pa28]

10. Interesting how he says he's using a different "turnout model" in his calculations.

It seems to me that "turnout model" is shorthand for the success of suppression efforts in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

We shall see . . .

[KamaAina]

11. Public Option Strategies? What a POS.