How can you not hear the boos? Right when she's walking out onto the ice they're plain as day to hear.

No, no... they were saying MOOOOOOOSE (hunter)

;)

I don't know.. I didn't hear any boos when she was announced.. or if there were any, it was hard to pick them up. The only thing i heard was when the crowd yelled for the former Flyers fan that accompanied her out there.

Seems to be a big deal made over nothing here.

ROFLMAO

I think the big deal is that she was at a hockey game instead of doing any of the Sunday news shows. Bill Kristol called her out on that on Chris Wallace's show, but I guess he's just part of that "gotcha" media.

She's really turned out to be a complete joke and Bobby Jindal is going to wipe the floor with her in 2012.

I guess that makes sense. I don't really think that is a big deal either, because she probably doesn't belong on any of those Sunday news shows either. I think a hockey game seems like a perfect place for her. Take from that what you will :)

I'd drop her puck.....did I say that out loud?

It's not a big deal, but these are the fans that booed Santa Claus. If they wanted a hockey event visual go to the Lightning or Panthers. If it had to be in PN, the Penguins would have been a better choice.

This ad is very amusing. It's from GOP Senator Gordon Smith:



He's apparently been running ads like this all year. Not sure it will work, though. The Dems tried this tactic in 2002 and failed miserably.

Interesting article on RCP, an op-ed detailing why the "Bradley Effect" (people who tell pollsters that they will vote for a minority candidate, or are undecided to appear politically correct, but will not vote for a minority), isn't in play in this election:

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Bradley Effect – Selective Memory

Crossing Over - WSJ.com

A story in the Wall Street Journal about working class woman crossing over for Obama.

Some of the quotes are emblematic of the whole "those folks make me nervous, but I'm losing too much money to go in a different direction" that the political dialogue have seemed to move towards.

Spot the FOFCER! I think I spotted Vegas Vic and JiMGa ;)

McCain has plenty of time left. As McCain will unveil in a new stump speech today, he's got the Democrats right where he wants them.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - New McCain stump: ‘We’ve got them just where we want them’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

Marvin Lewis also announced that the Bengals have the NFL, "right where we want them."

haha -- actually, he said, "My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them."

If McCain means that he wants Obama in the White House, maybe McCain truly is a maverick!

Golden. The final three weeks will actually be fairly entertaining. I have every SNL on Tivo in anticipation.

It's really not nice to mock senility.

Heh. I watched a forum that had two Georgia debates and the party lines got blurred. In the Georgia 8th, Dem Jim Marshall was being attacked for voting for the bailout. In the Georgia Senate debate, Democrat Jim Martin and Libertarian Allen Buckley were attacking Republican Saxby Chambliss for his vote for the bailout.

For the record, I think the incumbent lost both debates. The funniest moment was when Saxby Chambliss defended his vote on the bailout by comparing it to 9/11. I think even Rudy Giuliani is like, "Really?" on that one.

And, as you know, it's unlikely it will matter in the outcome of either race.

I've started to see a lot more Saxby commercials here, which is pretty funny. Two months ago, you wouldn't have known he was running for re-election as Jim Martin commercials were the only one. Now that his polling has dropped, he suddenly feels the need to "state his case" or whatever.

I still think Saxby will convince the good ole boys they need to come out and vote, and he'll end up winning. Such a shame.

Probably not. I doubt many people actually saw it, aside from supporters whose votes are determined. But I think Chambliss and especially Marshall are in real trouble this year.

I don't know if I even think Marshall is in any jeopardy, much less Chambliss.
The benefits of incumbency are extremely difficult to overcome, even more so when the challenges are uninspiring.

More McCain supporters helpin' the cause:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n4516866.shtml

Well, that's one way to win with honor. It seems like many McCain supporters are getting really desperate and some are even jumping ship. According to the McCain campaign, even Bill Kristol is now in the tank for Obama-

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/13/...-bill-kristol/

Forget about Bill Ayers. I want to know about Obama's links to this family...

What do you expect him to say? We're finished?

Saw this over on Sullivan's blog...

