Another week, another Pennsylvania countdown thread. I owe Andrew Bolt a link, so see here for a revealing view of the Gallup poll trend as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright affair fades from view.
Pennsylvania minus three weeks
Analysis and discussion of elections and opinion polls in Australia
Another week, another Pennsylvania countdown thread. I owe Andrew Bolt a link, so see here for a revealing view of the Gallup poll trend as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright affair fades from view.
Egdecliff Chris at 424: “I concede Kristol is about as partisan as they come”
Chris, do you really think that Bill Kristol is biased?
Ferny Grover Says at 416: “Diog – it’s ok, there’s plenty of wine”
Ferny, you havn’t been paying attention, mate. Dio took us on a wonderful tour of his wine cellar and donated a bottle of Top Plonk to our comp. He mentioned that he’s off vino, but it sounds like he doesn’t mind a drop of the amber fluid.
(very little escapes me on the Sep threads, FG:)
GG What about authentic intellectual sanctimony?
Hillary’s position on China is to be commended but one of the reasons she states for her anti-China stand is China’s reluctance to pressure Sudan regarding Darfur. For one thing, my understanding (from Human Rights Watch) is that China’s foreign policy has been improving in the human rights area but it still sucks within China.
More compelling is that Bill Clinton has gone down in history as the weakest President ever in condemning genocide let alone intervening. Half the State Department in charge of “problem areas” resigned during his reign due to their disgust at his spinelessness in allowing genocide to happen without comment in Bosnia, Rwanda and Srebrenica. I realise that Hillary is not Bill but she is going to have to take the good with the bad when she argues that she had a role to play in foreign affairs.
KR, you are looking at the US election from a remarkably Australian-centric point of view. To state the obvious, voting in the US is not obligatory. Millions of educated people like you don’t even bother voting.
While it has become a cliche, and is admittely a generalisation, nothing gets out the vote like gods, gun and abortion and other hot button issues like that. Its radically different to what motivates the average Australian voter. How else do you explain how it is that all those Republican voters suddenly materialised on election day and delivered Bush a reasonably comfortable victory? It is the social issues and not Iraq that mobilises where it matters in the US.
How many Americans have you spoken to lately? I deal with highly educated Americans every day with my job. The majority of them don’t vote because they are too busy with work, they don’t care, they presume the result is a foregone conclusion, they sulk because they don’t like the candidate their party is up for and so on.
Ever thought about what a major inconvenience it can be for people having to get to the polling booth, cue for at least an hour and add 60 minutes commuting time during a working day when polls close between 7 and 8 in all but a handful of states?
Kerry and Gore did not even get close in the Old Confederacy, Florida excepted. I say Obama has no hope in Florida this year for a variety of reasons that have been reported on. So what hope does Obama have south of Mason-Dixon? That’s about 170 out of 270 e.v.’s. Then you add the mountain states save New Mexico and the mid-west. Doesn’t leave the Dems much margin for error, and it is precisely this that keeps bringing them undone election after election.
Why sure, Iraq will cost the GOP votes and millions of them….right where it doesn’t matter, in the big cities of California, the mid-Atlantic and the NE and the university towns.
I’m not saying this election is over but the confidence that you and numerous others have about the end of the GOP grip on 1600 Pennsylvania is as amusing as it is misconceived
EC @ 452: in answer to your question, well of course
But what is really funny is that people like you wouldn’t find people like David Marr, Kerry O’Brien, the latest wanker fronting Media Watch and Tony Jones from Latteline biased. Not for one minute, would you?
454 Chris
Is it true that the more educated population are less likely to vote in the US? It would really explain the last two elections.
I think that in Oz, if voting became voluntary, it would favour the right wing of politics as many of the embattled working class would not bother but I have no data to prove that.
Suggested viewing on this topic: “Jesus Camp” and “Bowling for Columbine” – just go to the doco section of your nearest Blockbuster or Video Ezy or whatever
454
Chris from Edgecliff
That was then, this is now: nearly $3 trillion vapourised housing value is about to focus those too lazy to vote middle class folks.
