Tim Blair

If there was a left-wing media bias we could expect less attention to be paid to this result.

If the media was trying to maximise profits by increasing sales by providing the most interesting news we could expect less attention to be paid to this result.

I know which one you think it is... and I think it represents at least as much bias as the media you attack.

In any American election my money's riding on the former State Governor. I would never bet on a Senator.

I also wouldn't bet on my fellow Americans electing another ex-general.

I'm surprised the CNN story doesn't read:

"Bush's ratings appear to have rebounded. Bush, like Adolph Hitler, is a politician who received high domestic public support during a period of war..."

I get sick to death of polls sometimes. I've never known one person who has been asked to take part in the numerous polls that are taken every year. Do they ask the same people over and over?

I'm always suspicious of polls. You can obtain the results you want by how you ask the questions.

I want my elected officials to be in touch with the people enough to know what we are thinking. (I know that sounds idealistic and perhaps not practical, but I'd prefer they try.)

During this time of war we are in, I want my elected officials to do whatever they must to keep us safe, even if polling tells them it's not popular at the moment.

I've seen the 'wishes of the majority' turn on the silliest things. Hopefully, we aren't being governed based only on the poll numbers du jour.

Bush 56%, Clark 18%.

Howard 56%, Crean 18%.

The populations at large of America and Australia have similar political sensibilities at this point in history.

Oh my. More grist for the left mill. Crank up the anti-Americanism. How stupid are the people. They know not what is good for them.

These poll results are bogus, slanted by the left-wing media to support wildly unpopular Democratic positions. If you look at the sampling, you will find that this poll had an oversampling of Democrats (486 registered Dems in a sample of 1004 adults and 870 registered voters.) If they wanted to mimic the US population, they would have no more than 34% registered Dems in their sample. When the poll results are corrected for this blatant bias, Bush's approval rating is significantly higher.

You would have seen similar skewed results in the polls leading up to the California recall election. Because of Dem oversampling, almost all polls showed Cruz Bustamante close to or leading Arnold, right up to Monday of the election. No wonder the media is always surprised at the election results.

Sam,

Rather than left-wing bias, the sampling disparity probably results from more Democrats being available by phone at home during the peak polling times of 8 am to 5 pm. These would be the same Democrats who can't seem to make it to a polling place between 6 am and 7 pm on election day despite not having the impediment of a job or, in the event they do make it to the polls, manage to cast their ballot for Republicans or Pat Buchanan due to the intricacies of ballot reading and stylus-wielding. So, you really shouldn't be so hard on the media.

I think Tongue Boy came up with an interesting explanation as to why it seems an awful lot of recent elections worldwide have been "surprising and unexpected shifts to the right."

TB, while simply availability could be the reason for the overabundance of Democrats in their sample, the fact that this overabundance is a regular occurance would suggest otherwise.

Particularly since they let it stand.

The overabundance is easily corrected by allowing no more that the actual percentage of Democrats/Republicans in the population to be represented in the survey. This is done by discounting responses above that percentage.

Doing this would provide an accurate result. Consistently not doing this leads one to the conclusion that accuracy is not what they're after. Coupling this with the relative attention paid to this and the previous poll guives some indication exactly what point they're really trying to get across

Wesley Clark is NOT another Eisenhower waiting in thw wings. More likely, he's another George McClelland (spelling?), especially when you consider his performance during the Kosovo war.