Gallup's Black Box
We do fairly poorly on the Gallup poll, generally registering less than 1 percent (or about 5 times less than the recent WSJ poll). This is probably because they don’t mention Ralph Nader’s name in the question—just Obama and McCain.
So I phoned up Gallup’s Editor-in-Chief (609-924-9600), and asked him if they had any kind of objective threshold which we could strive toward so that Ralph Nader’s name could be included as part of the primary question.
His answer: "No. We use our internal judgment to decide. We do some open-ended questions and variety of other criteria, and then our editorial team makes a decision." I asked if there were any ballpark levels of support in the open-ended question they looked to as a threshold, and he repeated his mantra, that it was subject to "internal judgment criteria," and then jumped off to take another call.
He was kind enough to leave me with his e-mail to follow up. Anyone who wants to let Newport know what you think of his internal judegment, please call him or e-mail him at frank_newport@gallup.com.
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Note: By submitting your comments you acknowledge that Nader for President 2008 has the right to reproduce, broadcast and publicize those comments or any part thereof in any manner whatsoever. Please note that due to the volume of comments we receive, not all comments will be published and it may take several hours for your comments to be reviewed, and those that are published will not be edited. But all will be carefully read, considered and appreciated.
Your comment will be visible to you (and only you) after you post it, at which point it is queued for consideration and no longer visible. Please refrain from submitting your comments multiple times.
