In The Offing
Those who’ve visited Strawpoll will see the current running total displayed on the splash page. At a glance you can see who the Strawpoll participants most favor, Romney or Obmama and by how much. If you drill down into the app you can get the totals for all the candidates for whom Strawpoll votes have been cast.
One thing that can be confidently said is that Gary Johnson and James Gray are beating the duo of Roseanne Barr and Cindy Sheehan by a ratio of 60:1. Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala of the Greens are doing much better than Barr and Sheehan. They are at about 1/10th of the Libertarians. More on this later.
Right now the big news story is Obama vs Romney. And it will only grow until by Tuesday, barring the End of the World, it will be a media obsession. Here are a collection of video clips from prominent Obama supporters from very recent interviews. Because they are so prominent Axelrod and Schultz probably have access to the best internal polling. There is a temptation to think that they ‘know’ or ‘know to a greater degree’ how their candidate stands.
Yet having said that, we can infer from nature that even they don’t know for sure how the election will come out. Like the rest of us the future is partly veiled.
Moving slightly down the ladder a person like Andrew Sullivan might have better information than the public without enjoying the same degree of access to internal DNC estimates as Axelrod and Wasserman-Schultz. Still he will have formed some estimate of his candidate’s chances in the coming election based on relatively extensive sources.
So what do they know? Or perhaps more accurately, how do they feel. Do they exude confidence? What does the organism say? Subconscious intuition is an interesting thing. Although nobody will actually know until the polls close who the president-elect will be many observers are probably forecasting on two discrete levels. At the conscious level they will be using the formal tools: surveys, prediction markets and forecasting models.
This is the stuff they can talk about and explain without embarrassment, because they can fall back on the mathematical machinery means, standard deviations and stratifications. But at the unconscious level they also be thinking using all aforementioned tools plus Element X; the gnawing signs and vague portents which although they do not rise to the level of formal evidence nevertheless stick in the back of their minds and constitute a ‘gut feel’.
A gut feeling is the the word we give to the unconscious synthesis which an experienced man reaches about a situation. We all know the movie scene. A group of men are moving through a dank forest when suddenly the lead scout pulls up and whispers to the sergeant. “I don’t like this sarge. It’s quiet. Too quiet.” It is not that the scout is using extrasensory perception. Simply that his trained mind has picked up a half-dozen anomalies, each meaningless in itself, but which taken together give him the willies.
On the days leading up to the attack on the Benghazi consulate many staffers had an uneasy feeling that something bad was going to happen. Policemen who had been assigned to protect them were photographing the building. There were signs here and signs there. But none of these when put down on paper ever reached the standard of bureaucratic proof.
As one newspaper put it: “there was no actionable intelligence”.
Though we never quite say so to a large extent we pay people for their ability to detect information at this unconscious level. The most valuable of men are those who know how to play the hunch, because properly understood it is really more than just a hunch. The proper name for it is a very educated guess. It’s a judgment about things which are still inchoate but which will presently come into focus.
Dmitri Mendeleev, one of the originators of the periodic table, argued that knowledge rarely came into view all at once. “No law of nature, however general, has been established all at once; its recognition has always been preceded by many presentiments.” Any damned fool could have recognized the attack on December 7 or on September 11 as it was taking place from the bombing and destruction that was ensuing. That would be “actionable intelligence”.
The trick would be to feel the first informational tremors in the day or two preceding. But we can rarely do this because things have not yet jelled to the point where we can give it a name. That’s the Catch 22 of history: nothing is obvious until it’s obvious.
So why are Johnson and Gray beating Barr and Sheehan by a mile? Maybe because the Libertarians are the stronger subplot in the twisted skein of American politics. Barr is riding a fading horse; and I’m not even sure she remembers its name. And what about Obama and Romney? Well things are not yet so clear where those two are concerned. Of course we have our hunches — and so too do Axelrod, Wasserman Schultz and Sullivan. What are their hunches?
And in any case the election is still on Tuesday.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
“there was no actionable intelligence”.
Not so long ago, the smart guys were saying “no controlling legal authority”. We have come a long way, baby.
My concern is confidence still exuding from O’s spokes holes. This would lead me to believe they are in possession of some knowledge unavailable to rest of us, like confidence in dead people and pets making it to the polls. I know it is partly shtick, in that they must maintain an air of confidence, and some of their acts reek of desperation, so I am cautiously optimistic. I think worst possibility is a close outcome in key states. I think Hugh Hewitt wrote a book called “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat”.
