Panic on the Left: The Polls are Broken and the Voters are Stupid
This guy that called yesterday from Michigan about his book, when he called he was at 302,000 on Amazon. At the end of the program yesterday he was at number four on the fiction list. Up from 302,000 to fourth place in fiction, all because of you in this audience patronizing his book just from essentially one noncommercial commercial. I was supposed to be gone. You were supposed to be gone. Talk radio was supposed to be finished. And as we played for you earlier, Wolf Blitzer wringing his hands together on CNN saying that the real casualty here may be Bill Maher, all the attention focused on what Bill Maher says. There probably is gonna be a crimp in Bill Maher's act for a while 'cause everybody's pay attention to it. Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategerist, was supposed to appear on Maher's show soon. He canceled. Not going to appear. So all this attention that they heaped on me has backfired and is focusing on areas that they had no idea people would care about or look at. But I want to illustrate some of this with some sound bites, particularly on the polling data.BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Tuesday night on C-SPAN's simulcast of Politico.com's coverage of the Mississippi, Alabama, Hawaii primaries, the executive editor, Jim VandeHei and the editor-in-chief John Harris are discussing an article looking at recent polling data. And VandeHei says, "There was a good debate inside the Politico today. There's a piece that looked at the state of the American voter. Tell the people what the thesis of the story was, John."
HARRIS: Some of these poll results, they just seem stupid. So I asked Alex Burns to, said, "Why don't you do a piece looking at the question of whether voters are stupid and a lot of the things that they say in these polls are just plain stupid." And Alex warmed to the assignment and he wrote this, actually found a number of good voices from pollsters who say, "Yeah, that's the first thing you learn as a pollster, voters are stupid." He meant that often they're expressing their opinions in a context of ignorance.
RUSH: Now, isn't this fascinating? We've got two polls which show the bottom falling out on Obama, the war on women not working. In fact, I'm an army of one in the war against women. I am still standing. By the way, there's a book written about me. If you're new to this program, and you want to get as close to the truth as anything that's been published is, there's a book called An Army of One, and it's about me. It's by a guy named Zev Chafets. It's also available at Amazon and any number of places. An Army of One, that's his title. That's not my ego. I had no choice in the title. I could have disagreed, it wouldn't have mattered. It was his title.
Here we have two polls which show Obama trailing with women. In the Washington Post poll he lost four points after this whole attempt to create the phony Republican war on women via contraception, abortion. So now these guys are looking at the people who participate in polls, and do you notice the derision with which Harris uses the word "stupid"? (imitating Harris) "These people are just stupid." Listen to sound bite one again and pay attention to that.
HARRIS: Some of these poll results, they just seem stupid. So I asked Alex Burns to, said, "Why don't you do a piece looking at the question of whether voters are stupid and a lot of the things that they say in these polls are just plain stupid."
RUSH: Okay, that's it. Stupid. These people are just stupid. They're talking about their own polls. And later on he says, "Often they're expressing their opinions in a context of ignorance." Well, why don't you educate 'em with your polling question, then? If they're so stupid, why don't you educate them in the form of the question? So we voters are too stupid to appreciate all the great things Obama's done. We're too stupid to appreciate the brilliant political ploy he played last week. We're too stupid. We didn't have the sense to understand it and play along with it and applaud him for a phony, nonexistent Republican war on women.
I just find it fascinating, after all of these years of polls and these guys have used polls to make news, not reflect it, they have used these polls to create public opinion, and all of a sudden two bad polls in the same day and the respondents are stupid. Late yesterday afternoon on MSNBC the guest was Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, and they were talking about Obama's recent poll numbers. We have two bites from Michael Eric Dyson.
BASHIR: We've seen a slew of polls with varying results on the President's approval rating from 41% as you know to 50. Are the polls broken?
RUSH: That's the host on MSNBC. (imitating Bashir) "Are the polls broken? The president's approval numbers have fallen precipitously from 50 to 41%, are the polls broken, Mr. Dyson?" And here was his answer.DYSON: Yeah, it's very difficult to tell. The mechanics of trying to determine whether or not Obama is successful is not about the math; it's about the chemistry. And so here I think what's going on is that Obama strikes a nerve in the heart of the American middle states as well as some of those states that are significantly blue.
