Here are today's polls, taken obviously before the debate last night. Take a look at Gallup's approval rating. The last time the president saw a number this high was August of 2009! This is even higher than Gallup's reading immediately following the death of Osama bin Laden (May of 2011). He still maintains a 4 point lead nationally in the general.
Well, he's going to need it come the weekend when we start seeing the post debate polls. Obviously, he's going to drop but by how much? Keep your eye on Ohio.
Thursday, October 04, 2012
More Post Mortem on the Debate
I find it very interesting that the "liberal" media has been so critical of the president since the conclusion of the debate. Why is that? Are they angry that he didn't do his part to make it like a WWE wrestling match?
Moreover, there seems to be a disconnect between the undecided voters and the media's continued ripping of the president. As I flipped around last night checking out each network's coverage of those undecided focus groups, the individual voters interviewed seemed unfazed by the media's take. Their central concern seemed to be that neither candidate was giving them enough information to make a decision. It will be interesting to see how this shows up in the polls.
Here's a graphic that shows how little persuadable voters are interested in the debates.
In addition, none of them reacted well to any hint of negativity which makes the president's strategy last night now seem very wise. Of course, I'm still trying to figure out why he didn't want to be there last night. What was going on? Obviously, the first thought is a negative one: he's aloof, non caring, and an elitist snob. But what if it was something else? Did he have a fight with his wife? Something going on with his daughters? Some other sort of bad news? He's only human after all. We may never know.
A female friend of mine commented on my FB status today on the debate with the following.
I always wonder how the president runs the country and then has to find time to prepare for a debate. Obama looked so tired last night. Not his best debate for sure.
Women love the president and may ultimately be his saving grace from this poor showing with their sympathy.
Another good thing that came out of last night was the "newly discovered" Obama speech from 2007 is now ancient history. The Right can now spend the next few days pouncing on the president for his bad debate performance.
I also disagree with nearly everyone in the media when they say that Mitt's only awkward moment was the Big Bird comment. It wasn't awkward at all and was actually funny. Mentions of Big Bird have gone up 800,000% on Facebook today which shows you just how interested in the substance of the issues the general populace is these days.
Some other notes from around the inter-webs...
Governor Romney didn’t win the election last night, he just stopped losing it. That may not last; the road to the election is still very long and we are more likely than not to see momentum shift back and forth some more. (Walter Russell Mead)
If you watched it without sound – or, even better, if you didn’t speak English, so you could hear the sound but couldn’t understand the words – I have to believe Romney won by a mile. But if you didn’t watch the debate, and read the transcript, what you’d see is the following. When Romney attacked, Obama generally had a policy response – some more persuasive than others, but the response was generally policy-related. When Obama attacked, Romney would generally deny that he took the position that was being attacked. Romney’s palpable zest for the debate made him look like a guy ready to take charge, and the President’s demeanor suggested some willingness to let him do so. But his refusal to stand his ground on anything – and the marked contrast with the President in that regard – made him sound like a snake-oil salesman. (Noah Millman)
I’m not particularly concerned with who won the debate, although if I were forced to declare a winner, I’d say Romney did. What I am concerned with was the poor quality of the debate. There was plenty of talk about the working poor and the unemployed, but they were used mostly as props. The crucial issue for the next four years is how to make economic growth work for everyone, how to get people back to work, and how to find and deploy the resources necessary to make our systems function well. I heard a lot more discussion of Dodd-Frank and Simpson-Bowles on Wednesday night than I did on those topics.(Daniel Gross)
Moreover, there seems to be a disconnect between the undecided voters and the media's continued ripping of the president. As I flipped around last night checking out each network's coverage of those undecided focus groups, the individual voters interviewed seemed unfazed by the media's take. Their central concern seemed to be that neither candidate was giving them enough information to make a decision. It will be interesting to see how this shows up in the polls.
Here's a graphic that shows how little persuadable voters are interested in the debates.
In addition, none of them reacted well to any hint of negativity which makes the president's strategy last night now seem very wise. Of course, I'm still trying to figure out why he didn't want to be there last night. What was going on? Obviously, the first thought is a negative one: he's aloof, non caring, and an elitist snob. But what if it was something else? Did he have a fight with his wife? Something going on with his daughters? Some other sort of bad news? He's only human after all. We may never know.
