For a decade now, the Republicans have had a problem . . . Fox News, and it's getting worse.
Fox News is a service of Rupert Murdoch's vast News Corporation empire, a mostly conservative entity that is focused principally outside the United States (he was born in Australia, and took up US citizenship because we do not allow foreign citizens to own TV stations).News Corp. is principally an Australia and British business, most of his newspapers and TV stations are there, and Murdoch focused his attention there before he went global with a chain of satellite TV stations. Rupert Murdoch could give a shit about Republicans, or Democrats, or politics at all really -- he's made it clear that to him news is a business, and he's in the business of making money, not selling ideas.
He's gone so far as to fund raise for Hillary, and direct one of his papers to endorse Barak's run in '08. [1] Why? Because Barack was a rock star. (Murdoch's words, not mine.)
So, Rupert owns Fox News, which is a business.
But Fox's business is reporting news right? Well, no... they've gone to court to win the right to report false stories. (court opinion on that case here)
So what does Fox sell? In a word, Truthiness.
They turn to the right, and they tell them what the rank and file republicans want to hear. Republicans Rule! Democrats Drool!!
They twist stories and spin facts to the whims of their audience, pump up the outrage volume and turn every political battle into Armageddon so that you'll tune in. "OMG, Glenn Beck is going to expose the communism at the heart of Rockefeller center tonight.. MUST WATCH TV!!" Then Fox turns that outrage into a movement (the tea party), which they sell T-shirts and mugs for, who's events they promote, and then Fox turns up and covers every moment of the rallies like the Tea baggers are negotiating the Treaty of Versailles ... which of course you have to watch... what if something happens? What if the FEMA team roles in and hauls off all the protesters... better sit by the TV with your gun on your lap, and watch out for those low flying helicopters.
Of course... there's been a small side-effect, a tiny little error in their program of self-indoctrination - their viewers think it's all true. Every moment of it. Just check out their status as the "most trusted name in news." Their viewers hear Glen Beck explicate Lenin out of a photograph of Obama, and they get ready to hear Obama calling for an end to private ownership... and then the congress people that listen to Fox repeat those claims, which fox then reports as news -- and the cycle is complete... Obama has Nationalized the Auto Industry.
Some of those viewers have seats in congress. Thus, we have Virginia Foxx, and Michelle Bachman.
But that's just the ideologues, the bullshit makers that yell at the clouds and demand that God do something about this troublesome black man that vexes them so.
But, the Republican party leadership has embraced Fox News right back. They made it the official station of the Republican Party. Fox is the channel that's on in their offices, and they tell us all the time how they feel about the New York Times (a.k.a THE paper of record in the U.S.) and the rest of the librul media.
You see, the problem is... they trust Fox.
Fox, and Rasmussen, and Drudge, and all these other operations that were explicitly created to build a mirror universe to the main stream press, a conservative echo-chamber to bounce stories around in. They use their audiences to spread their ideas -- that's not crazy, it works at riling up the base, and it can put alot of confusion out there about Democrats and our politics. When you're ideas are demonstrably bad for a majority of voters, a little bit of confussion and misrepresentation goes a long way.
But you need to keep your leadership on solid ground. They need to know what's going on, and they need to have good numbers to base their decisions on. That's where Fox and Rasmussen have betrayed the Republican party.
For the last few years Fox and the republican spin machine has started to do something new -- they're engineering polls to give them the answers they want. Their sample groups tend to include a higher percentage of Republicans than is generally considered representative of their numbers in the population. They also tend to select geographically for whiter, less urban areas that will give yield more "independents" who consistently vote party line Republican. (Hi mom!)
Rasmussen recently got a large cash infusion, and they've used to to run a full scale blitz of new polls. [2]. These polls seem almost tailor made to throw off the "poll of polls" techniques that folks like Nate Silver have demonstrated have a better prediction rate than any individual poll.
Ginning the numbers is a great way to win arguments.. but I think it's going to hurt them substantially in a few months.
They are setting out to re-write reality.
And their leaders, foolishly, idiotically, haven't caught on that its propaganda. They're acting on the lies.
So, that's the Crux of their Problem -- their allies lie to them, they intentionally distort reality to move the Republican Party away from the truth. The Republicans are bound to have a hard adjustment every couple of years when real people have to actually show up and physically vote. Unlike all those ginned up polls, you don't get to pick your population to make sure you win.
I believe that's one reason why its been so hard for their rank and file to accept that Barak won the Whitehouse on the issues. Their polls say his issues are unpopular. Their polls say the democrats should be swept from office instantly. Unfortunately for them, their polls and reality appear to going off in different directions -- and the people they've selected to guide them are leading them away to a lonely place.