Since our previous episode we’ve had individual polls from red states Georgia and Montana showing Barack Obama narrowly in front, so they’re now included in the polling aggregates. However, John McCain leads in both due to the overall polling picture from the past few weeks. The other remarkable development has been an Obama blowout in Ohio, underscoring a picture of Democratic strength in the rust belt states.
| Obama | McCain | Sample | D-EV | R-EV | |
| Michigan | 54.7 | 39.4 | 3005 | 17 | |
| Washington | 54.9 | 40.1 | 3379 | 11 | |
| Maine | 54.5 | 40.0 | 2185 | 4 | |
| Minnesota | 53.3 | 41.8 | 3677 | 10 | |
| Iowa | 52.6 | 41.7 | 3530 | 7 | |
| Pennsylvania | 52.2 | 41.7 | 5505 | 21 | |
| Wisconsin | 51.5 | 42.1 | 3490 | 10 | |
| New Hampshire | 51.5 | 42.3 | 3305 | 4 | |
| New Mexico | 50.5 | 43.3 | 2927 | 5 | |
| Colorado | 50.8 | 44.3 | 3450 | 9 | |
| Virginia | 50.9 | 44.7 | 3777 | 13 | |
| Ohio | 48.7 | 43.0 | 4337 | 20 | |
| Nevada | 50.0 | 45.4 | 3418 | 5 | |
| Florida | 48.2 | 45.3 | 5021 | 27 | |
| North Dakota | 45.5 | 44.7 | 1206 | 3 | |
| Missouri | 47.4 | 46.5 | 4050 | 11 | |
| Indiana | 47.4 | 47.0 | 3828 | 11 | |
| North Carolina | 47.2 | 48.9 | 4564 | 15 | |
| Montana | 44.8 | 48.7 | 2628 | 3 | |
| Georgia | 45.6 | 50.0 | 3530 | 15 | |
| West Virginia | 42.7 | 51.0 | 3622 | 5 | |
| Others | - | - | - | 175 | 137 |
| RCP/Total | 49.9 | 43.9 | - | 363 | 175 |
So who’s going to win then? The polls of course leave little room for doubt. However, there are a couple of items of conventional wisdom floating around which suggest they might not be telling the full story, one way or another.
• The Bradley effect. A compelling paper by Dan Hopkins of Harvard University examines the popular notion that polls overrate the performance of black candidates in biracial contests due to white voters’ reluctance to appear illiberal when interrogated by pollsters. Hopkins finds the effect was a serious factor into the 1980s, most famously when black Democratic candidate Tom Bradley failed to win the Californian gubernatorial election in 1982, but has ceased to be so. Pew Research charts a corresponding decline in the number of respondents willing to admit they would not vote for a black candidate, from 16 per cent in 1984 to 6 per cent. Hopkins notes a very sudden decline in the Bradley effect (he prefers the “Wilder effect”, after Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder) “at about the time that welfare reform silenced one critical, racialized issue”.
• The reverse Bradley effect. Strictly speaking, a “reverse Bradley effect” would involve voters telling pollsters they were voting for McCain or were undecided when they were in fact set on Obama, which is plainly not on the cards. Far more likely is that turnout of black voters is being underestimated in pollsters’ determinations of “likely voters”, which in many cases go on whether they voted last time rather than what they say they will do this time. Whatever methods are being used to account for the certainty of higher black turnout, I’m pretty confident they are overly conservative. When a pollster is required to explain inaccuracy after the event, “I was going on past experience” makes for a more professional sounding excuse than “I made a wrong guess”. I haven’t studied this systematically, but the one example I have looked at has proved to be an eyebrow-raiser: the most recent SurveyUSA poll of Pennsylvania has 10 per cent of black voters among its overall sample, whereas this paper from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies tells us it was 13 per cent in 2004. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight provides support for this and related impressions in taking to task pollsters who have gaps of 4 to 6 per cent between results for “registered” and “likely” voters.
• The late Republican surge. I recently heard it said that Republican candidates tend to come home strong in the last week or two of campaigning. Remembering how much of Bill Clinton’s lead vanished shortly before the 1992 election, I thought this sounded plausible and went burrowing through the archives for evidence. The following chart plots the last 15 days of polling at presidential elections from 1992 onwards, day 15 being the election result. I have used composites of polling obtained from Real Clear Politics for 2000 and 2004; Gallup tracking polls for 1996; and a list of various pollsters’ results I found in the New York Times for 1992.
The case of 1996 stands out, but this might well point to a general inaccuracy in the Gallup series I was using rather than a late surge to Bob Dole (unfortunately I could only locate one poll from the final week). Beyond that, the chart provides pretty thin gruel if you’re in the market for a McCain comeback in the last 10 days. The 1992 Bush recovery was less dramatic than I remembered it once I removed Gallup from the equation, which exasperatingly shifted from “registered” to “likely” voters in the final week, eliminating much of Bill Clinton’s lead at a stroke. If anything the trends from 2000 and 2004 point the other way.
• Front-runner decline. The aforementioned paper on the Wilder/Bradley effect by Dan Hopkins informs us that polls “typically overstate support for front-runners”, which is demonstrated in the scatter plots under “Figure 3” (see right at the back). These suggest a candidate like McCain who is on about 42 per cent is probably being underestimated by as much as 2 per cent, while a candidate like Obama on 50 per cent is probably being represented accurately – unless he’s black, in which case he will suffer a Bradley effect of a bit over 1 per cent.
• Advertising. The Washington Post informs us that the cashed-up Obama campaign is fielding “as many as seven commercials for every one aired by Republican Sen. John McCain”.
My guess is that point one will be comfortably countered by point two; point three is worth little if anything; point four might help McCain close the gap by 2 per cent, but some of this gloss should be taken off after accounting for point five. In sum, there seems little reason not to take the polls more-or-less at face value. That being so, my final prediction is that Obama will win every state where my polling aggregates currently have him ahead except North Dakota, where the result is derived from two small sample polls, one from an agency of little repute. The margin in Florida is narrow enough that front-runner decline might be expected to account for it, but I find it hard to believe Obama would fail to carry so marginal a state when he’s up by eight points nationally. That makes it 375 electoral votes for Obama and 163 for McCain.
1,057 Comments
It’s no longer a question of an Obama/Democrat win, it’s now a question of how much of a Democrat landslide it will be in the US congress. Obama, and a Democrat majority in both houses. Can’t wait!
William, I’m taking liberty to put your 375 into my list of EV guesses. I can see you have Missouri a win. Can you please tell me what state you think will put him over the top in vote counts? I also said 375 but I’m basing my guesses on the RCP map so might change mine between now and the election
more details have leaked out on Obama’s grandma healthwise. count on the media to dig it up even if the Obama camp won’t confirm or deny officially …
Well certainly one would have to admit it is far more likely, going by the polls, that Obama will win. It’s hard to conceive of a situation that doesn’t involve arbitrarily dismissing the polls where he won’t.
RCP explaining today how their particular polls are figured …
It looks very good now for Obama, and the trend in the pollster.com national average is definitely going his way. Rasmussen’s latest release says 48% are now certain to vote for O, 40% for M, and a national O lead of 52-44. His party weighting for next week has the Dems up 40.0-32.8; this has been trending Dem since the financial meltdown.
Glen should be here to do just that very soon.
ShowsOn
I agree about Mike Moore and Errol Morris. They make very different films but I really enjoy them both.
Bowling for Columbine was excellent as was Roger and Me. I was one of the few people in Oz who watched The Awful Truth when it first came out. MM really just uses any device to make a point. I don’t watch them for the truth.
Errol Morris is in a completely different category. I haven’t seen SOP yet, but he made the best doco I’ve ever seen called The Thin Blue Line (set to beautiful Philip Glass music). Mr Death (about a Holocaust denier who built electric chairs!) and Fog of War were superb too. I haven’t seen his “best” one which is almost impossible to find. It’s called “Gates of Heaven” and is about pet cemetaries.
Werner Herzog is brilliant too. Check out “Grizzly Man”.
Dio
Yes Fog of War is one of the best documentaries I have seen in recent years. Morris is very good.
Apologies for somethign of a double post, but for those wondering if the money markets will turn around and McCain make a “narrowing” there are good reasons to believe the answer will be “No”.
First it seems the bank bailout package is not being used very well:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/25nocera.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin
Second, it may not be enough! ($2 trillion not $700 billion needed)
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/big-rescue-money/
Arizona is getting tighter – could it be a mighty upset win to Obama on November 4?
MCCAIN 44
OBAMA 40
(just posted on Daily Kos)
I never realised till just a while ago that Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the US was the “first” Republican President.
He had a pretty tough gig. If Obama gets in, he will be looking at a pretty tough time of it too.
We’ll never know, but it’s interesting to wonder what the result of this election might have been without the economic melt down.
The Repubs probably would have been able to fight it on who would make the best Commander-in-Chief. It would certainly have been a lot closer..
Darn
Obama would probably have won. Don’t forget we still had Palin to help us over the line.
What is more interesting to think is how Obama vs Hillary (running as an Independent) vs McCain would have gone.
Oh dear, Insiders is so lame. Barry Cassidy doesn’t even realise that Obama doesn’t even NEED Ohio and Florida at this stage to still win. Andrew Bolt doesn’t know Obama’s age, or anything else.
Oh, and next week they are going to have Dolly Downer on to talk about U.S. politics! LOL
Morris is just brilliant. You can get Gates of Heaven in this set, along with The Thin Blue Line, and a film called Vernon, Florida about various eccentrics who like collecting things:
http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/786636
Gates of Heaven starts out about a pet cemetery that fails, so all the pets have to be dug up and moved to a new cemetery. But as with most of Morris’ films, it isn’t SIMPLY about the superficial topic. It is more about what it means to be alive, and to see something die.
William Bowe, many thanks for the elegant and cogent analysis.
I’ve been checking out the trendlines for the battleground states at Pollster.com. (Strong Obama 255 EV as of today).
For the 5 “Lean Obama” states worth 51 EV, all of these battlegrounders have trendlines widening in Obama’s favour over at least the past month (even Ohio). Can you tell us whether the Pollster.com trendlines are a weighted aggregate (ala Sam Wang @ Princeton) or are the polling numbers integrated with demographic and other detailed state variables (Nate Silver @ fivethirtyeight)?
I disagree with William about the reverse Bradley effect. I’ve heard it suggested from more than a few quarters that what he describes as “plainly not on the cards” could well not only offset the actual Bradley effect, but potentially go a bit further: i.e. voters in traditionally Red states who don’t want to publicly admit that they’re voting for a liberal candidate. Remember that we haven’t seen some of these states in play in forty years – it’s not unreasonable to assume that there’s going to be stigma attached to voting for the Democrat for president.
Diogenes: It’s a pretty stupid scenario. On one hand, she could assume the mantle of Ted Kennedy in the Senate and set herself up for a second run in 2012 if Obama lost, or potentially in 2016 anyway. Or, on the other, she could hand the presidency to McCain and become a total pariah with much of the Democratic base. Was never going to happen outside of Fantasyland.
William
Further to your increased black voter turnout for the Reverse Bradley, there is some evidence that there has been a big increase in the black vote proportion in early polls. Obviously increased enthusiasm has caused this but it’s enthusiasm that drives people out on election day too.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081023/ap_on_el_pr/early_voting
ShowOn I only caught the end bit on the US elections – did I really here them sounding as though MCain has a chance because things are “tightening” in Florida??
Do theese guys even bother to check the RCP no-toss up count??
And Downer? Geez Barrie. C’mon try harder!!!
Bradley effect under fire at Is there a reverse Bradley effect for Obama? Anyway, it was probably only worth 2-3% and Obama’ s lead is beyond that.
Jliem! That is an Interesting list of newspaper endorsements!
Do people take note of the newspaper endorsements or is it like here more a conversation piece?
Yes! That was their argument. They didn’t mention Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia, or the fact Obama is ahead by about 10 in Pennsylvania which McCain MUST win to have any chance at all.
It was so superficial that they may as well just stick to Australian politics.
Obama bringing out african americans and other demographics in record numbers will more than negate any ’support a black man until i have to vote for him’ attitude.
Scorpio @ 14
“I never realised till just a while ago that Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the US was the “first” Republican President.”
Even more remarkable… because it was Lincoln who emancipated the slaves, Southern blacks once tended to vote Republican. To be more specific: those Southern blacks that were actually permitted to vote (i.e., didn’t get lynched on the way to the voting booth). Between the Civil War and the emergence of the post-WW2 civil rights movement it was the southern Democrats who favored segregation. It caused a split in the Democratic party: the southern Democrats morphed into Dixiecrats, and then went on to became Republicans. As a result, the former Confederate states (the “South”) were flipped from the Dems to the GOP in the space of a generation. It’s good to see some Southern states drifting back to the Dems (Virginia, N.Carolina), courtesy of an influx of accursed Yankees into these states.
The holy grail of the Democrat party is to one day win Texas. The steady rate of immigration from Mexico will help. The thousands of black Louisianans who moved to Texas after Hurricane Katrina won’t hurt either. But it’ll still be a long time before Texas will be a contest.
INSIDERS has degenerated into a weekly Rudd bashing fest, and it’s patently obvious that hack Barry Cassidy and his U.S correspondent are on McCain’s payroll!
mexicanbeemer @ 24,
people CAN be swayed by it IF they are undecided. the numbers of people that might be swayed by it are probably neglible in the grand scheme of things. more often, you will find the editorial will cause cancellations of newspaper subscriptions from subscribers of the other persuasion.
bottom line – group 2 is more than group 1 in most cases. so the only place where you will see an editorial having a substantive effect (and that being against the newspaper) will be in those large cities where a newspaper goes “against the prevailing grain” in their endorsement. for example, papers that endorsed bush in 04 and obama this year might lose their bush suscribers
……
evan14, I didn’t get that impression at all. Perhaps you are just overly sensitive.
Why do we even talk about the “Bradley effect” as though it’s some kind of scientific phenomenon?
A pollster got it wrong and instead of accepting it and moving on he decided to come up with a crackpot theory that was promptly proven wrong at the next election.
just finished reading the obama endorsement from the NYT.
wow is all I can say.The most interesting thing is the clinical rebuttal of Mccains stand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/opinion/24fri1.html?em
mccain probably is choosing which home to to retire to
Clinton will be 69 in 2016 – a man might get away with a POTUS run at that age but not a woman – too many asshats will be thinking of the “old crone” stereotype
A heartwarming tale of how Team McCain and Team Palin have learned to HATE EACH OTHER GUTS
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/26/2401485.htm
I think Politico summed it up best, they are making a circular firing squad.
The Republican right will now develop a mythology that the election was lost because the weak centrsist McCain did not campaign hard enough on the right’s favourite issues, and that if he had listened to Palin and the Repub base the election could have been saved. This mythology will serve Palin well as she becomes the stanard-bearer of the Repub right over the next four years, just as Goldwater did after 1960 and Reagan did after 1976. Unless the scandal in Alaska turns very toxic, and given the long-established royalist tendency of the Repub primary electorate (they always vote for the heir apparent, never for the challenger), she will be hard to stop as the Repub nominee in 2012, by which time she will have been able to do enough homework to pass as a credible candidate. Whether she she then becomes the Goldwater of 1964 or the Reagan of 1980 depends of course on how well the Obama presidency goes. Given the state of the world, it’s possible to see a scenario in which she could win.
If a second rate actor could become California governor and then president, then a fourth rate Republican governor could become the candidate in 2012. Reagonomics wrecked the Soviet Union and its legacy is now doing the same to the U.S.: the never ending debt-funded arms race.
I can’t see the Repugs drinking the Kool-Aid on Palin. Failed VP candidates never go anywhere (FDR was the only one to become POTUS). The Repugs have plenty of better right-wing politicians like Pawlenty, Jindal etc to unite behind. Palin has been an embarrassment this campaign and the independents hate her. She has Bush-like disapproval ratings. She’s an electoral dud. Too many Repugs have come out against her (Noonan, Brooks etc) for her to be able to unite the Party.
Story about how many at the UN are viewing this years election …
Oh dear …… trouble brewing in the Palin household
…..
[Palin's husband reportedly plenty steamed about supporters all hot and bothered over the candidate
October 24, 2008
BY BILL ZWECKER Chicago Sun-Times Columnist
Sarah Palin's appearance -- and now her $150,000 wardrobe -- have certainly caused a lot of buzz in the 2008 race for the White House.
Apparently, the Alaska governor is greatly amused by the funny Web sites (with the exception of the X-rated ones) and loves seeing all the Joe the Plumber-type supporters at rallies sporting various versions of ''Sarah Palin is HOT!'' T-shirts.
Republican vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gives a thumbs up sign to a supporter during a rally Wednesday in Ohio.
While the GOP veepster nominee thinks it's all harmless, a source high up in the McCain campaign tells me that's not the case as far as her husband and father are concerned.
''Todd [Palin] is increasingly irritated by it all. He’s a very possessive guy and totally old-fashioned and traditional when it comes to his relationship with his wife, whom he adores,” said my source in John McCain-Palin campaign.
”At a rally in Pennsylvania the other day, he left the stage right before Sarah’s speech — ostensibly to deal with an issue regarding their baby,” said the source. ”But actually, he was P.O.’ed about a couple of T-shirts and signs he saw in the crowd.”
Reportedly, Alaska’s ”First Dude” told a campaign aide, ”She’s running for vice president of the United States. … Even though these guys are in our corner, don’t they see this belittles her?”
• • As for Gov. Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, his displeasure about the racy T-shirts was nothing compared to his reaction when someone made the mistake of showing Heath one of the sexy videos (featuring a faux Palin) on YouTube.
”He hit the roof,” said my source. ”And frankly, you can’t blame him. After all, this is his little girl — no matter what.”]
Well its nice to think that there is more than just the count on the day to look forward too – there will be the bitter recriminations afterwards as well, between a bunch of thoroughly selfish and cynical individuals in the republican machine. Should be a hoot.
Two questions:
Does anyone know if the US election is being broadcast live here?
Dio, happy to meet in town for lunch on election day.
Bob Carr’s slant on the election campaign to date.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/this-race-far-from-over/2008/10/25/1224351608124.html?page=2
It is likely that the current movement by governments to shore up financial markets will lead to another round of over inflated capital leading us back to where we are in less than 8 years. If Obama becomes president and gets a second term I wonder how people will respond to him if that happens? This is not a statement just a question.
http://www.kentucky.com/676/story/568714.html
Looks like the GOP are getting tips from the Libs in Lindsay
I doubt it. She is an extremist, Obama will govern from the centre, which will just make her look even more like a wacko.
Well first the constitution would have to be altered so that non-natural born citizens can become president. Somehow I don’t think a Democrat controlled congress will be very interested in passing such a constitutional amendment if Ahnold, looks like a credible candidate.
I know its already been mentioned, but its so lol that it deserves another mention
Bitter infighting over Palin in McCain campaign: report – http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i7k9f7jl88nI2FPeHHzgTHvauu5g
…The Politico.com website cited four Republicans close to Palin as saying she had grown frustrated by advice given to her by campaign handlers, whom supporters blame for a series of public relations gaffes.
The report said Palin was now increasingly willing to disregard orders from advisors, suggesting the Republican running mate was in the initial stages of forging her own identity for a future tilt at the White House.
“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” said a senior Republican quoted by Politico, adding that Palin had already begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements on the campaign trail.
The Alaska Governor’s supporters accused McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt and senior aide Nicole Wallace of already attempting to blame Palin for the failure of the campaign.
“These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves,” a McCain insider was quote by Politico as saying…
That would’ve been an insightful article if it was published a month ago.
He’s referring to Reagan, not Arnie.
LOL! I read the above sentence as “fourth rate actor”, which I assumed meant Schwarzenegger!
Socrates @ 41,
Definetly on CNN … beyond that, I understand SBS are doing a multi hour special although they won’t be on live from beginning to end. Don’t know the time for their special, perhaps the SBS website might give an answer? I also recall someone saying that ABC would have a bit as well although I don’t think that they are on live like CNN will be. Suspect if you want wire to wire coverage, you best use CNN ….
Will CNN, MSNBC etc have a stream of their TV coverage?
SBS coverage starts at 3:00.
ABC hasn’t announced any coverage so it doesn’t look like it.
Actually he was referring to Palin.
I meant an online stream
I was responding to Juliem at #50.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49J0LF20081026
Obama lead drops to +5 according to today’s Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll.
They did in 2004. I watched the CNN stream for a few hours. I woke up and read the main story on Slate.com which predicted Kerry would win based on some dodgy exit polls, but as the coverage went on it was obvious that Kerry had lost Florida, which made it really hard.
I thought she is 128th rate?
I think Zobby is screwed. The article says that the Zogby tracker has gone from +12 to +5 since Thursday. I just don’t think there are such wild fluctuations actually occurring. I think there is something wrong with the poll.
ShowsOn,
Laugh, I nearly started.
Wonderful.
zogby is a joke
The joke could be on the Obama supporters!
It predicted Kerry would win in 2004. Enough said.
from MSNBC website …..
If Obama wins by 5% on election day he will win by 100 – 150 electoral votes.
I wonder why they release these stats? Is it to scare Republicans into not bothering to vote?
SNIP: Unproductive comment deleted – The Management.
It may be obvious to you, but I actually underestimated.
5% would be closer to 200 electoral votes:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-nickolas/popular-vote-v-electoral_b_117525.html
I was waiting for you to post something interesting.
I’m still waiting.
You’re not being very well behaved at the moment, GG.
I found something for you GG!
- James Carville
Feel free to reply with anything as interesting, insightful and / or entertaining as that.
Interesting that Showson starts posting corroboration now after being brought to book for his prescient contributions to the human communication device known as PB!
See 42 for my contribution to the discussion.
My behaviour is, as always, above…… Oh, is that the time?
LOL!
WTF!? You’re morphing into Ron – MOVE AWAY FROM THE LIGHT!
I replied to that post. I thought the article was kind of lame because it provided analysis that was a few weeks out of date.
One poll an election it does not make.
What was this rubbish about Zogby dropping to +5? It’s at +9 today…
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE49J0LF20081025
SNIP: No name calling, please. You’ve been warned once already – The Management.
Myers research poll of Arizona (McCains home state) showing him with only a 4 point lead…
McCain 44
Obama 40
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14942.html
The fact you keep going on and on and on about a silly article says more about you.
Why should I trust an article that contains factual errors? Like this:
The 1964 election featured the transition of the deep south to voting Republican. This map proves it: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/ElectoralCollege1964.svg/350px-ElectoralCollege1964.svg.png
I think McCain will win there comfortably, even though the local G.O.P. is a mess.
erm slips to +9
oh noes the narrowing
has a familiar ring about it
“It’s like Robin getting mad at Batman,” Obama says of McCain’s recent efforts to distance himself from Bush.
the 60s camp version of course
I think this was pretty telling:
McCain can only get 1000 people to an event a week and a half out from the election!?
Zombie
what you talking about “the 60s camp version”
thems fighting words
ShowsOn
Those 1,000 were just the political vultures circling the dying body waiting for it to officially become a carcass.
GG
Thanks for the Princess Coup tip in the Cox Plate. Big help that was!
Pox News currently screening on Hannity’s America a program entitled History of Radicalism and alternately entitled Obama and Friends. It deals with Bill Ayers and his deeds and of course his connection to Obama. Seems they will go to any length to keep Obama out of the White House.
