Reply #52: The Elephant on My Lawn

[goodwalt]

Of course it serves no purpose to play "Chicken Little" over the screwy poll numbers. But somebody, SOMEBODY needs to be commenting on the fact that they ARE, in fact, SCREWY! None of the major media outlets seem to be doing so. The talking heads- from Russert to Trippi- keep making their reports commenting on the "bad" poll numbers for Kerry, and giving their opinions on why he is slipping so far behind in the polls. Hardly anyone is noting that Kerry's "slide" has come out of no-where, and is NOT reflected at all by several established polling outlets (Zogby,Pew,Rasmussen)whose numbers have remained fairly steady.

I think there is a BIG news story here- and not surprisingly, our lap-dog media seem to be missing it.

Polling isn't done with a OUJI board- it is a semi-scientific process. Pollsters that are genuinely trying to gage the pulse of the voting public will deviate SOME in their numbers, but not with the wild divergence we are seeing. THAT is the story that is being over-looked. A significant number of pollsters, Gallup included, are not even TRYING to give accurate numbers. So what ARE they doing? Well, since the anomalous numbers consistently favor Bush, the only reasonable conclusion is that they are actively trying to influence the election by skewing their numbers.

Excuse me, but isn't THAT a news story that should be reported to the public? How are they doing it? Do they disproportionately poll Repugs and Independents like some have done? Are the people working the phone banks push polling? There MUST be something demonstrably wrong with their methodology. Is there a money trail between the RNC and Gallup, Survey USA and the others? A partisan history among their management? Why am I not seeing something about this on the evening news?

It's like the guy that wakes up one morning and finds the bodies of twelve dead midgets and an African elephant on his front lawn. He may not how they all got there, but he can be damn sure that there is story behind it, and that it is news-worthy.