Polls, Polls, Polls

Are you tired of polls. Many of my friends say they are tired of getting a call every night. The fact that I do not get any calls, I think, leads you to see that the polls have to be skewed somewhat against cell phone users. The question is, of course, at this point is if there is a demographic difference between those people who do not use landlines at all and those that use only cell phones.

It would seem to me that there would be a difference, skewing perhaps slightly younger but then again the younger a person is the less likely they are to vote, so perhaps it all balances out.

If you hear each days all the polls, Mason Dixon, Reuters, Rasmussen, Quinnipiac, Gallup, and many others you know that the one thing they agree is that they do not agree. In the next few days we will hear that the poll numbers reflect the answers after the most recent debate, it is assumed that those will help the President. That most likely will be true.

Still one wonders, at least I wonder, if a man has been President for four years how his performance in a ninety minute debate can affect your opinion. To me a debate has one purpose and that is for the challenger to make himself look Presidential. That is can he stand on the same stage as the President and appear as if he is not beneath the President. I think, in some ways, Romney might be coming off a little too hard, a little too much like the boss you hate, but I do not think any impartial observer can say that Romney looks out of his depth.

If I were Romney's advisers I would tell them to not be quite so confrontational in the next debate, I think, especially in areas of foreign policy too much criticism in the wrong way can make one seem like they are betting against the country. I would always start my sentences with a prerequisite I believe the Presidents intentions are the same as mine, but here is how I would do things differently. No one on the right will listen to me and in fact might not agree with me, but I believe a softer sell is necessary from Mr. Romney in the final debate.

As to polls, there are just too many, and they are too varied. I recommend Nate Silver's 538 blog. Silver who started as a sports statistician, developing a system called PECOTA to make forecasts, in 2008 moved on to politics and impressed many by his nailing of the elections. Since that time he has consistently been the best pollster around. His numbers after the first debate moved in Romney's favor but with a combination of state and national information, and other economic numbers in his poll results he lists both national and state level elections and their potential results. Today he has Obama with a 65 percent chance to win the electoral college, up from yesterdays 63 percent number. Save yourself some headaches, follow him and feel less stress.