Narrowing schmarrowing. Newspoll and the rest had Labor 55-60% of the 2PP during Rudd’s time as opposition leader, and during the election campaign, what happened? THE NARROWING! Oh noes! Galaxy and Newspoll had Labor at 52%, Roy Morgan 53.5%, and ACNielsen at (lol) 57%.
It was to be expected, but won’t change a thing. Welcome Barack Hussein Obama, the next President of the United States!
He thought you wanted to know who was definitely going to lose.
The slogan of the Libertarian party’s V.P. candidate doesn’t translate well to Australian:
http://www.rootforamerica.com/
It was considered superior to the “American is Rooted” slogan that was focused grouped shortly after the stock market crash.
#73 Dario
That article was from yesterday. How did you miss the huge bold font on the right?
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49J0LF20081026
enjaybee
Fox News VP has already called it for Obama. When the “Cut-Nut” McCain supporter said she was attacked and “mutilated” by an Obama supporter, he said;
As it was a hoax, I have joined 4000 others on Mr Moodys blog asking him to confirm that McCain quest for the presidency is over and will forever be linked to race-baiting.
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/23/jmoody_1023/
Oh dear, some nutcase has gone to court challenging Obama’s candidacy on the grounds that he isn’t a U.S. citizen:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jvhtmoNEnyP1Bu6Ol4zJsN94mlewD941NCJG0
ShowsOn, that is a joke, glad that the judge threw it out
…. America has a law, as do most countries (including Australia), that if a baby is born of one or both American parents, it has US citizenship ….. My children were both born in Michigan, USA {different cities} and they are citizens of two countries because mum (myself) is American and dad is Australian.
What a loser ….. the Republicans will try anything
…..
I stand corrected… was just going off the RCP link
Diogenes @ 88. Well at least Hannity is still in there doing his damdest for the GOP.
Diogenes,
My tips are worth what you pay for them.
FWIW I backed it.
Maybe he is planning his tilt for the Republican primary in 2012? He could get support by forming a coalition between the douche bag and blow hard factions.
I am so saddened that William has allowed posts like 85 to stand. I never thought there would be the day that personal denigration would be permitted to stand on such a fine, free wheeling blog as this.
Oh dear, if anything I was making a lighthearted dig at Diogenes for trusting your advice! If you’re going to keep making fun of Obama supporters until election day you’ll need to toughen up a bit.
GG
I actually backed Zipping. How they let Maldivian dictate like that… That’s every Cox Plate since Octagonal I’ve got wrong. I’ll stay with him in the Melbourne Cup. I haven’t tipped a Melbourne Cup since Might and Power.
Oh Showson,
Making fun of Obama supporters is a career opportunity that has not been missed. Six months of adoring adulation followed by a life time of jokes at your expense.
Apparently, you are not allowed to hear that you don’t add much value to the conversation being a cut and snip expert as you are. I always thought you were tougher than that. I bow to William’s judgement of character.
For some reason William thinks I cause him angst.
Diogenes,
Right on the money. The trainer said he did what all good trainers of Zabeel sired galoppers do. Put them over the sticks for a freshener and put blinkers on. Did the trick.
A worthy winner.
Is McCain dementing? How can he justify having him and Palin in Iowa this weekend? Every poll shows him getting killed there. The latest one has him behind by 15%.
http://wcfcourier.com/articles/2008/10/25/news/breaking_news/doc4903890740db0457887786.txt
Diogenes – it’s like they’re closing their eyes, being spun around, and then just pointing to a spot on the map and going there. We’ll see them in Cali in a few days.
SNIP: Tedious bickering deleted – The Management.
Either that, or maybe the McCain campaign are worried that if they stay in Pennsylvania much longer they’ll be kicked out?
SNIP: Tedious bickering/offensive language deleted – The Management.
Barack Obama on defence as al-Qa’ida backs John McCain – http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24541397-2703,00.html
Old news, or flew under the radar?
#105 – i thought that was against Wills commenting policy?
Wow, clever acrostic poem!
Apparently Obama’s written a draft inauguration speech, though his campaign denies it.
I think it’s perfectly possible that there’ll be some kind of “narrowing” over the last two weeks – after all, McCain’s campaign (according to some reports) has now become more focussed than before (wouldn’t be hard), and also the economic news is probably becoming slightly less shocking to many Americans (if only by virtue of them getting used to it).
McCain can’t win, though, or even get close (though I do think he’ll win Florida).
Also it’s possible that all the polls are simply not adequately allowing for what will surely be a massive black turnout.
old news
I think Palin running for POTUS one day will depend on her avoiding a mental asylum.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/25/palin-obamas-tax-plans-co_n_137851.html
It appears that Palin is a “mega hit” with republican handlers! – http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14929.html
The talk now is of a landslide.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-election-2008/republicans-fear-historic-landslide-defeat-20081026-58zs.html
I love this from the above article.
How close would it be if Obama as a Republican and McCain a Democrat?
Here’s the money quote:
A former White House official who still advises Mr Bush said: “McCain hasn’t won independents, nor has he inspired the base. It’s the worst of all worlds. He is dragging everyone else down with him.”
I wouldn’t mind seeing a weigted average for the national polls- i just read RCP article which says they dont weight for thier average.
I like Will’s aproach of not gooing back too far also.
Not sure about the 375 EV, but would be nice to see.
If we can only get a Palin 2012 campaign it will hit the mid 400’s
Globe poll from Boston.com – http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/10/globe_poll_obam.html
Good read!
Old Timey Man is done for
sweet
Rasmussen national tracking poll unchanged at Obama +8
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Lots of interesting posts above and some great links, for which, thanks.
On points arising from several posts above:
1. Apparently 93% of the French support Obama. I don’t think they have ever forgiven the US for its denigration of France following its active leadership of the opposition to the war in Iraq. Remember Villepin in the UN? You might also remember the jokes that came out of the US including ones about when did France last win a battle? yuk yuk.
2. The election all up is costed at over $Au8billion.
3. I am reasonably sure that Arnold cannot be pres because he was Austrian by birth so he would have to be scratched. Also, he would have to whatever happens to California in the financial crisis and I have read elsewhere that it is one of the prime subprime spots – the Governator might not look too flash in four or eight years time.
4. While William’s analysis generally looked good to me, and I believe that Obama should, and will, win easily, I wonder whether in individual states, the impact of bad weather and the impact of officials on voter registration may be important enough to ensure that McCain rather than Obama will get up in that state? It continues to amaze me that local and state officials white-ant a democracy with apparent impunity.
5. The other interesting analysis that I have yet to see done is one parallel to that done by Possum on the possible relationship between trends in consumer confidence, polled intentions and actual voting. I suspect that that alone would be worth several per cent for Obama.
6. The IMF’s $2.1 billion will not be able to save Iceland from its financial quagmire. It might stave it off for a little while, which is probably all that the IMF is hoping for at this stage. $100billion is about what the Icelanders need. I suspect that the scale of the global financial crisis is beyond the scope of the IMF. The IMF was OK for bullying one or two small bankrupt states at a time. It was a toy of the main players at their heyday. It is completely unprepared for dealing with a global financial crisis involving the main players themselves.
7. British banks are doing the same with their money as the Stanley Morgan bit quoted above. But the pressure on them is increasing swiftly. I imagine that Obama will change things when he gets his hands on the moolah and when the dems have control of both the house and the senate. Unfortunately, a lot of it will have been sent down the tubes to and by Bush’s mates before Obama can get to it.
8. Even if the Republicans looked likely to win, there would have been extreme tensions between the McCain/Palin camps. The reason was identified in earlier posts on this site. Palin very early on started to act and talk as if she thought that when McCain became POTUS, he would die in the saddle and that she would then yeeha the POTUS possie. This was when he was still breathing. It is revealing that McCain lost his head with Palin and Obama kept his with Clinton. The tensions between a Veep (with overweening ambition and righteous notions) and the POTUS would have become unbearable for either McCain or Obama rather quickly. Even given the virtually untrammelled power of the POTUS to simply ignore his VEEP.
9. I thought the bit that was missing from the newspaper endorsement analysis was whether there was an effect arising from the desire of editors to look ‘right’ by picking winners.
At least one deadbeat is rolling up shop over in the Republican party
…
This is just a rumour invented by the McCain campaign.
If you want to find some hubris, you don’t have to go further than McCain himself, who is guaranteeing a win:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14951.html
I guess he used the word “believe” rather than “know”.
Hope the Dems put Liebermann up the creek without a paddle ….
Georgia now a toss-up state on Pollster.com
http://www.pollster.com/polls/ga/08-ga-pres-ge-mvo.php
Not so funny business in Colorado …
As usual, here’s Jason Linkins hilarious summary of the Sunday U.S. political talk shows:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/26/tv-soundoff-sunday-talkin_n_137893.html
FiveThirtyEight has just run their daily projection. McCain’s win percentage is now 3.3%, the lowest it has ever been:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
When DID France last win a battle, at least without foreign assistance? Battles against colonials don’t count. My guess is Solferino (1859), when Napoleon III defeated the Austrians.
Adam,
I suppose one could argue that Verdun was an honourable draw.
The higher than usual African American voter turnout in Georgia so far would make any good pollster hesitant to put it in the McCain column. That state is a real wildcard this year.
evan,
Seems to me, on the basis of electoral mathematics, that any election where one party wins crushingly is likely to throw up a bolter or two (think Dawson in our 2007 Federal election).
In this case you would think the bolter(s) would probably be state(s) with a high black population – so Georgia is as good a guess as any.
Adam,
I would have probably given them the Marne, even though there was some BEF involvement, and the Battle of Kufra in Libya again in 1941 with the LRDG. I would also give them Verdun as a victory, as the Germans were attacking to try and break the stalemate; which they failed to do.
A battle that costs 200,000 casualties and causes your army to mutiny can’t be called a victory. It’s true that the Germans didn’t achieve their objective of bleeding the French army to death, but they came pretty close.
Another poll putting McCain’s lead in Arizona at only 2 points now!
http://zimmermancom.com/
The New York Post got it right when it called the French “Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys”.
Is this just equivalent to the observation that France lost the Franco-Prussian war and the ? Surely France cannot have taken part in many other battles since 1859 that were without ‘foreign assistance’ and not ‘against colonials’ (and of course not even the Battle of France was without foreign assistance).
Saying that the first Marne (or the second for that matter) was not a French victory seems an idiosyncratic reading. The result of the battle saved Paris, and proable destruction of the French Army and total defeat for France. Hence it was a victory.
It’s a bit like saying that Dems only reaching 59 Senate seats in the election is not a victory.
French land forces won several major battles in the closing stages of WWII. Perhaps the best were those won by the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC) in Italy under General Juin. They played a key role in the fourth battle of Cassino in June 1944, outflanking the German lines through the Arrezo mountains, enabling Cassino to fall to the Poles. Normandy landings happened at the same time so it never got much publicity.
Good answers both.
They’ve found out where the Biden questions came from.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/26/133722/20/1016/642755
Re 132,
Evan, can you think of ANY good reason why a Georgia voter who voted for Carter in 1976 and/or 1980 should NOT vote for Obama now? That’s not even taking into account all of those who have come of voting age since 1980 in Georgia or have moved there since then
…..
Georgia ought to come on down
A lot of white GA voters who voted for Carter in 76 and 80 voted for him because he was from GA, against the tide of white Southern voters shifting to the Republicans, which has been going on since the 1950s. Also a lot of them were older traditional Southern Dems who are now dead, and many of their descendants have always voted Republican. Carter also carried AL, MS, SC and TX – I don’t think anyone expects Obama to carry any of them.
To the best of anyone’s knowledge, has Carter campaigned for Obama anywhere in Georgia?
Things are looking up in Iran. While I wouldn’t want to wish anyone ill normally, I can make an exception for Ahmadinejad. It looks like the pressure of being an international pariah, sanctions, losing the support of colleagues and the public is catching up with him. Religious zealots are fairly immune to “nervous breakdowns” because their belief systems are not affected by reality but when they do go, they go BIG.
Report: Iranian president has fallen ill
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9424GRG0&show_article=1
Adam,
I’ve always seen Aisne and the Nivelle offensive as leading to the mutinies, both of which were after Verdun. Anyway, as Martin B points out… it’s all semantics anyways.
Further to 147,
From that article,
I’m not sure why people should care what newspapers ‘endorse’ specific candidates.
Juliem
Has Palin caused any anti-republican feeling in Alaska? I know it may be a redneck state, but even rednecks don’t like being made a laughing stock. They must know Palin has proven to be a joke candidate, and they will go down in history as the state who elected that joke as governor.
Yeah, I don’t pay any attention to the US media at the best of times so why should I pay attention to them when it comes to voting?
I wonder how many papers just endorse whoever is leading the polls so they make themselves look good.
“The New York Times – We picked the last 10 Presidents!”
Socrates, another way to look at it would be that the people might act more protectively of Palin in the face of the jeering and shunning she’s received from the liberal ‘elite’ media.
Another way to look at it would be to notice Bush was a laughing stock but managed to be re-elected in 2004.
The French have a glorious military history, and I’d just note that anyone peddling the “cheese-eating surrender monkey” garbage is – inadvertantly or not – just a BUSH STOOGE peddling crap straight from Republican HQ circa 2003. And why the slur? Because they rightly wouldnt endorse the Iraq war. Who looks like the idiots now? Answer: those who did endorse Bush. Vive la France!
Oh yeah, and the major episode of French “surrender” cited is 1940 – when everyone fled from the Wehrmacht. Including , thats right: the British (Dunkirk, anyone?). And the Russians, who were curling up into a small ideologically perverse ball to avoid the Wehrmacht in 1940.
Here, if yuou dont know anything about French military history, read this.
The War nerd will sort you out. http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7061&IBLOCK_ID=35&PAGE=1
Traditionally it matters more in the US than it does here – they have more newspapers, they have a greater tradition of independence, there are more independent voters to be influenced. The role of newspapers has of course declined greatly in recent decades, but in many smallish states what the major newspaper says is of some importance. The Manchester Union-Leader used to be the most important newspaper in the country because of its dominance in NH, which held the first primary. The Des Moines Register’s opinion is important in the Iowa caucuses. Most of the big-city papers – the NYT, the WSJ, the WaPo, the Boston Globe – are known partisans so their opinion counts for less. But the Chicago Tribune, a traditional Republican paper, endorsing Obama was a news event in itself.
I don’t know, Socrates, I can only speculate. Based upon the words of the endorsement, I would think that enough Alaskans out there ARE embarrassed by it so that the newspaper decided to make a stand and endorse Obama. Newspapers usually “sniff” the wind before endorsing especially when they are endorsing against the flow so to speak.
The bottom line, imho, is the last quoted line above where they clearly mention “yes, she is our lady” BUT “that isn’t enough” …….
SNIP: Strong swearing not permitted, with or without asterisks. See Article II of comment moderation guidelines.
France does indeed have a glorious military history, but the fact is that the last four really big wars the French were in, they either lost or only won because they were rescued by the US. Louis XIV tried to take over most of the world, but was forced to accept overall defeat at Utrecht in 1713. Napoleon tried to conquer Europe, and won many battles, but was decisively defeated at Leipzig in 1813 and again at Waterloo. France was part of the winning sides in WWI and WW2, but in both they would have been defeated without the decisive intervention of the US. Since 1945 they have fought losing colonial wars in Indo-China and Algeria, and were humiliated along with the UK at Suez. So it’s a record that gets less glorious as it goes along, n’est ce pas? On the other hand, they have a much more honourable record of military conduct (except in Algeria) than Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy or even the US.
3 red states [ Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia] now purple
{tell me something I didn’t already know 
}
Haven’t you read Asterisk? The Gauls put up a great fight against the Romans.
lefty e
I hope my “cheese-eating surrender monkey” comment wasn’t taken seriously. I was mocking the US right-wing press.
Obama is a touch under 88% at Intrade to go along with his record high of 96.7% at Fivethirtyeight.com.
Julie @ 158
I am amazed to read such a “fair and balanced” report from The Mooneyton Times.
Well, you’ve shifted the goalposts from “battles” to “wars”. In any case, if France was going to be defeated in WWI and WWI except for the US, then one must say the same about the British, in which case the 20th century military record of Britain is not much better than that of France.
The counterpoint to the US rescuing France is, as pointed out in lefty’s link, is that the Americans would have been defeated in the War of Independence if they weren’t ‘rescued’ by the French.
Oz @ 159
The Romans ultimately defeated the Gauls, and the Gauls went on to adopt Roman culture. (There were even some emperors of Gallic descent.) But the Romans never conquered the Franks, who helped drive the Romans out of Gaul and contributed to the fall of the Roman empire in western Europe.
And now I’ll return to regular programming…
If Indiana is a toss-up going into the election, then Ohio is already lost, and McCain is doomed. Though I suspect he’s gone already. Maybe there is a God after all…
jj @ 162,
when the rivals of the left wing rag are publishing stories like this, you know that the Republicans are in trouble
….
Bush has tanked the prospects of any Republican for POTUS for at least 8 years and likely a generation
He was a lot more popular then than he is now. If he could run for a third term he would have no chance.
Precisely, Martin. The comment stands equally well for the British in the 20th century.
Moreover, I’d add that I can think of another major military power with a proud record that has “fought losing colonial wars in Indo-China and [the middle east]“!
Try the US.
In sum, the more you examine this slur against the French, the less water it tends to hold. Its just a variation on a theme with a long history, before the entente cordiale, which is anti-French sentiment in the Anglo world. Made sense, I guess: the were a major global competitor before 1905. Bit dated now!
We all remember Henry V and Agincourt, ‘once more unto the breach ‘ yada yada – but I suspect most high school students of Shakespeare never learn that France actually won that war against England.
Martin B, correct on both counts.
Bush was only very narrowly re-elected in 2004, and he would have been defeated if 9/11 hadn’t happened, even by a turkey like Kerry. The “rally round the flag” sentiment last just long enough to get him over the line, aided by a bit of electoral fiddling in Ohio.
Which is why Picardy and Aquitaine are still part of the British Empire….. oh.
aided by a bit of electoral fiddling in Ohio
You have to love Republican gerrymandering and electoral corruption
It’s widely believed that Kennedy only won in 1960 because Mayor Daley rigged the vote in Chicago so that Kennedy carried Illinois.
The worst gerrymandering in the US is that which is used to create districts for Black Democrats in the South, viz:
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/FL03_109.gif
This is a corker too
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/IL04_109.gif
And this
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/nc12_109.gif
Now in fact the Repubs supported the creation of these rotten borough districts, because they pen all the Black voters in one district and thus make the surrounding districts much whiter and easier for them to win. But the initiative for creating them came from court challenges by Black Democrats, which the Dem party as a whole doesn’t dare oppose, even though this gerrymandering is deeply corrupt and disadvantages the party as whole.
I just found this Adam:
first of all, the electoral votes of Illinois would not, by themselves, be
enough to deprive JFK of an Electoral College majority. Second, it is far
from clear that JFK was “counted out” in Cook County–the local Democrats
that year were much more concerned with defeating the Republican States’
Attorney, Adamowski, than with who would be elected president of the United
States. (If you find that hard to believe, you don’t know much about
Chicago politics!) Third, even if the Democrats did steal enough votes in
Cook County to account for JFK’s 8,000 plus plurality in Illinois, this
would not prove Nixon really carried the state, because there also was
probably Republican vote-stealing in downstate Illinois. For a thorough
review of the JFK-stole-the-1960-election-in-Cook-County myth, see Edmund
F. Kallina, Jr., _Courthouse over White House: Chicago and the
Presidential Election of 1960 (University of Central Florida Press 1988).
MHW @ 176,
From an American who lived there for 43 years, thanks very much for beating me to the punch and setting the facts straight for people who didn’t know them
…..
The only part of that which is clearly true is that Illinois would not have given Nixon the election. I think Richard Daley did indeed care very much that Kennedy, a fellow Irish Catholic, got elected President. The Daley machine was notorious for vote-rigging (as it still is, though less blatantly these days), and I don’t believe he would have refrained from doing it if it would help JFK.
Don’t forget that LBJ rigged the vote in Texas too!
Adam 174
ROTFL – I love that Illonois district 4 map with the gap in between the two halves! I’d give it the Sir Joh award for creative boundary drawing.
No, there isn’t a gap, it’s linked by a road. Districts must be at least technically contiguous. There’s several others that do that.
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/az02_109.gif
This one was designed to put all the Native Americans in one district.
Miami has been filleted into Cuban, Black and Jewish districts. The gerrymandering is so complex that no-one really knows what district they are in.
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/fl20_109.gif
Thanks Adam. So much for the melting pot theories.
Ah LBJ – Harold Holt’s favourite POTUS
Of course Holt was dead in the water even if he had never gone to Portsea:
The knives were already out for poor old Holt. The other referendum proposal in 1967 (an end to the House-Senate nexus) was clobbered; Whitlam had clear ascendancy over him in Parliament; the Voyager inquiry just dragged on and on; and he had a whole pack of hugely ambitious and highly disloyal ministers, with McMahon leading but Hasluck close behind, and with McEwen despising everyone. Mungo MacCallum thinks the first attempt on the leadership would have been in 1968, and would have failed; The Tet Offensive, a bit of a non-event in our own history (due to Gorton’s honeymoon), could have seriously crippled Holt’s standing (since he was, of all the Liberal leaders, the one tied most securely to Vietnam). If Hasluck had stayed in Parliament, he would have been the natural successor, since *no one* liked McMahon.
There are two options from there: one, the destabilisation continues until 1969, when we finally get the much-speculated and heralded Whitlam ‘69 victory (the most thought-about ‘if only’ in Australian history), or Hasluck, a far more formidable figure than Holt, Gorton and McMahon put together, seizes the reins and keeps the Liberal Party firmly in control, forestalling Whitlam’s rise to power indefinitely, leading to, perhaps, a progressive, socially liberal, reformist 1970s under the Liberal Party, with Don Chipp as the natural leader of Australia’s youthful social reformers…
http://www.politico.com/gameday/
Obama hits 88 on Intrade for the first time.
Regarding Adam’s thesis on the swing to the centre discussed in Rocking all Round the World thread a few days back, here is an interesting piece from Krugman in NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin
The argument is not that recent events see a swing to the left or right, but to more serious candidates; hence a maverick and a hockey mom don’t cut it for POTUS. This isn’t a bad theory that fits a few places: Rudd, Gordon Brown and Sarkozy are all serious to the point of being boring, and have all benefitted from this shift, even thought they sit in the centre, left and right respectively.
Turnbull is relatively serious on any objective viewpoint. Well, more serious than any other offering they could put up for sure.
Since people are interested in exotic Americana such as its gerrymandering, my congressional district (CA-41) is roughly the size of South Australia, but the far western end stabs into the wealthiest suburbs of its richest town in a municipal area about the size of Newcastle.
This electorate was created this shape and size in order to provide an ultra-conservative Republican the pleasure of representing for 40 years one of the safest seats in the state. The reason the seat is so safe is that its rural area is filled with voters who would love nothing better to be represented by Pauline Hanson, if they couldn’t get Sarah Palin. For the record, there is no nearby gerrymandered seat for blacks or anyone else to compensate. This Rep. only needs leave his wealthy suburb in the richest town once every two years to meet his country cousins—-nice work if you can get it gerrymandered.
He is currently under a cloud for alleged corrupt activities akin to a convicted-for-bribery Repub. House pal from San Diego two years ago.
