Stupid Polling Tricks: New Yorkers Hate Donald Trump But He Thinks They Adore Him

Posted by Mark NC on April 18, 2016 at 4:05 pm. 5 Comments :

The Republican Party must be ready to gnaw off its leg after ten months of Donald Trump stinking up the place. He has engaged in bitter battles with his GOP opponents and the Republican National Committee. He has assembled the worst record on honesty of any candidate in decades (see the Trump Bullshitopedia). And he’s done this while offending virtually every voter constituency in the nation. That may account for the public’s aversion to him as evidenced in this poll from Fox News (that’s right, Fox News). But, as if that weren’t enough to produce an enduring nausea, Trump is also dumb as fence post. And he’s making the most of it.

Trump has shown that he has no grasp of the issues that face the country. He rarely responds to a question with anything resembling coherence, much less substance. What he does say is a third grade level simplification that would shame an actual third grader. And he is not only ignorant of policy matters, he doesn’t have the vaguest idea of how the political system works. He has spent most of the last week whining about a delegate process that has been known to every candidate for years.

This weekend Trump demonstrated again how shallow his understanding of campaign matters is. He gleefully tweeted about a poll that blared the headline: “BOOM! Trump Holds 66% Favorable Rating in New York – Leads Hillary Clinton by 19 Points in Empire State.”

Anyone who reads that tweet and thinks there is anything remotely associated with reality in it should not be allowed use pointy scissors. A cursory examination reveals it to be a complete farce. The polling organization is Liberty Opinion Research, a little known conservative operation with no discernable credentials. Its president is Nick Langworthy, who is also the chairman of the Erie County Republican Committee and has endorsed Trump for president.

Digging into the internals of the poll shows that the respondents were narrowly drawn to achieve a positive result for Trump. They are an exclusive lot that is 94% white, 61% conservative, and 48% of them are 66 years or older. So what you have is a bunch of old, right-wing, white guys expressing their devotion to an old, right-wing, white guy.

Trump seems to enjoy posting links to dubious polling that falsely heralds him as the second coming. Last February he linked to a ridiculous poll that claimed that he “leads big with Latinos.” And back in December he did the same thing with a laughable survey that said that “minorities are lining up behind” him. I guess when you appeal to a dimwitted throng of cult worshipers you can say anything.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

For the record, Clinton is beating Trump by 21.2% in the RealClear Politics average of polls for New York. So the preferences of the people of New York are not in doubt. It isn’t even close. But Trump is dumb enough to believe that the voters in his home state adore him, when they obviously do not. And his glassy-eyed disciples will also cling to his tweet as if it were the gospel truth. It would be comical if it weren’t so pathetically sad.

Fox News Poll: Donald Trump Is An Ignorant Snot Who Nobody Likes

Posted by Mark NC on April 15, 2016 at 2:49 pm. 5 Comments :

The Republican primary this year has affirmed what many people have known about the party for decades. It is dominated by boorish, judgmental, demagogues who are determined to deceive the American public into believing that they benefit when the rich get richer. The emergence of a billionaire reality TV game show host as their front-runner puts an exclamation point at the end of that sorry state of affairs.

Now a new poll from (of all places) Fox News tells us more of what we already knew if we were paying attention. Donald Trump really is an ignorant blowhard with the highest unfavorable rankings ever recorded. Fox News begins their article detailing the poll results saying that…

“Majorities of American voters think Republican front-runner Donald Trump lacks the knowledge, temperament, and the likeability to be an effective president.”

No shit! This has been obvious since Trump announced his candidacy with a speech that demeaned immigrants as rapists and criminals. It has been manifest in his relentless insults directed at minorities, liberals, women, and even his own party peers. Still, it’s useful having confirmation of this from the media mouthpiece for conservative politics and Republican PR, Fox News.

The survey asked several questions related to the fitness of the candidates to hold the office of president, and Trump fared dismally in every one of them. On whether the candidate has the knowledge to serve effectively as president, Trump scored lowest with only 38% saying that he did. Clinton had a large majority of 63%, and Sanders also had a majority of 58%.

