Is the Supreme Court too conservative? Not according to the public, it seems.
Specifically, Rasmussen has a new poll out that asked 1,000 likely voters the following question: “In political terms is the Supreme Court too liberal, too conservative, or about right?” Here are the results:
Too liberal: 32%
About right: 33%
Too conservative: 23%
Not sure: 11%(Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence)
I don’t know a lot about the reputation of Rasmussen’s polling, so I don’t know if these numbers are reliable. But if they’re accurate, it’s fascinating to see such a gap between public opinion and portrayals of the Court in the media.
Doc Merlin says:
The mass media (with a few exceptions) and academia are generally to the left of the public at large. This explains the divergence you spoke of. Anyway, with 4 right wingers, 4 left wingers and 1 moderate swing vote. Its not too surprising the court is perceived as it is.
March 19, 2010, 2:19 amorca says:
Rasmussen is the only polling service Glenn Beck trusts…
March 19, 2010, 2:20 amleo marvin says:
According to Nate Silver, Rasmussen has a house effect of R+ 5.5%. I don’t know how that would translate to a poll like this, which isn’t strictly D-R partisan, but I suspect it gives a general sense of the likely pro-conservative skew of the poll.
March 19, 2010, 2:23 amOrin Kerr says:
Really? I’ll have to think about that.
March 19, 2010, 2:28 amjellis58 says:
I believe that Rasmussen has a reputation of overstating the strength of republican candidates compared to the other major pollsters. I dont know how that would affect a poll like this.
March 19, 2010, 2:34 amGV says:
I don’t know why people take polling organizations like Rasmussen seriously. Its polls are consistently off. Perhaps the only value in them is that they are consistently skewed by about 5-7% in favor of republicans. Consequently, you can figure out the “real” percentage with a little bit of math. That being said, I suppose the real value in their polls is that they allow people like Jim Lindgren to tout their polls to establish conservative conventional wisdom. (Obama as unpopular as Bush!)
All that said, it surprises me that more of the public doesn’t think the Supreme Court is too liberal. Obviously, nearly all of the public is entirely ignorant of what the Court does. As a result, polls like this are probably a better reflection on whether the democrats or republicans are doing a better job manipulating public perception about the Court. Republicans, in my opinion, do a better job attacking the Court than do democrats. Perhaps the numbers are as they are because Citizens United is apparently quite unpopular. (Of course, most people have no clue what the case says and could not articulate why they think it’s wrong, other than they don’t like the policy result.) Or, perhaps, my perception of how much better of a job the republicans do in this area is off.
March 19, 2010, 3:02 amleo marvin says:
There’s probably some truth to that (as modified), but I suspect other factors weigh more heavily. “Judicial activism” has become a perennial base motivating issue on the right, while the left’s objections to SCOTUS are dwarfed by lots of their other concerns. And that difference was compounded by SCOTUS decisions on some of the left’s main issues, e.g., detainee representation, Geneva Conventions, repudiating Bush administration policies, while the more numerous issues the left lost on weren’t as emotionally laden for them. The net result is the conservative base is more vocally opposed to what it considers liberal about the Court than liberal base is about what it considers conservative about it. And what the bases make noise about bleeds into issue awareness for a lot of the less active voters.
March 19, 2010, 3:18 amDoc Merlin says:
1. Even with a 7% sampling error in favor of the conservatives it shows the court as very even wrt the nation.
Rasmusen does daily tracking so it shows dips in popularity faster than other polls (which track averages over longer periods of time). It also because it is a daily tracker it has a lot of noise. The “percent approval indent” poll, looks as “strong approve” versus “strongly disapprove” which really just shows Republican partisan passion versus Democrat partisan passion. This is the poll that Obama is doing the worst on. In terms of absolute popularity Rasmusen makes more sense, He hasn’t dipped below 50% until very recently. Rasmusen is a bit more heavily weighted Republican than others, but with few exceptions tends to call elections very accurately (once you average out the noise for the fact that they often daily track, so they have a shorter averaging period.)
March 19, 2010, 3:48 amDoc Merlin says:
@Leo, hrm, you are right about Kennedy being center-right, but he is far closer to the center than just about any other justice so I labeled him a moderate.
Anyway the religious conservatives’ number one issue (by far) is abortion, and since Roe V. Wade hasn’t been overturned they will en mass see the court as ‘too liberal’ even if it is conservative about other issues.
March 19, 2010, 3:52 amthinkstrategically says:
Nate Silver gives them a +5.5 house effect because he enjoys being entirely disingenuous about the fact that he’s comparing likely voters to registered voters to all adults.
As to the ridiculous claim that Rasmussen is somehow untrustworthy – they’ve long been one of the most accurate and prolific polling firms out there. They had the best record in 2008 of any pollster in the country, and continued that this year with the Gov. elections in NJ/VA.
March 19, 2010, 4:06 amleo marvin says:
This, from Silver’s post on the house effects:
You think he’s being disingenuous? How?
March 19, 2010, 4:19 amBlar says:
The Supreme Court tends to be associated with whichever party holds the White House – Democrats approve of it more when a Democrat is President, Republicans when a Republican is President. If Rasmussen asked the same question two years ago (when it was Bush’s Supreme Court rather than Obama’s), I’d bet that many of the conservatives who now say it’s too liberal would’ve said that it was about right, and many of the liberals who now say it’s about right would’ve said that it was too conservative.
March 19, 2010, 4:27 amArkady says:
@Orin
Some folks think Rasmussen is the Fox News of polling.
March 19, 2010, 6:29 amcboldt says:
Heh. The Court is supposed to be apolitical, a judge of the law and constitution, not maker of policy. Seems the question is premised on the Court’s actions being properly viewed through the lens of political actions.
March 19, 2010, 6:55 amPersonFromPorlock says:
Asking about ‘the Court’ is the wrong question. It assumes the nine individuals who make it up constitute a coherent whole, which is a ‘fact not in evidence’.
March 19, 2010, 7:19 ammls says:
Since Professor Lindgren didn’t open his polling post to comments, I would like to suggest that he delete the last two paragraphs of his post. I think his observations, which may very well be accurate, are not conducive to maintaining the VC as an “adult table” for bloggers.
I don’t find the Supreme Court poll too surprising. I would imagine that the explanation has to do with what issues people think about when they are asked a question like that. What issues would make the man on the street think the Supreme Court was “too conservative”? I doubt that Citizens United had that much impact. The only other thing that sticks out would be Bush v. Gore, which was a long time ago.
Meanwhile, the Court is historically associated with liberalism, and as long as there are occasional decisions consistent with that impression (terrorism related decisions, gay rights, etc), it tends to persist.
March 19, 2010, 7:26 amBrianMac says:
If Rasmussen has such a well-known conservative skew, how come they keep outperforming the other pollsters when it comes to the accuracy of their predictions?
