"I think…I think it is probably unlikely."

Many years ago there were only the major papers and the three big net­works, so when a poll like the cur­rent CBS/​NYT Quin­nip­iac poll that Morn­ing Joe is report­ing as the doom of the Rom­ney Cam­paign would never be ques­tioned. Instead you would only see these results:

but those days are gone and the new media is alive so while the Morn­ing Joe table con­tin­ues to do their vic­tory dance I took a look at these polls from Florida, Ohio & Penn­syl­va­nia and on the very last line of the very last page Found the following:

So with a sam­ple that is D+9 in Florida, Barack Obama has a +9 lead on Mitt Rom­ney! In Ohio with a D+9 Sam­ple Obama has a +10 Lead and in Penn­syl­va­nia with a D+11 sam­ple he has +12 lead.

Now I have absolutely no trou­ble believ­ing these states are close nor to I dis­agree that Mitt Rom­ney should be more aggres­sive but come ON guys?

By an odd coin­ci­dence the last time this poll came out Hugh Hewett ques­tioned Peter Brown, assis­tant direc­tor of the Quin­nip­iac Polls and asked him about this (empha­sis mine):

Hugh Hewett: But I don’t know how that goes to the issue, Peter, so help me. I’m not being argu­men­ta­tive, I really want to know. Why would guys run a poll with nine per­cent more Democ­rats than Repub­li­cans when that per­cent­age advan­tage, I mean, if you’re try­ing to tell peo­ple how the state is going to go, I don’t think this is par­tic­u­larly help­ful, because you’ve over­sam­pled Democ­rats, right?

Peter Brown: But we didn’t set out to over­sam­ple Democ­rats. We did our nor­mal, ran­dom digit dial way of call­ing peo­ple. And there were, these are likely vot­ers. They had to pass a screen. Because it’s a pres­i­den­tial year, it’s not a par­tic­u­larly heavy screen.

HH: And so if, in fact, you had got­ten a hun­dred Democ­rats out of a hun­dred respon­dents that answered, would you think that poll was reliable?

PB: Prob­a­bly not at 100 out of 100.

HH: Okay, so if it was 75 out of 100…

PB: Well, I mean…

HH: I mean, when does it become unre­li­able? You know you’ve just put your foot on the slope, so I’m going to push you down it. When does it become unreliable?

PB: Like the Supreme Court and pornog­ra­phy, you know it when you see it.

HH: Well, a lot of us look at a nine point advan­tage in Florida, and we say we know that to be the polling equiv­a­lent of pornog­ra­phy. Why am I wrong?

PB: Because what we found when we made the actual calls is this kind of party ID.

HH: Do you expect Democ­rats, this is a dif­fer­ent ques­tion, do you, Peter Brown, expect Democ­rats to have a nine point reg­is­tra­tion advan­tage when the polls close on Novem­ber 6^th in Florida?

PB: Well, first, you don’t mean registration.

HH: I mean, yeah, turnout.

PB: Do I think…I think it is prob­a­bly unlikely.

Mind you this is the guy who actu­ally does the poll say­ing this

Let me close with this bit from the Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor and an exchange between Ben Bradlee and Ed Rollins from 2004

A few weeks later, the Wash­ing­ton Post ran a story that con­firmed Rollins’ ini­tial beliefs. The Post con­fessed that… well… oops… it had made a mis­take with those Cal­i­for­nia polling num­bers. Shortly after­ward came the Novem­ber elec­tion, with Cal­i­for­nia once again giv­ing Rea­gan a more than 16 point vic­tory. In fact, Rea­gan car­ried 49 states, win­ning the great­est land­slide vic­tory in pres­i­den­tial his­tory while los­ing Min­nesota in — yes — a close race. Mon­dale had 49.72% to Reagan’s 49.54%, a dif­fer­ence of .18% that might have been changed by all that money that went into Cal­i­for­nia. Mak­ing Rea­gan the first pres­i­dent in his­tory to win all fifty states.

