HorsesAss.Org

In case you haven’t noticed, I love collecting and analyzing polls—they tell me the score in the game of politics. Like I did in 2008, this year I’ll collect polls and do analyses for the presidential races, the Senate races, and the gubernatorial races.

What I won’t do (with a few exceptions) is analyze races from the House of Representatives.

Why ignore House polls? Because there are too damn many House races and too few polls released for them. That’s why.

Seriously, this is a hobby, and I can hardly keep track of the relatively small number of Senate and gubernatorial races without having to keep track of an additional 435 House races. Instead, I follow a few races of interest, mostly from Washington state. And I follow the “generic congressional polls.”

Generic congressional polls ask something like, “If the election for the U.S. House was today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate.”

Empirically, subtle swings in the results of these polls seem to be amplified into larger electoral swings. They somehow capture the mood of the electorate.

For the past year there have been over 80 generic congressional polls taken on a national sample. Here is what they look like in aggregate over the past year:

The trend is encouraging for Democrats, who have gone from a deep deficit in late 2010 to what looks like a tie in early 2012.

Notice anything funny about the graph?

Yeah…it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it. The “green” pollster seems to have a (roughly) 5% bias in favor of Republicans.

Wanna guess who that pollster is? If you guessed Rasmussen, you’re right. Here are the Rasmussen polls shown alone:

If you are a Republican, perhaps this is the only pollster you watch. If so, then things looked okay until today, when Rasmussen reported for the first time in a year a net advantage for the generic Democratic candidate. But don’t panic, my Republican friend…I mean, it could just be a fluke.

Or not. Here are all the other pollsters except Rasmussen:

If we are to take the collective findings of eight other pollsters over Rasmussen, the generic Democratic House candidate has led the generic Republican House candidate since sometime in August 2011.

In fact, you might say that, without the Rasmussen results, Republicans might have been in a state of panic for the past six months—instead of just the past 12 hours.

I’m not sure if this editorial in the Yakima Herald is pro or anti gay marriage. But the editorial is pro-having Reagan Dunn talk about the issue. Um, fine, I guess. That’s a pretty bold stance that candidates be allowed to express their opinion. But what the hell, this intro?

Reagan Dunn is a Republican trueblood. His first name comes directly from the president whose legacy still dominates the GOP almost a quarter-century after he left office. His mother, the late Jennifer Dunn, was a state party chair in the 1980s and in the 1990s represented the eastern Seattle suburbs as 8th District congresswoman.

Dunn, a King County councilman, would seem the natural party nominee in his bid to succeed fellow Republican Rob McKenna as state attorney general.

Why do things his mother did (including naming him!) count as political bona fides? The only thing that they mention about his time in office is his vote, eventually, for a pro-gay marriage resolution. A non binding resolution. Not the actual policies he’s advanced on the King County Council that might make him a worthwhile potential nominee. Not how he might shape the AG’s office if he got elected. His mother. Wow.

– I honestly don’t know what’s stranger, that this was written at all, or that it was written in late January.

– I’m not sure I’m comfortable calling this the Backpage.com bill since it’s hopefully aimed at them and at anyone else who might pop up.

– For people who think life is a gift from the heavens, though, they’re surprisingly cavalier with the lives of people providing reproductive health services

– An Immorality Tale in Three Acts

– OMG, Indiana.

– OMG Jan Brewer

– Damn you Hollywood values.

Last week’s contest was won by Liberal Scientist. It was the Costa Concordia docked in Palermo, Italy.

This week’s contest is a random location somewhere on earth. Good luck!

1 Chronicles 1:25
Eber, Peleg, Reu,

Discuss.

Here at HA, we’ve been pretty (and deservedly) tough on Rick Santorum. But there’s no animus, no political disagreement, no division that can bring any thing but sadness from this story (h/t).

The three-year-old daughter of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has been admitted to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the candidate has cancelled his Sunday morning campaign events to be at her side.

Santorum campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said Saturday night that the former Pennsylvania senator and his wife, Karen, were with Bella at CHOP. Gidley said Santorum planned to return to campaigning as soon as possible in Florida, where the Republican primary is Tuesday.

Bella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a genetic condition in which a child has a third copy of material from chromosome 18, instead of the usual two, causing a wide array of physical and mental problems.

Bella was not expected to survive until her first birthday – half of infants with Trisomy 18 do not survive their first week, according the National Institutes of Health. Some children have lived to their teenage years, but with significant medical and developmental issues.

I can’t imagine how difficult this is for his family. Here’s hoping Bella gets well enough soon enough that we can go back to making fun of her father’s horrible political positions shortly.

Young Turks: Barney Frank to marry his partner.

Darcy Burner: Never Give Up:

Young Turks: Conservative’s more likely low IQ and racist.

