Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

You cannot shame the shameless.

The revolution will be supervised.

Let there be snark.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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We are saved!

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Democrats are now ahead by a “statistically insignificant” amount in the all important Gallup generic preference poll!

This means that until next week, Obama is only Clintonian and not Carteresque, that this is 1982 not 1994, that even though this is still a right-center nation, Obama may have succeeded in “putting his thumb on the scale” and moving the country left.

Remember, though that this is only for registered voters, not likely voters, so when the intensity gap kicks in, Democrats could be way behind in this poll.

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  1. 1.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    Fucking NPR’s meme this afternoon during their profile of a so-called endangered Dem in OH was that if such a candidate in a deliberately gerrymandered Dem district was in danger, WATCH OUT FOR THE LANDSLIDE.

    Of course the “everyday small bidnessman” they interviewed, old enough to have voted for JFK and Ronald Fucking Reagan, claimed that he wouldn’t vote for Obama in Nov. When asked if he’d vote for his incumbent Dem Congresswoman, he said “of course I will”.

    There will be more movement in the Senate races than there will be in the House despite what the corporate media ho’s will have us believe.

  2. 2.

    Mark S.

    What happens if Warren Beatty throws his hat in the ring?

    (Seriously, I don’t remember that at all. Did Halperin think Bulworth was a documentary?)

  3. 3.

    BGinCHI

    The American electorate is like a 16-year-old girl: the nice guy who always tries to be her friend getting constantly fucked over by the rude rich asshole who doesn’t deserve her.

    The nice guy is the Dems.

    I hope this turns out like Valley Girl.

    Please feel free to flip the genders. It’s an open analogy.

  4. 4.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    The title should be: We’re saved! Maybe.

    Ok, at least until it’s time to change to: We’re Doomed! Probably.

  6. 6.

    Mark S.

    And furthermore, I don’t care if Donald Trump ever thought of running for president. I refuse to read anything about that douchebag.

  7. 7.

    El Cid

    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I don’t often hear of your average small business owner voting Democratic or being liberal. Most that I have known and worked for see themselves as the vanguard capitalist class exploited both by the government and their own workers.

  8. 8.

    sven

    Now that Dancing with the Stars is back, oldsters can’t be bothered to answer telephone polls…

    Expect a sudden hot streak for Democrats in October when The Hallmark Network rolls out their Murder She Wrote/Matlock primetime lineup!

  10. 10.

    El Cid

    I saw a discussion in DKos a few days ago pointing out that registered voter polls have been overall better predictors of actual race outcomes than likely voter polls. Don’t know. But it seemed like a reasonable argument based on evidence.

  12. 12.

    cat48

    @DougJ I want you to know you make my day w/that title. It just makes me smile. I do regret you couldn’t fit all your accomplishments in though. Would have been rolling laughter here.

    I’m voting for the creepy Dems here in SC with reluctance. I don’t understand the theory that Obama & some Dems must be punished by not showing up and unfortunately that is a strong theory swirling around out there.

  13. 13.

    Cat Lady

    There is no such thing as generic Republican. There is only whackadoodle Republican. If there were generic Republicans I would be worried, but I’ll take a pass on the panic until election day.

  14. 14.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @Mark S.:

    What happens if Warren Beatty throws his hat in the ring?

    Two words: game changer.

  16. 16.

    Omnes Omnibus

    This is obviously a statistical outlier. No attention need, or will, be paid to it by the national media.

  18. 18.

    trollhattan

    Who are these people that “sit out” elections? I always vote, even in the boring special elections for dog catcher and whatever California propositions are being flung our way that month. A November ballot? Never missed one in my life.

    Especially since California started doing automatic absentee ballots at the voter’s option, it’s so simple. I just assumed everyone else thought so.

  19. 19.

    El Cid

    @Cat Lady: Generic Republicans are available at WalMart for a dollar a dozen. Much cheaper than name brand Republicans at your more posh stores.

