I disagree. We need to destroy it to save it. Heck, maybe it should be nationalized.

Just curious, since we've had some heated discussions about taxes, and libs by and large have lambasted the Bush tax-cuts and poo-pooed the notion that tax hikes are hurtful to the economy, why is Obama suddenly putting the brakes on all his plans to hike the rich's and big corporation's taxes?

Where are you hearing this? The only thing I've heard is that the Oil Windfall tax is off the table, because there isn't a windfall anymore now that the price per barrel has dropped so much.

Since I'm assuming you're talking largely about me(at least the heated part) I'll explain again that it's not that tax increases can't be harmful it's that they aren't always harmful. Much the same as tax cuts can help spur the overall economy, but won't always.

As for Obama backing away from tax increases, I'm comfortable with him taking advice from a range of respected economists and making this decision. IMO that's a lot different than always favoring cutting taxes regardless of the effect.

The mechanisms are different in this case. Thanks to the crazy way the GOP designed the Bush tax cuts to obfuscate the actual costs, their 10-year tax plan expires in 9 years. So, no action by Congress will mean that most of them will go away.

A windfall tax on oil profits would require action by Congress. These are two very different things.

Congress and the President-Elect will still have to reach an agreement on whch of the Bush tax cuts to extend, either temporarily or permanently. Not all of them will be extended. I still expect that Obama will actively support legislation that will renew most of the Bush tax cuts but those for big corporations and for the wealthiest 1 to 2 percent of Americans to expire. This was his position in the campaign, and I have heard nothing that would change that.

And all of that is fine, if it hadn't been mentioned during the campaign by most people that there was no way that he could implement his tax increases or his oil taxation policies. He was elected by many under the assumption that he would tax the wealthy, despite many indications that wouldn't happen. Now that it appears that his detractors were correct, he's suddenly a wise man for backing off unrealistic promises. I don't mind if he doesn't implement those policies, but they were pie-in-the-sky promises that did little more to garner more votes.

Obama is a politician?

Shocked.

Bump.

Al Franken wins. Technically this is the Obama/McCain thread, but what the hell. Can't let the election die quite yet.

Yeah, this seems strange. They'll be fighting over this for a while.

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the situation. Interesting read. I'm honestly surprised the GOP isn't going to bat for Coleman in this situation more than they have thus far.

Funny Business in Minnesota - WSJ.com

It is because they don't see Coleman as being something they can build on in MN. He lost to Ventura for Governor, barely beat a dead man in his first Senate run, and in a race with a comedian could only garner around 42% of the vote. Since this isn't going to be a seat that makes or breaks a filibuster, they are better off using the resources elsewhere for the midterms.

Hard to beleive that Al Franken is likely to become a senator.

This is America.

Yes, but this is a situation unique to Republicans in Minnesota. The large independent/3rd party block takes votes away from Republicans moreso than Democrats when a third party candidate is running. I don't think this is a situation that would only plague Coleman.

But that's not the case. There isn't a consistent independent/3rd party showing in Minnesota. In the race for President, Obama and McCain got ~98% of the vote. The same can be said for most of the Congressional races as well, in which 6 of the 8 races the Democrats and Republicans got more than 93% of the votes. In the other two races, the 3rd party percentages were 10.04% and 10.56%.

With Coleman, the 3rd party candidate got around 18% of the vote, a much higher percentage than any of the Congressional races. Couple that with his loss to Ventura, and he just isn't a good candidate for the national party to spend much resources defending.

The Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece on the situation...

With the media these days, there is no distinction between opinion piece and article...

538 breaks down this opinion piece on a paragraph by paragraph basis.

Yeah, a big third party showing is unprecedented in Minnesota. It just never happens.........

Jesse Ventura - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And who was his opponent????

That's the exact point I was spelling out. Both in that instance, and in this year's Senate race, the presence of Coleman in the race brought out a much higher than usual turnout for the 3rd party candidate.

FAIL!

Bristol Palin & Fiancé Split - Sarah Palin : People.com


Its a fairy tale, I tell ya.

It's a shame that people use this kind of scenario for amusement. Bristol doesn't deserve any of this coverage. The boldfaced comment shows a relative immaturity by the writer as well. The same kind of stupid things were written about Chelsea and her appearance when she was in the limelight. I'm sure Flasch found that to be joke-worthy as well. He obviously does not have a daughter.

Bristol did nothing more than what millions of young girls have done at the same age. And we wonder after seeing this kind of coverage why so many young girls suffer from poor self-esteem when in similar situations. Young girls in this situation need support. Mocking them only furthers the stigma.

