So it looks like the entire election is going to be a competition between the candidates to see who can denounce people the hardest and the fastest.
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Open Thread
by John Cole| 87 Comments
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calipygian
I wonder if McCain is going to denounce and reject the endorcement of Bush Family Consiglieri Jim Baker. You know, the Jim Baker that defended the Saudi Monarchy against a lawsuit brought by his own fucking countrymen for their complicity in 9/11. And a Monarchy that provides money to Sunni insurgents in Iraq so they can kill Americans.
Nah.
Jen
Jon Swift today…
dnA
Denouncing without rejecting is meaningless.
cleek
your gripe hangs on the assumption that McCain has principles.
he’s going to prove you wrong.
Bob In Pacifica
You know what they say about Papists. You can’t live with their endorsements, you can’t live without them.
p.lukasiak
well, I want to give Tom in Texas ample time to lie about the second part in my Count Whose Vote series (and then have his lie repeated endlessly among the Obot blogs) so here is the link. This one is called “independents vs moderates”
jake
Uh, yeah. Is there anyone Bill Donohue’ncry hasn’t blasted?
[crickets chirp]
This is the stupid fuck who went to DEFCON 3 when Hillary Clinton couldn’t attend a St. Patrick’s Day parade.
And WTF is an “evangelicalist”? Sounds like something out of T.S. Eliot.
cleek
and here is the summary:
plead, bitch, whine, rationalize, distort, moan, groan.
tBone
Paul, I know you put a lot of thought and effort into that piece, but honestly – do you really think that kind of bloodless numbercrunching in February means anything for the general election?
You’re parsing a selective set of data. You’re discounting states that “don’t count” because they caucus. You completely ignore the respective downticket implications of a Hillary or Obama candidacy. You ignore the fact that “moderate” Democratic primary voters are not representative of general election voters. You ignore the surge in Dem registrations that have largely been attributed to Obama.
Does the phrase “missing the forest for the trees” mean anything to you?
Delia
Yeah, Donohue’s a winger, all right, but we’re definitely in
strange bedfellows territory now.
I say, bring it on. If the MSM will run with this the way they do the Farrakhan nonsense, we can maybe watch St. John eat a few words.
Incertus
If there were any indication that Donohue had actual clout in the Catholic community, I would be excited about this–civil war in the religious right, and all that. But so far as I’ve ever seen, the Catholic League is Donohue and a couple dozen computers, and dumb ones at that.
p.lukasiak
You’re parsing a selective set of data. You’re discounting states that “don’t count” because they caucus.
no, I’m not including states that caucus because there is no exit polling data — and because (as we’ve seen in Washington state) caucuses come up with completely different results than actual primary elections. I have, however, included data from the two caucus state with exit polls in the tables, based on estimated participation in those caucuses (250K in Iowa, 116K in Nevada), and note in an appendix that the overall conclusions remain unaffected (in fact, they are very slightly better for Clinton in terms of moderate support, and very slightly better for Obama in terms of total popular vote.)
You completely ignore the respective downticket implications of a Hillary or Obama candidacy.
and you assume that in November, Obama at the top of the ticket will be an asset downticket. I’m “ignoring” that because there is no way to know at this point what is going to happen.
You ignore the fact that “moderate” Democratic primary voters are not representative of general election voters.
actually, its “independent” which is a meaningless term. While I note that different people may have somewhat different ideas about what “moderate” means, based on their political environment, those differences don’t matter in terms of most states.
You ignore the surge in Dem registrations that have largely been attributed to Obama.
yup. that’s not part of my data set.
Does the phrase “missing the forest for the trees” mean anything to you?
sure. My whole point is to say that there are a lot more trees in that forest than the Obama campaign is pointing out, and that the media is talking about.
ThymeZone
Another thread fucked by the lukasiak obsession with meaningless bullshit about a failed candidacy?
I’m out. Who needs this crap?
Tell him to become a member of the Republican party, where there are people who really appreciate good crazy horseshit.
Jon H
“no, I’m not including states that caucus because there is no exit polling data—and because (as we’ve seen in Washington state) caucuses come up with completely different results than actual primary elections”
A more likely explanation of Washington is that Obama voters didn’t bother voting in the primary, knowing it was meaningless, but showed up at the caucus. Clinton voters were probably still motivated to vote because of Clinton’s 2nd place status, so did show up.
