Well, upside is that it might keep Obama volunteers motivated (though probably balanced out by McCain people who had written the race off getting motivated too).

According to Ambinder, 44% of the sample was also evagelical/born again... which is a bit, uhm, high. Just a bit.

Last time I checked an election includes 100% of the vote.

So where are the rest of the voters?

My guess is the left will claim victory if Obama earns more votes then McCain and they will not insist we TAX AWAY some of Obamas votes and give them to those less fortunates who received fewer votes.
They won't be for fairness in this instance, it will be all TO THE WINNER GOES THE SPOILS and other fanatical capitalist ideas.

Obama won't be all for sharing the wealth that's for sure, he's going to want the entire prize and those that didn't work as hard and didn't achieve as much can simply go home with nothing.

Funny how he's all for spreading around OTHER peoples achievemnet - just not his own.

Notice how he socked away his book royalties in tax free investments, I mean he wrote that book, well he and Bill Ayers, but hey, why should anyone else get any of those millions?

Wonder when he'll get around to geting rid of all those fancy tax lopholes he and his rich freinds take advantage of to avoid spreading their wealth around....I won't be holding my breadth.

I don't think Obama will be subjecting his Northern Municipal Money Market Fund wealth with the poor any time soon.

I'm not really certain what you do about this, of course, but surely when Mike Allen can just assume that cable news will spend its day spitting on journalistic ethics, it's time for the news profession to start thinking about reform, or censure, or some way to separate the work of real news organizations from political entertainment outlets.

Its funny to see how gunshy you'll be with reform of your own profession, while you find it so easy to pick on mine.

I say this in all seriousness. Why not use the same exact solutions you're espousing in health care for journalism.

No for-profit media.

Flat salaries of let's say 40-75K max for journalists of all types.

Could you honestly say this wouldn't significantly improve the news media for the better?

Why not, Ezra?

Great point. I also disagree with the very way news media outlets conducting polls convey the findings of their own polls. The AP wrote a story about its poll as if it were the only poll. It writes everything as if it fact -- and that there isn't a whole universe of polls out there that might dispute the information. I'm not saying the race isn't tightening - it very well may be -- but other polls are showing the gap widening. To me, an ethical journalist wouldn't be bound by the commercial bias of reporting only their own organization's polls.

"Flat salaries of let's say 40-75K max for journalists of all types"

The vast majority of journalists would kill for salaries like that. Hell, many would kill for salaries of half that.

it's time for the news profession to start thinking about reform, or censure, or some way to separate the work of real news organizations from political entertainment outlets.

They need to put together a panel on blogging ethics.

I hope stories like this are all about hyping an election that is threatening to become boring but I harbor fears that it's about softening the ground for a surprise McCain win. And I'm thinking that PA, with a ton of counties voting on un-auditable machines, will be the center of the melee.

First commenter wins. When (in addition to the media) both Obama and McCain have an interest in the race being reported as tighter than it really is, realistically it's hard to see the truth emerging from the thicket of stories powerful people want to tell.

For further stupid poll reporting, look no further than the homepage of Yahoo. They have "election" coverage with a poll tracker that reports to a .01 percent change in the polls. It makes me laugh, and annoyed that they would track polls that ususally have margins of error around +/- 4 bellow the one percent mark.

(My guess is some techie thought it would be cool without knowing a thing about how polls work.)

Of course only looking at national polls doesn't mean anything. We all know that, it's the state polls that matter, and for some, the race is within the margin. Added to that is the complication of race, and these polls could prove meaningless.

Don't forget New Hampshire and Hillary's win. The poll gods are hardly omnipotent.

But it's not just cable, Ezra. The same poll was the only one mentioned on the (San Francisco-based) broadcast station I was watching the news on last night.

I say this in all seriousness. Why not use the same exact solutions you're espousing in health care for journalism.

If your employer does not supply you with journalism, you will be allowed to subscribe to a journalism outlet along with a pool of your peers. You will not be forced to seek journalism on the individual market.

No journalistic provider will be allowed to reject readers or to set different subscription rates for readers. Subscription rates will be community rated.

