I'm reveling in the results of Tuesday and, for the most part now, getting on with life, with a couple exceptions. One is the mess in Arizona. The other is Ohio's final vote tally, which is something we'd do well to pay attention to. Let's see how close the final margin is compared to what the pollsters, who proved to be exceptionally accurate this time out. Because for the life of me, I can't figure out Karl Rove's thought process during his Fox News meltdown (insert comment here about the holy terror it would be to understand what goes on in Karl Rove's head). To be sure, there was plenty of well-documented right-wing delusion going into election night coverage about how things would go. But Rove ain't stupid. He watched the same results we did...and yet...
- At 8:30 Virginia, already very close, suspended its count due long lines and heavy turnout, most of it in Democratic-friendly areas.
- Pennsylvania (not really in play but let's assume Turdblossom thought it was) was called early (9:15 EST by Fox and CBS news).
- Sherrod Brown's win in Ohio was called by the Associated Press at 9:25.
- Wisconsin, I suppose an arguably actual battleground, was called by Fox and NBC at 9:30.
- CBS News was sold that Dems would retain the Senate and said as much at about 11:05. Kos readers knew it long before that.
And all evening long, even as the first returns started coming in, Obama and Democratic Senate candidates showed persistent leads in most hotly contested races. North Carolina, which Rove undoubtedly had chalked up already, remained stubbornly close and not called until about 11 pm.
So regardless of how much of the Kool-Aid he drank, any or all of these things should have told him what we, with our math-based math and reality-based reality, had been counting on since Joe Biden crushed it at VP debate. By 10:30 or 11, everything Karl thought he knew going in to the evening should have gone out the window.
So at 11:15 when Ohio was called by all the outlets, What did he think he knew about that state that would somehow, miraculously, swing the few remaining (Democratic-friendly) counties still to report to Romney? Why risk the embarrassment of the spectacle he put on?
I post this at the risk of going a little CT, or straying into a realm of mental health studies that I know little about. We're well aware of Husted's tortured, twisted, disgusting and unlawful work in trying to hold back the vote in his state. But what was the face of GOP fundraising thinking?
Is the just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is it real?