Why is Perry but not Romney or Cain beating Obama in the Rasmussen poll of Wisconsin voters?

Perry beats Obama, 46%/54%, but Obama beats Romney, 45%/41%, and Cain, 47%/42%.

I just don't get it. What's getting Perry those extra 4 or 5 percentage points here? Something about the empathy toward immigrants? The HPV vaccine? Is Wisconsin harboring some anti-Mormon or anti-black folks?

I genuinely don't know, and I also wonder what it might say about the recall effort against Scott Walker.

ADDED: Rasmussen has a new poll about Walker:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Wisconsin Voters shows that 38% Strongly Approve of the job Walker is doing, while the same number (38%) Strongly Disapproves. Overall, the Republican governor earns positive reviews from 49% and negative grades from 49%....

Walker’s overall ratings have improved since March, when 43% approved of his performance and 57% disapproved.  At that time, 34% Strongly Approved of the job he was doing and 48% Strongly Disapproved....

While 55% of male voters in the state like the job the governor's doing, 55% of female voters disapprove of his performance. 

What's with the sex divide? Well, that's not special to Wisconsin, is it? The Perry thing... that's what's puzzling.

Most voters under 40 disapprove of Walker, while the majority of their elders approve. Married voters and those with children in the home are more likely to approve of the governor's performance than are unmarrieds and those without children. 

These kids today!

Now, here is the most interesting statistic:

Just four percent (4%) of Wisconsin voters rate the U.S. economy as good or excellent, while 60% describe it as poor. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of those who think the economy is poor give Walker favorable marks.

Where's the line between pet costume...

... and tormenting an animal?

Are the NY police relying on criminals and lowlifes to break down the protest in Zuccotti Park?

Excellent reporting by Harry Siegel at the NY Daily News:

Most of the working groups have been clustered at the east end of the park....

Most of the non-participants in turn pitched camp west of there, as far as possible from the workers. That dynamic reinforced itself, as occupiers nervous about their possessions and safety slept by their equipment and each other to the east, while the carnival crowd kept to the other side of Zuccotti....

The police, whom many occupiers see as the enemy and who work under a mayor who’s made no secret of his distaste for the occupiers, have little reason to help them maintain order, and rarely seem to have entered the park over the last week for anything short of an assault....

But while officers may be in a no-win situation, at the mercy of orders carried on shifting political winds and locked into conflict with a so-far almost entirely non-violent protest movement eager to frame the force as a symbol of the oppressive system they’re fighting, the NYPD seems to have crossed a line in recent days, as the park has taken on a darker tone with unsteady and unstable types suddenly seeming to emerge from the woodwork. Two different drunks I spoke with last week told me they’d been encouraged to “take it to Zuccotti” by officers who’d found them drinking in other parks, and members of the community affairs working group related several similar stories they’d heard while talking with intoxicated or aggressive new arrivals....

“The police are saying ‘it’s a free for all at Zuccotti so you can go there,’” said Daniel Zetah, a member of several working groups including community affairs. “Which makes our job harder and harder because the ratio is worse and worse.”

Read the whole thing. It's fascinating sociology: the little society that has grown up within Zuccotti Park. It reminds me a bit of "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," Joan Didion's account of of Haight-Ashbury, which describes the decline of what was supposed to be a Utopia.

And what of the police strategy Siegel seems to uncover? I can't say what is really going on, but suppose the police (and the Mayor) decide that it's too difficult — too much effort and too much bad press or too legally confusing — to oust the protesters from Zuccotti Park, and instead they encourage criminals and lowlifes to move in and prey upon the idealists and naifs.

Steve Jobs's feet.

From the Walter Isaacson biography "Steve Jobs":

He was still convinced, against all evidence, that his vegan diets meant that he didn’t need to use a deodorant or take regular showers. “We would have to literally put him out the door and tell him to go take a shower,” said Markkula. “At meetings we had to look at his dirty feet.” Sometimes, to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet, a practice that was not as soothing for his colleagues.

***

To produce the fully packaged Apple II would require significant capital, so they considered selling the rights to a larger company. Jobs went to Al Alcorn and asked for the chance to pitch it to Atari’s management. He set up a meeting with the company’s president, Joe Keenan, who was a lot more conservative than Alcorn and Bushnell. “Steve goes in to pitch him, but Joe couldn’t stand him,” Alcorn recalled. “He didn’t appreciate Steve’s hygiene.” Jobs was barefoot, and at one point put his feet up on a desk. “Not only are we not going to buy this thing,” Keenan shouted, “but get your feet off my desk!” Alcorn recalled thinking, “Oh, well. There goes that possibility.”

Attacks upon the neck.

Talk of a high-tech lynching got me thinking about the neck attack that made the news here in Wisconsin last June. Do you remember? State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser was said to have put Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in a "chokehold." There was an investigation, a special prosecutor, and a decision against bringing criminal charges, but there was also an investigation by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, concentrating on judicial ethics, which nobody seems to talk about anymore.