A female friend of mine commented on my FB status today on the debate with the following.
I always wonder how the president runs the country and then has to find time to prepare for a debate. Obama looked so tired last night. Not his best debate for sure.
Women love the president and may ultimately be his saving grace from this poor showing with their sympathy.
Another good thing that came out of last night was the "newly discovered" Obama speech from 2007 is now ancient history. The Right can now spend the next few days pouncing on the president for his bad debate performance.
I also disagree with nearly everyone in the media when they say that Mitt's only awkward moment was the Big Bird comment. It wasn't awkward at all and was actually funny. Mentions of Big Bird have gone up 800,000% on Facebook today which shows you just how interested in the substance of the issues the general populace is these days.
Some other notes from around the inter-webs...
Governor Romney didn’t win the election last night, he just stopped losing it. That may not last; the road to the election is still very long and we are more likely than not to see momentum shift back and forth some more. (Walter Russell Mead)
If you watched it without sound – or, even better, if you didn’t speak English, so you could hear the sound but couldn’t understand the words – I have to believe Romney won by a mile. But if you didn’t watch the debate, and read the transcript, what you’d see is the following. When Romney attacked, Obama generally had a policy response – some more persuasive than others, but the response was generally policy-related. When Obama attacked, Romney would generally deny that he took the position that was being attacked. Romney’s palpable zest for the debate made him look like a guy ready to take charge, and the President’s demeanor suggested some willingness to let him do so. But his refusal to stand his ground on anything – and the marked contrast with the President in that regard – made him sound like a snake-oil salesman. (Noah Millman)
I’m not particularly concerned with who won the debate, although if I were forced to declare a winner, I’d say Romney did. What I am concerned with was the poor quality of the debate. There was plenty of talk about the working poor and the unemployed, but they were used mostly as props. The crucial issue for the next four years is how to make economic growth work for everyone, how to get people back to work, and how to find and deploy the resources necessary to make our systems function well. I heard a lot more discussion of Dodd-Frank and Simpson-Bowles on Wednesday night than I did on those topics.(Daniel Gross)
The New, New, New Mitt Romney
Last night's debate saw the debut of the new, new, new Mitt Romney. The one who's reasonable and forceful, and isn't going to going to lower taxes on the wealthy, but is going to implement a generic but unspecified plan to make everything wonderful.
Not the new, new Mitt Romney from last summer, who scoffs at those losers in the 47% with his billionaire buds and has a horse in the equestrian competition at the Olympics.
And yet still not the new Mitt Romney, who ran for governor of Massachusetts, the one who supports abortion rights and health care for all.
And certainly not the old Mitt Romney, the one who closed steel mills, fired employees, took away their health care and let their wives die of cancer.
The new, new, new Mitt Romney doesn't seem to be a bad guy. The problem is, if you elect the new, new, new Mitt Romney, you won't get the new, new, new Mitt Romney. You'll get Todd Akin, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist and all the rest of the Republican Party. The same Republican Party that still wants to reduce corporate and capital gains taxes to zero, voucherize Medicare, make abortion and birth control all but impossible to get, invade every country in the Middle East where protesters burn American flags, and who thinks Bibi Netanyahu should be appointed Secretary of State.
If we had the Republican Party that we had 25 or 30 years ago, you could vote for the new, new, new Mitt Romney with a clear conscience. There were plenty of reasonable people in the Republican Party. But now Grover Norquist and rabid Tea Party ideologues have driven them all out of politics like they did to Dick Lugar (Dick Lugar!).
If the new, new, new Mitt Romney is elected, he will simply shake the Etch a Sketch yet again, and the new, new, new, new Mitt Romney will tell us that he never promised us all those things he said in the debate. He'll say he was just spitballing in front of investors, and now that all the financial details have been worked out it seems that the new, new Mitt Romney who sneered at the 47% was right all along.
Not the new, new Mitt Romney from last summer, who scoffs at those losers in the 47% with his billionaire buds and has a horse in the equestrian competition at the Olympics.
And yet still not the new Mitt Romney, who ran for governor of Massachusetts, the one who supports abortion rights and health care for all.
And certainly not the old Mitt Romney, the one who closed steel mills, fired employees, took away their health care and let their wives die of cancer.
