Leatherwood Trails Blackburn By 11%

34 Responses to “Leatherwood Trails Blackburn By 11%”

1. LeftWingCracker writes
   July 8th, 2008 7:05 pm

   Ethridge usually does the polling for the Commercial Appeal and is well-thought of in these parts. Her re-elect is UNDER 50%, eh? Leatherwood has work to do, but if he can buy spots in Memphis and Nashville, he might just pull this off.

2. Novak writes
   July 8th, 2008 10:26 pm

   Folks, this race isn’t even going to be close. Leatherwood is running scared and is releasing this “internal poll” which probably polled his own supporters as a way to try and raise some money before the campaign goes broke. It’s no secret to anyone that follows politics that Ethridge and Associates puts out pretty shoddy polls. Blackburn’s opponent Jim Leatherwood only raised $3,000 in the first quarter of this race after floating the idea of running for nearly a year and a half. I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that Leatherwood put this poll out the same day that the NRA came out and openly endorsed Blackburn for her 100% gun rights voting record. Have no doubt that when election day comes around the Most Conservative Woman in Politics will be heading back up to DC for a fourth term and with a large margin of victory.

3. Sharon Cobb writes
   July 9th, 2008 6:20 am

   Marsha has too much baggage. With all of her improper use of funds coming to light…and more to come, she’s a liability to the republican party now, as are the well reported dishonest, verbally abusive, threatening people who are her surrogates.
   Maybe she’ll win this one, but now her chances of Governor are almost zero.

4. Mickey writes
   July 9th, 2008 7:14 am

   Novak, you so funny. “most conservative woman” don’t you mean, “queen of pork”?

5. Novak writes
   July 9th, 2008 7:54 am

   Sharon, you must have hasheesh in that pipe to 1) think that Blackburn is a liability to the Republican Party and 2) refer to Steve Cohen as “The Pride and Joy of Tennessee”. I don’t think that either one of those statements are factually correct. Are you sure your name isn’t Mary Mapes?

6. Stanley Haberscha writes
   July 9th, 2008 7:59 pm

   Oh you have to love the old trick of releasing polls that show numbers in your favor. What is really sad about this poll is that it does more to make Tom Leatherwood look bad. Check this “after voters hear facts about both Marsha and Tom, Tom has the potential to defeat Marsha 58% to 27% (Ethridge and Associates)”. But let’s take this into effect, HE HAD TO GET ON THE PHONE AND TELL TERRIBLE LIES in order to get people to change their mind about Marsha. I mean if you can’t change voters mind by what you will do than why should we vote for you?

   And getting his message out, LOL what message? He has nothing. Oh wait not only does he have no real solutions but he has no money.

7. Mickey writes
   July 9th, 2008 8:23 pm

   The only lies being told is that Marsha is a conservative.

8. Bobby Green writes
   July 9th, 2008 9:57 pm

   Micky obviously gets his news from MSDisney. The fact of the matter is that not only is Marsha a conservative, but she is one of the MOST conservative Representatives in the house. She is going to going to destroy Leatherwood’s shady, “memphis-esque,” campaign.

   Lets face it, this race is going to really shake up the Memphis court house crowd.

9. Novak writes
   July 9th, 2008 10:09 pm

   The Leatherwood campaign is down right ruthless. An old lady lives next door to me and has been strong armed by the Leatherwood campaign to keep their sign up in her yard that she never requested. When she called them about it she was paid a visit by no one other than the campaign attack dog Chris Thomas. It’s the same tactics that were used on the people on the phones during the “internal poll”.

10. Mickey writes
    July 10th, 2008 7:11 am

    Bobby, is giving your tax money to the United Nations conservative? Is giving your tax money to build a bridge to nowhere conservative? Is giving your tax money to foreign governments conservative? Is voting for all the Omnibus Appropriations spending bills and a 9.5 TRILLION dollar debt conservative? Is giving you tax money to the Global Aids Initiative conservative? Is giving your tax money for UnEmployment benefits conservative? …but the list goes on… Bobby, what is conservative about these?