Back in August, I wondered about the way nobody was talking about the Judicial Commission anymore, perhaps because the criminal investigation made it seem that Bradley was the aggressor and Prosser reacted in self-defense. When the tables were turned, the noise died down, but when there were only allegations that Prosser was the aggressor, protesters vilified Prosser:

This is the level of left-wing activism we witnessed here in Madison. A justice is despised because his decisions do not please liberals, and so, without thought, they forgot about things liberals like to love themselves for caring about, such as fairness and due process....

[Isthmus blogger David] Blaska demands apologies from people who should be "ashamed of their lynch mob mentality." He names the "practitioners of the dark arts of 'by any means necessary.'"

Speaking of turning the tables, liberal hypocrisy, and David Blaska, he's writing about a new incident here in Madison:

A Dane County prosecutor says she believes Madison Ald. Brian Solomon sexually assaulted a city employee who is assigned to work with the common council. But the district attorney's office won't bring him to trial only because, it says, getting a unanimous jury to convict would be chancy....

Is the Left calling for Ald. Solomon to resign? Not that I can tell. No righteous indignation from The Capital Times. Crickets at Madame Brenda's Forward Lookout website. No protest rallies in front of the Capitol. The drum circles are silent.

The Former Kathleen, County Supes Melissa Sargent and Diane Hesselbine, and Madison Ald. Lisa Subeck suffered no such reticence in organizing a shouting, chanting Capitol rally on July 12 demanding that Supreme Court Justice David Prosser resign for allegedly choking fellow Justice Anne Walsh Bradley. They did so even as the legal system was in the midst of a careful, detailed inquiry. No, the feminist lynch mob could not wait for due process....

Why the differing responses? We know why, don't we class? Brian Solomon is a liberal, he's Progressive Dane for chrissakes! He's for the victim (even if he creates some of them).

High-tech lynching + Herman Cain.

A Google search returns 35,400 results the day after Politico drops its story about 2 female employees who, years ago, were angered and upset by what they said was "sexually suggestive behavior" by Herman Cain.

Let's listen to the original use of the phrase "high-tech lynching." It was just about exactly 20 years ago that Clarence Thomas, nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by George H. W. Bush, faced the Senate Judiciary Committee, which, under the watch of Senator Joe Biden, heard testimony accusing him of sexual harassment.

Halloween greetings.

(Animation of Meade's photo by Chip Ahoy.)

Saturday's protest ambiance: mellow, low-key.

A woman dressed in nonthreatening witch garb stood under the "Forward" statue and implored people to assemble for an "Oakland March" — which I presume was a protest against the recent attempt by the police in Oakland, California to oust the Occupy Oakland protesters.



People gave the "witch" a wide berth. It was a Farmers' Market day, so the Capitol Square was pretty crowded, mostly with people who didn't seem to be shopping for any new political ideas. But there was a woman standing under a black "Recall Walker" umbrella, and a man with a lot of 9/11 Truther paraphernalia.



Then there was this man with a "Decline of Western Civilization" poster. It's got this quote that's attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish-born British writer who died in 1813.



The Wikipedia article says: Tytler "believed that 'a pure democracy is a chimera,' and that 'All government is essentially of the nature of a monarchy.'" The "Tytler Cycle" that appears on the poster is unlikely to have been written by Tytler. I'm not sure what political position the poster-holder is trying to take. He has a "you are here" pointer — see the enlargement — between "from Abundance to Complacency" and "from Complacency to Apathy." "Apathy" subsequently leads to "Dependence," which makes me think he's taking a right-wing position against the people becoming dependent on government. "Dependence" leads to "Bondage," which gets us back to the beginning of the cycle. But I'm going to assume that he means it in a left-wing way. Right?

"Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."

The last words of Steve Jobs, recounted by his sister, the novelist Mona Simpson, in her fine eulogy.

On "Face the Nation," Bob Schieffer chastised Herman Cain about the "smoking man" ad.

Bob Schieffer could not restrain himself within the role of journalist today. It was pretty ridiculous:

The mess that is "Meet the Press" had me laughing until tears ran down my face.

We watch the NBC show on DVR and pause frequently to analyze, dissect, and mock. Here's today's transcript. They had Walter Isaacson, the author of that terrific new biography of Steve Jobs, and then they also had Tom Brokaw, NBC's retired news anchor, who also has a new book. It might make a mildly appreciated Christmas present for any members of the "greatest generation" who still survive in your family. Pushing Brokaw's book, they subjected us to text like this:

Matt Yglesias says "Let Children Vote."

The notion is: they probably won't, but the ones who do would probably "come from an unusually dedicated and informed sub-set of American teenagers."

Matt himself is, despite appearances, already old enough to vote. His idea reminds me of one of my earliest political opinions. It was 1960. I was 9. I said: "If kids could vote, it would be a landslide for Nixon." It seemed so unfair! If only kids could vote.

Speaking of unfairness, the voting age changed from 21 to 18 in the year I turned 21. It was 1972, my first chance to vote for President, and suddenly all the 18 and up kids could vote too. Of course, I voted for McGovern. Now, to be realistic, if the voting age had been 18 all along, 1972 would still have been my first presidential vote. I was only 17 in 1968. It was so unfair. But I was able to inform my unduly conventional parents about my (unusually dedicated!) support for Eldridge Cleaver. Peace and Freedom!