The new, new, new Mitt Romney doesn't seem to be a bad guy. The problem is, if you elect the new, new, new Mitt Romney, you won't get the new, new, new Mitt Romney. You'll get Todd Akin, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist and all the rest of the Republican Party. The same Republican Party that still wants to reduce corporate and capital gains taxes to zero, voucherize Medicare, make abortion and birth control all but impossible to get, invade every country in the Middle East where protesters burn American flags, and who thinks Bibi Netanyahu should be appointed Secretary of State.
If we had the Republican Party that we had 25 or 30 years ago, you could vote for the new, new, new Mitt Romney with a clear conscience. There were plenty of reasonable people in the Republican Party. But now Grover Norquist and rabid Tea Party ideologues have driven them all out of politics like they did to Dick Lugar (Dick Lugar!).
If the new, new, new Mitt Romney is elected, he will simply shake the Etch a Sketch yet again, and the new, new, new, new Mitt Romney will tell us that he never promised us all those things he said in the debate. He'll say he was just spitballing in front of investors, and now that all the financial details have been worked out it seems that the new, new Mitt Romney who sneered at the 47% was right all along.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Post Debate Thoughts
Mitt Romney did a good job tonight in the debate against the president and, man oh man, did he need it. If he had made one or two serious errors, it would have been all over.
Instead, he rose to the occasion and became the Mitt Romney that I had thought had vanished and been replaced by an android built by the right wing blogsphere. We saw this in his latest ad in which he is talking directly to the camera about the middle class. Mitt Romney, The Moderate, is back.
He spent the entire night talking about how he would help the middle class, keep Medicare and Social Security, and focus on education. Of course, he had to do all these things after the 47 percent remark. If you want to win the presidency, you have to win the middle and he was very congenial as opposed to being the red meat attack dog that we have seen for the last two years. In many ways, he essentially lopped off the far right from the campaign and...dare I say it?...shook the Etch-E-Sketch. I have to wonder...what is the base going to think about this?
The president seemed off his game tonight and I have to wonder why. Was he tired? Is there some sort of foreign policy crisis brewing that we don't know about? In many ways, this debate performance reminded me of President Bush's first debate against John Kerry (with Romney reminding me of Kerry as well) in 2004. He just didn't do a good job. The main thing I didn't like is he kept looking down, smiling and taking notes. He should've looked more often at Romney.
What's ironic about this is that the president's continued call for Romney to explain his specifics on things like what loopholes he would get rid of went unanswered. I was shocked that Jim Lehrer didn't to after this as well. Honestly, everyone seemed very nice and friendly....even down to the families getting together at the conclusions and chatting for a minute. I have to admit, it was kind of a nice break from all the ugliness.
I guess the group that I'm most PO'd at right now is the left wing pundits in the media. They are fit to be tied that the president didn't attack, attack, ATTACK!!! They have been whining all night about how he didn't mention the 47 percent and rub his nose in it. I don't think that would've worked at all and made him look less presidential. All of the undecided voters watching the debate on CNN reacted VERY negatively to any negative attacks.
In some ways, this is how the president is in a real bind. He can't be the attack dog that he needed to be to put Romney away for good but if he tries to rise above it all, he looks like he doesn't care which is essentially what happened tonight. I mean, we are talking about theater, after all:)
Of course, you could almost smell this in the air, right? The bullied and beaten up candidate..by his own hand and a rabid voting bloc...now...rising to the occasion and rising again...like the phoenix! The media just love this shit, right? We all knew that they would do this to keep people excited about the election. Well, in a few days, we'll see what the impact on the polls will be and we'll have a more accurate picture of the effect of this debate. If the CNN post debate interview with undecided Colorado voters is any indication, nothing will change. 8 flipped over to Obama and 8 flipped over to Romney!
In the final analysis, I don't think he's been bloodied enough in this election and he needed this kick in the teeth to avoid being complacent and resting on his lead in the swing states. It's certainly going to be an interesting rest of the week!
Or not.
Instead, he rose to the occasion and became the Mitt Romney that I had thought had vanished and been replaced by an android built by the right wing blogsphere. We saw this in his latest ad in which he is talking directly to the camera about the middle class. Mitt Romney, The Moderate, is back.