To avoid adverse selection, where the happily ignorant refuse to subscribe to news until they think they need it (thus causing a price spiral), everyone will be mandated to subscribe to a news outlet. It could be enforced by a fine or by a retroactive charge when an unsubscribed person reads a paper for the first time.

...I have to say, I don't see how this is supposed to work.

Not to mention, the private press is protected by the First Amendment, and what Ginger Yellow said.

So a few clarifications are in order...

I'm referring to MSM news media when I said "journalists"-- I'm assuming they make 40K now.

Matt liked being cute but I was pretty clear that I was speaking only for-profit and salaries, not community rating and mandates. Cute post, but not helpful.

As for the First Amendment point, sure that's a problem. But it'd be a start of folks like Ezra actually said that for-profit media is a problem (he has said that a little) and people in news media are too often looking for the "gotcha" moments, hoping to become the next multi-million dollars tv show host.

Matt liked being cute but I was pretty clear that I was speaking only for-profit and salaries, not community rating and mandates. Cute post, but not helpful.

The same could be said about your comment, then, because all the problems Matt alluded to are the reasons why people are pushing for a bigger government role in health care in the first place.

Clearly we need a government run news and media system. And a department of government run magazines.
The cost of private media is out of control. Have you seen your cable bill? Have you seen the cost of getting a Prospect subscription, certainly out of reach of many Americans.

Now if we nationalize these industries and make them all government employees we could greatly reduce cost and share the production will all Americans.

The best thing is the federal workers wouldn't even need a salary. We would simply keep them in government housing and feed them at government run chow halls. that way we control their housing temperature and the amount of soy protein they have to consume per day.

What a fantastic idea!

Of course if any mettling freedom loving people want to produce their own magazine for sale, hey, will just tax them out of existence or better yet confiscate them in the name of good governemnt and the all powerful state!

I could see Bill Ayers running the Federal Media Control Central Authority.

Another data point: NBC's electoral college map assigns Obama 264 EVs, which maintains the narrative that the 'toss-up' states are decisive, even if Chuck Todd himself is basically saying that the decision to keep Colorado and Virginia in the toss-up column runs against the polling numbers.

In short, the number-crunching has given way to a race-in-the-balance narrative, which is a clear executive decision.

Olbermann used the fivethirtyeight.com map a couple of times, but seems to have been given a word in his ear by management to stick with the Official GE-approved 'it's still up for grabs' map.

Now, I don't particularly mind an up-for-grabs narrative as a way to avoid complacency, but I also think that if you're going to parse polling data, you might as well do it consistently.

wisewon: if you're basically saying that Charlie '$250k/year is a pittance' Gibson shouldn't be on a multi-million dollar contract, you'll find no argument from me. Then again, I think that broadcast news is done better by the BBC and healthcare done better by the NHS, warts and all. Oh, yeah, and that campaign advertising should be strictly capped and publishing opinion polls should be illegal in the last couple of weeks of the campaign.

all the problems Matt [sic] alluded to are the reasons why people are pushing for a bigger government role in health care in the first place.

To be fair, I am now convinced that another reason to push for a bigger government role in health care is to spite wisewon, who seems almost congenitally pissed off at Ezra's pontifications. Not that I'm always on Ezra's side, but if it makes wisewon cry and result in his little lick-spittle outbursts about journalism, it's going to have a certain amount of appeal.

The same could be said about your comment, then, because all the problems Matt alluded to are the reasons why people are pushing for a bigger government role in health care in the first place.

I'm not sure what you're saying, unless you're assuming that I disagree with the need to reform health care. This was sort of my primary point-- even though I'm in health care, I am willing to put the natural defensiveness of not wanting "government" to change "my industry," because its clearly needed. Its easy to tell other people that their salaries should be fixed, suggest monumental changes to their industry, etc. A lot of this may be needed, I was just pointing out that rather than say "I don't know what to do about my industry" there are some clear things on profits and salaries to say about MSM as well.

Matt liked being cute

Guilty as charged. But the serious point is that journalism and health care are very different fields, which is why national health care might make sense if national journalism doesn't.