March 19, 2010, 7:36 amjrose says:
Orin: But if they’re accurate, it’s fascinating to see such a gap between public opinion and portrayals of the Court in the media
How does the media portary the Court?
March 19, 2010, 7:39 amJosh B says:
Since most members of the public are rationally ignorant of what the court is up to, I don’t think this finding is very meaningful.
March 19, 2010, 7:49 amLaw Student says:
I agree with Josh B, trotting out polls which reflect the general public’s “thoughts” on this issue, or on health care reform, is pointless.
March 19, 2010, 8:17 amFantasiaWHT says:
Because people are making the mistake of believing that being off from the rest of the crowd means the rest of the crowd is correct?
As conservative judicial activists destroying our system of democracy by overturning a hundred years of campaign financing law.
March 19, 2010, 8:21 amRJB says:
By closing comments, Lindgren seems to have known that he was out of line in his last post. I will comment on this one, primarily to ask Orin to talk with his fellow conspirator and explain that a lot of readers (like me) don’t want this site to become Townhall.com.
His post is both objectionable and uninformed. It falsely elevates the role of Obama’s race (just supposing without any supporting data), and ignores the state of the economy and unemployment, which is one of the most important influences on Presidential favorability ratings. Don’t forget that Bush was massively unpopular even before the economy tanked. It also handpicks a particular result from a pollster known widely for skewing pro-Republican, which seems disingenuous at best. (It wouldn’t have been so bad if he focused on a change in polling, since that wouldn’t be influenced by Rasmussen’s well-known ‘house effect.’
Finally, the last line is just tired conservative media martyrdom. Imagine if Bush had been repeatedly slandered by media stars and politicians as a terrorist-loving freedom- hating socialist who isn’t even an American citizen! Oh my word!
There are a lot of other sites specializing in objectionable and uninformed Obama bashing and self-congratulatory Republican chest-puffing. Do you really want this to become another?
It won’t take many posts by Lindgren to reflect badly on all of you. I suggest you tell him to stick to the law.
March 19, 2010, 8:29 amDjDiverDan says:
Thee are just so many ways in which the results of such a poll (regardless of which polling organization conducts it) are either meaningless or misleading, it’s hard to understand why anyone would take it seriously for any purpose (other than amusement). First, even among “likely voters”, I would estimate that the level of ignorance about what the Supreme Court has actually done latelty is fairly high. I wonder what percentage of respondents: (a) had actually read all or any significant part of any Supreme Court opinion issued in the last 5 years [probably less than 2%]; (b)could identify by name more than one significant Supreme Court Decision issued in the last 5 years, like “Heller” or “Citizens United” or “Kelo” or “Ricci” or “Ledbetter” [again, I'm guessing less than 5%]; (c) could actually describe the holding in any case they remembered, and how the Court split [probably less than 2%]; (d) could identify by name 4 or more of the Supreme Court Justices, and identify them as “liberal” or “conservative” [maybe as high as 15%]. Over and above the level of ignorance in the voting public about the Court’s decisions or make-up, there are going to be huge differences among the respondents of how they describe “liberal” and “conservative”, and how they view the decisions of the Court. Were Citizens United and Heller “liberal” decisions because they expanded the protections given to civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment and the Second Amendment, respectively? Or were they “conservative” decisions just because the so-called “liberal” justices don’t like the Second Amendment and think the First Amendment doesn’t really mean it when it says that Congress shall “make no Law”? It gets even fuzzier in the area of Criminal Procedure, where Justices Scalia and Thomas, two Justices easily identified as “conservative” are among the strongest supporters of Constitutional rights like the right to a public trial and the right of confrontation, while the hard-core “liberals” are much less sanguine about such rights. So, just how meaningful is any poll like this? And for what purpose?
March 19, 2010, 8:33 amG. May says:
Oh dear, didn’t you know that Rasmussen is Hitler’s pollster?
But seriously, what’s with the poll posting here the past couple of days? Is this really useful?
March 19, 2010, 8:55 amDaily Pundit » Hey, Orrin? The Earth Is Round, Too says:
[...] The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Public Opinion About the Supreme Court Orin Kerr says: [...]
March 19, 2010, 8:55 amdchads says:
I’m with mls. I think what s/he said explains whatever surprising liberal public perception of the Supreme Court exists that can’t be attributed to a Republican skew in the polling.
March 19, 2010, 9:02 amWhadonna More says:
It would have been more interesting to see a poll about whether the court is too “activist”. The D’s are still hyperventilating about Citizens United, so I’d expect over 60% “too activist” and less than 20% “about right”.
March 19, 2010, 9:07 amGuy says:
The majority of the public doesn’t follow the Supreme Court closely, and given that conservatives tend to complain more loudly about liberal decisions than vice versa, it’s not surprising this perception exists, especially when you factor in the institutional reputation for being liberal that still persists in the public conception from the Warren Court. Also it’s less dramatic when the Court approves a governmental action than finds it unconstitutional, since the higher profile findings of unconstitutionality usually stem from a broad interpretation of a constitutional right (which is usually associated with the liberal position) this too could cause this perception.
March 19, 2010, 9:08 amtony says:
i think it is not 43%, but more.
March 19, 2010, 9:10 amthere is no difference between Obama and Bush.
smitty says:
Notice to SCOTUS:
March 19, 2010, 9:15 amIf ObamaCare is signed by POTUS,
And you don’t kick its gluteus,
You are worth so much pumice.
S says:
Who cares what 1000 people think. It does not matter what model you use, having every voter in the poll represent millions of others is useless.
March 19, 2010, 9:15 amrpt says:
What terrible questions: “what’s written in the constitution” OR “what’s fair and just?” Do “originalist” conservatives believe that the constitution is not fair and just or that these are bad values?
March 19, 2010, 9:16 amMQuinn says:
I agree with mls, and I would only add that these polling data are emblematic of Reagan’s and the conservative movement’s resounding success in framing the debate regarding the federal judiciary.
March 19, 2010, 9:18 amDan says:
I just want to comment that the last post was the kind of hack partisan post that i’d expect to find on sites like redstate or hotair, and posts like it make me less likely to visit this site. It acts as if the overall approve/disapprove numbers don’t matter at all, and then makes completely baseless speculation that race is the reason for Obama’s strong approval numbers. It also fails to mention Rasmussen’s known republican slant, and specifically how their Obama approval numbers seem to differ from every other polling organization.
March 19, 2010, 9:28 amGuy says:
I especially like how that question seems to think the Supreme Court only decides Constitutional questions. We certainly wouldn’t want the Court to consider fairness and justice when deciding whether equitable relief is available…
Also “political agenda” versus “impartiality” is incredibly vague. Apparently having any interpretations of the Constitution that could be classified on a left-right scale means that you are partial.
