2012 Presidential Campaign

[mckerney]

The first poll I've seen on the Indiana senate race since Murdock's comments have Donnelly up 47-36. Wish there were other polls since that is a bigger lead than I would have expected, though it seems to have convinced the bidders on Intrade where the Donnelly has jumped 31 points to 85%.

I'm curious to see what happens with tea party candidates next round of primaries since Republicans look like they may lose two Senate seats that should have been easy wins with Lugar in Indiana and someone other than Akin in Missouri. Then again, in Wisconsin they went with Thompson over a few far right candidates because it looked like he could easily beat Baldwin and that doesn't look to be working out as expected.

[Thomkal]

So I'm curious here how many on this board are predicting a Romney win? Maybe I should start a poll

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

So I'm curious here how many on this board are predicting a Romney win? Maybe I should start a poll

I was out last night with some folks who are diehard Republicans and they all thought Romney was going to win, no question.

I don't think he stands a chance.

[SirFozzie]

Yup. Too good to be true, re the Gallup numbers, Unemployment UP a tick to 7.9%. Have to wonder why the Gallup #'s were so far out of whack./

[Subby]

Mobutu Sese Seko weighs in...

But Chambers, Rush and others’ motives in attacking Silver are peculiar. It’s not as if their audiences want to believe Silver’s projections, so simply ignoring him affords him no prominence or credence. On the other hand, attacking him so suddenly and with such consensus only does two things, both of which are negative.

One, they make Silver important, an authority. There’s no reason to shoot the messenger unless he’s bringing you news that you cannot stand to hear, and there’s no reason to react so violently to him unless the news is probably true. You can laugh off or ignore someone so wide off the mark, but when you stand from the throne and start calling for an execution, it only makes people wonder what power the messenger holds.

Two, if anything, ignoring Silver’s numbers while proffering poll results that are definitionally counterfactuals only robs the Romney campaign of real urgency to its get-out-the-vote efforts. If Romney’s projected to win by 7% and by over 100 electoral votes, Rush’s dittoheads might stay home. If anything, Silver’s numbers could be used as a motivational tool. Certainly don’t claim that they’re wholly valid, but perhaps pair them with some conspiracy about how all the blacks in Ohio will vote twice to make his projections come true. The GOP has always prided itself on its get-out-the-vote efforts, and in the last few decades has almost branded successfully converting 1-2% margins into victories via a relentless ground game.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

NYT poll has Florida going to Obama by 1 point. That doesn't seem to be much of an outlier looking at the other polls. They are all within the MOE of each other.

The NYT polls could very well be wrong. My gripe with Solecismic is the insinuation that he's doing it because of a relationship with the NYT or that Quinnipiac is altering their data for the companies that hired them out.

His formula and reasoning has been transparent for years. He gives more weight to polls that perform better. He's basically saying he trusts the guy with the .350 batting average over the .250 one. It doesn't mean it's a guarantee, just means the probability is in his favor.

I think people are also assuming that one poll can be powerful in his formula when it's not. There is a reason he uses so many and weighs them on various factors (sample size for one).

I explained what I did, listed the states and senate races and time period. You could do the same.

I differ from Silver in that I expect a pollster to make changes over time if the model isn't working. So performance from four years ago is relevant only if the results are deviant today.

A .250 hitter can change his hitting approach and make himself a better hitter, but it's not likely he will become a .350 hitter. There is a strong correlation between your performance one season and your performance the next. However, a pollster can change its model completely overnight, and the results can be immediately better.

Silver's predictions have been good, but not perfect. If you used RCP averages in 2010, you'd have correctly picked the same senate races he did (he missed two) and the same range for congressional turnover. No magic. In most political races, especially ones that get polled a lot, the end product rarely deviates that much.

I think it's best that I withdraw from this argument at this point. There's a fundamental disrespect from a few posters, and it's not right. I think it's better to take the time to see where a different viewpoint is coming from than to make a snap judgment and, intentionally or not, straw-man him and call him an idiot. None of us are idiots, I think. Partisanship, though, makes people unpleasant sometimes. Life is too short to get involved in that. I'll just make my predictions on Monday night and leave this item alone. I will be, however, starting an election night "game thread" to discuss what I see in the results. Everyone is welcome to join as long as partisan b.s. is kept out of the item.

