I completely fail to see how polling employees of a corporation, admittedly a large one, requires an insane amount of resources and manpower. Depending on how you setup the poll, it could be done rather effectively through the corporation's and its subsidiary's email database... but their funding is available for the public on their website.
Alright, just for logistics sake- take 34 of your closest friends from Facebook, head on down to Best Buy, and see how many of their 100 employees are even willing to tell you that they voted, let alone who they voted for and where, if anywhere, they donated money. I think you'll be surprised at how difficult getting people to relinquish that information actually is- and that's just retail. You're talking about News Corp, a considerably larger and politically charged entity, where no one would be under any obligation to discuss with anyone where they donated money, let alone where their
family members donated money. My point in saying this that likely as not this wasn't a study- it was a sampling; out of 25 or 50 News Corp direct contributions, contributions from employees and their family members who voted and donated money to a campaign,
that was the number they came up with... not exactly as accurate as calculating gravity. The Sunlight Foundation has 34 employees as of right now and they've only been around since 2006. For what you've quoted to be credible beyond reproach I'd need a little more data than what's been provided insofar as how they pulled it off.
All of those are exaggerations or false, even. He admitted that the only thing he could effectively do as president is bring the troops home.
Again, beside the point I was trying to make- I even went so far as to say they were likely exaggerations in some cases. But you Google his name for a list of quotes and what do you get but commentary from over the years on those topics, regarded in a way by bloggers and the media as "extreme" and out of touch with reality.
That is his public perception to the people who are actually going to vote (rather than abstain after years of voting Green and getting nowhere) on election day. Which leads to the final point...
You've merely supplied a circular argument and haven't gone to the bottom at all about why his statements are out of touch with reality. Seems kinda pointless to use the same perception created by the media as the basis for why the media puts him in a bad light.
His own statements, where they have been quoted accurately and in full or not, have given the media all they need to eviscerate his credibility. The damage is done. It would have been the same story for anyone else commenting in the fashion he has commented on the topics he has chosen to engage over the years. If you want to be elected you have to play the game and regardless of whether or not his statements and stances on various governmental topics are sound, they've been presented in such a fashion as make it clear he has no ability to navigate the politics.
How unneseccary. When did I say he stood a chance to win?
You didn't. I'm saying that the damage to these candidates is done. Voting for them now isn't a vote for their issues so as to bright light to obscured and forgotten. It's essentially doing the same thing as writing in any other candidate you happen to think of as measured and reasonable (like my Nana); an effort completely in vain. Get a candidate who carries his common sense approach and hasn't been portrayed as somewhat crazy to the electorate successfully and we'll talk.
JSZ