rickyp wrote:steve, you're quoting Rasmussen?

Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA Performed Strongly

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued

source:http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/

You're quoting Silver?

Beyond that, not to use your own post against you, but I will.

First, note the following:

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research . . .

A subsidiary doesn't necessarily mean that in all cases it did things quite the same way. I'm not quoting Pulse, but Rasmussen. Now, you have no problem with him when Obama's ahead, only when he's not. I get it. However, the fact that Pulse says they use Rasmussen's methodology is not the same as saying the two are the same entity.

Now, as for the "record" error in Hawaii: 1) Rasmussen murphed it; 2) therefore, he's wrong about Romney? 3) is there a logic to your rambling? No.

Do you like Gallup?



A little later, Gallup notes:

If Americans chose their president solely on the basis of the fit between their own ideological views and their perceptions of the candidates' views, Huntsman, Romney, and Paul would be in the best position for the 2012 election. While a close ideological fit is clearly a political asset, many other factors go into selecting a president, including evaluations of national conditions, such as the economy, the performance of the president and his party, and the platform each candidate is running on.

Indeed, Obama's mean ideology rating four years ago was 2.5, essentially the same as now, and he was perceived to be slightly more liberal (with a score of 2.2) immediately before the election. Americans' own ideology ratings in December 2007 (3.2) and October 2008 (3.3) were essentially the same as now, and closer to John McCain's (3.4 in December 2007 and 3.7 in October 2008) than Obama's.

Also, the data make clear that Americans are not highly familiar with the views of the leading Republican candidates at this point -- at least one in seven cannot rate even the best known candidate (Romney), and at this point there is little differentiation in the views of the Republican candidates by party.

This both supports what I've been saying that Americans are basically conservative AND that they don't know much about even Romney.

YOU are the one who cites the relevance of head-to-head polls. I don't think they are all that relevant, other than they show a lack of strength for Obama. He ought to be well ahead of the unknowns running against him. I only point to the Rasmussen poll to make that point--Obama is not ahead of the Republican most likely to win the nomination. You don't like Rasmussen because he missed one Senate race. Okay. Fine. Let's talk Presidential election polls.

Do you, Mr. Polls, know who was THE MOST ACCURATE in 2008?

Yeah, Rasmussen, tied with Pew.

Deal with it.

steve

You're quoting Silver?

yes. but all silver is doing is looking at how polling companies performed versus actual election results...
that is after all, what the intent of polling to predict the outcome.
And rasmussen has been lousy, because it over samples the Republican universe giving it a republican bias. In every election.

RickyP, are you refuting the results of the Fordham study? If so, what are your facts based upon something other than how you feel. I want DATA please.

bbauska, I'm certainly not refuting the 2008 Fordham study based on how I feel. I'm noting that the source poll for Steve is a nortoriously biased pollster based on a study done in detail by Nate Silver.
Perhaps you didn't go on to read his analysis?
Here it is:

If one focused solely on the final poll issued by Rasmussen Reports or Pulse Opinion Research in each state — rather than including all polls within the three-week interval — it would not have made much difference. Their average error would be 5.7 points rather than 5.8, and their average bias 3.8 points rather than 3.9.

Nor did it make much difference whether the polls were branded as Rasmussen Reports surveys, or instead, were commissioned for Fox News by its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research. (Both sets of surveys used an essentially identical methodology.) Polls branded as Rasmussen Reports missed by an average of 5.9 points and had a 3.9 point bias. The polls it commissioned on behalf of Fox News had a 5.1 point error, and a 3.6 point bias.

Rasmussen’s polls have come under heavy criticism throughout this election cycle, including from FiveThirtyEight. We have critiqued the firm for its cavalier attitude toward polling convention. Rasmussen, for instance, generally conducts all of its interviews during a single, 4-hour window; speaks with the first person it reaches on the phone rather than using a random selection process; does not call cellphones; does not call back respondents whom it misses initially; and uses a computer script rather than live interviewers to conduct its surveys. These are cost-saving measures which contribute to very low response rates and may lead to biased samples.

Rasmussen also weights their surveys based on preordained assumptions about the party identification of voters in each state, a relatively unusual practice that many polling firms consider dubious since party identification (unlike characteristics like age and gender) is often quite fluid.

Rasmussen’s polls — after a poor debut in 2000 in which they picked the wrong winner in 7 key states in that year’s Presidential race — nevertheless had performed quite strongly in in 2004 and 2006. And they were about average in 2008. But their polls were poor this year.