Jon H
Paul, if you’re going to be arbitrarily cherry picking data in an attempt at the increasingly difficult task of making a case for Clinton, why not just go all the way and base your conclusion entirely on a sample of one: yourself?
TenguPhule
Obviously you are not qualified to be a snobby media pundit.
S.W. Anderson
calipygian wrote:
There’s about as much chance of that as there is of Bush getting huffy with the Saudis over the number of Saudi fighters in Iraq for the purpose of killing our people.
PaulW
Report is out that Drudge just endangered Prince Harry by revealing he was secretly doing his duty for Queen and Country in Afghanistan. Guess *someone’s* not getting invited over for tea any time soon…
p.lukasiak
A more likely explanation of Washington is that Obama voters didn’t bother voting in the primary, knowing it was meaningless, but showed up at the caucus
well, much the same phenomenon was seen in the GOP caucus/primaries, both of which had delegates available.
Moreover, while the votes counted on election night (those cast at the polls) showed a 3.1% obama lead, after the hundreds of thousands of mail in votes were counted, that gap was up to 5.5% — there was a gap of 12.6% in Obama’s favor, which suggests that his campaign had urged its supporters to vote in the primary.
p.lukasiak
speaking of denouncing…
when will either of the Dems be asked to denounce Al Sharpton…and how will they respond?
*****
oh and the 12.6% gap mentioned above was in the mail-in vote…just to be clear.
demimondian
Sorry, Paul, but I live in Washington State — and (a) no, there was no GOTV effort by either campaign here for the primary, and (b) the primary was so hard to vote in that many people who did vote spoiled their ballots.
But who am I going to believe, you, or my lying eyes which show my primary mail in ballot still sitting here unopened…hard to say.
GSD
I will support whoever renounces denouncing.
-GSD
demimondian
Oh, and…there were no polls in the 2/19 primary. There were sites where people could drop ballots on election day (we call them “post offices” here in Washington — what do you call USPS drop boxes there?) but there were no “polling sites”.
p.lukasiak
Sorry, Paul, but I live in Washington State—and (a) no, there was no GOTV effort by either campaign here for the primary, and (b) the primary was so hard to vote in that many people who did vote spoiled their ballots.
But who am I going to believe, you, or my lying eyes which show my primary mail in ballot still sitting here unopened…hard to say.
Just curious, did you vote in the primary?
tBone
OK. Maybe I should have asked “do you understand the phrase ‘missing the forest for the trees’?”.
Examining a subset of Democratic primary voters may be an interesting intellectual exercise, but superdelegates would have to be out of their minds to let that kind of myopic analysis sway them.
p.lukasiak
Oh, and…there were no polls in the 2/19 primary. There were sites where people could drop ballots on election day (we call them “post offices” here in Washington—what do you call USPS drop boxes there?) but there were no “polling sites”.
thanks for that info. WHat do you think accounts for the wide difference between votes reported on election night, and the votes counted later?
p.lukasiak
Examining a subset of Democratic primary voters may be an interesting intellectual exercise, but superdelegates would have to be out of their minds to let that kind of myopic analysis sway them.
you’ll get no argument from me there. My point is that the ‘electability’ arguments being promoted by the Obama campaign are equally, if not more, myopic. My point of view is basically that the superdelegates should wait and see what happens for at least a couple of months — as long as the campaign remains “clean”, keeping the focus on Democrats (and keeping the focus off of McCain) is a good thing.
ThymeZone
Snort. You are trying to explain the infield fly rule to a goldfish.
demimondian
Absentee ballots in Washington State are subject to our state election law, which says that any absentee ballot with a valid postmark no later than midnight on the day of the election is valid. That’s different from, say, Oregon, where all elections are by-mail only, and any ballot must be in the possession of the electoral officials on election day if it is to be valid.
That’s the reason for my crack about “post offices” — if you want to vote on election day in an all-mail election, you just drive to the post office and drop your letter in the collection box there, or, if you’re paranoid, you go to the counter and make sure the envelope is canceled in front of you.
tBone
I think the chance of the campaign remaining (?) clean if it runs on for a couple more months is nil. The candidates are tired of it, the voters are tired of it – let’s wrap the damn thing up already.
