This is a rush transcript from "The Five," September 26, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: So some folks think pollsters are rigging results by targeting Democrats. Not me, I see nothing unbalanced about NPR taking poll in organic food cooperative on New York's Upper West Side. But to me, polls are like the Grateful Dead. Either you follow them or you don't. Like the Dead, polls are just noise that makes hippies dance.
Some accuse the media of gullibility for buying this stuff but not me. The media knows what it's doing, but they do it anyway. Why is that? Well, they're the most despotic entity today, a shadow government setting policy and calling shots. The mainstream media decided the ends justify the means and has assumed decision-making power by reporting what it wants to.
Which is why Fox continues to lead. It's the only place where you can tune in and not be scolded into submission. It's only place you can feel good about your country.
Shut up, Bob.
And today, people just don't want to hear the gripe show all the time. That's why the mainstream media is losing so many viewers. They got a new friend after dumping the hectoring spouse.
Look at Libya. You now have hacks covering for Obama by coming out against American values. Take a look at Slate, where one guy faults the United States for its silly First Amendment. It's not them. It's us.
I say we are turning in to Big Brother, but that's racist.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: Oh, good!
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: There you go, that's a start for you right there.
GUTFELD: Thank you. I'm on muscle relaxants. I have no idea what I just did there.
KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: No wonder you're so friendly.
GUTFELD: Oh, I'm friendly all the time, Kimberly. You just ignore me.
All right. Let's talk about the polls. I want to talk about Rush Limbaugh. He's talking about how the polls reflect the mindset or ideology of Democrats, not America as whole. And let's take it from there. Go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: The purpose of the people right now, most of them doing the polls, they're trying to make news, not reflect it. They're advancing an agenda. They're all Democrats. They're all liberals. They just have different jobs.
And the polls are the replacement refs. They're watching like they see certain things and don't see other things. They don't call certain things. Other things go by.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: There's got to be some truth to that, right?
BECKEL: No. I mean, first of all, they're not all liberal Democrats. There's plenty of Republican polling firms out there.
Rush ought to stick to what he does very well, which is a radio talk show host. Not try to second guess pollsters. Look, you can argue about how the polls are reflected and some have slight bias one way and slight bias to the other.
In the end, most of them turn out to be unbelievably accurate not only in the politics, but a lot of other things. The amount of stuff that we depend on for poling is a lot in this country, in the marketing and every other way. So, I think all these attacks on polls, if you're not doing well in polls, that's the time you attack them.
BOLLING: So how can they, most of them turn out to be unbelievably accurate when you have one pollster saying that Obama and Romney are tied neck and neck and another is saying that Obama has a seven-point lead?
BECKEL: Because you have plus or minus 4 percent.
GUILFOYLE: It depends whether the Department of Justice is doing one of the polls.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: Everyone else knows because you did this, you can make a poll to say whatever you want --
BECKEL: No, you can word questions maybe to get a little bias. But to suggest the two polling firms are that much apart because they purposely want to do is just unfair to them.
PERINO: One complaint about the polls is the sample. And looking at who came out in 2008 to vote for President Obama will not be the same in 2012. Some of the more conservative Republicans pollsters say they are smoking something if they think it's going to be the same turn-out in 2008.
That is not the case.
But the polling is using that same model. That's their complaint.
GUTFELD: What do you mean by smoking something? You've lost me.
PERINO: Muscle relaxant -
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: Powder or smoke or something.
GUTFELD: K.G., is all this media bias?
GUILFOYLE: I think there's significant media bias. It's been proven over and over again. And let me tell you something, people out there want to believe mainstream media, go ahead. And then you can sign up for four more years for record high unemployment, declining household values, loss of prestige and credibility and influence of the U.S. overseas and in this country. It's ridiculous. I mean, listen to them if you want because they've got, you know, 41 more days to try and put their guy in.
BECKEL: But they're not trying to.
GUILFOYLE: Yes, they are.
BOLLING: For example, the Pew Institute, which is probably unbiased, is trying to somehow reflect and change the election, I just don't buy it. There are two good, both Democrat and Republican, pollsters in there. I just don't buy it.
BOLLING: Can we just take the one that everyone talking about today? Which is the CBS/New York Times poll. They went to the swing states, battleground states.
Here's what they want us these polls are so juicy. Here's what they us to believe: in 2004, the vote was plus four in Florida, plus four Republican. In '08, it was plus three Democrat, big swing. But they want to us believe it's plus nine Democrat.
In Ohio, same, plus nine Democrat. When the last poll, '04, it was plus five Republican, (INAUDIBLE). Pennsylvania, plus nine Democratic again.
These are of the most dramatic swings of anyone. And again, Bob, as long as it's broken down correctly, male/female, race, et cetera, you guys are all right with it. How about the sampling? Do you know that the sampling of Democrats is way outweigh the sampling in Republicans?
BECKEL: In the case of New York Times and CBS, it has always been the case that they have oversampled Democrats. The fact is that there are about 1.5 percent to 2 percent more Democrats registered in this country than there are Republicans.
PERINO: But not in some of those states.
