Romney peaked last Friday, and the "slightly favorable trend" is Obama's. Obama's chance of winning is, as of yesterday, 71%, up from 68.1% Tuesday.
By the way, there is a 10.5% chance that Wisconsin's electoral votes will be decisive, making us the third most-likely-to-be-decisive state (after Ohio and Virginia).
And The Washington Post just endorsed Obama:
[E]conomic head winds and an uncompromising opposition explain some of [Obama's] failures — and render that much more impressive the substantial accomplishments of Mr. Obama’s first term....ADDED: There's no way to know what Obama really believes either. It's mentally unbalanced to allow such pedestrian realities to make you sad.
What kind of case has Mr. Romney made for himself?... The sad answer is there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes.
Posts
253 comments:
1 – 200 of 253 Newer› Newest»Funny, didn't realize Silver had even acknowledged the momentum.
Obama gets the coveted WAPO endorsement.
And on the heals of Lifelong Republican Colin Powell stating that once again, he must support the democrat ticket.
Well, that about does it. I don't know how Romney can survive this.
Patrick said...
Funny, didn't realize Silver had even acknowledged the momentum.
He hadn't. (He works for the NY Times. They only acknowledge bad news for Democrats after the fact.)
The Washington Post endorsed Obama? Color me stunned.
If the editors don't know what Romney believes they have only themselves to blame.
I agree with Althouse, unfortunately Romney has made a sad case for himself because he was so willing to say what ever his audience wanted.
This coming from the same paper that endorsed Jim Moran (again).
Stop it Nate, you stop that right now Nate Silver. Never mind, Romney in a landslide.
Was that on simulation 25,002?
So if a candidate is no longer moving forward, but the other candidate still moves backward.....
Well..that's that then. Silvers magic 8 ball calls it...game over man!!!
What a desperate douche.
"I agree with Althouse, unfortunately Romney has made a sad case for himself because he was so willing to say what ever his audience wanted."
You mean you agree with WaPo?
Quote marks have meaning. Punctuation is your friend. Learn it.
I love how the only way to define Obama's "substantial accomplishments" is in terms of things that didn't happen.
By this standard, every President has substantial accomplishments. Things could always be worse.
The "nothing" theme continues.
* * *
More substantively, the poison in the Post's premise is the idea that the president had some kind of power over the economy outside of the specific interventions of TARP. Track the economy against the money spent in the stimulus and it becomes clear that the economy functioned independently of the President's magical Keynesian powers. Perhaps it was the cut of his suits that halted the slide. You can't prove otherwise.
"there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes"
Can anyone seriously argue with this?
By itself this is a good reason not to vote for Romney.
I am a pretty compulsive poll-watcher. I pay particular attention to the important polls, like the swing state polls.
In those polls (particularly Michigan, Ohio and Iowa) Romney's momentum was still in evidence this morning.
If the election were held today and ended up exactly as the latest polls show, it would come down to Ohio since neither candidate currently has enough electoral votes without Ohio.
And Ohio is tied, and has been steadily moving in Romney's direction.
I suspect Romney's obituary is a bit premature. At this point my guess is that it all will come down to who has the better ground game in Ohio, or if Romney can stun the world with a win in Wisconsin or Michigan.
Quote marks have meaning. Punctuation is your friend. Learn it.
Mmm. That's gonna leave a mark. Heh.
Romney believes he can revive the economy. He has the resume to do so. He is not an ideologue. This puzzles and infuriates the left.
Romney believes he can revive the economy. He has the resume to do so. He is not an ideologue. This puzzles and infuriates the left.
"there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes"
Can anyone seriously argue with this?
By itself this is a good reason not to vote for Romney."
Can't be worse than what Obama is known to believe.
I prefer a competant person in power who is inside the 45 yard lines of American politics than incompetance at the 15 yard line of the left.
I'm shocked, shocked.
Peaked? Hahaha. Yea I now here Romny is ahead in the women's votes.
And women comprise more than 50 percent of the electorate.
So keep dreaming about Romeny's peaking.
And The Washington Post just endorsed Obama:
Of course they did. Megan McArdle noted the weird economic bubble they all live in out there. I saw this too, travelling back and forth last year.
Just one other point. The NY Times has been publishing Mitt's obituary on a regular basis since he first announced his candidacy. I suspect they are up to the 20th obituary by now.
What was that definition of insanity again?
"By itself this is a good reason not to vote for Romney."
Right...
Because, even if this were true, doubling down on failure, with no chance of success in a second term, is a better strategy than voting for someone competent.
Which, to be redundant, the incumbent is not, and cannot ever be.
Obama Voters: Unbelievably, irreparably stupid. In a death-grip with failure.
Because, you must understand, "a body in motion tends to stay in motion. That is, it ought to imply that a candidate is gaining ground in the race — and, furthermore, that he is likely to continue to gain ground."
Is Althouse mocking Silver for reasoning based on questionable extended metaphors rather than data?
That's like the pot calling the milk black.
Yeah, it's odd. According to the latest national poll, apparently 50+% of American women are anti-woman. It's a puzzle.
"In those polls (particularly Michigan, Ohio and Iowa) Romney's momentum was still in evidence this morning."
Romney is going to win those states in addition to Wisconsin. Minnesota?
It's far more important to revive the rest of the country than to keep the DC press corps propped up for the rest of the world.
Believe In America
Electoral Fact: No incumbent president polling under 50% has ever been reelected.
This isn't determinative, of course, but Obama has consistently, for nineteen months now, polled under 50%.
He will not be reelected.
:::chuckle:::
Nate Silver gets paid by the NY Times to be the "Democrat's last best hope" in the face of collapsing polls.
Only in Silver World can an incumbent president with between 46% to 47% support two weeks out from an election and who is trailing to the challenger in a majority of this week's polls be considered a 71% favorite to win reelection.
Too bad Democrats did not have the refuge of Silver World when Jimmy Carter was at 45% two weeks out from Reagan's landslide.
Michael said...
Romney believes he can revive the economy.
TosaGuy said...
Can't be worse than what Obama is known to believe.
You are apparently happy to concede that you have no clue what Romney believes and that your are fine with that.
Baseball stat geeks like Silver can't ever seem to figure out why a team will win 10 games in a row or lose 10 in a row.
I think that Romney will have his momentum completely halted at 53% on Nov 6. There is an 82.612% chance of that happening at the present time.
Obama may have peaked at below 2008 levels with minorities and he may be losing with independents, whites, suburbanites, men and rural voters. And he may be slipping badly with women but if Silver is right he will no doubt make up the difference with other groups.
For a year the media wanted voters to believe Romney was a hard right conservative, war monger, Bush 2... Now we don't know what he believes in....
The media and Obama campaign can't decide what to scare the voters with. So now it's all of the above,.
One major factor that the Left has not yet dealt with is that Republicans have rather deliberately waited until now to unleash their barrage of advertising. For the next ten days they will be flooding the airwaves, and Obama's latest gaffes, incompetence and outright buffoonery has given them some unbelievably powerful ads to run.
I suspect the next week and a half is going to be interesting.
I wonder if there will be a falloff in the number of newspaper and other editorial board endorsements of Obama.
I imagine that a lot of them felt pressured into endorsing him once, and wnated to purge themselves of the 'didn't-endorse-him-because-he's-black' meme.
Having endorsed him once, will they now feel less 'correctness' pressure to endorse him again? (We're not racists; we endorsed him four years ago.)
there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes.
Loved this quote from Obama's recent campaign stop: "You know Ohio, I mean what I say, and I do what I'm going to do." Left unsaid, of course was any mention of actually DOING what he says, as we've learned the hard way over the past 4 years.
Momentum is an important note that you write to yourself.
