Polls trending Bush's way

[Patrick Degan]

Still a statistical dead-heat. Neither candidate has enjoyed a lead outside the margin of error for most of the heavy campaign season.

[ArmorPierce]

Blacks are 17% of the population last I heard, and homosexuals are 3% of the population based on the most recent attempts at quantification (the old 10% figure is seriously exaggerated).

I don't know where you got 17% from, it's closer to 10-12%.

[The_Nice_Guy]

Can we even trust these polls at all? The Aussie election polls indicated a nailbiter that turned into a substantial victory for Howard in the end. The same bias(for whatever reason) could be carried over, assuming that Howard=Bush and Latham=Kerry.

My gut feeling is that if the polls show a dead heat, Bush is actually 5 points ahead. Kerry has to find some way to pull ahead, and soon, or else he's a goner.

TWG

[SirNitram]

Knowing about modern polling, I can say there's only really one things that's not being accounted for in this election. Cell-phone users, and by that I mean folks who only have a cell phone. This has gotten alot of folks talking about it, as it could be a 'sudden wild swing', but we'll see. Polls can be off by a few percent from dozens of small factors, and in a race this tight, any of those aberrations could decide it.

[Lord MJ]

The point remains that blacks are not as numerous as people think they are, and the fundie block is the single biggest monolithic voting block in the country, not to mention the most rabid.

I think you have an excellent point here actually Mike. Blacks DO only constitute 16-17% of the population (check U.S. Census Report) and most of these are most likely located in the Black Belt in the South. We already know the south is voting Republican thus their vote doesn't have near as much an effect as people try to make it seem.

Thank you.

This is yet another reason do dismember or reform the electoral college.

[Darth Wong]

We have the same problem in Canada, with a "first past the gate, winner takes all" district representation system. It's very annoying; a party can get 20% of the popular vote and not get a single seat in Parliament, which makes no sense at all. If 1 of every 5 people agrees with you, you should have a voice in Parliament.

[Gil Hamilton]

The polls tend to waver. I've been seeing plenty of polls that put Kerry ahead. We'll see who gets the most electoral votes in November, because, frankly, the race is so close that that's the only time we are going to know for sure.

[Col. Crackpot]

Mike it seems you convieniently ignored one point in theski's arguement. The Union voting block.

according to the AFL-CIO voters from union housholds represented 26% of the vote in the 2000 Presidential election and Union vote went Democrat by a margin of almost three to one.

http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/po ... ection.cfm

That pokes a mighty big hole in your assertation that the Democrats don't have an organized bloc to bepend on.

[Darth Wong]

Mike it seems you convieniently ignored one point in theski's arguement. The Union voting block.

according to the AFL-CIO voters from union housholds represented 26% of the vote in the 2000 Presidential election and Union vote went Democrat by a margin of almost three to one.

http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/po ... ection.cfm

That pokes a mighty big hole in your assertation that the Democrats don't have an organized bloc to bepend on.

If you honestly think that 75% of a 26% minority is remotely comparable to near-100% support in the fundie block, you're dumber than I thought. As I said, the Republicans have a big advantage with their huge voting block, despite the bleatings of certain severely math-challenged individuals around here.

[theski]

Mike it seems you convieniently ignored one point in theski's arguement. The Union voting block.

according to the AFL-CIO voters from union housholds represented 26% of the vote in the 2000 Presidential election and Union vote went Democrat by a margin of almost three to one.

http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/po ... ection.cfm

That pokes a mighty big hole in your assertation that the Democrats don't have an organized bloc to bepend on.

If you honestly think that 75% of a 26% minority is remotely comparable to near-100% support in the fundie block, you're dumber than I thought. As I said, the Republicans have a big advantage with their huge voting block, despite the bleatings of certain severely math-challenged individuals around here.

This seems to disprove your implication since I havn't seen any numbers from you..

Vote by Religion All Gore Bush Buchanan Nader
Protestant 54 % 42 % 56 % 0 % 2 %
Catholic 26 % 50 % 47 % 1 % 2 %
Jewish 4 % 79 % 19 % 0 % 1 %
Other 6 % 62 % 28 % 1 % 7 %
None 9 % 61 % 30 % 0 % 7 %


Religion - Whites Only All Gore Bush Buchanan Nader
Protestant 56 % 34 % 63 % 1 % 2 %
Catholic 25 % 45 % 52 % 0 % 2 %
Jewish 4 % 80 % 17 % 0 % 1 %
Other 5 % 53 % 35 % 0 % 8 %
None 9 % 57 % 33 % 1 % 8 %


Attend Religious Services All Gore Bush Buchanan Nader
More Than Weekly 14 % 36 % 63 % 0 % 1 %
Weekly 28 % 40 % 57 % 0 % 2 %
Monthly 14 % 51 % 46 % 1 % 2 %
Seldom 28 % 54 % 42 % 0 % 3 %
Never 14 % 61 % 32 % 1 % 6 %


White Religious Right? All Gore Bush Buchanan Nader
Yes 14 % 18 % 80 % 1 % 1 %

From the 2000 election

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/epolls/US/P000.html

%80 is the highest margin..for Bush...One small category..

[The_Nice_Guy]

Mike it seems you convieniently ignored one point in theski's arguement. The Union voting block.

according to the AFL-CIO voters from union housholds represented 26% of the vote in the 2000 Presidential election and Union vote went Democrat by a margin of almost three to one.

http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/po ... ection.cfm

That pokes a mighty big hole in your assertation that the Democrats don't have an organized bloc to bepend on.

It's also been pointed out that union power has been declining in recent times, and their membership is declining.

TWG

[Darth Wong]

This seems to disprove your implication since I havn't seen any numbers from you..

Sure you have, you just ignore them. 80% of the population is Christian, more than half of those are fundies, and every major fundie group in the country has thrown its support behind George W. Bush.

%80 is the highest margin..for Bush...One small category..

Wow, a CNN website E-poll taken 4 years ago before Bush decided to spend 4 years whoring his religion and driving wedge issues like gay marriage; good to see you digging up the most reliable and relevant sources

[White Cat]

This is kinda nitpicky, but that's an exit poll, not a website e-poll.

[SirNitram]

Website E-Polls... Most biased polls that exist.. Response bias swarms..

[theski]

This seems to disprove your implication since I havn't seen any numbers from you..

Sure you have, you just ignore them. 80% of the population is Christian, more than half of those are fundies, and every major fundie group in the country has thrown its support behind George W. Bush.

%80 is the highest margin..for Bush...One small category..

Wow, a CNN website E-poll taken 4 years ago before Bush decided to spend 4 years whoring his religion and driving wedge issues like gay marriage; good to see you digging up the most reliable and relevant sources

You are still giving general %'s not hard voting numbers of Christians voting as a block.... it is not more than 65%... according to The Cnn EXIT poll not E-poll..

prove to me that Bush is getting over 80% of the Christian vote

[Darth Wong]

You are still giving general %'s not hard voting numbers of Christians voting as a block.... it is not more than 65%... according to The Cnn EXIT poll not E-poll..

prove to me that Bush is getting over 80% of the Christian vote

Fine you win, all of the Christians in the country intend to vote for gay marriage in November. OK? Happy now?

[theski]

You are still giving general %'s not hard voting numbers of Christians voting as a block.... it is not more than 65%... according to The Cnn EXIT poll not E-poll..

prove to me that Bush is getting over 80% of the Christian vote

Fine you win, all of the Christians in the country intend to vote for gay marriage in November. OK? Happy now?

That is not the issue and you know it... you claimed that the Christians vote as one large bloc for Bush... with no proof.. so are you dropping that claim?

[Mr Flibble]

Can we even trust these polls at all? The Aussie election polls indicated a nailbiter that turned into a substantial victory for Howard in the end. The same bias(for whatever reason) could be carried over, assuming that Howard=Bush and Latham=Kerry.

My gut feeling is that if the polls show a dead heat, Bush is actually 5 points ahead. Kerry has to find some way to pull ahead, and soon, or else he's a goner.

TWG

I don't think Australia is a good nation to use as a comparison. The issues here were very different to the US. Our economy is doing well at the momnet, and we aren't having massive government deficeits, mostly surpluses. On the Iraq issue, Howard has always been in a stronger position than Bush and Blair, as he can simply say, "we relied on US/British intelligence on good faith if needs be" also our commitment is so small that most Australian's seemed to consider it a non issue. Also it should be remembered thatAustralia's electoral system is very different to the US, we have compulsorary voting and a preferencial voting system. I don't think it is a good election to use as a comparison.

I think the US election is likely to be more of a knife edge.

[Darth Wong]

You are still giving general %'s not hard voting numbers of Christians voting as a block.... it is not more than 65%... according to The Cnn EXIT poll not E-poll..

prove to me that Bush is getting over 80% of the Christian vote

Fine you win, all of the Christians in the country intend to vote for gay marriage in November. OK? Happy now?

