I’ve kind of been taken aback by the recent right-wing hatred of polling. I mean, I knew they always trusted the Rasmussen push polls, but it really feels like they are going all in on the attac on political polling. I know they have systematically tried to destroy every institution that blocks their alternative reality, but I guess watching them take on statistics and polling really takes it to a new level. Here is unrepentant lunatic Hugh Hewitt (do I even need to bother at this point pointing out that he is… a lawyer):
It remains a 1 point race according to Rasmussen’s saily tracker –tied if “leaners” are included in the numbers.
But MSM must play its games, and today it is the Washington Post’s turn to put out absurdity dressed up as “polling.”
This is truly a dog bites man poll, and an embarassment to the Washington Post. If they sampled 100% Democrats, the lead would be even larger for Obama, but of course then it would be obvious what they are doing with the sample. A 7% D over R advantage among likely voters skews the results badly, especially when one considers the sweep of the Buckeye State in 2010 by the GOP.
Further undermining confidence in the WaPo results is another new Ohio poll from Gravis Consulting that shows a one point Obama lead, despite its sample screen including a 10% edge for Democrats over Republicans.Ed Morrissey rounds up the back-and-forth between pollsters and their critics. The pollsters increasingly sound like arrogant alchemists who must not be questioned, and their insecurity as well as their refusal to confront the real problem of using the 2008 turnout model increases doubt in their alleged “professionalism.” Real professionals answer questions with confidence and clarity. They don’t spin and hide.
I guess it would be a cheap shot if I linked to this 2007 appraisal of Mitt Romney, before Rmoney lost to that old cranky dude who chose Snowflake Snooki as his running mate:
Mitt Romney’s “Faith in America” speech was simply magnificent, and anyone who denies it is not to be trusted as an analyst. On every level it was a masterpiece. The staging and Romney’s delivery, the eclipse of all other candidates it caused, the domination of the news cycle just prior to the start of absentee voting in New Hampshire on Monday –for all these reasons and more it will be long discussed as a masterpiece of political maneuver.
Far more important than all of that, however, was the content of the address, which was a brilliant explication of the American political theory of faith and freedom. Romney used the moment to defend not just himself but the American tradition of faith in the public square, of vigorous and valued religious plurality, and, crucially, why that tradition has allowed America’s role in the world to be so unqualifiedly good.
Hugh Hewitt- the number one radio pundit in the Glenn Reynolds demographic.
So, I have three theories why they have decided to avoid polling data.
Theory #1- Victimhood is so much easier and far more soothing than objective reality. They can scream about how every polling outlet is against them and affirm the “left wing bias” of the media. Ed Henry and Chris Wallace are giggling right now.
Theory #2- They know they are going to lose, so they are just poisoning the well, trying to nullify the impact of an Obama victory. For Republicans, this is a viable strategy. For Democrats. this seems kind of silly, since anyone with a pulse knows that Jim Demint and the teahadists are going to spend the next four years sabotaging Obama regardless, much like they have for the past four years.
Finally, there is option #3- the point of claiming the polls are wrong is to provide cover for Republican governors to throw the election:
Nine Republican governors have the power to put Mitt Romney in the White House, even if Barack Obama wins the popular vote.
With their secretaries of state, they control the electronic vote count in nine key swing states: Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Arizona, and New Mexico. Wisconsin elections are under the control of the state’s Government Accountability Board, appointed by the governor.
In tandem with the GOP’s massive nation-wide disenfranchisement campaign, they could—in the dead of election night—flip their states’ electronic votes to Romney and give him a victory in the Electoral College.
Thankfully, resistance has arisen to the disenfranchisement strategy, which seems designed to deny millions of suspected Democrats the right to vote. The intent to demand photo ID for voting could result in some ten million Americans being disenfranchised, according to the Brennan Center at New York University. Other methods are being used to strip voter rolls—as in Ohio, where 1.1 million citizens have been purged from registration lists since 2009. This “New Jim Crow”—personified by groups like True the Vote (New York Times Article)—could deny the ballot to a substantial percentage of the electorate in key swing states.
This massive disenfranchisement has evoked a strong reaction from voting rights activists, a number of lawsuits, major internet traffic and front page and editorial coverage in the New York Times.
Yeah. I know a bunch of you will attack me for linking Truthout and BuzzFlash, and call me a conspiracy theorist. Does it really sound so crazy that a party that has spent four years disenfranchising voters in swing states RUN BY REPUBLICANS, working to change voting rules, and basically openly trying to fix elections, all with a nascent uprising of “tea partiers” funded by ultra-rich corporate sponsors, would maybe have an astroturf campaign to invalidate polling in order to steal an election?
Fifteen years ago I would have laughed at this assertion. Then I saw Bush V. Gore. Then I saw aluminum tubes convince me and others to invade some random country. Then Terri Schiavo. Then Citizens United.
So fuck off, anyone who wants to call me a paranoid crank.
gussie
Something something something modern gladiatorial combat.
The prophet Nostradumbass
STOMP.
Hey, John, are you still interested in the BJ users leveling up Pandarens? I have one on Sargeras, sitting in Stormwind with a guild charter in its bags, named Chiliu. I can be the person to gather others, or you can, if you’re still interested.
JustRuss
Theory #3 was the first one to occur to me. I wouldn’t put anything past these fckers. After the 2000 election, ACORN nonsense, current voter-suppression moves, etc, prepping the media for a “Look how wrong those silly polls were!” moment is a frighteningly realistic theory.
redshirt
I knew Sally Tracker. You, Hugh, are no Sally Tracker.
tBone
You’re a paranoid crank.
But given the open foaming lunacy of today’s Republican Party, it’s hard to blame you. Every time you think they can’t surprise you anymore, someone somewhere is stocking up on wetsuits and dildos.
Moonbatting Average
John, I would never call you a paranoid crank. I’ve seen how deep the conspiracy goes. You threw in the Terrible Towel, and the deal got done. Don’t lie now; you’re an Illuminatus, aren’t you?
+many
shoutingattherain
Just isn’t a real JC post without him telling everybody to fuck off. It’s become his sig.
WaterGirl
It strikes me that the republicans are trying to lay the groundwork so that if the republicans cheat on the vote, say with voting machines, they have this to point to if/when the results are crazy different from what the polls said.
Cathie from Canada
Yes, exactly.