On whether or not the candidate has the integrity to serve effectively as president, Trump flopped with a mere 40%, still way below his Democratic rivals: Clinton 48%, Sanders 70%.

On whether or not the candidate has the temperament to serve effectively as president, Trump underperformed again with an embarrassing 33%. Clinton and Sanders pulled in 62% and 68% respectively.

Finally, the survey asked if the candidate is likeable enough to serve effectively as president. And again, to no one’s surprise, Trump sat at the bottom with 41%, while Clinton drew 52% and Sanders soared at 71%.

On a couple of other issues addressed in the survey, Trump was similarly situated at the low end. Americans would trust both Clinton and Sanders more (53%) when negotiating with Vladimir Putin, than Trump (40%). And when asked about whether the candidate would make them proud, the highest response to “Not at all” went to Trump (56%). And while the poll found that 64% of the respondents think that the Democrats have been “generally polite and respectful” throughout the primary, 80% of them think that the Republicans have been generally rude and disrespectful.

It’s significant to note that this poll is not just an expression of general distaste for all politicians, because the abysmal numbers for Trump are unique. They are matched by majorities with favorable views of the Democrats. There isn’t an across the board anti-government sentiment.

So according to the Fox News poll, the leading light of the GOP, and the standard bearer for Republican politics, is regarded by majorities of the population as too ignorant, too lacking in integrity, too temperamental, and too obnoxious to be President of the United States.

What a surprise. The man who can’t articulate a single coherent thought on domestic or foreign policy; who insults anyone who has the temerity to criticize him; who whines like a baby whenever things don’t go exactly the way he wants; who advocates violence against protesters at his rallies; who brags incessantly about how awesome he thinks he is; that man is not particularly well thought of by most Americans. That’s a very good sign of the astute character judgment of the American people.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

However, it’s also a very frightening sign of the deranged minds of the people who are such loyal followers of the Trump cult. Where will they go when he eventually flames out? Right back into the mainstream of the Republican Party with the rest of the zombie Tea Party fanatics and white supremacists. And that is a very bad sign indeed.

Despite A Week Of Fox News Bashing, Obama’s Approval Rating Hits 3-Year High

Posted by Mark NC on March 26, 2016 at 2:28 pm. 6 Comments :

It may be time to send Fox News a thank you card for helping President Obama to achieve his highest level of approval since December of 2012. Gallup’s latest numbers show Obama with a 53% approval rating, and 44% disapproval (as of 3/25/2016). Of course, it wasn’t for lack of trying to smear the President with anything they could dig up. Apparently they just underestimated the American people’s appreciation for a leader who engages in positive forward movement, rather than the sort of juvenile antics that are being showcased by Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail.

The past week was full of the sort of poll-shifting events that often shape the public’s opinion of national leaders. And true to form, Fox News worked rigorously to turn those events into negative fodder for their Obama-phobic audience. They began by brazenly politicizing the tragic terrorist attacks in Brussels. Various Fox News characters desperately tried to blame Obama for the bombing. They asserted that his strategy for combating ISIS was so weak that it encouraged more attacks. However, the truth is that Obama’s counter-terrorism efforts have seriously degraded the capabilities of the enemy, including killing more than half of their top commanders. ISIS has lost 40% of the territory it once held in Iraq. Many experts regard resorting to terrorism as a sign of weakness by combatants who are unable to make military gains.

Then Fox criticized Obama for continuing his historic visit to Cuba. They would have preferred that he tucked his tail between his legs and scurried back to D.C., as if there were anything he could do there that he couldn’t do on the road. Why they think that it would be a good thing for the President to exhibit fear and panic in the wake of terrorist act (whose purpose is to incite fear and panic) is a mystery. And they never criticized presidents Bush or Reagan who both remained on vacation following similar incidents.

