Rove v. NPR

Ron Brynaert, The Raw Story:

During a National Public Radio interview, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove "duked it out" with the host over polling data, RAW STORY has learned.

The exchange took place yesterday during the White House's scheduled "Radio Day."

After midterm election interviewer Robert Siegel stated that "many might consider you on the optimistic end of realism" regarding Republican hopes to retain both Houses in November, Rove suggested that the NPR host was biased.

"Not that you would be exhibiting a bias or anything like that," Rove said. "You're just making a comment."

"I'm looking at all the same polls that you're looking at every day," Seigel responded

"No you're not!" Rove exclaimed.

Rove said that he was reviewing 68 polls a week, and that "unlike the general public, I'm allowed to see the polls on the individual races," as opposed to public polls reported in the media.

"You may be looking at four or five public polls a week that talk about attitudes nationally, but that do not impact the outcome," Rove said.

Rove claimed that the polls "add up to a Republican Senate and a Republican House."

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There is also a link to the full transcript. Obviously there must be something in the 68 polls that Rove is seeing that is very different from the public polls. If he is right, the public pollsters are going to have to reevaluate their methods of polling. There have been some pretty significant differences between the public polls also this year, but when you average them all out in the Real Clear Politics combination it still favors the Democrats.

Finding out what is in the 68 that Rove sees would be a very interesting story. It should be pointed out that Rove polling was significantly more accurate in 2004 than the media polls and even the exit polls. We have to hope he is right again.