AMEN
Posted on 11/16/2004 4:33:18 PM PST by SolidSupplySide
In May 2003, I suggested in this space that the exit polls would need more than a makeover. I also questioned the wisdom of putting veteran exit pollster Warren Mitofsky in charge.
Shortly thereafter, I received a telephone call from Mitofsky, who, naturally, expressed his disagreement with my opinions. Later in the year, I heard from Mitofsky again when I criticized his exit polls in the California gubernatorial recall election.
I’ll say this for him: Mitofsky is a great flack. And he must be a great salesman.
Anyone who can talk the networks into giving him $10 million for the mess he produced is a charmer.
But let’s be clear on one point. Despite Mitofsky’s great reputation, it is becoming clearer every election that he’s not very good at what he purports to do well: namely, running exit-polling operations.
Even John Zogby, whose record for polling accuracy took another solid blow in 2004, was quoted as saying that “the exit polls were terrible.” Neal Shapiro of NBC News said after a recent network forum that the exit polls “should have been better.” The Washington Post’s managing editor said the exit polling “wasn’t worth what we paid for it.”
To his credit, Mitofsky hasn’t gone into hiding. He’s been out there flacking. And he’s running a tag-team operation with his associate Joe Lenski.
Lenski is the young, angry “bad cop” who attacks critics, while Mitofsky plays the role of the older, friendlier “good cop.” Lenski attacks bloggers, while Mitofsky soothes Jim Lehrer. Lenski savages the early release of numbers by his clients, while Mitofsky promises an explanatory report.
These two charlatans have doubtless met and decided to bully and sweet-talk their way into a $20 million budget for 2008. But in the meanwhile, the two cops are being called upon to explain where the 10 million doughnuts went this time.
The excuses have trickled out over time. One early excuse involved computer server problems. For $10 million, one would think that redundancy would have been part of the package.
Subsequently, Mitofsky and others have acknowledged potential sampling problems.
Perhaps Kerry voters were more willing to be interviewed than Bush voters. Perhaps the exit-pollster interviewers were forced to do their work too far from the polling place to get to a random sample of voters. Perhaps there were different voting patterns at different times of day that the exit pollster could not pick up.
All of those problems, however, pale in comparison to the ethical issue I raised last year — the leaking of exit polls early in the day before the closing of the polls. During a phone conversation, Mitofsky expressed concern to me on this issue but said that he had no control over it. I suggested that as a professional, he might summon the courage to refuse to release the early results. He demurred.
Mitofsky knows that those exit-poll results are the crack cocaine of Election Day talking heads. And as their dealer, Mitofsky needs the money that the crack heads will pay to satisfy their habits. Professional ethics and standards be damned.
Warren says, “Show me the money.” Let’s hope he wasn’t playing the stock market Nov. 2 when his selfishness roiled Wall Street.
Whatever happens in the future, the most serious consequence of Mitofsky’s 2004 mischief is still unfolding. Suspicious Americans are being led to believe that Mitofsky’s exit polls are a reason for questioning the legitimacy of this election. The exit polls were correct, paranoid types reason, but Republicans rigged voting devices to steal the election. There are more than a few people who firmly believe this. And the fact that Mitofsky supposedly won’t release his “raw data” reaffirms the suspicions of the paranoid.
Before his legacy is totally besmirched, Mitofsky should take retirement and watch the election results with the rest of us next time.
poll ping
The exit polls were intentionally skewed to Kerry by blantant deceitful sampling techniques (sampling only Kerry voters such as urban women). Mitofsky showed have his pants sued off for this massive deceit.
$10 million is a lot of money to pay for intentionally faked polling data.
And for any network executives needing to fill the entire day on election day, 2008.......I'll provide exit polling data for $9,000,000. A real bargain. I'll even include an Astrology reading from Miss Cleo at the top of every hour for each of the candidates just to get a more magic-mojo feel to the day.
Not if you are MSM and the result supports your candidate.
The media got just what they paid for: exit polls that helped kerry. Their concern for truth approximates zero.
Nice to cover this aspect of the doubt, while ignoring those among us who feel there was mischief to intentionally depress turnout among Bush voters later in the day.
The legacy media (MSM) knew that they were paying $10 miilion for faked exit polls. The money is paying for the current post-election lying spin by that phony baloney long time CBS forgery hack Mitofsky.
Between 2000 & 2004 very few Americans will ever again believe exit polls, most pollsters, and any MSM media TV flacks on or before or after elections.
They are feeble attempts at fabricated history and financed fables.
The party is over -
Why do I keep smelling a RATHER distinct stink?
Even as election results started to come in, the MSM was still trying to depress Western voters by saying that Bush was losing the election because of the economy.
They had to drop the charade within an hour.
They aren't fooling me, this was intentional. I suppose this article is supposed to continue the fraud.
In the runup to this election, I kept saying for folks to NOT LISTEN to the media regardless of what they say on election day: GET OUT THERE AND VOTE FOR BUSH!!I think that we need to make sure to REPEAT THAT MESSAGE before all major elections from now on for sure! The media will continue to sway things for the LIBERALS and we will continue the fight against those ar$eholes!
They aren't fooling me, this was intentional.No doubt about it. See my last post, just above.
I suppose this article is supposed to continue the fraud.
I think the article is slamming the greasy pigs for trying to buy one for the Libs:
All of those problems, however, pale in comparison to the ethical issue I raised last year — the leaking of exit polls early in the day before the closing of the polls. During a phone conversation, Mitofsky expressed concern to me on this issue but said that he had no control over it. I suggested that as a professional, he might summon the courage to refuse to release the early results. He demurred.
Mitofsky knows that those exit-poll results are the crack cocaine of Election Day talking heads. And as their dealer, Mitofsky needs the money that the crack heads will pay to satisfy their habits. Professional ethics and standards be damned.
The MSM has thrown down the gauntlet - dispensing of any pretense of objectivity and fair play. They must be destroyed - or better yet - bypassed and left to wither and rot on the vine.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon us in the fast-rising blogosphere to put the mechanisms in place to facilitate mainstream dissemination of news into the public marketplace. We must do this before 2006 - before the Goebbels machine attempts to throw the next election.
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