I think there's so much bad polling and it drives so much of the coverage that it's kind of a depressing topic for me. I think that the ABC News/Washington Post poll and the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll are the gold standard right now of what we have.

It's not too shocking to see a media guy defend media-funded polls as the "gold standard". But are they really?

There are two ways people gauge a poll's accuracy. The first is to simply take the margin of the poll's final results and compare them to the margin of the final results. So it a poll says 48-41, and the results are 53-46, the poll was supposedly "spot-on" because they both had margins of seven. I think that's a stupid way to gauge accuracy. A poll could similarly guess the results as 12-5, and be equally "accurate".

I think the best way to gauge a poll's accuracy is to take the totals for each candidate, calculate how far off the poll was, and then add them all up together. So in the example above with the poll saying 48-41 and the final results being 53-46, the results would be 10 points off (53-48 and 46-41).

With that standard in mind, here are the current accuracy rankings, based on the current national popular vote spread of 52.7-45.9, and each polls final result:

So ABC/Wapo and NBC/WSJ weren't among the most accurate. Although to be honest, polling was pretty darn good this cycle. None of these results are really that far off the mark. I'll also assume Halperin isn't talking about state-level polling, because NBC used Mason-Dixon this year, which uncharacteristically stunk up the joint, while the Wall Street Journal skipped state-level polling this year after having funded those horrible Zogby internet polls in 2006.

So what else is there? It's true that ABC/WaPo and NBC/WSJ have the money to fund elaborate polls with extensive crosstabs. But so does Pew, and its final numbers were second-best. In fact, it's hard to argue that given the breath of results, that Pew isn't the gold standard. CBS News and Democracy Corps polls also had extensive crosstabs available, all of which helped paint a more complete picture of the electorate and its leanings.

So what the hell is Halperin talking about? Well, he worked at ABC News before his current gig at Time, and his conservative buddies all work at the Wall Street Journal. Throw in a dash of the media trying to keep itself relevant by hyping its own products above all others, and that probably covers it. Because on the merits, if we're going to start talking "gold standard", and if we're going to try and define that by combining accuracy with breadth of results, then Pew would most certainly win. (And Rasmussen wouldn't be far behind.)

As to "bad polls driving too much of the coverage", there was one major culprit -- Zogby. And who was pushing Zogby's polling when it pretended to show a close race? Drudge. The guy that rules Halperin's world.

Meanwhile, John Heilemann follows up Halperin with a more substantive comment (and one clearly rued by Halperin) -- that Nate Silver kicked ass this year. Media companies may want to pretend that their products are the "gold standard", but it took a web-creation like Nate Silver to make sense of all that data and provide readers (and traditional media reporters) with numbers-based analysis of what was important, as well as offering a master clinic in how to read and analyze polls.

Halperin has long depended on his BFF Drudge to help steer the national conversation toward his beloved Republican buddies. So while he likely applauded Drudge's hyping of one-day Zogby samples (out of a three-day rolling average tracker) to create the impression that McCain was still competitive, a lot fewer people cared. All one had to do was head on over to FiveThirtyEight.com to see that, in fact, the numbers continued to paint a grim picture for McCain.

The former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who won eight states and more than four million votes in the Republican Presidential primaries, spent Election Night at home in Little Rock. Eating takeout in the den with his family and a few staffers, Huckabee wasn’t surprised to see Barack Obama win, although he couldn’t help but think that things might not have turned out the way they did had he been the nominee. “It would’ve been very different,” he said the other day. “Because I would’ve campaigned that the economy was headed toward meltdown. And I was saying this back when I was getting laughed at by the Wall Street Journal and pilloried by the National Review. They were just dicin’ and slicin’ me for not following the company line.”

