Laughter can be heard across the blogosphere after MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell declares Obama the big winner of Tuesday night's Wisconsin recall election, after parent network NBC called the race for Gov. Scott Walker over Democrat Tom Barrett, reports The Daily Caller.
“John Heilemann, I said at the top of the show that President Obama big winner tonight because in the exit polls we saw today that, they were asked, ‘Who would you for president today?’” O’Donnell explained. “Fifty-three percent in Wisconsin, 53 percent say President Obama. Only 42 percent say Mitt Romney. That is — if not the recall outcome — that outcome for President Obama has to be very encouraging.”
Let us look at the news aggregation from those same exit polls Lawrence is citing:
"Exit polls show the Wisconsin recall election on Tuesday is essentially tied between Republican Governor Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Tom Barrett, CNN said." (Source- Reuters)
Political Ticker, CNN headline "Exit Polls show Close Wisconsin Recall Race"
LA Times headlines "Exit polls show Wisconsin race a dead heat."
Once the recall election results started coming in, it became apparent that those exit polls were seriously flawed as Walker took an early lead and kept it throughout the night until the final results were announced and Walker won with a 7 percentage point lead.
This led to whole articles dedicated to pundits asking "What Happened?" as Washington Post titled their piece about how the exit polls were so wrong.
Even knowing the exit polls failed miserably to predict the outcome of the recall race, even after NBC declared Walker the winner, while the caption underneath the discussion was declaring Walker the projected winner, Lawrence O’Donnell still cited those same exit polls to declare Obama the winner because those respondents to the exit surveys chose Obama over Romney 53 to 42 percent?
It is understandable to quote exit polls, report on them, use them as some type of indicator, new and old media do it all the time, but using any portion of them after they have been proven flawed to such an extent, is beyond laughable.
[WATCH]
MSNBC coverage is the biggest loser of the Wisconsin recall election.