Posts tagged Republican National Convention

Open Mic August 31

148
9 months ago
by Logarchism.com in

The news cycle was dom­i­nated by Hur­ri­cane Isaac and the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion. Writ­ers and reporters put away the word “pre­sump­tive” for another four years; Mitt Rom­ney and Paul Ryan are now offi­cially nom­i­nees. Next week, the Democ­rats get their turn, but it prob­a­bly won’t involve Clint East­wood talk­ing to an empty chair, a per­for­mance that Ari­zona Gov­er­nor Jan Brewer thought was “absolutely ter­rific”.

Politico asks six ques­tions about the Rom­ney accep­tance speech:

  1. Does he pass the get-​​it test?
  2. Does he make a coher­ent case for his candidacy?
  3. Would you want to share a caffeine-​​free Diet Coke with that guy?
  4. Can he make his résumé relevant?
  5. Does he get the details right?
  6. Do lis­ten­ers cringe?
  7. Does he sur­prise us?

The Labor Day week­end is upon us. Answer these ques­tions, or any oth­ers that suit your fancy, or pose ques­tions of your own. Or even — gasp — some­thing not about the upcom­ing elections!What’s on your mind?

Don’t see an arti­cle on a par­tic­u­lar topic, but want to talk about it some­where? This is Open Mic. Talk about what­ever you want, but stay respectful.

We cre­ate a new Open Mic every week to give a clean slate, but feel free to add to this topic at any time.

Republican Convention: Day 3

362
9 months ago
by dcpetterson in

In an effort to mask their fis­cal irre­spon­si­bil­ity (or per­haps to high­light it), the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion has, not one, but two “debt clocks” on dis­play. One of them shows the cur­rent national debt, tick­ing ever upward. The other shows the amount of debt incurred since the time the Con­ven­tion was first gavelled to order on Mon­day afternoon.

Of course, nei­ther of these “clocks” are accu­rate (nor are they “clocks”, since they don’t tell time). They don’t show the actual expen­di­ture of dol­lars (i.e., when some agency of the fed­eral gov­ern­ment cuts a check, when the Pen­ta­gon awards a con­tract, when oil com­pa­nies get a kick­back, none of this causes these “clocks” to tick up). They only show a sort of aver­age per-​​second amount cal­cu­lated by tak­ing the year’s pro­jected deficit and divid­ing it by some­thing like 31,536,000 (the num­ber of sec­onds in a 365-​​day year; but this is a leap year, so per­haps they used 31,622,400).

High­light­ing the deficit and the debt is, one might think, a dan­ger­ous thing for Repub­li­cans to do, since the debt is almost entirely due to the actions of Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tions. (more…)

Meme Watch: G*d’s Wrath

28
9 months ago
by Logarchism.com in ,

Pauly the Platy­pus has not posted an arti­cle on Log­a­rchism in a long, long time. It hasn’t been a platypus’s age, but close. This week, Log­a­rchism’s mod­er­a­tors sent Pauly down to Tampa to take in the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion, and maybe take in a strip club or two. (Repub­li­cans spend three times as much as Democ­rats at strip clubs, but Pauly has ten sex chro­mo­somes — XYXYXYXYXY — and is there­fore five times as randy as any human Republican.)

Tampa is a con­ge­nial place for a platy­pus. Platy­puses (never “platypi”, as Kory Stam­per, whom Pauly calls “Merriam-​​Webster Babe” will explain) love water. Pauly planned to do lots of swim­ming in the nearby wet­lands and unwind from gru­el­ing con­ven­tion days.

Michael asked Pauly to write the open­ing Mon­day con­ven­tion arti­cle, then dis­as­ter struck. Lit­er­ally. Pauly is trapped here, with plenty of wind and lots of water, and the con­ven­tion has been post­poned a day.

What’s a platy­pus to do? Write a Meme Watch, that’s what.

Pauly hasn’t been post­ing, but he reads Log­a­rchism reli­giously. He loves Meme Watch and always dreamed of writ­ing one — and now he gets his chance. His sub­mis­sion fol­lows the jump: (more…)

Republican Delegate Counts: April 7

25
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

One big ele­phant and two lit­tle ones. The wal­rus is Paul.

We’re in a three-​​week hia­tus with no pri­maries or cau­cuses, which prob­a­bly accounts for the pun­di­toc­racy focus­ing on the sta­tus of the horse — uh, make that ele­phant — race.

A sure sign that for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney has the nom­i­na­tion all but sewn up: Politico has turned to hand­i­cap­ping the Vice-​​Presidential slot. Politico’s Mag­gie Haber­man feels for­mer Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get direc­tor and cur­rent Sen­a­tor Rob Port­man (R-​​OH) is the favorite.

We at Log­a­rchism like to look at Intrade num­bers. As of Fri­day on Intrade, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-​​FL) is the favorite with a 25 per­cent chance of secur­ing the VP nom­i­na­tion, fol­lowed by New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie (11 per­cent), Vir­ginia Gov­er­nor Bob McDon­nell (nine per­cent), Port­man (nine per­cent), Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan (R-​​Janesville, WI) (nine per­cent), and New Mex­ico Gov­er­nor Susana Mar­tinez (eight percent).

Romney’s Intrade num­bers are a vir­tu­ally cer­tain 96 per­cent, with none of the other can­di­dates above one percent.

To see the rea­son why, exam­ine the graph of del­e­gate counts (data cour­tesy of The New York Times/​Associated Press), after the jump. (more…)

Republican Delegate Counts: March 15

11
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Two Ele­phants Cross­wise to Each Other

Super Tues­day and the sub­se­quent March 10 and 13 pri­maries and cau­cuses clar­i­fied one thing: it’s now a two-​​man race.

Past Stam­ped­ing Ele­phants arti­cles, going back to last May, focused on the Repub­li­can field. In that first iter­a­tion, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney was in first place, for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich in eighth, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) in ninth. For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA) did not break the one per­cent thresh­old on Intrade to appear in our rank­ings until our Jan­u­ary 5 arti­cle, when he debuted in third place.

Now, from an ever-​​changing field of nine can­di­dates, only two remain, and that’s not a field. Instead, this new ver­sion of the series will focus on the del­e­gate math, and the elec­tion prospects of Rom­ney, NotRom­ney, and Not­NotRom­ney, based on Real Clear Pol­i­tics polling aver­ages, Intrade odds, and head-​​to-​​head polling data with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.

For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Romney

Romney’s Real Clear Pol­i­tics polling aver­age this week dropped four points to 34 per­cent, but he still holds a five-​​point lead over San­to­rum. On Intrade, he’s hold­ing at an 87 per­cent chance, unchanged from last week. He has 495 del­e­gates, or 43 per­cent of the nec­es­sary total to clinch the nom­i­na­tion. (Del­e­gate count esti­mates are from The New York Times via the Asso­ci­ated Press.) He loses to Pres­i­dent Obama 48–44 in RCP polling aver­ages for the last nine days.

For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA)

San­to­rum improved in both RCP weekly polling aver­ages (29 per­cent, up three points) and on Intrade (five per­cent chance of secur­ing the nom­i­na­tion, up one point). Still, a one-​​in-​​twenty chance is noth­ing to write home about. He has an esti­mated 252 del­e­gates (22 per­cent of the needed total), or just about half of the num­ber esti­mated for Rom­ney. He loses to Pres­i­dent Obama 50–42 in aver­aged polls.

As of late last night, Jeb Bush and Ron Paul are tied with just under two per­cent on Intrade. More about their chances after the cut.

(more…)

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