Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

This blog will pay for itself.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Republicans in disarray!

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Bleg / Come on, come on down, I’m begging you

Come on, come on down, I’m begging you

by | 209 Comments

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Nate Silver has Obama back over 70% today. And a new PPP poll has Obama up by five points in Virginia.

So fuck the Romentum.

Give Obama money if you can, like Soonergrunt says, and volunteer if you can, like Dennis G says.

Update. Obama on Trump (via commenter yopd1):

This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya. We had constant run-ins on the soccer field. He wasn’t very good and resented it. When we finally moved to America I thought it would be over.

Reader Interactions

209Comments

  4. 4.

    GregB

    The filed marshal of the GOP Ministry of Misinformation ,Drudge is leading the charge into the gutter and showing signs of desperation.

    He’s got big red letters: He’s a bullshitter

    Along with a big scary picture of President Obama.

    Get ready for the final dive into the mud folks, it’s coming.

  6. 6.

    White Trash Liberal

    This election is the most glaring example in my lifetime of the media and its subsidiary pollsters putting their thumbs on the scale. You could hear the sounds of their fluffing and fapping from the stratosphere. Like the squealing of fruit bats.

  7. 7.

    Enhanced Mooching Techniques

    Romney tanking after the last debate in Virgina makes a lot of sense. That would be the one state sensitive to foreign affairs and the military.

  9. 9.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    I’ll be volunteering on Sunday (don’t know yet if canvassing or phone banking). Probably throw more coin O’s way with the next paycheck. And today, since I am home with this year’s version of The Cold, I can fill out my mail-in ballot and drop it off tomorrow.

    Thanks everyone for all your good work. Let’s bring it home.

  11. 11.

    Comrade Mary

    “Fuck the Romentum” needs to go viral. Somebody start with this. (So, so NSFW if your workplace doesn’t appreciate swears.)

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    But our pet moron is back (under a new name, of course) telling us that Romney is SURGING in Michigan.

    In just one outlier poll, of course, with all other polls showing Obama up by several points.

  13. 13.

    scav

    @White Trash Liberal: THUMBS? ! Thumbs are theoretically sneaky attempts. These are lardball Limbaugh sized entities flopping their slimy bodies onto the scales and snuggling down for a nap with a five course super-sized Double McAnvils and twisty anchor sides.

  15. 15.

    EconWatcher

    I appreciate the effort by Mourdock, don’t get me wrong. But it would be nice to have one more big fat gaffe from the Mittster himself to put the icing on the cake.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Enhanced Mooching Techniques: I thought Powell’s eventual endorsement would get more media play than it has, but I was wondering about its effect on diplomatic/military career types, and their families and friends, who I guess would be heavily concentrated in VA suburbs, and of the Totebagger income bracket/ half-informed bloggy speculating off.

  20. 20.

    jibeaux

    @EconWatcher: Unfortunately, he appears to be betting, I would think correctly, that he will do better if we don’t hear a peep out of him until election day.

  21. 21.

    EconWatcher

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Romney is running a load of ads here in VA suggesting that Obama will hurt the state by cutting defense spending. Powell’s endorsement might be helpful in (indirectly) countering that onslaught.

  24. 24.

    Violet

    @EconWatcher: If the Mittster gets flustered or angry–like, say, several more polls come out showing Obama increasing his lead–then that might contribute to a Mitt gaffe. He’s not good when someone challenges him or his authority.

    Part of why he’s had fewer gaffes these last few weeks is that he’s been up in the polls and he’s felt confident. Take that confidence away–make it look like the election’s slipping away from him–and he’ll get desperate and make a mistake.

  25. 25.

    Lev

    Gave Metrosexual Abe another ten bucks, and I made 30 calls for him last night in NV and CO. Would do more today, but I have a rendezvous with PiL that I just can’t miss.

  26. 26.

    Southern Beale

    That’s funny because CBS This Morning cited some poll saying that the “gender gap” has “all but disappeared.”

    I thought … huh? No way.

    It’s all so much Kabuki at this point. You know it’s Kabuki when Coulter, Palin & Trump all say vile and disgusting things just for the shock value of it. What the fuck is that about? And Ben Shapiro said something vile today too. What is with the stick-poking? It can’t be accidental. This has to be coordinated by Oz behind his curtain or something. In today’s post I ponder the notion that it’s all being orchestrated by some elites in an arugula filled room in Beverly Hills or something. It’s all just too fucking weird not to be a manipulation.

