| Obama | Romney |
| 97.9% probability of winning | 2.1% probability of winning |
| Mean of 306 electoral votes | Mean of 232 electoral votes |
Now that both conventions have come and gone and the post-convention polls are coming out, it’s a good time to assess the “score” in the 2012 Presidential Election.
My previous Monte Carlo analysis of the race was posted ten days ago (between the two conventions) and showed President Barack Obama leading Governor Mitt Romney by a mean of 305 to 233 electoral votes. An election held then would be expected to end in Obama’s favor with a 97.2% probability. Romney had a 2.8% probability of winning.
Thirty two new state head-to-head polls covering 18 states have been released since then:
| start | end | sample | % | % | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| st | poll | date | date | size | MOE | O | R | diff |
| AZ | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 993 | 3.1 | 44 | 53 | R+9 |
| CA | SurveyUSA | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 524 | 4.3 | 57.4 | 34.9 | O+22.5 |
| CO | Keating | 10-Sep | 11-Sep | 503 | 4.4 | 49 | 44 | O+5 |
| CO | PPP | 31-Aug | 02-Sep | 1001 | 3.1 | 49 | 46 | O+3 |
| FL | Rasmussen | 12-Sep | 12-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 48 | 46 | O+2 |
| FL | Marist | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 980 | 3.1 | 49 | 44 | O+5 |
| FL | Mclaughlin & Assoc | 09-Sep | 10-Sep | 600 | 4.0 | 47 | 50 | R+3 |
| FL | SurveyUSA | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 596 | 4.1 | 48.2 | 44.5 | O+3.7 |
| FL | Gravis Marketing | 02-Sep | 02-Sep | 1288 | 2.7 | 46.7 | 48.0 | R+1.3 |
| IL | WeAskAmerica | 05-Sep | 05-Sep | 1382 | 2.8 | 54 | 37 | O+17 |
| MI | EPIC/MRA | 08-Sep | 11-Sep | 600 | 4.5 | 47 | 37 | O+10 |
| MI | PPP | 31-Aug | 02-Sep | 1001 | 3.4 | 51 | 44 | O+7 |
| MN | PPP | 10-Sep | 11-Sep | 824 | 3.4 | 51 | 44 | O+7 |
| MN | SurveyUSA | 06-Sep | 09-Sep | 551 | 4.3 | 49.6 | 40.4 | O+9.3 |
| MO | Rasmussen | 11-Sep | 11-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 45 | 48 | R+3 |
| MT | PPP | 10-Sep | 11-Sep | 656 | 3.8 | 45 | 50 | R+5 |
| NH | U NH | 04-Sep | 10-Sep | 592 | 4.0 | 45 | 40 | O+5 |
| NJ | Quinnipiac | 27-Aug | 02-Sep | 1471 | 2.6 | 51 | 44 | O+7 |
| NM | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 1122 | 2.9 | 53 | 42 | O+11 |
| NM | Research & Polling | 03-Sep | 06-Sep | 667 | 3.8 | 45 | 40 | O+5 |
| NY | Quinnipiac | 04-Sep | 09-Sep | 1486 | 2.5 | 62 | 34 | O+28 |
| NC | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 1087 | 3.0 | 49 | 48 | O+1 |
| NC | SurveyUSA | 04-Sep | 06-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 43 | 53 | R+10 |
| OH | Rasmussen | 12-Sep | 12-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 47 | 46 | O+1 |
| OH | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 1072 | 3.0 | 50 | 45 | O+5 |
| OH | Gravis Marketing | 07-Sep | 08-Sep | 1548 | 2.7 | 47.3 | 43.2 | O+4.1 |
| OH | Gravis Marketing | 02-Sep | 02-Sep | 1381 | 2.9 | 43.7 | 46.8 | R+3.1 |
| TX | WPA | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 1000 | 3.1 | 40 | 55 | R+15 |
| VA | Marist | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 996 | 3.1 | 49 | 44 | O+5 |
| VA | Gravis Marketing | 08-Sep | 09-Sep | 2238 | 2.2 | 44.0 | 49.4 | R+5.4 |
| WA | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 563 | — | 53 | 42 | O+11 |
| WA | SurveyUSA | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 524 | 4.4 | 54.4 | 37.6 | O+16.8 |
I’ll only discuss a few states.
In Colorado, Obama takes both new polls, but by modest margins. Colorado seems to have settled for Obama by a small margin:
Five new polls from Florida ought to be enough to tell us who’s ahead. But, no: Obama takes three and Romney takes two. This gives us a total of 12 “current polls” (i.e. those taken in the past month), and in aggregate, Romney comes up with an advantage. In an election now, Romney would take Florida with about an 80% probability.
Obama takes both new Michigan polls by fairly nice margins. There are a total of seven “current polls” for the state—all but two go to Obama—and Obama won 94% of the simulated elections in the state.
Obama seems to have Minnesota pretty well locked up, with the new polls.
The new Missouri poll give Romney a small +3% lead over Obama. We have four other “current” Missouri polls from August. Romney takes all but one. Unless there is some kind of post convention second thoughts coming from the state’s voters, Romney looks likely to win the state.
Romney takes the latest Montana poll by just +5%. The previous poll, from mid-August had Romney up by +17%.
Obama turns in a weak +5% performance In New Hampshire, suggesting he only has an 81% chance of taking the state now.
In New Mexico, Obama is as strong as anywhere. The two new poll have him at +11% and +5%. The older current poll from mid-August is a +14%.
Two new North Carolina polls offer dissimilar pictures. The PPP poll offers Obama a +1% edge over Romney, but the Survey USA poll done for the Civitas Institute (a very right-wing state “think tank”) has Romney up by +10%. The Survey USA poll was taken during the convention and the PPP poll was taken after, so one could argue that there is a post-convention bounce for Obama. But the evidence to support that is vanishingly thin. The polling for the past month gives one poll to Obama, two ties, and four to Romney. Overall, the evidence still supports a good Romney advantage in the state. Here is all the polling in a nicepicture:
Four new Ohio polls split three to one for Obama. The three Obama polls are all post-convention. Romney’s poll is pre-convention. The nine polls taken over the past month go five for Obama, two for Romney and two ties. The evidence gives Obama a slightly stronger advantage in Ohio than Romney has in North Carolina.
The Virginia split, giving Obama a +5% in one and Romney a +5.4% in an even larger poll. The other three current polls go one for Obama, one for Romney and one tie. The state is still really, really, close, although Romney wins about 68% of the simulated elections.
Two Washington polls offer no surprises: Obama dominates with a double-digit lead. End of story.
With all those new polls, a Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 simulated elections, gives Obama 97,854 wins and Romney 2,146 wins (including the 239 ties). Obama receives (on average) 306 (+1) to Romney’s 232 (-1) electoral votes. These results suggest that, for an election held now, Obama would have a 97.9% (+0.5%) probability of winning and Romney, a 2.1% (-0.5%) probability of winning.