There has also been a dust up in Washington concerning the vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by Antonin Scalia’s sudden death. Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a widely admired moderate judge who has been praised by Republicans in the past. But now they are clinging to an imaginary constitutional clause prohibiting presidents from doing anything in the last year of their term. The rhetoric on Capital Hill has been decidedly hostile toward Obama simply because he is complying with his constitutional obligations. GOP senators have accused him of trying to “shove” his nominee “down their throats,” and attempting to “pack the court.” All of which is nonsense. He is only asking them to do their jobs as stipulated by law.

Finally, the Republican primary has been a non-stop Obama-bashing extravaganza. For the past eight months every GOP candidate has bitterly castigated the President as inept, dangerous, arrogant, feckless, and even treasonous. They simultaneously claim that he has done more than any other president to harm America, but also that he has done nothing for his entire term. Likewise, he has shown brilliant cunning in his plots to destroy the nation while also being an utter fool who was never up to the job. That kind of schizophrenic contradiction really has be worked at.

So it must be frustrating for the GOP to observe that while all of these heavy-handed and baseless condemnations were being flung at Obama, the American people were warming up to him more than at any other time than in the past three years. By significant majorities they approve of his opening diplomatic relations with Cuba. They want the Senate to confirm Judge Garland for the Supreme Court. And their opinions of the Republican contenders for the GOP nomination range from embarrassment to disgust (even among Republicans).

President Obama must be doing something right. And Fox News is demonstrating that they have far less influence on the electorate than like to pretend. They have yet to report these latest presidential approval numbers from Gallup, even though they gleefully announce any polling down tick with a flashy “ALERT” accompanied by whooshes and gongs to make sure their dimwitted viewers are paying attention.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So the Fox audience will remain blissfully ignorant of the fact that Obama is riding high in the polls, and will continue to wallow in the fantasy that Ted Cruz or Donald Trump are going to trample the Democratic candidate in the fall. Just like they did in 2012 when they were lied to by Fox into believing that Mitt Romney was going to win by landslide. That’ worked out pretty well, didn’t it?

Liberal Media My Ass: Hillary Clinton’s Alleged Polling Woes

Posted by Mark NC on September 29, 2015 at 2:33 pm. 7 Comments :

The latest round of polling has hit the press with curiously coordinated reactions. Nearly every mainstream news outlet chose to spin the results as negative for Hillary Clinton.

To be sure, Clinton’s favorability has suffered in the past few weeks due to relentless bashing by more than a dozen Republican presidential hopefuls and an unending stream of baseless but damaging stories about her email. However, the uniformity of the media presentation is hardly representative of the reality. Here is how the press is covering the news:

Washington Times: Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable rating approaches record territory
ABC News: Clinton Goes Under Water
Breitbart News: Gallup: Hillary Clinton’s Favorability at All-Time Low
Wall Street Journal: Hillary Clinton Hits Lows on Favorability, Trustworthiness
Reuters: Clinton’s favorability ratings lowest since 2001
The Hill: Poll: Clinton’s favorability tumbles
NBC News: Hillary Clinton’s Popularity Drops Sharply in NBC/WSJ Poll
Fox News: Fox News Poll: Clinton popularity drops

While there is nothing wrong with reporting the facts in polling, it is misleading if the reporters don’t put the numbers into context. And an examination of the poll results paints a very different picture of the campaign. Just using the most recent Fox News poll as an example, Clinton’s “low” favorability rating is still higher than every Republican in the poll except for one (Ben Carson). It is not a trivial side issue to note that Clinton scores better than the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, and trounces him in a head-to-head match-up. But that is not considered newsworthy by the so-called “liberal” media.

