RayMalones Commentary

There have been a few times in recent elections that I have had an opportunity to compare media sponsored polls with polls conducted by the campaigns.

Pollsters are hired by the media and fired by the media. It is very rare for any hired pollster to fail to tell those that hired him what they want to hear.

Our media has always been advocates of a political view. Hired pollsters who want to stay hired had best tell them what they want to hear. The one time the Media wants the truth is when lying is easily determined.

If the last polling before an election says A is going to win, and B wins easily then the polling is proven wrong. That is why I say polling only gets accurate at voting time. Actual elections offer real proof that the most recent polling is either right or wrong.

We often see major differences between pollsters ....especially party pollsters and media pollsters. It is often quite telling to compare the public polls during an election cycle to the party polls.

I would remind you what Gore did in 2000. For over a hundred years both parties candidates had always ended campaigning on election eve. It was long standing gentlemen's agreement between the two parties. But in 2000 that agreement was broken by Al Gore. Gore campaigned on election day. Do you know where Gore went to campaign on election day in 2000? You guessed it.. He went to Southern Florida.

Gores internal polling told him the 2000 election would hinge on Florida and that he was a bit behind. Had he not needed more votes in Southern Florida he would not have broken a hundred year tradition and campaigned on election day.

When the media gave Florida to Gore as soon as the eastern Florida polls closed, Bush called the media to tell them they were wrong. How did Bush know that Gore had not won Florida? It had to be the known accuracy of the Rove polling in Florida.

That says to me that both Political parties polls are very accurate. We know from our own experience that media funded polls are not very accurate. The questions is why are media polls not accurate. Why does the media go with polls they know are inaccurate? There are obviously accurate polls being done, why doesn't the media do them?

The answer to those questions speak volumes about our media and its bias. If the media can't use events or logic to convince enough voters on an issue they use polls to try to change voter's minds. It works like this. Filter coverage so only stories that support position "A" are printed or broadcast. Once a significant number of people are convinced that position "A" is true use poll results to influence a larger number of people. The poll is used to try to get an "Everybody believes 'A' and so will I" kind of response. It is the technique the media has been using for many years. The problem for the media is it is a strategy that rarely works.

The "Everybody's doing it!" pitch only works on those that follow the party line. That is not the way the center makes decisions. It is the way true believers make decisions. True believers were won on the slanted coverage. That is why skewed polling results rarely increase support.

As Nixon proved in 1972, attempts to push the center into following the crowd often fail.

You may recall that polling was used through out the 1980 general election campaign. The media polling said Carter was winning, and yet Carter finally agreed to Debate Reagan. The media claimed that Carter was ahead and that only after the debate did Reagan pick up enough support to win. But Carter had been refusing to debate for months. Then just a few days before the election Carter changed his mind. You have to believe that Carter's polls showed him still winning and that on the basis of that he changed his mind and decided to give Reagan the exposure of a debate. Right!!!! I believe Carter finally agreed to a debate because his own polling showed him losing. It was his only chance and he took it Had Carter's polling showed he was still winning, he would never have debated Reagan.

You have to believer that Carter determined that his strategy was working and as a result he decided to change his strategy. The media caused the unthinking to believe Carter did just that. Carter is dumb.. but not that dumb.

The lesson of Watergate is also clear. It was not the Republican Minority leader Howard Baker who was rewarded for helping take down Richard Nixon. It was Nixon's supporters like Reagan that inherited the party. Baker holds the record of spending the most dollars per vote in a New Hampshire primary. Bakers media fame translated into a primary backlash against Howard Baker. That lesson is not lost on today's Republican leadership. That lesson was not lost on Democrats. Guess why they stood by Clinton? No one wanted to be Clinton's Howard Baker. It would have been a political loser.

Few Republicans and none of the leadership will do what Howard Baker did. It was a massive personal political failure.

But my main point is there are many examples of the media's biased reporting convincing the true believers and then using polling to try to convince others. Using failed strategies is something the media does over and over. They see the strategy like they see socialism. It will work the next time if they just do it right next time. Repeated failure rarely teaches the media a lesson.

What does work to take out a president? It is for a president's own party leaders to turn on him. That takes the president down. We also know that it takes the parties leaders down as well. For some strange reason, post Watergate. leaders of both parties are reluctant to follow Howard Bakers example.