The credibility of Fox News.com's poll statistics of the 2008 presidential race has come under fire as it has been discovered that the company that provides it with poll data is actively listing advertisements from John McCain on its home page. by James Santos
(libertarian)
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The credibility of Fox News.com's poll statistics of the 2008 presidential race has come under fire as it has been discovered that the company that provides it with poll data is actively listing advertisements from John McCain on its home page. RealClearPolitics.com, according to its website, is a Chicago-based company founded in 2000 by John McIntyre and Tom Bevan.
Visitors of the RealClearPolitics.com home page will notice a rather large ad in the lower right corner for John McCain that is paid for by the John McCain 2008 campaign.
RealClearPolitics.com provides Fox News.com, and perhaps Fox News, with "Poll Averages" that Fox News.com uses on it's website.
Fox News and other mainstream media outlets have come under fire recently for inaccurate poll results on the 2008 Republican presidential race. Concerns cited by critics are that while the so-called "top-tier" candidates have made mistakes along the way, they continue to stay strong in "the polls". Meanwhile other "bottom tier" candidates, such as Ron Paul, have run a near-flawless campaign and have broken fund raising records, yet they are not showing any improvement in the polls.
Critics that have always questioned the survey methods of these polls now have more fuel for their fire. The recent "surge" in John McCain's Fox News.com poll numbers must be questioned, they say; especially considering McCain is now a sponsor of the polling company that Fox News.com relies so heavily upon.
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Why do we even bother conducting primary elections if for no other reason than to "validate" the candidate(s) desired by the Democratic or Republican Party powerbrokers? Thank you, Fox News, for added confirmation that "fair and balanced" is the biggest slogan joke in broadcast news.
how stupid are you? RCP does nothing but gather up polls that polling organizations conduct, post them on their website and average them together. Do you think they have some loophole in calculating averages in favor of John McCain?
There are also some rumors floating around out there that John McIntyre and Tom Bevan, the founders of RealClearPolitics.com are on the payroll of Fox News. They write numerous articles for the Fox News.com website and they have been in partnership since September 2006:
I sent this letter to FauxNews being careful to not mention Dr. Paul by name to avoid email filters but making it clear who I was referring to:
To Whom It May Concern
In your upcoming forum of Republican candidates on January 6th obviously excludes a real 'peoples choice' front-runner. With fundraising at record levels, an unprecedented grass roots following, and the unknown 'Internet factor', which your 'polls' do not account. You are making a HUGE mistake by excluding this particular candidate. Your obvious bias will be the undoing of the other candidates as well as your network's credibility, for the people of NH are smart and will wonder why with such fundraising records and extensive national grassroots support is being ignored. The masses will speak, and gather in NH, especially after an Iowa win. Proceed at your own peril.
Posted By: Michael McClary
Date: 2007-12-29 12:17:18
I have noticed that, as the fateful day of an election approaches, the numbers for the front-runners as reported by polling organizations tend to converge until the candidates are reported as being closer than the uncertainty and the race is characterized as
QUIT GIVING MC CAIN ALL THE INK . HE IS SO OLD IN HIS THINKING 30YRS. IS ENOUGH WHAT HAS HE DONE? 80% DONT WANT AMNESTY FOR ILLGALS SO WHY IS HE STILL BLABBING
Perhaps this is news to the people at RealClearPolitics, but when one averages poll results the margins of error must be added to each other. For example, if there were 3 polls with a 10% margin of error, the average of those polls would have a 30% margin of error. This makes averaging large numbers of polls virtually worthless.
