As some national polls show President Obama widening his lead in his race for another term, much has been made about the sampling weights that pollsters use. Analysts on the left insists the polls are accurate. nalysts on the right say the polls are inaccurately favoring Obama by assuming his supporters will come out on election day in the same numbers as they did in 2008.
But its not just weighting that reveals a pollster’s bias. The way the question is asked also makes a difference.
In a Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll about the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial race released this morning, pollster Patrick Murray asked if voters were “bothered” with how Governor Chris Christie interacts with his critics and detractors.
Thinking about Chris Christie’s style and not his policies, does the way he speaks to or about people who disagree with him bother you personally or not bother you? [If BOTHER: Is that a lot or just a little?]
63% of respondents said they weren’t bothered by Christie’s style. 23% said they were bothered a LOT and 11% said they were bothered a LITTLE. Given the way Murray asked the question, one could conclude that 74% of New Jersey voters are indifferent about Christie’s style.
In his narrative of the poll, which sets the tone for how much of the lazy lefty media covers it, Murray highlights his spin on Christie’s style.
“NEW JERSEY ON CHRISTIE’S STYLE: ‘MEH!’ ” is Murray’s headline. His opening sentence:
Governor Chris Christie’s job approval rating has ticked up a few points in the latest Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press Polland few New Jerseyans are particularly bothered by the way he deals with people who disagree with him.
Notice the use of the word few.
Christie’s numbers are the highest they ever been in a Monmouth poll. 55% of registered voters approve of the governor’s performance. 36% do not approve.
Yet Murray spins the results to read that a few people like him better and a few people are bothered about how he talks to people who don’t agree with him. The few who are bothered take top billing over the fact disclosed but not reported that Christie’s numbers are better than ever in Murray’s poll.
To their credit, PolitickerNJ cut through Murray’s spin and covers the poll results very well. They reported the real news of the poll results; New Jersey’s sagging economy is not hurting Christie’s popularity with voters and that of potential Democratic challengers in 2013, only Newark Mayor Cory Booker and former acting Governor Richard Codey have sufficient name recognition to be considered credible candidates for governor next year.
What if instead of asking if voters were bothered by Christie’s style, Murray asked if they liked his style? If Murray had done that, the headline would be:
The three major credit rating agencies affirmed the credit ratings of New Jersey’s bonds within the last week. Two of the three, Moody’s and Fitch affirmed the outlook for the State’s credit as stable. However, while affirming their AA- rating today, Standard and Poor’s lowered their outlook for New Jersey from stable to negative. S&P’s rationale for lowering their outlook is that they consider Governor Chris Christie’s revenue projections optimistic.
Democratic legislators, Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Vincent Prieto, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo and Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald, a potential gubernatorial candidate next year, all jumped on the S&P outlook downgrade to score political points against Christie. The Statehouse Press Corp was happy to advance the negative spin.
Monmouth County’s Declan O’Scanlon, the Assembly Republican Budget Officer, fired back against the Democrats and the media for “crowing” about the S&P report while falling mute over the Fitch and Moody’s reports is a scathing statement:
“My Democrat colleagues are like vultures seeking to pounce on potential prey despite the fact that their appetite will not be satisfied by one agency’s outlook,” said O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth. “They are always ready to jump on what they perceive to be negative news and many in the media buy into their political theatrics. Instead of working with the governor and Republicans in the Legislature, they continue to wait for gloom and doom predictions.
“The conduct and glee from our leading legislative Democrats is remarkable and disturbing. For days, they sat silent when two ratings agencies affirmed New Jersey’s credit rating in response to the Schools Development Corporation bond offering and today are dancing in the streets when a third rating agency – after also maintaining the state’s credit rating – gave an outlier’s opinion and lowered its outlook,” explained O’Scanlon. “To see this kind of political opportunism and rooting for failure from individuals entrusted with some of the highest leadership positions our government offers is disgraceful. Their Swiss cheese, fragmented perception of reality – with the holes miraculously lining up with anything positive about our state’s fiscal condition – is disturbing, but not surprising.”