What’s more, the press didn’t think it was important to report that every Republican’s unfavorables are at their all-time highs. Why is it news that Clinton’s favorabilty is suffering, but it isn’t news that all of her potential rivals are suffering as badly or worse? This is something the media has been doing for years with President Obama. They leap at every opportunity to report any drop in his popularity (which currently stands at about 47%) and how it will hamper the success of his agenda with Congress. What they leave out is that Congress has a favorability in the mid-teens, which should give the President a significant advantage.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Every single one of the headlines above could just as easily have read “Clinton And All Republicans Favorability At Or Near All-Time Lows,” but that would have meant engaging in honest journalism rather than deliberately misleading horse-race tabloidism. So the next time you see a spate of negative headlines hammering Clinton, remember that there is almost certainly more to the story than the media is telling you. And what they are usually leaving out is that, no matter how much people dislike Clinton, that hate Republicans even more.

New Poll Shows 18% Of Republicans Are Ignorant Dupes With Severe Mental Decay

Posted by Mark NC on July 26, 2015 at 9:52 pm. 17 Comments :

There is much being made about a new CNN poll that shows Donald Trump leading his GOP rivals in the race for the Republican nomination for president. However, there is less substance in these numbers than the media is pretending there is. What is astonishing is just how shallow the media analysis of these polls are. The ranking at which Trump finds himself can easily be explained by the clinical dementia of today’s Republican (Tea) Party. And despite these polls, Trump will never get the nomination or reside in the White House.

Let’s take a closer look. Trump currently has 18% of the support of the GOP voters. The truth that everyone is ignoring is that that’s an awfully pitiful expression of support. It means that 82% are not supporting him. Why does anyone in the press think that’s a positive showing?

Nevertheless, the media is heralding Trump as the runaway GOP leader with his measly 18% of support. For perspective, note that Bernie Sanders, in his campaign against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, is pulling support from 19% of Democratic voters. Yet the press is dismissing him as trailing Clinton badly. So Sanders has more support among Democrats than Trump does among Republicans, but the schizophrenic media declares Sanders a loser and Trump a phenomenon.

This same schizophrenia is shown in how Republican operatives and pundits portray the relationship between the media and the candidates. If Clinton declines to do an interview or makes reporters walk behind a rope line so they don’t interfere with her interactions with voters, she is condemned as being anti-media and disrespectful to the fine men and women of the press who are struggling mightily to bring truth to the American people. But if Trump or any other Republican bashes the press or denies them access (as Trump just did to the Des Moines Register), they are cheered for putting those unethical press weasels in their place.

Getting back to Trump’s placement in the GOP polls, the explanation for it is that there is a demographic in the Republican electorate that can best be described as batshit insane. And Trump has managed to secure a near monopoly on that addle-brained GOP faction. Prior polling has revealed that a significant subsection of the GOP holds some hysterically idiotic views. For instance:

Having established that a fair percentage of Republicans embrace a measure of dumbassedness in frightening proportions, the fact that a particularly knuckleheaded candidate has corralled them into his camp is not especially surprising. In fact, it would be surprising if these dimwits did not coalesce around a similarly daft contender, just as they did in the last election cycle with Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, et al.

Consequently, Trump’s confederacy of dunces is sufficient in numbers to rise above his rivals, so long as there’s a lot of them. That’s because when you divide the remaining Republicans who are not wacko-birds (h/t John McCain) among the fifteen other candidates, there aren’t enough of them left to surpass the Trump/crazy constituency. That does not mean that Trump has a commanding lead. It means that there are way too many players on the field diluting the results for each of them. As they whittle down to a more manageable number, the 82% of non-Trump supporters will disperse to other candidates who will then tower over his paltry flock.

While the media is obsessing over the fake Trump “dominance,” they are missing some real news in the same CNN poll. For starters, they missed that Trump has the highest unfavorables of all candidates, Republican and Democratic. Meanwhile, Clinton has the highest favorables of all candidates, Republican and Democratic. Furthermore. Clinton is beating every Republican matched against her (Trump loses by 18 points). And the icing on the cake: Sanders is also beating the Republicans in head-to-head matchups (Trump loses by 20 points).

