[THS] Get ready for pres McCain

[Peter Webster]

Get ready for pres McCain.

Clinton's Win in Pennsylvania Leaves Party Reeling
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042308J.shtml David Lightman
reports for McClatchy Newspapers, "Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania victory
means that the Democratic Party's eventual nominee will be badly
bruised and could have a tough time rallying the party in the fall."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's an email from Dave Griscom, including a brief analysis, by
Jonathan Simon, of the PA exit polls.

NB that both Dave and Jonathan have essays in Loser Take All.

MCM

>From Dave Griscom:

The following e-mail I received just today is cast in arcane language
since it was addressed to people who have some appreciation for exit
polls (EPs) and statistical margins of error (MOEs), but in summary what
this great mind has deduced from careful study of the facts is this:
Comparing the PA exit polls with the official PA vote count shows clearly
that this primary was stolen (with some complicity by the exit pollsters)
just sufficiently to keep Hillary in the race:

"With 99% pcts reporting, voila! we have Hillary at that magic 10%
plateau (55% - 45%). Recall that unadjusted EPs had it at Clinton
51.6% Obama 47.8%--a very different outcome in terms of race
dynamics, and the red shift is just at the edge of the EP's MOE
(meaning that you really wouldn't expect it to be that far out, but it's
not statistically impossible).

"But wait, as they say on late-night tv, there's more: Remember the age
breakdown of that first EP (10% 18-29, 17% 30-44, 73% 45+)? That is
an older electorate than I have ever seen, even in FL or AZ; and of
course older skews toward Clinton, so even that first exit poll looks as if
it probably heavily oversampled Clinton voters. (Actually, what they did
was, however they actually sampled, they just weighted the responses
to those bizarre age demographics, which has the effect of boosting the
apparent Clinton vote in the process.)

"So what happened to all those young and first-time voters that we
were told were turning out in droves? Do we really believe that three
out of every four voters was 45 or older?? For that matter, do we really
believe that 59% of the voters were women (although this is somewhat
less bizarre)? What it adds up to is an initial EP that looks as if it was
demographically weighted to increase the Clinton vote (a kind of pre-
adjustment, which is a new wrinkle of sorts), and yet that still fell a full
MOE short of the 'actual vote.' One can only imagine what the
discrepancy would have been with an honest EP!

"Conclusion: The rigging continues unabated, and the strategic purpose
is quite clearly to make sure Obama never sets foot in the White House.
Clinton will now trumpet her resurgence (with her 'double-digit victory')
and so will go after the superdelegates with a vengeance. If they wind
up supporting her in spite of Obama's lead in pledged delegates, the
general election is OVER, end of story. Even if they don't, the story will
be how the Dems squandered their advantage with an ugly internecine
battle; pre-election polls--which have begun to be fudged to anticipate
the fact that the vote-counts are always red-shifted (the pollsters do
want to stay in business)--will reflect the Dems' woes, and McCain's
'victory' (all conventional wisdom tells us a Republican can win the
White House in '08, even if he runs against Mickey Mouse, but. . .) will
be plausible ("The Dems blew it'), and supported by the pre-election
polls (with their Red +8% fudge factors) and, of course, the pre-
adjusted EPs. It all might well pull Congress back, too.

"So bend over, folks. Here it comes."

--Jonathan


Dave

David L. Griscom