Search Results for: ’

This is a terrible decision from The Seattle Times.

The Seattle Times Co. jumped directly into two of the state’s hottest political contests Wednesday, launching an $80,000 independent-expenditure campaign promoting Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna and announcing a similar effort in support of the referendum to legalize gay marriage.

I don’t like either of these, but the R-74 ad makes a tiny bit of sense on its own. They look like they might win a squeaker, so the Seattle Times can say, “oh look our ads made the difference.” I don’t think that’s good for the brand of independent minded fair people, but at least I could see a path to it working. But since McKenna is losing, and will probably lose, the pitch will be buy an add, it won’t help you? Or do they think it will turn it around?

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.

– 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.

In the comment thread this evening, Serial Conservative asked me to comment on this:

Suffolk University pollster David Paleologos, whose polls are aggregated into mainstream averages to show where the presidential race stands in the swing states, said he’s finished polling in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia because President Obama has no shot of winning those states.

“I think in places like North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, we’ve already painted those red, we’re not polling any of those states again,” Paleologos said Tuesday night on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” “We’re focusing on the remaining states.”

It pains me to have to admit…I’m with Bill O’Reilly on this one:

Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly seemed perplexed, and asked Paleologos if he was certain those three states were already in the bag for Romney.

Here’s Mr. Paleologos’ reasoning:

“That’s right, and here’s why. Before the debate, the Suffolk poll had Obama ahead 46 to 43 [in Florida] in the head-to-head number,” Paleologos responded.
“A poor place to be for a couple of reasons. Number one, his ballot test, his head-to-head number was below 47 percent before the debate, and it’s very, very difficult when you have the known quantity, the incumbent, to claw your way up to 50. So that was a very, very poor place for him to be.

“So we’re looking at this polling data not only in Florida but in Virginia and North Carolina and it’s overwhelming,” Paleologos concluded.

Whoa…hold on there a sec, Bucky! This poll?

Obama was LEADING in Florida. Not behind. Not tied. But leading by +3%.

A straightforward reading of that evidence suggests Obama was in the stronger position. But, Paleologos felt it was bad that Obama didn’t have 50%.

Two problems. First, 46% to 43% Obama lead did not include leaners. The poll actually did assessed leaners, though, and when you include them Obama is at 48%.

On top of that, the poll included 10 additional 3rd party or independent candidates! Those candidates got 2.5% of the “votes.” So…in a close state, where the scale for the two major party candidates goes from 0% to 97.5%, the middle of the scale is 48.75%, and Obama got 48%. That’s pretty fucking close to half the available votes.

Moreover, in this poll, Obama beat Romney in favorability 51% to 45%.

Really…this “theory” by Paleologos seem pretty fucking far fetched to me.

The story is not too dissimilar in Virginia. The last Suffolk poll had Obama leading Romney, 46% to 44%. With leaners, it was a 46.5% to 44.8% race. There were three third-party candidates on the ballot that took 2.2% of the “votes” away. And, again, Obama beat Romney in favorability, 52% to 42%.

Once again, it is pretty fucking bizarre to use this poll to argue that Obama will lose the state.

And here’s the bizarre thing about North Carolina: Suffolk hasn’t done any North Carolina polling. I don’t find them in my database, RCP doesn’t have ’em either. I’ve checked with a few online polling aggregation sites, and find no evidence that Suffolk has done any polling in the state. I guess this means he is relying on other people’s polls (OPP, as we say in the biz).

So let’s look at OPP in Florida for the past two months:

A plain reading of this graph suggests that Obama took the lead from Romney by mid-September and held a pretty solid lead until the post-debate period. And then it looks pretty much like a tie. My most recent analysis gives Obama a 54.9% chance of winning the state now, based on the last six polls in the state.

And now for some OPP from Virginia over the past two months:

Really, Virginia shows an identical pattern. Indeed, my Monte Carlo analysis puts the race in Virginia at a tie right at the moment.

And North Carolina with two months of OPP:

It looks like Obama led from mid-September to late September. The two October polls give Romney the lead, for sure, but a “certain win”? Well…Romney would have a 95% probability of winning the state in an election held now, according to my analysis of this polling evidence.

I can buy an argument the Romney is likely to take North Carolina. But he has a bit of work to do before it is a “sure thing.” For Florida and Virginia, only a fool could look at this collection of evidence objectively and find a “certain” win for either candidate. These two states are very close right now. More polling is needed, not less!

