Skierman is exactly the type of person the government has been manipulating over time. A person who thinks everything is just A ok in the world. He doesnt ever question the government, he just will let them run his life for him. Every decision they make is for your best interest right Skierman? Everyone who doesnt agree with the gov is psycho!! I want the gov to decide whats best for me until I die!!
That basically sums up everyone of your political posts on NS from the beginning of time.
Well this post basically owns your statement. Although Paul got fifth, you have to actually analyze the numbers to come to any inclusions. Rather than watching your stupid Tv and then Saying "LOL Fifth!!", you need to do your homework son. Prepare to be vaporized.
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/articles/ames-straw-poll-results.html
What the Media Should Report About the Ames Straw Poll
8/12/07
Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul Were Clear Winners, Mitt Romney Was a Loser
"Often, however, the media do not actually interpret poll
results, but instead present simple, straightforward descriptive
statements about them... Measures of association, correlation analysis,
and multivariate statistical analyses are virtually nonexistent" -
Asher, Ohio State University
I would first like to congratulate Mitt Romney for his impressive
win at the Ames Straw Poll before I start criticizing him and tell you
what the media is not reporting.
Candidate
Official Vote Count
Percentage
Mitt Romney
4516
31.5%
Mike Huckabee
2587
18.0%
Sam Brownback
2192
15.3%
Tom Tancredo
1961
13.7%
Ron Paul
1305
9.1%
Tommy Thompson
1039
7.2%
Fred Thompson
203
1.4%
Rudy Giuliani
183
1.2%
Duncan Hunter
174
1.2%
John McCain
101
0.7%
John Cox
41
0.3%
When you consider all the money Romney had spent in order to win the
Ames Straw Poll, he did not do well at all. I do not know the actual
dollar amount spent by the Romney campaign but I think it would be safe
to say that it was on the order of hundreds per vote. But Romney is a
smart businessman, he understands that winning this event will generate
tons of free positive media attention worth far more than the petty
millions he spent for Ames.
I cannot give the Romney campaign the win here today because his 31%
at Ames is already close to the 27% he got in the University of Iowa
poll earlier this month. Compare that to Mike Huckabee who got only 3%
in that same poll getting 18% here.
What's even worse for Romney is the fact that Giuliani, McCain,
Gingrich, and Fred Thompson were not even vying for votes at the Ames
Straw Poll yet they are included in the polls that have Romney in the
high-20s. And add to that the fact that 20% of Republican voters are
undecided and you should have had a slam dunk by Romney by at least a
5:1 margin over his next closest competitor.
Actual Results - of the Latest Iowa Polls
Candidate
Univ. of Iowa
ABC News
ARG
Research 2000
Mitt Romney
27%
26%
21%
25%
Rudy Giuliani
11%
14%
22%
13%
Fred Thompson
7%
13%
13%
14%
Tom Tancredo
4%
5%
1%
2%
Sam Brownback
4%
5%
1%
2%
John McCain
3%
8%
17%
10%
Mike Huckabee
3%
8%
1%
2%
Tommy Thompson
-
4%
2%
2%
Ron Paul
-
2%
1%
1%
Duncan Hunter
-
1%
2%
1%
Newt Gingrich
-
-
4%
6%
Unsure
31%
7%
15%
22%
Other
10%
1%
-
-
None of these
-
4%
-
-
So what we did is we took the last 4 poll results and removed all
the votes for Giuliani, McCain, F. Thompson, Gingrich, and the
Undecideds and divvied up the rest of the votes to see the percentage.
Normalized Results - Removing Giuliani, McCain, F. Thompson, Gingrich, and Undecideds
Candidate
Univ. of Iowa
ABC News
ARG
Research 2000
Mitt Romney
71%
51%
72.4%
71.4%
Tom Tancredo
10.5%
9.8%
3.4%
5.7%
Sam Brownback
10.5%
9.8%
3.4%
5.7%
Mike Huckabee
7.9%
15.7%
3.4%
5.7%
Tommy Thompson
0%
7.8%
6.9%
5.7%
Ron Paul
0%
3.9%
3.4%
2.9%
Duncan Hunter
0%
2.0%
6.9%
2.9%
Percent of Total Poll
38%
51%
29%
35%
Flaws. The flaw with this is the error in assuming
that voters who favor those candidates we had removed would be
distributed across the rest of the candidates in the exact same
proportions. The same would be true of the way the votes would spread
out with the undecideds and the decideds. The last flaw is that by
removing votes you decrease the sample size which results in a grossly
high margin of error as much as 9%.
