Poll Interpretation and the Media

Ruy Teixeira today:

So that's the big story, right--Bush got a disappointingly small bounce and the earlier Time/Newsweek polls got it wrong about the bounce and how well Bush is doing. Nope, not if you're writing stories at USA Today. You dasn't contravene the current CW about the campaign (Bush surges ahead!) no matter what your own data says.

That's why we get a story like this one, "Bush leads Kerry by 7 points", which prominently features the LV results (where Bush does have a 7 point lead) and resolutely refuses to dwell on Bush's historically poor result from his convention or on his almost non-existent lead among RVs.

If you were so unwise as to tune in to cable news this weekend you were treated to a nonstop chorus of "Where did Kerry go wrong?" and "How do the dems save their struggling campaign?" More data:

Bush's acceptance speech, which the media fawned over so ostentatiously, was not rated any better by the public than was Kerry's--in fact, it received slightly worse ratings. Kerry's acceptance speech was rated excellent by 25 percent and good by 27 percent; Bush's was rated excellent by 22 percent and good by 27 percent.

In terms of whether the Republican convention made voters more or less likely to vote for Bush--the real point of the convention after all--there were almost as many saying the convention made them less likely to vote for Bush (38 percent) as said it made them more likely (41 percent).

This is actually quite a poor performance. The Democratic convention this year had a substantially better 44 percent more likely/30 percent less likely split. In fact, looking back to 1984, which is as far back as Gallup supplies data, no candidate has ever had a more likely to vote for/less likely to vote for split even close to as bad as Bush's this year.

And he goes on from there to say:

Well, what about the tone of the convention? Do voters think the Republicans got that one right? Nope. Just 39 percent think the GOP maintained the right balance between criticizing the Democrats and saying positive things about themselves, compared to 50 percent who think they spent too much time criticizing the Democrats. By contrast, in 2000, 45 percent thought the GOP maintained the right balance in their convention, compared to 38 percent who thought they spent too much time criticizing.

Right out of the Bush/Rove playbook. They look you stright in you face and tell you the sky is green, and they figure if they say it with enough certitude you'll believe them. Hey, it works with Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews, doesn't it?