Dear Jeeves,
This Mike Rogers guy is one conceited know-it-all-jerk; I hate people like him who like to “toot their own horn” all the time. What makes him so sure that George W. Bush is going to get so soundly thrashed on election day, when all the polls say otherwise?
Answer: Mike Rogers is one smart dude — and that’ll be one of the first things he’ll tell you if you ever meet him. To tell the truth, he hasn’t really worked a day in his life and he’s almost 49 years old. Mike works in the mass media and it is his “job” to know trends and to be “more aware” of what’s really going in society than the average person — that’s how he makes a living; knowing what people like you are going to buy, before you ever buy it.
One of Mike’s “pet projects” is a nationwide FM radio show that is sponsored by KDDI. KDDI is the biggest mobile phone maker in Japan (which, by the way, is the second largest market in the world). Since Mike gets money from one of the largest cell-phone makers in the entire world, he does know his business. And, as such, he knows what he is talking about.
Dear Jeeves,
Yes, but what does KDDI, a cell-phone maker in Japan, have to do with the U.S. elections?
Answer: At first glance, not a whole hell-uv-a-lot — if you are looking at it from the point of view of “average Joe-Blow.” But, if you are a “professional,” like Mike, who makes a living out of getting rich by getting sponsors to give him money for making lame-o radio and TV shows, it makes a lot of difference.
Dear Jeeves,
But how could that be?
Answer: Mike sits around his house all day, doing a whole heck of a lot of nothing. So, like today, for example, he decided to watch CNN so he could get a “feel” on how the U.S. election was going. Now, Mike doesn’t usually watch CNN, because it is so darned irritating; But, after watching Jon Stewart on “Crossfire” make Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson look like the brainless-twits that Mike said they were when he wrote about them way back in August of this year, he knew he had to see that show again, on replay.
But, I digress; the local TV listings are wrong (as usual) so Mike has to sit through some silly CNN show called, “Inside Politics.” According to Mike, things look real bad for that idiot Bush. Not only do those bozos lose several tons of explosives in Iraq — probably not too surprising when you consider the source; but what was even more damning was Mike was “keeping score” while watching CNN.
That’s right. Mike kept score. Now the program, “Inside Politics” is about 90 minutes long. So to make it interesting, Mike decided that he would keep score on how many times the names of the presidential candidates were mentioned. Not only that, since Mike is a consummate professional, he timed each candidates appearance on TV and how many times each had their name appear on, what “we in the business” refer to as “Telop.” (The little letters that run along the bottom of your TV screens).
During the 90-minute program, John Kerry was shown for a total of 19 minutes and 16 seconds. Compare that with soon-to-be-former president Bush who came in with a pale 7 minutes and 48 seconds.
John Kerry’s name was spoken a total of 69 times during the show with former president Bush a mere 40 times; add to this total a “telop” showing of Bush’s name for a total of 24 times compared to a whopping 84 for John Kerry and you have what we refer to as a mass-media “leaning” — (a “thrashing” for you sports fans).
Through this incredibly simple, yet scientific method, Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers can tell you (once again) that John Kerry will be elected, in a landslide, as the next president of the United States.
Dear Jeeves,
But this sounds ridiculous! These are just numbers; and random ones at that.
Answer: Yes, they may seem random to you — because you are not a mass-media “professional.” As I said before, people like Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers make a living out of observing trends and “cashing in” on them. Now, you might think this is completely unscientific, but that shows why you do what you do, and Mike does what he does for a living.
Don’t forget, huge multi-national companies that are over-flowing with cash, like Toyota, Sony, KDDI, Toshiba, Asahi-Beer, Voda-phone, and the like, actually give Mike money to do what what-ever-it-is that he does… Big companies like these I just mentioned, don’t make mistakes.
Dear Jeeves,
If Mike was so dammed smart, then why ain’t he rich?
Answer: Good question.
