Governing through Reason
Open Mic August 3
Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day
Millions of people answered the Call of the Huckabee, and ate at Chick-fil-A. This set a one-day sales record, so now “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” has a double meaning. A Pew poll says Americans don’t like President Barack Obama all that much, but they don’t like Governor Mitt Romney even more. NASA is hoping that Mars doesn’t kill their Curiosity. Congress may have come up with a plan to dive more slowly off the fiscal cliff. More than half of the counties in the U.S. are disasters.
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Okay, are all the smart people in the room? Because I want to ask about polling.
The conservative sites I visit are totally bent out of shape this morning over “skewed polls.” They are HOWLING with outrage and indignation. Really, not kidding. Their hair is on fire.
The Pew poll from yesterday (the one that showed Romney with huge unfavorables) was a sampling of 22% Republican, 33% Dems. Apparently the crosstabs on the Quinnipiac poll were even more divergent, though I don’t have the numbers here at hand. Yesterday Hugh Hewiit had a director from Quinnipiac on his show and slapped him around, all but publicly accusing him of deliberate cheating.
So what’s going on here? Is an 11 point difference in party ID justifiable? Is it based on party registration, or previous exit polling, or what?
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From Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polls:
HH: Do you expect Democrats, this is a different question, do you,
Peter Brown, expect Democrats to have a nine point registration
advantage when the polls close on November 6th in Florida?
PB: Well, first, you don’t mean registration.
HH: I mean, yeah, turnout.
PB: Do I think…I think it is probably unlikely.
HH: And so what value is this poll if in fact it doesn’t weight for the turnout that’s going to be approximated?
PB: Well, you’ll have to judge that. I mean, you know, our record is
very good. You know, we do independent polling. We use random digit
dial. We use human beings to make our calls. We call cell phones as well
as land lines. We follow the protocol that is the professional
standard.
HH: As we say, that might be the case, but I don’t know it’s
responsive to my question. My question is, should we trust this as an
accurate predictor of what will happen? You’ve already told me there…
PB: It’s an accurate predictor of what would happen is the election were today.
HH: But that’s, again, I don’t believe that, because today, Democrats
wouldn’t turn out by a nine point advantage. I don’t think anyone
believes today, if you held the election today, do you think Democrats
would turn out nine percentage points higher than Republicans?
PB: If the election were today, yeah. What we found is obviously a large Democratic advantage.
HH: I mean, you really think that’s true? I mean, as a professional,
you believe that Democrats have a nine point turnout advantage in
Florida?
PB: Our record has been very good. You know, Hugh, I…
HH: That’s not responsive. It’s just a question. Do you personally,
Peter, believe that Democrats enjoy a nine point turnout advantage right
now?
PB: What I believe is what we found.
HH: Geez, I just, and an eight point in Ohio? I’m from Ohio. Democrats
haven’t had an eight point advantage in Ohio since before the Civil
War. I mean, that just never happens, but Peter, I appreciate your
coming on. I’m not persuaded that Quinnipiac Polls haven’t hurt
themselves today, but I appreciate your willingness to come on and talk
about it. -
Nate covers this well in his column this morning.
As I scientist, I’ve learned to trust the data, even if it doesn’t tell me what I want to see. That certainly happened in the 2010 election.
As one of Nate’s commenters said, if you have to base your model for winning the election on massive fraud and collusion amongst pollsters, you’ve already lost.
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#8 written by rgbact 9 months ago
So what’s going on here? Is an 11 point difference in party ID
justifiable? Is it based on party registration, or previous exit
polling, or what?
Nate actually jumped on the issue yesterday and sort of dissed Pew. They’ve been favorable to Obama for months. Not sure why pollsters don’t just ask who people voted for in 2008. If you show 11% more people voted for Obama.…your sample is probably overweighted Democrat.I wish RCP would start tossing out outlier polls. Unfortunately, outlier polls make great news stories,
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rgbact, Nate’s column does not “diss” Pew in any way. He just points out the house effect that Pew has. He says:
Pew is a pollster I have a lot of respect for, by the way. But polling
elections is just not that easy in an environment where even the best
pollsters get only about 1 in 10 people
to complete their surveys. Gallup is another pollster I have a lot of
respect for, yet their polls have been a few points Republican-leaning
so far this cycle, relative the pollster consensus. -
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Great, great comment today from David Kurtz…
“The civil rights movement and the space program always shared a strange
juxtaposition of 19th century agrarianism and 20th century technological
achievement. So maybe it should be no surprise that we’re currently
confronting our civil rights demons in the parking lots of fried chicken joints while one of our spacecraft makes its final approach to Mars. But still … what the hell, America?” -
#12 written by Max 9 months ago
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#14 written by Max 9 months ago
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#15 written by Mule Rider 9 months ago
“So maybe it should be no surprise that we’re currently
confronting our civil rights demons in the parking lots of fried chicken joints.…”Mnay prominent Christian African-American leaders here in the Memphis area beg to differ with Mr. Kurtz’s characterization of this situation in that manner. When a group of these leaders was intervened on the evening news on Wednesday, after showing up and lending their support to Chick-fil-A earlier in the day, the tone was that to liken this controversy to the civil rights issues they faced was offensive and cheapened the struggles of those oppressed by real bigotry and hatred.
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#17 written by mclever 9 months ago
@filistro
Partisan ID in polling is tricky, because polls have to rely on self-reported party identification and not on actual party registration. This is problematic for many reasons.
First, party registration is not the same thing as partisan identification. Twenty states have no mechanism for registering by party at all, and in some of the remaining states there is little impetus to register by party, because independents can vote in whichever primary they want anyway. Also, in states like Louisiana, the official party registration and self-reported party identification can diverge dramatically–there are almost twice as many officially registered Democrats (1.4M) as Republicans (750K), but self-reporting usually gets roughly even partisan ID in that state.
Why does this happen? Keep in mind that pollsters don’t ask, “Are you registered as____?” because that question isn’t even valid in many states. Pollsters ask, “Do you consider yourself more ____?” What you currently consider yourself doesn’t necessarily match what you’ve registered as or your voting history.