The discrepancies between Rasmussen Reports polls and those issued by other companies were apparent from virtually the first day that Barack Obama took office. Rasmussen showed Barack Obama’s disapproval rating at 36 percent, for instance, just a week after his inauguration, at a point when no other pollster had that figure higher than 20 percent.

Rasmussen Reports has rarely provided substantive responses to criticisms about its methodology. At one point, Scott Rasmussen, president of the company, suggested that the differences it showed were due to its use of a likely voter model. A FiveThirtyEight analysis, however, revealed that its bias was at least as strong in polls conducted among all adults, before any model of voting likelihood had been applied.

bbauska wrote:RickyP, are you refuting the results of the Fordham study? If so, what are your facts based upon something other than how you feel. I want DATA please.

Ricky is too much of a (fill in with derogatory epithet) to address the truths in the Fordham study. There is no other explanation.

Rasmussen and Pew tied for the MOST ACCURATE of the 2012 Presidential Race. So, what's Ricky's response? "Well, he sure messed up the Hawaiian Senatorial race."

Um, yeah, but what about 2008? "Well, he sure messed up the Hawaiian Senatorial race."

What's your data for refuting the Fordham study? "Well, he sure messed up the Hawaiian Senatorial race."

Grow up, Ricky. That is my wish for you for 2012.

You're a real Christian Steve.

Read again what I wrote to Bbauska

I'm certainly not refuting the 2008 Fordham study based on how I feel. I'm noting that the source poll for Steve is a nortoriously biased pollster based on a study done in detail by Nate Silver.

If you want to tear apart Nates analysis try. He's offering a lot of specificty and if you follow the link a ton of data detail.
There isn't much on offer of the Fordham study by way of explanation. But I'll note that it was 2008, (not 2012) that Silver also acknowledged that in 2008 Rasmussen had "average" accuracy.
What he's using are results of the last election cycle. And he's also illustrating the bias with his illustration of the way Rasmussen is so often the outlier on comparative issues polling.
Would you care to show me where I said this? "So, what's Ricky's response? "Well, he sure messed up the Hawaiian Senatorial race."
I believe the mess Rasmussen made of Hawaii was a part of Silvers' indictment but hardly the core element. Rather that would be the cumulative effect of missing most predictions in the last elections, and almost all on one side of the final number.

Perhaps its telling that Rasmussen, through its subsidiary, recieves so much of its revenue from Fox News - especially since 2009.

rickyp wrote:You're a real Christian Steve.

Ricky, you're a real piece of work and Christians aren't perfect. We get frustrated too by people who are either dishonest or intentionally dense. I'm not sure which is the case with you. Maybe pictures would help? I'm going to try without pictures because I don't draw well, but I admit ahead of time that getting you to understand is futile. You are irrevocably immune to logic.

Read again what I wrote to Bbauska

I'm certainly not refuting the 2008 Fordham study based on how I feel. I'm noting that the source poll for Steve is a nortoriously biased pollster based on a study done in detail by Nate Silver.

If you want to tear apart Nates analysis try. He's offering a lot of specificty and if you follow the link a ton of data detail.
There isn't much on offer of the Fordham study by way of explanation. But I'll note that it was 2008, (not 2012) that Silver also acknowledged that in 2008 Rasmussen had "average" accuracy.

Now, let's see. You point to 2010 to discard 2012. Realistically, if you remove Hawaii from the average, I think he comes in a lot more respectably. Furthermore, you NEVER established an ongoing link for responsibility between Rasmussen and Pulse. Maybe there is one, but there is no reason for me to just take it on face value.

In any event, I point to 2008. Rasmussen's pre-election Presidential poll was the most accurate. Your response? I failed to debunk Silver's analysis of 2010.

I'll debunk Silver's 2008 analysis. He said, according to you, that Rasmussen was "average" in 2008. Well, when the Presidential election took place, he was #1. Feel free to debunk that.

What does that have to do with 2008? Do you know if the precise factors that led to the debacle in Hawaii still plague Rasmussen? Did he/they learn nothing? Do you have any evidence?

Btw, continually pointing to 2010 says little about 2012. What makes you think 2010 is more indicative than 2008? Do you have inside information that leads you to conclude one is more important than the other? And, no, what Nate Silver says bears no more weight than the Fordham study.

Can we talk about biases? Isn't Mr. Silver just a wee bit biased?

