Some of you may have heard that Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post decided to 'move' OHIO from OBAMA to 'TOSSUP on his Electoral Map yesterday - and he offered possibly the lamest excuse for doing so in pundit history:
"...the absolute necessity for Romney to win the state if he wants to be president - leads us to move it back to the 'tossup' category."
When you can maneuver your jaw again, join me over the fold.
SAM WANG TAKEDOWN OF CHRIS
As I said yesterday, this amounts to a "I really, really want the race to be closer, so I am going to reassign states at random until OBAMA is below 270 again - despite reality.
Or, as Sam more succinctly puts it:
Cillizza is hardly alone. A few days ago, Wolf Blitzer at CNN cited a single Ohio poll, done by his own organization, showing Obama up by 4%. He then proceeded to call this a "tie," revealing an amazing inability to interpret a simple number. Compounding this is the fact that dozens of polls have been conducted in Ohio. The odds of an Obama lead are extremely high. So why does he persist?
The news media have an incentive to fuzz up the picture: ratings and profit. A message that the cake is fully baked does not automatically bring back the viewers. Without the artificial suspense, Cillizza and Blitzer are put in a position of having to say something substantive or interesting that gets beyond a horserace number. Think how much work that would be.
Or - in simpler terms - it is easier to sell beer and bras and boner pills when there are more views and clicks on your website - actual NEWS be damned.
When there is no news, we can always invent it.