Second, Party ID isn’t a virtually immutable trait, like age, gender, or skin color. (Changing parties is much easier than a sex-change.) Party ID changes with the voter’s mood. So, you can’t assume constant ratios of partisan identification. The party of whichever candidate is currently doing better in the polling will also see a partisan identification increase, because voters will be more likely to say they belong to the party of the candidate they prefer at a given moment. So, the correlation between higher polling numbers for Obama and an increase in Democratic partisan ID would be expected. If Obama’s numbers improved and there wasn’t a corresponding partisan ID shift, then Republicans should be really worried about the pollsters over-correcting their samples.
Third, self-reported party id is affected by question order and candidate preference. If you ask a whole bunch of questions about health care, for example, that will predispose voters towards saying they are Democrats. If you ask a bunch of questions about the military and patriotism before asking about party identification, that can predispose voters towards saying they are Republican. If you ask them which candidate they prefer, that will predispose them towards saying they are the party of that candidate. (And, frustratingly for pollsters, if you ask the party ID question first, that predisposes them towards the candidates…) Additionally, if voters don’t really like the candidate of their preferred party, they tend to report themselves as “independent” rather than claiming that party, even if they’re going to vote straight ticket.
The precise wording of the question matters, too. In exit polling, the question is usually a straightforward, “Do you consider yourself___?” But in opinion polls, sometimes the question inserts a word or two that makes a big difference. “Do you usually align more with___?” will get completely different results.
That’s a really long way of saying that Partisan ID is a very poor measure of a poll’s accuracy, because self-reported partisan ID will tend to correlate with the candidate’s relative performance and/or opinions on current issues. The alignment on the “liberal-moderate-conservative” scale is more constant and, while not perfect either, would serve as a better barometer than partisan ID.
And don’t get me started on how voters tend to over-report their support for whichever candidate won… This is another common complaint, but it’s a well-known feature of political opinion polls. If you poll people around Thanksgiving and ask who they voted for in early November, about 5–10% of them will misremember having voted for the winner, and that percentage remains relatively persistent going forward, even if that candidate later loses favor. If you ask a well-randomized, sufficiently large sample of people today who they voted for in 2000, you’ll get 55% GWB, 45% Gore, despite the 50–50 actual results. In 2004, it was the Democrats looking at polls and hoping that wasn’t true…
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#19 written by shortchain 9 months ago
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#20 written by mclever 9 months ago
@Michael
Investors probably aren’t worried about the uptick in unemployment as long as it correlates with an increase in hiring. When hiring increases, you can expect a slight unemployment uptick as more discouraged workers return to the workforce. If hiring continues to increase, unemployment should peak and decline again.
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filistro,
So what’s going on here? Is an 11 point difference in party ID justifiable? Is it based on party registration, or previous exit polling, or what?
Polling is complex. What they’re howling about is that more Democrats ended up answering the poll than did Republicans. So, naturally, they assume that Democrats ended up being weighted 50% more heavily than Republicans. But they’re wrong.
See, polling firms that have been around for a while compensate for some forms of sampling error. They look at historical demographic trends and adjust the individual sample to more accurately match those historical trends. So if they end up with too many Democrats, for example, they merely count each Republican more in the final tally than they do each Democrat. Or if they end up with too many senior women, they will discount those responses in favor of 20-something men.
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Mac… thank you for that fascinating analysis of polling samples. I really appreciate it.
Seriously, when you consider what a complex and delicate level of art-and-science is involved in polling, the question is not why pollsters occasionally get it wrong… more accurately, the question should be how on earth they manage so often to get it right.
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#23 written by DrFunguy 9 months ago
“
(if you’re not a subscriber, getting there from Canada is complicated, in ways that are too complicated to explain.)“Fili, I go there frequently from a canadian domain; every so often they tell me that I have used up my quota of free articles and I only get headlines… nothing complicated.
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Re: unemployment numbers — much of the current uptick has to do with large numbers of college students now on summer break, or having graduated from college. The job market is good enough that they are actively looking for work, but not good enough (Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?) for them all to find something.
Since hiring is up, there are a lot of people who have gotten back into the job market. That tends to drive unemployment up as well.
So it’s a complicated matter, and not as simple as either side would probably like to spin it.
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@Michael… They look at historical demographic trends and adjust the
individual sample to more accurately match those historical
trends.
I think that’s probably what Mr. Brown from Quinnipiac was trying to explain to Hugh Hewitt, right? But it’s hard to explain something that complicated in a brief sound-bite… especially when you’re being badgered by a partisan with his own agenda who doesn’t really want to hear (or believe) what you’re saying. -
Jon Stewart made a great point about the Chick-fil-A thing last night. He agreed with most of the commenters here, both that Mr. Cathy’s comments were offensive, and that this isn’t something mayors (or any other elected official) should be stepping into. In America, we have the right to hold and to express our opinions.
He ended it by saying that, yes, it’s disheartening to the supporters of same-sex marriage to see the thousands that turned out to support Mr. Cathy’s statements. But in the long run, same-sex marriage is coming. Gay couple are going to have that. And in the long run, the opponents of same-sex marriage have chicken sandwiches.
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@Max...I have it on good authority that several echidna organizations were
organizing a boycott of your cooking, so you don’t have to
worry now.LOL!!! I get an instant mental picture of an army of indignant little echidnas parading outside my house, carrying signs in their wrinkled little claws reading “Fooey on fili’s filets!”
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#29 written by DrFunguy 9 months ago
what is simple is the obvious bungling of Romney’s campaign on the tax return issue. Put up or shut up indeed.