I happen to speak fluent Goldfishese, you insensitive ichthyphobe.
demimondian
No, I did not vote in the primary. FDDD and I talked about it, and chose to not file ballots.
demimondian
Ooo…I like goldfishies. Particularly filleted and fried, like catfish.
SGEW
And “articulate,” of course. That’s what you meant, right?
(joking, joking)
tBone
There’s a carp-eater in our midst. Hide the women and children.
demimondian
Why would you hide the women and children from someone who eats goldfish?
Unless…you’re one of them. A carp. A…fishman.
ThymeZone
That would be his cousin, Phil A.
Tom in Texas
Moderates try to find a middle ground between individual liberties under the Constitution and a police state. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was pretty damn moderate. An Independent only cares if you can shoot straight. The problem with moderates is that they assume both sides of the spectrum are valid.
You know who’s moderate?
David Brooks.
You can keep him.
Fuck moderation. After the last decade there is no middle ground.
dnA
Fried Catfish with cheese grits is what God eats for breakfast.
Conservatively Liberal
I was over at Kos and reading this diary by Meteor Blades and I came across this quote:
Since plagiarism is the theme this election season, I propose that the Democrats adopt this as their platform this year. It seems almost tailored to the current situation.
TenguPhule
“Harder! Faster! Harder! Faster!”
Our modern political process, a fucking bad pron movie.
Ninerdave
Oooh! Look Krista! TPM Muckraker…the Canadian edition!
lambert strether
Timezone burbles:
Not you, fortunately for all of us.
However, the superdelegates do, so they can make an informed decision, instead of letting the Obama campaign and our famously free press make their decisions for them.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out…
mac
I usually think that the phrase is a sign of vulgar moonbatism. But my God. Just how bad is the Iraq war?
“Chirp, chirp.” (via hilzoy)
ThymeZone
Wow, man, that blog of yours is one mighty high mountain of complete horse manure.
I mean, you might have the tallest manmade structure in the world there. How tall is that thing, anyway? Do you get snow on it in the wintertime? What kind of equipment does it take to pile roadapples that high?
Whooooooeeeeeeeee.
Folks, it’s worth the visit. Warning: Take refreshments, this fucking guy goes on for-ever.
Conservatively Liberal
The Clintonistas are on the rampage tonight! With the zingers and logic here, I am totally underwhelmed. ;)
I hope Obama pulls off wins in Texas and Ohio and burns down those firewalls. What? They moved the goalposts to new firewall territory? Wow, go figure.
If Obama pulls it off on the 5th, the fat lady will be in full throated song right afterward.
Conservatively Liberal
I think the “Boldly shrill…” line gives it all away too soon. You should let people find out for themselves, that way they waste more time reading it. Still, I gave it a shot. Yup, you are right.
Mike
Hillary, whose masterful, clockwork-like campaign has apparently figured out how the Texas primary works with a full five days to spare, may sue.
Pb
p.lukasiak,
Thanks for another interesting peek through the looking glass there. Now…
The meaningful distinction made by the word independent is that it encompasses the people who are registered to neither party. You’re right that it encompasses a microcosm of the political spectrum, but it isn’t a representative one. Of course, a lot of people who are registered to a party tend to vote for that party’s nominee. I could break it all down, but then again, so could you, and Pew pretty much did all the heavy lifting anyhow. Also note that there’s a large bloc of progressive independents with a history of voting for Democrats.
As for moderate, that’s a term that not only means different things to different people — I’m sure a lot of people like to think of themselves as reasonable moderates instead of radical conservatives or liberals — but it also means different things in different parties. In the Democratic party, the moderates are the ones who know they aren’t conservative, but don’t want to self-identify as liberal.
So, in a general election, who gets their votes? Well, John McCain already has a reputation as a moderate Republican. Currently, Obama is going for the reasonable label, whereas Hillary would have to shrug off the liberal label. So perhaps it’s no surprise that these projections show that Clinton is the weaker candidate against McCain. Maybe it’s because of those moderate voters.
p.a.