In other words, little has changed in the past ten days. Obama still maintains a solid lead in the electoral college vote. It is interesting to note that the popular vote (as assessed by national polls) seems to be swinging in Obama’s direction now as well.
The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 13 Sep 2011 to 13 Sep 2012, and including a one month polling window (FAQ).
Compared to 2008, this is not a very dynamic race.
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
Ten most probable electoral vote outcomes for Obama:
- 299 electoral votes with a 3.47% probability
- 300 electoral votes with a 3.38% probability
- 293 electoral votes with a 3.27% probability
- 313 electoral votes with a 2.66% probability
- 294 electoral votes with a 2.61% probability
- 312 electoral votes with a 2.47% probability
- 290 electoral votes with a 2.28% probability
- 315 electoral votes with a 2.02% probability
- 307 electoral votes with a 2.01% probability
- 309 electoral votes with a 1.96% probability
After 100,000 simulations:
- Obama wins 97.9%, Romney wins 2.1%.
- Average (SE) EC votes for Obama: 305.7 (19.5)
- Average (SE) EC votes for Romney: 232.3 (19.5)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Obama: 304 (271, 347)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Romney: 234 (191, 267)
Each column of this table shows the electoral vote total aggregated by different criteria for the probability of winning a state (Safe=100%, Strong=90%+, Leans=60%+, Weak=50%+):
| Threshold | Safe | + Strong | + Leans | + Weak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe Obama | 144 | |||
| Strong Obama | 101 | 245 | ||
| Leans Obama | 54 | 54 | 299 | |
| Weak Obama | 0 | 0 | 0 | 299 |
| Weak Romney | 1 | 1 | 1 | 239 |
| Leans Romney | 77 | 77 | 238 | |
| Strong Romney | 78 | 161 | ||
| Safe Romney | 83 |
This table summarizes results by state. Click on the poll count to see the individual polls included for the state.
| 0 | 0 | EC | # | Total | % | % | Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 4 | Votes | polls | Votes | Obama | Romney | % wins | % wins | |
| AL | 9 | 1* | 558 | 36.6 | 63.4 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| AK | 3 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| AZ | 11 | 1 | 963 | 45.4 | 54.6 | 2.0 | 98.0 | ||
| AR | 6 | 1* | 679 | 36.8 | 63.2 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| CA | 55 | 1 | 484 | 62.2 | 37.8 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| CO | 9 | 4 | 2447 | 51.9 | 48.1 | 90.7 | 9.3 | ||
| CT | 7 | 3 | 2716 | 54.7 | 45.3 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| DE | 3 | 0 | (100) | (0) | |||||
| DC | 3 | 1* | 94 | 88.3 | 11.7 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| FL | 29 | 12 | 10322 | 49.4 | 50.6 | 20.1 | 79.9 | ||
| GA | 16 | 1 | 1054 | 48.4 | 51.6 | 22.7 | 77.3 | ||
| HI | 4 | 1* | 517 | 64.8 | 35.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| ID | 4 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| IL | 20 | 1 | 1257 | 59.3 | 40.7 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| IN | 11 | 1* | 344 | 40.7 | 59.3 | 0.6 | 99.4 | ||
| IA | 6 | 1 | 1145 | 51.1 | 48.9 | 68.6 | 31.4 | ||
| KS | 6 | 1* | 442 | 45.0 | 55.0 | 7.5 | 92.5 | ||
| KY | 8 | 1* | 528 | 45.5 | 54.5 | 7.0 | 93.0 | ||
| LA | 8 | 1* | 542 | 41.1 | 58.9 | 0.2 | 99.8 | ||
| ME | 2 | 1* | 516 | 58.3 | 41.7 | 99.7 | 0.3 | ||
| ME1 | 1 | 1* | 488 | 64.8 | 35.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| ME2 | 1 | 1* | 421 | 53.7 | 46.3 | 85.9 | 14.1 | ||
| MD | 10 | 1* | 792 | 62.4 | 37.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MA | 11 | 1 | 1048 | 58.5 | 41.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MI | 16 | 7 | 6913 | 51.4 | 48.6 | 94.1 | 5.9 | ||
| MN | 10 | 2 | 1278 | 54.2 | 45.8 | 98.1 | 1.9 | ||
| MS | 6 | 1* | 717 | 40.0 | 60.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| MO | 10 | 5 | 2565 | 46.5 | 53.5 | 0.4 | 99.6 | ||
| MT | 3 | 2 | 1088 | 44.6 | 55.4 | 0.7 | 99.3 | ||
| NE | 2 | 1* | 553 | 43.4 | 56.6 | 1.3 | 98.7 | ||
| NE1 | 1 | 1* | 389 | 45.5 | 54.5 | 10.4 | 89.6 | ||
| NE2 | 1 | 1* | 252 | 49.6 | 50.4 | 46.3 | 53.7 | ||
| NE3 | 1 | 1* | 284 | 35.9 | 64.1 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| NV | 6 | 2 | 1606 | 51.3 | 48.7 | 76.3 | 23.7 | ||
| NH | 4 | 1 | 503 | 52.9 | 47.1 | 81.4 | 18.6 | ||
| NJ | 14 | 2 | 2022 | 55.0 | 45.0 | 99.9 | 0.1 | ||
| NM | 5 | 3 | 2083 | 55.4 | 44.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NY | 29 | 2 | 2063 | 64.8 | 35.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NC | 15 | 7 | 5162 | 49.0 | 51.0 | 14.3 | 85.7 | ||
| ND | 3 | 1* | 348 | 41.4 | 58.6 | 1.1 | 98.9 | ||
| OH | 18 | 9 | 8687 | 51.0 | 49.0 | 89.6 | 10.4 | ||
| OK | 7 | 1* | 431 | 33.4 | 66.6 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| OR | 7 | 1* | 631 | 54.4 | 45.6 | 93.4 | 6.6 | ||
| PA | 20 | 2 | 935 | 55.0 | 45.0 | 98.1 | 1.9 | ||
| RI | 4 | 1* | 495 | 59.4 | 40.6 | 99.9 | 0.1 | ||
| SC | 9 | 1* | 1833 | 51.7 | 48.3 | 85.6 | 14.4 | ||
| SD | 3 | 1* | 497 | 46.1 | 53.9 | 10.4 | 89.6 | ||
| TN | 11 | 1* | 654 | 46.0 | 54.0 | 8.3 | 91.7 | ||
| TX | 38 | 1 | 950 | 42.1 | 57.9 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| UT | 6 | 1* | 1149 | 27.7 | 72.3 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| VT | 3 | 1 | 415 | 71.3 | 28.7 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| VA | 13 | 5 | 4858 | 49.5 | 50.5 | 32.3 | 67.7 | ||
| WA | 12 | 2 | 1016 | 57.4 | 42.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| WV | 5 | 1 | 361 | 42.1 | 57.9 | 1.5 | 98.5 | ||
| WI | 10 | 5 | 4267 | 50.9 | 49.1 | 77.9 | 22.1 | ||
| WY | 3 | 0 | (0) | (100) |
* An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).
Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.
The most recent analysis in this match-up can be found from this page.
Montana could go for Obama if he cared to campaign there. Two D U.S. Senators, D governor, and he only lost by 3% in 2008. But, its 3 electoral votes don’t much count.
I’m headed to MT on Sunday. I’ll campaign for Obama while there. Okay, I’ll mostly be fishing in my favorite state . . .
New NBC/WSJ Poll: Obama Opens Wide Leads In FL, OH, VA
“President Barack Obama leads Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the key battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Virginia, according to new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls of each of these three states.
“In both Florida and Virginia, Obama is ahead of Romney by five points among likely voters (including those leaning toward a particular candidate), 49 percent to 44 percent. In Ohio, the president’s lead is seven points, 50 percent to 43 percent. …
“And according to NBC’s electoral map, Romney likely needs to capture at least two of these states, if not all three, to secure the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency.”
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....ginia?lite
NBC/WSJ Poll: Dems Gain In Key Senate Races
“[A] series of NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls shows Democrats with an edge in two of the most closely-watched [Senate] races and tied in a third. …
“In Virginia, Kaine and Allen are deadlocked at 46 percent apiece with likely voters. In Ohio, … Brown leads … Mandel 49 percent to 42 percent. And in Florida, … Nelson leads … Mack 51 percent to 37 percent.
“With only 54 days until the election, these three polls suggest that Republicans still have work to do if they wish to achieve their goal of retaking control of the Senate.”
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_.....third?lite
Yesterday may go down in history as Romney’s Howard-Dean-Scream moment. We’ll find out in next week’s polls.
I said it before and I’ll say it again:
When the GOP can’t beat a black Kenyan communist with a forged birth certificate who was indoctrinated by radical imams in Indonesian madrassas and pals around with terrorists, maybe it’s time for them to go out of business.
@5
*snort*
(now cleaning coffee off monitor…thanks)
Yeah, but once people find out about Obama wanting to end work requirements for welfare recipients …. What?
H.R.4297 – Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012 introduced by Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and co-sponsored by 6 fellow Republicans has been evaluated by the Congressional Research Office which concluded
Lying, double dealing Republicans. Will US voters throw them out?
@7
Virginia Foxx is a nasty, nasty piece of work – would love to see her kicked to the curb.
Alas, she represents a 90% white, R+15 district in rural far-NW North Carolina, so she’s likely there as long as she wants.
She is a graduate of evil, state-owned institutions like the UNC, and worked for many years in education, sucking on the government teat at various evil state-owned colleges and community colleges, including Appalachian State College.
Since 1994 she has been a ward of the state, serving in the NC State Senate and since 2005, the US House.
Despite this communistic past, she is a prominent shill for the for-profit ‘education’ industry.
Some highlights from her career in the House:
Like I said, a nasty piece of work.
@2-3
Placing your Analysis on an NBC poll is dubious when you look at the sampling criteria.
In Ohio, NBC outpolled Democrats over Republicans by 10 points 38-28…yet only leads by 5
One needs to believe the sampling criteria in order to believe the result.
Roger Rabbit would obviously like to believe Obama is way ahead so he cherrypicks the NBC Poll.
Sophomoric approach but then again his isn’t a real serious analysis even close to the extent of Darryl’s.
I believe by October 1, things will have sorted out with the Conventions. The Debates may mean a fraction of a % either way. The die will be pretty well cast. And in the end, it’s all about turnout. It always is.
Rhett a/k/a/ “Serial Bob” @ 9 is pulling out the Republican theme that polls don’t matter because the sample has to over-represent Republicans in every state in order to be valid – at which point they will find something else wrong with them. Of course, a Fox News “viewer poll” of random right-wing wingnuts calling in to the network offers, in their opinion, a much more valid poll.
Of course, it’s merely a question of how large a sample is selected and the sampling method. I learned this as an undergraduate in school, and I earned a B.A., not a B.S. It’s really not that hard. If the results end up with more Democrats that Republicans in the sample, then that’s simply what happens in a blind sample sometimes. Other times, it works the other way around. It may simply be a factor of selecting “likely voters”, instead of “registered voters” or the adult population as a whole. Republicans may simply be seeing a drop-off in “likely voters” due to their Evangelical wing being less than happy at being told to vote for a Mormon.
Heck, I haven’t been polled at all this year, and since Washington is clearly going to go vor Obama by a landslide, then I don’t expect any national campaign to waste their money polling my household.
@9
You’re parroting Rush Limbaugh, which is never good if you want to be taken seriously.
I mentioned on the other thread that Bill O’Reilly was doing the same thing, impugning a Fox poll, with the assistance of ‘expert’ Dick Morris, making the point that only Rasmussen was accurate.
!
Go here, admittedly a lefty site, but with a poll tracker tool that lets you look at all of them. Note the unmistakable swing in the trajectories of the two candidates.
Now please try to say something intelligent.
Why do Republicans project so damn much?
Slick Willard today responded to Stephanopoulos’ question about the upcoming debates with
Wow.
Steve Benen has been Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity in explicit detail for nearly a year now over at The Maddow Blog.
This week’s chronicling will surely cover Slick Willard’s worst week with his biggest lie ever, FACT CHECK: Romney misstates facts on attacks
Clueless Slick Willard.
Also from that interview referenced @12 above
Wonder why he polls worse the more you get to hear him?
@12
Romney is both the ne plus ultra and main beneficiary of the so-called ‘post-truth’ environment.
As you point out, it is essential to maintain pushback against this amoral, dishonest cynicism.
#romneyshambles
WTF?
Rmoney’s incompetence is EPIC.
93% of American households have income less than $100,000.
@10–
Duh. You avoid the point. The example was specifically about Ohio where NBC polled 38% Democrats and 28% Republicans. That is the key factor in the end result. Are you sure you don’t have a BS?? Your comments are silly and irrelevant.
The question is was NBC’s assumption of 10% points more Likely Voter Dems than R’s valid? And we won’t know the real answer until Election Day.
I’ll save this one and we’ll see as Ohio is absolutely critical to Romney, I agree. But there are also pollster known for swaying results using unjustifiable assumptions in order to attempt to sway Public Opinion.
We’ll see.
Or sane Republicans are waking up and leaving the the Party of the Krazies.
True!! It’s called Rasmussen.
This is what the story really should be:
09/14/2012
The World from Berlin
‘Obama’s Middle East Policy Is in Ruins’
http://www.spiegel.de/internat.....55835.html
This is what Smart Power got us.
Today the embassy walls were breached in Tunisia. We’ve shown ourselves to be weak and permissive, and tolerant of Islamic extremism. We opened the door. Not suprising that those who would do us harm feel free to walk through.
@10 “Rhett a/k/a/ “Serial Bob” @ 9”
That is not Bob, it’s the Klynical Klown.
