New Newsweek Poll must be bunk, like the last one.

[NattPang]

a new Newsweek poll (according to Hardball) shows Obama
with only a 3 point lead over McCain.

While the Previous poll by Newsweek gave Obama a 15 pts lead.

The Media, if you remember, beat back the 15 pt lead poll as an "outlier",
and said it was impossible for Obama to be that far ahead.

Will they use the same narrative with the new poll by writing if off,
or will they slant the story to Obama's disadvantage
by announcing the results as a 12 point drop for Obama?

If the narrative focuses on the 12 pt drop,
this should confirm media bias against Barack Obama,
because the same poll when favoring Obama by a lot,
was excused away by every news commentator.

I know that the bias exists,
but this would be "media in our face" boldness
that would provide evidence as to what we are up against
when dealing with John McCain's base.

here is the new poll: http://www.newsweek.com/id/145737

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. All to help set the stage for the theft of the election. (Again)

[NattPang]

3. Perhaps.

[ErinBerin84]

2. I was just about to post that..

This is the stinker in the bunch (kind of like I thought the 15 point lead was, even though I wanted to believe it), but now the Newsweek poll will be embraced as an integral narrative to the race. Blehhhhhh.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145737?from=rss



A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama's glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month's NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.

Obama's rapid drop comes at a strategically challenging moment for the Democratic candidate. Having vanquished Hillary Clinton in early June, Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience--an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who'd slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama's reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage.


snip

[NattPang]

4. The media is good at this.

[Muttocracy]

5. I don't believe 15% are voting other/undecided/whatever. nt

[uponit7771]

9. THANK YOU!!!

[Cheap_Trick]

6. That's why this election HAS to be beyond a landslide. n/t

[NattPang]

7. That is why we have to work together.

That should be Democrats' only "principle" this year.

[JoFerret]

12. So - get with the program

Also - some people find it easier not to focus overmuch on the polls. It seems we are in a comfortable looking lead. But so was Dukakis. And then he took the summer off. (I exaggerate of course.) But no complacency.

[uponit7771]

8. Yeap, you don't drop 12% in less than a month unless you totally fucked something up.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

10. The media would like it to be a close election

There's an entire industry of pundits and hosts built around the horse race. And then there's the hope that the American people will continue pouring campaign money into both sides so that more TV ad time can be purchased.

[ErinBerin84]

11. sigh

"Twelve percent of voters surveyed said that Obama was sworn in as a United States senator on a Qur'an, while 26 percent believe the Democratic candidate was raised as a Muslim and 39 percent believe he attended a Muslim school as a child growing up in Indonesia. None of these things is true."

is that among indies, or ALL SURVEYED? It was on talking points memo, but I can't find that specific statistic on the newsweek site.

[highplainsdem]

13. They oversampled Dems last month, and oversampled Republicans this month

Here are the internal numbers for this new poll:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145556

1037 Registered voters (plus or minus 4)

315 Republican (plus or minus 7)
324 Democrats (plus or minus 7)
357 Independents (plus or minus 6)

Most surveys show a larger percentage of registered voters identifying themselves as Democrats.

It also looks as though they oversampled older voters, and white voters.

So my best guess is that both polls were off.

I trust the tracking polls more, and they show Obama leading by either a few points (Gallup, usually) or several points (Rasmussen).



These are the internals for last month's Newsweek poll, the one showing Obama with a wide lead:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/142469

896 Registered voers (plus or minus 4)

231 Republicans (plus or minus 8)
324 Democrats (plus or minus 6)
307 Independents (plus or minus 7)

I think they definitely oversampled Democrats last month.

They had a lower percentage of white voters for last month's poll, too.

[NattPang]

14. But will they report this?

I would think most likely not.