Deep Breathely
Stephanie Cutter has a message for President Obama’s supporters. Even if it looks like Obama is losing, they have a stash of early votes that are going to turn the tide.
In a conference call this afternoon, President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign had one central message for their supporters when Election Day arrives tomorrow: They should “keep calm,” even if they hear snippets of information favoring Republican Mitt Romney. … “We’ve already banked a pretty big portion of our vote.” …
“So, no matter what you hear tomorrow about turnout in Republican counties or exit polls, particularly early in the day, please remember and remind your readers that, because of early votes, we’re where we need to be to win….I don’t think there’s going to be official exits until the end of the day, but if things leak out that aren’t validated or weighted, please stay calm.”
I’ve been watching the Strawpoll widget since the vote totals were in the low hundreds. The basic ratio stayed at 54:46 for about two days. Then as more votes came in the last 36 hours it went 55:45. It is moving to 56:44. That is an incredibly high ratio which probably does not represent the true population with perfect accuracy. After all the Strawpoll will measure only those with access to the Internet and in particular, those who come upon it in Facebook. (Image taken on Nov 5, 2012 @ 16:15 PST)
My guess is that the true difference is closer than the 56.6 to 43.4 ratio is showed at the time of the screencap. It’s one data point out of the many that are out there. However, what I do think what we are seeing — what we must see by definition — is people making up their minds as the election date comes closer. That means new data is eventuating all the time as the time to cast a ballot, one way or the other, comes near.
The ratio changes as people who haven’t made up their minds make them up. This process will go on all the way up to the moment when the closing bell rings.
What Cutter is doing — apart from preparing the public mind for strange additions to the vote totals — is preventing any perception of a Romney momentum from dispiriting her troops. Up until the polls close there will be individuals who either have not voted or have not made up their minds. The Obama campaign is fighting for inches. That’s what they think this may come down to.
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No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
That stash of early votes, eh. But polling of early voters (yes, those 9%, I know) indicated a stronger pro-Romney turnout than pro-Obama.
At best, for Obama, this will be a game of inches. I’m hoping the difference will be in yards.
They traditionally have had a strong ground game.
”That means new data is … ”
Data ”are”, data ”are”—after all, what’s the plural of data, if it’s ”data is”?
They traditionally have had a strong ground game.
not since 2009
The British are usually technically correct on this score. They use datum for singular and data for plural. They also say they are studying “maths” — there being more than one kind of math.
But saying the “data is” is the kind of incorrect usage that sounds right, at least to me, even though I know that is probably wrong.
You’re right. It is code for, “You’ve got to help us, pleeeeeaaassse, Mr. Rabbit!” Everything she says is a lie. Disgusting political operative. Tomorrow will be a beatdown, and she will still lie afterwards.
Data is. In computers it is used as a collective noun, like ‘water’ or ‘air’. Yes, I’m aware that it was originally a plural of ‘datum’, but we are not speaking Latin here, and you cannot change 50 years of usage in the industry.
Early votes stashed? You mean like Al Franken’s that turned up in the trunk of someone’s car after election day?
And what about the hundreds of thousands of military ballots that never reached the troops? How can that be explained? Don’t they get mail daily? Aren’t food supplies shipped in regularly?
Tomorrow will be a harrowing day unless Hugh Hewitt’s admonition is heeded: “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat.”
Andrew Sullivan says “the data are”, even though his accent has become somewhat American. I reminded of those World War 2 OSS movies where the Gestapo detect the Americans by the switch in the fork hand after cutting something on their plate. People “forget” and revert to type. For Andrew Sullivan the data “are”.
I met someone who told me about an acquaintance, now deceased, who served as a spy during the Second World War by (im)personating a waiter in a German’s officer’s club. He pretended an ignorance of English, but lived in fear that someone would wake him in the night, for whatever reason, and he would blurt out something like “what the bloody ‘ell is it?” and blow his cover.
Data is – is perfectly fine – colloquially surely – Data are – might have some nuance in more specialized discussions -
and yes – #7 “water” , “air” very apt way of making the point – tho, I think the correct technical term is “mass nouns” not “collective”
Do they have a 6th of November in Australia?
Regarding We Be Datums: Oh look, a squirrel! Let us focus.
There was a clear and professional Democratic program to panic and stampede blocs of voters into early voting. For example is the email circulating among elderly Jews in Florida that claims to be from the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC. Forgive the length but I think this is important. Highlighting in original not copied.
This arrived at the start of the weekend before the election. The early voting drive was in full swing. My expectation is that they have managed to steal several thousand votes with this tactic. The statement the Israeli Embassy sent me follows.
