Posted on 10/24/2004 11:43:35 AM PDT by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub
If you recall the media tried to give FL to Gore in 2000 About an hour before the polls closed in panhandle Florida,
The premature calls may have cost Bush thousands of votes from the conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that their state had already been decided;
Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly, because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold. Most of Central Time Zone Florida is in the 1st Congressional District, which is known as the "Redneck Riviera." In that district, Bob Dole beat Bill Clinton by 69,000 votes in 1996, even though Clinton won the state by 300,000 votes.
At 10:00 p.m., which network took the lead in retracting the premature Florida win for Gore?
Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner,
At 3:59 a.m., CBS took the lead in retracting the Florida call for Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all using the same data from the Voter News Service. (Linda Mason, Kathleen Francovic & Kathleen Hall Jamieson, CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations (CBS News, Jan. 2001), pp. 12-25.)
VNS was a private consortium owned by
ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC.
4 of the 5 of the networks and cable newsrooms
(only ABC waited till both time zones closed)
"announced" Gore had won
BEFORE the 2nd time zone in FL had closed.
This cost President Bush votes in the FL panhandle.
I was at a friends house and the State of FL election website results showed President Bush was winning
In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in the eveningbefore polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle, which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were closed.
the networks called the U.S. Senate race in favor of the Democratic candidate.
some last-minute voters on their way to the polling place turned around and went home. Other voters who were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere, voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that their side has already lost. Thus, on election night 1980, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls were still open on the west coast, the early concession was blamed for costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West, such as that of 20-year incumbent James Corman. The fact that all the networks had declared Reagan a landslide winner while west coast voting was still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West; Congress even held hearings about prohibiting the disclosure of exit polls before voting had ended in the any of the 48 contiguous states.
So depress overall turnout in the panhandle,
and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic votes.
A 2001 study by John Lott suggested that the early calls cost Bush at least 7,500 votes,
and perhaps many more.
The first retracting network was CBS, not Fox.
as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.
The big 5 media TV and Cable newsrooms are the real threat to the 2004 election.
..."Early on Tuesday, November 7th 2000, TV stations and various media based in Florida reported that Gore has won Florida which was a big surprise for everyone because of strong republican support. Bush's brother Jeb is governor there and Florida usually gives support to the Republicans. Some of them questioned that and during the night CNN showed 52% Bush's lead over 46% for Gore. It is almost impossible to believe that media could have been that blind and biased to report Gore's victory."...
Bump!
I agree. But the MSM is putting this out there, because the electoral college is not as easy to control as the popular vote. The power of all the MSM's is behind the dem's in controlling the popular vote.
BTTT
Exactly! The fraud would be 100x worse. The Reps would never win another national election. The electoral college is one of the final bulwarks keeping our Republic alive. Thank God for Madison.
Are you in Florida? Do they have plans for working the phones on election day? Our state does & I've volunteered to work the phones, so no MSM will get by with wrong information.
A good reminder to everyone. VOTE! No matter what you hear from the MSM.
The networks will be hyperventilating on election night how awful Bush is and how wonderful it would be if Democrats came out in droves to save the country. It's their usual thing. Hopefull 4 more years of Bush and the alternative media and the netoworks will become totally irrelevent.
Great essay!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042980/posts
Thank You
No Electoral College? That will require a Constitutional Amendment and that just isn't going to happen. Who will be our Phyllis Schlafly to shoot this one down?
bttt
I remember how the other networks jumped all over Fox when Fox called Florida for Bush and declared Bush the winner.
"I remember how the other networks jumped all over Fox when Fox called Florida for Bush and declared Bush the winner."
At 10:00 p.m., which network took the lead in retracting the premature Florida win for Gore
The first retracting network was CBS, not Fox.
Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner,
as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.
Don't forgrt, according to O'Reilly THIS week,
FOX broken the Bush DUI sory on the TV/Cable newrooms 1st
Well... the MSM is already setting us up for a fight over it - Saw a "poll" on one station showing that about 64% of voters think electoral college should be eliminated ... so once we get our President re-elected this is probably the next battle.....
FOX "News" reporting "race to close to call" LOL
FOX "News" : WE Report what We want you to believe!
I hesitate to be so bold, but tell me why Kerry is running radio and TV ads in Massachusetts?
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