"To recap: anti-war protesters had an anti-war sign, Obama supporters booed McCain, and a heckler called McCain a liar. Yeah, that's pretty much the same as calling Obama a terrorist, a socialist, an Arab, and comparing him to a stuffed monkey."

How quickly we forget:

Green Left - Cover Story: J20: 'Hail to the thief'



Or how about these "non-angry" protests against Bush in the last year plus:


March 2007 in Alameda CA


San Francisco CA March 2007


August 12, 2007 in San Fran

And the best:


Burning Bush in Effigy on Election night, November 2, 2004, San Francisco

The point here is each side uses anger and fear to get votes. When it benefited the left, no one minded election season acts of burning Bush in effigy or hanging him. There would probably be a ton of anger towards McCain and Palin now from the left if anyone felt they had a chance (just look at all the "rape" comments and such against Palin early on). But, no one is angry enough to yell at McCain now because he's a senile old man with no chance.

Both sides have an angry fringe that can be mobilized at a moment's notice. In the event that butterfly ballots are distributed throughout the US and population is confused enough to vote McCain in, I'm sure we'd see a ton of anger from the left like in 2001 and 2004.

Let's not forget attempts to call Bush a fascist and a Nazi (and I'm sure we've all seen that).

I love how the guy with a poster saying "Kill Bush" felt the need to sensor the f-bomb. Once your poster advocates murder you might as well go all in.

My real problem is the way McCain has handled it. He still seems to want to fan the flames. Then he gets the anger built up and can score points for telling a couple of crazies to shut up. I mean, he even equivocated about whether the Virginia GOP Chairman's Obama-Osama comments were appropriate. Whatever.

New Rasmussen polls in battleground states:

Florida

Obama 51 (-1)
McCain 46 (+1)


MISSOURI

Obama 50 (Even)
McCain 47 (Even)

N. Carolina

Obama 48 (-1)
McCain 48 (+3)


Ohio

Obama 49 (+2)
McCain 47 (-1)


Virginia

Obama 50 (Even)
McCain 47 (-1)



Despite McCain making slight gains in NC it's still looking pretty good for Obama supporters, Rasmussen has leaned Republican compared to other polls and McCain probably has to sweep all five of these states to have a chance at winning.

Heh. So earlier I showed McCain's ties to Ayers through the Annenbergs. Now it looks like he's buddy buddy with ACORN. I can't wait to find out his ties to Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright.

Please see 1990s, Clinton.

I won't argue who has the most/worst nuts, but anthring happening now goes back to Clinton and beyond.

It could also be the fact you live in Cambridge;)

I think there is a bit of both, but mostly because they see where the polls are going and are getting pissed off that Obama looks like he's going to win and get vast Dem majorities in the House and Senate... and there may be a fear that it could be a realigning election (though we won't know that for sure for 12-20 years).

Conservatives are fearful because the conservatives with voices have made it that way.

Liberal is a bad word. The further left you go the closer you get to communism. (Whereas the further right you are just called a libertarian and the like. Never anarchist or fascist, unless you are a wacko protester of course.) The right polarized their side of the debate into clear good and evil moreso than the left.

Is it any wonder that some of followers on the right are scared? Evil is about to win.

Wait... so the left has never called anyone on the right "fascist"? The last 8 years begs to differ with that POV.

Would you not agree that its much more accepted to call a far left person a socialist or communist than call a far right person a fascist? That conservative can rarely be said with negative connotation but liberal is meant as a bad word?

I hear and read right leaning mainstream(as in not blogs and the like) media call people/policies in the left communists and socialists all the time, I rarely, if ever hear the other side called facists or anarchists in similar situations. (Now in protests, in political discussions, on blogs, and on very rare occasions in regular media? Sure.)

Obama goes on the news today and calls McCain a conservative. The majority of Americans thinks, what? So what? If he is he is? McCain calls Obama a Liberal and he is perceived by nearly everyone as having thrown out a clear insult.

The right was pretty hard on Clinton. I think the left is a little worse though, as most leaning left tend to be more emotional with their political views.