March 19, 2010, 9:31 amMike says:
Rasmussen has a very good reputation for accuracy in the last several election cycles. He shows up to the “right” of most other polls because they poll only adults or registered voters. The exception is some of the big pollsters who shift to poll likely voters near election day, when their results shift closer to Rasmussen.
Someone, I don’t remember who, did an analysis several years ago that showed “adults” poll about 6 pts more Dem and “registered voters” about 3 pts more Dem than “likely voters”. The postulated reason is that “right” voters are more likely to be registered and Reps. are more likely to vote. The actual results match likely voters best.
March 19, 2010, 9:35 amDesiderius says:
Wait a munite, I thought “public” meant “government”. What are they polling non-government workers for?
Ah – Rasmussen. Typical Republican anti-government bias. That explains it.
March 19, 2010, 9:36 amG. May says:
Not saying I really like VC’s recent polling fetish, or find it remotely useful, but suggesting that “every other polling organization” is showing something significantly different is just misinformed.
Would you say that the PPP is slanted Republican as well? Or that the only polling organization that has a slant is Rasmussen?
March 19, 2010, 9:44 amOrin Kerr says:
Oh, and I assume most readers got the joke with my comment at 2:28am. (Daily Pundit didn’t, at least if I am supposed to be “orrin”.)
March 19, 2010, 10:15 amSCOTUSblog » Friday round-up says:
[...] by non-U.S. citizens, in response to the Court’s ruling in Citizens United. • At the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr links to a new poll which gauges voter perceptions of the Supreme Court’s political [...]
March 19, 2010, 10:18 amAllan Leedy says:
I thought they were just a bunch of umpires.
March 19, 2010, 10:54 amAF says:
I don’t know a lot about the reputation of Rasmussen’s polling . . . .
Right, you’re just a simple country lawyer. 60 seconds on Google would have informed you that Rasmussen has a strong conservative “house effect.”
That said, even with that effect, the discrepancy is interesting.
Though it’s important to keep in mind that this reflects the public’s opinion of Kennedy/O’Connor, not Roberts/Scalia/Thomas.
March 19, 2010, 10:56 amRafi says:
I actually give “the public” a lot of credit on this one – I think it’s generally understood that while the court is liberal on some issues, it’s conservative on others.
I’m not sure how the ‘media’ portrays the court. Someone earlier mentioned Citizens United – but on that count, the media’s criticism is in line with public opinion. The decision was, and will likely continue to be, extremely unpopular.
March 19, 2010, 11:10 amAdam Kamp says:
In my mind, Guy’s post covered something that’s gone ignored here–when most laypeople think that the Court is liberal, they’re thinking about Roe v. Wade and flag-burning cases, not the current makeup. It’s because the Court has become a rallying point of a lot of conservative thought, without any heed whatsoever to a fairly hard-right four-justice bloc (though some show some independence) and that most of the lefties on the court have a bit of a centrist streak. I mean, this court has no Warrens, Marshalls, or Brennans… but that’s what people remember.
March 19, 2010, 11:11 amPhil Smith says:
60 seconds reading the Nate Silver article you linked would have been useful as well, AF.
March 19, 2010, 11:13 amAF says:
Phil Smith:
Note that I used the term “house effect” and not bias. Whether or not they are biased, Rasmussen’s results are far more conservative than those of the average poll.
March 19, 2010, 11:16 amDan says:
“Not saying I really like VC’s recent polling fetish, or find it remotely useful, but suggesting that “every other polling organization” is showing something significantly different is just misinformed.”
Look at RCP’s list of polls (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html#polls). Rasmussen’s last two have Obama at -8 and -10. Only two others in the last month have him at negatives, and they’re both -2. I’d say 8 point difference is pretty significant
March 19, 2010, 11:18 amElliot says:
Poll Accuracy in the 2008 Presidential Election
—Initial Report, November 5, 2008—
Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
Fordham University
1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
March 19, 2010, 11:24 am1. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*
5. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)*
5. ARG (10/25-27)*
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)
Elliot says:
"I agree with Josh B, trotting out polls which reflect the general public’s “thoughts” on this issue, or on health care reform, is pointless."That would depend on the point one was making.
March 19, 2010, 11:30 amyankee says:
How do you think the Court is portrayed in the media? I presume you’re making a comment about liberal media bias, but I’m sure you can say something more specific about how you think SCOTUS is portrayed and why you think so.
I follow legal developments mostly through lawyer-oriented news/blogging rather than MSM reporting, so I don’t know much about how the MSM portrays the Court.
March 19, 2010, 11:34 ambyomtov says:
I think the relevant aspect of Rasmussen’s methods here is the “likely voter” model, with the effect described in the post by Silver that Leo Marvin quoted.
Briefly, it means that Rasmussen’s samples will be more conservative than other pollsters’ samples.
That may well be perfectly accurate as far as predicting election outcomes. That is, Rasmussen’s samples may be a better sample of voters than others’. But it probably makes it a worse sample of the public at large (as opposed to likely voters).
To repeat, if those who actually vote are somewhat more conservative than the general public, then using a conservative-leaning sample is a good way to predict elections. But it’s a poor way to sample public opinion generally, for exactly the same reason – the sample is too conservative.
March 19, 2010, 11:34 amCJColucci says:
Why is it interesting that there’s a “gap” between public opinion and what the media reports — unless the gap is a commentary on the lack of impact reporting has on public opinion? Except for when what the media is reporting is about public opinion itself — as to which there is a fact of the matter, which can be reported — what the media ought to be doing is reporting what is, not what people think. Whether they’re doing that is another question, which might be worth discussing, but it has nothing to do with public opinion.
March 19, 2010, 11:36 amlgm says:
Off topic: Seriously, why do you conspirators put up with Jim Lundgren? Counterfactuals with no comments? When Bush left office, his approval ratings had been in the thirties for years, sometimes flirting with twenties. Do you ever re-evaluate your conspirator list? What criteria do you use?
March 19, 2010, 11:39 amDon de Drain says:
In the latest poll results, 25% of the public agreed that poll questions are generally poorly written, leading to meaningless results. 24% of the public disagreed. 51% of the public said they could not understand the question asked by the poll.
March 19, 2010, 11:41 amjukeboxgrad says:
elliot:
Rasmussen is not an idiot. I think he has a tendency to temper his skew just before an election in order to do well in an analysis like that. Whereas the rest of the time, he can indulge in his “house effect” as much as he likes.
March 19, 2010, 11:46 amSarcastro says:
The only thing more fun than complaining about polls is getting into a debate about what the right answer to the polling questions should be!
Too bad such things must be left to more fun sites. Over here, the Internet is serious business.
March 19, 2010, 11:47 amjeffry house says:
Yes, I generally find Rasmussen overestimates conservative/Republican sentiment by about 7% or so.
