Session: 1234567891011121314151617         Page 365366367368369370371372373374375376377378379380381382383384385386387388389390391392393394395396397398399400401402403404405406407408409410411412413414415416417418419 of 755

it, and if you deployed the people properly and you could trust them to phone in -- What our people did was to get the raw data right in the precinct, before it was taken to headquarters, get it into a statistical model, and by processing that model, come up and say the vote might be thirty percent, but on the basis of thirty percent of the precincts, it looks like it's going to be Mr. X, with so much percent in the final analysis. It drove the politicians crazy, it drove publishers crazy, because we were coming up with information way before the raw data came up.

Now, the raw data were also being assembled by each network. I like to think we played it on the square, I like to think one of the other networks didn't have the statistical skills that we had, or the deployment of personnel. When they got a number of so many thousand votes, they would apply a factor of ten to it, to elevate the vote, so they had bigger numbers than we had. It was stupid on all of our parts, and that later became something else that we, CBS, pioneered (although we had to bring the others along with us), which was to pool all of our figures so we all came up with the same number. Now, that took an enormous amount of negotiation with Washington, because the Department of Justice said that was in violation of the Wright-Patman Act, I guess, and that we could only do that if a representative of the Department of Justice sat in the control room when we were putting those figures together. I suspect that last night that each network, while those big numbers were being used, the Department of Justice had somebody there to make sure there wasn't something improper going on, on the theory that we could throw an election. That was the theory; I don't believe it could have happened. I don't know how I got off on this now --

I asked you about the influence of exit polling.