was to try to generate support for an unlikeable candidate and for an unlikeable platform.

If they could convince the voters that there was widespread support for the shit they were serving, that it would in turn generate and embolden more support.

However, what it proved was that there was just not enough fanatic Christians, racists or low information voters out there to make it work.

Their numbers are important to us as a guide. I guarantee every knuckle dragger was in attendance to vote. Those truly for the most part are unreachable voters. But we have an idea of how many in their base. That might come in handy.

BTW, Romney's pollster is a childhood friend of mine. The day before the election, a high school classmate sent me an article about him. He started a company here about 20 years ago that helped GOP candidates and eventually became a pollster. A couple years ago, he moved to DC and Romney hired him to do his polling.

I'm embarrassed for him. He comes from a really nice family.

From the first debate on, it was Romney or bust!

All the crap about the first debate being the only thing that mattered, more so that the last two.

Romneymentum was GOP bubblicious.

Some of these pollsters should be banned from any poll aggregator sites in the future.

in another election year might have worked.

Except, in this election year, you had the 47% video. the Internet and social media, the Bain backstory, the crazy "legitimate rape" crowd, the Bush tax cuts and the real live aftermath of the financial crisis. Nothing could have made people switch, IMO.

Citizen's United allowed ethically comprised people like Karl Rove to fleece gullible millionaires and billionaires out of millions of dollars in order to keep the cash spigot open. Would Koch, Adelson and Company keep giving money to a losing cause? That's not likely. So, the GOP gussied up the polls on purpose essentially defrauding donors. Isn't this the ultimate irony? Unregulated campaign finance allows for unchecked thievery. Not that we can check since the information is private, but I'm willing to bet $5 bucks Rove and other "managers" of GOP Super PACs made out like bandits. I doubt many will shed tears over the "more money than smarts" crowd getting played for suckers. To me, it is a delicious irony.

They were assuming only the most enthusiastic would endure, and designed their polls to account for them only.

What they did not understand is attempting to take away rights also creates enthusiasm. There were many voters who may not have been willing to stand in line for hours to vote for Obama, but they were willing to stand in line to VOTE. And they had plenty of time to stew about who created the line in the first place.

Rove and the "consultants" personal greed and outright flimflam tactics combined with voter suppression (which I agree backfired incredibly) designed to get the desired turnout models may have each contributed something to the GOP's national collapse. I also think we keep taking names and kicking ass on the voter suppression efforts - particularly ones designed to make people stand on line for hours.

I have been voting in a blue state since 1980 and I have never spent more than twenty minutes in line to vote. I don't think anyone should have to wait on line for any more than that in any state.

Isn't polling supposed to tell you who is and isn't going to show up, etc? (Rhetorical question)

Much of the premise being discussed by the GOP about the polling in the article is fundamentally wrong.

When the GOP howled about the polls being biased in September, Nate Silver, Gallup & Mark Blumenthal (Pollster.com) all weighed in. In fact, Mark cited articles he wrote on the subject when this came up in 2004.

A good poll simply answers the questions about where people are on an issue. It isn't rocket science to design and setup a poll that will give one objective and meaningful results.

So only one of two things happened:

1) The Republican pollsters are or have become incompetent with polling

2) The Republicans digesting the polls knew what was going on but didn't want to let on out of fear their campaign funding would dry up.

Karl Rove has been at this game and interpreting polls since the late 70s. I choose door #2

A common complaint about polling (1+ / 0-)
by the GOP during the election, including by Rove himself, was the "oversampling of Democrats" or party bias that was supposedly skewing the polls.

Nate wrote about it:
Poll Averages Have No History of Consistent Partisan Bias
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/poll-averages-have-no-history-of-consistent-partisan-bias/

Mark Blumenthal of Huff Post/Pollster.com weighed in it
'Unskewed Polls' Critics Miss Basics Of Party Identification
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-blumenthal/unskewed-polls_b_1924293.html

Gallup addressed it:
The Recurring -- and Misleading -- Focus on Party Identification
http://pollingmatters.gallup.com/2012/09/the-recurring-and-misleading-focus-on.html

And they shot the claim down.

Here's what happened according to the exit polls (that are not absolutely precise but give us some idea):
http://elections.nytimes.com/...
http://www.cnn.com/...
http://www.cnn.com/...
State Party ID +/- (2008,2004) (+=Dems, =-Reps)
CO Dems +5 (-1,-9)
FL Dems +2 (+3,-4)
IA even (+1,-2)
NC Dems +6 (+11,-1)
NH Dems +3 (+2,-7)
NV Dems +10 (+8,-4)
OH Dems +7 (+8,-5)
PA Dems +10 (+7,+2)
VA Dems +7 (+6,-4)
WI Dems +5 (+6,-3)

When Bush won, Republicans were ahead in the exit polls. When Obama won, Democrats were ahead in the exit polls in the battleground states. The polls weren't lying, biased or skewing.

But again, Rove has been around this game since the late 70s. He knew this. This was not a revelation that only Nate Silver, Mark Blumenthal & Gallup knew.

Karl lied to keep the money rolling in.