  28. 28.

    BGinCHI

    @dmsilev: I wish Obama would do some stops in IN to fire up his base there (who amazingly carried that state for him against all odds in ’08). It would also help Donnelly, who could win.

    Biden would be good if Obama is busy governing or some shit.

  30. 30.

    Punchy

    And a new PPP poll has Obama up by five points in Virginia.

    And there’s a new poll that has them tied in Michigan.

    Polls are worthless this cycle.

  31. 31.

    Napoleon

    @Paul W.:

    You have to be on meth to think Obama is at 90%. That number just reaks of BS when an average of polls shows them dead even. Silver sounds so much closer to reality.

  32. 32.

    EconWatcher

    By the way, I was at a Halloween parade in a nearby Virginia town last night with my kids. The Romney contingent in the parade included a pickup with a bunch of kids and a yellow lab riding in the payload.

    The guy standing in front of me commented in a loud stage voice, “Well, I’m glad they didn’t make the dog ride on the roof!”

    The cheering Romney supporters around us all glanced over in irritation. Nice! Wish it had been me.

  33. 33.

    Seanly

    @Petorado:

    Are they trying to get us to take the foot off the gas or is this legit? I’d love to see Obama top 300 electoral votes, but I think some of the swing states are too close to call.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    Got to say it… When he smiles/laughs Obama is so sexy. Michelle is one lucky lady to have him.

  39. 39.

    RosiesDad

    It’s been my observation that if the polls are crazy all over the place, relying on Nate is much more likely to give you an accurate picture of what is going on.

  40. 40.

    shortstop

    @BGinCHI: I know it’s your home state, but Indiana has regressed again, and the Obama campaign is unlikely to waste the big guns’ time when there are several states that Obama can actually win. I’m sure they’re sending some lower-level surrogates for Donnelly, especially after Mourdock handing them that gift.

    On a side note, the third baseman and I were proud to be among the boots that helped Indiana go presidentially blue for the first time since the year of TTB’s birth. But we know now that was just a moment in time…sigh…

  42. 42.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I think Weigel is marginally right to suggest that the touch-football gang is simply not going to declare any Romneygaffes between now and election day, because of the precious horserace. They’ll rationalise it as “not wanting to be seen trying to influence the election”, which is ridiculous, because looking the other way is no less influential than committing journalism, but that’s where we are.

  44. 44.

    Seanly

    Oops, trouble editing my Comment #32. I wanted to add that I think the 332 to 206 is at the top of Sam Wang’s one-sigma range. It’s possible, but CO, NV, OH and FL would have to go Obama’s way. There does seem to be some under-reporting of Democratic voters, but I don’t know if there’s enough to get all 4 of those solidly in the D column.

  48. 48.

    PeakVT

    Obama looked like he wanted to add “and it’s a real fucking shame I haven’t” at the end there.

  49. 49.

    Butch

    @Metrosexual Manichean Monster DougJ: Agree, even if my view as a Yooper (resident of the Upper Peninsula) may be different from my downstate brethren.
    But I have to say I admire the man on this point; as ridiculous as the whole Kenyan muslin (yes, I know how to spell it) thing is, it has to hurt on some level, and it’s admirable that he can joke like this.

  50. 50.

    Comrade Mary

    MAN THE FAINTING COUCHES, MEN! Obama used a bad word when referring to Romney — while ascribing it to a child!

    We arrived at the Oval Office for our 45-minute interview … on the morning of October 11th. … As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. … [S]he said, ‘Tell him: You can do it.’ Obama grinned. … ‘You know, kids have good instincts,’ Obama offered. ‘They look at the other guy and say, “Well, that’s a bullsh—er, I can tell.”’

  51. 51.

    aimai

    @EconWatcher:

    Of course, I’m in Massachuesetts but I was passing a dog park down in South Boston the other night and saw that someone was driving around, apparently permanently, with a “dogs against Romney” life sized stuffed toy dog on their roof. It was hysterical right next to the park because everyone walking by did a huge double take, the damned thing looked so lifelike.

    aimai

  52. 52.

