Media Reports Poll Tightening As CYA, But the Gap Was Never Really That Big

, all the polls are closing now, quite a few of them. The Amendment 2 issue, the cloning issue, state Constitution, Missouri, dead heat at 47. It was, well, I mean the high fifties 20 days ago. All these Senate races are neck and neck. I even got a poll -- I never heard of this outfit, they're out of Chicago, McCulloch polling group that's got Santorum down only four. Everybody is going, "Well, how can this be? How can this be?" The liberals and the Democrats are putting out their little stories today that cover themselves, the old CYA in case the unthinkable happens tomorrow, and that is that it's John Kerry's fault. But that's BS. John Kerry may have energized some voters on the right, but I reject the notion that Republicans fled the coop in the first place. You know what I've always thought about these polls, whether they're political polls or polls on anything else run by the Drive-By Media, they're simply a new way of reporting news, or supposed news, faux news, if you will. They run out and do the polls that they pay for and commission, and report the results as though it's some kind of news.

How long has polling been going on for this midterm election, seems like over a year now, poll after poll after poll after poll. The purpose I believe of these polls, and I back this up, by the way, by suggesting to you that the Drive-By Media -- and Howard Kurtz even admits it in the Washington Post today -- is interested in the change of hands in Washington, DC, only because now, it's not ideology, understand, it's only because they want more conflict. They want Bush subpoenaed, the journalists love action, they don't like to be bored. So it's not ideology and the fact that they're 90% liberals that want a change of power in Washington, it's they want more exciting things to happen in their jobs on a day-to-day basis. Well, if you're going to admit that, I don't care what the reason, if you're going to admit that the Drive-By Media is engaged for change, the Drive-By Media has an agenda, then you'd have to say that everything they're doing or pretty much everything they're doing is oriented toward effecting that change. I believe polls are part of it. There's no question Kerry did energize some, but I reject the notion that there have been massive numbers of Republicans that have fled in the first place.

I think this is only natural that these polls are closing here because these people who do the polls are going to need credibility the day after the election or the week after the election and none of them want to be Zogbyed, and by that I mean none of them want to have to face the same questions the exit pollsters got in 2004 when by five o'clock everybody was ready to proclaim John Kerry president of the United States. So we'll go through some of the polling data in depth here, just for the fun of it. The only holdout, the only holdout -- you've got three polls here, Washington Post/ABC, Pew and Gallup, which now works with USA Today. They dumped CNN. And there used to be a troika there, USA Today/CNN/Gallup but now it's just USAToday/Gallup and CNN is using their own bunch now. I think the average in the generic balance is seven, six, and five. So six is the average -- folks, this was 23 points a month ago.

A month ago, or September, 23 points. That's what the Democrat advantage was in the generic ballot today if you average the three, it's six. Which is the identical number it was in 1998, by the way, which showed very little change, not significant change in Bill Clinton's six-year midterm elections. You can't count '94. "The Republicans had a generic ballot lead of seven points in 1994, and look what happened there, Rush." Yeah, but totally different circumstances. This is the sixth year of a second-term presidency, and that was not the case in 1994. But CNN's the lone holdout. They have the Democrats up 20 in their generic ballot, in a poll from the last three days, the 5th, the 4th, and the 3rd of November. We also have the Saddam Hussein verdict to factor in here. I'm laughing at this, too. The first thing the Democrats said was, "Well, that's not going to make any difference. If this is all they've got at their November Surprise --" Well, if it's not going to make any difference, why are you people so worried about it out there on the left? Why are you acting so concerned about the Saddam verdict? The more interesting thing about the Saddam verdict is, all of these libs coming forth in the European Union crowd saying, "He shouldn't be executed," or "This trial wasn't fair," and I've read some of the chat boards on the Democrat kook blogosphere sites, and I mean some of the things these people were writing was just... some of it's not even repeatable.

