At RCP, Jay Cost revisits the ongoing discussion about whether Barack Obama can win working class whites in the general election, from two different but equally interesting perspectives.
His first take on the issue circles around a look at Clinton’s primary victories in the counties of metropolitan Pittsburgh compared to the general election performance of Republican candidates dating back to 1972. He presents a chart showing that: (a) Reagan did not do nearly so well there as you might imagine, even in 1984; and (b) Clinton’s margins of victory were larger overall than those Nixon racked up against McGovern in 1972. This is what has some Democrats nervous about Obama’s ability to attract working class white voters in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri in a general election.
The counter-argument is that disaffection with Pres. Bush and the GOP in general will overcome any problems Obama may have with these voters. Although Bush will not be on the ballot, the extent to which this election seems to be part of that 16-year cycle of “change†elections may help Obama past the increasingly McGovern-esque nature of his campaign. Cost’s chart tends to support that thesis as well, as the GOP candidate generally did worst in Pittsburgh in 1992 — the last such “change” election. That is one reason why Cost concludes the debate on this issue cannot be answered on the current data (and I agree).
Cost’s second take in this area is a helpful variation on my recurrent reminders that people who have not worked with polling data often overestimate how confident we can be about conclusions to be drawn from polls. Cost notes the ongoing debate among pollsters about the degree to which latent racism may warp polling responses. This cycle has educated more people to one of these debates — about the “Bradley effect” — than ever.
But Cost continues on to make a much deeper point about public opinion polling:
The problem is that we are exclusively dependent upon the polls for our understanding of public opinion. Nobody is really going “out there” to interact with average people, to find out what they are thinking. We have the polls, and that is all we have. So, we only know as much as they tell us. When they are silent, ambiguous, or misleading, we are ignorant.
They did not always monopolize our knowledge base. While studying for my qualifying exam in American politics several years ago, one of my favorite reads was a dusty old book called Political Ideology by Robert Lane. Unfortunately, it is no longer part of the canon. I only read it by mistake. My department gave me an outdated reading list to study from, and I read it before the error was corrected. I’m glad I did. It is a fascinating read, not so much for its conclusions, but for its methodology. Lane engaged in detailed, dialectical conversations with a group of fifteen men from “Eastport, USA.” His study was certainly not wide, but it was very deep.
Cost further suggests that the failure to blend the information obtained from modern polling with the deeper sociological data that could be collected from the Appalachians to the barbershops on the south side of Chicago impoverishes our understanding of voter behavior.
Newspaper circulation figures are as good as polls for looking at public opinion I think. There’s a clear trend about what people want to change.
Of course, I don’t have any data to back this up, but it’s my belief that people are lying to pollsters about their support for Obama not because of latent racism so much as a desire to be seen as part the “cool” campaign. Hopey and changy over establishment orthodoxy. Which one’s the better dancer?
Karl this is an awesome post.
deep versus wide polling.
do you think focus groups are effective at that?
feets could u mail me plz?
wheelers.cat@gmail.com
plz.
Do your job Karl! Nice work – all these posts are great. Just remember, Hillary’s catching up, so the orders can change literally at any moment….
And I am still floored that this friggin’ liberal media refuses to acknowledge the biggest crisis in the historory of the US – PAstor Wright. I mean, I would have predicted this, but how can they just completely ignore it? I guess that’s why they’re called the Liberal Media – am I right or what?
Instead, all we get is news about former generals and war propaganda – blah blah blah. Typical anti-war liberal media crap….
I mean, it’s all just like you guys always say….
Cost further suggests that the failure to blend the information obtained from modern polling with the deeper sociological data that could be collected from the Appalachians to the barbershops on the south side of Chicago impoverishes our understanding of voter behavior.
I think that’s true, but the “pollster” would have to be someone that those people could speak to honestly. Otherwise, he’ll get their “Sunday best” opinions.
Gah. My kingdom for a closed italics tag.
undercover pollsters
Hey, steve. Are you being, like, sarcastic or something? Please bear in mind: a fencing sword has no edge.
Does anyone have a cookie they could give to steve?
ards i saw you on berlinski’s essay yest.
do you think it is ethical for the Pajamafia to give a platform to a DI stooge?
The triumpant return of steve leaves a bit to be desired.
dur, kelly…wtf?
sabers have edges, epees have bloodgrooves
Though, you have to give steve credit. After a nuclear meltdown like he underwent, it had to be difficult to show his ass again.
Is it ethical to allow an advocate of genocide like nishitiot access to the internet? Discuss amongst yourselves.
It’s shorter, Steve, if you just say “How can you be talking about this when there’s a war going on?”
There’s a pixal shortage going on, you know.
bldgrvs r nt edgs, nishi
shdn’t u b txtng all ur 13yo gfs or smthg?
ok I subscribed to CM. I will look around as I can but I think NG needs me when she gets back from smoking.
I don’t think you guys have enough Obama posts. Especially from Karl.
Did I mention the liberal media and Obama yet?
Riiight. We’ll just tell Karl to ignore the problem, and think happy thoughts until it goes away.
shukran jazillyaan feets.
dur, kelly, i fenced in college, even foils and rapiers have edges.
all fencing weapons have bated tips.
I LOL’d.
Anything to keep from actually, you know, getting to know people, eh, nishi?
Epees?
I will not take the troll’s bait… I will not take the troll’s bait… I will not take the troll’s bait…
If this troll’s bait, its pretty piss-poor.
You won’t take my bait, Rob.
You can’t. There is not way to rectify an anti-war liberal media that dotes on Obama with
1. the fact that they can’t leave Wright alone while McCain refusing to refute Hagee barely gets a mention
2. the fact that the MSM has been a literal propoganda arm of selling the war in Iraq
Why would a liberal media behave this way? (hint: it’s a myth)
So no, Rob, you won’t be taking any bait any time soon, and I completely understand why.
Odd, that — given that fewer and fewer people in the media still hold to that view.
Most of them are all, “Yeah? So?”
Hey, steve!
You make a valid point that McCain finally got around to repudiating Hagee. I mean, after all, Johnny boy spent 20 years in Hagee’s church, Hagee married him, baptized his children and boy, oh boy, how dumb was it to put that nuttier than a squirrel’s crapper loonwick on his campaign staff …
[…]
Oh, wait, that was that other candidate!
Damn you steve and your sly trickery!
Oh, and stevo?
You are literally an asshat. And more than a little loopy (but only figuratively.)
steve – Must we explain the fundamental and profound differences between the good Rev Jeremiah Wright and that fat ass Hagee for you? I know you prefer to live in blissful ignorance, but BJ already gave you the basics. Try reading, for comprehension. you lying crapweasel.
nishi,
focus groups certainly have their place, but they are very hard to do properly, given the Heisenberg-esque effect.
I think the old term ‘Hawthorne Effect’ needs to be acknowledged.
[…] touched on the different ways of sampling public opinion this morning, it was a happy coincidence to find results from the latest Gallup Panel survey, which […]
oh, is it Wednesday again?
Loved this post very deep points of views on polls, and I feel most poll numbers are bias because when you would poll on certain station your only getting people voting who like that stations points of views to begin with.
Polls need to be held in public and by a 3rd party company to be taken seriously at all, and even then, people say what they want to hear, not because they want to say it.
Pittsburgh Contractor Mark Bechler