Am I mistaken, but when Repubs make the pilgrimage to Bob Jones U., we don’t hear a peep from Donohue, do we? From what I’ve heard, B.J.U. espouses the same ‘Whore of Babylon’ stuff.
Tom in Texas
By the way Paul, in the way of reconciliation I really enjoyed your work on the AWOL project. To be honest I didn’t connect your name on the byline of that Taylor Marsh piece until someone mentioned it.
Xenos
I have been waiting in vain for open conflict between the cavaliers and the roundheads. Think about it – a minority of catholic voters are so authoritarian that they join in with this enormous, somewhat gormless mass of lowbrow evangalical types. The result? Five Franco-ist supreme court justices, placed in power by evangelicals.
What an incredible swindle is being pulled off here. The Southern Baptists and the Southern Methodists and the Crystal Cathedralists and even the Mormons have become electoral cannon fodder for a Roman Catholic legal ascendancy.
They have even established a “Regent University” to promote a monarchist movement, to be accomplished by putting authoritarian Catholic judges in power over themselves. Cromwell is spinning in his grave (serves him right, anyway).
PAULQX
This election is only going to be one thing, a complete fraude. There is no way the right-wing, after stealing two elections with narry a wrist-slap, and with a solid majority in the supreme courte to back up any legal “problems” they may run into, are going to turn over the reigns of power. America is no longer a Democracy. The concentration camps are built and waiting to be used. The laws are now on the books that the federal govt. can declare a state of emergency and call in the military, lock anybody up with no reason given and no right to trial. If you complain too loud BlackWater may pay your house a visit and of course are not legally responsible for anything they do. Brownshirts anyone?
Go out and vote, why not, but don’t expect your vote to count. Dont expect a fox to suddenly become a lamb. This fascist regime we now live under is never going to give up power short of an overthrow. Hopefully it will be peacefull and before a nuclear or biological war is started, but I fear it will have to be bloody and with more casualities at home and around the world.
Kepp Safe
AkaDad
I strongly denounce and reject this thread.
Xenos
Paulqx-
while the legal groundwork may have been laid for a fascist takeover, there has to be enough public support for it. I just don’t see it out there.
McCain, for all his faults, is not a Bushist. There is not candidate out there that will perpetuate the mischief, and we are going to see an orgy of shredding and hard-drive melting rather than an armed takeover of the country. They had their shot, and have blown it already.
jake
I denounce your rejection and substitute my own.
SGEW
I will reject this thread, but will not denounce it. Or is it the other way around?
cleek
i renounce this thread and all of its works and the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, so that i shalt not follow or be led by them. beeyach.
Xenos
Get thee behind me, thread!
Krista
Yeah, I was watching that last night on the news. Get the popcorn, boys and girls. Will the Prime Minister go down for this, or will a convenient Libby-esque figure take the proverbial bullet?
Cassidy
Way too much paranoia before breakfast…
p.lukasiak
That’s the reason for my crack about “post offices”—if you want to vote on election day in an all-mail election, you just drive to the post office and drop your letter in the collection box there, or, if you’re paranoid, you go to the counter and make sure the envelope is canceled in front of you.
demi…
I’m trying to account for the differences between ballots counted on election night, and those counted after. Do you think that the “post office” ballots are counted first, because they require no verification of postmarks, etc? (I’m really just trying to figure it out at this point).
John S.
Fixed for Hillaryspeak.
Scrutinizer
Lambert:
Just what we need: the Curtis Lemay approach to politics. That’s just what we need to turn this country around!
Oh, wait…
pharniel
There can never be enough paranoia friend citizen. Trust the Computer. Happyness is mandatory.
It is funny that about 20 years after raiding steve jackson games for ‘writing a hacker manual’ (a/k/a Gurps: Cyberpunk) that hte current administration has been reading Pranoia and treating it as a governance guide.
Gamers, doing our part in fucking up the country.
John S.
Edited for clarity.
Cassidy
Ha! Never thought I’d hear that again….