[JPhillips]

I differ from Silver in that I expect a pollster to make changes over time if the model isn't working. So performance from four years ago is relevant only if the results are deviant today.

I'll make this my last word.

He does take into account house effect and that is revised over the election cycle. He's doing exactly what you want him to do.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

There's a fundamental disrespect from a few posters, and it's not right. I think it's better to take the time to see where a different viewpoint is coming from than to make a snap judgment and, intentionally or not, straw-man him and call him an idiot. None of us are idiots, I think. Partisanship, though, makes people unpleasant sometimes. Life is too short to get involved in that. I'll just make my predictions on Monday night and leave this item alone. I will be, however, starting an election night "game thread" to discuss what I see in the results. Everyone is welcome to join as long as partisan b.s. is kept out of the item.

You make this statement:

"Maybe it's because I don't spend any time on right-leaning boards, but I'm becoming more and more frustrated with the left this cycle. It really seems like if you don't toe the party line, you're dismissed as an idiot. There's *never* any admission that maybe, just possibly, the Democratic party isn't absolutely perfect."

And it's everybody else who is over the line? Gotcha.

If you want the partisan bs kept at a minimum, then keep your OWN partisan bs to a minimum.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

If you want the partisan bs kept at a minimum, then keep your OWN partisan bs to a minimum.

Amen!

[JPhillips]

I'm fairly convinced that the end result of a few billion dollars spent on the campaign is going to be status quo. Obama will win, the senate will go +1 either way and the Dems will pick up a handful of House seats. It will still be a GOP House, a slight Dem Senate, but with everything filibustered by the GOP and Obama back in the White House.

Gotta think that money could have been better spent.

[Subby]

Maybe the money could have been better spent, but either way it was spent...good for the economy, good for the President! Election stimulus ftw!

[CrimsonFox]

I am so sick of hearing this . So I was curious if anyone here actually feels this way. Is there anyone here that feels abortion is the ONLY issue or concern on the planet?

[SirFozzie]

No, but it's a polarizing issue for a lot of people, even those who would side with the GOP on financial issues.. the fact that the GOP keeps stumbling into this just makes me shake my head.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

No, but it's a polarizing issue for a lot of people, even those who would side with the GOP on financial issues.. the fact that the GOP keeps stumbling into this just makes me shake my head.

What people agree with GOP financial issues? I didn't know we had any multimillionaires here. Those are the only ones that benefit from GOP plans.

[SirFozzie]

Crimson: That's not right. There's a lot of people in the GOP who legitimately believe in small-government, (the Ron Paul supporters for example), and the Grover Norquist "starve the "government beast" until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub".

I happen to disagree with them, but they do legitimately believe in that.

But the GOP is made up of two competing groups, that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but also not always in tune with each other. You have the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives. The problme is that if you have some folks who believe moderately in one side (the fiscal conservatives) but not the others.. the more gaffes they make.. the more their revulsion at the social agenda that the GOP is currently pushing may outweigh their fiscal beliefs.

As I said in my last post, after the shit kicking that Akin took from the polls from his comments, if I was the head of the RNC, I would say flat out (but privately).. "If you talk about this kind of stuff during the campaign, it will get out, and you will have a counterproductive effect on your chances to elected, and reduce our chances to counteract something that we all believe is harmful (the ACA) before it gets enshrined as a right. There's no such thing as a private chat anymore. If you're going to say it out loud, treat it like someone's taping what you say to use against you.. because there probably is someone who will."

But they keep sticking their hands in the buzzsaw, and worse yet, the GOP has to walk the line of taking the flak for it, and then either walking away from your possibly one and only chance to defeat a game changing health care act, or you have to defend your candidate and risk getting shoved into the same buzzsaw that just took out the candidate.

The GOP has tried to do both.

