RUSH: Let’s just get into this NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that just totally turned Washington upside down yesterday. I mean, it just dispirited every Republican who heard about it. And it ignited and made joyously happy every Democrat and every media person who heard about it. It is the NBC poll, and it panicked the Republicans. The poll that shows the Republicans literally getting killed over the government shutdown. It’s not even close to other polling data. Other polls on the shutdown, yeah, the Republicans are being blamed more than Democrats, but not by a big spread.
But in this poll, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the Republicans are literally getting murdered. It’s like 90% blame them. I mean, it’s not, but it may as well be. And not only do 90% blame them, 90% hate them, and 90% wish they would die, and 90% wish they would leave the country, and 90% wish they would shut up, and 90% wish they didn’t exist. I mean, it’s that bad. That’s how it was interpreted.
Now, keep in mind just two days ago there was an AP poll that showed Obama at 37% and we’re still hearing crickets over that poll. However, the AP has some unflattering news about Obama today and the Democrats. I don’t know that it was I who shamed them into doing this because nobody touted their poll, but it’s two different universes today. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, then some of this AP news doesn’t jibe with the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. People have looked at the internals of the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, and it’s 800 people. The spread of Democrat to Republican is 43 32. So 43% in the poll are Democrats, 32% are Republicans. That’s an 11 point difference there. That’s not representative at all of the makeup.
But in addition to that, there’s a question in this poll that’s worded in a weird way, but it revealed that the sample in this poll, out of 800 people of government employees, is double it’s normal size. So in addition to the poll showing a Democrat/Republican advantage 43-32, the percentage of government workers in the poll is double what the sample normally includes. They basically polled Washington is what they did here. But see, here’s the thing: Once it hits, it doesn’t matter, the reality in Washington, everybody believes it. The Republicans believe it, and they’re acting on it; and the Democrats believe it and the media believe it; they’re acting on it.
Let me give you an idea. Here’s a media montage we put together of the Drive-Bys endlessly hyping this poll blaming the Republicans for the shutdown and blaming them for being alive and blaming them for global warming and blaming them for Kim Jung Un and blaming them for practically everything. They are just beside themselves, they are so giddy. And remember, when the AP poll earlier this week showed Obama at 37%, zip, zero, nada. But this poll, this is exactly what they wanted at exactly the time they wanted it.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Who do the American people blame for the shutdown of their government? Tonight our new NBC news poll is out and the answer is clear.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Our pollsters called it “jaw-dropping.”
PETER ALEXANDER: The Republican Party has been badly damaged.
CHUCK TODD: There’s no sugar coating this: An unmitigated political disaster for the GOP.
JAMES CARVILLE: The Republicans are getting’ slaughtered here. They’re gettin’ really beat up bad.
MEGYN KELLY: Epic, awful, record-setting new polls.
PIERS MORGAN: Awful polls.
TYLER MATHISEN: The American people blame the GOP principally.
BILL O’REILLY: The Republican Party finds itself in trouble, big trouble.
ANDERSON COOPER: New NBC Wall Street Journal poll showing the damage.
ERIN BURNETT: Republicans have taken a serious hit.
TOM PERRIELLO: Devastating poll numbers for the Republicans.
LAURA INGRAHAM: The numbers don’t look good for the Republicans.
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Really just dreadful poll results.
GLORIA BORGER: This has been a complete, unmitigated disaster for them. I tell you what, if I were looking at these polls, I’d be panicked.
RUSH: Yeah. So they are just beside themselves. They are just ecstatic. This is exactly what they wanted with the government shutdown. This is exactly what they hoped for. This is evidence that they still have the ability to move and shape public opinion. I mean, they’re ecstatic. This is Christmas morning for them, this poll. I can’t describe it. On the Republican side, inside Washington, it is as dispiriting as you can imagine that it would be, because everybody in Washington believes it in terms of the establishment.
The Republican establishment believes it because they love it. They can blame Cruz. They can blame Mike Lee. They can blame the Tea Party. They can blame me. They can blame talk radio. They love it. The Democrats love it because, you can figure, it makes total sense. Now, folks, I think the poll’s bogus. I think it’s not an actively representative, truthfully representative sample. But then again, that isn’t gonna fly. That isn’t gonna matter because it’s out there, and everybody believes it.