Even the conservative National Review calls for him to release more returns. And points out the false equivalence of Romney saying he released as much as Kerry did in 2004 (“ John Kerry actually released returns from 1999 through 2003, and also released tax returns during his Senate runs. ”)
Reid is playing Romney like a fish on this to the great amusement of many… -
@DrFunguy,
I’m not saying that Romney’s money came mostly from international drug cartels and South American prostitution rings. In fact, it probably didn’t, and none of that has ever been proven. I’m just asking why he won’t release his tax returns. He could settle the controversy today, just by releasing a few pieces of paper (provided they’re not forged).
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#31 written by rgbact 9 months ago
So if they end up with too many Democrats, for example, they merely count each Republican more in the final tally than they do each Democrat.
So, are you really saying that the über favorable Obama results has nothing to do with sampling since that +11% gets backed out in the end? So its just a total coincidence that the poll with the best Obama result of any also has the highest Democrat sample margin of any?
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#33 written by mclever 9 months ago
@rgbact
My response to filistro in #17 explains in part why there tends to be a correlation between self-reported party id and candidate preference. They are not independent variables.
I’m not saying that any particular poll is right or wrong, just that criticisms based on self-reported partisan id are misguided. For a better criticism, compare the self-reported liberal-moderate-conservative scale, if available. It also tends to shift with candidate preference, but not to the same degree as partisan id.
Criticisms of a poll based on self-reported voting in prior elections are also misguided, because those are expected to skew towards the winner by 5–10%.
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mclever,
When hiring increases, you can expect a slight unemployment uptick as more discouraged workers return to the workforce.
That was my first thought, too. But it seems that the uptick this time is being caused by an increase in people losing their jobs, so it’s not from the usual suspects.
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#35 written by parksie555 9 months ago
In a similar vein is Sean Trende’s piece in RCP today wondering if their is a disconnect between the extremely close horserace numbers and the state-by-state numbers that seem to show Obama with a fairly comfortable EC lead.
Key point is the shifting over time of state PVI’s.
He also had an interesting take on the effect of Obama’s swing-state spending blitz of the last month or so… essentially arguing that the key is not so much that the advertising has pushed Obama’s numbers up but have helped stop the bleeding that was apparent early in the late spring/early summer.
So what happens when the nominating process officially ends and Romney is able to fully deploy the arsenal he has been raising over the last several months?
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@parkise.. So what happens when the nominating process officially ends and
Romney is able to fully deploy the arsenal he has been raising over
the last several months?parksie… do you think Romney should release his tax returns? Do you think it will damage him if he doesn’t?
Because I think it’s a killer. It has the combination of emotional impact and sound-bite simplicity that is necessary for a meme to take hold… “This guy is hiding something!”
And really… there must be something very damaging in those returns or he wouldn’t be taking the hit over them. And the conservative response about “Obama’s college transcripts” is totally ineffective as a counter-attack. Nobody cares about college grades but in this tough economy, everybody cares about rich guys who don’t pay taxes.
FWIW… Dana Bash of CNN now states that she has “a reliable, unnamed source” who supports Harry Reid’s claim that Romney didn’t pay any taxes at all for 10 recent years.
He simply cannot be elected president if he refuses to put those rumors to rest. It’s not possible. And no matter how much money he spends in the fall, that will still be true.
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#37 written by mclever 9 months ago
@Michael
I wasn’t trying to say where the unemployment numbers came from, just trying to explain the reaction among investors. They’re obviously choosing the optimistic hiring numbers over the unemployment figures, perhaps because a hiring trend suggests a cure for ailing unemployment numbers regardless of what’s causing the disease.
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So. Michael, when we’re adding jobs to the economy, why would the unemployment number increase as a result of people getting fired? If the number of jobs is increasing and unemployment is also increasing, doesn’t that mean that the number of people in the workforce is increasing faster than the number of available jobs? Or am I missing something?
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#39 written by parksie555 9 months ago
I could care less about Mitt Romney’s tax returns. That’s his business. As long as the government is satisfied that he has fulfilled all legal requirements with regards to paying his taxes that’s good enough for me.
And I think most Americans agree with me.
I think Romney actually is doing the right thing by refusing to release the returns. The story is slowly dying as the media and the American public move on to the next shiny object.
And if it comes up in a debate he has a quite simple response — “Unemployment has been over 8% for Obama’s entire time in office. Income growth is stagnant, the stock market is stuck in neutral, and the housing market is the worst since the end of WWII. And the President’s big concern is my income tax returns? Really?” I can hear the applause now.
Why, honestly, do you care how much Romney earns or what he pays in taxes?
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#40 written by mclever 9 months ago
@filistro
I wouldn’t put so much stock in the tax return kerfuffle, no matter what Dana Bash on CNN said that Harry Reid whispered to the boys in the locker room. This has the hallmarks of one of those “issues” that only serves to solidify the views of the already partisans while alienating moderates who don’t really care. It’ll be seen as the same as Obama’s “birth certificate” issue, even if the situation isn’t really analogous, because both involve one side being unsatisfied with the papers that the other side has revealed.
Democratic partisans can wax hyperbolic about the likely scandals hidden in Romney’s taxes, so much so that if Romney ever releases them, any irregularities will seem inconsequential in comparison to what has been hypothesized. And, as long as Romney holds out on releasing the forms, Republicans will probably just become angrier about the Democrats asking to see them, saying he already released as much as he needs to. The whole thing doesn’t make Romney look good, true, but it doesn’t make Obama look better, either.
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@parksie… Why, honestly, do you care how much Romney earns or what he pays in taxes?
I don’t personally care in the least. I understand very well how complicated taxes can be at certain income levels.
I’m talking about this from an electoral point of view, and I think it’s a killer. Obama has just rolled out his new line of attack… that Romney’s tax plan will “raise taxes on 95% of Americans” while “giving big tax breaks to people like him.”
If you couple that attack (which is already drawing blood) with Romney’s refusal to show just how much the existing tax breaks have benefited him over the years, then I think he loses the election because he looks like the very caricature of the sleazy, oblivious, self-interested rich guy that everybody loves to hate.
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Why, honestly, do you care how much Romney earns or what he pays in taxes?
“How much Romney earns” is irrelevant.