They have spent four years convincing themselves that America didn’t really elect history’s greatest monster Obama, that millions of votes in 2008 were fraudulent, that Acorn was to blame. In their empty chair world, they are not “disenfranchising” anyone, they are merely bringing the electoral system back to truthfulness by eliminating all that fraud.
Don’t tell them there wasn’t any, they don’t believe it — Acorn did such a good job, you see, that nobody could tell, and then Holder just hid it all and nothing was investigated and that’s why there wasn’t any evidence.
I just hope Democrats don’t get complacent and will get their vote out, so many that it will overcome the missing votes from the thousands disenfranchised. The polls will tighten again before election day due to the torrent of negative ads that are going to be unleashed, and in the end I think every single Democratic vote will be needed.
a.j.
There is plenty of evidence for how easily the vote machines can be, and have been fucked with.
Not paranoia.
Kristine
I heard something similar to #3 on the Thom Hartmann Show today.
My thoughts? We’d have several states flipping instead of one single state. A lot of people would need to keep their mouths shut, and I’m not sure they could–the need to gloat would be too great and someone would crack. It would require a level of wide-ranging competence that hasn’t been in evidence in the GOP for the last couple of years.
How many races would they flip? POTUS only? Would they flip the switches for all the down-ballot races as well? That’s a lot of fraud. That’s guns-and barricades-level fraud.
And yes, part of me is worried about all of it.
GregB
It was also only two short years ago when “look at the polls” was on the lips of every Goddamn wingnut when the issue of Obamacare/ACA came up.
The polls, the polls, the people don’t want Obamacare, we must follow the will of the people because the polls, the polls say so.
Sociopaths.
Mnemosyne
I could see them trying a maneuver like that, but I really can’t picture them succeeding. I can’t see more than three or four of the nine states listed going along with the program.
Plus it would have to be done in a halfway plausible way — if polls are showing Obama leading the state by 5 points and Romney suddenly wins it in a landslide, there’s gonna be some ‘splainin to do.
Michael G
Yeah, you’re a paranoid crank, but that’s why we love you.
Dork
They will litigate every swing state’s vote count until the SCOTUS steps in. And then all bets are off.
The Dangerman
Theory 3 only makes sense if the Senate flips (right now considered unlikely, thank you Todd Akin) and it’s cheating distance (right now, it’s not). Fraud on that scale would result in all sorts of shit getting burned down (this is why the neutron bomb was developed; kill people, but the shit stays in place), so, no, I don’t see Theory 3.
Mnemosyne
@Kristine:
This. What crazy conspiracy theorists tend to forget is that it’s virtually impossible to get a large group of people to all keep their damn mouths shut. You can have a conspiracy run by a small group of 10 or less, but once you have to have the governors and secretaries of state in 9 different states all coordinating with Republican operatives, someone is going to fuck up and spill the beans.
Punchy
Whats interesting is that reading right wing blogs, they fully expect Obama and the Dems to do this very vote-stealing themselves.
I suspect this will be their rallying cry when they get stomped.
Moonbatting Average
@The Dangerman: as the great Tyrone would say: “nobody wants their shit burned down”
dance around in your bones
I’m watching Pete Seeger: The Power of Song on Palladia right now and remembering how much the ‘folk music revival’ was a part of my youth – my parents used to take us to folk music concerts at the University of New Mexico when we were kids, and we saw a lot of it on the TV machine back in the day.
It was cool growing up in the 60’s. Just wanted to say….
Sorry, I guess completely OT.
Nemo_N
Also too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87NN5sdqNt8
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Punchy: Speaking of right-wing blogs, this (LGM link) is really bizarre.
hilzoy
I’m with #1.
Carl Nyberg
My answer to the people who whine about polls, is that they are free to make a bunch of money betting on Romney if they believe their own bullshit.
Thirty cents pays a dollar.
Don’t whine to me about the details of polling, you Fox-head. You don’t understand it anyways. If you believe in Rasmussen, bet enough money you can take a cool vacation after the election.
fuckwit
Well, the SecState of Pennsylvania already spilled the beans, admitting to cheers that voter ID will make Rmoney preznit.
So, I guess that either proves that there is actually a wide-ranging conspiracy afoot, or that the people participating in it are either too numerous or too stupid (or both) and can’t possibly succeed.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
I’m assuming that in 2004 you were still hanging out in the conservative fever swamp and not the liberal fever swamp. Discounting the polls is what people do when the polls don’t show what they want. Also expect ideas like “all the undecideds will vote for us” and “moderate democrats hold their nose and vote for Romney” floated out there. See 10000 Kos posts from October 2004.
mclaren
The swing to extreme French deconstructvist “there is no such thing as absolute truth” relativism, denying objective observable reality, dates from the Karl Rove days. Anyone else recall Rove lecturing reporters that he had done “the real math” and that after Obama lost the election in November 2008, he’d hold a seminar explicating “the real math” behind the polls to anyone interested?
This all has its source in the reality denial of the Bush/Rove maladministration, so well revealed by Leonard Susskind’s classic New York Times article from 17 October 2004, “Without a Doubt”:
Splitting Image
There’s actually a major problem with discrediting the entire poll-taking industry to steal one election, and that is that the pollsters’ real bread-and-butter is providing reliable market research data for corporations. The political polls they do serve primarily as an exercise to get a company’s name out there and give them a reputation for accuracy.
Assuming a conspiracy on the part of pollsters to boost Obama (as some Romney dieharders are doing) is assuming that Nate Silver, SurveyUSA, Gallup, and the rest are all sabotaging their reputations for accuracy in order to elect a President that a lot of their clients don’t like.
If you have trouble believing that, so do I.
It might be more reasonable to believe that the G.O.P. machine is capable of throwing a state or two to Romney, but if they have to make the pollsters look like liars to do it, they will undermine the industry that provides them all with the market research they use to develop new products. That’s a long term disaster for corporatists, and I have trouble believing that many people think Mitt Romney is worth the effort.
If he were keeping it close, that would be one thing, but he ain’t keeping it close.
Matt McIrvin
Yeah, I agree with Punchy at #18. There’s going to be some vote suppression and other types of cheating, but I don’t think they can easily close 5- or 10-point gaps in multiple states without getting caught; 2000 was very, very close to begin with, which made that whole clusterfuck possible.
What they’re actually laying the groundwork for is a Republican narrative of Obama stealing the election, which will be the great successor to birtherism.
jl
Assuming crank theory 3 is in the works, then best way to prevent that is to get out there and do GOTV on election night and swamp them. A big turnout for Dems is also best way to blow the cover off such a scheme, and get something done afterwards.