If you will let me venture my observation of the unconscious synthesis of the clips above, there is a definite lack of confidence in all three advocates. Axelrod practically signaled his acknowledgement that Dem early voting was below par. Wasserman-Schultz looked worn and tired (though, fair to say, that is somewhat typical for her). And for Sullivan to retreat to the image of the Confederacy betrays a loser mentality. It would be great if PA, OH, MO, IN, WI, NH, go for Romney. How he could place them in the Confederacy would be a feat of intellectual gymnastics even he couldn’t achieve.
I voted on the first day of early voting, as did other family members. Now we’re just waiting on the results.
Debbie Hateschristians-Schulz is young enough that being a good happy cheerleader today will pay dividends going forward for guaranteed public sector paychecks for life.
Simple, really.
“Yet having said that, we can infer from nature that even they don’t know for sure how the election will come out. Like the rest of us the future is partly veiled.”
—
…if only Debbie Blabbermouth Schulz were partly veiled.
—
“Though we never quite say so to a large extent we pay people for their ability to detect information at this unconscious level. The most valuable of men are those who know how to play the hunch, because properly understood it is really more than just a hunch. The proper name for it is a very educated guess. It’s a judgment about things which are still inchoate but which will presently come into focus.”
—
It should be remembered that Hillary spared Pootie Poot that effort by presenting him with that Reset Button.
It was then that he knew that yes, these people really were leading with their rears.
Wasserman-Schultz? Please wretchard, I may want to eat this week.
“nobody will actually know until the polls close who the president-elect will be”
If the Donks pull a Hugo then Fidel’s niece will have the results before the polls close.
They are cheating already. For every report of a machine mysteriously recording a vote for Obama when voter submitted a ballot for Romney how many others are out there? The vote by fax scheme in New Jersey should be filed under “Oh Well What the Hell.” Compare Christie with his Islamist links and toadying to Obama with Walker of Wisconsin. I’ll take the real reformer.
My mother sent me an email making the rounds among the elderly in Florida. It purports to come from the Embassy of Israel in Washington and basically orders all Jews to vote for Obama. My nose smells MMFA or another Soros front at work. It is the type of blatant reckless fraud on the weekend before the election that shows they are pulling out the stops and don’t care about consequences. It also stands a good chance of working and shifting several thousand votes.
COULD OBAMA HAVE BEATEN IDI AMIN AT A GAME OF HORSE?
I would not say nobody knows how it will turn out. I know, and have been saying so for weeks. It will be an Electoral College wipeout for Romney. My only caveat was that I didn’t know if the country had reached the tipping point yet, the point where the non-productive outnumbered the productive and so voted their thin slice of government cheese. Happily, we seem not to have reached that point as yet, though it will be upon us eventually. For now though, we have been saved from going over the cliff by some last minute heroics
In looking back on the trajectory of the last four years, I realize I was right to be suspicious of the slick talking cool black man and vote for John McCain. Nonetheless, after the verdict was in, I hoped, for the sake of the country, that the new president would be what he said he was, and what his supporters believed he was. In this I was disappointed. He turned out to be simply a smoother talker than Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, and every bit as divisive. He took more pride in his basketball game than he did in his country. But Idi Amin played basketball too.
I think I thought back in oh eight
That something good might come of this
Our first black POTUS might be great
And bring a time of racial bliss
I think I thought I heard he would
Unite the country more or less
Behind him as we understood
That understanding meant success
I think I thought he wouldn’t be
Divisive and a hateful man
But soon enough we came to see
That racial bliss was not his plan
I think I thought he’d be above
The gutter creatures of his past
But when the pushing came to shove
He showed his colors true at last
I think I thought he felt he’d earned
A second shot at the brass ring
He never thought that he’d be spurned
But looked upon himself as king
I think I thought as defeat loomed
That he would lay it on real hard
And as the Romney fortunes boomed
He’d play the last ditch doomsday card
I think I thought I’d heard he’d try
The race card as a dying gasp
But honest men will damn well pry
That race card from his dying grasp
I think I thought I heard him say
Revenge is sweet, the taste is keen
And so we will election day
Reject our own Idi Amin
I share the concern of Stephen b – a close election with massive cheating by democrats is worrisome. Some voting machines have already shown bugs favoring the incumbents, and apparently military ballots have gone missing as well. Stalin said something along the lines of “It’s who counts the votes that counts”.
