Spinning Around The Bend, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #294 | @MDWorld
October 1, 2012 Mike Gold 12 Comments
Now is when it starts getting good. Screw the new teevee season; this is where the action is. We’ve got the Republicans panicking, the Iranians foaming, the Democrats snickering, the Catholics revolting, the debates beginning and the media trolling. This is sort of like the road show to Sons Of Anarchy, as performed by the cast of Community. On ice.
Right now Obama is solidly ahead in the polls, particularly on an electoral vote basis, so the Republicans are just freaking out. He must be a Muslim: he decided to go on The View instead of going down on Israel Prime Minister Benji Netanyahu. Gee, you’d think that African Communist must be opposed to nuclear holocaust or something.
What drives the Republicans all the more crazy – if that’s possible – is that the American Jewish vote remains solidly for Obama. According to figures released last Friday, 65% of Jews surveyed support Obama. By way of comparison, in 2008 only 57% of Jews supported Obama. So his support had grown by 15%. That appears to be a strong vote of confidence to me.
Or, perhaps, American Jews are actually Kenyan Muslims.
Obama also didn’t meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (it’s pronounced the way it’s spelled). I suspect the Secret Service wouldn’t let that happen. What if Ahmadinejad bit him? Two words: President Biden. Who, by the way, has the support of 72.6% of American Jewish voters.
While I’m on the subject of religion, it’s interesting to note that Obama has had a massive turn-around in the realm of Catholic support, presently leading Wilfred Romney 54 to 39 percent. That’s the Pew poll; Gallup has the numbers somewhat tighter. So if you’re a Republican into poll-shopping, you’re screwed either way.
Historians tell us that reelection campaigns are referenda on the President’s performance. Maybe so, but from what I’ve seen, it appears for American Catholics the 2012 election is more a referendum on Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Dolan is extremely vocal in opposition to Obama’s policies regarding abortion, gay rights and contraception. Evidently, his flock disagrees. Despite my life-long study of politics and my growing up in America’s largest Catholic city, the machinations of the Church is beyond my ken. It’s easier to explain the first half-century of X-Men continuity. But I do know this: Cardinal is not an elected position.
So here we are, on the eve of the first of three debates. We can count on the following with 100% assurance: the Romney supporters and Fox “News” will declare Wilfred the winner, the Obama supporters and MSNBC will declare Barack the winner, and reruns of The Brady Bunch will out-poll the debates. To the extent that there might be enough votes to swing a state that will swing the election – and I’ve been saying in this venue for weeks just how unlikely that is – it’s unlikely that the debates will change the outcome…
… unless one of the Presidential candidates screws up big-time. That can happen. That has happened, but not very often. Such an event would likely require the questions to be both hardball and unexpected, and neither one is likely. Of course, the vice-presidential debate is a Jon Stewart wet dream.
So we’ve got the candidates spinning around the bend in the great 2012 presidential horserace. I’m reminded of statements made by two great Americans: philosopher Yogi Berra, who said “it ain’t over ‘till it’s over” and that most certainly is a great truth. However, the great truth in political organizing was voiced by Chicago West Side boss Bernie Neistein, who said “Don’t make no waves, don’t back no losers.”
Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com , every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week (check the website above for times) and available On Demand at the same place. He also joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.
Martha Thomases
October 1, 2012 - 5:52 am
The various right-wing PACs still have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend. I am torn between curiosity and terror as we wait for them to spend it.
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 7:02 am
Given the minuscule number of uncommitteds who will actually come out and vote, I think them PACs are too late. On both sides; most of the GOP ad-buys have been paid for by PACs but very few of the Democratic ad-buys have been paid in this manner, thus far.
That’s one of the things that always bothered me about PACs: that money can go anywhere. “Leftover money” can go anywhere.
I should point out that ComicMix.com takes advertising from all PACs no matter what their position on anything. This is a freedom of speech issue. It’s also a “send us all your money” issue.
