since he prevailed in the first presidential debate. <\/a>But a persistent sense he\u2019d favor the wealthy, combined with easing discontent with the nation\u2019s direction, provide a retort for President Obama, raising the stakes for their second” debate tomorrow night. You ought to see here how far down you have to read to get to any numbers in a story on a poll.<\/p>\nIn fact, this ABC article puts up two sets of good numbers for Obama before they even get around to reporting the most important numbers on who\u2019s ahead if the vote were held today. And even then, the horse race number is presented in a highly confusing way. Here\u2019s the deal. This is what I\u2019m paid for. I went through this. I weaved my way through all the BS in this story. Romney is ahead of Obama in the latest ABC\/Washington Post poll among likely voters 49 to 46.<\/p>\n
That is a three percentage-point lead. It is even more significant when you see that the poll oversampled Democrats by 9%. Everything I just told you, you have to read at least half of this story to find. And then you have to almost translate it because they present numbers favorable to Obama first. But the bottom line is: In the ABC\/Washington Post poll, it is Romney plus three in a Democrat sample of plus nine.<\/p>\n
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RUSH: Okay, now I\u2019m a little confused. The Politico is saying Obama\u2019s up three in the Washington Post\/ABC poll. Obama 49, Romney 46. The way I looked at it in this story was Romney up 49-46. Anyway, the crazy thing about this Washington Post\/ABC poll, they oversample Democrats by nine percent. In their own poll they say that the enthusiasm for Obama is down 8% since 2008. And what they did, they replicated the 2008 turnout in their sample. The 2008 turnout is gonna be nothing like the turnout in 2012. They say that the enthusiasm for Romney is 30% higher than it was for McCain and that the Democrats only had a 7% advantage in 2008, yet they\u2019ve got a 9% advantage in this poll. <\/p>\n
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It doesn\u2019t make any sense. And all of this data is buried so deeply in the poll. The headline: “Enthusiasm Rises for Romney Ahead of Debate.” The bottom line is this. Two weeks ago, maybe even not that long, just prior to the last debate, how many polls we shared with you here, how many polling organizations said that the election\u2019s over, that Romney doesn\u2019t have a chance, that he doesn\u2019t have a chance in Ohio or any of the swing states. Doesn\u2019t have a chance. It\u2019s over. I don\u2019t know how many different polling units said this, but it was significant. Was over. Then the debate came, and if we are to believe the media, the debate fired up the Republican base. The debate gave the Republican base confidence. The debate gave the Republican base enthusiasm, and at the same time the debate quelled enthusiasm for Obama. <\/p>\n
So the debate took what was a sure, in-the-bag victory for Obama and turned it into a toss-up. And since then, it has become almost over. If Romney wins tomorrow night\u2019s debate decisively, many in the media think it\u2019s almost over. Such is what they\u2019re saying. And all it does is buttress the point that I have been making, that these polls are meaningless. In April, May, and June they are used to shape public opinion. They are used to move agendas. I want to tell you again, with as much enthusiasm as I can muster here without raising my voice, the whole point of every one of these polls prior to the present moment has been to suppress your vote, depress you, convince you it\u2019s over, get you not enthusiastic, lackadaisical, perhaps not even showing up. <\/p>\n
They have misunderstood throughout this entire period, there\u2019s nothing they can do to keep you from voting. There\u2019s no amount of suppression, no amount of depression, no amount of attempts to make you think it\u2019s all over that\u2019s gonna keep you home. This is what they have not understood. But they are still desperate to prove to themselves that they have this kind of power, and so they engage in efforts to do so, shaping public opinion every week, at least with these polls. <\/p>\n
So The Politico is right. My first interpretation was wrong. The ABC\/Washington Post poll has Obama up three. That is how poorly written this thing is. I tell you, you need a PhD in mathematics to translate this story. And even with Obama up three, it\u2019s not demonstrated anywhere in this poll where that makes any sense. It\u2019s a story overall about the enthusiasm that has built up for Romney. <\/p>\n
Now, we move on to USA Today. Shocker. “Obama, Romney Nearly Tied in Electoral College.” Again, last week, two weeks ago, it was over. There wasn\u2019t a way to victory for Romney, particularly he had no prayer in Ohio, and, without Ohio, it didn\u2019t matter, nothing else mattered. Now they\u2019re essentially tied in the Electoral College. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go to the audio sound bites. F. Chuck Todd this morning on the Today show. And I think given that these people all speak to each other and they all basically have the same worldview, all the media people, they all think the same way, this is pretty much indicative of what the real mind-set is behind closed doors out there. Savannah Guthrie talking to F. Chuck Todd, NBC White House correspondent, political director and so forth. She said, “You\u2019ve seen the polls, Chuck, nationally tight, Romney leading. This is an election that\u2019s gonna be decided state by state. How close is this race right now, F. Chuck?”<\/p>\n
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