CNBC Admits It Removed the Results of an ‘Unscientific’ Post-Debate Call In Poll Because There Were Too Many Votes for Ron Paul
As small potatoes as this is, it reflects the larger corporate media bias against any candidate the Big Media haven’t anointed as acceptable.
Whatever flaws Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) may have, he is the only GOP candidate for president who embodies classic Goldwater libertarian conservativism, as opposed to the other eight Republican candidates who are all committed, in varying degrees, to the prevailing Bush neoconservative ‘Unitary Executive’ ideology. Paul is sadly unique in this group in that he actually cites the US Constitution the other Republican candidates for president routinely ignore, especially in the area of making war and defending individual civil liberties. As a commenter at Common Dreams recently noted, a President Ron Paul would end three of our most needless and wasteful wars, that being the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Drugs, and honor his oath of office to protect and uphold the rights of the individual against the excesses of a bloated and intrusive government, as required by the Constitution.
Even though I’m cognizant of the many issues on which Paul and I disagree — abortion rights and universal health care being just two — and I’m not likely to vote for him in the general election, I think it’s appalling that he has been discounted and all but ignored by the Big Media while I encounter people regularly who agree wholeheartedly with his brand of classic conservatism.
Following the recent Republican debate on economic policy in Dearborn, Michigan, CNBC ran a flash poll where Ron Paul was named the winner with 75 percent of the vote. As CNBC Managing Editor Allan Wastler wrote in his patronizing, “An Open Letter to the Ron Paul Faithful,” that the poll was removed because Wastler hadn’t “seen him pull those kind of numbers in any ‘legit’ poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.”
Just a brief note about those ‘legit’ polls: Most of them are phone polls and their methods haven’t changed since the 1950s; they depend for accuracy upon receiving a good representative cross-section of respondents who will answer the caller’s questions honestly.
In the ’50s, in a more ‘innocent’ technological era, most people in this country had one landline phone in the house, answered their calls, and were happy to give their opinions to Gallup or Harris. Today, however, the world has changed: many Americans, especially younger voters, have cell phones that are unreachable by pollsters; most have voice mail, and many screen their calls; moreover, 21st century Americans are much less likely to answer questions over the phone than were their parents and grandparents. Fifty years ago it might have been considered somewhat rude not to respond; today, that’s not the case.
And herein lies the dirty little secret of the current polling industry, and why today’s ‘legit’ polls are a less than reliable gauge of what Americans are thinking and for whom they plan to vote: The people answering the pollsters these days tend to be older, retired, white, and more conservative than the majority. They are willing to hang on the phone and answer questions, which means they aren’t very busy, contrary to the experience of most Americans today, and they are inclined to pick a ‘name brand’ they recognize — why do you think Bush, Clinton and Giuliani are doing as well as they are in the polls? Those responding to pollsters in this frenetic age also tend to be less well-educated than average and, frankly, dumber, particularly when it comes to the web and email. (Their profound ignorance in this area rivals managing editors at certain cable news channels.)
Meanwhile, as did Howard Dean in 2004, Ron Paul is exploding all over the Internet, collecting nearly as much money from his website as Mitt Romney is from conventional contributors, and attracting people who buy and use the latest technology and are beyond the reach of the phone pollsters. The Paul supporters are generally smart, well-educated people with higher than average incomes trending to the 18-34 age group most coveted by advertisers. It isn’t the old landline fogies who are purchasing the latest wireless laptops, iPhones, DVDs, and video game systems — hell, those crustaceans are still trying to figure out how to set the clock on their VCR.
In his letter, Wastler fumed, “Some of you Ron Paul fans take issue with my decision to take the poll down. Fine. When a well-organized and committed ‘few’ can throw the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of ‘the many,’ I get a little worried. I’d take it down again.”
(I’m assuming he’s talking here about the five Supreme Court Justices who installed Bush in power in 2000, thwarting the wishes of a majority of voters.)
At any rate, Paul got 7,000 votes in a small-bore poll — that’s a ‘few’? Why couldn’t his better-funded competitors for the GOP nomination with much larger national organizations come up with more votes to counter Paul’s ‘few,’ and why has Wastler appointed himself as protector of the interests of the leading candidates according to the results of the flawed ‘legit’ polls?
Does this mean that any of these ‘unscientific’ instant polls the media are addicted to running can be edited to reflect what a managing editor thinks they should say? That’s hardly being fair to the viewer or the stated reason for conducting the poll. Wastler compares his CNBC poll is to a roomful of people being asked for a show of hands, “In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less. The cyber equivalent of asking the room for a show of hands on a certain question.”
Paul’s supporters raised their cyber hands and the backers of the other candidates did not, but Wastler had to step out of the room to consult other polls and then decided not to allow their hands to be counted. Apparently it never occurred to Wastler that this might be a indication of the lethargy of the public for the top of the GOP field, or that more Paul supporters happened to watch the debate than supporters of the other candidates.
Whatever Wastler’s motives or politics, by removing the poll entirely he invites suspicion — why didn’t he simply post his concerns but leave the results of the poll up?
If you feel motivated by this blatant, albeit relatively petty, example of censorship, email Allen Wastler, Managing Editor, CNBC.com, at politicalcapital@cnbc.com to object. Also send a CC to Wastler’s boss, CNBC President Mark Hoffman to mark.hoffman@cnbc.com and info@cnbc.com.
Read the complete text of Wastler’s letter here.
