I, like the lovely Soonergrunt, am pretty damn confident about this election. I admit that something could go wrong and six weeks can be a long time. However, I read Nate and Sam and I study their tables and I play with the odd interactive electoral map, and at the moment those all seem to be saying that, provided Obama manages not to call Mitt “honky underpants man” in the debates or start a war with Israel and wins either Florida or North Carolina, there’s a pretty damn good chance he will win the election.
I am strengthened in this belief by several things, including my faith in Obama as a canny politician; the fact that Mitt and his entire royal court seem to be incapable of opening their mouths without telling an easily disprovable lie or a ridiculous half-truth, telling the unpalatable truth on video, having a hissy fit at journalists, using the words “you people” or calling attention to the stupid thing they said three weeks ago that everyone had almost forgotten about; and the fact that Dick Fucking Morris, the anti-Sibyl, a man who couldn’t predict it if his own arse was going to fall off, says that Obama is going to lose because (says Dick) he has to win young, black and latino voters at historic levels and (says Dick) they aren’t going to show up to vote.
Frighteningly, there is a whole world of Dicks out there, all of them believing that Romney absolutely will win.
For example, the other day someone on Balloon Juice (I can’t recall who because I am old and drunk) pointed to Unskewed Polls where polls are “unskewed” by “re-sampling” them based on Rasmussen’s “Partisan Trends” report which says that the number of Republicans in the US is at a record high.
There is a wonderful post here, where someone called Dean Chambers will explain to you how the method works, using an extended and ineffably tortuous “Student Government Association (SGA)” metaphor that has to be read to be believed.
A political science major who is known to be conservative points out most of the polls are skewed because they included far more than 33.3 percent education majors in their polls, and for that reason, get results “skewed” in favor of the education major who is the incumbent president. This conservative political science major points out if the samples are weighted to accurately reflect the student ratio between the enrollment in the the three colleges, the polls would report more accurate results. So by applying this weighting, the polls are “unskewed” and they all show the business major challenging the SGA president to be in the lead 56 percent to 44 percent. They call him crazy and he says the real poll on election day will prove him right.
Unsurprisingly, you might think, these resampled polls show Obama having an approval rating averaging about -8, and Romney massively ahead in the popular vote:
Another nice person mentioned the American Thinker, a font of pure, sparkling dumb of which I had not previously been aware. Romney is going to romp it in according to the Drive-By Pundit, who is apparently a gentleman of the black persuasion.
Book it: Romney’s going to win this election in a romp come November. I’m certain of this because there is a key factor that’s being overlooked this time around — blacks have lost their passion for Obama.
I see that loss reflected in the faces of my fellow blacks, who at the mention of Obama’s name no longer beam with rapturous joy — something we blacks normally reserve for winning lottery tickets and intimate getaways with persons not our spouses. As the saying went in the ‘hood where I grew up: “If he looks happy, he’s either hit the number or he’s cheating.”
I also hear it in their voices. Back in 2008, when blacks spoke of Obama, it was like they were describing an encounter with the divine. Obama was “The One” and the “savior of the black man,” as my Aunt Gladys shouted over the telephone to me after learning I was backing McCain. Now what I’m hearing are sentiments more in line with “Give the man a chance” and “He needs more time to turn things around.” Blacks are clearly engaged in excuse-making for a failed deity.
But most of all, I see blacks’ loss of passion for Obama in their eyes. Before, when blacks spoke of Obama, they looked you square in the eye with confident, euphoric gazes, much like a cat eying a cornered mouse. But the reality of double-digit unemployment, diminishing household incomes, and soaring gas and grocery bills sank in long ago in the black community. Now when blacks talk about Obama, their eyes are listless and dull, almost despondent.
Oh sure, when it comes to their waning ardor for Obama, blacks put up a good front, especially around whites — i.e., pollsters. But I know my people “like every square inch of my glorious naked body” (a little Rush Limbaugh lingo there). When in the wrong and confronted by whites, blacks will always hide their true thoughts and feelings, much in the same obstinate way as their refusal to admit that O.J. did it. (He did, by the way.)
Crikey. I’m leaving that one well alone.
These people, and millions of wingnuts just like them genuinely think that Romney is going to win, and win comfortably. If (when) he doesn’t, as my Australian friends would say, the dummy spit is going to be epic.
I’ll leave you, dears, with another nut picked from the American Thinker. This is a little off topic, and I don’t have the strength to pick it apart, but it’s too awful not to share with you. This is a keeper – 762 words of pure nut brittle, studded with lies and snobbery and contempt and whistles, with a side of strapping, drug-addled young bucks. It’s horrible. Meet Eric Homes.
After years of trying to figure out who Barack Obama is, I think I have found the solution. I’ve read countless stories of various theories which describe him as (1) a communist, (2) a Muslim, (3) an anarchist, (4) a New World Order proponent, (5) a narcissist, or even (6) an anti-christ.
Though after watching his behavior the last few years and reading all I could on his background, I believe that the motivation behind Barack Obama is that he has no ambition, and what drives him is a life of leisure with wealth and no responsibility.
Rather than a lifetime of achievements and years of toil at anything, the evidence points to a person who enjoys all the fruits given him. Some have reported that he doesn’t really like being president. According to Investors Business Daily, he skips over half the daily intel meetings, he has more time on the golf course than attending economy meetings, and we also know he takes more vacations than any previous president has taken. During the most recent crisis, he spent his time in Las Vegas, on talk shows, and rubbing elbows with celebrities.
