HorsesAss.Org

It seems universally accepted that Mitt Romney scored a knock-out during the last presidential debate. And Mr. and Mrs. J. Q. Public seemed totally indifferent to the fact that Romney spent the debate telling blatant lies and “refudiating” the positions he had held—sometimes just weeks before—as Conservative Mitt.

Go figure!

But I guess this means anything goes!

Tonight, with a town-hall format, and with some remedial debate training, Obama is out for revenge. The fun begins at 6:00.

I’m liveblogging the mayhem from the Montlake Ale House. I suspect Carl and N in Seattle will be there, as well. If you can, please join us—in the comment thread or at the Ale House.

There will be blood!

6:00: I’m getting the audio from KUOW, but CNN is on the Tee Vee.

6:02: Romney goes all socialist on student loans.

6:06: OMG Obama is pointing down! Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

6:07: Obama gives “Number one”, “Number two” and “Number three” in his first answer. What a snob!

6:09: Mitt Romney has a five point plan! Doh! (Although…he may have lost some of his base going that high.)

6:09: Mitt indirectly takes credit for saving Detroit. Ignores that there was no private sector money available.

6:11: Obama is more aggressive this time. I’m sure FAUX News will say he seemed like an “angry militant” or something.

6:12: Mitt’s attempts to dominate the moderator don’t go over so well with Ms. Crowley….

6:14: Mitt is TOTALLY bullish on renewables! Uh-huh. A few minutes later: “More drilling. More pipelines.”

6:17: Obama mentions that, Mr. “Clean Coal” Romney, while governor, stood in front of a coal plant and said, “This Plant Kills.”

6:19: I think Obama wins the “production on government lands” debate. Romney was simply unaware of the “stagnant lease” issue.

6:23: Mitt goes into la-la land on his tax plan. He completely ignores the fact that THE FUCKING MATH DOESN’T FUCKING WORK. You cannot cut taxes on the wealthy as he proposes and make it up by eliminating deductions for ONLY the wealthy.

6:29: Obama: During the primary, he said “I’m going to give tax cuts to everyone, including the 1%.” He said just the opposite tonight. Mitt is the world’s fastest flip-flopper.

6:32: Obama lays out, in some detail, Romney’s 8 trillion dollars of tax cuts, but offers no details on paying for it, and then points out how Romney himself, as an investor, would never accept such a sketchy deal. Point: Obama.

6:35: “Of course my numbers add up.” Ummm…no they FUCKING DON’T.

6:35: [N in Seattle]: Gov. Romney, if it all adds up, PLEASE SHOW YOUR WORK!

6:36: Romney’s bullying isn’t working so well this time.

6:40: Romney keeps mentioning how there are more women in poverty now than when Obama took office. This completely ignores that that was Shrub’s doing. Unemployment was tanking when Obama came into office, and Obama turned it around. But like any ship, it took time. (See “Bikini Graph”)

6:45: Questioner asks Mitt about the difference between him and George Bush. Mitt is different from Shrub because he will adopt Jimmy Carter’s energy independence polity. Huh.

6:47: Mitt points out the differences…Obama points out the similarities between Mitt and Shrub. Well…some of them. He could-a gone further.

6:52: Mitt’s flaggy-flag pin is bigger than Obama’s. He wins.

6:54: Mitt: “We can’t afford four more years like the last four years.” Not really. What we CERTAINLY cannot afford is four more years like either of the Shrub four years. Those years were catastrophes that left the economy in shambles.

6:56: Mitt points out that the economy is growing more slowly this year than last. Ummm…the economy is GROWING. Under the last Republican President, the economy collapsed. That means NEGATIVE GROWTH. Any questions?

7:00: MITT Flip-Flops to become a Dream Act supporter. Holy shit…didn’t Mitt give Rick Perry SHIT in the primary for being weak on immigration for the same reason. What a fucking disingenuous asshole!

7:04: Mitt, transmorgrifies into Newt Gingrich: “I don’t want to round up 12 million people….”