And I know Cole will be out there (don’t yell at me again for implying otherwise, okay, Cole?)
But like two commenters above, theory number 3 is getting in to crank territory. A 9 state scheme. That will require 9 cooperative sets of state officials and staffers, require aggressive Obama vote integrity team to miss 9 criminal conspiracies, and 9 states to have competent GOP coup plotters to make it work.
Now, if GOTV can force almost all 9 to be able to pull it off for GOP to win, that would make it harder too.
But thanks for ruining my planned sweet dreamy sleep Cole.
I’m searing off late night Cole posts!
Radio One
as a GOP game theory expert, I’ll take theory #2.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@jl:
How are you doing that? With a blow torch?
dance around in your bones
@dance around in your bones:
Ok, so that link was to an interview w/the director of the film. I’m sure anyone who is interested can find the actual video.
It was just pretty cool when we thought music could change the world.
jl
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Swearing off late night Cole posts. Sorry.
After midnight, Cole is too scary for me.
Except for music nights. Otherwise I am out a here.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@jl: I knew what you meant, it was a joke.
KG
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I haven’t read Protein Wisdom in years, wow, just wow.
As for Hewitt, I think I’ve said before, I know him from my time at Chapman Law. He is a Republican hack and his job is to convince the rank and file that it’s not over. He, like the rest of them, will rationalize it away by about 8:30 pm PST on election night. We use to joke in law school that he was constantly wrong in his punditry, but he’s not paid to be right, he’s paid to console the rank and file.
jl
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Forgot to mention that you thought I was some jl someplace twittering and social networking stuff last week.
Thanks for getting back with the link.
That was not me. I don’t do any social network stuff, and this is only general interest or political blog where I comment.
Looks like there is another jl out there.
Edit: yes I know it was a joke. thanks. But dammit, I try to clean up my bazillion typos.
Roy G.
The real conspiracy was how Romney was supposedly even in the polls with Obama just two months ago.
black onion
Way off topic, but good news for John’s blood pressure.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8429885/report-nfl-officials-reach-agreement-end-lockout
Also, truth in this, which they had to have waiting.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nfl-fans-excited-to-finally-bitch-about-regular-re,29708/
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Oh?
Really?
So when the NSA was set to work warrantlessly wiretapping every American’s email and phone for, what, 2 years? Everybody knew about that? No, not a goddamn person knew about it.
And when Julian Assange was declared by the U.S. military an “enemy of the state” years ago, in the same category as Al Qaeda, everybody knew about that?
No, not a goddamn person knew about it.
And when the drunk-driving C student from Texas and his torturer sidekick ginned up all that fake evidence that Iraq had WMDs for years, everybody knew about that conspiracy too, right?
Wrong. Nobody knew a goddamn thing about it.
Are you drunk or brain damaged, Mnemosyne? We are living in the aftermath of dozens of the most massive world-shattering and fantastically successful conspiracies in history, from the conspiracy to get the Supreme Court to select a president to the conspiracy to use 9/11 as a pretext to declare a military “soft coup” in America which effectively abolished the constitution and instituted de facto martial law (which continues to this day) to the conspiracy to steal the vote in Ohio in 2004 by rigging the Republican-manufactured electronic voting machines, for which there’s tons of evidence, to the conspiracy to gin up bogus evidence of WMDs in Iraq, to the conspiracy to warrantlessly wiretap every American for 4 years (which continues to this day) to the conspiracy to kidnap and murder U.S. citizens and torture ’em into confessing to bogus crimes, to the conspiracy to set up a network of secret prisons throughout the world where people designated “enemy combatants” would be dropped off the face of the earth…nothing but a massive list of conspiracies.
All wildly successful.
By the time each of those “crazy conspiracy theories” had gotten backed up with enough evidence to become clear that they weren’t crazy but were real, the damage had been done, and everyone just had to sit back and accept the result.
Anyone who suggests today, in 2012, that conspiracies don’t work must have been living in a bathysphere since 9/11. It’s been nothing but conspiracy after successful conspiracy since 9/11, all pulled off by Republican pols and the U.S. military and the military-prison-surveillance-torture complex.
To the point where now, the TSA runs routine VIPR sweeps stopping traffic on freeways and warrantlessly (illegally) searching people in train stations while every email and every tweet and every phone call you make gets stored in a giant NSA data center in the Nevada desert.
Former NSA cryptanalyst William Binney who helped design the entire nationwide surveillance system says the NSA now has “dossiers on nearly every American.”
And you think this isn’t a conspiracy? More: a whole nested series of interlocking conspiracies by the military-prison-surveillance-torture complex, all of them successful?
What the hell planet are you living on?
SatanicPanic
They could do #3, but I don’t see what we can do about it until it happens. I really doubt it will though. And furthermore, I don’t think Obama will roll over like Gore did.
Violet
Nobody likes Romney. Republicans/wingnuts may be willing to break the law for someone they like, who they trust to do their bidding, but that person isn’t Romney. No one likes him, and he can’t hold a coherent position so no one trusts him. He is not the candidate they’re willing to stick their neck out for.
Rita R.
Very OT —
The first sentence in a LiveScience article on a new theory about why men love breasts so much (don’t ask, something about foreplay, oxytocin and bonding) is this: “Why do straight men devote so much headspace to those big, bulbous bags of fat drooping from women’s chests?” Interesting that an article on explaining the appeal of breasts opens with the most disgusting description of them I’ve ever read. I’m kind of insulted on behalf of my own.
? Martin
@mclaren: Imagine what they’ll do to people that reveal the conspiracy on blogs? I’d be quiet about this if I were you.
? Martin
@Rita R.: I’m kinda turned on…
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
So if nobody knows about these ultra-secret conspiracies that only you know about, how come everyone here has already heard of them? Could it be because it’s virtually impossible to keep a secret like that when you have to let more and more people in on the secret to keep it going?
You’ve basically refuted your own claim by citing conspiracies that collapsed under their own weight just like I said large conspiracies always do and you don’t even realize it.
Look, I’m sorry that — by your own admission — you fell for Bush’s lies about Iraq, but the fact that you were naive and stupid enough to believe him doesn’t mean the rest of us were. I knew Powell lied to the UN, and I ain’t an expert of any kind.
Accept the fact that you were fooled by extremely transparent lies and move on already. The fact that you were a gullible fool doesn’t mean the rest of us automatically were, too.
dance around in your bones
@Rita R.:
I have to say that as much as I love male genitals, I find them kind of comical, too. All dangly and shit.