“Serious” candidate is a very wishy-washy description.
For example, in NZ, you could argue that no matter who wins, Clarke or Key, the winner was the “serious” candidate.
jjulian
Forgive my being a pedant but in land area South Australia is roughly 2.5 times larger than the whole of California. I take it you are referring to population (about 1.4 million for SA)?
The story about the incumbent sounds all too familair though.
ltep
The theory fits Turnbull too – peopela re taking him moreseriously than Nelson, and his approval rating is much higher as well.
Oz
A non-serious candidate is like what that judge said about pornography – I have trouble defining it, but I know when I see it. The point is not that one side is more serious, but if such a factor is lacking, then the Dubbya style candidate will suffer.
Its the vibe of the thing
Jesus, how many Congressman/woman are actually currently under allegations of corruption? That’s like the 6th I’ve heard of today.
What America needs in proportional representation with all but the smaller states divided into seats of a few members each as well as a 220 or so extra congresspeople so the electorates are not too big. All of which is perfectly constitutional.
Fat chance getting each state to agree to that.
I could all be done (for the House of Reps) with federal legislation.
At the moment it is law that all states must be divided into single member electorates (a 1967 civil rights measure to prevent state-wide block voting which would have meant no ethnic minority districts).
Well if they can’t even legislate to create a national independent electoral commission something tells me legislating to bring in proportional representation is well beyond their capacity.
Socrates @ 191
No wuckers, mate! Thanks for the help because we’re a reality-based community in here. Yes, it is the population which is comparable, and it is also similar to So. Oz. in that you’ve got large farming, mining and desert areas with only one major urban area.
However, I hasten to add that the way federal electorates are drawn in my NSW region is woeful. We’ve got four very safe seats (2 each way), when it would be just as easy to make them four genuinely contestable seats.
Tom the first and best. I like your idea heaps.
jjulian, gerrymandering at the Congressional level isn’t needed much in CA because the Black and Hispanic communities are so big, and in LA they tend to live in large and concentrated blocks, so it’s fairly easy to create Black-majority and Hispanic-majority districts without grotesque gerrymandering of the kind seen in the South, in NYC and in Chicago.
Still, there is this
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/ca38_109.gif
ltep,
This was mentioned earlier on either in this specific thread or an older version thereof. It would have to be a constitutional ammendment to make responsibility for voting a federal thing for this to happen. As the constitution was written in the 1700’s voting was not specifically mentioned so those responsibilities default to the states (somewhere in either the 8th, 9th or 10th Constitutional ammendments). It simply isn’t LEGAL to be able to legislate this federally at present. Rather than give you a US civics lecture, I’ve more important things to do, if you want further details, look it up on Wikipedia.
Adam, You are a veritable fountain of gerrymander knowledge, in comparison with which I am but a mere bubbler!
The district in your 198 post is not quite as terrible as it looks because the corridor going west from Pomona is a “pass” through a hilly region which my VW Beetle used to find most troublesome during the Punic Wars.
As you say, there’s plenty of “natural” ethnic concentrations in California, especially in the “barrio” areas in East L.A.. (check out Mexican-American Cheech Martin’s hilarious video clip parody of Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”).
I’d thank you for not being patronising but I’ve got more important things to do.
Not all states have gerrymandering. It depends on whether the state legislature in question decides the boundaries itself. For example, the boundaries of Iowa’s 5 congressional districts are decided independently.
The US constitution says that the power is vested in the states but that the federal government can change it (except where Senators are chosen).
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_States_of_America
So who actually does it? A bi-partisan commission where the parties make submissions of what they would like, then the commission decides? Kind of like our system here?
I know some states actually have elected panels to decide electoral boundaries.
One of the propositions in California going to vote on the 4th is to replace the elected system with a system where a panel are randomly selected from the voter pool of Democrats, Republicans and others.
Are they bipartisan panels? Or are they prone to being stacked by the Governor?
New Washington Post poll has Obama up by 8 in Virginia. I can’t link directly to it, it requires a login, but it is on the front page:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
So have we decided yet who does the most gerrymandering – the Repubs or the Dems?
They basically agree to each have their own gerrymandering. Which is why there are so many safe seats.
Yes but Iowa is 99% white so the issue hasn’t arisen. If Iowa was 20% Black, and the commissionm drew boundaries that didn’t create one Black-majority district out of five, Black activists would take the commission to court, the courts would follow the Supreme Court’s precedent, and the Iowa legislature would then be forced to gerrymander a Black district. The Repubs would support this for the opportunist reason that the other four districts would then be all-White.
Here’s an interesting blog post regarding how so many counties vote for either Presidential candidate in a landslide:
Maps here:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/bigsort/archive/2008/10/21/an-election-story-for-those-who-like-to-watch.aspx
Zogby +5 Obama again
Obama 50 (up 1)
McCain 45 (up 1)
http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1613
A very cheap shot, which discredits the rest of whatever else they have to say. I don’t recall that Jacquie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson or Eleanor Roosevelt were street urchins.
Obama is a leftie
… literallly, not only politically 
…..
[
Obama as we knew him… man and boySchoolfriends remember his love for comic books, basketball and teasing the girls. A former boss recalls him as a young man running a community project in Chicago. A fellow senator remembers being beaten by him at poker. Gifted student, quiet persuader, charismatic speaker, loyal friend… We speak to the people who knew Barack Obama best, revealing an intimate, often touching, portrait of a man on the brink of greatness
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/26/barackobama-uselections2008
Yech
Do they remember how the wild birds and animals would come and eat out of his hands?
“revealing an intimate, often touching, portrait of a man on the brink of greatness”
You’re kidding right?
No ltep, none of us here on PB nor the millions of Americans who are voting for Obama, are kidding and you need to get used to hearing the phrase “POTUS Barack Obama” …….
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oElJy_eFeLk
After 8 years of Bush it makes me wonder how anybody can think Obama wouldn’t be a step up
A lot of people are heading for very bitter disillusionment if this is the level of hysteria the Obama faithful have reached.
Dario, that’s a very low bar.
Not saying it isn’t, but many still think he’ll go lower… based on what exactly I can’t fathom
Even Sarah Palin would not be too much of a step down from George Bush.
Adam
You will see the truth and it will set you free.
http://lastrow.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/obama-votive-candle/
PS I’ve just found the reason the US dropped the Bomb on the Japanese not the Germans. It wasn’t ready until after Germany has surrendered. Eisenhower pleaded with Truman the US not to use it on Japan. And Kyoto was the favoured target but Stimson said no due to it’s architecture and culture (and Dresden criticism).
After initial reluctance, I have accepted that Obama will make a better president than McCain, who has been a big disappointment. But I’m not going to follow Julie down the yellow brick road to Obamalalaland, in which The One makes the lame to walk and the blind to see, the oceans to rise (or is it fall?) and the lion to lie down with the lamb. He’s a very talented politician, he may or may not be a good president – but he is not the Messiah.
juliem
Almost every recent POTUS has been sinister. Obama (and McCain), Ford, Reagan, Clinton and George H Bush.
Hilary was
Yes, Diogenes, I knew all that, except the bit about Eisenhower, which sound improbable. Eisenhower was commander in Europe and it had nothing to do with him.
Eisenhower made it clear that he had won his war by conventional means and said that the Japanese would surrender very soon using conventional warfare, and that the US should not be the first to use the Bomb. (Ike in Ike)
The Obama votive is San Martin de Porres of Peru. He was a mulatto saint and he is the Saint Protector of the Mixed Race people.
Made it clear to whom? Did Truman ring him up in Paris and ask his opinion? Ike had never set foot in the Pacific theatre – what did he know about it? I bet MacArthur was in favour of using the bomb.
Analysis of how Obama might win Georgia (if he does)
[
The big question is not if African-Americans' share of the electorate will increase, but by how much and what that will do to the share of the electorate made up by whites. The potential electorate could look as follows.
Whites: 64 percent African Americans: 31 percent Hispanics: 5 percent
Let's say McCain gets 71% of the white vote, Obama 26%, and [Third Party candidate] Bob Barr 3%, which is reasonable and perhaps a bit cautious on Obama’s and Barr’s shares. Then there is the Hispanic vote, which favored Bush in 2004 but nearly everyone has now given Obama roughly 2-1. Meanwhile, let’s put Obama’s support among African-Americans at 95%, which I think is reasonable.
The end result — if one assumes the same number of voters that showed up four years ago (3,280,000) come to the polls next week — would be as follows:
Obama would end up with 49.39 percent of the vote (approximately 1,610,000 votes) McCain would end up with 48.64 percent of the vote (approximately 1,590,050 votes)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/24/breaking-down-obamas-pote_n_137601.html
]
You’re very hard to please Adam!
Eisenhower was in Germany at the time when Stimson got word that the nuclear test in NM was successful. He argued with Stimson and rang Truman to dissuade him.
MacArthur wasn’t consulted and apparently said he disagreed with it later.
I found this list of people who disagreed with it;
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
Come on you have to start feeling sorry for McCain, the average wingnut is blaming him for the failure of their policies
Adam in Canberra
said:
Rudd inherited a low bar form Howard, Obama inherits a low one from Bush, it’s the right wing nutter legacy.
A year ago people on this website said Obama had no hope and would lose. I am about to feel justified- now let me see now who were those people.. cannot wait to reveal who these knowalls are…
Hey, I said McCain was going to win a few weeks ago!
I’ve probably revised my stance a bit since then. But if he does, I reserve the right to say I called it.
Saw the most goddarn awful hour long piece on Obama on Hammity this afternoon. I should have kept flicking through the channels but just couldn’t pass this one.
Hammity had reasons (dotpointed) on why no-one, including him, should be voting for Obama. He dragged up the Rev. Wright thing, some Arab bloke who gave money for his campaign years ago, ‘community organising’ (mad it sound like a dirty word) and lots more. It will be run for the next 9 days.
Some other GOP insider said that a private mob would be running ads for a few days on ‘Joe the Plumber’ and at the end of this McCain’s would be leading in the polls. Also suggested that Rev. Wright thing be rehashed continuously.
Juliem, what on earth breeds this type of Republican attitude in each election. The things I have read about McCain make my insides curdle – he is not white angel but is that ever brought up in the media over there. The Republicans seem to be a little like the Libs here – if anyone is against them they can only denigrate.
I’m for Obama and I’ll have 376 with Florida please.
On Intrade, Obama now has a better chance of winning Missouri, than McCain has of winning Montana.
It’s all they know
238 BH,
Got it down and I’ll add it to my list in the morning (its on the other computer in our house which is tied up at the moment). May I presume that you think Obama will take Missouri? (excepting William who hasn’t gotten back to me if he officially wants in or not in the list {I’ve put him in unofficially}, all other guesses < 350 or so have said yes, Obama takes Missouri. A few under 350 have said yes but virtually all of the yes answers are coming from the large EV guesses. Let me know and I’ll get your answer in the morning.
BH,
Will get back to you on this in the a.m, have to sleep on it LOL …..
…..
AiC you are being a little disingenuous about John McCain’s second marriage. You fail to mention that he left his disabled first wife, Carol, for a woman barely older than his oldest son in 1980.
Subsequently Cindy has proved to be a little bit of lead in his saddlebags given her addictions and theft of medications. Being white, blonde, and well connected she got a plea bargain on that little “incident”.
Would the Repugnants have given Obama, his beautiful wife Michelle and wonderful kids a free pass if the roles had been reversed?
226
[After initial reluctance, I have accepted that Obama will make a better president than McCain, who has been a big disappointment. But I’m not going to follow Julie down the yellow brick road to Obamalalaland, in which The One makes the lame to walk and the blind to see, the oceans to rise (or is it fall?) and the lion to lie down with the lamb. He’s a very talented politician, he may or may not be a good president - but he is not the Messiah].
Adam – none of us see Obama as a Messiah. We simply believe he is the best hope we have for a better world, after eight long years of Bush and his neocons. Surely it is not surprising that we would feel a little excited by that prospect. .
WRONG! If you think Obama is better than McCain it is because you think Obama is THE third coming of Jesus. And it means you don’t like McCain’s Healthy Choice meals.
There is no other logical explanation for it.
I only want an Obama win because if Palin gets in it will be WW3.
They are all politicians. I choose the one least likely to blow us all up.
I have to make a coffession. I hate FOX news (right wing American crap) but I am drawn to watch it intermitedly lately because I am enjoying watching them squirm as an Obama landslide prevails. They have a never say die, in your face attitude for right wing causes but I’m loving it still. The last remnant of a stool that refuses to flush!
Check out the Fox News take on a speech McCain made the day Obama won the nomination:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aMDJP4VxY4
They do their best to say McCain sucked only a little bit. When I look at this video it just reminds me how badly McCain’s campaign has been run from start to finish.
Because RCP dont use a weighted average I thought I’d have a tinkle
Using the national polls from Fox News (10/20 – 10/21) to Rueters (10/24 – 10/26)
I have Obama at 50.7 on weighted average which is .2 above RCP average
Anyone want a crack at it? I could be wrong
http://election.princeton.edu/ and http://www.electoral-vote.com/ both think the Democrats are going to get 59 senators (including Sanders and Lieberman).
Oh yeah I guess I should do the cain for McSame, oops I mean the same for McCain….then get a spread.
A combined sample size of 14658 likely voters surveyed have Obama at 50.7 and McCain at…. home on Tuesday night.
ShowsOn. That was painful!
Well I think Collin Power has summed up my feelings and assessment of the two candidates pretty well. (Although I think he gives a too much glowing review of McCain -he is just too polite). It comes as no surprise that most republican supporters are dismissing it as a Black thing. An Obama win might restore some faith and respect in America.
That’s not pain we can believe in!
I watched that entire speech, it sounded as though McCain needed a glass of apple cider, and a nap half way through.
Yeah… & I need an asprin. Really!
William.. the table you produced does not add up to 100% what is the missing percentage and will that inflate the poll stats if its not counted?
Next question: What is the rate of success of each of the poll sources in predicting the actual result in the past? Who came closest and what was their margin of error?
Will the US invite international observers to oversee the conduct of the election as is the case in Russia? I read a story that 60% of those polled believed the US election would be subjected to some from of fraud,
ShowsOn
I remember watching that McCain speach when Obama passed the Delo threshhold and thinking this will be a blood bath.
Then I remembered they gave Bush two terms.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24559929-601,00.html
Heads up every one. Go to this site – http://www.electoral-vote.com/ In the last month I have watched this map slowly turning Blue. The most amazing thing is now that Arizona is evolving from dark red, strong GOP to nuetral red border, barely GOP.
Could the unthinkable happen in that McCain looses his in own home state? There is a God!!!
D@W, my figures do not add up to 100 because pollsters do not distribute minor candidate and undecided likely voters. In answer to your second question: I have absolutely no idea.
Adam in Canberra says:
Mmmm… it might be heresy to say this but the Voting Rights Act has something to answer for.
By the way, the contiguity criteria is pretty flexible. Even water/sea can be considered part of a district.
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/nj13_109.gif
As for California, my understanding was that the state institutes a “bipartisan gerrymander.” i.e. Lots of safe seats for both sides, few marginals. This, by the way, highlights the danger of having a ‘bipartisan’ as opposed to independent commission draw the lines. (Though I’m not exactly sure what the process is for California specifically. It might be just the legislators themselves who draw the lines.)
Darn @ 208 – the current map favours the Republicans. (In net terms; there are certainly some states where the boundaries favour the Democrats.) According to the Cook PVI, there are 235 “Republican” districts and 200 “Democratic” districts. In a fairer world, there would be an even split.
Here’s another district of dubious contiguity:
http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/la01_109.gif
Darn @ 244,
Is Kevin a Messiah? He’s just as human as I am. Agreed on this point you make. Hope that the point makes its mark where intended.
ShowsOn @ 245,
You have a wonderful sense of humor
…….
Can we fast forward to next Wednesday (for us)?
……
BH,
You (and a few others on this blog) are doing better than me. I can’t even devote any of my time to anything from the other side on TV. Well, I should clarify that. During the DNC, I watched Fox when CNN was on commercial or before/after they had their coverage. Despite its bias, Fox is 24/7 same channel as in the US. The CNN we get here is CNN International which isn’t the same programming as CNN that you see in the US. If you want US news and CNN isn’t getting it on to suit you, you’ve no choice.
They have to find some way to justify their salaries I guess. In most cases, I think that the people they are trying to reach are unreachable. Either they are rusted on one way or the other (so preaching to the choir or to those who can’t “hear or see the light”) or they’ve already casted their ballot. I found out today that my sister voted absentee about a month ago so it doesn’t matter HOW good an article I think I’ve found, it won’t change her vote, literally.
I know that there are left wing nut cases and right wing nut cases. I would like to think that the left wing “rank and file” (people like myself and you [if eligible to vote] and jj and kakuru and others) is much more reasonable than the right wing “rank and file” people. For example: (1) the K K K doesn’t have an equivelent on the left side of politics (2) no one who claims themselves a Democrat has banded together with like minded folks and cried for a candidates demise as has happened at some rallies this year (3) no Democrat would lie and concoct a story like Ashley, the TX lady in PA. Moral of this story: the republican or right wing policy {happens in this country too; the Libs and/or right grab the nutcakes, psychos and so on …. look at the NSW Lib right faction} seems to be honey to those who believe in, follow or preach intolerance and hatred. We in the left wouldn’t do that. Left is generally more tolerant of differences so it doesn’t generate the same cognitive dischord as it does for the right when the other side is in the majority.
You called it – exactly like the Libs. Only thing is with many millions more population there, it seems like it is worse over there but that is because each part of the voting group (including the less savory parts) is more populous as well.
I am reminded of a scene in the Blues Brothers movie where they are driving up to the first rally of the K K K. Belushi and Ackroyd are in the car and the K K K are rallying on the bridge. The Blues Brothers race their car through the police barricade and the whole of the K K K have to jump into the river to escape. There is of course a loud cheer from the crowd!!
…. Everyone was happy to see them get what they had coming to them and more.
I’m for Obama too and at present, I’ve got 375 and Colorado (although I might yet change that number in the next week.
When talking about a gerrymander lets remember that a good system will have seats on both sides that can’t be wiped out no matter how hard the swing is.
Wow, there’s some really nutty stuff in there juliem
There are extreme left wing groups just as there are extreme right wing groups. There are parts of the ‘left’ who are equally damaging to the left’s credibility as part of the right are to it.
ltep, have a wonderful day, as I’ve noted to others in the past, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I will not trash you for having one different to mine. Cheers, I’m off to a lawn bowls game, I’ll see you on the other side at the Obama victory party on PB about 3pm next Wednesday afternoon
……
Cheers, mate
will have to wait until mid afternoon to read the details, this is a breaking story …..
More great news for McCain, Palin and the Repugs!
Jury: Stevens guilty on seven counts
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14819.html
If Hillary was the candidate the election would’ve been earlier.
[Jury: Stevens guilty on seven counts
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14819.html
On Intrade, the Democrat chance of winning his Senate seat jumped by 22%, it’s now in the 90s, which suggests to me he is gone.
ShowsOn
The amazing thing is that a convicted felon who got done for corruption as a senator is still allowed to remain a senator!
What is more amazing that he wasnt replaced for another Republican candidate at this election god are they stupid or what! They’d have probably kept the seat with a fresh candidate but still put this crook up there for re-election when he was at that time facing a criminal court! The GOP has only themselves to blame if/when they lose their Senate seat in Alaska.
Glen
There’s a lot of talk of Palin running for Senate in Alaska. Perhaps they saw it as a win-win whatever the verdict. Palin needs a bit more national experience than Alaska Governor to go for the Big Chair. Plenty of Repugs are lining up behind her rather than McCain at the moment.
Presumably Stevens has a right of appeal to exhaust before he has to resign his seat. And I gather at this stage his name can’t be taken off the ballot paper even if he does resign.
For Palin to run for the Senate in 2010, she would have to challenge a sitting Republican Senator, Lisa Murkowski, in the Repub primary. She’s the daughter of Frank Murkowski, the sitting Governor Palin knocked off the Repub primary in 2006. Murkowski is damaged goods, but even so it would be a messy business.
Hmmm fact is though Palin can’t run for that seat for 6 years! She’d have to run against Lisa Murkowski who actually is a Republican and hence would need to run 2 campaigns.
Anyway Palin still has 2 years left of being Governor of Alaska after the election.
Is it too late? Can they change the ticket now?
either way it would look too bad Dario the GOP blew this one bad they’re now going to have to spend money to win a Senate seat back in 6 years time!
Great article proposing that the U.S. needs a federal commission for party registration:
http://www.slate.com/id/2203138/
He has been a Senator for 40 years. Even Palin wouldn’t say he should resign before the election, which he should do in the interests of his party. But in the U.S. the politicians are more important than the party.
Not to mention all those wonderful clothes!
Race tied in Georgia according to a new poll:
http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_1024_633.aspx
Sarah Palin has a job for the next six years: Governor of Alaska. Assuming she gets re-elected in 2010.
So the timing lines up perfectly to contest Senator Begich’s seat in 2014.
Dario, apparently not. Stevens won the Repub primary and he is the candidate. He can announce he is withdrawing, but his name will still be on the ballot.
She doesnt own them ShowsOn she never did get that into your head! They were bought by the GOP for her for the Convention!
= big deal!
Yes, I’ve heard her classic example of an argument from ignorance.
How is that an example of an argument from ignorance?
If they bought these clothes for her for the convention and told her that how is what she or the GOP did wrong?
She said it is OK because she didn’t KNOW they had paid that much for the clothes! That shows how out of touch she is.
But I didn’t expect anything less from a politician who charges her state for living in her own home! She is obviously one of those politicians who loves getting every cent from tax payers she can.
I guess Obama was like that when he voted 120 odd times present, ie didnt fufill his elected duty to actually do something in the State Senate Shows On or what about writing bogus autobiographies to make millions off the taxpayers (people) when he hasnt actually done anything of worth in his entire public life!
Why is it that hair and fashion seem to inevitably be drawn into debate on female political figures?
Re; the Stevens verdict, I find it amazing that the conviction doesn’t automatically barr a candiadte from sitting in the Senate, as it would here?
Anyway, we have our quota of corruption allegations and now the standard republican conviction. Aren’t we due for a homosexual affair scandal involving a right wing fundamentalist-religeous candidate about now? Or has it already happened and I’ve missed it?
ltep
If someone can prove that Obama spent $150k on Italian suits in a month then I dare say fashion would be an issue for him too. I don’t recall people commenting on Palin’s dresses prior to the amount she was spending being revealed. Wasn’t discussed for Hillary either.
And Hillary’s suit pants Itep, it is stupid and we should be actually criticisng people on their policy not what they wear or how they look!
This is the trouble with politics now adays style over substance nobody cares (media) about substance anymore and you cannot succeed in politics unless you have a massive ego and a huge amount of style.
The more Dems and the liberal media (which includes all of you lot) attack Palin, the more wedded to her the Republican base will become, and the more likely it is that she will be the nominee in 2012. The GOP is a monarchist party: in their primaries they always vote for the incumbent or the heir apparent, or failing that, the best known candidate. That’s why McCain was nominated this year, because he had run before and was the default heir. With the GOP in opposition, no-one will be able to gain the profile or status that Palin now has with the GOP base. Unless troopergate or some other scandal turns really toxic for her, she will be the nominee. That will be the case even if it is obvious that she will lose. It was always obvious that Goldwater was going to lose, but the GOP base (to their credit in a way) puts principle before expediency.
