underwater

[Victor Steinbok]

I can't really decide if I agree with BB, but I know that Joel is wrong.
Underwater favorability has nothing to do with 50%--it's the result
where favorables are lower than unfavorables. The candidate could be
completely unknown and have 10% favorable and 11% unfavorable and that
would still be underwater.

     VS-)

On 3/7/2012 11:19 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> Why do you compare to some base at time X, rather than to a constant
> 50%?
>
>
>   That is, a candidate is underwater if his favorable rating is
> under 50% (or, if indifferent pollees are included, less than his
> favorable rating)?
> I think the use of prior, or base, times is only to show changes overtime, not to assert whether a candidate is or is not under waternow. The term is used only in the headline and the lead sentence of the second paragraph -- "All four Republican contenders remain underwater in overall favorability in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, marking the difficulties the survivor may face against Barack
> Obama."
> And if some prior base is intended, it will be important whether that is
> a high tide, a neap tide, or a mean sea level.<br><br>
> Joel
>
>
>
> At 3/7/2012 02:46 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>
> This is an interesting
> development. You take the values at time X as the base and then refer to current values as underwater if they are less than the base. (The poll report is athttp://goo.gl/RnA7V,
> page 2.)
>
> What seems insipid about this is that the base values are at arbitrary points in time. This poll is using base values between January 8 and February 26 for the different candidates.<br><br>
> A great expression if you're a political (or economic) spinner, I
> suppose.
>
> Benjamin Barrett

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