I think it's pretty obvious in the effort to "sell" the campaign they were trying to build up the battle in PA.. The reporter did misrepresent the on site poll, but it seems more in anticipation of an expected outcome. He corrected somewhat by saying " a lil' heavier towards Obama right now" .. an understatement but I think it falls short of bias. Every network is bias one way or another, Fox compared to the likes of NBC, ABC and CBS and CNN is Fair and balanced. Of course, it'd be great if they each had impeccable journalistic quality.. but that's not the case.
I think at times Fox does shift a bit to the right - but that's because the more conservative arguments help win people to them when presented in strong factual base. That said partly in jest, but partly serious too. Juan Williams is a good case in point, as is Mort Kondracke. They both have been solidly on the Liberal side for years. But over the past couple, few years they've both moderated a bit. Falls right in line with that saying:
"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."
With our modern-day greater life expectancy, that probably needs to be bumped out to say, 35 & 50.
Brian Wilson is doing what he does - going out and meeting with people in their normal day settings. He loves to do the "Town Hall" meeting coverages, and likes to use the same type format.
The criticism and "gotcha" attitude of News Hounds is totally unsurprising. That's just a lib thing. The quality of the video has deteriorated
with multiple edits/transfers. With one camerman shooting it is a bit hard to tell. But I watched it four times. I counted 8-9 people at the one end (we'll call it the west side) and the 7-8 others to his back when he asked for the show of hands on the east side and 2 more to the "north", with one woman moving that way right to left. The camera showed one angle, Brian and the people on the east side.
Who for McCain? I love the old guy with his wife at a table; he raises his hand for McCain and she is swatting it down. That was definitely a hanging chad vote. There were two arm movements over to Brians' right, possibly two more there. There were still based on the earlier count 10-12 people not in camera range, so we've no way of knowing what they indicated.
Who for Obama? The same lady who swatted her husband's arm down now pushes his up, and raises both of her own. Can't count granny's twice, so there are 7 hands up, with one of the guys to the north leaning his up late, or asking for a coffee refill...
Using the areas polling numbers to extrapolate. There is about 5.5% advantage to Obama +/- 3, so it's pretty close to the margin of error. Seems to be 20 people total in cafe. Keeps it simple here, too. We don't know for sure how many raised their hand for McCain (except the one man who got shot down by his wife). The ones we could see there were 7 that we could see. That leaves 13 unaccounted for. RCP numbers 58.7% so of the 13 we can count on 11.5 total, or 4.5 more than we could see.8.6 based on the polled number of 43.2 is a reasonable number with 10-12 people out of site but possibly raising hands for McCain.
Unless there is more video floating around, and showing other angles with clear raised hand indicators, I'd say that Brians assessment and statement are totally Fair and Balanced. He saw what he saw, and made the call accordingly.
