Matt Drudge has spent a lot of time looking for polls that show the presidential race close so he can selectively cite them on his web site, DrudgeReport.com. Now that the supply of close polls is running low, where oh where can Mr. Drudge turn?
If you think this fall has been tough for John McCain, you may have forgotten about the person who helps shape the coverage for ABC News (as Mark Halperin has previously confessed) and other so-called liberal media outlets. It's no secret that Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report pours over news articles and tidbits all day and every day looking to promote the right wing agenda, while trying to make folks on the left appear foolish, strange, and even anti-American. In the same way Fox News filters their coverage to put liberals on the defensive, Matt Drudge sifts through web sites, TV channels, and any other type of medium to find obscure comments or events that might help shape the day's media coverage in a light favorable to conservatives.
One thing in particular that Drudge loves to do is selectively cite polls in hopes the media will report a tightening in the presidential race. There are several cases in point. In the early part of October, Drudge heavily reported Zogby's polling, which had the race within or close to the margin of error several times, when nearly all other polls showed Obama up about 8 or 9 points on average. A strange thing happened when Zogby's polling had Obama's lead increasing this past week- links to Zogby disappeared from Drudge's web site. In their place were links to a Gallup poll that suddenly showed the race within the margin of error. What made the Gallup citation appear even more selective was that Gallup has been offering three separate poll models- a registered voter model, a likely voter traditional model, and a likely voter expanded model. The first of course is of all registered voters, the second is a special poll that attempts to predict likely voting with a slant toward how individuals have voted in the past, and the last one is a special poll that looks at likely voters but does not give much weight to past voting habits. It is probably not surprising to Daily Kos readers that the only Gallup model cited by Drudge was the one that had the tightest margin- the likely voter traditional model.
Matt Drudge would make a great spin man for the McCain campaign, I will certainly give him that. If you want McCain to win, obviously you are only going to cite the polls that make the race look close. Unfortunately for Drudge, the supply of close polls is dwindling. Now all three Gallup models show Obama's lead at 7 points are higher. Naturally Drudge is not citing Gallup anymore. Is there any thing left out there Drudge can cite to make this race appear within the margin of error? Well, um, yes, it seems there is one more place Drudge can turn, Nickelodeon: