Creative use of polling
TPM points out that Andrea Mitchell last night claimed that Pelosi's ratings were has bad as Hastert's had been before the elections.
Unfortunately, that's not quite true. Pelosi's job approval rating is around 53% at the moment: last October, Hastert only had 31% who said he should keep his post.
4 comments:
Actually, the phrase Mitchell used was "not much above"
I don't have a dog in this hunt, to use a Carville phrase, really.
Personally, I would suspect that any approval ratings on the Speaker of the House are bogus anyway because more than half of Americans don't even know who that is or what they do (sadly).
Today, though, there was more heinous poll twisting going on that I will blog on once I have my facts more in order. You'll love this one.
Uh oh. I agree with Gonzo here (on the fact that most people probably don't know who she is, so the poll *might* be bogus). It depends on how the questions were asked, of course.
Dead on, Susie.
Selective poll interpretation has bothered me for years. The media seizes upon one question and uses that to make a point.
For example, there was a recent poll about Iraq. One of the questions was if one thought things were getting better or worse in Iraq. The majority said "worse". The media used that response to say most Americans supported the Democratic position.
Now, I would have also answered "yes" and there's no way in hell I support the Dem position.
Gonz wrote: "The media used that response to say most Americans supported the Democratic position."
Uh, no -
pollingreport.com
"If you had to choose, which do you think is better for the U.S. -- to keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years, or to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time?"
Stick to a timetable: 57%
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