11. Bobby Green writes
    July 10th, 2008 10:30 am

    Mickey, you need to check what you are smoking. The American Conservative Union gave Congressman Blackburn a 100% rating for 2007 and a lifetime rating of 97.6%. Now, I am suppose to talk your regurgitated talking points and jump on your bandwagon??? Get real man. The “Kook-Fringe” has sucked you in.

12. Allie Miller writes
    July 10th, 2008 10:36 am

    If Leatherwood is having as much trouble gaining support as he claims, he should have picked a better pollster. Steve Eldridge is not only on the Leatherwood finance committe but his firm has been discredited since their mistaken call in the Van Hilleary vs. Jim Henry race in 2002. Their poll said Jim Henry was only 8 points behind Van Hilleary in the GOP Primary when he in fact lost by well over 30 points.

13. Tim writes
    July 10th, 2008 10:36 am

    I would love for Tom Leatherwood to take on some real issues rather than contuniously attack Blackburn. I mean I keep reading about this guy and do not know one thing he stands for other than Marsha Bashing. He is coming off to me as someone who may not know the issues and he can bad mouth Rep. Blackburn or anyone else all he wants, all I know is he will not get my vote until he covers some issues. Does Leatherwood know that if he tackles the issues he will get beat by someone with far more experience and a consistent conservative record? I know where Blackburn stands on the issues and for this Mickey to say she is conservative, well frankly thats the biggest lie on this post.

14. Tim writes
    July 10th, 2008 10:38 am

    *For Mickey to say she is not conservative is the biggest ie on this post. She is certainly conservative.

15. Stanley Haberscha writes
    July 10th, 2008 10:53 am

    Hey Mickey thanks for listing all the things that Marsha Blackburn has fought against. I mean you really show to everyone how hard she has worked to stop all these corruptions from happening.

    Marsha is a proven conservative and has acted apart from all of her colleagues. That is why I am voting for a proven conservative like Congressman Blackburn.

16. Bill writes
    July 10th, 2008 12:13 pm

    Wow, Mr. Novak,

    You should go protect that poor old lady and beat up Tom leatherwood if you must!

    Maybe she knows you’ve got your lips sewn to Blackburns rearend and she is just telling you that so you will not blog her to death.

    You’re worse than Mickey.

17. Mickey writes
    July 10th, 2008 12:22 pm

    bobby+stanley - marsha voted FOR these things, not against them. I ask again, is that conservative. Don’t look for some goup to tell you she is conservative. ask yourself, is supporting the above list conservative or not? I am still waiting…

18. Steve Ethridge writes
    July 10th, 2008 3:19 pm

    Allie,

    You’re showing your ignorance about polls in your comment about the Jim Henry poll. The standard way to compare polls to the election outcomes to see how accurate they were is to use the “proportionate allocation method” (see, for example, the book, In Defense of Polls, by Kenneth F. Warren, pp.291-303, 319-326). This method takes the undecided (and no response) voters out of the calculation base because they typically don’t vote (see for example, “The Irrelevance of the Undecided Voter,” in The New Prince, by Dick Morris, pp. 220-221) and, if they do vote, they typically split like those who are decided.

    In the poll to which you refer, the undecideds (41%) and no responses (9%) were 50%, leaving the base of those who chose a candidate to be 50%. Out of the poll, Hilleary had 30% which, when projected using the proportionate allocation method, projected to 60% for Hilleary (i.e., 30% divided by 50% who were decided). The margin of error on the poll’s re-percented based was +/- 6.9, meaning that the poll would be accurate within the margin of error if the election outcome were anywere between 53.1% (i.e., 60 minus 6.9) and 66.6% (60 plus 6.9). Hilleary won with 64.3%, well within the margin of error.

    Moreover, the poll was conducted more than two weeks prior to election day, and anyone who knows anything about politics knows that a lot can change in two weeks; especially the two weeks immediately before the election. Even so, a point in fact is this: When correctly analyzed using the polling industry’s standard way of making projections, which is the proportionate allocation method, in 28 years of polling experience, Ethridge & Associates, L.L.C. has never once been outside the margin of error on poll taken within the last two weeks prior to election day.

