This is a totally acceptable sentiment from liberals - the exact same thing from the other side you'd consider close-mindedness.

You're not tolerant, you're close-minded, you're set in your ways, and that's NO different from a Republican that doesn't want gays to get married and is set on that.

You can't even see it because you're SO set in your ways.

It goes back to the majority of this thread. Obama = 100% correct, any dissenting idea = stupid. Nobody can have the slightest fleeting thought that maybe, just MAYBE, they don't have all the answers, and that maybe there's people who have alternate opinions that are actually worth listening to. If it's not identical to your view, you think it's stupid. That's a liberal. Ya, that some conservatives, but look at this thread. The very small minority who aren't 100% devoted maniacs for Obama aren't 100% all over McCain. They actually think for themselves and have different ideas. Even JIMGA, probably the biggest Obama-hater here, is pretty quick to criticize McCain. The Obama disciples are simply NOT capable of that. They can't criticize the savior, on ANYTHING. It makes their opinions completely meaningless because it's 100% predictable how they feel about anything.

It's decided now. The Redskins lost, Obama wins. The rest is just formality.

Hey, Obama wants an NCAA football playoff so that is a plus in my eyes.

Actually, that's not a liberal thing at all. I've seen people from both sides be very certain that their choice is the only choice and will call the other side ignorant and stubborn.

For me, Obama has some things right, McCain has some things right, and they both have some things wrong. It's definitely not 100% either way, and never has been since I've been following elections.

Then again, I haven't put my hat into the ring to run the country, so what I think is 100% may be totally wrong and would take the country to ruin faster than anything.

actually you're wrong, but thanks for generalizing.

my opposition to domestic oil drilling as a means of solving our current energy problems is WELL documented in this thread, and that's whether Obama brought it up or McCain/Palin brought it up. Domestic oil drilling is snake-oil - it's fools gold. It won't do anything material to solve our problems. Unfortunately I also believe that domestic-drilling likely has bipartisan support and so it will end up happening.

On an issue like that - I hope they don't compromise. Compromise for compromise's sake is stupid. On an issue like say...gun control laws...I hope they do compromise (as long as it's not something that makes it okay for schoolkids to have semi-automatic rifles or something). Compromise for compromise's sake is stupid.

Nobody should sign onto a bill that they don't believe in just in the spirit of compromise.

And I definitely dislike it when conservatives are like that as well.

Here though, liberals are far more guilty of it. (And it's just more infuriating from them, because they're supposed to be the party of tolerance).

More stereotypical bullshit. Yes, liberals are very excited for Obama, but it's not true that they're 100% behind him. I've said negative thigns about him in the past. I was originally a Hillary supporter. I hit him really hard when IS and I switched sides. I criticized the investigator of the troopergate report for his apparent bias.


Or maybe it's because McCain isn't the candidate that alot of the GOP base wanted, whereas Obama is? I think it's wrong to automatically conclude that someone who is a strong supporter of Obama isn't thinking for themselves. Maybe they are, and he happens to align with their views?


So now you're just directly insulting a large portion of the posters in this thread. Wonderful.

and you're magically qualified to make sweeping generalizations such as this why??

I'll criticize obama plenty - I just haven't seen anything WORTHY of criticism yet. That's where different people having different standards comes in. You may think say, the Ayers thing is worthy of criticizing him over - I think it's tenuous, grasping at straws, and a whole lot of nothing. That doesn't mean that if it wasn't I wouldn't be right there to criticize Obama on it.

and as for your opinion that I'm a sheep - well that's your opinion. I reject the characterization of me as an uneducated sheep, as would anyone else who has ever met me. but obviously you haven't had that experience so i can't expect you to (trying very hard to be civil here and not get angry).

One could also argue that liberals are less likely to criticize the liberal Obama since his stated positions more or less coincide with their liberal world-views. Conservatives are more likely to criticize McCain, since he is perceived as being slightly to the left of the conservative mainstream. There is a reasonably significant faction of conservatives who remain suspicious of McCain, and whether he is in fact a "true" conservative.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

How about:

Ask a liberal why we should not be in Iraq and the answer you will receive is some version of "because war is wrong."