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

This is what passes for political reporting these days. Is it any wonder that people hold the media in such low esteem? They are littered with lightweights who seem to have no analytical skills or historical memory. If they did they would not be so shocked that a loudmouth buffoon has earned the admiration of the GOP’s most radical, racist, and ignorant bloc of voters, while four out of five of the poll’s Republican respondents reject him.

GOPee Yew: What The Media Isn’t Telling You About Obama’s Poll Numbers

Posted by Mark NC on June 18, 2014 at 2:48 pm. 5 Comments :

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) has some decidedly bad news for President Obama. The American people, according to this survey, are losing patience with the President and expressing it with low opinions of his job performance, foreign policy, and leadership. It is a distinct concern for him as his administration heads into its final two years.

That said, the news isn’t all bad. But far be it for the media to put the results in context so that people get a balanced perspective of the nation’s mood. In addition to the floundering numbers, there are some areas that ought to produce some optimism for the President and those aligned with his policies. First among them is the fact that, while Obama’s numbers are nothing to write home about, his political rivals are doing so much worse that may want to run away from home.

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Both the President and his party are putting the Republicans to shame. He is 30% more popular than the Republican Party, and nearly 50% more popular than the laughably inane Tea Party. If his presidency is over, as some right-wing pundits are gleefully claiming, what does that mean for conservatives?

And that’s not all. When asked which party they prefer to control Congress, respondents chose Democrats over Republicans by 45% to 43%. The poll also reports that progressive positions on prominent issues are far more popular than those of conservatives. For instance, respondents support the Common Core education initiative 59/31. They believe that immigration helps rather than hurts the nation 47/42. They advocate action on climate change 61/37. They approve of Obama’s recent move to set strict carbon dioxide emission limits 67/29.

Clearly the electorate is in a bad mood, and they are taking it out, with justification, on their representatives. But when directly asked about solutions to the problems that affect them most, they consistently respond with agreement for the liberal agenda.

So why doesn’t the press report that? This is the so-called “liberal” media we’re talking about. Apparently they are not as driven by partisanship as right-wingers would have you believe with all of their childish carping. More likely the media is driven by ratings and revenue. In that regard, conflict and drama have always been a bigger draw than harmony. It’s the same reason that local news features murders and car chases, rather than more uplifting stories.

Obama has some work to do to counteract the effect of the relentlessly negative coverage he receives. Even the arrest of a suspect in the Benghazi attack drew absurd criticisms from Fox News and other wingnut media. But in the interim, it is important to look below the surface to see the whole story. And what this survey is telling us is that if Democrats run on progressive policies they are more likely to achieve success at the polls later this year and in 2016.

Fox News Banishes Their Own Polls From Fox Nation

Posted by Mark NC on September 13, 2012 at 9:07 pm. 7 Comments :

There is a conspicuous trend developing at Fox News that indicates the depth of their desperation in light of the momentum President Obama is enjoying coming out of the party conventions. They are so afraid of an Obama victory in November that they are burying their own polls when the results show Obama leading.

Most recently, the Fox News poll published yesterday gave Obama a pronounced lead of 48% to 43% for Romney. It included a 12 point swing in Obama’s favor by Independents, and the GOP advantage in enthusiasm has evaporated. In virtually every category of voter attitude Obama held a lead: On foreign policy (+15), education (+14), Medicare (+11), health care (+9), terrorism (+8), immigration (+4), taxes (+3), making the country a better place to live (+2), honesty (+11), steady leader (+10 ), the right experience (+7), keeping promises (+4), and strong moral values (+2). Romney led only in helping small businesses (+2) and understanding capitalism (+25).

There has been no mention of this poll on the Fox News community web site, Fox Nation. And this is not the first time that’s occurred. Last month the Fox Nationalists posted the results of a Rassmussen poll that put Romney in the lead. The article neglected to say that three other polls released the same day had Obama ahead, and one of those was a Fox News poll that put Obama up by nine points.