If the left would just embrace the liberal term like the right has conservative, I doubt there would be much of an issue. Yet, for some reason, those on the left don't like being called liberal. That has made the term "more negative" than conservative.

There is a lot of socialistic ideas in the democratic party. But, that's not the same as fascism - there are many solid western countries who have embraced socialism - not too many who have embraced fascism. A better parallel to the socialism claim would be the "unbridled capitalism" that one can't go a day without hearing from those leaning left when talking about republicans.

That's because, for whatever reason, the democratic party is afraid to admit they have liberal ideas. When right started calling the left "liberal", the left could have said "so what?" and disarmed it. Instead, they ran from it like the plague making most non-political voters think there's something wrong with the term.

I look forward to your substantiation of this claim.

Using the same logic, "no one" minded when people ridiculed John Kerry's military service.

I don't think this generalization is true. Watch any rally with Palin. The die-hard social conservatives in the GOP are plenty emotional. And as 2000 and 2004 proved, there are plenty of them out there.

You're trying to perpetuate this incorrect meme of left-of-center Americans as childlike, emotional and out of touch with reality, and right-of-center Americans as rational, calm, self-starters. It's a Rovian caricature not based in fact.

ohhhh...SNAP

Not to mention, it's emotional, nutty conservatives who shoot/bomb/burn abortion clinics/the doctors who work in them. Or call people Arabs who clearly are not. Or yell "kill him" at rallies. Or say we should nuke the Middle East into glass.

No, I wouldn't agree. The amount of times I've heard Bush is a fascist over the last 8 years completely disabuses me of that notion.


As Arles pointed out, if the left adopted the term and told the right to shut up, it wouldn't have been a negative. The left seems to reject being called "liberal" and seems to prefer "progressive".

In the regular media I hear the right call the left socialist, but also the left call the right authoritarian (or authoritarian policies). What's worse?

I try to call him a fascist AT LEAST once a day. And we're related. :rant:

Maybe they were just misinterpreting the story about Moses and the burning bush in their play about Passover ;)

SI

"I was saying Boo-urns"

SI

Obama is now advertising in video games.

http://gigaom.com/2008/10/13/confirm...g-on-xbox-360/

Absolutely.

How about a bit of racism? I had the distinct displeasure yesterday of witnessing a bit of the right-wing anger. A man's truck parked in his driveway, vandalized with the N-word and "NObama" all over it. *sigh*

Interesting story from The Huffington Post. Apparently McCain's transition chief did lobbying work for Saddam Hussein...

McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort

The reason is simple: "liberal' is simply the wrong word with all sorts of connotations that simply don't apply to those who would call themselves "progressives". It embraces all sorts of attitudes that progressives would reject - there's even an element of libertarianism in there. There's also a suggestion of unworldly "fairies at the bottom of the garden" mentality - tree huggers and the sandals and incense crowd.

The term is simply inaccurate and misleading. The Liberal Party in Australia is the equivalent to the Republican Party, the term referring to "liberal economics" ie a small government, free market philosophy. The Liberal Party in Britain was the crackhead's party (now reworked with an element of political professionalism as the Liberal Democrats).

The term "liberal" is far too vulnerable to a broad interpretation that allows progressives to be criticised for opinions that they would reject outright.

Oh gawd now we have two terrorists running for president :banghead:

Seriously though, what is a "transition chief" exactly?

the guy who smooths the transition between one presidency to another

But Barack Obama told me that McCain and Bush are the same person anyway, sounds like an unnecessary position.

Dear God, the floor keeps dropping out from underneath McCain:

National Poll Differentials:

Newsweek (Obama +11)
ABC/Post (Obama +10)
Democracy Corps (Obama +10)
Research 2000 (Obama +10)
Battleground (Obama +13)
Gallup (Likely Voters II Model) (Obama +10)

And today, a new CBS/New York Times poll puts it at Obama +14 head to head (+12 with third party candidates).

I will make no bones about who I support in this election. But I kept looking at the numbers and saying they have to start "regressing to the mean" at some point. Sooner or later, Obama has to mis-step, or McCain has to come up with an effective way to plink away at Obama's support.