I’m just hoping Cheney isn’t cloned.
maxbaer (not the original)
Maybe Obama should just reject and denounce all of his supporters now and get it out of the way.
p.lukasiak
By the way Paul, in the way of reconciliation I really enjoyed your work on the AWOL project. To be honest I didn’t connect your name on the byline of that Taylor Marsh piece until someone mentioned it.
okay, you’re forgiven ;-)
what really annoyed me wasn’t that you mischaraterized my results (I mean, i did include information about TOTAL votes before even mentioning the “democratic” breakdown in the piece) but that your characterization was more widely linked to than the original post — and then people started extrapolating about what I did based on how you characterized my work.
And it bugs the crap out of me when people accuse me of being intellectually dishonest, when I don’t publish anything like these “Count Whose Vote” pieces without using the same kind of thoroughness I used with the AWOL thing. I didn’t ‘cherry pick’ the data and exclude caucus results because they were inconsistent with my main argument — I excluded them because there was no data that was relevant to my main argument — and there were broad inconsistencies within the caucus data itself.
chopper
damn you scott beauchamp! i reject and denounce you!
tBone
Yes, it’s too bad the Hillary campaign has been so reticent to make their case to the superdelegates, giving the Obamabots and MSM a free pass to distort the narrative. If only the HRC campaign could be more assertive!
demimondian
Paul — no, the ballots on hand are counted first. All ballots must be mailed in, period; as far as I know, there are no explicit drop boxes.
Washington’s results move from Republican to Democratic, and from moderate Dem to liberal Dem, over time as the count progresses. King County (home to indigo-blue Seattle and the mostly blue Eastside suburbs) is last to come in, bringing roughly one third of the state’s population. Pierce County (home to Tacoma and Olympia, the second largest county, and also another 20% of the population) is relatively purple, and the liberal and progressive parts of the county come in second to last, usually. Finally, Snohomish County, home to another tenth of the population in Everett, comes in late.
Coming from the East, as I do originally, it is hard to realize just how concentrated the West’s population is. 60% of the state is in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett metropolitan corridor. As far as elections go, the rest of the state is just noise. The cities return results slowly, but are very liberal; the rural areas return results fast, and are moderately to very conservative.
tBone
Understood, but when you use a limited data set, I think it’s fair for people to question the validity of any broad conclusions drawn from that data.
CrazyDrumGuy
Denounce and reject, John. Gotta do both.
demimondian
Oh, and other data: we’ve had two separate elections in the past four years (Gregoire in 2004, and the School Levy proposition in 2007) in which the results behaved exactly as you described, and in which the effect was sufficiently significant that the outcome actually changed as a result of the counting of the absentees.
The statistical drift you saw is not unusual, and has nothing to do with GOTV or any campaign activity. It’s normal in our elections.
p.lukasiak
Understood, but when you use a limited data set, I think it’s fair for people to question the validity of any broad conclusions drawn from that data.
tbone, there is a difference between raising questions in that fashion, and being accused of ‘cherry picking’ the data.
another person has looked at the data (there are problems with it — his michigan numbers make no sense, and he entered Alambama’s “black democrats” where New Hampshire’s black dems should be) and includes what looks to be actual participation numbers (or estimates) for the caucus states (bottom left of chart). Now, his total votes come to 907K in caucus states, and breakdown 2-1 for Obama overall. Even assuming that every caucus participant was a democrat (rather than the 78% democratic average from all primary states), including those numbers in my calculations would have no real impact on the point I was making, because we are talking about over 20,900,000 primary voters, and 16,300,000 democratic voters.
And while its fine to criticize a data set based on its exclusion of some results, in order for that criticism to be truly valid there has to be some reason to suspect that the excluded data would substantial alter the conclusions drawn from the data that was used.
(I mean, seriously… the estimates for Obama’s popular vote lead, based on the highly internally-inconsistent caucus numbers reported on sites like CNN, was 85K. My Obama lead was 128K — because I simply assigned all uncommitted in Michigan to Obama. And people were complaining that I left out caucus states?)
p.lukasiak
The statistical drift you saw is not unusual, and has nothing to do with GOTV or any campaign activity. It’s normal in our elections.
Demi, I understand what you are saying, but there was drift on a ‘county by county’ level as well. I’ll crunch those numbers, and get back to you, to see how much drift there was.
