No matter what poll you look at – local or national, non partisan or politically leaning – there’s an obvious pattern: In the polls, there’s an upswing for President Barack Obama and a downward spiral for his challenger, former-Governor Mitt Romney. With only a couple weeks left in the election, instead of joining the chorus of competent conservative critiques like Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonanand New York Times columnist David Brooks, other members of conservative media are peddling conspiracies: “Lamestream media is purposely skewing the poll numbers to hurt Romney due to their bias for all things Barack Hussein Obama.”
Radio racist Rush Limbaugh said of the pollsters:
An old White man crying about voter suppression efforts on the strength of arbitrary emotional evidence made up in his mind — if there weren’t legitimate voter suppression efforts led by his fellow older, White male, and conservative brethren, I’d laugh at the irony. Instead, I’ll just continue my private vigil that one day someone bippity, boppity, boos a clue inside that cranium of his.
Not to be outdone, though, Sean Hannity, claimed on his radio show:
Others have dismissed the polls as “junk,” “confirmation bias,” and the “the worst it’s ever been.”
The Romney campaign itself has said, “Public polls are what public polls are,” and declared that their internal polls show the race is much closer than it appears — after all, we all know how on the ball the Romney campaign has been throughout the election.
How many polls do you need to see before you start accepting the reality that Mitt Romney absolutely sucks as a presidential candidate and is currently losing the race? I wish I had the luxury of being as blind as to what’s in front of me as these conspiracy theory-promoting media personalities and political strategists.
To be fair, FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver of the New York Times has noted that pollsters may very well be “overestimating Democratic turnout.” However, he went on to say that polls may also be underestimating it given many polls do not include cell phone users — a consistently rising number as more people increasingly give up on the landline. Moreover, the Democrats have more registered voters overall and the Obama campaign has raised a helluva lot more money from small donors than the Romney campaign has.
I imagine if Mitt Romney doesn't perform well in the first presidential debate, these same folks will push even more conspiracies. Mind you, much of these people, minus the ones Romney hired, didn't even like Willard that much to begin with. Plus, Mitt Romney is the same person — who despite running for six years and having more organization, money, and name recognition than everyone else — barely eeked out a nomination among GOP nomination peers Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain.
Here’s another fact: Mitt Romney is a flawed candidate and always has been.
Thankfully, Mother Jones helped further highlight the obvious, but even since that incident, Romney has proven not to be as adept in presidential races as he is in a PowerPoint presentation in a Bain boardroom.
Not to say I place all my faith in a given poll nor am I blind to the reality that Obama could still lose. In fact, I expect the media narrative to shift to “Romney’s comeback” at any given moment as journalists struggle to spare themselves from boredom. Even still, right now the shift is noticeable and unfavorable to Romney. In fact, unless sudden, remarkable changes occur soon – i.e. voter suppression efforts succeed or Mitt Romney decides to be a decent opponent – he’s going to lose.
You’d think that his sort of supporters would offer something tangible in response.
Radio racist Rush Limbaugh said of the pollsters:
They’re all Democrats. They’re all liberals. They just have different jobs. The polls are the replacement refs. They see certain things. They don’t see other things. They don’t call certain things, and other things go by. In this case, what they’re trying to do is exactly what they’ve done in your case: frustrate you, make you pull your hair out, say, what the hell’s happening to the country? They want you thinking the country’s lost. They want you thinking your side’s lost. They want you thinking it’s over for what you believe. And that makes you stay home and not vote. That’s what they’re hoping.
An old White man crying about voter suppression efforts on the strength of arbitrary emotional evidence made up in his mind — if there weren’t legitimate voter suppression efforts led by his fellow older, White male, and conservative brethren, I’d laugh at the irony. Instead, I’ll just continue my private vigil that one day someone bippity, boppity, boos a clue inside that cranium of his.
Not to be outdone, though, Sean Hannity, claimed on his radio show:
They want to deflate enthusiasm of conservatives. The narrative the media would like to advance is, this is over, don’t even bother paying attention, let’s move on. That’s not true by any stretch. These polls are so skewed, so phony, that we need to start paying attention to what’s going on so that you won’t be deflated.
Others have dismissed the polls as “junk,” “confirmation bias,” and the “the worst it’s ever been.”
The Romney campaign itself has said, “Public polls are what public polls are,” and declared that their internal polls show the race is much closer than it appears — after all, we all know how on the ball the Romney campaign has been throughout the election.
How many polls do you need to see before you start accepting the reality that Mitt Romney absolutely sucks as a presidential candidate and is currently losing the race? I wish I had the luxury of being as blind as to what’s in front of me as these conspiracy theory-promoting media personalities and political strategists.
To be fair, FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver of the New York Times has noted that pollsters may very well be “overestimating Democratic turnout.” However, he went on to say that polls may also be underestimating it given many polls do not include cell phone users — a consistently rising number as more people increasingly give up on the landline. Moreover, the Democrats have more registered voters overall and the Obama campaign has raised a helluva lot more money from small donors than the Romney campaign has.
I imagine if Mitt Romney doesn't perform well in the first presidential debate, these same folks will push even more conspiracies. Mind you, much of these people, minus the ones Romney hired, didn't even like Willard that much to begin with. Plus, Mitt Romney is the same person — who despite running for six years and having more organization, money, and name recognition than everyone else — barely eeked out a nomination among GOP nomination peers Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain.
Here’s another fact: Mitt Romney is a flawed candidate and always has been.
Thankfully, Mother Jones helped further highlight the obvious, but even since that incident, Romney has proven not to be as adept in presidential races as he is in a PowerPoint presentation in a Bain boardroom.
Not to say I place all my faith in a given poll nor am I blind to the reality that Obama could still lose. In fact, I expect the media narrative to shift to “Romney’s comeback” at any given moment as journalists struggle to spare themselves from boredom. Even still, right now the shift is noticeable and unfavorable to Romney. In fact, unless sudden, remarkable changes occur soon – i.e. voter suppression efforts succeed or Mitt Romney decides to be a decent opponent – he’s going to lose.
You’d think that his sort of supporters would offer something tangible in response.
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