Why this Gallup poll won't get as much attention (Hint: It's good news for Dems)
September 08, 2010 9:19 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Last week, when Gallup announced that Republicans held a ten-point lead over Democrats when respondents were asked their congressional voting preference, and that the ten-point gap (51-41%) marked an all-time height for a GOP advantage, the Beltway and right-wing media exploded with commentary.
The Gallup findings were a very big deal. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for just a handful of examples.)
But oops, this week's Gallup survey finds that the Republican ten-point "generic poll" advantage has evaporated. It's gone. Adiós. Democrats and Republicans are suddenly tied in the generic poll. (And yes, that's precisely what the latest Newsweek poll also found.)
But good luck finding the non-stop commentary and reporting in the mainstream and right-wing press about the latest Gallup results. They just don't fit the preferred storyline.
Remember how the right wing nutz went crazy over the Virginia and New Jersey "mini-mid-terms?" In one state the party in the White House had last won the Governorship in the 1980's. In the other it was back in the 1970's.
Yet these idiots immediately claimed a repudiation of Mr. Obama. As Al Gore told President Bush, "You're a rooster taking credit for the sunrise."
Finally, be careful what you wish for. The TeaBagging fringe candidates, if elected, are for the most part amateurs (Yes, you, Sharon Angle). The internal divide within the Republican party is greater than the division between most Republicans and most Democrats. A few of the ultra radical office holders will sell out (they always do - see Gingrich, Newt). The remainder will wander around dazed by the television lights and all the attention.
They won't get a darn thing done - paving the way nicely for Mr. Obama's re-election in 2012.
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IMHO
A whole demographic is being excluded and results must be called into question.
Those young voters who read and post to MM are NOT typical of the younger crowd, most are either disenchanted with Obama for not being the liberal he never was or are far more interested in whatever it is that has their attention this month.
There will come a day when these people will become a force in the electorate and by then they will have homes, a landline phone and get polled.
Democrats are in trouble but we don't need the media's help in dampening down voter enthusiasm. Repubschmucks have nearly destroyed the country's economy, with eight years of criminal negligence and suddenly we are supposed to trust them to restore economic health? I'm sorry but I don't believe in furnishing victims to a mass murderer.
Apparently not!