Also, I don’t think it matters much that “the media” have a different take on the court than does the general public.
The media follow court decisions much more closely than does the public. And what the public may think is a “pro-terrorist” outcome may actually be a pro-civil rights outcome.
March 19, 2010, 11:50 amyankee says:
I would have thought polling likely voters was a poor way to sample public opinion generally because you’re systematically excluding half of the public from the sampling pool. I can’t think of any reason for introducing that kind of systematic exclusion if the goal is to understand public opinion rather than to predict election returns. This is as true for public opinion about the Supreme Court as for public opinion about Tiger’s infidelities.
Even if likely voters and the general public had the same conservative/liberal distribution, they’d be systematically different in various other ways, which would affect answers to opinion polls. So if your goal is to understand the general public, sampling likely voters is a poor method regardless of whether or not likely voters are more conservative.
March 19, 2010, 11:52 amElliot says:
How do you calculate 7%?
March 19, 2010, 11:56 amG. May says:
I note that you haven’t commented on the posts showing strong evidence for an excellent record by Rasmussen. Is it simply because you don’t like the results?
March 19, 2010, 11:57 amorca says:
IIRC, Rasmussen called the 2000 presidential election Gore 49%, Bush 40%.
March 19, 2010, 12:03 pmricky says:
Loving all the crybabies whining about the last post. Keep ‘em coming!
March 19, 2010, 12:05 pmrarango says:
Fortunately independent observers can make their own judgments about poll accuracy following elections. Seems to me elections are the ultimate reflection of what voters think, not what the public at large thinks. And if the public at large is not voting their opinions are interesting but not particularly relevant
And Sarcastro: you da man. You nailed it.
March 19, 2010, 12:19 pmorca says:
Not really that fun. I think the American Right is now discovering polls are a poor substitute for actual political power.
March 19, 2010, 12:22 pmyankee says:
Hooray for tautologies!
March 19, 2010, 12:34 pmMike McDougal says:
You’re not saying anything important by noting that groups are composed of individuals. And it’s certainly the case that the group has an externally and internally recognized identity and that it takes collective actions.
March 19, 2010, 12:37 pmStamper says:
There is no way to test “public opinion generally” without conducting a poll which will come with its own sampling bias and which is untestable as there is no control, meaning an election to measure accuracy. Furthermore, what relevance is the opinion of a person not likely to vote and who is likely to be more politically ignorant than the average person who will vote?
March 19, 2010, 12:40 pmrarango says:
Yankev–point taken–I did not express my thought very artfully!
March 19, 2010, 12:47 pmrpt says:
He polled the wrong sample. There were only nine voters.
March 19, 2010, 12:49 pmorca says:
A new Zogby poll shows 72% of Americans over-estimate the amount of Foreign Aid money America spends by at least a factor of six:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1832
March 19, 2010, 12:57 pmthinkstrategically says:
…because he compares Rasmussen’s polls (which measure likely voters) to other polls which measure RV or Adults (and are thus a few points toward the Dems) and takes that as proof that Rasmussen is slanted. In reality, the bulk of the 5.5% deviation between Rasmussen and Silver’s baseline is due to the fact that they’re polling entirely different groups.
March 19, 2010, 12:59 pmbyomtov says:
Yankee,
I would have thought polling likely voters was a poor way to sample public opinion generally because you’re systematically excluding half of the public from the sampling pool.
This is also true, unless the pollster thinks likely voters are no different than the general public. Of course, if the pollster thinks that, then there is no reason to go to the trouble of trying to identify likely voters. So, yes, that’s correct.
Stamper,
There is no way to test “public opinion generally” without conducting a poll which will come with its own sampling bias and which is untestable as there is no control, meaning an election to measure accuracy. Furthermore, what relevance is the opinion of a person not likely to vote and who is likely to be more politically ignorant than the average person who will vote?
There’s always a possibility of bias, which is why confidence intervals are reported – to give an idea of the degree of possible bias.
The problem is that Rasmussen’s sample has a known bias as a sample of public opinion generally. They start by picking a from a relatively conservative population, which means the confidence interval they report only applies to that population. The error as a percentage of the public is bigger.
To take an extreme example – suppose you polled 1000 known contributors to the RNC to determine their approval of Obama, and got a 10% approval rate. The reported 95% confidence interval, plus or minus 2%, would tell you the accuracy of the result for GOP contributors, not for the entire population.
As to why we care about the opinion of someone who is not likely to vote, well, that’s the pollster’s decision, and it’s fine either way as long as the result is properly reported and understood. If you want to know what the general public thinks about something, poll a sample of the general public. If you want to know what likely voters think, poll a sample of likely voters. Then report what you actually did, including the implications.
March 19, 2010, 1:18 pmTGT says:
@Stamper
There are a couple problems with your post.
First is the issue of the model used. I’m not sure you understand the difference between modeling/sampling and scientific proof. It is possible to model the population at large. There is no need of an election to test your model. An election isn’t even an accurate test. Say I model the US as 51% extremely liberal blacks and 49% extremely conservative whites. I could have hit the presidential election spot on. Clearly, matching election results does not mean my model is at all accurate. Models are also constantly being changed and tweaked based on general population survey results. Even if a model could be proved accurate based on an election, that model is not still in use 16 months later.
The next issue is about the relevance in opinion of all people. Since the poll was represented by Jim as general public opinion, that it’s not based on general public opinion is extremely important. Either Jim was intentionally attempting to mislead, or he didn’t understand the differences. In the first case, he’s making this RedState and driving people like me away. In the latter case, if he doesn’t edit his post to correct his misrepresentations, he’s still being a partisan hack.
Why should I trust someone’s opinion on the law, if they routinely ignore other facts when it supports their side?
Good for a lawyer to advocate for their side. Bad for a constitutional blog to do the same.
March 19, 2010, 1:29 pmflyovertard says:
“I agree with Josh B, trotting out polls which reflect the general public’s “thoughts” on this issue, or on health care reform, is pointless.”
- Cause only the thoughts of smart lawyer types are worth trotting out.
“Rasmussen is not an idiot. I think he has a tendency to temper his skew just before an election in order to do well in an analysis like that.”
- In fact he’s so smart that he knows exactly how much to temper his skew to have the best performance of any poll over the last few elections.
March 19, 2010, 1:34 pmTGT says:
As noted, Silver makes it clear exactly what he is doing and the problems with it. Again, what is disingenius with that? Should he just throw out Rasmussen and ignore them completely because they use non-standard modeling mid-cycle? Wouldn’t that be disingenuous?
March 19, 2010, 1:40 pmChristopher Cooke says:
Does Rasmussen’s poll ask the voters to identify the nine Supreme Court justices? I predict a Jay Leno “man in the street” moment here.
Sample Question:
Who is John Roberts?