I'd rather not get involved in this too much, but making a blanket statement like the one you just made regarding gay marriage lacks any level of actual truth. There are plenty of Democrats that are fully willing to drill for oil and I'd argue that the majority of conservatives are moderate enough to not care too much whether gays want to get married.

Also, please pardon the fact that I included the phrase 'drilling for oil' and 'gay marriage' in the same sentence.

You're excused (since I didn't even notice it at first).

Obviously we must encounter different liberals.

I run into more here (Georgia, not FOFC) who couldn't spell "drill" nor find Alaska on the map.

Case in point was the charming lady in line with my wife & I that we patiently helped understand how "all this voting stuff" worked; i.e.
"No, you're not required to vote for every office if you don't want to",
"Yes, you're allowed to vote only for President",
"This? It's called a sample ballot, it just shows you what you're going to see when you get inside"

And no, I didn't make any of those up.

There isn't a poster in this thread that is more predictable than you when you start rambling about liberals. To believe every liberal agrees with Obama 100% of the time is either moronic or delusional.

right, never criticized.

Drilling for oil and gay marriage was golden MBBF.

I will say this that while McCain has run one of the worst Campaigns Ive ever witnessed and I thought Obama ran a terrific campaign, it is certainly possible that because they are in the SAME campaign season that their contrast of eachother makes the judgment more pronounced.

While it is funny to see how ill-informed some voters are, I'm still glad that they bothered to take the time to vote. Some of these people that don't vote and then bitch about the politicians just drive me up a wall.

I had just the opposite reaction, although I have to admit I was as much bemused by it as anything, as there really wasn't anything shocking or even surprising to me about it. My wife on the other hand was downright apoplectic afterwards. Bless her heart, she can sometimes be a bit naive about the state of the world around her.

I disagree. There's only one way for her to learn how it goes and that's to be involved in the process.

If she hadn't bothered to learn by the age of 50 or so, she doesn't have as much business voting as my 10 year old ... nor any more than my cats for that matter.

This voting line is 10x longer and 10x worse than any dmv one i've been in. Stupid lack of voter disenfranchisement.

On a side note, I was pondering earlier whether a loss by Huckaby or Romney might have been better for the R's overall than the impending loss by McCain.

If you run with the general assumption that "they couldn't win with only the base so they had to go with McCain" to have a chance, then it seems possible they might have been better off losing 65-35 while getting their core motivated in order to help the down ballot races than losing 55-45 (just picking a number, not a prediction) with an unmotivated & demoralized base.

good point jon

With the selection of Palin as a running mate and the complete pandering to the far right, they might as well have gone with Huckaby. I had considered voting for McCain for a while shortly after it appeared that he would be getting the nomination. His nomination to me was a sign that perhaps the GOP candidate would be one that would be closer to what I would like to see in the White House. Everything afterwards however has shown the opposite to be true.

Thanks, although I have to admit I'm not entirely convinced of it myself quite yet.

To go down that road requires me to buy into a stipulation that I'm not sold on (i.e. "it had to be McCain") but if you work from that premise it seems to be you're suggesting that those influenced votes are about the person not the party. Well, we see how well that's going. Meanwhile you've got the least motivated & unhappiest group of voting R's in over 20 years, some number of which are almost certainly staying home having given this up for dead. If you're a down ballot R, that's a problem, and in theory you should get roughly the same number of votes from the "for the man, not the party" types regardless. Seems if I were an R who lost in the 1% range tonight I'd be pretty pissed about how things (beyond your control) worked out at the top of the ticket. Makes me wonder if there won't be some internal backlash over that situation two & then four years down the road.

And for our D's, I'm not suggesting this is an entirely unique situation by any means. I'm sure demotivated D's stayed home in the past, the difference being that I don't think it was so much because of the dissatisfaction with your nominee at the time.