He spent the entire night talking about how he would help the middle class, keep Medicare and Social Security, and focus on education. Of course, he had to do all these things after the 47 percent remark. If you want to win the presidency, you have to win the middle and he was very congenial as opposed to being the red meat attack dog that we have seen for the last two years. In many ways, he essentially lopped off the far right from the campaign and...dare I say it?...shook the Etch-E-Sketch. I have to wonder...what is the base going to think about this?
The president seemed off his game tonight and I have to wonder why. Was he tired? Is there some sort of foreign policy crisis brewing that we don't know about? In many ways, this debate performance reminded me of President Bush's first debate against John Kerry (with Romney reminding me of Kerry as well) in 2004. He just didn't do a good job. The main thing I didn't like is he kept looking down, smiling and taking notes. He should've looked more often at Romney.
What's ironic about this is that the president's continued call for Romney to explain his specifics on things like what loopholes he would get rid of went unanswered. I was shocked that Jim Lehrer didn't to after this as well. Honestly, everyone seemed very nice and friendly....even down to the families getting together at the conclusions and chatting for a minute. I have to admit, it was kind of a nice break from all the ugliness.
I guess the group that I'm most PO'd at right now is the left wing pundits in the media. They are fit to be tied that the president didn't attack, attack, ATTACK!!! They have been whining all night about how he didn't mention the 47 percent and rub his nose in it. I don't think that would've worked at all and made him look less presidential. All of the undecided voters watching the debate on CNN reacted VERY negatively to any negative attacks.
In some ways, this is how the president is in a real bind. He can't be the attack dog that he needed to be to put Romney away for good but if he tries to rise above it all, he looks like he doesn't care which is essentially what happened tonight. I mean, we are talking about theater, after all:)
Of course, you could almost smell this in the air, right? The bullied and beaten up candidate..by his own hand and a rabid voting bloc...now...rising to the occasion and rising again...like the phoenix! The media just love this shit, right? We all knew that they would do this to keep people excited about the election. Well, in a few days, we'll see what the impact on the polls will be and we'll have a more accurate picture of the effect of this debate. If the CNN post debate interview with undecided Colorado voters is any indication, nothing will change. 8 flipped over to Obama and 8 flipped over to Romney!
In the final analysis, I don't think he's been bloodied enough in this election and he needed this kick in the teeth to avoid being complacent and resting on his lead in the swing states. It's certainly going to be an interesting rest of the week!
Or not.
Polls For Wednesday Oct 3rd
Couple things to note here on the day of the first debate. Ohio looks like it's gone for Romney. We have yet another poll in which the president is up in the high single digits. How can Romney get to 270 without it? He'd have to take all of the remaining swing states (one of which is now Missouri thanks to Todd Akin) and bring Wisconsin back to his side as well. It just doesn't seem very likely.
The NBC poll, btw, did not oversample Democrats.
Rasmussen has the president up 2 points while Gallup has him up 4 overall. Remember that Rasmussen does not poll cel phone users so the president's lead is likely wider than 2 points as many young people have cel phones but no land line.
At this point, the Senate is all but gone for the GOP. Quite a difference from just a few months ago when I predicted that the Democrats would be lucky to get a tie at 50-50. If the election were held today, I'd say the Democrats would net a +1 or a +2.
The same, however, can't be said for the House. The overly optimistic predictions that the Democrats will take back the House are silly. At this point, I'd say they'll net +15, putting the spread at 227 GOP-208 Democrat.
Deep Inside The Bubble
To give you an idea of how incredibly fictional the world is that the Right has created, take a look at this.
It is illegal for private citizens to own guns for selfdefense in eight states, and the number is growing with increasing Democratic control of state legislatures and governorships.
The excerpt above is from a letter sent "back in time" from 2012 to 2008 letting all the folks know exactly what would happen in the president's first term. Here are some other predictions..
then in May 2010, Al-Qaida operatives from Syria and Iran poured into Iraq and completely overwhelmed the Iraqi security forces. A Taliban-like oppression has taken over in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of “American sympathizers” have been labeled as traitors, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The number put to death may soon reach the millions.
Since 2009, terrorist bombs have exploded in two large and two small U.S. cities, killing hundreds, and the entire country is fearful, for no place seems safe. President Obama in each case has vowed “to pursue and arrest and prosecute those responsible,” but no arrests have been made.
President Obama directed U.S. intelligence services to cease all wiretapping of alleged terrorist phone calls unless they first obtained a warrant for each case. Terrorists captured overseas, instead of being tried in military tribunals, are given full trials in the U.S. court system, and they have to be allowed access to a number of government secrets to prepare their defense.
