A comment on the Gallup poll

By Richard K. Barry 

Hey Nate, I bought your book.

At the risk of sounding cranky, I feel compelled to note Nate Silver's comments yesterday on the Gallup tracking poll that shows Romney up by seven points over Obama, results which he says are "deeply inconsistent with the results that other polling firms are showing in the presidential race, and the Gallup poll has a history of performing very poorly when that is the case":

In 2000, for example, Gallup had George W. Bush 16 points ahead among likely voters in polling it conducted in early August. By Sept. 20, about six weeks later, they had Al Gore up by 10 points instead: a 26-point swing toward Mr. Gore over the course of a month and a half. No other polling firm showed a swing remotely that large.

Then in October 2000, Gallup showed a 14-point swing toward Mr. Bush over the course of a few days, and had him ahead by 13 points on Oct. 27 -- just 10 days before an election that ended in a virtual tie.

I'd rather get it right at this point, and this just seems wrong.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)