Ok, so what if we ladies have small, slightly bulbous bags of fat vaguely drooping?
Spaghetti Lee
Put me down as thinking #3 won’t happen, but mostly due to incompetence and logistical problems, not for lack of desire. The teabag set would eliminate elections if they could. They see themselves as born to rule.
I think stuff like that Hewitt article is mostly Republicans talking to themselves, which is all they do these days. Normal people see ‘political party complains about legitimacy of bad poll’ as about the most dog-bites-man story there is. It only helps ‘delegitimize’ Obama for people who never thought he was legitimate to begin with.
For my part, I registered to vote in Missouri today, or at least I sent my form. Our governor and sec of state are Democrats, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about my form going into the shredder. Still, how and when will I know that everything went through? Will I get something in the mail?
DPS
I’m going to say #1.
I think that there are plenty of people in the current Republican party who are either so cynical or so affected by delusions of righteousness that they’d jump at the chance of stealing an election via electronic vote fraud, as long as they felt sure they’d get away with it. That is, it wouldn’t be moral scruples that would prevent them; it would have to be fear.
I don’t think the poll denialism is groundwork for a planned fraud, though. I think it’s run-of-the-mill partisan happy talk combined with that inimitable Republican flair for paranoid declarations of victimhood.
Rita R.
@? Martin:
Was it “bulbous bags of fat” that did it?
@dance around in your bones:
After seeing this, I’d be really afraid of what the first sentence would be in an article about the appeal of male genitals.
mclaren
@? Martin:
HAW HAW HAW HAW! And when Obama institutes internal passport and night-time curfews, why, you’ll just be laughing that much harder.
Sociopath.
Enjoy your police state. Until the riot-armored goons come to whip a black bag over your head and haul you off as a prisoner without a name to a cell without a number in one of America’s global secret prisons.
All paranoia, of course, just another “wild conspiracy theory.”
Like the FBI’s plot against the “Occupy” movement, detailed in this Rolling Stone article, “The Plot Against Occupy: How the government turned five stoner misfits into the world’s most hapless terrorist cell.”
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!
Or the U.S. military’s secret declaration of Julian Assange as an “enemy of the state” comparable to Bin Laden, detailed in this article here.
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!
What a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories! Tinfoil hat time!
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!
Spatula
John, if you would read your own blog’s comments, you would know that NO conspiracies EVER happen ANYWHERE at ANY TIME, now or in the future, nor will they ever.
Conspiracies simply do not exist. Or so BJ CW says.
Spaghetti Lee
Balloon Juice…after dark.
dance around in your bones
@Rita R.:
“What is it that women find so appealing about dangly bits? Is it that they can inexplicably increase in size and then explode, spewing a white substance in all directions? Is it that that tiny little organ directs so much of male behavior? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.”
xian
@Kristine: they do this and I’m in the streets
Joel
I don’t think #3 is going to happen. I am sure some will want it to happen, but the involved parties would have too much to lose and not enough incentive to make it work.
AnonPhenom
Theory#4 – They’ll only flip a few senate races, give the GOP the power to break Obama’s balls for another 4 years and hope for the best in ’16.
Spaghetti Lee
@mclaren:
And when Obama institutes internal passport and night-time curfews, why, you’ll just be laughing that much harder.
Uh-huh.
Question: What will you say when we reach the end of his term and this hasn’t happened?
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@mclaren: Ok. If Obama is in on the conspiracy, why is he going to allow people to throw him out f office? That’s the conspiracy at hand. What has he done to get himself out of favor with the forces who installed him?
Mnemosyne
@Spaghetti Lee:
She’ll say it didn’t happen because people bravely revealed the conspiracy and foiled the plan.
It’s conspiracies all the way down for mclaren.
dance around in your bones
@Spaghetti Lee:
I said this in another thread, mclaren is Debbie Downer.
(Sorry about the ad in front – whatcha can do?)
RK
Reason #4: People tend to go with a winner
Reason #5: People tend to become disheartened with bad news which dissuades particpation
Rita R.
@Spaghetti Lee:
LOL All conspiracy theories and naughty bits up in here.
dogwood
@Spaghetti Lee:
She’ll insist that in fact it did happen. Just the way right wingers insist Obama took their guns away and raised their taxes. There’s a great line from One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest – “Just because it didn’t happen, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” That’s the motto of incoherent conspiracy theorists worldwide. And as Mclaren proves, they don’t just dwell on the right.
Hill Dweller
I think the Republicans’ short-term goal is preventing the election from reaching it’s tipping point. Willard’s campaign is hemorrhaging support, and they have to stop it quickly. The bad polls just reinforce that fact.
I suppose destroying the credibility of the polls could mitigate their damage, but it reeks of desperation.
penpen
I read a transcript of a conversation Hewitt had with a polling expert. He could not grasp the fundamental point that the pollsters take a random large sampling of people, and ask them their party affiliation, and that was where the party affiliation numbers came from. He thought they had some set figure they were applying (ask 40 dems, ask 30 repubs).
xian
@? Martin: i think somebody is off their meds
Joe Buck
The problem for the Republicans is that it looks like the election won’t be close enough for cheating to work. They’d have to throw too many states, by too many points, and plenty of local election officials would notice that the counts are being screwed with.
Certainly if the election came down to just one state (Florida or Ohio), and it were close in that state, determined local officials might be able to throw it. But with almost all the swing states looking like they are going for Obama by a significant margin, they just won’t be able to pull it off.
Yutsano
@Spaghetti Lee: Cue sexy saxophone…
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Spaghetti Lee: The USASSR IS IMMINENT! OH NOES!
Jewish Steel
The GOP can’t even conspire to keep Akin or Christine O Donnell off of a ballot.
Richard
Republicans have made a transition from pushing lies out into the mainstream media as a political weapon to now actually believing their own bullshit. This of course has coincided with the rise of a parallel right-wing media (the MSM wasn’t conservative enough) which allows them for the most part to be insulated from reality. The wingnut echo chamber which started out as a means to amplify their message has now almost closed in on itself.
xian
@Spaghetti Lee: it’s funny how the same dynamic that drives the teaper trolls into hiding brings out the firebaggers
seaurch
If the pollsters really are all putting out bad polls to help Obama, why don’t they just change the fecking sample numbers? These evil pollsters are so stupid.
nellcote
Hey John,
Elizabeth Drew at the New York Review of Books doesn’t think you’re a paranoid crank:
burnspbesq
You’ve been a paranoid crank for as long as I’ve been reading this blog. Why should today be any different?