What he's using are results of the last election cycle. And he's also illustrating the bias with his illustration of the way Rasmussen is so often the outlier on comparative issues polling.
Would you care to show me where I said this? "So, what's Ricky's response? "Well, he sure messed up the Hawaiian Senatorial race."

That was what you highlighted from Silver, so please don't pretend that is not what you said.

Perhaps its telling that Rasmussen, through its subsidiary, recieves so much of its revenue from Fox News - especially since 2009.

Silver writes for the NYT. Perhaps that is telling.

Here's something else that is telling: you crow when Obama leads head-to-head match-ups, even though I've shown the numbers are not terribly meaningful at this point (see Reagan/Carter), but when Romney leads Obama, it's something that must be debunked by innuendo. And, yes, that's what Silver's analysis is. A poll's performance in any given year is not necessarily of what it will do two years earlier or later. I'm not saying he's spot on because of 2008. On the other hand, you are saying the numbers are not genuine and want me to prove that they are.

Forget you. My evidence comes next November. You know, that whole "election" thing. I look forward to your man Silver proclaiming he was right all along--Obama could not win.

RickyP,
First off, using Christianity as a derogatory put down is unacceptable. Please stop it.

Secondly, you claim that Rasmussen is out of line based upon minor races. We are NOT SPEAKING ABOUT MINOR RACES. Do you have evidence about Rasmussen being a poor polling agency based upon data when the poll is pertaining to the US Presidential election? The last one of them is 2008. Take a look at 2008, 2004, and even 2000.

Based upon your predictions in 2010, I would say that Rasmussen did much better than you did.

First off, using Christianity as a derogatory put down is unacceptable. Please stop it.

why was my use of it derogatory?

steve

Furthermore, you NEVER established an ongoing link for responsibility between Rasmussen and Pulse. Maybe there is one, but there is no reason for me to just take it on face value.

I accepted Silver's description. He's a known expert in the field and writes extensively. But sicne you doubt it...with absolutey no evidence for your doubt .... here's proof:

The answer (as reported earlier today by Political Wire) is that Pulse is a "field service" spun off of of Rasmussen Reports that conducts their well known automated, recorded-voice surveys. It also conducts polls for other clients including, as of today, Fox News. While the questions asked on specific surveys may differ, the underlying methodology used by Fox/Pulse and Rasmussen are essentially identical.

source:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/what_do_f ... n.php?nr=1

steve

I'll debunk Silver's 2008 analysis. He said, according to you, that Rasmussen was "average" in 2008. Well, when the Presidential election took place, he was #1. Feel free to debunk that.

I quoted him, and linked you to his extensive study. He shows tons of detail on how he analyzed things.
All I've found on the Fordham study is the one page summary. No explanation of how they arrived at their results...

Now why is the most recent history on poll results more important than earlier performance? Because they reflect the most recent iterations on sampling techniques, call methodology, and respondent sourcing... To use a base ball analogy, a life time 300 hitter who's last year he hits 230 .... whats more important? his last year or his past? Unless there is a very good explanation for why he went to 230 and a very good reason he's repaired the casue.....

For rasmussen, they've moved towards more robo calling,and they continue to weight their respondent pool to a higher republican content than other pollsters.What its done in the last two years is poorly prognosticate elections.... Period...

You're really over reacting here. All I'm pointing out to you is that you've appealed to a pollster who appears to have a bias . Does Silver have a bias? Based on what? He publishes all his daata, and his extrapolations... All he is is a stats geek.
Money ball.

It was sarcasm, and you know it. Your denying is silly.

rickyp wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:Furthermore, you NEVER established an ongoing link for responsibility between Rasmussen and Pulse. Maybe there is one, but there is no reason for me to just take it on face value.

I accepted Silver's description. He's a known expert in the field and writes extensively. But sicne you doubt it...with absolutey no evidence for your doubt .... here's proof:

The answer (as reported earlier today by Political Wire) is that Pulse is a "field service" spun off of of Rasmussen Reports that conducts their well known automated, recorded-voice surveys. It also conducts polls for other clients including, as of today, Fox News. While the questions asked on specific surveys may differ, the underlying methodology used by Fox/Pulse and Rasmussen are essentially identical.

source:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/what_do_f ... n.php?nr=1

Um, actually, that's not proof. "Proof" that there is "an ongoing link for responsibility between Rasmussen and Pulse" would mean more than " the underlying methodology used by Fox/Pulse and Rasmussen are essentially identical." No one can blame Pulse for Rasmussen or Rasmussen for Pulse. They are separate entities. That they use "essentially" the same methodology could describe, I suspect, several polls.