19. Tim writes
    July 10th, 2008 3:38 pm

    Steve,

    Anyone who knows anything about politics knows that push polls are a last gasp campaign tactic for a campaign headed south. This is a glorified smear advertisement for Leatherwood. Once again I will listen to Leatherwood when he actually has something to say. How did this poll go? I guarantee that did not ask if they could name anything of any significance Leatherwood has ever achieved because that would be the shortest list ever assembled. He needs let the voters become familiar with his past and focus on some issues, and let Blackburn worry about Blackburn. This poll is as useless as they come

20. Post Politics: Political News and Views in Tennessee writes
    July 10th, 2008 3:45 pm

    [...] Etheridge of the polling firm of Ethridge and Associates, LLC defends himself in this thread against charges that he wildly misspelled the Van Hilleary/Jim Henry GOP Gubentorial primary in [...]

21. Steve Ethridge writes
    July 10th, 2008 4:41 pm

    Allie,

    Regarding being on Leatherwood’s finance committee, the implication by your comment seems to be that I’m in this for the money I’m making off of polls. As most pollsters will tell you, there is a lot more money to be made in commercial work than in politics. I’m not in this for the money; my purpose is to provide a scientific measure of what’s really happening in this campaign so that Tom has a realistic assessment of the race. What the campaign chooses to do with the data, such as whether they release the poll to the public, is not my decision to make.

22. Steve Ethridge writes
    July 10th, 2008 5:11 pm

    Tim,

    Your comments make Marsha’s campaign look like they are really afraid they are about to be defeated. The reason is that only desparate campaigns that are afraid they are about to be defeated attack polls as being push polls when they are not.

    A “push poll,” by, definition, is one in which “more voters are contacted than needed for a valid sample in a legitimate poll because the objective is to influence as many voters as possible, not to conduct an actual poll” (see the book, In Defense of Polls, by Kenneth Warren, p. 12). In other words, a push poll is a media message designed to reach as many people as possible.

    By comparison, the Ethridge & Associates, L.L.C. poll was a scientific survey of 300 completed interviews for the purpose of measuring where the candidates stand relative to one another in the minds of the voters, as well as measuring what people think about certain facts about the incumbent’s behavior as an elected official, all of which are standard parts of a legitimate poll.

    A scientific, random sample of 300 interviews out of a Republican Primary voting population of 63,372 (as turned out in the 2006 August primary), although adequate for making inferences to the population within a margin of error of +/- 5.6 percetage points with 95% confidence, is less than a half of 1% percent of the population surveyed — hardly enough “to influence as many voters as possible.”

    The more people acccuse Tom’s poll of being a “push poll,” the more desparate Marsha’s campaign appears.

23. Mickey writes
    July 10th, 2008 5:26 pm

    You Go Steve!
    bobby+stanley - still waiting…

24. Allie Miller writes
    July 10th, 2008 5:26 pm

    Dear Mr. Ethridge,

    First off, there are two things I would like to apologize for:
    (1) I misspelled your name as Eldridge. I sincerely apologize for that mistake.
    (2) I also mistakenly said that your poll claimed Henry was only 8 pts down when really it said that he was 10pts down.

    The fact though remains that your poll was quoted as late as the day before the election by the Memphis Flyer as saying and I quote “Henry had fresh polls . . . from workhorse local pollster Steve Ethridge, showing him only 10 points behind Hilleary”

    While I appreciate Mr. Ethridge attempts to educate me in how to understand polling, I highly doubt that everyone that read the Memphis Flyer that day had his in-depth understanding of the polls.

    In fact, I will wager that they understood the poll exactly as I did.

    On another note, your comment about being on the finance committee never refuted my claim. I don’t care if you’re in this for the money or not Mr. Ethridge, what I care about is that when a campaign hires a pollster, they are supposed to be UNBIASED. So being on a committee for one of the candidates you are polling on is not quite unbiased.