This smells like a MMFA/Soros operation to me. If they win they are home free. As free as the New Black Panthers are after threatening voters. If they lose will they face consequences? In my mind stooping to such a trick, misrepresenting oneself as a foreign government to defraud the elderly, is so vile that the Law should respond with relentless savagery equal to the response we should expect from our military if theoretically speaking someone would dare to attack our Ambassador. If Soros was behind this I’d think a trail could be followed. Who will go down that path?
I hope my candidate wins. I don’t want to lose any more faith in the system.
it’s not the system that’s at fault for putting obama in office, it’s the people who voted for him. so if you lose faith in anything, it should be in the citizenry of this country.
It’s about the down-ticket races now. Dems don’t want to lose the Senate by having their mid-western and western voters bail early. Tester in Montana will surely lose if Obama is toast after Ohio is called.
Hi all. This is kinda off topic but does anyone want to say where they will be tmrw, what they will be doing, who they will be with? Are you going to tune out and wait for the news? Will you be glued to the tv/radio/internet looking at results as they roll in? Will you be with family, friends, or both? It might be interesting to know. I’ll be at my mom’s house, listening to the radio. It’s been a crazy time since Iraq 2 started, (when i first came to this site), and it’ll be interesting to see what happens. God Bless y’all, and America too.
“What Cutter is doing — apart from preparing the public mind for strange additions to the vote totals —”
and
#8 batman
—————————–
The Executive Branch was directed by Congress specifically to fix the absentee ballot problem after the 2010 election. As is unsurprising, since denying the military the right to vote is both politically beneficial and ideologically erotic to Leftists; they did exactly Jack plus Squat to improve delivery of ballots.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/265925-gop-senators-thousands-of-ballots-unlikely-to-reach-military-voters
Taken together, one rational explanation is what #24 Dworkin Barimen said in the previous IN THE OFFING thread:
“All of the insane partisan splits in the polls don’t make much sense, unless you think of it as “battlespace preparation.“.
H-Hour of D-Day is midnight tonight, when the polls open at Dixville Notch, New Hampshire and the Federal election begins. The battlespace extends around the world to Guam. And it may last days, weeks, or in the worst case years.
We are going to be busy. For some reason I think of Jacob Astley, 1st Baron Astley of Reading, before the Battle of Edgehill.
“O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not forget me.”
It is not the call to the Great Blue Sky Tengri Nor that the source of my nom d’ blog would use; but ’twill better serve us all here.
Subotai Bahadur
I am not concerned with the “East to West Effect” or “Time Zone Effect” that is in the democrat’s talking points. The donks own the MSM so any “Time Zone Effect” will belong to them [the MSM will naturally say that the exit polls indicate "0bama has won - so don't bother to vote"] .
Further, the Time Zone Effect could actually work against them – causing donks to be over confident and not vote thinking they have won (particularly in California and other west coast states).
I am concerned about voter fraud. How does the average voter handle voter fraud? 0bama is already bragging that he has the votes in the “bag” so to speak. How do we ensure those vote’s are not fraudulent?
a @ 16: Hi all. This is kinda off topic but does anyone want to say where they will be tmrw, what they will be doing, who they will be with?
Before enlightenment, chop wood, haul water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, haul water.
Regarding whether “data” is intrinsically plural, an interesting story is told in the book of Judges. The word “shibboleth” was pronounced differently by folks from the tribe of Gilead and the tribe of Ephraim. The initial phoneme was pronounced like an “s” by the Ephraimites, but like an “sh” by the Gileadites. Thus, requiring one to pronounce the word became a means to identify the tribal origin of people crossing the Jordan River. Today, the word is used to mean any saying having little current meaning. Thus, using “data” as a singular or plural form can be a way to distinguish Brits from Americans.
There are people in the 3D animation industry who are comfortable to use the plural form “Vertices” to refer to a number of individual Cartesian points. Then, many of them proceed to use the atrocity of calling the SINGULAR instance a “verticeeeeee.”
It is the death of civilization.
I must grit my teeth and merely imagine their heads exploding from a well-placed round, rather than giving in to my (very) dark side and actually sending such a pellet hurtling in their direction.
And then there are those who pronounce “centigrade” as though it were meant to honor the Parisian engineers responsible for maintaining the sacred metric standards… “SONT-ee-grade.”
I like to say “vertexes” as in Bright Moon over Texas.
Surely, somewhere someone is ordering more Thorazine for me.
Google logo shows blue ballots giving the finger to the right/red “e”.
Also, the e’s check-marks are loosely arraigned in a swastika.
