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.
KR a gentle reminder to our dear readers & posters…
‘With US in crisis, global economy in peril: IMF’ & why?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/09/2212609.htm?section=justin
& a not so gentle reminder of the sh*t / fan /great american down syndrome…hell someone has to say wtf’s going on here buddy? etc …etc…
Why has it always got to be us? Pre Basra, Pre Baghdad Maliki provincial election strategy…& on & on & on….here
http://ia341012.us.archive.org/3/items/maabo/maabo.wmv
Interesting that this is still live but the site i got it from isn’t btw tut tut tut…oh dear…what they don’t understand is that…ha ha ha …
Hillary’s better health care policy
My blogs #597 and #601 taken collectively stated the case , 2 labor principles
but not the 3rd which is unattainable in the US.
And j/v #591 in rebutal gives no opinions , just quotes from & links to a site run by a single person who runs a Health care blog site ,
who was the CEO of the 8th largest auto , home & life INSURANCE COMPANY in the US.
And he would not have links & ‘associations’ with the Health Insurance Industry, which is (with Drug companys) the CAUSE of the mess in US healthcare system !
Thats like saying Obama is unsuitable 2 be POTUS quoting Fox News as a source
Actually Hillary’s plan also could be improved but its based on 2 labor principles , a subject your source being an Insurance CEO would not understand & worse mocks as quote “centrist” which is a code word for “Big Government”.
..a John Howard charge always made against the ALP equity principles ,
you are in strange ‘company’
The Huckster has a countdown on his website and is making an announcement in 5 days: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/09/mike-huckabee-has-a-secre_n_95830.html.
Come on, Huck! If he ran, the whole south would be in play for the Dems.
Ron, one possible real problem with Hillary’s healthcare policy is that it would never get through Congress as it currently stands unless the Dems had 60% (I think) of numbers and were able to override the constant reviews and Congressional maneuvering that the Republicans would pursue. And it seems unlikely that they would end up with such numbers. Anything with the word ‘mandate’ in it is an anathema to the Republicans and they would derail and stall as a matter of principle. This is not a reflection on the actual policies, but what the President will need to deal with.
#605
Pancho – spot on!
Good to see someone here understands the most important characteristic of the competing policy proposals. In terms of substance they are for all practice purposes the same, but when we look at the potential for bipartisan engagement taking into account the package, the delivery process, and the messenger – the Obama package is something far more likely to succeed.
602
codger
The IMF is wiping the egg off its face, as last year their assesment was that the sub-prime debacle would be contained in the US and not be too big a deal.
It’s funny, but maybe the ‘experts’ hadn’t been reading the same economic commentators I’ve been reading this century! LOL
(Doug Nolan for example has been banging this drum about a meltdown with the easy credit and lax lending standards and whole CDO debacle for more years than I can remember. There’s been plenty of others too, it’s not like it was a friggin’ secret that mortgage debt was being leveraged like all hell and was going to go toxic at some point.)
But anyway, good on the IMF for now telling us what’s bleedin’ obvious ie credit markets are stuffed, losses are HUGE, and the smartest guys in the room will be parking cars and sweeping streets now that the whole premise of Wall Street has been exposed as a house of cards. As Volcker sort of said, it didn’t pass the smell test, only more politiely. They’ve been living in a dream of money being made in their fantasy factories, but the reality is more like a nightmare, and all those ‘profits’ have turned into losses.
The world, my friend, is undergoing some radical changes, and before it gets pretty its going to be very, very ugly…for quite a while.
Yep, 60 Senate votes needed:
“On his dreamiest Election Night, Sen. Charles Schumer has visions of picking off long-shot red states like Mississippi, Alaska and North Carolina, riding what he calls a “tectonic” shift that would endow his Senate Democrats with the elusive 60th vote.