    JPL

    Mark Cuban was on CBS this morning and he was asked if he was going to make an endorsement also. (Powell was on earlier) He said he was undecided and then spent several minutes praising the President on his handling of the economy after the financial crash. He said that History will be kind to him.
    He didn’t sound undecided to me since he praised the President as much as Powell did.

  54. 54.

    jeremy

    @Seanly: All of those states you listed besides Florida are lean Obama states. Romney hasn’t been in the lead in this race from the start and the only one buying the hype were idiotic republicans, worried nellies on the liberal side, and the ridiculous fools in the media. I’ve been saying from the start that Obama would win over 300 electoral votes which is considered an electoral landslide. The polls are under estimating the ground campiagn which experts say adds 2 % points to the vote, and changing the screens to a . I bet you Obama will win NC and Florida as well based on the ground campaign. Romney doesn’t stand a chance in the West, and Ohio was gone from the start.

  55. 55.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    Is 70% the threshold at which wingnuts stop saying polls = gospel and start unskewing again?

  56. 56.

    Tone In DC

    @JPL:

    Cuban still wants his damn tax cut.
    And yeah, I hope a six year old can actually tell than RMoney is a bullshit artist.

  57. 57.

    danimal

    @dmsilev: When you get punch-drunk, and the Romentum is surging the next day, all you can do is call Dr. Obama. Don’t worry, it’s covered.

  59. 59.

    smith

    @JPL:

    He was on Bill Maher’s show a month or so ago and said that he likes Obama better than Romney. Also, back in August, he attended an Obama fundraiser put on by several NBA stars.

    He says he has voted for both parties and will vote for Republicans in the future, but he sounds to me like he’s voting for Obama unless he comes out and says otherwise the next few days.

  60. 60.

    BGinCHI

    @shortstop: I can hope.

    I’ve been thinking all along that counting IN out was a bad idea, but we’ll see on election day. There are a lot of Hispanic folks in the state now and I wonder if they’re being counted in polls. And I wonder if they’ll vote. I sure hope so.

  61. 61.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    But it would be nice to have one more big fat gaffe from the Mittster himself to put the icing on the cake.

    @EconWatcher: In a sign that someone in the campaign doesn’t have a case of terminal stupids, they have stated there will be no more media appearances until after Election Day.

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Bitter Old Man still old and bitter, film at eleven!

    John McCain bitterly denounced former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday for supporting President Obama for a second straight election.
    “General Powell, you disappoint us and you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what is clearly the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime,” McCain told Brian Kilmeade on his radio program.

    I don’t think this is huge, and I’m no fan of St Colin the Enabler, but I don’t think this is a media fight Senator McPalin wants to pick. I hope Powell gets pissed.

  63. 63.

    Butch

    @EconWatcher: I wanted to carry a baseball glove and tape a bottle of Bacardi about halfway down my leg so I could be Mitt Rum Knee. All my friends told me I’d be going out alone if I did.

  64. 64.

    Culture of Truth

    Washington (AP)- What gender gap?

    Less than two weeks out from Election Day, Republican Mitt Romney has erased President Barack Obama’s 16-point advantage among women, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. And the president, in turn, has largely eliminated Romney’s edge among men.

    Ginny Lewis, a Democrat and 72-year-old retired district attorney from Princeton, Ky., says she’ll vote for Romney because “I’m tired of the Republicans blaming all the debt on Democrats, so let them take over and see what they do.”

  65. 65.

    Enhanced Mooching Techniques

    @Violet:

    Part of why he’s had fewer gaffes these last few weeks is that he’s been up in the polls and he’s felt confident. Take that confidence away—make it look like the election’s slipping away from him—and he’ll get desperate and make a mistake.

    ROLF you don’t suppose that’s why the Romney campaign has been pretending there is a Romney surge; just to keep the Alpha Dog’s confidence up?

  67. 67.

    eemom

    @EconWatcher:

    As I’ve mentioned before, I am creeped out as hell by the number of Romtron yard signs around here. Really feels like I’m in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

    Plenty of Obama signs too though, of course. Going over to the Fairfax Dem office later to grab some more for my house as a counter-strike against my two fucktard next door neighbors.

  68. 68.

    jeremy

    On election night 11 P.M. eastern time this election will be officially over. And then the idiot conservatives will claim reverse racism, blame the “liberal media” aka conservative media, blame voter fraud, etc.

