National Political Columnist Stuart Rothenberg Deflates PPP Poll Dissing Gov. Rick Scott

Stuart Rothenberg, editor of Roll Call's Rothenberg Political Report, devoted his Thursday column to debunking a Democratic PPP poll released in June claiming Florida Gov. Rick Scott is an "ambiguous problem" for the GOP presidential nominee in 2012.

Headlined "Ask a bad question, you'll get a bad answer," Rothenberg's column doesn't take issue with PPP's numbers. It exposes the survey's flawed question and analysis, its causality, as "anyone who spends a lot of time with survey research should know ..."

Here's some of what Rothenberg says:

"First, speculative 'more likely' and 'less likely' questions are always dangerous because they sometimes measure the underlying attitude rather than the effect that attitude will have on another decision.

In this case, the question about Scott is likely measuring the publics evaluation of his job performance, which apparently was not asked by PPP in this survey.

Take a wild guess which voters are most likely to agree that Scotts actions make them less likely to vote for the Republican nominee for president. Of course, its self-identified Democrats who arent going to vote Republican in 2012 anyway. (Oddly, 17 percent of self-identified Democrats in the survey said that Scotts actions made them more likely to vote Republican in the next presidential election.) ...

"In this poll, PPP asked about Scotts effect immediately after a series of ballot tests and favorable/unfavorable ratings, so that respondents at the other end of the telephone had only Scott and possibly a few other political names on their minds. That was the entire context of their thinking and of their responses.

"They werent asked about issues, the economy or anything else that might color their thinking about the 2012 presidential race when they actually have to cast a ballot."

The poll of 848 Florida voters was conducted by the North Carolina firm June 16-19, then came accompanied by a June 24 press release.

Rothenberg concludes his column by admitting he has no idea who will carry the Sunshine State in the 2012 election. But, he says, to argue that the Florida governor will cost the Republicans the state in 2012 is to argue that Scott will be "more important than the presidential candidates, the issues and all of the media coverage surrounding the contest. If you believe that, you dont understand campaigns and elections."

Besides writing a twice-weekly column for Roll Call, Rothenberg is an occasional op-edcontributor to other publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Orlando Sentinel. He also is a guest commentator from time to time on CNN, CBS and NBC TV networks.
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