Conventional wisdom: Repubs will "out-perform their polls"

[cybildisobedience]

I've heard this too many times from inside the Beltway types that I think it will absolutely be the reason offered up when the Repukes mysteriously win again and retain their control.

They can't come up with "values voters" with the Mark Foley thing. The "soccer moms" have abandoned the GOP. Even the "Nascar dads" don't seem to be a driving force in politics.

"Reluctant responder" when approached by an exit poller?
I don't think so.

There are no other amorphous groups left to explain away a sudden Diebold-produced swing into the Repuke column.

So the day after the election, get ready to hear how well the GOP's crack "get out the vote" operation worked, and how they once again, "out-performed their poll numbers."

P.S. I would love to be wrong...

[blm]

1. I'm watching for them to take a few seats in their stronghold states like

SC and Texas where they control most every aspect of the state infrastructure.

We will win - no doubt about it - will we win enough to take over Congress? Will keep working to make it happen, no matter what.

[unpossibles]

2. well, honestly their GOTV push is more effective than ours

since each of their supporters seems to be able to get their vote counted....

I still bristle when I hear the excuse that our last Get Out The Vote drive didn't work, that lefties were too stoned to vote or forgot or whatever to explain the lower than expected turnout, despite the fact that I waited in line for 3 hours starting at 6am, which is way longer than I have ever had to wait in any election. We had the voters; their votes just weren't counted and I am convinced of it.

[bluestateguy]

3. Fine, but too many people yell "Diebold!" without any evidence

Sometimes I hear people screaming about Diebold rigging conspiracy theories when sometimes the states and counties in the election they are talking about does not even use Diebold or computerized machines. Too often people are just too lazy to provide comprehensive explanations for an election's outcome, much less do any research, so they just make stuff up about Diebold and shadowy vote-rigging conspiracies.

For the record, I happen to favor a mandatory paper trail for these machines if they must be used, and it's well known that there have been documented problems with them, such as in several NC local elections in 2004. But in that case there was real evidence to document the problems. Too many people here and on other liberal sites refuse to require any evidence for their theories and just assume that any election Republicans win must be a Diebold rig-job. When I ask them to produce evidence to support that claim, I am often told that they can't produce any evidence because it's all been covered up by Diebold. :eyes: Please, at that point, the conversation is over.

[unpossibles]

4. well, to be fair, a lot of paper ballots are machine counted

and election fraud was not created by Diebold.

But I know what you mean.