Where this time really is different is that two terms of Bush and a recession like no other (yep, it’s true, they are starting this one with low employment growth, massive debt, and no home equity!) and just look at Democrat turnout and enrollments…they are off the scale.
Tsunami time for the GOP. Just watch.
GG @ 450 –
Para 1 -Too much open mindedness and rational analysis is barely enough around here, I agree.
Para 2 – you’re wrong on that. Hillary’s ‘position’ (or ‘positions’) on China doesn’t challenge my view of her, or many others’ opinion if you look a the blog below this article:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/07/866169.aspx
Para 3- Hillary’s ALLEGED lying?? You must kidding, GG. Obama’s slipperiness? It’s all relative in this sort of thing of course, but he hasn’t grown scales yet, as has Clinton.
Para 4- Having been ‘shot at’ in Bosnia, she shot from the hip on the hospital. Bad form blurting out hearsay without verification (still not verified) – T. Abbott-like, and likely to cause collateral damage among the family members.
Paras 4 -I think I’m safe on hypocrisy. None found on my scans after your so probing examination (do you have any alien friends?)
Para 5 -Very pleased to see that my ‘pseudo-intellectual sanctimony’ is hitting its target. It’s a smart bomb.
Chris fe,
KR has a point. Bush senior was done over in 92 partly because of the S&L fiasco which left many middle class borrowers owing more than their houses were worth.
This scenario is playing out again in trumps with the added bonus of a recession.
Whether the punters blame the Republicans and McCain specifically is hard to say at this time but the economy will be an important factor in this election.
Another thing, Edgey Chris, apart from the huge turnout for Democrats in the primaries, plus the massive fund raising both candidates have achieved, there’s the recent poll saying that an unprecedented 80% of US citizens think the country is headed in the WRONG direction.
I’d contend that previous elections have not been held under such conditions and many of your assumptions based on them will not hold in 2008.
(By contrast, the GOP is weakening on so many fronts, and even the god/gays/guns twaddle will not resonate against the serious issues they face. Besides, McCain has p1ssed off a lot of the god squad and the social conservatives in the past and will not be able to bring them all back).
Fascinating time ahead.
I think my “Pseudo Intellectual Sanctimony” take on matters or (Pis take as we call it around here) has obliterated the target.
Mission Accomplished!
I think we all agree that if Bush was up for re-election that it would be a bloodbath with an all blue US. But McCain is not Bush. The Dems need to paint Macca into a corner of being McSame and they’ll win. If not, they’ll lose. It’s going to be a fascinating dance to watch Macca embrace the Bush legacy’s voters without embracing his policies.
Gg @ 462 – No GG, you have a long way to go before you get Hillary’s nose in front.
By the way GG, why didn’t you enter the Concession Date contest? Small heart problem??
Yes, we’ll have to agree to disagree, but KR I wouldn’t be changping your posting name to DCRemovals just yet
465
Chris from Edgecliff
I’m more than happy to disagree, and keep my moniker too! LOL
Diogenes, I think Obama has already started on that line, with his ‘a third Bush term’ in reference to McCain.
A portent of things to come?
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120753339432393979-sTooXFocgtswKTyUmDWCnvXofEA_20090407.html
A safe GOP seat in the HoR that has been held by the Republicans for the last 21 years, but they’re running a candidate with a connection to a former KKK leader and has been fined by the FEC against a conservative State Representative from the Dems who is expected to appeal to cross-over Republican voters.
Also big to note is that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee apparently has $38 million on hand, whereas the National Republican Congressional Committee only has $5.1 million.
If things don’t start to improve for the GOP quickly, KR’s prediction of a tsunami may be understating it a bit. Remember that the Senate and HoR elections are also on November 4. With the current Senate being split 49 Repub, 49 Dem and 2 Independents and 23 Republican seats up for reelection to only 12 Democrats, it wouldn’t take many seats to change hands to change the entire complexion of the Senate (and destroy Lieberman’s current influence). With the current polling in Virginia (which is a Republican Senate spot up for reelection), the signs are not pretty for the GOP.
http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_senate_elections/virginia/election_2008_virginia_senate
JV @ 464
1. Have said before that I do not bet on things that talk.
2. Don’t necessarily believe that Hillary will be doing the conceding.
Heart is fine. Mind is clear. Life is great.