But since there should be a stigma associated with such behavior, I'm okay with that. One of the last things on earth America needs is for teenage parents to become even more "acceptable". The one problem I see with this is that it singles out Bristol Palin for far more attention than any of the teens who put themselves in the same position when she's actually no better or worse than anyone else (she didn't get to request who her mother would be after all) otherwise I'm really not bothered a whit.

the bold face comment was mine. and deleted to avoid further confusion for others.

Im sorry MBBF, but once again you miss the point, again. Not shockingly. although Im sure you somehow were.

THEY INJECTED THEIR RELATIONSHIP into the public eye, or I should say Sarah's and McCain's campaign did. They thought it was a good idea to trumpet as opposed to the opposite that likely would've happened which was they leave them at home and are accused of 'hiding' it. however they were brought out under the umbrella of 'off limits' and then run around from stop to stop. They cleaned Levi up and brought them out on the trail. They were held up as a beacon of Sarah's family tolerance of things out of the usual for the platform she stood. It was all a show.

now that the reality wont be bastardized by the campaign or her office they can let Levi be Levi and Bristol be Bristol which is in stark contrast to the imagery they attempted to paint....to you and me and I apologize for none of the above as you and I were lied to, again.

Really? THEY put it in the public eye? How about Sarah Palin put it in the public eye and Bristol got dragged along.

Either way, it's very immature of anyone to attack a girl in this situation. You're part of the problem, regardless of whether you acknowledge it or not. Like I said, you obviously don't have a daughter. I do, and it provides a much different perspective of how the public treats young women. I hope that you are someday blessed with a beautiful daughter and granted similar perspective on society.

*shudders in horror*

I agree with MBBF.

If you force yourself into the public eye, then you get what you deserve. If Bristol had been left at home, as she should have been, with comments of "this is a personal matter" that's one thing. But they said "this is a personal matter" and then trotted her out on the campaign trail and even brought whats-his-name to try and score political points. You asked for public spotlight, congratulations, you have public spotlight.

SI

But that's her mother/the campaign, not her. So from that standpoint, this really doesn't apply here.

Like I said earlier, I'm an equal opportunity offender. I don't have a problem with attaching a stigma to this whether your name is Laquicia Owens, Bristol Palin, or my own sister (who put herself in a similar position some 16 years ago), but if you're of a different mind about that then I don't see where the forced-into-the-public-eye argument is applicable to Bristol.

That doesn't change what's happening here. You're right that it was justified to question Sarah Palin's motives when she dragged them into the campaign. It was deplorable and I certainly said as much at the time.

With that said, dragging this story out there at this point is spiteful and vindictive. The last thing that needs to be done at this point is for the national media to publicize the break-up of a pregnant high school girl while liberal message boards light up with juvenile laughter over her plight. Millions of young girls who are or will be in similar positions at some point now have their self-esteem lowered because they feel like people are laughing at them as well, which is the exact opposite reaction that these girls need when their psyche is as fragile as it is.

I don't think anyone is attacking the girl. I'm certainly not. I think people have (rightfully) mocked Sarah Palin for promoting abstinence only as a policy when she couldn't even get that to work in her own home.

And I think it's pretty clear now that the "marriage" was forced onto this couple for political purposes, so the religious right could claim that it is family values because they were getting married and being responsible about it. (I'd like to hear what these people are saying now).

I don't think this couple ever wanted to get married (certainly not the guy who had a "I knocked up the wrong girl!" look during the convention), and the fact that they didn't get married just to please others is good news for them and their baby. A sham marriage and painful divorce would have been much worse for the child than being raised separately.

You really think so? I think it's a valid argument in this case since the circumstances mean something- kindof the press equivalent of moral hazard in banking. If you think you're going to get a free pass from the media now that the spotlight is less bright, think again. If you start the story with the press, don't be surprised when they see it through.

I saw more of Palin's kids that I did of any other candidate. Now, McCain and Biden are old enough that we aren't going to get any "cute kid" pictures out of them.

We saw the Obama's kids once for that silly interview back in summer- June or July- and it didn't go well. We really didn't see them again on the campaign trail.

But every time we saw Palin for a couple week stretch when the pregnancy story broke, she was trotting them out there like a prop, trying to build up some political points (and having the side effect of the GOP establishment falling all over themselves to say it was ok).

Yeah, it's dirty. Frankly, I could care less about these stories. I had to spend 30 minutes listening to people talk about Chris Brown at work yesterday (mercifully I had a lot of paperwork to keep me busy) and then they got to listen to me bitch about how I shouldn't even know who these people are (I don't- unless he's the former Titans running back and he's not) or other similarly stupid stories like the octuplets mom or other pseudo-celebrity crap- and how it's not news but it's shows up in the news because people sit here and talk about it for a half hour.