After the [2004] elec­tion, Ed Rollins ran into the Wash­ing­ton Post’s blunt-​speaking edi­tor Ben Bradlee and “harassed” Bradlee “about his paper’s lousy polling methodology.”

Bradlee’s “unre­pen­tant” response?

“Tough sh…t, Rollins, I’m glad it cost you plenty. It’s my in-​kind con­tri­bu­tion to the Mon­dale campaign.”

Got that?

Now that elec­tion wasn’t close, this elec­tion will be a lot closer. Is this an in-​kind con­tri­bu­tion for The One? You tell me.

This is why the MSM will always hate the New Media, in Ben Bradlee’s day they would never be called on this. Today we will call them on it every sin­gle day.

Update: I can’t believe I for­got to check the num­bers with inde­pen­dents but it’s make this poll even MORE of a joke:

Here is the split among inde­pen­dents in Florida accord­ing to the CBS/​NYT/​Quinnipiac poll

In Ohio

They don’t pro­vide fig­ures in Pa which I found strange but lets ask the obvi­ous question

How do you rec­on­cile +9 point Obama leads if Rom­ney leads with BOTH inde­pen­dents & Repub­li­cans? And do you REALLY believe that Obama is doing bet­ter among democ­rats than Rom­ney is among repub­li­cans by enough to make up for that dif­fer­ence. Do you REALLY?

John Nolte puts it best:

Florida:

In 2004 the vote was R+4.
In 2008 the vote was D+3
CBS/​NYTs is report­ing that in 2012 we will see D+9.

Ohio:
In 2004 the vote was R+5
In 2008 the vote was D+8
CBS/​NYTs is report­ing that in 2012 we will see D+9

Penn­syl­va­nia:

In 2010 the vote was D+3
In 2008 the vote was D+7
CBS/​NYTs is report­ing that in 2012 we will see D+9.

Again, why won’t the media report the dra­matic news that Democ­rats are expected to turnout in record num­bers against Republicans?

Because the media doesn’t believe it.

This isn’t report­ing, this is pro­pa­ganda and frankly after Rom­ney wins should be treated as an in-​kind con­tri­bu­tion to the DNC, these are also not the tac­tics of a side that is win­ning.

Update 2: Stacy McCain is less diplo­matic than me

jour­nal­ism is also my pro­fes­sion, and the fact that I’m pur­su­ing it on a blog doesn’t change my aston­ish­ment at the utter shame­less­ness of these peo­ple. As usual this morn­ing, I’ve been watch­ing MSNBC and I think this would be an accu­rate headline:

QUIN­NIP­IAC POLL SHOWS OBAMA
LEAD­ING BY 10 POINTS IN OHIO;
OBJEC­TIVE JOUR­NAL­IST CHUCK TODD
‘SPORT­ING A WOODY’ ON LIVE TV

It’s really that bad. I watch MSNBC so you don’t have to, and their crew is prac­ti­cally break­ing out the cham­pagne to cel­e­brate these poll num­bers. Their smug self-​satisfied glee makes me want Rom­ney to stomp Obama so bad that Chuck Todd is cry­ing like a lit­tle girl on Elec­tion Night.

Is that a Neu­tral and Objec­tive urge?

Per­haps not, but at least I’m hon­est about it, and there’s that old thing about “afflict­ing the com­fort­able.” Keep in mind that Chuck Todd is not just a par­ti­san talking-​head MSNBC com­men­ta­tor; he is polit­i­cal direc­tor of NBC News.

I can’t wait to see the expla­na­tions come elec­tion day.

Update 4: Neo Neo­con notes that Quin­nip­iac has a dif­fer­ent defi­na­tion of Big Red Flag than I do

From what Brown says, Quin­nip­iac doesn’t strat­ify its polls unless there’s a huge red flag star­ing them in the face. But Gallup does. Its accu­racy would depend on what para­me­ters it uses for strat­i­fi­ca­tion, and how well they reflect reality.

Or maybe a dem skew is con­sid­ered a “huge blue flag” so that’s OK.