    Finally, I have to admit I find it slightly pathetic that Mr. Ethridge and his firm have time to waste responding to a college student on a blog. While I may be nerdy for spending time posting on a blog as a college student (and even more nerdy for being knowledgeable about races that happened long before I could vote), I didn’t think people who owned their own polling firm really had the time to do something like this.

    Sincerely,

    Allie

25. Steve Ethridge writes
    July 10th, 2008 7:23 pm

    Allie,

    I do appreciate your gracious apology for mispelling my name.

    Regarding the quote from the Flyer article, you left out an important phrase, which means you took it out of context. The full quote actually included the phrase, ” . . . with half the electorate still undecided.” In other words, anyone who read the article would have seen that there is a large group of people who could go either way or that need to be taken out of the base as explained before. While the date of that article was July 31, 2002, the poll was not at all “fresh” as the article described, but rather the poll had been taken more than two weeks prior to Election Day; again, a long time during which much can change in a political campaign.

    As for being unbiased, just because I’m close to a client doesn’t mean I’m not objective in my professional work. The methods used are nonetheless scientific and objective. Truth matters to me. Our firm’s reputation, both in the media and among clients, for providing accurate, reliable polls, that tell the truth about what’s going on in campaigns at any particular point in time, is second to none.

    As for the owner of a polling firm having time to write on blogs, you’re right, I am very busy, working round-the-clock during this busy political season. But every now and then I like to take a short meal break and, when I do, I often read news blogs. Taking a moment to respond to misrepresentations of our work is a worthwhile investment of my business time while having a bite to eat.

    This leads me to why I would take the time to write to a college student. I didn’t know and don’t care that you are only a college student, except that I compliment you for being involved in the political process at such a presumably young and inexperienced age. One thing I do care about, though, is helping to inform and educate the public about how to be knowledgeable consumers of polling information. Too often, the general public misunderstands how to interpret polls and I, like many others in the public opinion polling industry, strive, out of a sense of a social responsibility, to help them become wiser consumers of polling information. The fact that you are a college student makes this even more worthwile, to help you learn. Again, I do commend you for being involved in the political process as a college student.

    With Best Regards,

    Steve

26. Novak writes
    July 10th, 2008 9:30 pm

    I find it very interesting that Don Sundquist’s old pollster is now working for Leatherwood. For Tom Leatherwood to be such a staunch opponent of the state income tax he sure is surrounding himself with a lot of the old Sundquist crowd. Perhaps, Steve Gill was right. Perhaps, Tom Leatherwood was nowhere to be found during the state income tax fight.

27. Mickey writes
    July 11th, 2008 7:08 am

    Novak, that seems to be all Marhsa is campainging on… the state income tax… she has done NOTHING in the US Congress… and besides, as Lt. Gov. Wilder said many times, the state income tax would be unconstitutional thus Give Us A Break! Who cares about Marsha stopping the state income tax bare handed. She has sold us out to the GOP and the Lobby. (looking at her support for the above list..UN..Big Spending… I am glad she has done nothing) A do nothing Congress and she has done that bare handed too.

28. Tim writes
    July 11th, 2008 9:39 am

    Mr. Ethridge,

    Care to share any of the background information you “informed” the people being polled about? I am willing to bet it is a fairly one-sided questionare coming from a member of the Leatherwood team/unbiased pollster. I would like to know the facts you chose to disclose about the two candidates and then we will let the public decide if you and your company are truly unbiased and ran a legitimate poll.

    I do appreciate you taking the time to respond to this debate. I know you said earlier it is not your decision, but rather the campaign’s decision whether or not to release the poll. I just feel that if you are going to release the poll then you need to release everything; information shared, percentages of where these voters are located and any other relevant information. Like I said, I know this was not your call, but if the campaign that you are a part of is going to release information, release all of it. This would leave very little room for confusion.

29. Steve Ethridge writes
    July 11th, 2008 11:23 am

    Tim,

    I appreciate the respectful way in which you addressed your questions to me. Here I will answer your questions as best as my confidentiality agreement with my client will allow.

