No doubt I like the results of SurveyUSA’s post-debate poll of Washington state voters better than that of the first debate, but it still strikes me as a load of bullshit. Two weeks ago SurveyUSA told us that WA bucked the national trend, with respondents giving McCain a narrow 40%-38% edge on the question of who won the first debate. After the second presidential debate we’re told that Washingtonians mirrored their national counterparts, handing Obama a decisive 54%-29% victory.
Yeah… whatever.
My problem though is not with the results—I suppose either represents a believable margin—but rather with the sample, which seems to indicate Washington’s citizens are by far the most politically engaged in the nation, with over 63% of WA adults supposedly watching the first debate, and now a stunning 74% of those interviewed claiming to have watched the second.
Wow. That would be astounding, if true. But unfortunately for SurveyUSA, Neilsen, whose business it is to measure TV viewership, reports that only about a third of WA households were tuned into the debate last night, up from about 30% for the first contest. And once again the Seattle-Tacoma market ranks amongst the lowest top-55 markets in the nation.
Of course, Neilsen and SurveyUSA aren’t quite measuring the same thing, but when you look at the rough math I did last time around, it’s clear that these two sets of conflicting results can’t possibly mesh.
Not that this means anything, but it does make one wonder about the dataset for SurveyUSA’s other polls.
If three-fourths of adults watched the debate there would have been almost no traffic on the streets last evening. There was plenty of traffic.
The stock market is up now this morning, and so is my portfolio. Is this the bottom? I don’t think so, but perhaps we can now see the bottom — a stock market decline in the 40% range. About half of which occurred with breathtaking speed, the Wall Street equivalent of a bank run.
Well, at least we beat LA, according to the Nielson rating (but just barely). But we had really crappy weather last night – thunderstorms up in Everett where I live. And there really wasn’t much on TV other than the debates. So I think that’s the best we are going to do, here.
On the other hand, could it be that most in the Seattle/Tacoma market have already made up there minds, and they figured watching another debate wasn’t going to change anything? Isn’t TV viewership here down overall compared with other U.S. markets – we tend to get our news and entertainment from other sources?
Roger, DJIA is up 57 points shortly before noon. Hardly a convincing rally, especially considering that if falls on the hills of an overnight emergency Fed rate cut of a half percent. With the Fed discount rate at 1-1/2%, they don’t have many arrows left in that quiver.
In the meantime, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) released a report which said that “the world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930’s”. The U.S. is leading that downturn.
U.S. set to go into deep rescession, IMF says
And again I must point out that not everyone watched the debate on TV. Many of us watched it over the internet because we don’t even have TV running in our house any longer, and I know a number of people who watched it the same way for the same reason.
Also, there were many, many debate watching parties around town, at least up here in Bellingham. Many people were watching it together, which would show up in the Nielson ratings, either.
I’m not saying that the 74% is entirely accurate. Phone interviews are notoriously unreliable because some people don’t have land lines and other don’t have phones at all. So you are, perforce, getting only a subset of the population. But Neilson ratings are equally non-representative these days since so many get their programming over the internet, especially for news.
I have figured it out.
A while back somebody suggested that the Bush approval ratings be expressed in Fahrenheit.
18% approval rating = 65%. Get it?
So the so-called 74% is actually 23.3% — the same guy is in charge of this one and he forgot to convert it back.
Liberals are a strange bunch.
They lie to make themselves look good to an anonymous pollster.
I wonder how many that said they would vote for obama really will once the curtain is drawn.
DJIA is rather volitile right before closing, making up to 80 point swings every time I refresh the screen. So far, still in in negative territory (down 90.8 points at my last refresh a few minutes ago).
So, what’s the fed going to do tomorrow to keep it from crashing again?
By the way, the government of Iceland is just short of bankruptcy, due to bank failures which are so large the government can’t meet it’s depost insurance commitments. The problem is, in part, that Icelandic banks started luring depositors from around the world, and the government resources of that tiny nation just aren’t big enough to meet those obligations.
Some foreign governments are thinking about a bailout package for Iceland, but the UK is talking hard, threatening actions against Icelandic assets in the U.K. if they don’t make sure U.K depositors are made whole. Iceland is asking the Russians for a loan to keep afloat.
In the meantime, the inter-connected obligations between government banks means that the failure of the Icelandic banks might also drag down several European banks as well, in a domino affect.
At 1:10 p.m., the DJIA is reporting at loss of 191 points for the day, ending at 9256.11. That 9,000 point floor is looking AWFULLY CLOSE.
Looks like the ticker is still trying to catch up, at 1:16 p.m. PDT the DJIA was reporting a 189 point loss for the day.
@10 Not much support at 9,000. However, if it blows past 7591, you’ll need a 20-year chart to find the next level of support at 993. Ouch! But I don’t think we’re going there. If we do, we’re too fucked for words.
I’m not sure “households tuned in” is a good metric to verify the veracity of assertions that “I watched.” I was in a room with around 14 other people, but if that were actually counted by Nielsen ratings, it would have been one household. There were at least 7 households represented.
Granted, that’s probably not typical; most employed people who can’t escape early from work were probably still stuck in traffic, with only the option to listen to the radio. But 33% of households could easily translate to at least 55% of poll respondents, since there are often 2+ members of most households.
I watched it streaming from c-span, then when their buffering went into the toilet, I stitched to CNN’s streaming.
No cable in my house since I got 8megs of bandwidth. Hmmm.. just tested at 14megs.
That being said, liberal Seattle thinks it’s hip to be engaged. So people probably lied. And Marvin Stamn thinks everyone is a bigot like he is.
I found this bit about the $5000 health care rebate of mccains.
This is meaningless