What a strange world they live in...it's almost as if they are unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, and have a hostile fear of progress..hmm...
I wonder how many of these predictions will simply be carried over to 2016. Oh wait, didn't they make a film about that? That would be the one where the companion book says the following...
Ann's sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger.
And they wonder why they are losing this election...
It is illegal for private citizens to own guns for selfdefense in eight states, and the number is growing with increasing Democratic control of state legislatures and governorships.
The excerpt above is from a letter sent "back in time" from 2012 to 2008 letting all the folks know exactly what would happen in the president's first term. Here are some other predictions..
then in May 2010, Al-Qaida operatives from Syria and Iran poured into Iraq and completely overwhelmed the Iraqi security forces. A Taliban-like oppression has taken over in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of “American sympathizers” have been labeled as traitors, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The number put to death may soon reach the millions.
Since 2009, terrorist bombs have exploded in two large and two small U.S. cities, killing hundreds, and the entire country is fearful, for no place seems safe. President Obama in each case has vowed “to pursue and arrest and prosecute those responsible,” but no arrests have been made.
President Obama directed U.S. intelligence services to cease all wiretapping of alleged terrorist phone calls unless they first obtained a warrant for each case. Terrorists captured overseas, instead of being tried in military tribunals, are given full trials in the U.S. court system, and they have to be allowed access to a number of government secrets to prepare their defense.
What a strange world they live in...it's almost as if they are unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, and have a hostile fear of progress..hmm...
I wonder how many of these predictions will simply be carried over to 2016. Oh wait, didn't they make a film about that? That would be the one where the companion book says the following...
Ann's sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger.
And they wonder why they are losing this election...
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Polls For Tuesday October 2nd
Monday, October 01, 2012
Now What?
Well, this is interesting.
Dean Chambers, who runs unskewedpolls.com, quicky worked his usual magic on the Fox data but this time his "unskewing" wasn't enough to move the numbers in the GOP's favor. The result: Obama up by 2 points. While that's obviously less than the gap the Fox News poll showed, it's nonetheless noteworthy because it's a major departure from the past dozen or so of Chambers' "unskewed" polls that claimed to have Romney well on his way to a historic victory this fall.
Well, now what? Maybe his poll is stupid and fat now too...
Politico has a great story up today about the parallel universe in which Romney leads in all the polls.
There has always been a divide between the Republican consultant class and conservative media figures. Operatives must dwell in the real world because their jobs depend on winning and losing. The likes of Morris and Limbaugh have different incentives. They want to build their email lists and listening audiences and there’s no faster way to conservative hearts than to kick the dreaded mainstream media. And when it’s well after Labor Day of a presidential year and the Republican nominee isn’t faring well, reassuring the home team that there’s just a scoreboard malfunction offers a seeming dose of logic to the situation.
"Seeming" being the key word.
Dean Chambers, who runs unskewedpolls.com, quicky worked his usual magic on the Fox data but this time his "unskewing" wasn't enough to move the numbers in the GOP's favor. The result: Obama up by 2 points. While that's obviously less than the gap the Fox News poll showed, it's nonetheless noteworthy because it's a major departure from the past dozen or so of Chambers' "unskewed" polls that claimed to have Romney well on his way to a historic victory this fall.
Well, now what? Maybe his poll is stupid and fat now too...
Politico has a great story up today about the parallel universe in which Romney leads in all the polls.
There has always been a divide between the Republican consultant class and conservative media figures. Operatives must dwell in the real world because their jobs depend on winning and losing. The likes of Morris and Limbaugh have different incentives. They want to build their email lists and listening audiences and there’s no faster way to conservative hearts than to kick the dreaded mainstream media. And when it’s well after Labor Day of a presidential year and the Republican nominee isn’t faring well, reassuring the home team that there’s just a scoreboard malfunction offers a seeming dose of logic to the situation.
"Seeming" being the key word.
Beyond the Insults
The revelations about voter fraud linked to the GOP in Florida and other states are serious and shouldn't be brushed off by trading insults. The story in the New York Times has more details.
It looks like there are two different problems, one relatively minor and one more serious.
The first issue is bogus registrations that were apparently turned in by employees who were paid a bounty for registrations. They just filled in any old thing to get paid. This was the same problem ACORN had.
