“Was last week a head fake, or were they just not that smart?”

*UPDATED 11/8/2012*

Republicans believed their own spin

Mitt Romney will win. The tie in the polls goes to the challenger. Here’s why:

In 2008, self-identified Democrats led Republicans in turnout by seven percentage points. Gallup’s projection is that Republicans will have a 49-46 percent edge this year. “The political environment and the composition of the likely electorate strongly favor Governor Romney,” Goeas says. The Battleground Poll’s “vote election model” projects Romney with 51 percent.

The words above are from a Weekly Standard article written the day before the election.

And get a load of this bold prediction:

Romney will win big w/over 300 electoral votes. Most polls use flawed modeling. See why tonight will b decisive victoryonforb.es/PURqRF

— Steve Forbes (@SteveForbesCEO) November 6, 2012

But reality settled in: Before Republicans went looking for answers Tuesday night, some of them went looking for the remote, according to CNN in a story called Analysis: Why Romney lost.

When it became clear about midnight that President Barack Obama was safely on the way to re-election, a handful of cranky and inebriated Republican donors wandered about Romney's election night headquarters, angrily demanding that the giant television screens inside the ballroom be switched from CNN to Fox News, where Republican strategist Karl Rove was making frantic, face-saving pronouncements about how Ohio was not yet lost.

Romney's 'all' proved not enough

Rove was wrong, of course.

Congratulations to President Barack Obama, the first Democratic president since FDR to win more than 50% of the popular vote in two elections.

The election finally "was a great night for pollsters, too! Well, maybe not so much for Jonathan Paleologos," wrote blogger deminva.

On October 10, 2012, Paleologos told Fox’s "The O’Reilly Factor.

“I think in places like North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, we’ve already painted those red, we’re not polling any of those states again,” " “We’re focusing on the remaining states.”

deminva snarked:

"Jonathan Paleologos, the political scientist with his finger on the pulse of his own state, Virginia."

Story: Pollster pulls out of Fla., NC and Va., says Obama can’t win there

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According to the Washington Examiner, what was striking after Fox News called the race for Obama, at about 11:15 p.m., was how stunned so many of Romney’s supporters were. Many said they were influenced by the prominent conservatives who predicted a big Romney win, and they fully expected Tuesday night to be a victory celebration.

“I am shocked, I am blown away,” said Joe Sweeney, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “I thought I had a pretty good pulse on this stuff. I thought there was a trend that was going on underground.”

“We were so convinced that the people of this country had more common sense than that,” said Nan Strauch, of Hilton Head, South Carolina. “It was just a very big surprise. We felt so confident.”

“It makes me wonder who my fellow citizens are,” said Marianne Doherty of Boston. “I’ve got to be honest, I feel like I’ve lost touch with what the identity of America is right now. I really do.”

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In response to the wide reaching enthusiasm of Romneyites, one source questioned:

“Was last week a head fake, or were they just not that smart?”