  69. 69.

    BGinCHI

    @Culture of Truth:

    Ginny Lewis, a Democrat and 72-year-old retired district attorney from Princeton, Ky., says she’ll vote for Romney because “I’m tired of the Republicans blaming all the debt on Democrats, so let them take over and see what they do.” is a crazy old idiot.

    Fixed, to account for the skewing of senility.

  71. 71.

    kd bart

    @Metrosexual Manichean Monster DougJ:

    It’s the same pollster that produced a poll in Florida in September showing Romney with a 15 point lead in the state. 91% of those polled in that poll were over the age of 50. Not a plausible electorate.. Are the internals for the Michigan poll even available?

  76. 76.

    Can't Be Bothered

    @Napoleon:
    Youd have to be on meth to think anything else. Romney has never led in Ohio, Wisconsin, or nevada. Never. Thats over 270. And it looks like va is coming back to its dem baseline. And the guy youre disparaging built a model that missed the ev count by a combined total of 1 vote the past two presidential election cycles.

  77. 77.

    MikeJ

    @smith:

    He says he has voted for both parties and will vote for Republicans in the future, but he sounds to me like he’s voting for Obama unless he comes out and says otherwise the next few days.

    I can understand why a business owner in Texas would be a bit bashful about giving a full throated endorsement of Obama. I wish he would, but it’s easy for me to tell someone else that they should risk losing millions of dollars or taking a bullet.

  78. 78.

    smith

    @Culture of Truth:

    So that idiot’s reasoning is to let the Republicans take over so they could screw things up even further? She’s probably a Jill Stein supporter who thinks that if things get bad enough, millions upon millions will turn to the Green Party as their saviors. Oh, and also get sparkly unicorns in the process.

  81. 81.

    Culture of Truth

    MOAR AP:

    “Obama’s election chances hinge on turning out voters like Jon Gerton, a disabled construction worker from Jonesboro, Ark. Gerton’s a staunch Obama supporter — but he didn’t vote in 2008. “It takes longer than four years to get things to the point where things are going better,” Gerton said. “Four years, it’s not very long.”

    “Count Chrysta Walker, of Cedar Lake, Ind., among the voters who are sticking with Obama because they think he’s got the right solutions for the fragile economy. “He’s got the middle class at heart,” says the 58-year-old Walker. On the economy, she says, Obama “did as well as could be expected because he didn’t get a lot of cooperation.”

  84. 84.

    danimal

    For those waiting for a Romney gaffe to seal the deal: we don’t need one. All the attention for the past few weeks has been on the official campaigns. But for the last two weeks, the Tea Party Clown Show will spill out of the VW Beetle one-by-one, each getting a moment in the sun. They’ll find every available camera and microphone. Yesterday, it was Trump and Palin, but that’s only the beginning.

    It’s Romney’s worst nightmare. He’s been able to control the narrative for a bit, and with some success, but now the circus is in town. A Romney gaffe would be nice, but there will be plenty of idiots with (R) after their names to provide laughs and outrage.

  86. 86.

    Punchy

    He said he was undecided

    Of course, as the owner of a team in deep-red Texas, he knows better than to piss off his fan base. He’s a closet O supporter but not surprised he’s unwilling to admit it and face the wrath of his mouthbreathers.

  90. 90.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: McCain really needs to get over it. He’s not long for the world one way or another, and to die stroking out in a fit of rage over some guy who beat you in a popularity contest a few years back would suck.

    He’s got plenty to be proud of. Well, OK, he has a few things to be proud of, minus the politics and the lack of piloting skills and the whole marrying for money thing. But he has some nice kids and a lot of money. Shit, if I were him I’d have been getting on my yacht the day after Election Day back in 2008 and told the world to kiss my ass, and told the pilot to take my old, aching ass to someplace sunny with daiquiris.

  94. 94.

    smintheus

    Looked at the internals of the new AP poll, which reports Romney in lead and claims (!) that he has erased Obama’s advantage among women. It’s astoundingly vague even to the point of not saying whether these are RV or LV numbers.

    Turns out of course that they’re from a LV filter. AP doesn’t mention that Obama leads among RV. The LV filter also gives a massive boost to Republican respondents (normally 22% or respondents in AP polls, but they’re 30% in the LV model).

