“It shouldn’t be a choice between a rich white guy and black com­mu­nity orga­nizer.  It’s a choice between self reliance and gov­ern­ment depen­dency.  If the GOP puts up a can­di­date who can artic­u­late the dif­fer­ence to the Amer­i­can peo­ple, he/​she will win every time.”

For which opinion you have zero evidence other than wishful thinking.  2008 the American people had a choice between a war hero and a conservative, just not a far right one, and a “black community organizer”.

The conservative didn’t win! 

That it’s bet­ter to focus energy on putting up a qual­ity can­di­date who may not be ide­o­log­i­cally pure than to focus the energy on putting up some­one who’s ide­o­log­i­cally pure but not quality.

I think at this point my side needs to put a candidate who is electable.  I hate that it has come to that.  And don’t get me wrong, I think Romney is a good candidate, but he brought too much baggage with being rich, being from a rich family, and the Bain Capital thing.  Please understand, I think there is nothing wrong with being rich (we’ve had many excellent rich Presidents), or what he did with Bain, but it becomes too much of a lightening rod in today’s political climate to win a Presidnetial election.

We need a candidate who is going to reverse the ascendancy of liberalism, as Reagan did and managed to make it last through the end of the Clinton adminstration (“the era of big government is over”; abolished welfare as we knew it).  In a country that is 80% non-liberal, that candidate will win again. 

Liberalism is Obama’s holy grail — wishes for single payer healthcare, largest spending bill in American history, expansion of the welfare state, expanded powers of the EPA, gutting the welfare work requirement.

The GOP needs a candidate that is willing to reverse the growth and power of the federal government and the growing dependency of the individual on that government.  One who will stop our march towards western European style socialism and stop the receding of the American experiment and the growth of the entitlement state.

It shouldn’t be a choice between a rich white guy and black community organizer.  It’s a choice between self reliance and government dependency.  If the GOP puts up a candidate who can articulate the difference to the American people, he/she will win every time.

Here are a few examples of Rove’s grasping for straws:
The number that may matter the most is Mr. Obama’s 47.2% share. As the
incumbent, he’s likely to find that number going into Election Day is a
percentage point or so below what he gets.
I’m sorry,  but compared to actual polls this is sheer mumbo-jumbo.  Chicken entrails would be a better predictor.

He [Romney]  maintains small but persistent polling edge.  Sorry,  as of tonight RCP has a lead for Obama in its national polls.  Moreover,  538  argues that the state by state polls give a better result than national polls (possibly because they’re better controlled for variables within the state),  and as of October 31th  they give Obama a 1.9%  lead.  Rove’s analysis of voter turnout is a lot of blah blah woof woof.

Rove’s reliance on the Gallup polls.  As 538 points out,  Gallup is a huge outlier compared to other polls, and has a bad track record in cases where it is an outlier (538 Oct 18).  Rove has to be pretty stretched to rely on one of the least reliable polls.

Moreover,  in battleground states, the edge in early and absentee vote turnout that propelled Democrats to victory in 2008 has clearly been eroded, according to an RNC summary.  Let’s take a few battleground states.
Ohio        538   82.3% probability for Obama    RCP  calls for Obama
Colorado 538   67.4% Obama                            RCP calls for Obama
Penn        538   96.4%  Obama                           RCP calls for Obama
Florida    538    54%     Romney                         RCP calls for Romney
Wisc        538   94.1%   Obama                           RCP  calls for Obama
In fact,  the only state where RCP and 538 disagree is Virginia,  with 538  giving a 66.5% chance to Obama and RCP calling it for Romney.  This is still enough to give Obama a comfortable win.   Where is this serious erosion?

His analysis of Ohio — again a lot of mumbo-jumbo.  If you doubt it,  wait until Tuesday.  

‘Desperate Democrates are now hanging their hopes on a new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News Poll’ 
Ok,  what about U Cinncinnati,  PPP,  CNN, SurveyUSA,  We Ask America, Rasmussen reports (tie as of November 2),  lots of others. .  Come now,  who’s desperate here?

Rove reminds me of a  manager I worked for in a hopelessly lost mayoral campaign,  who interpreted the 5 or 6 out of 100 hopeful signs as sure indicators that we’d win.  We lost by 25 or 30 points.  

OK, maybe it is to say “I told you so”…

What les­son is that?

That it’s better to focus energy on putting up a quality candidate who may not be ideologically pure than to focus the energy on putting up someone who’s ideologically pure but not quality.

Believe me, us in the AL are excited to have the Astros and their 100+ losses join our family! So sad they’re not in the AL Central. At least the Cubs wont be able to pad their record next year. Anyway, I think its another good move by MLB. Damn, I miss baseball already.

What lesson is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Quinn_(writer)

I have no idea what happened to him. I always assumed there was a falling out between him and Nate, as he’d stopped posting on fivethirtyeight well before Nate got bought out by the NYT.