3 Leading Political Scientists Say U.S. Media Presentation Of Election As Toss-Up Is Myth

From Sydney Morning Herald:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/no-cliffhanger-more-like-an-obama-landslide/2008/07/27/1217097059908.html

No cliffhanger, more like an Obama landslide

July 28, 2008

The US media stand accused of distorted election coverage, writes Anne Davies in Washington.

Luckily for the Republican nominee John McCain Europeans can't vote in the November U.S. presidential election - just 100 days away. If they could it would be a landslide for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama.

Nevertheless Senator McCain has reason to be worried - very worried. Last week three leading political scientists declared the US media's presentation of the election as a toss-up as a "myth".

Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University, Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution, and Larry Sabato, professor of politics at University of Virginia, accused the media of flogging a dead horse in trying to portray the presidential race as a cliffhanger.

It was a particularly bold call for Professor Sabato, who has previously cautioned about Senator Obama's claims that he can redraw the political map in America. "While no election outcome is guaranteed and McCain's prospects could improve over the next 3½ months, virtually all of the evidence that we have reviewed - historical patterns, structural features of this election cycle, and national and state polls conducted over the last several months - point to a comfortable Obama/Democratic Party victory in November," the three men wrote in Sabato's Crystal Ball newsletter.

"Trumpeting this race as a toss-up, almost certain to produce another nail-biter finish, distorts the evidence and does a disservice to readers and viewers who rely upon such punditry. Again, maybe conditions will change in McCain's favour, and if they do, they should also be accurately described by the media. But current data do not justify calling this election a toss-up."

The trio reviewed the national tracking polls and found that Senator Obama has led Senator McCain in every national poll in the past two months, except for twice early on when they tied.

Senator Obama's margin has been in the 4-6 point range, in contrast to the polls in the election run-ups in 2000 and 2004 which showed much more variation over time, they said.

The state-by-state polls have also consistently given Senator Obama an advantage.

"Obama is leading in every state carried by John Kerry in 2004 along with six states carried by George Bush: Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada and Colorado. A seventh Bush state, Virginia, is tied," they wrote.

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ridiculous, unfortunately, there are still people who believe the myths created by "the news".

Fuzzy Science I tell ya! :)

should they decide to steal this one too.

OTOH I'm not sure they want to be in the White House this term, the next President is going to face a shit storm of a magnitude not seen in 75 - 80 years, maybe even worse, and is going to get the credit or the blame.

then it's time to go V For Vendetta on their asses.

cuz the repubs don't fix anything -- except elections.

Your shit storm comment is spot on! It's beyond me why anyone would want to be president the next few years.

A myth is one thing. It can be debunked. Deliberate disinformation to keep us enslaved, however, is incredibly dangerous for us.

The challenge is to MAKE DAMN SURE it DOESN'T get close enough to steal.

If the numbers are lopsided, even the bad guys know the likelihood of getting away with it will be slim. It's easiest to steal when it's close. Any thief knows you break into the house that's dark and quiet rather than the one that's all lit up with the dog barking and the noise and unpredictable comings and goings. 'Cause thieves are basically sneaky little cowards.

That's the dilemma..

We have cast off the exit-polling or "modified" it later to match the "results", so we cannot ever really know how people voted.. Candidate A may be ahead by 10 points on phone polling, but if Diebold says that every 5th Candidate A vote is a "minus 10" for A & a plus 10 for B, and it ends up with Candidate B winning by 2%, and the exit polls are rigged to match it, who's to say who really won the election..

No way to "count", if there's no paper ballot..Running the ballots through the machine after they have been "calibrated", only re-tallies the wrong numbers again.

If you run 100 counterfeit $20s through a bank counter, you will come up with 100 time and again, but they are still counterfeits.

Their deniability hasn't been plausible for quite awhile now.

If their "win" is questioned they'll say prove we're cheating. If they can't cheat a "win" they'll say prove we lost. With our current election system no one can prove who wins or loses.

If a legitimate transfer of power can't be verified, who gets to keep the power? My guess is the Supreme Court will decide. Again.

We can't know that the margin has anything to do with the likelihood of the election being stolen. People's perceptions, however, of the margin affect whether or not they will accept the results.

Massive numbers can be shifted. The question is, will the public notice?

If we had a bank that was stealing the money we deposited, we wouldn't argue that we should put more money in to make it harder for them to steal it.

If half the energy and money spent on this primary was spent on fixing a completely manipulated election system; putting a Democrat in the White House would be easy. Kerry and Gore both got the most votes and "lost".

The Columbus paper is proud of how accurate their pre-election polls have been in the past. They did a poll of the 5 referenda on the ballot in 05. Three of the items were pretty much favored by all or there was a slim margin. In the election these three items all came out almost exactly as the pre-election polls had indicated they would.

The other two items had to do with greater scrutiny and greater regulations for the voting machines or the elections. In the pre-election polls, voters favored the referenda by about 60%. When the election came, these same voters rejected the items by about 60%. That's about a 40-point flip.