Also, when you say MSM, that includes newspapers. My friend who worked for a newspaper made something like $25k. (It was the Daily Scaife, I admit, so maybe it isn't MSM, but I doubt that the pay scales are higher at newspapers that aren't the money-losing pet projects of right-wing multimillionaires. I hasten to say that she was a local-news reporter who never participated in the paper's GOP slime activities.)

My comment crossed with your last one, wisewon. Of course it is natural to be defensive about reforming your industry (mess with tenure and you'll have a fight from me), that's fair enough. Still, many universal health-insurance proposals fall very short of fixing salaries, don't they?

To be fair, I am now convinced that another reason to push for a bigger government role in health care is to spite wisewon, who seems almost congenitally pissed off at Ezra's pontifications. Not that I'm always on Ezra's side, but if it makes wisewon cry and result in his little lick-spittle outbursts about journalism, it's going to have a certain amount of appeal.

Wow. I'd hope this isn't the perspective of my comments, but if I think about it-- my sense is that given the political season, many of Ezra's health care posts the past few months have been more partisan in analysis than I'd like, so perhaps I've been more negative than I'd like.

I actually like Ezra, his intentions are in the right place and he's shown a lot of passion in fixing our system. I think he's chosen this as a focus for the same reason I chose it as a career-- because we believe improving health care has the ability to have the most positive impact on people's lives. If I didn't think this about Ezra, I honestly wouldn't post here. I post here because while I share the beliefs on cost/quality/access as Ezra and many on the left, I think the difference between us on solutions is based on a misunderstanding of the problems themselves. So I apologize to all if I've been going down the path of continually going at Ezra, and will make a better effort to point out areas of agreement if that makes my comments more useful. As a point of context, I've typically not posted on health care posts where I agree with Ezra (there's not much more for me to say on those), but perhaps I'll add more color on those moving forward.

Still, many universal health-insurance proposals fall very short of fixing salaries, don't they?

I agree most proposals don't now, because its a political suicide. But Ezra does suggest it for physicians (so do I, but think the impact will be less than others do). I was more focused on Ezra's proposals, not health reform generally.

Ezra,

Why haven't the liberal blogs called out the AP for using McCain's former pollster to conduct this AP poll? This is a serious conflict of interest.

GOP strategist Ed Rollins was the only one ot point this out yesterday on the Lou Dobbs show of all places.

I would love a not-for-profit media, Wisewon. Indeed, I'd go further, if I were czar, and cut down on the oversupply problem by capping the number of campaign writers and making the cable networks go dark.

wisewon: look back at Ezra at Netroots Nation saying that a healthcare plan for the US has to get past Max Baucus. I don't think his pragmatism is in question.

Nor yours, which is why I'm glad you comment here.

I would guess that this plays a role in the tone and discourse of our politics and elections.

Discussing the real and otherwise portions of America, calling people communists, socialist and anti-American, or Arab, Muslim terrorists, though classless, would obviously garner attention from these news entertainment companies and hence there is a market for it.

Might FCC play a role in policing this sort of thing. Requiring a disclaimer that the following is not actual or factual information?

It's news that journalists will routinely lie? It is hard to always tell the difference between lying and mere incompetence, but the weak commitment to the truth should hardly startle anyone.

This operates on all levels. For a trivial example, some years ago I watched a postgame news conference by a quarterback, which included a memorable line. The next day I checked multiple news outlets, and they all reported it differently, sometimes substantially so, and all putting the quarterback's words in quotation marks.

More significantly, we saw this in the Democratic primary race. I read blogs with careful, informative analyses that as far back as March made strong cases that Obama had the nomination in the bag barring some unexpected major development. For months, the mainstream media barely acknowledged that Obama had any advantage, and put forward a horserace narrative, with Obama and Clinton neck and neck.

Mainstream political coverage makes little sense if you try to interpret it as an honest attempt to inform. Most of it doesn't make much sense as biased flacking for one candidate or the other. It makes a great deal of sense if interpreted as little different from the World Weekly News except for better production standards.