Posted by
Defend America on Tuesday, December 08, 2009 7:46:13 PM
Gibbs Bashes Gallup Daily Tracking Poll
December 08, 2009 1:46 PM
ABC News' Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller report:
President Obama's presidential job approval rating in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update is 47% -- a record low.
The
president's job approval rating is below 50% in several other polls,
but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today, when asked about the
Gallup results, called them meaningless.
"If I was a heart
patient and Gallup was my EKG I'd visit my doctor," Gibbs said. "If you
look back I think five days ago we were, there was an 11 point spread,
now there's a one point spread."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/12/gibbs-bashes-gallup-daily-tracking-poll.html
Frank Newport, Editor in Chief of Gallup, responds to Mr. Gibbs' claims about the "poor" job Gallup is doing:
It’s not unusual for politicians to react to polls. I’ve certainly
seen it many times over the years, particularly when elected
representatives or candidates are confronted with poll results they
don’t like.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked
Tuesday about Gallup Daily poll results showing a drop in President
Obama’s job approval rating. According to news reports, Gibbs
responded with some critical remarks and unusual analogies.
I’m
certain Gibbs didn’t intend to impugn the value of presidential job
approval polls in general. It appears he was reacting more to the fact
that the president’s approval numbers are not stable, but, in fact, in
a period of some change. More specifically, Gibbs was reacting to our
report Monday
highlighting the fact that, while there was a short-term positive
uptick in Obama’s job approval ratings after his Afghanistan speech
last week, his ratings through the weekend fell back.
But this
type of movement is the nature of the beast. Gibbs said that if Gallup
were his EKG, he would visit his doctor. Well, I think the doctor might
ask him what’s going on in his life that would cause his EKG to be
fluctuating so much. There is, in fact, a lot going on at the moment --
the healthcare bill, the jobs summit, the Copenhagen Climate
Conference, and Afghanistan.
http://pollingmatters.gallup.com/2009/12/value-of-daily-tracking.html