In the study of successful people, they all have in common years of hard work, and tens of thousands of hours of practice and study, all beginning at a young age. What did Obama do during his youth? He smoked dope and complained that he didn’t get more playing time during his basketball games.
Regardless of how he was able to be accepted to all the schools he attended, what did he do while in school? He hung out with friends and accepted a vacation to Pakistan. At Columbia he was so uninvolved that no one remembers him. At Harvard he was appointed to president of the law review, where he never wrote anything. For this achievement he was given a large book advance which he spent on a long vacation to come back with nothing. Eventually he wrote a book, though the analysis of Jack Cashill indicates that he didn’t actually author it. Bill Ayers is quoted as saying he wrote it.
After graduation, he worked a little with no real achievement as a political activist. As a lawyer, he has no records and only memories of others as having his feet up on his desk all the time. He won his first couple of elections when his opponents dropped out. While in office he had the famous record of voting present. As a U.S. senator he wrote no bills, nor did he introduce any significant legislation. He spent his final two years campaigning for president. Up until this point, his greatest accomplishment was giving a speech at the Democratic Convention.
As a president, he signed bills others wrote. He has been on date nights to NYC, golfing at Martha’s Vineyard, and vacations to Europe and Hawaii. He shuns meetings with other world leaders, while his biggest summit was settling the differences between a policeman and a college professor.
From all the times I have seen him speak off the cuff, I speculate that Obama really doesn’t know much because he doesn’t put in the homework to learn. His 2008 campaign speeches about reforming health care are elementary; his fix for the energy crisis — namely, that everyone add air to his or her tires — borders on stupidity. He quickly weighs in on the Cambridge police or the Trayvon Martin case, because these are issues on the TV news. He changes his mind on important social issues not by reading legal reviews, but rather by watching cheap TV shows. Yet he seems so uninformed about history and world events.
Of course, 57 states, breathalyzers, Navy corpse-men, the Austrian language, and bowing to foreign heads of states are all famous gaffes; they reveal a pattern — Obama doesn’t care to know or study. He smugly quipped that he already knew the difference between a Shiite and Sunni before he was assigned to his committee in the Senate. It as if he was saying, “I’m so smart already that I don’t need to learn anything.”
Granted, he is a millionaire, though mostly from royalties from a book he did not write. He received a sweetheart real estate deal from someone who would later be a convicted felon. Lately, World Net Daily is reporting that Obama is shopping for a mansion that someone else will buy for him in Hawaii.
For all he is credited or blamed for, future history most likely will reveal that Obama was just a puppet for others. This is his ambition: live like a king, and never work.
Jewish Steel
I should be so cursed with Obama’s lack of ambition.
TOP123
and I’m sure they all refer to themselves as ‘blacks’, or possibly ‘the blacks’.
MattF
I’m guessing that Mr. Chambers had a tummy ache and missed the lecture where the Perfessor covered ‘conditional probabilities’, ‘bias’, and ‘sample size’ in Statistics 101. Hint: you can’t just go ahead and make whatever corrections you want to. You have to actually show that they will improve your estimates.
Thlayli
I can haz NFL open thread nao?
Jerzy Russian
Nice article, although I lost about 50 IQ points reading Eric Holmes.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Sooooooo black people are only happy when when gambling, cheating on their significant others, or cheating at gambling. Says a black man.
I didn’t know Uncle Ruckus wrote for the American Thinker. The only thing he missed was mentioning how much his fellow black criminals stink. The Grand Dragon of the KKK would tell this guy to dial it back a little.
TOP123
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: some of his best friends are blacks.
Corner Stone
Good God, just because Tom The Pretentious Art Douche Levenson has had to start posting normal human size posts due to time constraints doesn’t mean you have to take up the mantle and go full buggerwinkle tl;dr Balloon-Juice style as we already have Freddie and Bernd who more than make up for any size deficiencies on TTPADL’s part.
Corner Stone
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
I’m only happy when gambling and some of my best friends have always been black.
scav
Rombot must have stolen everybody’s anchors for personal adornment because they’re really becoming untethered. Those are some fine exemplars of nut-brittle. May even use them as type specimens for this excellent and useful new concept.
Corner Stone
@Thlayli: Tony “Schlomo” Romo has already thrown a pick inside his own 30.
And…TD by Bucs off the turnover.
amk
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
egg.sack.lee. Sheesh, the nut seems to be more royal than the king.
Scott S.
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
The Grand Dragon of the KKK would tell this guy to dial it back a little
More than likely, he **is** the Grand Dragon of the KKK. Or at least he wishes he was. I think it’s a fairly sure bet it’s a honkey pretending he’s a non-honkey.
Does the American Thinker pay any money? I could use a little extra cash, and I can sling out the lunacy under an assumed name, no problem…
Schlemizel
said the bag nozzel
guachi
That Eric Homes piece is one of the greatest things I’ve ever read.
I can imagine Eric was able to write this without having to pause to remember any of his conspiracies.
Corner Stone
@Schlemizel: Someone is not aware of all the internets.
gnomedad
Mandatory logo parody.
