It was two months ago today, I wrote about McCain’s program to reward trolls for spreading the campaign’s message (or, as Dubya would put it…to “kind-a catapult the propaganda.”

The idea was that the McCain campaign would offer “Today’s Talking Points” to their web-savvy faithful, who would then plaster the “good news” on web sites across the land. The enthusiasm behind the “movement” and the sheer repetition of the message would gradually convert Americans into loyal McCain followers. You know…the same way the Ron Paul campaign was able to win the hearts and minds of a majority of Americans.

So…I stop back two months later, and what do I find? I find that nothing, and I mean nothing has changed on the page in two months. In particular, “Today’s Talking Points” are identical to yesterday’s “Today’s Talking Points” (yes…I checked) and are identical to “Today’s Talking Points” on every one of the dozen or so days I’ve checked the site in the last two months.

Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be. The McCain campaign’s broken (implicit) promise to offer a daily set of discussion points is another symptom of a moribund campaign that will try anything and everything that might offer a quick, low-investment advantage for the campaign. I wonder if anyone has actually received any “reward points” and whether anyone was able to cash in those points for “cool McCain stuff?”

Oh…and one of “Today’s Talking Points” that has remained unchanged for at least 60 “todays” (my emphasis)?

There are serious issues at stake in this election, and serious differences between the candidates. And we will argue about them, as we should. But it should remain an argument among friends; each of us struggling to hear our conscience, and heed its demands; each of us, despite our differences, united in our great cause, and respectful of the goodness in each other.

Seriously! That’s what it says!

But then what do you expect from a man who called his wife a “cunt” in front of aids and reporters?

6:11 PM: The Montlake Alehouse is packed with debate gawkers. I cannot connect to the wireless right now so I’m using my cell phone as a modem. Slow, slow, slow.

6:13 PM: Sarah Palin unleashes her first lie about Obama raising taxes!

6:16 PM: Has anybody figured out yet whether Sarah’s lip coloring is a tattoo? Hey…I’m not knocking it. Decorative scarification is cool…in some parts of the world.

6:23 PM: When Sarah Palin says she had to “take on those oil companies in Alaska”…does she mean that in the Biblical sense?

6:26 PM: Joe Biden agrees with Sarah’s windfall profit tax (and he points out that McCain would never go for such nonsense). Now, I suppose, the “hard left” will be slamming Biden for saying he “agrees with Sarah” too often.

6:31 PM: I think she just said, “How are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts.” But maybe she was just speaking in tongues or something.

6:33 PM: I’m watching this on CNN and they have some sort of attitudimeter on uncommitted Ohio voters, broken down by sex. (Although I though Ohioans were mostly broken down by drinking….) Anyway, women go positive when Joe starts talking, and then after a brief lag, men tag along with the women. When Sarah starts talking, women go negative and men go positive. Then the moderator interrupts. I think there is going to be an epidemic of blue-balls in Ohio tonight.

6:49 PM: I think Sarah just gave a treatise on “Diplomacy” citing her one-hour Evelyn Wood course by Henry Kissinger.

6:51 PM: Biden just mentioned McCain’s gaffe on Spanish radio, where he suggested he would not sit down with the leadership of Spain. And Sarah didn’t utter “Horseshit! Horseshit!” Man…Sarah is disappointing me here.

7:16 PM: On VP authority: Sarah says she agrees with VP Cheney. Biden says Cheney has been the most dangerous VP ever. Certainly this is true with respect to his hunting buddies!

7:28 PM: Sarah will change the tone in Washington “as [she] did in Alaska” by “appointing people regardless of party.” But, how many high-school friends does she have????

7:somethingortheother: Sarah parrots McCain in jabbing at the media (at least as I experienced it through the filter of CNN). While that kind of thing may work well for rousing the base, it seems like a really, really stupid strategy in every other way.

Post Debate: I was hoping Sarah would get asked to name the media she consumes. I’m thinking she reads both the Alaska Free Press and the Free Alaska Press.

7:45: The television screen says that CNN is going to report on the focus group reactions and result of a national debate poll soon. But they have turned down the volume and the Montlake Alehouse has erupted into a sea of boisterous conversations. So, I’ll just have to wing it and give my opinion without help from a focus group and a poll.