And while his book is basically an extended attack on Mitt Romney and all that he represents, it looks like Huckabee doesn’t exactly have warm feelings about Sarah Palin - or rather, he’s really miffed that all the insiders who wrote him off suddenly rallied about Palin when the only difference between the two was that, unlike her, he was arguably qualified for the position:

Asked about Sarah Palin, he responded, “She, uh, was an appropriate choice, because she put John McCain back in the game.” That was the get-along answer, but a few minutes later the new, aggrieved Huckabee resurfaced. He recalled, “It was funny that all through the primary—I mean literally up until McCain got enough delegates to win—people said, ‘You know, Huckabee’s really running for Vice-President. Gee, Huckabee would be a great Vice-President.’ And from that day forward, when I actually was no longer running for President, nobody ever said, ‘Gee, Huckabee would be a great Vice-President.’ ” Neither was he quite so unperturbed by the Palin pick: “I was scratching my head, saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute. She’s wonderful, but the only difference was she looks better in stilettos than I do, and she has better hair.’ It wasn’t so much a gender issue, but it was like they suddenly decided that everything they disliked about me was O.K. . . . She was given a pass by some of the very people who said I wasn’t prepared.”

I think that is actually a really smart observation on Huckabee’s part. Why was it that all the Religious Right and Republican insiders who dismissed Huckabee, with his ten years of experience as governor and staunch record on their issues, rallied around Palin with her limited time in office and a record utterly devoid of accomplishments?

And yes, we are looking at you, Gary Bauer.

• In a November 12 editorial headlined "Mischief in Minnesota?" the Journal wrote: "You'd think Democrats would be content with last week's electoral rout. But judging from the odd doings in Minnesota, some in their party wouldn't mind adding to their jackpot by stealing a Senate seat for left-wing joker Al Franken." The Journal wrote of the absentee ballots: "[N]early every 'fix' has gone for Mr. Franken, in some cases under strange circumstances. For example, there was Friday night's announcement by Minneapolis's director of elections that she'd forgotten to count 32 absentee ballots in her car."

• During the November 11 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, host Sean Hannity said to Fox News contributor Lanny Davis: "You're missing a lot of issues here that actually matter, and one is lack of transparency. Another is a lack of uniform standards for protecting of the ballots. We have an issue of ballots showing up in a car somewhere, and then they're gonna be counted? Where were these ballots before? So there -- there's a lot of questions about -- about, you know, behavior on the part of some."

• Similarly, during the November 11 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume said, "The campaigns are also negotiating ballot security standards after an unsuccessful challenge by Coleman to halt the counting of 32 absentee ballots that were supposedly left for days in the trunk of an election official's car." During Hume's report, on-screen graphics read "FRAUD ALERT" and "CAR TROUBLE."

In a November 12 MinnPost.com article, reporter and Minneapolis Public Radio media analyst David Brauer explained the origins of the story that the missing ballots had been in Reichert's car: "The 'car ballot' story emerged Saturday [November 8] from the mouth of Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak, who, according to AP, told reporters, 'We were actually told ballots had been riding around in her car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions.' "

But contrary to the accusations by the Journal, Hannity, and Hume, Brauer also reported: "Knaak never provided a source and did not return two MinnPost calls for comment. However, he was already backing off his story at the same press event. As that day's [St. Paul] Pioneer Press noted, 'Knaak said he feels assured that what was going on with the 32 ballots was neither wrong nor unfair.' "

Indeed, the Star Tribune further reported in a November 11 article that Knaak said on November 10 that "we've heard enough from the city attorney to let go of this. It does not appear that there was any ballot-tampering, and that was our concern." From the article:

One dispute resolved

On Saturday, the Coleman campaign had asked for an injunction to stop the counting of 32 absentee ballots in Minneapolis that had not been delivered on Election Day. A judge declined to grant the injunction, and Knaak said Monday that "we've heard enough from the city attorney to let go of this. It does not appear that there was any ballot-tampering, and that was our concern."

Minneapolis city election officials said the 32 ballots were never "missing" and were delivered after Election Day.

Knaak said that with certified totals in, the campaign is now focused on the recount process.

A November 8 AP article also reported: "Knaak also said a Minneapolis attorney reassured Coleman's campaign that no one but an elected official had access to the 32 ballots and there was no tampering."