RUSH: What? Do you understand that? The question was, are the polls broken? And, well, you know, the American middle states, some of those states are significantly blue, it's what's going on here, Obama's striking a nerve there. Huh? Professor Dyson, you might want to ask MSNBC if you can go back on and try another take of that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It's not that the polls are broken. Maybe it's that the numbers are so bad, the media cannot manipulate them enough to hide the decline taking place with Obama. Maybe that's what's going on. The numbers are so bad they can't manipulate them enough and still maintain credibility after they do that.
We got one big, exciting broadcast hour remaining, and it starts very soon.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We just shared with you John Harris and Michael Eric Dyson (John Harris, Politico; Michael Eric Dyson, professor at Georgetown) worried "Are the polls broken? The people in these polls are just stupid! They're just stupid!" All because the New York Times has Obama's approval at 41% and it's an all-time low. Let's go back. We have a montage here from March 13th of 2006. Now, for those of you new to the program, this is hilarious. This is what we do here all the time. On March 13th, 2006, when George W. Bush reached an all-time low in a CNN poll, Wolf Blitzer did not ask if the polls were "broken." Wolf Blitzer did not speculate that maybe the people in the polls were stupid.
Wolf Blitzer celebrated it!
BLITZER, MARCH 13, 2006: It's 4 p.m. here in Washington. So you're getting the first look right now at our brand-new poll. The president's job approval rating has taken a downward turn again, falling to only 36%. [break] This represents his lowest rating ever in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. [break] The president's poll numbers are pretty bad, pretty awful right now, rock bottom as far as the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. [break] The president's Iraq problem and his new low point in the polls. [break] His approval and policies now are at new lows. [break] The president's job approval number in this new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, rock bottom, the lowest it's ever been. [break] It's 5 p.m. here in Washington where President Bush takes a beating in our latest poll. His approval rating at a low ebb. [break] Our latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll just out in the past hour shows the president at an all-time low. [break] His job approval rating at a new low. [break] That's rock bottom as far as our poll is concerned. [break] It's 7 p.m. here in Washington. The war in Iraq comes home to roost for President Bush. Our latest poll numbers showing his approval rating at a new low. [break] Also: President Bush hits a new low in the polls. [break] Now back to our lead story: President Bush's approval rating now at an all-time low. [break] As we noted, a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows his job approval rating at a new low. [break] President Bush's approval rating at a new low, 36%.
RUSH: We didn't repeat any of those.
Those are actual, singular instances.
When Bush hit "a new low in the polls," the polls were not "broken" and the people weren't "stupid." No, it wasn't time to celebrate! Do you know what the unemployment rate was in March 13th, 2006? You know what the unemployment rate was then? Take a guess. Come on, you guys! It was 4.7%. The unemployment rate when Wolf Blitzer was celebrating Bush's "all-time low approval number" was 4.7%, March 13th of 2006. Today the unemployment rate is 8.3%. The economy is in a free-fall disaster. The polls show Obama has hit an all-time low in the New York Times poll, and this is how the media reports that.
HARRIS: Some of these poll results, they just seem stupid. So I asked Alex Burns to, said, "Why don't you do a piece looking at the question of whether voters are stupid and a lot of the things that they say in these polls are just plain stupid." And Alex warmed to the assignment and he wrote this, actually found a number of good voices from pollsters who say, "Yeah, that's the first thing you learn as a pollster, voters are stupid." He meant that often they're expressing their opinions in a context of ignorance.
RUSH: Now, if a new poll comes out and shows Obama's approval up to 50, guess what? The voters will no longer be stupid, I guess, right? Nope! They can't possibly be stupid if they get it right in the next poll. That's who we're dealing with.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: John in Louisville. Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It's honor to talk to you today.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that.
CALLER: Hey, I just was curious what the left hopes to gain by talking down to and thumbing their noses at the participants of their own polls. Because it just seems to me to be an example of this leftist arrogance and self-righteous attitude they have and that kind of contempt anyone who disagrees with them.
RUSH: Well, let me turn it back on you, because it's an interesting question. What do you think? And I know you're reacting to John Harris and his reaction to these polls: "People are stupid." What do you think they hope to gain?
CALLER: (sigh) I honestly don't know because I don't really follow it. I don't follow left-wing pollsters.
RUSH: Okay, well, then let me tell you. Let me tell you. The program that this occurred on, John, was a Politico podcast that was being broadcast on C-SPAN, which meant that it had very small audience and that the audience was an inside baseball audience. John Harris was not talking to people like you. He was talking to other journalists. I think there's a good rule of thumb to keep in mind as you watch television news or as you read a mainstream media network (or website, newspaper, whatever). This is the key to understand: They are writing for each other.