It can happen to anyone regardless of ideology, but it shows a serious flaw in the Republican dogma that financial incentives are the solution to all our problems. When you pay people to register voters by the head, you're tempting them to commit fraud.
We have the same problem with linking teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests. There've been many cases where teachers and administrators have doctored test results. The overarching problem of wasting kids' time by teaching them the pablum that's on standardized tests doesn't produce better outcomes in life, it just produces teacher bonuses. And the same problem occurs with linking executive pay to increases in stock prices: it doesn't improve the long-term profitability of the company, it just produces spikes in the stock price that allow execs to get rich, but then the company goes bust when the smoke clears.
There should be no profit motive in registering people to vote. This should be undertaken by volunteers and government employees who are vetted and trained in proper procedure, not by minimum-wage flunkies and party hacks getting paid a bounty.
But Republicans have been trying to prevent non-profit groups such the League of Women Voters from registering voters in Michigan, Florida and other states. It really seems that Republicans have an ulterior motive with these changes in voting laws.
The second problem is more serious: there have been allegations in Nevada going back to the 2004 election that Strategic Allied, the company involved with the recent fraud in Florida, intended to register only Republican voters and had torn up independent and Democratic registrations. It appears that they're at it again this year in Colorado.
This seems bad, but when you look at the broader picture you begin to see that it's part of the broader Republican campaign to eliminate same-day registration at the polls that's always part of their voter ID laws. What happens to someone who registers to vote in good faith and an organization like Strategic Allied just tears it up? Or, less dramatically, a city employee drops it behind a desk or a blue-haired LWV volunteer forgets a stack of forms in the trunk of her car? People who think they are registered won't be able to vote through no fault of their own because of partisan hack jobs and bureaucratic screwups.
The Republican push to suppress the vote has even hit Minnesota, which is considering a constitutional amendment (an end run around a Democratic governor) that will eliminate same-day registration. In Minnesota you can show your photo ID and evidence of your current address and register to vote on election day. The proposed change will eliminate that, requiring to fill out a "provisional" ballot that won't be counted until you come in to the registration office and fill out some other paperwork. But by then the election will already have been decided. Who will bother to come in and make their vote actually count if they think the election's already decided? People who move every couple years will be most affected by this, and that means low-income Americans, not wealthy suburbanites who live in their homes for decades.
Voter ID and these other subtle changes to the law appear to have been intentionally crafted by ALEC to prevent minorities and low-income Americans from voting. (ALEC is shadowy amalgam of Republican legislators and big businesses like Koch Industries and Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison company who crafted the Arizona immigration law to make money building prisons to house women and children.)
I have no doubt that Republicans who think voter fraud is rampant really believe it's happening, even though the evidence shows actual impersonation of other people is non-existent. They're just like those preachers who thunder angrily from the pulpit about the horrors of gay sex and drugs, and then go out and hire male prostitutes and score meth. Republicans are so worried about voter fraud because they know people like Strategic Allied have been doing it in Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Nevada.
It looks like there are two different problems, one relatively minor and one more serious.
The first issue is bogus registrations that were apparently turned in by employees who were paid a bounty for registrations. They just filled in any old thing to get paid. This was the same problem ACORN had.
It can happen to anyone regardless of ideology, but it shows a serious flaw in the Republican dogma that financial incentives are the solution to all our problems. When you pay people to register voters by the head, you're tempting them to commit fraud.
We have the same problem with linking teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests. There've been many cases where teachers and administrators have doctored test results. The overarching problem of wasting kids' time by teaching them the pablum that's on standardized tests doesn't produce better outcomes in life, it just produces teacher bonuses. And the same problem occurs with linking executive pay to increases in stock prices: it doesn't improve the long-term profitability of the company, it just produces spikes in the stock price that allow execs to get rich, but then the company goes bust when the smoke clears.
There should be no profit motive in registering people to vote. This should be undertaken by volunteers and government employees who are vetted and trained in proper procedure, not by minimum-wage flunkies and party hacks getting paid a bounty.
But Republicans have been trying to prevent non-profit groups such the League of Women Voters from registering voters in Michigan, Florida and other states. It really seems that Republicans have an ulterior motive with these changes in voting laws.