Cheers.
Well I don’t think there is much doubt the GOP is in for a shellacking in Congress, particularly in the Senate where there is a disproportionate number of Republicans retiring or in “blue” states with difficult re-election campaigns ahead of them. The general consensus among the US psephologists who know what they are talking about (Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato etc) is that anything less than a net gain of about 4 in the Senate and 12 in the house for the Dems would be a shock.
Having noted the above, the contest in Virginia isn’t exactly bellwether – the Dems have their best candidate possible, a very popular recent governor, while the GOP in Virginia is hopelessly divided. The networks will be calling the Virginia Senate race at 7.30pm on election night…as soon as the polls close.
KR, the definition of a “landslide” in US presidential elections is usually a winning margin of about 10 points or more. So what’s a “tsunami”?
Anything more than 50% for the Democrats in the presidential contest would be a truly momentous result for them as this has only happened twice since the war and not at all since 1964
anyone predicting that Nov. will even be close has lost their marbles.
things have changed so much since 2000 and 2004 it’s not funny. and none of it in the Republicans favour.
There WAS a tsunami in 2006 and since then you can add a recession.
Goodnight GOP.
454
Chris from Edgecliff Says:
KR, you are looking at the US election from a remarkably Australian-centric point of view.
It is why politcal logic runs into their closed minds.
Iraq is chaotic , Wall Street had a meltdown. Obama is perfect.
But the Polls at best for Obama vs McCain show a draw.
Seems the voters DO have doubts about Obama…and McCain will have fertile ground to attack this guy of contradictory words
HarryH
The worst thing that happened to the Dems was getting control of the House and Senate back. It made them responsible for the disaster the country is in, not as much as Bush. As my Growling Friend would say;
“Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.”
Clinton solemnly pays her respect to MLK. Or not.
http://qlipoth.blogspot.com/2008/04/hi-how-ya-doin-wow-fun-to-be-here.html
Dio @ 472,
I think that is a good point.
And McCain is a career outsider (or at least that’s how he has positioned himself, whether it’s true is debatable).
Betting markets have McCain at about a 1/3 chance and that seems a fair assessment at this point. Dems well in front but the race is far from over.
#472 Diogenes
I agree Diogenes. Which is why the economy meltdown can more easily be blamed by McCain on “Obama’s Democrats” , rather than vice versa.
A blame game free for all.
however the US voters will wish to blame a Party & the Democrats control Congress from which the legislation had to come from.
Unfortunately the lot of them collectively are responsible for their ‘effectively unregulated free enterprise system’ which was only saved (perhaps only temporarily) by the Feds bailout.
Dio
getting control of the House and the Senate hurt Clinton.
it didn’t hurt Obama.
i believe the GOP were dead for 2008 by 2005. The Dems were good things and so was Hillary Clinton as the next President. However she made a fatal mistake by listening to her pro-war insider
Washington power base and refused to listen (and even took on) the anti War anti Washington Dem primary voter base.
This left an opening for Obama and he has run a masterful campaign.
His message is change…….
change from Bush
change from McCain
change from the GOP
and yes
change fron Clinton
change from the Democrats who have so disappointed since 2006.
it is all about change.
the do nothing Democrats since 2006 have been a boon for Obama’s campaign.
Al #467 : “destroy Lieberman’s current influence”
almost the worst kind of politican and when just scrolled back to read them , I
thought of the ‘anti-lieberman’ pollie who sadly just passed away , John Button
In the days and weeks ahead, the Barack Obama campaign is going to pose a simple question to the undecided voters and undeclared superdelegates who will decide the Democratic nomination for president: If Hillary Clinton can’t run a good primary campaign, how is she ever going to run a good campaign against the Republicans?