That is not the issue and you know it...

Yes it is, and you know it. EIther that or you're fucking dumber than dirt.

you claimed that the Christians vote as one large bloc for Bush... with no proof.. so are you dropping that claim?

No you fuckhead, I'm pointing out that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the major Christian organizations has publicly thrown its support behind Bush thanks to issues such as gay marriage and abortion, which he has deliberately driven to the foreground since being elected 4 years ago. If you want to pretend that fundies will vote for gay marriage and Roe in November and appeal to the lack of fundie-specific polls as an excuse to appeal to uncertainty and say "you can't prove they won't!", go right ahead. Sophistic bullshitting assholes are not necessarily banned from this board, so you're safe.

[theski]

Fine you win, all of the Christians in the country intend to vote for gay marriage in November. OK? Happy now?

That is not the issue and you know it...

Yes it is, and you know it. EIther that or you're fucking dumber than dirt.

you claimed that the Christians vote as one large bloc for Bush... with no proof.. so are you dropping that claim?

No you fuckhead, I'm pointing out that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the major Christian organizations has publicly thrown its support behind Bush thanks to issues such as gay marriage and abortion, which he has deliberately driven to the foreground since being elected 4 years ago. If you want to pretend that fundies will vote for gay marriage and Roe in November and appeal to the lack of fundie-specific polls as an excuse to appeal to uncertainty and say "you can't prove they won't!", go right ahead. Sophistic bullshitting assholes are not necessarily banned from this board, so you're safe.

Your orginal claim "two big mindless ideologue blocks (intolerant Christians and jingoistic flag-wavers) that the Republicans can count on for rabid unwavering support."

Bush still only gets 60% of Christian support.. YOu can bitch all you want.. but you cant show me any numbers to the contrary... Which is less then the Union support... and much less then the black % ...

[Darth Wong]

Your orginal claim "two big mindless ideologue blocks (intolerant Christians and jingoistic flag-wavers) that the Republicans can count on for rabid unwavering support."

Both still true. Bush has really increased his support among those two bases in the last 4 years. But by all means, continue to pretend that nothing has changed in that regard.

Bush still only gets 60% of Christian support.

4 years ago, before all of this killallthemuslims/hatethegays/fucktheabortionists bullshit. But if you wish to use a stat from 4 years ago that combines fundies (ie- intolerant Christians) and liberal Christians together and pretend that it somehow refutes my point, please feel free to continue being an idiot.

YOu can bitch all you want.. but you cant show me any numbers to the contrary... Which is less then the Union support... and much less then the black % ...

I have already shown that over 40% of the population is clearly diehard fundies, trolling dipshit. And your stats are irrelevant to the subject under discussion, as I have already pointed out.

[Terminator]

It's not my fault so many blacks commit MULTIPLE crimes and thereby remove themselves from the voting pool.

black people are disproportionatly sharged with crimes, often for things they never did. hell i once called 911 cause this short fat white dude tried breakin into my house. After giving my description of who did it a cop rolled up with a pair of tall skinny black kids and asked if they did it. if you don't think racism is rampant then you're either lieing to yourself, aren't paying attention or are racist yourself.

one of the major problems in my opinion is police are screened to make sure they aren't too intelligent. with such a policy in place its hardly suprising that criminal apprehension should be replaced with tracking down scape goats. And such an idiot force is ilequiped to fight white collar crimes, you need accountants to even know such things are going on

[Stormbringer]

It's not my fault so many blacks commit MULTIPLE crimes and thereby remove themselves from the voting pool.

black people are disproportionatly sharged with crimes,

Largely as a result of them committing a disproportionately large percentage of crimes, especially violent felonies.

often for things they never did.

You mean like OJ, Kobe Bryant, or Michael Jackson? Or do you have something more substantial to back it?

hell i once called 911 cause this short fat white dude tried breakin into my house. After giving my description of who did it a cop rolled up with a pair of tall skinny black kids and asked if they did it. if you don't think racism is rampant then you're either lieing to yourself, aren't paying attention or are racist yourself.

Nice that you confuse anecdotes with evidence.

one of the major problems in my opinion is police are screened to make sure they aren't too intelligent. with such a policy in place its hardly suprising that criminal apprehension should be replaced with tracking down scape goats. And such an idiot force is ilequiped to fight white collar crimes, you need accountants to even know such things are going on

Any evidence at all that police departments set out deliberately to get the dumb ones?