Despite all of that, 3 out of the 4 polls suggest that Romney would
be getting 71-72%. And by averaging all of those normalized averages,
we correctly predict the Top 4 finishers in exactly the same order they
came in.
Candidate
Combined Normalized Average
Straw Poll Average
Percent Gain
Net Gain
Mitt Romney
66%
31.5%
NEGATIVE
-34.5
Mike Huckabee
8.2%
18.0%
220&
+9.8
Sam Brownback
7.4%
15.3%
207%
+7.9
Tom Tancredo
7.4%
13.7%
185%
+6.3
Tommy Thompson
5.1%
7.2%
141%
+2.1
Ron Paul
2.6%
9.1%
350%
+6.5
Duncan Hunter
3.9%
1.2%
NEGATIVE
-2.7
According to this estimate, Romney should have had an 8:1 margin of
victory over his next closest competitor. In fact, I heard some
analysts that made this exact conclusion.. they probably did something
very similar to me to get their prediction.
I think the pundits that claimed Romney's win would be very
comfortable hurt him in this Straw Poll. Much like when Clinton went
for reelection in 1996 and all the pollsters claimed an easy Clinton
victory, many voters were apathetic and just stayed home on election
day. The same could have been true of Romney's supporters expecting a
very comfortable win.
There is also the the likelihood that the Unsure voters flocked
towards the other candidates (not Romney) in a larger proportion than
the decideds did. That is very likely because whenever there is a race
between a very well known candidate and someone less known, a voter
being Undecided is usually a No vote to the well known candidate. The
other unknown is how the Giuliani, McCain, Thompson, and Gingrich
voters distributed across the other candidates. They may have supported
Huckabee, Brownback, and Tancredo at a higher rate than they did Romney.
In looking at these results, Romney did more than a factor of 2
worse than expected as per the Combined Normalized Average (CNA). He
was a big loser.
Mike Huckabee more than doubled his expected CNA and is obviously
the true winner at the Straw Poll. Brownback and Tancredo had similar
jumps but coming in third and fourth is about as good as kissing your
sister.
Tommy Thompson barely moved up compared to the CNA thus he was
clearly a loser. He has continuously said that unless he gets second
place finish at the Straw Poll, he will not continue on with the
campaign. Well sayonara Tommy because not only did you not do well but
you finished sixth place.
Ron Paul showed a 350% improvement over his CNA at the straw poll
and is clearly the second winner at the event. It is easy to show such
a marked up win when you are only averaging about 2-3% in the polls but
his polling average has been 50% lower than Duncan Hunter yet he wiped
the floor of Hunter by a factor of 8. He had a raw net gain in
percentage more than Tom Tancredo.
Ron Paul supporters should be very proud of his performance here. It
may be reported as a horrendous performance because he came in fifth
place but when you consider he was not even included in many polls just
a few months ago and his poor polling numbers thus far have been
keeping him down, 10% here is great.
Herbert Asher, a Political Science professor at Ohio State
University, said that "continuing coverage of long-term trends, and
background news is often neglected" by the media. The background news
in this story is simple:
- Romney did not do well, his supporters may have stayed home expecting an easy win.
- Huckabee and Ron Paul soared above all expectations and are on the way up.
- Duncan Hunter and Tommy Thompson should drop out of the race.
I think Ron Paul's above expectations performance is a result of the
underdog theory in reporting of polls. The concept that when supporters
see their candidate down in the polls, they support him with greater
angst.
With Mike Huckabee, I think the above expectations performance will
have far greater impact on the presidential race than anything else.
Look at the front runners: Romney is a mormon, Giuliani has been
divorced and dressed in drag, McCain is old and dropping... Huckabee
has set himself as the clear alternative choice. He had polled as high
as 8% in Iowa (ABC News Poll) and will likely see himself in double
digits in the next poll. In the next few months, it is going to be
interesting to see if Huckabee can oust Romney. My perception is that
once voters believe Huckabee can win, some of them will drop the Romney
campaign for Huckabee. Because essentially a vote for Romney is a vote
for traditional christian conservative values that Huckabee brings to
the table.
Call this spin or whatever else you want but this is my interpretation of the data. Leave your comments below.
