Resisting The Conventional Wisdom On Polls: It's Possible!

Last week, Adam Nagourney was in the news after the Times reporter, in response to an email from TPM's Greg Sargent, wet his pants over the Obama campaign treating him "like a political opponent." Oh, what a hoedown was heard, emanating from the world's tiniest violins! Still, if Ad Nags is looking for a clue as to why he hasn't yet earned the favor of the Obama campaign, maybe it's because he continues to peddle in this sort of claptrap:

It is a question that has hovered over Senator Barack Obama even as he has passed milestone after milestone in his race for the White House: Why is he not doing better?

Yes. Exactly. Obama's enjoyed leads in the vast majority of national tracking polls, which is, of course, terrible news for the Obama campaign. Now, I'm all in favor of far less attention being paid to tracking polls, but if they must remain a fixture, no one should have to tolerate the media assigning artificial constructs to these metrics that set out to prove that leading in a poll is a disadvantage. If someone in the press knows precisely where Obama's numbers should be at this very moment, they need to reveal their sources, or quit pretending to be so damned sure about it.

Since Obama has returned from his overseas gallivanting, there have been all manner of variations on the "Tragically, Obama's Consistent Success Dooms Him" theme. I've heard a number of these commenters suggest that the overseas trip, without question, should have boosted Obama's share in the polling to over 50%. I have no earthly idea where they got this idea! One cannot observe this magical travel-the-world-and-get-the-fifty-percent-bounce phenomenon occurring in nature. The very fact that McCain's campaign/CODEL trips to Iraq, Europe, Canada, and Colombia failed to yield this sort of bounce should be proof enough that the theory is one of those things that emanates from the general vicinity of one's derriere.

Nevertheless, the "Obama failed to hit fifty percent" meme has been just as prevalent and undefeatable as the "Why isn't Obama doing even better than he is" meme. Of course, to play that game, you have to ignore the polls that do yield those results, such as the forgotten Research 2000 poll of July 27 that has Obama...wait for it -- above fifty percent! And beating McCain by twelve points!

But my larger problem with the poll talk is that all the magical thinking and furtive suppositions seem to only apply to doomsaying in the direction of Barack Obama. Last time I checked, there was another name mentioned in all this polling: John McCain. And yesterday, whilst watching The Race For The White House, my jaw dropped as finally, one of these pundits actually decided to acknowledge this.

Credit goes to Michael Smerconish, who said:

SMERCONISH: Anecdotally, what I see from this trip based on folks with whom I speak--e-mails, telephone calls from listeners--is that it was a reinforcement. If you liked him, as he was headed in that direction, you really like him now. If you didn't like him before he went over, perhaps thought that he was pompous, that view was reinforced.

Initially, the polling data suggested that maybe he wasn't going to get a bump and that there was a countermeasure, a counterweight to that trip. But now, the Gallup survey suggests it was a win. I think it was a win.

By the way, one thing about Novak's piece, which I thought was well written, I read it and I said, "Well, yes. Well, yes. Well, yes." But then again, explain to me why McCain is stagnant in the low 40s.

Indeed! I should very much like Adam Nagourney to dedicate his next article to a lengthy explanation of how McCain's low poll numbers place him at such a sizable electoral advantage.