The Politics Thread

[George008]

According to what source? I can cite several reputable organizations that label RCP as non-partisan.

NYT= Nate Silver...Alright, I'll give you Rasmussen. BTW I love the liberal name-calling..."Rasmussen is a HACK!!" ..

"Horse race" ..Check ABC/Washington Post polls several days before Sandy.

I'll be more than happy to check back a week from now! We'll see who has "doe eyes".

Whaaa!? Who called Silver a homosexual?! Also, anyone else besides Silver point to a projection that makes you warm and fuzzy?

BIG + What about NPR??..Still waiting on an answer for that one! ;-)

Edited October 30, 2012 by Casey008

[Wales2004]

The problem with a candidate trying to turn a campaign event into a food drive is the suspicious media--let's forget that the Red Cross asks for money and blood donations not food....

http://www.washingto...45bc7_blog.html

and that Gov. Christie saying nice things about the President isn't helping

http://www.cbsnews.c...gn-after-sandy/

but you can still count on Fox and Friends to get started on the conspiracy theories. Yesterday when I heard it mentioned that the Friday report would probably be delayed, I immediately thought conspiracy theory on the way. Closing down the federal offices for two days for safety concerns is a ruse to keep the Labor Department from compiling data. Barack Obama might even be controlling the weather...

John McCain might want to tone it down a bit too because he's coming across as more bitter than informative. I just find it hard to believe that anyone intending to vote could still be clueless on the Presidential candidates....propositions maybe but not those two.

[George008]

Was Gallup right or wrong in 2008? Or any election for that matter? Going back to Truman.

Anyone else besides Silver you can point to in 2012? Silver did well in 2008, but you're basing that on ONE Presdential election.

I feel more comfortable with five decades of results.

Edited October 30, 2012 by Casey008

[marceline]

You're missing my point. Even if a polling firm is correct, that doesn't change the fact that they can't have INDIVIDUAL POLLS that are flawed. That's true whether the poll is about the presidential election or what type of soda is most popular. If the only firm you trust is Gallup, so be it, but even Gallup is vulnerable to outlier results. That's not political, it's statistical.

I'm going to stick with Nate Silver. He's looking at all the polls and not cherry picking. There have been plenty of times in the last few months he's said something that didn't make me feel good but I respect and trust his commitment to the data. It doesn't make sense to choose Gallup (one polling firm) over FiveThirtyEight which runs close to 40,000 simulations a day based on multiple polls including the very ones you cite.

Edited October 31, 2012 by marceline

[DRW50]

Gallup hasn't been accurate in years. They got a number of key elections very wrong, including 1996 and 2000. They are now claiming Romney has a huge lead in early voters, which I don't think anyone else is saying.

One of the "unskewed polls" sites is calling Nate Silver gay.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-election/romney-supporters-pick-a-new-target-statistician-nate-silver/article4723460/

[Ann_SS]

Again, not too long ago the Republicans were ranting that the polls were a Democratic conspiracy so when they become such fervent believers in polls all of a sudden? LOL! November 6th cannot come soon enough.

[marceline]

You know that you're doing something right when the right wing questions your sexual orientation.

[GoldenDogs]

I still don't believe the polls, Ann. I believe the accurate numbers are much higher for Romney. Polls where the Democratic sampling is +8 or +9 and Obama is STILL only up by maybe 2 points suggests a major problem for Obama! The independents have broken for Romney in a major way... Obama no longer has an advantage with women - that's gone. A healthy number of Hispanics have broken to Romney.

Then you have the hatespeak from people like moveon.org and Michael Moore... the anger from panicked Liberals. Guys like OLIVER STONE going negative on Obama? Bashing of Romney because he turned a campaign rally into a donation rally for victims of Sandy? Come on... It's over the top. The guy isn't going to campaign against the President in any significant way while the President manages the disaster... the media would crucify him for that! And he knows it.

When you see Obama on the defensive in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, etc., that spells trouble. The campaigns each have internal polls that are far more accurate than the crap we're getting from these schlock pollsters... and the Obama campaign people are responding to something concerning while the Romney camp is amazingly confident and comfortable in the stretch.

Oh, and I should add that the fact that Romney isn't hitting Obama hard on Libya is pretty telling. There is some dark stuff with the Libya mess... the Administration has a BIG problem with Libya and it isn't on Romney's radar? That means he doesn't need it... Think about that.

Edited October 31, 2012 by GoldenDogs

[DRW50]

Does anyone care about Oliver Stone (if they ever did)?