And while she says she is ready from Day One to be president, she is at something like Day 430 into being a presidential candidate and her campaign seems to be going from bad to worse to train wreck.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9436.html
HarryH
“the do nothing Democrats since 2006 have been a boon for Obama’s campaign”
you lost the plot there. Yes it helps against Hillary WITHIN a Democrats contest ,
but in the POTUS election its not Democrats vs Democrats but vs Repugs who’ll claim to use your own words ‘the do nothing Democrats’ should have prevented the financial meltdown. mcCain would love to quote your own words
Ron
good luck getting the Republicans off the hook for the disaster they’ve created.
80% not happy with the direction of the country.
good luck.
did not like your own words quoted eh HarryH
just to remind you said #476
“the do nothing Democrats since 2006 have been a boon for Obama’s campaign.”
which included Senator Obama ! (and Hillary).
McCain would love your words. but as I’ve always added a caveat , if iraq becomes more chaotic either Democrat would win
Let me throw the obamabots a freebie:
He lost his political nous 9maybe Rove was it) & with it made 2008 risky for the GOP because he did not try to influence iraq elections to be held in 2009 after the POTUS election but would have required long term planning i guess
Ron
let me explain it to you.
NO Republican was ever going to get elected after 8 years of The Idiot Son.
So the 2008 presidency was there for a Democrat to win. Hillary was that Dem until she misread the Dem primary voters. The very people she snubbed with her ProWar ProWashington stance are the very people who have run grass roots campaigns for Obama, who have delivered her a hiding in Caucuses etc.
Up until the 2006 elections , Dem voters thought ANY Dem candidate would do as long as its not the Republicans in power.
After seeing the do nothing Dems since 2006, a significant portion of Dem primary voters thought hang on….we want change here, not do nothing.
Hence Obama’s position today.
After the Dem nom is settled and Obama is the candidate offering change…in an election where 80% are unhappy with the direction of the country, after 8 years of Bush and Republicans, after Iraq, after the pathetic Katrina response, after a recession……it will be a comfortable victory.
476 HarryH
Unaccostomed as I am to going in to bat for Hillary, I think Hillary’s support for the Iraq War has been overstated here (as has Obama’s somewhat fortuitous opposition). I read a neocon anti-Hillary book which whinged incessantly about Hillary’s lack of support for the War. She was very equivocal and seemed to flip-flop in her support and condemnation of Bush almost daily, presumably to fit the political context.
And I also have to agree with Ron (may the Lord have mercy on my soul!). Who do you think are going to fill the Cabinet posts in Obama’s Administration. All those useless do-nothing Democrats.
Between them, the two party’s have about $50M already. That buys an awful lot of finger pointing.
I wouldn’t be to arrogant remember good old Diebold Election Systems. One of the reasons Hillary is a bad choice. Support will need to be widespread and not too concentrated. The republicans just need to create enough doubt that a rigging is just believable enough. i wouldn’t count on Florida or Ohio or even Missouri/Virginia. The democrats will certainly want to win Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada. Plus 2 Nebraska votes as insurance. They should also throw the kitchen sink at Colorado.
Diogenes , they say the Lord has mercy so you’re right.
Your contrariness but frankness always is refreshing.
Pity the POTUS election does not talk about non oil regions like Darfur & Ruwanda with equal time spent but there’s unfortunately no votes in humanity causes
Ron
I’ll repost something I said on an earlier thread.
From Samantha Power’s book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide”. The most cynical quote I’ve ever seen.
During the Burundan Genocide in 1972, the US demonstrated it’s complete indifference to genocide as usual. About 100,000 died. One junior official in the State Department urged his boss do more to stop it. The reply was a chilling;
“Do you know of any official whose career has been advanced because he spoke out for human rights?”
Nice.
Great news! – some humour might come into the general campaign.
“Monty Python legend John Cleese is to offer his services as a speechwriter to Barack Obama if he wins the Democratic nomination to become US president, he told a British newspaper.
…. if Barack Obama gets the nomination I’m going to offer my services to him as a speechwriter because I think he is a brilliant man,”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/cleese-offers-to-write-obamas-gags–a-hrefhttpwwwsmhcomauuselection2008indexhtmlbmoreba/2008/04/08/1207420387432.html
Cleese should be able to give Barack some Black Knight one liners, plus a few fantasy world and alien references in the meantime for his sensible use while Hillary’s still hanging on:
This old ditty from Monty Python would be a good starter to work into one of Barack’s early speeches in the general campaign, to help set the tone for pleasing all those important minorities:
http://www.intriguing.com/mp/_scripts/arab.asp
Doc, I think you’re about 20 years or so early on the date, and yes, it was the quote of a homo sap whose humanity was long dormant.
