Itz News to Me

Mickey Kaus posted today about new polls that show the “generic” ballot polling question showing a much smaller Democratic advantage than in previous polls. Does that mean that the race is tightening or does it mean something else?

The answer: It means that the polls were intentionally slanted all along, and now they’re moving closer to where they should have been all along.

I’ve watched this phenomenon in 2002, in 2004 and now again we have it in 2006: the “late Republican surge” which suddenly tightens races which were previously advertised as sure-bets for Democrats. It defies logic that three elections in a row would suddenly and inexplicably have the exact same phenomenon occur at the exact same time in the election cycle.

Except that it’s not so inexplicable. Polling firms are commissioned by media organizations which are inarguably liberal bastions who want to put forth a certain point of view in the months leading up to an election. They want the Republican base demoralized and the Democratic base optimistic, and producing polls that show the popularity of the Democratic talking points is a sure way to achieve that goal (along with slanting coverage of stories, etc.). So in order to keep the paychecks coming, the polling firms dutifully produce the polls - and the results - that their employers request.

But then it comes to election time. If the polls were consistently way off on Election Day, who would ever again pay attention to them during the interim periods? The desired effect of simultaneously attempting to suppress Republican turnout and increase that of Democrats would disappear overnight. So how do you go about reconciling the knowingly inaccurate results leading up to the elections with the actual polling results?

It’s simple: Just say that there was a “late Republican surge!” Since polls are always snapshots in the rearview mirror, then they can never be expected to accurately keep up with the surge as it continues through Election Day. So pollsters can always argue that Republicans magically picked up momentum that their most recent poll couldn’t pick up because it hadn’t happened yet!

Voila! Everything is explained and no one is the wiser for the game that they played all along, and everyone gets to keep collecting their paychecks….Except they’ve gone to this well so often that you could have bet money in Vegas that this was going to happen this year too…

I’m not buying it, and neither should you…

Popularity: 27%

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 5th, 2006 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Media Bias, Polls, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.