What is Bob Somerby talking about?

Bob Somerby has been an invaluable critic of misleading reporting and commentary at his Daily Howler website, particularly during the 1999-2000 smearing of Al Gore. But today's post botches a couple of points about Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.

First, Somerby calls Andrew Sullivan "an ardent dumb-ass" for saying Hillary's polling numbers are "absolutely dead straight-line":

But then, omigod! It semi-happened! Howard Fineman almost mentioned the relevant facts! And he did cite that latest Newsweek survey:

FINEMAN (continuing directly): In fairness to her, after, after the roll-out she had this week, the numbers in our poll—the Newsweek poll and others—were very positive, very powerful actually. Cooties notwithstanding.

In fact, Clinton led McCain by seven in the Newsweek poll back in early December, long before last week’s events. And Fineman didn’t say the thing it kills pundits to say; Fineman didn’t specifically say that Clinton was ahead of McCain and Giuliani in several major polls. Viewers were left to puzzle about what sort of polls had been so powerful. But at least he made a first small step toward interjecting some relevant information. Not that it made a bit of difference to one ardent dumb-ass:

SULLIVAN (continuing directly): If you look at her polling all these years, it is absolutely dead straight-line. People who don’t like her are not going to change their minds. And they’re about, over 40 percent.

But Clinton’s polling isn’t straight line—although, to be perfectly fair to Sullivan, he’s probably too clueless to know that.

Actually, Sullivan is making a perfectly accurate claim. The graphics produced by University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin, which both Sullivan and I linked, show remarkable stability in her favorable/unfavorable numbers. Her head-to-head trial heat polls against top Republican contenders are much more noisy, but that's because the election isn't for almost two years!

Somerby goes on to claim that Hillary "has been ahead of McCain for months":

Where do Dem voters, including Iowa “party activists,” get the idea that Clinton can’t be elected? In part, from endless TV propaganda, and from reports like Balz’s. People who watched the Matthews Show heard a pundit aggressively say that Clinton’s polling has been “dead straight-line;” no one in the panel managed to say that she’s has been ahead of McCain for months. This is how a nation of voters gets the press corps’ preferred ideas in their heads. This is how our “party activists” end up reciting the RNC’s points.

However, the majority of polls actually show Hillary trailing McCain. For instance, when considering polls taken in December or January that are listed in the pollingreport.com 2008 polling archive, Hillary is leading in the Newsweek and ABC/Washington Post polls, roughly tied in Time's and CNN's, and losing in the Diageo/Hotline, Cook, Investor's Business Daily, Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, NBC/Wall Street Journal, NPR, Fox News, WNBC/Marist and GW Battleground polls. And in general, older polls show her doing worse. It's simply not true that she has been ahead of him "for months".

Comments

[Lettuce]

Actually, Sullivan is making a perfectly accurate claim. The graphics produced by University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin, which both Sullivan and I linked, show remarkable stability in her favorable/unfavorable numbers. Her head-to-head trial heat polls against top Republican contenders are much more noisy, but that's because the election isn't for almost two years!

So her numbers are dead-line straight, except that they aren't because the election is two uears away?

Somerby is correct, the time to the election isn't particularly relevant to that point, but thanks for playing Spin the Numbers

[Jake Savage]

Lettuce,

Obviously, you're talking about two different sets of numbers. The polling data on Clinton's favorable/unfavorable numbers has held extremely steady and the unfavorables are above 40 percent, just as Sullivan said. The fact that head-to-head polls have fluctuated is fairly meaningless at this stage in the game (Nyhan's point) and is unrelated to Sullivan's claim about Clinton's numbers by herself.