The 26%-ers. And the conservative "number" lies.

I just read a thing at Instaputz that reminded me that I had wanted to link to Will Bunch's post on The 26 Percent Solution:

Today's magic number must be 26 -- as in 26 percent.

Because as if you ever needed proof that 26 percent of America -- that would be one out of every four people you see walking down the street, plus someone else's right ankle -- is totally bat-guano out-of-their-freakin'-minds crazy, check out this new poll just out:

The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?" The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Interestingly, it pairs nicely with this:

Respondents were asked: "When the president of the United States is traveling overseas, do you think it is appropriate for him to bow to a foreign leader if that is the country's custom or is it never appropriate for the president to bow to another leader?"

The numbers: Appropriate 67%, Never appropriate 26%. Even a majority of Republican respondents were okay with the bow, by a 53%-40% margin. Democrats weigh in at 84%-9%, and independents 62%-30%.

Now, how much do you wanna bet that those 26 percent in those two polls are EXACTLY THE SAME PEOPLE!!! These are people who might as well walk the earth in a bubble made of plastic and little speakers blaring Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh 24 hours a day. People who will buy into any two-bit conspiracy theory that gets repeated enough -- remember that a) Obama won the 2008 election by 9.8 million popular votes and b) the known number of actual known fraudulent votes cast because of the voter registration crimes by ACORN workers who got paid for name like Mickey Mouse is zero and c) it's a long way from 0 to 9.8 million. And people who are easily distracted by the shiny object -- like the alleged symbolism of a presidential bow -- that will always lead the Drudge Report over the real issues of the day.

Just today, I heard Mitch McConnell say:





that the current health care reform bill wasn't popular. (And let's presently leave alone what Broder has to say--those would be the opinions of a columnist who is really not to be accused of liberalism these days, let's just say that.) But he should know that in general, health care reform is desired by the majority of people, and that details like the public option are popularly-supported. He should know that the polling about things like the "public option" the he personally has an issue with are popular enough, because it's been pointed out to him, and he's discussed it.

So he picked the poll that supported what he had to say. Funny old things, numbers.

Apparently, numbers really can be biased, too. Like the difference between mainstream-media and conservative media estimates regarding the turn-out at basically conservative events--

The 9/12 Rally--the numbers were 60-70K for the MSM, over 1 million for the righties.

FOX News' Hannity Show recently was lambasted for using footage from that rally to inflate the numbers for Michele Bachmann's recent rally.

And then FOX did it again, using the wrong footage, this time from the 2008 campaign, to make it appear that the turnout for a Sarah Palin book-signing was larger than it was.



(Although that one was pretty obvious. I almost want to give them that that one is a "mistake"; after all, they do make mistakes--putting (D)'s after Republican pols' names after they've done something amiss, for example.)

At any rate, we are at a point where the GOP not only plays to a shrinking base, but even Democrats (the so-called "Blue Dogs") sometimes fail to recognize that the Democrats are in the majority, and that they really, really do have weight to throw around.(That weight being popular support, kind of what our government is founded on and what representation is all about.) I think they need to start doing it--to lead and to try and inform people about why they are taking the lead. To speak eloquently about how they are there in Washington to do the people's business--and they will! That it isn't "ramming" anything down anyone's throat--or whatever rape-fantasy metaphor a jackass like Glenn Beck might want to use.

Their numbers are misleading, and their people are being mislead. I agree with Bunch that leadership is the real solution.