Media Revives the Bipartisanship Con

By Rob Miller

Yesterday's Washington Post has a 3-pager purporting to show that independents favor cooperation between the two parties and less partisan warfare. The backbone is a study the Post did with the Kaiser Family Foundation that polled 3,000 randomly selected adults designed to "to explore the views of the growing number of people who decline to pledge allegiance to either party." We've seen what the WaPo's polls are like before, and as usual, the WaPo declines to post a link to the mechanics, but the entire flavor of the article can pretty much be sampled by the opener: President Obama and Mitt Romney are waging one of the most partisan campaigns in recent memory, energizing their bases with heated rhetoric and harsh tactics. But among political independents, some of the most prized voters in the electorate, speaking more softly about the other side may be a key to winning their support. This is insidious and biased on a number of levels. The entire theme of "a harsh, partisan campaign" was absent.... (Read Full Article)