Basically, Biden did exactly what he needed to do. He attacked McCain without attacking Palin. He looked at her, he showed her respect, he displayed confidence and sincerity. He committed no blunders that I noticed. He was composed.

Palin? She did pretty well given her “relative youth and inexperience.” There were a few awkward moments (as one would expect for a novice). As I watched the debate, two “issues” with Palin kept gnawing at me. First, she smiled way too much and at inappropriate times. That shit doesn’t even cut it on the high school debate team (yep…I was there). It made me feel like she didn’t really understand the gravity of the moment and the position for which she has been selected.

Secondly, her answers frequently seemed canned. She had carefully prepared talking points ready to go, and she had them down pat—even when they didn’t quite fit the questions being asked. Sure…Biden was guilty of the same thing at times. But on a scale of genuineness from 1 to 10, Biden scored an 8 and Palen, a 4. But I’m a dirty fucking hippie, so what do I know.

Join me tonight for a special Thursday night edition of Drinking Liberally. We’ll all be keepin’ a sharp eye out for run-on sentences from Sen. Joe Biden and, um…any evidence at all of cognative function from Gov. Sarah Palin.

The debate begins at 6PM. Folks will start gathering around 5:30PM at our usual haunts, the Montlake Ale House,  2307 24th Ave E., in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood.

Hope you can stop by.

Tuesday morning came and the world had survived the bail-out bust. So Goldy and friends turn to who really won the debate. Was it the cool and presidential guy or was it the snarling Pekingese guy averting his eyes? Next the panel turns to Dino Rossi, the BIAW and the new Buildergate scandal. The former Washington state Secretary of Transportation comments on Rossi’s Fantasy Transportation Plan™, the gubernatorial race, and the new Traffic Congestion Initiative (a.k.a. Lyin’ Eyman’s Initiative 985). All this and more….

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, former Washington State Secretary of Transportation and anti-I-985 activist, Douglas McDonald, initiative specialist Laura McClintock of McClintock Consulting, and HorsesAss and EFFin’ Unsound’s Carl Ballard .

The show is 55:34, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_sep_30_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Officially, we start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks show up early to enjoy the fine cuisine.

For tonight’s activity, we’ll simply be reeling over the Buildergate scandal. No, not the Buildergate that has ensnarled Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and jeopardizes his re-election chances. Rather, the Buildergate scandal that has ensnarled gubernatorial hopeful Dino Rossi (R G.O.P. Party) and seriously jeopardizes his chances at nearly beating Gov. Christine Gregoire again, filing another lawsuit to overturn the election, and then offering another un-statesmanlike slam at the state Supreme Court in a resignation speech.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, McCranium should be announcing the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

And so it goes. Washington state Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) has re-taken the lead from Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”), 50% to 48%, in the latest poll by SurveyUSA. The poll of 682 likely voters was taken from 21-Sep to 22-Sep and has a margin of error of 3.8%.

So, let’s recap the September poling. A week ago, a Strategic Vision poll gave Rossi a 48% to 46% lead. Before that, a Rasmussen poll had Rossi up by a remarkable 52% to 46%. Then in early September we had an Elway poll that gave Gregoire a 49.1% to 42.4% lead and a SurveyUSA poll that had Rossi up 48% to 47%. So what is going on?

Because I’ve been systematically collecting and analyzing state head-to-head polls for every gubernatorial, senatorial and presidential race with an OCD-like fervor this election season, I’ve noticed a very strong pattern. In numerous states, for all three race types, I see examples of a Republican bump in the polls during the first half of September, only to see it fall again in the second half of September.

Call it a “Palin surge,” if you will. I call this transient phenomenon: “The Republican Awakening.” And it has largely diffused over the last week in races all over the country.

We see it here in the Washington state gubernatorial race. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it—at least until a more compelling hypothesis that better explains the data pops up. Back to the objective analysis.

Gregoire’s lead is, clearly, within the margin of error. We can empirically determine the probability that either Rossi or Gregoire would win an election held now using a Monte Carlo analysis.

