Comments on the election

[OLD1953]

I'm a bit disappointed with the folks here who keep the "Obama is losing" thing going. That shows a definite tendency to pay attention to some very one sided and partial news/polls.

If the election were held today and the latest polls were accurate in every state, Obama would win with well over 300 electoral votes, in fact, if he loses North Carolina, Ohio and Florida, he'd still be over 300. In the last three elections, the electoral vote total as assigned by polls had crossed over between Republicans and Democrats several times by now, in this election this simply has not happened, at no point was Romney ever a clear winner over Obama. Even Rasmussen polls show Romney in trouble, and he's always very biased until that three week period before the election, when he reports the Democrats have "amazingly surged". That's to keep his reputation (such as it is) intact, as consistently polling for losers as winners would mean he'd be eating beans out of a can by a campfire before long. (It is NOT necessary to be blatant about bias in a poll, it's very easy to produce biased polls without being obvious. A simple example is polling strictly from the published phone directory. Such a poll sounds good to laymen, but actually will be biased against those who don't use land line phones, and they do fall into a particular demographic that has definite tendencies. Another is to not do call backs to a random phone number - which biases polls against families where both members work. Such subtle methods of bias are dead common and unless a polling institution publishes its methodology and questions there is little point in paying attention to them - and even then you'd better be aware of how subtle bias can be applied.) Rasmussen reliably polls 3 to 4% Republican bias against everyone else, and even he says Romney is in trouble - if you count electoral votes, which are the only ones that matter. We do not elect presidents by popular vote.

The what if game isn't very popular this year. That's because it isn't much fun to play. What if the polls are too close in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina, and Romney wins them all? We swear in Obama. What if he wins Virgina too? We swear in Obama. Every close state is tending toward Democrats, and it's highly unlikely Romney will win all of the larger ones and the small ones too. Bucking the trend in one or two close states is very possible, bucking that trend in nearly all of them is virtually impossible, without some major catastrophe, and those usually break towards the incumbent because it gives him a chance to act presidential.

Simple demographics are the reason why the Republican party is having trouble. The party has focussed on white voters as its base, and the problem with that is simply that there are not as many white voters as a percentage of the population as there used to be. Every year, the percentages adjust in such a way that an increase of about 1/2 of 1 percent of the total persons legally eligible to vote are minorities. Given that trend, the percentage of white voters to turn out and vote to elect a Republican president increases in proportion. To win a clear victory over Obama, Romney must come very close to the record for attracting the percentage of white votes, and that record was established by Eisenhower. Romney is no Eisenhower. And that's why the campaign keeps trying to excite the base, because they have to have every vote from the base to have any chance.

It does appear that the Democrats were playing the Republicans with all the objections to the voter ID laws. Figures just out now reveal that nearly 20% of elderly do not have the required ID cards and will not be allowed to vote. Given that's the group that votes most heavily Republican of all groups, they've done themselves no favors with voter ID. In the last ten years, there have been fewer than 100 cases prosecuted nationally of voter fraud by someone misrepresenting themselves at the polls. Absentee ballot fraud has been much more common, and it's not affected at all by these ID laws.

The demographics of the country changed, and they changed to favor Democrats. And the Republican party did not change to compete. This movement will just increase over time, and the party must either change or decay.

Please take note that this has nothing to do with policy, or whose policies would be right or wrong. Frankly, I think it seriously funny that people actually think either one of these guys will adopt any policies drastically different from their predecessor. And that's why both of them are skirting around policy questions, either you go on a totally different path, and neither wants that, or the policies are locked in stone, because they are all about supporting the bubble economy status. And that's the plain truth.

[psCargile]

I wouldn't be surprised if some engineered crisis postpones the elections indefinately. It's Obama until he chooses a successor.

