In the 1980s and even into the 1990s, I think, some of us Republicans had a habit: If our nominee was down in the polls, we would tell ourselves that the people were lying to pollsters. Sometimes we would even say this out loud. Left-leaning types with clipboards would arrive on doorsteps (went our line) and ask good Middle Americans how they intended to vote. Those good Americans were shy about saying that they really liked the beastly old conservative on the ballot.

Eventually, this line got kind of embarrassing, I think. When we said it, or thought it, we were fairly desperate.

I confess that, in the Scottish matter, I started hoping that the people were lying to pollsters: that there was much more Union support than the polls let on. The independence people, or separationists, were so nasty and bullying. They were in the image of their leader, Alex Salmond (the Scottish Chávez). They bellowed or hissed that anyone in favor of the Union must be a self-hating Scot. The Union side was very uncool; they were harassed in the street; they did not show their colors so much. All the “youth energy” was on the side of separation. So were the actors and writers and so on.

Last week, I sort of chided and teased myself: “You are really desperate, Jay, hoping, as of yore, that people are lying to pollsters — that there is a quiet and majority Union vote.”

I smiled when I read these lines from Charles Moore’s column this morning:

In defeat, the soon-to-depart Alex Salmond said how pleased he was that the campaign had “touched sections of the community who had never before been touched by politics”. He was right: the 84.5 per cent turn-out showed that. But the elements of the community most clearly touched were the quiet unionists.
Often, they had felt intimidated, and some — employed in the public sector or dependent on Scottish government contracts — had feared for their jobs if they spoke out.

I have said it before, I will say it again: Thank heaven for the secret ballot. The secret ballot is one of the best concepts, best inventions, in the history of mankind. Imagine if the people had to vote in front of Salmond-like kilted goons. (You will forgive a little hyperbole in the emotion of the hour.)