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 10:32 am
Uh, Mike, to quote Yogi Berra, it ain’t over until it’s over.
According to Gallup, in the beginning of October 1980, Carter had a comfortable lead over Reagan of 47 percent to 39 percent.
To put that into perspective, at the exact same point in the 2012 presidential race, Gallup currently has Obama ahead by half that margin, 49 percent to 45 percent.
And 1980 wasn’t really an anomaly. In 1968, Humphrey closed a 15-point Gallup Poll gap in October, nearly catching up to Nixon.
As I mentioned previously in another thread, the debates — which both candidates are trying to downplay, and which some dumbass experts are saying aren’t all that important — will be crucial determinining the fate of both candidates this election.
I wouldn’t start dancing on Romney’s political grave just yet. In sports, regardless of how big a favorite may be going in to a competition, nothing is certain until the game is actually over.
Just ask the 2008 New England Patriots, 1980 Russian Olympic Hockey Team, or (sigh), the 1969 Cubs.
Jeremiah Avery
October 1, 2012 - 10:39 am
If the debates score low numbers in the ratings, that would have to make one of the campaigns nervous because that could signify that most have already made up their minds and don’t really care what one or either of them have to say anymore.
No offense to any religious organization, but if you’re tax-exempt then you really shouldn’t have much say in dictating public policy. I wonder if they are counted amongst the “47%”?
Douglass Abramson
October 1, 2012 - 11:06 am
R, The polls may or may not be correct at the moment, but comparing them to polling errors in 1980 is apples to oranges. Polling is more complex than it used to be. In 80, polls were practically hand made. The ability for modern computers to properly randomize the samples and crunch larger amounts of data, make polls much more reliable. All that being said, polls only indicate what the numbers were a few days ago. They are a good indicator and the trends are all in one direction; but you’re right, nothing is over yet.
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 11:30 am
Douglass — Uh, I hate to burst your bubble, but Gallup has a pretty good standard polling track record in every presidential election going back to Eisenhower, despite the fact in the olden days they were using such crude devices such as pencil, paper and old-fashioned calculating machines.
Point of fact, Gallup’s 1980 polling was pretty darn accurate.
Exit polls, on the other hand, are still often notoriously unreliable — despite computerization. There are a number of reasons for that, I think, but that’s a different subject.
Personally, as an independent, I never talk to pollsters because it’s none of their damn business what my views are.
Rick Oliver
October 1, 2012 - 12:36 pm
Polling accuracy is a function of sampling methodology and sample size — unless you’re doing push-polling, in which case nothing matters.(Okay, so polling accuracy is also a function of the actual questions you ask.) Sampling methodology has indeed gotten far more sophisticated since 1980, but I have no idea if any of the political polls employ those techniques, or if sample sizes are larger today than 30 years ago (the larger the sample size, the smaller the probable margin of error). To the extent that I pay attention to polls at all, I pay attention to Nate Silver, who distills all the information from the various polls to come up with his projections. He was scary accurate in 2008, and the number don’t look great for Romney right now.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
Douglass Abramson
October 1, 2012 - 1:05 pm
R. I don’t know what bubble you think you’re bursting. I said that technology makes comparing a poll from thirty years ago to today uneven. I didn’t make any judgments on how accurate any of those polls were. I also said that while the polls were all trending the same way, anything was still possible.
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 1:33 pm
Russ, if you read to the end of my piece, I actually quoted Yogi’s most famous line.
I ain’t dancing on Romney’s grave — as I made clear in the piece. However, comparing this election to Carter/Reagan is truly apples and oranges. You had the massive failure of Operation Eagle Claw, which became the gift that kept on giving… to Reagan. You had more undecideds, and you had more undecideds in crucial swing states. Right now Obama’s pretty much got enough of the swing states sewn up — in a fair count, with fair voting.
Romney is going to hate to do better than merely look good in the debates; he’s got to CHANGE votes. That’s possible, but it’s a hell of a lot more likely if Obama screws up than if Wilfred does great.
