Polling Data, Presidential Election

From the Althouse blog we have this post:  "The window is narrowing for Romney, and he’s in deep, deep trouble."  This is a quote from Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who worked on the POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll.  Frankly, the Althouse post is all about being snarky about Ms Lake.  By the way, did you hear where Rep Barney Frank was calling Senator Scott Brown snarky.  Barney Frank thinks Scott Brown is snarky?

But, back to our story, Ms Lake says:

Ultimately, people don’t like this guy.  If they don’t like someone, it’s hard to get people to vote for him — particularly to fire someone they do like.

I have fired someone I liked, over someone I didn't like as much—it was my choice.

Sure, we don't feel all warm and fuzzy about Governor Romeny.  He is not Greta Garbo.  On the other hand, we feel that this is our hope for change in the nation.  If this is about the fact that we didn't like Romney and liked Obama, why are the numbers stalled where they are?  I know; it is too early in the campaign for the numbers to solidify.

In the mean time, Professor Althouse notes that:

Only 23% of likely voters think the killing of Christopher Stevens was a "spontaneous reactions to an anti-Islamic video."  57% say it was "planned in advance."  And 85% "believe it is likely that terrorists were involved."

The Professor then extracts from the article this interesting item:

Younger voters are far less convinced than their elders that the protests at U.S. embassies in the Middle East have been planned in advance.  Female voters are not as sure of that as male voters are.

Well, actually, that seems to conflate the Embassy demonstration and the murder of our Ambassador to Libya and three of his companions.

I think people are still wrestling with the facts, as they come pouring trickling in.  But, given that the half-life of a political memory is 90 days, we are now inside the window of maximum retained memory.

Rush, just now, said he thinks the polls are just putting us on an "emotional roller coaster", which is designed to suppress Republican voting.  You pays your money and you picks your dog whistle.

But, new polling comes forward all the time, such as UnSkewed Polls.  On the other hand, In Trade has Romney at 29.4 and Obama at 70.8.  While it is crowd sourcing, it is probably a limited crowd.

Check back with me in November and I will tell you how it all came out.

Regards  —  Cliff