So I don’t know what the hell David Paleologos was babbling about. It seems illogical. You know…an opinion that is free from being encumbered by evidence.

The worst part: I’m still creeped out by finding myself in agreement with Bill O’Reilly. I mean, what the fuck?!?

That if you were reading The Seattle Times’ endorsement of Rob McKenna, and you came across this paragraph:

McKenna has an independent mind. He is willing to work with Democrats and he is willing on occasion to buck his party. He defended Washington’s top-two primary before the U.S. Supreme Court, despite pressure from his own party seeking to overturn it. And he won.

You might reasonably say to yourself that they got the bucking his own party bit out of the way, so it’s time for an example of him working with Democrats. The next paragraph will surely mention the vast amounts of working with Democrats he did.

No?

It’s just an awkward transition to complaining that Democrats have mentioned that he’s a Republican. OK then.

Liberal Viewer: Fox News lies about Libya attack response?

Thom: Right Wingers and the poll truthers.

Jonathan Mann: The Romney Shake It Up Song:

Thom and Pap: Koch front group seeks revenge against Florida Justices.

Debate:

• Ann Telnaes: Romney shapes up for the debate
• Jonathan Mann: Romney fires Big Bird:
• Mitt’s debate: Mostly fiction.
• Kay and Peele Luther on Obama’s first debate performance.
• Jimmy Fallon joins the debate
• Obama: Mitt was fact checked by his OWN CAMPAIGN! (via TalkingPointsMemo.)
• Young Turks: Advice for Obama’s next debate.
• Ann Telnaes: No mention of the 47% in first debate.
• MockitTV: Obama and Romney make America great again
• Young Turks: Why did Obama lose the first debate?
• Big Bird responds.
• Thom: Hey, Media, how can Romney lie all night and be “the winner?”
• Sam Seder and Ari Berman: Mitt lies his way to a debate victory.
• Mitt Romney: Protect big oil, fire Big Bird
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Debate!
• Tweety and Louis Black: The day after the Denver debate
• Conan: Mr. Romney and Mr. Bird.
• The great Mitt Romney cheating conspiracy theory (multiple videos).
• Maddow: History favors the challenger in first debates
• Young Turks: Did Mitt cheat?
• Sam Seder: No mention on 47% in the debate.
• Stephen praises FAUX News for something important.
• Martin Bashir: The two faces of Mitt Romney and John Sununu’s ugly remarks
• Young Turks: Breaking down the debate.
• Health care: Out of luck.
• Ed and Pap: Republicans full of “Dog Hope” after debate
• Tweety unloads over Obama’s performance (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Nobody won!
• Young Turks: Some lies during the debate.
• Jon: The Debate (via Political Wire).

Thom: More Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA):Evolution, Big Bang ‘Lies straight from The Pit Of Hell’

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

Romney flip flops on his 47% comment!?!

George Takei: “We’ve got to be actively involved in the electoral process.”.

G.O.P. Voter Suppression:

• Zina Saunders: Daryl Metcalfe Says You Don’t Deserve To Vote!.
• Maddow: US court forces Ohio to reinstate early voting
• Gavin Newsom with Rosario Dawson: Disenfranchised Latino vote is a major problem.
• Sam Seder: PA Judge blocks GOP voter ID law
• Maddow: Mixed messages on voter ID as Pa. slow to obey court
• Mark Fiore: Voting with Right Wing Ralphie.

Steve Martin, home crafts expert, makes an endorsement:

White House: West Wing Week.

Thom: Has the GOP/Right Wing Media Jumped the Shark?

TEH NEW TRUFERISM:

• The crackpot Jobs Numbers Truferism movement emerges. (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Maddow: Good jobs news drives right to delusion
• Young Turks: The unemployment rate ‘conspiracy’
• Romney campaign resists FAUX News’ Job Report Truferism (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Sam Seder: The Right Wing freak-out over jobs numbers.
• The politics behind the jobs numbers

Ann Telnaes: The Supremes begin a new term.

Sam Seder: Rick Santorum Rick Santorum wants to kill and eat Big Bird.

Mitt Romney’s Disdain For The Middle Class: He Said It, He Meant It.

Young Turks: Tucker Carlson makes a fool of himself over 2007 Obama speech.

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

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here (via TalkingPointsMemo).