The senate cast thought there was a 60% chance that the GOP would control the senate after these elections on August 19th. On that date, Todd Akin stated "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down". Now, they have a 8.7% of a majority, and may even lose seats in which the opponent was defending more then DOUBLE the amount of seats!

The social conservatives side play very well with a certain part of the country. However, it becomes a millstone amongst Republicans in other parts of the country, which is the folks you need to get a working majority. People can (and do) dismiss these failed candidates as "RINOs" but it's the triumph over strict ideology triumphing over getting things done.

[CrimsonFox]

"Small government" means nothing. It has no meaning. Just another bullshit sound blip.

[mauchow]

Unfriended idiot facebook 'friend' that said "I'm not voting for al qaeda.." ugh seriously you redneck ? This is why i need to stop friending every person from high school regardless if we were even friends.

[Flasch186]

yeah, I had to unfriend someone wo likened obama to Hitler.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by mauboy1

Unfriended idiot facebook 'friend' that said "I'm not voting for al qaeda.." ugh seriously you redneck ? This is why i need to stop friending every person from high school regardless if we were even friends.

My facebook is always really fun when election day rolls around.

I have a large number of friends here in Massachusetts that lean far far more left than I do who constantly post all kinds of snarky comments against the right.

I have a decent number of friends from when I lived in Texas that lean far far more right than I do who constantly post all kinds of snarky comments about the left.

I have a decent number of ultra-conservative religious types in my family that constantly post about how anyone democrat will be causing the moral decay of the nation.

All of my in-laws are obviously hispanic and post their hatred against the Republicans as much as possible.



For those of you that are friended to me in facebook, you understand now why I never really post much political on there at all.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by mauboy1

Unfriended idiot facebook 'friend' that said "I'm not voting for al qaeda.." ugh seriously you redneck ? This is why i need to stop friending every person from high school regardless if we were even friends.

i had a bunch of gamer friends from cincy on my friend list. One of the them keeps posting crap like that, but another smarter friend of his told me just to post facts on his page and it pisses him off.

It definitely has been fun but I indeed won't be keeping him as a friend.

As for high school, no I have not not EVER friended all the high school rednecks.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

"Small government" means nothing. It has no meaning. Just another bullshit sound blip.

Then you are truly ignorant as most of your posts indicate.

[stevew]

I had to block my mother in law from my feed. Will see about adding her near the middle of the month.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Then you are truly ignorant as most of your posts indicate.

Ha! Very classy and very typical.

[RainMaker]

Have people always been that dumb or is this a new thing thanks to the internet?

[stevew]

They are dangerous dumb. Educated with only what they wanna hear, and narcissistic enough to think their racist and or trolling opinions matter.

[lighthousekeeper]

parenting fail? my daughter's kindergarten class held a mock election today... so today's dinner conversation went like this:

"So who did you vote for?"
"Mitt Romney"
"Why?"
"Because he's got blonde skin."

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

parenting fail? my daughter's kindergarten class held a mock election today... so today's dinner conversation went like this:

"So who did you vote for?"
"Mitt Romney"
"Why?"
"Because he's got blonde skin."

Um whoa.

I mean...raise your kid however you want...but umm...yeah.

Then again - to be fair, I imagine that might be a decently typical response for that age group depending on the demographics of your community.

[molson]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Have people always been that dumb or is this a new thing thanks to the internet?

It's a new thing and the internet is a big part of it. Which makes no sense on the surface, you'd think having access to that much information would have propelled forward as a species. A friend of mine told me about a book she read that went into the whole effect the internet has on the brain, it's wasn't a pretty picture. The name of the book escapes me at the moment (probably because my brain didn't bother to remember it because it figured I could just google it later).

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

parenting fail? my daughter's kindergarten class held a mock election today... so today's dinner conversation went like this:

"So who did you vote for?"
"Mitt Romney"
"Why?"
"Because he's got blonde skin."

Wasn't there a study that's pretty well known that shows that young children naturally "like" people similar to them and distrust people who look differently.

Maybe naturally is a poor word, though.

