[Scape]

DerbyX wrote:

Scape. If you could trade your vote in Canada with an American so you could vote in their elections would you do it?

Fuck no.

[Mr_Canada]

Hahaha, that is hilarious.

Go Obama Go!

[hwacker]

Man Leaps to His Death From Bridge, Asks Obama for Help

http://elections.foxnews.com//2008/11/0 ... bama-help/

If that keeps up the dems will be all dead.

[Psudo]

Zipperfish wrote:

There was reference to a study by the Center for Media and Public Affiars--not a scientific body

The Center for Media and Public Affairs wrote:

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University

CMPA is a nonpartisan research and educational organization which conducts scientific studies of the news and entertainment media.

On the surface, they seem to be. What makes you doubt the scientific rigor of these two studies?

Zipperfish wrote:

They conclude that coverage of Obamma has been more positive than that for McCain. That may speak to those two candidates, but not to the larger issue of media bias.

That's basically the same argument I used against lonewolf above.

Hrm... in hindsight, it looks like you were using Rush Limbaugh's audience size as an example of bad reasoning rather that advocating that view. As such, you're spot on; only your technique was too subtle for me. I got the impression you were actually advocating the opposite of lonewolf's view rather than merely disputing him. I apologize for my misconception; I suppose it made me look like the one who was avoiding the topic.


------
hwacker, that's horribly morbid.

[kettal]

McCain threw his campaign away the day he chose Sarah Palin. The way it stands now, it's very difficult for an intelligent voter to chose him.

[roger-roger]

Which is a real shame, because as really think McCain is the better candidate.

[CanadianJeff]

McCain on his own is a good choice. Then you introduce the insane nutcase of Sarah Palin. And all my sympathy for his cause goes right out the window and Bush's endorcement seals the deal.

the man was fighting Bush for 8 years only to turn around and allow the same man to endorse him. McCain is just too much about politics and not enough about America.

[Ish]

Are you guys debating whether media bias is influencing public opinion or whether the polling is inaccurate because of shoddy methodology by bias media outlets?

Neither of those arguments makes sense to me. If liberal media bias has any impact on elections, why haven't we seen repeated landslide victories for the Democrats over the past 20 years? The power shifts have been pretty cyclical -- when one party screws up, we cast the rascals out.

As to the second question, I simply don't believe that media outlets would manipulate their methodology simply to pull a few "bandwagon" voters away from the Republicans. They have far more to lose in terms of credibility if they're wildly off the mark come election day. Plus, most news media polling is done in tandem with independent polling institutes. They weight their cases according to perceived voter patterns, not some nefarious agenda.

But maybe I'm missing the real thrust of the debate here?

[JPK]

Ish wrote:

Are you guys debating whether media bias is influencing public opinion or whether the polling is inaccurate because of shoddy methodology by bias media outlets?

Neither of those arguments makes sense to me. If liberal media bias has any impact on elections, why haven't we seen repeated landslide victories for the Democrats over the past 20 years? The power shifts have been pretty cyclical -- when one party screws up, we cast the rascals out.

As to the second question, I simply don't believe that media outlets would manipulate their methodology simply to pull a few "bandwagon" voters away from the Republicans. They have far more to lose in terms of credibility if they're wildly off the mark come election day. Plus, most news media polling is done in tandem with independent polling institutes. They weight their cases according to perceived voter patterns, not some nefarious agenda.

But maybe I'm missing the real thrust of the debate here?

Both are an issue
people are finding that they can no longer trust the press to cover things. Also, due to changes in lifestyle (Like me, many folks no longer have land lines) and improvemnts in technology, polling is no longer as accurate as it was (not that it was ever that accurate, right President Dewey?)as people who do have landlines look at the ID and decide "no one I know, let the machine get it".

