Why Are We Late to Know Obama is Leading McCain?
ABC News and The Washington Post stand accused of purposefully withholding the results of their latest polling, which revealed Barack Obama commands an eight point lead over John McCain among registered voters. This is interesting, because the media is supposed to have it in the bag for Obama, and one wouldn't be wrong for thinking even the "unbiased" pollsters wouldn't want this information embargoed. [Media Matters]
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Editorial Director
I am a party line democrat but i am not buying this complete lie that barack is truly ahead in the polls.
the manner in which polls are conducted favors contacting people with a liberal bent and not working class people who are less likely to be available to answer phone calls and so forth.
i think this race will be very close and not the landslide everyone is claiming. i also think the manner in which the electoral system is set up will lead mccain to win.
might i remind everyone national polls are meaningless because the electoral college completly decides the vote. most of obama's national margin is in california.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the polls showing Obama ahead are "lies". In fact there's considerable evidence that the national polls are very much understating his support. But I agree that national polls are meaningless, especially ones taken in July.
However, the reason we're seeing weird things like ABC and The Wash Po shamelessly burying the lead in reporting its own poll results, or news organizations constantly questioning Obama while giving McCain very favorable coverage is because news media is looking to keep the race as close as possible. The primaries brought in lots of interest and ad revenue to cable networks and to newspapers. However, McCain is a poor substitute for Clinton, and news organizations are finding that they need to tilt the playing field to keep him in this thing.
It's pretty disgusting to watch, but even with that, he's still making a ton of mistakes that will give Obama plenty of fodder to play with in the fall.
With the eeeeeevil BOOOOSH's aproval ratings at a all time low, and those eeeeeevil ReTHUGlicans losing their seats in both houses, and with a bad economy, two wars, and $5 gas- Barry Hussein should be THIRTY points ahead in all the polls.
The fact that (according to an average of polls) he is only a few points ahead, indicates that people are just not sold on Change & Hope.
Of course, with all his recent flip-flops as of late, his new campain slogan is- "Change that keeps on changing!"