A million simulated elections of 682 voters gives Gregoire 636,814 wins, and Rossi 353,324 wins. If an election had been held today, we would expect Gregoire to win with a 64.3% probability and Rossi to win with a 35.7% probability.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes resulting from the simulation.

The same SurveyUSA poll finds Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain 54% to 43%. The +11% lead is even wider than a week-older ARG poll that had Obama up 50% to 44%. And compare that to the two mid-month polls: a Strategic Vision poll and a Rasmussen poll that each gave Obama a smallish single-digit lead (+5% and +2% respectively).

See how the “Republican Awakening” thing has melted away?

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Officially, we start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks show up early to enjoy the fine cuisine.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, McCranium shoud be announcing the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

More Pastor Problems?

(Who needs Saturday morning cartoons when there are some 70+ media clips from the past weeks in politics at Hominid Views.)

The podcast starts off with a Democrat-on-Democrat story, as Goldy and his panel discuss politics and campaigning with Washington 11th CD Senate candidate Juan Martinez in his contest against Sen. Margarita Prentice. The topic turns to initiatives. Will increased traffic congestion and elevated gas prices encourage voters to vote YES on Proposition 1? How is Lyin’ Eyman’s Traffic Congestion Initiative doing? Speaking of him, what can be done to repair the initiative process? Oh…and why does the American Chemistry Council hate Seattle? All this and so much more….

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, Alex Fryer, the communications director for Mass Transit Now!, State Senate Candidate Juan Martinez, initiative specialist Laura McClintock of McClintock Consulting, and Lynn Allen of Evergreen Politics.

The show is 55:00 and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_sep_16_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting Podcasting Liberally.]

A new poll in the Washington state gubernatorial race has Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) holding a small lead over Gov. Christine Gregoire (D). The race is a rematch of the 2004 contest that Gregoire won by 133 out of 2.8 million votes.

The Strategic Vision poll sampled 800 likely voters. Gregoire received 46% support and Rossi received 48% support; 6% were “undecided”. The poll was taken from 14-Sep to 16-Sep and has a margin of error of ±3%.

Rossi has now led in three of the four September polls. Last week’s Rasmussen poll had Rossi leading Gregoire 52% to 46%. Before that, an Elway poll gave Gregoire a 49.1% to 42.4% lead over Rossi. The first poll of September gave Rossi a 48% to 47% lead over Gregoire. Other recent polling shows a shift from Gregoire’s summer advantage to a very close race with, perhaps, a small advantage for Rossi:

Clearly Rossi’s new lead is well within the margin of error. We can empirically determine the probability that either Rossi or Gregoire would win an election held now using a Monte Carlo analysis.

A million simulated elections of 800 voters gives Gregoire 334,771 wins and Rossi 655,982 wins. If the election was held now, Gregoire would have a 33.8% probability of winning and Rossi would have a 66.2% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes resulting from the simulation.

The Strategic Vision poll also looked at the presidential race. Obama holds a surprisingly thin +5% (47% to 42%) lead over McCain. The recent Rasmussen poll showed a tighter +2% margin, the Elway Research poll found Obama with a 7.5% advantage, and a SurveyUSA poll gave Obama a +4% edge. Here is the other recent polling:

As we see in the Gregoire–Rossi race, the Obama–McCain contest has tightened up noticeably since mid-Summer.

Maybe it’s time for Obama to stop back for another slice of Washington state apple pie.

Update: ARG just released a new Washington state poll that gives Obama a +6% lead (50% to 44%) over McCain.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Officially, we start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks show up early to enjoy the cuisine.

For tonight’s activity, we’ll brainstorm on ways to shuffle and funnel money to create multiple shadowy front groups that will bankroll Swift-Boat attack ads against Rossi. You know… they’ll smear him as a Republican in “G.O.P. Party” clothing:

Tonight’s theme song comes from Seattle’s Winlar (appearing at the Jewel Box Theater this Friday at 8pm):

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, McCranium shoud have the scoop on the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

A new poll in the Washington state gubernatorial race between Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) and Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party) has been released by Elway Research. I mentioned the poll in yesterday’s poll round-up, but I had not seen the full report.

