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At Finish Line, a Bit Late ('quickly dialed ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC' to stop them from calling Ohio)
NY Times ^ | 11/4/04 | JODI WILGOREN

Posted on 11/04/2004 12:50:49 PM PST by Cableguy

[only intersting parts are this]

The critical moment came at 12:41 a.m. Wednesday, when, shortly after Florida had been painted red for Mr. Bush, Fox News declared that Ohio - and, very likely, the presidency - was in Republican hands.

Howard Wolfson, a strategist, burst into the "boiler room" in Washington where the brain trust was huddled and said, "we have 30 seconds" to stop the other networks from following suit.

The campaign's pollster, Mark Mellman, and the renowned organizer Michael Whouley quickly dialed ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC - and all but the last refrained from calling the race through the night. Then Mr. Wolfson banged out a simple, two-line statement expressing confidence that Mr. Kerry would win Ohio once the remaining ballots were counted.

"What was driving our decision making was the memory of how in 2000, by allowing Florida to go for Bush, a lot of momentum was blocked," said one person who was in the room. "Our whole goal was stop the train from moving that way."

Train stopped, lawyers and strategists at the campaign's Washington headquarters prepared court papers to challenge Ohio's process for counting provisional ballots, and made spreadsheets comparing each county's provisional ballots with its margin of victory or defeat.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abc; cbs; cnn; kerrydefeat; nbc
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To: kfowler1

OK so they didn't want to interuppt the momentum in Alaska and throw the election??


61 posted on 11/04/2004 1:39:43 PM PST by Pylot
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To: justshutupandtakeit
As much as I hate CNN, the map and stats and counts at cnn.com that let you drill down to the county level to get counts in real (kind of) time were superior. You could watch things develop in Cuyahoga County and Ohio during the evening.
62 posted on 11/04/2004 1:40:01 PM PST by ml1954
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To: Cableguy
"Our whole goal was stop the train from moving that way."

"No matter what the bleeping voters do, if ABC, CBS, and CNN don't call it, it hasn't happened. If only NBC had kept their mouths shut, Fox would have been the only network out there calling Ohio for Bush and we can dismiss them!"

63 posted on 11/04/2004 1:48:10 PM PST by VadeRetro (A self-reliant conservative citizenry is a better bet than the subjects of an overbearing state. -MS)
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To: Dog
They were then scrubbed through several sources to land in the lap of sympathetic bloggers who these operatives believed would put the numbers up with little question.

I have posted this elsewhere and will continue to do so:

BOYCOTT DRUDGE! Hold him to the same standard as we held SeeBS News. I don't provide Wonkette (who we KNOW is sympathetic to the DNC) with any business and I will not read Drudge from now on. He put those polls up in banner headlines and then tried to have it both ways by adding little, tiny caveats. I will not give him any more of those lovely, lucrative "hits" to his site and I encourage you all to do the same. BOYCOTT DRUDGE!

64 posted on 11/04/2004 1:53:11 PM PST by macbee ("Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte)
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To: Dog
This rises to a criminal level and sinks to an Animal House level at the same time. It's a sophomoric prank, but it's a sophomoric prank on a whole country determining its policies and leadership for the next four years.

Somebody should go to prison for this.

65 posted on 11/04/2004 1:53:42 PM PST by VadeRetro (A self-reliant conservative citizenry is a better bet than the subjects of an overbearing state. -MS)
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To: VadeRetro

why anyone would have had CBS, CNN, ABC on in the first place for news coverage would only confirm the Canadian perspective of us as "psychologically damaged"..

..but at any rate, NBC and FOX continued to show updated total vote counts and precincts reporting for IA, WI, and NM. im willing to give them some benefit of the doubt on these 3 as there were some close margins and apparently absentee ballots to consider.. NEV on the other hand was a different story. It was the only remaining state uncalled that FOX and NBC began to simply label as "too close to call" while ALSO intentionally not showing the updated total vote count and precincts reporting. Why? Because at that point NEV had 100% completed returns with Bush comfortably ahead. Pathetic... and transparent.

Equally bad was B. Williams on MSNBC with IMUS saying "We are in a position to say when states fall, but not to announce a winner of this election"... come on Brian..more transparent than the big woody you have in anticipation of getting ready to sit on the golden Brokenjaw's throne in the near future.