Which is possible. Just as I said in my piece.
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 1:37 pm
The evolution of polling science has grown dramatically, as Rick noted. In 1948 the polls were wrong because Gallop stopped polling two weeks before the election.
Ergo, as I stated, it ain’t over till it’s over.
But the numbers aren’t looking good for Wilfred. Not at all. And the Republicans reject polling science the way they reject the other sciences…
… but only when they’re behind.
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 1:46 pm
Douglass — No, you said comparing the 1980 polls to polls today is like comparing apples and oranges. That’s simply not true. The fundamental science and methodology of polling hasn’t changed that much. What has changed with the advent of computers is the speed of analysis, presentation capability, ability to make changes quickly, and flexibility. In that regards, computerized polling is like computerized journalism. Computers help immensely from a labor standpoint, but the fundamental rules of the profession still apply.
In short, if you examine the basic polling accuracy for Gallup during the past 60 years, it doesn’t appear to have changed all that much in the computer age.
As for your claim that computers somehow “properly randomize” samples better than in the past, it still boils down to GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 1:54 pm
Mike — I’ve often wondered how many regular voters out there are like me, and do not participate in political polls.
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 1:55 pm
Come to think of it, that might even be a meaningful statistic: How many people contacted by pollsters refuse to participate?
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 2:12 pm
The question is, do those who don’t participate in polls tend to lean towards one candidate or another?
My wife ran a market research operation and she felt those that won’t respond — usually a phone interview — and those that just lie are a wash. And, back in the day, her outfit was one of the three that did the New Coke research. They said it would fail. Big time.
I think there’s a parallel between Coke and the presidency…
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 2:15 pm
Hey Mike — I missed the Yogi quote at the end. Great minds think alike, I guess.
Carter’s slide had a lot more to do with the economic mess he got us into that the hostage sutuation in Iran — that was just icing on the cake. I know because I voted for John Anderson.
Obama may have more in common with Bush the Elder than Carter anyway. Bush the Elder had a huge approval rating of 89 percent — 20 points higher than Obama’s ever was — shortly after his success as Commander in Chief during Desert Storm. But Bush squandered that all by his aloofness about the tanking economy and the outright denial that the country was in the midst of even a soft recession. Likewise, Obama’s handling of the economy was, and still is, his Achilles’ heel — the fact that he ordered the take-out of bin Laden notwithstanding.
Obama’s only saving grace thus far has been that Romney’s currently perceived as more of a McCain than a Reagan. Should that change during the debate season, Romney could make this a sad November indeed for Team Donkey.
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 2:26 pm
Yeah, I voted for Anderson as well. Still think he would have been a great president, but he would have needed about 350 more just like him up on the Hill.
People like to point to how Hoover got dumped by “Mr. Nobody” but they tend to forget that FDR was reelected in 1936 and 1940 when unemployment was high and the economy still sucked. It was perceived as slowly improving, and people didn’t want to stop that. The answer to the question “Are you better off now than you were four years ago” is, for many people, “yeah, kinda.” They don’t want a return to Bush, and Romney hasn’t given them any plans other than to maintain tax cuts for the super-rich, which isn’t going over well. He’s even losing the dumb white guy vote now.
The real impact on our economy won’t be made by Romney or Obama after January 20th. It will be made by Congress in November and December, or, regretfully, what Congress won’t be doing in November and December. I hope I’m wrong about that, but I’ve rarely seen lame ducks grow a pair.
All that is exclusive of what happens in Europe, of course. In the “long” run, big fail in Europe could create jobs here, but only if a European crash doesn’t crush our economy in the short term. That’s a huge if.
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 3:21 pm
I think you nailed Romney’s biggest weakness: Lack of a detailed plan about how he’ll get us out of this mess.
My guess is he’s been advised not to, as it would no doubt involve a lot of pain in a lot of places, and would be a dagger in the heart of his presidential aspirations.
But the fact is, the situation is so grave, there WILL be no painless solution.