Thanks William – I should have just used the link in the first place.
That’s great jv! And maybe ‘don’t mention the pastor. I did it once, but I think I got away with it…’
Soldiers for Obama here:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Story?id=4244798&page=1
And a good bit on the Clinton campaign and Penn here:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/penn_the_symbol_of_clintons_pr.html
Glen Greenwald’s stomping on some GOP myths (again!), this time, the nonsense about Americans wanting to stay in Iraq. Who says they do? The usual neocon suspects. Who says they don’t? The overwhelming majority…that’s all:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/08/gallup/
KR – As Dick Cheney said when questioned about an earlier poll in which two-thirds of those questioned said the Iraq war is not worth it: “So?”
Maybe McCain would find that response harder to give from where he’s sitting.
But the more the old hardliners say that sort of thing to those sorts of polls, the more McCain is wedged, and the better it is for the Dems. So keep those polls coming.
#486 Diogenes ,
the words leave me sadly empty
492
jaundiced view
The Armed Services Committee gets to quiz Petraeus today, so it should be a very interesting news cycle. Of course Petraeus is well in Bush’s pocket, but the recent flare up with al Sadr has shown how little they’ve really been able to influence events.
Breaking news is that al Sadr is threatening to call off the truce, and that means a quick return to all out confrontation and lots of street fighting which the Iraqi army has just demonstrated its unwillingness to do.
Should be a very interesting day in Washington, huh?
It should be KR – I’m getting the impression that Petraeus might not be as positive as in his the last report. If, as you report, the situation devolves via al Sadr to a worse level of chaos and anarchy through to November then McCain is cactus. I can’t see what strategy there is to stop the deaths. The only way to prevent the death of US soldiers is to pull them out now, and the Repugs won’t do that. How many sh*t sandwiches will McCain have to eat in the campaign about his 100 year strategy at every US body count?
Pancho @ 490 The troops don’t seem too full of that ingrained gung-ho American patriotism we discussed last night either. Imagine soldiers in uniform stating openly they will vote for that Obama! That would be seen as downright treason by many Republicans. There is a looming similarity to the latter stages of Vietnam. What soldier wants to be risking his or her life in prosecution of a war unpopular at home? The only thing saving the Repugs from more outspoken comments by soldiers on the ground – like in Vietnam – is the rigid control of the media in Iraq so far, the ’embedded ‘concept. That might unravel though if the attitude of the soldiers worsens, and become another source of embarrassment for McCain.
Another confirmation that the narrowing is on in Pennsylvania -a Quinnipiac poll that has Clinton ahead by only 6%. The RCP average (which still, for some reason, hasn’t factored in the recent ARG poll that had the two candidates tied) slips down anothe 1/2 a percent to 6.1%.
For the late nighters and insomniacs, live blogging of the Petraeus/Crocker gig:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/watching-the-iraq-hearings-with-petraeus-and-crocker/index.html?hp
…ah, the intertubes are all glowing.
Robert B – They have the latest ARG poll with the tie in the full list, but there is an asterisk beside it. No idea what that signifies.
Pancho #490
At the time over a few blogs you were putting an interesting argument which I wanted to see where it lead.
Your Hillary link is consistent with earlier critiques of Penn , went for big States
which i’ve previously said seemed to misunderstand basic mathematics about winning delegate numbes. Then Howard like Hillary , relied on an alleged expert strategist Textor in 2007 but after reading their ‘advice’ it was miscalulated his opponent entirely.
Robert #497
Obama has narrowed late in almost every Primary for a variety of reasons Pennsylvania should be no exception. Unless obama wins it , both candidates will ‘spin’ their story , leaving the uncommitted SD’s to decide
jv
2 soundbites that will kill McCain in the campaign are his 100 year comment and the comment that he doesn’t know much about the economy.