So, if Rove has admitted having his own 'network' of precinct info, why

[merwin]

can't Conyers attempt to get an exact definition of what that means... of what exactly Rove was viewing on election night (since there was only one person in charge of the exit polls, and that wasn't Rove.

[Goldeneye]

1. I think that part comes later

So far Rove has no tie in to whats going on in Ohio...hopefully we'll get to him.

[IndyPriest]

2. Well, campaigns have always done their own polling.

He MAY have been talking about what their own polling was showing. But, you know, I just don't think so!

[merwin]

3. precinct by precinct polling in all counties in the swing states? n/t

[IndyPriest]

6. Well, exactly!

I think his COVER will be that the campaign was "just" doing its own "internal" polling!

[zann725]

11. "internal polling" ...that's an interesting euphemism for "hacking"

n/t

[imenja]

10. of course they do

Their careers ride on knowing how precincts are voting. They pick sample precincts, just like the networks do. Apparently the party polls are much better than the commercial ones, but they rarely release the results. I heard about internal Democratic polls on election day because I worked with the Kerry campaign. I gather they were even reported on the web, not that I had any time for surfing the web that day. Why are you so surprised the Republicans do internal polls? It's part of the basics of electoral politics.
All of this was discussed on Nov. 3. There is nothing new here. Now the Republican poll results and election results might very well be flawed or even fraudulent, but to imagine something sinister in the mere fact that Rove had exit poll data doesn't make much sense.

[read the law first]

4. Even though he's evil, I don't think that this part is bad faith.

We always have people at the actual precincts calling in results too. One time, we had all of the votes called in and when we got to the courthouse, the pukes were there at the courthouse with one or two precincts reporting.

We knew we had already won because we had the actual results per precinct when the precincts closed. We just watched their reactions as it slowly slipped away. It was cruel, but it was fun to watch them.

[merh]

5. See the 3rd image on this slide show

at this link http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6399124

[IndyPriest]

7. "So, Karl, tell us just what you were doing at that table...." n/t

[merh]

8. Karl, you've got some splaining to do!

Wish we could capture that image and post it in a thread. I just can't seem to do it! :argh:

[Silver Gaia]

13. Is this the one you wanted, merh?

[imenja]

9. the parties do their own polling

Both the Dems and Republicans do their own polls during the campaign and exit polls on election day. It's commonplace. I expect that is what Rove was referring to.

[lthuedk]

12. With the ongoing Plame investigation, the fed may have the

White House and all of the offices -including Rove's- tapped and bugged.

[EuroObserver]

14. Here's the picture:

Rachel Clarke's description for the BBC is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3987237.stm

>>Drawing up blueprints for Bush victory
By Rachel Clarke
BBC News, Washington

...Pressure and pranks: By the time election night came around, Mr Rove was in the White House, where, unusually for a political adviser, he has an office. He set up computers in the Old Family Dining Room and started tabulating results. He had set up a massive network of contacts, not just in state capitals, but individual districts and precincts to monitor turnout and support.

Mr Rove may spin the news, but the media still wants to hear him: Early exit polls quoted by media seemed to give Mr Kerry the edge, but colleagues said Mr Rove indicated right away that they did not tally with his information. He used his own data to put Ohio and Florida in the Bush column - bringing cheers from the president and his family when he went into the Roosevelt Room and told them. And when the TV networks gave either Ohio or Nevada to Mr Bush but not both - which would have led him to be declared as the winner - Mr Rove was one of the president's aides who got on the phone to news chiefs to try to pressure them to change their minds...<<

The Sydney Morning Herald's version:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/US-Elections/Bushs-architect-will-be-last-man-out-the-door/2004/11/08/1099781301323.html

>>Sydney Morning Herald
8 November 2004
Bush's architect 'will be last man out the door'

...Hours before it was clear that US President George W Bush had won the election, Karl Rove told his boss to rest easy. Working from a bank of computers on the first-floor of the White House, Bush's political guru absorbed the turnout numbers, checked his target projections in swing states and concluded that the bitterly contested race was over.In first few hours of counting, John Kerry still seemed to be in the game and the political world held its breath. But Rove told Bush that the crucial state of Ohio was in the bag and that he would be re-elected. "Karl was calling states long before the networks did," a Bush confidant said. "His grasp of reality was totally uncanny." Bush spoke to Rove by phone every 10 minutes all night long and later showered praise on the political junkie...<<

Note also, from this DU thread from October 30:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x94

