Noonan feels things:
There is no denying the Republicans have the passion now, the enthusiasm. The Democrats do not. Independents are breaking for Romney. And there’s the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same.
Is it possible this whole thing is playing out before our eyes and we’re not really noticing because we’re too busy looking at data on paper instead of what’s in front of us? Maybe that’s the real distortion of the polls this year: They left us discounting the world around us.
Look: I don't know, and I don't, oddly, have a feeling at all right now. I leave that to the Log Cabin Republicans. But I do try to check my feelings against data, as opposed to anecdotes from friends about yard signs. I agree with John O'Sullivan, however, that it is vital not to believe that predictive data – even the best polling data – are reality. The reality is behind the curtain – subject to any number of utterly unknowable micro-factors. John has a classic English conservative, empirical attitude about this: he's fascinated to find out. Me too. But his American colleagues who all seem to be expecting a Romney landslide. Utterly convinced of it. Tomasky notes:
Wingers seem to know, or think they know. Of course they don't know, and deep down they know that they don't know, which must be a kind of psychological torture to them, and so they compensate for having to endure that torture by putting up that front of absolute certainty, which in turn brings its own rewards whatever the result. Their guy wins, they get to say, "Ha! I knew it all along." Their guy loses, they get to be outraged and blame the blacks, the media, the pollsters, Nate Silver. In a weird sort of way I suspect many of them prefer the latter outcome.
"That front of real certainty." It's a good phrase for what I have long called the "fundamentalist psyche."
Fundamentalism is not about belief; it's about the rigidity required because of faltering belief. It's not faith; it's neurosis. And it's at the heart of the GOP problem; it's why they cannot look at things empirically, refuse to acknowledge nuance, and cannot trust anyone who might be in touch with the reality fundamentalists secretly fear may be true.
In some ways, if this election does end in an Obama victory and a solid Democratic gain or hold in the Senate and minor GOP losses in the House (as now seems the more probable polling conclusion), then the cognitive dissonance might break. Even they will have a hard time arguing that Romney, who picked Ryan, has not been "conservative" enough. They've got Sandy to blame, but I'm unconvinced. Then they'll blame minorities, whose votes they will eventually conclude they need. It's a process.
I long argued it would get worse before it got better on the right. It did get worse. But if Obama wins, it just might get a little better. If the GOP greeted 2008 with denial about the Bush legacy and denial about Obama's potential, they then ran, Kubler-Ross-style, into the 2010 elections with anger; then they bargained their way toward a debt ceiling fiasco (whose terms of resolution are about to bite them in the ass); then they got depressed – and then they went right back to Stage One after that first debate, and went right back into denial again.
Then there is the stage of acceptance, which may already be happening among some:
Republican Governors Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell, by praising President Obama, and New York's formerly Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, by endorsing him, are not leading their supporters to Obama; they are following them to protect their own political futures because they believe Obama will win. Bloomberg wants to preserve his centrist credentials, and there is no easier way to separate from Romney then by emphasizing the urgency of dealing with climate change. Christie governs a state in which the president is popular; his sudden admiration of Obama benefits both of them at the expense of Romney, who will have no way of paying Christie back if he loses. McDonnell was an early supporter of the Ryan budget, but now is backing away from the devilish details in that budget – like slashing FEMA.
As I said, I don't know. But if reality is what the state polls are overwhelmingly indicating, then we are going to get a psychic break on the right later this week and year. And that, if it occurs, will be extremely healthy. And long overdue.
* The most likely actual quote from Ms Kael was as follows: ""I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them." See? She feels things too, just like Peggy Noonan.
(Photo: A cell phone with an American flag cover is held up as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally at the Heritage Farm Museum, on November 5, 2012 in Sterling, Virginia. By Mark Wilson/Getty Images.)
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