A new survey found that more Americans know who Joe the Plumber is than about Barack Obama's ties to the radical group ACORN.
The same study released Wednesday by the highly-respected Pew Resesearch Center found that voters, by a margin of almost eight to one, believe media want Barack Obama to win on Election Day instead of John McCain.
Although it is typical the public feels journalists are pulling for the Democrat presidential candidate, the numbers this election cycle are nothing but astounding (emphasis added):
Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4. [...]
In recent presidential campaigns, voters repeatedly have said they thought journalists favored the Democratic candidate over the Republican. But this year's margin is particularly wide. At this stage of the 2004 campaign, 50% of voters said most journalists wanted to see John Kerry win the election, while 22% said most journalists favored George Bush. In October 2000, 47% of voters said journalists wanted to see Al Gore win and 23% said most journalists wanted Bush to win. In 1996, 59% said journalists were pulling for Bill Clinton.
Maybe more incredible, this bias is perceived -- and reported!!! -- by both sides of the aisle:
In the current campaign, Republicans, Democrats and independents all feel that the media wants to see Obama win the election. Republicans are almost unanimous in their opinion: 90% of GOP voters say most journalists are pulling for Obama. More than six-in-ten Democratic and independent voters (62% each) say the same.
And, finally, more interesting news about Joe the Plumber:
Almost two-thirds (64%) of the public heard a lot about "Joe the plumber" and another one-in-four heard a little about him.
Discussions tied to "Joe" made for one of the most widely heard about events of the campaign, comparable to the percentage who heard a lot about McCain's decision to temporarily suspend his campaign last month (65%) and Obama's visit to the Middle East and Europe in late July (62%). According to PEJ's Campaign Coverage Index, "Joe the plumber" was the third biggest campaign storyline last week, accounting for 8% of all campaign related news.
Fewer Americans have heard a lot about Obama's ties to ACORN, the community organizing group that has been accused of voter registration fraud. Still, roughly half (48%) have heard a lot about ACORN and ties to Obama and a third (34%) have heard a little about this story.
A solid majority of Republicans (60%) have heard a lot about ACORN, compared with fewer than half of Democrats (46%) and independents (43%).
I guess this tells us what the media feel is more important, dontcha think?
