You'll Never Guess Who's Second Among Evangelicals In Iowa

You'll Never Guess Who's Second Among Evangelicals In Iowa
Posted by Kathryn Muratore on December 30, 2011 07:40 PM

The front page of the WSJ today has an article titled Iowa's Evangelical Rift that relates a 3-way split of evangelical support between Bachmann, Perry, and Santorum. It references a CNN/Time poll that shows, "Mr. Romney leading the field and earning the support of more born-again voters than Mrs. Bachmann or Mr. Perry." Needless to say, Ron Paul is only mentioned to say that a group of pastors had dismissed him and Romney from the running.

Curious to see the results of the poll, I googled it. The top hit was this ABC news article titled Rick Santorum Jumps To Third In New CNN/Time Iowa Poll. In the second paragraph we learn that Santorum has 16%, compared to Paul's 22% and Romney's 25% overall. Among evangelicals, Santorum is indeed leading at 22%, but no other information is included.

After clicking through to the CNN/Time poll write-up itself, I finally found what I was now beginning to suspect:

...[Santorum] now tops the list among that crucial voting bloc, with support from 22% of born-agains compared to 18% for Paul, 16% for Romney, and 14% for Gingrich...

You can't make this stuff up! It's like a game of telephone where the players intentionally change the story to fit their own agenda.