CNN's Squeaker Looks Not So Squeaky

I can't have been the only who noticed Wolf Blitzer talking, as the Wisconsin polls closed, about how shockingly "head-to-head" the race had turned out even as early returns showed Scott Walker's lead over Tom Barrett grow ever larger. Even as the words "fifty-fifty" were uttered, the actual results were more like 53-46, and then 57-42, and suddenly CNN's screen was filled with Union Jacks and coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

I mean, I like idle, inbred aristocrats as much as the next citizen of a country that fought a revolutionary war to establish a republic that wasn't ruled by a monarch, but c'mon.

Oh, look! Wolf just called it for Walker!

Comments

[gaijin]

trying to convince themselves that they will have an audience late into the evening.

[JimDee]

I want to see Blitzer spitted and roasted over a fire made of Wall St. and DC.

[mr simple]

I turned to CNN early on to see results but could only take about 10 seconds of the Blitz. I switched to Fox News where they just yell at each other and you can't understand what anyone is saying.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Wolfstream media.

[johnl]

Squirrel!

[Voros McCracken]

I wonder how Cronkite would have done

[Fist of Etiquette]

For no matter how silly the idea of having a queen might seem to us...

[Sevo]

Wolf: "it's neck and neck!"
Dogs have no shame, neither does this guy. Put him in a party hat and parade him around on pet's day.

[Sevo]

Why not?
The Chmoical claims, well, something:
"Post-Wisconsin Spin, Part I: Obama beating Romney in exit polls"

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05el.....lls/?tsp=1
Hey, silver linings for shithead Co.!

[John Thacker]

It is interesting, I think, that such a large percentage of declared Obama voters voted for Walker. How much is opposition to recalls on principle?

[Fatty Bolger]

It's opposition to raids on their wallets. The reforms worked.

IMO the same phenomenon will play itself out in November. A good number of people will say they are voting for Obama right up until it's time to pull the trigger, and then it will be "I just can't afford 4 more years of this."

[Bright Bulb]

Those exit polls showed Obama winning the state... but also showed it being a close election. Huh. defective polling?

[John Thacker]

Yes, but the non-exit polls from earlier showed Walker winning the recall... but also showed Obama winning the state. There seems to be a significant crossover contingent.

[Drake]

I was at the gym last night. Every time I looked over at CNN, one line said "Race too close to call" or "Neck and neck".

Meanwhile, the actual results were rolling past on the bottom - showing a very different story.

[YigdaHig]

So, who comes up with all this crazy stuff. Wow.

http://www.Privacy-Not.tk

[Agammamon]

Even if Walker had lost it would still have been a huge blow to the PS unions. Dues have been drying up ever since funding the union became voluntary. Not only were new personnel not opting-in, current employees started optin-out.

Revealed preference showing that even WI's PS union members didn't think the union was doing much for the money they took.

[Franklin Harris]

That didn't keep MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell from calling it a "squeaker" when it was a 15-point spread.

[el polacko]

the cnn pundits were scrambling to make excuses for the vote results and pooh-poohing the whole thing as "just of local interest" (despite their own wall-to-wall coverage) when they made the mistake of, in the interest of 'fairness' i suppose,asked a repub what he thought. no sooner had the gentleman said that the results were extremely bad news for both the unions and obama, he was abruptly cut-off and told "we have to go" and, five minutes or so later (and after noting that exit polls in wisconsin favored obama), cnn switched to coverage of the queen. their distress could not have been more obvious.