Opinion: RedState.com tells conservative voters to lie to pollsters about supporting Obama
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Wow. Conservative panic has shifted into overdrive. Over at RedState.com, which is usually a well-written blog with sound arguments for Republican principles and philosophies, Managing Editor Erick Erickson is throwing all that high-toned stuff out the window. Instead, RedState is encouraging its right-wing denizens to get out there tomorrow and vote for McCain but tell pollsters they voted for Barack Obama. This, Erickson seems to believe, will cause all sorts of chaos.
As you know, the media relies on exit polling to formulate their news coverage of Election Day. Likewise, the campaigns make estimations as the day wears on via exit polls. Lastly, in preparing for the next election’s polling, some pollsters will use exit polling to help them. We know how well that’s gone this year. I have a hearty suggestion for all of us: seek out exit pollsters. Find them. Be willing to engage in the exit polling. And lie.
Erickson -- whose personal blog, by the way, says he is graduate of Mercer University (an institution ‘affirming religious and moral values that arise from the Judeo-Christian understanding of the world’) and a deacon at Vineville Presbyterian Church in Georgia -- doesn’t say how this widespread dissembling, even were it to happen, would help the Republican ticket. In fact, couldn’t it hurt the McCain/Palin cause?
If early exit polls show Obama with a big lead, wouldn’t that information work to demoralize McCain supporters? Wouldn’t tidings of an Obama landslide -- even an erroneous one -- actually discourage conservatives from voting? States like Nevada and New Mexico are in play, and their polls close well into the evening (Eastern Standard Time), so wouldn’t telling the truth and boosting the numbers for McCain actually be a better strategy (not to mention more in keeping with a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world)?
But maybe RedState is more interested in making the mainstream media look foolish than keeping Barack Obama out of the White House. Well heck, if that’s the case, maybe Erickson is making sense. He might as well aim for a goal that’s achievable.