Conservatives and Poll Paranoia

In a way it's easy to understand conservatives continuing to insist that Bush was an acceptably good President, or that McCain is preferable to Obama--when evaluations like those are in play, it's notoriously difficult to make clear assessments, and notoriously easy to cheat. Emotions are running high; wishful thinking is the order of the day.

But a quick dip in the rightosphere shows that there are also widespread delusions about much more mundane and less value-laden issues. Like what the polls are saying. Many of our friends across the aisle cannot even bring themselves to admit that our best evidence puts their man behind.

Now, it's also easy to understand why one would want, for strategic reasons, to turn one's eyes away from the fact of likely defeat. But that's not the sense you get from reading, say, Free Republic or K-Lo. It's more like: they can't face any facts that make them sad or fail to cohere with their world-view.

And when this happens, wild explanations and conspiracy theories are rarely far behind.

So get ready for the wave of insane theories "explaning" an Obama victory--widespread voter fraud, tampering with machines, voodoo... If the margin is small, it'll be roughly "only tampering in x county put him over the edge!!11!". If the margin is large, it'll be "the margin could never have been that large; it had to be tampering!!1"

Just you wait.