7:08: Terry asks about security at an embassy in Benghazi. Obama doesn’t point out that there is no embassy in that city. (It is a Consulate.)

7:14: Obama rightly points out that the VERY DAY after the attack, he called it a terrorist attack. Mitt challenges that, and gets absolutely spanked by the moderator AND the crowd. (Bad, crowd…bad, bad, crowd.)

7:17: Questioner asks how Obama is keeping AK47s out of the hands of criminals. Obama starts out by profession loyalty to the 2nd amendment. And then says stuff…hard to follow.

7:19: There is a HUGE crowd here at the Ale House. I’m guessing 30 people here for the debate, on top of other customers.

7:23: Mitt gets cut short for not actually addressing the question about AK47s. Starts talking about hunters. FAYLE!

7:24: Obama points out that Mitt has flipped flopped on the assault weapons ban. Ouch!

7:26: Carol asks how to bring jobs home. Mitt welcomes the question…pretending that he isn’t the king of innovation in outsourcing!!!

7:28: Mitt seems to believe that business chose a “country” to be in based on tax rates. If so, you’d think that Somalia would be the business haven of the world.

7:32: Mitt, “China has been cheating.” Huh…you never did anything to encourage that behavior, did you, Willard?

7:34: Mitt’s answer on misperceptions about his disdain of the common man would be MUCH more convincing if he hadn’t been video taped telling wealthy donors that he doesn’t give a shit about 47% of Americans. Just sayin’

7:39: ITS OVER. The bloodied and battered robot Romney grabs his cheat sheet and limps off the stage….

Tonight will be another Debate Edition of Seattle’s Drinking Liberally. Please join us for an evening of political debate and conversation over a pint.

There are two debates tonight. At 6:00 pm, President Barack Obama (D) squares off against Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in a townhall format. That will be followed at 8:00 pm by a gubernatorial debate between former WA-1 Congressman Jay Inslee (D) and Washington AG Rob McKenna (R).

Note: We will have sound and audio for the presidential debate. But for the gubernatorial debate, we may have the picture, but probably no sound. Also…the bar has other customers, so the sound may not be as loud as you want, especially with the background of a busy bar and peripheral conversations. If you are serious about listening to the debate, I recommend you bring an FM radio and headsets or earbuds. Additionally, the Montlake Alehouse has free WiFi. Ask your server for the password.

We will meet at our usual place, the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

The Montlake Ale House opens at 5:00 pm, and the presidential debate begins at 6:00 pm. Drinking liberally normally begins at 8:00 pm, but don’t hesitate to stop by earlier for the presidential debate.

There’s be some live blogging action right here.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter meets. The Longview and South Seattle chapters meet on Wednesday. The Spokane chapter and Drinking Liberally Tacoma meet this Thursday.

With 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state four in Oregon and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

My goal for the polling analyses is to include all polls that legitimately provide insight into the race. For this reason, I want to comment on some polls that I have excluded from analysis.

As you know, I have predefined criteria on what polls can be included in my analyses. For example I exclude all on-line polls…period. And I exclude partisan polls that are selectively released. Typically this happens when a campaign releases a poll it commissioned. Even though the poll may be above reproach, including selectively released polls introduces bias to the meta-analysis of polls.

To see why, imagine a neck-in-neck race between Republican Bob and Democrat Steve. Both campaigns do polling and, quite sensibly, release those that favor their candidate. Furthermore, suppose Crossroads GPS is very interested in Bob race, so they do a bunch of polling. Steve’s campaign does a dozen polls across the campaign, and they release the six polls that show Steve with a slight lead. Bob’s campaign is a little more poll-obsessed, and they do two-dozen polls and release the 12 polls that favor their candidate. On top of that, Crossroads GPS does and additional dozen polls and releases six that show Bob in the lead.

We can assume that individual polls are above reproach. Even so, the selective release means that at a typical point in the campaign, there will be about three polls showing Bob in the lead for every poll that shows Steve in the lead. The meta-analysis will show Bob leading in a race that is, in fact, a tie.