That's not happening. The floor keeps dropping out.. Could we legitimately see a 60/40 election win? Could it be the Democrat mandate with a filibuster proof 60 senators? (odds are apparently 3 in 10).

I can't believe it, and I won't believe it till it actually happens. At some point this race HAS to tighten, doesn't it?

and from the can they botch this any worse dept:

remember that second investigation that Palin started in AK about Troopergate?

Welp, looks like they addigned a trial lawyer who was a contributor to her opponent during the last election for her and the lawyer expects to have her testify on the issues at hand in regards to the investigation....

I'd say again:

I hope she fully cooperates.

With the atmosphere that surrounds so many of his rallies it can't drop fast enough.

http://www.colorofchange.org/united/?id=1445-163989

Nah - we've gotten used to super-close elections but it isn't the norm historically.

I think Obama gains even more momentum leading up to election day and this is a blowout beyond what anyone is expecting.

WOW. That's fucked up.

It's a position to transition the presidency to McCain if he wins the election.

You're right, it is a completely unnecessary position.

But, if she doesn't want to, she can just fire the personnel board and end the investigation right there.

With recent polls showing places like CO and MO trending into "safe" or "likely" Obama pickups, I wonder if this validates Obama's strategy of trying to seriously campaign in as many states as possible.

Of course, it's likely he had to do this at least in part to win the Democratic nomination against Clinton, who had many of the "safe Democratic" states locked up.

However, I wonder, if Clinton had won the nomination, if her GE campaign would have focused on a tactical victory, basically going for Kerry states & MI, PA & FL. Arguably this would have made life easier for McCain, as many of the states he's contesting now (VA, NC, WI, even ND?) would have been safely in the bag.

Colorado or Missouri would have been on any Democratic nominees list of states to focus on. After all, they've been very close swing states in the last couple elections.

Even if your goal is the Kerry states + MI, PA, FL, you'd definitely try to steal away MO, CO, and Iowa. And Virginia would have been also contested, seeing as how Democratic the state has become (in terms of governors and senators).

The long primary campaign definitely helped the Democrats, both Obama and Clinton wound up going to places that typically don't get a lot of love from presidential candidates.

Howard Dean also helped out with his 50 states plan that was implemented before the 2006 Congressional elections.

Clinton would have led to a very very different race. Palin would have been off the table, which seems like it might have been a good thing for McCain. Her presence would have energized the GOP base, allowing McCain to tack to his more natural place in the middle. And it would have been easier for him to run as the agent of Change against her. It, at least, would not have come off as silly, the way it did when he tried to out-change Obama.

Don't count any chickens before November 4th, however. I'll believe that America will elect the half-black Hawaiian/Kansan with the funny name when I see it.

Probably too early for this...

+1

+2

While I'd give the general nod that Obama is ahead by a couple of points at this point, there's a lot of things in play that simply don't mirror reality right now.

1. Whether any of us like it or not, the race issue will swing votes to McCain on Election Day. While I feel that my generation (20-35 year olds) have come a long ways in regard to race, I can honestly say that every single one of my parents and in-laws along with all grandparents will vote for McCain SPECIFICALLY because of race. It's terribly unfortunate, but logic and sound reasoning has never been a pre-requisite to vote.

2. The polling this year is way out of line with the actual percentage of Dem/Rep/Ind voters that are likely to show up on Election Day. With the nod that the following is from a Conservative leaning blog, I do think that a lot of the issues with polling weight that DJ Drummond brings up have some level of merit.....

One Obvious Reason the Polls Are Biased (Wizbang)

That sucks. I wish we could just do this tomorrow and get it over with. I'm beyond sick of election season.

Me too.

Mizzou that Op-Ed you posted is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. ALL the polls are biased because they're based on the east coast. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. :lol:

Obama is spending roughly 3.5 million per day on advertising!

That's not what the Op-Ed is asserting. What it's asserting is that the polls may believe there will be a much higher turnout as a percentage of Democrats than in the past because of where they are located.