BECKEL: Pennsylvania is hugely more Democratic. But not Florida.
PERINO: Right.
The other thing to take in account, in 2004 to 2008, there are millions of people voting process. We're not taking that in to account. One of hardest things for pollsters to figure out who are the new voters coming in, who haven't voted before.
So, I think to say they took the 2008 numbers, a lot of them purposely go out and don't do that because they know they won't get that turn-out by young people.
GUTFELD: All right. I want to talk more about the media. Sean Hannity had strong words about how Obama used the media who are in his pocket.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I'm going to tell you something, all you liberals out there, all you people in the media. I'm telling you -- Obama in private is just laughing his ass off at all of you, because you are so dumb, so gullible, so easily manipulated. All he has to do is tell you there is a doughnut in the sky, and you'll report there is a donut in the sky. And behind the scenes, he knows he's advancing his radical agenda and that you are helping him do it.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Dana, is there a doughnut in the sky?
PERINO: I'm going to go look, as soon as we leave here. If you look at the -- remember a couple of weeks ago, we talked about how President Obama had not done a White House press conference in however, long, six months. And then he showed up to take questions. He goes on "The View" and doesn't talk to anyone here.
That all is a pattern that leads to the media -- they basically do these polls every day. Maybe they think they are helping the electorate. But instead of giving us any sort of substance of what does it mean? What would they do? X, Y, Z, they write a poll.
Your best line of the last two weeks was that we have more polls than Poland.
GUTFELD: Yes, that is true.
BECKEL: Keep in mind that both the campaigns have very intensive polling operations. They make virtually all their decisions based on polling.
One of the things Obama is doing here, like it or not, is he does have at least somewhat of a lead, particularly in Ohio, and he wants to stay away from questions that are going to be tough. So, my advice to him would have been do no press.
PERINO: Like who dropped the ball in Libya? That question.
BECKEL: I would say, don't get into it.
BOLLING: But on the one hand, here's the mainstream media. Here's what they're doing, they're going to report all day. You listen to MSNBC all day, we heard about these battleground states and the polls, and Obama won the election already all day.
Btu a couple days ago, when Obama announced he was not going to meet with leaders around the world because the race was too, too deep in the campaign, it was too close of a race. So in two days they went from it's OK, you don't have to meet with the world leaders in a battle for White House. Then two days later you it locked up.
BECKEL: Yes.
BOLLING: Little media bias there? A little?
BECKEL: Listen, you know, the thing about media, people go to get their own ideology fulfilled every day. Think about where you go to blogs. I happen to go to liberal blogs, you go to more conservative blogs. Which one (INAUDIBLE) like gas station, you get your engine, your tank refilled were the same stuff.
You don't buy the New York Times and take advice from them, right? I don't buy Washington Times and take advice from them.
GUILFOYLE: But we read all of it. We get all of it. That's not true.
BECKEL: I don't --
PERINO: He doesn't read anything.
GUILFOYLE: We get it all.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: From Us Weekly.
GUILFOYLE: Very accurate, and the Enquirer, please don't leave them out.
GUTFELD: Yes.
GUILFOYLE: Incredible, incredible.
BECKEL: What is that called? Ebonics (ph)?
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: No, no. That is not what it's called.
In all these things across the board except for Ohio, unemployment is worse. Spending is up across the board. Healthcare bill remains exceedingly unpopular. College tuition is up. And poverty has gone up.
And there's not a credible plan being advanced by the current White House. They would rather as you said ignore it and hope they get through the election without having to answer a single thing.
GUTFELD: It's a high school -- now, it's a high school election. It's a popularity contest. And right now, the media loves the quarterback.
BOLLING: Can I just make a quick point about the poll?
GUILFOYLE: Everybody loves the quarterback.
BOLLING: The reason why they're making such a big deal these polls that are showing Obama with a big lead is it dampens enthusiasm. For Republicans out there going, oh my gosh, what's the point of even voting? I'm going to stay away from this. They have it locked up.
GUTFELD: You could say the reverse. You could say the reverse that by making the lead look commanding, that people won't go out and vote for Obama, correct?
PERINO: Yes, I mean, you could say.
BECKEL: You know something, Eric --
BOLLING: No, because you vote for the winner. People want to jump on the bandwagon.
PERINO: Not as much as the other way in terms of --
BECKEL: Listen, they are going to poll Ohio. It's a critical state.
The fact is Obama has a substantial lead in Ohio. He just does. You may not want to hear that --
BOLLING: Dig deeper in that poll, which I did, it's 49 pages, the CBS poll. If you dig deeper, you look at the people, they poll people who are tuned in looking deeply into race, not just somewhat involved, looking deeply in to it. And they're neck and neck. They're both polling at 48 percent and 49 percent.
BECKEL: First, one or two-point race? Yes. Of course, but not in Ohio.
GUTFELD: We've got to move on.
GUILFOYLE: It matters about the swing state. There you go.
GUTFELD: I never want to polls again. Honestly, I don't like polls.
I don't like polls. I love Poland, I like Polish people. I like Polish hot dogs, I like the Barbara poles, I like the stripper poles. I hate these polls.
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