RUSH: I want to go back for just a second to this AP story on how nobody cares about who wins the midterms. It’s a predicate, if you will, to deny the Republicans a mandate if they happen to win and win big. The Associated Press is attempting to setup the narrative, “People don’t care the midterms! It really doesn’t matter, and nearly half don’t care who wins or any of that.”
That’s not the point, because this poll is about something we already know, and what we already know is that traditionally voter participation rates in midterm elections are way down when compared to presidential election years. That, in fact, is what was noteworthy about 2010. That turnout was through the roof, and it was through the roof because of the Tea Party — and that even needs to be said.
There is no Tea Party.
You know, the media loooooves to talk about how the Tea Party is dead. There isn’t really a Tea Party. There is no leader. There’s nobody running for the Congress or the Senate on the Tea Party ticket. There is no Tea Party building. It is a mindset. It’s average Americans fed up with professional politicians, and it’s people who oppose runaway government spending, runaway expansion of government.
They’re worried about their kids’ and grandkids’ future financially. They’re worried about freedom and liberty, and they want to maintain the principles that founded the country. But there is no Tea Party per se. But what happened in 2010 was that a lot of people who had never formally organized, did. They had voted, but they’d never formally organized in terms of opposing or supporting something.
It only was called the Tea Party because Rick Santelli on CNBC referred to the Tea Party and throwing tea in the Boston Harbor and people objecting in the here and now in a way similar to what happened during the days of the founding. But for traditional midterm election turnout, we already know that voter participation rates are around 40%. We know that 50% to 60% of the public doesn’t care enough in midterms to go vote.
So they’re taking a story there’s nothing new about, and pushing it. There’s nothing new in that 46% of the people don’t care who wins because 46% don’t vote. So that does not tell us anything, because what you have to look at — what you have to survey and what you have to poll — is the percentage who do care and who are gonna vote, and what they think and what’s animating and motivating them.
That’s what the AP is not doing. The AP’s ignoring them and taking the 46% who say, “I don’t care enough. I’m not gonna go vote. It doesn’t matter,” and they’re using that 46% to say that Republicans, if they win, aren’t gonna have a mandate. It’s done purposefully. The only relevant thing here is what do people who are actually going to vote think? I don’t care if it’s 10% or 20% or 30%. They are the ones who matter.
How they vote matters, and the AP is studiously, purposely ignoring them, and focusing — as far as their news story is concerned — for low-information consumption. The headline is supposed to be, “Nobody cares! This midterm is no big deal anybody. Look at it: 46% don’t even care who wins!” That’s ’cause they’re not gonna vote. They never do, unless it’s something outrageous or unique that drives them like 2010 did.
And this could be as big as 2010, I think.
But the fact that 46% aren’t gonna vote is immaterial. It doesn’t matter, except it can be used by the media to spin a story that things aren’t bad for the Democrats when they really are, and that’s what that story was trying to do, plain and simple. You have to know how to analyze this stuff. That’s why I say, “Don’t try this at home.”
And don’t leave it up to the professional analysts on cable TV, because half of ’em are gonna totally miss the trick in that story. I guarantee you, if that story happens to find its way to cable TV, you’re gonna hear a reporter say, “Ah, you know what? In all this talk that we’ve done about the midterms, it turns out that 46% don’t even care who wins,” and that’s gonna be the focal point.
Meaning, “Nobody’s really fired up about Obama. Nobody cares! It’s not that much of a concern,” and it’s gonna be used to dispirit those of you who do care and plan to show up. It’s purposefully done. Don’t let it bother you, because it doesn’t matter. What matters is who is gonna vote and how they’re gonna vote and what they think, and that is gonna have impact because it’s gonna be 56%.
It’s still a majority, according to their own story.
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