Uppity Wisconsin

 UPDATE: Equally unreliable Rasssmussen poll says Feingold and Thompson in a dead heat for US Senate. WPRI had Tommy up 12%.

Wisconsin's Pretend Research Institute (WPRI), the right-wing propaganda machine, is trying to defend itself against recent bad publicity suggesting its polls -- or the way it reports results -- are slanted to fit their world view: WPRI Poll Tracks Consistently with National Polls:

Today, NBC and the Wall Street Journal released a poll that details public opinion regarding the health care bill before Congress, the public’s views of the direction of the country, and other national issues. The NBC/WSJ poll tracks very closely with the WPRI poll we released late last week. To wit:

•In the WSJ/NBC poll, 48% of the public opposed the health care bill currently before Congress, while 36% labeled it “a good idea.” In the WPRI poll, 37% favored the plan and 55% opposed it.

•In the WSJ/NBC poll, President Obama’s approval rating was 48%. In WPRI’s poll, Obama’s approval is 49%.

•In the WSJ/NBC poll, 33% of Americans believed the country was headed in the right direction, while 59% believed the country was on the wrong track. In the WPRI poll, those numbers are 34% and 59%, respectively.

All of that proves exactly nothing, of course. Are we to believe that the opinions of Wisconsin people are exactly the same as those across the country?

Strategic Vision, the controversial (some say phony) polling firm that perhaps should have called itself Virtual Reality, has been a major factor in Wisconsin media's political coverage.

As we noted earlier, the media, particularly the Journal Sentinel, were all too happy to report the results released by Strategic Vision, which always claimed it had no clients paying for the polling and was somehow doing all kinds of expensive polling as a public service.

Reporters never asked to see the cross tabulations -- the breakdown of underlying responses that produce the bottom line numbers.

Remember the 2006 stories about how Tommy Thompson would beat the pants off Jim Doyle if Tommy decided to run for governor again? Here's the JS report, by Patrick Marley and Steve Walters, to refresh your memory:

Madison — Former Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson would trounce Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle by a nearly 2-to-1 margin if he jumped into the race, according to a poll released Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Thompson has called former aides and other Wisconsin political power brokers, soliciting advice as he considers taking on Doyle or U.S. Sen.

Last night, I was enjoying burgers and beers with some Madison athletic coaches at Ken's Bar and Grill, when the conversation turned from the Brewer's devastating loss in extra innings to the Cubbies, to Obama being head-to-head and sometimes down in the polls.

"Obama seems to be blowing every chance he's had to get ahead! I can't believe he's neck-and-neck in the polls right now," said one of the coaches.

"Do you think it's strictly based on racism?" asked another.

"Well, it's possible that the media who are reporting all this have a vested interest in making it seem like the presidential race is closer than it really is," I ventured. "After all, they get more advertising revenue from the special interests and campaigns, right?"

The mood at the table brightened.

So keep your chin up, folks. Think about the need for television advertising revenue that could be influencing this reporting in an age when people are turning away from their TVs and clicking on their computers to find what they need.

We know the big winners and losers in Wisconsin’s primary. Obamarama trounced Billary as badly as McGruff beat Huckleberry. And Huck’s supposedly a dead duck.

So Hillary, who revealed for the first time a few days before the primary that she was a duck hunter, couldn’t do any better than a dead duck Republican.

Other Badger State notes:

Worst Wisconsin polliing award.

No polling firm covered itself with glory, with most polls giving Obama only a slight edge and no one forecasting anything like the blowout that occurred.

However, the American Research Group was in a class by itself.

Even while every other poll had Obama slightly ahead, ARG had Clinton ahead, first by 9 per cent and later by 6 per cent two days before the primary. Then, in what must have been the biggest overnight change in political history, it went from Clinton up 6 to Obama up 10 – a 16 point swing in two nights.

It makes you wonder whether they do any voter interviews or simply write down some guesses. (Or decided at the last minute to cover their butt.)

No one’s always right, but this firm, based in Manchester, NH, isn’t just a little off. When it’s bad it is horrid. And it’s been especially bad in its home state.

Just 20% said they consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically liberal while 39% would view that description negatively. However, 35% would consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically progressive. Just 18% react negatively to that term. Those figures reflect a huge swing, from a net negative of nineteen points to a net positive of 17 points...

There are, of course, huge partisan differences for each of these terms. Among Democrats, 32% consider the description liberal as positive. That number jumps to 42% for the description of a candidate as progressive. Among Republicans, just 7% say the term liberal is a positive description, but that number jumps to 26% for the term progressive.

-- Rasmussen Reports.