Worthless ACORN-related push-polling plus Hoffman-related ACORN weirdness
PPP have a poll that shows that a narrow majority of GOP voters think ACORN stole the 2008 Presidential election for Obama. PPP, who are a Democrat outfit, asked this leading binary question:
“Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?”
Now, 52% is still hella high, but that’s a terrible way to ask the question unless you have a particular desired outcome. H/T: rpgnet’s off-topic forum.
In other ACORN-related nonsense, Doug Hoffman appears to blame them for his apparent defeat and has unconceded the NY-23 race thanks to reporting anomalies misrepresenting the state of the race at the time that he conceded.
Yeah, I decided to not do a post about the PPP poll, as staggering a result as that is. It just doesn’t meet the sniff test for me. I think that when you ask a question that obvious and that ridiculous, you’ll get a weird response set versus if you’d found a more subtle or buried way to do it.
Still, as you said…52% Jesus Christ. This ACORN stuff just makes no sense to me. It’s a party in desperate search of more bugbears to feel victimized and under siege by.
Comment by Brad — 11/20/2009 @ 11:55 am
Oh, I think that the party itself feels a lot better now than it has for a while. The base, though, feel besieged, but bases work better when they feel that way.
Comment by Adam — 11/20/2009 @ 2:49 pm
But yes, it’s crazy. I posted it because I couldn’t believe how shonky the poll was (and then the Hoffman thing made me do it; I think that upupupstate New York is about the last place ACORN are going to be operating, at least until bears get the vote and don’t register for it).
Comment by Adam — 11/20/2009 @ 3:45 pm
I just wanted to point out that I passed on a Republican-bashing story because it didn’t meet my high level of journalistic standards.
Comment by Brad — 11/20/2009 @ 4:08 pm
Hey, the story isn’t about Republican-bashing, it’s PPP-bashing.
The Hoffman bit is Republican-bashing, not that Hoffman was running as a Republican.
Comment by Adam — 11/20/2009 @ 4:20 pm
A wash all around.
Comment by Brad — 11/20/2009 @ 4:51 pm
Maybe I’m missing something, but I would think that the aggressive and overt wording of that poll would deflate the number of people willing to say “Yes.” I can see a lot of base/core GOPers responding in the affirmative if it had more neutral wording suggesting that the outcome of the election might have been different with less inappropriate influence by ACORN or something like that, but to say out right “ACORN stole it for him”… man, I don’t know, but it seems like that ought to winnow it down to the crazies. What am I missing here? Why do you guys think this poll is so out of whack in, effectively, the opposite direction that I do?
Comment by Jack — 11/20/2009 @ 9:20 pm
I would say that if you put a question like that in the poll it increases its apparent respectability.
Comment by Adam — 11/20/2009 @ 9:23 pm
Do you mean people become comfortable with giving in to their partisan emotional thoughts? They would not have said in polite company that ACORN stole the election, but now that they saw it in a poll by a major institute, it must be a reasonable position to hold?
Comment by Jack — 11/20/2009 @ 9:42 pm
No, I just meant to say that appearance in a poll makes something seem more respectable, more likely, in and of itself. Why would pollsters, experts blah blah, put it in otherwise? Which is why reputable polling organisations take care to craft their questions. Well, as does PPP, I guess.
Comment by Adam — 11/20/2009 @ 9:53 pm
Or put it another way, do you really think that 52% of GOP voters think that ACORN stole the election for Obama? But isn’t it great, if you’re a partisan organisation, to produce a poll that says they do? Why, the GOP voters are crazies!
Comment by Adam — 11/20/2009 @ 9:54 pm
OK, so lets say the poll question had been crafted with more neutral langauge, but still implied that the election results came out they way they did largely as a result of the shenangans of ACORN. Are you positing that with such neutral language the percentage would have been lower?
I get you point about how cool it is to show that 52% of GOPers are crazies, and thus that makes you think that the question was crafted purely for left-partisan reasons, but that does not change the fact that 52% of respondents answered in the affirmative. How are we to interpret that number, regardless of the motivation for including the question?
Comment by Jack — 11/20/2009 @ 10:22 pm
As I said, I was surprised that it was that high even with the nature of the question. I’m not entirely sure I trust PPP at all, mind you.
Comment by Adam — 11/20/2009 @ 10:39 pm