Obama’s just as mystifying in that he’s seem’s to be in total denial about the mess we are in. I find it frightening at just how laissez faire a leader he truly is. I once thought he was a pretty smart guy, and maybe he is, but even a genius in denial is no better than a fool.
As I mentioned, one of the reasons I turned my back on Bush the Elder in 1992 was because, despite all of his years of experience, he was in denial about the problems with the US economy.
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 4:03 pm
Ryan isn’t helping. He said he had a great new tax plan, but it would take too long to explain.
Hello? Isn’t one of the big problems with our tax system is that nobody — most certainly not the IRS — can understand it?
Rene
October 1, 2012 - 5:12 pm
I agree with Mike. I don’t think the current Republican Party has any medicine to deal with the economical situation.
Martha Thomases
October 1, 2012 - 6:19 pm
Just saying’ … http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/business/media/challenging-the-claims-of-media-bias-the-media-equation.html?pagewanted=all
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 6:59 pm
That’s the New York Times. The most goddamned lying liberal commie faggot Jew-ridden rag of them all. What the hell do you think those traitors to America would say? This isn’t what our Christian founding fathers had in mind when they established Freedom of the Press! Run the bastards back to Stalingrad!
God bless Fox News! The only outfit with the BALLS to disclose the REAL truth!
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 6:59 pm
And they’re boring, too.
R. Maheras
October 1, 2012 - 8:44 pm
The hell with politics! Bears win! Bears win! Bears win!
Mike Gold
October 1, 2012 - 9:20 pm
Nice. If only the Blackhawks could even play. Next time I’m in Chicao I’ll go to a wolves game. And I’ll probably try and see my NHL guys in Brooklyn, playing in the Russian league.
Neil C.
October 1, 2012 - 10:53 pm
To everyone comparing 1980 to this election, it would be similar if Romney had 10 percent of the charisma of Reagan. And I think Obama’s ‘laissez faire” style I think actually helps: he shows he is able to keep cool in a crisis when Romney kept shooting himself in the foot.
Rick Oliver
October 2, 2012 - 7:14 am
I have in my hand a list of plans to fix the economy. No, wait. That’s my list of communists in Congress. I must have left that other list in my other suit.
To be fair, I don’t think either party has a coherent plan to fix the economy. So I’m voting for the part less likely to ram their religious beliefs down my throat and more likely to preserve the social safety net.
R. Maheras
October 2, 2012 - 7:56 am
Neil — Hmm — If only all of life’s problems could be solved by a “Screw it all — let’s go to Vegas” attitude.
Mike Gold
October 2, 2012 - 8:16 am
Russ, we as a nation have already tried “Screw it all – let’s go to Vegas.” I just don’t know if it didn’t work, or prevented things from getting worse.
Mike Gold
October 2, 2012 - 8:29 am
Rick, that plan to fix the economy was written on the back of Nixon’s plan to end the Vietnam war.
And Ryan STILL can’t explain it!
Rene
October 2, 2012 - 8:58 am
Mitt doesn’t only lacks Reagan’s charisma, he lacks Reagan’s conviction.
Mitt has the same problem as McCain. He is basically a sane human being trying to appeal to a party that has been taken over by the insane.
When a crazy, fire-eyed person says crazy things, you may even admire the craziness. But when a sane human being tries to say crazy things, it’s just sad. It’s a quirky of human psychology.
It takes a special kind of bastard to say stuff like “I don’t care about the 47% that are leeches. Let’s send the bums to the Hunger Games!” You can admire the boldness of an insane person that says stuff like that. But Mitt just doesn’t have it in him.
I suppose he is still too much of a human being. And that is saying a lot, considering how robotic he is.
R. Maheras
October 2, 2012 - 9:52 am
The left hated Reagan in 1980, and pilloried him relentlessly via the media. Apparently it worked for some folks, because I remember actually being scared at the thought of Reagan as president.
Shame on me, I guess, for buying into the bullshit hype.
