Now's not the time to drink the Kool-Aid--Part II

Mat Toenniessen at Red State is more than optimistic about the upcoming elections. Specifically, he points to the fact that in the spate of recent polls put out by the MSM, there seems to be an uncharacteristically high discrepancy between voter party self-identification and historical norms. Never, for example, has a political party in the last 14 years held more than a four point advantage of self-identifying voters over the other party, yet Mat points to an article at NRO that suggests that respondents interviewed in many early October polls identified themselves uncharacteristically high as Democrat vs. Republican. By as many as 11 points!

* USAToday/Gallup: 9 points.
* CBS/NYT: 5 points
* ABC/WP: 8 points
* CNN: did not provide sample party ID details.
* Newsweek: 11 points.
* AP/Ipsos: 8 points.
* Pew: 7 points.
* Time: 8 points.

Yet, the NRO reports...

...there is a material discrepancy between the party identification listed by people in exit polls (people who actually voted) between 1992 and 2004, and those used over the last few weeks.

and

In short, between 1992 and 2004, only once did one party enjoy an advantage as large as 4 points over the other in party ID. But in recent polling samples used by eight different polling organizations (USA Today/Gallup, CBS/NYTimes, ABC/Washington Post, CNN/Opinion Research, Newsweek, AP/Ipsos, Pew, and Time), the Democratic advantage in the sample surveyed was never less than 5 points.

Mat surmizes (and personally I think it's safe to say) that these numbers are very uncharacteristic when compared with voter trends over the past 12 years. While the people at NRO caution that it can be a natural trend for voters to change identification over time, an 11-point shift in voter identification one way or another seems a bit of a stretch. Thus, Mat states, and I agree, that:

In other words, the media and the polling outfits are MANIPULATING the outcome by over weighting the sample with Democrats so that it LOOKS like Democrats have it locked.

[SNIP]

This is part of the attempt to demoralize and disgust the Republican base so much that they stay home on Election Day.

Mat, however, posits that this last-minute hijinx put forth by the MSM and democrats will backfire. For Pennsylvania, Mat predicts:

Rick Santorum will win his Senate seat because after the debates people of Pennsylvania saw Casey for what he is, a lightweight with no knowledge or truth about the issues. In the last debate Casey actually stated that there were 5000 gun dealers in Philadelphia and only a few dozen ATF agents to police them. Santorum blew him away by proving to him that there are only 22 gun dealers in the city, not 5000. This was but one lie that Casey has been spouting that Santorum has debunked. Santorum is within eight points now, and this number will move further his way in the next two weeks.

And for the pease de resistance, Mat predicts:

Cut and Run Democrat John Murtha, also of Penna, is under attack by a great Republican candidate, Diana Irey. I tried for months to get a poll of this race and there was nothing. Then last week the Pittsburgh Tribune released a poll of only 400 people, probably from their offices, that had Murtha up by double digits. But the paper refused to list who they polled, from where and from what party. The poll even had Irey losing in her hometown where she is well liked and very popular. The Irey campaign has called the poll wrong and proved that their internal polling show the race a dead heat.

Just as I have suspected all along, now is not the time to drink the Kool-Aid. The election belongs to those people who show up. And it is my prediction that voters will show up in droves to send a clear message that it still isn't safe to vote democrat; and overconfident democrats everywhere will be once again crying in their coffee come the morning of November 8th, wondering what the heck went wrong.