Why does this kind of stupid crap always happen on election day in Philly? Had the same things happen in 2004 and 2006.

http://townhall.com/blog/g/cf47766b-...7-ce60631bcadc

FWIW.....I'm sure this is only the start of the stupid stuff that's bound to occur today.

Wasn't it Einstein who said something to the effect that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over & over and expecting different results?

Jon, in your opinion, had McCain chosen a running-mate with moderate leanings instead of Palin, would the republican base be enthusiastic about voting for republican candidate? I'm in the group that thinks that if McCain hadn't chosen Palin, this would be a much tighter race.

Last night, I started seeing Rev Wright ads again here in Virginia. Way to make the closing argument there with some subtle racism.

SI

If he hadn't chosen Palin, he'd be losing by 15+ rather than the 2-3 points he'll likely lose by today. Palin is the sole reason this election is still close.

If there's anyone that can finalize an argument about racism, it's Reverend Wright.

Lord no. She's been the only source of (positive) enthusiasm I've seen during the entire campaign (since the nomination was determined). That's a case where just because it didn't work on me personally I can't say it didn't work at all.

Purely anecdotal but I think within the base she actually had at least as much impact on motivating women as she did on the religious right, possibly even moreso. I was quite surprised to hear the strong reactions when Palin was announced from the conservative women I knew, specifically those who aren't really RR types. And while it faded a little, the decrease in excitement was slight, no more than you would expect once any candidate loses that new car smell. Even more surprising to me was that these were women I knew to be only lukewarm about, say, Elizabeth Dole but were over the moon about Palin. I can't explain what chord she struck with them -- age, look, backstory, whatever -- but she definitely made a positive impact.

Sentence #2 went a little something like this so I stopped reading. Like the attackes on door knockers, probably happens to both if it happens at all.

According to which polls?

Oddly enough, I saw them for the very first time last night myself. But they were national spots (i.e. network cable) not local.

We had manual scantron ballots at my polling place after years of electronic voting machines. At first I was kind of irritated, but upon reflection (particularly after having watched "Hacking Democracy" a few weeks ago) I feel a little more confident that my vote will be properly tabulated. They actually ran my ballot through the vote counter before I could leave.

Of course, with the proper motivation, this system is probably just as flawed as e-voting.

Poll margin minus Bradley Effect I would imagine.

FWIW, I personally think the final margin will be somewhere between the two points, with the effect reduced by increased black turnout & a lower than expected likely-GOP-voter turnout in states where the race is already lost, but I believe the math works out about right to get things to around 3% give or take.

I've consistently stated that I believe the race will end in a 2-3 point margin and that the 6-7 point margin predicted by most of the polls is statistically incorrect due to poll weighting. You've been in this thread most of the time. I'd think you'd remember that has been my belief all along.

And if you're of a different belief, well, you'll get your answer one way or another in less than 24 hours.

I believe he's probably taking into account the ~6-8% lead by Obama and adding in a potential Bradley Effect.

Just for the heck of it, want to trade batches for a few years?

Fixed. While the far right bitches more loudly than their moderate cohorts, they are just a portion of the party. But it's easier to paint either party in the color of their extremist brethern to polarize the issue than to address the issue that many on both sides are annoyed by the extremists in their party.

Just for the record, I don't believe in the Bradley effect. I just believe that a lot of the polling methodology in this election has been flawed. We'll see soon enough.

Say, never saw your prediction over in the predictions thread...

SI

Fixed again. It's election 101. The liberals toss the religious red-meat out to their supporters, while the conservatives toss the socialist red-meat out to their supporters. Nothing has changed lately. This has been going on for decades.

I honestly don't know much about the local races, so I don't know how well I would even do. I'll try to put something together if I have time to dig into that stuff.