A. Former Commissioner of Major League Baseball, during the 1980s
March 19, 2010, 1:42 pmB. One of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence
C. Julia Roberts’ Dad
D. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Hasselmann says:
Anyway the religious conservatives’ number one issue (by far) is abortion, and since Roe V. Wade hasn’t been overturned they will en mass see the court as ‘too liberal’ even if it is conservative about other issues.
March 19, 2010, 1:47 pmKazinski says:
Here is another table showing the results of the 2008 election, note that Rasmussen had polling in 44 races. Rasmussen’s standard error tied for the lowest with two other pollsters:
My conclusion is that Rasmussen is skewed toward accuracy in election results, which is not relavent in a poll about the Supreme Court.
March 19, 2010, 1:49 pmSarcastro says:
The problem isn’t the Court, it’s the voters. Far too many disagree with Sarcastro! I think this speaks volumes about media bias, academic bias, and a bunch of other things I cannot change!
March 19, 2010, 1:50 pmepluribus says:
yankee says:
Good point. Is the Supreme Court going to be on the ballot any time soon? If not, this kind of polling would seem to be particularly poor.
March 19, 2010, 1:55 pmNorthern Dave says:
I like Jim Lindgren’s posts. The Wolf Blitzer Left is still proclaiming the arrival of the humanist messiah BO. If the major news media used the derogatory adjectives re Obama they’d used re Bush we’d see a different polity. Ironically the continuous singling out of Fox just indicates how iron is the cage the rest of them are in….
As for the SCOTUS, Rasmussen’s results would IMHO indicate that it is probably a reflective mix of US culture. I would classify it as too liberal as its social polity is libertine (pro-gay, pro-abortion, etc.). I would bet that as there are fewer and fewer of us who are socially right and fiscally centre (believing both government and private initiative have a place in the public venue) the Scotus will be seen as more and more centrist until Sotomayor is seen as a bit conservative…………..
March 19, 2010, 1:58 pmLololo says:
Way to go Jim Lindgren for raising the level of debate. And regarding your earlier post: saying that the “final march” to passing healthcare reminds you of the “final solution”? Classy.
March 19, 2010, 1:58 pmNorthern Dave says:
Off with you to read Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children”. You can make a difference. It’s up to you whether it’s for Good or Evil :-)
March 19, 2010, 2:00 pmepluribus says:
Christopher Cooke says:
Yes, it would be that, and worse. If they can’t even name the justices, how in the world would they know whether the justices are “conservative” or “liberal” (whatever that means). I think this shows not only the inappropriateness of public opinion polls in registering opinion about the Supreme Court, but also the vacuity of trying to label Supreme Court decisions as “conservative” or “liberal”–that is, if “conservative” or “liberal” are to tell us anything more than the words “Republican” or “Democrat” currently tell us.
March 19, 2010, 2:05 pmNorthern Dave says:
“America’s Final March for Reform” does rather invoke images of Death Marches and Final Solutions.
To quote Eugene Volokh:
“Say what you will about the likelihood of “slippery slopes” — and I’ve said more than most people — but it’s hard to categorically deny the possibility when the supporters of legislation are touting the possibility as a positive feature. From Nancy Pelosi, quoted by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post):
“My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive …. We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow.”
Given this, it makes sense that one should decide whether to support or oppose this proposal not just based on its own terms, but on the likely shape of the “more legislation” that will be enabled by the proposal’s enactment.”
Recall that original health care reform legislation did include Death Panels…
March 19, 2010, 2:08 pmNorthern Dave says:
Sorry, the quote by EV was from his earlier blog, “Slippery Slope”….
March 19, 2010, 2:09 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Plus which, the terms “conservative” and “liberal,” as used by the general public, seem to have been drained of content. They mostly just mean someone I like, or don’t like, depending on the self-identification of the person answering.
On domestic issues, who is more conservative, Obama or Eisenhower? If your views are pro-corporate, does that make you conservative (on taxes?), or progressive (on diversity)? Even before Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt was tending toward a militaristic foreign policy. Does that make him conservative? And on and on.
What’s it all mean?
March 19, 2010, 2:16 pmSarcastro says:
One of the best parables of the effectiveness of polling on the constitution of the Supreme Court ever made!
March 19, 2010, 2:21 pmeyesay says:
S wrote, “Who cares what 1000 people think. It does not matter what model you use, having every voter in the poll represent millions of others is useless.” Incorrect. If each member of the underlying population is equally likely to be in the polled sample, then a poll of 1,000 people will generate polling results in error by no more than 3.1%, 95% of the time, no matter how large the underlying population. See, for example, Sample Size Calculator. The assumption that each member of the underlying population is equally likely to be polled is of course only approximately true. Polling organizations have techniques that try to make it more likely that the polling sample population resembles the underlying population. Part of the difference among the various polling organizations is their methodologies on this point. But the main point is that the idea that a poll of 1,000 individuals cannot shed light on the views of hundreds of millions is just plain wrong. If the sampling is unbiased, 95% of the time, a poll of 1000 people will be off by no more than 3.1%, and 99% of the time it will be off by no more than 4.1%, no matter how large the underlying population.
March 19, 2010, 2:28 pmeyesay says:
Liberal justices on the Supreme Court include Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, and William O. Douglas, but none of them are on the Supreme Court today. None of the current justices are liberals at all. The so-called liberals are moderates, not liberals.
A more interesting poll would have discussed specific cases and asked what people think about the decisions. I predict that polls would find a majority in opposition to the Supreme Court decisions on Ledbetter, Citizens United, and Kelo.
March 19, 2010, 2:37 pmjames says:
You infer Death Marches and Final Solutions from the title, but that says more about you and Jim than it does about Obama. When your lens is always focused on attributing the worst possible motive to each word and action (even as Obama copies many of Bush’s policies this first year), you will definitely have trouble seeing anything other than total annihiliation of all you hold dear inside every speech and email.
And I am pretty sure that using death panel as a Proper Noun would infer that those words were an actual title found somewhere in the original reform, which they are not. Leave it to the ignorant to be so afraid of cost-benefit analysis when applied to the extremely expensive treatments found in elderly patient care… And yet two wars at once are worth any cost, up to and including actual death.
March 19, 2010, 2:51 pmnice strategy says:
This is the same “Wolf Blitzer left” that labeled the DOJ as “Department of Jihad” as they reported on what most respectable conservative lawyers (including several here on VC, Ken Starr, etc.) thought of as an inappropriate McCarthyite smear job on DOJ lawyers that represented accused detainees?
Get a grip.
The presumption that the MSM leans left is one of the most pernicious untruths in our political discourse. The MSM is a status quo institution that values neutrality over objectivity or analysis. They repeat the talking points of various politicians as entertainment for partisans.
March 19, 2010, 2:57 pmSarcastro says:
Trying to palm Wolf off on the left, eh? Very clever!
