Bozell The Clown
April 01, 2009 10:23 am ET by Jamison Foser
MRC's Brent Bozell has a problem with the latest ABC/Washington Post poll. But Bozell doesn't object to the poll's slanted and inaccurate suggestion that Democrats have a history of being reckless with the public's money. Here's what he's upset about:
It has become almost amusing, watching how the so-called "news" media are manipulating their own polls to keep the political weather sunny for their hero. The Washington Post kicked off President Barack Obama's European trip with the headline "Blame For Downturn Not Fixed on Obama." Of course, what was "fixed" was the poll itself.
They did the usual tricks for a more liberal sample of "public opinion" - they polled on the weekend and oversampled Democrats (36 percent Democrat, 25 percent Republican). By themselves, these things are shameless - but expected. And still that wasn't enough of a slant. Check out the way this question was asked by the Post pollsters.
"How much of the blame do you think [fill in the blank] deserves for the country's economic situation?" The choices were corporations, banks, consumers, the Bush team, and the Obama administration. There's a built-in pro-Obama bias in there already: assigning blame to Obama for the current economy when he's been in office for nine weeks just seems harsh to most people.
I'm sorry: What? Brent Bozell thinks asking if Barack Obama deserves some blame for the economic situation demonstrates "pro-Obama bias" because most people don't think he deserves such blame?
By that logic, asking if people approve of Obama's job performance reflects "pro-Obama bias" because most people do. And poll questions that asked about George W. Bush's job performance must have demonstrated "anti-Bush bias." By that logic, the only unbiased poll questions are those that yield 50-50 results.
That's insane. Simply insane.
But that's the conservatives' idea of "media bias" -- any question or fact that is inconvenient for conservatives must reflect "bias."
By the way, Bozell's certainty that polling over a weekend yields a "more liberal sample" is misplaced. Many pollsters are, indeed, skeptical of polling conducted over weekends, but there is nothing approaching a consensus about how such polling might skew. Republican pollster Bill McInturff and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, for example, both avoid weekends:
Voters who do answer calls those nights add up to a "more downscale" group, McInturff said -- more likely to be Democratic. That discovery is a legacy of the Reagan years. "Reagan's support would dip in polling on Friday and Saturday nights," McInturff said, "and then on Monday it would be right back where it was."
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake avoids Fridays, too, but for the opposite reason. "We never poll on Friday night because more Democrats are likely to be out," she said. "Friday is bowling night and there are Friday night football games, so you get fewer blue-collar people at home.
"Same for Saturday," she said. "Because younger suburban couples, two-earner families, are out doing stuff. Sunday night is a good time to get everybody, but we never call on Sunday morning because religious voters are likely to resent it. You don't poll during the Super Bowl football game if you want men."
In November, 2006, Slate's "Explainer" column addressed this issue:
In theory, younger people are more likely to be out on Friday and Saturday nights, which would make them less likely to be included in the sample.
What would that mean for the results of a given study? Weekend polling would skew the sample away from the young and active types and toward the oldsters who sit at home. That doesn't mean the weekend poll gives more credence to the elderly vote. It might mean just the opposite: Pollsters can correct for having too many old people by giving extra weight to everyone else. In that case, the opinions of the few young people who are in the sample would count extra.
...
While it's a common claim that weekend polls favor the Democrats, there isn't much hard evidence to support that idea. One of the best studies of this question was conducted by two polling experts at ABC News. Gary Langer and Daniel Merkle looked at the data from ABC's tracking polls for the last three presidential elections. They compared results from people reached on Sunday through Thursday with those reached on Friday and Saturday and found no difference.
With regard to the guy's complaint that 36 percent of the poll respondents identified themselves as Democrats, versus 25 percent saying they were Republicans:
I'm pretty sure the pollster takes whatever respondents he gets, and doesn't dismiss any number of them, in an attempt to "balance" the poll like that: if out of however many respondents there are, 36 percent say they are Democrats and 25 percent say Republican, then that's it, that's simply a result of the poll.
And you know what?
Seeing as I take it that a person would say they are a Democrat if they vote for Democrats, and likewise would say they are a Republican for voting the Republican ticket, then doesn't it make sense presently, that there would be more folks identifying themselves as Democrats than Republicans, given the recent electoral results?
I mean, the U.S. House of Representatives is presently divided 257 Democrats to 179 Republicans, not because the American People are divided 50-50 along those lines, but because they are not!
The 36 to 25 ratio between Democrats and Republicans in the poll, pretty much reflects the 257 to 179 ratio in the U.S. House, doesn't it?
Is this bozo guy:
A. An idiot.
B. A crazed lunatic.
C. A manipulative liar.
D. A Republican.
...or all of the above.
And when respondents to this poll question indicate whether they are Democrats or Republicans, then that merely becomes part of the poll results, and doesn't require any kind of cherry-picking of respondents, to artificially "balance" the poll...
Only an idiotic psychotic manipulative Republican liar would try and do that.
Someone forgot to tell Bozell that self identified Democrats outnumber self identified Republicans. Brent Bozell, are you one of the most people or do you fall into the other category, which virtually every republican with a platform is?
"assigning blame to Obama for the current economy when he's been in office for nine weeks just seems harsh to most people."
Bozell thinks most people think "It's stupid to blame Obama for the recession because he's only been in office for a short time." Well, yeah. Bush's veto power, the Republican habit of voting in lockstep and the Blue Dog Democrats all worked together to prevent the Democratic majority from seriously changing policy, so it makes complete sense to say that Obama only takes on blame for actions after January 20th.
So why is a regonition of this reality "bias?"