But as the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee chairman, Schumer is paid to be optimistic, and the reality is that even if Democrats run perfect campaigns across the country, the stars align and John McCain has absolutely no coattails, Democrats will most likely fall short of the filibuster-proof majority they so desperately seek.
…Senate election expert Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report says that on a bad night, Democrats will pick up three seats and achieve 54 votes. On a good night, they might hit 57.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9476.html
Ah Ron, I see you went on and on again late into the small hours. Somewhere in there I think I discern a roundabout admission that the Dems policy (both of them) are nothing like traditional Labor policy here, because, as you finally admit: “To the US that would be socialism”. You can’t say that and stand by your original comment that Hillary’s health policy is traditional Labor policy.
The difficulties of Obama’s and Clinton’s policies are the same – like the policies themselves – how do you make private insurance affordable for poor Americans when it costs up to $12,00 a year even when assisted by employers? Neither policy explains how that would be achieved, apart from expressions of hope. Whether it is compulsory or not, the point is whether it’s affordable for everybody. You can make it compulsory for those who cannot afford to pay if you like, but what does that achieve? If they can’t pay, they can’t pay.
The Dems policy from both candidates is a capitulation to the insurance industry, becasue of Hillary’s group’s failure to get the 1993 policy through due to her political ineptness, secretiveness in policy development, and failure to bring the main players along with her. It now is political poison in the US to suggest a government run universal health-care scheme. That approach has had to be completely abandoned. Thanks Hillary.
609 – That should be ‘costs up to $12,000 a year’
Wasn’t General Odom refreshing? He was on Lateline last night saying that the US is the problem in Iraq and nothing can change that fact, and sure, you can pay off the Sunni not to attack you, you can prop up an unrepresentative bunch of corrupt Shia in the Green Zone, you can let the Kurds peel off a part of the country for themselves, but you CANNOT call it ‘success’.
Plain speaking from a US general, only comes when they’re retired however!
Oh, and Iran? Well, they’ve got no interest in seeing Iraq unstable so the US needs to talk to them when they pull out.
Simple really, it was a mistake to go in, it’s a mistake to stay, and there’s nothing to be gained by the pig-headed notion that there’s any kind of ‘victory’ to be had throwing more bodies and treasure on the pile that’s already big enough.
His forecast for what will transpire when they leave: another Saddam will eventually emerge, as the current bunch in Baghdad will not be able to bring the place together.
Back from whence it came, onya George.
More PA polls today:
InsiderAdvantage 48/38, Clinton +10
PPP 46/43, Clinton +3
Strategic Vision 47/42, Clinton +5
Also Gallup Tracking puts Obama +10 for the democratic nomination.
KR, Colbert had a great bit in his infamous 2006 roast about the political views of retired Generals. During his scan of the crowd he began:
“See who we’ve got here tonight. We’ve got General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. We’ve got General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren’t retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld…”
I’d still be pretty surprised if Obama got within 5 of Hillary in Penn to be honest, although all these polls make for interesting reading.
And Clinton still seems confident that she is ahead, although the campaign seems to be calling black grey, if not white, with its management of percetions here:
‘”The fact that we still maintain a lead after Sen. Obama spent six days here and got the backing of [Pennsylvania] Sen. [Bob] Casey, and in light of being outspent, I think it is remarkable that we still maintain a lead,” said T.J. Rooney, the state’s Democratic Party chairman.’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/09/clinton-camp-its-a-miracl_n_95883.html
613
Pancho
He’s pretty astute, that Colbert, and same goes for Jon Stewart, they’ve got more intelligent things to say about America than bus load of nattering neocon nabobs.
As for Penn, although I don’t follow the polls quite as closely as you do, my impression is that Obama has closed the gap, but it’s not likely he’ll do better than take away a ‘big’ victory from Clinton.
Whether that’s enough to end her campaign is the question, eh?
j/v ,
your credibilty was shot by your OWN reliance in #691 on an INSURANCE expert
to rebut my views.
