Big Media Invades Poll Land

I paid a visit to Steyn's website this morning and saw that the conservative pundits are still heading for the hills. Last week, David Brooks made for the lifeboats, describing Sarah Palin as a certain type of disease afflicting the Republican Party. Steyn mentions Brooks and says he doesn't know what Brooks is thinking anymore. Beats me. I never knew what Brooks was thinking and always figured he was some whacked out left-winger until somebody told me he's a conservative. Oh.

Steyn likes to blog on National Review's "The Corner." It's a running blog where conservative commentators can go to yell at each other or pat each other on the back. Lately, it's just a place where they can go to bitch and moan about the state of the presidential election. But not too many of them: in the last week, they've been jumping from the McCain booster club like clowns from a Volkswagen.

The Corner is getting quieter and quieter as malaise sets in. You can hear the crickets chirping and 10th story windows being thrown open. But why?

I went on about it last week, but I figure it's worth repeating: Barack Obama is not certain to win this race, yet commentators have bought the hype that he will. They're chicken.

The sad fact is that most commentators have been reading the media's headlines the past few weeks, and they've caved. What losers. For years they've been saying that the mainstream press are a bunch of left-wing blowhards. Did they honestly believe that these blowhards wouldn't be holding an Obama victory parade three weeks from election day?

Memo to right-wing yellow belly columnists: it was always going to be this way. McCain was always going to receive unfair press, his supporters were always going to be called racists, and the polls covered were always going to be the ones that made Obama look good. If you really didn't see this coming then you should turn your Mac in to your editor and call it a day.

The polls are killing the poor yellow bellies. That should make you nervous only if you believe that the commentators are a reflection of the public at large. The media use these polls for only one reason: to affect voter turnout. If they can convince enough people that the race is already over, then those people will stay home and not vote at all. The press want McCain supporters to believe, like the commentators have, that McCain's already lost. If voter turnout ends up reflecting the sudden drought of bloggers at The Corner, then Obama should win by a shutout.

"Ah, come on, Berry. The media aren't trying to affect voter turnout. They're just reporting the polls."

Conspiracy theorist? Not me. Look at the framing the media uses with these polls. They do not say, "It's very tight," or "It's going to be close," or "Taking the margin of error into account, McCain could actually be winning." Instead, it's "McCain's done."

What exactly are "polls," anyway? When you get down to it, you're taking the word of some guy named Gallup that he knows what millions of people are thinking because he made a few phone calls. Do you honestly believe that asking 1000 people a few questions over the telephone can tell you what an entire nation believes? I don't.

Another question is which polls do you want to read? There's dozens of them. If I wanted you to believe that the race is over, I'd tell you that the ABC News/Washington Post poll says Obama is 10 points ahead. But if I wanted you to think McCain's still got a shot, I'd quote the Gallup (Traditional) poll, which gives Obama only a 3 point edge, well within their margin of error.

Some news guys, like Drudge, report an average of the polls. I call this the Margarita Method. This takes any number of polls and puts them in a blender. Hence you can have a poll giving Obama an 8 point lead, a Gallup (Expanded) poll that gives him a 5 point lead, a few more polls like Pew Research, La Times/Bloomberg, Ipsos, Newsweek, Rasmussen, some crushed ice, a little salt, a slice of lime, and out comes 4.8.

If you're like me, maybe you're starting to have a hard time seeing how these polls can be called "scientific." The pollsters say that you can't just open up the phone book, call 1000 people, and ask them how they're going to vote. Instead, you have to throw on a white lab coat, giggle maniacally, and start dialing. But if one crazy scientist ends up with an Obama edge of 14, but another says McCain's only down by 4, how can polling possibly be "scientific" unless it's being run by the global warming kooks?

I'm willing to concede that polling might give you some general idea of how those specific people felt when they picked up the phone that very minute, but the amount of certainty that the pollsters claim is a laugh. Gallup virtually admits it, because they have two polls. One is called "expanded" and the other is called "traditional." Now, unless they're phoning obese people and hardcore Episcopalians, I have no idea what they mean by expanded and traditional. My guess is that one of these two polls falls under the "cover my ass" category.

For the record, Gallup's latest has McCain losing by 3 points in its traditional poll, and 7 points in its expanded edition. The conservative columnists should read the traditional number, ignore the expanded one, turn off the gas oven, and get back in the ring. Crybabies.