Saturday, October 22, 2016

Unfit For Office

Since we're already talking about being unfit for office, someone has to mention Sheriff David Clarke.

Sheriff David Clarke, Poll Denier
During a segment on Donald's 'rigged election" comments, Trump supporter Sheriff David Clarke told Fox News' Outnumbered panel that he doesn't believe in any of the polls and said, "I don't know the methodology that's why I don't trust them."

Sheriff Clarke took a lot of heat when he used violent rhetoric and proclaimed via The Twitter that the election was rigged and called for "pitchforks and torches."

During their panel discussion, Sheriff Clarke applauded the handling of the Trump campaign and supported his calls of a rigged election. "You guys are doing well, keep doing what you're doing." ...

Clarke said, "If you believe the polls. If you want to believe the polls"

Harris Falkner asked, "Sheriff, you're not buying polls?"

Clarke replied, "No, I'm not, not at all. I don't know the methodology.
He doesn't know the methodology? Really? Well, statistician Clarke, most polls footnote their methodology or at the very least you could contact the organization (CNN, NY Times, 538, etc.) for an explanation.

Here's the MRG Michigan Poll explanation of methodology, listed directly below the candidates, on their webpage.
The survey was conducted by Marketing Resource Group with 600 likely Michigan voters by live interview October 16-19, 2016. The sample was randomly drawn from a listed sample of all registered voters and stratified by city and township to reflect voter turnout. In addition, quotas for gender and cell phone interviews were met within each geographic area, and extra efforts were made to reach African Americans. Thirty percent of the interviews were conducted with cell phone only homes.

A sample of 600 likely voters in Michigan yields a sampling margin of error of ±4 percent with a 95 percent confidence interval. The sampling margin of error for subgroups may be higher depending on the size of the subgroup.
And, regardless of this, we've all seen Clarke's handling of the budget for the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department. So we know Clarke isn't a numbers guy. Which leads to a few questions: Who cares if Clarke knows the methodology or not? Why does anyone care what Clarke thinks about the presidential election? Does anyone believe that Clarke could actually explain how to operationalize and formulate a meaningful survey?

This guy should really be relieved of his duties immediately. Come on, Milwaukee County, wake up! (Aside: how does this guy get to keep claiming he's a Democrat?)

From pitchforks and torches, to rigged elections, this isn't the language anyone with a public platform should be spouting, especially a County Sheriff.

For Further Reading: 
David Clarke: Extremist, Bombastic, Incompetent

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