– The federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt. Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating.

– Romney Dominated Debate, Say Pundits Trying To Figure Out GOP Candidate’s Policies

– Rob McKenna wrote on Slog yesterday.

– Good jobs numbers. Also, it’s tough to find stories that don’t frame it as political (I understand why people frame it like that this close to the election, but still).

– In the choice between love and hate, choose love. Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.

– Bugs and poop are in our future.

I left my home in Redmond at 6:00 pm yesterday for a trip to a destination a little outside of the little town of Carbonado, WA. The timing was pretty good for debate listening, as the traffic on I-405 meant I would hear most of the debate without a whole lot of interference from 60 MPH road noises. I caught just over an hour of the debate, as my aural sense was required for other tasks shortly after 7:00 pm.

Listening to the debate didn’t give me opportunity to see Obama’s “big crash”. Aurally, things simply did not come off all that negative for Obama. What stuck out for me was Mitt Romney doing two things:

1. Back-peddling, flip-flopping, and pivoting away from the “severe conservative” positions he held during the G.O.P. debates. For the six or so years Romney has been running for President, he has given Americans a portrait of his positions that, oddly, differ greatly from his positions while running for Senate and while running for and being Governor of Massachusetts. Last night, the Etch-A-Sketch moment happened—Romney shook up the slate. He erased that mix of conservative, ALEC, and teabag-inspired positions that got him through the primary. Obama was dumbfounded—he probably was thinking what I was saying: “What the fuck, Mitt?!?”
2. Lying. Romney repeatedly said things that are factually false—and did so with conviction and, well…swagger! Although Obama sometimes pointed out Romney’s “erroneous” statements, I think he was caught off guard by it a bit. He was probably thinking what I was saying, “What a FUCK, Mitt!”

When I turned off the radio shortly after 7:00 pm, my impression was that Obama came off as too timid, and should have been nailing Romney MUCH harder on his Etch-A-Sketching and untruthful statements. Timidity in a debate isn’t good unless your opponent is self destructing. And Romney wasn’t acutely self destructing.

But he was undergoing a chronic self-destruction. I mean, the media isn’t going to let him get away with lying and wholesale abandonment of the positions and policies he used to get through the primary, are they? In other words, after hearing the words each candidate was saying, I was pretty convinced that Romney had created some self-inflicted damage.

I didn’t get home until about Midnight, when I did a quick scan of the news feeds, only to learn that Obama got clobbered. Devastated. Destroyed.

Alas, I had a busy morning, so I didn’t look into it too much. Later, an Obama-supporting friend of mine on the East Coast emailed me a scathing critique of Obama, starting with an, apparently, disingenuous tribute to his and Michelle’s anniversary.

Huh! That opening bit sounded warm and genuine from the right lane of SR-520.

While eating lunch today, I spent a few minutes exploring the media reaction. I think David Frum helps me understand things:

Romney, the multimillionaire, arrived in a suit, shirt and tie that looked like they’d been purchased at Macy’s. I doubt he’ll ever wear them again, but for one night, he looked the way most non-zillionaires look when they dress for business. His manner was warm, engaged, and respectful. He looked at the president when the president spoke, and his expression revealed no asperity or disdain.

Oh shit! No wonder I couldn’t clearly see Mitt’s victory…I just couldn’t see his cheap suit, and where his eyes and Obama’s eyes were pointing. (I’ve mentioned during the G.O.P. debates about Mitt’s habit of staring attentively—almost artificially so—at his speaking opponent, so I can picture that.) Apparently, if I had watched the debate with the sound turned down, Mitt would be the hands-down winner.

The only problem: there were words spoken, as well. And while I agree that Obama didn’t attack Mitt nearly as effectively as he could have, that hardly compares to lying at Americans, right in their own living rooms—or cars. Or “disappearing” his long-held controversial positions, as if they’d never “happened.”

The problem for Romney is that a victory on style is ephemeral. The debate has left behind a record in the form of words. Going forward, he can lose the cheap suit, but will still be left with all those words…and they cheapen the whole package.

– Michelle Obama came to town.

– Another anti-Inslee ad with someone who isn’t a great spokesperson.

– More Italians bought bikes than cars last year. Next year, Washington?

– I like the idea of Olympia as mighty metropolis.

– The Thurston County Chamber of Commerce opposes it. The Olympian opposes it. If that is not reason enough right there to support Thurston County Proposition No. 1, it’s time you turn in your Occupy Olympia underpants.