That said, if they really are after you, it’s not paranoia, it’s prudence.
Also too, the new Beth Orton record is fantastic.
Ruckus
@dance around in your bones:
Is it that that tiny little organ directs so much of male behavior?
I’m going to get in trouble for this at the next meeting but it’s not so much of the behavior, it’s ALL of the behavior.
Ruckus
@Hill Dweller:
I suppose destroying the credibility of the polls could mitigate their damage, but it reeks of desperation.
When desperation is all you have…
dance around in your bones
Cue movie voice: In a world of Balloon Juice after dark – anything can happen…if there were only enough commentators…
dance around in your bones
Moderation? WTF?over.
@Ruckus: Heh, no shit.
eta: I didn’t even say pe.nis. Just linked to The Waitresses “I Could Rule The World, If I Could Only Get The Parts”.
amk
paranoid crank.
dogwood
As odious as the state voter suppression laws are, they are nonetheless a sign of the end of the late 20th century conservative movement. These laws are an admission that they cannot convert enough voters to win presidential elections with the platform they are selling anymore. And while these laws must be overturned, Democrats still can work and organize to see that enough of their voters meet these draconian requirements and get to the polls. Republicans, on the other hand, are really running out of options.
Hill Dweller
@nellcote: As some of the comments point out, the foreign press is far more willing to call the Republicans’ efforts voter suppression. There really should be a national outrage, but most people don’t seem to give a shit.
Anne Laurie
@Rita R.:
Back in the early 1970s, National Lampoon introduced its annual humor issue (from memory) “What’s the funniest sight in the world? That’s right — but we can’t put an erect penis on the cover, so you get tits & clowns!”
For the younger folk among us, I suppose it is necessary to specify that NL was famous for its misogyny even in that notoriously misogynist era of humor, so the comment cannot be blamed on radical lesbian feminists…
amk
@? Martin: I really lol’ed. mclaren’s blinkered chips seem to be weighing her/him down.
amk
@? Martin: I really lol’ed. mclaren’s blinkered chips seem to be weighing her/him down.
amk
@? Martin: I really lol’ed. mclaren’s blinkered chips seem to be weighing her/him down.
amk
@? Martin: I really lol’ed. mclaren’s blinkered chips seem to be weighing her/him down.
amk
oh, fuck it all.
Bennett
Hewitt has fluffed Romney for years. In 2008 he said Romney would have won & since then has pushed him as the only Republican sure to defeat Obama. So now everything he’s said will look 100% wrong, & he won’t face it.
In the summer of 2008 Hewitt wrote a book titled “How Sarah Palin Won the 2008 Election And Saved America.” He shopped this to publisher’s as a pre-election novelty. Since she’d win, he argued, the company that published this book would have a big pay-day. He couldn’t find a sucker, even Regnery.
Geoduck
@Hill Dweller:
I imagine many non political junkies aren’t even aware it’s happening, especially if they don’t live in the affected states.
James E. Powell
@Hill Dweller:
I am pretty curious as to why the state and local Democrats in those states have not really raised the hue & cry over this very blatant vote suppression. I mean, they opposed it, sure, but I am talking marches, public demonstrations, shouting!
I suspect two things. First, Democrats all over the country have habit of being afraid to stand up for African-Americans on any issue lest they be branded ‘too liberal’ or some other code word for ‘n-lover.’ Second, they are counting on the courts.
I hate their timid ways. Cf. Tea Party demonstrations over things that weren’t actually happening.
trnc
Question for Hugh and the boys – so what about the polls? I watch polls, and I like it when my candidate is up, not so much when down. But I’m not such a dumbass that I base my vote on a poll.
Are his listeners so lame they actually vote based on a poll?
pluege
there can be no question that integral to the republican plan to retaining and expanding their power is to steal elections by disenfranchising voters, disrupting democratic leaning polling places and access, and outright fraud of voting and vote counting. republicans are treasonous bastards that do not believe in democracy.
The republican constituency is the 1%. The white working slobs that they’ve fooled for 30 years to vote against their own interests and vote republican are both catching on to republicans scamming them, and more importantly are shrinking as demographic (because they really aren’t catching on all too quick – they truly are dumb as a stump and easily manipulated). The only thing left to republicans is blatant lying and cheating, which is what they do best.
John Puma
Paranoid crank?
I’d say, rather, a not-paranoid-enough crank.
Re: GOP election fraud Mr Cole suggests: “Fifteen years ago I would have laughed at this assertion. Then I saw Bush V. Gore.”
FYI, eighteen years BEFORE Bush v. Gore, the RNC was handed a court order to discontinue their efforts in voter suppression/election fraud.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7110
Of course, the RNC simply exported the function to individual states and added manipulable electronic “voting” systems.
Fred
There’s no paranoia to it. The Bush admin and GOP congress gave states the money to buy proven hackable voting systems made and operated by avowed GOP partisans. Ever since the GOP has been merrily shaving votes often with stupifyingly blatant impossible results. Forget the statistical impossibilities and look at the places where more votes are cast than there are voters.
All this has gone on with hardly a peep from Democrats seemingly afraid they will discourage voters. They may have a point but it leaves any election that’s within a few point laying there for the GOP to steal.
They’ve got the voting machines and they know how to use them. It seems the GOP believes this is their last big chance before demographics shuts them out and they are just desperate and arrogant enough to go for the full montey. Hack enough votes and they can write the history books.
dogwood
@Geoduck:
I think it really boils down to the fact that producing an id to vote sounds reasonable to most Americans. Many people simply have no idea that not everyone has an id. I live in middle class America and frankly I don’t personally know anyone black, white or hispanic who would be affected by these laws. In most of rural, suburban and exurban America people have to drive. They just don’t get what the big deal is.
Another Halocene Human
@James E. Powell: Eh, there have been demonstrations. But I think a lot of us were just feeling depression. 2010 had just happened and we were fighting a slew of Koch ALEC laws. Now we are energized and organized and the Obama campaign is putting the energy over the top. We can’t change these laws until we get political power, though. Not every person understands how the whole thing works together. I’m working on those around me, though.
Another Halocene Human
@Fred: The Dems aren’t doing shit because it’s not going on in counties they control, it’s going on in counties controlled by Republicans where they usually can’t win any office that’s not held by a Dixiecrat or Blue Dog incumbent.
