How Do You Spell Relief? O-I-H-O

We have a couple more strange polls to look at this morning. The first one is CNN’s headline poll of Ohio voters, showing Obama with a four-point lead. What’s the catch? Almost one in five self-described conservatives say they’ll vote for Obama. And to that, the next question should be, “Are you freaking kidding me?” There isn’t another poll in the nation with a cross tab anything like that, and it make the entire poll suspect. Suspect? No — useless. Nolte has the full breakdown.

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ARG has Romney up one in Ohio… with an unlikely D+9 sample. Why is D+9 unlikely? A couple reasons.

First up, 490,000 dead and otherwise ineligible voters have been purged from Ohio’s roles, the overwhelming majority of them Democrats. Were all of the dead voting? Maybe not. But in a close race, every fake vote counts.

Secondly, there’s a story on Ohio voter turnout I half-remembered from 2008, which I was able to find still up and about on the innerwebs:

Tuesday’s turnout still surpassed the state average. But it lagged behind Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s predictions.

Nationwide, a George Mason University expert estimated the total voters at 133.3 million, or 62.5 percent of those eligible to cast ballots, while an American University expert calculated turnout as low as 126.5 million, or 61 percent.

The number is likely to equal or exceed 2004, when 60.7 percent of eligible voters voted for President Bush or Sen. John Kerry.

Regardless, this year won’t likely break the 62.6 percent turnout of 1964, the experts agreed.

“Despite teeming rallies for John McCain and Barack Obama, constant campaign commercials, swelling voter registrations and record-breaking predictions, fewer Ohioans voted for president Tuesday than in 2004.

One plausible reason: Discouraged Republicans stayed home from the polls.

“Because the race had opened up, people may not have thought it was as important to vote,” said Michael McDonald of George Mason.

Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chairman Jimmy Dimora agreed.

“The Republicans just didn’t turn out like they thought they would turn out,” he said.

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Does anyone seriously believe GOP voters are going to sit on their hands a second time? Add that to a few-hundred-thousand “missing” Democrats, and suddenly Obama is in serious trouble.

Because D+9? Fuggidaboudit.

UPDATE: For those wondering about the misspelling in the headline, I’m only following Empty Chair’s example.

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