Last Friday, I posted an article about a poll being conducted by Richard Viguerie, poster boy for the Goldwater school of conservatism, and ever so wisely predicted that he would rig the poll to support his far-right platform. See, Viguerie and his cronies feel betrayed and marginalized by the Bush neocons, so what better way to highlight that fact than to mount a rigged poll? Viguerie got what he was looking for, despite the noble efforts of me and Trish to skew the results toward sanity.

The poll was hosted on Viguerie’s Web site ConservativesBetrayed.com. It asked only one question: “Who was responsible for the Republicans’ disastrous defeats, including loss of control of the House and Senate, in the 2006 elections?” Readers were encouraged to select no more than 10 reasons from the 31 choices provided. Viguerie’s agenda is clear from his presentation of the results:

Their number one culprit: “Conservative leaders who kept silent when the GOP became the party of Big Government.” Coming in sixth was “Conservative media that kept silent while the GOP became the party of Big Government.” More than 77.1 % of Republicans selected conservative leaders, with 47.8% selecting conservative media, as one of the reasons for the negative outcome of the election.

“While many conservative leaders and conservative media outlets kept quiet, or were even cheerleaders for the White House and Congress, the grassroots noticed very little of a conservative agenda but huge increases in federal spending,” Viguerie explained. “And because the Big Government Republican politicians were not receiving criticism from conservative leaders and conservative media, they felt free to indulge their tendencies to spend and spent in order to buy votes.”

“It is interesting to note that the #3 reason cited by Republicans was ‘legal corruption’ to ‘buy’ votes through the use of taxpayers money for special interest purposes. That strategy backfired with the voters,” Viguerie said.

What’s interesting to note, Richard, is that George W. Bush was listed in fifth place when most people would agree that the election was a referendum on his incompetence and failed policies. How could you look at what happened in the 2006 elections and not blame the Republican loss on George Bush? Should have been number-one, if you ask me, but Viguerie’s cohorts loaded the results with a focus on the media’s influence and dumb stuff like Ted Stevens of Alaska:

The Top 10 selections made by 850 self-identified Republicans were:

1. Conservative leaders who kept silent when the GOP became the party of Big Government
2. Illegal corruption, such as Mark Foley, Robert Ney, and Jack Abramoff
3. Legal corruption, such as spending on special interest groups to “buy” their votes, including earmarks
4. Mainstream media that may have influenced the voters to throw out the Republicans
5. President George W. Bush
6. Conservative media that kept silent while the GOP became the party of Big Government
7. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), former President Pro Tempore of the Senate and promoter of the $223 million Bridge to Nowhere
8. Blunders and misstatements by Republican candidates
9. Former Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN)
10. Congressman Dennis Hastert (R-IL), former Speaker of the House

Viguerie delightedly noted that “There were only minor variations in the order of the list among self-identified Democrats, members of other political parties, and independents.” Well, duh, Dickie, there were like 20 times as many self-identified Republicans voting on your site, compared to a handful of those of us with the intestinal fortitude to stomach your site’s content long enough to vote.