(SO LONG AS EVERY VOTE DOESN’T GET CAST...)

In our opinion, there are only three possible explanations for the media "calling" the election for Al Gore in 2000, which was premature, and as it turned out, incorrect. The first possibility is incompetence or mistake. Somebody screwed up, and all the other networks jumped off the cliff behind them, with all of them claiming Gore had won. Somebody didn’t do their job, and that was the case at each network that repeated the incorrect "call."

The second possibility is greed. The news business is a business, and a highly competitive one, despite the platitudes of "guarding the people’s freedoms" and stuff like that being the stated reasons for the networks’ existence. All of them wanted to be "first" in proclaiming who had won, so somebody made that call prematurely, in their greediness to lead the way, and they were wrong. The rest of the networks followed suit, since no one wanted to be left behind.

The third possibility is the most disturbing. Given the tremendous liberal bias exhibited by Big Media over the years, particularly since the campaign of Bill Clinton in 1992 up to the present (but even prior to then), we cannot help but have the following opinion–and, this is opinion– we tend to think this third possibility is the most likely one of the three: The media wanted the result they "pronounced." In an effort to help Gore get "over the top" and win the election, they said he had won the election. Despite the fact that we recall our TV screen having a box in the corner that said something to the effect, "FLORIDA: Bush 52% / Gore 46%," when the media said it was "over" and that Gore had won. Huh? How can that be, we recall saying.

The panhandle area of Florida is largely in the Central Time Zone. The polls were open until 7pm central time in that area of Florida, which was a Bush stronghold–he was polling upwards of 70% in that part of the state. When the media made its "call" for Gore, there was 45 to 50 minutes of voting time remaining in that time zone.

That left us with a series of questions, which no one we know of in the media ever attempted to really answer after all this was over. First, how many votes in that central time zone area of Florida did the media cost Bush with its "call" for Gore? The ultimate result had Bush only a few hundred votes ahead of Gore. Without the "call," would that margin have been several thousand?

So many people accept whatever they hear on TV as the truth, and eight years ago that may have been more true than it is now, since today many of us are much more aware of Big Media’s liberal bias. How many people heard that "result" and decided there was no point in stopping by the voting precinct on their way home from work and voting for Bush, or leaving home and getting down there to cast their vote? Since it was "over," according to "the TV," what point was there?

The next questions move us westward across the country. When the media made its "call," voting was still going on in the central, mountain, and pacific time zones, with almost two hours of voting left in the mountain states and nearly three hours left in the pacific states. At the time the media called the election for Gore, there were 35 of our 50 states still voting, as they were either not in the eastern time zone or only partially so, such as Florida and Tennessee.

Gore won the popular vote nationwide by about 544,000 votes out of over 104 million cast. If an average of 15,543 Bush would-be voters in each of those 35 states stayed home after hearing the media’s "pronouncement" of Gore as the winner, then the popular vote was greatly affected by this call, as well as the electoral vote, since some states went to Gore by only a few thousand votes or less. For example, Gore won Iowa by less than 4,200 votes (7 electoral votes), New Mexico by 366 votes (5 electoral votes), Oregon by less than 7,000 votes (7 electoral votes) and Wisconsin by less than 5,800 (11 electoral votes). If the media’s "call" cost Bush all four of those states, then his electoral total should have been 301 to Gore’s 236, rather than the actual total of 271 to 266.

So, how many votes across the nation did the media cost Bush with its "call"? How different would the popular vote have been if the media had done its job properly? How different would the electoral vote have been? We’ll never know, but we do know a couple of other things.

For one, the often-repeated claim of the Left, that Bush was "illegally" elected, is a myth, and downright false. There’s no telling how many more votes Bush would have gotten–and perhaps states he would have won–had the media not done what it did. As to that average of some 15,000 votes per state, think of how many precincts there are in an average state–a bunch of them. That’s not that many votes per precinct that could have made up the 15,000 in a given state–and Gore’s margin of victory was much less than that in the four states listed above.

