RUSH: I got this last night. Wall Street Journal, NBC poll. And it was depressing, folks. You know what it was? I don’t have it right in front of me, but I remember it. In essence, it said it’s over in Virginia, Florida, and Ohio for Romney.
The latest NBC News/Washington Post poll has shown that President Obama has pulled ahead in these three swing states to the point that if Romney’s to have any chance whatsoever he’s going to have to convince Obama voters to vote for him because the undecideds have already made up their minds. So I got that, and I sent that around to my friends. Did they react? Yeah, they did react to that. And I said, “Okay, I don’t have the poll, I don’t have the breakdown, the samples or any of that stuff, but I’m not buying this.” This doesn’t make sense with anything that’s going on. Obama going up in the polls right now doesn’t make sense, does it? To you?
Does Obama closing out the election right now make sense to you? Does Obama wrapping it up in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me. Obama getting stronger in the polls, right now, doesn’t make sense to me. Well, Rasmussen’s out today. Their latest poll has Romney up three. That’s exactly right. Latest Rasmussen has Romney up three. And then there’s this. “According to the Real Clear Politics averages, Mitt Romney now the leads the presidential race in Virginia for the first time since the beginning of the year.” Real Clear Politics, they average every poll. That’s the RCP. I happen to know that. I’m a powerful, influential member of the media so I know what that means. RCP, Real Clear Politics, rolling averages. They average all the prominent polls out there, and Romney’s pulled ahead in Virginia for the first time.
On the same day NBC/Wall Street Journal puts their poll out saying it’s over for Romney in Virginia. The Real Clear Politics poll also shows that Obama’s numbers have been sliding steadily in Florida. So what is this? Well, we know what this is. It’s NBC/Wall Street Journal using polling data to suppress our votes, to dispirit us, to depress us. So let’s go to the horse’s mouth on this. F. Chuck Todd of NBC News. Last night on the NBC Nightly News, that poll had come out, Brian Williams speaking with F. Chuck Todd, and Brian said, “We have new postpolitical convention polling numbers that we’re debuting here on the Nightly News tonight. Shows some interesting movement in the battleground states here, Chuck. What’s it show, old buddy, old pal?”
TODD: Let’s actually start in the state of Virginia, where Mitt Romney was today. There, in the state of Virginia, the President at 49%, a five-point lead. In Ohio, another crucial state on the road to 270 electoral votes, the President actually hits 50 percent, a seven-point lead. And then let me take you down to the state of Florida. The president has opened up a five-point lead. For the first time since weÂ’ve been testing in these state polls, the right track is over 40 percent. As you know, that is an important number in gauging whether a president can win reelection. The fact that there is suddenly an improvement in how people feel the direction of the country is going. Some Democrats have been telling me thatÂ’s the Clinton bump, referring to Bill Clinton’s speech.
RUSH: Are we really supposed to be believe that? Are we really supposed to believe that that’s how people think? Bill Clinton gives a speech and all of a sudden people in the country think we’re moving in the right direction? While all of this is going on? This is like they try to tell us why the stock market moves. Warren Buffett goes out there and burps, uh-oh, market down, hundred points. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Wishful thinking, dreaming, or what have you. But you hear the results that F. Chuck recited there. Why, it’s over for Romney in these places, because of the Clinton speech. Yep, the Clinton speech, the Clinton bump. We’re moving in the right direction. The thing is, these people believe this garbage. In their little bubble, the world they live in, they believe this. They believe that Clinton has that power. One speech can make everybody in this country think the country’s direction is now going in the right way. I swear, it’s more than corruption; this is absolute stupidity. I wish I had another word for it. It’s just insulting, banal. But wait a second.
Now, let’s move to this morning. Stay with NBC. We’ll go to the CNBC on their Squawk Box show, and guess who’s back? F. Chuck Todd. F. Chuck’s back, and they’re having a discussion about this poll, and Joe Kernen says, “Is polling better Chuck? You remember Dukakis up 17. Gallup had Mondale up. You look at these things, and you have to wait until November 6 to get the real poll.” And he’s right! These people that do polls, that’s the one they care about: The one the week before the election.
Because that’s the one everybody remembers.
These polls now are used for whatever agenda these people are on. So, anyway, Joe Kernen says to F. Chuck (paraphrased), “Chuck, what about these polls? I mean, Dukakis up 17? Mondale beating Reagan? Come on! What are we talking about here, F. Chuck?”
TODD: I’m gonna steal a line from Charlie Cook, uh, a political analyst, and he says, “Technology has done a lot of things; technology has not improved polling.” … Look, I am concerned about the state of polling in general.
RUSH: Whoa! Whoaaa! Hold it just a second. F. Chuck just got the best news he coulda gotten. F. Chuck and the rest of the media are Democrats with bylines. They’re collaborators. That’s all they are. They come from the same fraternities. They go to the same schools. You know, I meant to get to that yesterday. I didn’t get to it, and I’m not gonna have time today, I don’t think. I need to make a note. There’s this great piece about how the Ivy League shapes and forms all these people in government, in media.
It’s fabulous. It confirms a theory of mine. Anyway, F. Chuck has just been given the best news he coulda gotten as a guy in the tank for Obama. How can you not be happy? “Virginia, it’s over! Ohio, it’s over! Florida, it’s over! Romney has no prayer. If this poll’s right, Romney’s finished. It’s over.” And F. Chuck is on CNBC today saying he’s worried about polling. He worried about “technology.” He doesn’t think that technology has improved polling.
What that means is that they don’t call cell phones. They call land lines, and the only people that have land lines are the kind of people have never heard of cell phones. So you can imagine the kind of data they’re getting. So F. Chuck is essentially telling us here that he doesn’t trust his own poll’s data. Because, my friends, I’m here to tell you (and you know it as well as I know it): If Chuck Todd believed this latest poll, you couldn’ta kept him in his chair today.
He’d-a had on the birthday hat. They’d-a had a band in there and been running around. The balloons would have been blown up and they would be having a party on the CNBC set. “It’s over! Our poll says so!” No way. I mean, the poll actually says that the only way Romney could win is to convince Obama voters to vote for him. The undecideds have already made up their minds. Yet F. Chuck is on CNBC quoting Charlie Cook.
Cook says technology has not improved polling. He’s concerned, Chuck Todd. In the face of his own poll, he says he’s concerned. That means he doesn’t believe it, folks, if I may cut to the chase. I think what we heard here is F. Chuck Todd saying he doesn’t believe his own poll, and his actions indicate that because there’s no celebration here. There might have been a hint of it last night with Brian Williams on the Nightly News but there wasn’t any this morning on CNBC.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So I checked the e-mail during the break. “Rush, why is Chuck Todd worried? Why are the media people worried?” Let me explain it very quickly, folks. It won’t take very long. The media used to have a monopoly; they don’t have a monopoly anymore. They know it, and their sphere of influencing is deteriorating. You may not think so, but it is. I saw Brokaw on with Hannity a couple of weeks ago during the Democrat convention.
When Hannity mentioned, “You know, you guys used to have a monopoly,” Brokaw lit up with a big smile and said, “Oh, yeah, did we ever!” So they’re bothered that they don’t have one anymore. So what they’re doing with all of these polls and everything, is they are trying to prove to themselves and to everybody else that they are the gatekeepers.