Obviously, you failed to read the basis of the argument. When you have a poll that has a much higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans in it that doesn't even come close to accurately portraying what Election Day turnout has been in past elections, that's a major flaw in your poll. I noted the conservative bias in regards to the polling locations, but to ignore the majorly flawed weight percentages in these polls displays a total lack of balanced in the viewing of the information.

Your mistake is in assuming the weighting is evidence of bias. Weighting is the hardest part of a pollster's job because they are trying to gauge what will happen based on trends and current voting info. They may or may not be accurate, but being wrong isn't evidence of bias.

But I did not say that there was bias in the weighting, so you're incorrect that I even made a mistake. My only statement was that the weighting of the polls is very likely to be way off from what will happen on election day. DJ Drummond was the one that brought up bias. I agree with your point, especially regarding voting info. Many of these polling groups base a lot of their weights on groups like ACORN in regards to possible increases in voting numbers on either side. Those groups have said that registration favors the Democrats on a 3:1 ratio. However, as we know from reports regarding state registrations, a large number of these registrations are being rejected while it's becoming more apparant that many of the newly registered voters will not show up for Election Day. So you're definitely correct that it isn't necessarily based in bias, but that doesn't change the fact that this election is likely much closer than what these polls are currently showing.

Their job is to predict what is going to happen in THIS election. The one next month.

HOW they do that doesn't matter. I don't give a shit if they use magic jellybeans, if they've been right in all of their polling the last ten years I'm going to pay attention to what they have to say.

The only way we have to compare polls is to see how accurate they've been in the past, and to use more than one of them.

+Whatever we're up to (4?)

SI

So, using the 'Magic Jellybeans Election Index', which poll do you think most accurately predicts what the current lead is and which one will most accurately predict the final election results?

Is there anything funnier than a beaker attempting to count on a message board?

:D

This is what I've roughly been using, but if you have any other resources that are similar please share them

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: pollster ratings

Agreed. Weighting is difficult because turnout is the great unknowable.

I'm not sure how one can really evaluate the op-ed, since the author does not really detail the basis for the demographic weights used in current polling or for the weights the author himself would apply.

Here's another perfect example of the massive number of voters that continue to be disqualified in the weeks leading up to the election. 30,000 felons (which voted 2:1 in favor of Democrats in previous elections) will likely be taken off the eligible voting list.

Many convicted felons remain on voter rolls, according to Sun Sentinel investigation -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

The ACORN investigation has dramatically increased the scrutiny of the voter registration rolls across the nation. In most cases, it has resulted in a net reduction of Democrat-leaning voters.

Proof? Data?

Which is exactly the point of the article I posted. That 538 site gives an average to strong poll weight in its overall calculations to Survey USA, which obviously is using heavily flawed weights in its polls given previous election cycles. If a website is using flawed polls to achieve a composite result, doesn't it stand to reason that the 'crap in, crap out' data model may apply in this case? Once again, I'm not even accusing anyone of bias. I'm just saying that sites like the one you mentioned are relying on highly flawed data. It should be a red flag for them.

If you seriously think that, under the best of circumstances, 52% of all voters in PA in November will be Democrats, I've got some fine oceanfront property to sell here in Missouri to you at a deeply discounted price.

You, as a liberal, shouldn't be shocked by that revelation. Democratic politicians have cried foul to no end at any reduction of voter registration (whether the reduction has merit or not). Why? Because they know that it likely will hurt their numbers on election day.

I provided the example of the felons in Florida. The ACORN investigation here in Kansas City was also heavily weighted towards Democrats. The estimate provided on the local news last night was that 70-75% of the disqualified ACORN applications were Democrat registrations.

Seriously, I don't think any liberal would dispute that these voter removals rarely go against the Republicans. Perhaps you are the first one.

I'll just chalk this comment up to bitterness because your team choked away their shot at a national title last week ;)

(I need to get in my shots before we get shelled in Norman this week. OU is going to be particularly pissed after losing to Texas)

SI

Oh good, I thought this thread had been missing XBox/PS3 style "McCain isn't really losing" arguments.

Awesome.