No, but there was bound to be a candidate like that, much like Obama was a nod to the extreme left on the Democrat ticket. If it wasn't Palin, it would have been Romney or Huckabee. Same old stuff. The moderate portion of the party had McCain. Just because one part of the ticket has some basis in moral value politics does not mean that the majority of the party supporters hold those beliefs. Most Republicans are not moral Republicans, much like most liberals are not socialistic in nature.

not really a liberal, but from what I've heard, the answer isn't "because war is wrong", it's "this war was unnecessary". Big difference.

I don't enjoy picking on you so much, but damn dude, try and post something in this thread that's not completely and totally false once in a while...

Forty-six percent of likely voters now say having Palin on the ticket makes them less likely to support McCain -- up 14 points in just the past month and more than double what it was in early September. And among those who call the candidates' age an important factor in their vote, more, 61 percent, say Palin makes them less likely to back McCain.

That's ridiculous. Obama went through the primary process. He wasn't placed on the ticket.

MBBF, the social conservatives drive the bus of the Republican Party to a greater extent than you're willing to admit IMO. They're the cause of McCain picking a VP candidate he'd barely met and his awkward lurch towards the right on policy over the past two years.

Obama a nod to the extreme left of Democrats :lol: :lol: If the far left ran the Dems we'd have nominated Kucinich.

just want molson to know - as a thoughtful voter, i did actually vote for a republican, and i didn't just look down the ballot and see "red/blue"

honestly, I would have possibly voted for more, but all of the incumbents running unopposed were democrats (there were only a couple contested races), so that kind of tied my hand.

I said 'extreme left', not 'nutball wacko left'.

I didn't mean to say I thought you were a sheep and/or whatever else. I don't remember exactly what set me off but apologize for any offense.

And post a damn prediction like the rest of us if you want to continue to bitch about this.

oh that enigmatic Bradley effect. Well then it's simply a prediction at this point....I wish you wouldve gone the "IMO" Prediction route throughout this thread instead of using polls when it helped the cause or sparked some sort of "rally" effect.

Yes, an ABC poll is obviously 'proof'. This campaign would have been dead in the water at that point with a selection of Romney or Huckabee. You're insane to think otherwise. I like McCain, but there's no way I'd vote for the ticket with either of those guys on it. I would have cast my vote for Obama.

Are there similar polls for strictly undecided voters, or McCain + undecided voters? I don't think an Obama voter answer to that question tells us much.

McCain probably would have been better off with a slightly more polished unknown, but she was worth the risk. He wasn't in a position to play it safe. She would have been a success for him only if she answered some questions from Katie Couric better (not saying that COST him the election, but I think she would have been a net gain for him without those flubs).

Hucabee or Romney would have been a disaster, and I think it's revisionist history to argue anything different. The Republican brand is damaged, and he NEEDED someone new and relatively unknown, ideally someone who went against party lines. Palin really was quite perfect on paper, if only she had maybe one more term as governor. He really neutered the one big advantage he had in this election, experience. I feel dirty when I try to argue how ridiculous it is that someone with Obama's weak credentials is this close to the presidency (I put him at approximately the 150th most qualified Democrat in the US). You just can't say that with a straight face when McCain goes with Palin as VP.

LOL.....there's some awfully angry liberals in this thread. Take a medicinal weed hit and calm down.

I didn't say anything about the 'Bradley Effect'.

The stress of being able to control government and not just complain about it is clearly setting in.

Interestingly enough, most of my friends and coworkers are like me, independent from a party, and the majority of them would have voted for McCain instead of Obama if Romney was on the ticket (but definitely not Huckabee).

Just one example out of a mid-20s group of NYCers, of course.

That wouldn't surprise me. McCain would have performed better in New England with Romney, but likely still would have lost most of those states. It wouldn't have helped much from an electoral college standpoint.

If it's 46% of likely voters you can roughly sort out the breakdown. Or even better, go look at the poll itself!! I linked to it. They do crosstabs.

Then you better call the cavalry. Where are you pulling your numbers from? A guess?

I think, my prediction, is that you'll truly have to rethink your ability to analyze and predict when this thing is over.

Why does negative advertising against Obama have to be classified as racism, SI? There's plenty of Bill Ayers stuff out there as well. Is the good reverend off-limits simply because he's black?

