The Pew poll is devastatingly meaningless

Sullivan: "The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating."

That's one take. Here's another, more accurate take: The Pew poll, alone, is meaningless, just meaningless.

Pew's is a national poll, and there's nothing in any presidential election that can be so misleading--and needlessly distressing--as a single poll, except a single, national poll. This contest, like every preceding presidential contest, is not a national contest. It's a swing-state, state-by-state, battleground contest. What some redneck in Texas thinks about Obama or some bluenose in Massachusetts thinks about Romney is as meaningless as ... well, a single, national Pew poll.

It is virtually inconceivable and almost mathematically impossible that Romney can win without Ohio; meaning that we must wait until some credible Ohio numbers come in--numbers sufficiently distanced from the debate rubble's dust.

For the moment, all that Pew has surveyed are national excitability and Obama-camp overwroughtness. Indeed, Sullivan proceeds to flash and then rebut his own:

Obama's performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! ... has that kind of swing ever happened this late in a campaign? Has any candidate lost 18 points among women voters in one night ever?

Of course not, and neither did Obama. Still, Sullivan is correct when he later notes that "momentum counts at this point in the election"; however Sullivan is permitting only Romney's momentum to count. Obama had abundant momentum before the debate. Is that, suddenly--because of one electorally meaningless poll--to be discarded? 

Sullivan also characterizes this--"[W]e are told that when Obama left the stage that night, he was feeling good"--as "terrifying." I'd characterize it as ancient history. Obama's aides were panic-stricken, as the NY Times reports, even before the debate's end; they contemporaneously huddled on a counteroffensive and then promptly disabused the president of any "good feeling." Mission accomplished. "He doesn’t brood — he acts," said David Axelrod.

I may yet become excitably distressed, too. This morning I'm not, simply because I shouldn't be. We must first know what's happening in Ohio, as well as Florida and Virginia. And right now, we just don't know.

Comments

[Peter G]

Don't know how stable your digestive tract is in the morning and whether or not, in consequence, you take in Morning Joe or Chuck Todd but if you do every sin of rational political analysis is there to be seen. You know Mr Todd imagines himself to be both a policy wonk and a numbers guy. It is entertaining to watch him prove, almost daily, that he is neither.

[Robert Lipscomb]

A week ago, Nate Silver calculated Obama having about an 85% chance to win, or 7 to 1. Yesterday, he calculated it as 75%, or 3 to 1.

This where he stood going into the conventions.

Obama took a big hit nationally. The counter-offensive was primarily deployed in swing states. Yes, I prefer that Obama had channeled Daniel Webster, but I continue to maintain that is has been and will be a godsend.

The primary discussions coming out of all this, which will continue for four weeks, are Romney's basic honesty and character and - the fundamental problem's in his proposed policies. In boxing terms, Romney punched himself out in the first round. He is now completely on the defensive.

All the ensuing comedy routines have been predicated on presumption that Romney is a flip-flopping liar. That is now the national "frame" of Romney.

Obama now has the license to attack Romney and his policies - in self-defense - without being the "angry black man".

[Bruce Adams]

Two weeks from today when the poll numbers change Andrew Sullivan will blog about how he blogs in the moment and his readers get his immediate reaction, etc. etc.

[caribbeanobserver]

Andrew Sullivan is proving to be the ever so 'fragile' annoyance at this point in time. He and so many supporters/frenemies,(for with loyalists like these), are so busy frantically hammering their detrimental mouths and fingers to paper that they are refusing to think things through whilst dissecting who they should be dissecting,i.e the Sheister Mitt. There are times when I can put up with Sully's volatile writings and links to the convicts,but for now, let's just leave him like a child to wind himself down, followed by appeasing his readers by admitting his meltdown.

[Robert Lipscomb]

Fund raising is another dynamic to consider. The debate and its fallout has shaken Obama's supporters out of their comfort zones.

Rahm Emanuel shot out of the convention before it concluded to lead fund raising for super-pacs. I assume he is being very successful.

But Obama remains very successful within his campaign in getting money - especially from small donors. They are probably amped up from fear.

the even better news about this is that election laws make ad costs for a candidate's campaign (I think) 4 to 5 times less expensive than normal, which is what PACs must pay.

[DerFarm]

National Polls at this point are fucking meaningless, period. National polls are important at the begining and middle of campaigns. By the end game, they are worse than useless.

Romney's performance earned him 2-3% a greater share of what he already had: RedNeck Love. The performance of the chicken little left gave him another 1-2%.

I follow 3 electoral vote calculators: HuffPo [elections.huffingtonpost.com] (Left Leaning), ElectoralVote [electoral-vote.com](more or less Center) and Real Clear Politics [realclearpolitics.com](Right Leaning).

HuffPo shows 281 strong or leaning Obama, 191 Strong Romney and 66 Tossup.

ElectoralVote shows 332 Strong and leaning Obama, 206 Strong and leaning Romney.

RCP shows 251 Strong and Leaning Obama and 181 Strong and leaning Romney with 106 tossups.

ElectoralVote has a nifty thing where you can go back to see the what the country looked like at an earlier time. On Oct 1, EV showed 347 to 191, with the Senate at 50 D, 47 R and 3 tossup. Today shows 332 to 206, with the Senate 52 D, 44 R and 4 tossup. The change? North Carolina. I'll give North Carolina for a better shot at 3 senate seats any day of the week.

It's Tuesday morning. The initial burst from the Debate has subsided. The damage actually looks relatively limited in scope. We'll have to see what happens in the near future.

[hector]

I am a long-time reader and admirer of your keen observations; i particularly come by and visit when everybody is losing their minds, even those who should know better. Thanks!

[Janicket]

For further comfort, take a look at what Nate Silver is saying about the Pew poll and the overall picture in today's blog entry.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

[Turgidson]

I'm starting to think the debate is sort of akin to being on a plane that suddenly and unexpectedly dips, then corrects and continues on its merry way.

The debate and its aftermath (which, I believe, was made about 5x worse by terrified Obama supporters showing their terror as publicly as possible) were the dip. A lot of people's hearts leapt into their throats and pulses quickened.

Then it was over and things continued on as they were.

Obama won't perform like that again. And neither will Mitt. Obama is more at ease in town hall type settings than Romney, so I feel OK about that one. And Obama has always been pretty solid at setting out his foreign policy vision, while Mitt is a walking punch line on the subject and will have to worry, acutely, about reminding voters of the last GOP president who never existed.

Biden vs. Ryan is a wildcard. Ryan will lie his ass off, maybe even more brazenly than Mittens. But I don't think Biden will let it slide like Obama did, and he probably feels more comfortable showing some fire in rebutting it. I just hope he doesn't say anything weird that leads the news the next 3 days. There's always that risk with ol Joe.