Oh, I know what you're thinking. How did she get from Nixon to Cleaver in 8 years? It's called teenage.

Yesterday, we drove past the new "Occupy Madison" encampment...

... which you can see in the first 10 seconds of this 14-minute video...



... and you can hang out with Meade and me for the rest of the drive if you want. You'll see some more of Madison and the University of Wisconsin and eavesdrop on us. It's not all politics, I assure you, at 2 p.m. on a beautiful Saturday.

ADDED: A couple extra videos for reference. Here's the awesome song "United We Stand" by Brotherhood of Man:



And here's one of the wonderful "I'm a Pepper" commercials from the 1970s:



Of course, you must know the Herman Cain "smoking man" commercial, and here's the take-off by the Huntsman daughters.

AND: 2 more references. Donald Rumsfeld:



And Little Edie:

"This is snow, it's not going to kill us. What they're doing to us will kill us. What they're doing to our world."

Winter comes early to Zuccotti Park, where — as the apparently editorless New York Magazine puts it — tents "are explicitly forgiven." 

While the occupation's ranks have thinned, the hard-core activists are sticking around, huddling in a large central tent and distributing donated sleeping bags. "It's like Valley Forge out there now," a beaming middle-aged finance facilitator named Mercury John told me. "But it's a beautiful day ... We'll keep splashing in the puddles."

Valley Forge. Except you have the option to go inside whenever you want, and you're getting something to eat besides "fire cake,' a tasteless mixture of flour and water." And you don't have typhoid and dysentery. And no one is expecting you to fight a war. But yeah, it's like Valley Forge.

That beaming middle-aged finance facilitator isn't the first one to liken the plight of the occupiers to Valley Forge. Here's an AP bit from 3 days ago:

“Everyone’s been calling it our Valley Forge moment,” said Michael McCarthy, a former Navy medic in Providence. “Everybody thought that George Washington couldn’t possibly survive in the Northeast.”

Actually, it was easier for the Valley Forge folks to put up with the harsh conditions. There weren't buildings all around that they could duck into if they lost heart.

Anne Applebaum prattles about the divide in America between the upper-middle class and the lower-middle class.

Instapundit pointed me to this piece, so I read it:

Despite all the loud talk of the “1 per cent” of Americans who, according to a recent study, receive about 17 per cent of the income, a percentage which has more than doubled since 1979, the existence of a very small group of very rich people has never bothered Americans. But the fact that some 20 per cent of Americans now receive some 53 per cent of the income is devastating.

I would argue that the growing divisions within the American middle class are far more important than the gap between the very richest and everybody else. They are important because to be “middle class”, in America, has such positive connotations, and because most Americans think they belong in it...

“Middle America” also once implied the existence of a broad group of people who had similar values and a similar lifestyle. If you had a small suburban home, a car, a child at a state university, an annual holiday on a Michigan lake, you were part of it. But, at some point in the past 20 years, a family living at that level lost the sense that it was doing “well”, and probably struggled even to stay there. Now it seems you need a McMansion, children at private universities, two cars, a ski trip in the winter and a summer vacation in Europe in order to feel as if you are doing minimally “well”. ...

What?! "It seems..."? It doesn't seem that way to me! I'm securely in the "upper middle class" as Applebaum describes it, yet I don't see myself as easily grasping the things on that list of what it takes to feel you're doing "minimally 'well.'" Why would people distributed throughout the middle class feel left behind because they can't get all that? Applebaum seems radically out of touch with reality. Do people even want McMansions anymore? The professors I know seem to love modest-sized houses when they have a nice design and some pretty gardens. And I don't know anyone who comfortably shells out cash for college tuition. And who are these people who think it's necessary to get over to Europe in the summer?

Applebaum poses what she must think is a ponderous question:

[I]f Americans are no longer “all in the same boat”, if some of them are now destined to live better than others, then will they continue to feel like political equals? 

They? Why is she saying "they"?! I'd say we will go on as we always have. We look at those who have more, make some choices, and do what we can. Some of us get motivated to work harder at making money, and maybe we succeed and maybe we don't. Some of us decide not to work so hard but to control our covetousness and develop our capacity to love what we have. (Why not leave Europe to the Europeans and buy an annual pass to your state's parks and value the beauty of the landscape you live in? That's what Meade and I do.)  And, yes, some of us fall prey to bitterness and cynicism, and if that happens, we can either perceive this state of mind as our own character flaw or plunge deeply into blaming others.

We're a diverse bunch, we Americans. But I think most of us understand the way we are equal in America. We have equal rights and equal opportunity. We have never had equal economic outcomes, and very few of us have ever believed in the kind of politics that say we need equal economic status to feel like political equals.

Iowa poll: Cain 23, Romney 22, Paul 12... Perry 7.

Fascinating.

What's the most interesting thing about this new poll?
	Cain's on top.
	Romney's doing so well when he's eschewed campaigning in Iowa.
	Paul in the double digits.
	Perry's tanking.
	Whatever happened to Bachmann, who won the Iowa straw poll?
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