HEADS HE WINS, TAILS HIS FANS BLAME ACORN

Isn't that pretty much where attention-whore pollster Scott "Orly" Rasmussen stands right now with his shocking! amazing! exclusive! poll showing Democrat Martha Coakley with a 9-point lead over Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race? Sure, he'll look smart if she somehow loses, or wins by less than double digits, but really, what downside is there for Rasmussen if Coakley blows Brown away by 20 or more? The righty bloggers and blog readers who regard every poll of his as confirmation of a wingnut bullet point (which is precisely what they're all intended to be) will just blame sinister dark (and I do mean dark) forces for the discrepancy between the actually existing vote and Rasmussen's wish-fulfillment prognostication. And he'll just keep cranking out polls that seem to emerge from Fox Nation rather than America.

Still ... 9 points? I thought he'd claim the race was closer, just to get his fans' pulses racing. I guess he has some fear of getting egg on his face or he'd say the race was within 5 or 6. (I absolutely discount the possibility that these are real untweaked results.) I figure this means Coakley's winning margin is really somewhere in the mid- to high teens. I think Rasmussen is still attempting something more or less like honest polling, and then just putting a little English on it to stir up the fans. I don't think he's just making numbers up yet -- though I'm not sure his fans would know the difference.