@11 I already know how they’re going to spin the Nov. 6 poll:
“We wuz robbed!” by dead, illegal, underage, multiple voters, etc. ad nauseum.
Der Spiegel the newspaper that op/eds expulsion of Muslims from Germany. Guffaw! (they have a word for ultra nationalist Germans…)
@19 Kornflake Konservative,
You are an idiot.
By the way sir, have you ever worn the uniform of the armed services of the USA in order to prove the US is strong?
Or are you like the candidate you support, “weak and permissive” letting others fight and die while you thump your chest in times of war?
We await your answer.
7 of 16 free market odds-makers pink slip Mitt today.
http://www.oddschecker.com/spe.....ion/winner
With all the straw-grasping going on among the trolls these days, it’s a good thing that they seem to have strong right hands well practiced at yanking thin twigs.
Has the carpet bombing started yet?
Oh dear serial, seems Gemany has beefed up security at embassies and the one that had a minor attack in Khartoum is normally closed on Fridays. So, in not unusual news, Der Spiegel is exaggerating a story to stir up dear of Muslims.
Oh noes!
Slick Willard sure seems to just have “apologized” for America’s principle of free speech:
What happened to standing up for free speech?
via TPM
Top Five Reasons Why Mitt Romney Won’t Release More Tax Returns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....t9MuIhDcA#!
@ 23
Your questions are irrelevant but
1) I spent less than 2 weeks in ROTC. Realized very quickly that I wasn’t into being regimented and I wasn’t interested in military history, which was the first class.
2) I signed up for Selective Service the first day it was re-instituted.
Yes, I chose not to serve. As did our Commander in Chief, BTW, which also is an irrelevant point.
@30 Serial Blowhard,
Our President isn’t saying now, nor has he ever said the US was “weak and permissive”, unlike you and Slick Willard.
So, until you find a spine to support that growth on the top of your shoulders, STFU about others going abroad to fight and die to support your need for machismo foreign policy.
@5 Kansas tea party nutters are working overtime making sure Mitt will prevail.
http://www.joplinglobe.com/top.....rom-ballot
@32
Fine with me if a deep red state wants to pull him from the ballot and show moderates and independents everywhere that the current heads of the Republican brand are every bit as insane and anti-democratic as they’ve heard rumored.
@30 Serially Disinteresting Ahole,
You know what I was not and am not interested in Ahole? Sending letters to next of kin when their brave family members who had “signed up” were killed or injured because their CINC lied them in to a war.
You know what I was not and am not interested in Ahole? Triaging 19 year olds who had the balls and feelings of patriotic duty to do what you can only dream of having.
You know what I was not and am not interested in Ahole? Listening to BS chicken hawks like you and the Iraq war drum bangers who are Slick Willard’s “senior advisors”.
Now crawl back into the hole you crawled out of you lily livered coward.
@30 Who likes being regimented? Who likes getting up at 0500 for PT? Or drill sergeants and army chow? Who likes deploying to some shithole third world country to get shot at? It’s a job, dude. Some of us are rabbit enough to do it, others not as much. If you’re the latter, at least be thankful for rabbits.
@34 “lily livered coward”
Hmmm. That’s harsh. Not saying it isn’t true; it’s just that I always tried to be diplomatic about it. So I thought of it as “pursuing alternative civilian careers.”
@36 Roger,
Sorry I guess. I just can’t stomach such BS at all. Seen and been through too much.
@ 31
GMAFB about that you-didn’t-serve-so-shut-up crap. You aren’t applying it to Obama, you won’t apply it to Hillary, and you won’t apply it to the 18-25 crowd who will overwhelmingly vote for Obama.
I don’t have to live it to have an opinion about it. In this world people choose to serve, or not. I chose not to but put my name on the list when asked.
For those that did serve, assuming honorable discharge, they receive benefits for having done so. Yes, it can be a very difficult and dangerous job. For those that signed up for regular Army, they knew it at the time. For those that signed up for reserves and were surprised to be called up, that’s unfortunate but that’s why we have reserves.
Argue on the merits and stop showing me your Purple Heart. However you might have earned it, you are entitled to only one opinion and one vote.
@38 Kornflake ChickenHawk Konservative,
You didn’t choose to put your name on the list. Registering for the draft is the law.
Your self trumpeted single act of patriotism which you use to justify your chest thumping machismo foreign policy fantasies was obeying the law.
You’re a lily livered chicken hawk.
@36&39 Here is a photo of puddy’s source for the “they took the Marines bullets” propaganda the right wings blogs went viral on.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....ingnut-lie
Reuters and Gallup are still polling ALL, not Likely Voters and not Registered Voters.
Gallup 9/11 – 9/13 1500 ALL 49 43 +6 Obama
Reuters/Ipsos 9/7 – 9/10 1089 A 50 46 +4 Obama
Last I heard, ALL people in this country do not vote.
greg@40-
Greg uses a DailyKos speculation to dispel what he claims is a lie?? So why didn’t the marines have loaded weapons?
More importantly, why weren’t they warned by Obama about current intelligence and what could potentially happen around 9-11?
Obama is a failure anyway you look at it.
Too busy campaigning and rubbing shoulders with celebrities.
Obama also failed to attend any intelligence briefings since 9/5.
Even Jimmy Carter attended them Daily.
Sounds like Obama was asleep at the wheel of celebrity.
Here are the most recent Obama Approval Ratings on Likely Voter polls-
Rasmussen Reports 9/11 – 9/13 1500 LV 48 52 -4
Democracy Corps (D) 9/8 – 9/12 1000 LV 49 48 +1
ABC News/Wash Post 9/7 – 9/9 826 RV 48 50 -2
So Nationally, Obama is -1.7
That’s not very good, is it.
Hopefully by 10/1, we’ll see all the Convention stuff shaken out and all polls will be Likely Voters with fairly similar demographics and party samplings. NBC is a joke poll.
Look at the underlying assumptions folks.
@42
“So why didn’t the marines have loaded weapons?”
What Marine in Libya can you quote to say the Marines didn’t have loaded weapons?
Let me tell you something Ahole, a Marine standing watch will NEVER allow anyone to pass without proper authority.
The stench of desperation from the klown.. Swallowing any lie manufactured by the right wing noise machine…
Sigh.. Shades of the old, shrill Ayers bullshit.. It’s to be expected from the right.
@42 rhett are you packing water for puddy on this one? Are you calling USMC Major Alex Cross a liar you slimeball keyboard commando? Here is the USMC response to the right wing bullshit.
“Egypt:
-The Ambassador did not impose restrictions on weapons or weapons status on the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group (MCESG) detachment. The MCESG Marines in Cairo were allowed to have live ammunition in their weapons. The Ambassador and Regional Security Officer have been completely and appropriately engaged with the security situation. Reports of Marines not being able to have their weapons loaded per direction from the Ambassador are not accurate.