[OLD1953]

I don't see why he'd bother, even if he thought he could pull it off. This one is so far in the bag it's nearly impossible for Obama to lose. Before the conventions, I gave Romney a 1 in 7 chance, going by polls then. He failed to get a meaningful bump from his convention, he's been unable to quit making remarks that flat out insult or otherwise motivate people to vote against him, and he's still got the Mormon millstone around his neck and done little or nothing to shake that off. Best odds I could give him now would be about 1 in 12. It's probably worse than that, but that's giving him the breaks. He's simply been unable to turn his campaign around in any real sense, and even in politics, six weeks isn't that long. If he starts campaigning in places where there are close senate or congressional races, then he knows it's over, he's given up.

I said some time back that I thought the Republicans had already given up hope of the presidency. Obama's judicial appointments had been held up in congress for a long time, and suddenly the filibuster stopped and they passed. That was a pretty clear sign, Republicans have held control over judicial appointments for a long time, and had no hesitation to block appointments for years to keep that 80% plus figure of Republican appointees on the federal bench. Suddenly, they folded. That was an unmistakable signal, if you follow actual political actions and don't just like reading about political infights and false claims.

Either of these jokers will be terrible for the country in the long run, if they didn't change policies very quickly, and as I said, there's no sign of that. It's double or nothing, we've got to bubble, and hang the notion of actually building something of lasting value.

[John]

I have no idea who will win the election, and election results can't
be predicted anyway.

What I do know is this:

* The MSM are so badly skewed and dishonest that they don't even
pretend to appear professional. At least in the past they used to
pretend impartiality, but that's out the window now, and they're
openly doing everything possible to support Obama.

* The MSM reporters are actively collaborating to derail Romney's
campaign. This has been particularly obvious a couple of times in the
last week or two.

* The MSM are skewing the polls so that they'll show Obama leading.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... -d-13-poll

This shouldn't surprise anyone, given that CNBC constantly says that
stock valuations are historically low. It's absolutely sickening.

[falopex]

I have no idea who will win the election, and election results can't
be predicted anyway.

I think some elections can be predicted, particularly early in a generational cycle, but this is definitely not such an election. I see this one as being too close to call right up until the last vote is counted. In fact, I think it is entirely possible that a very narrow win by either candidate will result in allegations of election fraud and endless demands for recounts, investigations, etc. Think about Bush v Gore and multiply by a factor of ten or more. The country has become so polarized politically that I think every election from here on out will be close and controversial until either the Crisis War runs it's course or someone takes the incredible step of suspending elections.

All that aside, though, I think the fact that we are in a Crisis Era in the US implies that it doesn't really matter who wins. The details may change, but the overall course has already been set. I see the following possibilities:

A. Obama wins. He will continue to distance himself from Israel, which will encourage Israel's enemies; they will start to believe our alliance is perhaps not so very strong after all. Israel will be forced into a "first strike" war (if that hasn't already happened by November simply out of the fear that Obama might win).He will continue to be apologist to the world, thereby conveying a false impression of weakness to our enemies. Eventually, he will be forced into defending our most important allies. He will continue to be weak on immigration as the drug cartels begin to claim more and more US territory until it is no longer deniable that they are nothing more than a de facto invasion force from a criminal-dominated Mexico. He will continue to push tax-and-spend policies that raise the national debt, raise inflation, and devalue the dollar. I give a high probability of the US entering both a Fiscal Meltdown and a Crisis War during his second term.

B. Romney wins. He will openly renew ties with Israel, thus angering Israel's enemies. He will take a strong position in the Middle East, thus offending all those oil-producing states that don't like us and also happen to be anti-Israel. The rampant anti-Americanism found in many Islamic states will ignite into a fury. He will take a strong stand on immigration which will anger Mexico and the drug cartels that (in my opinion) are the dominant governing force there. Romney will try to strengthen the economy, but will be unwilling to take the drastic steps necessary; this may delay the fiscal crisis a bit but will not stop it. Again, I give a high probability of a Fiscal Meltdown and a Crisis War during his first term.

