Burnt Orange Report

Wow ... Deaniacs love Dean ... color me shocked :-/

Those poll numbers are meaningless until they report how many responses they received. This was not a scientific poll in any case.

Chrisken:

True. Add selection bias, etc.

Still, I think the safe money, given Dean endorsements from other Southern chairs, more scientific samplings of the 447 voting DNC members, etc., is to assume that Dean has a lead (perhaps small, perhaps large) among Texas Democrats at the moment.

Greg, that was just the first poll, which yeah, is to be expected and if it does anything puts to rest any ideas of a split among Dean folk on Howard's candidacy.

I will try to get the response rate for the polls Chris. There was supposed to be a press release in my box this afternoon which may still show up. From the thousands of state delegates that it was sent out to I do know that there was a 15% response rate, high for a poll of this nature. So even if there were only 5000 available e-mails for delegates, 750 ain't bad for a sample. What should be noticed here is that even if there is a higher margin of error, Dean is clearly outside of it and is the choice of the base of the Texas Democratic Party.

Karl-Thomas.... for once I agree with Greg on an intra-party manner. Dean people like Dean. That's not big news. I didn't participate in the poll for that very reason - the poll was rigged. If you wanted a better sampling, I'd suggest personally interviewing DNC members, SDEC members, or take a sampling of diverse precinct chairs.

I don't think you or Greg get it. I know that the first poll is no surprise. It was never meant to be. DFT people were mostly Dean people.

BUT the second poll is of state delegates. ALL of them. Not just Dean delegates, hell, there weren't many Dean delegates. If in an entirely separate poll was done of people from across the party with Frost doing so poorly, I think that is something to talk about. The DNC members from Texas can look at that and go, hmmm, Texas Democrats are not in lock step behind Mr. Frost. And a lot of those state delegates were precinct chairs, most of our County's were. I was. 11 Country chairs from my Senate District endorsed Dean.

Sorry if you don't like the results, but that doesn't change them.

Again for the state delegates - it's rigged. The pollster is telling those polled that they are polling for "Democracy for America", which almost every Democrat knows is Howard Dean's organization. The poll is also opt-in as opposed to random sampling, thus making it unscientific. It's not a matter of liking the results or not, it's a matter of properly doing a scientific poll, which this is not.

Well for someone who didn't take the poll, it seems you know everything about it, considering they didn't say they were polling for Democracy for America as you claim. It was quite clear in the e-mail to those state delegates, most who did not get an earlier e-mail from Democracy for Texas, that the point of the poll was to gather the collective voice of the delegates of Texas and convey that in lump sum to the DNC members who they elected so that they did not have to individually write them or have the members flooded with e-mails. A nice service I think.

I also found it amusing that some Frost people in a Dallas law firm attempted to stuff the poll, but were of course, not included. The fact that Frost can't get even half way to a bare 50% in his own state among Party Democrats is pitiful.

If you were really concerned about the results of polls, maybe you would actually vote in them.

The irony in all of this, in reading Byron's comments as to the "rigged" poll, is that originally it was thought that while of course Dean would win hands-down with the DFT poll, was that we thought that Frost would win the state delegate poll, Dean would place a strong second, or enough to make a decent statement. The fact that Dean carried 69% in a state delegate poll is incredible.

Was it rigged? If the definition of rigged is put up a secure poll where an individual must enter in their email address and name and be confirmed as a 2004 state delegate, well, ok, then I guess it was "rigged."

Even if it was 15% that responded, and a lot of them Dean supporters (who I think accounted for about 20% of total state delegates, I could be wrong), well, who is involved?

I have to laugh and agree with KT. For someone who knows so much about the poll who didn't even take it...it is purely laughable.

"If you were really concerned about the results of polls, maybe you would actually vote in them."

Booyah.

Byron, welcome to the club of people who "just don't get it." So nice to know that the Cult of Dean is there to help us laggards since they do "get it" ... whatever "it" is. You'll find the space in the clubhouse a bit cramped, I'm afraid.