I bring this up because I’ve had to exclude a couple of polls from my analyses.

Yesterday, Wenzel Strategies released a poll for Missouri that showed Romney leading Obama, 54.9 to 41.1. The poll appears to be legitimate and I have no reason to believe the poll is biased or improperly done. In fact, Wenzel does something I really appreciate: they publish the counts of responses in addition to the percentages. I use the counts directly whenever possible, but aside from Survey USA, most pollsters just provide rounded percentages.

The Wenzel poll was conducted on behalf of Citizens United that:

…exists to support true conservative candidates running for federal office through direct candidate advocacy and contributions, based on our in-depth candidate research and surveys.

So, it is obviously a right-leaning organization. But that is not enough to exclude an organization’s polls. For example, the Civitas Institute is a right leaning think tank in North Carolina. I include their polls, because they pre-announce the polls, and release the results regardless of the outcome.

I though the Wenzel polls were okay, because they were released on the firm’s web site. But, I wanted to be sure. I made a call to Fritz Wenzel to ask him about it. What I learned was the following:

1. The decision to publicly release the poll was made by his client, not him.
2. He only published the results on his web site after the results had been released by his client.
3. When I asked if he had done other polls for this client that had not been released, he deferred the question to his client.

From our discussion, I got the impression is that Mr. Wenzel is a serious pollster who takes pride in producing high quality polls for his clients. Even so, I’ll exclude this poll, since it appears to be a selective release by a highly partisan group.

Another poll I am excluding was brought to my attention by Sam Minter, for American Crossroads:

According to a new poll shared exclusively with POLITICO, Mitt Romney is leading President Obama in a congressional district in Maine — raising the possibility of the GOP nominee winning an electoral vote in a deep blue state.

The live-call poll, conducted by Glen Bolger of NMB Research and provided to POLITICO by American Crossroads communications director Jonathan Collegio, shows Obama winning statewide 48 percent to 44 percent.

That result already puts Romney in a surprisingly competitive position in a nominally blue state.

But in Maine’s second congressional district, Romney actually tops Obama 49 percent to 44 percent.

The ME-2 result is surprising but not a valid reason for exclusion. It is the selective nature of the poll’s release that results in exclusion. American Crossroads is engaging in good PR by releasing this information, but it isn’t likely to be representative of the polling overall. Granted, I did not call up the pollster, but the case for selective release seem pretty clear.

I point out these exclusions because I want to be as transparent about some decisions that may not, a first glance, be obvious.

Additionally, I’ll use this opportunity to ask for your help. If you see a poll I am including but shouldn’t, or a poll I’ve left out but should include, let me know. The best way is to make your case for inclusion or exclusion in a poll analysis comment thread.

Seriously, what is this?

The food had been served, the patrons were long gone, and the cutlery cleaned when Rep. Paul Ryan, his wife, three kids and photographers pulled up Saturday at a St. Vincent de Paul food kitchen in Youngstown Ohio.

Ryan and his wife put on aprons and washed several pans that already appeared to be clean, and then were off to the airport

I’d guess something on the order of 80% of photo ops are more waste of time than actual help. But at least the politician usually does something, even if more could be done without them. Oh, and by the way:

“We’re a faith-based organization: We are apolotical because the majority of our food is from private donations,” Brian Antol told The Washington Post. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.

…

“I can’t afford to lose funding from these private individuals,” he said. “If this was the Democrats, I’d have exactly the same problem.”

The Seattle City Council actually does something decent.

The Seattle City Council approved new campaign finance rules today. Under the changes, candidates for local office can’t roll over campaign funds from one election to the next and can’t start fundraising until Jan. 1 of the year before an election.

Vote was 7-2 with Council President Sally Clark and Councilmember Tom Rasmussen voting no.

Council members said they took the steps to limit the influence of money on local elections and reduce the amount of time that elected officials are fundraising at the same time they’re making policy.

They’ve still given themselves the chance to transfer their money into their next election, because of course they did. But over the long run, this is a positive step to getting good challengers who aren’t scared off by the large piles of money in the incumbent’s war chests.

