Calling the Vote Before the Ballots Have Been Cast

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Barack Obama has a problem: He's going to sweep so many Democrats into Congress that he will "face high expectations," as the New York Times put it, to deliver on his promises.

Obama will attempt to fashion a "new New Deal," most likely with Larry Summers as his Treasury secretary, New York magazine says.

"John McCain's defeat will be a lonely one," Newsweek reports, but Sarah Palin could revive the Republican Party for 2012.

So much for the formality of next week's election. Many pundits and publications seem so certain of a big Democratic win that they're exploring the intricacies of an Obama administration and whether the party will have a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate.

"If the mainstream media are wrong about Obama and the voters pull a Truman, that is going to be the end of whatever shred of credibility they have left," says Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of Boston University's College of Communication.

Cokie Roberts says she resisted a request to talk about Palin and the GOP's future on National Public Radio yesterday because it was premature. For journalists, she says, "you're kind of at the point where you've said everything there is to say. We've gone through the voter groups, the issues, the running mates, the profiles of the spouses. Now you get to the last week, the polls don't seem to be budging, and it becomes: 'What else am I going to talk about?' "

If, as a former McCain strategist put it to Politico, "the cake is baked" for his man's defeat, it's fair to ask whether the media have provided the flour, the frosting and the candles.

To be sure, the forward-looking pieces in the Times, New York magazine, Newsweek and elsewhere are sprinkled with caveats about "if" Obama wins and the "possibility" of a Democratic sweep. But the lack of similar speculation about a McCain administration makes clear which way the journalism world is leaning.

"Everyone wants to be the first to call it, to see the next thing around the corner," says Slate correspondent John Dickerson.

Given mounting signs of the Democratic nominee's strength in key battleground states, he says, "we're not crazy to think it's all going Obama's way." But, Dickerson says, "we've seen how this can go horribly wrong when you call the thing too early, and voters find it offensive when journalists skip over the event the voters are supposed to be taking part in."

Reporters and commentators invariably point to polls that have given Obama a comfortable lead nationwide and in such previously red states as Virginia, Iowa and New Hampshire.

But there has been great variation in the plethora of polls financed by media organizations, and several have been tightening. A Washington Post-ABC tracking poll yesterday had Obama ahead by seven percentage points, down from an 11-point margin one week ago. The latest Rasmussen and Zogby surveys give Obama a five-point edge.

"The media still misunderstand and, to a great degree, still misrepresent polls," veteran pollster John Zogby says. "It's a cliche, but what we offer is a snapshot in time. We don't predict, can't predict." He says the greatest differences among pollsters are the way they select and weight their voter samples. Zogby, for instance, reports figures only for likely voters -- which requires projections based on turnout models -- while others include all registered voters or all adults.

Polls have led journalists astray before. As recently as the middle of last December, Hillary Clinton led Obama by 30 points in a Post poll, while Rudy Giuliani was the GOP front-runner. Weeks later, the polls led many pundits to predict that Clinton would lose the New Hampshire primary, which would leave the former first lady's campaign "gasping for breath," as The Post put it on the morning of the primary. Clinton won and revived her candidacy.

Pack journalism also plays a role. When McCain ran into fundraising and staffing problems in the summer of 2007, virtually the entire press corps agreed that his chances of winning the GOP nomination were nil.

Critics, including many conservatives, say the media have been too easy on Obama, and bias cannot be discounted as a factor. A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that from the end of the conventions through the debates, McCain's coverage was more than three times as negative than Obama's.

Journalists say it would be a disservice to readers and viewers to ignore, in the name of balance, the trends that prompted even former White House aide Karl Rove to declare Sunday on Fox News that McCain has "got a very steep hill to climb."

"The Republican nominee's path to the presidency is now extremely precarious and may depend on something unexpected taking control of a contest that appears to have swung hard toward Barack Obama," Dan Balz wrote in The Post on Friday.

The Boston Globe's Scott Helman reported Sunday that "there is an unmistakable sense among Obama's aides, many supporters, pundits, and people around the nation that, barring something dramatic, he will be the 44th president of the United States," but quickly questioned whether "the flock of polls that show Obama well ahead [are] simply wrong, as polls sometimes are." In the Times, Adam Nagourney took pains to note last week that McCain's aides, "as well as some outside Republicans and even a few Democrats, argue that he still has a viable path to victory."

The punditry about Palin also sends a not-so-subtle signal. New Republic columnists have been arguing about whether the Alaska governor will win the GOP nomination in 2012. Others in the media have given a megaphone to unnamed sources to attack or defend Palin without having their names attached. Politico quoted an unnamed Palin ally as saying that she feels "completely mismanaged and mishandled and ill-advised" by campaign officials. CNN quoted an unnamed McCain adviser as calling Palin a "diva." The underlying assumption is that blame must be parceled out for the ticket's defeat next week.

Still, cautionary tales abound. On the eve of the 2004 election, Zogby predicted that John Kerry would beat President Bush, a move he now attributes to "hubris and naivete."

After Bush won, Zogby says, "I wasn't in a fetal position, but I vowed I wouldn't do that again. And I haven't."