Regarding the integrity of the ballots, Brauer reported that Reichert made "three fundamental points":

Before getting into the details, she makes three fundamental points:

1. The ballots where never in her car.

2. The ballots were never in anyone's car for several days.

3. The ballots were never lost or forgotten, and spent Election Night until counting day in secure city facilities. [emphasis in original]

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on November 9 that the "32 Minneapolis ballots were part of the normal delivery of absentee ballots late in the polling day, according to Election Director Cindy Reichert. She said they were retained when they couldn't be delivered because some polling places had shut down for the day. She said the ballots were kept sealed until other election duties were completed and were being counted Saturday afternoon, with results to be delivered to the state on Monday."

Similarly, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on November 10 that on Election Day, officials "attempted to deliver absentee ballots that arrived as part of a late mail delivery to the appropriate precinct. But some precincts had closed by the time they got there, and the ballots were returned to a secure location before being counted according to state law."

From The Wall Street Journal's November 12 editorial:

The vanishing Coleman vote came during a week in which election officials are obliged to double-check their initial results. Minnesota is required to do these audits, and it isn't unusual for officials to report that they transposed a number here or there. In a normal audit, these mistakes could be expected to cut both ways. Instead, nearly every "fix" has gone for Mr. Franken, in some cases under strange circumstances.

For example, there was Friday night's announcement by Minneapolis's director of elections that she'd forgotten to count 32 absentee ballots in her car. The Coleman campaign scrambled to get a county judge to halt the counting of these absentees, since it was impossible to prove their integrity 72 hours after the polls closed. The judge refused on grounds that she lacked jurisdiction.

From the November 11 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: You're missing a lot of issues here that actually matter, and one is lack of transparency. Another is a lack of uniform standards for protecting of the ballots. We have an issue of ballots showing up in a car somewhere, and then they're gonna be counted? Where were these ballots before?

So there -- there's a lot of questions about -- about, you know, behavior on the part of some.

From the November 11 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

HUME: There are worries about what's up in that Minnesota Senate race, where Republican incumbent Norm Coleman was ahead of Democrat Al Franken by 725 votes the morning after the election.

But Franken has narrowed the gap to about 200, even though a recount has not yet been started. That is because election officials are correcting supposed typos in how the numbers were reported. Those corrections have added 435 votes to Franken while taking away 69 from Coleman. And virtually all of Franken's new votes came from just three of the more than 41,000 precincts.

The campaigns are also negotiating ballot security standards after an unsuccessful challenge by Coleman to halt the counting of 32 absentee ballots that were supposedly left for days in the trunk of an election official's car.

Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty says, quote, "These changes seem to disproportionally -- overwhelmingly favor Al Franken."

Limbaugh referred to an "Obama recession" on the November 6 and November 11 broadcasts of his nationally syndicated radio show. But as Media Matters for America has noted, analysts have refuted the proposition that the market decline is attributable to Obama's election, citing other factors such as weak economic data.

For instance, a post on The Wall Street Journal's MarketBeat blog stated that "[f]ollowing the brief pre-election euphoria that brought stocks up 17% in a six-day period, stocks have been sluggish since as investors focused, once again, on the lame economic data and the drumbeat of bailouts, potential bailouts, and worries about other bailouts." From a November 12 item on MarketBeat:

The market has contracted an ongoing case of the "blahs." Following the brief pre-election euphoria that brought stocks up 17% in a six-day period, stocks have been sluggish since as investors focused, once again, on the lame economic data and the drumbeat of bailouts, potential bailouts, and worries about other bailouts.

"The market is kind of wallowing and just kind of staying in a downtrend right now," says Stephen Carl, head trader, Williams Capital. "The market is not keen on anything at the moment."

Again, stocks were lower. The Dow industrials lost nearly 2%, and other major averages were performing about as well after another spate of sour news from America's corporations.

