{"id":2239,"date":"2010-02-03T03:18:51","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T03:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2010-02-03T16:22:36","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T16:22:36","slug":"427_percent_of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2239","title":{"rendered":"42.7 Percent Of Statistics Are Made Up On The Spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Check the update at the bottom…<\/i><\/p>\n

Kos released his poll of Republican attitudes<\/a> (he’s doing the polling to support his contention that Republicans = Taliban) and shockingly, the results make them look like – Taliban.<\/p>\n

63% believe Obama is a socialist.<\/p>\n

39% believe he should be impeached.<\/p>\n

23% believe their state should secede.<\/p>\n

77% are opposed to gay marriage.<\/p>\n

77% believe that Genesis should be taught in the public schools.<\/p>\n

76% believe abortion is murder…let’s stop on this one, you get the point.<\/p>\n

Now there’s not a lot of background about the mechanics of the poll (i.e. where did the 2,000 self-identified Republicans come from – the Wesboro Baptist Church mailing list, perhaps?), but the numbers pretty much ring completely false to me, based on anecdote (my own experience with Republicans) and data…<\/p>\n

…let’s go to the June 2009 CBS News poll<\/a>, which shows that 40% of Republicans (self-identified, I’d assume) think Roe v Wade is a “good thing.”<\/p>\n

…the much-derided Gallup poll<\/a> on abortion this year showed that 23% of “Republicans and Republican leaners” were pro-choice. I’m not sure how you mathematically get from 7% to 23% by blending “republicans and leaners except by assuming “real republicans” are at 7% and “leaners” are at 75% … plausible? You be the judge.<\/p>\n

I’d love to have been polled on this and see what the mechanics of the poll sounded like. But right now, I don’t think I’d take it terribly seriously. I can’t wait to see the book. <\/p>\n

Update:<\/b> Research2000 has a lot of marcomm on its site about how accurate it is, but the only 3rd party reference I could find (in a very fast Google session that included a fast look at the Wayback machine) was this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Exclusive BMG\/Research 2000 poll: Coakley leads 49-41<\/b>
\nby: David
\nThu Jan 14, 2010 at 11:48:08 AM EST<\/p>\n

(Bumped, because we shelled out BMG’s hard-earned money for this. — Bob – promoted by Charley on the MTA)<\/p>\n

The results are in from BMG’s exclusive statewide poll in next week’s special Senate election. Research 2000 interviewed 500 likely voters on Tuesday and Wednesday (and we do mean “interviewed” — Research 2000 does live interviews, unlike robo-pollsters Rasmussen and PPP). That means that our poll is the first (and so far only) one taken entirely after Monday’s final televised debate. Here’s what they came up with (margin of error is +\/- 4%). <\/p>\n

QUESTION: If the 2010 special election for U.S. Senate were held today, would you vote for Martha Coakley, the Democrat, Scott Brown, the Republican, or Joseph Kennedy, the Libertarian candidate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
 <\/td>\nALL<\/td>\nDEM<\/td>\nREP<\/td>\nIND<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Martha Coakley<\/td>\n49%<\/td>\n82%<\/td>\n7%<\/td>\n36%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Scott Brown<\/td>\n41%<\/td>\n12%<\/td>\n85%<\/td>\n49%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Joseph Kennedy<\/td>\n5%<\/td>\n1%<\/td>\n2%<\/td>\n11%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Undecided<\/td>\n5%<\/td>\n5%<\/td>\n6%<\/td>\n4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder how these guys do on Intrade?
\n–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans really religious fanatics??<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}