The phrase substantial accomplishments is fairly humorous. I could well imagine what 4 more years of this idiot would accomplish. Specifically several more years of anemic GDP growth leading to further economic devastation not only in the US, but pretty much everywhere.
I hope Nate Silver and the New York Times continue to predict an Obama reelection victory up until the day before Mitt Romney's inauguration.
Silver is a smart partisan guy. But he may have jumped the shark with today's column on momentum. He is doing what he always does, which is be biased in favor of the democrat in any close election. He tries to prevent a media narrative that the republican is winning. At the end, he adjusts to reality to prevent personal embarrassment. He did exactly the same thing in the Coakley/Brown race. In as sense, Silver is the most dangerous of partisans - a smart guy in the high visibility perch with a subject matter that is too complicated for the typical reader or other media person to understand.
Prediction: Silver will be predicting a Romney win by election day to avoid embarassment.
I would like to think that Romney has momentum, but Silver makes a good case. I have thought myself for the last several days that I haven't seen the swing-state movement that everyone on the right is claiming. I'd like to see it, but truth is everything been pretty steady for the last few days.
Funny that Althouse (correctly) called out a reader for misquoting her (he attributed the post quote to her) when she starts out by misquoting Silver. He didn't say that "a body in motion tends to stay in motion." Nor did he snarkily imply anything along the lines of "you must understand". Instead, he was offering up his definition of what momentum is--a body in motion staying in motion. He then went on to argue that Mitt Romney doesn't have it (momentum). Argue with his premise! Argue with the data! But no, we get another smarmy attack and a bullshit misquote.
One argument you might make is that momentum is, in physics, not a "body in motion staying in motion". That's inertia. Which is pretty much what this race has been.
It might also help the Democrats if they could finally decide whether to paint Romney as a hard-core woman-bashing cave-man, or as an opportunistic flip-flopper.
Right now they are running ads that say he is both.
Even the average Democrat supporter has to be dealing with some cognitive dissonance when they see two ads that portray Romney as two totally different kinds of evil.
At least the Republicans have a consistent message.
Obama is an utter and abject failure who has no agenda and no record.
That's a pretty powerful message.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal has courageously chosen to endorse.....no one.
They will not endorse a presidential candidate nor a senatorial candidate.
Loose translation of their reasoning: "We know that Obama and Baldwin will lose their elections, but if we endorse Romney and Thompson many of our remaining 3,200 paid subscribers might cancel."
roesch/voltaire said...
"I agree with Althouse, unfortunately Romney has made a sad case for himself because he was so willing to say what ever his audience wanted."
Is any cohort in America more reflexively stupid than loyal Democrat and Obama voters?
Obama's ideology: Failed.
Obama's economic policy: Failed.
Obama's fiscal policy: Failed.
Obama's defense policy: Failed.
Obama's foreign policy: Failed.
Obama's energy policy: Failed.
Obama: Failed.
Obama Voters: "Give us more!" Epic Fail, albeit noting they are too stupid to do any better.
And too stupid to be ashamed.
"You are apparently happy to concede that you have no clue what Romney believes and that your are fine with that."
Didn't concede anything -- like you, I plod into the weeds on these candidates more than the average person not reading this blog. In summary, I know that Romney doesn't hate the nation and its strengths and therefore will quit assaulting those strengths. I also do know that he is also smart enough to put Paul Ryan on the team.
FAQ and Statement of Methodology
FiveThirtyEight.com
Revised 8/7/2008
Site/Meta
"Who are you? My name is Nate Silver and I live in Chicago. For additional background, please see here or here. The other contributor to this website, Sean Quinn, lives in Washington, DC.
"What is the significance of the number 538? 538 is the number of electors in the electoral college.
"What is the mission of this website? Most broadly, to accumulate and analyze polling and political data in way that is informed, accurate and attractive. Most narrowly, to give you the best possible objective assessment of the likely outcome of upcoming elections.
...
"What is your political affiliation? My state has non-partisan registration, so I am not registered as anything. I vote for Democratic candidates the majority of the time (though by no means always). This year, I have been a supporter of Barack Obama. The other contributor to this website, Sean Quinn, has also been a supporter of Barack Obama.
"Are your results biased toward your preferred candidates? I hope not, but that is for you to decide. I have tried to disclose as much about my methodology as possible."
reasonable: "You are apparently happy to concede that you have no clue what Romney believes and that your are fine with that."
Apparently, "Hope and Change" and "Change We Can Believe In" and "We Are the Change We've Been Waiting For" were sufficiently "detailed" for the left, but Romney's plans are not.
Go figure.
Ann....you left out the all important "seems to have stopped" out of Nate's headline.
'Seems' gives all the wiggle room he needs.
ROMENTUM !
Michael said...
"Romney believes he can revive the economy. He has the resume to do so. He is not an ideologue. This puzzles and infuriates the left."
That's it exactly.
The problem (well, the biggest problem) with Silver's analysis is that he must be assuming that the late deciders will overwhelmingly go to Obama. He projects Obama today at 50.2% of the popular vote, while he RCP has the President at 47.1%. Say what you will about state polls vs. national polls (or national vs. swing states), this just doesn't make sense.
Kansas City said...
"Silver is a smart partisan guy."
Uh, sorry, no he's not.
He's an Obama voter.
He's a fucking moron.
Doubling down on failure suits him more than choosing competency.
People who double down on failure are idiots, pure, plain and simple. There is no reason, no expectation, no possibility of Obama being any better in a second term than he was in the first.
If one liked what one saw in the last four years, fine - go for it.
But don't ever confuse it with anything other than failure.
Silver is keeping Obama at the ridiculous 70% probability forecast, but at the same time, he is occasionally describing Obama as a "slight" favorite (such as on the Daily show). So he establishes a life line to minimize his partisan forcasts, being able to claim all he did was accurately say, at the time, that Obama was a light favorite and subsequent changes in polls caused him to change his opinion. He is VERY smart.
Mitt won't win MN, NV, or MI.
Loose translation of their reasoning: 'We know that Obama and Baldwin will lose their elections, but if we endorse Romney and Thompson many of our remaining 3,200 paid subscribers might cancel.'
I agree Haz, but here's why their logic is so faulty: In the event of a Romney/Thompson win, they will be in their element, doing what journalist should do best--holding the government in power accountable. Instead, they've gotten used to the sort of easy going "slackadaisical" coverage that stains the national media's lack of curiousity towards the Obama administration.
John Salmon said...
"The problem (well, the biggest problem) with Silver's analysis is that he must be assuming that the late deciders will overwhelmingly go to Obama. He projects Obama today at 50.2% of the popular vote, while he RCP has the President at 47.1%. Say what you will about state polls vs. national polls (or national vs. swing states), this just doesn't make sense."
It belies history and the lessons of history.
Incumbent presidents polling under 50% do not win reelection.
Obama has been polling under 50% for nineteen months now.
He could be the first to upset that streak, but it is highly unlikely.
*Much* more likely is undecideds breaking en masse for Romney, especially after noting four years of consistent failure from Obama.
Had Nate Silver previously admitted that Romney had momentum?
That doesn't seem to be a very good answer for Obama if Romney's momentum has settled on a lead in all the polls. Maybe Silver is expecting that all the undecideds will break for Obama....
I’ve been seeing this excuse a lot. "Uncompromising Opposition" huh? Wasn't Obama the great persuader, able to meet with opposing factions and generate such goodwill that it would be like that scene from “Naked Gun” where Frank’s speech gets the ballplayers, announcers, dogs and mailmen, middle easterners, all to hug and love? Now they admit he’s unable to keep that promise?
Why keep him in office if he’s admitted to be totally ineffectual? It seems everyone is more trying to explain why the failure isn’t Obama’s fault than trying to explain what Obama can do about it. Can he do nothing? If not, why keep him another 4 years in a job that everyone admits he is failing at???