The same thing occurred last May when Fox News published a poll featuring an Obama lead of seven points. The Fox Nationalists missed that one as well. But it’s not as if they don’t like to post poll results. Take a look at the frequency with which they publish polls that have Romney out in front:

Fox News is acting like a PR agency that is dutifully serving their client. Always hype good news and squelch bad news. It doesn’t change the reality of the electoral contest, but it keeps their audience hypnotized with the sort of disinformation that will eventually bite them in the ass. When Obama wins in November, Fox’s viewers will be stunned, having no idea that Obama was ever competitive. They currently are convinced that he has no chance of winning and that misconception is affirmed by Fox News pundits who assure their glassy-eyed disciples that Obama is toast. Bill O’Reilly even hosted Dick Morris (the world’s worst pundit) to predict that Romney would win big, and to mercilessly rip apart the poll conducted by the people who are paying his salary.

When the folks at Fox are running so scared that they choose to hide the polls they spend so much money on, you know they are trembling severely. More importantly, they are exposing themselves as frauds who are more interested in deception than journalism. But then, that isn’t exactly news.

Obama Surging Ahead Of Romney In Fox News Poll That Fox News Ignores

Posted by Mark NC on May 17, 2012 at 3:35 am. 12 Comments :

For additional evidence that Fox News is the PR agency for the Republican Party, note the feverishly excited treatment that Fox News gives to polling when the results favor Mitt Romney:

In the past two months Fox Nation has posted at least seven articles on election polling and every single one of them reported the results of polls that put Romney in the lead over President Obama. There were, of course, polls that had Obama leading, but the “fair and balanced” Fox Nationalists didn’t bother to report on those. Here are a few of the headlines from just April and May of this year:

Rasmussen Poll: Romney 50%, Obama 42%
Poll: Romney Beating Obama Among Women Voters
Poll: Romney Up Double Digits With Swing State Independents
NBC-WSJ poll: On economy, Romney Opens Up Lead Over Obama
Rasmussen Poll: Romney 48%, Obama 44%
Fox News Poll: Romney Edges Obama as Approval of President Drops
Two National Polls Show Favor For Romney

What makes this particularly interesting is that Fox News just released its own poll that showed the President pulling away from Romney. Obama leads in the Fox poll by 46% to 39%. But there was no mention of it on Fox Nation, and barely a mention of it on Fox News. So even when the poll was commissioned and paid for by Fox they bury the results if it looks good for Obama.

And it looks pretty darn good for Obama. Other results include a widening gender gap with women supporting Obama 55% to Romney’s 33%. Obama voters are far more satisfied with their candidate (74%) than are the Romney voters (59%) with theirs. That disparity could be because Obama’s supporters are backing him due to his job performance and positions (38%). Only 11% say they support him because “he isn’t Romney.” On the other hand, 43% of Romney’s supporters say they back him because “he isn’t Obama.” That sort of negative incentive from the Republicans often translates into low voter turnout.

There can be only one reason that Fox would so blatantly suppress these poll results. They obviously don’t want the public to be informed of the broad-based positive impression of the President that exists in the country. They have no problem publishing negative information about Obama. In just the past two days Fox published two stories that portrayed the Obama camp as worried about their allegedly dismal prospects. One article said that “Alarm Grows Among Dems About Obama’s Chances.” The other declared that “Team Obama Panics, and It’s Only May.” Both of those articles were analyses of recent election polls. But now that Fox’s own poll paints an entirely different picture, there is no corresponding article about how the Obama team is celebrating or how the Romney camp is panicking.

This is the way a public relations firm behaves on behalf of their client. And that is the best description of the relationship between Fox News and the Republican Party. It is 24/7 spin for GOP interests. And they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. When Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends introduced a segment on the Fox poll, he comforted the Fox viewers, before giving them the news that Obama was out in front, by inserting this little ray of hope, “If the election were held today – don’t worry they aren’t going to be…” Wasn’t it thoughtful of Doocy to be so concerned about the worries of the Fox audience?

