Again – I eschew conspiracy theories. \u00a0I really, truly do.<\/p>\n
But let’s look at some possibly (?) unconnected factoids:<\/p>\n
Who’s The Outlier? <\/strong>The Rasmussen Poll has been broadly <\/em>accurate, nationwide, for the past couple of years. \u00a0This past year or so, it’s been chronicling a rise in GOP sentiment nationwide. \u00a0It’s been especially interesting watching it chart Barack Obama’s fall from polling grace; on a given week, Rasmussen may show Obama a point or two lower than every other poll; lefties chant “It’s the Fox<\/em>mussen poll!”; a week or two later, Gallup\/Quinnipiac\/Marist settle in at the numbers Rasmussen had, while Rasmussen shows another point drop. \u00a0Lather, rinse, repeat.<\/p>\n Pattern Of Behavior<\/strong>: The Star Tribune <\/em>editorial board is liberal. \u00a0That usually, but not exclusively, means “DFL”; there’s a running rumor that the Strib <\/em>editorial board is talking about endorsing Tom Horner (a fiendishly clever plan, really; ;they can brag they “endorsed a Republican”, while actually supporting someone whose policies are moderate-DFL). \u00a0Above all, they do not want Tom Emmer <\/em>as governor.<\/p>\n Institutional Imperative: <\/strong>The Hubert H. Humphrey Institute is a part of the U of Minnesota. \u00a0It’s a building on the campus that is as clogged with left-of-center academics and pseudoacademics and past-their-shelf-life DFL politicians as any building in the state this side of Saint Paul City Hall. \u00a0It’s a safe bet they don’t want Tom Emmer as governor – especially given that “higher education” is the only area where Emmer’s budget makes substantial, actual cuts in the state budget.<\/p>\n Follow The Budget Cut: <\/strong>Tom Emmer has spoken about the commensense case for withdrawing state subsidies from Minnesota Public Radio.<\/p>\n It’s not like they don’t get plenty of money. \u00a0MPR’s studios are to regular commercial stations (or even less well-heeled public stations) as “CTU” from 24<\/em> was to a regular police station. \u00a0When I was at KSTP, someone doing my job (or maybe a little less) at MPR made 50% more than I did; I’m not sure if MPR’s salaries have skyrocketed, but I do know that the salaries in commercial radio have not. \u00a0And MPR’s \u00a0reach goes waaaay <\/em>beyond Minnesota\u00a0with stations<\/a> in Michigan and…um, Sun Valley Idaho? \u00a0Why, yes<\/a>; there’s a longstanding rumor in local broadcast circles that the Sun Valley station was built with the aid of a generous contribution from one Dayton family that didn’t want to miss “Praire Home Companion” while out on the slopes.<\/p>\n MPR staff will respond “but our subsidy isn’t that big!” \u00a0So if the subsidy isn’t that big, and your organization is diong so very, very well, perhaps it is <\/em>something they could give up For A Better Minnesota? Anyway –\u00a0MPR faces a choice; a governor with sympathies toward allowing MPR to go its own way, or one that is, let’s just say, a top contributor.<\/p>\n (And yes, I repeat – I do believe MPR News <\/em>does an acceptable job of seeking balance and detachment. \u00a0Not perfect – nobody is – but they take a better shot at it than the Strib<\/em>. \u00a0That said, Tom Scheck, why hasn’t <\/em>anyone gone over Mark Dayton’s budget with a fine-tooth comb?)<\/p>\n ———-<\/p>\n I’m not saying that any of these factors mean that the Strib, the Humphrey Institute or MPR would commission polls that, a month before the election, would present skewed numbers to build up voter turnout for the party that was most likely to support them.<\/p>\n I”m just saying that if they did, <\/em>I’m not sure how the poll results would be any different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Again – I eschew conspiracy theories. \u00a0I really, truly do. But let’s look at some possibly (?) unconnected factoids: Who’s The Outlier? The Rasmussen Poll has been broadly accurate, nationwide, for the past couple of years. \u00a0This past year or so, it’s been chronicling a rise in GOP sentiment nationwide. \u00a0It’s been especially interesting watching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13913,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13912\/revisions\/13913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}