THE SKEW IS IN!

Why do you suppose the McCain internal polls differ so greatly from the public polls bought and paid for by the various news media outlets? Conspiracy theorist will probably say that the Pro-Obama media have intentionally skewed the results so as to suppress Republican voting, and, I have to admit, it sounds possible. The more likely scenario, however, is that most of the pollsters have bought into the media generated hype concerning the large number of black, latino, and youth voters that are going to vote for Obama.

Its very similar to the way an appraiser arrives at the value of a piece of property using the comparative method of appraising. The appraiser will find several similar properties in the area of the property being appraised that have sold in the recent past to arrive at a beginning value point. The appraiser will then add or subtract a percentage amount to the value of the property being appraised by looking at each comparable property to determine if it has better or worse factors than the subject property, and, thereby, arrive at a truer representation of the value of the property.

Pollsters do the same thing. They take their raw numbers from their calls and adjust those numbers depending upon various factors which they subjectively believe will give them a truer representation of the overall numbers projected across whatever electorate they are polling. In this case, they are adjusting their numbers based upon the above assumption, which may or may not be valid! The same adjustments were made for Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004. In both cases, the numbers did not pan out.

This year it appears those assumptions may be invalid, as well. Guess we'll have to wait and see!