One comment was, "Well, if it's good enough for Saddam, it's good enough for Bush. Let's hang 'em both." And these are Democrats. So perhaps not very many, but still some. Now, I want to tackle this notion that John Kerry is being set up as the fall guy for the Democrats. Don't misunderstand, I would love for that to be the case, but we're into accuracy here, and I don't think that's the reason. I've got polling data here which I again will go through that basically shows in all of these polls -- and here -- I don't want to appear to be falling into the trap of buying everything these things say. I have my own doubts as to why they're not accurate. For one thing -- let me go through those first -- for one thing it's getting harder and harder and harder for pollsters to find qualified respondents. I think people are fed up with the phone ringing and the caller ID saying "out of area" or some fake number. I think they're fed up with solicitations of all kinds on the phone. Cell phone users are not polled. From what I've been told, it's getting harder and harder and harder for pollsters to find qualified respondents.

More and more telephone calls to find qualified respondents. A lot of the polls during the course of this year have featured adults, instead of likely voters, and the reason for that is that it just takes more money and more time to dig through all of the garbage to find likely voters rather than adults. There's also the possibility that people lie to the pollsters, for whatever reason. There are a number of factors. But we've had stories on this program in the past month about how a bunch of retailers that do business on the phone are having much more trouble getting it done, simply because it's a flooded market, and the people that answer the phones are getting fed up with it. A lot of them don't answer the phone, will use their voice machines to answer the phone and decide not to call back, which means the pollsters just have to work harder and harder and harder at getting people they deem to be qualified. As to Kerry, when I go through these polls, one of the things I have noticed is that the Democrats peaked about ten days ago, and in the last ten days is when their plunge started, or the Republican ascendancy in the polls started.

Kerry happened on day six of this ten-day period. So he might have given it a boost but he's not the reason. They're just covering their rear ends if they do lose, or if they don't win as big as they are predicting. They don't want the blame to be on them and what they stand for and what they've said and what their issues are. They want to be able to throw Kerry overboard, and even though that's a tempting prospect, would love to see it, we're not going to let them get away with hiding the fact that if they don't win as big as they thought, if they lose, that they are the factor. That's going to be the primary reason. Troubling -- or not troubling. Interesting, fascinating headline here in the Los Angeles Times: "As races get tighter, Iraq still the focus." Well, now, how can that be? Because I was under the impression that Iraq was what was keeping Republicans away from the -- oh, sorry -- Mark Foley and Iraq were keeping Republicans away from the polls, and Iraq was what drives Democrats in record numbers, we're told, to the polls. Now, if the polls indeed show this tightening, and my -- again, I want to go on record, I don't think the margin has ever been as wide in reality as what the polls have indicated.

If they have been, what good are polls two months ago? What good are polls a month ago? What good are polls three weeks ago? If they're now tightening, then the stuff that was happening out there, accurate or not, was irrelevant. So why was it done? It was that the pollsters were working in concert with Democrats to depress Republicans and suppress turnout. Now they've done their job. They think now it's time to tighten these babies up to make sure they have credibility after the fact. That's how you end up with a headline: "As races get tighter, Iraq still the focus." What does that tell you? What in the world does that tell you? If Iraq is still the focus and the races are getting tighter, it could tell you any number of things, if you believe all this, and there's always that caveat. It could be that only now certain people are really starting to think about this.

It could be that the independents are starting to make up their minds, and they're deciding after the Hussein verdict and after the Kerry statement, whoa, not really crazy about things here, but I know we don't need more Democrats to fix this. Could be any number of things to explain this. But if you want to, again, analyze this stuff in a rational way, from the premise that you believe the polls -- I don't -- but if you want to play it that way -- but I think it's still funny that you get this headline: "As races get tighter, Iraq still the focus." That doesn't make any sense. If Iraq is still the focus and everything the Drive-By Media and the pollsters have been telling us for the last year, the Democrats' margin should be increasing. The lead should be expanding exponentially if Iraq is still the factor they have portrayed it to be this whole year.