So, nice fail. Seriously, try introducing this as evidence in a court of law. You'd be laughed out of court.

Q: "What is the basis for saying there is an ongoing link between the two?"

A: "Here is my irrefutable proof: they use essentially the same methodology."

Q: "Are they business partners?"

A: "I don't know, but they do use essentially . . . "

Q: "Objection, non-responsive."

J: "Sustained."

Q: "Does Rasmussen supervise Pulse polls?"

A: "I don't know, but they do use essentially . . ."

Q: "Objection, non-responsive."

J: "Sustained, one more time Mr. Ricky and I'll throw the book at you."

non-responsive ricky wrote:

I'll debunk Silver's 2008 analysis. He said, according to you, that Rasmussen was "average" in 2008. Well, when the Presidential election took place, he was #1. Feel free to debunk that.

I quoted him, and linked you to his extensive study. He shows tons of detail on how he analyzed things.

Um, you quoted him as saying Rasmussen was "average" in 2008. There's a problem with that. He predicted the Presidential election as well as anyone did. Is that "average?" Maybe Silver is unfamiliar with the word?

All I've found on the Fordham study is the one page summary. No explanation of how they arrived at their results...

And, what is their error? Should be easy to debunk: if Rasmussen was not the closest on that election, then someone else was. Who was it and why did the Fordham study fail to uncover it?

Now why is the most recent history on poll results more important than earlier performance? Because they reflect the most recent iterations on sampling techniques, call methodology, and respondent sourcing... To use a base ball analogy, a life time 300 hitter who's last year he hits 230 .... whats more important? his last year or his past? Unless there is a very good explanation for why he went to 230 and a very good reason he's repaired the casue.....

That is a horribly flawed analogy and you know it. Beyond that, we are talking about current polls. You, and Silver for that matter, have no idea if that poll is right. You have no idea if corrections were made after the 2010 election or why the 2010 results in Hawaii were so far off. You really don't know much--just that your precious Leader is behind in a poll so the poll must be discredited. Whatever.

For rasmussen, they've moved towards more robo calling,and they continue to weight their respondent pool to a higher republican content than other pollsters.What its done in the last two years is poorly prognosticate elections.... Period...

Horse feathers. That one race skews the whole thing. Furthermore, several polls, the CBS/NYT poll for one, oversample Democrats. For example:

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/07/n ... ale-again/

It’s not unusual for the Gray Lady to cook the numbers, either, to make sure their poll shows that support. This is the breakout in their demographics on page 23:

Democrats – 39%
Republicans – 23%
Independents – 30%

In February, just a month earlier, they had Democrats at 36% and Republicans at 26% — still too low for the GOP, but only a ten-point gap. Now they want to argue that Democrats have pushed the partisan gap to 16 points in a single month? Not hardly, says Rasmussen:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/01/a ... tcbs-poll/

First, the partisan split in the sample gave a ten-point advantage to Democrats. Their sample for this poll had a D/R/I split of 36/26/31, an absurd sample for political polling. In December, Rasmussen’s general-population survey put Republicans ahead, 36.0% to 34.7% for Democrats. A recent poll by Gallup shows erosion in Democratic affiliation all through 2010. In 2008, Barack Obama won the popular vote by seven points nationwide, and the NYT/CBS poll assumes that the electorate has grown more Democratic in 2011.

Next, 20% of the poll’s respondents claim to come from union households. However, only 11.9% of American workers belong to a union, according to a report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month and noted by none other than the Times itself. Union membership fell to a 70-year low as a percentage of the workforce, which in itself is a rather damning statement about the view of collective bargaining by the vast majority of American workers. How exactly did the survey manage to comprise itself of almost twice as many union-household respondents for a poll on union policies as union members in the workforce? Interesting.

Finally, 25% of respondents are either public employees or share a household with a public employee. Federal employees comprise less than 2% of the workforce at around 2 million. Overall, the US has 22.22 million government employees out of an employed workforce of 130.27 million, according to the Current Employment Statistics survey at the BLS. Government employment accounts for 17% of all workers, so a sample consisting of 25% public-sector households for a survey of adults (not registered voters) seems a little off.

The gaps in the results are wide enough that these issues by themselves might not have swung them to the opposite. However, at least the magnitude of the results can certainly be questioned in a poll this flawed.

Update: William Jacobson finds similar problems in a widely-quoted PPP poll claiming that Scott Walker would lose to Tom Barrett in a re-do.