I’m much more media savvy now.
Mike Gold
October 2, 2012 - 11:03 am
“When a crazy, fire-eyed person says crazy things, you may even admire the craziness. But when a sane human being tries to say crazy things, it’s just sad. It’s a quirky of human psychology.”
Wow. That’s pretty much the story of my life. I’m not really crazy, I just play a madman in public. But I am a method actor…
Russ, speaking on behalf of the entire Left… They didn’t hate Reagan for what he espoused. They hated Reagan because they believed he was acting as a shill for the Neo-Cons. The electorate grew up watching him host the 20 Mule Team Borax teevee show “Death Valley Days” (borax was mined by the Dial soap people in Death Valley back in the late 19th century). That does tend to raise credibility issues in certain circles.
I was scared of Reagan because I didn’t trust the people who were pulling his strings. You know, like Cheney and Bush-Boy.
But it took Reagan for me to fully appreciate the fact that it doesn’t matter if Reagan was a puppet. Not in the least. The effect is the same. Reagan was their poster boy either way. Today, the Republican Party would not nominate him.
If Wilfred loses, the “Republican” party will be in the fight of its life. It will be, at best, their last best hope for a return to traditional Republican values.
Rene
October 2, 2012 - 12:06 pm
Yeah. Not a fan of Reagan (or Nixon), but it’s funny how even they would be considered Leftist by today’s GOP.
Mike Gold
October 2, 2012 - 1:04 pm
Nixon! He’s a god-damned Communist bastard — he sold America out to Red China, he’s mostly responsible for creating the EPA, he ended the draft, got the strategic nuclear weapons treaty going with the Soviets, and fought segregation.
In comparison, Richard M. Nixon makes Barack Obama look far right!
R. Maheras
October 2, 2012 - 2:40 pm
Mike — To be honest and fair, both the Republican and Democrat parties today are influenced more by their fringe groups than their centrists.
You say that Richard Nixon wouldn’t get nominated by the Republican Party today, but by the same token, neither John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson would be nominated by the Democratic Party today.
The only major Democratic figure from that era who might fit in well with today’s ultra-liberal Democratic Party puppeteers was George McGovern, who, as you may recall, got his ass resoundingly kicked in the 1972 presidential election. For the record, I’m probably one of the few non-relatives of McGovern who actually voted for him. But since I was still in high school at the time I didn’t know any better (as I mentioned in a previous thread, I finally graduated HS a couple of weeks before my 19th birthday).
Mike Gold
October 2, 2012 - 3:33 pm
That’s interesting. It’s almost impossible to filter out the backroom politics of that era, but both had solid liberal cred, aside from that Vietnam thing… which the Democrats backed solidly through 1970. Hubert Humphrey? A solid Vietnam supporter. JFK and LBJ were completely pro-union, anti-poverty, and pro-integration. If you want a moderate back in that era, look at Eisenhower.
Of course,the assassination and its impact on LBJ’s career skewers things wildly: he was a sitting president at the time of his first election. But his commitment to ending poverty, to promoting education for the poor, to integration — that’s all solid lefty shit. McGovern’s nomination was due to the younguns seizing the party the way the NeoCons did the GOP in 1980, and George benefited greatly from the anti-Daley, anti-LBJ backlash. He was defeated by a sitting president. Beating a sitting president was unheard of between Hoover and Ford: all seven elections involving a sitting president (1936, 1940, 1944, 1948, 1956, 1964, and 1972) resulted in their reelection. And, of course, again in 1996 and 2004.
The devil you know.
R. Maheras
October 2, 2012 - 4:51 pm
Mike — Keep in mind that many Republicans from that era were pro-integration and pro-immigration.
For example, when Congress voted on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, here’s how the Senate and the House voted:
Democratic Party: 46–21 (69–31%)
Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%)
Democratic Party: 153–91 (63–37%)
Republican Party: 136–35 (80–20%)
In both cases, Republicans overwhelmingly voted FOR passage. Democrats, not so much.
