Why is the media acting like they forgot pre-primary polls always sucked

[antiimperialist]

oh my god what happened to the pollsters! I'll tell you what happened. They continued to get it wrong in the primaries.

"Is this a repeat of 1948"? some idiotic pundits have asked, as if they were in another planet when in 2000, a few days before the NH primaries, if you want to compare apples to apples, David Broder wrote that George W. Bush and John McCain were "deadlocked in the latest surveys of the GOP race". (See yesterday's www.dailyhowler.com)

They also forgot that in 2004 polls were atrocious as well, with half of them predicting that Dean would win in Iowa the last week before the votes were counted. the National Council on polls was puzzled about how difficult to poll primaries were.

One of two things are happening:

1)Undecided are impossible to figure out
2)Pollsters have been using terrible methodology.

It's like these pundits somehow fell and suffered an injury to their heads and lost consciousness right before 2000, waking up just in time for the 2008 primaries.

[ORDagnabbit]

1. believe you or my lying eyes....

why they seem to only poll correctly in hand counted areas.

polling to hand counts = correct
exit polling to hand counts = correct


polling to machine counts = error
exit polling to machine counts = error

[cloudythescribbler]

2. First of all, as the DU threads show, there's an issue of the EXIT polls too, and ...

also some info about a history of suspicious election/poll returns in NH primaries going back to 1988 (also on DU)

On the chart, see:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x489664

This is a very interesting chart compiled by ORDagnabbit.

Some of the evidence raised here at DU on this issue is VERY interesting, despite official dismissals from Skinner on behalf of her fellow moderators

One thing that is especially striking was the remarkable consensus of a LARGE BATTERY of polls taken just before the election, and discrepancies even with some very significant EXIT polling.

Whenever this happens ELSEWHERE in the world, we have no problem seeing it as election fraud, but here in the US, such things are dismissed as 'conspiracy theory' or 'tin foil hat' thinking and beyond the pale -- INCLUDING HERE AT DU.

[Truthiness]

3. Even Chris Matthews of CNBC admitted that the EXIT polls were wrong

"Why were the polls taken, of people coming out of the booth, so off?," Matthews tries to ask his guests again and again. And again."

http://www.bradblog.com

In no way would I accuse the Clinton campaign of being part of electronic voting fraud. However, electronic voting fraud is a real, bonifide concern and acknowledgment of it is now mainstream (witness recent the New York Times Magazine cover story).

Republicans realize that Hillary Clinton's negatives are significantly higher than those of the other candidates and that she is more beatable in a general election. They want her to win the Democratic nomination.