About That Fox News Poll

There have been many pundits, news writers, and bloggers recently who have cited a specific Fox News poll while giving us the "reasons" that they think Governor Palin should stay out of the 2012 presidential race. Considering that the poll has a Fox News label on it, we as conservatives are supposed to believe that it is entirely credible. There are some problems with that, and "credible" isn't a word I would use in association with the numbers they came up with. Here's why...

The section of the poll that is being touted by the media and by the governor's detractors states:

Should Palin Run?

All in all, most voters -- 74 percent -- think Palin should stay on the sidelines in 2012. Just 20 percent think she should run for president.

The groups most likely to support Palin running are white evangelical Christians (30 percent) and Tea Party members (28 percent). Still, majorities of those groups do not think she should run (62 percent and 66 percent respectively). In addition, 72 percent of conservatives, 71 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of independents think Palin should stay out.

Women (77 percent) are a bit more likely than men (71 percent) to say Palin should sit this one out.

Just among women, Republicans (26 percent) are more likely than independents (24 percent) and Democrats (15 percent) to think Palin should run.

What these people leave out of their reports is perhaps the most interesting fact about the poll altogether. It states (emphasis):

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 911 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from August 29 to August 31. For the total sample, it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Now, just who is Shaw & Company Research? Alexander Burns from Politico writes:

The Shaw in Shaw & Company is Daron Shaw, a University of Texas political science professor and veteran of several GOP campaigns, whose name has been in the news a bit lately.

That's because Shaw is one of the starring players in Sasha Issenberg's e-book, "Rick Perry and His Eggheads: Inside the Brainiest Political Operation in America," which details a groundbreaking set of experiments that Shaw and three other academics conducted inside Perry's 2006 reelection campaign.

The Perry campaign allowed the so-called eggheads to run tests on "anything [they] could figure out how to randomize, from lawn signs to television ads," Issenberg writes, and they assembled a provocative set of findings on which kinds of campaign tactics really work.

Fast forward five years and Perry is running for president and Shaw is one of the lead pollsters for the most influential cable network, by far, among GOP primary voters.

I've read the 30 page book that Burns is talking about, so don't be distracted by the fact that he writes for Politico. What he wrote is accurate, you can see for yourself here.

Now, Shaw maintains that there wasn't a conflict of interest in doing the poll for Fox because Perry didn't pay him and the other "eggheads" for their services. Even though he and the others were very much a part of Perry's political team, he claims that " we're stupid, we never entered into any business relationship with Perry." The book states that Shaw was "moonlighting" for the Perry campaign. I gather that one would have to go through Perry's campaign disclosure forms to find out for sure. Given the huge numbers for Perry in the poll and the fact that Team Perry is determined to keep Governor Palin out of the race, something isn't right with Fox using Shaw's agency to gather numbers for a conservative audience.

There is also the fact that the Fox poll numbers are very different from a poll that CNN conducted just this last July. Ian noted at the time:

55% of Republican and Republican-leaning independents want Governor Palin to run.

That is a huge difference between the Shaw and Anderson Robbins (Fox poll) numbers. When you see that big of a shift in that short amount of time, you know something isn't right. The fact that Fox used somebody that the Perry people trust and allowed close access to, should send off alarms to more than just the writers at Politico.

Taking a Look at ABC's Sloppy Coverage of Governor Palin's Interviews

Recently, ABC News has descended into the sort of sloppy journalism usually reserved for the entertainment section of any media institution. That stands to reason considering that they have been assigning an entertainment writer to cover political news.

That entertainment reporter, Sheila Marikar (apparently also a writer for ABC's The Note, which bills itself as being "Washington's Original and Most Influential Tipsheet") has been the designated reporter covering Governor Palin's recent Fox News interviews. Her awful reporting skills became apparent last week, after she wrote a piece on the governor's interviews with Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren. Marikar started her piece (emphasis added):

In a pair of conservative talk show appearances Wednesday night, Sarah Palin defended presidential contender Newt Gingrich's criticism of fellow Republican Paul Ryan's Medicare plan by reiterating her frustration with the “leftist lame-stream media."

Um, no she did not.

What Governor Palin said in regards to Newt Gingrich during those interviews was:

On Hannity:

I do believe that Newt Gingrich is terribly wrong on his assessment of Representative Ryan's plan. It is good fiscally sound and courageous plan. And it's not all just about Medicare, we have to make sure that we are understanding that Ryan's budget is a big difference as opposed to the Obama budget, which of course have has us on the road to bankruptcy.

On Greta:

Well, I think that the media -- that we all have a right to ask Speaker Gingrich, what in the heck did you mean that Paul Ryan's budget plan is radical or social engineering? No, what is radical is not proposing a plan to counter Obama's budget plan that has us on the road to bankruptcy.

[...]

You know what I thought after the whole Newt Gingrich thing in these last 24 hours, Greta, was, "Bless his heart" and every other good ol' boy's heart that's in that political game there in the Beltway. They don't really know any more than the rest of us. Greta, it was Newt Gingrich who told me in January of this year, Sarah Palin needs to slow down and really think through what it is that she has to say. Well, you know, he stumbles, too. We all stumble. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses.

Clearly the governor's statements were not an endorsement of Newt Gingrich's position on Paul Ryan's plan. Or at least whatever Newt's position was the day he stumbled, but I digress...

Keeping up with that sort of journalistic standard, Marikar "reported" on Sunday for ABC (emphasis added):

“Anyone who studies history, studies the old testament, studies geography understands that Israel now is surrounded by enemies at all times,” Palin said on Jeanine Pirro’s “Justice With Judge Jeanine.” “It should be now that America takes a stand in defending our enemies in Israel.”

That's quite the typo you've got there, Sheila.

She later changed it by replacing the word "enemies" with "friends" however, nowhere in the article does it mention that she made any changes from a previous version. Which it should have considering other news outlets, like the Israeli media site Ynet, used ABC as a reference to cover the interview. As of right now, Ynet's article still reads "enemies."

I'm sure the readers on Ynet can read the rest of the article and conclude that Governor Palin did not mean "enemies" but when placed in quotation marks like that, they may conclude that she said it. Worse, perhaps someone will only read that part of the article and conclude that the governor really meant that!

Do you see how sloppy journalism can effect people's perceptions? One poorly designated reporter writes up a couple of articles laden with mischaracterizations and misquotes, other reporters pick up the words and repeat them for readers all of over the world. This is how rumors and false perceptions begin. Although the press deeply resents that Governor Palin refers to them as the lamestream media, they are more than deserving of that title. In fact, they should thank her for being so kind.