As far as the low information voters are concerned, they believe it. So this is just how the town works. This is an example of how the deck is stacked. Two days ago Obama at 37% and still not one mention of it in the Drive-By Media on TV, except to call it “an outlier,” except to say that it really isn’t true. “It’s just a single poll.” So’s this! The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is the only poll that has it this bad for the Republicans, but it’s gospel. It’s bible.
“The AP poll? Yep, it’s the only one that shows Obama below 40%, but that’s an outlier, see? Just a total outlier.” So let’s keep going with the sound bites here, and because most of the news today, most of the top of the Stack is polls — and another point that I have made over and over again is that polling has simply become a cheap way to make the news you want to report. That’s all it is.
Polling is no longer a reflection of public opinion; polling is the creation of public opinion. Polling is an effort to manipulate and move public opinion. It is no longer a reflection — and worse than that, the very news organizations that do the polling then report on it as though it’s news, and all it is is a public opinion sample. Now, to give you an example, 20% of the sample in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll are government workers. Do you know the percentage of the general population that works for government? Do you know what that number is?
It’s 8%. So the percentage of people in our population that work for government is 8% and 20% of this sample is government workers. This same poll, which you’re not hearing reported, found that 51% believe that Obama “is putting advancing his agenda over what’s good for the country.” There is blame for everything, yet the real takeaway from this poll (if it’s true) is that all of Washington is hated right now is disrespected, or un-respected, and all of Washington is pretty much held in contempt and disgust.
Nobody’s reporting this 51% detail, that 51% in this survey say Obama’s putting advancing his political agenda over what’s good for the country. That’s a big number. That’s over half the country think Obama’s not even being genuine in any of this. Here’s how it manifests itself, though. We move on to CBS this morning, co-host Charlie Rose spoke with Bob Schieffer. It’s Friday. So the Schieffer comes in to promote Slay the Nation. It’s a standard, ordinary, formulaic.
The only reason Schieffer’s there is to talk and to promote the Sunday show. It’s not because there’s any particular news that he’s an expert in. It’s just that it’s Friday; it’s time to promote. Fox does it with Chris Wallace. The only network that doesn’t may be NBC. I don’t see Gregory out there much promoting it. Do you? I really don’t. No big deal anyway. So Charlie Rose says to Schieffer, “Is there a sense in Washington today, Bob, that we now realize that we’re going to get this done? It’s just a question of how and when?”
Meaning: We’re going to get the government back up and running, and we’re going to get rid of Ted Cruz!
SCHIEFFER: Republicans have now come to the conclusion that they’ve had enough. They’re being pounded to death. This latest poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News shows that Americans overwhelmingly blame the Republicans for this happening. The night before last, uhhh, Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor out in Virginia was at a function, and Ted Cruz — who’s one of the leaders of this shut-down-the-government movement — he showed up at the same function. Cuccinelli went to quite extremes to make sure he didn’t get his picture taken with Ted Cruz. This guy has become toxic to, uh, other Republicans.
RUSH: And then after he discusses that about how the Republicans are being pounded in the poll, Schieffer continues, and you’ll hear Charlie Rose and Gayle King in here as well.
SCHIEFFER: You know, uh, Charlie, the pendulum in Washington never stops in the middle.
KING AND ROSE: (chortling)
SCHIEFFER: It goes to the right or it goes to the rest. And once it gets too far to the right, then it starts to push back, and I think Republicans realize they’ve taken this a little beyond where it ought to be, and they are the ones that are getting hammered for it.
RUSH: They’re taken it a little beyond. See, the socialist takeover of health care, that’s not taking anything beyond where it should be — and the abrogation of law, the breaking of constitutional law by the regime? That’s not taking things beyond where they ought to be. But the Republicans attempting to represent a majority of the thinking American people, that is offensive.
The Tea Party Republicans attempting to do what they were elected to do, attempting to represent what in the case of Obamacare is a majority opinion, that’s taking things too far — and thereby evidence is produced that this is a government which holds the people in contempt. The only thing that matters is what the Democrats want to do with government. That’s all that matters. That’s what must be supported, and anything that gets in the way of it is considered to be a little bit beyond where we ought to be, or extreme, or what have you.
Related Links