Disclaimer: I said all year that Clinton would be the Dem nominee, and I was wrong. But it is easier to predict what Republicans will do.
I’m just commenting. It’s similar with articles focusing on the hair of Julia Gillard, Alanah McTiernan, Katy Gallagher etc. etc.
I don’t think anyone would bother commenting on Obama if he had expensive suits. If they did it would be just as vacuous an argument.
Don’t worry Glenny, in 8 years he will be able to write another book explaining what he did when he was President of the United States of America.
Unlike his previous books, you may like to read that one.
In this instance I can think of 150,000 reasons.
Adam i wanted Rockerfeller to win the nomination in 64 not Goldwater I am not as hardcore conservative as some make me out to be.
Adam i assume that your argument has the evidence of the 1994 election when the Republicans stupidly picked Bob Dole against Clinton (smacks head) they like picking a big name not necessarily the best candidate. You are quite right!
New Rasmussen Poll:
McCain leads by only 5 points in Arizona (51-46)
OK, not likely he’ll lose his home state, but this is another sign of how well Obama is doing in the South Western states(New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado).
Remember what happened to the last presidential candidate from Arizona?
If the democrats win the Alaska Senate race, what would that make the overall numbers on current polls? What do they need to be fillibuster proof?
One wonders who Glen thinks the Republicans have picked in 1996.
Pat Buchanan? Steve Forbes?
60 senators. Current predictions are 59 aren’t they (including Liberman and the other one)?
Whoops it was 96 not 94 my mistake.
Interesting that in the past couple of days, Lieberman has started saying nice things about Obama – it seems he’s ready to jump off the “Straight Talk Express”.
OH NOES, the MEDIA brain washing us all again! Help! How do I stop it!?
Sorry, but I don’t find Marxist media theory very convincing.
This election has shown that appealing to your base alone doesn’t win elections. So unless she has a transformation where she decides to inform herself better, i.e. by reading some books, then I don’t think she will be any match for the Democratic machine in 2012.
I think David Brooks (a moderate Republican) is right. After the election, the Republican party will have a civil war between the God bothers who think McCain could’ve won if he simply talked more about abortion and banning gay marriage, let’s call this the Palin faction, versus the sensible conservatives who realise that Bush’s economic policies of cutting taxes, but not cutting spending, have been a complete disaster.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
McCain got into bed with the nasty redneck elements of the Republican Party – he has trashed his reputation!
David i’d have backed Lamar Alexander in 1996.
You must be, the litmus test is whether or not you think Julie Bishop is an effective politician.
Who should’ve they picked instead? Clinton was ascended during most of 1995, I suggest that it didn’t really matter who they picked, Clinton couldn’t lose.
G.O.P. is already trying to persuade Lieberman to join:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14985.html
If he joins the G.O.P., that means his senate career would be over at the next election. So basically it is just all about when he wants to retire.
Let’s hope so!
Influencing ideas and opinions through language is post-modernist theory, not Marxist.
Julie Bishop isn’t that hardcore a conservative is she?
I suppose we should ask her staff that question as it’s at least questionable as to whether she has thoughts of her own.
I don’t actually think McCain was that bad a choice of candidate and he handled the debates fairly, though not brilliantly. Those running his campaign have performed more poorly however. Whoever picked Palin deserves a lot of criticism. If it was McCain then he has got to take a fair bit of the blame. But the real disaster has been the fallout from all of Bush’s bad economic policies landing on him one month before polling day, when the voters can’t possibly forget. No sympathy for that of course – the western wrold’s economy simply can’t afford another republican adminsitration, whoever the candidate is.
Well i think she was wrong to have a staffer write something in her name.
She should be able to do it herself!
I agree with Dario BTW. Being one of those elitist liberals who is basically pro-democrat, I’d love to see Palin be the 2012 candidate
I wonder why a significant portion of the Australian left are so pro-Democrat. They’ve been pitiful over recent years, especially in regards to the environment.
I’m not so sure. It originated as Althusserian-Marxism in the 1960s, before it was ever called post-modernism.
I was referring to the idea that the media acts as an ideological state apparatus that is able to shape people’s perceptions of their own identities, the ultimate effect of which is to trick them into an irrational acceptance of capitalism.
ltep
I don’t want to start a lengthy Australian politics debate on this thread, but …
I think Julie Bishop is pretty hard core conservative. I don’t know all of her views, but based on her comments on Workchoices, and her supprot for Howard, she was never a “wet” Liberal.
So why didn’t she!? Politicians blaming their staffers – Julie Bishop style – is the oldest trick in the book.
If Palin is such a brilliant politician, why didn’t she take control of the campaign and figure out the best way to present and sell herself for her and John McCain’s benefit?
She backed Costello socrates…
I think at least i hope that if the GOP loses that they do not retreat back to the base.
The GOP used to win New York when they were a moderate conservative force now they can only rely on the bible belt and Ohio and Florida (which both could go Blue this time round). Unless they do this they are going to struggle in 2012. The trouble is that just as it is hard being a blue dog democrat it is very hard to be a moderate Republican to build up enough name recognition to then have a tilt at the Presidency.
Tina Fey did the best sell-job on Palin as far as I’m concerned.
Glen
Thanks I didn’t know that; in that case I suppose she is centreist.
Why is it that they picked on Palin and viturally nobody has picked on Obama?
Has anybody been really critical of Obama in the mass media apart from Fox News?
The 4th Estate is not doing it’s job as far as i am concerned they ought to be as critical of McCain as they are of Obama.
Maybe we will see the media start to scrutinise Obama after he wins hopefully!
It’s rare the impersonations work simply by using direct quotes.
She is a centrist but she does back a more right wing IR policy. She is left of Tony Abbott i assure you of that. Also Cossie gave her praise in his book.
Sarah Palin’s War on Science – Christopher Hitchens
http://www.slate.com/id/2203120/
I think Obama is related to Sir Humphrey Appleby.
Glen I’m glad to hear you were supporting candidates in 1964 – I guess that proves you’re not a Young Lib after all. They wouldn’t have Rockefeller in 64 because he was (gasp) DIVORCED! Only 16 years later they nominated Reagan, ol Mr Family Values himself, ex-wife, gay son, estranged daughter and all.
Of course i am a young liberal I have been for 5 years, but if i were alive back in 64 i would have backed Nelson A. against Goldwater.
lol classic isnt it, well was Nixon as conservative as we make him out to be (a part from going insane and bugging the dems when he was going to win in a landslide) because the party still had centrist parts back then.
Not to mention a former trade unionist and Democrat.
There is something crazy about the fact Jay Rockefeller is one of the most left wing Democrats in the Senate.
I guess given the death of the Liberal Republican wing it makes sense he is a Democrat, but a left wing Democrat?
Only 3 more years and you get life membership!
I didnt know there was such a rule but since i will be going into teaching, i may have to leave the party formally in any case.
Obama went through the primaries, Palin was fresh on the scene, hence more recent scrutiny of Palin
Here’s Fivethirtyeight.com numbers cruncher Nate Silver’s analysis of where polling stands at the late on Monday in USA. For the second straight day, he’s showing a record high predictability (96.7%) that Obama would win the Elect. College if election were held today (also predicting 351 EV) for Obama). Very compelling argument for ignoring the daily national polling oscillations:
“If the national polls are tightening, there is no evidence of it in the state numbers. If the national tracking polls moved at all today, they moved slightly in McCain’s direction, as he gained ground in the Rasmussen and Research 2000 polls, whereas the other six trackers were essentially flat. However, there has really been no sign of tightening in the state polls.
Our model places more emphasis on state polling, and there’s a pretty good reason why: they give us a lot more data to look at. Today’s for instance, there were 3,539 “fresh” interviews conducted (e.g. those that were not already accounted for in previous’ days tracking polls) between eight national polls that we added to our database. By contrast, there were 22,881 fresh interviews conducted between 31 new state polls.
If the state polls aren’t showing movement toward McCain, then it is probably the case that any perceived movement in the national polls is sampling noise. If anything, in fact, the state polls are showing movement toward Obama on balance, not just in battleground states like Virginia, but also in non-battlegrounds as diverse as New York, Oklahoma, Oregon and Arizona.
Obama has begun to run up the score in some non-battlegrounds. Polls in states like Washington, New York and California are now showing very large leads for Barack Obama. As some of these states have large populations, they are providing a bit of cushion to Obama in his popular vote margin. To a lesser extent, Barack Obama has also gained ground in some red states like Arizona and Georgia. As a result, whereas for the past several weeks we had shown Obama as being more likely to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, those probabilities have now begun to equalize themselves — his popular vote was not quite as efficiently distributed as it was before.”
Sorry, I just made it up.
I don’t think you’d need to do that. It is against the anti-discrimination act to discriminate against someone based on political affiliation.
You can thank Mr Whitlam for that legal protection.
There’s no such rule Glen. Just don’t allow that evil education union to morph you into a left wing propoganda dispenser.
You’re allowed to me a member of whatever political party you want, even as a teacher/lecturer etc.
I wonder if Stevens could run but say that he’ll step down after the election for Palin if she is available. It sounds a bit defeatist but it could save a Senate seat for the Repugs and shoe-horn Palin into the Senate in one go. I think Senate seats are transferrable within Party.
Anyway at least they will have somebody (non union) to stay behind when they strike for better pay!
Yes. It seems that most of the lecturers I know are members of the Communist Party of Australia.
Which is their right of course.
Is she not still Governor of a Alaska?
AND you will get any pay rise that they manage to negotiate! You win both ways!
No Glen, you should object to the union bargaining for better pay and negotiate it directly for yourself! Show them all how it’s done.
So if there is a vacancy she should appoint HERSELF to the vacancy!
Is that even legal?
She’ll probably appoint TODD, or her son TRACK.
lol probably why wouldnt it?
ShowsOn if i can help it i wont be in a Union because i dont think they are my cupatea.
My point was why should she enter the Senate when she’s a Governor? She seems pretty happy with her power…
But if you sign the union negotiated EBA you get whatever increases they negotiate.
Do you really want to spend time each year hiring a lawyer to work out a common law agreement? AWAs are gone remember.
Who would he negotiate with and exactly why would they listen to him?
“Influencing ideas and opinions through language is post-modernist theory, not Marxist.”
Pah! Rhetoric, persuasion, dog-whistling and influence in speech are as old as words themselves, different intellectual trends simply name their strategies for unpicking it differently (discourse analysis, deconstruction, blah blah blah).
Oh well they have to. If he insists he doesn’t want to sign the union negotiated EBA, then they must negotiate with him. But they will probably offer him lower pay and conditions than the union agreement, so there will be no benefit to him.
He wouldn’t have to be in the union to sign up for the union negotiated deal. That is completely voluntary.
Oz
If she moves to the Senate, her Lieutenant-Governor takes her place as Governor (he’s a Repug too).
Quite true.
Sure, but I’d rather be in charge of a state than a Senator. Maybe just me.
Doesn’t Marx talk about there being an ideological force spread through social institutions like the bureaucracy and community organisations like religious organisations?
So this idea of a pervasive ideological force shaping the perceptions of the working class is there from the start of Marxist theory. It wasn’t until later that it was mixed with psychoanalysis and semiotics to apply to language itself.
Note, I think the idea that language is inherently ideological and restricting is completely bogus. It seems to me that language makes it EASY to communicate how we feel to others who share that same language. I think it would be restrictive if we DIDN’T have written or verbal language. What would we do, play charades whenever we wanted someone to pass the salt? So I really think the post-modernists are completely confused in this, and other points.
That Hitchens article is a beauty.
I’m so pleased that I was making the same argument against Palin three weeks ago (i.e, she should be ineligible because she thinks the earth is less than 7000 years old, and that humans and dinosaurs coexisted). Of course I was attacked for being an elitist liberal. Well, if that means I have to be in a club with Hitchens, so be it.
ShowsOn, the thing is there’s a difference between not supporting a candidate and thinking the candidate should be ‘ineligible’. Stating that someone should be ineligible because they don’t meet some socially accepted criteria is indeed elitist.
Especially when in the US, 60% of people believe in angels and demons as actual beings.
Hitchens is right about idiots and the anti-elitist excuse for their attitudes. Compare it to sports: if I’m a couch potato that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate those who have worked hard to become good athletes. I might admire their skill (unless of course they play for Collingwood). It certainly doesn’t justify my deriding anyone else who isn’t also physically unfit. If I did it would probably just be my own insecurity and a touch of jealousy. Hmmm….
I didn’t mean ineligible in the sense she shouldn’t be on the ballot. I meant she is ineligible in the sense she is completely inappropriate for the job.
Sorry for the confusion.
McCain now looking very competitive in North Carolina on my aggregates after a series of very close polls.
William
I’m surprised you’ve got Obama up by 4% in IN. The last Zogby was 6% to Macca.
Obama doesn’t need NC. All he needs is IA, NM, CO and VA, and they all seem to be in the bag.
Incidentally Obama has now confirmed that he was born on the planet Krypton, and was sent by his father Jor-El to save the earth. That would explain why he’s that strange colour and talks funny.
Hadn’t seen that one, Diogenes – it’s now been added. However, it hasn’t made much difference because it’s displaced an earlier strong poll for McCain. I now have Obama ahead by 3.3, based on SurveyUSA (49-45), Big Ten (51-42) and PPP (48-46).
247Aussieguru01 – had to leave last night because the dog went out wanting to chase wallabies. (We let them eat the grass around the house as long as they stay out of the veggie patch).
Glad to hear your comments re FixedNews because I was feeling a little embarrassed in admitting to not flicking past it enough. I have watched their faces change as the weeks have gone by. Big, big smiles and congratulations after the Repub. Convention but now it is all gloom and constant putdowns of Obama. I wonder if the press getting hold of Murdoch saying he was embarrassed by the mob there has had any effect on them, morale wise. The only one I always pass by is O’Reilly – what a clown. Lots of pleasure seeing Cavuto’s face tho – he has definitely gone from big smiles to big ‘forced’ smiles. He obviously realises that the game is up.
However I am getting the same sense of gratification watching their gloom as you are. But can you honestly believe that mob – they should be on the Comedy Channel.
I think that Sky News here have been trying to do the same thing with the Libs but lately I think they have realised Rudd may be in for awhile and they seem to be playing more of the devil’s advocate with the Libs. There was a time when they would not query anything they said but now they are becoming more robust with the Libs.
264 Juliem – thanks for your explanations – altho we speak the same language we really have a different take on things here in OZ. We are much more cynical and ironic.
I had just retired when the 2004 US election was on and I watched in horror as the GOP ‘did John Kerry over’. How can one war hero, who helped Australians (including my poor young rellies) get out of Vietnam, be classed in the same breath as one (McCain) who by all AirForce records was a bit of a dill. It was stunningly awful.
Altho Kerry was a bit patrician for me he would have been a far better choice for all of us than Bush.
I’m a novice at this guessing game of which States will fall but I watch CNN and BBC World a fair bit – so I am taking a guess and just have fingers crossed that Missouri and Florida will stay with Obama until polling day.
BTW I heard that BBC World is getting quite a large audience in America. They are enjoying seeing what the rest of the world is doing and saying. That is a big start for a change in the US.
Dio @ 269,
I bet that he resigns IF he wins the election and then Palin will appoint herself the new Senator to serve out the rest of his term
ShowsOn @ 278,
I thought I read somewhere that in a response to the uproar, her clothing stash from the campaign was going to be donated to charity … can anyone else confirm that? Does anyone else remember reading similar?
Re 296,
Evan, will be a cold day in some place very very hot before Arizona gets a politician on the national ticket again
Evan @ 301, it is past the point of no return for Liebermann ….. his goose has not only been cooked, it is burnt to a crisp
Scathing analysis of the looming civil war in the GOP
Jesse Jackson’s son is set to replace Obama in the Senate …
A newspaper endorsing him doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s “set to replace Obama”.
thanks for that Oz, missed that ….
Politically, Obama’s replacement will need to be Black. JJJ is the best known Chicago Black politician apart from The One. (Perhaps he is The Two?)
Gee, Julie, six posts in a row. Is that a record?
Also note that the Chicago Defender is a black newspaper.
If Obama was white would he be this popular?
If Obama was an inexperienced first term Senator who could speak well but was caucasian would he really be in such a position to win the Presidency?
Nobody would vote for an inexperienced white person to become President after serving just 1 term in the Senate.
Oh really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
Well Oz that’s checkmate to you I believe
juliem 367
Maybe Cheny, Palin and the rest should all go on a post election hunting trip together and see if they can reach an understanding. If not – the survivor of the “accidents” rules. I hope Cheney takes Bush hunting after they retire.
Ah but Oz you forget that Lincoln actually had credentials…
He served in the military (militia) as a Captain…
Was elected to the state legislature…served 4 terms in the House of Reps.
Admitted to the Bar
Elected to the US house of Reps 1847-9….
This is far more experience than Obama can call on!
Check mate!
Who knows Glen? You can sit there thinking up hypotheticals til the cows come home and it won’t make the Republicans’ loss any easier for you to take.
BH,
I’m glad you see it that way too. I’m sending them a box of bitter lemons for them to suck on for election night!!!
Ah, Glen you’re wrong. Accept it.
Lincoln served one term in the House of Reps before becoming President.
Lincoln’s 8 years in the state legislature are negated by Obama’s 7 years in the state legislature. Obama was also accepted as a member of the Bar.
So if you’re suggesting that all one needs to become qualified for President is a captaincy in the militia…
“This is far more experience than Obama can call on!
Check mate!”
so lets see
Lincoln: qualified to practice law, 8 years in state legislature, 2 years in federal legislature. Mainly noted for his powerful oratory.
Obama: qualified to practice law, 8 years in state legislature, 4 years in federal legislature. Mainly noted for his powerful oratory.
Qualifications look pretty similar to me.
“Nobody would vote for an inexperienced white person to become President after serving just 1 term in the Senate.”
Al Gore and John Edwards also had similar levels of experience during their first nomination shots, and while neither were successful, they both did well and were not thought to be inexperienced.
Oz i can bet you everything i own that Lincoln never voted 123 times present!
He also had to fight 4 equally and some more qualified people for the nomination and won.
Ill be willing to bet Lincoln did more in his term in the US house of Reps than Obama has done in the US Senate!
“The more Dems and the liberal media (which includes all of you lot) attack Palin, the more wedded to her the Republican base will become, and the more likely it is that she will be the nominee in 2012.”
Excellent. So we should keep doing it?
You can bet whatever you like, but I accept your concession that your earlier statement “Nobody would vote for an inexperienced white person to become President after serving just 1 term in the Senate” has been proven incorrect.
Yeah but it is true, Lincoln was in the House of Reps not the Senate Oz…case closed!
Woodrow Wilson was another “great” president. He was the President of Princeton Uni and then became Governor of New Jersey for TWO years before becoming POTUS. TWO years experience as Governor of a small state compared to Obama’s eight years in the Illinois Senate and then 4 in the US senate.
Touche! =P
But that is executive experience Diogenes, and that counts for more IMHO.
Also Ill bet he did more in those 2 years than Obama has done in half a Senate Term!
Glen just face it, Rudd is experienced enough to be PM.
Oh wait, we’re not doing that argument anymore? My mistake….;)
Glen, that must be why Dubya made such a great POTUS with his 5 years of executive experience of a big state!
Granted… but at least Bush was not a p^%(y when it came to foreign affairs which is exactly what President Obama would be…no wonder China and Russia are hoping Obama wins because he is a light weight!
Or maybe they like him because he’ll actually engage on certain issues instead of taking unilateral action in areas that have no relevance to the US?
Ah, but there’s Pakistan again. Dammit Obama, rid yourself of foolish rhetoric like that and I’d find it far easier to defend you.
lol engage…seriously the USA will be a weaker country internationally with Obama in the White House countries arent going to take him seriously and will be more likely to see how much they can do because Obama will be a p&%$y and pull out of Iraq immediately just as we’re winning and drawing down…no foreign country will think he has the balls to stand up to the plate and dish it out!
I can bet you Rudd will be booking a flight to the US on November 5th!
Please don’t tell me you think Bush is taken seriously around the world? For all the relative “success” of the surge in Iraq, it and Afghanistan were huge foreign policy blunders that destroyed US credibility far more than anything Obama could ever do.
The surge has won Iraq Oz i know it is hard for you whiteflagers but it worked and Bush finally got the right policy in place.
Do you think Putin or Hu will be afraid of Obama do you think that they will be less likely to push the limits of the United States with a Rookie in the White House?
Why “p&%$y”, but not “b&%$s”?
I fell into the Christopher Pyne trap William lol!
Glen
The surge has not won Iraq. It’s just made the “tribes” more determined to do anything to get the US out of their country so they’re pretending to be nice. The majority of Iraqis say they are still WORSE OFF now than they were under Saddam.
Only a sadist could declare the displacement of millions of civilians and deaths of hundreds of thousands of others as a “win”.
It has done the job Diogenes, by the simple and best indicator…the media (anti-surge) have been silent on it because it has done so well. The insurgency is not over yet but Iraq is looking much better than it has in the past. Bush did many mistakes during the War but at least he has got it right now.
Also if Obama is perceived as a weak President internationally, i dont think this bodes well for Israel who may then contemplate doing things that may upset Iran.
Even from a purely political, and not ethcal POV, it would be interesting to se if Al Quaida and their kin regarded Iraq as a “victory”. I agree that the surge has worked in teh short term, but there is still no political solution in sight. Meanwhile most observers agree that the situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan is now worse than before Iraq. More terrorists than ever. One step forward, two steps back. Great.
Glen
Surely the only long term hope for peace in the middle east is for Israel to be muzzled. Stripping it of unquestioning US support would be a good step forward to making it behave better. Have you read Fisks “Great War for Civilization”? You should.
Not just Afghanistan and Pakistan, but consider the Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq pre-2003 was nil…
Complete instability in the region which has directly lead to the rise of Iran.
Pakistan is now a democracy. They are arming the tribes in the North with AK-47s to kill off the militants up there (ala Awakening Movements in Iraq) = good idea and they are making progress. NATO needs to step up in Afghanistan and so do we…Rudd pulled our troops out of Iraq and sent them home they ought to go to Afghanistan.
There was never going to be a political solution in Iraq without first dealing with security now that it is getting better i have high hopes for them.
No i havent socrates…but perhaps then the PLO and Hamas and Syria and Hezbollah should then have no unquestioning support from Iran…whoops never going to happen.
This problem is mostly the Palestinians fault and Arab worlds fault for not accepting the 48 partition…they were stupid for opposing it.
Solving Israel and Palestine wont automatically solve the problems that East and West have. It goes much deeper.
Ahmedinejad has had a nervous breakdown in Iran so things are looking up there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/27/AR2008102702736.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Pakistan, when created in 1947, was a democracy. It’s always been a democracy barring the military dictatorships which all had the support and approval of the US.
Good idea? Funny, sounds like how Al-Qaeda started. Oh wait. It’s exactly like how Al-Qaeda started.
K Glen, I’m going to bring in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Sudan, split your city in half, kick out everyone who lives there and I’m sure I’ll expect you not to oppose?
The Jews had and were living there for millions of years and the Arabs would have got more of Palestine than the Jews.
If you can think of a better idea regarding letting the tribes destroy the extremists in Northern Pakistan i would like to hear it?
“And in other news, South Carolina has traded eight Electoral College votes to Virginia in return for a second round NBA draft pick.”