    While I can’t share the specific questions due to the typical confidentiality agreement that pollsters have with the clients, I can tell you this: Both the benchmark poll and the tracking poll asked the election question very early in the interview before any facts were presented about either candidate, to measure things as they really are. It was this unbiased election question, comparing the benchmark and the tracking polls, that was used to show that Tom’s campaign is closing the gap.

    Then after that (pre-test) election question, as is typical in all strategic polls, messages were tested to see which ones would be most effective to use in mass media campaign advertising (e.g., tv, radio, etc.). We obviously wouldn’t want to test anything that was not verifiable enough as being factual that it could be used as part of a media campaign. So, verifiable, straight-up facts were presented about each candidate – some of which you have probably seen played out in the media — followed by another (post-test) election question to see what effect, if any, those facts would have on voter opinion if the were to be used in the media. This type of scientifie pre-test/post-test experiment is a legitimate research function that all pollsters use.

    If you read the report carefully, you will see that the graph at the top of the page shows from the March benchmark study the POTENTIAL change (i.e., if all of these messages could get out to the voters through mass media) as determined by the experiment of comparing the pre-test and post-test measures. Then, more importantly, the table at the bottom of the page shows the ACTUAL change, showing only the results of the pre-test election questions (the one that was asked early in the interview before presenting any facts about either candidate) that measured things as really are, comparing the March and June polls. Again, it was the unbiased (pre-test) question that was reported to show that Marsha has actually declined and Tom has actually increased since March.

    This method of measuring things as they are, early in the questionnaire, and then testing messages to assess their impact, is one that all pollsters use in legitimate polls. As, The Rothenburg Political Report has said, “Testing possible messages is a legitimate survey research function, and as long as the question is asked of a small sample and seeks to get a response to know whether the issue is useful in an election, it really doesn’t matter how negative the message is.” (http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/2007/03/for-thousandth-time-dont-call-them-push.html)

    Yet, the facts about Marsha were not worded in a “negative” way per say, they were just simply factual statements that had already appeared multiple times in the news media, worded in such a way that the survey respondent could interpret for himself/herself whether he/she thought it was positive, negative, or neutral. Again, the purpose was to discover whether these facts, however the respondent interpreted them, made a difference when they appear in the media. The facts about Tom were simply factual statements about his background, experience, and accomplishements, and what he would work to achieve if elected to Congress. Again, these are all normal parts of any legitimate campaign poll.

    I appreciate your interest and I’m happy to respond as I have limited time to do so. However, I’ll be out of the office for the next several days and may not be available to correspond more for a while.

    Steve

30. M Rice writes
    July 12th, 2008 12:57 pm

    I wish Tom Leatherwood the very best. The 7th Congressional District has been without representation for a long time. Marsha Blackheart’s endorsement by Bill Frist will surely be the kiss of death, if not her 95% voting record with George Bush. And,that would include, of course, all the times she voted against the minimum wage, funding for first responders, funding for programs to benefit children and mothers, and funding for education, and funding for our returning troops. She was so proud to ask the president to suspend Davis-Bacon in the wake of Hurricane Katrina until public outcry made him reinstate it. What a witch! Wake up people, Marsha Blackburn only cares about Marsha Blackburn (and HER kids, of course)

31. Ben writes
    July 13th, 2008 11:57 am

    The last comment by M Rice probably should have had a disclaimer at the bottom of the post stating “Paid for by Tom Leatherwood for Congress.” Oh wait, they are the campaign in modern politics that don’t know to do that. Looks like M Rice just pulled a Leatherwood!

32. Mickey writes
    July 13th, 2008 3:52 pm

    Will Marsha debate Tom ?

33. BoCo writes
    July 13th, 2008 9:52 pm

    haha…pulled a Leatherwood. Makes me miss the days of 2006 listening to Bob Corker approve his message 20 times a day.

    How did Leatherwood screw that up? Has he even taken responsibility for it? Are his signs down? I haven’t seen his ad on TV in awhile…

    I’m BoCo and I approve this message

34. JDS writes
    July 15th, 2008 3:53 pm

    GO LEATHERWOOD!!!!!!!!!!!