Damnit, Crooked Timber should have some sort of nail-biting election material up. (Journalism is the second-hand on the clock of history – basest material, never runs true. What’s a blog without posts that will be obsolete in 6 hours?) Anyway, Hugh Hewitt has a post up with the title ‘exit polls more than 6 pts biased towards Dems‘. There isn’t any explanation. The whole post reads ‘and possibly worse’. I suppose the point could be: exit polls skew Dem, but how could you know – yet – that they skew 6 pts? I take it there is a bit of a comic over-reaching for the term ‘bias’ here. If the Dems win, the election was ‘biased’!
UPDATE: Scott Kaufman has a good, Onionesque report. “Emails obtained by the Associated Press indicate that top Republican officials now believe that the margin of victory will be too high to rig the results. “A four or five percent margin, we can handle,” said one GOP official. “But eight or higher? That’s asking the implausible.”
UPDATE the 2nd: Hewitt is reaching for a silver lining and coming up with … at least the Soviet Union has collapsed. (That’s worth cheering about.) So: three cheers!
{ 23 comments }
Xanthippas 11.07.06 at 7:46 pm
As Colbert himself said, reality has a well-known liberal bias.
Kelly 11.07.06 at 7:52 pm
Personally, I’m playing Republican Bingo as I wait for the new episode of House, and then The Daily Show/The Colbert Report live election coverage.
It was either that or Election Night Drinking Games, and I’ve got some Heidegger to get through, still…
John Holbo 11.07.06 at 7:57 pm
Hmmm, now that I think of it, I should change my title to ‘dogs of ‘wha’? Originally I had it as ‘release the hounds of ‘wha’?’ Because ‘release the hounds’ has a classic sort of Monty Burns quality to it. Now I’m sort of suspended betwixt and between the lily of the original phrase and the gilding of my title. Oh well.
Kip Manley 11.07.06 at 8:32 pm
It’s simple: he’s heard from on high that 6 points is the can-do spread on the votefucking. He just tipped his hand a little too far from his vest, is all. Forgot who he was talking to.
idlemind 11.07.06 at 8:40 pm
Perhaps among other things, it’s a simple strategy to insulate against any early release of exit poll data. The theory is that people won’t vote if they think their guy is going to lose anyway.
Scott Eric Kaufman 11.07.06 at 8:43 pm
Seems Hugh hasn’t read the GOP’s latest press-release.
Gracchi 11.07.06 at 9:33 pm
Looking good. I’m waiting to see whether the republicans declare that half the nation is treasonous.
bad Jim 11.08.06 at 3:22 am
“Speaker Pelosi” has a nice ring, doesn’t it?
Webb and Tester are still ahead, so a Democratic Senate looks more likely than not. The sweep of the governors’ races may be merely a symbolic victory, but it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye.
Timothy 11.08.06 at 3:46 am
Currently there is considerably academic debate going on at Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/8/31627/0491?detail=f
on the correct spelling of YEAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!! some feel that it is indeed spelt YEAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!! while others favour YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! some believe it is ungramatical to spell
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
without at least three
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!s
joe o 11.08.06 at 3:48 am
Sure, it stings. But it is far from a wipe-out, and if you had told me in 1986 that 20 years later there would be a Republican president facing a 20 seat Democratic majority in the House and a two seat Democratic majority in the Senate –and that the Soviet Union had collapsed– I’d have cheered long and loud.
I like how he slips in the collapse of the soviet union to prevent his 20 year younger self from merely cheering a smaller democratic majority in the house and senate than in 1986. With hugh hewlett’s time machine and a judicious post-facto selection of ponies, ponies for everybody.
Sure, it stings. But it is far from a wipe-out, and if you had told me in 1986 that 20 years later there would be a Republican president facing a 20 seat Democratic majority in the House and a two seat Democratic majority in the Senate –and the names of the winners of the next twenty Super Bowls– I’d have cheered long and loud.
joe o 11.08.06 at 3:53 am
I sure missed that second update. Unfortunately, I need to use the hugh hewlett’s time machine to tell Al Gore about 9/11 and Iraq so I will be unable to prevent my 3:48 am post.
abb1 11.08.06 at 5:05 am
…at least the Soviet Union has collapsed
Hey, what about the perilous Islamofascist menace? If he doesn’t recognize the threat he should get himself a one-way ticket to friggin Eurabia…
~~~~ 11.08.06 at 6:03 am
“If the Dems win, the election was ‘biased’!”
Is it so much to ask, for the electorate to be even-handed?
chris y 11.08.06 at 6:13 am
Seriously, when our American cousins manage to unglue themselves from the ceiling, would somebody like to consider this:
If this sort of thing had been reported by observers monitoring an election in DR Congo or Venezuela, how would the conduct of that election have been reported in the MSM, and what would be the verdict on the political health of that country?
Are a lot of people going to go to prison? If not, why not? And what will a Democratic Congress do to stop it happenning again?
Steve LaBonne 11.08.06 at 6:28 am
Nothing. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions. (With apologies to Atrios.)
chris y 11.08.06 at 6:56 am
Thank you Steve. Thought so.
Anderson 11.08.06 at 9:31 am
Voter bias — wasn’t Diebold supposed to fix that?
jet 11.08.06 at 10:01 am
Gee, could the exit poll issue come from something important that recently occurred? Maybe it was something even news worthy that most people read about? Perhaps it was the frak’n 2004 Presidential election where Kerry exit poll’d 6.5% better than the actual vote count.
rea 11.08.06 at 12:04 pm
“the frak’n 2004 Presidential election where Kerry exit poll’d 6.5% better than the actual vote count”
You mean the 2004 election where Kerry polled 6.5% better than the OFFICIAL vote count, don’t you?
blogenfreude 11.08.06 at 6:27 pm
The blame game begins.
John Holbo 11.08.06 at 7:47 pm
Sorry, Jet, it seems a bit unfair to pick on you today, but 2004 was an aberration. Exit polls have historically been accurate – this year, for example. If Hewitt was saying that the future would obviously be like 2004 then that is merely the form his irrationality took, not any sort of evidence of secret rationality on his part.
floopmeister 11.08.06 at 9:51 pm
Voter bias—wasn’t Diebold supposed to fix that?
I think this wins best election comment on the internets.
James Wimberley 11.09.06 at 4:40 am
Hewitt writes: “the enemy was willing to kill randomly in the run-up to the vote in order to demoralize an American public.” It was so peaceful in Baghdad before it looked as if Allen might lose and the orders went out from Terror Central.
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