The MSM refuse to look closely at things like Obama starting his political career in the living room of a terrorist who got off on a technicality (who also proclaims proudly "Guilty as hell. Free as a bird), his funneling said terrorist millions in funding, his willingness to sit 20 years in a church based on Marxist teachings with enough god added to make it a religion, the fact said racist, Marxist, anti-American rantings are the reason Obama claims to be a christian. Facts that Obama thinks the Constitution he will claim to swear to uphold is full of "Negative Rights" and he will gladly appoint justices to the Supreme Court
that will pervert the meaning to meet his wishes for "Financial Redistribution".
Lately, it has been the foreign press who have done yeoman's work on looking at Obama's background, finding his half brother living on $1 a month in Kenya, and his Auntie living in a slum in Boston here in the U.S. Sadly as an Illegal Alien no less. Obama made over $4milion and wants to "spread the wealth" but can't seem to be bothered to spread it to his relatives. In fact Biden and Obama give very little to charity. The press here refuse to look closely at Obama, yet how much do we know about Joe the Plumber, who while playing football with his kid finds Obama going door to door with a press squad and asks a simple question. . . whi8ch unfortunately for Obama is answered with honesty, showing the socialistic/marxist leanings of the candidate. The press go ballistic. . . on Joe, and we find he is named Samuel Joseph (most of my dad's brothers are known by their middle names too), he (gasp) isn't licensed as a plumber!!(because he works for a licensed plumber he doesn't need to be. When he buys the business, as he stated, he was working towards that goal and adding a few more workers and trucks, he will then have to purchase the license), he has tax liens on property (so, BTW, does Joe Biden) and far more in a few days than in the near two years Obama has been running for president. The Press seems always to be biased, but this year, they have actively covered for the dems. Between them ranting on the outliers in Obama's favor to give the impression of landslide, to the large amount of people the pollsters can't contact at all anymore skewing numbers, it is not as it seems.
Fox news has had the closest to "Fair and Balanced" coverage of the run. They have Obama slightly up on positive stories than McCain due to any story with Obama ahead in a poll as a "Positive" story. The rest of the Mainstream have almost as many negative McCain stories as they have Positive Obama stories. The people know this now (which new network has the highest ratings? not MSNBCObama) and the Print is suffering for it (NYTimes stock is now officially "Junk") and how many pollsters get the answers the called think they want to hear?
"Lets just string them along and make them happy in their own little world"
Zogby stated he wasn't as sure of his numbers as he once was (or, possibly, his reading of those numbers after his goof of Kerry winning states his polls showed Bush ahead by margin of error)but he knoew some of the other polls were way out of sorts (AP and NYT iirc).
I'd be surprised by Obama landsliding things. I'll not be surprised by either candidate squeaking it out, or McCain landsliding it.

[Ish]

We're obviously approaching this from different perspectives. I can remember Reverend Wright dominating the headlines for several weeks during the Democratic primary. Same with Bill Ayers. So, we can agree to disagree on the levels of media scrutiny that Obama and McCain have encountered.

It seems pointless to debate whether the media is, on balance, bias toward the left or the right. People will tune in to different news outlets depending on their own ideological predispositions. Even if there is a wide-spread liberal media bias, as you charge, do you think that it could distort people's fundamental political beliefs?

I'm still not sure that I understand your issue with polling. There may be flaws in the methodology, but what does that have to do with media bias? Do you believe that major media outlets are manipulating their methodology to favor one candidate over another?

JPK wrote:

Facts that Obama thinks the Constitution he will claim to swear to uphold is full of "Negative Rights" and he will gladly appoint justices to the Supreme Court that will pervert the meaning to meet his wishes for "Financial Redistribution".

I think you mean "positive" rights, like the right to affordable health care or public education. The concept of positive rights isn't particularly radical. The freedom from want was one of the Four Freedoms articulated by FDR.

Personally, I have a huge problem with the concept of positive rights. But the belief that the Constitution implies certain positive rights isn't a marginal one. And Obama, as a Constitutional scholar, probably knows a bit more about this subject than any president in the past several decades.

[thealmightynarf]

kettal wrote:

McCain threw his campaign away the day he chose Sarah Palin. The way it stands now, it's very difficult for an intelligent voter to chose him.

He doesn't need intelligent voters... he needs a majority.

From my limited perspective looking at the last few decades, it seems to be the most charismatic nominee that gets elected with qualifications have little to do with the final out come.

Seeing Obama taking the nomination from Hilary, at least in my opinion, by simply being a more likable person, McCain needed to add a lot more charisma to his campaign... Palin did that and then some. I'd have no problem believing that Palin accounts for a good 10+ points of McCain's popularity and has very little, if any, negative effect on it on a national scale.

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

On the surface, they seem to be. What makes you doubt the scientific rigor of these two studies?

On the surface, yes. However, non-paritsan doesn't really mean much. The American Enterprise Institute, for example, is strongly conservative, though officially non-partisan. If it's anything like Canada, I suspect the "non-partisan" label is necessary to continue to enjoy "not for profit" status and its tax benefits. I'm not saying this organization is like that, but it could be.

Quote:

That's basically the same argument I used against lonewolf above.

