PowerMedia

Exit Polls From GOP Pollster Luntz: Very Kerry

This surprised me!

If anyone wants to add me to an Instant Messenger JPmedford@yahoo.com or profpowermc at AIM will get you through.

I'm dying to be interactive here!

JP

P.S. Have I made these kinds of things worth your while historically?

- Brit Hume, anchor at Fox, just insisted that Carl Cameron, Fox's Kerry correspondent, pass on Hume's "warmest regards to his long time friend", Joe Lockhart, KE04 Spinmeister. Hmmm?

-Fox's Martha (?) just uttered phrase "President Kerry" followed by a quick correction.

- David Gregory WH correspondent for NBC, aka "Stretch", reports "Discouragement" at the White House.

- "According to a Washington source, the exit polls that the media supposedly uses as "guidelines" are taking those very seriously. The source says that CNN's White House correspondent John King has told President Bush's handlers that he will not be coming to the President's planned victory speech at Reagan Center down the street from the White House … because he doesn't think there will be one." This is unsubstantiated at this point.

Anonymous sources don't cut it as journalistic fact, but if this is true, expect CNN to hire new pollsters next election. They have been allied with Gallup, and Gallup's polls have been consistently higher for BC04 than any other polling agency, including Fox's pollsters.

- Andrea Mitchell, Alan Greenspan's wife, has commented that all of the Bush Family are at the White House, except Brother Jeb (R-Gov. FL).

At this point, 8:15 pm, Virginia, and both Carolinas are too close to call. These three states, regardless of John Edwards home state, SC, have been strong Republican states in recent elections. That these are TCTC (to close to call) is genuine news.

Finally, NC has gone to Bush. This outcome was expected, but the closeness of this particular race surprised me.

Media Matters for America

MediaMatters is posting the times and calls of each network.

Can't tell the players without a program!

MSNBC -

At 5:45 out-going anchor Tom Brokaw engaged in some definite spin. In a fairly detailed commentary about possible results, he described the internal process NBC is using. They have three sections reviewing polls, exit polls, and historical data. This is funnelled to their decision making desk, replete with staticitions and mathematicians who are interpeting these various data.

After he explained this process, he firmly grapsed the proverbial football and without hesitation, punted. Foreshadowing a possible embarrassment for network predictions, Brokaw expressed great uncertainty regarding " the historic turnout, the lack of polling of cell phone users and youth turn out". Tom is laying out the "Dog ate my Homework" line early.

I am expecting a major narrative arc (story line) to be the ROLE of NEW TECHNOLOGY. Expect a great deal of commentary from Joe Trippi to explain how the MSM (mainstream media) missed it, and how MSNBC has been, conversely, pioneering the Blog through the site in the title of this post. Trippi revolutionized Howard Dean's campaign by taking it on-line, providing the model historians will follow from this point out.

Having followed the MSNBC blogs since their inception, they have been watered-down versions of what most blog-readers actually read. Instapundit, Daily Koss or TalkingPointsMemo are some of the more popular political sites and have far more weight and 'street cred' the MSM blogs will ever attain, but at least MSNBC is trying to catch up.

HardBlog, the Blog affiliated with HardBall, the Chris Matthews vehicle, may be on record as being the first of MSM's attempts, but by far the best is BloggerMann, from CountDown hosted by Keith Olbermann. (Olbermann/BloogerMann get it?)

Olbermann, a former sports broadcaster and Fox network commentator has gained genuine credentials for his real-time blogging/criticism/scoring of the recent Bush/Kerry debates. Funny, insightful and accurate, Olbermann had developed a simple system that worked very well. His Blog, alone among MSM ventures, was picked up by the frontline blogs. Time viewing his blog is NOT time wasted.

He is my choice for first Blog Superstar. This recommendation has its limits though. Keep in mind that Keanu Reeves is, by definition of salary and gross (huh!) tickets sales, a Superstar, but Kenneth Brannah, a Shakesperian actor of great merit is unknown.

OpinionJournal.com Electoral College Calculator

If You are following along you can click on each state to change its color. 270 is the magic number.

Remember:
- look for evidence of framing;
- try to detect a bias from any particular "talking heads", particularly the ones that are not labeled as Partisan Commentators;
- Which brand-name polls does the network seem to rely on?;
- Has a particular candidate "lost" the election, committed some error in the campaign that is coming back to haunt them?;
- If the election is defying Conventional Wisdom, how are the networks framing it? Was the network wrong, was the electorate unpredictable, have campaigns been giving innaccurate information to the networks?
- What role is Vote Challenging" having on elections?
- Is the election turnout of historic proportions? If so has it "changed everything?"
- Was this election framed as a "referendum on Iraq"?

Exit Polls are a big part of the Election Night productions. This link will explain how they work.

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/exit_polls_what.html