Yeah, because Obama's my guy. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. :lol:

plus one

I think Huckabee could have been a very good pick. There's not a dime's worth of difference between he and Palin on social issues, but he's far more appealing on the stump. He and McCain also have great chemistry and could have worked together much better than McCain/Palin. IMO Huckabee is the best politician in the Republican party.

If McCain loses, the fight between Huckabee and Palin for the religious right will be brutal.

It's an interesting question, assuming the Republicans lose across the board today. If that happens, there will likely be some debate as to where the Republican Party should go next, in terms of strategy and philosophy. If the Republicans lose, they will have to answer some hard questions about whether their current strategic philosophy for winning elections is still tenable (I don't know the answer to this short term--it could just be bad luck and circumstances this time, or it could be long-term demographic change already rearing its head).

I would say that a Huckabee/Romney loss would have accelerated this discussion, since the Republican party would have fielded a candidate that "fit the mold" of their ideal candidate. And since the ideal candidate lost, there would then be greater debate on whether the current "ideal" and associated strategies should be challenged.

Since McCain does not play as well to the party base, a McCain loss would likely delay this discussion. The recriminations would first be about whether a McCain ticket was the right ticket to successfully implement Republican electoral strategy, rather than whether that strategy was optimal in the first place.

If the Republican losses (if any) are due to short-term circumstances, perhaps it doesn't matter. But if there are real and lasting shifts in national opinion and demographics (e.g., appealing primarily to white-conservatives may not be enough, moving forward, if the voting pool is becoming less white), the Republicans will have to retool if they want to win long-term. McCain on the ticket (whether he wins or loses), delays this retooling.

My prediction is that MBBF is too chickenshit to post one.

If Obama wins by 7 it will only be because the election oversampled Obama voters.

LOL

funny!

The information is readily available in this thread and most will tell you that I've restated it far too often, so I'm shocked that you haven't seen it yet. Basically stated, the weights being assigned in polling data are overstated in the favor of the Democrats by a margin much larger than it should be. I've provided a plethora of statistical data to back up my claim. Feel free to go through it if you choose to do so, but don't act like I haven't used information to back up my claim. That's simply not true.

Y'know, that was pretty much uncalled for.

I don't recall any requirement for a prediction being a part of this thread, and what difference does some wild ass guess from anybody here actually make? Let's be real, this thread is ultimately for entertainment purposes only and if coming up with a concrete prediction doesn't entertain somebody {shrug}.

Truer words may never have been spoken.

Ah, to be 27 again, be right all the time, and instigate pissing matches on a message board. Those were the days. :D

For the record, my wealth of knowledge is only exceeded by my wife (who is always right) and my child (who is sure she is always right).

No worries man. I know tensions get a bit heated in this thread at times, but we've always enjoyed good dialogue in other threads, and I'd certainly buy you a beer if we met up. I honestly didn't take any offense at all. Steamed for a minute, and Foz tried to get me worked up, but I said "nah, molson's an alright guy, no worries"

Probably could have removed your name in my most recent post and just said "just fyi everyone" or whatever

+1

pretty much uncalled for Fighter of Foo

right, the polls are crap. The poll of polls is crap. and the poll of the poll of the polls simply exacerbates the problem since the poll of the poll of the polls was run by the liberal media. gotcha.


EDIT: unless the poll is used to show that McCain is making a comeback.

But isn't that like saying that among people who were not going to vote for McCain, they also are not going to vote for Palin?

Nah.

They're just not going to vote for McCain.
They're really not going to vote for Palin.

:)

Just if you, me or anyone wants to go on pontificating for weeks upon end about what's going to happen and why, one should at least be willing to back it up.

That goes for anything.

Take the poll I posted about above. If it's wrong then show me! I'd be happy to see what was wrong and where.

As we say in finance, Hope ain't a strategy.

Modified to indicate an equally unsupported view from the left.


