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In particular, look when Borger says oops! Also, the 17-18% youth vote, it's now being said it was only 11%? Was this guy reading the wrong (real) numbers. And the BS about the exit polls of course. I've been looking at various transcripts of the Nov. early morning hours and it's clear they were reporting in a predetermined way. This transcript isn't that bad, but the CNN at 4:30 am is and I'll have it up on my blog shortly.
SHOW: Today 6:00 AM EST NBC November 3, 2004 Wednesday
LAUER: Biggest loser last night: exit polling.
BORGER: Oh! I could not believe this. You know, earlier in the day, Matt, I was talking to some John Kerry people who were ecstatic about these exit polls. So then I would get on the phone, and I would talk to people from the White House. And the people from the White House were going crazy. They said, `Look, these polls are so weighted towards women and it is--they're statistically completely wrong.' And they went Catholic voters, they said were counted the wrong way. Women were counted wrong. So they--they had to spend their entire day doing damage control about an election in which they've really won the popular vote.
LAUER: And--and the major difference between right now and 2000, was that in 2000, Al Gore knew he had won the popular vote.
BORGER: That's right.
LAUER: And so he had this--this ground to stand on and say to the American people, "Be patient with me here. Let's work on Florida because look at the numbers in the popular vote." And John Kerry doesn't have that luxury.
BORGER: John Kerry has lost the popular vote and the people in the campaign know it. And I think--the ones that I've spoken to who are sort of awake this morning, seem to be saying to me, `We know it's inevitable.' But the question is, when? The question is, how? And that's what the White House is waiting for. They were going to speak earlier this morning. I think they're giving the Kerry campaign a little bit of time to figure out what it wants to do, how it wants to do it. That said, as Norah O'Donnell said earlier, if the Kerry campaign doesn't hurry up, I think they're going to declare victory.
LAUER: What about turnout? I mean, the--the popular thinking was that...
BORGER: Yeah.
LAUER: ...higher the turnout, the more benefit--benefitted John Kerry and the Democrats.
BORGER: Oops!
LAUER: We're looking at somewhere between 110 and 120...
BORGER: Right.
LAUER: ...million. We don't have final numbers on that right now.
BORGER: Exactly.
LAUER: But even if it is higher--much higher, 10 percent higher than 2000, it didn't seem to help John Kerry.
BORGER: No, first of all, everybody thought the young voters were going to turn out in droves, and I think the percentage is 17 or 18 percent. You know, it's not that much larger than it was last time around. If--if it had been larger...
LAUER: Just--I believe it's just the same.
BORGER: ...if it had been larger, then that would have really benefited John Kerry. But--but what you also saw was the evangelical voters coming out this time. The culture wars being a very large issue. Karl Rove always said they were suppressed last time, three to four million of them because of the news of the president's DUI right before the election--when he was a younger man, obviously. And so they really had a great effort to get out those cultural conservatives. They did surgical strikes. They knew where they were. They knew they--they were in the ex-urbs all over the country. They found them and they got them to the polls. And that is a very big margin for--for--for the Bush campaign.
LAUER: Let me go back to the youth vote for a second.
BORGER: Yeah.
LAUER: We saw these huge rallies. Bruce Springsteen playing before enormous crowds in--in states across the country. Were those people there just to hear the music?
BORGER: They could have been there just to hear the music. You know, they were busing them from the rallies directly to early voting in states like Wisconsin, for example. But the question is, did it work or did it not work? We have to look at the early voting in Florida also, Matt. Would those people have voted anyway?
LAUER: Do you think--do you think some of the negativity, especially in the final week of the campaign, turned off some of those young voters?
BORGER: I think it could have. I think the question of waiting in line for six or seven hours may--maybe turned off a lot...
LAUER: Although, we've heard some nice stories of persistence from Ohio from students.
BORGER: That--that's right. But young people, including my children, are not known for their patience. And waiting in line for seven hours is not a great thing to do when you've got things to get on with in your life. And I--I think people are going to be looking at the voting system and saying, you know, maybe there's got to be a better way than keeping people in line for that long.
LAUER: Gloria Borger. Gloria, thanks very much. We appreciate it.
BORGER: Thanks a lot.
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