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--and that, in turn, may have to do with what the networks can put together as to how much they can afford to stake on them. In other words, as Free Press is noting, the media have been deliberately "withholding" the raw exit polls until they've "analyzed" them.
Why would they want to "analyze"? Because perhaps they are testing the waters. They are releasing bits and pieces:
First, that Bush is the first President to take office with such low approval ratings--below 49% Then, that consumers are down, and expect bad times before good times.
Now, just today, on the Internet at AT&T home, they are reporting polls showing Americans "pessimistic" about 2005.
What they are doing, in short, is trying to get BACK UP data from subsequent polls, before they put their balls on the line.
They are trying to get polling data that could tell them, how accurate were those exit polls? Was this election fraud, or some bizarre, one time error in the polls.
It's a serious thing, because once they release the raw exit poll data, the critics of Bush's re-election will have to be given air and page space. The media will have, to an extent, entered the 2004 election fray.
The Senators may be waiting on the media to release that data. The media, in turn, are trying to be sure, as best they can, that other polling data is indicating most Americans are unhappy with Bush.
The media want to get this right, because if most people are unhappy with Bush, their clients' sales could suffer, and there might even be boycotts of them or their clients. Not only that, but if democracy really is threatened by this alleged computer rigging methodology, the free press, including the mainstream media, will be seriously threatened. On the other hand, if the exit poll discrepancies are some internal error within the polls--were the sample sizes large enough? Were the exit pollsters really there, or just making up numbers in some places? Etc.--then they have to pause and say the polls were just wrong, and there's nothing wrong with the election system, either.
One other thing, is that there is play among the various exit polls, as to how "off" they are. Enough to suggest that Kerry may not have won the national Popular vote, but enough to suggest it was much, much closer than election stats are suggesting. And certainly not enough to suggest W. Bush won in the Electoral College. Overall, that raw exit poll data has major implications for the media and their advertisers. It suggests much about the mood of the "electorate"--which, after all, are the people who shop with their clients.
So, to get the Senators to act, we have to get the media to release that raw exit poll data. And for them to do that, they have to have enough solid data suggesting people are as unhappy with Bush, overall, as the raw exit polls were suggesting. Along with that, the more that can be found in Ohio, for example, in the way of solid stories about attempts at election rigging--the Toledo break-in, the Auglaize County computer tech incident, the Warren County lockdown, and the TRIAD computer tech incidents going into the recount--and the more we can show that the local media have "missed a story" there, in those, the more pressure the media will feel about this.
Because they recognize that they have a deadline. It's January 5, probably. Maybe even Jan 4. Monday is Jan. 3.
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