My Monday column begins like so:
Satirizing and embodying the dominant attitude of both right-wing media and the Republican Party, Stephen Colbert described the premise of his show by saying, “Anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.” Nearly every day we observe illustrations of this modern conservative disconnect with reality in lieu of emotional kneejerkery: the attitude that the gut ought to overrule everything including math, science, reality, veracity and reality. Reality twice because it’s important. Republican politicians not only engage in this self-delusional exercise, but they actively exploit it among conservative voters, while Fox News and talk radio reflect and amplify it.
So it comes as no surprise that Mitt Romney told Fox News Sunday that he seriously believed in his “heart” that he’d win the election — that is until the president appeared to be leading in Florida on election night. In other words, Romney admitted to disregarding most of the polls and polling averages in favor one or two polling outfits and several opportunist pundits who also believed in their hearts that Romney would be the next president. And, Romney said, when the news networks called Ohio for the president, he knew his campaign was over.
While it’s true that the Florida polls were fairly tight on average, with Romney bumping ahead in Florida following the first debate and settling into a fifty-fifty proposition, the rest of the swing state polls overwhelmingly indicated that it was going to be a very tragic night for the Romney campaign. [continue reading here]