And The Washington Post just endorsed Obama:
Of course they did. Did anyone expect anything else? DC is a one company town and that company is the federal government. Obama has expanded the federal workforce. He has brought a lot of money to the DC area. Many of the wealthiest counties in America are in the DC metro area. Obama has been very good for DC, so of course the the Post will endorse him.
As for the rest of the country, not so much.
The great thing about predictors and pollers is that they can continue to adjust their "projections" up to before election day. Thus, Silver only has to tweak a few "turn-out" estimates to say the race is 50-50 the day before election day. If that is the prediction, then he can't be wrong....
By the way... to anyone who is still claiming that Mitt Romney hasn't provided any details of his plan, particularly if you think Obama's 20-page glossy flier constitutes a serious policy agenda, please note:
Mitt Romney's 172 page plan for "Jobs and Economic Growth" has been available as a free e-book for the last two months.
It opens with "Five Bills for Day One" and "Five Executive Orders for Day One" -- specifics. It ends with an appendix listing his 59 specific policy proposals. In the middle, you'll find detailed discussion of WHY he wants to do each specific that he proposes.
Really, if the editorial board of the Washington Post couldn't find out what Mitt Romney proposes to do as President that's really a scathing indictment of the quality of investigative reporters they have on staff.
Do the Romney who believes in nothing, and the Romney who believes in whatever Richard Mourdock believes in, know about each other?
Why do people constantly ask what Silver reported when they can just go to his blog and look for themselves?
roesch/voltaire said...
unfortunately Romney has made a sad case for himself because he was so willing to say what ever his audience wanted.
Revealing that RV and the other nuts never hold this against Obama isn't it? Campaigning against the individual mandate, then signing it into law. Campaigning against wiretaps, then greatly increasing their use. The examples are too numerous to list in a comment. Why, it's almost like these guys don't really believe the standards they assert Romney fails are important at all.
Obama is having an Obama recovery?
The last time I did a "what if" analysis of undecideds breaking 2-1 for Romney and looked at it state by state, Obama still won. But that was before Iowa and Ohio moved to a tie.
If undecideds do break for Romney, I think he has a great shot to win.
But again, I think this election will boil down to the enthusiasm and ground game. It may, in fact, boil down to weather.
For the next ten days they will be flooding the airwaves, and Obama's latest gaffes, incompetence and outright buffoonery has given them some unbelievably powerful ads to run.
Won't that make moderates like Ann want to protect Obama?
I didn't wade too far into Silver's methodology, but if you look at the '538 wt' and the bar graph charts corresponding to the various state polls, he seems to place the highest value on certain polls that are almost 2 months old.
Silver also somehow accepts the methodology of the UNH pollster Smith who authored the infamous 'Coakley by 15' poll in 2010 (Smith has Obama by 9 in NH).
I'm leaning towards the Silver as 'fucking moron' camp.
"Moderates" like Ann, perhaps campy, but luckily for Romney, "moderates" like Ann aren't really moderates.
"And The Washington Post just endorsed Obama:"
Endorsements by newspapers don't mean anything, they don't help.
The WaPo is the same place that thought Romney wasn't too rich, right?
clint said...
By the way... to anyone who is still claiming that Mitt Romney hasn't provided any details of his plan,
Which tax deductions will he eliminate to make his reductions in tax rate revenue neutral?
Nate Silver, garbage in garbage out.
dreams, endorsements by newspapers do actually help candidates. But not when they come from newspapers that are blatantly and permanently in the camp for one candidate. WaPo is, has been and will continue to be nothing but hacks for the Democrat party, and the vast majority of Americans know that, and have known that, for decades.
Had Nate Silver previously admitted that Romney had momentum?
Sure. For example, this post from October 13: "Mitt Romney has had a pronounced change of fortunes since the first presidential debate in Denver. After trailing President Obama by 4 or 5 points in the polls on Oct. 1 — a position that very few candidates have come back from — he now holds ties or small leads in many national polls and has cut the advantage Mr. Obama had in swing states to a razor-thin margin."
Silver has simply noticed that the changes in polling results occurred in the first 10 days after the Denver debate and that since then Romney has not made any further advances, and has even fallen back a little in important swing states such as Ohio.
This isn't rocket science people. Silver crunches a lot of numbers, but you can reach basically the same results with simple arithmetic. Just take the average of all the polls that come out (you can't just scherry-pick the ones you like) and track the trend.
Silver failed to mention that the momentum stopped on a Romney sweep.
Gloria Allred is late. Is that lady who was alledgedly molested by Herman Cain busy?
All of the spin now being is aimed at holding down the coattails effect Romney's election would have on close Senate and House seats for the Rs if the extent of Romney's lead became known and discouraged the votes for Dems.
Gosh, poor Romney, he's "stuck" at 50%.
Refresh my mind, when was the last time Obama was at 50% in any reputable poll?
I really have stopped respecting Nate Silver.
"Mitt won't win MN, NV, or MI."
Its looking good for Mitt in NV and MI, I'm hoping.
throw this one into the Silver Soup:
Obama 51-45 over Romney in Wisconsin. Up from a 49-47 margin three weeks ago. Link.
"What kind of case has Mr. Romney made for himself?... The sad answer is there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes."
God what nonsense. The man has stated what he believes time and again and has a record to prove it. Just because you can't make up your mind one way or the other don't blame it on Romney - or Obama for that matter. Look to yourself.
--Which tax deductions will he eliminate to make his reductions in tax rate revenue neutral?--
Who says he's going to eliminate?
It looks like a cafe-style plan.
Didn't you read it?
Via Insty:
October 19, 2012
TAX DEDUCTION REFORM, CAFETERIA STYLE: Romney’s plan to lower tax rates while simultaneously capping deductions is truly brilliant, though little understood. It would operate essentially as a cafeteria plan, where taxpayers get a certain maximum dollar amount of deductions– say, $17,000– and then are allowed to select from a variety of deductions up to the maximum amount.
This is brilliant because it allows each taxpayer to take those deductions he needs/wants the most. For those who own expensive homes or multiple homes, they could use the mortgage interest deduction (up to the maximum limit). For others– perhaps those who rent–other deductions would be prioritized, such as those for student loans, medical expenses, or business expenses.
Not only is this cafeteria-style plan individually customizable and flexible, it avoids the nasty politics typically associated with any attempt to reform deductions. In all other reform efforts, special interests/lobbyists have screamed about the consequences of reducing or eliminating their own deductions. Romney’s cafeteria approach avoids these screaming fests, for the simple reason that no existing deduction would be targeted for reduction or elimination.
"Refresh my mind, when was the last time Obama was at 50% in any reputable poll?"
Obama can't win with 47 or 48% of the vote, liberals are going to have to deal with it.
Reading Silver's column is a curious experience. To use the term du jour, he does seem to be bullshitting. It could be this and it could be that, and maybe it's this way but maybe that's spurious.
Possibly Romney's movement has plateaued for now and maybe Obama has made up a point or two. Hard to say.
Michael Barone makes a clear case that this election is a slow-motion 1980, when voters flipped a substantial Carter lead to a substantial Reagan victory in the last week of the campaign. However, in his conclusion Barone shrugs and mentions the "usual caveats" -- outside events, Obama's GOTV apparatus -- and backs off from a definitive judgment.
I'm partly going on campaign body language. Obama looks shriveled and unpresidential, playing to his base and ho-hum crowds, while complaining a lot. Romney looks confident and optimistic, playing to big crowds in unexpected places like Colorado. It certainly wasn't part of the Obama game plan for North Carolina and Florida to go red and pink as even Silver's electoral map shows.