His tax proposals as recently scored by a number of nonpartisan groups, show that he would raise taxes on people who make less than $200,000 / year while significantly lowering taxes on people who make more than that amount. He appears to be running for President solely (or at least significantly) for the purpose of enriching himself and his friends. That’s not what America wants in a president.
How he has conducted his personal finances will tell us a lot about how he intends to conduct a presidency. Republicans have often been very big on pushing “the character issue”. We want to know more about Romney’s character.
I agree with filistro on this. If it turns out he paid no taxes for even a single year (let alone ten), he’s toast. America will not stand for that level of dishonesty and antisocial behavior, not in a commander-in-chief. It indicates a level of psychotic ego-maniacal sociopathy that is incompatible with a man who wants to serve his country as president. We don’t want to elect a sociopath.
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#43 written by mclever 9 months ago
@filistro
he looks like the very caricature of the sleazy, oblivious, self-interested rich guy that everybody loves to hate.
Everybody already thinks that of Romney (have you seen his favorability numbers?), and he’s still within striking distance. By October, Obama will need something new if he wants to distance himself from Romney and win.
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#44 written by rgbact 9 months ago
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@Mac.. By October, Obama will need something new if he wants to distance himself from Romney and win.
I disagree. I guess only time will show which of us is right, but I think Obama can ride this right to November, and use it all the way to keep driving Romney’s favorables even lower.Mitt is truly damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. If he keeps stonewalling, the image of greed, sleaze and secrecy becomes set in stone, and will be fatal.
If he releases the returns, Obama’s campaign will (as Mitt himself has accurately predicted) pick through them and feast off them right up to the election.Republicans made a big mistake in nominating this guy. He is just the wrong man for the current climate.
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Not only that, then he says “yeah, I’m such a deadbeat I never took a
salary as MA governor and I won’t take one as president”.That’s sad. So, he’ll continue to earn his money from his investments, and not from being president? Where will this mean his loyalties lie? We don’t want a part-time president who is being paid off by wealthy special interests. We want a president who is employed by We the People.
If he says something like that, the anti-Romney ads write themselves. Even as president, Romney intends to be bought off by corporate masters. Yeah, what a great commander-in-chief.
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#47 written by parksie555 9 months ago
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rgbact,
So, are you really saying that the über favorable Obama results has nothing to do with sampling since that +11% gets backed out in the end? So its just a total coincidence that the poll with the best Obama result of any also has the highest Democrat sample margin of any?
Since I don’t know the details of their demographic correction algorithm, I can’t say that it is. I can, however, say that the connection is likely to be way overblown. They’ve been in business long enough that they will have corrected for it in one way or another.
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DC,
when we’re adding jobs to the economy, why would the unemployment number increase as a result of people getting fired?
That’s the big question. Is it a measuring problem, or is it that there was an increase in people getting fired that coincided with an increase in new jobs, but that those positions weren’t yet filled?
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#50 written by shortchain 9 months ago
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(29) million 2008 Obama voters stayin’ home in 2010 and polling samples
aside, a Washington Post article re: recent campaign spending indicates Romney has given up on PA and pretty much given up on MI/WI also. Which means mittens definitely has to run the table of toss-up states, whereas Obama can lose OH/FL/VA and still win. As mentioned previously Romney will not win OH or VA imo, soooo do the math.And most Super PAC political ads will probably end by Sept. 1 because of anonymous donors.
Again, presidential politics is not that complicated ie likability and GOTV and much of the conservative base despises Romney.
>
The 1st question reporters will ask Romney’s v-p pic is how many tax returns did you have to give mittens’ staff in the vetting process. It’s been reported Romney gave McCain’s staff ((( 23 ))) years of tax returns.
Oh what a tangled web Willard mittens weaves …
So what happens when the nominating process officially ends and Romney is able to fully deploy the arsenal he has been raising over the last several months?
Repeating, Super PAC $$$ ads will probably terminate Sept. 1.
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btw, did I mention most voters don’t like etch-a-sketch Romney, including a majority of cons. mittens/turdblossom et al cons have been carpet bombing OH w/negative Obama ads the past couple mos. and all he has accomplished is lower favorability ratings!
‘nuf said!
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I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.
In this election cycle, there’s not very much movement in the polling numbers. People have made up their minds who they’re going to vote for.
What they haven’t made up their minds on (because they can’t) is whether they’ll go to the polls. At this point, the campaigns are going to be judged by how much they motivate their supporters to go to the polls.
So filistro, I think, is mostly right. The Romney tax issue will get Democrats to the polls to vote for Obama’s re-election, so it helps Obama on Nov 6.
I also think Mac is mostly right. The revelations (or lack of revelations) won’t change polling numbers by much.
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parksie said:
I could care less about Mitt Romney’s tax returns. That’s his business. As long as the government is satisfied that he has fulfilled all legal requirements with regards to paying his taxes that’s good enough for me.
And I think most Americans agree with me.
The data disagree with you.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-tax-return-release-rate-obama-election-poll-2012–7
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012–07-19/romney-gallup-poll-tax-returns/56333412/1
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#54 written by parksie555 9 months ago
Interesting poll results, but unfortunately they appear to ask the question in isolation. Plus it’s a PPP poll, which is automatically suspect.
Key line is the last one of the first article — maybe you didn’t read that far?
But significantly, while most voters think he should release his tax returns, the poll doesn’t measure the issue in terms of its importance or its effect on support.
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#55 written by parksie555 9 months ago
And also the money line from the USA Today piece on the Gallup results:
“In the poll, those surveyed:
• Are divided on whether presidential candidates in general should release their tax returns. Forty-seven percent call it “largely irrelevant” to helping voters decide who should be president while 44% say it provides “legitimate information that helps voters make better decisions.” ”
Translation — The people that care about tax returns are the core mouthbreathers that would vote for Obama even if he promised to nationalize all of the banks, the oil industry, and the entire healthcare industry.
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Read more carefully yourself, Parksie. Two separate polls, one PPP, one Gallup. PPP has a left-leaning house bias, Gallup leans right.