Apologies.
Can’t kick the dog while she’s recovering from surgery, and I HAVE to get my cathartic curmudgeonly moment.
I figure youse guys is resilient.
DER TAG
In an honest election Romney would win in a walk, but Obama has a very good chance of taking Pennsylvania on the strength of likely massive voter fraud in Philadelphia, where the Black wards routinely cast many more votes than they have voters, and where the Democrat machine gets to count the votes. So while I believe Romney will win 300+ Electoral College votes, we all know Obama has a puncher’s chance, especially since there has already been widespread voter fraud in Ohio. Gallup and Rasmussen both say the national race is a dead heat. Are we to assume Romney and Obama are tied in California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Illinois, Delaware, Connecticut and New Jersey? I think not. Therefore Romney is ahead in all the rest and will win it all, the final tally dependent only on holding the voter fraud down to a manageable number.
In an honest election
Mitt is the selection
With fraud vote detection
Obama rejection
Gordon (3), Give it up, please: we’re speaking English, not Latin.
Time to haul out my ancient copy of Kermit: A Data Transfer Protocol for the best footnote evah, courtesy Frank da Cruz:
These last few months have given me a bit of optimism that all is not lost for this country. The significant passion to get rid of Obama and his ilk and the crowds Romney has drawn even though he is not the most charismatic or eloquent candidate, give me that hope.
I hope and pray our man wins. If he does, it will be a hard slog ahead, but we will advancing in the right direction. But if Obama “wins,” by hook or by crook, we can presume our imminent demise and plan our resurrection-a spiritual and political Chapter 7.
I’ll be right here tomorrow-link always open like most days. Thank you for this site, Richard. It is a godsend. I’m flabbergasted by your ability to generate so much outstanding commentary and in awe of your talent. There has been no better place to be than BC this election year. Fingers crossed boys and girls-this nightmare may soon be over.
#11 Josh: here in Australia it’s currently 6 Nov and we’ve had a horserace, the Melbourne Cup, that everyone tunes in to. We do this every year, first Tuesday of Nov. We don’t have a president, though. The British Queen is still our head of state. One of the reasons we have balked at becoming a republic – and voting in a president – is because we watch the US and cringe. From here, watching all this, it’s just such a circus. I know, I know, it’s a serious circus but still …
The Democrat way of war. Declare victory, no matter what, and go home.
I wouldn’t worry about the Panthers, by the way. They’re there for security. Additionally, so the press can write pieces about the FBI watching them and pretend that they’re not all friendly together.
The Romney team has a killer app, and it’s a whale of an idea: ORCA.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/11/05/romney-campaign-unleashes-killer-turnout-app/
@16 what they will be doing, who they will be with?
I will be trying to “watch” the polls at my local precinct, all day, hoping to keep the fraud to a minimum
@30 – I sure wish I had a “smart” phone, so I could use that ORCA app; otherwise, I need to check each voter in with a pencil & paper
Wretchard #2:
They traditionally have had a strong ground game at the 6 ft under level.
31. cas
So, you’ll be engaged in voter suppression then? How oppressive, gestapo!
ashen, after I vote I’ll come home and try to direct some of my nervous energy into working a bit; I have something to write and something to edit. As the day wears on I’ll be getting nervous, so I’ll probably go to the grocery store (wearing my Romney/Ryan button) and then do some cooking. Then I’ll check the internet to see what’s happening, come here to see what wretchard has to say, go to hopenchange where there is a vibrant comment community, and eventually turn on the TV.
Josh, I like your answer!
Frank Lunz was just on FNC.
He said his studies show that 7% of 2008 Obama voters are voting for Romney, and also said that he found the passion of those Obama voters, who typically feel betrayed.
He also said that 1% of 2008 McCain voters are voting for Obama this time (that sounds a couple of orders of magnitude too high to me – I assume they are all Green Energy executives).
He says the election is so close because new voters, 18-21 years old, are breaking for Obama two to one. I can believe that; I was stupid then but still a lot smarter than the rest.
Actually, I am a little surprised that Obama did not ask Romney to suspend his campaign and take over the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.
I live in a Red county in a disgustingly blue state. My home precinct went for Fremont in 1856 and has never varied. What really worries me is noted in comment 18. Also the 18-21 year olds deserve what they get and that will be less employment and consideration from yours truly.
W: straw poll favors whom? Not clear from your post. Thanks.
Josh at 19:
Thank you! I needed that slap up aside my head.
Well the regular English plural of data is datas. Don’t scoff, this is the postmodern solution to the problem. Datas in, datas out – it’s all the same!
dlsada @ 26: “Fingers crossed boys and girls-this nightmare may soon be over.”
Would that it were so! Regardless of who emerges president in the US, the wages of global government deficit spending & currency debasement will still come due. Ain’t goin’ to be easy.
One of the major failures of the last few years has been Congress’s abdication of its role. More important than who gets the keys to Air Force 1 is whether there is enough turnover in the House & Senate to improve Congress’s sorry performance.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that universal sufferage democracy is a failed paradigm. I fear our nightmare has many more night sweats to go before a better paradigm emerges. Short-term pessimist, long-term optimist.
Gordon @ 3 – There certainly are times when data is singular. To understand the principal, append “base” to data to yield “the database is” or “the databases are”. A singular data point by itself is meaningless. It has to be tied to a reference point to have any meaning, so databases always consist of multiple data points.
This kind of grammatical nonsense was favored by the likes of Sally Ride and look what her grammar cop actions did to NASA! Challenger accident anyone?
Being “on orbit” is physically nonsensical, but was a favorite expression of hers. Politically correct speech does not impress Mother Nature! As NASA became more PC, it became the less competent, and it has now fallen so much that manned space travel has reverted to the private sector. Sally Ride’s grammar crusade as a closet lesbian was to destroy much of the legacy of Neil Armstrong et al.
For your ref: Ohio Sec’y of State Jon Husted’s website:
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/Research/electResultsMain.aspx
Pretty handy; you can stay connected to it, and so on.
Meanwhile, friends of mine report from Southwest Ohio that the turnout this morning was quite large by the usual standards. They had to wait a half an hour to get in, and then noticed the lines were longer when they left.
FWIW. They’re in a Republican area, in any event.
Also, Ed Morrisey’s in action already and has some (possible) news:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/06/romney-up-92k-in-oh-early-voting/
If what he’s onto it true, it may, indeed, be an early night. Or perhaps I should say, “The Dims have a whole lotta cheatin’ to do!” Or perhaps I might put it like this: the cheating going on up to now is probably about like the range firing of Napoleon’s artillery before they really got started.
An Préachán
PS Data? Wasn’t he an emotionless android somewhere in the future, that somehow had more emotion than the entire crew of the Enterprise of his day?
”There certainly are times when data is singular. To understand the principal, append “base” to data to yield “the database is” or “the databases are”. A singular data point by itself is meaningless. It has to be tied to a reference point to have any meaning, so databases always consist of multiple data points.”
Respectfully disagree. In your case ”data” is a modifier applied to ”base”. It has the same grammatical function as ”military”-base. It becomes part of a different word. Same could apply to ”media” probably: ”media matters”.
No; I say again: if ”data” and ”media” are singular (I won’t but I could even stretch it to ”agenda”), then what is the plural? Anybody who wants to use it that way should be able to answer that.
And: I’m in my early 70s and all my literate life I’ve said ”data are … ”, ”news media are … ”. I can even remember one particular day in junior high school when that was covered in class and their origins (do you think they do that now?).
Then suddenly, as if some mystical committee had just met, those words became singular. I don’t know who seems to have the power to make these illogical changes, or why, but it particularly distresses me when I see folks like Clubbers, who surely were taught differently (the older crowd at least) will seemingly passively just switch over. It just really bothers me, I mean really really really, that there’s some influence out there that can produce this.
And … I still want to know who had the authority to make ”oriental” a forbidden word. This is PC thought control, folks.
I’m afraid I didn’t understand your reference to Sally Ride.
Fox news reports dozens of GOP poll watchers forcibly removed from Philadelphia precincts. Judge orders them reinstated. Drudgereport has it up.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/06/judge-issuing-order-to-reinstate-booted-philadelphia-election-officials/
So far we already have reports of NBPP up to their old hijinks again in PA and OH. Lots of chatter on Twitter about tons of GOP poll watchers being chased out of the polling places, some with physical violence. Supposedly some retired Navy Seals are being mustered to provide counter force. Also have seen it reported that a judge has ordered the GOP poll watchers restored and that sheriff’s deputies are also being sent in to keep order. Sounds kind of crazy out there, and about the level of Dem chicanery that I expected.
I voted this morning, getting there at around 0745. The turnout was the largest I have ever seen. Admittedly, there have been some changes and the polling place is now for two precints, although I do not know if that actually represents more voters.
There was a line of at least 30 people to get in, a line to verify your identity, (have no idea why so many people’s name starts with I through N, or maybe that was just confusion) a line to pick up your ballot, and a very long line, probably at least 50 people, to feed your ballot into the reader. Other people I talked to who voted at other sites report similar experiences. One guy said he got there 30 min before the polls opened and was the 44th to vote.