Let us consider Philadelphia county. The Democrat machine will pull out all the stops there and win that county, but will they have enough votes to swing the state wide race from that county. How many people have left that county and for what reasons? What is the morale like for those remaining, in other words how many will just stay home? How many businesses have left and taken people with them. They may not be able to get enough people out of the grave yards to make the difference. Given the number of Republicans now holding PA state offices it may also mean cheat is a bit riskier than it was in 2008.
Elections can change some things — but the big forces of history remain the same. Whoever becomes the next US president faces the same reality of the unsustainability of federal deficit spending, the coming collapse of Ponzi social security, the dissolution of Europe, and spreading strife in the Middle East. Those are potentially unwinnable battles, no matter who is leading the charge, whether from the front or from behind.
A re-elected Obama would face the additional challenge of being a lame duck from day one, and a lame duck without coat-tails. No elected Democrat would owe anything to Obama. The horse-race focused Old Fashioned Media will immediately start casting around for the Democrat candidate for 2016, and would lose interest in covering up for Obama. And a Congress that was even slightly less AWOL from its responsibilities would severely restrict the freedom of movement that Obama has enjoyed for the last 4 years.
Whichever way it goes, this election will not of itself solve anything.
Here is one Ohio Democrat who voted early (I won’t be voting often). I didn’t vote for any Democrats, though. I remain a registered Democrat to vote in the primaries. I live in a Democrat dominated area so the primary is where most local offices are decided.
The Democrats remain loyal but are unexcited (certainly compared to 2008). The negative campaign run by Sherrod Brown and Obama has turned off a lot of voters who might have “switched” this year. I know one voter who only voted on the issues and passed up the political offices — which is the point of the attacks. Of course the Democrats hope their voters will go out and vote and the weak “republican leaners” stay home. Personally, I think it might be a poor bet on their part but they know more about winning elections than I do. We shall soon see.
“A gut feeling is the the word we give to the unconscious synthesis which an experienced man reaches about a situation.”
The polls, in my humble opinion, are without recognition that this is simply not 2008, which was an outlier by virtue of the possibility of a first Black president. Then two years to see how he did. By 2010, we were up in arms; by 2012, we’ve truly had it and the superstorm has just crystalized that gut feeling.
Reposted from earlier:
I’ve spent years in emergency management and as soon as the storm was over and we could see the damage, I knew the critical point would be 5-7 days after the storm. People are pretty good for 72 hours and after that, tempers fray and patience shorts out, especially in cities. Expectations of an instant fix slowly gives way to the realization that it will not happen. The fact that election day coincides with the 7th post-storm day and that it has happened in predominantly blue states may make for a true grand slam for Romney.
I’m thinking that famous electoral map showing all those eastern seaboard states as solidly blue is going to suffer a sea change.
I suspect David Axelrod is channeling “Predator” right now….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbjbmByusuo
Amusing aside. Celestial navigation using a sextant is as much art as science. A ‘fix’ is, hopefully, but rarely, the intersection of four or five lines on a chart. It is never a single point, but instead a polygon of odd shape. The ‘box’ is frequently a mile or so wide. The navigator then carefully inserts his pencil point and says ‘we are here’.
Having done that, he then has to make a statement regarding his learned opinion as to quality of fix. In descending order from best to worst:
Fix
Running Fix (a series of lines over time, an hour or two, brought forward)
Estimated Position (EP)
Guess
SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess)
WAG (Wild Ass Guess)
and my personal favorite…Duh.
(I marked up charts with them all)
It is a lot like statistical inference…
ta
What Axelrod is thinking right now is that running the whole campaign on lady parts was a mistake, and getting sucked into supporting Gay marriage before Obama was reelected was also a mistake. The Gay marriage issue is suppressing the Black vote and lady parts has put the campaign directly at war with the Catholic Church and the Evangelicals. Both issues cost them votes they would have had and neither won them a single vote they did not already have. Those are not the only votes they tossed away this time around but they are the ones that will cost the campaign Ohio and Wisconsin.
I’ve seen this before. Back in 2004 the press painted the race between Kerry and Bush being much closer than it really was. I’m pretty sure the same thing is happening this time – the liberal media is propping up their guy even though he is losing.
Of course if Obozo wins, it is going to be a tough 4 years. The guy is just as clueless today as he was 4 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/a4nvhAZ0vr0
It is an odd moment. If the polls are accurate, then it is a statistical tie. More worrying they are showing Obama gaining. I just can’t bring myself to read Axelrod’s entrails or Rove’s for that matter. They are like Russian dolls of infinitely regressing inner calculation and manipulation. That’s their job and they are too good at it. I voted for Romney because I think he has the skills to recognize the rush to global meltdown caused by sovereign debt. Buying 1.5% GDP growth with trillions in debt is not sustainable, but it is also difficult to back off funding the unsustainable. Even Romney Ryan will even with a Republican House and Senate. I don’t see how they can avoid continuing with ‘Extend and Pretend’ albeit at a more modest pace even if they go all in on ‘Drill Baby Drill’. And if Europe collapses then no President will be able to keep the economy afloat.