“That our Statehouse press corps simply gobbles the partisan nonsense up so willingly is also a real disappointment, stated O’Scanlon. “That is especially so when you see them blindly quoting even those lawmakers who so vigorously fought bipartisan pension and benefits reforms in an effort that would have crippled New Jersey’s long-term efforts to fix our long-term economic health.
“Had we followed the path of the very people now attacking the Governor the outlook for the state’s future would be dramatically worse. They cannot, with a straight face, criticize this Governor with any credibility,” said O’Scanlon. “It was this governor that has started to turn our state around – and he had to fight the very people now attacking him in order to do that. The governor and Republicans know we are in a difficult economy and these are risky times. But we are also not afraid to make tough decisions. Previous Democrat administrations talked about tough times, but never took action. Without taking decisive action to fix many of our state’s problems,New Jerseywould be in a financial abyss.
“The Democrats’ are selling a bill of goods to the public and the media which conveniently ignores their eight-year record of expanding government spending and want us to believe their distorted view of reality,” commented O’Scanlon. “We have more work to do in turning our state around, but I am much more confident entrusting our state’s future with the Christie administration than its Democratic predecessors.”
The Office of Legislative Services released a report this morning stating that New Jersey’s state government revenues for last fiscal year were $253 million short of the Christie administration’s projections. Last month OLS said the FY2012 shortfall was $542 million.
Prior to last month the buzz about Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s future was that he would run for U.S. Senate in 2014, challenging Senator Frank Launtenberg if necessary. Booker opened a federal PAC last year and Lautenberg has been sniping at him ever since.
But in the weeks leading up to the convention Booker met with county chairs to plant the seeds of a gubernatorial run against Governor Chris Christie last year. In Charlotte he went into full campaign mode without making an announcement. In the process he made himself the front runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2013. A Booker candidacy for governor will clear the Democratic field. Without Booker in the race there will be a contentious primary. Senators Dick Codey, Barbara Buono and Steve Sweeney could be contenders. Assemblymen John Wisniewski and Lou Greenwald are acting like candidates. Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage says he will run if Booker doesn’t.
None of the other potential candidates will be able to gain any traction until Booker makes his intentions clear.
As a nod to Booker’s front runner status, Quinnipiac polled a Christie/Booker match up. Christie won the poll by 7%, but Booker’s name was recognised by 60% of those polled. That is an extraordinary high number for a New Jersey politician who has never run a statewide race. Booker has better name recognition than Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. He is as well known and better liked than U.S. Senator Bob Menendez.
Booker told the New Jersey delegation in Charlotte that Christie can be beat and that he is only governor because urban Democrats didn’t come out to vote for Jon Corzine in 2009. The implication is that he can get urban voters out, regardless of the desires of Democratic bosses George Norcross in the south and Joe DiVincenzo in the north who didn’t rev their machines for Corzine in 09.
Yesterday in Ohio, in a town called Seaman, Vice President Joe Biden channeled former President Bill Clinton while campaigning in a diner.
I wonder how those biker dudes would have reacted if the Secret Service hadn’t been there. Then again, maybe they were undercover Secret Service agents.
Biden opened his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention with a effusive expression of his love for his wife, Jill. “I love you,” Biden professed to 20,000 in the convention hall and a national TV audience, “you’re the love of my life and the life of my love.”
Bob Woodward’s new book, “The Price of Politics” may do more to threaten President Obama’s reelection than the anemic jobs reports.
Obama may be a great orator with a clever campaign, but Woodward’s book depicts his White House as dysfunctional and disorganized. The president himself is depicted as aloof and unable to develop the relationships necessary to lead the nation. Congressional leaders of his own party, Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate, have little regard for Obama’s leadership abilities.
The book focuses on the debt ceiling crisis that the nation face during the summer of 2011. A crisis that was so serious that “they wouldn’t tell the world how bad in was at the time,” according to Woodward in a interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that will be aired Monday night.
