Ed Morrissey calls BS on the Washington Post

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Hot Air's Ed Morrissey catches the Washington Post misrepresenting the results of it's own survey, the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll:

The Washington Post claims that... Sarah Palin’s polling position has “deteriorated significantly” in its latest polling... The only trouble... is that the poll numbers didn’t really change all that much...

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Which national politician has the most identification with the Tea Party movement? Sarah Palin, of course, who spoke at the Tea Party Nation convention this past week. If the Republicans and independents feel so positively about the movement that Palin supports so strongly, does it make any sense that Palin’s standing among the same people would “deteriorate significantly”?

Well, no, because it hasn’t, at least not that much. The WaPo/ABC poll in November showed Palin’s numbers as 43/52, and the previous July at 40/53 (among adults, not registered or likely voters). This poll has her at 37/55, drifting a bit from November but within the MOE of July’s numbers, right after she resigned as governor. The one caveat I’d attach to that is that those earlier samples were ridiculously tilted in favor of Democrats, with 11- and 14-point gaps, while Democrats have a six-point advantage in this poll. I’d expect to see a bump upwards with the more realistic sample, but it’s more statistical noise than a “significant deterioration of support.”

That six-point advantage Morrissey mentions refers to the WaPo/ABC practice of oversampling Democrats. This time around the poll sample was composed of 32 percent Democrats, 26 percent Republicans, and 39 percent unaffiliated.

The WaPo/ABC poll is not exactly among the more accurate public opinion surveys. Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Fordham University, analyzed poll estimates from 23 major polling organizations and listed them (PDF) in order of accuracy:

1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1. 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)

Morrissey also caught the Post misrepresenting President Obama's approval numbers. The newspaper claimed that Obama’s overall approval rating is holding steady, but:

In the three-month period, Obama lost nine points in the gap to Palin’s nine, and in the seven-month period losing 17 points to Palin’s five. Which person’s position has “deteriorated significantly” in that comparison? If Palin’s is a significant deterioration, then Obama’s is a free-fall, not “holding steady.” It appears that the Post has a much different standard for analyzing a politician who hasn’t yet committed to run for any office yet and the President of the United States, and that may be as it should — but the POTUS should be held to the higher standard.

The Post was established in 1877 as an organ of the Democratic Party, and many of its critics claim that it still is. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, some conservatives called the newspaper "Pravda on the Potomac" due to the Post's left-wing bias in not only its editorials, but its reporting of hard news as well.

- JP