Perhaps I'm foolish, but the polls haven't smelled right to me all year. Adding Silver's secret sauce and running them through his food processor doesn't help.
Silver now gives the odds at better than 7:3 for Obama. Someone should tell the Obama campaign. It might perk them up. But of course they already know Silver's numbers, yet somehow they remain depressed.
"Which tax deductions will he eliminate to make his reductions in tax rate revenue neutral?"
So, you haven't bothered to check yourself?
Not surprising.
There is an answer.
See if you can find it.
But I doubt you'll even try.
You're much more comfortable with the prospect of ongoing failures from Obama.
Too each their own.
"What kind of case has Mr. Romney made for himself?... The sad answer is there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes."
Doesn't that sound like was it Charlie Rose c. 2008?
"The man has stated what he believes time and again and has a record to prove it."
What's his position on whether the government should provide near-universal health coverage through a combination of an individual mandate, a ban on restrictions for preexisting conditions, and subsidies for low-income people?
Garage, you are aware of the concept of "margin of error" right?
Anyway, I'm not counting on Wisconsin, I've been saying for months that the election would be decided in Ohio. I've seen nothing to change my mind. And in the end I'm sure it's going to end up being decided by who decides to get up and go to the polls, and who decides to turn on the TV.
In Denver, Romney/Ryan visited this week. The venue was Red Rocks and they had around 12,500 standing room only inside and from a friend's report cars were parked on the freeway, which is a few miles walk down and up sharply pitched terrain.Thousands were turned away at the gate.
pics:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Romney+Ryan+red+rocks&hl=en&prmd=imvnsu&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=An6JUKvTMKXbyAHFuYH4Dg&ved=0CFcQsAQ&biw=1353&bih=753
The papers and Obama campaign are claiming 16,000 at Denver's city park.
Do these pictures look like there are more people at the Obama rally (note that you can see grass in some of the pics.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=obama+at+city+park&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bpcl=35466521&biw=1353&bih=753&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=3H6JUICELYXvygHoyoC4DQ
Speaking of his record, even the Detroit New which endorsed Romney had to point out what Romney really said about the bailout and why they disagreed:
"We have said in past editorials that while Romney rightly advocated for structured bankruptcies in his infamous "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" New York Times op-ed, he was wrong in suggesting the automakers could have found operating capital in the private markets. In that article, Romney suggested government-backed loans to keep the companies afloat post bankruptcy. But what GM and Chrysler needed were bridge loans to get them through the process, and the private credit markets were unwilling to provide them..."
Such stupid and pedestrian references need to be made to uplift Urkel in the slightest sense. He's trending downward while Romney is trending upward, but in the alternate universe of leftards in bizarro world, it's the reverse. Truly there ideology is clearly insanity.
LOL, there is nothing more amusing to me in this election cycle than listening to people demand "details" from Romney when they voted for "Hope and Change" and are supporting a candidate who even CNN admits has no actual agenda for his second term.
Yeah, details matter. Except when they don't.
I read that the media is already blaming BJ Clinton for Obama's Nov 6 defeat. They're dealing with it.
Crossing my fingers for the New York Times endorsement. Come on, Grey Lady, you're our only hope!
"Why do people constantly ask what Silver reported when they can just go to his blog and look for themselves?"
-- Because I don't like to waste time with the lucky media darling of the week if he's saying something stupid. Nate Silver isn't particularly special, so if his initial premise is dumb, then I don't want to waste my time.
Nate Silver apparently made his name when he predicted very accurately the results of the 2008 election. Then the NYT swallowed up his blog, and ever since then, lefties have held him up as the greatest electoral prognosticator around. I've seen comments like "It's Nate Silver! Refute that!!"
I've been wondering how Silver will handle things if Romney wins. Sloanasaurus, Silver seems too far out on his limb to get back to reality at this point.
AReasonableMan said...
clint said...
By the way... to anyone who is still claiming that Mitt Romney hasn't provided any details of his plan,
Which tax deductions will he eliminate to make his reductions in tax rate revenue neutral?
Hmm, so you're "AReasonableMan", but a legal and Constitutional ignoramus?
Because the President can't eliminate ANY tax deductions. The President can negotiate w/ Congress. The President can veto a bill he doesn't like. But he can not, on his own, eliminate any tax deductions.
So the answer to your question is "that depends on the Congress we elect."
"Who says he's going to eliminate?"
-- If I understand his answer at the debate, the cafeteria style plan is right (he mentioned choosing deductions up to a certain threshold based on income, etc.)
roesch/voltaire said...
I agree with Althouse, unfortunately Romney has made a sad case for himself because he was so willing to say what ever his audience wanted.
Oh the irony.
LOL, there is nothing more amusing to me in this election cycle than listening to people demand "details" from Romney when they voted for "Hope and Change" and are supporting a candidate who even CNN admits has no actual agenda for his second term.
But, Obama just put out a shiny new brochure! With bullet points and pictures and stuff! Where's Romney's brochure, huh?
AReasonableMan said...
"there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes"
Can anyone seriously argue with this?
By itself this is a good reason not to vote for Romney.
Oh. The irony
For whatever it is worth, anyone who claims that the election is "in the bag" for either candidate is either a partisan hack or a fool. This thing is too close to call. There are plenty of data to suggest that either Romney or Obama has the better path to victory. Any Obama supporter who is not desperately concerned about Obama's inability to get to 50% in the polls less than two weeks before the election is either blind or stupid. Any Romney supporter who looks at the collection of existing polls and isn't desperately concerned about Romney's inability to get to 50% in Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and other states is either blind or stupid.
This is a horse race. And the fact that such an incompetent, partisan, lying ideologue as Obama can be in the race at this time gives me cause for great concern about the future of this country.
I firmly believe that this country can survive even the incompetence and deliberate malfeasance of Barack Obama.
What this country cannot survive is an electorate that deliberately chooses to re-elect him. If that happens, we are Greece. It's all over but the sound of the crash when we go off that fiscal cliff.
"What's his position on whether the government should provide near-universal health coverage through a combination of an individual mandate, a ban on restrictions for preexisting conditions, and subsidies for low-income people?"
-- State-level initiatives are great for that; most everyone agreed on the parts of Obama care dealing with pre-existing conditions (and, in fact, Republicans proposed a stand-alone bill that was quashed by the then-majority Democrats so that the popular measure could be included in an otherwise poisonous bill.)
Hey, garage -
On Fox News - Megyn Kelly show. Radio interview with father of slain special forces soldier that was killed in the Bengazhi attack - Hillary told him "We will have that film maker arrested".
Tell me again how Nakoula's in jail for a parole violation. That one's always comedy gold.
New York Times Co stock down 16.53%; Staples up 1.69%
... Wait, they said what now on Fox? If that's true, I think Nakoula, or whatever-his-name-is, is going to have quite a beautiful bit of civil revenge on the American government when he sues them for all sorts of violations of his rights. It is a shame that the Romney administration will have to pay for Obama's mistakes on this matter.
"I’ve been seeing this excuse a lot. "Uncompromising Opposition" huh? Wasn't Obama the great persuader, able to meet with opposing factions and generate such goodwill that it would be like that scene from “Naked Gun” where Frank’s speech gets the ballplayers, announcers, dogs and mailmen, middle easterners, all to hug and love? Now they admit he’s unable to keep that promise?"
When Bush was elected (before 9-11) there was a sort of outcry that he should follow a Democratic agenda because he didn't win decisively. I thought that was sort of odd. I expected Bush to primarily go with what people who voted FOR him wanted him to do instead of what people who voted AGAINST him wanted him to do. No, he didn't have a *mandate*. What is a mandate?
In any case, I ALSO don't expect Obama to have gotten into office and started to pursue a Republican agenda.
That's just silly.