The second problem is more serious: there have been allegations in Nevada going back to the 2004 election that Strategic Allied, the company involved with the recent fraud in Florida, intended to register only Republican voters and had torn up independent and Democratic registrations. It appears that they're at it again this year in Colorado.
This seems bad, but when you look at the broader picture you begin to see that it's part of the broader Republican campaign to eliminate same-day registration at the polls that's always part of their voter ID laws. What happens to someone who registers to vote in good faith and an organization like Strategic Allied just tears it up? Or, less dramatically, a city employee drops it behind a desk or a blue-haired LWV volunteer forgets a stack of forms in the trunk of her car? People who think they are registered won't be able to vote through no fault of their own because of partisan hack jobs and bureaucratic screwups.
The Republican push to suppress the vote has even hit Minnesota, which is considering a constitutional amendment (an end run around a Democratic governor) that will eliminate same-day registration. In Minnesota you can show your photo ID and evidence of your current address and register to vote on election day. The proposed change will eliminate that, requiring to fill out a "provisional" ballot that won't be counted until you come in to the registration office and fill out some other paperwork. But by then the election will already have been decided. Who will bother to come in and make their vote actually count if they think the election's already decided? People who move every couple years will be most affected by this, and that means low-income Americans, not wealthy suburbanites who live in their homes for decades.
Voter ID and these other subtle changes to the law appear to have been intentionally crafted by ALEC to prevent minorities and low-income Americans from voting. (ALEC is shadowy amalgam of Republican legislators and big businesses like Koch Industries and Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison company who crafted the Arizona immigration law to make money building prisons to house women and children.)
I have no doubt that Republicans who think voter fraud is rampant really believe it's happening, even though the evidence shows actual impersonation of other people is non-existent. They're just like those preachers who thunder angrily from the pulpit about the horrors of gay sex and drugs, and then go out and hire male prostitutes and score meth. Republicans are so worried about voter fraud because they know people like Strategic Allied have been doing it in Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Nevada.
Polls For Monday October 1st
Note the Rasmussen poll for today.
The Harvester
Lost in this election is one very simple reason why Mitt Romney would not be a good president: he made most of his money off of driving companies into debt.
But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.
By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions - placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place..
If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House.
Indeed.
The video below surfaced recently from Mitt's days at Bain which confirms this.
Harvest them at a significant profit...wow.
But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.
By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions - placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place..
If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House.
Indeed.
The video below surfaced recently from Mitt's days at Bain which confirms this.
Harvest them at a significant profit...wow.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Polls For Sunday, September 30th
Oh....No...
Some folks aren't going to like the answer to this question.
Which presidential candidate is truly pro-life?
Which presidential candidate is truly pro-life?
Saturday, September 29, 2012
The Bittersweet Irony
Remember all that bitching about voter fraud and ACORN?
From the Wall Street Journal...
Two words come to mind initially.
"Fuck" and "Off."
And now we're done talking about voter fraud.
From the Wall Street Journal...
GOP Firm Accused of Voter Fraud
Suspicions of voter-registration fraud by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida spread to at least eight counties Friday after apparent irregularities in registration forms emerged earlier this week in a single county.Two words come to mind initially.
"Fuck" and "Off."
And now we're done talking about voter fraud.
Heading in the Opposite Directions
Nate Silver over at 538 put up a piece yesterday which shows how events in the last few weeks have changed the numbers in the presidential race. Here's the graphic.
His conclusion?
What we can say with more confidence is that Mr. Romney is now in a rather poor position in the polls. In three of the four national tracking surveys published on Thursday, Mr. Romney trailed by margins of six, seven and eight percentage points. He also trailed by five percentage points in a one-off survey published by Fox News. The exception was Thursday’s Rasmussen Reports tracking poll, which showed the race in an exact tie, although that was improvement for Mr. Obama from a two-point deficit on Wednesday.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens after the first debate.
His conclusion?
What we can say with more confidence is that Mr. Romney is now in a rather poor position in the polls. In three of the four national tracking surveys published on Thursday, Mr. Romney trailed by margins of six, seven and eight percentage points. He also trailed by five percentage points in a one-off survey published by Fox News. The exception was Thursday’s Rasmussen Reports tracking poll, which showed the race in an exact tie, although that was improvement for Mr. Obama from a two-point deficit on Wednesday.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens after the first debate.
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