WingRight

On the night before the election, I’m predicting that McCain will win by 5-10 electoral votes.

How can this be with Obama ahead in all major polls? The answer is the Spiral of Silence.

The Spiral of Silence was first propounded by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and, in short version, means that “a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.”

In more detail via Wikipedia:

The spiral of silence begins with fear of reprisal or isolation, and escalates from there. Individuals use what is described as “an innate ability” or quasi-statistical sense to gauge public opinion. Mass media plays a large part in determining what the dominant opinion is, since our direct observation is limited to a small percentage of the population. Mass media has such an enormous impact on how public opinion is portrayed, and can dramatically impact an individual’s perception about where public opinion lies, whether or not that portrayal is factual. Noelle-Neumann describes the spiral of silence as dynamic process, in which predictions about public opinion become fact as mass media’s coverage of the majority opinion becomes the status quo, and the minority becomes less likely to speak out. (Citations Omitted)

This is the downside of the MSM’s descent into acting as the propaganda wing of the Obama campaign. Those voters who dislike Obama or prefer McCaiin are either not talking to pollsters (some polls have a refusal rate of 80% or more recently) or they’re saying they support Obama while not doing so.

Obama’s injunction to his followers to “argue with your neighbors” and “get in their face” if they’re not voiting for Obama further accentuates the Spiral of Silence.

In Britain, the 1992 victory of John Major and the Conservative party in the face of unanimous polling that predicted a Labor win commenced a standard practice of UK pollsters to factor in the Spiral of Silence. US pollsters don’t do so. I predict that they will in 2012.

See more here and here.

UPDATE: See the Times of London

Tags: Elections, Liberal Media, Political Correctness by Publius
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Responding to an expanding blogosphere storm, the New York Times has decided that the Obama/Ayers connection needs to be massaged with Obama Has Met Ayers, but the Two Are Not Close.

Both Ayers and his wife, Bernadette Dohrn, refused to speak to the NYT despite numerous requests. The piece is most notable for what it doesn’t say, but first, some excerpts:

Twenty-six years later [after Ayers' terrorist violence], at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama’s first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors.

Who else was at the meeting? The NYT does not say that this was the first meeting between Obama and Ayers.

A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”.

Even the NYT acknowledges that Obama “played down” his Ayers relationship. Another view of this is that Obama lied about the nature of his relationship.

[Read more →]

Tags: Ayers, Liberal Hypocrisy, Liberal Media, Obama Problems by Publius
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McCain doesn’t understand what kind of a fight he is in with the MSM. This is not 1980 and we’re not looking at a gentle headwind from the liberal networks. They are in full-bore attack mode.

Powerline believes that

Ifill’s position is untenable. She will almost certainly be accused of (a) being unfair to Palin in order to sell her book, (b) being unfair to Biden in order to prevent accusation “a” or (c) both. Either the first of the second accusation will be quite plausible.

The unspoken assumption is that Ifil will be very carefull to look unbiased. What’s going to happen to her if she is biased? Is NPR going to fire her over a lot of criticisms by Rush, Glen and the conservative blogosphere? Is Random House going to cancel her book contract? I don’t think so.

For every conservative complaint, there will be a liberal defense - Republicans are trying to deflect attention from Palin’s poor showing, etc., etc. Advance sales of the book will go through the roof.

The left has constructed a political, social and economic ecosystem that rewards people who toe the party line. Within this ecosystem, there is no downside to screwing a conservative.

Additionally, Ifil lives in such a left-wing echo chamber, it will never occur to her that her reasonable questions and viewpoint will be anything but right down the middle of the political spectrum.

What should McCain have said? “This is an outrage! I demand that an immediate change of moderators be made or that, in the alternative, a second moderator who is not biased in favor of the Obama/Biden ticket be added to the debate. If this doesn’t happen, I will consider requesting that Gov. Palin not attend the debate. How can a fair debate when Ifil stands to financially benefit if Obama is elected?”

Under this strategy, Palin wouldn’t withdraw from the debate, but that won’t be certain until shortly before the debate begins. That would play havoc with Biden’s head and make it quite likely that Ifil would have to begin with a statement about her book and would have a very hard time appearing to be anything but hostile to Palin.

McCain isn’t bringing a knife to a gunfight, he’s bringing a frisbee.

UPDATE - Hot Air has some good comments on this.

Tags: Liberal Hypocrisy, Liberal Media by Publius
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Is this the last presidential election that the major newspapers and broadcast networks can swing a big part of the electorate one way or the other? I think so.

Major newspapers and the formerly big-three broadcast news programs are experiencing a rapidly-accelerating decline in readers and viewers. Since the early 1990s, the proportion of Americans saying they read a newspaper on a typical day has declined by about 40%; the proportion that regularly watches nightly network news has fallen by half.

Newspapers

• During the six months ending on March 31, 2008, The New York Times Sunday edition is lost 9.2% of its circulation, declining to 1,476,400.  Daily circulation was down 3.8% to 1,077,256.
• During the same six month period, Washington Post daily circulation decreased 3.5 percent to 673,180 and Sunday dropped 4.3 percent to 890,163.
• For that six months, the LA Times lost more than 40,000 daily copies.  Daily circulation there was down 5.1 percent to 773,884.  Sunday declined 6.0 percent to 1,101,981.
• In Boston, the Globe’s daily circulation fell 8.3 percent to 350,605. Sunday declined 6.4 percent to 525,959.
• Advertising revenue at The New York Times, Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune and other Times newspapers slipped 16 percent combined in August 2008 compared with August 2007, according to the company’s most recent financial reports.    June and July showed 18% year over year declines.
• Classified ads for the Times group newspapers fell 30 percent overall in August, 2008, led by a 45 percent drop in help wanted ads and a 30 percent decline in real estate. Retail ads fell 8.1 percent and national ads dropped 13 percent.
• In the last five years, the New York Times’ stock price has declined from $46 to about $15 per share
• By way of comparison, today The Drudge Report claims 33,505,741 visits in the past 24 hours, 768,368,013 visits in the past 31 dsys and and 6,611,832,432 visits in the past year.

Broadcast Networks

• Substantially more people regularly get news online than regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%)
• The big nightly news shows on ABC, NBC and CBS have a collective audience of more than 23 million viewers.
• Rush Limbaugh alone has 22 milion listeners.
• Audiences for ABC’s “World News” and NBC’s “Nightly News” average 7.6 million and 8.29 million viewers, respectively.  “CBS Evening News” brings up the rear with about 5.8 million viewers a night.
• The network news audience is half of what it was 40 years ago and in 2007 dropped 5 percent from the previous year.
• There’s a reason for all those denture cream commercials on the network news.  The average age of the viewers of the three networks is 61.

If the US economy goes into a recession, the MSM is going to get hit badly.  The newspapers and network news staffs, already reduced in numbers, will be hacked even more.  Quality of all types of coverage will decline.

On the other hand, by 2012, internet-based news will have grown in scope and quality.  Many more people will have high-speed access and the speed of that high-speed access will also increase.  High-quality internet video will be accessible to 90% of the population.  All video screens in many homes will be networked, so watching HD-quality YouTube videos or vlogs on the big-screen television will be routine.

Today’s leading bloggers will be established brand names, trusted by their audiences.  Rush will have an online and over-the-air audience that is 3-4 times larger than the network news broadcasts (which will be viewed primarily in nursing homes by people who drool a lot).

I think we will look back at this election and the cocooning of Obama by the MSM as the last time that the media elite had any real influence on the outcome.

Tags: Liberal Media by Publius
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