After the televised vice-presidential debate, Peter Jennings had Jeff Greenfield deliver a brief analysis. "One of the best public performances Quayle has had. Al Gore seemed very programmed." Some around ABC's World News squirmed. They thought Quayle was a disgrace -- a man out of control. That was the problem: politics was in the eye of the beholder. But Greenfield had the microphone, and in the age of opinion journalism, the era of shows like The McLaughlin Group, these guys were in the business of offering their opinions.

On NBC, Tim Russert was delivering the opposite verdict. "The consensus here in the pressroom is Al Gore had a much better night than Dan Quayle."

Then something weird happened. NBC's poll the next day bore out Russert. ABC's bore out Greenfield.

NBC's poll was taken or random voters that night. But ABC's reinterviewed people who had agreed in advance to be surveyed after the debate by ABC. That raises the strong likelihood that Greenfield's gut reaction influenced if not defined the poll. The issue is largely academic. The vice-presidential debate, by all measures, had no consequence on the election.

But it raises a red flag for the future. In the era of instant polls, which use the methodology of reinterviewing the same panel of people, there is new danger of the networks' instant analyses becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

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