[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Who's winning? (click to view)
Date: October 31, 2008
John McCain is now trailing in virtually every poll that matters, and various electoral vote calculations are all predicting his defeat.

The spin of his campaign is that polls don't matter and things are "more or less tied," but really, is there any hope at this point?

[roger-roger]

LOL Awesome!

[XianLewis]

Sad but true. I still think we'll be surprised by the election day results.

[CommanderSock]

If Obama doesnt have a double digit lead he'll loose.

[faile]

XianLewis wrote:

Sad but true. I still think we'll be surprised by the election day results.

Obama/Palin FTW, lol.

[lonewolf23k]

There's a simple reason why it seems like Obama's ahead...

Turns out the Media IS favoring him...

Looks like the "Liberal Media" myth has finally been proven.

[Psudo]

lonewolf: I like how that study is accompanied by really lousy pictures of both candidates. I don't know why, but I find that to be hilarious.

I agree that the media is biased in favor of Obama, and that McCain will do better than most polls depict. However, I also think he'll lose this time around; not because Obama is so magically charismatic, but because having good reasons to vote against Obama is not the same as having good reasons to vote for McCain. In 2004, all the reasons to vote against Bush were not enough to deny him an electoral victory because there weren't sufficient good reasons to vote for Kerry.

I don't think people who didn't already believe the "Liberal Media" myth are going to become convinced of it this time around; at most, they'll concede to the "Obama-Mania Media" claim but assume it doesn't apply to the American left generally.

[Zipperfish]

lonewolf23k wrote:

There's a simple reason why it seems like Obama's ahead...

Turns out the Media IS favoring him...

Looks like the "Liberal Media" myth has finally been proven.

I don't think it has. Doesn't Rush Limbaugh have the top rated radio show in the world? Has he endorsed Obama? Nah, didn't think so. Maybe the reason that most of the newspapers are backing Obama is because Obamam is the superior candidate. Didn't think of that one, did you? This is especially defensible since in the 2004 election US newspaper endorsements were about equal between Bush and Kerry.

It's much more likely that, as a right-winger, you perceive even perfectly "objective" news reports as slanted left--call it Zip's Theory of Political Relativity. Also, like many people, you may lack the capacity for self-examination so it's never occurrred to you that it is your own bias at play and not the media's.

I wish conservatvies would stop blaming everyone else for their problems. And, incidentally, your problem is Bush. And don't try to tell me Bush is a liberal either. See the memo below.

Quote:

Dear conservatives,

Thank you very much for your offer to give us George W. Bush. However, you can keep him. We don't want him.

Yours sincerely,

liberals.

[Psudo]

Zipperfish wrote:

Doesn't Rush Limbaugh have the top rated radio show in the world? Has he endorsed Obama? Nah, didn't think so.

Rush Limbaugh has the single largest audience in the USA, but his audience is not larger than all of the (allegedly) liberal newspapers and TV news shows in the USA combined. (Also, I imagine there's some Chinese national radio news show that has a larger audience than Limbaugh, though I don't know if there's any way to prove it and doubt it's a reasonable comparison.)

But even so, mentioning Limbaugh's audience size is a straw-man argument. The "mainstream media bias" claim is that most news sources (of which Limbaugh is only one) are left-leaning. This, it is claimed, is especially true if you only count news sources that do not openly declare any political leaning (thus discounting Limbaugh from the count altogether).

[JPK]

standard form is for the pollsters to over compensate in favor of the Democrat.
Closer to election day, they come back a bit to justify their existence.
CBS and ABC have polls that are far out the range of the others, giving Obama a larger lead than likely in the Real Clear Politics average. Toss the outliers, and Obama has far less lead than Kerry and Gore had at the same time. We all know how well it went for those two. The other thing tossing the numbers is the obscene amount of "New and First Time" voters being credited to Obama in the formulas.
Even Zogby and Rassmusen have far too many of these as "Likely" Obama votes.
Asdfgdsa Wsxcde, Dr. Feelgood, and Mickey Mouse aren't likely to be voting this year no mater what ACORN claims.
The other thing is the number of people who have said "Obama" to a pollster who have no intention of voting for Barry.
Obama has a closing problem. If the dems allocated delegates like the Repubs, He wouldn't have been the Nominee, and we'd be having this same conversation about Hillary and how she is likely to lose as well, no matter what the polls say.
But as with his battle with her, he can't seal the deal after folks get a closer look at him.