March 19, 2010, 3:01 pmJoseph Slater says:
I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve ever heard the term “Wolf Blitzer left.” But I’m not surprised that a post that begins with that ends with “death panels.”
March 19, 2010, 3:06 pmyankee says:
I can just imagine the question:
Somehow I suspect the public’s answers might be less than elucidating.
March 19, 2010, 3:07 pmToby says:
I think Rasmussen is more accurate throughout. I think that the MSM regularly hire pollsters who give them the answers that they want. I think that when the most accurate pollster is viewed as skewed, it reveals widespread systematic error by the others. I wonder how much this systematic error contributes to making some Democrats feel that elections are stacked against them, and thus contributes to the rage and incivility of modern politics.
March 19, 2010, 3:19 pmyankee says:
More accurate as a measure of what? Rasmussen seems to be more accurate as a predictor of Presidential election results, but their methodology (polling likely voters) makes them less accurate as a measure of public opinion generally. Why? Because they’re intentionally excluding the half or so of the public that’s not likely to vote.
There’s nothing inherently right or wrong about deciding you want to know about likely voters rather than all Americans, you just have to acknowledge that you’re asking one question rather than another.
March 19, 2010, 3:29 pmyankee says:
Also, I still want to know how Orin thinks the media portray the Supreme Court.
March 19, 2010, 3:31 pmNorthern Dave says:
Haven’t you noticed the Beard? Clear indication of possible Communist sympathies there (see: Castro, Marx, possibly Jane Fonda etc…). Along with the Dan Ratheresque critiques one is inclined to list Wolf amongst the loyal supporters of Liberal Fascism.
Personally I’d like to see a SCOTUS with nine Scalia members on it.
March 19, 2010, 3:32 pmAnonsters says:
That would be gruesome, wouldn’t it?
I don’t want to see one of Scalia’s members.
March 19, 2010, 3:53 pmeyesay says:
Yankee wrote, “The Supreme Court recently decided the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission….” Earlier I wrote, “A more interesting poll would have discussed specific cases….” Yankee’s example is not a discussion. I was thinking more along the lines of 200- or 300-word summaries of each case.
March 19, 2010, 4:08 pmElliot says:
1. This is nor hard. Read the poll. The pollsters tell us if they select from pools of likely voters, registered voters, etc. If you don’t want a poll of likely voters, then don’t use Rasmussen.
2. Several commenters have written of the futility of polling a population that is not well informed about a topic. I’d observe that SC appointments have become a very important election issue, so the views of the voters on the court are very instructive, regardless of their accuracy. We don’t test voters on their grasp of issues at the ballot box.
March 19, 2010, 4:20 pmuberVU - social comments says:
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by philipmiles: Public opinion on #SCOTUS : Too liberal 32%; just right 33%; too conservative 23% – http://tinyurl.com/yhp8tah...
March 19, 2010, 4:24 pmyankee says:
eyesay: I don’t think responses to pollster-written summaries would be instructive either. When you’re trying to come up with a brief summary of something as complex as Supreme Court case writing a “neutral” description is virtually impossible. Writing a biased description designed to get the answer you want, on the other hand, is extremely easy. The responses would say a lot more about biases in the wording of the question than about the public’s opinion of the decision.
March 19, 2010, 4:29 pmJR says:
Do you think that poll represents considered opinions or base impressions? “There’s no such thing as conservative/liberal enough” is probably a widely held sentiment among a large portion of the populace, and both sides have made a point of hyping the Court’s political tendencies, from “Justice Sunday” and “Impeach Earl Warren” on the right to…well, pretty much everything my side has ever said about Scalia, Thomas and Alito (though I think the “liberal judges” caricature is proliferated far more often, and certainly with far greater uniformity and coordination with well funded political organizations).
I simply doubt that the respondents were generally more concerned with the Court’s actual work product–from its decisions on the merits to its decisions to grant or deny cert–and less with the caricatures most often presented to them.
March 19, 2010, 4:50 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » ORIN KERR: Is the Supreme Court too conservative? Not according to the public, it seems…. says:
[...] ORIN KERR: Is the Supreme Court too conservative? Not according to the public, it seems. [...]
March 19, 2010, 5:22 pmOrder of the Coif says:
This is your own personal W. A. Guess, yes?
March 19, 2010, 5:43 pmepluribus says:
Elliot says:
I wouldn’t say it’s futile. I would say it’s highly misleading.
Ignorant opinions and well-informed opinions are not equally insutructive. There should be some additional value to an opinion when the person polled actually knows something about the issue being polled.
No. We have secret ballots in the US. When voters cast their votes for candidates, we are prohibited from asking for their views on issues (or even on Supreme Court appointments). But is it beyond the ability of pollsters to inquire into such matters? Is it so unimportant that pollsters can’t (or shouldn’t) be concerned about it?
March 19, 2010, 5:50 pmBarry Youngerman says:
What an enormous torrent of words over a very simple matter.
The public knows that the current court is divided on ideological lines, often on a 5-4 basis. Most conservatives would find such a balanced situation to be “too liberal” for their taste, and most liberals would find it “too conservative.”
For many years now, polling organizations, even the self-proclaimed liberal ones, have found that many more Americans define themselves as conservative than liberal. Not surprisingly, more voters find the court “too liberal” than “too conservative.”
The court has surely become more conservative of late, which explains why the poll does not show as big a difference between “too-liberal” and “too-conservative” as one would expect given the strong conservative bias of the country. Many conservatives, such as myself, are satisfied that the one-time liberal bias has been corrected. That’s good enough for us, so we have stopped complaining.
Whether the court should concern itself with public opinion is another matter. But this poll simply confirms me in my long-standing belief that the public is fairly well informed.
March 19, 2010, 6:10 pmepluribus says:
Good point, Barry. It only took you 179 words to explain why “this is a very simple matter.”
March 19, 2010, 6:25 pmrrr says:
Oh, good grief. Quit crying and start your own blog.
March 19, 2010, 6:30 pmAnonsters says:
This is a comment complaining about how many comments there are.
March 19, 2010, 6:31 pmnoahp says:
The battle for public opinion is constantly raging…”Spin” anyone? It escapes me why any politician (or citizen for that matter) would give a lab rat’s pink puckered anus about any population other than ‘likely’ voters…those who may affect future elections in our nation.
I was motivated to donate to Scott Brown in early January by a Rasmussen poll showing him trailing by nine points. He later won by five. I don’t recall Silver giving him much of a chance.
March 19, 2010, 6:47 pmElliot says:
OK. They are not equally instructive. But both remain instructive. They are indicators of public ideas on election issues.
If one is actually trying to learn about the ideological leanings of the court, then opinions of law professors are far more valuable than those of the uninformed.
