@edhenrycnn overhypes "bad" polling news for @MarthaCoakley... and I'm sick of it. He's cherry-picking the seemingly bad without any perspective or balance in what he's tweeting out.
From Ed Henry's Twitter feed:
RT @ppppolls Brown edge is 72-24 among voters with neg. view of both D's and R's: http://tinyurl.com/... // there go indepndent voters?
OMFG. Where do I start? I'll start over the fold.
@edhenrycnn - I have too much to say to reply to you on twitter, so since it appears you read Daily Kos, I'll hit the high points here.
"Voters with negative view of both D's and R's" does NOT equate to independents. It just doesn't. That last little bit of the tweet, "there go indepndent voters?" was added by you and is flatly idiotic. Independents are independents - it doesn't logically chain that they are independent because they have negative views of both R's and D's. Sending that out in a re-tweet without kind of noting something so obvious is pretty bad.
@edhenrycnn also doesn't extract this:
Massachusetts Race Still Close
That's the title of the PPP report. And this:
"Brown has a small advantage right now but special elections are unusually volatile and Martha Coakley is certainly still in this," said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. "She just needs to get more Democrats out to he polls."
Crickets to that on @edhenrycnn's Twitter feed.
@edhenrycnn may still be planning to fall back on - you know - investigative reporting and stuff. I'm leaving myself open to that option. He might tweet this mere moments from now:
@MarthaCoakley with D's outnumbering R's more than 3 to 1 in 2008, you're still in this. http://bit.ly/...
He could follow up that tweet with a discussion of the fact that while some 37% of registered voters in MA are identified as Democrats (compared to 12% identified as Republicans), some 51% of MA voters are considered "unenrolled" - which equates to "No Party" specified. From there, he could - you know - do math and stuff and consider whether the "No Party" people are the same as Independents and whether the registration distribution allows Coakley a great chance at winning tomorrow (it does). At least it would be more balanced. But somehow I doubt it unless he lifts it from this diary, which he's more than welcome to do (consider that permission, @edhenrycnn).
@edhenrycnn might also be poring through other polls right now. This one might be worthy of discussion. It might prompt the following tweet:
@markos R2K poll for Daily Kos shows @MarthaCoakley tied with @ScottBrownMA. It's close folks!
But no - he hasn't done that. In fact, here's his latest tweet:
RT @ktumulty coakley rally, to start in five mins in midschool gym, is 3/4 empty. they pulled curtain across middle of gym. #masen // yikes
Niiiice. I take it we'll be getting a tweet about the relative fullness or empty-ness of a Scott Brown rally presently?
I have a problem characterizing people with a negative view of D's and R's as "Independents". Some may be independents - others may simply be apathetic and won't vote at all. It's a vacuous, shallow and lazy statement. I don't have a problem with highlighting excerpts from a poll as long as a) that poll is represented accurately and not cherry-picked and twisted around; and b) other polls which similar or contradictory results are also highlighted. I do have a problem with breathlessly re-tweeting rally attendance as some kind of harbinger of the election's outcome. It may be - or it may have nothing to do with it at all. Again - vacuous, shallow, and lazy.
But hey - @RenaRF doesn't expect much more from @edhenrycnn. After all - this is the same guy who somehow thinks that Obama tried to buy the media's favoritism with a beer.
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Wouldn't it be DELICIOUS to make Ed Henry look like an even bigger fool tomorrow?? Call Five Massachusetts Voters TONIGHT. There are FAR MORE registered Democrats than Republicans in MA. Turning out OUR vote will offset the theoretical issue with Independents favoring Brown. GOTV!!