A reader offers a somewhat spooky explanation for the way NBC used us bloggers yesterday:

I watched for you yesterday on NBC - I actually watched one of the msm for a while, which I never do, but did not see you. Later I learned they only used you twice, for very brief walkons.

I read your post about the squirrely exit polls, Drudge and what I think was a report that one of the other bloggers with you, Wonkette, released the poll data without any real backup.

Today I heard that the networks paid for the exit polls.

So follow me here and see if it makes any sense.

1. NBC along with the other networks paid for the polls, so I would think they had the information to release- it had to come from them. You don't spend that much money and then let anyone use the data.

It is possible they could also shape how the polls are taken, or even change the data once they get it. Not an accusation, just a theory.

2. They called 3 bloggers to NYC to "bring the blogworld into their TV reports."
Then they put you on once, at 3pm, and then left you 3 alone, with just each other to talk to and your computers for a loooong time.

3. What if someone leaked the polls, real or faked, to two very pro Kerry bloggers. And NBC let nature take it's course.

4. Drudge picked up on the posts and the blogworld and the other networks including Fox heard that "it was a blowout for Kerry."

5. The networks accomplished two goals with no blowback.

       a. They get the word out to voters all across the nation, especially Republicans who heavily dominate the blogs, that it was a waste of time to vote, it was already over and Kerry would win. This affects the election at 3pm  before people get off work to vote, rather than 7 at night with an early call for Kerry.
       b. They make the blogsphere look unreliable, and unprofessional which diminishes your threat to the networks.
       c. They can say, which they did, that "it wasn't us, it was the internet.'"
Machiavellian at its best. Or worst.

I wonder if they have been planning this since your last visit to NYC. They don't want to include you, they want to destroy you. And use you. And then blame you for doing what they can't do.

This is an extremely interesting theory, but it needs to be disentangled a bit. First, I am sure that whatever happened with the exit polls had nothing to do with the bloggers' presence at NBC. The polls could have been leaked just as easily if we had been elsewhere.

Second, I can attest that neither Joe Trippi nor Ana Marie Cox was in any way a party to deliberately disseminating incorrect data. As Democrats, they were excited by the information they were being given, just as I was depressed by it. But I saw the printouts that Joe was handed. He wasn't making them up. He and Ana had separate sources of data which were generally consistent but sometimes disagreed. They passed them on, but I am absolutely convinced that if there was any deception, they were not parties to it and should not be blamed for it.

We talked at length about the odd fact that the network news people all have access to the exit poll data. They don't pass it on, but it informs their coverage and, among other things, influences how and when they call states for a particular candidate. It is an interesting question whether this arrangement makes sense, or whether the data should be made public so that viewers can better understand what they are being told by the talking heads.

But that leaves open the broader question of what was going on with the exit polls. They were ridiculously far off the mark. Dick Morris, for one, thinks that properly conducted exit polling could never be so inaccurate, that these exit poll data were clearly fraudulent, and that an investigation should be conducted. It seems likely that Democrats ran the exit polling process, and deliberately generated bad data to create momentum for the Kerry campaign. This much, I think is a reasonable inference. It is also reasonable to suspect that the same people who created the bad data leaked it to Democratic bloggers as part of a strategy of depressing Republican turnout. The bloggers, however, were innocent participants in the deception--if, in fact, it was a deception. I would think there should be an investstigation, not by the government but by the networks who paid for the production of what turned out to be bad information.

The real moral of the story is to pay no attention to poll data, real or imagined, or to other ephemera of the campaign season. Vote your convictions. It is obvious, in fact, that if someone intended to depress Republican turnout by peddling false exit poll data, that effort was a complete failure. I question whether a single Republican stayed home because of the early afternoon panic.