All right, the new Rasmussen tracking poll has just been released, ladies and gentlemen. President Bush's job approval is now at 45% in the Rasmussen poll. It's the highest it has been this year. On Friday, it was 41%. On Saturday, it was 43, and today it's 45. I don't know what it's going to be tomorrow. We'll wait on this. This is a rolling track average here. But we've got 43 approval on November 5th to 53% disapproval, 45% to 52% today, 45 approval-disapproval. This is the trend, and this is another thing. You know, I'm sorry to keep saying this, because I don't want you people to think I've fallen into the trap of believing everything the polls say, but since they're out there today, I want to give you some of the conventional wisdom that is uttered about polls, and one of the things that's always said about polls this late in the game is, the results when close are not that important. It's the momentum that you look at.

Clearly Bush has a rolling positive momentum. It makes sense in this case, because he's been out there. He's been out there all week, he swamped parts of the country on the weekend, so it would only make sense that these numbers are correct. Now, if the Rasmussen presidential approval poll tomorrow has him at 46, or 47, which is up from the 45% today, which is the highest in the year. You can interpret that as extremely good news. It will be news that will panic these people on our television sets who live and die by this stuff, and they do, and if you read it right, if you watch it right, you can hear some of the panic setting in. We'll play you some sound bites here in just a minute. There are some holdouts here. Stu Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Report said, "I don't believe any of this." Six Senate seats and 40 House seats will go to the Democrats on the election tomorrow. Here are the results from the Pew poll, just summarizing the Pew Research Center. Remember, this is the same poll that identified you people as the most informed audience in all of broadcast media.

On the generic ballot the Democratic lead has been shaved from 11 points to four points. In this poll, the Bush job approval among registered voters has gone from 37 to 41%, and they are one of the three polling units that say that a lot of this is owing to John Kerry's big mouth. Again, I've got data here that will show you the Democrat trend was ten days ago, which is four days before Kerry opened his mouth out in California. So in some of the textual information from the Pew poll, "Republicans' gain in a new poll reflect a number of late breaking trends. First, Republicans have become more engaged and enthused in the election than they had been in September and October. President Bush's political standing has improved in the final week before the election. Job approval rating among registered voters up from 37% in early October to 41% in the current survey. Again, 45% in the Rasmussen survey. 84% say they've heard a lot or a little about Kerry's remarks. 60% saying they've heard a lot. By comparison, just 26% say that they've heard a lot about Bush's statement he would keep Rumsfeld as secretary --" Well, so what?

Why even put that question, "You think Bush saying he's going to keep Rumsfeld will affect your vote?" I refuse to believe that when people walk into the polling place tomorrow they're going to be voting for or against Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. This is wishful thinking. This is exactly what I've been talking about, how these people are attempting to create news and attitudes and opinions by the use of polls. Now, Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters, which is the name of his blog, has taken a look inside the Pew poll internals. "The internals," he writes, "deliver even more bad news to the Democrats, as significant leads in several demographic categories have been cut drastically or wiped out entirely. The last Pew poll was in early October. In the following month, the Democrats have lost nonminorities altogether." That would mean whites, for those of you in Rio Linda. "The gap among all whites went from plus five Democrats to plus five GOP in a month. That's a ten-point swing. White females had supported Democrats by a 15-point margin, majority of 55 to 40 but now give the GOP a two-point lead in less than a month. The Democrats have also lost the middle class, a big problem for them in this election."

And we'll have some information for you -- for those of you in the middle class -- for those of you in the fifty thousand dollars a year tax bracket, let me just give you the ballpark numbers and I'll give you the specifics here as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears. Under the Bush tax cuts, family of four, 50 grand, average household income is paying about $1300 in federal income taxes. Without the Bush tax cuts you'd be paying $3300. The Democrats want to cut the Bush tax cuts. So it's going to cost you $2,000 more to be an American if the Democrats win. Again, specifics coming up. "According to the Pew poll, households earning between 50 and 75,000 and 30 and $50,000 a year have both slipped to the GOP. The 50 to 75,000 group switched from a 14-point margin for the Democrats to an eight-point Republican lead, all this within a month, while the latter, the 30 to $50,000 a year range, has had an even more drastic shift. Those earners had favored by Democrats by 22 points but now go Republican by three." Now, how can this be? Is it gas prices? How do you account for such huge, major demographic shifts inside of a month? Poller credibility after the election, is the answer.