Glen 407 The whole point of the book I referred you to is that it is NOT that simple. the Israelies were killing palestinians in the fight to recover a homeland long before vice versa was teh case. Hence the question of fault is the opposite of what you said. I don’t defend terrorists on either side. Nor am I anti-semitic; I have personally visited Birkenau and abhore the holocaust. Nevertheless, the militant jewish settlers of occupied (euphemism for conquered) territories are the prime cause of the ongoing conflict. If you don’t believe me, read Fisk.
BTW I just saw your 410 – wrong again. Most of the jews migrating from eastern europe are completely unrelated to the original jewish inhabitants of palestine/israel. The Arabs predated the original jewish tribes anyway – read your bible. IMO the main reason for western tollerance of the israeli annexation of palestine is guilt over WWII. Trouble is, we gave them someone elses land instead of their own back, and never gave compensation to its owners, the mainly marionite christian arabs living there.
There is no such thing as “destroying extremists”. Everytime you kill a father, son, wife or daughter, you turn the whole family and the whole town against time. The solution is to realise that arming groups of people who’s interests temporarily align with yours doesn’t work, but actually FIXING the core problems that drive people to extremism like er… indiscriminate bombing of villages and towns is what will work.
K, forget Sudanese refugees. We’ll bring in Indigenous people from across Australia into your city and kick you out.
Sorry not “against time”, “against you”. Random typo.
Glen 410
Almost forgot, modern homo sapiens have only existed for 150,000 years and the earliest hominid fossils in palestine are about 80,000 years old. Therefore it is quite hard for the jews or anyone else to have been living in Israel for “millions of years”.
Socrates i also do not favour the Jewish Settlers…
Socrates
But the world is only 5000+ yrs old
everything else is just conjecture
I don’t recall anyone in Pakistan running for election in the US in 10 days ……………………..
I’ve seen some high-grade discussions of the Israel-Palestine question on the internet over the years but this sure ain’t one of them.
I think everyone’s done them to death no one can be bothered putting in any effort.
I’m getting a bit sick of all the whining from the McCain camp about Palin. They chose her so they can’t complain abut her being underprepared. They mismanaged her roll-out, didn’t protect her from the $150,000 clothes fiasco and complain when she actually tells the truth, like saying robocalls are annoying and that Wright should be on the table. For a mavericky maverick, she’s been very “on message”. It sounds like the advisers are more interested in their next job than this one.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=6124663&page=1
The dirty little secret about the Israel-Palestine question is that the real reason there has been no peace settlement is that neither side wants one. They both say they do to keep the US, UN etc etc happy and the aid money flowing, but in reality neither does. Each wants to destroy the other, each believes that in time it will destroy the other, and they conspire together to prevent any progress towards a settlement which neither of them wants. Every US president since Nixon has discovered this fact, and Obama will too.
Adam said
That’s the political class, the average Joe is fed up with it.
You were saying this morning that you were a Liberal moderate – a Rockerfeller backer from way back – well, what Howard government policies do you oppose? Howard’s government was not a moderate Liberal government.
For those who, unlike myself, pay attention to the RCP headline national tracking composite percentages, tomorrow ths is likely to drop a point or even two as a couple of older and stronger-for-Obama polls drop off.
However, their RV estimate should hold up for Obama at the current level. In the past four weeks, RCP’s national tracking percentages have bounced up and down, but the RV estimate has risen steadily to 375 for Obama or 306 without tossups included. This correlates closely with the RV trends for Pollster. com, Princeton Consortium, and fivethirtyeight.com
It is crazy how all the different methadologies are essentially saying the same thing. 375 if you include leaners.
MSNBC is the first major network so far to actually declare that on the data, Obama has it won, and he can win without Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. I know most of the stations want to keep pretending it’s tight for the “excitement”, but it’ll be interesting to see if they keep ignoring the data that is staring them smack bang in the face.
ROTFL
…….
Re 427,
Really? Declared it already?
….. Cool, if that is actually the case 
…..
Guess that means the Fat Lady is officially into the first verse?
Injudstree just means that they are already predicting Obama will win, rather than most networks that are still saying “If McCain can win w, x, y, z” then this things will be REALLY close!
ShowsOn,
Crazy perhaps, but very helpful during the longest week in this two year campaign.
I read an interesting column by the estimable E. J. Dionne of NY Times today about Florida. His chief point is that, win or lose, it’s a state that shows what a brilliant campaign Obama has run. This is because Obama did NOT contest the primary in Florida when it was penalised by DNC for moving the date of its primary too early in the year. Therefore Obama did not have the same road tested organisation which he has in other battlegrounders. Regardless, he has opened more offices all around FLA than they have ever seen there before, and he has made the DNC and McCain (mostly the Corporate-funnel DNC as we know) devote a lot of $ attempting to hold it.
The election would’ve been earlier if Hillary was the candidate
I read somewhere this morning that 100,000 more Democrats than Republicans have already voted in Florida. That includes absentee ballots which Republicans normally have more of by a clear margin (elderly people who find it hard lining up).
I can’t remember which state it was, but something exactly the same as this happened in 2004.
ShowsOn @ 430, ok, no worries …. but regardless, that is on par with James Carville’s statement at the DNC
…….
Did he pick Obama was going to win way back then!?
I didn’t mean to say MSNBC has “called it” already. I meant to say they’re stepping away from the laborious “if McCain wins Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida… and holds one of Iowa, New Mexico or Nevada… but Obama doesn’t win Virginia… then he’s in with a chance!” bulldust.
LOL! U.S. considering talks with Taliban:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24567661-23109,00.html
There goes McCain’s foreign policy! I wonder if someone in the White House leaked this to further sabotage McCain’s campaign?
Moreover this is another signal that the Bush Doctrine is completely dead. The U.S. got nuclear material out of North Korea by reverting to diplomacy, and now they are considering reverting to diplomacy to try and stop the Taliban insurgency.
Diplomacy wins again. Bombing the crap out of third world countries just doesn’t work.
Although I note that “p^%(y” and “p&%$y” can be both poncy and pansy.
I have just logged in so I don’t know if anybody has mentioned it yet. It is now officlal, Obama can’t lose.
Obama has been endorsed by Ritchie Cunningham, Ritchie’s first ever old man, and, yes, wait for it, heeeyy, The Fonz. The Fonz is never wwrwrng!
You can check it out on ninemsn. It’s a classic.
Arizona is becoming a tossup:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/28/4152/9379/499/644273
Martin, I believe he meant “pussy”.
Or more precisely there aren’t enough people on either side who are willing to (definitely) give up stuff for (possible) peace. The conventional view, of course, is that that kind of thinking is soft, although I tend to think of such people as the good guys (on all sides).
It goes back to the defence vs security debate.
While I would probably no longer advocate all such budget should go towards promoting prosperity and security in regions of interest rather than ensuring we can efficiently deploy compulsion, nonetheless I think it is still a major strategic blind-spot of the ideological right to not see that maximum military enforcement is not always the best means to desirable resolution of conflict.
For want of a better word a weakling….
Nah, doesn’t fit. The 3rd & 4th characters are distinct in both. Punky is another possibility.
Or am I giving Glen too much credit
Curiously, weakling is a perfectly cromulent word that appears to convey your meaning much more precisely than any of pussy, pansy or poncy. (Although I don’t mind punky so much.)
In linguistics these are all known as Christopher Pyne words.
yes you are martin b
“Shoot moose? I thought she said she was loose”
Ahh Fonzy. How I missed you.
ShowsOn,
I can’t remember his exact words. I commented upon it here on PB at the time, but I can’t find the thread where we had our chatter about the DNC so I can’t dig it back up tonight
. It was something he said while they were IN the Pepsi Center so it wasn’t on Thursday (they were at Mile High Stadium outdoors that night). He said something very bold and out in left field type of thing. If I knew where to look, I could find it ….. we didn’t have a dedicated thread for the US elections back at the time of the DNC ……
Martin i think you would prefer an extra letter on punky to make it spunky as this probably best describes your views on Obama.
Christopher Pyne at least has the ba^%s i mean fortitude to stand up and make nasally speeches in Parliament lol!
Every trick the republicans have pulled over the last few months has fallen flat. I’m starting to suspect there may be a god.
Well i what would Obama do if North Korea carried out its recent threats.
North Korea threatens to turn South Korea into ‘debris’
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24565063-2703,00.html
“NORTH Korea today threatened to turn South Korea into “debris” unless Seoul stops what it described as a policy of confrontation.”
Without a strong man in the White House who knows what the North may do.
Adam in Canberra
rofl – indeed
Yeah I’ve heard them… “I move a motion to suspend so much of standing orders so that I can sound like a midget version of Alexander Downer.”
Diplomacy Glen, that’s what Bush has spent the last year doing, after making rediculous threats for the first 7 years of his administration. That got us absolutely no where. At least now we have nuclear material coming out, and food aid going in.
Yeah, obviously the weakling CURRENTLY IN THE WHITE HOUSE is having no effect whatsoever!
Glen, there will be a strong man in the White House very soon.
Yes Oz, the good old days.
Perhaps it would be better if the North did attack that would give the US an excuse and for that matter the South Koreans to invade and finally have 1 Korea!
Cromulent?
So who do the terrorists really want to win Obama or McCain?
Don’t tell me The Dessicated One was wrong?
Btw, after Obama wins, Howard must apologise for the sake of our alliance with the US. LOL
Martin B, you certainly have embiggened this blog with your arguments.
Don’t be a nutcase Glen. How would the world be better once thousands of innocent Koreans were killed, along with those that are currently starving to death?
Glen, I’m kind of pleased that we’ve returned to the stage where every single post of yours contains egregious errors of fact. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you just haven’t been paying attention so I’ll repeat my opinion of the democratic field this year.
I was an Edward’s man. It’s true that his affair would likely have toasted him (although thanks to W who can be sure) but as far as policy went I prefferred the white man.
I think that Obama and Clinton are both excellent candidates who most likely would both be fine Presidents. Each of them had strengths and weaknesses both as candidates and as potential POTII (which of course are distinct categories).
For not particularly good reasons (one of which was that it would be better for the first female POTUS to be the first in her immediate family) I preferred Obama over Hillary. I’m far from a fan – if only he were the most liberal member of the Senate I might be (the fact that he was awarded that title shows how stupidly it’s calculated).
There is a point that some people show adulation, but I am one of the majority of Obama partisans who just think pragmatically he’s a good candidate.
* I deplore the commentary that Hillary only got to her position because of Bill, as I am sure that Bill only got to his positions with Hillary but it is a matter of history that Bill was a former POTUS.
It’s hard to think of a weaker President than Bush has been in the last year. Nixon during Watergate comes to mind.
I have my doubts about Obama is ppl here know, but he will come to office with a solid mandate, large majorities in both houses of Congress, a huge amount of public goodwill and the absolute delight of most of the international community. He will have no lack of talented and experienced ppl wanting to help him. It will take a singular level of incompetence to be a weak or bad president with all that going for him.
Yes I have been considering that Obama winning would be a final f-you to Howard.
Incidentally Rudd’s censure motion was perhaps his best attack as opposition leader.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e7bhsziwJ4
But anyway, I’m not here to diatribe, I’m here to ask nerd questions.
Where is the best coverage of ballot measures on Nov 4?
Buchanan before Lincoln took over.
And the beauty of the U.S. system is that all the incompetent Republican hacks who have been destroying the bureaucracy can be swept aside by the stroke of the President’s pen.
I know most people here don’t have time for Zogby, but it’s dropped one point to +4.
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN2735634120081028
Anyone guessing what the turnout will be? What’s the chance of it being over 60% for the first time since the sixties?
The news for McCain has been so bad for the last few weeks that I think a lot of Republicans are going to stay home. So maybe it will match the 2004 turn out because a heap of Democrats are excited about a win.
Bill Clinton wasn’t as weak in his last year but he was fairly impotent, figuratively but not literally as it turns out.
Nate has a great rule of thumb to tell if there could be a “narrowing”.
Carter once the hostages were taken? I guess not as he at least got to run for re-election. GWB has given new meaning to lame-duck. Pretty much since 2004…
Tonight Simpson’s episode was particularly relevant.
Two aliens, Kodos and Kang, after kidnapping Bob Dole and Bill Clinton and disguising themselves as them:
“It’s a two party system! What are you gonna do?!”
Random guy:
“I believe I’m going to vote for a third-party candidate!”
Aliens:
“Go ahead, throw away your vote!”
*Shock and horror from the crowd*
Later on when the aliens win and turn the human race into slaves…
Homer: “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!”
Yes Shows On.
How ironic!
Here is a man, John Howard, who has never and could never say SORRY about anything. But by God, before he finally rides out into the sunset, he will, he MUST, for the good of Australia’s alliance with the US, say SORRY to Barack Obama.
What a beauty!
LOL @ Pat Buchanan! As I say, if only
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/obamas_first_100_days.html
So maybe it will match the 2004 turn out because a heap of Democrats are excited about a win.
So you reckon maybe biggest since 70’s but not since 60’s?
Why?
I wish that was going to happen under a Democratic administration. No way it couldn’t, to be honest, but it won’t.
That’s my guess. 2004 was a big turn out historically. I reckon this election will match it, less Republicans, and 5 million or so more Democrats.
People think the Economy is the big issue.
How will the candidates react to this sort of nonsense?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/28/2403810.htm?section=world
If the Dems do take the white house then they cannot blame the Republicans anymore they have so much power to do good and if they dont there will be hell to pay.
Hi
G.G.
How are you?
Check the historical record Glen. The U.S. economy grows faster, and there is higher employment under Democrats.
Well they can still blame the Republicans for leaving them stuck in two wars, record deficits and a record national debt.
Check the link at post 465.
so long as the filibusters don’t take over…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/obama-should-spill-a-litt_b_138301.html
But Obama will have to be on the right foot from the beginning because of the financial crisis…
Democrats are within striking distance of 58 + Sanders and Lieberman.
If they get that close to 60 then there will be some moderate Republicans who will support them on some issues.
Some of them will want to jump on the Obama bandwagon at least early on I think.
Of course…
So where do you rate Bush? Above or below Clinton?
I think Obama might start with the left foot
Yep SHowsOn, 60 is the magic number. Though I guess that’ll mean the end of the USA, and the beginning of the USSA. Damn socialist millionaire democrats!
Well domestically below Clinton by some way i might add but internationally (ie foreign policy) above Clinton.
#488
ShowsOn, equally there are “boll weevil” Southern and mid-western Democrats who will make getting the “magic 60″ very difficult
So when is Obama’s purchased airtime shceduled for again?
So Glen if a leader goes to war based on false intelligence and his incompetence he rates highly on foreign policy?
Centre said
Do you know where the end of it is?
Ahh the blue dog democrats (hold outs from the South)!
Apparently one of the richest congressman is Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. He even runs the Democratic senate campaign committee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Schumer
And Biden is the poorest.
See! Diversity.
Don’t you think they will come together to support some of Obama’s election initiatives, like his tax plan and health care proposals?
I mean health care seems to be something that is popular everywhere, in the south too.
The remembrance of JWH’s words re Obama had me going back to google to find his exact words… just amazing. That we could have had him still as our PM boggles the mind.
http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/political_transcripts/article_2124.asp
Well despite W’s problems he still does better than a guy who…
Failed with Croatia/Serbia/Bosnia…
Failed with Rawanda
Failed with Somalia
Failed with dealing with Iraq, weak missle strikes in 1998
Appeasing North Korea for nothing
Failed with hunting down Bin Laden by not going after him properly
hmmm doesnt seem like he did a good job foreign policy wise.
What, so now you’re going to blame Clinton for stuff that had nothing to do with the US?
You may as well blame Bush for Chechnya, West Papua, riots in Bolivia, Kashmir, Sudan…
Yes Grog. Howard has never said sorry about anything. But he must say sorry to Obama. What is he a man or a mouse? Oops, bad choice of words LOL.
What a way for Howard to go out. Hell, maybe there really is a god.
Bush made the ultimate policy failure that any President can make – a massive terrorist attack took place on U.S. soil.
That alone condemns him to forever be considered a failure at the most basic thing governments are meant to do – protect their citizens from security threats.
Well he should have done something cmon he’s the President of the most powerful country on earth and he sits on his hands when people are being murdered…
I wish Clinton did something then…
Bush cannot get involved in Chechnya or West Papua because doing so would get America into hot water…nothing stopped them from helping the Rwandans out.
Bush might have made unforgivable mistakes on Iraq but he still did a much better job on fp than Clinton did IMHO
Glen,
As your on Fantasy Island, “The planes, the planes”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_QbVDlLbI
How many terrorist attacks happened after 9/11? Zero..
When did the WTC first get bombed was that under Clinton ahhh yes it was?
check mate ShowsOn!
That’s the stupidest logic I’ve ever heard. Wait, there’s no logic there whatsoever.
Now it makes sense.
Yes, fool – he should have invaded and got bogged down in a conflict with no exit strategy…
that’ll need more explanation.
Geez Glen. I guess moving a conflict entirely away from Afghanistan to Iraq, where Bin Laden never was or ever will be was great work…
You forgot to mention that he failed to cure cancer, reunite The Beatles…
Ever heard of Bali?
Glen, you’re essentially moving your king pawn up two and yelling out checkmate.
That doesn’t actually mean anything.
“Bush might have made unforgivable mistakes on Iraq”
Glen, I don’t believe it, you said it.
Now don’t you really think Howard should apologise to Obama? C’mon.
And Bali again, Madrid, London, London again…
Oz,
Glen is playing Draughts.
Get with the program.
Glen,
9/11 is the big one in this context. Bali happened after 9/11 BTW.
People are being murdered all over the world as we sit here typing things into this blog. Should the U.S. president stop EVERY criminal / illegal / war-like act anywhere in the world at any time?
SERIOUS QUESTION. The fact is, the U.S. has to pick and choose its fights wisely, else it gets tied down policing the entire world.
That was the policy that Bush criticised Clinton and Gore from embracing?
Bali bombing, bombing of Australian embassy in Jakarta, bombing at Pakistan hotel earlier this year.
That was nothing compared with airplanes being flown into buildings Glen.
I meant in the US i am sorry i didnt distinguish. He has made the US safer.
LOL checkmate ShowsOn you said that suffering a terrorist attack on a large scale which that one was in 1993 was unforgivable so you should also tag Clinton for dropping the ball too.
Also
And I do believe they caught all those involved…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_bombing
CONNECT FOUR Glen! The World Trade Centre no longer exists, it’s gone, it’s vanished, you lose!
??? Spurious logic (if any). C’mon Glenn, by that logic because there were no more attacks in the USA after 93 while Clinton was in office he made the USA safer, and Bush dropped the ball.
That could of happened under Clinton just as it happened under Bush the security services dropped the ball essentially…
Arent you forgetting WACO lol!
ROYAL FLUSH GLEN.
Well hell, let’s just include the Washington snipers…
BUSH never HAD the BALL, that’s the problem Glen. UNO!
The security services gave Bush documents pointing out Al-Qaeda was alive and well and planning attacks in the US, in the latter half of 2001 possibly using airplanes.
What did Bush do? Go on holiday.
Uno!
Dammit Showson, you stole my Uno.
Oz there have been no more terrorist bombings in America since 2001! Check mate!
They gave the same things to Clinton and he did nothing too!
Snap!
4000 US soldiers are dead and 30,000 are injured due to actions taken by Bush.
Rummy!
Yours was pretty good.
No, just Anthrax sent to various members of congress.
That’s because the Republicans were in their isolationist phase, and condemned Clinton wherever he deployed U.S. forces. YAHTZEE!
Apparently Bush has lost the whole game of Monopoly.
Well done GWB – way to get over that incredibally low bar.
Geez Glenn all you ask of GWB is that no more major never-happened-ever-before terrorist bombings occur in the USA (excluding anything by domestic crazies) and then you declare him a for-policy genius.
All you ask of Clinton is that he bring about world peace…
I do love objective marking.
anyone for Jenga?
But that was done but people within the USA who just wanted more funding…
I thought his game was rock, paper, scissors.
Bush kept on reading to school kids for 20 mins after the WTC attacks. Bullseye!
That sentence doesn’t make sense!
Blackjack!
Clinton lead the world when we should of been coming together this was a time when the US had the power to do anything it wanted they won the Cold War they were top dog. The world got back at the US eventually and thats when Bush took over and he made a mess of things (domestically) and he made fp errors but how on earth would things have been much better fp wise if Gore won in 2000?
LOL
Glen is playing pick up sticks, he will be with you in a minute.
I’m quitting while I’m ahead, run out of calls.
I don’t know who you mean by “the world” in this sentence. Isn’t the U.S. part of “the world”?
I doubt he would’ve gone to Iraq, if S/11 happened he would’ve gone to Afghanistan and – unlike Bush – sorted that out properly. He also probably would’ve done something serious on climate change by showing leadership, after all, even you agree the U.S. was the “top dog” after the Cold War, so they should’ve taken serious action to do something about such a serious issue.
SNAKE EYES!
So who will fill Obama’s vacancy and does that person have to be coloured?
Is “coloured” PC?
This is what I seriously would have done if I was POTUS at the time of the WTC attacks:
1. Ensure that our flight securities and borders were A1.
2. Wait and accumulate all real intelligence on Al Quada and Bin Laden.
3. One by one, bribing plenty, wisely and intelligently to catch Bin Laden and members of his organisation and Al Quada secretly.
4. Secretly get Saddam Hussein rubbed out.
5. Continue to get evil dictators around the world rubbed out.
As much as it pains me to say it, I agree with Glen on one thing. Clinton (and the UN) failed on Rwanda. Bill himself admits he should have sent peacekeepers to Rwanda earlier.
I’ve heard three sitting Congressman touted to replace Obama in the Senate: Rahm Emanuel, Jan Schakowsky and Jesse Jackson Jr.
Hey perhaps the Republicans should put up a 1 term Senator up against Obama in 2012 lol!
I said coloured because Obama is not ‘black’ he has some caucasian background.
And those of a mixed race are “coloured”? Not quite black, not quite white, nor grey, but “coloured”. Interesting revival of 1950’s Alabama terminology.
Or even a one term Representative! Oh wait, they did that 150 years ago. But it worked!
Something tells me the Republicans will put up a Bob Dole in 2012 if Obama wins…
Well if s/he is a good enough candidate to win the primary why not? – It’s called democracy Glen.
Oz
i read micheners ‘caribbean’ awhile back
the terms from mulatto,quadroon were coined by an english slaver
cant remember name but his basis was skin colour (and parentage of course)
LOL! I just saw the Lateline clip of Palin saying that yesterday was a “sad day for Ted Stevens” after he accepted $250,000 worth of bribes.
She is so out of touch.
A sad day for Alaska as well, apparently.
Why? Because Alaskans really love corrupt politicians?
If the Dems miss out on the magical 60 seats required in the Senate by just 1 or 2, what’s the chances of them picking them up in the mid term congressional elections in two years time?
I have no idea!
The idea that Palin is some genius ’salt of the earth’, ‘in touch with the common man’ politician is a joke. She just comes across as clueless, and not even aware that she is clueless.
Good. Because that will be the end of the term that saw a lot of Republicans elected, so there will be more Republicans up for re-election.
In 2004 there were 19 Republican Senators elected, and 15 Democrats.
On paper there do look to be more opportunies for the Democrats in the 2010 Senate elections. (I see Markos Moulitsas is licking his lips.)
