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Monday, August 30, 2010

CNN Distorts 60 Min./Vanity Fair Poll About Sarah Palin

The headline of the day at CNN is TRENDING: Clear majority says Palin not qualified to be president (emphasis mine):
Two days after Sarah Palin fired up a large crowd at Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally in Washington, a newly released survey suggests a clear majority of Americans don't think the former vice presidential nominee has the right credentials to be president.

According to the new survey from Vanity Fair and CBS News' 60 Minutes, only 1 in 4 of all adults thinks Palin is qualified to be commander-in-chief while 60 percent say she is not.
This description of the poll is an outright fabrication.  The actual poll question had nothing to do with credentials, qualifications, or even electability.  Here was the actual question: "Do you think SARAH PALIN would have the ability to be an EFFECTIVE PRESIDENT?"
 
Similarly distorted versions are all over the internet, in which the authors misread the actual question asked, and use it to opine on Palin's qualifications or election prospects.

Time Magazine's Swampland blog, which partners with CNN, asks the headline question Could Palin Be President? (emphasis mine):
A new poll suggests not. Only one in four Americans consider her qualified to be commander in chief, with 60 percent sure that she is not qualified. Those are awful numbers and I'm one who thinks the prospects of a Palin presidency are, for the moment, quite unlikely.
Again, there is no truth to the characterization that the poll concerned qualifications or election prospects.

(added) Whether someone would be an "effective" president could turn on a number of factors, including the strength of opposition.  On that account, given pervasive Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, as witnessed by the CNN article linked above, Palin may have trouble being an "effective" president.

These Vanity Fair polls are a joke; there are few choices given to the interviewees, there is no depth of questioning, and they mix pop culture questions (such as Which word is overused the most?) in with political questions.

That said, at least accurately report the question and the context.

Which is what HuffPo did, by also noting other polls on Palin's prospects:
While the 2012 election is a long way off and poll numbers are difficult to interpret, in one recent poll of potential 2012 matchups, conducted Aug. 6-9 by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, 43% of registered voters said they would support Palin to 49% for Obama.
HuffPo more fair than CNN and Time Magazine.  It has come to this.

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11 comments:

  1. I don't like anything preceded with the nonsense term "trending." After that,the jury is still out on whether or not Palin is qualified to be President - surely she would have handled the oil spill more effectively. That aside, her performance at the Lincoln Memorial disappointed. She tried to do too much in the space of a single speech. I think she made a mistake even participating. For most voters, Beck is outside the pale or is that "Palin." What do I know stupid independent/Republican quasi conservative.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yeah, but here's a more pointed question:

    Would Palin be a better president than Obama?

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  3. CNN and Time are only showing how they will treat her as president. I wonder if her habit of referring to the mainstream media as the "lamestream media" influencec how they report on her?

    Her contempt for the media is understandable, of course. But someone should have reminded her of the Mark Twain truism that "you shouldn't pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel and paper by the ton".

    I have no doubt many in the MSM will do everything they can to destroy her effectivenss as president, if she is elected.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "The left will always tell you who they are most afraid of." -Rush Limbaugh

    About this poll - who were the people polled? What percentage lib/Dem vs. conservative/Repub vs. indie? What about "likely voters" - how many of those polled? This screams "fixed poll" to push a meme.

    No information on the pool of people surveyed makes me think that it was a reader's poll. Such polls are not only very unreliable, they are notoriously stacked with bias. If Rush Limbaugh were to do such a poll, it would likely tbe skewed far right/conservative, unless publicized to attract others. Done by Vanity Fair? Very leftist progressive. Of course they know that;they are a fashion and trendy mag, not news or politics per-se.

    That said, there is much to show that Sarah Palin is the most effective Republican right now, period. She is the newly dubbed "kingmaker" - therefore she must be destroyed, according to the Alinsky "leftist bible" Rules for Radicals.

    Truly nothing new here. These guys just got their marching orders and are starting their usual, predictable, completely unsurprising attack at their most feared opponent.

    They like to start early. Especially when the "target" (i.e. Palin) is winning hearts and minds. However, they never seem to realize that whenever they attack her, it bounces back at them and reveals their hate, hypocrisy, and fear. It makes Sarah Palin stronger, and results in more people respecting her because of her strength enduring undeserved personal attacks. It's called "character," "resolve," "determination," and "honor." The leftists just don't get her - because they have none of these character traits! Attacks mean she's effective......

    Sarah must be doing EVERYTHING right!

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  5. One should vote for a President based on her qualities and proven positions, and not refrain because the media will attack her. If that were the compelling reason, there would be no reason to ever vote for a Republican, since that person will always be attacked by the mostly-Marxist media. The media's disapproval will not stop
    Palin from doing her job magnifiocently, any more than the the media's adoration can make
    Obama into a good President instead of the miserable failure that he is. Palin can handle the media very well, as she's proven repeatedly since 2008. Let's focus on the main task of getting her into the White House.

    ReplyDelete
  6. If you look at the job Palin did as Governor of Alaska in terms of bringing the budget into line, and the likely job for an incoming POTUS in 2013, who is better qualified, in either political party, than Sarah Palin?

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  7. CBS. The CBS that said there were 87,000 people on the National Mall Saturday.

    Excuse me if I dismiss anything they say, and any blogger that quotes them as if there was any significance whatever in what might be in the drool.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I missed the CNN connection. If I had noticed it, I would have stopped reading at that point, made a not to pay attention to the value here with an intent to clean up the"L" must read list.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. The constitutional qualifications are clearly met.

    Palin intimidates the left and their 2008 Obama voting concern trolls who like to pontificate as if they are qualified to tell Governor Palin what she should do and not do while defining themselves as right of center.

    Don't ya just love it? hahaha

    ReplyDelete
  10. No offense professor, but the sun rose in the east today as usual.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

    ReplyDelete