I have drunk this cup down to the dreggs. If I try to swallow another sip, it will surely come right back up; SO – - -
” Before you critisize another man, walk a mile in his shoes, then when you critisize him he’s a mile away and barefooted.”
Well, I think its funny.
Tuesday Romney will win in a landslide and we’ll all be saved.
But everyone that put Obama in the White House will still be among us, wanting their ‘Bama fon’, free contraceptives, and longing to see the sea stop its rising.
I just read that the mayor of New York didn’t want the National Guard in his city because they have guns and he doesn’t like those nasty things.
“I believe that boys cheeze is done slid of his cracker.”
One perennial tactic of the Obamatons is to falsely accuse the other side of doing whatever the Obamatons are in fact doing. So they run scumbag attack ads then falsely transfer their own activity onto the Romneywallahs through accusations and lectures about how only bad people like the Romneywallahs run scumbag attack ads.
Now the Obamatons are accusing the Romneywallahs of panicking. Based on the observation above, the inference has to be that it is really the Obamatons who are panicking. Axelweasel and Debbie Watercarrier both look like they are feeling sick. I like that, but I think the election result could easily go either way.
#2 stephen b
Cemetery precincts and non-human electors are the standard level of cheating expected of the Democrats. I suspect that the normal election fraud of 1-2% that they commit every time we go to the polls has been amped up at least an order of magnitude.
Consider, for the last 4 years we have repeatedly caught Democrat operatives engaged in assisting vote fraud. Indeed, Voter ID is the Democrat equivalent of holy water to a vampire. As #9 Hunt Johnsen has mentioned, there seems to be a nationwide conspiracy where electronic voting machines record at least a percentage of votes for Romney as being for Obama and military ballots have already been discarded. The Journo-List 2.0 media will not look at any of these, or anything that reflects badly on Obama. Combine these with the statements of the various Mouths of Sauron and you are forced to conclude that either every one of the buggers and/or their patrons are certifiable; or conversely they do know something that we do not. And from the data available, while being certifiable and sociopathic may be part of it, a reasonably prudent person has to assume the worst case scenario until proven otherwise.
We are used to looking at the internals of the polls, and know that they are slanted until it always looks like it is neck and neck. But when you adjust for the skew [the Democrats are no way in any circle of Hell going to have a higher advantage than in 2008 (D+5-7), yet the polls assume a D+9-13. Right now it is probably even to R+2.] Romney has been leading for a few weeks, and is now. but the public only sees the skewed headlines. So a fraudulent Obama win will seem plausible when backed by the Journo-Listas.
So what do they know, and what is the reaction when the election of the president is not legitimate? Who will defend what is left of the Constitution?
Tomorrow, I will be busy helping with 2 GOTV rallies. I will vote Tuesday. And I will watch the returns wondering if my vote, or any votes, really were counted. And I will be pondering the lack of a future of electoral politics of Obama “wins”.
Subotai Bahadur
Polls tend to tighten the weekend before election day. Case in point: in 1996, the final weekend polls had Bob Dole in a dead heat with Bill Clinton, out of the blue. Dole never polled less than 7 points behind Clinton during the entire campaign. But by Monday Dole had begun to slide, and by Tuesday he wound up with the predicted loss. According to this pattern, tonight American voters on the whole made up their minds as for whom they will vote. The hive mind is an interesting thing. Tuesday we’ll see the results.
No elected Democrat would owe anything to Obama…
Actually, as we speak (so to speak), no Democrat candidate—not one—currently wants to be seen campaigning with Obama. Does not want to appear anywhere near Obama. Does not want to be seen as associated with Obama. Does not want to even mention Obama.
(Hmmm, now why might that be?….)
Not that you’ll discover this (no doubt insignificant) factoid anywhere in the MSM.
I’m with #19. And personally speaking, I’m not certain that there are enough dead people to swing this election in our Confabulator-in-Chief’s favor.
(On the other hand, aren’t all the dead—or most of them—already converted to Mormonism?…. And you always wondered what the point of THAT exercise was….heh!!)
File under: My Opinion, right or wrong!!
