More on polls, with a prediction

I've said repeatedly that I don't trust the polls. I believe that the internals have been manipulated such that there is an institutional bias towards Obama. A different way to say this is that it's not the numbers that I question, but rather the assumptions that produce those numbers.

Now it may be even worse than than that:

The first rule the NCPP says any journalist should ask about a poll, is who is paying for it. With that in mind, shouldn’t you be skeptical that the polls reporting the largest leads for Obama are sponsored by agencies known to be pro-Obama and anti-McCain, specifically CBS News, the New York Times, ABC News, the Washington Post, and Newsweek?

Now it may be true that there is an institutional, intentional bias in some of the polls. The lack of transparency in reporting the raw data makes it really hard to tell. However, that's not my point.

My point is that some of the polls will have an interest in an accurate prediction. If I'm correct that there's been a systemic pro-Obama bias, we can make a prediction:

Watch the polls over the weekend. If there is a break towards McCain, this likely does not represent actual movement in the Electorate's preferences, but rather a movement by the polls towards where the electorate really is.

I could be completely wrong here, and Obama's cruising towards an 8-point win. I don't think so, but it's a possibility. However, if I'm right, we'll see corroborating data Real Soon Now.

Via Insty, we see Zogby with some pro-McCain movement.

CURRENTLY ON DRUDGE: "ZOGBY SATURDAY: McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday, one day, polling. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all."

One swallow does not a summer make. Is this a trend? Zogby famously predicted a John Kerry win in 2004, months before the actual election. Does this mean that Zogby is more strongly motivated not to blow this election based on bad assumptions? Who knows? We'll see pretty soon.

Update 1 November 2008 13:50: Interestingly, Jon Cohen (the director of the Washington Post's polling) has a blog, and he's posted a very interesting discussion on a bunch of poll topics, including use of cell phones and whether that skews results, the "Bradley effect", and the challenge in predicting the actual mix of voters (kind of my point all along here):

Simply put, we may be wrong about who is likely to vote on Tuesday. One of the trickiest parts of political polling is determining which of the people interviewed in pre-election surveys will really vote. It's relatively easy for us to identify such sharply delineated groups as the population of all adults living in the United States or even all registered voters, but the pool of actual voters is a group that exists at a single point in time, on Election Day (plus those casting ballots early and by mail).

Mr. Cohen has confidence in his published results; I'm much more skeptical. I'm a great skeptic about the MSM's honesty in this campaign season in general, but if you're at all interested in this subject, go RTWT.