But so is this fantasy that the obstructionism was one sided. Considering the times when Obama specifically and explicitly stated that Republicans were not welcome at the table before 2010 and his inability to comprehend the notion after 2010 that there were things that Boehner could deliver and things that Boehner could not. Obama (and Reid) as much as any Republicans is responsible for refusing to budge, to give up what was possible for some political drama play trying to frame the other side as guilty.
But Obama's "compromises" weren't compromises at all, but some tidbit thrown that the other side was supposed to feel grateful for. Look at his "compromise" with Georgetown and concerns about their religious 1st Ammendment Rights. Did Obama go to *them* and say, "What do you want that I might be able to give you?" No. He decided what they ought to want and ought to be satisfied with and then started to talk about how he compromised with them.
And really... the budget cuts that Republicans wanted? Why the eff not? Were those cuts really a hill for Obama to die on?
Republicans were elected in 2010 and they knew that their constituents would demand cuts. There *had* to be cuts. They had to show that they were serious about fixing what was wrong. Were those cuts really supposedly so *damaging* and horrific that Obama couldn't compromise there in order to do what was possible?
A compromise isn't a compromise unless it actually has some relationship in reality to what the other side needs to have.
It's... we'll give you what you want if you give us what we want... NOT... you give us what we want and we'll give you what we think you ought to want.
Is Silver only looking at the polls with small samples?
Maybe he needs to widen his outlook.
AnUnreasonableTroll said...
there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes
Can anyone seriously argue with this?
OK, that puts Troll on the Clintonian side in the burgeoning Demo civil war.
garage mahal said...
throw this one into the Silver Soup:
Obama 51-45 over Romney in Wisconsin. Up from a 49-47 margin three weeks ago. Link.
Oooh, KosKidz poll. I'm impressed.
Skew, por favor?
Actually, Romney believes at minimum in smaller government, freedom, free enterprise capitalism, and God.
Unfortunately, those things are simply off the radar for WaPo editorialists and other Obots.
Seeing Red said...
Mitt won't win MN, NV, or MI
I don't know. It's even up in MI today 47%-47%. That doesn't look good for Obama because MI usually goes D. There are an awful lot of pissed off people out there and they're blaming Obama.
I'm reporting it secondhand from a poster on Ace Of Spades, Matthew. I only threw it out since "Fox" and "Nakoula" are red sheets to garage and I figured we might get a few minutes of laughs watching him hoot with rage and fling his feces all over the place.
Guess we will all find out in the wee small hours of November 7
for those too young to remember, the media was in complete denial/bandwagon/lie mode in 1980 right up to election day.
As I recall, the Left was bragging about a sweep in 2010 too. I still get a smile thinking about the stunned and stricken expressions on the faces of all the news reporters, analysts and anchors in that election.
As for Obama, he stands for: broken promises, unsustainable debts, gov't supplied murder weapons in Mexico, racism in the DOJ, unprecedented lack of transparency in the Exec. Branch, sleazy campaign tactics, cronyism, etc., etc.
Obots have a high level of tolerance for failure if the ideology is right. Unfortunately, their ideology guarantees failure, if prosperity is the goal.
What I want to see in the polls is movement in Romney's favor, if he is no more than 3 or 4% behind Obama then I consider him to be ahead because of over sampling of the Dems, blacks and young people. The debates really help Romney and there is no telling how much the Benghazi fiasco has hurt Obama but I'm sure it has hurt him.
Oooh, KosKidz poll. I'm impressed.
Hahaha.
Obama up in poll = skewed
Romney gaining in polls = not skewed
Obama back on top in poll = back to skewed!
[Cross-posted from another thread]
I have, immediately at hand on my Kindle Fire, Romney's plans. He goes into some detail, and then in an appendix he lists his plans as 59 things. Each one is a single clearly understood sentence. You need not agree with these plans, you can argue they are vague (some are, some aren't), but you can't argue the thing doesn't exist. It is freely available, and has been available for over a year. You can tell a lot about what Romney believes in by reading those 59 sentences.
Me, I tend to listen most to Michael Barone. Of course he has caveated his remarks a bit, but I dont think there is anyone who knows more about the American electorate, district by district than Mr Barone.
"Guess we will all find out in the wee small hours of November 7"
-- Doubtful; if both VA/FL go one way, it'll be an early night.
As for the poll skew: The problem is that Romney has been gaining even in D+9 polls. The turn out model is not going to come close to matching 2008.
Silver is more like the guy in Memento than an analyst of momentum.
AF said...
" What's his position on whether the government should provide near-universal health coverage through a combination of an individual mandate, a ban on restrictions for preexisting conditions, and subsidies for low-income people? "
He's been quite clear on this.
He believes it's up to the states to set health care policy, not the federal government.
From Believe in America: Mitt Romney's Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth, he writes that on day one he would sign an executive order that "directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services and all relevant federal officials to return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health care solutions that work best for them."
What's unclear about that?
As to what he thinks each state *ought* to do, that should have as much relevance to this race as his favorite pizza toppings do.
Which tax deductions will he eliminate to make his reductions in tax rate revenue neutral?
To pose this question is to out yourself as either completely uninformed or a complete partisan hack.
What probably bothers the Dems about Romney's cafeteria-style deductions plan is that is denies them the chance to plant scary stories about how badly the "middle class" is going to be hurt by the loss of Deduction X. Of course that makes it a clear example of Romney's negotiating skill.
The major deduction for most people is their mortgage interest. The limit Romney proposes is actually progressive, in that wealthier people will lose much more in deductions than less wealthy people will.
This "nobody knows what Romney stands for" talking point marks the Obama campaign's concession that its class-warfare angle has failed miserably. Of course, Obama could hardly have tried this new shtick until he'd unrolled his fantastic glossy brochure specifying his "plans" to make everything great by doing more of the same.
I simply dont have time to go thru each poll other than to say that, in general, the smaller the sample, the larger the margin of error--this is statistics 101. I tend to trust polls a bit more that have large samples, but winnowed by registered versus likely voters. And as a footnote, it is entirely possible that respondents on polls lie, and there is no methodology for accounting for that.
As I said above--we will find out in the wee small of hours of November 7
"ADDED: There's no way to know what Obama really believes either. It's mentally unbalanced to allow such pedestrian realities to make you sad."
And, like, how do I know that the external world even exists? Maybe it's all just in my head. Trippy.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Obama's record is far clearer and more consistent than Romney's.
For those who haven't, whatever their side, read this piece.
Along with skew, it's something to consider at this point.
First: note Silver's use of "the Ever-Impressive Decimal (see, How to Lie With Statistics): it's Obama by "71.0%, +5.3%" not "about 70%, up about 5%". The point being that if Silver was foolish enough to say "about" it would sound like what it really is: an approximation based on assumptions.
This is also what has been referred to in another instance as "a splendid example of sham science and spurious specificity” (I would’ve changed the word “example” in that phrase to “sample” in order to complete the alliteration!), along with “a penchant for pompous mystification”.
IMHO, it is really guesswork from unmeasured, un-measurable, nay unfathomable observations of Silver & his buddy.
Hey, if one ignores the margin of error or D+ 5-9 in Silver's "swing states" & assumes that most or all of them will go to Obama, of course Obama wins.
Nate Silver is a hyper-partisan Democratic Party hack who uses his faux statistics to bolster Democratic Party morale.
His so-called "analysis" simply defies common sense. Even Democratic Party officials are admitting that they've pretty much given up on Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. The race is essentially tied in Ohio with momentum favoring Romney more than Obama. Romney is up in the latest polls from both New Hampshire and Colorado. Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - ALL of which were supposedly to be safely Democratic are all within the margin of error.
But Nate Silver's "MODEL" has Obama with a 70% chance of Obama winning? On what planet?