However, I think there’s every chance the Democrats will be facing a 1994 type environment by then. A bit like how the Labor state govts are going backwards with Labor in office federally.
David,
You would think it will be a really tough time for incumbents over the next two years.
I reckon the voters will cut Obama a lot of slack (and of course he doesn’t have to front up for four years, anyway). They might not be so gentle with Congress, though, if things are going badly.
Yeah it will get tougher. Some voters who are going to support Obama next week will want to see some results by 2010, let alone 2012.
But still, who would’ve thought the Republicans make so gains in 2002.
Because Bush had approval ratings then in the 80s lol and the Republicans were popular back then.
Very true.
Things change quick when you’re incompetent.
Obama will soon find that out too ShowsOn.
Historically it’s almost axiomatic that the party of the President loses ground at the mid-term elections.
It does seem possible that the next two years might be different – scale of the policy challenges, single party control of Congress and the White House (assuming the widely-expected Obama victory) and the unique aspects of the incoming President.
It seems certain that there will be extravagant expectations, but it seems likely also that there will be an unusually fortuitous confluence of circumstances which might give the Democrats a chance of further improvement of their congressional position.
An Alf Landon, more like.
Is something happening? Obama has gone from 8% ahead to 6.8% ahead in the National RCP averages in the space of about 3 days.
Oz @ 479,
Not so sure I like the first option, but the rest are brilliant
….. I had read this earlier myself on the web and liked it.
Glad to see that there is someone else out there with me on the political spectrum
“Is something happening? Obama has gone from 8% ahead to 6.8% ahead in the National RCP averages in the space of about 3 days.”
It’s bounced around between about +6 and +8 over the past couple of weeks – as new polls come into the average and older polls get superseded.
I wouldn’t have thought there’s any need to seriously consider the prospect of an upset unless it gets below (say) +5.
Boerwar
Jjulian pointed out much earlier in this thread that the RCP average would drop substantially (to about 6%) over the next couple of days as some of the more ‘interesting’ pro-Obama numbers drop off the board.
Incidently, anyone understand the difference between the Gallop traditional and expanded polls? I though it was to do with RVs vs LVs but they both appear to be LVs in the RCP listing.
Yo ho ho,
It already dropped to 6% last week, then went back up again.
Really the key message is that Obama’s miles in front, with signficant cushions in pretty much all the States that were being identified as crucial at the time of the conventions.
Sure, some of those State figures could be furphies (eg I am still having trouble believing he’ll win in Florida). But it’s extremely unlikely that they could all be out by so much as to flip them into the McCain column (unless of course there’s a systemic effect that makes all this year’s polling stuffed, which again seems very unlikely).
Dyno.
Fully agree – Around 8% does seem to be the high water mark for the national average. Looking at the graph on RCP it seems that since the beginning of October its bounced around between 5% and 8%. Can’t imagine that changes are anything more than white noise….
Ah, thanks guys. Now back up to 7%. Not being very statistical I enjoy upwards movements and do not like downwards shifts.
After thinking about Palin’s future, I believe she has a future as County Dog Catcher. Some of the pit bulls might get confused, but no-one is perfect.
Juliem@568. It is a fairly ordinary list, really. (Except for the border bit.) So why is it made to look so extraordinary in the US?
Everyone fill in the survey here (scroll down to below the map): http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Only U.S. citizens are meant to answer all the questions. Non-U.S. citizens are meant to skip question 1, but answer all the others.
Boerwar and others,
For RCP, it is wise to pay little attention to their headline National Average. Despite it yo-yoing this past month, their estimate of Electoral Votes is a steady rise for Obama to 306 without tossups and 375 with tossups included.
The more reliable, in my view meta-analysis of state polling only at Princeton University by Prof. Sam Wang today has Obama at 363 RV (311 RV rated “SAFE”) and overall national meta-margin of 7.34%.
jjulian1009 @ 576 Thank you. Is there a link?
For those wanting to enter or change their guesstimates in Juliem’s EV contest, here’s RV specifics from Princeton the Election Consortium (election.princeton.edu):
Prof. Wang’s SAFE Obama states which were RED in 2004 are: IA, NV, CO, NM, OH, VA.
Leaning Obama states which were RED in 2004 are: ND, MO, NC, FL.
No Tossups.
Boerwar,
No worries, mate. Link: http://election.princeton.edu/electoral-college-map/
Shock News! Washington Times (aka Mooneytown Times) endorses: McCain.
Be still my pounding heart.
Rich Lowry has an excellent article on why McCain was a poor candidate. He describes McCain as a gadfly (Mr X is another one), which was Socrates’ nickname. He explains why a gadfly is popular when he’s independent but hopeless as a mainstream candidate.
John McCain — The Agony of a Gadfly
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjIyYzU1ZTY3OThhNGNjNDZiMWU5MDY2MDI2YjYwYjM=
I resent any comparison with McCain!
But Diogenes seriously thats a good point on McCain. Its easy to be a “maverick” when you don’t have to pass a budget and make hard decisions on who misses out with finite resources. It underlies why nobody has confidence that he can actually solve the current mess.
Is it too late to go into Juliem’s prediction game? Does anyone know the link?
Boerwar @ 574,
Because the conservatives have held power, either literally or figuratively, in the US for SO long that to get these things into law is like a miracle. If you discount Clinton (who really had to deal with a Republican congress for the most part), the conservatives have been in control more or less since Reagan. Imagine how the Labor folks must have felt nearing the end of the Menzies years? I was born in 1961 so I can only imagine …..
Socrates @583
Not too late for Juliem’s prediction contest. Just post the following and she will pick it up next time she returns:
1. Final EV total for Obama
2. What state will be the one which puts Obama over 270 EV.
3. Will Obama win Ohio? Yes or No?
My guesstimates are 313, California, and No.
Sorry, #3 is not Ohio, it is Missouri!
Right now Missouri is a dead heat, and Claire McGaskill won the Senate seat for Dems in 2006 by a whisker, AND Obama got over 100,000 at St. Louis campaign rally on 18 Oct.
However, I lived there for a while and still have openly racist in-laws living there, so I wouldn’t trust “Mizzou” as far as I could throw Uluru!
jjulian are you arguing the only reason people would have to not vote for Obama would be racism?
Jjulian thanks
Juliem
My guesses are 328 EV to Obama, Colorado and Yes – Ohio to Obama
Make that McCaskill. She defeated an incumbent Repub. Senator by 2.3% in 2006. In 2004 she lost race for Governor by 2.9%. That gives you and indication of what a knife-edge state Missouri is.
Itep,
I am absolutely NOT saying that racism is the only reason that people do not vote for Obama, and as an American-Australian, I’d like to think that only a tiny percentage of Americans would make racism, sexism, or age-ism their sole reason for voting against either Prez ticket.
My racist relatives usually vote Democratic, but support McCain this time because they don’t like uppity #######. If this were not such a knife-edge state, then there shouldn’t be enough people there like my rels to make a difference. I have cited the slim margins of Claire McCaskill in post 590 as evidence of the knife-edge character of this state.
As Juliem would say, we’re all entitled to our opinion, and I will give full respect to any you have to offer about Missouri.
Socrates, JJ et. al.,
I’ve added in your notes this morning and this is what we have so far. Anyone wants to change anything, get in if you’re not in or fill in the blanks (if I’ve got something missing), you’ve got till 10pm Tuesday night to get it in. Any changes “postmarked” after 10pm on Tuesday I will not put into the list.
Apologies in advance if you don’t want to play, William. I just popped in your guesses from what you said on the intro paragraphs ….
Note – the 2 questions (1) Will Obama take Missouri? and (2) which state will put him over the top? are tie breakers ONLY, otherwise will not be used.
(1) (2)
Dario O 286 N MO Colorado
worktorule O 291 N MO Colorado
Diogenes O 293 N MO Minnesota
philofsydney O 306 N MO NC
ShowsOn O 309 N MO Colorado
GaryBruce O 310 Y MO Florida
Al O 311 N MO CA/OR/WA/HA
jjulian1009 O 313 N MO California
Kakuru O 318 N MO
injuddstree O 322 N MO
Socrates O 328 Y MO Colorado
Enjaybee O 338 N MO Florida
Hugo O 338 N MO Virginia
Gusface O 348 Y MO Colorado
Grog O 348 N MO Florida
Sondeo O 350 N MO Colorado
David Walsh O 364 Y MO California
Julie O 375 Y MO Colorado
William O 375 Y MO
BH O 376 Y MO Florida
Yo ho ho O 400 Y MO Florida
Not to mention significant reserves of international goodwill.
That’s the true genius of Bush’s incompetence. He has managed to take unprecedented levels of domestic and international support and completely blow them.
No link to play folks, just post your choices/guesses on PB and I’ll sweep them up the next time I come by
oh sorry, just a reminder, there are no formal prizes, just the pride of getting the right answer
jj @ 578,
I don’t buy Ohio as being a safe state for Obama yet. The pain of 2004 in Ohio is too strong …. I would put Ohio in the second list along with Missouri and Florida and so on …..
Right now Pollster.com has Missouri: 48.4 Obama to 46.6 McCain
Polls in Missouri this week are tighter than a fish’s proverbial:
Pollster Dates N/Pop McCain Obama Barr Nader McKinney Other Undecided Margin
FOX/Rasmussen 10/26/08 1000 LV 47 48 1 2 0 - 3 +1D
SurveyUSA 10/25-26/08 672 LV 48 48 - - - - 1 0
Reuters/Zogby 10/23-26/08 600 LV 46 48 - - - - 6 +2D
Mason-Dixon 10/22-23/08 625 LV 46 45 - - - - - +1R
Research 2000 10/20-23/08 800 LV 47 48 - - - 3 2 +1D
Juliem
Great minds think alike (and fools never differ, eh?). Seriously, I don’t count Ohio as safe yet either, although polls this week are looking “very nice, very nice” (film quote from?):
Click here for our “classic” non-flash chart.
Pollster Dates N/Pop McCain Obama Barr Nader McKinney Other Undecided NV Margin
SurveyUSA 10/26-27/08 648 LV 45 49 - - - 4 3 - +4D
Times/Bloomberg 10/24-27/08 644 LV 40 49 - - - - - - +9D
FOX/Rasmussen 10/26/08 1000 LV 45 49 1 0 0 - 4 - +4D
Reuters/Zogby 10/23-26/08 600 LV 45 50 - - - - 5 - +5D
PPP (D) 10/22-23/08 993 LV 44 51 - - - - 5 - +7D
Politico/InsiderAdvantage 10/22/08 408 LV 42 52 - - - - - - +10D
Strategic Vision (R) 10/20-22/08 1200 LV 48 45 - - - 2 5 - +3R
Big Ten 10/19-22/08 564 LV 41 53 - - - 2 5 - +12D
University of Cincinnati 10/18-22/08 886 LV 46 49 1 2 - 0 3 - +3D
OHIO UPDATE
Right on cue, here’s CNN latest poll just out:
“Polls show McCain not making up ground in Ohio
Posted: 07:36 PM ET
(CNN) — John McCain does not appear to be making up ground in Ohio, the key battleground state that is crucial to keeping his White House hopes alive.
According to CNN’s latest poll of polls of the state, the Arizona senator now trails Obama by 6 points there, 50 percent to 44 percent. That gap is two points wider than it was Monday and double what it was one week ago.”
Please note the CNN poll of polls is an aggregation of polls this week, NOT new polling data as far as I can make out.
Does anyone think there will be a smokey state. One that we have been paying little attention to, that Obama will win anyway due to the strength of his “get out and vote” organisation?
Like North Dakota, Montana, Georgia? If Obama wins 380+, then surely that means he will win some completely unsuspected state.
Pollster.com has even changed Mississippi to “lean McCain”!
http://www.pollster.com/
He won’t win 380+
McCain’s win chance up from 3.3% to 3.8% on 538.com! He’s COMING BACK!
Ok, contra Adam’s opinon, Palin would make history if she was the 2012 candidate (assuming Obama wins this one).
No losing Republican party VP candidate has gone on to be Presidential nominee at the next election, and only one losing VP candidate has ever gone on to be Presidential candidate in a subsequent election (Bob Dole, losing VPOTUS candidate 76, POTUS candidate 96).
Winning Republican VP candidates who have gone on to be Presidential nominees in the next election are Nixon and GHW Bush, as well as T Roosevelt and Coolidge of course.
Only one losing Democratic party VP candidate has gone on to be Presidential nominee at the next election, Mondale (who of course was elected VP in 76 before losing in 80 going on to be POTUS candidate in 84). One other losing Dem VP candidate has gone on to be Presidential candidate in a subsequent election (F Roosevelt, losing VPOTUS candidate 20, POTUS candidate 32 etc).
Winning Dem VP candidates who have gone on to be Presidential nominees in the next election are Humphrey and Gore, as well as Truman and LBJ of course.
Why is RCP keeping two ridiculous polls from the past few days? One is 6 days old.
If you average yesterday’s polls it’s +5 Obama. Yes still a landslide etc.
Mississippi will have a higher Democrat vote this time because it is the most African-American state in the US.
Martin B, as far as I can tell what youv’e posted is not contrary to Adam’s opinion. Unless you’re saying Adam’s opinion was that past losing Republican VP candidates have gone on to be Presidential candidates in a subsequent election.
I mean that Adam is saying that it is a likely option, whereas history suggests otherwise. (I presume the Republican party is no more tolerant of losers than the Liberal Party is in Australia.)
It’s just suggestive of course – history changes – so I wasn’t meaning to suggest that it definitely contradicted Adam.
I think it’s far more likely that in 4 years time there will be at least one other compelling choice.
601,
ShowsOn, my guess of 375 is based upon the RCP notossup states map. Todays version thereof is http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=10
I look at the states which are red and while I can entertain thoughts of some of them going blue (most notably to me Georgia), I don’t think that there is enough time to bank on it. Had we another month in the campaign with these polls, I would say yes. While a week might turn some of these states (don’t know how close the red ones are to being blue) I wouldn’t bet on it.
I wonder how the Ted Stevens may effect things. That’s like the Mark Foley ‘incident’.
It is too easy for Democrats to use that as another sign of Republican corruption and incompetence.
The question is whether in those states a significant number of Republican voters are discouraged from voting as they consider it a lost cause. If that happens it’s certainly conceivable that those states could be won by the Democrats.
Martin B @ 608, you assume correctly. The knives are already out
…..
[
GOP Draws Internal Battle Lines Around Sarah Palin
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/27/gop-draws-internal-battle_n_138303.html
Yeah, the demoralisation factor, added to a really good ground game by the Obama camp MAY give him a narrow victory in a state that as of today we think is unlikely.
I guess this could apply to Indiana which I still think McCain is favoured to win. But it could happen in Georgia if Bob Barr’s vote reaches 4 or 5%.
I mean seriously hasn’t the “Obama is going to win this” vibe been strong for at least 10 days now?
Still think Obama on 310-325 is where it’s at. It will tighten down from the 370+ as the day gets closer. Georgia, Arizona etc won’t go to Obama. He will win easily, but not as easily as some are calling it.
ltep,
nice to see you cheerleading for our side for a change
Out of early voters in Florida, there are 4.7% more Democrats than Republicans:
http://elections.gmu.edu/early_vote_2008.html
Just a little anecdote to lighten the heart of Obama supporters (myself included)…
I recently heard from a (black) friend of mine in Iowa. She and her mother just voted, and her mother broke down in tears at the polling station, having been raised in the segregated South and now she was voting for a black president. But that’s not the anecdote…
My friend’s sister lives in central Virginia, and is married to a “career military” man. He’s a devout Republican, and refers to northern Virginia as “communist” because of its Democrat leanings. Anyway, last week his daughter had brought an Obama-Biden sign home from school. Her mother (my friend’s sister) quietly stashed it under the bed, away from her “”career military” husband. Anyway, the next day she was astonished to find the sign standing in her front yard. When she walked into the house, she found out that her husband (a lifelong Republican) had put it there! He’s voting Democrat for the first time. Admittedly, it’s not out of love for Obama, but his loathing of Sarah Palin, and his indifference to McCain.
End of anecdote.
Watch out, Florida, here we go …….
How the US can use computer voting systems amazes me after these kinds of results. I really don’t want to use the word ‘rigged’, but it’s hard not to when you see them behave like this caught on video…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/west-virginia-vote-flippi_n_138729.html
Sarah Palin, Socialist:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/03/081103taco_talk_hertzberg
What the Republican governor did was GOOD. Unlike Jeb Bush he is obviously a Governor interesting in letting every eligible person who wants to vote exercise that right.
I’m all for the use of computer systems where they are vigorously tested by an independent source to ensure there are no bugs.
Having said that, I recently voted in the ACT elections where they use PDA’s to mark you off of the role and there were so many bugs in it (for my name) that they made me do a declaration vote. I wasn’t too happy that I’d have to sign a declaration to vote out of something that wasn’t caused by any error on my part. To make it even more silly the electoral worker asked me ‘Do you still want to vote?’.
There are so many people in the U.S., wouldn’t paper only ballots make things even slower, and more difficult?
Maybe they should have a voting WEEK rather than an election day. The early voting has basically extended it anyway.
These are the early voter stats by party affiliation for North Carolina:
Party 2008 2004
Dem 54.6% 48.6%
Rep 28.1% 37.4%
None 17.3% 14.1%
Bush won N.C. in 2004 by 435,000 votes, or 12.5%.
See chad.
Black voter turn out and early voting:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/harbinger.html
Key passages:
Charlie Crist doesn’t like McCain!
Unlike Jeb Bush in 2000 & 2004, methinks Crist won’t be involved in blatant vote rigging.
http://www.slate.com/id/2203151/pagenum/3
Interesting that the largest circulation newspaper in Ohio (The Plain dealer) has endorsed Obama:
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/
Reading the comments thread attached, this was clarly not a popular decision with some readers. Still, its an endorsement that Kerry didn’t have in 2004.
I thought he endorsed him?
Either way, this Republican Governor demonstrates that you can support one party, while still believing that the electoral process should be free and fair.
Oh comeon evan get over it!
There would never have been problems in the voting in 2000 if the US electoral commission gave people a piece of paper and a pencil!
Glen: even Republicans acknowledge Gore really won Florida in 2000.
Not all of them and besides the Democrats made sure overseas ballots (mostly from military units) were not counted either so nobody is squeaky clean there.
How to say you are voting for Obama using Sarah Palin-speak:
http://www.slate.com/id/2203151/pagenum/4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/28/AR2008102802955.html
What a stupid article. Essentially McCain’s “He wants to tax the rich!” expanded and padded out into a few hundred words. The argument is that while the vast, vast majority of Americans will experience tax cuts, those who earn the most, and are thus the most successful, will get taxed more. So it is a disincentive to be “successful”.
Two very simply things wrong with that. First, someone in the threshold that’s going to be increased is still going to be earning more than someone in the tax-cut threshold even though they percentage they pay may be slightly more. The monetary incentive to be “successful” still exists.
And more importantly, the American Dream is crock. It is impossible for everyone, not even a majority, of Americans to earn $250,000 a year. Why people keep falling that line even when they are experiencing harsh financial circumstances is beyond me.
There IS no “U.S. electoral commission”. The Presidential election is conducted on a state by state, county by county basis.
This is rubbish! Gore even accepted military ballots that arrived after the deadline!
LOL
Polls tightening further
STRESS BY GALLUP: OBAMA +2
http://www.drudgereport.com/
Who knows how it will unfold Obama is favourite to win but…
HA! Nice to see drudge has now reverted to the traditional likely voter metric.
He is great at using whatever metric suits his argument the best.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/obama-wins-newspaper-declares/
“Obama Wins!”
Hubris
Likely voter expanded is 51 – 44.
Stop showing hubris about hubris. There’s a week to go.
Bull butter this is the first time i have mentioned Hubris in a longtime and if the liberal media say Obama has already won the left is full of it…hubris i mean.
So Glen, I see you haven’t put in a guess for Juliem’s prediction game yet. Why not share with us your expertise and say what the EV score will be. Given your comments, you seem to believe a McCain win is possible. By what margin?
After all its no time to do a Turnbull and criticise from afar without offering an answer
ltep @ 623,
What polling place did you vote in? Just wondering if you came through my polling place where I was working …..
It is possible but by no means probable.
Hmmmm…dunno what did u say?
That prediction again Glen? McCain by how much?
C’mon, put your reputation where your heart is. After all, you do think he might win don’t you?
GO Socrates
…… good on you 
…….
Glen, we can put in a vote for you if you like?
If you can’t come up with a set of feasible numbers for McCain you ought to shut up since you can’t put up ……
juliem, it was Barton. I realise there’s always ‘hitches’ when it comes to technology but there should really be a paper backup that doesn’t involve people being forced to sign a stat dec to vote.
_______________________________
ShowsOn “Likely voter expanded is 51 – 44.”
What is that based on?
My poll aggregates have McCain in the lead in North Carolina for the first time.
Everyone hold your breath.
Put me down for a McCain win, 274 EV’s and Obama losing Ohio.
McCain melts in the rain, unlike Obama ….
OK, here’s my prediction:
Obama wins 338 EVs
I’m giving the kid all the Kerry states + Iowa+ New Mexico + Colorado + Nevada + Missouri + Ohio + Virginia + North Carolina
Florida I’m not confident about(for obvious reasons)
SNIP: Foul-mouthed comment deleted – The Management.
Well anyway I just read a few Ohio newspaper websites and I feel more confident for Obama now. Ohio seems to be a very rednecked place; some of the comments on feedback to editorials endorsing Obama were just bizarre – jewish banking conspiracies and worse. But overall the newspapers were endorsing Obama, with one (Columbus Dispatch?) endorsing McCain. The reasons weren’t just economic – they generally respected McCain (and cut him a remarkable amount of slack on his support of Bush) but even they couldn’t defend picking Palin, which clearly hasn’t gone down well.
So if Obama stays ahead in Ohio, with less thana week to go, I think he’s home
He doesn’t need Ohio
BTW, as a further comment on the Ohio newspapers, if they were an insight into the mind of middle america, then it is a very weird, inward looking and insecure place. There weren’t that many stories on the rest of the USA, let alone the world. Even the election coverage was centred around who would win in Ohio, and emphasising that it was a bellweather state. The fact that Obama was ahead in many other states barely registered.
I know Dario, I was just checking it before I decided my prediction for juliem. But it was an interesting exercise.
651, you got it … no worries, at least someone has put themselves on the line
Expanded simply takes the respondent at their word if they say they are going to vote.
The model that Drudge quoted only accepts them as likely voters if they have also voted in 2 out of the last 3 elections. If they haven’t voted in 2/3, but say that they will vote this time, it assumes that they won’t actually vote.
Dario: probably not, but those 20 electoral votes would be invaluable to Obama!
I’m more hopeful about Ohio than Florida, at this point!
651, that was Missouri, not Ohio, but I’ve noted it so on my list …..
ltep, oh ok then, I was a poll worker at Chisholm Primary School here in Chisholm on the south side …..
Oh Missouri, sorry. He won’t win Missouri either.
Btw I don’t actually hope McCain wins, but I’m not so eager to write him off completely and I wouldn’t mind being the only person in the world who picked a McCain victory. And if one were too occur, it’d be 274 EV’s.
654, Evan, I don’t know …. there is something or other about Joe the Plumber upon Huffington Post but I try to avoid his stories so I’ve not read it …. alll I know about McCain today is that he cancelled the PA campaign appearence when he didn’t want to get wet …..
