It’s a Rhetorical Question
September 29th, 2008 - 8:40 am
Regarding Iran, is Obama saying one thing in the debates and another on his website?
Well, he’s trying to, anyway. “Tough, direct negotiations” is still the lamest parse of a lame statement I’ve heard in almost 30 years of watching politics. And that’s including both Bushes. And the definition of “is.”
Obama can’t be thinking he’s taking the Right for fools — because we’ve been calling him on this since Day One. Do the Netroots know Obama thinks they must be idiots?
It’s reached a point in this campaign where nothing he says or does will be reported as it actually is. McCain could say that Obama will to “screw the pooch” and the NY times would report it as “McCain attacks Obamas pet friendly policies”
I’ve basically thrown in the towel on this election. Obama could say he’s getting endorsed by Putin, and the press would spin it away. There’s basically no way he can lose at this point. I’m really appalled at the prospect.
What’s even more galling is the fact that I’m the only one in my family arguing against him. I get emails all the time from family members about how bad McCain is, or how much of a tramp Palin is. I’ve spent countless hours refuting the shit-rumors being spread about her. Nobody listens. They’ve completely bought into the spin by the Leftist media.
I’m sick of it. I sent out an email to everyone Friday night saying I was done with the arguing. It didn’t matter anymore. McCain needed to stomp Obama, and have it show in the post-debate polls. He didn’t, and the polls reflect it. A vast majority of people think Obama either drew with McCain or beat him outright. Ridiculous, but what are you going to do?
I told everyone that over the weekend, Obama would begin pulling away strongly, and by the time of the next Presidential Debate next week, he’d have a commanding lead. I see nothing to change my opinion.
We’re fucked in so many ways it’s impossible to count. The term “rational self-interest” seems to have disappeared from our economic and political “elite”‘s vocabulary.
I’m really looking forward to a Democratic Congress with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Good times for all….
Just to be clear–I think McCain won the debate. But he needed to leave Obama in a virtual pool of blood. There were several openings that McCain simply ignored. I don’t get it. He had a chance to completely cut Obama off at the knees, and didn’t take them.
Basically, I think McCain lost the election Friday night.
Don’t give up so easily NukemHill. If I remember correctly, Gore and Kerry were ahead in the polls too (does anybody have those numbers???). And despite all of the ridiculous liberal accusations, Bush won both elections, he didn’t “steal” them. It’s not over til it’s over. Obama and the MSM are desperate and a lot of people see through their BS. We can also hope the spirit of Dan Rather comes through and exposes their bias and manipulation.
The polls were probably wrong then, and I hope wrong now, because while liberals love to give their opinion to anyone who’ll ask (and many who don’t ask), conservatives tend to keep to themselves. Liberals seem to need a consensus and group hugs; conservatives generally do not care whether or not everyone agrees with them. I know when I get phone calls for my opinion I just hang up. That might be one less “opinion poll point” for McCain, but he still will get my vote, and that’s more important. I have no need to go to rallies or protests. I express myself with the ballot.
The liberals were dazed and confused when their man lost in the last two elections, because the polls showed them winning hands down. If I remember correctly, one east coast elitist said “How could Bush have won? I don’t know anyone who voted for him!”. How’s that for open minded and intelligent?
So don’t give up hope. It just may happen again.
Nukem, I’ll bet you a six-pack you’re wrong, at least about how Barry will pull away next week.
We still have a month to go. You remind me of a fairly well-known blogger who was truly depressed about this time back in ’04, because he was convinced Kerry would win. I disagreed, one of the main reasons was that I had been tracking the futures market over at strategypage.com. If you go over there now, the prediction of a “perfect storm 2000″ for the Dems (Obama + 60 Dems in Senate) is selling at pro:30, con:605. The prediction “McCain ‘handily’ defeats Obama” is running pro:3625, con:1375, while “Obama is elected” is running pro:1491, con: 1905.