No one said anything about the effect on support. Once again, you said:
I think most Americans agree with me [that I don’t care whether he releases them or not].”
You’re wrong. Most Americans (54% in both polls) think he should release his tax returns.
Thanks for playing. Here’s a copy of our home game.
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#57 written by parksie555 9 months ago
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#60 written by parksie555 9 months ago
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Keep your eye on the ball, kid.
Indeed p555 as Obama’s campaign and the MSM
will be hounding mittens ’til hell freezes over re: tax returns ie a needless distraction for Romney’s campaign. Unless, of course, as most people think, he has something to hide.ie the perfect storm for Obama’s campaign as many cons in the media and con politicians also think he should release his tax returns ie Kristol, Dowd, Will, Christie, Perry, Barbour, Santorum, Gingrich etc. etc.
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parksie, the question of Romney’s tax returns can affect the election without affecting support. It could anger Democrats enough to bring a few otherwise uninterested voters to the polls. And Romney’s duplicity and greed could turn enough moderates and conservatives off that they stay home. Even while not changing who supports whom, it could affect enthusiasm.
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On the subject of the tax returns, here are two commenters with contrary views from another blog :
1.) I’m
actually beginning to believe that Romney is not serious about being
elected–not serious enough to give up even one drop of ‘private’
information about himself, and not serious enough to spend even one
single dollar of his own. Last time around, he put in $46
million of his own money; I think this still galls him, him of the
penny-pinching ways. I think he may be using the election to hit up a
bunch of rich peers to pay back his failed 2008 campaign’s losses. He won’t bend to public will to know; that means he won’t be president. Pure and simple. AND HE DOESN“T CARE.2.)Actually,
I do think he wants to be President. In fact, I think he thinks he’s
ENTITLED to be President. That’s his problem. He thinks he’ll get to
be President because about 100 super rich right-wing pigs will buy it
for him, and Republican legislatures will ensure that enough Democratic
votes are suppressed to ensure that their purchase “goes through.” So
he actually, really really doesn’t believe he has to do a damn thing to
satisfy the public, because he’ll get to be President anyway.
I think in an odd way, both these comments are sort of true. (Is that even possible?) I’m still debating with myself over which one I agree with more. What do you guys think? -
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shiloh… yes, many conservatives don’t care about Mitt, the man. But there are many who care passionately about the outcome of this election, and they are increasingly in despair. Here’s a quote yesterday from a conservative friend of mine over at The Corner… a smart, funny, levelheaded old political hand and all-round good guy. He’s just about had it with the Mittster:
»Romney’s Unfavorables Rise in Skewed Sample Poll
***
What is “skewed” is Mitt Romney’s perception of how he is being perceived vis-à-vis the energetic, albeit dishonest and slanderous, campaign of Barak Obama.Romney is detached and hopeless; he absurdly seems to think that he
has all the time in the world; he is like one of those generals that
Lincoln ran through before he finally found Grant.We are going down. Obama called the good people of OH and PA “bitter
clingers.” But Romney is letting Obama win those people. Romney is
cool and casual like a man heading out for a gentleman’s tennis match at
the club. We are going down. -
#67 written by Max 9 months ago
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lol detached and hopeless ~ and those are his good points! So Romney is like Gen. George Brinton McClellan ie he will not engage.
mittens’ other problem in a nutshell. Obama can lose OH/VA/FL/NC and still win. NH/IA/NV/CO puts him at (272).
As already mentioned, Dow now up 221 …
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#69 written by Max 9 months ago
parksie and rgbact,
Really, I wouldn’t sweat the little thangs like one individual poll. I stopped that a while back. Use RCP’s average of polls as a reasonable standard, even taking that with a tad of salt. But it does tend to even out those house effects.
Years ago, I happened to be taking a stats class of about 30, fall semester during a presidential election. The professor had us do an exercise: The weekend before the election, we each had to sample a minimum of 25 people, family, friends, people on the street and ask who they were planning to vote for. Took each of our results and averaged them together on Monday. No other adjustments. The average was within a percentage point of the election results for that county.
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#70 written by DrFunguy 9 months ago
but Shilo, the Dow is up because Romney’s gonna win.
“When the stock market goes down, that is because everyone hates the president, but when it goes up, that is because everyone hates the president. If anything, it just makes too much sense! Let us ask CNBC to explain why a stock market surge is due to investors betting on a Romney win, despite the fact that Mitt Romney is not, in fact, actually winning.” I (heart) wonkette!
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parksie
“In the poll, those surveyed:
• Are divided on whether presidential candidates in general should release their tax returns. Forty-seven percent call it “largely irrelevant” to helping voters decide who should be president while 44% say it provides “legitimate information that helps voters make better decisions.” ”
Translation — The people that care about tax returns are the core mouthbreathers that would vote for Obama even if he promised to nationalize all of the banks, the oil industry, and the entire healthcare industry.
I suspect you have it backward. Here’s why: for people who are already decided on their candidate, the release of tax returns isn’t going to change their opinions. That means that the 47% who consider it “largely irrelevant” are those who have already made up their minds, while those who are not fully decided would then be among the 44% who consider it legitimate information.
the whole discussion was on whether or not the income tax return release would affect the election results
And thus it appears that the release is a plausible impactor on the outcome of the election, given such a slim margin between the two candidates.
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@filistro
I’m still debating with myself over which one I agree with more. What do you guys think?
Romney comes from a corporate world in which the board of directors decides what happens, elects a CEO, and he follows their direction. The desires of the employees don’t matter. In this case, Romney has assembled a board of directors (his rich donors) who will appoint him as CEO (that’s why he picked them) and the “voters” don’t matter.
He does, however, have to put on sort of a pretense of a show for the media. Corporations do give out press releases to the stenographers in the press pool.
I think Romney desperately wants to be president. It’s the only way he can ensure that he can stop having the government take any of his money and give it to someone else. In fact, as in his tax plan, he can arrange to have the public hand their money over to him. It’s purely a business decision, and is the next logical step in acquiring more wealth.
