Friday, September 17, 2004

My Unofficial CNN Crossfire Poll

It goes like this: when I listen to the audience's reaction to comments by Begala/Carville vs. Carlson/Novak, it always seems that a substantial number of the audience responds favorably to B/C while only a handful responds to C/N. By my (admittedly) untrained ear, it sounds like around 70% of the audience are behind B/C.

The C/N contingent sounds like a group of hillbillies - "Yee HAW!", whoops, screeches, the kind of reaction you'd expect from the front row at a Toby Keith concert (What has 24 teeth and an IQ of 140?). But making more noise doesn't mean more people. I judge the numbers based on the extent of applause and the applause for B/C is invariably deeper, fuller than the scattered claps given C/N.

Is it that liberals are more inclined to attend Crossfire tapings? That's a possibility but counter-intuitive; if this race is truly a dead-heat, one would expect equal amounts of applause for left and right on Crossfire. But that has not been the case the past two months and I tune in almost everyday. Based on my unofficial Crossfire "poll" can we conclude that maybe, just MAYBE, that the other polls are... um, WRONG (as Americablog suggests)?

I've heard that... that polls only question those who voted in 2000 (or "the last election" - I'm not sure if that means the last PRESIDENTIAL election or the general election in 2002 when the right seemed to be particularly mobilized) and not newly registered voters. If that's true (and I've heard it said rather frequently) then I think Kerry is going to win by a nice margin. Most of the new voters appear to be motivated by wanting to hand Bush a pink slip. I've been saying this for a couple of years, that ever since the 2002 rout the right has been feeling over-confident, that owning all 3 branches of the government had caused them to believe that they had a referendum of people who matter (those "others" would be prevented from voting ala Florida 2000).

That whiff of Nitrous has wafted over to the US press who manage to, at best, babble mindlessly, "Look at these numbers, Kerry might as well give up, go home, our boy Bush, despite being a coward, a liar, and a drunk/drug-addict is going to be the main man for the next four years." Atrios again seems surprised by this (as well as Skelator's mendacity), that Bush speeches get twice the coverage as Kerry's speeches on CNN. Well, no shit, Bush makes CNN feel all warm and fuzzy while Kerry makes them do their homework.

If anyone believes the press/media in this country has much interest in objectively reporting the news, they're looking at dealing with their tooth fairy issues. News in the US in the 21st century is nothing less than government propaganda. Thank god for the internet.

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