We need a name for the annoying media tendency to take exit poll results from a Democratic primary and transpose that off-kilter liberal sample’s opinion as identical to public opinion. Tuesday night, Bob Schieffer was saying the exit poll results were bad news for the White House, as if Bush should be expected to find fans among the Dean voters.
Left out of the Schieffer-Russert-etc. analysis boosting this slanted sample is the political facts on the New Hampshire ground in 2002: voters elected Republican Gov. Craig Benson and Republican Sen. John Sununu easily, both in open-seat races, Sununu over the incumbent Governor, at a time when the economy was no doubt gloomier in the state, and the Dems were pounding the economy as their main theme.