Susan Vass (i.e., Ammo Grrrll) invited me to appear as the first of three keynote speakers at her annual Commenter Conference this past August. Steve Hayward and Anthony Lucido appeared on the following days as keynote speakers two and three.
Susan had been writing her humor column for Power Line for 12 years. I answered her call because we owed her, even though my remakrs didn’t even make a dent in our debt to her. This is the first of a few posts conveying the substance of the speech I gave.
I accepted Susan’s invitation as soon as she extended it. There was only one problem. I’ve been writing for Power Line every day now for more than 23 years. I have no unexpressed thoughts left to share. Trying to gauge the volume of my expressed thoughts, I turned to Google AI. AI resorted to our archives for an answer:
Author Archives: Scott Johnson – Powerline Blog and Scott Johnson | Power Line | Page 207. The existence of multiple pages, including a page 207, suggests a substantial quantity of posts over time.
While the precise number is not readily available through public search results, the available information indicates that Scott Johnson is a frequent and prolific contributor to Power Line.
Right you are, sir.
John and I started Power Line over Memorial Day weekend 2002. We had been writing together under a joint byline for ten years in op-ed columns and magazine articles. John was inspired by InstaPundit to start the site. He asked me to join him the weekend he set it up.
Writing from outside for publication by third parties, we had to interest an editor in what we had to say. We wanted to combine our research and writing skills from practicing law in a way that would serve a public purpose by bringing lesser known facts to light. We knew our opinions weren’t enough.
Writing online was a new experience. We didn’t have to worry about interesting an editor at a mainstream publication. We didn’t have to worry about getting scooped while our drafts were under review. I acquired a new appreciation for instant gratification — and found that it’s habit forming to boot. All we were missing was readers, but within a few months we had a few hundred. That was enough for me.
One of John Updike’s numerous short stories featuring his fictional alter ego Henry Bech is titled “Three Illuminations in the Life of an American Author.” I want to offer you “Four Illuminations in the Life of an Online Scribe” — four anecdotes with a concluding thought on each.
I. The Minnesota Poll
The Minneapolis Star Tribune had its own poll from 1987-2007. It routinely overrepresented Democrats and underrepresented Republicans. The poll was run from inside the Star Tribune by Rob Daves.
You could see the discrepancy between polls and election results. It was kind of obvious and kind of outraging. The Minnesota Poll on the 2020 presidential election was classic. In the published poll on the Sunday before the election, Daves showed Gore winning Minnesota by 8.5 percent. In the actual results, Gore carried Minnesota by 0.5 percent — by 1/2 percent.
I was so upset that I called Daves and asked about it. Do you remember what happened the week before the election? President Bush was leading in the polls — not in the Minnesota Poll, but in the national polls — and then the story of his 1976 drunk driving arrest was leaked on November 2. The leak was carefully timed. The election was held on November 7 that year. The impact of the story produced the election that wound up in the Supreme Court because it was so close. It was even close in Minnesota.
What did Daves have to say? He said that Bush had a strong closing finish in Minnesota. I thought that was laughable. If so, it was the only state in the country where Bush increased his support in the week before the election — highly unlikely, to say the least.
I didn’t write anything about my conversation with Daves, but I held on to my notes. In 2002 — by this time we had Power Line up and running — Daves was reporting in the Minnesota Poll that Paul Wellstone had a big lead over Norm Coleman in September that year.
My friend Ben Whitney was Norm Coleman’s campaign manager. I asked him if Daves’s results gibed with their internal polling. He said no. Ben said that they were running neck and neck with Wellstone. He faxed me their internal polling and I posted it on Power Line.
A friend drew Hugh Hewitt’s attention to what I had reported on Poewr Line. Hugh started talking about it on his syndicated drive-time radio show. He interviewed John. He came to town and had a special Saturday Twin Cities show with John and me the weekend before the election. It was our first significant recognition of the site.
I wrote a column that RealClearPolitics kindly published under the title “The trouble with the Star-Trib poll.” I couldn’t find it online when I was researching my remarks. I recall writing in the column that the Star Tribune poll had been “verified as false” — as the recorded announcement following fire alarms at the City Center in downtown Minneapolis puts it.
In 1987 the Star Tribune let Daves go. It now subcontracts its polling to others.
Illumination 1 — it’s obvious: My hatred of the Star Tribune has driven me on for the past 23 years.