In my world view, there’s three different levels to this. On the surface is the public polling, which is seeming awfully suspect. And as some rightly cynical people predicted earlier, the final polling looks like it will come in at a dead heat. This level seems almost totally devoid of valuable information, having become nothing more than another weapon in the progressive propaganda arsenal.
The next level is the “story behind the story”, stuff which isn’t a hunch, but doesn’t fit into the official Narrative: the seemingly huge enthusiasm gap, anecdotal evidence of previous Obama voter dissatisfaction, giant Romney rallies vs pathetic Obama rallies, rumblings of a preference cascade, the reluctance of people to vocalize opposition to Obama, etc. I saw a bit of this level first-hand just a week ago. Was at a family function and overheard my little sister having a conversation with some other relatives. My jaw just about hit the floor when I heard her talking positively about the movie 2016 (I haven’t seen it) and how much she despises Obama. She was never a doctrinaire liberal (we grew up in a pretty non-political household) but like a lot of young people, she was steeped in the general progressive culture and got swept up in the Obama Fever in 2008. All of the other family members were nodding and murmuring in agreement. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. She’s a talented and savvy young woman who recently started her own business. In the last year, she’s got a good taste of what the Obama Economy means to hard working small business people like her. I’m proud.
The last level is that gut feeling. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m naturally cynical and paranoid, but my guts aren’t very confident. Looking at the data in the paragraph above tells my brain that we stand a very good chance of ousting The Blightbringer (Thanks Emp. Misha I). But I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s a nasty trick headed our way. We are talking about the ultimate Chicago Machine politician, after all. Look at what happened with Obamacare in the Supreme Court. I’m not trying to be a concern troll. But I’m also not going to count our chickens before they are hatched.
If this thing really is close, one way or the other? If the winner of the Electoral College is not the popular vote winner? It could very well make 2000 look like a cakewalk. If we get bogged down in a legal battle and urban unrest as a result of that scenario, I’m really concerned what could hit us during our time of crisis. Either from a known external threat, or from implanted sleepers. (See Wretchard’s last Benghazi essay regarding the possibility of a bigger operating coming soon).
One last thing. How is it, that Richard Fernandez, resident of Australia, has a better grasp of the current American zeitgeist than just about anyone else I know who actually lives in this country? It’s incredible. And you’ve been on a real tear with your analysis in the last few days.
EDIT: 21 @Subotai states something bothering me that I neglected to mention. All of the insane partisan splits in the polls don’t make much sense, unless you think of it as “battlespace preparation”. What are the rabid Obamaites going to do if their guy loses? They just about lost it over that cold fish Al Gore. And if he wins in a squeaker (oh look, we found some ballots in the trunk of the elections supervisor)? Well, the polls said it all along. Thanks Nate Silver!
Four years ago, when I ran into people it was very common for the other party to steer the conversation to how they favored 0bama.
I politely heard them out. To my mind, the Wan was a Gonnabee of the first water.
Now, I only hear people steering the conversation as to how they’re voting for Romney — and that the nation can’t take four more years of ….
I still expect California to be a lock for the Wan, but races further down the ticket should surprise.
Religious NAM are NOT going to rally around the candy boy. Conservative gay hit pieces are floating around the Baptist community with regard to candy boy’s daze in Chicago. While excluded from the MSM, these tales are brutal.
They are also consistent with 0bama’s personal behaviors. I’d say that some of it has to stick.
With regard to the, so called, Hispanic vote: 0bama never pushed any of their agenda. When he had a killer lock on the Congress, 2009-10, no bills advanced to promote Mexican issues. Instead, his over arching economic policies have absolutely destroyed blue collar incomes — with the maximum impact in the ghetto.
IF Barry is crowned, NAM economic prospects will descend to Zimbabwe levels.
African-American IQs norm one standard deviation lower than Northern European Americans — and a full two standard deviations lower than Ashkenazi Jews. In a time when raw labor value is glutting the market, thank you Red China, et. al., strong backs and weak minds are brutally handicapped.
This phenomena is hardly confined to America, and is at the root of all the economic dislocation and other traumas detailed by Wretchard. (above)
As bad as 0bama was paralyzed over Benghazi — imagine his seizures when MENA figuratively and literally blows up.
Egypt is on track to have a nightmarish famine of Biblical proportions within the next four years — and probably sooner.
Likewise, Pakistan is riding the tiger. Islamabad is run like Chicago — on steroids. (!) Astoundingly, it lives on the good graces of outside charity. Its government budgets on massive foreign aid — year in and year out. What funds it receives are diverted to construct an atomic program surpassing Britain and France. (!)
