Hot Air poll shock: Near-majority support gay marriage in Vermont

I’m inclined to quote Sean Penn here, but I know if I do some nutroots moron will see it, not realize I’m joking, and accuse me of homophobia. Such is the price of working in a medium that thrives on politically calculated faux outrage.

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In any case, shocka:

Three possible explanations: (a) you guys are far more libertarian than I thought, (b) we’ve got a vast audience of lefty lurkers, drawn to the site perhaps by my (unfair) reputation for being some kind of rabid Palin-basher, or (c) a left-leaning blog linked to the poll and pushed enough traffic to it to warp the result. And the correct answer is … (c). Ben Smith linked it this morning and Chris Orr at TNR picked it up 90 minutes after that, doubtless after a few hundred new votes for gay marriage had flowed in from Politico. I took a peek at the data last night, though, before any outside influences had affected it and the results were almost as surprising: From what I recall, fully 50 percent preferred the federalist option, 21 percent approved of the legislature’s decision to legalize gay marriage, and only 29 percent supported the FMA to overturn it. I thought we’d see a majority of social cons for this one; as it turned out, it wasn’t even close. Make what you will of the fact that three of the leading GOP contenders — Palin, Romney, and Huck — endorse the FMA while only 30 percent or so of our very heavily trafficked right-wing blog agree. Does that create some space for the GOP to take the middle course and back civil unions? A poll of delegates at the Republican convention last August showed 43 percent would be okay with that. By 2012 I’ll bet that number’s near majority, too.

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