FWIW, your liberals sound like my conservatives here in Illinois (especially in the collar counties).

Maybe we could say that there are idiots of every political persuasion?


Interesting idea. Was McCain 2008 a worse campaign than Dole 1996, Dukakis 1988, Mondale 1984 or Carter 1980 (I'm going to assume these are the ones in your lifetime)?


Gore 2000 springs to mind, honestly. Of course, if you were to draw a distinction between demotivated (GOP voters in 2008) and unmotivated (Democrat voters in 2000) then yes, it's not the same.

Carter 1980 was probably a case of "demotivated", though.


I'm going to disagree. Huckabee's a much better politician with a quasi-national network already in place, and hasn't received anywhere near the amount of negative press Palin has already. In a hypothetical nomination race I think he wins over their shared base, and also picks up some GOP moderates.

An excellent point, and one I've made angrily to my friends after the Palin pick was announced. I like Sarah, I just think that her inexperience really hurts the campaign, because it takes the "Obama's not ready" discussion off the table.

Once again, that's simply not true. I have been very consistent in saying that there was a bias in the polls. Not once have I used any motivation regarding McCain or a comeback as a basis for that reasoning. I have used the information available to back up my claim. Not only that, but I called out the recent Fox poll as having a weight that was also inconsistently weighted towards Republicans, but don't let that get in the way of another rant based on emotion rather than actual discussion based on the statistical analysis being provided by multiple sources.

You jest, but I fear this exact thing.

I'll say this for the 4085th time in these threads over the past two years (JPhillips has said it a lot) but

judgment + character > experience

especially given that the relevant "experience" for President has proven difficult to define.

{scratches head}

Maybe I've missed something but I think I've seen a grand total of one prediction of McCain victory all day here.

Margin? I absolutely believe it'll be influenced by vote fraud.
Outcome? Haven't seen that asserted here.

Obama as a nod to the extreme left? You obviously don't hang around with many liberals if that's your slant. I am an independent of the extreme left persuasion, and I can tell you that from our point of view Obama is very close to center.

It seems to me Palin as VP was a choice that just accentuated the polarization of hte country. It seems to me that the GOP base is enthusiastic about her, as seen by those living in my area. And the democrat base is completely turned off by her. The amount of mania in one group feeds the mania in the other.

I'm not sure how much effect she's having on those who weren't already decidedly in one camp or another.

BTW, I don't want to prematurely cut this thread short, but maybe we should start to migrate conversation over to the "Who Did you Vote For thread for results?

It pains me to agree with Flasch on anything politics-related ( :p ), but this sickens me from both sides. You get the talking heads on the left and right downplaying the import or accuracy of any poll that does not favor them, and trumpeting it from the highest hill if they find even one poll to cherry-pick that supports their agenda.

Sean Hannity is the absolute worst of the bunch in this regard, IMO.

heh

I think Crim's probably the first, at least here at FOFC.

I haven't seen a single prediction where someone said McCain WOULD win. Link? From what I've seen, I think the left still has that in the bag.

Oh yeah? How about Change?

Thats horseshit. When a 1 day poll came out showing a tightening race in some state you threw it on the wall and touted it. You mentioned nothing when the same poll came out a few days later showing an enormous spread.

To be fair, that hasn't occurred in this thread. Flasch obviously hasn't been paying attention to my posts if he thinks that I was presenting my statistical analysis solely with the intention of painting a better picture for McCain. That's simply not the case.

But I agree with you that the talking heads on both sides are only presenting the cases that favor their candidate.

Wow, just wow.

There hasn't been proof of large scale election fraud(enough to make a difference) in decades. Voter fraud, stealing votes, machines being hacked, etc. are all minor problems at worst.

And once again, that's simply not true. I have been very consistent in going over the numbers in each poll and saying how I felt about the information provided. Flere even noticed it. He started posting links for me so I could look over the raw data. I realize that you're an emotion driven poster, but your claims have no basis in truth given the discussions in this thread.

Sincerely,

Everyone in a graveyard in Chicago

:D