FYI: Atomic powers by rank…
Top tier
Red China (ICBMs in tunnels, etc.)
Second tier
Russia (Treaty dropped both underneath China)
America
Third tier
Pakistan (Expanding like mad… assumed to be selling to KSA, deniably)
Israel
Britain
France
Fourth tier
India
Fifth tier (budding joint program — funded by Iran, conducted in Syria, Iran, and Nork.)
Nork
Iran
If Barry is still enthroned, this last program will be his ‘atomic 1939.’
———-
Gonnabees normally utterly destroy any organization if they are placed in executive control. Barry is, then, right on course.
Subotai is convinced there’ll be massive election fraud. I note that Charlie Martin is now saying he thinks the states that are 50/50 will ALL go to Romney–well, they won’t if Subotai is right, because of course a “close-run thing” is where cheating comes in handy.
But it’s harder to cheat in five or six close-run states than in one or two. It’s more apparent, etc. But of course a lot would depend on how Romno reacts. Will he pull a 1960 Nixon or…?
FWIW, I have a friend working for the Board of Elections up in the Cleveland area and the other day a friend from the Arlington area of VA wrote that at a recent party there in DC, the wife of one of his friends was saying how she was looking forward to voting on election day: they told her, sorry, you’re not an American citizen yet; you can’t vote. She said, “But I have a green card!”
Now, this dumb-blonde sort of remark prompted a friend in Columbus, Ohio, to say, “Hell, send her here; we take utility bills!”
Which comment drew the following response from my friend up in Cleveland, “No, she has to be registered to vote FIRST; THEN, if necessary, she can use a utility bill that’s less than a year old to vote.”
I nearly asked, “Oh, and who is gonna check all that out? And where will these checkers be? How thorough will they be?”
But I relate this story just to show how crazy all this is. You can’t vote in the Central European country I’m in now without your national ident card (photo ident, etc).
Perhaps Romney will win in enough states that no one will be able to “cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of riot” (sorry, Shakes!).
All-in-all, at this point I feel like a Byzantine Greek in Constantinople, hearing rumors of palace coups and intrigue while Barbarian hordes camp outside the walls. There’s just no where to run to in ol’ Constantine’s city.
An Préachán
I heard today that a total of 26 major newspapers who endorsed Obama in 2008 have endorsed Romney this time around.
You hear a lot of anecdotal evidence of people who voted for Obama last time and are voting for Romney in this election – as well as some of people who voted for Obama last time and will not be voting at all this time.
How many cases have you heard of McCain voters voting for Obama this time? I have not heard of one. Many McCain voters simply did not vote at all last time.
I really don’t know how to take all this. It does not match the polls very well.
By the way, I have an explanation of why Colin Powell endorsed Obama. After all, he’s the guy who brought up the Pottery Barn rule. He figures that since Obama broke the country he bought it and has to fix it. Of course, if we followed that rule, bulls would be managing china shops.
The man behind Mitt Romney’s poll questions
This is hardly an academic debate over the nuances of polling science. The basic issue is whether Newhouse’s internal forecasts and assumptions about the composition of the 2012 electorate are correct versus the ones made by the Obama campaign, which have tended to look more like public polling. If Newhouse is right, the majority of public pollsters will have egg on their faces. If he’s wrong, there will be post-mortems questioning his take.
It is because of Newhouse’s strong reputation that many Republicans have believed his assertions that Democrats are misreading the math, and why members of Romney’s campaign have stayed positive even when things have seemed publicly to be slipping from reach.
“Neil Newhouse is probably the most respected GOP pollster in the country,” said Nick Everhart, president of the Delaware, Ohio-based Strategy Group for Media, who has worked with POS repeatedly. “I think under-appreciated or respected when he pushes back hard on the public polling especially in Ohio, is that I feel like without question there isn’t a pollster in this country ever who has conducted or taken as many polls as Neil has in the state of Ohio. He’s practically an Ohio-based strategist the amount of work he’s done here, so it’s VERY hard not to take his comments and critiques of the rest of the public survey data coming out of the state seriously.”
Everhart added: “Neil is just not the kind of guy who would be pushing back for the sake of earned media spin, he’s pushing back because he’s seeing serious flaws in all this public data.”
Indeed, amid the partisan fog, what is getting lost is that both sides — Obama and Romney — are fiercely convinced that their numbers are the right ones.
