Debating the polls

There is a new poll that is being touted in conservative circles. The claim is that 69 percent of "small business" owners say that Obama's regulations are hurting their businesses.

Take a look into the actual poll itself, and such a result is no surprise. Notice in this screenshot from the published results that those surveyed had only two options. Obama's regulations either hurt my business or they helped my business. Nothing in between.

Think about that. 

Do regulations help or hurt your business? Despite saying "Obama's" regulations, no specifics are allowed in the questioning. The question is reduced to the abstract. Do regulations help or hurt your business?

Few business owners would come down in favor of any regulations when they are reduced to such an abstract. Is it any surprise that when asked such a generic question about regulations, 69 percent of "small business" owners say they feel their business has been hurt rather than helped by (unnamed) regulations? Notice only 2% refused to answer the question.

Look closer at the survey yet again, and one must really question the whole idea about "small business" owners. How do you define a "small" business? 

Seriously. Think about that for a second. When is a "small" business no longer considered "small"? When they have over 10 employees? Over 25 employees? Does owning a business with 50 employees still qualify you for the moniker of "small" business owner?

This survey conducted interviews of business owners and decision makers from companies with between 2 and 499 employees. 

Consider that one estimate offers the average number of workers in a Wal-Mart store at 360. Considering Wal-Mart a "small" business is ridiculous, yet when you hear conservatives speak of "small business owners", they rarely make any distinction between the small proverbial "Mom and Pop" store and a mega store like Wal-Mart. 

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has differing criteria to determine what constitutes "small" for differing business fields, but they do offer under 500 employees as a generic rule of thumb. The following is from the SBA.gov website:

"The most widely used, and SBA-endorsed, sizing criteria for small businesses is the following - the business must have no more than 500 employees for most manufacturing and mining industries, and no more than $7 million in average annual receipts for most nonmanufacturing industries."

Think about that every time you hear a politician mention "small business owners". Ask them how they define "small business". Most importantly, when they speak of "small business owners" put the statements they make into the context of not just a truly small "Mom and Pop" store like they would lead you to believe they are talking about, but also a company with 499 employees. 

With that important distinction on "small business" addressed, back to the poll. Not just this poll, but the slew of general election polls. And not just the polls in general, but the spin that surrounds the polls once released.

I pointed out how this poll concludes 69 percent of small business owners feel that President Obama's regulations hurt their businesses. I pointed out how the survey forced answers into overly simplistic categories of either being hurt, or being helped by Obama's regulations. No middle ground. Additionally, no clarification was offered of what they meant by Obama's "regulatory policies".

Some would complain that I am thus trying to spin the results of this poll. Frankly, I expect that response from some. Rather than try to understand what the polls are really offering through the internals, some people will never seek more from any given poll than an external verification that their "side" is "winning".

Even worse are those who take this to the comical hypocritical extreme by immediately accepting wholeheartedly as gospel any poll that supports their narrative, but immediately crying foul at every poll that does not. Such an approach gets even funnier when the polls they reject as somehow skewed are repeated many times over with similar results. When the offending poll is something as simple as asking wether one is voting for Candidate A or Candidate B, the cry of foul really offers a good chuckle. 

Consider the recent string of polls giving Obama growing leads over Romney both nationally and in virtually every swing state. Other than demographics only important to pundits and the campaigns themselves (like income, race, age, etc.), there are no internals to be weighed in these poll results. Either a survey respondent has decided to vote for Candidate A or Candidate B. Or they are undecided. Whatever criteria they personally use to come to their decision has already been considered. 

Little is left to consider beyond ensuring that each poll took truly representative samples, and pondering what could change voters' minds in the remaining time before the actual election. 

Yet trying to invalidate the polls for oversampling Democrats and undersampling Republicans has been the mantra of FoxNews over the past few days. 

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Left of center and right on target. 

It is one thing to actually look through the raw data of a particular poll to verify its sampling method was truly representative. It is something completely different to automatically respond with claims of skewed sampling methods in reaction to hearing poll results you don't like. 

FoxNews' OWN poll just offered the same general results as all the others. They showed Obama was up by five. Regardless, they are still selling the idea that the polls are skewed towards Democrats because of sampling methodology. (If any poll is likely to be sure to not oversample in favor of Democrats, I have to imagine it would be a FoxNews poll.) 

Paul Ryan told Chris Wallace "We can debate polls."

Note that all polls offer a margin of error rate generally somewhere between 2 and 4 percent. Beyond verifying sampling methodology and the margin of error, there is nothing to debate. The numbers are what they are for that moment in time the poll was taken. Crying foul and offering to "debate" polls because they do not favor you or your candidate is just one more gem of comedy this election has offered us all. 

Debate those polls all you want. You will not win. They are simply frozen moments in time. Given that the multitude of current polls keep reinforcing the results in favor of President Obama, a Romney supporter should be well beyond trying to write off the current polls as either skewed or simply as outliers. The focus should not be on debating the already completed polls but on debating the issues and the candidates in the hopes of persuading voters in the only upcoming poll that really matters. 

Wether Romney, Ryan and downticket Republicans are able to accomplish such a turnaround by then is something time will tell. Meanwhile, the comedy of Conservatives "debating" the most straightforward of polls - the who are you voting for polls - while also touting polls of "small business owners" with up to 499 employes, offers a little bit of entertainment as the election gets closer.