Polled Jefes
The Commonwealth Coalition points to polling indicating a “statistical dead heat” for Virginia’s fantastically broad and misnamed “pro-marriage” referendum, with the most recent Mason-Dixon poll showing voters favoring it 49-45, just at the edge of the 4% margin of error. In itself that doesn’t impress me; however, the trend over time is against the amendment – the previous Mason-Dixon poll showed voters favoring the measure 52-42. (Disclosure: I contributed money to the Commonwealth Coalition in September.)
Meanwhile, Mark Ames says the staff of The Exile will
stake ten years of hard-won credibility on just this one foolish prediction — we’re doubling down everything this paper is worth, and placing our girlfriends as collateral just in case. That’s how good we feel about this. Ready? Here goes. THIS COMING TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2006, THE REPUBLICANS WILL KEEP CONTROL OF BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS.
The argument boils down to the idea, not unfamiliar to readers of this blog, that Nationalism Trumps. The Loyal Reader who brought the link to my attention suggests that expats can have distorted perspectives on politics back home. I think that’s true. It’s hard for most people to decide to leave their homes for good; you’d expect such people to have a pretty heavy psychological investment in the believing that things back home are Very Fucked Up. (Exile: “America hasn’t been this grotesquely funny in our lifetime. The Bush years have been a godsend not only to America’s enemies, but also, to America’s dissident comedians. All ten of us.”)
But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Comment by Walt —
November 5, 2006 @ 6:07 pm
I would think it was possible, but this morning I happened to catch some talking-head thing on Fox News (my baby likes to turn the TV on to random channels), and everyone on the panel was visibly dejected.
Comment by John Emerson —
November 5, 2006 @ 6:53 pm
The Exile dudes should have been talking up their girlfriends quite a bit differently if they were planning to be using them for collateral.
Comment by neil —
November 5, 2006 @ 7:32 pm
This expatriate predicts a virtual loss for Democrats which may barely translate into winning the house with 6 or 8 pickups, and two in the Senate. But more importantly, I’m prepared to find my electoral predictions as hideously incorrect as they were the last three times around.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
November 5, 2006 @ 8:04 pm
I want to believe the evidence of good Democratic prospects. But I did that in 2004 and look where it got me. Given the very large scale of the vote-tampering machinery in place, I don’t feel comfortable expecting anything but a solid Republican victory that the pundits will view with a few seconds’ mild surprise and then take as a granted. And if it isn’t that, then it seems to me likely to be a Democratic victory taken away in a welter of bogus Republican allegations of fraud that let the current Congress refuse to seat Democratic challengers.
I very much want to be seen as a misguided pessimist about this all. I really, really do.
Comment by Walt —
November 5, 2006 @ 9:16 pm
But if there was going to be vote tampering, don’t you think Brit Hume and his ilk would have a whiff of what was going on? And they’d be talking up the Republicans chances? The more they talk the down, the more suspicious a Republican victory becomes.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
November 5, 2006 @ 9:31 pm
Walt, look back at the coverage of the last few days before the 2004 elections. It wasn’t quite as strong a “yup, it’s the Democrats’ moment” thing as this time, but not all that far off, and the mass media pivoeted on a time to accommodate the unjustifiable results.
Comment by digamma —
November 5, 2006 @ 9:36 pm
Tradesports is paying out almost 4:1 on GOP control of the House. If you really believe they’ll hold it, you can make some money.
Comment by Jane Galt —
November 5, 2006 @ 10:14 pm
I’d say this is more like the pundit version of stock options: pundits get no credit for predicting something everyone knows will happen, but huge props if they’re the guy who called the surprise result. (SEE: Dick Morris, Zogby). They suffer not at all for being wrong. So the incentive is to make wacky predictions with some small chance of being right, rather than restating the obvious.
I’m betting at least the house, and very possibly the Senate.
Comment by Gnorgathon —
November 5, 2006 @ 10:47 pm
I have an unshakable faith in the ability of the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Doesn’t mean I expect them to lose, but I don’t exactly expect them to win, either.
Comment by Nell —
November 6, 2006 @ 12:07 am
If things end up 50-50, and Lieberman wins, he’ll probably be offered and accept a position in the Republican party. Under those conditions Dems must win seven seats to retake the Senate.
Very, very unlikely. Four is as far as I dare to hope/expect. And yet, I really do believe Webb might be one of the four. If you’d have told me a year ago we’d elect Webb and not retake the Senate I’d have been hard to convince.
Comment by Nell —
November 6, 2006 @ 12:10 am
If the amendment goes down, then Webb is a lock. That’s too wonderful to hope for, also. I’m protecting my psyche.
But even a very close defeat will be encouraging, and send a signal that pandering to bigots isn’t quite the rewarding activity it was a few years ago.
Comment by Alex —
November 6, 2006 @ 8:16 am
Walt, look back at the coverage of the last few days before the 2004 elections. It wasn’t quite as strong a “yup, it’s the Democrats’ moment†thing as this time, but not all that far off, and the mass media pivoeted on a time to accommodate the unjustifiable results.
The problem with theories like this is that no matter what the media says the theory still works. If the media reports that the GOP is distintegrating and then they pull off a win, it means that there was an anomalous result, so surely there must be foul play. OTOH, if the media softens its predictions and the GOP wins, well, clearly the media was trying to shape expectations so nobody would suspect fraud.
FWIW, I don’t give much credence to theories of massive foul play in elections. It’s not that I think our politicians are above that sort of behavior, it’s that any sort of large-scale foul play would require at least two people to be involved, and the only way for two people to keep a dark secret is if one of them is dead.
Which is not to say that I don’t have certain objections to our election procedures.
Comment by Barry —
November 6, 2006 @ 2:16 pm
Megan McArdle:
“I’d say this is more like the pundit version of stock options: pundits get no credit for predicting something everyone knows will happen, but huge props if they’re the guy who called the surprise result. (SEE: Dick Morris, Zogby). They suffer not at all for being wrong. So the incentive is to make wacky predictions with some small chance of being right, rather than restating the obvious.”
Back in 2003, I didn’t see too many MSM pundits predicting a long, drawn-out guerrilla war in Iraq.