– I’m sure all of the reporters who were concerned about Darcy Burner’s inelegant explanation of her Harvard degree will be equally upset with Brad Toft’s makie uppie degree.

– Me too, too.

– Important news about the Northwest in national publications.

– Those who know the history of state hotline slipups involving Republican governors is clearly the greatest phrase ever.

– Gee, it’s almost like running a campaign full of racist dog-whistles and overt racism attracts racist supporters! GO FIGURE!

– Happy Reloan Day, people on Kiva

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was in Pittsburgh.

This week is normally a TV show or a movie, but since I don’t watch a whole lot of TV shows and movies, I’ve managed to run pretty thin on ideas. Instead, I want to try out something new. Google maps has started to integrate their own low-level views into their maps (I’m guessing they’ll get sued by Microsoft if they call them “Bird’s Eye Views”). I’ve been checking them out and despite having less coverage, they have better picture quality and they’ve got a few far-flung places that Microsoft doesn’t have yet. When I started doing these, I really hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before much more of the world had these maps, but there hasn’t been a lot of updating recently. And I’m starting to think that Google may get there faster.

So let’s consider this one a trial run. The view below is from the Google Maps page, which is also linked from the picture itself, good luck!

[HA Bible Study is on hiatus through the November election as we honor Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by studying the scriptures of his Mormon religion.]

Doctrine and Covenants 52:42
And thus, even as I have said, if ye are faithful ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your enemies.

Discuss.

Stephen Colbert: Obama’s secret martian gayness.

Mark Fiore: It’s the Foreign Policy, Stupid!.

Young Turks: “Some girls rape easy,” says idiot politician.

Colbert: The 7-11/Pizza Hut election (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Bad Lip Reading: The first debate.

Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

Sam Seder: GOP Rep. who cut embassy security funds blames Obama for embassy attack.

Young Turks: Pro-life Rep. demands abortion for his mistress.

Willard (and Eddie)!

• Big Dog: Welcome back, Moderate Mitt!
• Martin Bashir: Mitt Romney’s multiple-choice abortion gymnastics
• Young Turks: Romney’s many views on abortion.
• Ann Telnaes: Mitt repeats his “trickle-down government” line.
• Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican—Missouri edition:
• Mitt: debates himself:
• Selma Blair: The woman for Mitt Romney.
• Sarah Silverman and friends: The truth matters
• Young Turks: Romney on healthcare, “Uninsured don’t just die…It’s paid for”.
• Martin Bashir: Ryan’s narcissism on display.
• Slate: Mitt’s twisted words on abortion.
• Ann Telnaes: Mitt flip-flops his way up the polls.
• Sharpton: Mitt introduces “statesman” nut job Glenn Beck in 2009.
• Sam Seder: Ryan gets testy in interview
• Slate: Ryan walks out on interview in Michigan
• The Romney—Ryan strategy
• Bad Lip Reading of Ryan’s video diaries:

Jon: “Fucking crazy” GOP candidates .

Richard Alley on Abraham Lincoln and the Founding of the National Academy of Sciences.

Barely Political: Redneck political coverage.

Jim Lehrer: Badass moderator.

Ann Telnaes: Child Marriage.

Rob McKenna puts his dancing shoes on.

Grandpa versus Eddie Munster:

• Young Turks: Media opinion on who won.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: The VP debate.
• Jenn: Paul Ryan challenges the truth to a debate and loses
• Maddow: On the debate and Ryan’s “principles”
• Maddow: More on Paul Ryan’s “principles”
• Cenk and Jenn: VP Debate from mirth to malarkey; laughing Joe.
• Sam Seder: Biden destroys Ryan.
• Cenk moderates another kind of debate.
• Jen: Judging the VP debate
• What Biden was thinking.
• Somebody laughs too freakin’ much!
• Biden’s debate.
• Jenn: Exposing Ryan’s “six studies” lie.
• Rachael Maddow and Ezra Klein: Factchecking the debate.
• Young Turks: FAUX News’ “trail of tears”
• Autotune the debate.
• The presidential staff debates

Kid President’s guide to being a party.