Ditto for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. In the Senate, 52 Democrats voted yes, 14 no, and 1 abstained. Republicans 24 voted yes, 3 voted no, and 1 abstained.
And while the Republicans were much less supportive of Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which was Johnson’s cornerstone in the war on poverty, there was significant bi-partisan support. In fact, the Act established the Office of Economic Opportunity and one of its early directors was (brace yourself) Donald Rumsfeld!
Oh, yeah. And guess who was a lifetime member of the NRA? John F. Kennedy.
I guess the moral of the story is that demonizing one party or the other is a losing proposition for all involved, and, in many cases, it flies in the face of history.
Mike Gold
October 2, 2012 - 5:20 pm
Don Rumsfeld was my congressman at the time. And his guy who ran Searle Labs for him offered me a job as their education director. But I declined; bedfellows make odd politics.
Michael Moore is a lifetime member of the NRA. In fact, many of my friends are lifetime members of the NRA. And I’ve praised their educational efforts in this venue many times. Their current leader is a dangerous lunatic who doesn’t get much support from his rank-and-file. They just don’t want that black commie to take their guns.
Yeah, the world was a better place when Congress acted cooperatively (well, horse-trading is cooperative) for the benefit of the nation. Ah, for the good old days. The world was ALSO a better place when the phrase “liberal Republican” wasn’t an oxymoron. The Democrats defined their liberal image only after Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats over to the Republican side of the aisle in 1964. In fact, only about 10% of the so-called Dixiecrats switched parties, but in Congress that is usually enough to make the difference. In the eyes of history, though, we incorrectly see it as a mass-defection.
There’s no way LBJ could have gotten his civil rights legislation through if those Dixiecrats were still in the party; it was hard enough for the Democrats to pull together even without that 10%. But it was the civil rights struggle more than any other single event (sorry, FDR haters) that redefined the Democratic Party as liberal, and the media was very conservative. As conservatism was defined in the day.
Demonizing one party or the other is like a presidential poll: it only reflects a given moment in time. But demonizing BOTH parties is a virtue… go figure. I truly mourn for the Republican Party. It no longer represents conservatism. It is a tool of rampant objectivism. And that, at best, is sad.
And doesn’t “Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats” sound like the name of a Doo-Wop group?
Rene
October 3, 2012 - 3:13 am
Russ –
I was only talking about the economy in my posts in this thread, and BOTH parties have come to the Right in the last decades, economically.
FDR was pratically a big-state communist, compared to today’s Democrats.
Like I’ve said earlier, the Fall of Communism taught Liberals everywhere that they needed the free market. Bill Clinton was an economic centrists that disappointed a lot of people in the hard left. Obama too is really more of a third way Centrist than a hardline Leftist when it comes to economics.
The GOP, converselly, didn’t drift to the center, they became more and more Ayn Rand-like in their economics. The progress in both parties’ economic stances has NOT been comparable.
Now, if you’re talking social or foreign relations policies, that is another (complicated) story.
Rene
October 3, 2012 - 5:36 am
Mike –
It’s worse than that. The current GOP is an alliance between Economic Objectivists and Christian Fundamentalists. IMO, two bad tastes that taste even worse together. I mean, I admire SOME aspects of Objectivism, but those are the very aspects that aren’t allowed to manifest in the GOP, on account of the Radical Christian agenda.
And sometimes I wonder why. What do they have in common, Radical Randian Individualists and Radical Christians. And the answer is this:
A hatred of multiculturalism and a passionate need to “defend” Western civilization, that they feel is under attack. I do sympathize with this one. I do think the Liberal establishment is a little too tolerant when it comes to considering “all cultures as equally worthy”, to the point of almost betraying their own principles. Myself, I can never consider equally worthy a culture that forces women to wear tons of clothing.
But, in any case, their fear is exaggerated and borders on paranoia. Western civilization isn’t in any danger of disappearing. The fear has been ignited by 9/11, though it existed before. As far back as the 1920s.