“Some people want to believe we’re living in a world where the electorate is going to have a partisan composition” like 2008, Newhouse told reporters last week on a conference call, citing the current political environment. “That’s a stretch.”
“What’s fun about Neil is he’s kind of the gritty, blue collar, junkyard dog Republican pollster,” said Republican pollster Greg Strimple, who believes Newhouse’s data is accurate and describes him as generally cautious instead of risky in his assumptions. “He’s not a pompous, egotistical type.”
CNN’s latest poll has 41 percent Dems, 30 percent Pubs!
Obama Wins!
Correction: CNN predicts a tie.
w/Dems plus 11 !!!
CNN poll reaches new heights of absurdity
—
“I think under-appreciated or respected when he pushes back hard on the public polling especially in Ohio, is that I feel like without question there isn’t a pollster in this country ever who has conducted or taken as many polls as Neil has in the state of Ohio.
He’s practically an Ohio-based strategist the amount of work he’s done here, so it’s VERY hard not to take his comments and critiques of the rest of the public survey data coming out of the state seriously.”
Ed Flynn, former Dem mayor of Boston was on last Thursday saying that Scott Brown and Romney would win and that it would be the Catholic vote that would put them there.
Win or lose, the thing that is being sensed all over is the complete and final bankruptcy of liberalism. From the standpoint of the institutional memory of the West, the assumption that there are no objective truths has now been convincingly repudiated over the course of a half century.
Someone here – I’ll give Peter Boston credit, even though I’m not sure – said almost four years ago that Obama would represent the “high water mark” for the left, and he/they turn out to have been correct. It’s probably even more apt to call it when the Democratic party and liberalism jumped the shark.
As I think I’ve said before, the Reagan revolution didn’t take because liberalism was still too much of an obstacle to a more grounded world view. We just took the economic results of what he did and had a big, liberal type party with the money.
We’re about to see a big sea change. Hopefully, it starts tomorrow, because any other course will be much more arduous. A Romney win and successful presidency would give us a way for a softer landing than if we have to do it with the father of lies still fully in control of the levers of American government.
maineman @ 30: “Ed Flynn, former Dem mayor of Boston…”
It’s Ray. Ray Flynn. A good guy.
Rasmussen says that if it were Scott vs The Squaw, personally, Scott would win…
…But Mass. voters want a Dem controlled Senate,
…and predicts The Squaw will win.
Whoops, Ray Flynn. Old brain and never in Beantown when he was, but I liked what I saw. Gritty, bright, Irish Catholic archetype. I thought he sounded like he knew what he was talking about, anyway.
From Ace:
November 05, 2012
Buried Bombshell: CBS Video Shows Obama Refusing To Call Benghazi A Terrorist Attack…On September 12th
—DrewM.
Obama did an interview with CBS’ Steve Kroft on the night of September 12th and the first question is about why he didn’t call it terrorism in his Rose Garden statement that day.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57341009-10391709/president-obama-the-full-60-minutes-interview/
My old gag is that people vote based on fear. They vote for Republicans when they’re afraid the Democrats are going to ruin the economy and surrener to the French. And they vote for Democrats when they’re afraid the Republicans are going to outlaw sex and good music.
The economy stinks, unemployment is sky-high (especially among the young), and foreign policy is going badly. All of those things are easily sensed despite the spin machine trying to cover them up. People – especially in some key BCB (Blue-Collar Blue) states – feel like Obama has already ruined the economy.
OTOH, Mormons clearly have way too many kids to have anything against sex, and the libs running the music industry are the ones trying to outlaw good music these days with intrusive copy protection.
My gut feeling is that there is no way Obama can win in America, but I’m no longer certain if we still live there. We are going into a Fourth Turning, not sure what we’ll come out as. We’ll see, but tommorrow won’t be the end of it, merely the first major rending. The next fifteen years are going to be far more interesting than I’d prefer.
Cheer up! The Democrats in Florida are fire-breathing furious that their ‘vote early, vote often’ campaign is being frustrated by the paucity of voting stations. It seems that 3.5 to 6 hours per vote doesn’t allow sufficient time to overcome the ‘will of the people’.
CNN is correctly using a Dem +11 poll; Republican polls are omitting the percentage of dead and repeat voters casting their ballots for Obama.
The Iraqi’s had the right idea; voting on one day with one purple finger per vote. Combine this with strict voter ID requirements that include blindness and mental competency information will truly advance the cause of determining the ‘will of the people’.
jmh @ 35: My gut feeling is that there is no way Obama can win in America, but I’m no longer certain if we still live there.