I agree with the others who have said that the author of the posted Op-Ed piece doesn't show why the Survey USA models are flawed, because comparing them to previous year's models doesn't count. Weighting should change over time as registration and party ID change. Correlating that with some kind of ACORN conspiracy is a reach.

Also, the Op-Ed doesn't address whether or not the dozens of other polls that show Obama in the lead are fundamentally flawed, aside from "being in the tank for Obama" because they are in blue country. He needs to attack more than just Survey USA in order to actually gain any traction with his argument.

You completely ignored what I just said. The link I posted is a rating of how accurate those pollsters have been. The method they use doesn't fucking matter.


I'm not a liberal and neither is everyone who disagrees with you. If 70-75% of all registrants are D's wouldn't it make sense that the percent that are incorrect are also D's?

So, let's take the Pennsylvania numbers, which have never had a Democratic turnout greater than 43% in the last 50 years. You don't find the weight of 52% Democrat in the latest poll to be borderline irresponsible. Perhaps you don't, but I thought I'd ask. IMO, a weight 9 points higher than any Democratic turnout in recent history is a majorly flawed poll.

Second, there was no direct relationship made between ACORN and the polls. The only note made was that the Democrat voting counts that are reported to these polls are inflated. A significant portion of these late registrations made by voter registration organizations could be impacted.

I noticed another verification of voter registrations will now occur in Ohio. A judge has ruled that all voter registrations will need to be verified before the election takes place. The Democratic Secretary of State had refused to do so up to this point.

Court orders Ohio to verify newly registered voters - CNN.com

Heh. The ACORN thing. I love that everyone gets so worked up over the Mickey Mouse and Tony Romo registrations. What they don't tell you is that ACORN is required by law to submit such registration forms even if they catch them beforehand. This is something the Republicans in Nevada got in trouble for in 2004, when they threw out people who had registered as Democrat through their registration groups. All registration forms are required to be turned in.

We'll agree to disagree. When the polling weight used is not justifiable by any recent election data, that's a flawed poll.

ACORN targets heavily democratic areas. It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that their registrations lean heavily Democratic.

Why don't you go and find out how well they've done in the past for yourself? For the last time, the only thing that matters is how accurate their predictions turn out to be. For some reason, I doubt you're better at polling than they are.

Actually, let's find out. Why don't you give us your predictions for which for PA (or MO since that's where you're from) and we'll find out in three weeks how well you do. The question is which candidate will win and by how much? Pick whatever state(s) you like.

http://www.surveyusa.com/electiontrackrecord.html

While your avoidance of the topic at hand is admirable, it doesn't change the facts of the situation. My predictive powers are not the question at hand. These polls are heavily weighted towards Democrats at this point and there's little historical data that backs up these weights.

FWIW.....the most accurate poll last election per the end result was Zogby on an individual basis. They currently show a lead of 6% for Obama, which is far less than many of the other polls showing a double digit Obama lead. Any guess why they show the election as much closer than the other polls? I'll give you a hint: it involves electorate weights.

The blog post you pasted used 2004 and 2006 numbers... The Dems ran an extremely unexciting candidate in 2004 (and 2000) who didn't really motivate anyone to vote. 2006 wasn't a presidential election year. Obviously you can't just use either of those numbers to predict who will vote in 2008 when the Dems are running a candidate who greatly excites their base and is motivating voters and mobilizing volunteers like never before.

Did the 1996 turnout numbers for Republicans compare at all the to the 2000 numbers? I wonder what the Dem numbers looked like in 1996?

Agreed. Did someone question whether that was a fact? Just because it's politics as usual doesn't change the discussion of those situations when they happen.

With that said, the Democrats could have helped themselves by distancing from ACORN. Many states are finding irregularities in the ACORN registrations, which is causing further investigations in key states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, and Missouri that likely wouldn't have occured to this degree otherwise. It's now to the point where all registrations are being checked rather than just the ACORN registrations, which likely will result in a net loss for Democrat voter numbers.

I see. So you want to complain about how the numbers aren't right but you're too scared to put out your own OR even link to anything to you're looking at.

Basically you're making this up.

Got it.