As for understanding the 2 Labor principles inherrent in Hillary’s policy & the interdependent political nature of those & the impossible of the 3rd one ,
(living reluctantly with a basic cake of American culture) ,
your zero understanding of basic Public Policy formulation concepts with outcomes based on equity & interdependent political prioritys is typical of the one of the sub categories of Obamabots.
Thats the ‘elitist aristocrat, literary snouted brigade’
I also noticed that the angle from the Hillary camp in regards to PA is starting to change. Wolfson appears to be lowering the expectations:
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/04/wolfson_obama_must_win_pennsyl.html
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2008/04/wolfson_obama_b.html
That’s a big change from early in the PA campaign when he was saying:
‘Ullo Bludgers, since we’re deep in-thread, I can’t let this one through to the keeper without comment.
Jv at 576, that’s one of the best online reads of the year. William, sincerely urge you to give the Eric Holterman essay a squiz (if you havn’t already) so that the genesis of what’s happening here on PB Sep threads is given due focus.
“Arthur Miller once described a good newspaper as “a nation talking to itself.” If only in this respect, the Huffington Post is a great newspaper. It is not unusual for a short blog post to inspire a thousand posts from readers—posts that go off in their own directions and lead to arguments and conversations unrelated to the topic that inspired them. Occasionally, these comments present original perspectives and arguments, but many resemble the graffiti on a bathroom wall.
The birth of the liberal blogosphere, with its ability to bypass the big media institutions and conduct conversations within a like-minded community, represents a revival of the Deweyan challenge to our Lippmann-like understanding of what constitutes “news” and, in doing so, might seem to revive the philosopher’s notion of a genuinely democratic discourse.
Thanks to the Web, we can all join in a Deweyan debate on Presidents, policies, and proposals. All that’s necessary is a decent Internet connection. “
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman
The last para about “a decent Internet connection” is wherein lies the rub, especially in countries like Singapore, China and Nth Korea, for example, where State control is tighter than the proverbial kipper’s ring. A site like this would last about 60 seconds flat in those countries before being terminated. This type of brutal internet censorship occurs with the co-operation of corporations like Google and Yahoo who don’t give a toss about “democratic freedoms” as long they can do business.
In Singapore the totalitarian State control of the internet is “justified” because of the perceived threat of “homegrown terrorism”.
#605 Pancho ,
agreed , point taken. however a Hillary warts & all but who does have ‘ticker’ would fight to undermine some sitting Repugs seat support base to get votes.
Its not unusual in the US (unlike in ‘oz’) for Pollies to cross the floor
and Repugs always throw away their shallow philosophys to cross the floor when their seat is endangered. How to achieve that…big job & would take time.
But Pancho , the healthcare mess is by far the NUMBER ONE domestic issue (until February) so the ground is extremely fertile.
(Wall Street consequences may be now no.1)
If its worth fighting for , the battle is always long & hard don’t you think
Greetings Bludgers!
Yep KR and Pancho, BHO still has the MO and the contest in PA is narrowing. The Hillary camp is obviously preparing for a closer than expected contest (yet again. Why hasn’t that young black man gone away yet?! Doesn’t he know his place?). Now they’re saying that Obama MUST win PA to demonstrate he can win big states.
So the scene is set for a win by (in my view) Hillary by less than 10% (I’m guessing around 6-7%). The difference in PDs will be minimal but the script she’s now writing will allow Hillary to play up her argument that BHO can’t win where it counts, even when he outspends her by 3 to 1, and therefore she will be hanging around till Denver because she’s the only candidate who can win. It’s almost plausible if you ignore everything that has gone before.
So don’t expect a Clinton withdrawal anytime soon.
Ron @ 616 – Suggestion for your consideration: less labelling of people, less incoherent rambling and more direct answers to direct points.
Your ‘views’ stand rebutted, to the extent thay can be identified.
MayoFeral at 594, that’s a spot-on assessment.