+1
35. JMH
“My gut feeling is that there is no way Obama can win in America, but I’m no longer certain if we still live there.”
I guess Captain Capitalism agrees with you. Compared with the U.S. the Captain says that Mexico:
-has a better current account balance
-less government debt
-higher (by at least 1.5%) economic growth
-a much lower unemployment rate
than does America. Holey moley macaroni! Tomorrow, fire the poltroon and all around mountebank that currently skulks around the White House.
An Preachan @ 26:
That woman doesn’t need to leave Virginia for Ohio. In Virginia as well, you can vote by showing a utility bill. You’re supposed to also be a registered voter, but they don’t really check you out when you register to vote. So it is quite easy to vote illegally.
In 2008, Virginia even accorded voting rights to non-residents. They gave out-of-state students the right to vote. Of course, at the same time they rejected all absentee military ballots from bonafide residents because they didn’t like the DoD form, and they did this when it was far too late to do anything about their objections.
I’ve worked the polls as a volunteer GOP rep around here on many occasions. Every single time I’ve caught the Dems trying to pull off questionable or fraudlent moves. But they get by with it because all I can do is complain. The Dem poll workers show up with a list of lawyers and friendly judges in hand. Last Obama election, we actually had a woman announce in line that she just flew in from California in order to vote a second time here in Virginia. They let that woman vote, using her CA drivers license for ID. All of this over objections that were duly noted.
Funny thing is, they don’t even have to cheat around here. It’s one of the bluest areas of the state. But they can’t help it.
The level of disinformation is remarkable. Liberal/MSM information sources indicate that Obama has the election in the bag. Conservative/Republican sources say that Romney will win (some even say by a landslide which is not believable). Honest/professional polls appear to be neutral. The original momentum that Romney had from the first debate appears to have played out.
I live in California so my vote does not count (In California, Obama will win no matter what). As a quixotic exercise, I will vote against Obama by voting for Romney.
Romney was not my first, second or even third choice as Obama’s opponent. I do not like Romney. However a vote for Obama is a vote for national suicide.
All patriots have a moral duty to vote against Obama even in California where their vote won’t count..
Obama is easily the worse and most incompetent president since James Buchanan, Jr. The nation is in serious trouble and we disparately need a competent President.
Abstaining from voting or throwing away your vote on a third party candidate does not absolve you from the moral obligation of voting against Obama. To vote against Obama, you MUST vote for Romney. The demagogue Obama MUST be removed from office.
I was better. So screw you.
While gazing at a piece of toast this morning these words miraculously appeared on the surface of that crispy slice:
“If Obama wins he will get 274 electoral votes. If Romney wins he will get 294 electoral votes.”
The better bread candidate will win.
Eggplant:
Even though the winner of the Electoral College wins the Presidency, the popular vote still matters. The popular vote underlines the legitimacy of the electoral vote, while an electoral victory without a popular majority is a victory with an asterisk.
For example, if Obama wins and then commits an impeachable offense, his conviction would be much easier to get if he does not win a popular majority.
Alexis @ 43 said
“… if Obama wins and then commits an impeachable offense, his conviction would be much easier to get if he does not win a popular majority.”
Putting together a bill of impeachment against Obama would not be particularly difficult, e.g. one of the many skeletons in Obama’s closet would probably do to trick. However getting the 2/3 majority in the Senate for conviction is politically impossible. IMHO, impeaching a President and NOT convicting him (as in the case of Clinton) only weakens the office (causes more harm than good). The President should be impeached only if there is a good chance for conviction.
Something I do worry about concerning Obama is the possibility of a coup d’état. If Obama does another Benghazi where Americans are being slaughtered by Islamists then the probability for a coup d’état goes way up. It is interesting/disturbing that Petraeus opted to throw Obama under the bus after the Benghazi balls-up. Petraeus is precisely the sort of guy who could pull off a coup d’état. Also, for those who think that Petraeus replacing Obama would be a “good thing” there is the disturbing problem about who would eventually replace Petraeus. Augustus was a skilled emperor but Caligula flushed the Roman Empire down the toilet.
Cowboy at 39:
Thanks! I didn’t know. What to do? Was there ever records made of each complain/challenge? Surely they’d pile up and one could then collect and publish them. Imagine a large, phone book-style compilation like that…well, I suppose someone would sue you if you tried to publish it.
The sort of thing you describe is obviously why Philadelphia keeps getting bigger and bigger vote number each election, even though the city’s population has been decreasing.
Reading your comment and Subotai’s, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything that happens today.
An Préachán