It’s only when it gets blatant, like Waukesha County, that anyone starts to notice. Well, really only BRADBlog notices, but still. Reporting more votes than voters… that’s kinda blatant.
Dems have had their own scandals with chads and ballot-stuffing. It’s tough to get shit done on a shoestring with institutional corruption and a dying labor movement and dying volunteer base. Hopefully all of that is changing.
Another Halocene Human
@dogwood: Even the Republicans in PA didn’t realize how many R voters they would be disenfranchising.
Oops?
Shalimar
@mclaren:
I stopped reading after your list of things that prove we would never find out about a conspiracy involving dozens of people all turned out to be things that were public knowledge everywhere within a few years.
Once again, for the intelligence-impaired: they may very well be arrogant and desperate enough to try it, but no way in hell it could be kept quiet forever. And even if it took a few years while Romney was in office, public knowledge of how far they would go to win would completely destroy the Republican party with all but their base.
YoohooCthulhu
I think these voter ID things are really likely to bite the GOP in the ass more than they thought. I think elderly people are as likely to have ID issues as minorities are–many drive on expired licenses or no longer need them.
The GOP seems to be all about these poorly thought out legal tactics lately, enough that I’m wondering if they’re losing their mojo. The most recent total miss I can think of is the “citizen’s redistricting commission” that the GOP pushed to enact here in California–contrary to their belief, it actually created more Democrat-friendly districts. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar happened with voter ID.
Marc
There was a legit issue with electronic-only voting. I know that there is now a paper trail of votes in Ohio, and that the ballot boxes have members of both parties watching them. My wife is an election official.
So conspiracy theories, at least in Ohio, have to compete against some pretty significant factual matters. If you think that the statewide vote in Ohio could be massively altered then you have to explain how, and I no longer mechanically see this as possible.
Anonymous
@dogwood:
To further this point, these suppression efforts will provide it’s largest impact this year, and will get significantly weaker in every subsequent election. (And for what? Helping Romney to get blown out by just a little bit less?) Once voters and GotV efforts have four years to plan for 2016, these suppression efforts will be significantly less effective — part of their impact this time is that no one had adequate time to prepare.
For the future, what the plan? As Dogwood noted, they’re only suppressing votes because their arguments don’t work. The arguments won’t get any better by 2016. Their suppression efforts will be weakened. And the demographics get even worse.
Xenos
@dance around in your bones: Leonard Cohen, a red-diaper baby during the ’40s, went to so many folk-music infused summer camps when he was a child that he thought the Nazis had been defeated by the power of song.
Xenos
Did Kay ever offer an opinion about the 2004 voting in Ohio?
She is pretty much the only person whose opinion I would trust on the subject, and it would be way too much work to research that one myself.
Fuck ALL the chickens! (né Studly Pantload, t.e.u.u.)
@Cathie from Canada: “In their empty chair world…”
That “beep-beep-beep” you should be hearing sometime tomorrow will be the sound of a truck backing up to your front door to deliver the internets to you. Well played.
Patricia Kayden
@nellcote: Excellent article you linked to. I don’t think John is being paranoid at all. Anything could happen.
I can’t drive myself crazy by thinking of all the bad things that the Repubs could try to do. But it’s good to be aware of how low the Repubs could go to steal this election.
But I’m still whooping and hollering everytime I see the Obama-friendly polls. I think he’s going to win no matter what the Repubs try. Looking forward to celebrating on November 6th.
Arclite
Really? I would have thought that polling fell under the purview of reality. And the right wing knows all about the evils of reality.
Todd
Here’s the thing – there’s a bunch of wingnut lawyers like Hugh out there. They’ve not really worked in the profession for a couple of reasons. Some have been abject failures at it due to a lack of business skills, others haven’t done well due to a lack of perspective on what matters to take and which matters to punt in order to maximize revenue.
And yet others don’t work in the profession because it is genuinely a hard job, and they have no desire for the sort of accountability that would come from working in an alternate area, like government.
My theory is that wingnut lawyers in that last category wind up as pundits like Hewitt. Wingnut lawyers in the first two categories wind up scrabbling for sinecures anywhere, and become the pundit led embeds in government and the think tanks.
danielx
I kind of like all three theories/scenarios, but wingnut behavior in general leads me to door #1. It’s a lot easier to view the world through the lens of one big conspiracy theory than it is to admit your presidential candidate sucks and that your party’s positions are viewed as nonsense by a majority of voters.
If they really and truly thought they could win due to the superior quality of Republican policies and their positive impact on voters’ lives – black, white or Latino – there would be no necessity for a massive (and expensive) vote suppression effort. Said effort not only producing shitty optics (hey, Jim Cramer’s dad can’t vote!) but is a transparent effort to win judicially and administratively what they can’t win politically. Projection, much, Hugh ol’ buddy?
Because if Obama does win, there will be no hiding the fact that Republican policies have been soundly rejected twice in eight years. Romney is a lousy candidate and campaigner, but the positions he took during the primaries (many of which he agreed with) were for the most part standard issue wingnut fantasy material.
SRW1
Re option #3: Obama would not simply roll over. Plus, he’d still be in the White House for three months and he knows guys who know how to do statistical analysis to detect voter fraud.
kay
I think the “conspiracy” here is for Right wing outfits to all repeat the polling flaws story to stave off a collapse in small donors and voter enthusiasm.
They have to say something, and this bullshit might work for a while.
If Rasmussen moves they’re screwed, though.
mothra
The local news has to pad “Obama is leading the race” with “If the polling is correct”.
Once again; they demand that we all acknowledge their alternate reality.
debbie
@kay:
I was listening to a Columbus Dispatch reporter on a local NPR show yesterday, and he pointed out that one reason Rasmussen differs from other polls is that they only poll to land lines, which implies that they only poll older people who don’t have cellphones and who are more likely conservative. Of course, the Dispatch poll he was promoting relies on mail responses.
Dennis SGMM
Back when both parties were reasonably sane they worked together to pass laws that ensured that the rise of a viable third political party became nearly impossible. Now one of those parties has turned into Captain Queeg. The other has turned into what Queeg was in the Fifties. And we’re stuck with both of them.