Wait. Who does Silver work for?

Oh yeah, the NYT. Hmm, has he done a breakdown like that of their polling for the last three years that they've been oversampling Democrats, government workers, union workers, etc.?

Of course, Silver can't be biased. Neither can you, Mr. Ricky. Somehow, you've both missed the bias at the NYT. Why would that be?

You're really over reacting here. All I'm pointing out to you is that you've appealed to a pollster who appears to have a bias . Does Silver have a bias? Based on what? He publishes all his daata, and his extrapolations... All he is is a stats geek.
Money ball.

Gee, I thought you didn't like the whole chatting about money? Makes you kinda itchy to gamble or something, I believe.

steve

No one can blame Pulse for Rasmussen or Rasmussen for Pulse

You're kidding right? You know what "spun off from " means don't you. Pulse is a wholly owned subsidiary.
Here you go:

Moreover, the owner of Pulse, Scott Rasmussen, acknowledges that, with Pulse's do-it-yourself polling, question wording and thus results could be off

.

All that Pulse does is take the questions, turn them around, and give them back to the client,” company president Scott Rasmussen said in a phone interview. “If you went and asked some off-the-wall question, Pulse would not vouch for your interpretation of the data or the reasonableness off the question.

source: http://www.pollways.com/journal/tag/public-opinion
And by the way,from the lined article, (Cheap is Cheap" here's abrief description of how Pulse works...and why it is unreliable.

For a state-wide poll, this is very cheap. Now, one reason why the cost is so low is because it was a robopoll. This means that human beings did not conduct the polls. Rather, people at home picked up the phone and heard a recording. They responded not with words, but by pushing keys to indicate their answers. The person who did this and who answered might have been a 12 year old who thought it was cool to answer a survey. There would be no attempt, typical for the best polling firms, to randomize the sample by asking for certain types of people in the household, such as the oldest eligible female or youngest eligible male.
But there's more to this --- Pulse specializes in do-it-yourself polling. Rather than having questions written by someone who is trained to do this, the client writes the question.
This is really important because, as Shaw points out, A "major way that a poll can be bad is by using questions that lead respondents to answer in ways that don't reflect their "true" opinion -- in other words, which don't predict their future voting behavior." And, as her analysis demonstrated, the MHPC/Pulse Opinion poll had some problems with question wording.

Steve

And, what is their error? Should be easy to debunk: if Rasmussen was not the closest on that election, then someone else was. Who was it and why did the Fordham study fail to uncover it?

When all they do is publish their summary, its impossible to do... You have to take the results on faith.
By the way, one of the positive things things about the Fox Pulse surveys is that Fox does publish the complete data set....

Interesting comments from Hot Air about CBS polls over samplinfg Democrats. Did you notice their source? Rasmussen. Who've always had the republican affiliartion higher than other pollsters.

Obviously weighting by politcal party affiliation is a difficult endevour if the affiliations change a lot... Thats a major problem and perhaps why there are better ways to arrive at a sample of voters.

Steve:

That is a horribly flawed analogy and you know it. Beyond that, we are talking about current polls. You, and Silver for that matter, have no idea if that poll is right. You have no idea if corrections were made after the 2010 election or why the 2010 results in Hawaii were so far off. You really don't know much--just that your precious Leader is behind in a poll so the poll must be discredited. Whatever.

You didn't actually bother to read anything Silver wrote before responding did you>?

rickyp wrote:steve

No one can blame Pulse for Rasmussen or Rasmussen for Pulse

You're kidding right? You know what "spun off from " means don't you. Pulse is a wholly owned subsidiary.
Here you go:

Moreover, the owner of Pulse, Scott Rasmussen, acknowledges that, with Pulse's do-it-yourself polling, question wording and thus results could be off

.

All that Pulse does is take the questions, turn them around, and give them back to the client,” company president Scott Rasmussen said in a phone interview. “If you went and asked some off-the-wall question, Pulse would not vouch for your interpretation of the data or the reasonableness off the question.

source: http://www.pollways.com/journal/tag/public-opinion
And by the way,from the lined article, (Cheap is Cheap" here's abrief description of how Pulse works...and why it is unreliable.

There is not enough time in my remaining life to address all the errors you make. To start with, what did I say? I said you cannot demonstrate "an ongoing link for responsibility between Rasmussen and Pulse." Nothing you've posted shows any reason to link the polling services together. For example, if they do exactly the same thing, using the same methodology, same people, etc., why spin off Pulse?