Corner Stone
This CIN v WAS game is sloppy as heck the first few minutes. Wonder how bad this will get.
J
I’m optimistic about Obama winning too (though trying not to count my chickens before they hatch), but it’s vitally important that the Democrats do well in other races as well. Another four years of Republican obstructionism will be terrible–better only than the complete Republican domination that would follow a Romney victory.
I’m a little worried about these stories hinting at a return to decency on the part of chastened Republicans if Obama wins. I don’t believe that for a minute, and I hope Obama and Schumer don’t really believe it either.
craigie
Maybe I’m just paranoid, but all this end-zone dancing and high-fiving before we actually win this thing is making me very nervous. It seems like asking for bad juju to me.
I prefer to think of this thing as very close, and keep on pushing.
Schlemizel
@Corner Stone: true enough – sorry if I missed it
Emma
@Jewish Steel: Same here. Sheesh. As I said to one of my friends, after she got two Masters and a PhD: You know, you’ve got to stop drifting through life.
quannlace
Hmmm, why do I get the feeling Drive By Pundit is as much from the ‘hood as Vanilla Ice.
*******
I’ve lost count of the articles/essays all titled with some variation on ‘How Romney can turn this around/win.”
Funny, how everybody knows how Romney can win, except Romney.
merrinc
@Jerzy Russian:
You were able to finish it? I made it to the third paragraph and my brain started to squinch.
Cargo
Ah, the frantic grasping at poll bias, I remember it so well from 2004. Whatever gets you through the night, dude. Anything to calm that roiling feeling in the pit of your stomach that the guy you can’t stand is going to be smiling on your TV for another four years.
Another helping of triple-layer, chocolate-fudge-chunk schadenfreude pie? Oh my gosh, I’m stuffed but I think I can have another. I need to save room for November, though.
Jay C
So, if I’m reading that “polling data” bit of the post aright, this Dean Chambers has decided that all those polls showing President Obama in the lead are hopelessly skewed for some “reason”, and so all that needs to be done is “re-skew” them, and Hey Presto! Mitt Romney is actually leading by landslide numbers.
Yeah.
That makes a whole lotta sense.
NOT!
And as for that first bit from the (apparently named without the least sense of irony whatsofreakinever) “American Thinker” ? So one is to assume that all those polls showing President Obama with something like 90+% support among African-Americans are also some sort of “skewed” sampling as well (what? not enough white people?)?
Articles like this are usually a sign of the losing team trying to desperately spin an upcoming disaster by pulling “data” out of their backsides and whistling ever more loudly as they pass the electoral graveyard. But this crap isn’t just “whistling past the graveyard”: this is passing the graveyard with a marching band, some floats and a sound truck….
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Edited to reflect common nomenclature. It’s well known and widely ignored except by those locked in padded rooms for their safety and ours.
Corner Stone
Romo just threw that ball into quadruple coverage.
Well, I should say he overthrew his receiver and the ball floated into quad coverage.
James E. Powell
@craigie:
I prefer to think of this thing as very close, and keep on pushing.
I agree completely.
And we should all expect that the corporate press/media will turn on Obama/Biden at or around the time of the first debate.
It could be an expectations game thing where the fact that Romney doesn’t say anything too stupid gets played as his ‘comeback’ against a ‘disappointing & dull’ Obama.
Or they might turn one of the daily right-wing outrages into a week of ‘Obama losing support of [fill in the blank]’ stories.
And remember, any show of confidence on the part of the president or his supporters feeds into stories highlighting ‘arrogance’ or, in the more common terms ‘uppity’ which will not stop until Obama leaves office.
NR
@J:
Complete domination? Nobody can do anything without 60 votes in the Senate. Or so I was repeatedly told in 2009 and 2010.
TOP123
@Scott S.:
Yes, the ‘Drive By Pundit’, whose name is, I’m sure, nothing at all racist, but rather a reference to those nice Sunday drives with his wife when they slow down to look at all the charming homes and gardens along the route.The name alone is a tell.
GregB
You people need to wake up and realize how blessed you are to have Mitt Romney on the threshold of a landslide victory.
Honestly, I don’t even know why I talk to you worthless moochers…You aren’t worth a drop of sweat off of Rafalca’s ball-sac.
-Ann the Fortunate Wife Romney
Anoniminous
The math skills are weak with this one.
Corner Stone
@TOP123: This is a little bit of a reach.
gene108
@J:
I think Obama can handle his stuff, so I’m not worried about the Presidential election.
I really hope we can put resources into the down ticket races. Taking back the House would be HUGE!
Chris
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Seriously. I hope he’s being well paid, I prefer not to think that anyone’s capable of this kind of self-loathing.
Violet
Does anyone else find Romney’s new, “I’m for the 100% of Americans” really odd? The 100%? When did one hundred percent get an article? It sounds so forced and bizarre. Like his, “I like sport” comment.
TOP123
@Violet: And his defense of the 47% tape, saying that he owed a discussion of campaign strategy to those entrusting him with their ‘monies’.
different-church-lady
Next up: I prove that Houston will win the National League by unskwering their statistics using a weighting system based on the pitching staff of the Washington Nationals.