On election night, looking at where ‘complete’ returns had come in from, I’d estimated that when all counties reported 100% that Obama’s 3.1% would expand to 4-6%. (King County was only “85% complete”, and was an obvious Obama stronghold — at that time, i didn’t know that “100% reporting” was different from “100% of votes counted!)
cleek
do you have a calendar ?
it’s a nearly sure-thing that predictions even nine days out will be wrong by at least 5%. but there are 9 months to go.
tBone
Fair enough. It just seemed like a somewhat suspect omission, given how vocal you and others have been about the unrepresentative and ultimately unimportant nature of the caucus states.
I think the larger point here is that people are naturally going to question the validity of your numbers when you’re so obviously biased toward one candidate. That may not be fair, but it’s reality – one of the dangers of advocacy.
FWIW, the reason I keep pressing you on this stuff is I think you’re more objective when defending your points than you may have been in originally presenting them. (That, and it annoys ThymeZone.)
demimondian
Actually, Paul, there is a drift in county by county, and, yes, that’s also normal.
Bear in mind how *big* our counties are. King County (where I live) runs from Puget Sound on the West to the crest of the cascade mountains on the East. The extreme eastern boundary of urban pressure (by virtue of the Growth Management Act of 1992) is about a mile east of my house, fourteen miles east of the Sound; beyond that, population density drops discontinuously.
What that means is that the county itself looks like a microcosm of the state — the western side is urban, liberal, and reports slowly, and the eastern side is rural, relatively conservative, and reports fast.
Sorry, Paul — there’s nothing the least bit interesting about the behavior here. There was not GOTV for the primary, there was no campaigning, there was…nothing. The pattern of returns only sounds surprising if you aren’t familiar with the state or the region.
jcricket
More Republican plagiarism . Are there no honest Republicans left? Tee-hee.
p.lukasiak
I think the larger point here is that people are naturally going to question the validity of your numbers when you’re so obviously biased toward one candidate. That may not be fair, but it’s reality – one of the dangers of advocacy.
Yeah, I understand that. The problem that I have is that I saw very little/no valid counter-arguments, just criticism/reaction based on their own biases.
I mean, I would look at my first piece and say “You’re numbers show that the differences in Democratic party support is not all that great — and while the views of Democrats should be considered, overall its not much better than a draw for Clinton in that category — and you data provides no suggestion that Democrats would abandon either candidate. Independents show a marked preference for Obama, and since the Democrats won’t abandon either nominee, appeal to independents should play a more signficant role than appeal to Democrats.” (Indeed, my second piece is an answer to my own criticism of my first piece)
Instead, I got “Oh, so Indepenent voters shouldn’t count?” I never said that.
tBone
Granted. In fairness, though, we Obamabots are lazy and don’t like math. And concentrated ingestion of MUP dust interferes with higher cognitive function. You can’t expect us to mount a logically sound counterargument in that state. :)
I do appreciate your willingness to defend and reevaluate your points. I wouldn’t bother engaging you if I thought you had slipped as far into the fever swamp as certain other unmentionables around here.
demimondian
I should add a picture of the geography of Western Washington, since I don’t think my original post on King County really explains how much of the county is rural. Here’s a picture of King County. The urban islands east of the main blob are small cities such as Carnation and Duvall; demographically like their rural neighbors.
Ed Drone
You left out cavil, nit-pick, obfuscate, bully and threaten, all of which are part of the armory, ready to use at any moment.
Ed
Rick Taylor
Via Obsidan Wings, an economist estimates the costs of the Iraq war at three trillion dollars. Please tell me again about how we liberals just love spending other peoples’ money on useless projects?
jcricket
But remember, we can’t afford to expand S-CHIP, there’s no money for improving public education, funding headstart or even fixing the VA. But Bush’s grand adventure in Mesopotamia (aka the Money Pit, starring Tom Hanks) is apparently worth $300 trillion in borrowed money.
Oh, and we can’t ever let the average person get out of a bankruptcy, no more Pell grant money for you, etc.
What $300 trillion could have bought in the last 8 years, not to mention how the debt payments will be crippling on us for years to come is just astonishing. Of course somehow this will all be “bad for the Democrats”
TenguPhule
Of course its bad for the Democrats. They have to fix it.