– The Marine Corps does not establish Rules of Engagement (ROE). Nonetheless, ROE is classified and release of that information would jeopardize the Marines and U.S. interests. Any further inquiry should be directed to the State Department, since Marine security guards report to the ambassador not to a military commander.
-As reported in open sources, approximately 2000 personnel were protesting outside the U.S. Embassy and six individuals entered Embassy grounds. The Marines quickly took control of these six individuals and subsequently turned them over to local security officials.
-There were no Marines injured in this, or other actions in Cairo.
-There are no Marine dependents in Cairo.”
Major Alex Cross USMC
Here’s another article about QE3 that helps to bring the issues into focus, if you’re interested in economics.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49034067/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I appreciate, of course, that the Fed is debasing our currency. That’s the object, after all — it’s how government manages its debt. And there’s always more government debt after a financial panic, because financial collapses result in debt migrating from the private sector to government balance sheets. Governments save banking systems and economies by taking over private debt when the private borrowers can no longer bear it.
So, how do I deal with this? It’s obvious (or should be) that when government is intentionally devaluing a specific asset — cash in this case — you don’t want to own that asset. Savers are getting hosed. So I’ve been converting my cash assets to liquid financial assets, i.e. stocks. Btw, you can safely assume I own some gold stock, and it’s doing well; Mr. Market isn’t stupid, he knows our money is losing value.
Conventional logic argues I should borrow cheap money and buy hard assets with it. Distressed residential real estate is a prime candidate for investment. I won’t argue with the math, but I just don’t like debt. I’m a debt-averse rabbit. It’s hard to get out of debt and I don’t want to get back in, although in a way I’m doing that (and profiting from it) by owning stocks of companies that borrow cheap money to buy back their stock and/or raise dividends. That, btw, is what banks are doing with your cash savings instead of lending it to small businesses to create jobs.
Government policies are going to suck under anybody’s administration, because there’s really no other way out for the government. The $16 trillion public debt doesn’t have to be repaid, and probably shouldn’t be, because repaying it would massively disrupt the financial system. But interest on it does have to be paid, and with that much debt, the government needs both low interest rates and devalued money to make the interest payments with. So that’s what politicians and bureaucrats are going to do. Except the Tea Partiers; they prefer Armageddon.
I have a contingency plan for that, too. A hole in the ground and a public park full of tasty grass. You would do well to set yourself up to not need money for the day when there won’t be any money. Maybe you can find a good plastic surgeon willing to turn you into a rabbit, although it’s easier to be born as a rabbit in the first place.
# 44: And there is also a difference between having a “loaded weapon” and one where the round is chambered. Often rounds are ordered not to be chambered to prevent accidental shootings (with the early M-16s, they also cut down on the number of jammed weapons).
Here’s something I’d like to point out to our conservative friends who decry all the public debt run up during the financial crisis.
An awful lot of that debt was born as private debt. Extricating the economy from a financial depression is a two-step process. First, you monetize unpayable debt. Then you transfer that debt from the private sector to the public sector. Here’s how it works. Banks assume the debt that individuals can’t pay, then sell that debt to the government for newly-created cash.
That’s what happened in the U.S. from 2007 to 2009. That’s what’s happening in Europe right now.
So the next time you hear some conservative bitching about public debt, explain to him whose debt that is, and where it came from.
What did you say about “convention stuff” klown?
Oh this:
But hey, Obama has it in the bag..right?? Wait until after the Republican Convention.
Republican Convention? What’s that? Oh that Republican Convention… What were we supposed to be waiting for?? Now we have to wait till 10/1???
Obama will be on the defense after the Republican Convention.
Heh. Hardly…
He will buy HUGE amounts of airtime and ads during the Democrat Convention to contrast his positions with that of Obama
Anybody remember those “positions”? Anyone care?
My guess is Romney is going to go all in right after the Republican Convention and drown out the Democrat Convention and the old fucker Clinton.
That ‘old fucker’ gave a stem-winder of a speech didn’t he?
all I said was Romney pretty much has to win Ohio and Florida. I think you are agreeing with me that’s the case..but are trying in your usual uppity fashion to say it’s not attainable. We’ll see. Do you have a crystal ball Lib Sci? Let’s get into this more 2 weeks after the Conventions and see if you still feel the same way.
Don’t know about LS but I think Ohio and Florida are anything but in the tank for Dullard..
It will be interesting where things stand post-Conventions.
It’s been “interesting” indeed..
rhett, Women voters are not buying what Mitt is selling. And Mitt’s problem is there are not enough angry old white guys left to swing his way.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seat.....snyt-poll/
@42 Not having served in the military, I’m sure you don’t realize that in Vietnam, G.I.s coming in from the field were required to unload their weapons upon entering U.S. bases.
We were not allowed to have loaded weapons on base in Vietnam. That was military policy throughout the war, and it wasn’t a problem. If the base was attacked it would take only a few seconds to shove a mag into your sixteen and chamber a round.
@50, 51 – Those poor pathetic fools are trying to save their sinking morale by drowning themselves in their own happy talk.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time:
Gekko/Galt – Trying to Lie their way to the White House
Just for the record…
I’ve been a target shooter since I was eight years old, when I attended a national BB Gun competition. I’ve fired a variety of rifles, including .22’s, .30-03s, shotguns, SKS, M-14’s, and a few others I’ve long forgotten.
I had two years of JROTC, the second as a platoon sargeant and a qualified Marksman. I registered for the draft on my 18th birthday (I was a senior in High School), but a few weeks later S. Vietnam collapsed, and draft registration was discontinued. We went for a few years without any credible threat to the U.S., so I went to college instead of joining the military. By the time the draft registration was re-instated, I was old enough that it didn’t apply to me.
In grad school, I applied to join the Reserves, but was turned down due to my bad eyesight (they could afford to be picky back then).
So I didn’t personally serve in the military. My great-grandfather served in the 31st Alabama Infantry in the Civil War (there may be others I haven’t found yet). My grandfather served in WWI. My father served in the post-WWII occupation army in Korea, and returned to Korea as a combat engineer, where he received a bronze star and a purple heart. He died at the early age of 45, probably a combination of the free cigarettes which the tobacco companies supplied to the soldiers as part of their rations, and the far-off blank look in his eyes he would get when he remembered things from Korea he would never talk about at home.
If I was a chest-pounder and a war hawk, I should have at least served in combat and seen the results of such talk. Chicken-hawks like Rove, Cheney, and Romney – those that avoid serving when the U.S. is at war but are chest-pounders for U.S. military action and war, have nothing but contempt in my eyes.
As for me, I remember that far-off look in my Dad’s eyes, and I believe that wars should be avoided unless the U.S. is absolutely forced to fight.
@55 rhp6033, well said. Thank-you.
@55 Throughout history the people who beat their chests the most have always been those farthest from the action.