Corner Store Operator
Thanks for the link to this unskewed site. It has instantly become one of my favorite sites of all time. Also here is the twitter profile pic for this astute political statistician.
https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/2290059106/w7qmy45rfd95cb8gl4zq.jpeg
Joel
@craigie: I disagree entirely:
1. close removes desperation from the opposition
2. most people like to back a winner, close is no guarantee
3. running up the score is much more fun
Violet
@J: The Republicans will not change unless made to change. It time for boot on the neck, take a step, grind them into dust, utter destruction time.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Corner Stone: And then the Cowboys score.
Donut
@Corner Stone:
You’re just jealous John won’t give you keys to the car. Go to bed, little man.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
In light of yesterday’s brave slaying of the 50%-limbed man in a wheelchair, Houston might yet take the NLCS by sending their cops into opposing teams’ locker room.
lol
@NR:
Republicans need 60 votes to do anything. Fortunately for them, they’re not interested in doing anything. They, however, are quite interested in doing nothing and they only need 51 votes to do that.
They only need 51 votes to not pass a debt ceiling bill.
They only need 51 votes to not fund government programs.
They only need 51 votes to not fund most regulators.
They only need 51 votes to not tax high income earners.
There’s a wide variety of things the government currently does that the Republicans only need 51 votes to stop doing.
Democrats want to do lots of things and they need 60 votes to do it. Republicans want to do nothing and they need 51 votes to do that. That’s the asymmetric effect of the filibuster; it completely lines up with the desires of the Republican party.
rlrr
@Violet:
Having to state he’s for 100% (with or without the “the”) shows that Romney is in trouble…
Yutsano
@Violet: They need to lose and lose big. I’m afraid that won’t happen this year, but until they figure out how to moderate their positions Texas will start going purple.
geg6
Ah, thank you, Sarah P&T, for providing me with some real humor from inside the bubble (h/t Bill Maher). I am glad that you can stand to wade through that shit and come and tell us about it all. I couldn’t do it, so I admire your bravery.
And no way is that dude black. No fucking way. I may not be African American myself, but that is some Teahadi white dude spewing there. Or it’s Clarence Thomas.
Wait a minute…OMG, could it be?
hitchhiker
Clearly that last guy is writing about the fantasy Obama who shows up to sit in empty chairs where once-respected actors make fools of themselves on national television.
Maybe he and Clint could do an act together, introducing Mitt Romney live in every swing state?
Please?
srv
@Corner Stone: There are a lot of complex personalities, and some with more than one.
You have to dig deeper like Homesy to find the truths.
Corner Stone
@Donut: Why are you trying to hurt my feelings? I’ve always liked you.
Usually the cake style with chocolate frosting but I like plain glazed sometimes too.
Although come to think of it, donuts stopped agreeing with me about 10 years ago and I haven’t had but one or two over that time.
scav
probably some people get their RDA of adrenaline and determination from concern / anxiety about the job left to be done while others get their energy and fight from measuring the progress made toward same. Whatever works.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@rlrr:
Indeed. If you’re explaining, you’re losing. And if you’re explaining that you haven’t written off 47% of the country you’re asking to govern you’re really off in the weeds.
gloryb
Hey, as somone who has been a “hood” dweller fir most of my life, I can say with complete assurance that I have never heard any bkack person talk the way drive-by claims we do. For rhat matter, I’ve never heard anyone but wingers call Obama “the one.”
Another Halocene Human
Wow. This man has the potential to make a team of psychiatrists and/or “spiritual leaders” very, very
richcomfortable. The self-loathing displayed here is so epic even Clarence Thomas would be shifting in his seat and trying to find a way to tell a brother to tone it down.At least when Herman Cain (Pokemon Master!) pulls that shuck’n’jive shit you know it’s a fucking act.
Corner Stone
@lol: 41
Violet
@Yutsano: It can start this year. I am seeing life in the Democratic party. They seem to be slightly less afraid than in years past. Harry Reid is a good example. And when they step up and speak truth, people like it. The Republicans don’t know what’s happening because Dems aren’t supposed to act this way, and since they have zero practice with Dems who fight back, they are at a complete loss.
I know it’s not all Dems, but the more that fight back, the better off we all are. I hope this is the start of a trend. Tough, strong Dems.
Brachiator
@Violet:
Based on the reprehensible stuff coming from GOP supporters quoted here, they are asking to be ground into dust. Begging for it.
It would be unkind not to accommodate them.
Another Halocene Human
No, you moron, people other than self-loathers like yourself who hate the fact that you’re Black were completely floored and overjoyed at the chance to participate in American democracy in a way they had been heretofore denied. Think Irish Catholics when Kennedy won the Democratic nomination. I know more than a few people who registered to vote for the first time in their lives in 2008. One is a good friend who has now become a regular voter. Becoming a regular voter means entails becoming more engaged in the political process.
BTW, you failed to mention that MOST Black people I knew in 2008 were convinced that Barack Obama was going to be assassinated. (A good number of white people shared this fear, but from what I could tell it was much more intense among Blacks, and certainly far more pervasive.) You fucking selective memory-having weasel.
lol
@Corner Stone:
True. You only need 41 to stop the Senate from doing anything. But if the government is doing anything and you want to do nothing, then you need 51 to do nothing because the threshold is different for the budget..
RSA
@MattF:
Neither does Mr. Chambers realize that professional pollers also typically adjust the weights of different groups to improve accuracy. I wonder if it’s occurred to him to apply his technique to past elections? Probably not–his results are so obviously right.