As I was reading several reviews of the book I was reminded of Governor Chris Christie’s frequent criticism of Obama’s lack of leadership and inability to work across the aisle. It’s worse than Chrisite imagined. Harry Reid asked Obama to leave the room, at a meeting Obama called of congressional leaders at the White House, so that the congressional leaders could hammer out a deal to avert our nation defaulting on its debt that Obama would have no choice but to sign. Earlier in the Obama administration, Nancy Pelosi muted a conference call from Obama while she and Reid were together working on details of the stimulus package so that the president wouldn’t know that he did not have their undivided attention for his pontification. Clint Eastwood was right. The chair is empty and even the national Democratic congressional leaders know it.
The mainstream media’s coverage of the book may be more damaging to Obama’s reelection chances than the content of the book itself.
Reviews in the New York Times and Washington Post read like the reviewers compared notes before publication. They are trying to suppress sales by depicting the book as boring and a rehash of previous reporting. Yet they have enough integrity to report Woodward’s conclusion:
“It is a fact that President Obama was handed a miserable, faltering economy and faced a recalcitrant Republican opposition.
“But presidents work their will — or should work their will — on the important matters of national business. There is occasional discussion in this book about Presidents Reagan and Clinton, what they did or would have done. Open as both are to serious criticism, they nonetheless largely worked their will.
“Obama has not. The mission of stabilizing and improving the economy is incomplete.”
But ABC is giving Woodward prime coverage of the book on Monday night in a intervew with Sawyer during “World News Tonight” and “Nightline.” Woodward will sit down with George Stephanopolous live on “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, September 11, the day the book is release.
Governor Chris Christie will have his first post keynote town hall meeting in Howell on Wednesday September 12, 3PM, at the Southard School Gymnasium, 115 Kent Road.
The doors open at 2:15PM.
Seating is first come first served. The Governor’s office requests that you RSVP here, in order to ensure adequate seating.
A Quinnipiac poll released this morning indicates that Governor Christie’s approval numbers remain strong among New Jersey voters…53% approve of his performance compared to 42% that do not….and that Christie would have been reelected if Newark Mayor Cory Booker was his Democratic opponent and the gubernatorial election was held last week when the poll was taken.
That’s good news for Christie, the NJ GOP and New Jersey taxpayers. Yet, in their write up of the poll, Quinnipiac did their best to spin the poll as a negative for Christie and the lazy main stream media is so far following that lead.
While 58 percent of New Jersey voters watched Gov. Christopher Christie’ keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, only 22 percent of voters say it makes them think more favorably of the governor, whose 53 – 42 percent job approval rating is barely changed, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
…..
“If Gov. Christopher Christie’s speech marked the opening of a 2016 presidential campaign he might want to try again. People who like the governor liked the speech; those who don’t didn’t. The net result – zero,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1560 registered voters from August 27-September 2. Christie delivered the keynote address at the Republican National Convention late in the evening on August 28. The Bobcats pollsters didn’t start asking about Christie’s speech until the third day of the seven day poll.
While showing their own biases, the Bobcats purported to measure New Jersey voters’ prejudices regarding offices seekers’ gender, race, creed, sexual orientation and waste line.
The numbers say that New Jersey is accepting of most. In the poll that has a margin of error of +/- 2.5%, 3% said they would be less inclined to vote for a female candidate while 10% would be more likely to vote for a female. 4% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who was African-American and 1% would be less likely to do so. 11% would be less likely to vote for a homosexual and 1% would be more likely.
Atheists and Muslims did not fare as well. 39% would be less likely to vote for an atheist, 1% would be more likely.
15% said they would be less likely to vote for an obese candidate, 1% would be more likely to vote for the big boned.
Does this mean that we should adjust Governor Chirstie’s numbers? Would his numbers be 14% higher if he was svelte? No, it doesn’t mean that. It means that this poll is seriously flawed. It reveals more about the pollsters than it does about those being surveyed.