>>mehlman says that there is incredible discord at the top. cheney is absolutley livid with rove on the overall strategy ("we peaked too soon you bastard") and with karen hughes for not adequately preparing bush for the debates ("he looked like a g** d***** mental patient"). cheney is apparently a "real monster". the rnc doesn't know what to do because they can't get any clear direction from the top.

mehlman says that bush's slide in their polls began about three weeks before the debates when kerry when into attack mode with major foreign policy speeches at nyu and at a national guard convention, the day after bush spoke. the slide accelerated big time after the debates, "everyone was as bad as the first with no let-up in free fall" according to mehlman. cheney freaked during the first debate, convinced that bush "'lost the f****** election in front of 65 million people". Now they simply don't have the numbers to win in Florida, have not got their ducks in a row to "deflect" the massive number of early voters and are having real trouble maintaining the base in Florida and elsewhere ("our people are just turning away"). in ohio they've been simply overwhelmed with the new voter registrations and have been unsuccessful in court challenges. bush's number actually go now when he visits ohio after Treasury Secretary Snow's comments in the state that job losses were a "myth". Additionally many repubs are pissed about the financial proligacy of Bush and Cheney and their incompetence in Iraq, so a lot are simply going to "take a pass", read not vote. bush apparently has been totally "out of it" believing Rove and Hughes that everything was fine and that victory was assured, but is finally and slowing catching on that he might lose this thing. yesterday morning when made aware of the bin laden tape in nh, simply said. "It's over."<<

Now, where the hell did I copy this quote from?

>>I heard Bush was told he would lose early in the evening Nov2
by Karen Hughes.

"Doubtless everyone who knows Rove knew that some kind of shenanigans were going on, but probably no details. I mean, how could they have known whether they were cheating enough to win the election? They couldn't be too obvious, too different from the polls. It was a close race. And even in states where some rigging went on, they may not have won. Take Wisconsin, where Kerry's win was by 15000 votes. It was a heavy turnout in the cities, and the lead for Kerry should have been more. They could only hope they cheated just enough to win and be plausible, and that's exactly what happened."<<

[EuroObserver]

16. Add link to comment in this DU thread:

Conyers: Vote firm had remote access to machines:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x190848

>>41. This sure as hell explains the Warren Co "Terror Lock down" on Nov 2nd!

Phony FBI and DHS agents giving phony "Terror alerts" to a single, semi-rural county where Republicans have total control of the courthouse...

The public and the press are summarily excluded from the courthouse and the BOE retreats to their central tabulation room, no doubt with their helpful Triad Governmental Systems technician at their side...

With computer remote access to 41 other Ohio counties' tabulators, they would only have to flip 1500 or so votes in each county to steal the election...

And democracy in the process.<<

[evolvenow]

15. "Karl was furious,"

US News & World Report USNews.com Home Issues 11/15/04

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/041115/whispers/15whisplead.htm

Rove: the numbers didn't lie

It was about 2 p.m. Election Day, and White House political chief Karl Rove was steaming mad. Crummy media exit polls were all over the Internet, claiming a Kerry blowout and possibly depressing the GOP vote, as well as Bushies around the nation. "Karl was furious," we're told. So he went to work in a White House dining room, laying out electoral spreadsheets, scrolling through GOP exit polls, and watching TV. "Karl knows every single precinct," says a friend. "We were never behind." But how would he get the word out? Enter Chief of Staff Andy Card and national security adviser Condi Rice. "She was into it," said the friend. Card shouted out vote counts from the computer, Rice scribbled them down, and Rove compared them with old statistics. When it looked as if the media polls were wrong, Rove's team blasted E-mails to gloomy Bushies in the field, reporting that their man was winning. "I'm not being Pollyannaish here; the race will be a close one," read one, "but . . . this drama has a ways to go before it fully unfolds." Rove's famous spreadsheets, as always, were right. (click on link)

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. Isn't it illegal to run a campaign from the WH?

Remember when Al Gore got in trouble for supposedly making a few campaign fund raising calls from his office? The Repugs were screaming for a special investigation. Yet Rove, W's political consultant, can run the campaign, do his own polling and then set up his operation center right in the middle of the WH on election night and no one seems to be bothered?

[BR_Parkway]

18. That was my thought when I saw the photo n/t

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

19. If the Republicans had interneal exit polling DID THE DEMS??

I hate to bring this thought up, but if it is common for both parties to have their own internal exit polling, then why haven't the Democrats referred to their own exit polls in terms of comparison to the media exit polls?