Chris
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
That, and it’s factually provable bullshit. Everyone saw that video, everyone is perfectly aware that you couldn’t care less about what you called the “47%.”
Trying to backpeddle now does nothing to make the “47%” like you – it’s a bit late for that – and simply pisses off the conservative base which loathes “the 47%” and sincerely believes that their politicians would win every election if only they weren’t such pussies and did this every time they’re in front of a camera.
geg6
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
This. And that’s why I’m optimistic and channeling it toward working to get people their ids here in PA, making calls for OFA, and putting in time with my union friends in support of Mark Critz. He’s not really my kind of Dem, but he’s certainly better than the alternative.
@Violet:
And this, also too. It might take time and being thankful for small improvements in our congresscritters who must compete in purple places like Western PA. After all, Critz is a step up from Altmire. Baby steps, people. And keep taking them.
ABL
“honky underpants man.” gosh, i hope that happens.
Darkrose
Shorter Unskewed Polls:
Math is hard.
Jerzy Russian
@merrinc:
I don’t remember. I have blocked it out, in much the same way the GOP has blocked out the presidency of George W. Bush.
Yutsano
@Violet: I would love it if Cruz were to lose the Senate, but I think that is being overly optimistic. But we get Carmona and Heitkamp plus keep a few holds we might have a workable Senate. Plus it’s time to get a few statehouses back in Democratic hands.
Slightly OT: there’s an anti-Inslee ad running that has a bunch of old guys eating breakfast complaining about how Inslee hated small business. I call it the AARP ad because every single one looks at least 70. It’s so hilariously bad.
Hal
Obama has to lose. Republicans have spent the past 4 years telling their rank and file that the apocalypse is coming if Obama is re-elected. How many conservatives have said “Obama has destroyed our country.” Sure, they say this, or type it, from their homes, where they have electricity and food, but still. Conservatives imagine an America where they live in some domed city and the rest of the country is slowly burning to the ground, unless Mitt Romney is elected.
That’s the scenario that folks like Limbaugh and Fox News have created, leaving Republicans with no other choice than to support a man they can’t stand, and would not want to be President of their gated community home association, let alone the country.
Tonal Crow
P=0.95 that “Drive-By Pundit” is DougJ on the troll.
MikeJ
For those of you who keep warning of being overconfident, note well these attempts at polls. They’re trying to project confidence because they’re being beaten like a rented mule. Why then do Dems have to go out of their way to fucking help them every time somebody dares to say they think Obama might just pull it out?
Violet
About the 47% video. Yesterday I was asked to work at a booth at a local fair. I was there with some other volunteers, most of whom I’d peg at well under 30 years old. Some were in college.
The one in charge, who was maybe in his mid-to-late-20’s, started talking about the 47% video. He said he finally watched it, and said, “Wow. If that video goes viral, Romney’s in trouble.” I took that opportunity to jump in and say, “Viral? It’s well past viral. It’s being shown on evening news shows and morning shows like the Today Show. You know, TV shows old people watch. It’s an epidemic now.”
They all looked at me like I was from another planet and the guy who brought it up said he’d watched it on his phone. The others hadn’t seen it.
I would have continued the conversation but I got pulled away. I was both amazed that it was being discussed casually by a bunch of young folks, and disappointed that they weren’t aware of how much it was out there in the national conversation.
Darkrose
Drive-by Pundit is going to get a visit from the DROP Squad. Or he would, if he was actually black.
“But I know my people “like every square inch of my glorious naked body” (a little Rush Limbaugh lingo there)”
Yeah…no. Ain’t no brotha on this planet who’d say that and attribute it to Limpdick.
Villago Delenda Est
The polls must be skewed, because it is not possible that some ni*CLANG* dumbass is beating the living shit out of our glorious Galtian Overlord Mittens.
It just is not possible!
Litlebritdifrnt
Even the bobbleheads are starting to pick up on the fact that the republicans are running against their “Fantasy Obama” an Obama that just does not exist. That Holmes piece is a shining example, for instance perhaps he could tell me EXACTLY when POTUS went on vacation to Europe? Because I sure as hell can’t remember it. He has been on a State Visit to Britain, and has been on other official visits but I can’t remember him going on vacation to anywhere other than Hawaii and Martha’s Vinyard. Sure Michelle went to Spain but does that mean that POTUS is now a composite of the entire family?
Chris
@Hal:
They were already saying this four years ago.
Hell, they were already saying it (Reagan) when Medicare was passed in the sixties.
Hell, they were already saying it when FDR created Social Security.
Hell, they were already saying it when a few very modest reforms were introduced by Teddy Roosevelt all the way back in the day.
You’d think at some point they’d noticed that not only has America not been destroyed, it’s actually done pretty well for itself, at least as well as it was doing under their precious Gilded Age. But, nope. There’s a narrative to be adhered to here. Keep your pointy-headed “facts” to yourself!
Another Halocene Human
Does Eric Homes think he’s writing his 6th grade September “What I Did On Summer Vacation” essay? Because that’s what it reminds me of.
JGabriel
That’s way too many square inches for anyone to ever know well.
And we haven’t even gotten to the disincentivizing effects of the “Eww” factor that must be involved here, and would discourage thoroughness in such examination.