Lojasmo
@mclaren:
Anybody who chose to read beyond A1 of a newspaper
knewshould have known…I certainly did. The state department was back pedaling against Cheney/Rice/Wolfowitz daily.fourmorewars
Hewitt’s Ohio 2010 remark is pretty hilarious. Yeah, Hugh, that’s pretty devastating evidence! Except when you remember the ’10 GOP turnout was 86% of theirs in ’08, and the Democratic was 60% of theirs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2010
ET
Why does this quote keeping popping up. And with more frequency.
I think the Republicans have internalized this waaaay too much.
beltane
@kay: Thanks for your input, Kay. I’m also feeling that the bottom could drop out of the Romney campaign at any moment and that Hewitt, Rove et al’s foray into anti-polling psy-ops is meant to keep their own troops from deserting en masse. It is all too reminiscent of Karl Rove’s “don’t mind the polls, I’ve got the MATH”, screed from 2006 (not to mention Baghdad Bob in 2003).
If the RWNM is setting the stage for a massive, multi-state theft of this election, they are doing a very sh*tty job of it as neither they nor the Romney campaign are exuding the type of calm assurance one would expect in this situation.
debbie
Doubtful. They’ve already spent too much money to be able to afford all the lawyers they would need to accomplish this.
Frankensteinbeck
Holy hell. I always thought ‘3-4 permanent, unwinnable wars’ Mclaren was just overheated and inclined to believe any old rumor, but
is flat out tin-foil hat paranoid delusions type insane. Now I know why Mclaren was pushing the idiot idea that Obama was conspiring with BP to conceal the oil spill. Yikes. I wish there were any way I could convince Mclaren to go see a doctor.
As for the original post, #3 is not going to successfully happen. Rigging the voting machines would be way too obvious thanks to the way results come in bit by bit and are pored over by our shiny object news media. One or two of the governors just might be completely partisan nuts enough to try to rig the vote, but they’d be caught doing it. They ain’t subtle.
Teresa
In today’s GOP eyes there is no way that rich white republican men can be wrong, not adored, not worshiped and rejected for being low performing assholes.
In order to maintain their messed up view of themselves and salve their ego they must blame the complete failure on thing and someone else. It how they have operated for years now.
Dennis SGMM
@Teresa:
And, in the case of G.W. Bush, who had it all and was still a miserable failure, they simply erase him from their memories.
PaulW
Pulling off vote theft ala Theory #3 might be trickier than you fear:
1) the counting is done at the county level, at least here in Florida – remember the recount in 2000 involved the county offices, not the Sec of State’s office up in Tall Hassle – and right now the county elections officials and Rick “More Fraud” Scott don’t see eye to eye.
2) Despite the rural dominance of the Far Right, a lot of Floridians actually live in major urban/metro counties, at least half of them led by Democratic Party elections officials. If the GOP is gonna want to steal votes they’re not going to be able to do it in Democratic-led counties like Hillsborough and Broward (Orange/Orlando Metro counties and Duval/Jacksonville are more likely, though, but not givens).
3) Parties conduct their own exit polling during the actual election. If the Democrats’ polling (and the general polling) don’t jibe within statistical error range of any results, you can be damn sure the Democrats learned their lessons from 2000 and will challenge any vote tally that doesn’t fit.
4) My personal assurance: Romney/Ryan just ain’t that popular here in Florida right now. The polls aren’t lying about Obama’s growing lead in the Sunshine State: I am not hearing anyone around me singing the praises of Mitt or the GOP. And I live in a reliably GOP county. (psst: there’s a lot of p-ssed off low-income locals around here angry with Scott’s cutting social funding. WHITE low-income locals…)
My suggestion: any state leaning Obama within range-of-error (say, 4 percent) but threatened by state-level GOP shenanigans should get 100,000 elections observers to make sure things stay fair and counted proper. Any state outside that range-of-error (and Florida’s average polling says Obama’s winning big here) just needs a bunch of elections lawyers with lawsuit papers in case of emergency.
Trinity
@JustRuss: This.
I think it has been obvious for some time that they intend to steal this thing. Period.
chopper
@mclaren:
has anybody ever told you that your posts read like a Chick tract?
stratplayer
@pluege:
Republicans have managed to convince themselves that they are objectively, indisputably correct on every issue and that their Democratic opponents are so categorically wrong as to pose a mortal threat to the country. If in your mind the only alternative to a sweeping, permanent Republican electoral victory is the death of America, democracy might begin to look dispensable.
Matt McIrvin
@nellcote: Elizabeth Drew is right. But it’s a question of numbers. It doesn’t necessarily mean they can pull the strings hard enough to actually unelect Obama.
For instance, take Pennsylvania. If the voter ID law doesn’t get overturned, many legitimate voters are going to be turned away, or dissuaded by long lines. It’s going to be a disaster.
But will it swing Pennsylvania’s presidential electoral votes? Probably not. In most of the polls Obama is running 8, 9, 10 points ahead of Romney, with likely-voter screens in. For the whole state’s voting population, that’s something like 500,000 people. To close that gap, the effect of the voter ID would have to be to suppress, not just that many votes (which could probably be done without too much trouble), but that many more Obama votes than Romney votes, among people who would have voted otherwise. That’s a much taller order. They might be able to do it by effectively shutting down some polling places in Philadelphia while leaving the rest of the state completely unaffected. But I get the impression that a lot of the people directly hit by voter ID are elderly people, who skew Republican in the first place. There will be some blowback.
There are going to be some state and local races flipped by vote suppression, though, and I hope that when it happens the stink made about it doesn’t let up.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@fourmorewars: And that stat just scares me. If the dems cant change that dynamic, they will end up losing a lot of elections that matter.
Matt McIrvin
I might start to worry that some massive multi-state election-rigging conspiracy could succeed if the Unskewed site were actually getting respect outside the conservative echo chamber. But it’s not, as far as I can tell; the mainstream political media mostly seem to be laughing at it.
Matt McIrvin
…The other thing to remember is that this isn’t the first election where this crap has gone on. Ken Blackwell did everything he could to suppress Democratic votes in Ohio in 2004.
Did it flip the state? Maybe, maybe not. But we can compare numbers to see how big the effect might have been.
Bush led Kerry by 50.8% to 48.7% in the final Ohio popular vote. According to Dave Leip’s election atlas, the average of the last three polls had Kerry ahead 49% to 48%. Most of that discrepancy was because of a Gallup result that seems way off from the other late polls, most of which had Bush ahead. But assume the average is correct, that we can ignore statistical noise and any other systematic effects, and that the change in the vote margins came entirely from dirty tricks. That’s a 3% swing in the vote margin, given fairly generous assumptions.
