Gallup: Limbaugh’s Claim That We’re Deliberately Oversampling Blacks Is “Complete Fabrication”
The Gallup organization is pushing back hard on an ugly new attack from Rush Limbaugh, who said today that Gallup is oversampling blacks in a deliberate effort to keep Obama’s daily tracking approval from dropping below 50%.
“It is a complete fabrication,” Gallup spokesman Eric Nielsen emails me.
On the air today, Rush questioned why other polls have shown Obama dropping below 50%, while Gallup’s daily tracking poll has him flatlining at exactly that number.
“Gallup has it just teetering there,” Rush said. “And they’re doing everything they can — they’re upping the sample of black Americans to keep him up at 50%.”
A look at the methodology of Gallup’s tracking poll, though, shows how unlikely this really is. Gallup interviews 1,000 randomly selected adults daily, then weighs the data each day to match “targets from the U.S. Census Bureau by age, sex, region, gender, education, ethnicity, and race.”
So for Rush’s charge to be true, Gallup officials would have to be actively stacking the sample, along racial lines, for no other reason than to prevent Obama from dropping below 50%. “This has been our methodology since Jan 2008 and it has not changed,” Nielsen adds.
Of course, it’s always possible that Gallup has been infiltrated by an army of ACORN workers who are holding Gallup officials hostage in a last ditch effort to game Obama’s numbers in this one poll to prevent his presidency from going under.
This blog doesn’t make a habit of flagging Rush’s every lurid utterance. But even by Rush’s standards, this one is such a casually reckless smear, so nonchalant in its play on racially-charged paranoia about this president, that it really deserves to be flagged as a reminder of where we are today.
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Three words: slander per se.
If one takes all the letters from the name “Gallup” and shuffle them about, there is no combination which can spell “Acorn”. Why have they gone to so much trouble to ensure no one makes a connection between the two?
Liwbaw is a vile, corpulent pustule. I wish this evil, demented oaf a terminal case of crabs and scabies.
Seldom has such a despicable, loathsome tumor roamed this earth. The karmic backlash against him will be FEARSOME. Remember that when it all comes down around him.
“Of course, it’s always possible that Gallup has been infiltrated by an army of ACORN workers who are holding Gallup officials hostage in a last ditch effort to game Obama’s numbers in this one poll to prevent his presidency from going under.”
Yeah Greg, since Acorn stole the election for Obama they must be everywhere now, wonder when they’ll start infiltrating Wall Street, that’s what I’m waiting for.
A bit off OT but what the heck…
Rupert Murdoch lying through his teeth http://mediamatters.org/blog/200911190028
Love ya Greg. This was snark as art.
Isn’t funny that for these conservatives nothing Obama ever does is actually a reflection of reality but simply ‘given’ to him? I guess we know how they feel about a reality that does not reflect their own prejudices…
Greg are you sure you got Rush’s quote correct? He must have said…
“Gallup has it just teetering there,” Rush said. “And they’re doing everything they can — they’re upping the sample of black Americans, latinos, asians, women, young people gay people heck everyone but old southern white guys.”
I also find it funny that he focuses on Gallup instead of CBS, ABC, etc where Obama just this week is at 54, 56. Ah nothing like selective focus. I guess Rass ridiculous poll is not enough to prove Obama is Teh Loser, even for him.
Keep in mind this is about Rush not SP, I’m not going back on my boycott, really. Rush said yesterday that her memoir was “one of the most substantive policy books I’ve read”. It’s true I heard him say it.
Imsinca…how can you stand to listen? I mean I respect your desire to hear all sides but really…there is sooo much hate and vitriol coming from that man that I feel slimy even after watching a short clip of him in action.
My Glen Beck loving mom asked if I ever watched..I’d be impressed..I had to honestly say…only for a few minutes…it’s all I can stand.
ruk
It’s really hard, I don’t listen to his show but I catch clips later of him, Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly. I grew up on stuff like that, so I like to see and hear what I’m arguing against. Believe me, I don’t overdue it though.
Stay classy, Rush.
Happy hour roundup posted, all:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/economy/happy-hour-roundup-116/
Edit: I meant to say last week when I heard Rush talk about SP’s book, sorry another brain f a r t .
Greg! This the paragraph below is where I lost it! Hysterical and extremely paranoid. That about sums it up. I saw this on media matters this morning and laughed out loud. As an African American female from New Jersey, I can tell you that NO ONE called me! Maybe I’m not black? Maybe I’m not even really typing this right now???????? help me!
“Of course, it’s always possible that Gallup has been infiltrated by an army of ACORN workers who are holding Gallup officials hostage in a last ditch effort to game Obama’s numbers in this one poll to prevent his presidency from going under.”
There’s a disturbing number of right wingers that want to return to the days of counting certain people as three fifths (3/5ths) of people.
Right winger “quarterback’s” favorite ally has literally said he wants to cut America up into pieces and return to the days of slavery.
That kind of bigoted militant extremism is an increasingly active part of the right wing.
Worse, that militant right wing extremism seems to increasingly control the much of the Republican leadership.
Republican leader Limbaugh’s casual racism is part of what has made him so popular on the right.
If the Republican Party weren’t so beholden to the racist extremists animating the core of the Republican Party, there we would be a chorus of Republican leaders calling Limbaugh out for this.
But the core of the Republican Party IS beholden to racist extremists and so can’t call them out.
Consider how right winger’s count people:
“[Right winger Byron] York: Obama is “Actually” Not So Popular, Because Some People Who Like Him Are Black”
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/york-obama-is-actually-not-so-popular-because-some-people-who-like-him-are-black.php
The HuffingtonPost summed it up:
“[Right winger] Byron York: Obama Not So Popular If You Don’t Count Blacks”
And don’t forget how Florida Republican Governor Jeb Bush’s team systematically purged thousands of black’s from voter rolls in 2000 so that their votes wouldn’t be counted.
I think most libel/slander suits are a joke, but if I were Gallup, I’d seriously consider suing Limbaugh over this one. This is no different from maliciously or negligently claiming that the corner supermarket is deliberately selling beef tainted with mad cow disease.
Gee, I remember when MoveOn.org made almost the same complaint about Gallup sampling during the 2004 election.
Gallup skews to Obama not by oversampling blacks but by polling Adults — a worthless practice. Only samples of likely voters are worth anything.