MF: “China needs our minerals just as much as we need them buying the stuff. If they got really upset they could gradually move their imports to our competitors, almost certainly at higher prices, but that would take years and in the meantime India’s
increasing needs would likely take up the slack.”
Kirribilli Removals at 595: “Lieberman’s a nasty bit of work.”
Yes, indeed, that’s why there are some here among us who refer to the warmongering little twerp as Joey “The Rat” Liebermann. The McCain Whisperer routine is merely one recent example of his willingness as a war booster. For those who followed “Independent Democrat” Joey the Rat’s GOP backed snuffing of Ned Lamont’s 2006 Senate bid (on FDL and The Next Hurrah) after Ned got the CT Dem nomination, Joey ain’t nuthin’ but a GOPper stooge.
And at 615, KR, Stewart and Colbert’s writers are pretty good too as we discovered in the recent strike.
Ecky, that’s all fine and dandy, us being engaged in a Deweyan dialogue (whatever that is! LOL) and generating a truly democratic discourse, but just try and make sense of #601, let alone glorify it with some post modern fancy title!
Why JV even bothers is utterly beyond me.
Ron,
While crossing the floor is not a foreign thing in US politics, Government run universal-healthcare is against the GOPs core policies, and is anathema to most of their Reps and Senators.
Their Party platform in 2004 had this to say on healthcare:
Alas Ferny, our fine fronded friend, I suspect you’re right, she’s like my throat infection, not going away. (Halfway through antibiotics, and as I said to the pharmacist, they’re not children, they’re vectors! She nearly choked laughing!)
But I’m putting my faith in modern medicine to beat this thing, and I’ve put my money on Obama too! LOL
KR @ 623 [just try and make sense of #601 … Why JV even bothers is utterly beyond me.]
Exactly what I have been reflecting on KR – last night I promised myself to disengage there, but the frustration got the better of me. However, that’s it, no more. Stop me if I falter, will you 🙂
Ha JV, I’ve been there, I’ve shared your pain! LOL
But really, when someone displays such an appalling grasp of the logical construction of language, what they are saying becomes so opaque you end up fighting shadows.
I’ll slap you if you do it again, OK?
KR – Yes, please do. Those vectors are everywhere.
Oh look, oil at $112/b, ain’t that great news?
Yeah, it’s tough, but give a thought for the world’s poor who are paying double what they did a year ago for rice, and every other staple is on raging price spike.
Obama was right, the pain trickles up.
JV,
Typical of you Obamaphiles. Losing the argument agaisnt the cogent and articulate Ron, and you choose to disengage rather than face the powerful truths of his posts.
Looks like you are lacking in the ticker department JV.
Here’s one take on a young mandate system in Mass.: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/9/185324/8595/348/492915
It all seems pretty messy, and slapping a mandate on top of it all, in the context of the entire thing, perhaps isn’t the correct first step.
630
Greensborough Growler
” the cogent and articulate Ron”
Smoking crack again GG? You know it rots your teeth? Too late for the brain I see! LOL
Go and read #601, and come back and tell us all what (if anything) it means!
Go on, and don’t cheat with Bablefish, ok?
Good one GG @ 630 -[the cogent and articulate Ron]
irony alert successfully detected 😉
KR,
Easy peasy.
Hillary has better health policies than Obama.
JV can’t maintain an argument.
Maybe all that popcorn and toast has rotted your faculties.
OK, I’ve solved it. Take the main paragraph of #601, translate it into German with Bablefish, and then back to English.
See the improvement:
Far could it to seize, which I was not the obvious connection of those 2 basic rules to the reality would have thought to be what existing US health system am and the logically following restriction therefore for the government at all in that am, (as in Australia) the direct payment main servicer.
…ah, the intertubes, enhancing our understanding and our Deweyan dialogues!
Growler 634, that’s a statement, not a set of reasons explaining how a conclusion was reached. But that’s ok, the crack eases the pain, for a while! LOL
GG 634 – [JV can’t maintain an argument.]