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Romney’s Phony Lead Over Obama

Posted by Mark NC on April 20, 2012 at 12:36 pm. 2 Comments :

Sometimes the brazen disrespect Fox News has for honest analysis is breathtaking. They seem to have such a fierce determination to deceive their audience that no limits are drawn for their blatant biases. Take, for example, the article posted this morning reporting on the results of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll:

The Fox Nationalists analyzed this poll (which was co-produced by a fellow Murdoch entity, the WSJ) and concluded that the headline news that it contained was that “Romney Opens Up Lead Over Obama.” Just to give you an idea of how far they had to stretch in order to make this an anti-Obama article, here are some of the actual results from the poll:

Obama leads Romney among all registered voters 49% to 43%.
Obama leads Romney among African Americans 90% to 4%.
Obama leads Romney among Latinos 69% to 22%
Obama leads Romney among young voters (18-34) 60% to 34%.
Obama leads Romney among women 53% to 41%.
Obama leads Romney among Independents 44% to 34%.
Obama leads Romney as most likable 54% to 18%.
Obama leads Romney as caring about average people 52% to 22%.
Obama leads Romney on looking out for the middle class 48% to 22%.
Obama leads Romney on being knowledgeable and experienced 45% to 30%.
Obama leads Romney on being a good commander-in-chief 43% to 33%.
Obama leads Romney on standing up for his beliefs 41% to 30%.
Obama leads Romney on being honest and straightforward 37% to 30%.

The poll also found that respondents favored Obama’s approach to the economy by fighting for fairness and strengthening the middle class; that 45% approve of his handling of the economy (a five point gain over last fall’s poll); and that a plurality (36%) believes the president’s policies have helped U.S. economic conditions. In fact, the only economic question in the poll where Romney beat Obama was on who would have better ideas for improving the economy, where Romney led 40% to 34%. And on the basis of that single statistic Fox trumpeted a headline that played up Romney lead in the poll.

To be fair, Romney did lead on some other questions (i.e. white and suburban voters), but that hardly compensates for the devastating beating he took on almost everything else. Sometimes, when you witness such gross misrepresentation, you have to stop and say “Wow.” Just “Wow.” These people have no scruples whatsoever.

Fox News Is Both The Most And Least Trusted News Network

Posted by Mark NC on September 24, 2009 at 12:29 pm. 2 Comments :

Illustrating the ever-widening rift in American politics, a new poll by the Sacred Heart University shows that Fox News is the most trusted news organization (30%), as well as the least trusted (26.2%). That adds up to a 3.8% net trust for Fox. By comparison, CNN was most trusted by 19.5% and least trusted by 8.5%, for an 11% net trust.

Much of the rest of the poll’s results were decidedly negative for the media as a whole. Respondents consider them to be biased and more concerned with ratings than quality reporting. But the most profound observation in the survey, in my view, dealt with public perceptions of the media business and the monopolistic enterprises that dominate it:

“Nearly three-quarters, 71.0%, believed it is very (31.8%) or somewhat (39.3%) important that limits be placed on how many media outlets one company should own. Another 24.7% believe such limits are somewhat unimportant (8.4%) or not at all important (16.3%). Some, 4.4%, were unsure.”

“Over half of all respondents, 56.7%, believed it’s “bad for democracy” that six companies currently own almost all the major media outlets in the United States. Another 30.4% suggested it does not matter while 7.8% indicated it was good for democracy.”

That’s a particularly encouraging response from a survey that also reports majorities who believe that the media is predominantly liberal. With that kind of support for expanding diversity in media ownership, the prospects increase substantially for responsible regulations. This may portend one of the best opportunities for efforts to roll back the destructive consolidation that ensued since the passage of the ill-advised Communications Act of 1996.

Update: Bill O’Reilly cited this study in his Pinheads and Patriots segment. Except the only part he cited was that Fox News is the most most trusted network. He conveniently neglected to mention that it was also the least trusted. Does that make him a pinhead?

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