.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@Violet: As Rachel Maddow gleefully pointed out to Bill O’Reilly a couple years back, more people watch(ed) the show about the couple with eight kids than watched her show and his combined. I’m guessing that demo has moved on to Honey Boo-boo. I do wonder what websites people like your friends visit regularly. I know political websites get relatively low traffic, but who gets high numbers? What’s the web equivalent of Honey Boo-boo (I have to admit, just typing that makes me chuckle). Don’t Teh Young People all watch Stewart and Colbert?
Tonal Crow
“From whence”? You mean “from from where”?
Violet
@Yutsano: It’s Texas. Cruz is the Republican candidate for Senate. There’s no way he’ll lose. Well, I suppose if Texas turned very blue, but I just don’t see that happening this year. Latest polls show him 17 points ahead.
mothra
Look at Real Clear Politics-the win is there with Ohio and Nevada alone ÷ the likely and.lean Obama states
Jerzy Russian
@Tonal Crow:
J
@NR: Ho ho ho. I assume that, like me, you worry that a tactic routinely employed by the Republicans would become anathema if the Democrats tried it.
Violet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: I have no idea what websites they visit. I didn’t know them at all when I showed up and although we shared a booth, I wasn’t really working with them. I thought it was an interesting example because I didn’t know them, didn’t come in with any preconceived ideas of who they were. Just sort of hung out and listened to their conversations when there was a lull in people visiting the booth.
As for websites with high traffic, isn’t it things like TMZ?
Revanch
I think it’s time to start assessing where in the Five Stages of Grief the conservative movement as a whole is.
Certainly most of the cranks Sarah cites are clearly in stage one – Denial. Some have even progressed to Anger, but for the most part, they still deny that Obama is going to win.
DougJ highlighted the more clever conservatives –only clever enough to fool themselves, that is– who have already transitioned to the Bargaining phase, where losing is actually winning in its own special way. For them, the face-saving has already begun.
Peggy Noonan seems to be handling Stage 4: Depression quite well, even going so far as to do a pre-mortem on the still-technically living cadaver-campaign. She’s well on her way to Acceptance.
I would say that David Brooks’ column regarding Mitt’s 47% fail was tacit acknowledgement that he accepts the likelihood of Obama’s reelection, and is ready to move on.
Taken all together, it’s difficult to sum up where the entire movement is, but I’d guess it’s largely still in the Denial-Anger borderlands, with most of the anger being directed at Mitt Romney’s shitty campaign, with leading elements already looking down the road.
J
@Violet: Well put!
Yutsano
@Revanch: They will never reach Acceptance though. They will convince themselves that somehow Obummer cheated or the machines were fixed or Black Panthers and ACORN and blackity black black black!
gorram
@Jay C:
Some of his fundamental assumptions in the analogy are:
1. There are more registered Republicans than Democrats. (Actually there’s almost 20 million more.)
2. The Republican Party isn’t facing third party challenges or internal divisions. (Libertarians are in almost every single state this year, and running an former Republican who’s trying to attract other Republicans away from a “forced marriage” with Willard.)
3. The only relevant question in poll sampling is party affiliation, not means of contact or other signs of socio-economic class. (Actually we’re reaching a critical mass of people who are only easily contacted over cell phones, and not over landlines – and guess which way they tend to vote!)
So, yeah, he’s pretty much denying reality to fix the polls right. Oh, sorry, “unskew” them.
Mark S.
Not to toot my own horn . . .
Maude
BHOmentum.
gorram
Which is also to say, there’s some trickery going on here. The only way he would conclude that there’s more Republicans than Democrats is from the occasional party identification poll that might say that, not from the occasional party registration poll which inevitably shows Democrats outperforming them. Those are two different things and he’s collapsed the categories.
There are people who are registered Republicans, who are labeled such in polls. And there’s a percentage of people who “identify with the Republican Party” provided by separate polls. Those are two different sets of people with significant but not total overlap. He’s taking the larger electoral block from voter identification polls and the (probably) greater support for Romney from voter registration polls.
The assumption there – that registered Republicans and people who identify with Republicans vote in identical proportions for Romney – might bear out, but there’s not any evidence provided for it. And with moderate and libertarian Republicans being wooed by Gary Johnson and the far right Republicans being wooed by the Constitution Party in several key states, there’s ample reason not to believe it. That’s especially likely to happen for “independents” who are strongly Republican leaning. There’s two different third party campaigns explicitly campaigning on the differences between those demographics and the slight issues they disagree with the GOP on – the perfect storm for Republican “identifying” voters to be at odds with Republican registered voters.
Cargo
As tasty as wingnut tears are, could you imagine the tanker truck full of them if the Dems took back the HOUSE as well as 61 in the senate (thus eliminating a joe lieberman)? The teabagolution wiped out in two years. Oh what a day. That should give everyone a little oomph.
Spike
@merrinc: Same here. He lost me at “Investors Business Daily”.
Spike
@merrinc: Same here. He lost me at “Investors Business Daily”.
Amir Khalid
That is some mighty right-wing self-deluding going on right there. I do agree that the jig is up for the Republican party, and that come November 7, they will be throwing their toys out of their collective pram. It shall be a sight for the ages.
i do wonder, though, what form that will take. Will Mitch McConnell declare that henceforth no Obama appointee shall be confirmed? That all legislation that pleases the other party shall be filibustered? I don’t see what that will get them but another spanking in the 2014 midterms.