A Truly Incredible, if Small, Example of Media Censorship
CNBC Admits It Removed the Results of an ‘Unscientific’ Post-Debate Call In Poll Because There Were Too Many Votes for Ron Paul
As small potatoes as this is, it reflects the larger corporate media bias against any candidate the Big Media haven’t anointed as acceptable.
Whatever flaws Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) may have, he is the only GOP candidate for president who embodies classic Goldwater libertarian conservativism, as opposed to the other eight Republican candidates who are all committed, in varying degrees, to the prevailing Bush neoconservative ‘Unitary Executive’ ideology. Paul is sadly unique in this group in that he actually cites the US Constitution the other Republican candidates for president routinely ignore, especially in the area of making war and defending individual civil liberties. As a commenter at Common Dreams recently noted, a President Ron Paul would end three of our most needless and wasteful wars, that being the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Drugs, and honor his oath of office to protect and uphold the rights of the individual against the excesses of a bloated and intrusive government, as required by the Constitution.
Even though I’m cognizant of the many issues on which Paul and I disagree — abortion rights and universal health care being just two — and I’m not likely to vote for him in the general election, I think it’s appalling that he has been discounted and all but ignored by the Big Media while I encounter people regularly who agree wholeheartedly with his brand of classic conservatism.
Following the recent Republican debate on economic policy in Dearborn, Michigan, CNBC ran a flash poll where Ron Paul was named the winner with 75 percent of the vote. As CNBC Managing Editor Allan Wastler wrote in his patronizing, “An Open Letter to the Ron Paul Faithful,” that the poll was removed because Wastler hadn’t “seen him pull those kind of numbers in any ‘legit’ poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.”
Just a brief note about those ‘legit’ polls: Most of them are phone polls and their methods haven’t changed since the 1950s; they depend for accuracy upon receiving a good representative cross-section of respondents who will answer the caller’s questions honestly.
In the ’50s, in a more ‘innocent’ technological era, most people in this country had one landline phone in the house, answered their calls, and were happy to give their opinions to Gallup or Harris. Today, however, the world has changed: many Americans, especially younger voters, have cell phones that are unreachable by pollsters; most have voice mail, and many screen their calls; moreover, 21st century Americans are much less likely to answer questions over the phone than were their parents and grandparents. Fifty years ago it might have been considered somewhat rude not to respond; today, that’s not the case.
And herein lies the dirty little secret of the current polling industry, and why today’s ‘legit’ polls are a less than reliable gauge of what Americans are thinking and for whom they plan to vote: The people answering the pollsters these days tend to be older, retired, white, and more conservative than the majority. They are willing to hang on the phone and answer questions, which means they aren’t very busy, contrary to the experience of most Americans today, and they are inclined to pick a ‘name brand’ they recognize — why do you think Bush, Clinton and Giuliani are doing as well as they are in the polls? Those responding to pollsters in this frenetic age also tend to be less well-educated than average and, frankly, dumber, particularly when it comes to the web and email. (Their profound ignorance in this area rivals managing editors at certain cable news channels.)
Meanwhile, as did Howard Dean in 2004, Ron Paul is exploding all over the Internet, collecting nearly as much money from his website as Mitt Romney is from conventional contributors, and attracting people who buy and use the latest technology and are beyond the reach of the phone pollsters. The Paul supporters are generally smart, well-educated people with higher than average incomes trending to the 18-34 age group most coveted by advertisers. It isn’t the old landline fogies who are purchasing the latest wireless laptops, iPhones, DVDs, and video game systems — hell, those crustaceans are still trying to figure out how to set the clock on their VCR.
In his letter, Wastler fumed, “Some of you Ron Paul fans take issue with my decision to take the poll down. Fine. When a well-organized and committed ‘few’ can throw the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of ‘the many,’ I get a little worried. I’d take it down again.”
(I’m assuming he’s talking here about the five Supreme Court Justices who installed Bush in power in 2000, thwarting the wishes of a majority of voters.)
At any rate, Paul got 7,000 votes in a small-bore poll — that’s a ‘few’? Why couldn’t his better-funded competitors for the GOP nomination with much larger national organizations come up with more votes to counter Paul’s ‘few,’ and why has Wastler appointed himself as protector of the interests of the leading candidates according to the results of the flawed ‘legit’ polls?
Does this mean that any of these ‘unscientific’ instant polls the media are addicted to running can be edited to reflect what a managing editor thinks they should say? That’s hardly being fair to the viewer or the stated reason for conducting the poll. Wastler compares his CNBC poll is to a roomful of people being asked for a show of hands, “In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less. The cyber equivalent of asking the room for a show of hands on a certain question.”
Paul’s supporters raised their cyber hands and the backers of the other candidates did not, but Wastler had to step out of the room to consult other polls and then decided not to allow their hands to be counted. Apparently it never occurred to Wastler that this might be a indication of the lethargy of the public for the top of the GOP field, or that more Paul supporters happened to watch the debate than supporters of the other candidates.
Whatever Wastler’s motives or politics, by removing the poll entirely he invites suspicion — why didn’t he simply post his concerns but leave the results of the poll up?
If you feel motivated by this blatant, albeit relatively petty, example of censorship, email Allen Wastler, Managing Editor, CNBC.com, at politicalcapital@cnbc.com to object. Also send a CC to Wastler’s boss, CNBC President Mark Hoffman to mark.hoffman@cnbc.com and info@cnbc.com.
Read the complete text of Wastler’s letter here.