    Amazingly, the AP crosstabs do not include any info about gender. So I guess we’re just supposed to take their word that Obama’s advantage among women has vanished.

  97. 97.

    Can't Be Bothered

    And the only stories left until election day are obamas debate win, powell endorsement, gop rape talk, and a jobs report that I strongly predict (based on state numbers) to drop another .2 or .3.

  98. 98.

    Can't Be Bothered

    And the only stories left until election day are obamas debate win, powell endorsement, gop rape talk, and a jobs report that I strongly predict (based on state numbers) to drop another .2 or .3.

  100. 100.

    dmsilev

    @shortstop: I dunno. The last time Ricketts opened his big mouth, the mayor told him to forget about asking for city money for Wrigley renovations. Since the latter is a bad idea anyway, I encourage Joe Ricketts to continue jamming his foot as far down his throat as possible.

  102. 102.

    shortstop

    @Democrat Partisan Asshole: That’s what you and I would’ve done, but McCain’s entire identity is wrapped up in being the alpha male politico. He still can’t accept that he lost to the younger, smarter, cooler, brown guy, and he really does not get that this nonstop display of sore loserdom exposes him as weak and whiny. I imagine quite a few of his circle have told him that, but McCain, Professional Iconoclast, listens to no one. So he goes down in history as having been the worst sport in presidential politics ever.

  103. 103.

    Face

    Ginny Lewis, a Democrat and 72-year-old retired district attorney from Princeton, Ky., says she’ll vote for Romney because “I’m tired of the Republicans blaming all the debt on Democrats, so let them take over and see what they do.”

    Shorter Ginny– I’m tired of Republicans saying that rape doesn’t cause pregnancy. I’m going to let them rape at will just to prove that you can get knocked up.

  104. 104.

    max

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: but I was wondering about its effect on diplomatic/military career types, and their families and friends, who I guess would be heavily concentrated in VA suburbs, and of the Totebagger income bracket/ half-informed bloggy speculating off.

    Dunno yet about Colin Powell, but you remember horses and bayonets?:

    Yet as Obama’s comment made waves among politicians and pundits outside this Navy-heavy region, it seemed to hardly make a ripple in Hampton Roads. In more than a dozen interviews, shipbuilders and Navy families — Republicans and Democrats alike — mostly said Obama was just stating the obvious: Numbers aren’t the whole story when it comes to naval power.

    “Some of the things we put out in the water can do what two ships used to do,” said Arthur Fladger, 55, a nuclear refueler at Newport News Shipbuilding. Ernie Smith, a 32-year-old engineer at the same shipyard, said, “A modern ballistic submarine, you can shoot a nuclear missile halfway around the world.”

    Fladger and Smith both support Obama. But even some Romney supporters agreed that the flap over the president’s comments was uncalled for. Among them were Nancy and Jack Magee, both in their 80s, who were lunching at the Pancake House just down the street from the Navy base in Norfolk.

    Jack, 87, spent 36 years in the Navy and captained two submarines. Nancy, 83, worked for the Navy before having their first child. Both plan to vote for Romney because they believe he will do more to beef up defense. But they had no problem with Obama’s comment. “War is fought differently now,” Nancy said.

    I don’t expect the Powell endorsement will have too much effect, but it sure won’t hurt.

    max
    [‘On to the next round of R horseshit!’]

  105. 105.

    maya

    Don’t get too cocky. The GOP will be releasing their secret killer vid by Reggie Jackson. Yup. You guessed it: The Mr. October Surprise.

  106. 106.

    shortstop

    @dmsilev: Could not agree more about city money being a very poor concept, but Joe’s gone slightly underground after that debacle. He’s still shoveling money into crazy teabagger-directed PACs.

  108. 108.

    Liberty60

    Donate, or go here:
    https://dashboard.barackobama.com/

    You can make calls to undecided voters right from your own house, with your own phone; its easy, and I made 25 calls last night after dinner.

    I spent a long time talking to one of the low-information undecideds in Nevada, who by the end of the call, was leaning Obama.

    Seriously, there is nothing more powerful than chatting to someone one-on-one to swing their vote.

  110. 110.

    Enhanced Mooching Techniques

    @Southern Beale: No conspiracy, it’s just drama to get attention by saying something shocking. This is what happens when the news turns into a form of entertainment.

