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RUSH: It used to be, ladies and gentlemen, that David “Rodham” Gergen exemplified the conventional wisdom of the thinking inside the Washington Beltway. David “Rodham” Gergen, whatever he said, whatever he thought, you could count on that being what everybody else in the power clique thought and believed. He was the arbiter, and may still be for many, of political correctness and conventional wisdom. On CNN or wherever, Nightline, you pick it, doing analysis, whatever David “Rodham” Gergen said, you could count on that being the conventional wisdom.

Well, I think it may be that that torch is being passed, if not being passed, it’s being shared. John Heilemann and Mark Halperin are quickly becoming the new arbiters of conventional wisdom in Washington. They’ve written a couple of books. They go on campaigns. They gather all of this inside information, that if they wrote about it as journalists during the campaign, it might have an impact on the outcome of the election. But they don’t share it. They hold it. They hold it for exclusive content for their books, which are published long after the election has taken place.


Last night on Bloomberg TV’s With All Due Respect, the title of the show, the co-host John Heilemann had this to say about the Democrat Party and new polling on the 2014 midterm elections. It’s cut one.

HEILEMANN: We’ve now seen polling that’s been moving this direction pretty consistently for the last couple weeks. I have resisted more than anybody the notion that a Republican wave has been forming, but the data is starting to look pretty striking that the first number is now outside the margin of error, and the change, the trend line is all bad for Democrats.

RUSH: Not good. I mean when these guys, Heilemann and Halperin, the new “Rodham” Gergen, when they make it official here that a Republican wave looks to be in the offing — I’m not saying they’re right. I’m saying all of Washington will get in line. Well, pretty much all of it. They’re gonna have their detractors because they have competitors. They have people who would like to be thought of as the arbiters of conventional wisdom. So you’re gonna have competitors who will disagree with them, but not very blatantly. It will be respectful disagreement.

But these guys are clearly shooting for the title and Heilemann says, yeah, we’ve seen the polling, and it’s been moving in this wave direction for the last couple weeks. And I’ve resisted more than anybody the notion that this Republican wave has been forming, but the data is starting to look pretty striking. And that first number is now outside the margin of error, and the change, and that trend line, that’s all bad for Democrats. And then Halperin, who is also a cohost of With All Due Respect, chimed in.

HALPRIN: When voters start to think something’s gonna happen, it’s much more likely to happen because voters are pretty savvy. That’s national. If you look at some of these key races, it’s very negative for Democrats in that data.

RUSH: And that’s new. No, what’s new is that key race data is beginning to look negative for Democrats. Up until a week ago, or two weeks ago, the national polling, be it generic ballot or even throw a couple names in there, the national polling has looked like a huge Republican win. But if you went to say, North Carolina, the Democrat incumbent was still leading the challenger, Thom Tillis in this case by a few points. And in a couple of other states, even though this national trend appeared to make it look like a Republican wave or sweep, some of these key local races or state races showed something just the opposite.


Now, what Halperin is saying is that some of these key races now, which used to provide a different picture than the national polling, are starting to line up. And we talked about this yesterday. What happens with polling, you know it as well as I do, the Democrat Party and the media are in charge of polling, and they use it to shape public opinion. They use it to influence people. Everybody wants to be in the majority. Everybody wants to think that everybody thinks like they do or that they think like everybody else does.

So they’ll publish polls that show a majority of people like Obamacare, a majority of people like Obama, whatever it is. A majority of people may like the Republicans but really don’t want the Republicans running. And they’ll run that all year long, trying to make it look like the Republicans, yeah, it should be their year to do well, but they’re not gonna control anything. And they try to get people believing that this Republican sweep or wave or whatever isn’t gonna happen. And that’s done to shape public opinion. That’s done to manipulate people into forming a conclusion the pollsters and Democrat Party wants.

However, polling has a second phase, and that begins as we get to about now. A month, five weeks, six weeks out from the election, the polling then, the results, all of a sudden begin to reflect a more accurate projection of the outcome, because a month, five weeks, six weeks out, the pollsters have to think of their credibility. They know that nobody’s gonna remember a poll in June or July that have the Democrats sitting pretty. Nobody’s gonna remember a poll even in September that said the Republicans weren’t gonna pull it off.

But they might remember a poll in late October, mid-October which shows the Republicans not winning and then if the Republicans win, it looks bad for their poll. So about now they have to start shifting the polling results to actually reflect the reality, as expressed by the poll. And that’s what these guys are saying. “We’ve seen the polling, it’s been moving in this direction pretty consistently the last couple weeks.” Yes, because now you have to be truthful with it.

“And I’ve resisted more than anybody this notion that a Republican wave has been forming.” (imitating pollsters) “Right, because we’ve been trying to prevent that, but the data, it’s starting to look pretty striking. Now we’ve gotta get real, and we failed. We tried to stop this Republican wave with all of our polling in September, and August, and July, but it looks to be all for naught because the data that we’ve got now looks pretty bad for the Democrats.”

And then Halperin chimes in and says, “Yeah, and you know something? When the voters say they expect something to happen, then it’s pretty likely to happen because the voters are pretty smart.” Really? How often do they actually say or think that? But that’s what Halperin said. “When voters start to think something’s gonna happen, you know, they’re pretty savvy, and that’s national. If you look at some of these key races, very negative for Democrats in that data.” Meaning these races in these states where it looked like a toss-up, now it’s starting to shift.

My point is, it probably always has been where it is now. But in the weeks and months previous they’ve monkeyed the results a little bit to make it look not as bad so as not to dispirit Democrat voters. They need massive turnout from women and African-Americans.

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