Oh, just a teensy grammatical quibblette, if I may: “whence” already means from where, so the “from” in the post headline is redundant. It should just be
Yutsano
@Cargo: At the very best it would be 58 and two Independent caucusing with the Democrats. And we hope King doesn’t live up to his namesake and demand his ring be kissed early and often.
Revanch
@Yutsano
Hahaha. Point taken. I guess “never reaching acceptance” is the essential ethos of movement conservatism. You know, standing athwart history and all that.
LanceThruster
@Cargo: Saw Joe Liieberscum teaser clips for his C-SPAN interview (pushing for war with Iran), but could not subject myself to the pain and degradation to actually watch it.
ruemara
@Cargo: That’s the glorious revolution I’m working for. I may not get quite there, but We’ll get almost there.
MikeJ
@Yutsano:
I saw that the other day. The entire thing is old, old, old white, white, white guys who are angry, angry, angry.
Does anybody listen when angry old white guys start ranting? Would anybody actually want to take their advice?
Applejinx
@GregB: Rafalca’s a girl, dude.
Xecky Gilchrist
BOOKMARK IT, LIBS!
Lurking Canadian
@Amir Khalid: Since that is not terribly different from what they did in 2009-2010, I’m not sure the 2014 spanking is guaranteed in such a case.
If Reid decides to do away with te filibuster, and he can get 49 other Democratic presidents to go along…well, then things get interesting.
MaryRC
@Litlebritdifrnt: And that wingnut fave:
The point for them isn’t that Presidents Reagan or George W. Bush took twice (Reagan) or three times (Bush) as many vacation days as President Obama.
One vacation day would be too much. How dare he take any vacations at all? He could spend every weekend of his administration working in the Oval Office and they’d complain about WH staff bringing him lunch. Look at that moocher, eating sandwiches off a tray at our expense. For them it burns like fire that he and his family enjoy any perks or privileges at all.
I notice that this writer brings up the rumor that another blogger is shopping around, i.e. that when November rolls around and Obama has lost the election, his friends are buying him a multi-million-dollar home in Hawaii.
The Hawaiian luxury home meme doesn’t make any sense as an attempt to weigh the scales against Obama in the minds of independent voters. Why would you rush to vote against a candidate just because if he loses, he’ll retire to luxury?
What it does is what this writer does: it feeds the fires of resentment in the hearts of those who can’t stand to see the Obamas living well.
dance around in your bones
I doubt Rush Limbaugh can even SEE half his naked body.
Urp.
P.S. That “American Thinker” guy is fucking delusional.
Jerzy Russian
@Amir Khalid:
I was going to point this out also, but (a) the poor woman is 97 years old, and (b) a few dictionaries also give “from whence” as an alternative.
Bubblegum Tate
Yeah, uh, that’s how the whole bill-becomes-a-law thing works. Did you not see the cartoon about it back in the ’70s?
Uncle Cosmo
What are the chances that all this resampling, unskewing, Rasmussen barely-this-side-of-ethical likely-voter modeling is really a Thuglican effort to cobble together a narrative to camouflage massive voting fraud & theft on Election Day?
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: Most of the people I know (my age group) get their news from Colbert and Steward as well as twitter, facebook links (from stuff your friends like and such) and sites like Jezebel, Wonkette, Gawker, dailykos and some news paper blogs.
Yastreblyansky
@TOP123: Nope, they say “us colored folk” and “please pass the watermelon”.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Amir Khalid: @Jerzy Russian:
Y’all do realize that’s from Psalms 121, right? The references I can find on the Google to that specific phrase are almost all Jewish (one gnostic, of all things), but I remember singing it back in my Southern Baptist days.
Frankensteinbeck
Am I the only person who thought the article about blacks was satire? I don’t know this Drive-By Pundit, but if I wanted to write a sarcastic parody of dumbass arguments about blacks abandoning Obama, it would read exactly like this. There’s a lot of silly or blatantly, wildly racist language in there that nobody with more than the tiniest circulation gets away with (except Rush Limbaugh, who is specifically America’s foremost hate jockey). I don’t think it’s serious. If it is serious, I will forswear the Sun Pony and kneel before the altar of Poe’s Law forever more.
@Corner Store Operator:
That is a TERRIBLE picture of George W. Bush.
Yastreblyansky
@Yastreblyansky: Also too, the Driveway Pundit likely exists: he’s a “former journalist” named Perry Drake living in Plainville, Ill., and he has an online picture that looks “black enough”. Thanks a pantload, Sarah, I’ve wasted my entire Saturday afternoon on this creep.
Amir Khalid
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Well, I have the excuse that I wasn’t brought up on the Bible.
ThresherK
Somebody has stolen Wyatt Cenac’s notepad, I swear, and rinsed all the satire out of the delivery.
Mnemosyne
@Yastreblyansky:
If he really does live in Plainville, he’s one of only 248 people who do.
There’s a reason people in Lake and Cook counties make fun of downstaters, and it looks like Plainville is about as downstate as you can get.
ETA: And since only 0.4% of the residents of Plainville are nonwhite, I’m wondering where all of these “fellow blacks” are that he’s talking to. Has he gotten confused about how mirrors work again?