However, if one is trying to learn about the leanings of the population, rather then the court, then both informed and uninformed opinions are important.
If I were interested in the public’s ideas of the ideological balance of the court, I would pay far more attention to the responses of millions of citizens rather than thousands of law professors.
March 19, 2010, 7:04 pmnoahp says:
Numerous polls have shown (not just Rasmussen) that this is a center Right nation so explaining the poll cited is not that difficult.
As for the unpopularity of Citizens United, how much of that is due to Obama’s mischaracterization of the decision during the SOTU?
March 19, 2010, 7:07 pmepluribus says:
Yes, so would I. But if I were interested in correct (or appropriate or wise) legal or constitutional decisions, I would pay far more attention to thousands of law professors. Just as, if I were interested in the correct interpretation of climate date, I would pay far more attention to thousands of climate scientists than to millions of citizens. It does help to know a little about what you are talking about, even (perhaps especially) when you are being polled.
March 19, 2010, 7:12 pmDougInSanDiego says:
Rasmussen has been quoted more than once on FOX shows.
Once can be forgiven – sometimes. The repetition can NEVER be tolerated by those who feel the need to destroy all things FOX.
March 19, 2010, 7:17 pmepluribus says:
Your language is colorful. If I may translate less colorfully, you don’t care what anybody thinks unless they’re likely to vote. Then you only look at “likely voter polls,” not “public opinion polls,” which is how these exercises are generally described. Since the “public” and “likely voters” are, as you admit, not the same group at all. Yet there are some of the rest of us who do care about “public opinion.”
March 19, 2010, 7:18 pmmoqui says:
However, Nate Silver has a “house effect” of D +5.2%, nearly obviating the Rasmussen effect ;)
March 19, 2010, 7:19 pmCrazyTrain says:
Lindgren has closed comments for a long time. His explanation for why is somewhere in the archives. I think that his posts draw the most fervant criticisms from commenters because they are almost always uniformly partisan, contain no original or unique analysis or thought, and mostly repeat the PJ Media-type’s CW. If you want to hear the CW from Pajamas Media types, it’s best to read Pajamas Media and Instapundit directly.
As to his posts reflecting badly on the others here, he has been at it since before the 2004 election, and his schtick has not changed since then. The other bloggers on the site seem to have survived with their reputations intact.
March 19, 2010, 7:24 pmElliot says:
I remember one of the VC principals a while back saying that whenever Lindgren or Bernstein(?) post without comments, Kerr will immediately follow with a similar post with open comments. This seems a good example of that. What’s the problem?
March 19, 2010, 7:41 pmKen Hahn says:
I’ll support Rasmussen (and the American people ). The court contains two left wing extremists ( Stevens and Ginsberg ), two conventional lefties ( Sotomayor and Breyer ), one left-center jurist ( Kennedy ), two centrists ( Roberts and Alito ) and only two on the right ( Scalia and Thomas ). The court is, as are most federal courts, leftist. It is somewhat to the right of the lapdog media and academia. But then again so are most social democrats.
March 19, 2010, 7:49 pmBlue says:
Nope. That tells you much more about the ideological leanings of law profs (far left) rather than the Court itself.
March 19, 2010, 8:44 pmnoahp says:
@epluribus: you accurately restated my point. I hope you do not imagine you refuted it…in the anecdote given what caught my eye was that Brown was surging among likely voters and the election was two weeks away.
Now there is certanly a rhetorical use of pure public opinion but I think it is dishonest. There is no general way to verify the sampling model.. For example, there is a poll out there that only 35% voted for Obama in 2008. Continue the argument esquire.
March 19, 2010, 8:45 pmDoc Merlin says:
Wait, are you trying to use a poll that happened to really heavily bent democrat, to support the idea that Rasmussen has a heavy republican bend?
March 19, 2010, 8:58 pmleo marvin says:
Nothing to add now. Maybe later when my head stops spinning.
March 19, 2010, 9:05 pmleo marvin says:
Mark Levin just gave Bernstein’s post on Obama’s Patriot Center speech an enthusiastic shout out on his radio show, while praising the site in general. I suspect the bloggers’ reputations will survive even that, but I’ll be curious to see if it makes many new VC commenters out of Levin’s audience.
March 19, 2010, 9:15 pmDr. Funke says:
What I find sad about this poll is that people actually voted for it being too liberal
Just goes to show me that so many people haven’t the slightest clue what they are talking about but since they can’t stand liberals, they should just mock them anyway they can
March 19, 2010, 9:22 pmjgreene says:
Whatever bias Rasmussen may have, we the People have to get rid of Justices on the SC who believe that International Law should play some part in their decisions. I suggest they reread their OATH OF OFFICE.
Liberals and Progressives on the Court should be replaced with Constructionist Justices who rule based on original intent. If the Congress wishes to change the Constitution it can do so through the amendment process.
Our present Democrat Majority in Congress is a Socialist Progressive Majority and do NOT believe in following the intent of the Constitution. The are Traitors to their Oath to the Constitution. Hanging anyone?
March 19, 2010, 9:24 pmHejde says:
I find it “funny” that legal eagles are fighting over what the meaning of ‘is’ is. When reading the Constitution and the Federalist, it becomes quite clear that the framers were doing their best to speak in plain language – and that the lawyers have been doing their level best since to obfuscate their words.
The Supreme Court is in the unenviable position to thread the needle – and most times they have trouble, because they are lawyers and don’t do to well with common sense. There is a reason Gilbert & Sullivan made Trial by Jury.
My suspicion is, that the next two years will give us enough legal drama to last one or two lifetimes. The question is only whether the Supremes will stick with the “hicks” aka the people or the “cognoscenti” i.e. the legal eagles in their reading of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Either way we are closer to another revolution than at any time before – even counting the “recent unpleasantness” – I only hope the upheaval will be peaceful, but that is ‘iffy’
peace
March 19, 2010, 9:26 pmHejde
leo marvin says:
I didn’t expect answers so quickly.
March 19, 2010, 9:52 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
March 19, 2010, 9:59 pmAu contraire, the fact that the replacement of any Justice can be the cause of so much maneuvering underlines just how fragile the idea of ‘the Court as an entity’ is.
Ricardo says:
Norway and Sweden also identify as “center right.” It’s not clear that the term actually has any substance behind it.
March 19, 2010, 11:05 pmElliot says:
We are rarely limited to learning just one thing. Perhaps we will learn more about law professors than we will learn about the make-up of the court. But I suspect what we learn about the make-up of the court from the law professors will be more than we would learn from the uninformed.
March 19, 2010, 11:11 pmnoahp says:
@Ricardo: I think you know what I meant if you are an American otherwise typing on my blackberry is difficult so I will pass. :-)
March 19, 2010, 11:28 pmStephen Lathrop says:
When I mentioned drained of content, I should have included left/right along with liberal/conservative.
