Chuck Todd of MSNBC made the following point a couple of days ago:

"Be careful over-interpreting the independents number for McCain in current polls. The reason he's doing well among indies is that a growing slice of them are former Republicans.

This goes to the party I.D. issue. As more folks refuse to identify themselves as GOPers, they move into the independent category, making those voters more conservative than we've seen in the past and therefore artificially increasing McCain's share among them."

This is only one of the hundred reasons that relying on a poll's numerical results--oh, good, candidate X is up five points!--can be misleading.

Sheila Suess Kennedy's blog | login or register to post comments