Is there any really significant place right now where we have reason to believe there’s major-league vote suppression going on, and that this level of effect would probably swing the state presidential vote? Yeah: Florida.
In conclusion, watch Florida closely. And Obama will really want not to screw up badly enough that he can’t win without Florida. But you didn’t need me to tell you that.
quannlace
Beyond this being the wingnut’s security blanket as the Romney campaign circles the drain; I don’t see the practical logic of insisting the polls are ‘skewed’ Are they supposed to somehow hypnotize people into voting for Obama? If RWer’s are so depressed by them it makes them stay home on Election day, well, that’s your own stupid fault. And ranting about
‘corporate media’ ? Don’t corporations tend to be on the conservative side?
dance around in your bones
@Xenos:
I love that story……oh, WOULD that we COULD. Defeat the Nazis (or whoever) by THE POWER OF SONG!
Original Lee
No, John, you’re not a paranoid crank. Sad to say, you are a perfectly normal, rational, compassionate, high-information voter. Everybody like you is trying desperately to avoid that sinking feeling you get when something so essential to your ordinary life is at the mercy of forces out of your control. In this case, all you can do is what the rest of us ought to be/are already doing, which is talking to as many people as possible about keeping an eye on the voting.
That said, does anybody know how to get UN observers for this election? Because that might be what it takes to keep the GOP from stealing the election, IMO.
Jay C
Leaving aside the apparent fact that Republican/conservative wailing and hair-pulling about “polling bias” (and “voter fraud”) is a case of projection on IMAX-scale levels, I think there is – thank God – a reasonable refutation to the worst of John’s fears re the direst of his three theories:
#1: Probably mostly correct: the whining and bluster over “biased polls” seems, so far, to be mainly by bitter wingnuts writing/posting in the wingnutosphere primarily for other wingers. The whole issue will, I predict, lose the bulk of any traction it might get outside of said ‘sphere as soon as it is brought up by the Oppo (Joe Biden would be the perfect vessel). Americans (and most of the “real” media) generally don’t like losers: but like lame excuses for losing even less.
#2: Probably correct: despite the looming specter of a Presidential loss, I’m not whether casting a doubt on the legitimacy of Obama’s re-election would make much of a difference in the policy of ideological-obsessive obstructionism which has become the hallmark of modern Republicanism.
#3: Disagree: like as has been pointed out: too many players, too big a lead, too obvious a chance for exposure of overt (or even covert) fuckery.
While a lot of us may complain about the problems with partly- or wholly-electronic voting, with any sort of backup system, modern polls are at least as fraud-proof as the old paper-ballot elections (i.e. how “Landslide Lyndon” Johnson got elected to the Senate in 1948).
And yes, John, we know you’re a paranoid crank: that’s why we love you, and keep coming back to Balloon Juice….
McJulie
@YoohooCthulhu: Yes, the GOP is losing their mojo. It doesn’t mean they will never win another election — look at 2010 — but their mojo, that certain ineffable something, is definitely going away.
Bob In Portland
One man’s conspiracy theory is another man’s business plan.
danimal
This thread is mostly dead, and Cole is certainly a poster boy for ‘paranoid cranks,’ but over 130 comments and no one is giving him props for the post title. Great song, and the underlying quote refers to the beating of a major MSM figure by deranged idiots.
Very well played.
Soonergrunt
This is some interesting food for thought. For those who, like me, live with these people and have actually socialized with them, it’s not all that unfeasable:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/how-rights-latest-conspiracy-theory-might-unleash-wave-domestic-terrorism-if-obama?page=0%2C1&paging=off
slag
Number three is what’s been making me nervous as well. Romney’s whole campaign has failed to make sense to me. So, either they’re really as delusional as we think they are, or they’re banking on #3.
It’s just so hard to imagine that anyone can really be as delusional as the Republican Party appears to be, so, as strange as it sounds, your #3 actually feels like the more rational explanation of things. Scary.
danimal
@Soonergrunt: This made me laugh, then gave me a bit of a shudder.
Remember the hullabaloo when Janet Napolitano released a report about the danger from right-wing extremists and the outrage setting on the Wurlitzer cranked to 11? Events proved she was right.
wrb
@Kristine:
Dunno.
Couldn’t it be done in software, known only by a very few people?
LD50
@Frankensteinbeck:
The funny thing is how when left-wing paranoia goes far enough, it starts becoming indistinguishable from right-wing paranoia. I could probably find some wingnut making an identical claim after 2 minutes of googling, max.
ally
@dance around in your bones:
That is a wonderful movie!
dswagz
@Mnemosyne:
They’ve already had one idiot (Mike Turzai) spill the beans in Pennsylvania; The others surely was scolded about that and so far no one else has admitted to tipping the election.
…Any election that KKKarl Rove has a stake in -and Fox News is ‘reporting’ on- is subject to scamming.
ellennelle
@PaulW:
paul, this is both helpful and hopeful! thx. especially wrt the exit poll comment. in fact, something john needs to recall is the rightwing outcry in 2000 about how wrong the exit polls were, and the media went right along with it!! forgetting of course that exit polls are considered the gold standard internationally, and the way all elections are tested for validity. that ridiculous outcry set a dangerous precedent, one that these recent sneers should evoke with high alert warnings. (sort of on that outcry point, anyone here recall the similar outcry in ’04 when republicans refused to allow international observers assess our elections, even after 2000?)
wrt the whole conspiracy question, john, may i recommend highly you pick up a copy of craig unger’s most recent book, boss rove. or watch/listen to any of the many interviews he’s conducted recently, such as with amy goodman or bill moyers. ’twill make your hair stand on end and beg for a tinfoil hat, tho – oddly – none of it is at all surprising.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Mnemosyne:
Plus it would have to be done in a halfway plausible way—if polls are showing Obama leading the state by 5 points and Romney suddenly wins it in a landslide, there’s gonna be some ‘splainin to do.
Why?
I mean, they have the media in the bag, the Democrats intimidated, and if the worst comes to the worst, the Supreme Court.
What exactly is to stop them putting their thumbs on the scales as long as they do so in a halfway-plausible fashion (i.e. spreading the vote flipping out over a number of polling areas)?
And two more related interesting questions:
– What exactly are progressives going to do if a President Romney is sworn in on what is probably an illegitimate election?
– What exactly are progressives going to do if wingnuts decide not to accept Obama’s re-election because “they just know” he cheated?