"The weakness being witnessed at the start of today's session can be accounted for by the negative investor sentiment surrounding the still unfolding economic crisis," writes Conley Turner and Brian Sozzi, research analysts at Wall Street Strategies. "The market is in uncharted territory, and is navigating a path that requires the skill set of the early world explorers...the news flow so far, albeit slow, is not providing any solace to market participants."

[...]

One problem may be that U.S. stocks, in a sense, are no more attractive now than they were at the beginning of the year. According to Bespoke Investment Group, the U.S. price-to-earnings ratio sits at 20.54, compared with 20.11 at the beginning of 2008. Usually, P/E ratios decline in bear markets, but as earnings have fallen faster than prices, the U.S. P/E has expanded.

Additionally, as Media Matters documented, in the days immediately following the November 4 election, several analysts on Fox News and Fox Business Network cited reasons independent of the election to explain the fall of the market, explicitly stating that they did not believe the market was reacting to Obama.

From the November 12 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Also, baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet: Is there anything that says America to the world, or used to, more than the American auto industry? Democrats are now urging emergency help for an industry in desperate trouble, while President Bush is cool to the idea. Should the blame for this destruction of our industry go to the politicians for refusing to modernize Motown all these years? Should the auto industry be forced to make it on its own now, or is it just too big and important in jobs to be allowed to die? We'll ask author and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, he's coming on Hardball tonight. Plus, Rush Limbaugh says -- and sometimes I agree with him; not this time -- he says the recession isn't President Bush's fault, it's the fault, catch this, of the president who hasn't yet taken office, Barack Obama. It's an "Obama recession"; that's what he's calling it. That's just some of the bitter sore loser's rhetoric we're hearing from the right these days. Later on -- later on that -- we'll have more on that. Also, what are President Bush's greatest regrets as his presidency comes to a close? We'll have that, the 11th-hour confessions, and he's making a true confession right now on tonight's "Politics Fix."

From the November 6 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Now, Carl Cameron did a report on Fox last night. He was on The O'Reilly Factor, and he's now been everywhere on Fox because people have been leaking to him. But it's not just -- it's not just Fox and Carl Cameron. Newsweek -- Newsweek has a special project they call -- on Sarah Palin, the purpose of which is to destroy Sarah Palin and, of course, establish the anointed one.

Speaking of Obama, by the way, the Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression. It's -- he hadn't done anything yet, but his ideas are killing the economy. His ideas are killing Wall Street. They need some certainty. And now everybody in the drive-bys -- we don't know who Obama is. We've got a story from Jennifer Loven at the Associated Press today -- we don't know who Obama is. All of a sudden now on Charlie Rose, they're starting to talk about his ties to Saul Alinsky.

From the November 11 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: I just -- you know, I remember when the focus in this country used to be on the private sector. In the good old days, what was good for GM was good for America. Now we're told what's good according to the Treasury secretary is good for America. The singular focus on Washington is the problem. Everybody -- you know, the market down 267 again. The Obama recession continues.

And why is this happening? Because there's no stability. The markets are frozen waiting for Paulson to say something. The Treasury secretary has all the power here. The markets are frozen because they really don't know how fast Obama is going to embark on his own destruction of the U.S. economy via his tax increases.

There is so much government interference. There is so much government control. There is no incentive to plan for next week if you're one of these businesses, unless you're desperately trying to stay alive by asking the government for a bailout. Then you're trying to get it next week. But there is no incentive to plan for much -- you know, next five years out.

From the November 11 broadcast of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:

HANNITY: By the way, Donald Trump was right. He was saying that he expects oil to tumble. He even said it may go as low as $20 a barrel. He said this when it was 140. Now, it's under $55 a barrel. Well -- and by the way, Wall Street keeps sinking. Could it be the Obama recession: the fear that taxes are gonna go up, forcing people to pull out of the market? All right, let's get to our phones here, as promised. Let's go to Ann in Rahway, New Jersey. Ann, long time no -- no hear. How are you? Welcome to the show.

In a November 10 column, New York Times columnist Bill Kristol wrote that "this was a good Democratic year, but it is still a center-right country":

What's more, this year's exit polls suggested a partisan shift but no ideological realignment. In 2008, self-described Democrats made up 39 percent of the electorate and Republicans 32 percent, in contrast with a 37-37 split in 2004.