– Richard Conlin makes the case for Surface-Transit-I-5.

– Twitter has really given people the opportunity to pack so much wrong into so few words.

One would think something like Inslee’s proposal for an Economic Competitiveness and Development office would be the sort of thing that Rob McKenna would mostly ignore because it’s bland and obvious: the government should do more to help grow the economy, especially in areas where we can press our advantages. It’s, in short not the issue you’d think McKenna would want to draw a distinction. But:

A TV ad from Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna features a small business owner mocking Democrat Jay Inslee for part of his jobs plan: a new government office dedicated to helping businesses

Hmm. Well, I think that would backfire on its merits. Again, the government might help small businesses isn’t exactly a monster under the bed type story. But, it turns out that this particular small business owner had help from the government.

But elsewhere Bresheare has had great praise for one government office that helped her business, along with many others. She’s featured on the website of the Small Business Development Center at Western Washington University, complimenting the advice she’s received there (a fact pointed out by the Inslee campaign).

Those small-business centers are a partnership of the federal Small Business Administration and the state, and they offer services such as aid in writing a business plan or obtaining financing. The services are publicly funded and provided at no charge to small business owners.

Look, of course there’s room for debate about what are the best programs to help grow the economy and individual businesses. And, yes, sometimes the best thing the government can do is get out of the way. Still, the facts remain: very often government at all levels helps businesses.

Until the end of the conventions, it was not uncommon to see a media article about how close the presidential race was at the time. If anything, the articles were based on national head-to-head polls, and generally showed Obama a point or two ahead of Romney.

Since the conventions, Obama has been gaining ground in the national polls. In fact, the last such poll that wasn’t Rasmussen that showed Romney with a lead was this Gallup Tracking poll from late August.

If you’ve followed my, or almost anyone else’s, analyses of state head-to-head polls it is no secret that Romney is in deep trouble. No matter what the national polls say, it is the electoral college (and, in a tie, the House…and, you know, sometimes the Supreme Court) that elects the President. The simulated electoral college contest has Romney losing consistently and badly this entire election season.

The reason appears to be that Obama is polling stronger in swing states. Credit for this has been attributed to a better-than-average economy in particular swing states, and to the Obama campaign’s early advertising blitz that started defining Romney even before he was the party’s nominee (and with a little help from Romney’s Republican opponents).

The other explanation, which is more of an amusement than a real explanation, is that the polls are all skewed! It’s attributed to the polling this year being “the worst it’s ever been” by political pundit and lower phalange fetishist Dick Morris.

Alternatively, it is a vast left wing media conspiracy!!!1!1! Politico has a nice write-up about Teh Great Polling Conspiracy of 2012. I think Josh Marshall summarized it best:

…having been through several of these cycles, if you’re theory is based on systemic error on the part of basically all pollsters, you’re in for a long election night.

So the following information can be read in two ways. If you think the polls, when taken en masse come out about right, on average, then I will present to you a measure of just how badly Romney is losing. If you are a Poll Truther, the following information provides solid evidence of just how skewed the polls are (if you presume Romney is really leading).

Here’s what I did. I took the results of last night’s analyses (umm…after the correction). And I reran the analysis, adding a bias in Romney’s favor to each poll included in the analysis. The bias (or skew) was a fixed percentage. I began an 0% and stepped up by 1% at a time through 10%. Here is a summary of the results for Obama’s median electoral votes with 95% confidence intervals:

The graph is clear…to eke out a win, Romney has to move the electorate across the board by a remarkable 6%. That is, he is 6% behind in the polling now. That is a larger margin than the 3.5% margin in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls. That’s because the math of the electoral college places more importance on certain states—and Romney need to do more to win those states.

To win with at least a 95% probability, Romney needs to shift things by 8%. To have the kind of lead that Obama now enjoys—with a solid 100% probability of winning—Romney needs a 10% shift.

Of course, this model is a bit simplified—I skew every poll for all states. It isn’t all states that have to be moved; rather it’s just a handful of “important states” that need moving. I mean, skewing Utah and Mississippi doesn’t really accomplish anything for Romney, and Massachusetts and D.C. aren’t going to be swung over no way, no how.