Bigjumbo #36:
I think that “Who did you vote for?” is a perfectly legitimate interview question, espcially for young people. Aside from an employer’s reasonable desire to hire people who did not try to run him out of business, there is the question of simple intelligence.
Here in Florida, one large employer explained to his employees that there may be negative consequences for their future employment if Obama is re-elected. Naturally there were those who objected to this, saying it was like the lord of the manor giving direction to the peasants.
I think it would be a good idea for the economic consequences of votting to fall on people based on their choices at the ballot box, but I don’t know how to make that happen. A lie detector test would be a bit much, I guess.
I am Irish, a chartered (professional) mechanical engineer. I studied Latin all though secondary school. I also have a high standard of English grammar. In full knowledge of the Latin rules regarding datum and data as singular and plural respectively, I have never had a problem about regarding the word data as a collective noun requiring the singular form of the verb when writing in English.
I could say the same about forum, fora, and forums.
An Englishman wold say “One could say the same about ……”.
It’s all dialect and usage.
Vote under the benevolent gaze of Dear Leader
I keep hearing the top of the hour news idiots saying that Obama’s leadership during Hurricane Sandy was a game changer. What the hell did he do-a 3 hour visit pointing at things like a 3 year old and hugging on Christie. Then it’s back to the trail with the bomber jacket while the NY victims are without power and reenacting The Lord of the Flies. What in God’s name did he do, release FEMA $? What a herculean effort-that probably took a phone call to accomplish.
37. Don Rodrigo
What a doofus! Wretchard posted an image. DOH!
Data are ARE RRRRRRhhh!!!
What is this, talk like a pirate day?
Aint no big.
There is a bunch of engineering(ese) that tortures the language to some extent. There are invented words in pop culture and invented words in science. If engineers and scientists could not adopt their own language then they would have to hold off innovation to follow the work of linguists. Therefore I think English majors make poor scientists and poor leaders. They are Luddites by nature.
My dad who speaks the queens english is quick to point out that half of the engineering terms that I use are not words. I point out that he cannot get a job in the Fortune 500 by being a contrarian.
47. mmacg, et al:
I surrender; I will keep my grumbling to myself—no more pirate talk.
British and Australian English are endless source of fascination. My son’s teacher asked me: “has he revised his maths”. The instantaneous thought that flashed through my mind was, “WTF should he revise analytic Geometry? Did Descartes screw up?”
And then a quarter second later I realized that he meant “has your son reviewed his math?”. Ah. Then there’s the word “whilst”. You see these signs everywhere. “Do not board the train whilst it is moving”. It’s correct of course, but I could almost hear Charles Dickens chortling in the background.
Then there’s “ill”. You read a newspaper story that says “ethnic gangs shot a man in the Punchbowl district with an AK-47. The victim is seriously ill in hospital”. Again, this is probably right. But just once I’d like to watch a movie where one of the members of the squad gets shot by a German sniper and collapses to the ground saying, “sarge, I’m ill”.
Of course, there’s “in hospital”. And “on holiday”, in place of “in the hospital” and “on a holiday”. I suppose it is the British revenge for the American habit of dropping the “u’s” in the “ou” combinations. Maybe its genesis was as follows.
“So is your wife in labor?” wrote one American. And the irked Brit answers, “yes, in hospital.”
In 99.95% of the cases, you get the drift. The only problem is in elevators. “Richard, let’s take the lift to the first floor.” And I say to myself, aren’t we already on the first floor? How the heck can you take the elevator to the first floor? Well the thing is, some countries start at “ground”. So you go ground, first, second, etc floors.
The other thing about the British is they know when to mispronounce things. Certain things are meant to be mispronounced. So if you meet someone from Oxford who went to Magdalen College, be very careful when reading it. It is not read as spelled, but only this special case. The same from men of a certain class named St. John. etc.
The great thing about being an Englishman born and bred is you know all these special rules by heart, an advantage that most of the world is not blessed with.
” so if you lose faith in anything, it should be in the citizenry of this country.”
For this reason I have refused to fly the flag since Obama was elected. I will not fly it again unless he is defeated today. If he wins today, I just may never fly it again.
#53 W:
The same from men of a certain class named St. John
“sinjin” as I recall?
“Magdalen.” “Madlin?”
I also noted that Brits put the emphasis on the early syllables, and Americans on the end of the word. Caribbean, Himalayas, etc.
Actually, Americans are usually the only ones to emphasize the second half of a word or name, but most of the rest of the world is the opposite. Or so it seems to me.