It turns out the polling was somewhat complex. The poll sampled 450 registered voters between 6-Sep and 8-Sep. The overall margin of error is 4.5%, although in the most interesting analyses, they split samples in half, giving a margin of error within a group of 6.5%.

Elway split the sample into two groups. Group one was asked to chose between “Republican Dino Rossi” and “Democrat Christine Gregoire.” Group two was asked to chose between labels as they appear on the Washington state ballot. That is, they were asked to chose between Rossi, “who prefers the GOP party” and Gregoire, “who prefers the Democratic party.”

Subgroup one gave Gregoire a 50% to 41% lead over Rossi. Group two gave Gregoire a 48% to 44% lead. With a 6.5% margin of error, the differences in these findings are nowhere near achieving statistical significance. In other words, the differences between the two subgroups could simply reflect sampling error.

Just for fun, let’s analyze these as separate polls and combine them later. As usual, I use a Monte Carlo analysis, consisting of one million simulated elections, drawing from the polled population.

The weakest results for Gregoire come when Rossi is introduced as preferring the “G.O.P. Party.” Following a million simulated elections, Gregoire wins 660435 times and Rossi wins 321369 times. This suggests that, if the election was held now, Gregoire would have a 67.3% probability of beating Rossi. Here is the distribution of vote outcomes from the simulations:

When Rossi is called a Republican, his chances go down a bit. Now, after a million simulated elections, Gregoire wins 834,999 times and Rossi wins 153,178 times. This subsample, treated as its own poll, gives Gregoire an 84.5% of defeating Rossi (if the election were held now).

I would argue for using both samples. First, because the difference is not significant. It may be that Washington voters react negatively to Rossi as a Republican. Or not. The sample size was not sufficient to statistically support the idea. Secondly, because I have a difficult time believing that come November the voters will not think of this as a race between the state’s top Democratic candidate and the state’s top Republican candidate.

In the pooled analysis Gregoire wins 838,346 times. Rossi wins 153,042 times. If the election were held now, based on this poll alone, Gregoire would have an 84.6% probability of defeating Rossi. Here is the distribution:

Let’s consider one more permutation. The new Elway poll actually falls between two other recent polls, so lets pool all the recent polls. The recent Rasmussen poll was conducted on 10-Sep. It gave Rossi a 52% to 46% lead over Gregoire. And the slightly older SurveyUSA poll was conduted from 5-Sep to 7-Sep. It gave Rossi a 48% to 47% lead over Gregoire.

When the Elway results are pooled with the Rasmussen and SurveyUSA results, Gregoire wins 451,469 times and Rossi wins 541,349 times. In other words, these recent polls suggest that, if the election were held now, Gregoire would have a 45.5% probability of winning and Rossi would have a 54.5% probability of winning.

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One final note. In my previous analysis of this race I pointed out that both the SurveyUSA and Rasmussen “polls show a surprising decline in Obama’s standing against McCain—a post-convention decline that is larger than anything I’ve seen in other blue states.” The suggestion was that, perhaps, both polls, by chance, drew samples that were favorable to both Rossi and McCain. There were some hints of this in the cross-tabs of both polls (like a surge in women chosing McCain in the Rasmussen poll).

The Elway poll lends a bit more support for the idea. In a McCain–Obama match-up, Obama came out ahead of McCain, 45% to 38%. The +7% advantage for Obama is more in line with other polling than is the +2% found in the Rasmussen poll and the +4% found in the SurveyUSA poll.

But without additional evidence, I’m forced to take the pooled results and giving Rossi a very narrow lead over Gregoire right now.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views.)

The rematch of the Washington state gubernatorial race has seen Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) holding a small, but consistent, lead over Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) from early in the year through August. Now, with less than two months to go to the general election, Rossi has “surged” to a modest September lead.

A new Rasmussen poll gives Ross a 52% to 46% lead. The poll of 500 likely voters was taken on September 10 and has a margin of error of ±4.5%.

This is the second consecutive polling lead for Rossi. A few days ago, a SurveyUSA poll gave Rossi a 48.2% to 47.4% lead over Gregoire.

The +6% lead in this new poll is Rossi’s strongest performance since November, 2006:

What is the probability that either Rossi or Gregoire would win an election held now? As usual, I’ll use a Monte Carlo approach to address the question.