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#73 written by GROG 9 months ago
This may belong on the LaTourette thread, (he’s my representative, btw) but I wanted to make a quick comment regarding the frustration he’s having in Congress.
There’s been a lot of vitriolic rhetoric flying about the “batshit crazy” conservative right wing, unwilling to compromise like was common in years past. Here’s the thing, we live in extradordianary times. Times are not like years past and things are not going well if you’re a conservative.
Federal debt is near 100% of GDP. Unthinkable in this country a few decades ago. More people are on food stamps and disability than at any time in our history. We’re living an unsustainable fiscal nightmare. The left want to spend more money. The want to raise taxes on those who shoulder the largest burden of taxes, all in the name of “fairness”. They want a socialized, single payer health care system.
If someone says they believe marriage is between one man and one woman, they’re a hateful homophobic, bigot. If someone stands on the side of unborn life, they’re anti-women. This is the world we now live in. Opinions used to be respected, but that is changing.
For the left, things are going well. The country is moving in their direction. They have room to compromise.
For the right, not so much. They feel like they need to take a hard stand now in order to save their country.
Of course, this is all my opinion, but it’s the way I see things right now.
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#74 written by mclever 9 months ago
@Michael
Given that people who’ve made up their minds are likely to answer in favor of the campaign message of their preferred candidate, another plausible interpretation is that a significant majority of the 47% who say the tax returns don’t matter are Republicans or conservatives who’ve already made up their minds for Romney, and a significant majority of the 44% who say it provides legitimate information are Democrats or liberals who think the issue hurts Romney. There are probably some moderates/undecideds on both sides of the question.
What should be clear is that if there are any moderates or undecideds who think it’s a legitimate concern, then Obama currently gains by continuing to push the issue. For those undecideds who think issue doesn’t matter, it neither hurts nor helps. But for those who think it does matter, those votes will be more likely to break in Obama’s direction if Romney continues to balk or if there is anything of concern in his recent returns.
But, as I’ve mentioned to filistro, I think there’s a time-limit on this strategy. Once those undecideds who might be affected by this issue have made up their minds, there’s no further ground to be gained among those who couldn’t care less. That’s why I think that while this issue is helping Obama for now, he will likely need something new come October to really seal the deal.
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Interesting because of Romney’s myriad of other problems, no one is talkin’ about his Mormon issue anymore.
He always comes across as a self-righteous uppity snob, on a good day. Which is why undecided mitten voters will probably stay home ie if a voter hates Obama, they are pretty much not undecided, eh. Also, studies have shown many truly enraged voters tend not to vote.
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Federal debt is near 100% of GDP. Unthinkable in this country a few decades ago. More people are on food stamps and disability than at any time in our history. We’re living an unsustainable fiscal nightmare.
Mostly because of (8) years of Bush and the current obstructionist Boehner House. btw, this is the least productive congress in America’s history by a huge margin.
I yield back the balance of my time to grog.
>
Republican conventions better for strip bars than Democratic ones ~ GOP hopes to stay out of trouble in Tampa
And on a related note …
Willard may have some ’splainin’ to do w/the Mormons er evangelicals er con hypocrites!
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#77 written by parksie555 9 months ago
MWeiss — I’d still argue that the PPP poll is poorly structured and basically a push poll to make headlines. If they really wanted to prove something significant they would have asked the respondents to rank the importance of various factors in their voting decision. Absent that data, you may as well as ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
As far as the Gallup poll is concerned, to me the key takeaway is here: 54% of independents feel that Romney’s tax returns would not reveal anything harmful, or have no opinion on the matter.
Certainly not the earthshaking results that silly filly and dopey DC make it out to be — but given the closeness of the election, I’ll grant you that it could certainly be a factor.
But I suspect if unemployment continues to drift up for the next three months, as it looks like it might, nothing else will really matter.
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#78 written by Mule Rider 9 months ago
Glad somebody was willing to stand up and volunteer to be the mouthpiece to prove which side of the aisle this Chick-fil-controversy is winning the frothing-at-the-mouth, hate-spewing gold medal.
His firing is beyond deserving and kudos to the window cashier for remaining so professional and nice throughout. You almost have to laugh at and pity the guy in his futile attempt until you take a step back and remember just how disgusting it is for the CFO of a company to order a free water to make a point and then go on a tirade/rant to some poor girl who’s likelyl making little more than minimum wage and is in no way connected to or associated with Dan Cathy’s opinions.
When some of us libertarian-conservatives (my new favorite word for myself is conservatarian) talk about the “unhinged left,” this is a prime example.
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#79 written by Max 9 months ago
GROG,
You have a fatal flaw in your assertion. It is not that most folks believe that you cannot hold whatever opinion you wish!
You can think that marriage MUST be between one man and one woman and that’s your opinion and belief and you may live up to your belief without any issues whatsoever! It’s when you demand that your OPINION MUST BE civil law, when it discriminates against adult citizens that believe otherwise that the problem arises.
You can believe that human life begins at conception and have the opinion that abortion of that lump of cells is wrong, and not ONE of us will force you to abort against your wishes. But the law of the land is that, before the third trimester, any decision in favor of abortion is between a woman and her doctor, and when you wish to impose YOUR opinion on that woman and insert the power of the state between her and her doctor then a problem arises.
There are reasons that the debt is 100% of GDP and we have covered that several times here. It is easily demonstrated factually that 2/3rds of that debt was created by the same party that has for the past 30 years claimed “fiscal responsibility” so “give us another chance” when they SHOULD HAVE BEEN paying off debt, AND we know that half of the CURRENT deficit is structural due to policies a decade old.
And a “socialized single payer system of healthcare”, such as that Romney praises in Israel is blocked in the US, NOT for cost or delivered results, but by nothing more than ideological OPINION.
Big difference from the assertions as you stated.
But that is MY opinion and one that has been factually based and factually backed many times.
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GROG… I recognize the things that concern you. The essence of being a conservative is being cautious and opposed to rapid social change. In every generation, at least half the people think things are changing too rapidly and the generation that follows them is going off the rails and wrecking life as they’ve always known it. This is a normal impression… it’s been that way for millenia (there are essays from ancient Greek scholars bemoaning the wild and wayward behavior of teenagers) but somehow we are still chugging along as a society.
When I talk about batshit crazy conservatives, I’m not referring to these cautious people who hold entirely normal and even healthy views on how society (and government) should conduct itself. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of judicious caution, after all, and cleaving to the tried and true ways of doing things.
But this Tea Party bunch is something new. As I see them, they are not particularly animated by concerns over abortion, gay marriage or other social issues. They are all about MONEY… in particular TAXES. And their primary concern seems to be that their money not go to help anybody else. I think the Tea Party is a bunch of older white people who cannot stand the thought that their hard-earned money is being taken from them by the state to help black and brown people who are less fortunate. The very thought makes them… yes… batshit crazy.
I don’t even think of these people as real conservatives. In their furious oppositon to the way the country has always been run, and their hard-core selfishness and hatred of their fellow man, they are more radical than conservative. I believe they are dangerous, and they need to be put back in the dark caves where people like this should live, because they are damaging the very fabric of the nation.
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Grog, thank you for sharing your thoughts. It makes me understand the obstructionism a little better. If you truly feel that things are not going your way, then I can understand the desire to put the brakes on the direction things are going.
If I may offer, however, some of that obstructionism is precisely what is causing some of the problems you list. For example:
There’s been a lot of vitriolic rhetoric flying about the
“batshit crazy” conservative right wing, unwilling to compromise
like was common in years past.… and that rhetoric is a direct reaction to the obstructionism. Can you see that? Justified or not (and that goes both for the conservative obstructionism and the reactions to it), can you see how someone merely shouting “NO!” with his fingers in his ears can be seen as “batshit crazy” when there are really problems that need solving?
Federal debt is near 100% of GDP. Unthinkable in this country a
few decades ago.Do you recall the causes for this? A Republican president and a Republican Congress turned historic surpluses into historic deficits in only two years, then drive the economy off a cliff. A massive tax cut (costing over $300 billion per year), two wars (costing another $100 billion per year), and an unfunded social program, coupled with an economic collapse (which enormously reduced tax revenue) together are the cause of 95% of of current deficit. And the Republcian Party wants to continue and expand the policies which brought on these problems, and opposes policies which have brought prosperity for the previous half-century. These wounds you complain about — the massive deficit — were self-inflicted.
More people are on food stamps and disability than
at any time in our history.This is a result of the economic collapse. Were we supposed to let these people starve? Really?
We’re living an unsustainable fiscal
nightmare.We are all agreed on that. We disagree only on the solutions. Yet Republicans pretend that they are the only ones who care about the deficit. Can’t you see how that might make others see Republicans as “batshit crazy?“
The left want to spend more money.
Yes. This is what has gotten us out of depressions before. It’s the only thing that does, because it increases economic activity. Even Republicans admit this. It’s the argument they’re using to oppose the upcoming sequester of military funding. Can’t you see how that cognitive dissonance will strike others as “batshit crazy”?
The want to raise taxes
on those who shoulder the largest burden of taxes, all in the name of
“fairness”.The concept of “fairness” (which isn’t the argument I use, by the way) comes in because these are the people who have benefited the most from the policies that cause the bad situation we’re in. It’s considered “fair”, therefore, for them to bear more of the burden for getting us out of the mess that giving them all that wealth has caused.
They want a socialized, single payer health care
system.You say that as if it’s a bad thing. Socialized, single payer health care
systems all over the industrialized world provide more than adequate health care — better than most Americans get — for half the price. And NO ONE in those countries goes bankrupt because of an illness or injury. Can’t you see why someone who opposes this, just because they want insurance companies to make more money, might be viewed as “batshit crazy”?
If someone says they believe marriage is between one man and one
woman, they’re a hateful homophobic, bigot.Honestly, I don’t know what else to call them. I need some help here. My recent conversation with Mule helped some. We need more rational discussion of this.
If someone stands on
the side of unborn life, they’re anti-women.It isn’t only that. The willingness to de-fund Planned Parenthood (which does abortions as only a tiny part of what they do, the rest being providing health care for women who need it), the opposition to the provisions of ACA that provide for women’s health care services or that prvent women from being charged more for insurance than men, the opposition to laws that allow women to sue their employers when they are raped on the job — there’s a host of things Republicans have done that harm women.
This is the world we
now live in. Opinions used to be respected, but that is changing.Yes, opinions used to be respected. Republicans like Michele Bachmann now claim that attempts to solve our nation’s problems are being orchestrated by radical Islam.
LaTourette did not resign because the thought the country is moving too far left. He made it plain that the recent insanity of the Republican Party is a great part of his decision.
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#82 written by Max 9 months ago
Mule,
Vante was correct in firing the guy. As a senior manager in the company, such behavior is not anything a company that I ran would allow!
I hope, in the name of consistency, you would join me in criticizing James O’Keefe and demanding that he not be given a forum for his brand of the sport.
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After saying everything I did in #81 — yes, I can understand the frustration and fear of conservatives.
We are moving toward better health care. We are moving toward greater respect for women and minorities. We are moving toward equal rights for gays. We are moving toward a robust and healthy economy that doesn’t rely on making rich people richer at the expense of everyone else.
I can understand how much conservatives might hate this, and therefore fear where we’re going. They know they’re on the wrong side of history and prosperity. This knowledge is devastating to their worldview, and their response, understandably, is to attempt simple obstruction for as long as they can.
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Mule,
His firing is beyond deserving and kudos to the window cashier for remaining so professional and nice throughout.