White House: West Wing Week.

Countdown with Dan Savage: Same-sex marriage equality.

The GOP Gladiatorial Games:
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One of the things we “learned” this week is that gubernatorial hopeful Rob McKenna is against same-sex marriage.

On Wednesday, McKenna told KCPQ-TV (3:47):

I will vote to maintain the current law and the current definition of marriage.

I guess he has given up on the line, “I hold the same views as President Obama.”

Goldy wrote about this under the headline, “McKenna Finally Admits He Opposes Gay Marriage”. But is McKenna only now admitting he opposes same-sex marriage?

I mentioned last June that McKenna has previously taken a stand on the subject:

In 2004, King County Superior Court Judge William Downing issued a controversial ruling that same-sex couples could marry. The Seattle Times, sprung to action to find out where candidates in state-wide races stood:

…King County Councilman Rob McKenna, criticized the ruling’s wording as too broad and said its argument that there is no compelling state interest to deny marriage to two people in a committed relationship could leave marriage open to blood relatives or those practicing polygamy.

“It threatens to destroy all standards we apply to the right of marriage,” he said.

One might argue that McKenna was only criticizing the wording of a ruling, rather than the effect of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Closer scrutiny reveals that as bullshit. I encourage you to read the ruling for yourself—it’s well-written, and includes some amusing word play. Judge Downing:

…concludes that the exclusion of same-sex partners from civil marriage and the privileges attendant thereto is not rationally related to any legitimate or compelling state interest and is certainly not narrowly tailored toward such an interest.

The ruling doesn’t “open up” incestuous or polygamous marriages. To do so, it would have addressed an additional set of state laws that are narrowly targeted to toward protecting compelling state interests in prohibition of incestuous or polygamous marriages. It didn’t touch on those at all.

No…what McKenna was doing was using a bullshit “legal-like” argument to express his opposition to same-sex marriage, while not quite saying so.

So, I know this is old news, but Rick Santorum is trying to ruin sweater vests. Oh sure, he’d say he’s just wearing them, sometimes. I’m sure he thinks he’s conveying a certain downhomieness, and campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire in winter, it makes sense to wear them. And who knows, he may genuinely like wearing them. But since they’re still fairly uncommon, if he goes far in the presidential nominating process, sweater vests may be associated with him. And that’s pretty terrible for those of us who wear them but don’t share his dipshit politics.

I am wearing one right now. I wear either a sweater vest or a sweater to work for most of the winter here in Seattle. Whoever the GOP nominates will be horrible on policy, but hopefully whoever they nominate doesn’t do to the sweater vest what Tucker Carlson did to bow ties.

That’s right. It is another Republican debate.

They say, debate is what catches de-fish, and what a stinkin’ mess we have here.

So go grab some tartar sauce if you prefer, or a bag of Cheetos and play along.

The live stream can be found on CNN or here.

5:15: The topic has been on illegal immigration. Romney parses classes of illegals and who he is concerned about and who not.

5:16: Newt says he doesn’t want to grab a grandmother in a church. He goes for young women now. (Older women while in high school).

5:17: Mitt yells at Romney about calling him “anti-immigrant”. Apparent “anti-immigrant” is a “highly charge epithet”. I can think of worse.

5:21: The debate has turned in to a bickering match between Mitt and Newt.

5:24: Paul is pro-Cuba. Santorum is TOTALLY OUTRAGED by Obama’s policy in Central and South America. Nothing he says connects with anyone.

5:25: Santorum again sounds the alarm bells about Iran and al Qaeda in Cuba.

5:29: Mitt was saying something about unemployment and housing, but I was fading out….

5:31: It back to Mitt and Newt are airing dirty laundry. It is very personal and awkward!

5:33: Newt seems to be losing this Fannie-Freddie argument, but it is hard to tell. Ron Paul: the topic doesn’t interest me at all.

5:36: Santorum wants to shrink Fannie and Freddie until it can be drowned in a bathtub.

5:37: Santorum: “If these guys (Mitt, Newt) don’t quit bickering, I’m going to sent them to their rooms without dinner.”

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– Jay Inslee’s piece on marriage equality in Washington State.

– Mitt’s Income vs. Your Income (h/t)

– It’s time to move from a cop hating anarchist dogma centered occupation to what the actual occupy wall street movement was really about, i.e., love, compassion, understanding, a new way of thinking, ending war, empathy, protecting the environment, truth, economic justice, election reform, HOPE.

– I’ve been really grateful for these pieces by Ta-Nehisi Coates debunking the notion that slaveholders could have been compensated before the civil war to end slavery.

– There’s still some off season left, but next season maybe isn’t looking great for Mariners fans.

– SOPA