  20. 20.

    wmd

    Saved? Really?

    We’ll just get more of the same democrats selling us out if they keep control of the house. /snark

  21. 21.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    @El Cid:

    I’m only parroting what NPR wanted me to hear. I live in the second reddest county in Misery. What small bidness owners we have here don’t employ anybody (they all mow grass, ie. they call themselves ‘landscapers’) but voted 3/4s for McCain in 08 and that’ll never change.

    The guy they profiled in OH probably met their preconcieved criteria of not being a doctrinaire Dem. They’re supposed to do some Rethug profiling tomorrow. I can guarandamntee you they’ll talk to nothing but doctrinaire Repups.

  24. 24.

    mr. whipple

    Remember, though that this is only for registered voters, not likely voters, so when the intensity gap kicks in, Democrats could be way behind in this poll.

    It’s not too late for Obama to nationalize the banks, give us all single payer and cramdown, which will finally energize the base. But he must do this within 24 hours.

  25. 25.

    gbear

    @sven:

    I’m a Walter Mondale democrat.

    When one of your senators is Al Franken, you don’t have to be bitter to be progressive.

  27. 27.

    El Cid

    This is utterly awesomely delicious.

    Via Wonkette, Republican candidate for Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker released with much fanfare his “68 PAGE JOBS PLAN!”

    It’s not blank, surprisingly — but it’s the next best thing.

    Each page is filled up with giganto-font print so there’s like 20 or so words on each page.

    It’s like some middle school kid who was supposed to do a 10 page essay and having never tried this or heard of it on the way to school he writes like 5 words a page in giant letters and thinks he’ll get away with it.

    Or it’s entirely meant for people with really terrible visual difficulties who need to read the page from 10 feet away. And also who read slowly and have a hard time understanding sentences.

    PDF here. Warning — It’s 68 Pages!

  31. 31.

    gbear

    @El Cid:

    I saw that a few minutes ago. I thought it was a joke. I can feel the ripples here in St. Paul from Wisconsinites rolling their eyes.

  38. 38.

    asiangrrlMN

    @El Cid: Yes. I mean, threads could be epic with only four replies in them. I actually downloaded it, and it had problems reading the text. Snort. When it finally downloaded, I giggled over how stupid it was.

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Oh, nice. We have to work that into the Lexicon. “I jestimated that an eleven-billionty fee-fees were hurt in the penning of this blog post!” Or, better yet, DougJestimate!

  39. 39.

    J sub D

    The GOP will take the House, the Dems will retain a majority in the Senate, my guess is 53-47 (counting the “independents” as Dems).

    There’s about a month and a half to go and I don’t see anything on the horizon that’s going to change the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) of the party bases.

    I consider this a good thing. The divided government of the last 6 years of Clinton’s administration worked out pretty darned well.

  40. 40.

    machine

    I get the image of Gandalf cresting the marina near Anacostia Park, followed by Eomer and the Rohirrim. As they charge the House, sunlight blinds the teatards below.

  42. 42.

    gbear

    @J sub D:

    The divided government of the last 6 years of Clinton’s administration worked out pretty darned well.

    Yea, that impeachment thingy was just dandy government. Things worked out so well for the house speaker, too.

    And that was before the republican party went totally nuts.

    Edit: The Clinton years was when the republican party went off it’s meds. It’s now been living on the street for two years.

  43. 43.

    bobbo

    I was in line for the bank teller (getting a cashier’s check, ok? Jeez. I use my ATM card all the time, I swear), and on CNN Wolf Blitzer was talking about how Dems risk losing the rich people vote. Fox News with uglier anchors.

  48. 48.

    Linda Featheringill

    @J sub D:

    The GOP will take the House, the Dems will retain a majority in the Senate, my guess is 53-47 (counting the “independents” as Dems).

    I beg to differ.

    The GOP will not take the House, but the margins will be smaller and Nancy might have to do more negotiating to get stuff through.