But there was virtually no change in the voters' ideological self-identification: in 2008, 22 percent called themselves liberal, up only marginally from 21 percent in 2004; 34 percent were conservative, unchanged from the last election; and 44 percent called themselves moderate, compared with 45 percent in 2004.

In other words, this was a good Democratic year, but it is still a center-right country. Conservatives and the Republican Party will have a real chance for a comeback -- unless the skills of the new president turn what was primarily an anti-Bush vote into the basis for a new liberal governing era.

In a November 6 column in The Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove wrote:

It is a tribute to his skills that Mr. Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, won in a country that remains center-right. Most pre-election polls and the wiggly exits indicate America remains ideologically stable, with 34% of voters saying they are conservative -- unchanged from 2004. Moderates went to 44% from 45% of the electorate, while liberals went to 22% from 21%.

In his November 5 Chicago Sun-Times column, Steve Huntley wrote that "the exit polls showing the Americans who voted Tuesday described themselves as 44 percent moderate, 34 percent conservative and only 22 percent liberal. That would seem to portray a center-right nation":

You hear conservatives saying the voters didn't reject conservative principles in this election, they rejected a Bush administration and its congressional allies who had rejected conservative principles.

I'd like to think that, too, but the verdict is still out and it will probably be some time before we know if the ground shifted under American politics with Barack Obama's resounding victory.

[...]

On the other side of the argument are the exit polls showing the Americans who voted Tuesday described themselves as 44 percent moderate, 34 percent conservative and only 22 percent liberal. That would seem to portray a center-right nation.

During the November 7 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh said:

LIMBAUGH: This is not a liberal country; it's not a center-left country. Look at the exit polls. Look at the number of people who identified themselves as conservatives versus liberals. This is a center-right country. Barack Obama -- now, some of you are gonna just not believe me on this -- Obama, in the last three weeks of this campaign, was running as a conservative. Tell me the last liberal you ever heard promising a tax cut for 95 percent of the American people.

But in the 2005 edition of American Public Opinion*, Robert S. Erikson and Kent L. Tedin, political science professors at Columbia University and the University of Houston, respectively, questioned the reliability of poll questions that ask voters to self-identify with a political ideology. Noting that "a standard poll question is to ask respondents their ideological identification, usually with three choices of liberal, moderate, and conservative, " Erikson and Tedin wrote:

Ideally, ideological classification is a convenient way to measure individuals' core political values and to summarize their political views on a variety of issues. In practice, the result is mixed. The most politically sophisticated segment of the public approximates the ideal. For them, ideological identification goes a long way toward describing their political convictions. But when less sophisticated people respond to the ideological identification question with a response of liberal, moderate, or conservative, we can be less sure of what the response means. At worst, the response represents some idiosyncratic meaning known only to the respondent, or perhaps a doorstop opinion made up on the spot. [Page 67]

After listing traditionally conservative and liberal views, Erikson and Tedin continued: "These kinds of relative distinctions are familiar to people who follow politics closely. But the language of ideology holds less meaning for the public as a whole. One test is whether the individual can both identify the Republican as the more conservative party and offer a plausible definition of the term conservative. Roughly half the public passes this test of understanding of ideological labels" [Page 68].

Moreover, as Media Matters for America documented, Democracy Corps, a Democratic polling group, released a poll on November 7 that showed strong support for the progressive positions that President-elect Barack Obama advocated, including the repeal of tax cuts for the wealthy and near-universal health-care coverage. The poll also included questions that provided a direct choice between the position taken by Obama on a given issue and that taken by Sen. John McCain (without referring to Obama or McCain) -- with the more progressive choice echoing Obama's position and the more conservative echoing McCain's. For most questions that juxtaposed a clear progressive view with a clear conservative view, the progressive position was more popular.

* Erikson, Robert S., and Kent L. Tedin. American Public Opinion. 7th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.