White House: West Wing Week.

Slate: Rape victims have a message for Todd Akin.

Liberal Viewer: When is Stephen Colbert joking?

Lisa Brown and Maria Cantwell channel SNL for Marcus Riccelli:

Thom with the Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Jon: Poll are so worthless but so quotable (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

– Yay for parks; boo for the accompanying picture that I can’t put my finger on it but creeps me out.

– No question about why these creep me out.

– The attempt to elicit sympathy for Romney by anecdotal proxy is a poor enough of a play. The decision to do so via an anecdote about a tragic car accident in a debate with Joe Biden means you’re either a sociopath or possessed of an idiocy of immeasurable power.

– Biblical family.

– Merry Christmas, Yakima.

– I would like to see some random questions from children in the next debate.

Former congressman Jay Inslee is going to debate Washington AG Rob McKenna in a couple of minutes. The Ale House will give me picture, but no audio. And I haven’t found the audio feed on my radio yet, but here is a thread for you to offer your own thoughts.

Have at it!

9:01: It sounds like KUOW really does have it on tonight. Bonus. In fact, I cannot see what is going on, but I can hear it, thanks to the miracle of the transistor (radio)!

9:03: McKenna refers to this debate as an “unprecedented event.” I don’t think it is quite that unique!

9:05: First question…what will you cut if we have a new recession? Ummm…isn’t the economy getting noticeably better?

9:07: So far, both candidates have been regurgitated talking points. Comeon guys…mix it up a bit. I already heard this debate.

9:10: How will each candidate meet the $4 billion court ordered funding level:

McKenna: Well…we can do it a bit at a time by some magic voodoo method.

Inslee: We can do it…by increasing percentage of budget going to education.

9:15: Inslee goes on the attack calling McKenna’s proposal a “gimmick.” Topic changes. The judges hold up a “Jay +1” sign.

9:17: Rob McKenna wants a level playing field for all businesses. That sure sounds like SOCIALISM to me.

9:19: Jay points out that Washington state gets ranked as one of the best places to have a business. Yes.

9:20: Early learning. McKenna wants to extend it to nursing visits for pregnant moms. Okay…I guess we can call that “early learning”. McKenna points out that many kindergartners are not prepared for kindergarten. WTF?????

9:23: Inslee has been advocating for early learning since 1980 (when McKenna was an adolescent). Good point!

9:24: Come to think of it, McKenna may STILL be an adolescent.

9:25: Inslee went to church in Seattle today where there were beautiful children. (Oops…out of time)

9:26: The TeeVee tells me that Detroit is kicking Oakland’s ass.

9:29: Fuck…this is boring. I want JOE!!!!

9:30: Inslee: Women should have access to contraceptive services (and men, for that matter).

9:31: Inslee supports marriage equality. McKenna…not so much.

9:34: McKenna starts doing metacommentary…

9:35: I see men hugging men on TeeVee. It isn’t a Dan Savage special…it’s PROFESSIONAL SPORTS!

9:37: Pot: Jay will vote no, but will uphold the will of the voters.

9:40: Pot: Rob…not so much.

9:41: Time out for a sec. GAWD…I cannot express how unappealing I find McKenna…WHAT A FUCKING WHINING, SNIVELING, GEEKY, SICKLY DWEEB. Okay…back to normal….

9:45: McKenna would operate in a “bipartisan fashon”. Yeah. Like being a founding principle in the failed state AG lawsuit against “Obamacare.”

9:49: On Gun Control: Inslee wants a zero-tolerance policy on violence. Complements his opponent on making progress in this area.

9:54: Inslee hits McKenna on that stupid “Old men sitting in a diner complaining about taxes” ad. I guess that’s okay, but that add is so amateurish that he didn’t really need to waste the words.

9:56: Closing statements. Fucking yeah!!!!

Take home message: McKenna is a congenital whiner. He can’t help it—it’s in his DNA. As a good liberal, I shouldn’t discriminate against him for it. But FUCK, IS HE FUCKING ANNOYING!!!!