All right, the theme of the Pew poll, ladies and gentlemen-- I mean, when you read this, when you read the internals, it's inescapable. The Democrat gains in this election cycle demographically are gone in this poll. The Republican Party's rolled back the Democrat intrusion onto Republican demographics, and it leaves the field, if you go back and look at previous polls in previous election years, you almost see the similar same results that we had in these polls, anyway, in 2002 and 2004. Ed Morrissey is one of a few beginning to flex their muscles out there, saying that this election may hold some very unpleasant surprises for the Democrats in the House races if these numbers hold up or continue to erode over the next 40 hours. Then there's the ABC News/Washington Post poll. What happened? They had a generic ballot lead, the Democrats, of anywhere from 11 to 15%, but now the new Post/ABC News poll shows only a 6% lead for the Democrats. It was 14% in the last poll.

This is the generic, you go out and ask people all over the country, "Are you going to vote Republican or you going to vote Democrat?" There are no names used in these polls. Of course this one of these polls, they'll go back and forth using this poll or "Is the country on the right track or wrong track?" whatever gives them the best answer to help Democrats is the question they use. But they've got to tighten these polls up, as I said, ladies and gentlemen, because they have to have some semblance of credibility after the election on Tuesday, and they can't have all these massive margins of victory and advantages for Democrats if that's not going to be the end result. Here's a little sample of media panic going on about this. We have a little montage here from last night and this morning, from a whole bunch of people. The race is tightening, but that's to be expected. They say it's perfectly normal. Listen to this.

RUSH: Yes, but, of course, there's an explanation for this, and they'll come up with all these confounded, idiotic reasons to explain why the race might be tightening, like this LA Times headline: "As races get tighter, Iraq still the focus." (Laughing.) How can that be? If Iraq is going to keep people away, if people hate Bush, hate Iraq, country hates Bush, hate Iraq, then if that's true, then the race ought to be widening in vast numbers for the Democrats. It isn't happening. This morning, CNN, Soledad O'Brien had this exchange with James Carville, and she's biting the fingernails. James, James, the GOP can't come back, right, they can't come back from this?

O'BRIEN: The race is tightening, more than even the last time we spoke a couple of days ago. Realistically is there anything that can be done at this point?

RUSH: Yeah, Carville laughing at his own poll. They're the lone holdout. Everybody's got the race tightening, CNN's got it 58-38 Democrats in the generic ballot. "Rush, is there anything that can be done, is there anything that can be done at this point to stop this, James? Is there anything that could be done? The race is tightening. Anything?" (Laughing.) What happened to all this confidence these people had? By the way, Pelosi has surfaced, ladies and gentlemen, new face and new hairdo, and she has surfaced. I think we drew her out. I think one of the reasons she'd been away is she's getting a makeover to become new speaker. Yes, speaking of tightening, she had been out getting a new makeover, new hairdo, and Nancy Pelosi's even put forth, it's not a new theme, but coming from the future new speaker of the House, quote, unquote, it's somewhat interesting. She says essentially, it's either we win or they cheated. This is all about the voting machines and the integrity of the count. Details coming up. Here's more of Soledad O'Brien and James Carville.

CARVILLE: They're doing a lot of things, I'm not saying it's going to matter, but it's not going to be for lack of action in these campaign headquarters.

RUSH: So what she's talking about, what can the Republicans realistically do at this stage, what really can be done? Soledad, it's called not give up. It's very simple. It's called not give up.

I must reiterate something, the Pew poll results that I just shared with you mere moments ago in the first half hour of the program. I can now tell you officially the Democrats are scared to death of these internals. And what's happened is that the Pew Research Center on its website has published what it called the cross tabs, which essentially means that it makes it hard to rationalize the result because the reason the result is there is what the cross tabs are for. I just want to go through this again because this genuinely has the Democrats in a behind the scenes panic. You're probably going to see more evidence of it as the day goes on as you check their websites. The latest Pew poll was taken in early October. In one month -- this is what has them stunned. In one month, early October through early November, the Democrats have lost whites altogether, men and women -- they've lost them. And it's huge. The gap among all whites went from plus five Democrats in early October to plus five GOP in early November. That is a ten-point swing in one month, if you believe this thing.