[stevew]

Speaking of dummies, right wing hotel moron finally spelled his "the optimal solutsion is impeachment" sign correctly. After roughly 8-9 days.

[Shkspr]

Now we know why Nate Silver changed his stance on the NYT poll's accuracy...he was afraid not to.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Isaac Asimov

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.

Seems about right

[SirFozzie]

Some bad polls for Romney from NBC/Marist:

Obama 51/45 in Ohio
Obama 49/47 in Florida

I don't know what, if anything Romney can do to reverse this slide, but as it stands, this is going to be a narrow win in the popular vote for Obama, but a fairly big win in the Electoral College (If the numbers continue)

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

parenting fail? my daughter's kindergarten class held a mock election today... so today's dinner conversation went like this:

"So who did you vote for?"
"Mitt Romney"
"Why?"
"Because he's got blonde skin."

did you tell her then to go fetch a switch?

[M GO BLUE!!!]

If Obama wins... Will Republicans decide to actually work with him to make the nation better, or will they double down on making him look bad at the expense of the nation?

If Romney wins... Will it be payback time, with Dems doing everything possible to make Romney a one-term president, whether or not they evoke Mitch McConnell in actually expressing such intentions publicly?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by M GO BLUE!!!

If Obama wins... Will Republicans decide to actually work with him to make the nation better, or will they double down on making him look bad at the expense of the nation?

If Romney wins... Will it be payback time, with Dems doing everything possible to make Romney a one-term president, whether or not they evoke Mitch McConnell in actually expressing such intentions publicly?

It's the Democrats. If they decided to screw Romney, either 30-odd of them would say it, not understanding why it's so bad. Or if they tried to put out a secret memo about it, some idiot like Charlie Rangel would be jabbing a finger at a printed copy to the first camera he could find, blabbing on about some nonsense.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by M GO BLUE!!!

Will Republicans decide to actually work with him to make the nation better, or will they double down on making him look bad at the expense of the nation?

The percentage of R's unwilling to work with Obama on something makes the nation better is small. The frequency of Obama (or his side of the aisle more accurately) coming up with anything like that is even smaller.

When proposals are diametrically opposed to your belief system, your value system or even just plain common sense, it'd be insanity to play go-along-to-get-along.

The same thing is true for Congressional D's under a (hypothetical) Romney administration afaic. I'd love for them all to see the light on Topic X, Y and/or Z, but I would never expect them just to say t'hell with it if they remained in darkness.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

What people agree with GOP financial issues? I didn't know we had any multimillionaires here. Those are the only ones that benefit from GOP plans.

Why do you have to be a multimillionaire or billionaire to agree with GOP financial issues? I never understood this argument that the left pushes. Aside from under performing, overpaid CEOs/managers/traders of bailout banks and a small number of Fortune 500 companies, why is being a wealthy person somehow "bad"?

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Crimson: That's not right. There's a lot of people in the GOP who legitimately believe in small-government, (the Ron Paul supporters for example), and the Grover Norquist "starve the "government beast" until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub".

I happen to disagree with them, but they do legitimately believe in that.

But the GOP is made up of two competing groups, that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but also not always in tune with each other. You have the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives. The problme is that if you have some folks who believe moderately in one side (the fiscal conservatives) but not the others.. the more gaffes they make.. the more their revulsion at the social agenda that the GOP is currently pushing may outweigh their fiscal beliefs.

As I said in my last post, after the shit kicking that Akin took from the polls from his comments, if I was the head of the RNC, I would say flat out (but privately).. "If you talk about this kind of stuff during the campaign, it will get out, and you will have a counterproductive effect on your chances to elected, and reduce our chances to counteract something that we all believe is harmful (the ACA) before it gets enshrined as a right. There's no such thing as a private chat anymore. If you're going to say it out loud, treat it like someone's taping what you say to use against you.. because there probably is someone who will."

But they keep sticking their hands in the buzzsaw, and worse yet, the GOP has to walk the line of taking the flak for it, and then either walking away from your possibly one and only chance to defeat a game changing health care act, or you have to defend your candidate and risk getting shoved into the same buzzsaw that just took out the candidate.