He certainly was well out of line. I’m still uncomfortable about people being fired for activities they undertake that are outside of their jobs and not being performed as one representing their employer. I have yet to find a nice bright line for extracurricular activities beyond which people should be fired, and within which they should not.
to order a free water
This was in Arizona, BTW. As conservative as Arizona is, one thing they don’t mess around with is water. They have a law on the books (I don’t know how well enforced it is) that requires anyone with a water tap to give free water to anyone who asks for it. That means if someone knocks on your door and asks for a glass of water, you are legally required to provide it. Just a little side note in the bigger story.
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#85 written by Max 9 months ago
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#86 written by Mule Rider 9 months ago
“I’m still uncomfortable about people being fired for activities they undertake that are outside of their jobs and not being performed as one representing their employer.“
I can understand your apprehension, but in many ways i think it’s akin to, when you’re younger, your father (or possibly mother) tells you, “You’re leaving this house with my last name attached to you; don’t tarnish it!”
It’s my opinion that companies have a right to ask their employees conduct themselves in a professional manner. Obviously they can’t — nor shouldn’t — police every little action, but something of this nature, with him making such a spectacle of harassing this young lady the way he did, reflects poorly on Vante, especially with him being in a position of leadership.“That means if someone knocks on your door and asks for a glass of water, you are legally required to provide it. Just a little side note in the bigger story.“
I think the side note in this story is a CFO needed to order free water to make a point. I get that he didn’t want to give them a dime to “continue supporting hate groups,” but that’s pretty sad when a man of his (likely) wealth stoops so low as to obtain an unnecessary freebie just to have a forum to spew hate of his own. -
#87 written by Max 9 months ago
Michael,
In the case of most employees, I would agree with you. But in this case we’re not talking about an ordinary employee, but a senior manager and an officer of the corporation. As Chief Financial Officer, that person has high visibility as a face of the company and one whose credibility is extremely important to it’s operation and viability.
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#89 written by Max 9 months ago
Michael,
No. But what Smith did was much MUCH worse than hanging out on a blog.
He was terribly boorish and discourteous to a employee who did nothing to deserve such treatment.
He had the bad sense to video it and put it up for all to see.
He, as senior management and company officer, knew that publicizing such behavior would be a reflection not only on himself, but on his company, and exhibited terrible judgement.
Forbes Magazine said it best in an article about Best Buy’s Dunn: “ When you are the head of any public institution or company you can not mix your personal life, romantic life, and business life unless you want to court trouble.”
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#90 written by Armchair Warlord 9 months ago
Sorry to resurrect a conversational thread of Shimmer Floor Wax…
Filistro,
Still here in Hawaii, doing paperwork for the Army (albeit in increasingly senior positions lately) and spending half of my time off recovering from the insane workouts my comrades come up with and the other half working on my tan. Maybe in the near future I’ll get to do some of the stuff I actually joined the Army to do. Maaaaaaaybe.
Regarding General Petraeus — I think you’re underestimating the man. Four-star generals are intricately involved in politics as part of their jobs, and you’ll recall Petraeus made his name at the helm in Iraq and later took over the Afghanistan campaign and substantially turned it around — both counterinsurgency campaigns. As someone who’s put some amount of effort into understanding insurgency, I’ll tell you that there is not a whole lot of a point in distinguishing between the early stages of insurgency and “movement” politics.
In fact, approaching an insurgency that has moved into open insurrection as a purely military problem, one that can be solved with fire and maneuver, will inevitably lead to failure. Observe Vietnam, or the early stages of Iraq and Afghanistan. Or just read the headlines coming out of Syria. The implements of war in counterinsurgency are tools used to restore legitimate governance, and not the only or necessarily the most effective ones.
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#93 written by GROG 9 months ago
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@AW… Still here in Hawaii, doing paperwork for the Army (albeit in
increasingly senior positions lately) and spending half of my time
off recovering from the insane workouts my comrades come up with and
the other half working on my tan.Oh, you poor dear. Some guys are just doomed to draw the crappy postings, right?
Seriously… your suggestion that Petraeus is the man because the current state of American politics requires a counterinsurgency specialist.… that’s the most interesting concept I’ve heard in some time.
I just love it when somebody tells me something so intriguing that I wind up thinking about it for a long time afterward… and this is going to be one of those things.
Thanks, AW!
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go to hell
Getting there is half the fun! And speaking of climate change
er half the counties in America have been declared disaster areas ~ When I die I’ll go to heaven ’cause I’ve spent my time in hell! Had a The Rolling Stones bio c. 1968 and Keith Richards wore a leather jacket w/that phrase on the back. I digress.And speaking of divine intervention, Richards is still alive … more or less.
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Shout out to Serena who annihilated Maria today. Also Gabby Douglas and the entire “woman’s” gymnastic team who are all basically kids, Michael Phelps, Missy Franklin, 15 y.o. Katie Ledecky
who looked like she was having a casual afternoon swim. I’m partial to Katie ’cause my sister was also a very good distance swimmer. I digress.Can’t get into beach volleyball although the babes look nice in their tiny bikinis. Find myself fascinated by water polo ’cause one really has to be in shape.
Table tennis and badminton … seriously.
And speaking of badminton er bad mitten, the Brits are hosting a fabulous Olympics games despite the concerns of Willard!>
If you can’t be an athlete, be an athletic supporter …
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#99 written by Max 9 months ago
Presidential Pick
Well, I’m going back out on the limb and moving FL back over to Obama. Recent polling seems to be moving in that direction and, even though the RCP electoral map has had FL moved back to Obama for several weeks, I am now concurring.
Electoral vote, Obama — 333, Romney 205
Paddy Power has also changed their odds for the first time in several weeks. Reducing the odds on Obama and lengthening those on Romney.
Odds on Obama now 2–5, or, a $1 bet only gets you $0.40, up from $0.48 previously.
Odds on Romney now 15–8, or, a $1 bet gets you $1.88, down from $1.50. -
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Jobs report today.Politcal messaging after the report is becoming critical. Obama team doing a good job with deflecting when a report is bad and ensuring news cycles are about other things. We’ll see what the distraction is if this month’s is bad.