Pollster is not only a fine site for poll data, but also has top-notch people writing about polls and poll methodology.

As to today's Zogby poll, which has McCain +5 and which has generated a certain amount of Chicken Littleism, Moore at Pollster says it's a very strange poll.

All pollsters, it seems, eventually find themselves with what Andy Kohut once referred to as "loopy" results.

This time, it's Zogby's turn to confuse the masses. His latest Reuters/Zogby poll, based on a sample of 1,089 "likely voters" drawn from listed telephone numbers, conducted Aug. 14-16, 2008, shows McCain over Obama by 46% to 41%.

What makes the poll especially strange, even after taking into consideration that it has screened out whoever they consider to be unlikely to vote, is that it only includes people with listed telephone numbers.

The GOP has just released the theme of their upcoming convention.

Country First: 2008 Republican National Convention to Highlight Service, Reform, Prosperity and Peace

In other words, they intend to focus like a pack of frickin' laser-beam equipped sharks on everything they don't provide.  

Maybe I'm misreading this.  It could be an example of the kind of literary inversion John Kennedy used in his "Ask not," speech.  Maybe what they meant to say was "For the first time in our country, Republicans will give a damn about service, reform, prosperity, and peace."

Otherwise, there's the problem of a party that's left us with two open-ended wars bragging about "peace." The party that's left us with an unprecedented level of corruption and cronyism talking about "service" and "reform." And the party that's generated the worst economy in thirty years while running up a tab that our great-great grandkids will still be paying talking about "prosperity."

Speakers for Monday night, which will focus on "Service," will include Joe Lieberman demonstrating his ability to serve any forum that will feed his petty ego. Lieberman will be scheduled on the same evening as his war buddy Dick Cheney and official Lil' Abner Mattress Testing Award Winner, George W. Bush.

Tuesdays "Reform" brings Rudy Giuliani to talk about how you can reform law, order, and heroism to mean anything you want.  And 9/11. Lots and lots of 9/11.

Speaking on "Prosperity" will be Cindy McCain, who will explain the traditional Republican means of getting by in hard times: inherit millions from your daddy. Cindy will demonstrate her pity for the middle class workers struggling to get by on three million a year, and for the poor who  must survive with no more than two vacation homes.

And finally, John McCain will be there on Thursday night to focus on (I'm not kidding) "Peace."

I'm not too incredibly worried about this latest poll, as it's the first poll that I've seen where McCain is ahead after Obama has clinched the nomination.  That being said, it does show that we can't take this election for granted, either.  The winning conditions are there for the Democrats to take the White House, but we need a better reason to get voters to vote for Obama other than running against Bush's third term.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/...

Obama's support among Democrats fell 9 percentage points this month to 74 percent, while McCain has the backing of 81 percent of Republicans. Support for Obama, an Illinois senator, fell 12 percentage points among liberals, with 10 percent of liberals still undecided compared to 9 percent of conservatives.

OBAMA NEEDS TO WORK ON BASE

"Conservatives were supposed to be the bigger problem for McCain," Zogby said. "Obama still has work to do on his base. At this point McCain seems to be doing a better job with his."

UPDATE More Zogby data available now.  Obama loses 8 points among women?  More below the fold.

The new LA Times poll shows Obama leading McCain 45% to 43%.  This lead is down from the June LA Times poll that showed Obama leading McCain 49% to 37%.  The LA Times and the Republicans would have you believe that the race is tightening and that McCain's negative attacks on Obama are working.

What may be the real story here is that independents are breaking for Obama.  In June, independents favored McCain 44% to 36%.  In the new August poll, independents favor Obama 46% to 35%.

Now if you've been paying attention you are asking yourself, "If Obama went from -8 to +11 with independents, then how did the race get closer?"

The answer is distribution of party affiliation, my dear reader.

If you follow me below the fold, I will deconstruct the math, hit the Republicans over the head with their own numbers, show that the race hasn't tightened at all, and see how much McCain's slime has hurt McCain's favorables..

Well, I just found out that tomorrow (8.8.08) is probably Doomsday, which is really going to throw a wrench into my weekend plans.  Besides, I just went to the car wash and I am pretty sure that the raincheck doesn't cover brimstone events.

But far, far worse is the just-released poll from Zogby that reveals that:

...by nearly a 61% to 29% margin, more likely voters trust John McCain over Barack Obama to protect them from the plagues of the End Times.

I periodically participate in a Zogby poll on-line.  I think they are of questionable value, but figure that if I don't take the 10 minutes to represent the middle of the political spectrum, the voice of the extremes gets amplified by my silence.

While I'm not a pollster, I have enough psych, stat, and testing background to recognize good and bad questions when I see them.  Zogby tends to be mediocre.

Today's poll had two political questions that seemed more intended to drive my opinion than solicit it.  

The Arizona Republic reported on this new Arizona election poll today, which shows Obama leading in Arizona:

The poll conducted by Zogby International, an independent polling firm, showed Democrat Obama with 42 percent to Republican McCain's 39 percent. Libertarian Bob Barr was at 7 percent.

Okay...yes, it's a Zogby online interactive poll (which I know Kos and others think are junk), but here's the methodology anyway:

Zogby said the poll's methodology is sound and legitimate.

The firm asks people to sign up for surveys online and then selects a group of respondents for each survey.

For the Arizona survey, Zogby surveyed 1,142 likely voters online with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

What I find more interesting is the strong reaction from the McCain camp. More below the fold.

Zogby Poll;June 11-30

For those of you who've been pining for polls over the last few days, Zogby has now inaugurated his electoral college map, complete with polling from many of the states.

Since it's based on Zogby Online polling, we perhaps shouldn't be surprised that it contains some surprises. Most of them are encouraging for Obama, the highlights being:

MO Obama +2
VA Obama +5
NC Obama +9
SC Obama +1
AR Obama +2
AZ Obama +3
TX McCain +3

Thanks to Dennis Kucinich and his submission of 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush, impeachment talk is once again in the air!

Although, there are not many polling companies who have asked the question, "Should George W. Bush be impeached?", there have been a few. And, it's time to catalog those in one place and take a close look at what they tell us.

With impeachment diaries once again popping up and heated discussions on whether or not impeachment is warranted, popular or stands a chance of succeeding, are regular topics again. And many here seem to have some misconceptions. I'm going to focus on public perception here.

Here's what we know...

I guess how important this is depends on how much you trust John Zogby.

But if true, this is BIG.

(I searched, and can't find that this has been posted here. If it has, sorry and I'll delete.)

After totally screwing up for most of the primary season, Zogby appears to have been the most accurate poll for both IN and NC.  SUSA's conservative approach seems to have done them in this time, as their results were off by a fair amount.  

Please use this space to apologise to Zogby.

Zogby is looking better & better.  Who woulda thunk it?

But, he does show something really interesting. The race in both IN and NC breaking to Obama:

Zogby tracking poll

More after the break...

Yeah, I know, no one here likes Zogby, but their tracking poll in PA was pretty darned accurate, much to my displeasure, hoping beyond all hope that Sen. Obama would win PA in an upset.  But take a look at this:

I think Zogby's been a little all over the map this primary season...but, I'll always give props to a fellow Upstate NYer.  And I think there's value in any poll that's rolling just to see how things are trending.  So, without further ado... Not much has changed in either state.

Not bad for Obama

Hopefully Zogby has it like TX, PA, MO and not like CA