    And the Senate will probably have to do things on a bipartisan level or not get anything done at all.

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    @El Cid:
    Hilarious. I especially like that he can’t even fit “telecommunications” on one line; at that size it’s too big to fit the page width.

  53. 53.

    J sub D

    @gbear:

    The Clinton years was when the republican party went off it’s meds. It’s now been living on the street for two years.

    I find myself thinking that the GOP has not spent enough time in the wilderness to learn anything. Partly because the Dems spent 12 years in the wilderness (’94-’06) and didn’t learn a whole heck of a lot.

  54. 54.

    El Cid

    For your edification, the entire text of the 68 PAGE JOBS PLAN! by Scott Walker, with paragraphing removed.

    Scott’s Plan to Make Wisconsin a Top Ten State for Job Creators
    __
    One of the keys to the future of our state’s economy is setting and meeting goals. For too long, politicians and bureaucrats have taken the state’s economy for granted and delayed action until a business was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy or moving to a new state. Instead of reacting to each crisis as it comes, I will develop strategies for creating 250,000 new jobs and 10,000 new businesses by 2015. These goals will guide every decision made by my administration; every initiative that’s undertaken and every program that’s administered will be examined for its effect on jobs. Every decision must be considered in the context of what it means for job creation and economic recovery. Specifically, there are six things we must do to make Wisconsin economically competitive with other states:
    __
    Lower Taxes
    __
    We must lower the heavy tax burden that prevents businesses from investing in facilities and payrolls and instead forces them to consider relocating to taxfriendly states like South Dakota or Texas. Repealing job-killing tax increases will unleash our employers to hire new workers. We must lower the tax burden for all individuals and job creators. Specifically, we can lower the tax on early stage and investment capital to make it more accessible to Wisconsin employers that want to stay in Wisconsin and expand while also luring startups to our state. My Administration will also work to make Wisconsin a highly attractive place to start a business by eliminating corporate taxes for the first two years of operation. Finally, I will work to begin phasing out the state tax on retirement income to help keep investment capital in Wisconsin instead of watching it go to states like Florida and Arizona. __
    Eliminate Red Tape
    __
    Of all the reason s a business may have for not creating new jobs, bureaucratic hassles should never be one of them. Regulations should be science based and predictable; should be written in simple, easy to understand terms; and employers should have a one-stop-shop for understanding the regulations that affect them. With new rules in place, I will demand that state employees end their “gotcha” mentality and instead focus on helping job creators comply and get their applications approved. I will require permit applications to be reviewed in a timely and predictable manner, rather than the game playing that often happens now. My administration will reform the permitting process to require state agencies to review permit applications within 60 days of receipt. If the application is not approved or denied by the agency within 180 days of receipt, the application will be presumed approved. These reforms will put the government’s focus back on encouraging job growth instead of stifling it. End Frivolous
    __
    Lawsuits That Kill Jobs
    __
    For too many years, policy decisions in Madison have been designed to make it easier for trial lawyers in search of deep pockets to sue. I will push for legal reforms so that instead of defending frivolous lawsuits, businesses can invest in their operations and workers.
    __
    Improve the Education of Tomorrow’s Workforce
    __
    Any successful economic development strategy will require a strong integration of the private sector and our educational institutions. Despite the national recession, job creators still report difficulty finding enough highly qualified workers in all industries. This is why we must ensure that investments in our schools align with our job creation goals. Course offerings at our universities and technical colleges should be aligned with industry clusters and credits between schools must be easily transferable. Curriculum must have a better balance of employment based learning and liberal arts so our graduates are “job-ready.” Internships and apprenticeships should be expanded for both college and high school students. We must also leverage new technology to increase online learning to allow students across Wisconsin to have access to worldclass educators and industry leaders in other parts of the state. To ensure we can retain and recruit top quality educators, we must reform the system to reward excellent teachers, mentor struggling teachers and replace failing teachers.
    __
    Make Health Care Affordable
    __
    Health care costs are often the fastest rising part of an employer’s budget. Creating jobs can’t happen without controlling health care costs. My plan focuses on getting patients the treatment they need, when they need it by eliminating government red tape that increases cost, giving families more control of their health care decisions and fighting to optout of the jobkilling health care bill passed by Congress. Demanding more cost and quality information be provided to patients and employers will lower costs by increasing choices. Focusing on paying for positive health outcomes, not simply for the volume of procedures, will eliminate the perverse incentives in our system to order unnecessary procedures that drive costs up for families and employers. Finally, by eliminating the state tax on Health Savings Accounts, we can make it easier for small business owners to provide health insurance to their employees.
    __
    Invest in Infrastructure
    __
    Reliable and affordable transportation and energy are crucial to rebuilding Wisconsin’s economy and competing in a global marketplace. We must diversify our energy supply based on a balance of cost and sound science with an eye toward environmental impact. We should lift Wisconsin’s nuclear moratorium to encourage this clean energy option and ensure that we continue to invest in energy transmission to move power from outside Wisconsin across the state. We must also get back to the basics of planning for transportation projects, funding common sense projects and ending the raids on the Transportation Fund so we can adequately maintain our roads and bridges. Wisconsin has a competitive advantage in the Midwest due to our transportation system that we can’t afford to lose. To attract job creators, Wisconsin must also ensure it has a world class telecommunications network.
    __
    My Administration will seek to update telecommunications laws to encourage competition and lower prices through a fair and competitive marketplace for all telecommunications providers. By giving Wisconsin consumers choices, we can encourage the kind of innovation it will take to build a 21st century economy.

