Some Polls Come Up With Conclusions First-- And Then Fill In The Numbers... Especially When They Think God Is On Their Side

Unscientific Twitter poll makes a point without body language analysis

I ran a little twitter poll on Friday and I was surprised that so many respondents sawbthe possibilities inherent in political polling the same way I did. Three days later I ran across an extremely detailed look at one specific poll that looked completely phony and manipulative when I originally saw the poll a few days ago: Manufacturing Consent-- How Democratic operatives are undermining Bernie Sanders 2020 candidacy. "Manufacturing consent," asserted the author, "has been the modern means by which the few powerful gets to control the many powerless. Since the many won’t give up their power so easily, the powerful must find new ways of convincing the many-- that the candidate of their choice does not enjoy popular support-- so they must pick a more reasonable choice to rule over them." He's talking about the dilemma faced by many in the establishment who know in their hearts Biden could never win an election-- and that their second choice May Pete is a joke-- but who, deep in their souls fear the change Bernie embodies. They may not want Elizabeth Warren, but they'll take her if it will save them from Bernie without having to resort to another four years of a fascist and authoritarian coining into his own. In his own words: "Democratic party insiders are trying manufacture consent in the current 2020 Democratic primary season. Specially, they are trying to prop up the candidates of their choice-- Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren & Pete Buttigieg-- while undermining the candidates like Bernie Sander’s candidacy thru self-serving polls." This is the bullshit poll that made no sense to anyone last week but that has been widely reported:

The somewhat absurd "Focus on Rural America" Iowa "polling" doesn't jive at all with the most recent polling from a credible polling firm, YouGov's CBS News Battleground Tracker for Iowa:

Meanwhile, the author points to patently dishonest political players-- good examples were David Axelrod, whose son was not disclosed as being part of the polling firm and the laughable Nate Silver. Silver:

The poll was published by Jeff Link's "Focus on Rural America." Link, a former Bill Clinton staffer, and another "Focus on Rural America," principle, right-of-center establishment Democrat Patty Judge (Monsanto-IA), no doubt feel they are serving a greater good by sabotaging Bernie. Another "Focus on Rural America" connection is Sam Roecker, until recently the Iowa state director for FRACKENLOOPER. The pollster working for "Focus on Rural America" is David Binder, formerly an in-house Obama pollster who method is described as "qualitative" rather than quantitative. In other words-- much like Rasmussen does on the right, he's just coming up with the conclusion first and then justifying it with cooked top "results." A positive spin on what he does: "Binder specializes in qualitative rather than quantitative research. His focus is on assessing subjective factors such as language, emotion, and attitudes."

To me, all this word salad means only one thing. It means he mind-reads potential voters when conducting his polling. In simple terms the polls capture his fellings of voter’s feelings about politicians.

I have never heard a worse way to describe a pollster than this. Given that only the memo is published without the underlying dataset, I am assuming that this poll is based on the feelings of David Binder staff about which democratic candidate gets what percentage of votes in Iowa in the upcoming democratic primary election.

Also, when you look at the staff page of David Binder Research, one of the name caught my eye. His name is Ethan Axelrod.

He is the son of David Axelrod, who happen to be the chief strategist for Obama’s presidential campaigns.

An organization called Focus on Rural America-- that’s founded by someone who worked for Bill Clinton, ran paid campaigns for Obama-- that’s advised by someone who worked as State director for Hickenlooper-- that’s chaired by someone who has apparent allegiance to one of the Democratic primary candidates-- specifically-- Elizabeth Warren-- publish just memo of the poll where Bernie is getting lower vote share than Pete Buttigieg.

These polls are conducted by ex-Obama pollster-- with a staff member whose father worked for Obama as chief strategist-- publishes just memo of the poll -- with numbers that are complete outliers-- with no information on the methodology/demographic breakdown-- which then are picked-up by mainstream media-- use this poll to push free propaganda for Warren & other corporate dems-- while undermining Bernie’s campaign-- till this propaganda becomes reality in the minds of undecided voters.

Most outlets that reported these finding did not mention that the polling is done by people who worked for corporate democrats in the past & are commissioned by people who are currently batting for Warren, a candidate in the current democratic primary.

What else do you call this other than Manufacturing Consent by democratic establishment-- in connivance with their toadies in the mainstream media-- to push a corporate democratic candidate?

Marie Solis' piece for Vice Friday, Young Women Actually Make Up More of Bernie's Base Than Men Do, comes at the establishment's full frontal attack on Bernie's campaign from another perspective. This time, it's how credible polling shows the establishment's narratives to be false and manipulative, desperately fighting to uphold the status quo, sometimes by sad, well-intentioned morons who don't even understand they're fighting against life itself.

New findings from The Economist show that women under 45 make up a larger share of Bernie Sanders’ base than do men in their same age group, contradicting a popular narrative that says the 2020 Democratic candidate's supporters are overwhelmingly white and male, to the virtual exclusion of other groups.

This narrative often hinges on the “Bernie Bro,” a term Atlantic writer Robinson Meyer coined during the 2016 election to describe a type of mansplaining internet harasser that some came to see as representative of all Sanders voters. Bernie Bros were a “mob” flooding the Twitter mentions of Hillary Clinton supporters; they were “sexist,” even “enthusiastically” so; and they were loud and aggressive when expressing their uncompromising support for their candidate.

Polling has continually proven that Sanders’ base is much more diverse than the figure of the Bernie Bro would suggest: An analysis of polling between November 2018 and March 2019 found both that Sanders was more popular among people of color than among white people, and that women supported Sanders just as much as men did, “if not more,” according to Vox. Earlier this month, a Univision Noticias poll found Sanders was the candidate Latino voters favored most after current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden. And The Economist’s latest numbers show Sanders in the number-two spot behind Biden with Hispanic and Black voters.

Yet the Bernie Bro concept continues to endure, much to the chagrin of Sanders’ women supporters, who say it ignores a significant portion of the Vermont senator’s base.

...“Why would Democratic voters choose Sanders when Warren is running?” Guardian columnist Moira Donegan wrote the day after Sanders announced his presidential bid in February. “The two are not ideologically identical, but the differences between their major policy stances…are relatively minor, especially compared to the rest of the field.”

Whether there are consequential differences between Warren and Sanders’ campaign platforms is an ongoing subject of debate on the left, particularly as Warren has begun to edge past Sanders in the polls.

Mia Arievitch, a 24-year-old socialist who attends the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies, believes Sanders and Warren are running completely different presidential campaigns, with Sanders focusing on grassroots movement-building while Warren homes in on federal policy. Lauren Christianson, a native Wisconsinite now based in New York, said that while she loves Warren for “supporting many of the same progressive platforms as Bernie,” she doesn’t find her to be “as progressive” as Sanders. Magray said she believes there’s a “wide gulf” between the two candidates’ politics, emphasizing that Sanders is a democratic socialist while Warren is a self-professed capitalist “to her bones.”

...A significant share of Sanders supporters-- Magray included-- consider Warren their second choice, and if she wins the party’s nomination, would cast a ballot for her with little to no hesitation. But in the meantime, many of them will continue to be frustrated by the way Sanders’ supporters are portrayed, and the looming specter of the Bernie Bro.

In 2016, the idea that Sanders supporters were, by default, white and male made Christianson “feel like [she] had to choose between being a woman and supporting the candidate who inspired me the most.”

“It was also a quick way to stop any conversation about actual policy and ideals,” she added. “I hated it. I still hate it.”