After one million simulated elections, we find that Gregoire wins 166,063 times and Rossi wins 825,788 times. If the election was held now, we would expect Rossi to have an 83.3% probability and Gregoire a 16.7% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes resulting from the simulation.

Given that we have two polls taken back-to-back, it is worth combining the SurveyUSA poll (taken 5-Sep to 7-Sep) with the Rasmussen poll (taken on 10-Sep).

The resulting analysis gives Gregoire 226,762 wins to Rossi’s 766,697 wins. The combined polls suggest that, if an election was held now, Rossi would win with at 77.2% probability and Gregoire would win with a 22.8% probability:

Is the lead real? There is a reasonable possibility it is—the probability of two consecutive statistical outlier polls is pretty small.

On the other hand, consider this: both recent polls also show McCain doing better against Obama than anyone could have reasonably expected. The Rasmussen poll in Washington state gives Sen. Barack Obama a narrow 49% to 47% lead over Sen. John McCain, and A few days earlier, a SurveyUSA poll offered Obama a 49% to 45% lead over McCain:

Both of these polls show a surprising decline in Obama’s standing against McCain—a post-convention decline that is larger than anything I’ve seen in other blue states. So…maybe the lead is real. (More polls, please.)

In any case, given that the polling now has him ahead, can somebody please ask Dino to wipe that sublime grin off of his face? It’s just looking creepy these days.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views.)

To start, the panel ponders the political Palinolithic era. Is “pathological liar” too strong a phrase? Would an actuary predict a probable Palin presidency? Did Palin add a punch to the post-convention polls? The panel next takes on some Washington state issues, like who is the real Rossi and would the public really respect (or even recognize) him if they knew him? And with the incredible shrinking media, could that even happen? ’Sup with the Supreme Court and I-960? And what’s the (non-) deal with the Boeing strike?

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, Executive Director of the Northwest Progressive Institute Andrew Villeneuve , HorsesAss and EFFin’ Unsound’s Carl Ballard and Peace Tree Farm’s blogging pioneer N in Seattle. Oh…they even permitted me a few words.

The show is 54:11, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_sep_9_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting PodcastingLiberally.]

A new poll in the Washington state gubernatorial race has Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) leading Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) for the first time since February.

This race is a rematch of the 2004 contest that Gregoire won 133 votes out of 2.8 million votes.

The SurveyUSA poll sampled 658 people. Gregoire received 47.4% support, Rossi received 48.2% support, 2.9% preferred another candidate, and 1.5% were undecided. The poll was taken between the 5th and 7th of September, on the heels of the Republican National Convention that ended on September 4th. The poll’s margin of error is ± 3.9%.

Prior to this poll, Rossi had not held the lead for fifteen consecutive polls, stretching back to late February. One July poll had found the race tied.

Clearly, Rossi’s new lead is well within the margin of error. Even so, the evidence offered by this poll gives Rossi a higher probability of winning. (All statisticians mean by “statistical tie” is that the poll leader’s probability of winning is less than 95%.)

We can empirically determine the probability that either Rossi or Gregoire would win an election held now using a Monte Carlo analysis.

A million simulated elections gives Gregoire 440,892 wins and Rossi 548,161 wins. These results suggest that, if the election were held now, Rossi would have a 55.4% probability of winning and Gregoire would have a 44.6% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes resulting from the simulation.

The poll results could reflect a couple of things. The obvious possibility is that Rossi has benefited from a post-convention bounce. Or maybe a post-convention bump—time will tell. The bounce/bump possibility is supported by the observation that the same poll found the race between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain tightened-up to a narrow 49% to 45% lead for Obama. The previous poll was the August SurveyUSA poll that gave Obama a stronger 51% to 44% lead.

The second possibility is that this is a post Democratic Convention bounce for Rossi. The Rossi campaign ran advertisements that sandwiched Obama’s acceptance speech, offering Rossi’s local version of Obama’s message of change.

This leads one to wonder…Given Rossi’s implicit endorsement of Obama’s theme, will he vote for Obama in November? Don’t bother asking him, though. It’s probably not an issue he wants to talk about.

(Cross posted on Hominid Views.)