An Oct. 9 story on 9News presented an intelligent overview of the importance of Colorado in the next presidential election.

The piece was set against the backdrop of real-life 5^th graders on a playground, looking mystified.

They were no doubt there to catch the attention of the apolitical TV viewer.

For the political junkie, the kids also might have been the most interesting part, because they were, in fact, cute. And the information and interview with pollster/consultant Floyd Ciruli was actually really important for the mass audience, but pretty much standard stuff.

That is, until Ciruli delivered his closer:

“If the Republicans can come up with a strong candidate, then it’s [the presidential race] going to be an unbelievable knockout.”

It sounded like something a fifth grader might have said. So I listened again, to make sure he said it. He did.

Then I thought, which GOP candidate is going to hit Obama with an unbelievable knockout?

Romney? No. Cain? No. Perry? No. Bachmann? No. Gingrich? No. Huntsman? No. Any realistic Republican candidate? No.

These Republicans might deliver an unbelievable knockout to each other, but to Obama? Nothing would lead you to think so. Winning would be a trick for any of them, if you believe the polling.

So I emailed Ciruli and asked him.

He wrote back to me that he meant to say that a “strong Republican candidate will produce a knock down fight.”

I thanked Ciruli and asked Reporter/Anchor Matt Flener at 9News if his station corrects stuff like this.

I was happy to hear back from him that 9News will update Ciruli’s quote on the web story.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 10:56 am and is filed under 9News, Colorado presidential race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.