So as long as people are going to gossip about it, it's going to happen so no one should be really surprised that it's out there or fake indignation (not that I'm accusing you of this) when it happens.

SI

I agree with this whole post except for the first sentence. There are people who are attacking/mocking Bristol from a spiteful standpoint. I certainly take you at your word that you are not one of them.

Spot on. Oh and MBBF I am angry. Im surprised that youre not when you and all of America are lied to. I was mad at Paulson when he lied about TARP if you need a comparison. Im not faux-shocked, Im pissed off and feel more right in seeing through it all many pages ago on this very thread (along with many others).

Im not making fun of her, Im pointing out the truth of the matter and am happy for her that she is finally able to be truthful about it all. I feel like today, today of all days, 3/12/09, the final truth of that whole scenario, from Sarah's (if you will) abstinence only initiative, to admitting the pregnancy, to bringing the daughter out on the trail under the guise of privacy, to bringing Levi out and saying theyre engaged, to going home, to the player's going back to their truthful lives....we finally have settled onto the truth and Ill bet it is a load off of Bristol and Levi's shoulders.

It's not even necessarily about "attacking" the girl. It's a shame that a difficult part of her childhood/young adulthood was played out like this. Personally I think Sarah Palin is to blame - in some respects, she had a choice between her political ambitions and her family, and chose the former.

The same crap happened with McCain's adopted child. Her skin color was used to further a scandal for political gains until McCain shot back and proved it was a load of crap.

The Bush girls wanted none of the limelight, but were dragged into the spotlight and demonized for doing stupid things that millions of kids do. I'm sure no one dealt more harshly with them than their father. There was no need to drag them into the public square for further humiliation.

I hope the Obama girls are able to steer clear of similar treatment, but I'm not holding my breath given the way that society feels they need to treat these young girls who are unwillingly thrust into the spotlight.

I think there's a difference when we're talking about a political opponent making fear attacks based on skin color (as was the case with McCain's situation) of a child, or calling the President's daughter ugly (see: Limbaugh and others during the Clinton years).

But I think it's silly to say the President's children getting arrested isn't a valid news story. Hell, there was coverage of Gore's son and he wasn't even in office anymore.

Absolutely, but let's be sure on what I'm agreeing that held as unfair here.

It's not really fair to Bristol to be a poster child she didn't put herself in the public spotlight. That lies with her mother/the campaign/both/whatever.
She's no guiltier of anything than Laquicia, Maria, or Buffy Sue Subdivision. From that standpoint, she gets a raw deal personally (as does the child eventually) assigned as a footnote to history that will likely get her a national news mention in 70 years or so when she dies. Emphasizing here, she didn't ask for the coverage you duly note.

That said, nowhere is it etched in stone that life is fair. It's a perfectly valid story afaic, since it was made a story (albeit by other people) during the campaign. Hell, I believe it was a perfectly valid story even if the campaign had tried to impose a news blackout on it for that matter.

I guess my point here is that the situation being unfair to Bristol while being perfectly legit for the news to cover aren't mutually exclusive things.

I think I agree with Jon {shudder}

I think.

I definitely feel that Sarah/the Campaign/whomever pushed them into the spotlight are at fault for ALL of this. Today you might say is their (Bristol and Levi's) independence day.

Don't get too worried, I think I know where we'll part ways.


Well, they have to share in some of the blame somewhere. After all, if Bristol and/or Levi keep their pants on then we aren't having this discussion at all. They aren't to blame for the coverage it gets, they do get the final blame for creating a situation to cover in the first place.

As for independence, I think you're dreaming. Every time mother, father, or baby gets a speeding ticket it'll be news for the rest of their lives.

I'd hate to be a politician's kid.

On that note, if I was, the press would have had a field day with my shenanigans.

It appears that Strategic Vision may have been completely making up their polling. From Nate Silver:


http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/...t-unusual.html

I have been following this on 538 and it has been really interesting.

Would add, however, that there is a legitimate Strategic Vision (Inc.) that does polling, as opposed to Strategic Vision LLC. Not sure which of the two outfits provided the PA poll, though.

Thanks for ruining my thread kill.

Thanks. I haven't been following it that closely, but I thought the last number analysis was fascinating. It really does seem like they have been making up their poll numbers for years.

Was the incentive just to draw people to their site for advertising revenue I assume?

And to get people on random message boards to quote incorrect polling numbers in PA.

In my limited reading of the situation it seems that they were being paid for polls that they may not have been conducting. Garden variety fraud, but with bigger public consequences than most.

