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  <title>The Fighting 29th</title>
  <subtitle>All about New York's 29th Congressional District</subtitle>
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  <updated>2006-10-21T18:06:05-04:00</updated>
  <entry>
    <title>Another Left-Wing Conspiracy</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.fighting29th.com/2006/10/another-left-wing-conspiracy.html" />
    <id>http://www.fighting29th.com/2006/10/another-left-wing-conspiracy.html</id>
    <published>2006-10-21T18:06:05-04:00</published>
    <updated>2006-10-21T18:06:05-04:00</updated>
    <author>
      <name>Rottenchester</name>
    </author>
    <category term="Analysis" />
    <category term="Polls" />
    <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Kuhl's spokesman, Bob VanWicklin, <a href="http://www.the-leader.com/articles/2006/10/19/news/local02.txt">spins wildly</a> on the Majority Watch poll:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It's a left-leaning group. I wouldn't call them independent. They're a group that wants to see a Democratic majority in Congress, from what I understand.</p></blockquote>
<p>Majority Watch is a project of <a href="http://www.constituentdynamics.com/about/index.php">Constituent Dynamics</a> and <a href="http://rtstrategies.com/">RT Strategies</a>.&nbsp; Constituent Dynamics is a recently established polling company trying to perfect IVR polls, or robo-polling.&nbsp; RT is a joint project of one Democrat and one Republican.&nbsp; They're the same firm that does polling for independent, well-respected political analyst <a href="http://cookpolitical.com/">Charlie Cook</a>.&nbsp; Many have called their polls wrong, nobody's called them biased.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And we don't know anything about the methodology of the poll, other than the little information they gave, so we're sort of skeptical about the questions they may have asked, or how they asked them.</p></blockquote>
<p>A <a href="http://www.constituentdynamics.com/mw/methodology">full discussion</a> of methodology, as well as <a href="http://www.constituentdynamics.com/mw/2006/methodology/instrument_2006_08.pdf">every question asked in the poll [pdf]</a>, is easily accessible on the Majority Watch site.&nbsp; As for how the questions are asked, it's a robo-poll, so every question is asked the same way by a pre-recorded voice.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It doesn't at all compute with any of our internal polling [...] So we'll just sort of discount it.</p></blockquote>
<p>Finally, after two heaping helpings of bullshit, a little bit of truthful spin.&nbsp; I expect spin from a flack, but Mr. VanWicklin's bull-to-spin ratio is chronically high.&nbsp; </p>    ]]></summary>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Kuhl's spokesman, Bob VanWicklin, <a href="http://www.the-leader.com/articles/2006/10/19/news/local02.txt">spins wildly</a> on the Majority Watch poll:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It's a left-leaning group. I wouldn't call them independent. They're a group that wants to see a Democratic majority in Congress, from what I understand.</p></blockquote>
<p>Majority Watch is a project of <a href="http://www.constituentdynamics.com/about/index.php">Constituent Dynamics</a> and <a href="http://rtstrategies.com/">RT Strategies</a>.&nbsp; Constituent Dynamics is a recently established polling company trying to perfect IVR polls, or robo-polling.&nbsp; RT is a joint project of one Democrat and one Republican.&nbsp; They're the same firm that does polling for independent, well-respected political analyst <a href="http://cookpolitical.com/">Charlie Cook</a>.&nbsp; Many have called their polls wrong, nobody's called them biased.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And we don't know anything about the methodology of the poll, other than the little information they gave, so we're sort of skeptical about the questions they may have asked, or how they asked them.</p></blockquote>
<p>A <a href="http://www.constituentdynamics.com/mw/methodology">full discussion</a> of methodology, as well as <a href="http://www.constituentdynamics.com/mw/2006/methodology/instrument_2006_08.pdf">every question asked in the poll [pdf]</a>, is easily accessible on the Majority Watch site.&nbsp; As for how the questions are asked, it's a robo-poll, so every question is asked the same way by a pre-recorded voice.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It doesn't at all compute with any of our internal polling [...] So we'll just sort of discount it.</p></blockquote>
<p>Finally, after two heaping helpings of bullshit, a little bit of truthful spin.&nbsp; I expect spin from a flack, but Mr. VanWicklin's bull-to-spin ratio is chronically high.&nbsp; </p>    ]]></content>
  </entry>
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