    Tax cuts! Cut regulations! Tort reform!

    There are a few normal things, but mostly it’s standard GOP boilerplate. I’m sure it’s much more sophisticated in the 68 page format.

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @El Cid:

    Finally, I will work to begin phasing out the state tax on retirement income to help keep investment capital in Wisconsin instead of watching it go to states like Florida and Arizona.

    Yeah, the weather has nothing at all to do with it.

  58. 58.

    FlipYrWhig

    @MikeJ: 1000 words = 68 pages? The rule I give students is that ONE double-spaced, 12-point-font page is 250-300 words. I hope none of them this semester is from Wisconsin.

  60. 60.

    El Cid

    @MikeJ:
    “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Walker,

    I would like to schedule a meeting with you to discuss Scott’s troubles in following instructions on assignment.

    Recently the students were asked to do a report on Wisconsin’s economy, and they were required to write one of 10 pages in length, and to list the books and magazines and newspapers and websites they used.

    Scott wrote 9 words which stretched across all 10 pages.

    As you know, this is unacceptable, and if such performance continues, Scott will be in great trouble academically at this school.

    Signed,

    Scott’s Teacher”

    —

    “Dear Scott’s Teacher,

    You stay out of our son’s damn business and you liberal teachers need to stop keeping God out of the classrooms because if Jesus was there with Scott he would know what to write and it wouldn’t have anything to do with you trying to mind control our children in your Marxist Satanic ‘economics’.

    Sincerely,
    Scott’s Folks”

  61. 61.

    El Cid

    @Linda Featheringill: Just used MS Word’s “Replace” function to remove most paragraphing and then bolded. I’m sure it took me less time than to figure out how to promote this thing without being hideously ashamed, though admittedly this would not be a characteristic of personality that Republicans would worry about.

  62. 62.

    jwb

    @J sub D: Since we’re throwing out gut-feel figures here rather than anything based on polls, I think the goopers will be lucky to take 25 seats in the House. Your Senate numbers seem about right, though I think the fact that the GOP has nominated a couple of whackadoodles makes it plausible that the Dems could do considerably better. I don’t yet put much stake in the Dem GOTV this cycle, but if OfA can actually show that they can turn the numbers out, the Dems are actually in position to have minimal losses despite everything. Now, I don’t think that’s a likely scenario, but it’s conceivable.