In another post I just finished reading at 538 the recent Oklahoma citizenship school quiz that showed up in another thread gets taken apart. Strategic Visions LLC also did that, but Nate's analysis suggests it was made up.

Okay, I've read the 538 blog/post/article/whateveritwas and I've read the reader comments there which followed.

Has the FOFC heavy duty math/stats contingent studied & dismissed the questions which were raised about possible flaws in the analysis or are we just generally assuming he's right 'cause he's got a website & blogs?

FTR, I've got no real dog in the fight afaic, either the data was delivered straight or the numbers were cooked for one or more reasons, I don't see a whole lot of gray between those two possibilities unless you want to figure out something like "how cooked were they" ... I'm more inclined to go with they either were or they weren't, close enough for my purposes I think.

I'm not going to pretend I understand every fine point of the questions that were raised about the analysis itself (although I think I did reasonably followed the appearance of problems that 538 raised) nor do I have the time or energy to try to get that far up the stat curve to fully grasp them. But I know we've got several people here who would find that right in their wheelhouse & I'm wondering what they think of those possible flaws in the analysis.

I don't count myself amongst the "heavy duty math/stats contingent" here, but in general I think Nate Silver's grasp of statistics is assumed on the bases that a) he developed PECOTA and b) his statistical model correctly predicted the presidential election result in every state but Indiana and correctly predicted the result of every race for the U.S. Senate.

Yeah, I don't consider him just another blog. He's a really smart numbers guy and has a solid track record behind it.

Plus he's become pretty succesful. Has a book deal and so forth. I can't fathom he'd risk a defamation suit over something he wasn't certain about. He's not one to throw around wild accusations for attention.

Alls I'm wondering is whether the seemingly reasonable questions about the possible limitations to the method he used to analyze the data are, well, as reasonable as they appeared to be. Like I said, somewhere along the way the questions went beyond the scope of my knowledge so I'm not sure if they're solid questions or just looked like solid questions if you know what I mean.

I haven't had a chance to see whether he eventually answered those questions or not, but while I'm fairly comfortable that he knows his stuff well enough to have dealt with the issues raised about his own analysis that's not a guarantee that he did actually consider them, one of those "only human" kind of things.

You also have to keep in mind that there is a lot of evidence that SV LLC is being dishonest. Added to the statistical analysis done by 538 is the fact that SV LLC refuses to show anything other than the final numbers of their polling, the fact that of the three addresses they list as offices all three are UPS stores, and the fact that their physical location seems to be in a hotel plaza in a small town two hours north of Atlanta.

Of all the issues , the most damning is their refusal to release any poll internals. If they had actually taken polls it should be pretty easy to release a section of a past political poll to prove they are at least actually calling people.

That's fair enough based on what I can see from a few quick reads but it doesn't make the 538 analysis necessarily without flaw either. That's the part I was really wondering about since at some point the questions about their (538's) methods started going over my head. Since those questions showed up over there a bit before the comments started heading into fully partisan territory on both sides, and they at least sounded reasonable to me, I was as interested as anything in whether they turned out to be on the mark or not from the standpoint of whether "sounding right" or plausible turned out to be right or even plausible. Sort of a "could I tell the difference" thing just for me personally.



I'm going to take a leap of faith here & guess that you know that's not all unheard of as a business tactic even for perfectly legitimate businesses, right? And especially for businesses physically located outside major metro areas whose clientele is largely from/tuned to major markets.

We never did it because we eventually decided it was better to turn our location into a positive instead of trying to hide it as a negative but it's something I run into probably 2-3 times a year at least. Most recently was another ad agency that we briefly considered merging with, who prominently claimed locations in Atlanta, New York, and Washington with another opening soon in Dallas. The DC location was actually a small apartment one of the guys maintained up there for personal use, the New York location was somebody's parents home, and the new Dallas location was the basement office at the home of a freelancer they were hiring largely to claim the Dallas location & he was happy to do it since he could then claim connections to three other cities. Their (the ad agency that is) business is completely legit, it just happens to be in an industry where looking bigger than you really are is a significant advantage if you're good enough at faking it not to get caught.

None of which makes 538 completely legit, completely crooked, or anything in between. Just saying that the address thing isn't exactly unique nor even indicative of substantial fraud either.

I don't think any single issue is that big of a deal, but the volume of problems is pretty damning IMO, especially since they won't show any of their work. One poll's internals would put all the speculation to rest.

Just wanted to bring this gem back to life

United States presidential election in Pennsylvania, 2008 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PA went 54.47% Obama and 44.15% McCain.

:lol:

Huh. Usually his predictions are spot on. Are you sure history isn't wrong?