The first rule of modeling ANYTHING is that it has to bear some semblance of at least a nominal relationship to reality.
I could understand if Silver gave Obama a nominal advantage - after all, he does have the inherent advantages of incumbency and a bigger megaphone than Romney between now and election day. Therefore, he has more power to shape events favorably.
However, those are SUBJECTIVE judgments, not OBJECTIVE ones. Silver's analysis purports to be purely objective.
All this does is prove that his "model" is not just inherently flawed, it's ridiculous.
"He believes it's up to the states to set health care policy, not the federal government."
Yeah? What's his view on Medicare? ERISA (hint: he wants to amend it to make it harder for states to regulate health insurance)? The FDA Act? HIPAA?
But Nate Silver's "MODEL" has Obama with a 70% chance of Obama winning? On what planet?
The planet where massive, systematic electoral fraud takes place, i.e. Earth.
The turn out model is not going to come close to matching 2008.
What data do you have that predicts lower Democratic turnout in 2012 than 2008?
How do you know the turnout for Republicans will be that of 2008, or more?
Why is it assumed the Republican turnout will be higher in 2012 than it was for the Bush haters of 2004?
I don't think the Detroit News endorsement of Romney will help Romney and I don't think the Washington Post endorsement of Obama will help Obama. That's the conventional wisdom and this time I agree with the conventional wisdom.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121025/OPINION01/210250332/1008/opinion01/Editorial-Mitt-Romney-President
I am taking Nov 7 off so I have a chance to regain my equilibrium before I go back to work. No matter how it goes, Nov 6 is going to be a stress filled day.
I hope it ends up being more stressful for Democrats, but I am far from confident that it will be so.
Which of the Presidential candidates do you
trust more to make sure the wealthiest
Americans pay their fair share of taxes: Barack
Obama or Mitt Romney?
One of the questions asked in the Iowa poll cited by Garage, which is basically uses the Obama administration's syntax.
Scientific my ass.
Dreams, I think the Detroit paper's endorsement of Romney will have more impact on the election than WaPo's endorsement of Obama. Neither will have much impact, but if Michigan is actually in play, I'll take anything I can get.
Washington state is the bluest of the blue states. RCP polling is showing Obama 52, Romney 43 for this state. In 2008, it went 57.5% to 40.7%. Please explain exactly where this momentum is coming from because I don't buy it. There is nowhere near the enthusiasm and support for Obama in either Washington or Oregon that he had in 2008.
And here's the current polling for Oregon: Obama 49, Romney 42
In 2008, 55.3 to 39.7
Yes, Obama will win both states, but those two polls show momentum for Romney, not Obama.
And you can say what you will, but a Romney administration would not have turned its back on Americans under attack and covered the whole mess up.
Obama's record is far clearer and more consistent than Romney's.
A clear record of consistent failure. I'll grant you that.
"ERISA (hint: he wants to amend it to make it harder for states to regulate health insurance)?"
-- So he has no positions, but you know his positions? Radical.
"What data do you have that predicts lower Democratic turnout in 2012 than 2008?"
-- 2010
I did grow up in the days when telephone polls were pretty much the gold standard for random selection. Of course that was when folks had land lines--given the move to cell phones and diminution of landlines, telephone polls continue (IMO) decline in their usefulness. The electorate has changed both demographically and electronically--I simply dont know how these changes affect polling, other than to suggest it makes telephone polling less accurate than it used to be. Add to that early voting and its effect on things like "exit polling" used by networks to "call the elections" early. The times have changed and it appears that polling firms and networks are not keeping up. How this will affect the election, I have no idea, but I do suspect it will be significant.
"What data do you have that predicts lower Democratic turnout in 2012 than 2008?
How do you know the turnout for Republicans will be that of 2008, or more?
Why is it assumed the Republican turnout will be higher in 2012 than it was for the Bush haters of 2004?"
The economy, you'll have a little better understanding after the election. Live and learn.
Here's a potential bombshell... Supposedly Ed Klein is sitting on news from Hillary Clinton's legal team that Hillary asked Obama for more security for Benghazi before the attack and Obama did not provide it.
If true, and if this gets out before Nov 6, that would be devastating news.
It's very clear what Romney believes (regarding topics that would affect us as citizens if he is elected). It's been clear in all his speeches and interviews and debates. He's run a very consistent presidential campaign-- more than most presidential candidates.
It's just that Romney doesn't resemble a strawman cartoon ideological conservative. He doesn't resemble the "Romney" the Obama campaign has spent hundreds of millions of dollars concocting. Therefore "there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes."
After all, Romney hasn't advocated killing the poor and the sick and the old, nuking Iran, outlawing contraception, enslaving blacks, keeping women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, etc. And "we" all know that's what conservatives must really believe. Romney must be a bullshitter!
In 2008, of course, Obama's appearance of "non-ideological" "post-partisan" "pragmatism" was what would make him the bestest POTUS ever.
I'm afraid the Libya well is dry; there's nothing more damaging that can come out that we don't know. We knew they knew an attack was coming, watched an attack happen, and then lied to the American people about it; the president slept through while his people needed him, then jetted off to party in the somber aftermath.
If anyone thinks there'll be a breakthrough on Libya to hurt Obama at this point, they're fooling themselves. The media protected Obama, but at the cost of much of their own legitimacy.
Luckily, they'll be happy to be watch dogs of the nation's trust once more during a Romney administration.
There do seem to be several aphorisms that do not portend well for Mr Obama--the 50 percent approval stat for the first. The second, and probably most important: voters tend to vote their pocket book first and foremost. Third, in elections, undecideds tend to vote for the challenger. Those three old chestnuts do not auger well for Mr Obama. But at the end of the day--who knows. History does seem to be a good portent, but again, I am Burkean conservative.
Matthew, I think you underestimate the nation's capacity for additional outrage. Plus there are plenty of Democrats who still seethe over Hillary's under-bussing by Obama. It isn't necessary to get them to vote for Romney. It's only necessary to get them NOT to vote for Obama.
"We were disappointed that Mr. Obama allowed the bipartisan recommendations of his fiscal commission to wither and die and that he and Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) failed to seal a fiscal deal in the summer of 2011. Mr. Obama alienated Congress and business leaders by isolating himself inside a tight White House circle that manages to be both arrogant and thin-skinned. Too often his administration treats business as an obstacle rather than a partner. He hardly tried to achieve the immigration reform and climate-change policy he promised."
-- Wait, I thought the WaPo endorsed Obama? That's... awkward.
"Dreams, I think the Detroit paper's endorsement of Romney will have more impact on the election than WaPo's endorsement of Obama. Neither will have much impact, but if Michigan is actually in play, I'll take anything I can get."
I hope so, me too on that.
Tosaguy -
"I prefer a competant person in power who is inside the 45 yard lines of American politics than incompetance at the 15 yard line of the left."
With 30% of the American public more aligned to think off visual and graphic cues, I am always surprised that campaigns do not employ more of them. These people, and I am one of them, get most of my thinking from taking matters, issues, and problems - and visualizing them.
If Romney in debate, then in ads had employed TosaGuys football visualization - I think it would have defined Romney EXACTLY in the eyes of those 3-5 million people still wondering where to position him, and position Obama. And it would accrue to Romney's decided advantage.
I also thing both Parties are remiss in chasing every demographic BUT the 30% of the country that describes themselves as conservative, liberal, but mostly moderate and independent - but differ from the rest of the population on religion.
The 30% that say they are barely religious, are agnostics, or true atheists. This would have been another area Romney could have done well in - that just as there shouln't be a religious test for office based on what religion someone is (repeated ad nauseum by all candidates) - there is a 2nd religious test - that people of no religion should also face no discrimination.
"So he has no positions, but you know his positions? Radical."
