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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

And One More Faked "Tightening" Poll

It’s as though the different rep-leaning pollsters are trading off on who will take the bullet for using their poll to lie about the race each day. It really is becoming fascinating.
Andrew Sullivan kicks around today’s Fox News poll with Barack Obama now leading John McCain by 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters, down from 49 to 40 last week.
Wow.
Until you look under the hood…
Last week’s poll was of 401 Democrats, 345 Republicans, 148 Independents
This week’s poll was of 379 Democrats, 364 Republicans, 146 Independents
894

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4 Responses to “And One More Faked "Tightening" Poll”

  1. Blackcloud says:

    How is that faked? Random samples vary randomly. That’s how they work. You can argue the sample skews the result (which can then be controlled for), but arguing that the survey is therefore faked isn’t a very compelling argument. It is, in fact, the same kind of shoddy thinking you are usually so critical of.

  2. mysteryperfecta says:

    It interesting how you’d make a case against a poll showing a 3% margin, and never mention CBS/NYT poll, which has been a consistent outlier.
    The RCP poll average is about 6%. The Fox News poll is 3% off that average. The CBS/NYT poll has Obama by 11%, which is 5% off the average. Which poll is more egregious?

  3. David Poland says:

    I am happy to concede that any poll with Obama more than 9% ahead is an outlier on that side. The difference, of course, is that the Obama campaign is not desperately trying to make the case that they are a mortal lock to landslide. And you haven

  4. scooterzz says:

    dp — just curious…where did you get the notion that henning died of aids?

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
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“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon