DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Hillary and Obama approval ratings tanked

**JTS_tv** · 01-24-2007, 03:02 AM

I'm going to try this one last time.

OK, now, a poll about Bush's job rating will turn up something like 33% approve, 62% disapprove, and 5% don't have an opinion. In this situation, Bush's approval rating is 33%, because that's the number that actually gave that response, and because almost all of the individuals polled have an opinion one way or the other. Of people with an opinion, there's an overwhelming majority (about 2:1) of people who disapprove to people who approve.

The poll you're citing said a couple things. One thing that you seem to be completely oblivious to, even though you posted it yourself, was that the poll said that the majority of people with an opinion have a favorable opinion of Obama. The next thing to notice is that a full 40% of the people who responded to the poll had absolutely no opinion about Obama. Finally, this poll was a "select the candidate" poll, where people are given a list of potential candidates, and they pick the one individual for whom they'd prefer to vote for for POTUS. Now, given that there were likely 5 or 6 names on there, and given that it's VERY early in the election cycle, it's not unexpected that the numbers would be fairly spread out, without on individual far in front. Thus, 36/100 people chose Clinton, 29/100 people chose Obama, and 35/100 people chose one of the other people on the list. It's not an approve/disapprove poll.

Do you see it now?

01-24-2007, 03:02 AM	#13
JTS_tv Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 572 Senior Member	I'm going to try this one last time. OK, now, a poll about Bush's job rating will turn up something like 33% approve, 62% disapprove, and 5% don't have an opinion. In this situation, Bush's approval rating is 33%, because that's the number that actually gave that response, and because almost all of the individuals polled have an opinion one way or the other. Of people with an opinion, there's an overwhelming majority (about 2:1) of people who disapprove to people who approve. The poll you're citing said a couple things. One thing that you seem to be completely oblivious to, even though you posted it yourself, was that the poll said that the majority of people with an opinion have a favorable opinion of Obama. The next thing to notice is that a full 40% of the people who responded to the poll had absolutely no opinion about Obama. Finally, this poll was a "select the candidate" poll, where people are given a list of potential candidates, and they pick the one individual for whom they'd prefer to vote for for POTUS. Now, given that there were likely 5 or 6 names on there, and given that it's VERY early in the election cycle, it's not unexpected that the numbers would be fairly spread out, without on individual far in front. Thus, 36/100 people chose Clinton, 29/100 people chose Obama, and 35/100 people chose one of the other people on the list. It's not an approve/disapprove poll. Do you see it now?
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