I think McCain will win Ohio and Florida but prolly lose.
That’s actually more likely than not. According to fivethirtyeight, there is a 70% chance of that happening.
So I’ve put Glen down for an Obama win but no EV numbers specified …..
…….
I think it would have to be 291 for Obama, 247 for McCain.
A nice summary chart spreading out the candidates education and degrees …
Obama probably winning Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada i think Macca will hold the rest.
Yay same as me! UNSW > Columbia.
lol @ McCain and Palin. No wonder she can’t name any media sources.
Glen, does that assume he gets Kerry’s total plus those? and what would that total be? I’m not able to pull numbers out of my head so don’t have Kerry’s totals from 2004 ……
yes plus Kerry’s so Kerry’s plus Iowa, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico.
I believe that’s 291-247 for Greg.
OZ, same here…except ANU>UNSW>Columbia
Its nice to know i’m on the right pathway…now if i could only get that Harvard Law degree…
Psht, minor detail.
674 & 675,
Ok, will put that down guys
…..
Thanks Glen, a fair call. If McCain wins Ohio we are not that far apart.
These trend lines suggest that Georgia is going to be a squeaker:
http://www.pollster.com/polls/ga/08-ga-pres-ge-mvo.php
It all comes down to turn out, and if Obama can get about 35% of the white vote.
I think despite the ‘tightening’ Obama should win comfortably the swing States but i feel Obama will stuggle in Ohio and Florida but he could just as easily prove me wrong on election day.
Yes i have my quams about Obama but if the guy wins he obviously isnt an idiot (it aint easy winning the Presidency of the United States). Yes i wont agree with him on all issues but i dont even agree with McCain on some issues too. I just hope he does a good job for the sake of America if he wins, they are in real problems right now.
McCain could win but i seriously doubt it. Unless it is a rerun of 1948 one should put a bet on Barrack.
It isn’t anything they can’t recover from. They’ve done it before.
Glen I can think of at least one idiot who has won in the past.
Despite what u say and i know u dislike his policies but ‘he’ is not an idiot.
I beg to differ. He will be rightly remembered in times to come as possibly the worst President in history.
I can think of several worse than him.
I assume you are referring to the male Sarah Palin?
I think they both share two key problems 1) they see everything as a battle between us and them, good and evil, and 2) they are not inquisitive about the world, they think they know everything, and so refuse to expose themselves to information that contradicts their world view.
Personally I think Sarah Palin is far more articulate than George Bush.
Glen
I agree Bush is not an idiot (!). But he has been a disaster. The problem IMO is that he sees things in a too black and white fashion – he believes and helps his friends and distrusts and fights his enemies. Apart from this being bad for diplomacy, it means he has tended to rely on a narrow circle of advisors and becomes vulnerable to nepotism and cronyism, as well as taking bad advice. It brought him unstuck on Iraq, the economy and Katrina as well – Brown was a friend.
Bush will go down in history for having the highest and lowest approval ratings ever recorded.
I agree with much of what you said Socrates despite being a Bushbacker (i dont agree with much of his social policy). He promised so much it would have been interesting to see what kind of President he could of been had there been no 9/11….
They still would’ve gone to Iraq so I imagine exactly the same position they’re in today.
That’s debatable
Yes it is, and I’m sure noone wants to go through that tedious debate in the knowledge that it wouldn’t change anyone’s opinions.
Re 681,
Does anyone know what the polls were showing about 1948 prior to the election? I’ve never studied this election so I don’t know. Like some of the others on here this afternoon, my study was political science like Obama and Biden. But I studied international stuff, lots on the Middle East and my senior thesis was on Attaturk and Turkey. I don’t know about the 1948 election …..
William: “My poll aggregates have McCain in the lead in North Carolina for the first time.”
Interesting aggregation, William. I don’t expect NC to go Blue despite the good early voting numbers for Dems.
Here’s Pollster.com’s polling numbers this week in NC. Do you have other polls than these?
Pollster Dates N/Pop McCain Obama Barr Nader Undecided Other Margin
Fox/Rasmussen 10/26/08 1000 LV 49 48 - - 2 - +1R
PPP (D) 10/25-26/08 1038 LV 48 49 1 - 2 - +1D
Reuters/Zogby 10/23-26/08 600 LV 46 50 - - 4 - +4D
Mason-Dixon 10/23-25/08 625 LV 47 47 - - - - 0
Rasmussen 10/23/08 700 LV 50 48 - - 1 1 +2R
WSOC-TV 10/20-21/08 500 LV 46 48 - - 6 - +2D
CNN/Time 10/19-21/08 644 LV 47 51 - - 2 - +4D
Julie, you can read about it on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1948
The Democrats looked as if they were in bad trouble for a number of reasons. The polls seemed to reflect this. One flaw in the polls was that at the time telephone ownership was much less common than it is today and telephone owners were an unrepresentatively well-off section of the population. Also, some pollsters thought the Republicans were so far ahead that they stopped polling and missed what was probably a late Democratic surge. President Truman campaigned more vigorously than Dewey and kept on doing so right to the end. On election night the radio commentators were still generally convinced that Dewey would win once all the results were in. One pro-Republican newspaper actually went ahead and printed the headling ‘Dewey defeats Truman’ and there’s a famous photograph of the victorious Truman holding it up and grinning.
There’s a journal article on JSTOR that studied pre-election polling in ‘48 but I don’t have an account.
Specifically, Gallup had Dewey in front by between 8-11 points in the month or so before the election. I can’t find anything closer to the date.
http://www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/e-gov/e-politicalarchive-1948election.htm
Dewey between 5-15 points ahead before the election.
Juliem @ 695 said: “But I studied international stuff, lots on the Middle East and my senior thesis was on Attaturk and Turkey. I don’t know about the 1948 election …..”
Sounds like you were preparing to emigrate to OZ by studying the highly respected enemy commander at Gallipoli.
Re: 1948. Polling was in its adolescence. Prior to that time, the betting market numbers were the main indicators which the media reported, and betting markets have been returning to favour in the internet era.
It’s not particularly useful to compare polls of today to polls of 60 years ago. Too much has changed since then (e.g. polling method, weighting etc.)
For an even earlier example of an egregious failure of polling, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_Digest
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122524355079278651.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Attacks on Obama’s tax plan are gaining traction. Of course, that is the WSJ. I’ve read a number from articles from a variety of news sources publishing similar sentiments.
I’m yet to see any mainstream analysis of who the winners and losers are of McCain’s tax plans.
There have been quite a few IIRC. Essentially McCain’s tax cuts favour the rich.
Oh I know that, what I meant was that the media doesn’t seem to be ripping into the fact anywhere near as much as they’re complaining about how Obama is a socialist.
But that makes sense, “socialism” is far more controversial and exciting to talk about (ie. it sells) than the same old tax plans that the US have had for a decade.
I still don’t really understand what is so contentious about his tax policy. It looks fairly tame to me. I’d imagine they’d have a heart attack if they looks at the tax policies of some of our political parties.
To be fair, he’s going out a bit of a limb by increasing tax on the wealthiest. Even here we’ve been cutting back on that and no major party looks up to taking a policy of increasing tax to the election.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/story?id=6132629&page=1
If anyone was under the impression that only Republicans are corrupt…
jj,
Actually, I didn’t write about anything to do with military activities at all. It has been eons since then (Sept. to Dec. 1982) but I can still remember it. The seminar was on comparative revolutions (we studied 6; 3 violent and 3 non violent, compared and contrasted those 6 against each other). I can’t remember what all of the 6 were BUT I do remember that one of them was the US Civil War as an example of a violent revolution and we also studied the Spanish Civil War and the French Revolution too. Our assignment was to take a country that we had NOT studied and explain why its situation was a revolution and then why violent or non violent. I argued Ataturk and Turkey as a non violent revolution as he was a very strong mover bringing the country out of its religious background in the 19th century and moving them into democracy and secular, non religious patterns. Can’t remember what I said specifically and I no longer have the essay …..
From Jed Report website in response to Repubs accusations that Obama is socialist (also quoted on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” Campaign Comment:
Tue Oct 28, 3:18 AM Pacific
Oh No, Sarah Palin Is A Socialist Too!
It’s not just John McCain — Sarah Palin is a socialist too! Hendrik Hertzberg notes (emphasis added):
A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist–Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine–that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”
Link: http://www.jedreport.com/
What a little bewdy!
Julie @ 710
A most interesting thesis topic. ‘Tis unfortunate you don’t still have it.
Latest poll for Arizona, in case no one here’s mentioned it yet, from TPMelectioncentral:
“Arizona State U. Poll: McCain Barely Ahead In Home State
By Eric Kleefeld – October 28, 2008, 10:42PM
Is it possible that John McCain could lose his home state of Arizona, which has only voted Democratic once in the last 50 years? A new poll from Arizona State University puts McCain ahead, but also suggests that an Obama win is not at all out of the question.
The numbers: McCain 46%, Obama 44%, within the ±3% margin of error. The previous ASU poll from a month ago put McCain up 45%-38%.
Other recent polling has shown a close race, too. Rasmussen has McCain up 51%-46%, down from a 59%-38% lead a month ago.”
Link:
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/arizona_state_u_poll_mccain_ba.php
Re: McCain within margin of error in home state:
Will he or won’t he do a Johnny Howard?
JD @ 697,
Thanks for that
. From the articles there is this bit – [ Truman, trailing in the polls, decided to adopt a slashing, no-holds-barred campaign. He ridiculed Dewey by name, criticized Dewey's refusal to address specific issues, and scornfully targeted the Republican-controlled 80th Congress with a wave of relentless, and blistering, partisan assaults. ].
I guess that this means that negative campaigning doesn’t always lose you the election
……..
jj @ 713, at this point in the campaign, that is the million dollar question I think
…… think I will put Arizona newspaper websites into my favorites list for the next week 
…….
jj,
My first foray through the main newspaper from Phoenix turned this up this p.o.s from McCain’s pollster. Don’t know what he was smoking, but it must have been good, think I should see if I can find some
…
Today’s Zogby:
Obama 49.1
McCain 44.4
Random link: Gore Vidal has Palin pegged as a “giggly Piltdown princess out of pre-history.”
He also has some amusing, if acidic, things to say about her septuagenarian sugar daddy – e.g. “One does get the impression that the senator from Arizona is living in a sort of echo chamber of nonsensical phrases, notions and unreality.”
Fact – Gallup poll 2 days before the election had Gore 5 points in the lead over Bush back in 2000. We all know how that worked out.
As Obama said, the Democrats sure know how to lose.
Helps if the other side cheats…
Sure, and how do we know they won’t this time?
See e-voting, above.
And also remember the CEO of Diebold who makes voting machines was one of the biggest donaters to the GOP.
Oh dear …. the Dems make mistakes too
…
Here’s L.A.Times/Bloomberg latest for Florida and Ohio:
THE TIMES/ BLOOMBERG POLL
Obama leads McCain in Florida and Ohio, poll says
Voters see the economy as the chief issue and Obama as the best man to handle it, according to a Times/Bloomberg poll. Obama leads in Ohio, 49% to 40%; in Florida, 50% to 43%.
By Janet Hook
October 29, 2008
Reporting from Washington — Barack Obama is leading Republican presidential rival John McCain in two battleground states, Florida and Ohio, where voters have more confidence in his ability to handle the troubled economy, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
In Ohio, a state that has been battered for years by unemployment and plant closings, the Democrat is leading McCain, 49% to 40%, among people likely to vote.
In Florida, a state that was considered a likely win for Republicans not long ago, McCain is trailing, 50% to 43%.
In both states, Obama has opened commanding leads over McCain among women, young people, first-time voters, and blacks and other minorities.
McCain still is widely viewed as far better equipped than Obama to deal with terrorism and the war in Iraq. But voters in Ohio and Florida do not see those issues as paramount in light of the turmoil in the economy and on Wall Street.
The poll results undercut McCain’s closing argument that Obama is no friend of working people such as Joe the Plumber — the Ohio man who said he feared his taxes would rise if Obama were elected.
Among registered voters in Ohio, the survey found, Obama won support from 52% of white, working-class voters, compared with 38% for McCain. The poll defined “working class” as people with no college degree and a household income of less than $50,000.
Link:http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-poll29-2008oct29,0,7008892.story
I had a dream last night that the polls meant nothing and McCain held on to win. I vivid dream. Ever since, I’m on edge that something from left field (or should I say right field) will happen and sink Obama.
I offer the following reminder of our own 1998 Federal Election to reinforce the point which many of you have made in here that the U.S. Presidential Election is decided by the outcomes of 5O state elections.
ALP 2PP%: 51% Seats: 67
Coalition 2PP%: 49% Seats: 80
Please note Howard did not let this popular vote deficit stop him from implementation of a GST in July of 2000.
looking through a gallery of pictures from Obama’s PA campaign appearance in the rain in the last 24 hours or so. I noticed one picture that showed him waving with his watch on his left hand. Now earlier in the week I read (and posted the same) an article that says Obama is a leftie …….. shouldn’t left handed people wear a watch on their right hand? All left handed people I know do. Any lefties on the PB family who do NOT wear a watch on the right hand? …. I’m right handed and wear my watch on my left hand, you should wear it on the opposite hand.
wondering now if that report of him being a leftie was a mistake …. or maybe he’s ambidexterous
…….
No 727
Yes, but Julian, Howard won comfortably in 2001 and 2004, so the theory that the GST was so unwanted goes straight out the window.
After some reading to catch up on the progress of the US election, I am convinced Mr Obama will win this election. Unfortunate though it is that the leader of the free world will be a communist, one cannot ignore reality.
GP, given the economic condition of the US, better anything including a commie than neocon.
Liberal tax plans have been more left-wing than Obama’s…
Indeed Liberal policy in virtually every regard is more left wing than Obama’s.
oops
posted this on newspoll by mistake
dateline special on SBS now on
quite good coverage of ground level politics
Uh, GP, which US president just nationalised the banks?
GP
#730
“Unfortunate though it is that the leader of the free world will be a communist, one cannot ignore reality.”
GP I do not thinlk Obama is a communist at all There ar efectively two “right” Partys in US , although th Democrat Party has a “left wing” where a John Edwards resides suporting ‘left’ issues like universal healthcare , Kyoto etc But Obama is not in that group , he’s a centre right which is why I’ve criticised him , and certainly not a communist Admit Obama did hav alot of “progessive” intellegentsia policys , but most of those he’s since dumped iun June & July
Even on tax , there is not massive differences up to $227,000 per year Income , although obviously lower incomes will be better off under Democrats
Income Avg. tax bill Avg. tax bill
McCain Obama
$227K-$603K -$7,871 +$12
$161K-$227K -$4,380 -$2,789
$112K-$161K -$2,614 -$2,204
$66K-$112K -$1,009 -$1,290
$38K-$66K -$319 -$1,042
$19K-$38K -$113 -$892
Under $19K -$19 -$567
Pain-in-the-arse comment deleted – The Management.
Is anyone here with Foxtel and a HD/DVD recorder able to record and burn any of the US election coverage? I know a few people did it for the Oz 07 election. Would cover the cost of DVD’s and also time and effort.
Bush willing to hold talks with Taliban, says report
Republican consorting with Terrorist
=> McCain consorts with Terrorist’s
http://www.dawn.com/2008/10/29/top4.htm
Ronster
I’m very pleased you’re back. We all missed you.
I even tried a few deliberately elitist, obnoxious anti-Hillary posts to spur the Amigos into action, but they couldn’t tell the difference between the “hoax” and my normal patronising condescending posts.
730
[Unfortunate though it is that the leader of the free world will be a communist, one cannot ignore reality].
GP, even McCain wouldn’t be stupid enough to call Obama a communist. But if it’s what you want to believe, who am I to ruin your delusion.
MSNBC (albeit the morning coffee chit chat show) just slammed Obama and basically told everyone to vote for McCain. Bizarre for MSNBC.
#738
Anyway to get a copy of that? I’ve seriously been wanting a copy of our last election since November 27th.
I have a VHS copy of the ABC coverage. I can just remember someone saying they had Channel 9 and ABC on DVD?
Just warning you guys – apparently come election day, the polls will be too close to call:
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/mccains-pollster-foresees-race-close/
Man ABC on DVD would be something worth having. They should seriously release it.
Haha.
AUSTRALIA DECIDES – ABC ELECTION COVERAGE 2007 DVD
Special Features include Kerry O’Brien in tears (of joy) at 9.00pm.
Speaking of Fox news, he really is a communist!
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/obama-affinity-marxists-dates-college-days/
It could be a bonus feature on a DVD release of Labor in Power.
I have no idea why they still haven’t released that, they put it out on VHS.
I’m watching live Fox for the first time in a while. And I quote:
“Let’s take a look at the polls, guys… and things are REALLY tightening up here now. It’s back to 2 points, 49-47, with things tightening in Pennsylvania”
??? Haha. What. They pluck the one close poll… and things are tightening in PA? Why, because they both campaigned there yesterday? Holy hell.
You know you suck at political commentary when you think liberalism and Marxism are the same thing.
You know you’re desperate when you think putting up a picture of Karl Marx will win you an election.
Responding to Generic Person’s saying:No 727
Yes, but Julian, Howard won comfortably in 2001 and 2004, so the theory that the GST was so unwanted goes straight out the window.
You have distorted my comment 180%. I was pointing out how all that matters is to win the majority of seats (or states), which after 1998 earned Howard the opportunity (with Democrats support in the Senate, of course) to make a major change in our tax system. I made no comment at all regarding whether the GST was unwanted or not.
As Juliem likes to say, you are entitled to your opinion, but I’d appreciate it if you would not make up any more opinions for me.
Palin is the communist, or is it socialist, or is it Marxist?
She’s quite clearly a liberal-democratic socialist-progressive pinko with a Marxist view of history.
Oz
That prediction of yours is looking grin. Todays polls just get worse for McCain. He’s down in PA by 12% in two polls and 13% in the other. Ohio 7% and 9%. NV 12%. CO 9%. VA 7%. It’s an absolute drubbing. He’s not winning one swing state on todays polls.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html
COOL! The demoralisation factor is going to kick in, which will help Obama win Missouri and Indiana.
Not that he needs them.
Ah but Diogenes, as a Pennsylvanian on Lateline just pointed out “He’s a Muslim, he’s a terrorist, he’s a socialist”.
Oh, and the AP has a liberal bias.
Pollster.com changes SOUTH Dakota to a lean McCain state. There isn’t much data there: http://www.pollster.com/polls/sd/08-sd-pres-ge-mvo.php
It’s now my smokey if Obama gets a 370+ landslide.
Republicans best hope now is to wait for a late Nader swing.
Arizona is my dark horse. When the Repugs start melting down in a few days and blaming McCain I think his homestate Repugs will give him a well-deserved kick. He’s never been very popular in Arizona. The home-town support might well be very fickle.
What about Georgia!?
Early prediction: Obama will win Arizona in 2012.
In all these post someone may have posted this link. Even the conservative pundits are concluding that the race is over. Personally I do not underestimate the stupidity and racism of the American electorate. And there is also the fact the the repugs are much better at voter fraud than the Democrats at this stage in history. The sooner that the US hires the AEC to run their elections the better.
http://www.electionprojection.com/archives100108.shtml#daily102708
“Eight days from Election Day, here is this blogger’s conclusion: Barack Obama will win this election in a landslide. He will capture at least 350 electoral votes and win the popular vote by 7% or more. McCain may benefit from some measure of the Bradley Effect, but that advantage will be overwhelmed by African-American turnout, Palin-induced defections by moderates, and under-funded, unenthusiastic GOP get-out-the-vote efforts. This week’s update shows Obama with a 375-163 electoral vote edge. The actual result may be a tad closer, but I’d be less surprised if his victory surpassed even that landslide tally.”
state data from AP/GfK (a republican polling firm/media body)
Florida: Obama 45
McCain 43
Undecideds 12
North Carolina: Obama 48
McCain 46
Undecideds 6
even tho national polls are tightening, state by state the Big O is way in front.
Ohio: Obama 48
McCain 41
Undecideds 10
Virginia: Obama 49
McCain 42
Undecideds 11
Pennsylvania: Obama 52
McCain 40
Undecideds 9
Nevada: Same as Pennsylvania
Colorado: Obama 51
McCain 41
Undecideds 9
New Hampshire: Obama 55
McCain 37
Undecideds 9
Quinnipac
FLORIDA: Obama 47 – McCain 45;
OHIO: Obama 51 – McCain 42;
PENNSYLVANIA: Obama 53 – McCain 41
national polls sofar
zogby -O 49 M 44
Daily Kos – O 50 M 44
So where exactly is McCain tightening when all the battleground states are blowing out. California? Good luck.
According to the Daily Kos homepage, essentially the only change is that some Republicans have finally settled on McCain. Support for Obama is still around 50%, I’d be REALLY shocked if that isn’t enough for a win.
The redneck racist dumb white men are lining up for McCain, particularly in Southern states.
We all know that less than 50% is good for a win.
Just watching CNN vidoe clips- it seems the Republicans in 2000 and 2004 were considered to have an aditional 2-3% advantage due to ground organisation for turnout.
This election has seen the Rep. ground organisation disintergrate and the Obama ground org build to a size that is considerably larger than the Rep. 2000 or 2004 and also targets at whole blocks of voters “notoriously famous for staying at home”
Obama shouldn’t sweat until national polling has him averaging below 48.5 (enough for most past presidents) and that may not happen anyway.
evan14,
I can’t find the article now but I read one yesterday that said there was a growing block of families where the men fit this demographic but the wives were voting for Obama. The writer of the article was relating her phone calls to various households where she would get the wife on the phone and the wife was very cautious on the phone with her answers. Turns out that the husband was voting for McCain, she was too fearful to let him know that she was voting for Obama. They continued the conversation in “code”. While that doesn’t say much for the state of the relationship of the couple, at least we know Obama is getting votes in some unexpected quarters …..
Michelle Obama’s interview a few days ago on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show
http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/video/clips/michelle-obama-on-the-show-1027/791942/
As I mentioned a couple days ago, the RCP daily average is trending downward for Obama as older, higher polls for Obama drop off. What matters is that the RCP Electoral Vote estimate remained the same during this week at 311 for Obama, 152 for McCain and 85 Tossups. Without tossups it is 375 for Obama, 163 for McCain.
A CNN report on television this morning gave some salient polling stats that Obama is doing a Rudd in getting solid swings in the mortgage belt suburbs of battleground states. McCain’s attacks on Obama’s tax plan and guilt by association have had little or no impact because, for the suburbanites, the #1 issue………….it’s the economy, stupid.
I pay greatest attention to the EV state polling aggregates of Princton Election Consortium’s Prof. Wang (Obama @ 367 EV) and Nate Silver’s (Obama @ 348 EV). Here’s Nate’s words of wisdom today at how polls have gone since his update yesterday:
“BONUS EDIT: Here’s a fun little reality check for those of you who are sweating the trackers. Since our last update yesterday evening, I have added 34 polls to my database, including both state and national numbers. Barack Obama is ahead in 32 of those 34 polls. The two exceptions are in Arizona and Alaska, the home states of John McCain and his VP nominee, respectively.”
Link: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
At this rate I think the real losers from this election will be any McCain grandchildren. They’re going to have to get into college on their own merits now, and they’ll be stuck spending a lot more time with gramps after this mess blows over.