[Terminator]

have you ever heard of the term racial profiling?

http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/205/205lect06.htm is where you can see
(2) Arrest statistics -- black males have a lifetime probability of arrest of 51% while white males only a 14% probability.
(3) Prejudice during encounter -- black officers are involved in more encounters that involve violence (22%) than white officers (13%)
(4) Police brutality -- off duty incidents are higher for black officers, they receive more citizen complaints, and they say the review process is racist also
(5) Deadly force -- 60% of those killed by police are black, but income inequality, not number of "hot shots" assigned to high-crime areas, is the best predictor of police violence.

the below was found at http://reason.com/0108/fe.gc.the.shtml

Although some observers claim that racial profiling doesn't exist, there is an abundance of stories and statistics that document the practice. One case where law enforcement officers were particularly bold in their declaration of intent involved U.S. Forest Service officers in California's Mendocino National Forest last year. In an attempt to stop marijuana growing, forest rangers were told to question all Hispanics whose cars were stopped, regardless of whether pot was actually found in their vehicles. Tim Crews, the publisher of the Sacramento Valley Mirror, a biweekly newspaper, published a memo
he'd gotten from a federal law enforcement officer. The memo told park rangers "to develop probable cause for stop...if a vehicle stop is conducted and no marijuana is located and the vehicle has Hispanics inside, at a minimum we would like all individuals FI'd [field interrogated]

if i bothe rto find more evidence i'll post it


as for the police intelligence thing while i'm havving difficulty finding the report at the moment very recently there was a high profile case of somebody sueing a police department for denying his acceptance because he scored to high on his intelligence exams. Also aptitude tests (those things guidance counselors give you to tell you what you should be) won't suggest you for policing if youare too intelligent because of the repetative nature of the job. though i would think its because intelligent people think things through before taking orders.

as for my ancedotal evidence, i provide it because i have a plethora to give. In my home state i can tell you white people are almost never pulled over. I've been in cars that have performed illegal u-turns and any other examples of sheer stupidity in front of cops and nothing happens, meanwhile my black freinds have all been pulled over multiple times, either because of extremly minor traffic violations or nothing at all.
When i bought my machete i drove with it in my hands on a bike and was passed by no less then 3 cop cars and even passed a police station and didn't even merit a second look, try an experiment and ask a black person to do that and see how fast they get shot and arrested

[Stormbringer]

have you ever heard of the term racial profiling?

http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/205/205lect06.htm is where you can see
(2) Arrest statistics -- black males have a lifetime probability of arrest of 51% while white males only a 14% probability.

Which makes sense given that black males are unfortuantely far, far more likely to be involved in gangs and other criminal activities. When the average black male is 200% or so more likely to involved in a felony then that arrest statistic proves nothing but the police are doing their job.

I'll lay this out simple: Black males are disproprotionately more likely to be arrested because they're disproportionately more likely to be committing crimes.

(3) Prejudice during encounter -- black officers are involved in more encounters that involve violence (22%) than white officers (13%)

Which proves what? Unless you're trying to prove that those black officers are self loath racists all that suggests is that predominately black neigborhoods are more dangerous. Given American inter-cities that's not exactly news.

(4) Police brutality -- off duty incidents are higher for black officers, they receive more citizen complaints, and they say the review process is racist also

Again, which proves what?

(5) Deadly force -- 60% of those killed by police are black, but income inequality, not number of "hot shots" assigned to high-crime areas, is the best predictor of police violence.

Which tells us that poor neighborhoods (which not incidentally have the worst gang problems) are more likely to be the scenes of violence. Color me stunned.



Right now you've failed utterly to prove that there's some evil racist conspiracy to deny blacks their vote. All this is is touting a bunch of statics and claiming that because there's a disparity it proves something.

Although some observers claim that racial profiling doesn't exist, there is an abundance of stories and statistics that document the practice.

Can we say hasty generalization?

as for the police intelligence thing while i'm havving difficulty finding the report at the moment very recently there was a high profile case of somebody sueing a police department for denying his acceptance because he scored to high on his intelligence exams. Also aptitude tests (those things guidance counselors give you to tell you what you should be) won't suggest you for policing if youare too intelligent because of the repetative nature of the job. though i would think its because intelligent people think things through before taking orders.

Well, when you actually prove it get back to me.

as for my ancedotal evidence, i provide it because i have a plethora to give.

Again, irrelevant.