Blog P.I.

It is only a matter of minutes now before the polls close and BIog P.I. departs for an evening of electoral victory/defeat partying, letting people with a stake in the day’s events this buy our drinks. In the meantime, here are some thoughts before the election returns are returned…

Today’s Wall Street Journal could have coined it the Wonkette Rule:

Two-by-two, polling specialists from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and the Associated Press will go into rooms in New York and Washington shortly before noon Tuesday. Their cellphones and BlackBerrys will be confiscated; proctors will monitor the doors; and for the next five hours, these experts will pore over exit-poll data from across the country.

If all goes well, only when they emerge from their cloisters will the legions of ravenous political bloggers have any chance of getting their hands on the earliest indication of which party will end up controlling Congress.

The sidebar does, however, single out Nick Denton’s Beltway gossip sheet in a sidebar (though in 2004 Slate’s Jack Shafer joined Wonkette’s Ana Marie Cox in bravely/shamefully running those numbers early):

That’s right, it’s all the bloggers’ fault — and not the reporters who leaked the information to them, nor the reporters who leaked the information to themselves for publishing on the Internet.

These things we know: Exit polls are far from authoritative, and one shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on them. However, there are ways of making that point without being as deliciously hubristic as RNC Research Department:

In 2000, Exit Polling Malfunctioned And Incorrectly Projecting [sic] Vice President Al Gore As The Winner Of The Crucial Battleground State Of Florida.

Well, Yes, And Then Some Other Stuff Happened, Too.

Also of some interest — what Danny Glover did for political blogger/consultants last week, today he does for political blogger/donors. Earlier in the week I extrapolated from his numbers (in some cases perhaps a bit too far) to create charts based on them. Today, why don’t I rank his latest findings in order, from those donating the most to those donating the least? Why not indeed:

Blogger	Breakout	Total
John Hinderaker, Power Line	Mark Kennedy ($2,400); Michelle Bachmann ($2,100)	$4,500
Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos	Jim Webb ($1,825); Jon Tester ($1,300); Ciro Rodriguez ($250)	$3,375
Hugh Hewitt, TownHall.com	Jon Kyl ($2,000); Rick Santorum ($1,000)	$3,000
Duncan Black, Atrios	Vote Vets ($250); Lois Murphy ($200); Patrick Murphy ($200)	$650
Matt Stoller, MyDD	Ned Lamont	$500
Chris Bowers, MyDD	Ned Lamont	$250
Stirling Newberry, various	Ned Lamont	$250

All numbers from Glover’s FEC searches, and as I am guessing he did not run every known political blogger’s name through the system, the list is surely incomplete. But would you have pegged Kos to have donated more than Hewitt? I’m pretty sure I would not.

The next time Blog P.I. is updated, the Washington political world will be turned upside down. Or possibly not. But if I had to wager — and I have made my non-wagering predictions elsewhere —  things are more likely than not to end up sideways.