Posted on 02/02/2016 2:18:13 PM PST by SoConPubbie
A long, long time ago in a media far, far removed from the internet, news organizations had groups of people called veteran reporters. The media would send them out to places called diners and get them to engage the public. Nowadays, the media does something called a poll and saves money by sending online to Twitter a group of twenty somethings in plaid who think history happened when Barack Obama declared the oceans would recede. The result is an emotional media reflecting the biases of twenty-something liberals intent on saving the world through one social justice mission at a time.
As a result, the media largely missed what was happening in Iowa. They only got around to the idea of “Marcomentum†because of an aggressive media operation by the Marco Rubio campaign, spoon-feeding data to the twenty-something reporters shivering in skinny jeans. But when the “highly respected†Des Moines Register poll came out late Saturday, the media preferred to focus on it than the ground. Suddenly talk of a Rubio surge was silly.
The media saw a resurgent buzz of Donald Trump supporters on Twitter and Facebook. So surely Donald Trump was doing as well as the Des Moines Register and other polls suggested. Likewise, Ted Cruz had attacked Donald Trump for “New York values.†The left-leaning press corps, which dwells mostly in New York City, was convinced that this would damage Ted Cruz in Iowa.
The media also underestimated how many icky evangelicals would show up in Iowa. After all, there are not that many evangelicals in New York or Washington or on Twitter, so surely they must not exist in high numbers in Iowa. The polling in Iowa put evangelical turnout at less than fifty percent. In reality it composed almost two-thirds of the Iowa Republican turnout.
What is more, the media so hates the “true believer†Ted Cruz, that it could not fathom he would do well in Iowa. He is completely unlikeable. The talking heads on television tell us that and the media regurgitates it. Never mind the polling that shows Ted Cruz has high likability among Republicans, the guys in Washington who feed reporters talking points do not like him, so Ted Cruz must be unlikable.
Then there was the terrible mail piece Ted Cruz did that was just like the mail piece Barack Obama did in 2012. It showed voters what their neighbors’ voting records were. The media thought it was novel when Barack Obama did it, but when Ted Cruz sent it to no more than 3,000 Iowa voters, it was an outrageous scandal.
Lastly, Ted Cruz should have attacked Donald Trump the whole time. Talking heads in Washington and reporter whisperers insisted that if Cruz did not bash Donald Trump for months, he could not claim any credible win. The whole idea of Cruz waiting until he was strong in the polls to mount an attack was crazy talk to the people reporters listen to who hate Ted Cruz.
Naturally, every single thing the media reported and based on media polls formed with media assumptions turned out to be wrong. Cruz was smart to be kind to Trump and let Trump strike first. His mail piece, though I too hated it, worked. Evangelicals did turn out to support Cruz and Rubio against Trump in high numbers. Entrance polling showed that only five percent of Iowans thought Trump’s “New York values†reflected their values while thirty-seven percent thought Cruz shared their values.
Had the media bothered to send veteran reporters to Iowa to camp out, travel the state, and meet people in the real world instead of online, they would have heard the stories I heard and seen the things I saw. The Cruz operation had a tremendous ground game. The various campaigns told the same story repeatedly — they all encountered angry Trump voters, they all encountered campaign workers from each others’ campaigns, but they never encountered Trump workers. There was a growing fear that Trump would get the nomination and lose to Hillary.
It was obvious that evangelicals were going to turn out in high numbers. It was obvious that Cruz was going to turn out voters. It was obvious that Marco Rubio really had momentum at the end. It was obvious the Trump people in Iowa had no clue what was going on. But to save money and guided by their emotions, much of the media missed much of what was happening. In the end, the press let flawed polls shape their coverage and their coverage and assumptions were wrong.
I’ll be surprised if he wins TX but CA does not really count for much as they have not gone Republican since Reagan.
"Media criticism" doesn't work when the writer is more in the tank for his candidate than the media is for the other guy.
The mainstream media was never "for" Trump in the way or to the degree that Erick is for Cruz, so his comments aren't really that convincing.
Based on the results in Iowa.
Trump did better than Romney did in 2012 with social conservatives but worse than Romney in the city/suburbs where Rubio showed surprising strength.
Scott county in Eastern Iowa is a good example: Rubio won, Trump came in a close second, and Cruz got almost exactly the same percentage there as Santorum did in 2012.
You do realize the irony of your post?
I know.. By they way people are talking you would think Trump came in at 1%...
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I appreciate it.
I don't care if Trump DANCED at a strip club. If he secures the border and kick the Islams out he's good enough for me.
The Cruz operation had a tremendous ground game.
#GrassrootsMatter
And here he is wrong as well. Both Cruz and Trump performed within the margin of error for the polls, which was 4 to 5 percent.
Ted was a little higher, Don was a little lower. So in essence, the polling was correct taking into account that MOE.
The one who outperformed the poll MOE was Rubio, coming in higher than the 5 percent margin.
EE is a delta bravo crow.
Here's where I got my info:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.