One of the cardinal rules of professional polling is to avoid loaded questions, lest the results of your survey become skewed.
For example, you don’t want to ask prospective voters if they favor “that rascal Joe Blow” over “that fine American John Q. Citizen” in the upcoming election.
But, alas, the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports seems to have forgotten this rule — or intentionally violated it — with its NEW POLL about Rush Limbaugh’s influence on the Republican Party.
And let’s not forget that Rasmussen had a poll three days before the November election that showed John McCain ahead of Obama, a finding at odds with virtually every other poll. We all know how that turned out. (NOTICE: This paragraph is incorrect. See Comment No. 5 below.)
POSTSCRIPT: Here’s ANOTHER TAKE on that new Rasmussen poll.
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How about that odumbo market?
Mea Culpa from Orlando Clay: I’m the Applesauce commenter that Pat is referring to in #5. Now that I’m approaching 50, the memory isn’t quite what it used to be. I could have sworn that the headline on Drudge said “Rasmussen Shock Poll: McCain Leads by +3.” But it turns out that it said: “Rasmussen Shock Poll: McCain Within +3 Points”
So, Pat, you have no reason to apologize. I apologize to everybody in the Applesauce “sandbox” (as Mike Carroll calls it) for not doing a quick fact check. Nevertheless, the point remains the same: While most polls had Obama leading by 8 or 9 points (and some had him in double digits), this posting on Drudge sent the right-wing blogosphere into a frenzy — particularly at FreeRepublic.com — where there were bold predictions of a Mccain/Palin comeback and visions of another “Dewey Defeats Truman” scenario.
But I don’t apologize for this:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Read it and weep, Joey!!