Ray Malone's Commentary

Some say the hatred of George W. Bush is not much different than the hatred of Ronald Reagan. But to me the situation is much different. The reporters actually liked Reagan. They tended to blame things on his "handlers". Reagan to the press was a nice but not very bright guy who was controlled by evil handlers.

The media started out painting George W. Bush as a not very bright guy who was controlled by evil handlers. That has changed. Now the media sees George W. Bush as evil law breaker out to control the world while taking our liberties. They still do not think he is very bright. After all if he were actually bright he would be a leftist and agree with the media on all issues His success at getting what he wants is seen as the triumph of evil over good.

Nearly every structural analysis of media polls I have seen shows the media is engaged in running biased polls. The pollsters consistently poll far more Democrats than Republicans although Republicans have been winning most elections for the last 25 years. How could a rational person believe there are more Democrats than Republicans. Polls consistently show there are more conservatives than liberals. But many media polls weight the results as if the voters were 50 percent Democrats and 40 percent Republicans with 10 percent swing voters. The election returns are strong proof that is not the case.

I have some experience buying polls. Not political polls but radio station ratings. Station audience ratings are just polls by another name. Some of my career in radio was spent doing turnarounds. That is, taking over management of a losing station and turning it into a winner. Early on in the turn around it would be necessary to convince the advertisers that the station with its new management and format has gained an audience and was worth an advertising purchase.

A polling firm would be hired to do ratings for the market. I always did in house ratings just before the professional rating firm started their ratings. Rating firms knew exactly why I wanted to buy new ratings. They reasoned that if the ratings showed my station doing poorly, that I might never hire that firm again.

In nearly every case the polling firm's ratings told me exactly what I wanted to hear. I conducted my own polling because I wanted to know exactly where the station stood. Nearly every time my internal poll showed my station not doing nearly as well as the professional poll said.

We did internal polling because believing the good news of the ratings when it was inaccurate would not help me make good decisions on completing the turn around. If my programming decisions were wrong, ratings saying they were right could cost me my job and reputation.

I bought ratings from a known rating company because potential customers would believe them. I did my own ratings so I would know the truth.

It occurs to me that perhaps Democrats sometimes believe the inaccurate polls. The media and more importantly Democrats may give credence to polling that only tells them what they want to hear. I wonder if the polling firms are just telling the media what it wants to hear, or is the media ordering the pollsters to skew the results. I suspect that pollsters who tell the media what it wants to hear get rehired and those that don't are not rehired. I would not take a pollster long to figure out what it takes to get the work.

It seems logical that the various anti and pro Alito groups conducted polling to see the results of the Senate hearings and the millions they spent on Alito advertising. I would think both Alito groups would want to know where the public really stood. It is likely that these polls would not be fudged. If a Senator up for reelection believed a group's poll and it cost him the election, it would be a while before other senators would believe anything that group told him. It is very dangerous for a lobbying group to lie to a member of congress. One lie and the lobbyist never gets believed again.

There was certainly the implication in the media that anyone Bush was for would be a loser with voters .The lefts hatred of all things Bush leads them to think he does not have voter support. They tend to think he can easily be defeated.

But the Alito confirmation shows that to not be the truth. There is substantial evidence that the efforts to prevent Alito from being confirmed was a political disaster for those who tried to stop the confirmation.

Now there is talk that there will be a "real" effort to block the next Bush appointment if Stevens resigns from the court. That makes zero logical sense. The media tells us the left did not choose to go all out against Alito, because he would not be the decisive fifth vote. The next one will be the decisive vote and then the Democrats will go all the way for victory.

Does that make sense to you? It doesn't with me. Let me make the same argument in sports terms.

Would you believe me if I said Michigan would not try to defeat Ohio State in football in any year in which Michigan was not in the running for the national championship? The argument that a team or a political party will only try to win the big games is silly. It is even sillier in a political context.

Consider that if the Democrats had managed to force President Bush to appoint someone who soutered them in both the Roberts and Altio battles, it would not matter much who was appointed if Stevens resigned, the left would still control the court.

The media stories that the Democrats will only go all out on a justice that can change the balance of power is not believable. Had the Democrats prevailed on Roberts and Alito the game would be over for at least a decade.

The Democratic spin about only wanting to go all out to win when all the chips are on the table, makes about as much sense as saying Ohio State will only try to outscore Michigan in the 4th quarter.

Logic says to me that the Democrats tried their best to win the last two times and lost. If there is another Bush appointment the odds say are they will try the next time and lose again.

It seems likely that both the Democrats the media are mislead by their hatred of George W. Bush. I offer the cloture vote on Alito as proof. There are some Democrats perhaps as many as 19 who can not afford to follow Kennedy, Kerry, Dean, and media to their political defeat

A transformation started in 1994 and continues today. After being the minority party for 60 years the Republicans may have come to understand that they are in fact the majority party. Perhaps as many as 19 Democratic Senators have come to understand that they are in the minority party.

If the Democrats are truly the minority party, their party leadership will find it harder and harder to keep all the Democrats loyal to the Democratic leadership. Some Democrats will have to please voters who do not support the Democratic positions on issues. They will not be able to hold office unless they vote with the Republicans.

History says it is not bright for the Majority party to unite the Minority party by attacking them. Majority parties don't want to make the more vulnerable minority members, in the words of Johnny Cash, "Walk the line".. Majority parties want Minority party members to feel welcome to "Cross the line."

This may explain recent changes in how both the Senate and House are being run.

For a Majority party Divide and conquer wins... Fight and unite never wins.

If the Republicans have finally figured out that the "Fight and Unite" paradigm is what minorities often do, and divide and conquer is what winning parties need to do, there may be hope yet in getting the Bush agenda passed.

The ultimate victory for the nation will be when Democrats figure out that they need to go along in order to have any influence at all on policy. That generally takes place when the congress is in the hands of one party and the presidency is in the hands of the other.

In any event recent events seem to say that both parties are coming to grips with political reality. The reality is that the voters always rule.