Vice President Joe Biden faces off with Congressman Paul Ryan this evening at 6:00 PM. I’m about a mile from the Montlake Ale House in stop and go traffic, blogging while stopped.

If you can, please join the debate party at the Ale House.

6:03: [Darryl] GAME ON!

6:04: [Darryl] Paul Ryan lies on his second sentence. He says it took 2 weeks to call it a terrorist attack. In fact, Obama called it a terrorist attack the day after.

6:07: [Darryl] Whoa…Paul Ryan goes off into La La land…

6:07 [Carl] Ryan is annoying as fuck. Whenever someone says “Apologize for America” I want to scream.

6:10: [Darryl] Biden stumbles at the end of a good build-up, but essentially he successfully defended Ryan’s “weakness” bullshit.

6:12: [Darryl] Did anyone bother to prep. Ryan on the news of the day: (1) The Benghazi consulate was a CIA outpost, and (2) Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) Republicans cut funding for state dept. security.

6:13: [Carl] Moderator: “There’s no bigger national security issue than Iran.” Loose nukes?

6:17: [Darryl] Paul Ryan channels the Ayatollahs! That’s probably easy for him—you know, another reactionary religious fanatic.

6:17 [Carl] Ryan: “They’re spinning their centrifuges faster.” Is that the issue? I don’t know nuclear issues.

6:20: [Darryl] Biden calls Ryan on THE BIG MYTH: Iran is building a weapon. They aren’t.

6:23: [Darryl] Joe gets the last word: “This President doesn’t bluff!”

6:26: [Darryl] Joe gets to do a passionate stump speech. Ryan comes back by suggesting unemployment is getting worse!?! Does he think he can get away with that?

6:28: [Darryl] Ryan inserted a canned anecdote but it isn’t clear what it has to do with anything!

6:29: [Darryl] Joe gives his own death anecdote (a much more personal one), but it is ALSO off topic. These Bozos need to read the fucking COMMENT POLICY!

6:30: [Darryl] Mmmmm…Green Pork!

6:33: [Darryl] I’m probably biased, but from what I see, Biden is cleaning up when he points out that Ryan wrote advocating for stimulus funds.

6:36: [Darryl] I just figured out that Carl Ballard was trying to co-blog with me (virtually). So I updated with his queued stuff. Sorry Carl!

6:38: [Darryl] “Folks, follow your instincts on this one” — Joe Biden on the Ryan Medicare Voucher program.

6:39: [Darryl] Ryan: “They were caught with their hands in the cookie jar to fund ObamaCare”. Ummm…that is a very creative way of spinning cost savings that you, yourself proposed.

6:41: [Carl] When Ryan says he worked with “an Oregon Senator” that Oregon Senator already called him a liar.

6:43: [Darryl] Joe will not let young Eddie Munster get away with anything!

6:45: [Darryl] Paul Ryan’s hair is sweating something fierce!

6:47: [Darryl]: Shorter Ryan: Tax cuts for the wealthy will grow the economy! Didn’t we try that for 8 miserable years that ended in an economic calamity???

6:46: [Carl] I’m listening to this on the radio, like when I thought Obama did fine, but I think Biden is winning.

6:49: [Darryl] Ryan repeats Mitt’s lie about the “six studies” that support their “math”. Note to Republicans: Editorials don’t count as “studies”.

6:52: [Darryl] Biden is more effective on criticizing the Romney/Ryan tax program because he feeds specifics right back at Ryan. I don’t think Ryan is used to people seeing through his bullshit so easily.

6:54: [Darryl] The moderator said something about “math”! The Wingnut “BIAS” shitstorm begins in 3, 2, 1…

6:52: [Carl] The deficits are the least to worry about when the economy is on the rocks.

6:57: [Darryl] Now that I know that Paul Ryan sat with a Native American in Afghanistan in 2002 I may have to rethink this whole “voting for Obama” thing!!!