Now, the Democrats are going to believe it because they've invested everything in these polls. White females have supported Democrats by a 15-point margin. All this talk about security moms and all that, and how they were fleeing the GOP, they didn't like Bush anymore, it was all caca. White females had supported Democrats by a 15-point margin, with a 55-40 majority voting Democrat. But now, the Republicans have a two-point lead. That is a huge swing inside of one month. They have lost all the whites, men and women. In addition to that, they've lost the middle class. Households earning between 50 and $75,000 a year and 30 and 50,000 a year have both crossed over to the GOP in the Pew poll. The 50 to 75K range switched from a 14-point Democrat margin to an eight-point Republican lead. It's a 22-point swing. The 30 to $50,000 income range has had an even more dramatic shift. Those earners have favored Democrats by 22 points, now go Republican by three. That's 23-point shift.

The Democrats have even lost the tie they had with earners above 75 -- remember all those polls about people favor the Democrats on the economy and nobody could figure this out and everybody is scratching their heads? My point to you, it never was the case. These massive swings, what would you chalk this up to? Gas prices falling, Dow Jones at 12,000? Stuff didn't get reported very much, other than on non-Drive-By Media websites and radio shows and a television network, so how do you explain this? In the religious demographics where the Democrats have tried mightily to find some traction, they also have some problems. They held a thin five-point lead among all Protestants a month ago, they now trail by nine. That's a 14-point swing. Their ten-point lead among white Protestants has dissipated to a tie, and they lead among all Catholic having lost three points off an eight-point lead, but non-Hispanic Catholics now favor the GOP by five points, which is a ten-point shift.

Now, these demographics are fascinating and key, and again they're cross-tabbed in this poll which means the evidence for it is there. So rationalizing this is almost impossible to do. Even in areas where Democrats have maintained their leads in the Pew poll they've got some problems. They lost part of their margin among self-described moderates, going from 44 points to 27. They had led in all regions of the country a month ago, but now they've lost the south altogether in a 16-point shift and a 26-point gap in the northeast has narrowed to nine points. That's 17 points the Republicans have picked up in the northeast in one month. Democrat lead among urban voters down from 32 points to ten pints. These are leads. The old mo is clearly in this poll against Democrats, and I'm telling you, the Democrats are scared to death about this folks.

(Fox: Polls: GOP Closing Gap; Control of Congress Could Hinge on Voter Turnout) (Washington Post-ABC News Poll) (CQ: A Look Inside That Pew Poll) (CNN: Poll: Democrats boost advantage) (Power Line: Why the Polls Are So Often Wrong) (SFC: Pelosi's countdown: She ticks off a list of changes, including a new Iraq strategy) (Los Angeles Times: As races get tighter, Iraq still the focus) (PewPoll: Republicans Cut Democratic Lead in Campaign's Final Days Democrats Hold 47%-43% Lead Among Likely Voters) (Rasmussen Reports: Bush Job Approval) (Rasmussen Reports: Senate Balance of Power) (McCulloch Research and Polling: Santorum Poll Released by Indicted Republican Operative) (USAToday/Gallup: Polls: Dems' lead shrinking, but still strong)

*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.

The media polls are commissioned by an overwhelmingly liberal media.

It's akin to you going to a restaurant and asking to have your steak cooked a certain way. The restaurant 99% of the time is not going to give you a rare steak if you ask for it well done.

It's the same way with the liberal media polls. They pay the polling companies and expect certain results.

Everyone - get out and vote or we'll get more of this:

In our brave new schools, Johnny can't say the pledge, but he can recite the Quran. Yup, the same court that found the phrase "under God" unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school.

A Clinton appointed judge ruled in California's 9th Circuit Court that it's okay for kids to be forced to recite aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."

Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."

Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.

Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."

Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

Parents of seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment. They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam.

But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another "culture."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=25311

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