Day: July 7, 2010

Huffington Post Buys Pollster.com

Jon Ponder

NYT’s Media Decoder:

The Huffington Post is venturing into the wonky but increasingly popular territory of opinion poll analysis, purchasing Pollster.com, a widely respected aggregator of poll data that has been a major draw for the Web site of The National Journal.

The purchase is something of a coup for The Huffington Post, which has been making a more aggressive push into political journalism ahead of the midterm elections in November.

“It’s going to beef up our political coverage,” said Arianna Huffington, the Web site’s editor in chief and founder. “Polling, whether we like it or not, is a big part of how we communicate about politics. And with this, we’ll be able to do it in a deeper way. We’ll be able to both aggregate polls, point out the limitations of them and demand more transparency.”

Exciting news for poll geeks.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That’s something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It’s not something a typical person would bring up. That’s something that could happen, that makes sense. It’s not a joke.

— South Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene (D), in an interview with The Guardian, discussing his “big idea” to create jobs in his state.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

We’re going to do everything we can to get opinions from people, to meet with people, but I’m not going to set myself up for, you know, nuts to hit me with a camera and ask stupid questions.

— Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), quoted by the Wilkes-Barr Times Leader, on why he is no longer doing traditional town hall meetings.

Limbaugh Vents Racism at Oprah – Attributes Her Success Solely to White Guilt

Jon Ponder

See minute 04:00 for Limbaugh’s quote on Oprah

ESPN Fired Limbaugh in 2003 Because of Similar Racist Comments

Nastiness spews out of Rush Limbaugh like oil gushing out of the hole in the bottom of the Gulf:

[Rush] Limbaugh suggested Tuesday that Winfrey and other African-Americans owe their success to their skin color.

“If Obama weren’t black, he’d be a tour guide in Honolulu or he’d be teaching Saul Alinsky Constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago,” Limbaugh announced.

“He wouldn’t have been voted president if he weren’t black. Somebody asked me over the — oh, I need to remember. Somebody asked me over the weekend, why does somebody earn a lot of money, have a lot of money. I said it`s because he’s black,” he continued.

Limbaugh then went on to attack Winfrey. “It was Oprah. No, it can’t be. Yes, it is. There’s a lot of guilt out there. To show we’re not racist, we’ll make this person wealthy and big and famous and so forth,” said Limbaugh.

The paradox here is that, by every metric imaginable, Oprah Winfrey is more talented and successful than Rush Limbaugh will ever be.

Unlike Oprah, who earned her success by having a broad appeal and the substance to back it up, Limbaugh has a very limited appeal. As was noted here last year, “the average age of right-wing radio listeners is 67. It’s also truly not shocking that this demographic is also predominantly male. According to a Pew study in February, 72 percent of Limbaugh’s elderly listeners are men…”

[…]

Verbatim

Buck Banks

I mean this in a literal sense — it’s going to sound partisan, but I mean it literally: I know what the Republicans are against. I have no notion of what they’re for.

— Vice President Joe Biden, in an interview with Politico, on why Democrats will do better in the midterm elections than people now think.