WASHINGTON—A federal oversight committee opened hearings today into whether recent red state polls violated consumer protection laws by distributing highly concentrated, pure-grade hope to local Democrats. The investigation began after a series of surveys showed sudden statistical ties in traditionally conservative strongholds. Attorneys spent the morning questioning top data analysts to determine if these optimistic figures had any basis in physical reality or if they constituted a form of psychological cruelty.
PROSECUTOR: Please state your name and occupation for the record.
WITNESS: My name is Arthur Pendelton. I serve as the Director of Wishful Metrics at CNN Polling Services.
PROSECUTOR: Mr. Pendelton, on October 12, your firm published several red state polls. You claimed a statistical tie in Iowa. You also showed a narrow lead in Ohio. Is that correct?
WITNESS: Yes. That is what our computer models generated.
PROSECUTOR: Let the record show the witness is sweating. Mr. Pendelton, did you actually speak to a single living human being in Iowa?
WITNESS: We called landlines. We called thousands of them. Mostly, we spoke to corn. The corn seemed very receptive to a change in leadership. It whispered to us in the breeze.
PROSECUTOR: You entered data from corn into your official presidential model?
WITNESS: Corn has a very high turnout rate. It represents a key demographic in the region.
PROSECUTOR: Let us move to Ohio. Your red state polls gave local Democrats a two-point edge. How do you explain this when your own raw data consisted entirely of responses from one confused man named Greg?
WITNESS: Greg was very enthusiastic. He wore a blue hat. We weighted his opinion by a factor of four hundred thousand. It is standard industry practice. The The New York Times does it all the time with diner patrons.
PROSECUTOR: You gave millions of people hope based on Greg and some corn?
WITNESS: Hope is a very profitable commodity. Our traffic spikes whenever we suggest Texas might turn blue. We just needed to keep the dream alive until the next ad cycle. I swear, the entire political media ecosystem runs on this. We cannot stop. If we publish realistic numbers, the donors stop sending us money for our focus groups.