The GOP has tried to do both.

The senate cast thought there was a 60% chance that the GOP would control the senate after these elections on August 19th. On that date, Todd Akin stated "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down". Now, they have a 8.7% of a majority, and may even lose seats in which the opponent was defending more then DOUBLE the amount of seats!

The social conservatives side play very well with a certain part of the country. However, it becomes a millstone amongst Republicans in other parts of the country, which is the folks you need to get a working majority. People can (and do) dismiss these failed candidates as "RINOs" but it's the triumph over strict ideology triumphing over getting things done.

The social conservatives pushes me away from the GOP as much as financial liberalism-and to a small extent, social liberalism-does for the Democrats. It's all-or-nothing. The problem with the GOP can't seem to understand is their social conservative push is killing off in appealing to younger and minority voters, who are slowly taking over the voting booths.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

So, over 170,000 jobs were created, but the unemployment rate is up a tenth because more people resumed looking for work. Positive news all around, but I'm sure we'll be told how this is a bad thing here before too long.

To me, the real question is what are the incomes/salaries of these new jobs (and sector), and what is were the incomes/salaries of the previously lost jobs they are replacing.

[Young Drachma]

[M GO BLUE!!!]

The radio station(s) I work at now have a "promo" running on the air by the general manager where he says why the radio station(s) are urging the listeners to vote for Romney.

I don't happen to agree with the politics of the station(s,) but regardless, I find that sort of open bias by station management incredulous. Rupert Murdoch doesn't even do this on FOX.

[cuervo72]

Why? I mean, how is that much different from newspapers doing that?

[Buccaneer]

I just read this

If Barrow loses, every Democratic congressman from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia will be black. Every Republican will be white, save Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who was elected in 2010 with Tea Party backing.

Seriously? Has it gotten that far?

[cuervo72]

Is that shocking?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Seriously? Has it gotten that far?

This surprises you?

The phrase "will the last white Democrat please turn out the lights as you leave" has been around my neck of the words for going on a decade.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

I just read this



Seriously? Has it gotten that far?

In the South, yeah.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Zell Miller summed it up pretty well "I didn't leave my party, my party left me."

[Ben E Lou]

This makes perfect sense when you consider how the district lines are drawn, and the demographic of the voters. Broadly speaking, the non-undecided Southern electorate is roughly 20% white Democrat, 25% black Democrat, 55% white Republican. (Sure, there are some black Republicans and Hispanics and Asians, but I'm painting here with a very broad brush.) However, the Congressional lines are drawn to create a few districts that are majority black. So if you're a white Democrat candidate, you have two basic choices:

1. Run in a majority-black district and get trounced by a black Democrat in the primary.
2. Run in a majority-white district and get trounced by the Republican in the General Election.


In short, because the black Democrats are heavily concentrated in districts where they elect black candidates, that leaves virtually everywhere else with such huge Republican majorities that a Democrat doesn't stand a chance, even when it's the rare case of a black Republican. Tim Scott is going to get 60-70% of the vote in my district against a white Democrat. As another example. here are the demographics of the 6th Congressional District of SC, where the state's only Dem Congressmen represents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina's_6th_congressional_district

Ethnicity 40.8% White, 57.0% Black, 0.5% Asian, 1.5% Hispanic, 0.3% Native American, 0.1% other

South Carolina is roughly 30% black, but this one district has nearly double the concentration of black voters as the state's population. And as a direct result, a black Democrat has represented the 6th district for nearly a decade. And also as a direct result of siphoning so many of the black votes of the Lowcountry into that district (check the map...it's basically set up so that a huge chunk of the black people in the Charleston area are in the 6th district, while most of the area is in the 1st district,) no Democrat stands a chance in Scott's district.

[Buccaneer]

Thank you, I now understand better.

[Ben E Lou]

Dola:

Obviously, the GOP controls the state legislatures around here. I don't get why they don't try to just split all the demographics up equally when they draw the lines. Draw up every district in SC as 65% white, 30% black, 5% other, and they'd be able to win all the House seats, I would think.