The fear of enemies both external (Muslims, Chinamen) and internal (Liberals, Atheists) is what motivates them. Enemies that will undermine American society and, by extension, Western society.
Mike Gold
October 3, 2012 - 9:17 am
“The current GOP is an alliance between Economic Objectivists and Christian Fundamentalists.”
Boy, talk about your strange bedfellows. You’re absolutely right, and your analysis was first-rate. Not that I necessarily agree with it 100%, but I suspect that most variance comes from your restricting yourself to three paragraphs. There’s a whole book in this one.
Bill Mulligan
October 8, 2012 - 5:53 pm
“We can count on the following with 100% assurance: the Romney supporters and Fox “News” will declare Wilfred the winner, the Obama supporters and MSNBC will declare Barack the winner, and reruns of The Brady Bunch will out-poll the debates.”
One out of 3 ain’t good.
How badly did Obama do? Even DEMOCRATS agree he did badly. I’m thinking of sending a suicide counselor to Andrew Sullivan’s house.
And 65 million people saw the debacle, which kind of amazes me.
For all that…I’d still predict Obama wins with around 290 electoral votes. But if he doesn’t come roaring out the gate at the next two debates all bets are off. If he doesn’t think the job is worth cramming for the big test why should anyone care?
Mike Gold
October 8, 2012 - 6:15 pm
Obama sucked big time. No question about it. And he dropped in the popularity count, although thus far he still has more than enough in the electoral college to win.
That can change if he screws the pooch on the next debate, but outside of that I absolutely agree with you 100%: barring a major external sea change (China’s economy collapsing, for example) or another debate disaster, it’ll be Barack with 280 – 300 e/v. Hard to see the insurance salesman getting, at best, more than 230. If Obama takes the next debate and China and Europe don’t melt down, I’d be surprised if Romney does much better than 200 e/v.
For the record, it takes 270 to win.
And I think the reruns did outpoll the debate… in first run. In You Tube, the debate might have outpolled even the Kardashians.
Bill Mulligan
October 9, 2012 - 8:18 am
Not that the campaign is or should listen to anything I have to say but I’m rethinking the whole “Obama should come charging out the gate” thing…it could be tricky. Not because of the supposed “Oh not, he’s an angry black man!” meme, I don;t think Obama could ever come across as John Shaft. At his angriest he still makes Wayne Brady look like Shaka Zulu. But anger is not a very attractive thing unless done right and you KNOW the Romney people are preparing a quick pithy response if Obama’s demeanor is radically different in the second debate than in the first.
But that’s not the worst of it. The debate format, which really should help Obama, may not. It’s the townhall thing, where ordinary Joes, much like myself, embarrass themselves on TV in front of millions with their dopey questions. And you figure they probably winnowed out the really egregiously awful ones and still, these are what we get.
Usually one person will open with a request that the candidates forgo the negativity, which we all pretend is what we want even though negative attacks work. The candidates smile broadly and nod. Well, Romney will smile. If Obama can;t launch into a “you’re a lying liar who lies” accusation he will leave a lot of his supporters in the doldrums they have been in since the last one. In fact, the format discourages the candidates from even talking to each other. If Obama is asked a question and then turns to Romney it looks like he’s blowing off the questioner. It can be done but it’s tricky.
In Obama’s favor he has charm and Romney often lacks it. Against Obama, I think he has a thinner skin and could well go off on some doofus who pushes on him too much, which is not what he needs. But he has GOT to look energetic. I don;t buy the whole “he really doesn’t want the job anymore” idea that some (supporters!) have floated. Nobody goes to that many fundraisers and kisses that many ugly babies if they don’t want the job. Yeah, he hasn’t lived up to the greatness he is convinced he has in him. But the thought of being judged a failure should be more than enough to drive him to hit the books a little harder and give people a reason to get up and vote. The scariest thing for Democrats should be the enthusiasm gap–all the poll support in the world won’t matter if the election is held with Republicans eager to vote and Democrats doing so only out of a sense of grim necessity.