Brachiator
@MaryRC:
There is a degree of conflicted racial animus here as well. I hear rabid conservative callers to talk radio simultaneously talk about how Obama defiles the White House by living there and wishing that he never leave it until his term is up so they don’t have to see him or acknowledge that he is president.
You also see this kind of thing, sprinkled with explicitly nasty remarks, in the written comments that posters leave in reaction to Obama related stories on various news sites. I suppose that some psychology student is going to make a splash with a PhD thesis about racism and Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Leaving aside the fact that wealthy donors and others often help to ensure that a former president can live very comfortably, Romney has about six houses that he can retire to after he gets his butt kicked in November.
But the bottom line is that you are right to suggest that it makes no sense that anyone would think that this will resonate in any way with independent voters.
Yastreblyansky
@Mnemosyne: Sorry, Plainfield, maybe 20,000 people and close to Chicago, but with about the same proportion of black people as that Plainville has. Here‘s where I got that from, along with the picture.
Chris L. Robinson
I love when dumbasses like Drive By Pundit babble that Obama’s black support has greatly faded.
It’s like the conservatives stir up a crock of crap and then decide it’s so good they may as well eat it themselves.
This Obama as Jesus thing was *never* a view shared by black people, and I live in Chicago. Lots of black people, myself included, enthusiastically supported the president. Lots of people, myself included, are disappointed about some of the things done or not done by our overly-moderate president. But since we never thought he was a saint or Jesus or Neo or whatever other nonsense they’ve pretended that we thought, we still support him. Hell, look at the alternative.
But you just keep pushing the narrative that those disappointments (and a few afroturf preachers) mean that black people are abandoning the president. Every dollar spent on you and yours is a dollar that can’t be spent somewhere else.
So keep collecting that right-wing welfare, brother. Hoes gotta eat, too. See you at the polls.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Amir Khalid: Very true. I assumed, since I can’t think of anywhere offhand where ‘whence’ wouldn’t be considered old-fashioned at best, that it would at least be recognizable as poetic language and therefore most likely a quotation.
Mnemosyne
@Yastreblyansky:
Ah, the exurbs. That’s a different matter. Now I get why he’s bitter at having to work for a suburban newspaper when he totally should have been hired by the Sun-Times.
Mnemosyne
@Chris L. Robinson:
Dude chose to live out by Romeoville and Joliet, which explains a lot.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris L. Robinson:
Oh, please Chris. You write so well and you claim you’re African American? Just not fucking possible.
Which is why Obama is totally kicking the fucktards’ asses. They’re running against the imaginary Stepin Fetchit Obama that sits in Clint Eastwood’s chair, not the real one who commands loyalty not because he happens to be African American, but because he happens to be much more competent than Mittens.
Yastreblyansky
@Mnemosyne: Hahahahaha.
ET
Eric must be confusing Obama with Bush 43….
Also can someone remember to revisit these dudes if/when Obama wins? Would just love to here thei take.
grandpa john
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Psalms 121; 1-2
TOP123
@Villago Delenda Est: not to even mention how competently he’s managing to run the giant international multi-organizational conspiracy to herd white folks into FEMA camps, a plan he, however feckless, distracted, and lazy, has succeeded in hiding from the whole world, with the exception of a few vigilant WND-types.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Tonal Crow:
@Amir Khalid:
If it’s in the 1611 KJV it’s good enough for me.
Chris L. Robinson
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep. He must surprise them every second of every day.
Origuy
Shakespeare uses the phrase “from whence” 45 times.
Macbeth, I, 3
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@grandpa john: Or
Or
That’s the fun thing about depending on translations for your holy book. I know the phrase Sarah used for her title, but I can’t find which translation was the source. I do find it used in various sermons, and I can remember a sung version from my childhood.
MaryRC
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I can remember a sung version from my childhood.
Unto the hills around do I lift up
My longing eyes.
O whence for me shall my salvation come,
From whence arise?
Words by John Campbell (later 9th Duke of Argyll), usually sent to music by Charles Henry Purday.
I don’t think we can take the Duke as the highest authority on the proper usage of “whence”; like a lot of the Psalms, the words get a little contorted in order to fit the music. The first line is somewhat Yoda-ish, in fact.
Beautiful tune, though. Almost melancholy. As a little kid, I used to think it was a very sad song.
Marshall
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
From the the King James version, of course.
Note that Shakespeare was probably on the committee that wrote (and assembled) this, so this “from whence” might come from him too.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Marshall: Uh, no.
I’m looking specifically for the use of the word “salvation” instead of “help”. The KJV doesn’t use “salvation”.
Patricia Kayden
Let the Righties keep believing that Romneybot absolutely has to win. Then watch their meltdown on election day. Will be loads of fun.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
If I am being frank I made it up. I grasped imperfectly at what I remembered the KJV saying, without actually looking up a particular translation. I think it has a nice ring to it, though.
ETA: I was a little drunk. Surprise.
maurinsky
I have sung an arrangement of that song
I lift my eyes to the quiet hills
in the press of a busy day
as green hills stand
in a dusty land
so God is my strength and stay
steverino
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Guys And Dolls, of course!
“So take back your mink,
To from whence it came,
And tell them to alter and rise it
For some other dame!”