Nearly three times the amount of money raised and Obama is struggling to pull this off. Sad to think all those illegal donations are possibly for naught.
Joe the Plumber may well have won this for McCain with help from Tito the Builder, and of course Sara, who brought the base back in with a gusto. Gov Palin made far more of the base decide to vote For the ticket, instead of Against Obama.

Now all we need is a big stick in her hands to convince McCain to see reason on some issues.

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

Doesn't Rush Limbaugh have the top rated radio show in the world? Has he endorsed Obama? Nah, didn't think so.

Rush Limbaugh has the single largest audience in the USA, but his audience is not larger than all of the (allegedly) liberal newspapers and TV news shows in the USA combined. (Also, I imagine there's some Chinese national radio news show that has a larger audience than Limbaugh, though I don't know if there's any way to prove it and doubt it's a reasonable comparison.)

But even so, mentioning Limbaugh's audience size is a straw-man argument. The "mainstream media bias" claim is that most news sources (of which Limbaugh is only one) are left-leaning. This, it is claimed, is especially true if you only count news sources that do not openly declare any political leaning (thus discounting Limbaugh from the count altogether).

Well, I understand that is a widespread belief. Remarkably widespread considering the dearth of evidence to support the notion. I think it is just propagated as an article of faith.

Again, here in Canada, all four of the major dailies in my city explicitly threw their support behind the Stephen Harper of Canada's Conservative Party in our most recent election. This reality does not accord wiht the "left-wing media bias" model.

The bias does serve its purpose though. Media entities will react to a constant barrage of cricism. It will make them more aware of any subliminal political partisanship and may even swing the needle the way of the complaints.

[Psudo]

Zipperfish wrote:

I understand that is a widespread belief. Remarkably widespread considering the dearth of evidence to support the notion. I think it is just propagated as an article of faith.

I think you're proving your own Theory of Political Relativity. I said nothing about it being a widespread belief, so your response doesn't respond to mine. Also, you say the claim suffers from a "dearth of evidence to support" it, but you say so in response to an article citing two scientific studies of bias in media coverage. Then you defend your view with an argument from your personal experience with the Canadian news media. What relevance does that have to any claim of bias in the US news media?

You rarely evade the topic this adamantly. What's up?

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

I understand that is a widespread belief. Remarkably widespread considering the dearth of evidence to support the notion. I think it is just propagated as an article of faith.

I think you're proving your own Theory of Political Relativity. I said nothing about it being a widespread belief, so your response doesn't respond to mine. Also, you say the claim suffers from a "dearth of evidence to support" it, but you say so in response to an article citing two scientific studies of bias in media coverage. Then you defend your view with an argument from your personal experience with the Canadian news media. What relevance does that have to any claim of bias in the US news media?

You rarely evade the topic this adamantly. What's up?

I can't actually speak to personal experience with the US media, since I don't live there. I have read a book called "Manufacturing Consent" by the American Noam Chomsky which argues quite the opposite (that the media are slanted to the right and/or pro-government). I did not find Chomsky's arguements convincing; actually, despite the facade of rigor, his arguments were the same as those made by conservatvies alleging a left-wing bias to the media.

I didn't see any references to any scientific studies in the article. (Such studies, I imagine, are quite difficult; even defining "left" and "right" would be a contentious undertaking!)There was reference to a study by the Center for Media and Public Affiars--not a scientific body, though perhaps one that makes efforts towards objectivity. 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. As stated in 2004, the newspaper endorsements were actually quite close (Kerry had a slight edge). As a counterpoint, there was overwhelming support in American (and Vancouver) newspapers for the invasion of Iraq (my pet issue, I know). Was that, then, evidence of a pro-government/right-wing bias?

I wonder if even the notion of obejctivity has become somewhat naive or passe?

[Scape]

[DerbyX]

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