    On your other point about divided government, you clearly don’t remember how godawful bad 1995 was. You also have no idea how much crazier the current batch of Republicans is.

  63. 63.

    FlipYrWhig

    By fitting 1000 words on 68 pages, Scott Walker’s jobs plan is nothing less than a bailout for one important Wisconsin corporation: Wausau Paper.

  64. 64.

    Huggy Bear is the business and economics editor of this comment

    Paid for by Friends of Scott Walker, John Hiller, Treasurer

    With friends who produce fantastical stuff like:

    Any
    succe
    ssful
    econ
    omic…

    it makes one wonder “Is our friends learning?”

    I bet each piece of legislation will be 500,000 pages long after his administration enforces the 69pt font law. Maybe he was trying to appeal to the investment capital that doesn’t move to Florida and Arizona for the weather.

  65. 65.

    Blotto von Bismarck

    @El Cid:

    No, I like it far better in its original format. Read it as though it is poetry, and imagine the speaker pausing at every line break. In accordance with standard word processors/browsers/etc., I can’t imagine a Rich Lowry feeling the starbursts, but as poetry, it is almost on the level of Sarah Palin. Almost.

  67. 67.

    MikeJ

    Grade level scoring:
    Readability Formula Grade
    Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 14.00
    Gunning-Fog Score 16.20
    Coleman-Liau Index 14.80
    SMOG Index 12.30
    Automated Readability Index 15.10
    Average Grade Level 14.48

    Other Statistics

    The tool reported that this text contained 42 sentences, with 1019 words (24.26 per sentence) made up of 1735 syllables (1.70 per word).

    http://www.addedbytes.com/code/readability-score/

  69. 69.

    jibeaux

    @Cat Lady:

    Ha! This was my hubby’s point: “their problem is, what we have as Republicans are about as far away from generic as you can get.”

  71. 71.

    Mike in NC

    Democrats are now ahead by a “statistically insignificant” amount in the all important Gallup generic preference poll!

    Can this be spun as anything but good news for John McCain?

  75. 75.

    daryljfontaine

    @El Cid: My personal favorite part of that whole thing is the EXCLAMATION POINT! in the PDF URL.

    Because it couldn’t just be ScottWalkerJobPlan.PDF, it had to be 68%20PAGE%20JOB%20PLAN!.PDF … but even longer than that.

    D

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kristine:

    I lived in the Midwest during the winter of 1985. People in Wisconsin don’t retire to Florida or Arizona because of a 6% tax (though they may well retire to Illinois or Ohio instead, neither of which tax retirement income). They retire to Florida or Arizona because they’re tired of the goddamn arctic cold. Which is why I have lived in California for the past 20 years.

  83. 83.

    chaseyourtail

    I’m almost as tired of hearing about the “intensity gap” as I was of hearing about the “rural white voters” in ’08 who were supposedly going to crash the whole damn system…

    November 2nd can’t come soon enough.

  84. 84.

    Triassic Sands

    This means that until next week…

    Actually, things had already changed before you’d even finished writing the first sentence. Volatile year.

  85. 85.

    asiangrrlMN

    @MikeJ: Seriously? I write over twice that amount in one blog entry. If I used the same size font Scotty did, I would have a 136 page PDF file per entry! Holy shit.

    ETA: It really does show that with the Republicans, the end (having that number of pages to one up the Democrats) justifies the means.

  86. 86.

    John Bird

    Things are (arguably) looking up for the Democrats on Earth-83, world of global proportional representation and a kindly Marty Peretz who donates to the Red Crescent.

  87. 87.

    Robert Waldmann

    It isn’t just Gallup. You see the same thing in the pollster.com average if you toss out Rasmussen. 6 of 11 non-Rasmussen pollster.com aggregated polls in September are likely voter polls.

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