66 posted on 11/04/2004 2:00:54 PM PST by Goodwillhntg (GW.... GODS WISDOM!!)
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To: Goodwillhntg
why anyone would have had CBS, CNN, ABC on in the first place for news coverage would only confirm the Canadian perspective of us as "psychologically damaged"..

I don't watch them because I trust them. I watch them because I don't trust them.

67 posted on 11/04/2004 2:04:57 PM PST by VadeRetro (A self-reliant conservative citizenry is a better bet than the subjects of an overbearing state. -MS)
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To: Dog

Drudge fell fo this one.


68 posted on 11/04/2004 2:06:39 PM PST by expatpat
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To: VadeRetro
Somebody should go to prison for this.

On the face of it I agree. But then, if the voting constituency is dumb enough to fall for these pranks maybe we don't deserve the freedoms we have. Do we want to enact a host of laws to prosecute this behavior, or shall we grow wise to it and act accordingly with our votes?

69 posted on 11/04/2004 2:09:02 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: VadeRetro
Somebody should go to prison for this.

On the face of it I agree. But then, if the voting constituency is dumb enough to fall for these pranks maybe we don't deserve the freedoms we have. Do we want to enact a host of laws to prosecute this behavior, or shall we grow wise to it and act accordingly with our votes?

70 posted on 11/04/2004 2:09:23 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: VadeRetro

Sheez. Second double post in two days. Sorry.


71 posted on 11/04/2004 2:10:06 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Palladin

He wants to run for Gov of OHIO next time


72 posted on 11/04/2004 2:12:38 PM PST by xcullen (DC Conservative)
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To: Fester Chugabrew
There are some laws already on the books concerning fraud and US elections. The Rathergate Memos raised the issue. At some point, somehow, we have to insist on the straight stuff. We're trying to have meaningful elections. We can't let this deteriorate any further.
73 posted on 11/04/2004 2:18:36 PM PST by VadeRetro (A self-reliant conservative citizenry is a better bet than the subjects of an overbearing state. -MS)
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To: Cableguy
The campaign's pollster, Mark Mellman, and the renowned organizer Michael Whouley quickly dialed ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC - and all but the last refrained from calling the race through the night

This is like telling the Captain of the Titanic 'don't excite the crew and passengers'.

74 posted on 11/04/2004 2:33:04 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.)
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To: SunStar
We've got to give NBC credit for making the right choice and calling Ohio for Bush early on, along with Fox News. The other networks were disgraceful, especially CNN.

CNN invented a new color and category for OHIO.

75 posted on 11/04/2004 2:41:17 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.)
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To: WoodstockCat
Barone was awesome.

Susan Estrogen was out of control, basically telling Bret to shove his commentary where the sun don't shine because the Two Johns had the exit polls and were going to win. Fox should just terminate her contract.

76 posted on 11/04/2004 2:43:42 PM PST by colorado tanker
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To: Cableguy

NBC broke w/ the rest of the MSM and called Ohio for Bush shortly after FOX...notice who won the ratings battle....

NBC TOP TV AUDIENCE FOR ELECTION WRAP 10.7 RATING/15 SHARE... ABC 9.2/13... CBS 6.1/8... [CABLE RELEASED 2:30 PM ET]....


77 posted on 11/04/2004 2:49:52 PM PST by FreedomProtector
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To: Cableguy

I'd love to see a timeline that shows when each state was called by each of the networks. After the 2000 election some clever freeper created a chart that showed CNN taking roughly 2-3 times as long to call Bush states as Gore states. He stacked up states on each side with the same or similar margins of victory and it was clear that there was an effort under way to make Bush's big victories look smaller and Gore's narrow victories to be clear.


78 posted on 11/04/2004 2:54:09 PM PST by Mr. Mulliner
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To: Cableguy

bump


79 posted on 11/04/2004 3:07:46 PM PST by RippleFire ("It was just a scratch")
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To: Edgerunner

I forget where I heard this, but there was once a Russian General visiting the US as part of a military liason mission.

He was with his US counterpart walking down the street. As they past a series of newspaper vending machines, he stopped to look at all of the headlines. Noting that the headlines and front page stories above the fold were nearly identical, he then turned to his US counterpart and said, "I don't know how you people do it. In Russia, we used to control the newspapers, and could never get the kind of consistency in reporting across all of the news outlets like you guys do. No matter what media outlet you choose in the US, you get the same news."


80 posted on 11/04/2004 3:08:50 PM PST by RinaseaofDs (The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.)
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