Quote:

Hrm... in hindsight, it looks like you were using Rush Limbaugh's audience size as an example of bad reasoning rather that advocating that view. As such, you're spot on; only your technique was too subtle for me. I got the impression you were actually advocating the opposite of lonewolf's view rather than merely disputing him. I apologize for my misconception; I suppose it made me look like the one who was avoiding the topic.[/

Yes, I think we agree.

[JPK]

Ish wrote:

We're obviously approaching this from different perspectives. I can remember Reverend Wright dominating the headlines for several weeks during the Democratic primary. Same with Bill Ayers. So, we can agree to disagree on the levels of media scrutiny that Obama and McCain have encountered.

Wright's only came about after months of Hannity and Fox hammering it. Nearly a year after Hannity pointed out just what was being said at the church was it finally brought out and Obama's flip ("I could no more disavow Rev Wright than I could the Black Community" to claiming he never heard any of "THOSE" rants while in the pews. . never mind he named one of his books after one of those racebaiting rants, and quotes it in the book, to tossing Wright under the now crowded bus)was passed off as no big deal by the same press who defended Obama by using Hagee against McCain, when McCain was not a member of Hagee's church, let alone sitting in it's pews for 20 years, and Hagee's transgressions were not near as bad as Wright's

Ish wrote:

It seems pointless to debate whether the media is, on balance, bias toward the left or the right. People will tune in to different news outlets depending on their own ideological predispositions. Even if there is a wide-spread liberal media bias, as you charge, do you think that it could distort people's fundamental political beliefs?

There are the standard MSM outlets. . . NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS(and as gov't funded it shouldn't be allowed a bias), CNN, MSNBC, BBC(though they tone down their leftism for BBCAmerica), for tv and then you have the Print like NYT, LATimes et al, who are more biased this year than ever before. Even Malone from ABC has noted this. Against that you have most Talk radio, Fox News (not the locals. . they can be rather left biased as well) and a part of the Blogosphere. Some 70% of the population now believe the MSM is actively for Obama.

Ish wrote:

I'm still not sure that I understand your issue with polling. There may be flaws in the methodology, but what does that have to do with media bias? Do you believe that major media outlets are manipulating their methodology to favor one candidate over another?

Yes. Most of the out of whack polls are from ABC and CBS

Ish wrote:

JPK wrote:

Facts that Obama thinks the Constitution he will claim to swear to uphold is full of "Negative Rights" and he will gladly appoint justices to the Supreme Court that will pervert the meaning to meet his wishes for "Financial Redistribution".

I think you mean "positive" rights, like the right to affordable health care or public education. The concept of positive rights isn't particularly radical. The freedom from want was one of the Four Freedoms articulated by FDR.

Personally, I have a huge problem with the concept of positive rights. But the belief that the Constitution implies certain positive rights isn't a marginal one. And Obama, as a Constitutional scholar, probably knows a bit more about this subject than any president in the past several decades.

Obama's quote was the Constitution is only full of "Negative Rights" He feels it should have "Rights" that the gov't is allowed to do for you. This is not what the Founders envisioned. I believe you're right about his knowledge of what the constitution means. . I just don't think he really like what it means. His Second Amendment stance is typical of his views. He wishes it wasn't in there, and has stated he wants all handguns banned, most firearms would follow. During Heller v. DC he stated first the gun ban in DC was legal and constitutional, then that he felt the second was meant to allow hunting arms, to stating the courts were correct in striking it down.
As I said, He knows just what the Constitution is about. He just wants to radically change it and wishes to do so not by vote, but by Judicial appointments who will legislate from the bench.

To paraphrase Scalia "He wants to use the Powers granted by the Constitution to Usurp the Powers of the Constitution" and that is not a good thing.

[Voyager]

Ish wrote:

[...]
It seems pointless to debate whether the media is, on balance, bias toward the left or the right. People will tune in to different news outlets depending on their own ideological predispositions. Even if there is a wide-spread liberal media bias, as you charge, do you think that it could distort people's fundamental political beliefs?
[...]

It prevents people from effectively questioning those fundamental beliefs. When all sources of incomming data are corrupt, then one has little choice but to rely upon one's own biases and preconceptions.

How can we be post-partisan when we can't believe anything anyone says?

[Zipperfish]

JPK wrote:

Fox news has had the closest to "Fair and Balanced" coverage of the run.

Have you ever consdiered that it's perhaps your own bias that makes you see Fox News as neutral?