There’s also the issue of just how many fraudulent votes were cast across the country, and what effect that had on the vote totals–though we’ll never know that, either. As can be seen from above, if there were a mere 400 improperly cast votes in New Mexico in favor of Gore, the outcome of that state would have been determined by those improper votes.

Did that actually happen? We don’t know, but today we are disturbed by the stories of alleged voter fraud that may be occurring in "battleground" states and others around the country. However, voter fraud is a topic that doesn’t hold much interest to Big Media currently.

Ultimately, we don’t know which of those three explanations for the media’s "call" is the actual one. Regardless, the fact that the "call" happened, and the way it did, is enough reason to "turn off" the Big Media networks.

Ancient history, you say? What difference does that make now? We think it is important to learn lessons from history, so the same mistakes or actions don’t get repeated–or if they do, we are at least wise as to what is going on. The 2008 election may come down to the electoral vote of a single state, as it supposedly did in 2000.

Will Big Media make another early "call" this time around? Perhaps in favor of its favorite candidate? We don’t know, but we think there is a strong likelihood that it will. Many in Big Media are already acting like it is "over" almost a month away from Election Day – when so much can still happen between now and then. Remember how disappointed some in Big Media acted on Election Night 2004, when they had to keep announcing state after state for Bush, over Kerry? We can only imagine they must be chomping at the bits today, eager to "call" state after state for Obama, based on, say, four or five per cent of the vote.

We won’t hold our breath waiting for someone in Big Media to tell us that at this point in the race in 1980, Ronald Reagan was still well behind Jimmy Carter in the "polls" (gee, sounds kind of like today, huh?) – yet Reagan ultimately won, and did so decisively. Big Media and the Obama campaign wish that the election was today – but since it isn’t, the next best thing for them is to act like "it’s in the bag" for their candidate.

Whatever you do, don’t fail to cast your vote on the basis of anything Big Media says between now and Election Day! Or on Election Day itself! It is obvious who Big Media wants to have in the White House, and his name is not John McCain. Do you think for a minute that the election results "coverage" by Big Media will have any meaningful level of objectivity?

That brings to mind the 2004 election. We recall that one network had election day "exit polls" in Florida that said John Kerry was several points ahead, when in truth and in fact, he was several points behind, and Bush won that state comfortably. How did that happen? Bad polling? A big "mistake" on someone’s part? Hmmm. We also recall seeing one single news analyst on another network question that, who stated the possibility that this network wanted that result, so that is what showed. Given that the previous election had come down to the result in Florida, that made an impression on us. We never heard anyone else mention that exit poll again. It certainly wasn’t the subject of any "investigative" news story by the offending network.

We think Big Media does the nation a disservice by "projecting" the results of the election while people are still voting. The media should report the actual results as they receive them, but it is past time for them to "lay off" saying who is going to win when only a small percentage of the vote has been reported–especially in close elections–and particularly when so much of the country is still voting.

We were in Great Britain some years ago when races for Parliament were held. We watched in amazement as the three major candidates for a particular seat all appeared on the same stage, and the election result was announced, then and there. You can imagine the tension and excitement. No one had a clue who had won until the announcement. There were no "talking heads" telling us who was going to win based on 4% of the vote or upon some "exit poll" commissioned by that network. Wouldn’t it be something to have that here? What would the media do with themselves while we all waited? Wouldn’t you like to find out?

What will happen this time around? We don’t know, and we can only hope and pray that fairness rules the day, though we unfortunately have plenty of reasons (spelled "A-C-O-R-N") to believe it won’t. But here’s the point: the fact that there is even a reason to question what Big Media has done in the past on Election Day, and have fear of what they will do on this one, does not speak well of too much of the media in this country. Especially since they have little or no interest in investigating alleged voter fraud. To Big Media, ACORN is apparently nothing more than something that falls from a tree.

Remember, no matter what they say, go vote!