Hannity: Kerry "chose the number-four liberal in the Senate" for VP; "Is that why there's no Edwards bounce in the polls?"

Picking up on July 12 where substitute host Mike Gallagher left off on July 8, FOX News Channel co-host Sean Hannity ignored the majority of recent polls when he asserted that "there's no Edwards bounce in the polls." While the majority of recent national polls show Kerry-Edwards '04 leading Bush-Cheney '04 (e.g., a NBC poll, a CBS poll, a Rasmussen Reports poll, a Zogby International poll, and a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll), Hannity cited the only major national poll (Associated Press-Ipsos poll) that placed the Bush-Cheney ticket ahead of Kerry-Edwards.

In order to justify his conclusion that Senator John Edwards (D-NC) has not helped the campaign of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) in the polls, Hannity once again repeated the misleading Republican National Committee talking point that Edwards is "the number-four liberal in the Senate." As Media Matters for America previously noted, although National Journal's 2003 vote ratings of senators placed Edwards fourth, that rating was based on only 40 of Edwards's Senate votes during 2003 and is not representative of his lifetime Senate voting record, which, as National Journal congressional reporter Richard E. Cohen pointed out in a July 9 article (NationalJournal.com subscription required), places Edwards in the "moderate wing of his party."

From the July 12 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: The number-one liberal in the Senate, he [Kerry] chose the number-four liberal in the Senate to be -- to be his -- his running mate.

Is that why there's no Edwards bounce in the polls, while George Bush is leading 49-45 in the latest AP poll, in spite of Edwards being chosen?

—A.S.