C. Somebody else wins. Extremely unlikely. Statistically a non-option, but if it happens, there will be massive outrage on both sides of the aisle. Eventually, the results will be vacated (even if legitimate) and a new election held, resulting in one of the above outcomes. All our enemies will be emboldened by the apparent internal weakness. Our allies will panic at perceived weakness in their strongest ally. Israel will be forced into a "first strike" war with Iran, Sunni states will retaliate out of a sense of self-preservation. Drug cartels will establish (more) strongholds well inside US territory. China will use the perceived opportunity to overrun the many smaller states it has been coveting. The eventual leader of the US will be forced by treaties and popular opinion to enter an already raging Crisis War. Financial instability will trigger the long-overdue financial meltdown.

Basically, I think the fact that we are so far into a Crisis Era and so politically divided as a country means that we are hosed no matter who wins. What matters now is doing what we can to prepare our Heroes to shape the society that will come after the War, assuming there is anybody left.

[OLD1953]

Oh, we're hosed either way, but the media has an interest in selling ads, and that's it. The reason there is confusion over who's leading is that the media changed the bar. Four years ago it was all about who was leading, and they mostly ignored uncommitted voters. Now it's all about "who's polling over 50%", and also who is more than 5% in the lead, a completely different set of questions. The reason for changing the question is because there's no profit in them saying someone is clearly ahead. And the message changes for each state. It's a madhouse, especially since people who get news from the internet read all these stories whipping one way and another and think things are swinging back and forth every day. By this time in most elections, a clear trend has established itself. The country is very divided in terms of popular vote, but the more populous states show definite moves to the Democrats. Romney has to absolutely stay on message perfectly during all the debates and not go off on one of his speeches about women or gays or anything else whatsoever but the economy. He's (obviously) got some difficulties with staying on message. If he gets off track at all, or gives any bad impressions, he will not be able to make it up, sans a miracle.

Right now, projecting the trends, Obama could get as many as 350 electoral votes, which would push Romney below 200, a poor showing indeed. Romney, on the other hand MIGHT get just above 270, but he's got to work for it hard, he's pulling an uphill battle here.

It's well known that the later "undecided" voters generally have made up their minds, but call themselves undecided because they are willing to switch. That number willing to switch is dropping every day. And in nearly all elections, they break towards the person perceived as the likely winner.

Personally, I hope the election has a very clear winner. If not, there will be some extreme unrest in the USA. And likely there will be unrest if there is a clear winner.

Oh, about Israel, Romney has pretty much expressed the same ideas as Obama. Which is why the elections were so close over the last decade, theres no difference in important policy between either party. (Come on, 5% difference in the top income tax rate is absolutely NOT the difference between Communism and Freedom. That's saying the USA was the most Communist nation in the world when we fought in WWII, because the top tax rate was 3 times what it is currently. Which is ridiculous. This is making mountains of molehills with a vengance.)

[OLD1953]

Political statistics are always distorted by the people who want to use them to make a statement. Here's a prime example, everyone and their dog has heard "55% of Americans polled disapprove of Obamacare". Yeah, that's a piece of the picture. How about the other piece? Well, in all those polls (that ask whether or not it goes too far, should have said that to begin with), 10-20% disapprove of it FROM THE LEFT. In other words, they want government to take over totally, Medicare for all, private health insurance not to be sold at all in the US under any circumstance whatsoever. So the notion of 55% disapproval is true but utterly misleading.

http://pollingreport.com/

That's one of the web's great resources, and if you don't use it you are missing out on a lot of information.

It came to me today that Romney's campaign reminds me of the second Carter campaign. Carter could not stop kicking himself in the crotch. Romney seems to have a similar problem, without the advantage of being an incumbent.

An interesting thing will happen over the next few weeks, the polls will suddenly all start to agree with each other. This is because polling companies have to correctly predict the winner (or say the election is too close to call) or they go out of business. There are several polling outfits that are highly partisan, but they stay in business because they'll alter their polling techniques for "more accuracy" starting about now.