When you see, say, a guy like Chuck Todd go on MSNBC in the morning to talk about whatever's happening in the news, Chuck is talking to fellow journalists at CBS and ABC and so forth. He's impressing them with what he knows, that he's got the daily template and narrative down. They're talking to each other. So when John Harris says, "Ah, the people in these polls are just stupid," he's talking to other journalists: This is the way we're gonna cover this. He's sending out the message: This is the way we're gonna deal with it, saying people in these polls are stupid.
He wasn't, in his own mind, talking to people like you.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: He doesn't think that he's insulting you by doing this. He's alerting others in his own circle what the story is going to be: Ah, these polls, these people are just stupid.
CALLER: (chuckling)
RUSH: It's a very closed society, and they write and broadcast for each other.
CALLER: Okay. Humph. Well, that's why I keep it dialed into you, man.
RUSH: You should. But it would be the same thing as if I were to tell you everything I do here is so other talk show hosts will hear how smart I am. That's not what I do. My total attention here is on you. This is why I do not put my audience down. I, in fact, have a profound respect for the intelligence and knowledge the people in this audience have of the events that I discuss. And not just that, but the ability of people in this audience to understand it when I talk about it. I have total confidence and faith and total respect and love for people this audience. I would never say the people in my audience are stupid, and I would never say the people in my own poll are stupid, but they do. They think it.
John, they already think you're stupid! They already think you're an idiot. They already think you don't have the sense to run your own life, that somebody like them and Obama has to. You're not wise enough to make the right decisions in life for you and your family. You don't have the sense to spend your money in the right way. That's why you gotta pay higher taxes so government makes sure that the money gets spent the right way. You won't do it the right way, according to them. They have a superiority complex and there is an arrogant condescension that they have toward their own audience. John, try an experiment. Call your local newspaper and complain about bias, and I guarantee you that the answer you'll get will be like:
"Well, sir, you don't really understand what we do here. You don't understand." Or: "You're just some right-wing pig!" and they'll hang up on you. The news business (and believe me, it's a business) is the only business I know where the customer is an idiot and always wrong, and doesn't have the ability to understand what the people in the business do. You're just not bright enough. And that is an attitude they have about most of the people in the country. Now, they don't have that attitude about each other, which is for whom they write and for whom they broadcast and for whom they intend what they say and heard to be read.
Really, it sounds crazy and it sounds ridiculous. It sounds like, "Oh, come on, Rush. That's oversimplifying this." No, it's not. It's precisely it. I'm not the one who said the people in the polls are stupid. The Politico guy did, and the caller here is asking me why, and that's the answer. They think you're stupid to begin with. When they get the right answer they want in a poll, it's not that you're brilliant or right; it's that they have successfully manipulated you into the right answer. They give themselves all the credit. When they get a polling result that shows Obama approval numbers through the roof, they pat themselves on the back for a good poll. When the poll doesn't turn out the way they want it, they didn't screw up; you're stupid.
That's just who they are.
That's just how they're made.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Karen in Richmond, Virginia, I'm glad you waited. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you. Hi, Rush. We conservatives need to start making a demand of our own for separation of press and state. The press is the only First Amendment entity that hasn't been penned in, hemmed in somehow, and I've been thinking about this for a week or so, and the only thing I can think of to begin with is a demand that these little press meetings in the White House every day cease and --
RUSH: No, no, no, no, no, that's never gonna happen, and we don't want that to happen. You don't want the press to stop talking to government. You don't want the press to stop having press conferences and stuff. I know what you mean by separation of press and state. What you mean is, these people have become the administration. They are an arm. They are an adjunct. They're willing accomplices. They're no longer treating powerful Democrats with curiosity or suspicion like they do Republicans. They are actually part of the Democrat Party agenda now.
CALLER: And they are not fulfilling their constitutional assignment.
RUSH: That's right. They have a very important constitutional role they're abrogating. I actually think, Karen, and I must take partial blame for this. I've done this before. This is nothing new. Before I came along in 1988, there was no other national conservative media then. In fact, the only cable news network was CNN. Back when I started, it was ABC, CBS, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, and USA Today was out there, and CNN. That was it. And now there is an entire alternative, very powerful media. And so they find themselves for the first time with their monopoly no longer in existence, and they find themselves with competition, and so they can no longer get away with faking objectivity and pretending to not be part of the Democrat Party. Now they've just owned up to it. Now they're making no pretenses, and they're not trying to hide it. That's the difference here.
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