No, his position on this is on his website. "Allow consumers to purchase insurance across state lines." Of course, nothing stops states from doing that now. The proposal is to pass a federal law requiring states to allow out-of-state insurers, which of course prevents them from effectively regulating health insurance.
edutch
Great piece reference @ 1:33 PM. For the record it is entitled
Large Sample Polls Favor Romney; Smaller, Less Reliable Favor Obama. Why?
Er, maybe this approach lets slobbering Dem cheerleaders, like Silver, exploit the margin of error for the gullible?
Or as KC put it above: "Silver is the most dangerous of partisans - a smart guy in the high visibility perch with a subject matter that is too complicated for the typical reader or other media person to understand."
"With no time to catch his breath, Mr. Obama designed and won approval for a stimulus bill that slowed job loss and helped restore confidence."
-- What the WaPo forgets is that this is not the truth. Remember that chart.
"The steady experts he put in charge of economic policy, notably Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, navigated between the Democratic Party’s left, which urged populist measures that would have been expensive and ineffectual, and an obstructionist Republican Party, which at times seemed content to inflict great harm on the country."
-- That would be the same Geithner who told Ryan, the obstructionist, "We don't have a plan, we just don't like yours." It's like the WaPo's endorsement isn't a serious piece of critical writing.
"Though [Romney's] political résumé is thin, his business record is impressive and he has managed a disciplined campaign."
-- ... Do they know he was a successful governor in a blue state and led a series of bi-partisan efforts that improved education and the economic status of his state? Romney's political resume is -thin-?
The WaPo editorial sounds like an Obama campaign speech, not the work of honest journalists.
AF: "Meanwhile, back on Earth, Obama's record is far clearer ..."
LOL
And obama has spent over 500 days of the campaign pretending that record doesn't exist!
"Of course, nothing stops states from doing that now. The proposal is to pass a federal law requiring states to allow out-of-state insurers, which of course prevents them from effectively regulating health insurance."
-- You realize that there are plenty of things sold across state lines that are effectively regulated, right?
"History does seem to be a good portent, but again, I am Burkean conservative."
I feel like I do when I'm watching my favorite basketball team late in the game with a few points lead. I feel good but anxious for the game to be over so I can be sure of the win and be able to enjoy it.
-- 2010
I'll counter that's a midterm election and most incumbent parties lose seats in a midtermer. A lot of low-info voters stay home at midterms, too.
However, I think we'll see something a bit closer to 2010 than 2008 as a result of the current state of the economy and the deep downballet (state) seats that went to more Rs than Ds in 2010.
The majesty of voting for blank-slate first-black-President-Hope-and-change Obama can't be duplicated.
I do like Tosa Guys football analogy (as endorsed by my friend C4)--When you are on your 15 in your own territory you the "hail mary" is your option. Were I the Iranian Mullahs, I would be going to defcon 1. (I kid)
OMG! That daily argument about who's gonna win!
I confess! I'll be damned if I know!
What an idiotic way to elect a President. Having to be deluged with lies for months, watch a compentant challenge have to debase himself by pandering to the LCD and watch a President defend a record that, all things considered, is not that bad. Are we better off now than 2008? Hell yes! I do not have amnesia. Could we be better off than now? Probably. Have the Reps been trying to make things better? NO. Are the Dems guttless? YES. Will things get better regardless of who wins? Probably...messes come in cycles and so do recoveries. Will these idiots ever learn to work together and play nice? I doubt it. To much money in obstruction.
"The WaPo editorial sounds like an Obama campaign speech, not the work of honest journalists."
Well, that's because that's exactly what it is.
"Are we better off now than 2008?"
-- How do you define that? What was the unemployment in 2008? How is median income doing?
Bob Ellison said...
Nate Silver apparently made his name when he predicted very accurately the results of the 2008 election. Then the NYT swallowed up his blog, and ever since then, lefties have held him up as the greatest electoral prognosticator around. I've seen comments like "It's Nate Silver! Refute that!!"
Yeah. Silver reminds me of those investment analysts who seem to have a magic finger on the market's pulse and every word is golden ... until the streak ends.
Pragmatist, so having $4,000 less to spend, and paying over $2,000 more for gas, losing jobs and having mortgages go underwater is your definition of "better off?"
Man, I'd hate to see what you consider to be a bad four years.
Cosmic Conservative: the term "honest journalists," much like the term "legal ethics" and "giant shrimp," are exemplary oxymorons. :)
"-- You realize that there are plenty of things sold across state lines that are effectively regulated, right?"
You realize that the federal law being proposed would explicitly prevent states from regulating out-of-state insurers?
If human thought and actions followed the laws of physics, we wouldn't need psychologists, sociologists and other social scientists, just physicists.
Maybe you want to use labor force participation? Actually, here's a bunch of charts that make it seem a lot of people aren't better off than in 2008. So, better off than 2008 is a really hard thing to say for certain either way.
AF said...
" "He believes it's up to the states to set health care policy, not the federal government."
Yeah? What's his view on Medicare? ERISA (hint: he wants to amend it to make it harder for states to regulate health insurance)? The FDA Act? HIPAA?"
Can't tell if you're really serious. Will continue to pretend you are.
Forget the fact that you've jumped from "He has no proposals" to "Here are the details of his proposals, and why they suck!"
You're now talking about details that will be hashed out with Congress in the law that replaces Obamacare when it's repealed. President Romney's positions will be important -- but they won't be decisive on the details.
Yes. He'd like to make it possible for individuals to buy health insurance across state lines. (I assume that's what you're referring to.) Will that make it into a final bill? Who knows. Does it contradict his stated goals of keeping healthcare costs down (nope) and devolving more power back to the states (nope). The limit you're talking about is *vastly* less than the constraint on states under Obamacare.
Also, keep in mind... the topic of discussion here was: Is it possible to know Romney's positions on the issues? Shifting to "Is Romney's specific proposal for this tiny detail of this one issue best for the country?" is fine with me -- but you should acknowledge the shift in topic.
Will these idiots ever learn to work together and play nice? I doubt it. To much money in obstruction.
I don't know who will win.
But, I do know that I don't want "these idiots [to] ever learn to work together and play nice" since I don't want government to solve and fix things.
The job of the opposition is to "obstruct." When the opposition starts learning to "work together and play nice," we'll really be fucked.
"You realize that the federal law being proposed would explicitly prevent states from regulating out-of-state insurers?"
-- I'm sorry, you do not have the luxury of simply making assertions and them going unchallenged. Cite to the law; if you cite to a study about the law, a blog about the law, a statement about the law, you will be wasting your time. I will not read those. Cite to the actual law, please.
"And as a footnote, it is entirely possible that respondents on polls lie, and there is no methodology for accounting for that."
I've been saying that I believe this time they will lie even more because they don't want to be thought racist by an anonymous pollster. I don't believe that many people think Obama is likable.
If Romney wins the the popular vote, and Obama pulls off an electoral college victory, will the left stop whining about the injustice of the electoral college?
The majesty of voting for blank-slate first-black-President-Hope-and-change Obama can't be duplicated.
My first inclination is to agree with you, but not sure the early voter turnout thus far squares with that prediction.
I don't think there's a scenario where Romney can win the popular vote and not also get the electoral college. That is possible for D's because a lot of their sure-thing electoral votes are tied in to high-population states (like CA, NY, etc.)
I'm afraid the Libya well is dry; there's nothing more damaging that can come out that we don't know.
We may know, but most Americans don't. (And I'm hardly convinced we know everything yet.)
Talked to my parents on the phone today. They watch CNN, and told me that there was some very aggressive coverage of Benghazi there last night. And that's CNN, not FOX.
It's not a matter of what "we know," but what the media reports, what the media talking heads talk about, the memes and narratives in circulation. I think some journalists are belatedly striving for some journalistic integrity these days-- toward the end of Obama's first (and hopefully last) term.