Bill Mulligan
October 9, 2012 - 10:05 am
Mind you, if things like this poll are correct–and why would anyone really trust the polls, given how crazy they’ve been?–a Romney blowout victory is not off the table–http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/oct/9/poll-shows-romney-closing-gap-pa/
Obama loses PA…hell, Obama even has to FIGHT for PA…and it could be a long night. that so-called election model some guys have that claims to have gotten it right every time had Obama losing PA and I just dismissed it as a joke.
Here’s the thing–if the polls that are supposedly showing a 15 point shift are to be believed then the people who have claimed that the polls were biased against Romney have a point. there is no way that happens. Obama was bad but he wasn’t 12 points bad. I have a friend who claims that Rassmussan, which tends to show better results for Romeny than many others, always shows the GOP ahead and then tightens it up right before the election so that they don;t look bad when the results come in. I am not sure about that but it does seem kind of flaky that polls showed Obama ahed bu double digits and are now suddenly showing a race that is up for grabs (and almost identical to what Rassmussian was showing all along!)
In my opinion, the pollsters are not fully taking into account the fact that lots of people, myself being one, are very unlikely to agree to be part of a poll.
Mike Gold
October 9, 2012 - 11:22 am
But… do more Democrats refuse to be polled than Republicans? I’ll bet that it’s a wash.
Reg
October 9, 2012 - 2:50 pm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…HOW…in ANY rationally framed world can this election be even considered close given every thing that has been stated (and obfuscated)during Romney’s campaign?! *
And to Bill’s point, if there are sufficient undecideds/independent segments of the American voting population that pull the switch based on which way the arbitrary polls and/or an uninspiring debate performance (as opposed to actual platform and policy stance/actuals), then this republic absolutely deserves what we get…
…along with the disdain and ridicule of both allies and enemies.
* Disclosing that while in sharp disagreement with elements of the current administration’s platform and performance, I also recognize the almost Sisyphean obstacles that Obama has had to confront while in significant ways establish progress.
Reg
October 9, 2012 - 3:03 pm
My bad, that last sentence got truncated…I meant to say…while in significant ways establish progress that lends towards my benefit and those that fall within the range of everything outside of the 1%.
Bill Mulligan
October 9, 2012 - 4:32 pm
Since conservatives are more likely to distrust the media, of which the polsters are members, I think it is more likely that the pollsters are underestimating the GOP vote–that was the case in 2010, when the “shellacking” seemed to take a lot of folks by surprise.
Too many people think the way Reg expresses it–any thought of voting against Obama is virtually irrational–for a person who thinks otherwise to feel comfortable expressing it…unless they are at that point in life where they have ceased to give much in the way of a yellow rat’s ass what strangers think of them. Or hell, friends either, if they are going to “unfriend” one over an election they are not the sort of folks one should count on for the really important stuff like kidney donations and the burying of bodies.
But clearly SOMETHING is amiss. Try to put all of the polls together from the last few days and you either get a population that is widely swinging from one candidate to another or a bunch of polls that do not reflect reality.
Reg
October 10, 2012 - 10:14 am
Bill, just to add a little more clarity to my post…I fully understand the reality that many people are inextricably wedded to their political ideologies to the extent that they just choose not to see past blue or red. Sometimes the human animal just can’t overcome the constraints of either culture and/or environment. Unfortunate, but it is what it is.
My frustration is with the general laziness of the overall citizenry when it comes to matters of national (and long term) importance. If too many of us refuse to think through and weigh how any candidate’s stated positions (or lack thereof) and historical actions/patterns either predominantly aligns with or are in opposition to our own personal principles and needs but rather let our electoral decisions be swayed by polls or talking heads, then yeah…we deserve what we get.
Also, my reference to allies and enemies was from a global perspective. For good and for bad, how we’re perceived through the prism of geo-lenses does create near and long term consequences.