Now, this isn’t a guarantee, but their market has a pretty good overall accuracy. They claim “correct over lifetime” at 85.07%.
As for the debate polls: first, who flipping cares what the polls say? Can you point to any study that shows any kind of correlation between “winning” a debate and swaying voters? Heck, I called it more or less a draw, with the exception that McCain managed to get under Barry’s skin on a regular basis. {snicker} That’s not to mention the fact that those polled got their impression from the MSM; I’m not even going into how mucked-up some polls are, or methodology.
I listen to Rasmussen with respect to long-range trends, but even then “whole country” polls aren’t worth a lot. You need to follow the state polls, since that’s how the EC votes are allocated.
After all that, consider the huge crowds which Palin is drawing, despite all the slime. (You know, I used to like Tina Fey. She didn’t seem like a bonehead “hater”-type of liberal.)
Rueben, I agree that it’s too soon to give up, but I very much disagree that liberals “love” polls, while conservatives are just to mature and manly to worry. Feh. That’s just standard tribalism; I can get the same thing from libs: “we liberals are smarter than conservatives, etc.” Both are untrue as general statements. Making generic claims about conservatives or liberals is as silly as making the same claims about black men, or white women.
Now, I do have issues about how polls are collected and presented (see above), but most people don’t have the slightest idea how statistics work, including the idiots who “average” different polls to come up with a single value.
Still, your basic position is correct. It’s nowhere near over.
If you’re that concerned, phone your local GOP headquarters and volunteer. Make phone calls, knock on the doors of prospective voters, and get ‘em to the polls.
P.S. Almost forgot one of the classic lines from ’04 which Professor Reynolds used to quote, that the MSM added 10-15% to Kerry’s poll numbers.
Casey, gonna have to disagree with your generalization that generalizations are silly (yes, I enjoyed writing that). Certainly it’s a good idea to steer clear of generalizations, but not because of the sweeping generalization that they are all “silly”. Some are, some aren’t.
You say my comment is “untrue” as a general statement, but you really don’t have any idea if liberals “love” polls more than conservatives do. Then again, neither do I. It might be false. But it might be true. The only way to really know that is to, well, conduct a poll and find out. If everyone doesn’t see the humor in that then we really are on different playing fields.
What I was attempting to do, albeit in a smart aleck fashion, was to explain why “I” think the polls in the previous elections were wrong. If I gave the impression that I know for a fact that liberals “love” polls more than conservatives, my apologies. I do not. I certainly was not trying to imply that *all* liberals love polls. I most certainly was not trying to say that loving polls is a bad thing. And I was by no means implying maturity and manliness on the side of the conservatives. If anything, I was thinking of my friends who don’t even go to parties, who tend to be conservatives. No machismo there, simply shyness.
I certainly don’t believe in the generalizations about intelligence vs. liberals/conservatives. I have both liberal and conservative friends, and they are all intelligent. Just because I believe in some generalizations, does not mean I believe in all of them.
What I stated is simply my opinion, gathered through wholly unscientific observation. Am I biased? You betcha. You can disagree with me, I have absolutely no problem with that. But I think it unfair to say it is “tribalism” and “untrue”. As I stated before, it might be untrue and I may be wrong, but you don’t know that.
As for my “group hug” comment, yeah, that was mean. Sorry about that.
Regardless, if I am correct about the previous election polls being in error, then they were wrong for a reason (or possibly several reasons). You imply that it might be because of the way polls are collected and presented. That might very well be the case. I don’t know the exact questions that pollsters ask, but I find it hard to believe that for a poll on the presidential election the question would be anything other than “Who are you going to vote for?” It seems kind of hard to screw up the results from that, but they did just that 4 and 8 years ago. So I tend to think it was something else, other than chicanery.
It might be that the way the “polls are collected and presented” is indeed flawed. Maybe because when they call conservatives, they don’t tend to answer as much as liberals do, and that isn’t accounted for. As un-PC as that statement can be perceived, I still believe it’s a possibility. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing.