Unlikely Voter

It’s not really news, but people who write often on polls in the offseason do need to find things to write about. So that’s why we have the hubbub about a recent CNN/Time poll which did not grapple with the issue of polling cellular phones. Due to federal law, polling cellular phones requires that either phones be manually dialed, or that surveys be manually conducted. Entirely automated systems of calling cellular phones are illegal.

Pollsters that don’t adapt, will fail.

I’m not the only one who’s been skeptical of Nate Silver’s dogged attacks on Rasmussen Reports, demanding that they open up their secret sauce just because the firm’s results are less favorable to his preferred political party than other pollsters’ results are.

Mark Blumenthal is on the case, esposing what is fundamentally a hypocritical position by Silver and his site, fivethirtyeight.com.

Research 2000 very much wants you to know that they do polls for newspapers in St. Louis, Lexington, Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Reno. They don’t want you to think of them primarily as doing polls for left-wing activist outlets Daily Kos and now Democracy for America, the group founded to continue the work of former Presidential candidate Howard Dean.

Someone should tell Daily Kos and Nate Silver this though, as they beat the wardrums against R2k competitor Rasmussen Reports, that R2k is trying to look less partisan, not more.