May 27, 2004

More MM Misleading

Republican pollster Frank Luntz means little to me. I ignore pollsters and have found him dull when he's done live focus groups for MSNBC. So why do I care about a Media Matters post on him? Because it's another example of MM's "gotcha" tactics that amount to little. Given the post's title, "GOP pollster Luntz revealed Limbaugh's role in new survey" you'd think Rush organized some evil plot. Let me summarize the post: Rush asked Luntz to do a poll to see if Democrats preferred Sen. Hillary Clinton over Sen. John Kerry as their Presidential nominee. Luntz did it and released the results. MM then notes that Luntz has a checkered history (because he refused to release his Contract of America data), and he has admitted to releasing favorable poll results.

My response: Who cares? MM provides no evidence that this poll was manipulated in any way. That would require real research. The easist thing to do would be to just do a poll. If there's evidence that Luntz cooked the books then I'd like to know.

So, Andrew Seifter, the post's writer, has no argument against Luntz's poll. He just gives us some of the pollster's past with a few quotes from television and radio. But before calling it a day, Seifter has to mention that Luntz is an adjunct fellow with the Hudson Institute and did polling work for David Horowitz. In "progressive"/liberal circles, Horowitz's apostasy is unforgivable so linking Luntz to him smears him. Since Seifter really has nothing on Luntz he decides to do the guilt-by-association thing MM is becoming known for.

"GOP Pollster Luntz Revealed Limbaugh's Role in New Survey"