6:57: [Carl] Finally an hour into the second debate, we can mention the war.

7:02: [Darryl] Ryan tries to equivocate between keeping the deadline but not “emboldening our enemies” by giving a deadline.

7:01: [Carl] Ryan fucked up his growing abroad / not at home zinger. Parallel construction isn’t that tough.

7:05: [Darryl] Fuck…I’m voting for JOE!

7:07: [Darryl] Paul Ryan gets into some bizarre head movements while talking about fighting seasons. That’ll make for some fun YouTube remixes!

7:09: [Darryl] Sheesh…I’m pretty fucking sick of Biden making gaffe after gaffe….

7:10: [Darryl] Oops. I meant “pummel”, not gaffe.

7:11: [Carl] This anti-UN stuff from Ryan is making me think he hasn’t read Romney’s book where he praises the UN.

7:13: [Darryl] There are only 13 people in the world who knows Romney praises the UN in his book…and OUR Carl Ballard is one of them!

7:14: [Darryl] Ryan is pro-life because of “science”. Ryan saw a heartbeat in a itty bitty bean. That makes him believe life begins at conception. (Note: It doesn’t…a sperm and an egg are as alive as a fertilized egg.) So, I’m not sure where the science come into it.

7:14 [Carl] Remember when all of our trolls said Obama was making a mistake keeping Biden?

7:16 [Carl] I’m glad they’re talking about abortion, but throwing Catholicism in there is dumb.

7:18: [Darryl] Biden also believes that life begins at conception. But HE DOESN’T CLAIM THAT IS SCIENCE.

7:19: [Darryl] Ryan disses one entire branch of our government with his “unelected judges” comment. Why does he hate the Constitution? I mean if Jesus wanted judges elected he would have put it in the Constitution!!!

7:24: [Darryl] The candidates are asked about the nasty tone of the campaign. When Ryan goes, he launches into a nasty tirade. BIG TIME FAIL!

7:26: [Darryl] I remember just the other day…I was walking down the street and some homeless, runaway debt crisis tackled me! FUCK those tackling debt crises.

7:21 [Carl] So, looks like one abortion question, and it looks like there won’t be anything about the Violence Against Women Act being held up and only talked a little around birth control. Hard to believe that women are 52% of the population and are allowed to vote in this country.

7:29: [Darryl] Closing time…every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

7:30: [Darryl] Ryan accuses Obama of “higher taxes”. NOT TRUE. BIG LIE.

7:32: [Darryl] Ryan asks me for my vote. “Fuck no…I’m voting JOE!”

It’s over. I’d be a big supporter of Paul Ryan if I wanted to invade Syria and Nuke Iran. Woooooohoooo…Bush-style Cowboy diplomacy all over again!!!!!

Even in this fairly straight AP piece reporting on McKenna’s supposed moderation, there’s this:

A political action committee funded by unions has been running attack ads with the message that McKenna is “not who he says he is.” A recent ad from the group tries to tie McKenna – in misleading or incorrect ways – to Republican positions on abortion, the national budget and health care.

I don’t have a TV, so I’ve only seen the ad once with the sound on. But it seemed more fair than not to me. The article mentions McKenna’s support of abortion rights (a better characterization might be that he knows he doesn’t have the votes to win on the issue), although abortion rights will probably be worse in the state after 4 years of McKenna than 4 years of Inslee. And the the other ones seem about right to me.

McKenna put himself, as the article notes several times, at the forefront of opposing the health care law. And while he personally only claimed to be opposed to part of it in court, that isn’t what his lawsuit argued. So he was happy to be part of that GOP extremism.

And as to the budget: well he has supported GOP budgets at the state that would have gutted education and social services. Maybe the ads should have focused on those instead of the federal budget, but they’re coming from the same place.

Finally, although the races for President and Congress will be the bigger story on election night, the races for governor will be part of that picture. And a McKenna win (or the aggregate of GOP victories at the state level including his) will be used at the federal level to argue for more restrictions on abortion and deeper cuts to social services. So maybe it’s not fair, but it is the reality.