Bob Koehler has some good articles about this. One guy at the Columbus paper called it the equivalent of the Challenger disaster. The Columbus reporters of course blamed it on the pre-election polls.

Two links:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1909

http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

I've never seen anyone on any side of this issue claim that three of the items came out about as pre-election polls predicted. It just isn't tenable.

They stuffed ballot boxes,
intimidated voters,
fudged numbers left and right.

Which is exactly what these propaganda organs are doing now.

I really believe that number is false, and a deliberate manipulation that is the MSM's underpinnings to claiming the race is a toss up.

Those MSM funded national polls are a shield from accusations of a pro rightwing bias (or so the MSM thinks), so the only way to break them from trying to throw another election is to break their hold on polling data.

here again" gets played over and over again in the captive corporate media for the last 90 days. These same low-ball polls start to show a shift of a few points toward McCain -- we're back to '04 or '00 where falsified returns in swing states that have had their voter roll purged determine the outcome, again . . . at least, that's the nightnare scenario . . .

worse.

And this year, they've completely gone down the Stupid Hole.

:grr:

There is NO 'comfortable margin' ... and the Democrats SHOULD be working to fucking DEMOLISH the Republicans. The bigger the better. EVERY vote counts! Embarrass the bastards! Even a 30% margin ISN'T ENOUGH!

GOTV! GOTV!

Dammit.

People need to believe it will be close so they all get their asses out and vote. Also many candidates need those coat tails.

A trouncing is needed to finally send the message that the hard-core conservatism of the past 30 years is falling on deaf ears.
The Professor

lopsided, it strongly benefits the candidate being reported as in the lead.

I've seen (but can't cite, sorry) a few studies that the reporting of a strong lead encourages more people to come out and support a winner, and discourages the trailing candidate's supporters.

already in the hands of those who control the software that brings us election "results." HAVA has done to voting what Katrina/Brownie, et. al. did to New Orleans.

When the election is lopsided the manipulation would be too obvious.

are of winning the popular vote that candidates are being chosen by those with access to the delivery of the results. The failed struggle by citizens to get an honest competent registrar of voters to run elections in Los Angeles County, the largest jurisdiction in the US by citizens is the canary in the coal mine for my view of elections. With the unholy association of privatized voting vendors & their lobbyists coupled with government elections officials and "elected" government officeholders who are at the mercy of the vendors to "win" their races, we have a dangerous catch-22 on our hands.

Millions of votes have alrady been stolen, and we can't get anything approaching consensus here about that.

They prosper when a race is close. It isn't so much for political purposes as it is for money.

first lower expectations through the media (bribe the polling companies, feed the media its talking points) then when election-time comes, alter the vote counts.

Yes, I think most of the corporate media outlets have a pro-Republican bias (suits their interests), but the biggest reason for them to want a tight race is for the bucks. If it's pretty clear who the winner will be clear back in July, there's far less reason for people to tune into the talking heads until November.

CNNs ratings climbed over Fox News - based on coverage of the Obama-Clinton race. It is in CNNs best interest to try to keep the 'nose by nose horserace' aura going.

They have to portray it as close because that's the only way they will be able to steal it.

K & R

Polls don't matter. Debates don't matter. The number of votes "certified" by GOP election supervisors, on GOP machines, with BOP pollworkers is what we get...

don't be surprised if McCain "wins".

Oh, I won't be. One reason to say the race is close in the news has not been touched on yet. If the news was reporting very large margins, then they steal the election for McCain, what do you think the reaction of the public, especially the African American public, is going to be? It will not be pretty.

Media is promoting this tied race, so when voter fraud/ voter machines are used to steal this election there will be a defense for them not noticing it or why they believe it didn't happen.

Just wait for fake exit poles, their blame of magic "effects" ect.. ect..

A landslide election is boring so the MSM creates an illusion of a close race to keep the ad revenue coming in. A corporation's only "responsibility" is making profit for it's shareholders. Everything else, even truth and morality, are thrown out the window.

They don't cover government. They cover politics. An impending landslide is bad television, so they're worried about cash flow. It's all they do.
The Professor

.

as applied to the media's treatment of the McCain campaign.

(No offense to any horses, dead or alive.)

Oddest thing. If you talked to people on the street, you'd be luck to find one in ten who supported the right-wing candidate (or free trade policy in the case of CAFTA). And yet, everything seemed to poll at 50/50. Both votes came out 51-49 in favor of the apparently unpopular position/candidate.

I later found out that the Mexican government had "assistance" with their elections from US Republican Party operatives.

I'm telling you-- presenting this election as a horse race is not just some marketing angle to stir up interest and sell papers. It's a prelude to stealing the election.

...

If the election were tomorrow, Obama would be a shoe-in.

But so much can happen in the intervening time - three months is an incredibly long time in politics - that the odds of Obama victory, while higher than 50/50, are still a long way short of 100%.