Exit Poll Bingo With Matt Drudge
Exit polls are out! Exit polls are meaningless and often wrong! But Matt Drudge has posted them, and amended them, and rejiggered them, to make things look better for Mitt Romney. Because they don't look good for Mitt Romney. In fact, they look like he lost.
When Drudge first threw up the exits about an hour ago, he played them as shown above: Good news for Obama. A "Boom," in fact. The president looks good to win Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, while Romney has bagged North Carolina and Florida (again, remember there are no margins to these alleged wins and exit polls are really, really, often wrong). Left in the toss-up column—according to Drudge—were Virginia, Colorado, and Iowa.
Within minutes, Drudge had switched that around, changing the headline to "Exit Polls Tight" and moving Ohio to the "toss-up" camp. Why would he do this? Because, according to a source who has seen the exits, they basically show Obama winning. His initial "Boom" tally was correct but for one thing: Iowa isn't in the toss-up category. It's an Obama win. Which would put him at 271 electoral votes.
The source says the margins are razor-tight, and remember—exit polls don't really mean anything. But they mean something to Matt Drudge, who initially posted very good news for Obama (in the short-term pundit image management race going on tonight) and rowed back as fast as his little arms could carry him.