Sure, the polls are wrong – sometimes. But all of the polls can’t be wrong all of the time. If they were, the pollsters would have gone out of business long ago. So you can disregard the latest conspiracy theory coming from Fox News and the other right-wing propaganda outlets.
Just about every recent poll shows President Obama opening up a significant lead over Republican candidate Mitt Romney, not just nationally but also in many swing states, and desperate Romney supporters are claiming there’s liberal bias in the way the polls are conducted and reported.
They suggest that a vast liberal conspiracy is responsible . The way people like Rush Limbaugh see it, the pollsters are trying to discourage conservatives from going to the polls by making them think rheir cause is hopeless.
As we have come to expect, the right-wing noise machine is nuts.
Nate Silver,who has won a stellar reputation for predicting such things as presidential races, debunks the conservative conspiracy trash talk in a Salon interview today.
Here’s an excerpt from what Silver’ had to say:
I saw Dick Morris on the “Hannity” show last night. He wasn’t just saying Romney still has a chance; he was saying it’s a toss up, which I don’t quite believe. It’s getting a little more ridiculous the more polls that come out. But he was saying, “I think Romney will win by four points. I think he’ll win Pennsylvania and would be competitive in Michigan.” You have to be totally delusional to think that. Is he out of touch with reality? Or is he lying?
Silver points out that some 250 polls have come out since the conventions, and he argues that with so many polls pretty much in agreement, the margin of error is “very little.”
He doesn’t see much chance of Romney winning in November. It’s been a close race at times, but Obama has always been ahead in the swing states, and now the vast majority of polls show the president with a solid lead nationally as well.
As for Congress, well, Silver doesn’t have a prediction for that yet, but his :hunch” is that the Republicans will keep the House.
Let’s pray that his hunch is wrong.
Map shows Silver’s prediction for the presidential race.
Click here for the Salon.com interview