Blogger Credited For Fed’s Move To ‘Save The Economy’
I haven’t seen anyone else say it yet, so I will. The Fed’s policy move today … probably would not have happened – if not for the heroic blogging efforts of Scott Sumner. Numerous other bloggers, including the market monetarists and some Keynesians and neo Keynesians have been important too, plus Michael Woodford and some others, but Scott is really the guy who got the ball rolling and persuaded us all that there is something here and wouldn’t let us forget about it.
and
Professors at Bentley University who’ve never published a famous book don’t normally shift the public debate. But Sumner’s vigorous and relentless blogging throughout the crisis on the potential of expectations-focused monetary policy really broke through. It all began with some links from Tyler Cowen and perhaps a tiff with Paul Krugman. I became a regular reader and his ideas have done a lot to influence me, and you can clearly see the influence on Ryan Avent at the Economist, Matt O’Brien at the Atlantic, Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review, Josh Barro at Bloomberg, and a few of the Wonkblog contributors. Outside the exciting world of online economics punditry, NGDP targeting hasn’t (yet!) caught fire as rapidly but it gained explicit allegiance from Christina Romer, Krugman, the economics team at Goldman Sachs, and eventually Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans who started out with a different but similar-in-spirit program.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/20.....n-economy/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Hero or goat, now you know who to credit or blame.
In other polling news ……..
Samuel L. Jackson will film a provocative spot supporting President Obama’s re-election bid as early as tomorrow — telling voters to “Wake the f–k up, Vote for Obama.”
The ad is a riff on Jackson’s viral video “Go the F–k to Sleep,” where he narrates a children’s book written by Adam Mansbach.
By the way, “Go the F–k to Sleep” is a great book present for parents with young children.
@58 (continued)
Not only has he been incredibly influential, but he really has done it almost entirely through his blog. … Bloggers have accomplished some remarkable things, and this one will be one of the biggest.
[It’s next to impossible to insert anything into a long comment because WordPress’s crappy edit function — if it works at all — gives you only a tiny window and keeps automatically scrolling up, so you can’t edit anything below the first few lines. Also, it often times out after just 30 to 60 seconds instead of the promised 5 minutes, which isn’t long enough to begin with. I wish this blog had a better edit function.]
A lot of this sentiment out there in the discouraged ranks of the sure to lose Republican party
I’ve got my fork ready. It is the fork I used to verify McKenna done.
Wtf, I’m just going to redo the whole comment in a new post.
Now, let’s get the Egypt/Libya thing straight.
Some guy encourages another guy to make a film, using actors who’s voices are over-dubbed with a different script later. The director turns out to be a felon convicted of fraud and similar charges in So. California.
Then the guy uploads it to U-tube, where it gets almost no hits.
So he encourages the crazy preacher from Gainesville, the one who likes to burn Korans in order to get attention, to show the film. He tries, but “technical difficulties” prevent all but the trailer from being played.
In the meantime, this guy has the film trailer dubbed or sub-titled into Arabic and uploads it to U-tube, sending press releases to most journalists in Egypt and saying that it’s being shown at the crazy pastor’s “big converence” at his church in Florida. Egyptian TV has enough sense not to air it, but some writers write about it and there are some outtakes played on the radio.
Most of the protesters haven’t seen or heard the video – they are responding to blogs and websites calling for massive protests against the “outrage” of a film which they claim is produced by the U.S. government and is being shown throughout the U.S. Kind of like how Fox News tried to create controversy over the Muslim community center being built in N.Y..
So, isn’t it fair to say that the guy most responsibel for the film and news of it to muslim nations is trying to get the U.S. into a war with all combined Muslim nations?
And if the U.S. responds with a big show of force which might result in dead muslim protesters, wouldn’t that further serve his purposes?
The whole thing reminds me of “waiving the bloody shirt” by supporters of Polk in trying to drum of the Mexican-American War.
Blogger Credited For Fed’s Move To ‘Save The Economy’
I haven’t seen anyone else say it yet, so I will. The Fed’s policy move today … probably would not have happened – if not for the heroic blogging efforts of Scott Sumner. Numerous other bloggers, including the market monetarists and some Keynesians and neo Keynesians have been important too, plus Michael Woodford and some others, but Scott is really the guy who got the ball rolling and persuaded us all that there is something here and wouldn’t let us forget about it.
and
Professors at Bentley University who’ve never published a famous book don’t normally shift the public debate. But Sumner’s vigorous and relentless blogging throughout the crisis on the potential of expectations-focused monetary policy really broke through. It all began with some links from Tyler Cowen and perhaps a tiff with Paul Krugman. I became a regular reader and his ideas have done a lot to influence me, and you can clearly see the influence on Ryan Avent at the Economist, Matt O’Brien at the Atlantic, Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review, Josh Barro at Bloomberg, and a few of the Wonkblog contributors. Outside the exciting world of online economics punditry, NGDP targeting hasn’t (yet!) caught fire as rapidly but it gained explicit allegiance from Christina Romer, Krugman, the economics team at Goldman Sachs, and eventually Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans who started out with a different but similar-in-spirit program.
and
Not only has he been incredibly influential, but he really has done it almost entirely through his blog. … Bloggers have accomplished some remarkable things, and this one will be one of the biggest.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/20.....n-economy/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Hero or goat, now you know who to credit or blame.
The tea party nutters in Missouri have gone all in on birth contol should be a decision of your employer.http://www.stltoday.com/news/l.....195fd.html
The Romney gaffes just keep coming. Now Mittster says “middle income” is $200K-$250K. What does that make most of us?
This is, of course, a lame attempt to slap “middle class tax” on Obama’s plan to tax incomes above $200K. And like so much of what the tone-deaf GOP candidate says it’s backfiring.
One of these days Mitt’s campaign manager will wise up and duct-tape his candidate’s mouth shut and hire a flak to do all the talking. And they claim Biden has a foot-in-mouth problem!
Who is he trying to kid? The “takeover” is finished and done. Been there, done that and they wonder why they’re losing?
I’ve read a bit of Sumner’s blog. Yeah he was pointing the finger at Fed Policy pretty early. I believe he’s a libertarian-leaning econogeek like Tyler Cowen and like Cowen isn’t over-the-top dogmatic..
This Colorado Poll just out by the Denver Post-
Denver Post/SurveyUSA 9/9 – 9/12 615 LV 4.0 47 46 Obama +1
I suspect this will go down to the wire and Romney will spend a load of cash trying to move the needle. It’s inside the margin of error and still a toss-up.
Current Romney States plus NC, Ohio, Fl and Va puts Romney at 266 and needing 4 more from–
Colorado (9)
Iowa (6)
Nevada (6)
New Hampshire (4)
Wisconsin (10)
Romney obviously must win Florida…but could lose Ohio if he can take Co & Wisc plus one of the remaining 3. That scenario is a tough road. Ohio is most likely when you toss the ridiculous NBC poll.
I suspect it will come down to Ohio.
@69
Just keep teabagging for Jesus.
@69, dream on. Colorado is done for Gekko/Galt. In the bag for Obama/Biden. But you keep believing.
On November 7th you and the Republicans are finished, dead, toast — sticking a fork in ya.
Morris’ article does a good job of vetting all the “what ifs” in these polls. It focuses on some of the key turnout issues..especially Black Americans, who turned out in record numbers in 2008. Most of these polls are assuming it will happen again.
http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....15452.html
You may hate Dick Morris, but if you set that aside and look at what he says, he raises some key points on turnout.
Also, that the Obama Convention bounce is primarily in solid Blue States. What difference does it make if Obama wins in NY or Cal by another 5 % points?? It doesn’t.
@72–
Mike
You base your opinion on some extraterrestrial knowledge or wishful thinking.
You may at some point try to base at least one of your opinions on some sort of fact base.
I’m just sayin’
@73,
Dick Morris was recently crowned worst pundit for accuracy in the nation.
@74,
http://livewire.talkingpointsm.....n-colorado
but you keep hoping. After all, I think it’s great that you’re getting Hope & Change.
@73
Dick fucking Morris?
Really? Really??!
Here, look at his article archive from the page to which you link:
Yeah, keep listening to Dick Morris. *snort*
This is WAY too funny. I love Hunter.
Funniest sh*t all day, via Paul Constant over at the SLOG
No, of course he President Bush won’t be attending a Slick Willard fund raiser in Bush’s home. You got a problem with that? :-D
@66 Check out John McCain taking Hannity to school on Libya.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/.....35607.html
As much as the Republicans consider Romney’s campaign important, I think they are at the tipping point now of writing off any chance of Romney winning the presidency. Of course, nobody will admit that – but I think all the “Independent Expenditure” money will be thrown into the Congressional/Senate races.
The Republican “Plan B” is for Republicans to maintain or expand their control of the House, and take control of the Senate, forcing President Obama to veto legislation every day for the next four years. Anything important to the American people will require negotiation with 5% benefits to the American people and 95% benefits to the Republican agenda.
We REALLY need to take the House back in 2012, and end up with 61 seats in the Senate by 2014. That’s the only way to put these rats back in their hole.
A Wisconsin judge has struck down the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
@38 I chose not to
Having chosen not to serve, your opinion on military issues doesn’t carry as much weight as those who did.
but put my name on the list when asked.
That plus $3 earns you a latte at Starbucks.
For those that did serve, assuming honorable discharge, they receive benefits for having done so.
What a crass statement. You think writing a check is all the gratitude our veterans deserve? I have news for you. Most of us who served don’t want benefits for ourselves. We do want benefits for our buddies who need them because they were disabled by their military service. But more than benefits, we want respect for those who served, once again not as much for ourselves as for those we served with, and especially those who didn’t make it home. And even more than respect for those who served and are presently serving, we want an end to stupid and useless wars that needlessly take the lives of our service personnel.
Bob, this is a free country and you have the same free speech rights as the rest of us; but speech, like most things, is unequal — some is better (or worse) than others. And to a veteran like me, hardly anything is more obnoxious than chest-beating chickenhawks who didn’t serve themselves and whose children didn’t serve but want to start wars and send other people’s children to die in those wars.
What it boils down to is that you haven’t earned the right to make other people risk their lives in wars you want our country to fight but which you won’t fight yourself or send your own children to fight in. It’s time you realized that’s unacceptable behavior.
@82 Walker’s union-busting law survived a process-based challenge in Wisconsin’s supreme court last year. This ruling addresses the substance of the law. It’s not a big deal yet because this is only a trial court ruling, but it will be interesting to see how appellate courts handle this, and because the trial judge declared the law unconstitutional the Wisconsin supreme court — which is controlled by Republicans — may not get the last word because federal appellate courts will have jurisdiction over the constitutional issues. Still, even though this ruling is preliminary and celebration is premature, it’s satisfying to see a judge at any level declare Walker’s thuggery unconstitutional. That’s a great starting point for further litigation.
More details on the Wisconsin court ruling. And a federal court has already struck down part of Walker’s law.
“Gov. Scott Walker’s law repealing most collective bargaining for local and school employees was struck down by a Dane County judge Friday ….
“The law remains largely in force for state workers, though a federal judge struck down part of that section of the law as well earlier this year. But for city, county, and school workers the decision by Dane County Judge Juan Colas returns the law to its status before Walker signed his law in March 2011.”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/s.....34626.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I don’t know why the law would still apply to state workers but not county, city, and school employees. That’s gotta be some procedural or legal technicality. If the reporting is accurate — this story is from Wisconsin’s largest newspaper — Walker’s law is immediately suspended for county, city, and school workers. Which means those employers have to bargain with the unions right now. Although only a partial win for public workers, that’s a big win by any measure.
Tentative Deal Reached In Chicago Teacher Strike
Although both sides caution a settlement hasn’t been finalized yet, the school board president said he expects kids to be in school on Monday.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/14/.....?hpt=hp_t3
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Mitt Romney will issue a statement any moment now comparing teachers to terrorists and accusing Obama of appeasing America’s “enemies.”
greg@80–
Huh? McCain joined many in calling the Libya attack a TERRORIST Attack. Not some spontaneous event because of some obscure movie that virtually no one has ever seen. Obama tried to deflect.
Mccain is calling BS
@87 McCain to Hannity: “You’re wrong.”
Is that plain enough English for you?
@87
this is the image you inspire with your pithy writing stylings.
@87 “Huh?” yourself! That “obscure movie virtually no one has ever seen” was posted on YouTube and shown on Egyptian television, dumbass. Who knows how many millions of people have watched it. And greg @80 didn’t claim the Libyan attack was a “spontaneous event” or say it wasn’t a terrorist attack. Our own government is calling it a “planned attack” and no one here has contradicted that. Actually, greg @80 didn’t say anything at all, he simply posted the link to the Hannity-McCain video. So what the fuck are you talking about? Are you tripping out on magic mushrooms this afternoon?
@89 The Cabbage Patch kid captures the essence of Klynikal Klown quite well. The only thing missing is the goat.
http://www.newyorker.com/onlin.....lings.html
Heh. I like the “nutty-cons” part.. That’s our trolls.
But it doesn’t end there.
Lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. Dullard for some reason runs with the pack… He must have caught rabies.
@70
Let me correct that for you:
Current Romney States put Romney at: 179, 181, 191, 191, 206, 206, 206, 206, 216, 218…
I couldn’t find a single site projecting a Romney win.
@93
Even http://www.rasmussenreports.com has it Obama: 247 – Romney: 196.
@70
And yet to give you hope you put Ohio into the Romney column. So what about the fact that the last 15 polls both pre and post convention stands at THE PRESIDENT 11, Willard 2 (and one of those is a poll of registered and you dismiss registered polls), Tie 2 and of those Obama leads, four of them are 50%.
So Willard’s taking Ohio in some strange wishful thinking?
“Yes, I chose not to serve. As did our Commander in Chief, BTW, which also is an irrelevant point.”
Why on earth are you whining about a Kenyan jihadist not serving in our armed forces? Good grief, Bob, is there anything that you don’t whine about?
Whine served with a dose of smarm. Good God, you’re fucked up.
@91 He’s not known as the goatfucking Klynical Klown for nothing.
Romney’s in hot water again.
Yesterday Romney was trying to say he didn’t realize anyone had died when he made his comments because the White House hadn’t released that information yet, but the timeline shows otherwise. So Fox News tried to help him out by mangling the timeline to make it support Romney’s claim – facts be damned. But reporters are all over this, and the cover story and Fox News’ obvious attempts to conceal the real facts are embarrassing both of them.
But as Romney tries to change the subject, he’s in an interview with Stephenopolis (sp?). Romney says his economic policies will protect the middle class, so Stephanopolis (sp?) corners him, asking what he defines as the middle class. “Is it $100,000?” he asks. Romney says no, maybe $200,000 to $250,000, “or less”, he throws in in his usual manner of trying to avoid being pinned down to anything.
Of course, President Obama has said he wouldn’t hike taxes on those above $250,000, which is mainly a political judgement to encourage support from his tax plan by everyone other than the top 10%. He didn’t attempt to define the Middle Class, he just made a policy decision. Romney could have just adopted the President’s reasoning by doing likewise. But Romney’s initial response – that the Middle Class makes between $200,000 and $250,000 a year – seems to pretty clearly broadcast his own feelings, despite the two-word disclaimer thrown in at the end.
With blowback being pretty quick, he tried to save himself by saying that he considered that household income, not an individual’s income. But that’s just digging the hole a little deeper, since the average American only makes between $45,000 and $50,000 per year, so a joint household income of two wage-earners would still be $100,000 or less.
And that average includes the Mississipi sharecropper on the low end, as well as the Wall Street banker on the high end.
MBS to Bob, “Your self trumpeted single act of patriotism which you use to justify your chest thumping machismo foreign policy fantasies was obeying the law.”
Ouch!! That one had to hurt.
“Serial Blowhard,
Our President isn’t saying now, nor has he ever said the US was “weak and permissive”, unlike you and Slick Willard.”
The only people sending a message to the world that America is “weak and permissive” is people like Bob and his ilk. They practically shout it from rooftops.
Klown sez, “And we won’t know the real answer until Election Day.”
The only thing we don’t know at this point is how many little old black ladies you’re going to confront at the polls, screaming at them, “You can’t vote!!”
@98 Romney gamed the “middle income” numbers because he wants to characterize Obama’s proposed tax on the rich as a tax hike on the middle class. Just more Romney lying.
Could someone tell me when the carpet bombing is going to start?
Gov. Walker Replies To Court Ruling
“Sadly a liberal activist judge in Dane County wants to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the legislature and the governor.”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....ights?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Taken at face value, Walker is saying a legislature and governor can pass any law they want to. And there is indeed a certain amount of appeal in the notion that one person — a judge — shouldn’t be able to nullify the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives.
But that’s exactly what constitutions — federal and state — empower judges to do when the will of the people, as expressed through their elected representatives, conflicts with individual rights guaranteed by those constitutions.
I haven’t parsed the ruling, so I don’t know what the judge’s reasoning is. Maybe it’ll hold up, maybe not. I have no legal opinion on it at this time. But if Walker’s law does violate union members’ constitutionally protected rights of free speech and association, then the law has to go — and that would be so even if every last legislator had voted for it and Wisconsin voters were overwhelmingly in favor of it.
There are times when one person’s rights trump the ballot box votes of all his neighbors. That’s what a constitution is, and that’s why we have constitutions. Certainly this is a concept Scott Walker understands even if he’s unwilling to concede it applies to this case.
If his law fails because of constitutional problems, it’ll be because it was badly drafted, and he’ll no one to blame for that but himself, his staff, and his legal advisers. It certainly won’t be the fault of the people whose constitutional rights he violated.
A law firm that helped Wisconsin Republicans redraw legislative district boundaries that heavily favor GOP candidates is now in serious trouble for withholding evidentiary documents from a federal court suit challenging the redistricting plan.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/169700176.html
The latest RCP map shows Obama winning all the tossup states except NC and garnering 332 EVs to Romney’s 206. And that’s before factoring Romney’s most recent gaffes.
http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....s_ups.html
And Colorado apparently.
@96
Back in the day communists weren’t allowed to serve. Hell, you should have seen the recruiters freak the shit out when I told them I was an atheist. Suddenly Uncle Sam wanted no part of me.
This post over at DailyKos is instructive in terms of some of the polling arguments on these threads, particularly parsing party-identification.
A sample:
and…
Rolling Stone lays it on the line:
“Last May, in a much-touted speech in Iowa, Romney used language that was literally inflammatory to describe America’s federal borrowing.
“‘A prairie fire of debt is sweeping across Iowa and our nation,’ he declared. ‘Every day we fail to act, that fire gets closer to the homes and children we love.’
“Our collective debt is no ordinary problem: According to Mitt, it’s going to burn our children alive.
“And this is where we get to the hypocrisy at the heart of Mitt Romney. Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, … [b]ut what most voters don’t know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back.
“This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America’s top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time.
“In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.”
[Emphases added by RR]
http://www.rollingstone.com/po.....z26VRFy0Ed
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There’s no denying that Republicans have a well-financed, highly professional, very slick noise machine at their disposal. They literally spend billions on propaganda. But in the end, all the propaganda that money can buy can’t change what they are: thieves. Stealing is what they do. It’s where their money comes from. These people don’t work or create wealth; after all, when was the last time you saw a bankster putting on a roof or picking lettuce? They simply skim what other people’s labor produces. And then go to the ends of the earth trying to convince us all that it’s legitimate.
Visualize a guy in a cape with a giant letter “D” (for Debt) emblazoned on his chest and you’ve got the picture.
@93 & 94
So translated Rhett…
“If you take some big electoral vote states that nearly every poll indicate The President with a lead and put them down as a Willard win, Willard is DAMN close and just needs a couple more states that most predict The President will win and Willard takes it! Na-Na-Na-Na, Na-na-na-na Hey-Hey…”
“make-nothing, take-everything, screw-everyone ethos”
http://www.rollingstone.com/po.....l-20120829
Rolling Stone sure has a way with words.
Strange. Nate Silver’s most recent forecast looks worse for Obama. Yours looks better. Nate Silver’s forecast has also always looked worse for Obama. Do you know why?
Nate tracks a different data set and uses a different computer model, you *moran.
*Teahadist for moron.
> Nate tracks a different data set and uses a different computer model, you *moran.
Okay, those are some general answers, and I figured. I was hoping for something more specific. Here is what I recall from four years ago, when Darryl’s predictions were better than Nate’s (but Nate’s were prettier, so he writes for NYT now. I kid!). I recall that Nate’s model makes many more assumptions. Only a sample of one, but it looks like there wasn’t much payoff for all those assumptions.