The Libya attacks are muddled, which is the likely reason Romney hasn't pursued this. Darrell Issa made it his big beroic quest and ended up answering questions about whether he leaked classified information. McCain decides to turn a relief event into a Libya rant, which is awful PR for Romney.

Edited October 31, 2012 by CarlD2

[Wales2004]

I heard them start with that yesterday. The response included in the link you provided is great:

[GoldenDogs]

Oh, Carl... <<sigh>>

Libya is a bigger problem than you want to acknowledge. It isn't muddled. It just isn't being covered by the mainstream press. But people know what happened... they know who to blame. And you know it, my friend.

And it IS news when Liberals eat their own... just like when Conservative devour their own. Nobody cares about Oliver Stone, true. But it is very interesting and newsworthy when Liberals turn on Liberals.

The Obama presidency is a failure... it's no secret. The man tried to do it the Liberal way and he failed. Period. It didn't work. Doesn't make Obama a bad man... it makes him a bad President. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on him losing. But we shall see.

In the meantime... I think you need to pay closer attention, Carl, to these supposed "muddled" stories. I invite you to look deeper into the Benghazi thing... Seriously. And how in the world could this story STILL be muddled? Give me a freakin' break, dude. MUDDLED?

Right... and California's budget woes will all be solved on November 6... <<eyes rolling>>

[DRW50]

Oliver Stone is a has been director, not much else. If Hillary Clinton blasted Obama, that would be news.

You were giving reasons why Romney isn't covering it. I don't believe Romney would leave that off the table, even if he thinks he's going to win. It's just a mess. It's not something which can be used as an easy attack. Everyone on the GOP side who has tried has tripped over their feet. The last time Romney tried, he fumbled and spent time crying about Candy Crowley.

[marceline]

The truth is that for better or worse the American people don't really care about Libya. No matter how much Fox tries to talk about it nobody cares. We can have a debate about whether that's a good or bad thing but the reality is that Americans don't really care about foreign affairs. What's ironic is that the same people shouting about Libya were the ones previously saying that the economy is the most important issue. Americans don't care about what happens abroad unless it affects the economy, like China. Americans have been dying overseas for more than a decade and not only did the GOP not care, they blocked efforts to help our veterans. Their outrage over Libya is impossible to take seriously and for them to still be trying to make that an issue when half the Eastern seaboard just got hit with a hurricane makes them look like the desperate, tone-deaf haters they are. Do you think someone worried about friends or family in New Jersey gives the tiniest damn about Hannity's faux outrage?

Part of me is kind of glad they keep beating that drum. It makes them that much easier to ignore.

[DRW50]

Unless you have a scandal that's easy to understand, people are less likely to follow. The main scandal people are interested in is sex. Even stuff like Abu Ghraib ultimately did not impact the elections that year.

[Wales2004]

Brian,

I don't want to quote and end up with an excessively long post but I disagree with you on Libya. One of the things that both politicians and the media do extremely well is claim what the American people or the public wants, as if they have their finger on the pulse of the entire nation. IA with everyone who says that Libya is not an issue because it's way too complicated. Just like the gun program over which Darrell Issa was intent on destroying Eric Holder. Those issues are way too complex for the average voter.

And I can't believe you take Mitt Romney not "hitting Obama hard on Libya" as telling anything more than his not wanting to get his foot stuck in his mouth, since it went poorly for him the times he did try to make it an issue. The way I saw it yesterday, Mitt Romney was encouraging people to vote early for him in hopes of influencing the media narrative in a way that would make him look like he was winning. I suppose he hopes that will get more voters on his side but that's not the narrative being told as of this moment. It's a far cry from his victory cheer of the prior week. It's his own "Field of Dreams."

I don't know about Michael Moore but how is what the "panicked Liberals" saying any different from their normal criticisms of Mitt Romney? I might have overlooked his campaign rally turned relief effort--whether genuine or not if it weren't so blatantly political. His staff went to Walmart and purchased $5,000 worth of granola bars, etc. to make sure their donation truck look full and they handed bars to attendees to make it seem as if those individuals donated them. That's not bashing--that's revealing.

Not only does Mitt Romney look bad for lying about Jeep and those 15,000 jobs he claims would be shipped to China (as if he's never been part of anything like that himself), but he looks particularly bad for the position he took regarding privatizing FEMA.

Anyone paying attention to this disaster should wonder what would happen to all those people if the only solution they could count on was people donating canned goods and granola bars instead of assistance from the federal government.