Here is the electoral map of a Romney victory scenario—presuming he moves voters in his favor by 6%:

Ohio and Pennsylvania plain gone—the polling now suggests they are out of reach for Romney even in this most extreme scenario where he shifts everything by 6%. Instead, a “Romeny + 6%” victory includes Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. Oh…and Nebraska-2, which is tied when we remove the skew.

I’m not suggesting the election is over. But it looks like Romney has an almost insurmountable task ahead of him if he is to leave the rolls of the unemployed.

– I didn’t watch the game because of the scab refs. Did anything happen?

– I’ve never heard Seattle Center called Seattle’s Living Room.

– But the reality is that Chick-fil-A showed that their flawed value having kitchen is filthy and I’m not going to forget that shit just because they are now saying they won’t allow filth mongers back there anymore.

– Just open the plane windows

– The avenging uterus.

Patty Murray’s press release about the GOP killing the Veterans Jobs Corps Act.

“It’s both shocking and shameful that Republicans today chose to kill a bill to put America’s veterans back to work. At a time when one in four young veterans are unemployed, Republicans should have been able, for just this once, to put aside the politics of obstruction and to help these men and women provide for their families.

“But this vote is stark reminder that Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans are willing to do absolutely anything to fulfill the pledge he made nearly two years ago to defeat President Obama. It doesn’t matter who gets in their way or which Americans they have to sacrifice in that pursuit, even if it’s our nation’s veterans.

“It’s unbelievable that even after more than a decade of war many Republicans still will not acknowledge that the treatment of our veterans is a cost of war. Today they voted down a fully paid for bill that included bipartisan ideas to put veterans in jobs that will allow them to serve their communities. Jobs that would have helped provide veterans with the self-esteem that is so critical to their successful transition home.

“Today Senate Republicans told the less than 1% of Americans who have spent the last decade serving and sacrificing for the other 99% of Americans that they are not willing to honor that sacrifice with new investments in their well-being when they return home.”

I hate that we went to war in Iraq. I hate that the war in Afghanistan is still going on (and I wasn’t happy with it from the beginning, although unlike Iraq, I understood the case for it). But as long as we decide to go to war, we’d damn well better make sure we do right by the people who fight it.

Mitt Romney has a blunder problem.

It started years ago, but it really seem to take off with Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom’s, “It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch” comment. Since then, we’ve had “7-11 cookie gate,” Mitt dissing the Olympics host country’s preparedness for the games, mentioning the head of MI-6, and so on.

Until recently, most of the blunders haven’t been substantively rich. (A couple of exceptions: “Corporations are people too, my friend!” and an old Op-Ed with the title, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt!”.)

But the two most recent blunders are really different—they are likely to leave a lasting and meaningfully negative impression of Romney in the minds of many Americans.

The botched statement following the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Libya was factually wrong, repulsively insensitive, and wholly unpresidential. It was a sign of a campaign in desperation, trying anything to the exclusion of taste, good judgement, dignity, and statesmanship.

Mitt’s Blunder of the Week this week reveals Mitt Romney to be a duplicitous asshole. He was caught dissing 47% of Americans—saying things he would never say out in the open—to an elite group of wealthy donors at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser.

Romney’s statement removed all doubt that he has contempt for less fortunate Americans and views their circumstance not even with indifference, but as some sort of blight on the rest of America.

We now have a couple of polls to assess the negative effect of Romney’s statement on people:

Reuters/Ipsos: The statement makes 43% of voters viewed Mitt Romney less favorably.
Reuters/Ipsos: 59% felt Romney was unfairly dismissing a big chunk of Americans as victims.
Gallup poll: The statement makes 36% less likely to vote for him.
Gallup poll: The statement makes 20% more likely to vote for him.

The effect on the race? Although the latest blunders will not be fully captured in aggregate state head-to-head polling for a couple of weeks, we can look at other more immediate indicators.

The average of national polls has moved in Obama’s favor over the past week. The Real Clear Politics average has moved up from a tie two weeks ago to about a +3% advantage for Obama. Likewise, Intrade Prediction Market has seen Obama’s share price surge to its highest median price ever.

Mitt Romney just pulled a reverse Etch-A-Sketch. He has been tacking back to the center from his “severely conservative” (a.k.a. Teabaggy) position he needed to get him through the G.O.P. primary. He has now “reset” himself to a position that is far to the right of most Americans.

He’s no longer viable.

What remains to be seen, is how much down-ballot damage he can cause….