Conservative Talk Shows Possibly Overestimate GOP Chances

Some election chatter, for what it's worth… I just cast my ballot in northern Virginia, and noticed a strong James Webb presence vs. a weak George Allen presence at the polls. Not a huge surprise in a Democratic chunk of Fairfax. But on the way to the school house, I tuned into Laura Ingraham's talk show and heard an ornery Republican voter call in from Falls Church.

"Did you see any tie-died shirts?" Ingraham asked, broadcasting somewhere from 1972.

"No," said Joe Republican. "I saw a lot of conservatively dressed people. I think they are coming out for George Allen. And they said 1500 people had already voted in the precinct."

Some facts about Falls Church. It's a tony suburb of D.C. (it has two metro stops) that voted 65-34 for Kerry over Bush and 73-26 for Democrat Tim Kaine in last year's governor's race. In neither race did one precinct see 1500 voters show up. That kind of turnout is unheard of. So unless Joe Republican got his facts wrong, or somehow got the numbers for the entire city, there's a massive Jim Webb vote coming out. I'm guessing the voter is confused, but Webb is still performing well.

The Webb volunteers, by the way, were nervous about the race and about what kind of senator Webb would make. "He's more conservative than half of the Republicans in there right now," said one of them. "He's not going to do what the Democrats tell him. He's going to be, 'I'm from Virginia. I'm going to do what I want.'"

UPDATE: Or, maybe the talk radio caller was wrong. I was voter #351 in a precint that cast 2,673 votes in 2004 and went 59/40 for Kerry.