Not feasible against a syntactic and shifting shambles.
See #609 for the argument ($1,200 should read $12,000). No direct hits yet. Argument maintenance not required.
Oh KR you are a regular Humpty Dumpty.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’
You’ll do yourself an injury laughing so much at your own jokes.
KR 2 635- [that’s a statement, not a set of reasons explaining how a conclusion was reached]
KR, Diogenes would be proud of you. The expression for that sort of bald unreasoned statement was coined ‘ipsedixitism’ by Jeremy Bentham (from the Latin ‘ipse dixit’ – literally: ‘he said it himself’), for a ‘self-referential appeal to authority’.
Come on GG, can’t you do better than that?
I laughed a lot louder and longer at yours: ”the cogent and articulate Ron”
It still cracks me up.
#619 Rondroid said
Back in April though to Dec. 2007 the top ranked issues were:
1. War in Iraq (42 -> 36)
2. The Economy (13 -> 16)
3. Healthcare/health insurance (11 -> 15)
More recent polling on issues by CNN shows the economy (42%) overtaking Iraq (21%) to take out the number one and two spots while healthcare remains third at (18%).
[Come on GG, can’t you do better than that?
I laughed a lot louder and longer at yours: ”the cogent and articulate Ron”
It still cracks me up.]
I think the best bit i liked about the statement was the ‘powerful’ truths…
hyperbole much?
GG – please – you can do better than this and you and I both know it.
Closing price for a Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton victory in the Democrats Presidential Primaries reached a new low on Intrade today with a victory currenty trading at 13.3. In comparison Barack Obama who closed the day at 85.5.
Mission accomplished.
GG cheekily lobs another of his drivel bombs into our midst and everyone runs around, jumps up and down, does a John Cleese silly walk followed by a foot stamp, squawks like a cockatoo and blows a raspberry at the PC.
People – get a grip. The purpose is not to present a cogent argument. It’s to get exactly the response it did.
As Hoges used to say – ‘Keep on dancin’ Maria…’
…and Hillary makes a comeback on the Deathwatch…
http://www.slate.com/id/2188627/
js @ 640 That’s right, the health issue is number 3 on the charts for the general election, but between the Dem candidates when their health policies are effectively just the party’s, it is almost inert. I did see one reference to it by a Clinton teamster somewhere recently, but it was only an attempt to mark out non-existent territory.
FernyG 2 644 […everyone runs around, jumps up and down, does a John Cleese silly walk followed by a foot stamp, squawks like a cockatoo and blows a raspberry at the PC. ]
How can you see what I’m doing Ferny? 😕
Looks like PA will be a 5-10 point win for Hillary, which reallly should mean the end of the line, because that is not going to give her sufficient pledged delegates gien the remaiing primaries, nor is there any reason as to why it would suddenly reverse the 75/25 divergence to Obama in the supers committing since February. Hillary needs 78% of the remaining superdelegates, but is getting 22%. What’s the point in going on?
And then after PA is NC:
‘Voter Registration Surges in North Carolina
“More than four times as many blacks have registered to vote in North Carolina during the first few months of 2008 as four years ago, a sign that bodes well for Sen. Barack Obama in the state’s May 6 Democratic presidential primary,” the Associated Press reports. ‘
jv @ 648,
In Australia we would call this sort of behaviour branch stacking. Many would be outraged. It might win the NC Primary but how do you think this activity will play out in the wider electorate.
I reckon it might scare a lot of people and might even be counterproductive to Obama’s campaign.
Sounds reasonable. However – my bones are telling me this could something around a 6-7% Clinton victory.
GG – I had a chuckle at your earlier comment, but if you really think that registering voters in the U.S. is analogous to branch stacking here, you are really displaying an ignorance of the U.S system.
Also, all Democrats able to see beyond this primary season are over the moon about registration numbers this year and their implications for November.