How old are you Ken? Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, John Paul Stevens, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Have I got it, or is there some territory way out to the left of “left wing extremist”?
And could you please help me out with something. Do you really believe Haywood and Debs are like Stevens and Ginsburg, or do you make comments like that because you hope to confuse others who might not know?” And if it’s the latter, why are you trying to do it here?
March 19, 2010, 11:42 pmRicardo says:
The point is that just as “center right” can mean very different things between countries, it can also mean different things within the U.S. as well. Ask someone from the Bay Area and someone from the rural counties of Mississippi what center right means and I suspect you will get two different definitions. That means a statement like “the U.S. is a center-right country” is not very meaningful.
March 19, 2010, 11:44 pmorca says:
I think Rasmussen just got lucky last election.
In a perfect world, each and every one of us would have polling data that showed most Americans agreed with us about everything.
March 20, 2010, 3:20 amHyphenated American says:
A couple of points. Firstly, checking the likely voters is the only SCIENTIFIC test when it comes to politics, since the accuracy of the polling sample can be empirically checked during elections. Every other test cannot be tested empirically, and is therefore far less scientific.
Secondly, if majority of voters believe the SC is liberal – then it is liberal in their view. You may disagree with voters’ view – but remember that your disagreement is simply an opinion – and it is not worth more than an opinion of a single voter. If you don’t believe this – just ask yourself – is it possible that your definition of “liberal” differs from how other people define this term?
The claims that majority of people hasn’t read each and every decision of Supreme Court and don’t know all the names of the judges is pretty much irrelevant. I may turn on the TV once in a while and watch particular team play soccer – and even if I don’t watch all the games (say 1 out of 5), and know all the names of the players – still, if I have an opinion that a particular team sucks – and my opinion is shared by majority of people – well – then it’s easy to conclude that the team most likely sucks.
These are my 2 cents, comrades.
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March 20, 2010, 8:29 aml
Hellooooo says:
Depending on the question, this may not be the case. Obviously, whether the Supreme Court is “too” liberal or “too” conservative is wholly subjective. A person could think the Court was “too liberal” even if it was filled with nine Justice Thomases. This would not mean the Court was actually liberal, just that it was “too liberal” — i.e., not conservative *enough* — for that particular person. But asking whether something is “too” liberal or conservative is not the same as asking with it is liberal or conservative. Yes, you are right that the definitions of those words are subjective (they are adjectives, after all) — but there is nevertheless a large general consensus as to the meaning of those words. For instance, suppose someone called Justice Thomas a “flaming liberal.” You wouldn’t be failing to appreciate the subjectivity of words if you responded that that person is just flat wrong. Sure, everybody can have an opinion, and even though the words “conservative” and “liberal” mean different things to different people, there is enough of a general understanding of the words to say that it is incorrect to say that Justice Thomas is a liberal. He’s not a liberal. Thus, the ignorance of the person being asked does make a difference. People that don’t know anything about Justice Thomas can say that he’s a liberal, but that doesn’t make him any more or less a liberal. It’s the opinions of those who know something about him that matter. And at least as of right now, according to the generally accepted definition, the overwhelming consensus is that he’s conservative. So he’s not a liberal.
March 20, 2010, 9:06 amDesiderius says:
Orca,
“I think Rasmussen just got lucky last election.
In a perfect world, each and every one of us would have polling data that showed most Americans agreed with us about everything.”
Not my perfect world, brother, not mine.
March 20, 2010, 9:32 amDesiderius says:
Ricardo,
“Ask someone from the Bay Area and someone from the rural counties of Mississippi what center right means and I suspect you will get two different definitions. That means a statement like “the U.S. is a center-right country” is not very meaningful.”
Exactly. There is far more overlap between what is signified by “left” for the former and “right” for the latter, than there is for the same word between the two.
March 20, 2010, 9:35 amStephen Lathrop says:
Delivering results to please partisans who pay for polls is clearly part of the polling business. Given that, probably the only way to judge a firm’s polling accuracy is over the long term, including a fair sampling of elections showing surprising outcomes, and victories by both parties. Otherwise, a polling firm that slants one way or the other can see its apparent accuracy skewed favorably by a run of elections that slant the same way, or unfavorably the other way.
March 20, 2010, 10:18 amStephen Lathrop says:
The notion that equivalence at the polling place is equivalence in public debate ought to be resisted. James Madison is a better source than Glen Beck on the question of organizing successful government institutions.
March 20, 2010, 10:26 amrpt says:
Does Levin allow callers to comment? Probably not. Someone should alert him to Lindgren as well.
March 20, 2010, 10:54 amnoahp says:
@orca suggest you go to rasmussen’s website where he is clearly is responding to renewed claims of deliberate bias when he first began showing Obama below 50% months ago. I paraphrase but he says not only did he call the ’08 election correctly and accurately but that his tracking polls showed Obama with a stable lead for weeks prior to the election. Since this is an easily checkable assertion, I do not believe he is lying…it is clear he values his reputation.
Is this c/w lucky?
March 20, 2010, 11:13 amnoahp says:
“Center right” what does it mean?
Inside the conservative bubble it means polls indicating IIRC that about 40% conservative, 40% independent, 20% liberal…self identified. Also Gallup has polled on certain questions for decades that 60% agree with but liberals in general do not. Sorry can’t give links but what is the point anyway? Bubble walls are strong and resilient. I will grant that self identfied whatevers are a diverse lot internally.
March 20, 2010, 11:44 amElliot says:
I seem to remember headlines and commentary about Obama’s “Soaring Popularity” not too long ago. I wonder if they sampled registered voters, likely voters, voters in the last election, general public, or law school students at tier-1 or tier-2 schools?
March 20, 2010, 12:25 pmbyomtov says:
I’ll support Rasmussen (and the American people ).
For Pete’s sake, people. As Elliott said above, this is not hard.
It is not a criticism of Rasmussen to say that he polls likely voters, and that likely voters tend to be a little more conservative than the general public. It is a descriptive statement. The thing to bear in mind is that a poll of likely voters will therefore produce results that are a little more conservative than the general public really is, and the two should not be confused.
Nate Silver’s comments are not an accusation of bias, they are a description of Rasmussen’s methods and their consequences. Clarification is not criticism.
If you took a poll to determine Obama’s approval rate in Alabama you would, I suppose, get a fairly low number. There would be nothing wrong with that as long as you made it clear that the poll was in Alabama, and made no claim that the results reflected the entire country. That’s all that’s happening here, except the effect is almost surely smaller than it would be with an Alabama-only poll.
March 20, 2010, 1:07 pmrjs says:
Rasmussen didn’t specify which Supreme Court.
March 20, 2010, 9:25 pmmariner says:
None of the above. John Roberts is the Chief Justice of the United States.
March 20, 2010, 9:51 pm