And it's not just news media. Cf. Letterman, to Maddow's face, saying Obama lied about Romney's views on GM bankruptcy. "We know" Obama was full of it; but most of Letterman's audience probably didn't.
Off Insta:
If true, this one would be the REAL October Surprise:
Hillary wanted increased security in Benghazi, but Zero vetoed.
Yashu--when, regretably it seems, many Americans get their news from Comedy Central, the Tonite show and other incisive and hard hitting news shows, we are probably fucked. There's a reason why Obama keeps showing up on these shows.
AF: "Yeah? What's his view on Medicare? ERISA (hint: he wants to amend it to make it harder for states to regulate health insurance)? The FDA Act? HIPAA?"
Maybe we have to pass the bill to see what is in it.
I'm sure you approve of that already-praised signature dem maneuver.
LOL
After over 500+ days of the campaign where obama waits until 2 days to slap together some pictures and rehashed generalities and presents it as a "plan", the lefties are ALL ABOUT THE DETAILS BABY!!!! SHOW US THE DETAILS!!!
Yashu: That may be possible. I am a gigantic pessimist all things political.
I guess I should have included Letterman and the View in my litany of hard hitting news shows.
Matthew Sablan: you will never be disappointed. Possibly pleasantly surprised, but not likely.
Then again, if the knives have come out in the Clinton-Obama frenemy truce, anything is possible
I'll be OK, regardless of which candidate wins. Won't be the end of the world if Romney loses, even though I'll probably vote for him.
I'm hoping that if Obama wins, he faces a Republican Senate and House.
The market will recover, no matter which candidate wins. Most of what the government does to "help" is just rigging markets to help cronies.
The differences between the two candidates are being wildly over-exaggerated.
I'm not sayin' Silver's wrong, but it sure looks like Obama's starting to worry about his core constituency...the math-challenged.
Obama on Leno:
“The math stuff was fine up until about seventh grade,” Obama said. “Malia is now a freshman in high school. I’m pretty lost.”
Re-elect Barbie!
ChipS: yeah--that quadratic formula stuff was real rocket science.
Spoken like a buffered elite.
Hardly. I'm just a middle class old fart approaching retirement.
Don't vote if you can't make a distinction between the two?
Fortunately, I don't have to ask your permission to vote.
This one matters.
One of the advantages to being an over the hill old fart is that I remember that people got just as over heated about every election in my lifetime.
Every one of those presidential elections was a matter of life and death... or so it seemed at the time.
Christopher in MA said...
Hey, garage -
On Fox News - Megyn Kelly show. Radio interview with father of slain special forces soldier that was killed in the Bengazhi attack - Hillary told him "We will have that film maker arrested".
Tell me again how Nakoula's in jail for a parole violation. That one's always comedy gold.
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Too bad for you that you neglect that while Benghazi was attacked, there were 11 other attacks that day that put Americans overseas in fear of their safety that were solely tied to the blasphemy video.,
There is also evidence that some of the attackers at Benghazi were stoking their fighters up prior to the planned attack on news of attacks underway in Cairo and Sana Lebanon and Tripoli due to America blasphemed the Prophet. In the same way we showed Bataan Death March tapes the Japs stupidly let us get, as ammunition to rile up the Marines before attacking Okinawa. It had nothing to do with the planned, organized Okinawa attack, but it was a great psychological tool to get Marines more willing to kill Japs.
And too bad for you your 1st Amendment Hero IS in jail for blatant violation of the specific terms of his probation aimed at stopping him from the same behavior that got him convicted of major felonies in the past.
In a sense, this is good, because we need to find out if foreign entities fed Nakoula money and advice to damage America - much as the Soviets spend money and organizational help to US anti-Vietnam War groups. And if Nakoula cooperates, maybe he can help avoid having to go back and serve his full term for indentity theft and bank fraud.
(The scumbag hero of Chistopher in MA also has a few other priors, including jail time for trying to set up a meth lab)
Matthew: I get your pressimism about Libya. It seems that there have been so many issues that should have sunk Obama, yet the issues sink and not Obama. However, Libya is getting more play in the MSM, as yashu notes.
I just heard from an old friend that a mutual classmate -- a liberal feminist who styles herself at times as Pagan -- has switched her vote to Romney on account of Benghazi and that was a surprise.
It's an anecdote of course. I don't expect Benghazi to become the Watergate of our time, but it will be a drag on Obama as he tries to recapture the 2008 fervor in the final days of his campaign.
garage -
You are absolutely hilarious!
What data is there that Democratic turnout will be lower than 2008?
Seriously? You think there's even a PRAYER of replicating the Democratic enthusiasm of "Hope and Change" given the reality of Obama versus the fantasy of Mr. Tabula Rasa?
I'd like to have some of what you're smoking.
You think Republican turnout of 2012 ISN'T going to exceed that of 2008?
Obviously 2010 never happened for you. Obviously you haven't seen the numbers in which Republican enthusiasm numbers have consistently outstripped Democratic enthusiasm for more than a year now.
Romney isn't McCain. And Obama can't run against Bush again. But you keep yourself wrapped tightly in your cocoon and only pay attention to those polls where Democratic turnout EXCEEDS 2008 with ludicrous D+9 samples so that you can keep telling yourself "Obama can't lose, Obama can't lose" over and over again.
See you in November.
As far as I can determine, the Washington Post has never endorsed a Republican for President.
Gotcha though. You'll get yours, so damn those currently paying in, who will get nothing out.
Actually, you ain't gotch me at all. You don't know anything about my circumstances, so why pretend you do?
You're over excited. Political argument does that to people. You start believing your own hyper-ventilating.
You seem to have missed that I said I'll vote for Romney. I also said that I won't jump off a cliff if Obama is elected.
God, it would be nice if people actually read what their correspondents wrote, but that seems to be asked too much on this great internet.
Will Obama voters crawl across glass, scale barbed wire barricades, and brave 100-MPH winds to vote?
I'm sorry, you do not have the luxury of simply making assertions and them going unchallenged. Cite to the law; if you cite to a study about the law, a blog about the law, a statement about the law, you will be wasting your time. I will not read those. Cite to the actual law, please.
The law doesn't exist, of course, but Romney's proposal is understood to be based the Health Care Choice Act of 2005 sponsored by Representative
John Shadegg and Senator Jim DeMint, which you can Google.
Remarkable Romney is doing so well considering the concerted effort by msm to not cover the failures of Obama's term -- Fast and Furious, Solyndra, ‘We Decline to Comment’ on When Obama Learned of E-Mails, Met With NSC on Benghazi"
As far as I can determine, the Washington Post has never endorsed a Republican for President.
It's a company-town paper, and the company is the federal government. The day when the federal employees' newsletter endorses the smaller-government candidate will be a day I spend indoors, to avoid all the pig shit falling from the sky.
Obama has a program. It's called re-distribution of inflated money from haves to have nots until all jobs in the USA are pretend work for a pretend Government giving free pretend health care.
The Chinese and the Russians and the European Union are cheering Obama on while they are doing the exact opposite. Their 80 years of horror at their experience with Obama's plan are hard to forget
Obama smiles sexually at the deluded fools in the USA that is he arranging to be starved to death.
That is how Obama plans to stop the CO2...by killing us for eating, for warming ourselves and for breathing.
I'm ok with that btw. Just, if you're going to be a silly billy now, we should keep up the laughter as the bodies are buried. Smiling and grinning as though it's all good...
Bodies always are getting buried for one reason or another. There's always a war going on.
Yes, continuing to laugh through it all is the key thing.
It's never "all good." The essential talent to continuing to love life is to focus on the parts that are good, and waste as little time as possible on the other crap.
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