A good deal of purposely inaccurate polling is done by major media companies who really don't care who gets elected. They will always report a close race, even when it isn't, because they know the big private donors will keep their money rather than spend millions on a guaranteed loser. So they skew their polls to report close races even when they aren't.

All polling companies make demographic adjustments to their data to normalize it, that's standard and accepted practice. Heard of one recently that raised eyebrows, an adjustment of 11% above voter registrations for a particular party in a congressional race. Now that's stretching things quite a bit, wouldn't you say? Made the race look close though! The buck is all!

[John]

From a spam e-mail message:

Pretty Brown Girls for Obama

Nationwide (BlackNews.com) -- The Pretty Brown Girl (PBG) brand has been sparking excitement across the country for the last year. Founded by Sheri Crawley, a Detroit mother of two little girls, Pretty Brown Girl's sole mission is to encourage girls to celebrate the skin they are in by celebrating the beautiful shades of brown skin all over the world; while inspiring positive self-esteem and confidence.

"As a small business owner and a woman of color who supports the values and vision of our President, I was compelled to use my platform to voice our support," says Crawley. On Thursday, after the President spoke at the Democratic National Convention, Crawley was so moved that she designed the "Pretty Brown Girl for Obama" T-shirt. The response was immediate and overwhelming for the company as the phones are ringing off the hook with calls from church groups, women's organizations and families ordering the stylish T-shirts that support President Barack Obama.

[OLD1953]

Well, that's interesting, but expected as the country pushes further into the ethnic identity phase of the crisis years.

I expect a large part of the reason the electoral vote totals via polls have been so rigid this time is because so many people aren't voting for ANYONE in this election, they are voting against someone. Given that, one would have thought the Republicans would have run someone less easy to demonize than a Wall Street insider. But such is politics.

Lies, big lies and more lies. That's our elections. The big lie from the left is how great employment is now and how it's recovered strongly. That one got dissected pretty throughly on the finance pages, but here's a great link:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/ ... changes-4/

To get to the level of jobs at the peak would require 550,000 jobs created each month for a year, or thereabouts.

The big lie from the right is all about how the states are being robbed blind by pensioners. Now, maybe the states can afford to pay them or maybe they just don't wanna. But Vanguard will happily sell you a defined annuity you buy in installments with a lifetime benefit, and THEY don't get to rewrite the laws if their investments don't pan out, they have to make up the difference or go bankrupt, and annuity plan holders are top of the list then. States get to rewrite rules, and politicians get to bluster, instead of admitting "we went bankrupt, start lining up the people we owe money".

Fact is, any state or city demanding a reset on the rules for pensions is BANKRUPT under the rules for normal business. But that's political suicide, so "the taxpayers are being robbed". Really? By whom, someone with no power to tax or pass laws, or by someone who DOES have that power?

And that's our politics, all lies and theater, not a fact in a truckload of political hot air.

[OLD1953]

Good grief. If Republicans win anything this year, it will be in spite of themselves. It would be very easy to write up the "crotch kick of the day", since the party has apparently become addicted to self inflicted wounds.

To anyone who has heard of the Republican angst over fraudlent voter registrations (and if you haven't, you've been living in a cave) this just makes the party look worse and worse. What on earth were they thinking? Were they thinking?

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la ... 4954.story

WASHINGTON — Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant.

The controversy in Florida -- which began with possibly fraudulent forms that first cropped up in Palm Beach County -- has engulfed the Republican National Committee, which admitted Thursday that it urged state parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.The RNC paid the company at least $3.1 million -- routed through the state parties of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia -- to register voters and run get-out-the-vote operations. Wisconsin and Ohio had not yet paid the firm for get-out-the-vote operations it was contracted to do.
***********************

If the RNC has decided they want to lose this election, they are going about it the right way. Now they can't even think "Acorn".