What's interesting about what you quote about Pulse is that they take a client's questions and ask them for the client. So, how is that the same as what Rasmussen does? I think I've got the answer to my own question derived from your article: Pulse answer's a client's questions and simply reports the results. I don't think that's how Rasmussen works.

And, of course, what you are doing is going down a rabbit trail. I've noticed a strong tendency in your own posts to include so many tangentially-related and non-related arguments and factoids as to make each one its own spectacular disaster. That's a gift.

The issue was this head-to-head poll of Obama and Romney. Now, given that Romney has been, basically, within the margin of error in most polls, it seems a bit odd that you went so bonkers about this one. But, hey, that's your problem.

There's no reason to think this poll is not accurate. Lumping Pulse with Rasmussen is not a legitimate exercise. They both use robo-phone-calling. The Pulse service uses the clients questions and simply spits the results back to the client. Rasmussen does not do that.

Furthermore, instead of addressing the truth that Rasmussen hit the 2008 Presidential Election as well as anyone, you keep going back to the joint analysis of Pulse/Rasmussen polling. We don't know what percentage was Pulse and what was Rasmussen. We don't know if the same people oversaw the reporting of results. We don't know a lot of things. One thing we do know: "Nate Silver says . . . " is all that you need to read.

In fact, even in the face of demonstrated bias of the NYT/CBS poll, you say:

Interesting comments from Hot Air about CBS polls over samplinfg Democrats. Did you notice their source? Rasmussen. Who've always had the republican affiliartion higher than other pollsters.

Obviously weighting by politcal party affiliation is a difficult endevour if the affiliations change a lot... Thats a major problem and perhaps why there are better ways to arrive at a sample of voters.

Yet, Rasmussen had nothing to do with the changes NYT/CBS made to the demographics of the polling. To show a +16% edge for Democrats is crazy. +10% is even too much.

So, you attack Rasmussen? How about attacking NYT/CBS?

You didn't actually bother to read anything Silver wrote before responding did you?

I read every word he wrote. You act like he's neutral, but you know he's not. He's not just a number-cruncher. If that were the case, he would heal the NYT of their proclivity to over-sample Democrats. Back to Silver, from your link:

On Tuesday, polls conducted by the firm Rasmussen Reports — which released more than 100 surveys in the final three weeks of the campaign, including some commissioned under a subsidiary on behalf of Fox News — badly missed the margin in many states, and also exhibited a considerable bias toward Republican candidates.

Other polling firms, like SurveyUSA and Quinnipiac University, produced more reliable results in Senate and gubernatorial races. A firm that conducts surveys by Internet, YouGov, also performed relatively well.

This says nothing about the Presidential election. Could that be because he knows Rasmussen was spot-on?

In any event, Obama should be well ahead of someone many Americans don't know (Romney). Instead, polls show it very close. Your man is in a lot of trouble, so I expect you to act just as he will this year: making non-stop ad hominem attacks rather than telling us what a great job the Great Man has done. If he deserved re-election, Abraham Lincoln could not defeat him. He doesn't and Elmer Fudd would give him a run for his money.

You two are as bad as each other. Polls are all flawed and one maxim is "past performance does not guarantee future results".

You want to stop the pissing contest and get back to the point?

"an ongoing link for responsibility between Rasmussen and Pulse."

Scott Rasmussen is the president of both....
If you did read Silver you know that what they did with Pulse is simply set up an online access point, called it Pulse and allowed clients to formulate their own questionnares for the robo calling...
They use the same methodology for sampling, and qualification of samples. Pulse is only a store front.

My point about your article claiming that CBS is over sampling dems, is that for justiifaction they use Rasmussen, who over sample republicans. Of course they'll take that view as its so different from theirs.. Fact is Rasmussen would say the same thing about any other pollster who also weights respondents by party affilitation. If the authors of the story had gone to Pew and asked them about the CBS polls they might have had a different reaction.
When you look at RCP summaries
see link
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... dates.html
you get a sense of the trend. Rasmussen always seems to favour the repubs. And since they weight the Repubs more in their sample that stands to reason.
You seem to think I take anything reported about Obama personnally. I don't I just think its amusing how you cherry pick your poll postings..
Rasmussen and Fox News have a cozy relationship. Its very profitable to Rasmussen. Weighting his samples to provide a slightly right leaning result to polls often serves the Fox news agenda. Thats why I think he continues to weight the numbrs the way he does, and has adjusted them the way other pollsters did after the last general election.
Still he could end up being right.