Rush Limbaugh on the Polling Game

Over at Hot Air, they’ve assembled some good quotes from Rush Limbaugh on how pollsters manipulate data to achieve desired results and to depress Republican turnout.

Morrissey asks an intriguing question at the end:

Without exception, polls “tighten” in the final days of an election.  Is that a true indication of voter loyalty transitioning — or just an attempt by pollsters to get their last polls close enough to claim better accuracy afterwards?

If it is, in fact, an attempt to “correct” the polls and make them more accurate in the end, I would think this is a strategy that could backfire easily.  As Jim Geraghty has been pointing out at The Campaign Spot, the Obama campaign has been in fear of the poll or two that show the race in a dead heat or even a slight lead for McCain.  Why?  Because momentum is everything.  So the media isn’t doing Obama or other Democrats any favors if they’re giving them a huge lead at first and then making it closer because the “horserace” come-from-behind storyline can swing an election.

But don’t anyone tell the media that little secret!

UPDATE: How bout some video of El Rushbo speaking with Fox News?

Tags: Barack Obama's big lead, horserace media coverage, Hot Air, inaccurate presidential polls, Jim Geraghty's Campaign Spot, John McCain narrowing the polling gap, Media Bias, polling bias, Rush Limbaugh