A lot of similarities with our election this time last year!
The polls narrowed in the last 2 weeks before November 24!
Undecided Republicans, particularly in the South, are drifting back to McCain.
Sarah Palin announces she wouldn’t mind running in 2012 if McCain loses:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/29/183959/72/687/646143
In support of point in my comment #775, here’s Obama’s version of Rudd’s successful “Working Families” theme given in an interview with US ABC television journalist Charlie Gibson (Yes, he’s the one chosen by McCain campaign for the first major interview with Palin and asked her about the Bush Doctrine, and she replied “In what respect, Charlie?”):
“What I can tell you, my number one priority as president will be is to make sure that the current economic crisis is handled in a way that ensures that this coming recession is not long and deep. And that means getting a program in place to stop foreclosures and to really shore up the housing market. It means getting a stimulus package that actually creates jobs and puts money into the pockets of middle-class families.”
ABC is the only commercial network not broadcasting Obama’s 30 minute talk today, but the whole Gibson interview is one of Obama’s best IMHO. I’ll probably end up preferring it to Obama’s infomercial.
Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=6137652&page=3
Evan14
Glad to see you are also thinking of parallels between K’07’s victory. I’d be delighted if Obama’s margin of victory over McCain’s is similar to Rudd’s over Howard @ 5.4%+.
And it would be very tasty icing on the proverbial if McCain does a Howard and loses his home state EV’s!
Evan
She certainly already has a large enough wardrobe ready for 2012. No darn it! Those dresses will all be out of fashion then. Oh well, another shopping spree. It makes the campaigning all worthwhile.
I wonder if she will have given an unscripted interview by 2012?
Just saw a story on CNN @ the election vis a vis Florida. Broward County public schools ( county just north of Miami, major city is Ft. Lauderdale) has registered every 18 year old senior at all of their schools and are using school busses to transport them to the early voting booths. Estimate is about 3600 first time voters county wide are being helped by this. They are doing it on school time too
…….
I get a bit creeped out when I hear Obama mentioning “working families”.
Anyone know of any Melbourne viewing ops next Wednesday?
Also one of my questions from the other day remains unanswered: Are there any good websites giving coverage of ballot measures nationwide?
Martin, there aren’t any ballot measures nationwide …. only national office is President/VP. Ballot measures are all at the state level for instance – (1) in CA, pro or con against gay marraige & (2) Michigan – pro or con against medicinal use of marijuana …….
Why is it that these initiatives are always loony right wing ones?
Associated Press predicts an Obama win:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20081029/road-to-270/
When will Fox news call it? Sometime around the 13th of December perhaps?
Michelle Obama’s is as creepy as Julia Gillard….
Laura Bush is as scary as Sarah Palin.
Oh Glen!
And Sarah Palin is damn scary, I prefer the Tiny Fey version LOL
ltep, I wouldn’t call those two specific initiatives “right wing” ones
….. they are about as left as they come and they aren’t loony either 
…… nothing wrong with either of them. I voted yes on the Michigan one when I sent in my absentee ballot about 2 weeks ago …..
I was actually really pleasantly surprised with Michelle Obama. She’s a far better public speaker than Obama.
Tina Fey for VP.
I mean is there any website that covers all of the ballot measures in each state, across the country. I can only find sites that cover ballot measures for individual states, but obviously I am interested in how eg all of the anti-abortion measures are going, so checking dozens of separate sites is a bit inconvenient.
juliem, if proposition 8 is successful in California ‘A new section would be added to the Constitution stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
Doesn’t sound awfully left wing to me!
McCain is running anti-Obama robocalls in ARIZONA!
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/mccain_now_running_robocalls_i.php
Sure, but there are 11 measures up for voting. Only the anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion and two law-and-order ones are right-wing. The other seven are left-wing or neutral.
The point is they aren’t all right-wing.
Some are also really weird.
In California there’s two that look half decent on the surface – Renewable energy target and changing car engines to more environmentally sensible options. But they’re opposed by The Sierra Club, The Green Party, the Democrats, the Conservation Association and a lot of others. They’re designed to look good but they’re essentially a way to put billions of dollars of public money directly into the hands of a couple of corporations.
That’s 11 in California of course.
Which ones are ‘neutral’?
At 11pm eastern, 3pm for us on the Aussie east coast; C-SPAN are broadcasting live feed of the rally with Obama and Bill Clinton in Florida. C-SPAN are the congressional broadcast cable channel in the USA and when Congress are not in session, they have various news programs and so forth. They are not showing the infomercial which is on right now
but they generally have good coverage of the political events. They are non partisan as I understand it. They broadcast live apparently all the time so if you want to check in on what they are showing at the moment, go for it ….
http://www.cspan.org/
well if the california ballot has phrased the question like that, yes that is right wing …. I hadn’t examined the language of the ballot proposal so I didn’t know ….
Things are hotting up at Voices without Votes, bloggers from around the world on the US election. If you’re blogging and would like a cross post there, please leave a message on my blog.
The redistricting one I would say is pretty neutral politically.
Re 783,
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:aPD36UDi1C4J:elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/24/politicians-stack-biarre-initiatives-ballot/+ballot+proposals+US+election&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=au
http://www.iandrinstitute.org/ballotwatch.htm
http://www.iandrinstitute.org/BW%202008-1%20Preview%20(v4%2010-24).pdf – this one is an itemized list state by state but you have to dig into the .pdf file about 6 to 8 pages to get the beginning of the list. It isn’t structured to have all like minded measures together such as all states which have marijuana proposals on the ballot nor is it structured to give results after the fact.
Sigh, how many mistakes can I make?
There are 12 Ca ballot initiatives, not 11.
Prop 10 is arguably right wing not left-wing.
The redistrcting one is opposed byy the Democrats, but I’m not sure that makes it right-wing – it’s because it will remove control of redistricting from the Ca assembly, usually controlled by the Dems. So in a partisan sense it’s advantageous to the Repubs over the Dems.
The Childrens Hospital one may or may not be good policy, but it’s hard to say it’s strongly right wiong or left wing.
I would suggest that attempting to divide things into “right” or “left” blocs rarely works and serves no purpose.
Now we get it after the fact, thank you to HP for putting this link up …..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/obamas-prime-time-tv-comm_n_138767.html
I disagree, I think the political distinction between state-oriented redistribution, and creationof public goods, and market-oriented policies promoting the interests of established capital are real and frequently observed. But this is a debate for elsewhere and when so am happy to just agree to disagree.
Anyone else find Obama’s ad and the reception it got slightly nauseating?
Seven news “Beautiful production values, wonderful, soothing music, Obama comfortable in an Oval-office like setting…”
How shallow.
Explain what that has to with gay marriage?
Or explain whether that Prop. about “Victim’s Rights” is left wing or right wing?
Or we could just agree to disagree…
http://news.smh.com.au/world/palin-faces-new-ethics-complaint-20081030-5bsy.html
“Send us to Washington to clean things up!!!!”
I think not, Mrs. Palin.
“Or explain whether that Prop. about “Victim’s Rights” is left wing or right wing?”
It would depend on what the proposal actually said. A proposal will usually have some sort of ideology which supports its passage. This ideology will most likely be able to be placed somewhere along the left-right spectrum.
I think left and right are fandamentally defined in terms of economic approaches.
As far as social policies go, these don’t necessarily correlate in principle, which is why there are people described as economically left wing but socially conservative, or right wing but socially progressive. Even within social policy opinions are rarely monoltihic.
Nonetheless it is a historical fact that leftist economics has tended to correlate with more progressive social policies, which is not entirely surprising since leftist approach is geared towards using the state to provide distributive justice for exploited groups.
So I wouldn’t say that left and right is quite so clearly defined in social policy, but the distinction is observed enough in practice for it to be meaningful.
Martin defined right and left in economic terms. In a shallow definition like that, there’s no room for describing gay marriage, drug legalisation, judicial systems in right and left terms.
In fact, drug legalisation would probably “right-wing” in economic terms as it removes government intervention in that particular area.
Issues and proposals are not “right-wing” and “left-wing”.
Personally I have no problem acknowledging a social position as being somewhere along the left-right spectrum. Others may wish to sit on the fence but that’s their choice.
But noone would describe drug legalisation as a right wing social initiative in itself.
from 236.com
…..
“Martin defined right and left in economic terms. In a shallow definition like that, there’s no room for describing gay marriage, drug legalisation, judicial systems in right and left terms”
I think there is a central definition by which is extended by a process of family resemblance, if you want to be like that.
Why? The Libertarian Party has drug legalisation in its policy platform and it’s a right-wing party. Right-wing has historically meant less government intervention in the economy and in the lives of individuals. That is what “conservatism” as an ideology is.
I don’t believe the Democrats, or even the Socialist Party want to repeal drug prohibition.
And the Democrats aren’t a left-wing party…
I suppose the SPA isn’t left-wing either.
Are left and right definitive or relative? One could just as easily say that the Republicans are not right-wing, judging by their dramatic intervention in both economic and social spheres in recent years.
been travelling with a group of yanks from all over. Majority hv voted for mccain and think obama will not win. So dont count yr chickens yet
No, I don’t think any major political party can be described as consistently right-wing or consistently left-wing in a doctrinaire sense, yes of course the distinctions are mostly observed in a relative sense and sure, I don’t disagree that one can’t be rigid about applying the framework to the complexities of actual policy.
But I think it is going all to far to say that the distinctions don’t exist or don’t work. Even if you didn’t attempt any kind of formal definition but just took an observed basis, its an empirical matter that there are a group of issues and policies that one bunch of partisans tend to support and others that the other bunch support (notwithstanding the existence of people like libertarians who cut across both).
I think we’ll take polls over anecdotal evidence thanks
Anyway, next question: When is the earliest that the election might reasonably be called?
Assuming Obama goes on to win. By 11:30am AEDT, polls have closed in Ohio, Virginia and most of Florida. How long before early returns would be enough to give the likelihood that Obama is winning those states which would strongly suggest victory, especially if he is also looking competititve in states like Kentucky, Georgia, West Virginia & Indiana.
(Before Glen comes in with the H word I just point out that my assumption is only that Obama is the only one who can acheive a crushing win; if McCain wins I assume it will be a nail-biter.)
Martin B, I hear what you’re saying. I don’t see the sense in fence sitting on it. I consider the Republicans in general to be quite far to the right of the political spectrum and the Democrats more generally to be centre-left and have no qualms in saying it. There will always be exceptions to the general conception but I’m not going to ignore the quite clear positions of the parties.
It’s the same with people who fence sit by saying there’s no difference between Labor and Liberal. I’m sorry if it bugs those people but I see quite clear differences.
I gota admit it would be hilarious if we had a ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’…
Phillies win!
There’s something really obnoxious about newspapers declaring victory for one side or the other and betting agencies paying out on bets for one candidate that just begs people to prove them wrong.
Well if Obama wins any of those early states you mentioned, he’s pretty much won hasn’t he.
Yes, so how many hours after polls close would early returns be able to suggest that he has won those states? I’m not familiar with the US processes and timeframes. I suppose it will vary a bit from state to state.
Agreed. Can’t really blame the candidate though…
According to Reuters it could be over as early as 8:30 eastern time.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49S1VO20081029
New poll shows Obama and McCain tied in Indiana(47% each)
Half an hour after polls close? Surely that would have to be on exit polling, not early returns. What do you want counted before the projected result starts to look reasonable, 20-30% of the vote?
But yes, my concern is missing early excitement before SBS tunes in at 2:30pm AEDT, 3.5 hours after polls close in Virginia.
Re 830,
time zone map for US states and cities
http://www.worldtimezone.com/time-usa12.php
poll closing times chronologically
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G08/closing.phtml?format=c
* note: read all the way through poll closing times list, there are many notes and individual exceptions written at the bottom of the list
** note: the time in which the polls MOST commonly (not always) close in each state is highlighted in black
They have electronic polling remember?
Martin @ 834,
You don’t get cable? CNN and Fox broadcast 24/7 on Foxtel. Also, too, since you’ve the internet connection, you could work yourself up a whole host of sites to check into online …. many of the US TV options have live stream viewing on their websites ….. I know that CNN had this option during the convention through their website ……
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49S8BA20081030
Delta and Northwest have merged, creating the worlds biggest airline.
Bad luck US fliers.
“You don’t get cable? CNN and Fox broadcast 24/7 on Foxtel.”
No I don’t but am assessing the need to go and find some.
Where abouts do you live? There’s plenty of pubs around doing coverage.
Glen 826
I think if that were to happen in this case it would be more like “Goofey defeats Dewey”.
Melbourne. Know of any?
Hmm, just saw that the Port Phillip Greens are doing something in South Melbourne.
Martin B,
Give the consulate a buzz. They are over on St. Kilda road in St. Kilda and they would surely be able to set you straight on all of this?
The CSpan site I spoke of earlier? I’ve got them on now and listening to it. They are interrupting a live call in show where people are giving their opinions of the Obama broadcast tonight to show Ted Steven’s arrival back home in Alaska. Listening to his comments and the crowds comments (granted they are a biased crowd) I’m not so sure that he won’t win on Tuesday …..
RE: Timing of announcements on election night
MSNBC had a really good article the other day that had all of the times the polls close in the swing states. Just use timeanddate.com to line up the US times with our times. I think the US eastern polls close at 9.00am our time. If Ohio or Florida go early to Obama then there will be a lot of twiddling thumbs early in the night.
My question is really as much about how quickly the vote is counted as it is about the poll closing times. I’m not too fussed about exit polls, I want to see the real numbers rolling in.
injuddstree,
US drops their DST this weekend so the time diff. is opposite time of day plus 4 hours. So you need to make that 10am for their 6pm (those states which close at 6p eastern) ……… See my 835 this thread for list of times and poll closings ……
juliem
But was it rent-a-crowd at the airport? Who would have even known which flight back Stevens was on?
847,
Martin if you can’t access cable TV, I would suggest then accessing CNN’s website and they will up date their map there as quickly as anything…….
with the exception of not airing the Obama thing today, CNN hasn’t put a foot wrong in their election coverage to date …..
849,
Who really cares?
….
LOG in now, http://www.cspan.org …… Obama and Clinton on LIVE as I type this …..
Things are getting serious now
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/a_vote_for_my_husband_is_a_vote
To put it in her words… she is just like any other female human
juliem – I agree, CNN have been excellent with coverage this year.
GG
Please tell me this wasn’t you. I believe we’ve discussed this kind of behaviour before.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1028081mccain1.html
Is she back on Oxycodone or hydrocodone or perhaps both?
If Obama wins he should make a DVD of the coverage, the sales he will get could then be used for 2012 lol.
CNN are still biased towards the democrats though just as Fox is heavily biased to Republicans. Most media outlets pander to one audience or another because in America they have so many news outlets people can pick and choose.
CNN here is a different feed than the US, so does anyone know if the CNN election coverage will be entirely from the US feed?
Anyone have a view on who is the least biased US political news source?
Dario,
They should pick up CNN US feed pretty early. I was on the Foxtel online tv guide earlier today and they show (can’t check now as I’d interrupt others watching the cricket) the CNN feed for the election starting at either 10 or 11am Wednesday from memory …… Fox start at 9am. Both of those are the official start times but you can bet that one or both of them will already be on air anyways with coverage prior to that point. I plan to have CNN on as soon as the kids leave for school LOL ……. (assuming they’ll be showing something, they did for the conventions; CNN International suspended their regular programming and picked up the CNN US coverage)
We do get CNN International here and they broadcast out of Hong Kong.
Socrates, that is a loaded question. What side of the political spectrum do you support? If you are not a rusted on Liberal, i.e you don’t want McCain to win, then CNN is your go. Otherwise, Fox is your go.
Cheers julie, that’s what I thought
I, and Ronster, find the Daily Kos very fair and balanced. HuffPo is a bit right wing for me. Counterpunch is a good balance on the mild left.
I just found this gem buried in the depths of article on a British website.
Now, I hadn’t heard that anywhere about registration in Ohio. If someone else can verify this story from something that they read, can you please post the URL?
Hear, Hear
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/10/court_says_homeless_must_be_al.html
There’s a PDF of the court decision linked in that article.
867, thanks much
… now I know that the UK site was on the level … when an international newspaper reports something I didn’t already know, I like to verify it from a US source ….
And that’s happened where, exactly?
Writing off the Republicans would be an extremely dangerous move.
I should restate that. Writing off the Republicans has a political party, barring the outcome of this election, would be a dangerous move.
For those interested – received info Channel 9 will be airing live coverage of the election between 11.00am(EST)/10.30(CST) and 3.00pm(EST)/2.30pm(CST). I am not sure what coverage Channel 9 is linked with – CBS? NBC?
I’m not sure about WA yet.
juliem 862
Thanks I do read CNN already and find it reasonable; I also regularly read Krugman’s blog in the NY Times. Sometimes when I wonder if these are too unfair to the republicans (not that thats a bad thing
I often find myself checking the BBC. I can’t afford to read Fox unless I plan to replace a smashed monitor.
Pretty sure NBC is linked to 7, so probably CBS or ABC (US)
Socrates @ 872,
Often what I do if I want to get a wide range of articles is just to go to Google News. If you link to the US news, they have a special category called “Election” and cross list all of the election articles in there. I misunderstood your original post, I thought you were talking about Aussie TV coverage that was US in nature
…
for those interested
mumble has a post up on the ballot paper for NY
quite instructive-though as mumble notes very confusing
(didnt know the ballot paper was in spanish as well)
Gusface,
My California absentee ballot was English on one side and Spanish on the other. There are so many Spanish speakers in Southern Cal. that they have multiple Spanish-only tv and radio stations. When driving around area where my mom and siblings live, I always listen to Spanish radio for the great Salsa music.
#871 is that Australian EST or American EST?
So if someone can explain, “Conservative” and “Working families” (lol) are proxy tickets set up by McCain/Obama’s respective supporters and the votes from them flow through to those candidates?
JJ
The candidate list is interesting to say the least.The english/spanish thingy was news to me.Do all Gvt publications have to be bi-lingual?
One query I had was why the Supreme court justices are in both the dems and pugs column.Please explain?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kKfQ3nnq_ps/SQkNh6MBUrI/AAAAAAAAAFc/XPB3tFmeyDE/s1600-h/NY-ballot-2008.png
Im referring specifically to martin schonfield and marcy khan
tanks
I presume they’re both endorsing the same candidate?
I didn’t even know that judges were elected. How’s that for division of power.
Gusface (875) mentioned the NY ballot paper.
The US Studies Centre (University of Sydney) has an election watch site:
http://uselectionwatch.org.au/
It features a sample of several ballots at:
http://uselectionwatch.org.au/elections-101/american-ballots
This is so unfair. The poor bank CEOs can’t use all of the Federal bailout money for bonuses. They’ve done such a good job, they really deserve it. This is what happens when the cancer of socialism metastasises to the free market. It’s the end of civilisation as we know it.
NYAG Cuomo warns nine banks about bonus payments
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081029/bs_nm/us_bonuses_banks_cuomo
Er I just thought of something.
What’s stopping someone from printing off a whole lot of ballot papers and then sneaking them in to the booth?
Gusface @ 879
Yes, all Californian state government public documents and information brochures are printed with Spanish/English sides.
Sorry to admit that I’m as stumped as you are by the New York ballot, but thanks for linking it. Fortunately, NY is hugely safe for Obama with a complicated ballot like that one. Yet again, Pollbludger commentors provide a mine of information.
BTW, good to see the Philadelphia win Series. My best mate from Vietnam lives there, and it’s been a long time between major-sport celebration drinks for him and the City of Brotherly Love (not counting “Rocky” championship bouts, of course! :>)
Diogenes at # 883
Very droll, Dio—-very droll indeed!
the Peoples Republic of San Francisco also has Chinese characters on its ballot
Good to see.
What kind of a country has it’s judges voted for by the general public? Are they going to vote for their doctors and engineers?
they vote for sherrif etc…
They vote for their auditor general, their sheriffs, their head plumber, the neighbourhood postman…
Ok, at least the first two.
sheriff…..heheh
cue blazing saddles
Diogenes I imagine it’s because they consider it the only true way to completely separate the 3 bodies of government from one another.
ltep
Fair enough. It looks a bit open to populist community rage sentences though. I’m guessing the judge on OJs first trial is out looking for a job.
Mind you, the voted upon judges are those at a state level and below. Federal judges are appointed.
I agree Diogenes, I think there are problems in our appointments process but would never choose to have judges be elected. Others would disagree.
Juliem, how exactly do US political scientists explain away that abomination of the separation of powers?
Aussieguru01 – I have had to give up watching Fixed News, even for the comedy value.
My blood pressure couldn’t take it any more – they have become absolutely sinister in their desperation. They are convinced that their continual deningration of Obama is working a treat.
I’ve decided I get less stress and enjoy just reading William’s list, Juliem’s and other positive posters comments at PB. Thank goodness for this site.
And the thought of American citizen Rupert Murdoch presenting the Boyer Lectures for ABC is definitely a distinct anger conduit. What are they doing – I believe he is going to tell us how we are heading in the wrong direction. Doncha just love him!!!
ltep and juliem
Yeah, on further reflection the Supreme Court judge appointments are the most crooked, partisan and shamelessly political positions in the country. There is no separation of powers there. It’s all a bit weird.
ltep @ 895,
I can’t give you an explanation. I’m sure that there is one, but I’ve never been big on analysis of the judiciary so I wouldn’t know what it was …….
Ponting must be really desperate …. he’s just brought himself into bowl and the last time I saw him bowl was in the 2005 Ashes series in England …..
Wtf Ponting is bowling?
#877 Oz – that was Australian time.
Re 900,
2 overs 0 wickets 11 runs …….
Does anyone know if there’s any Counties left that still elect the local Dog Catcher?
zogby
O-50
M-43
Zogby – reliably unreliable
ok which is more f@*ked:
McCain or the Australian cricket team ?
Give the Aussie team a break they are playing in India dont forget!
#905
Question of day.
Possum,
I know you’re just having another of your droll marupial jests, but my CA ballot had County Board of Supervisors, Water District Supervisors, School District Board members and that sort of thing.
A couple of the 12 propositions were complicated, particularly the one to create a state commission to draw up electoral bounderies. Most interesting is that the former CA Governor and Prez candidate, Jerry Brown, is now Atty. General. He decided to phrase the title of the anti-gay marriage prop. as “to eliminate the right”, which the prop’s ardent supporters were very cranky about.
Sheesh, my eePC is tough: that would be marsupial on the first line.
Re: Aussie Cricket Team vs. Team McCain—–are we talking with or without Andrew Symonds here?
First Powell
Then the ex Bush media dude
Now:
Stephen Colbert has Endorsed Barack Obama
Just to be Bold…
Zombie,
I refuse to accept that Colbert would go the rat!
OMZogby!
Peter Fuller
thanks for that link.
Can anyone explain why the “juez sucedaneo-substitute judge” has only one candidate?
ShowsOn,
that reminds me of something Tanner said in OT earlier this month about the Libs, he said they were only reliable in their hypocrisy ……
Good news for Election Day: Channel 9 is doing a live coverage from 11 AM(EST) on Wednesday. I guess it’ll be a combination of feeds from U.S networks & their own correspondents.
Rumour from Daily Kos: Obama might campaign in Arizona before Election Day.
I think it would’ve been nice if he campaigned in Georgia. Even if he doesn’t win, the African-American turn out there is surely making him feel pretty content.