  111. 111.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)

    I gotta say, even if Obama wins handily and the Dems retake the house and hold the senate, this election is still depressing as hell.

    Think about the precedents that have been set: you can serially lie to the American public and the press will sporadically call you on it but mostly let it slide. You no longer have to release tax returns or any other information about your financial or professional backrgound and the press will push back mildly, if at all. You can present an agenda that doesn’t add up and isn’t spelled out in any detail at all and the press will treat you like a serious candidate. You can make basic mistakes about Middle East geography for months and not get called on it.

    Even W, who the press handled with kid gloves, had to go to the trouble of memorizing the names of various foreign leaders. They haven’t even held Romney to the standards that were set for W. Romney may lose but his truth-free, zero transparency tactics will be back, and the press will do even less about it because now they have a precedent. I just don’t see any way the American public, who casually follow politics as a general rule, can make an informed decision under these circumstances.

  112. 112.

    quannlace

    It’s so funny- at places like Free Republic, when Obama was up in the polls, it was all ‘the books are cooked!’ When Romney was up, ‘Yay, we’re winning in the polls.” Now that Obama is moving up again, it’s ‘But, but Rasmussen still has Romney ahead..” Or my favorite, ‘Romney doesn’t have to carry Ohio to win.”
    *********
    And I get the feeling that the more RW’ers whine about Obama’s ‘lack of dignity’ or ‘not being serious’, the better he must be doing.

  113. 113.

    Culture of Truth

    Yet as Obama’s comment made waves among politicians and pundits outside this Navy-heavy region, it seemed to hardly make a ripple in Hampton Roads. In more than a dozen interviews, shipbuilders and Navy families — Republicans and Democrats alike — mostly said Obama was just stating the obvious: Numbers aren’t the whole story when it comes to naval power

    I don’t understand this paragraph. Is this implication that Obama said something controversial about the Navy that caused waves (ha lol) across America?? For reals, media?

  116. 116.

    rlrr

    @EconWatcher:

    Romney is running a load of ads here in VA suggesting that Obama will hurt the state by cutting defense spending. Powell’s endorsement might be helpful in (indirectly) countering that onslaught.

    So Romney admits government creates jobs.

  117. 117.

    Joel

    @Napoleon: Sam Wang uses an average of poll medians, which discounts outliers and doesn’t require house effect adjustments. And he relies only on state polls, because national polls are worthless. And his maximum window is two weeks. Seems pretty sound to me.

  118. 118.

    Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God

    @Southern Beale:

    I ponder the notion that it’s all being orchestrated by some elites in an arugula filled room in Beverly Hills or something. It’s all just too fucking weird not to be a manipulation.

    I see the same thing, but I don’t think it’s coordinated. It’s probably just Groupthink writ large.

    Chuck Todd, Dave Gregory, all the rest all come from fairly similar backgrounds, they’re all in the same general economic bracket, and they ‘soak in it’ for a living. So of course their minds and inclinations all end up with a similar ‘tuning’ (if that makes any sense). Once one or two of them decided that Romney must be obviously pushing ahead, they all flipped their brains to that same conclusion in near-unison. To us outsiders, it would look coordinated.

    I’ve attended more than a few meetings where I noticed how Groupthink quickly converges to an (often wrong) solution or conclusion, first-hand.

  120. 120.

    Culture of Truth

    But even some Romney supporters agreed that the flap over the president’s comments was uncalled for.

    WHAT flap?? what fucking flap you FUCKING FUCKS??

  123. 123.

    mdblanche

    @Culture of Truth: Why can’t Romney close the deal with men? And has anybody found any women outside the South yet who’ve switched to Romney?

    @max: Why, it’s almost as if people with a connection to the Navy have some sort of special insight into the Navy.

  126. 126.

    Another Halocene Human

    Why is that blankety-blank blankety-blank ANN ROMNEY coming to a white-owned restaurant in an African-American neighborhood in North Central Florida today?

    That’s like invasion. Pissing me off. Double pissing me off for buying some of that restaurant’s nasty-ass food yesterday. I was trying to support them b/c I’m tired of that lot being empty. (A previous restaurant there was shut down by the health dept so it’s been a while.) Fuck that shit.

    I heard some real BBQ is coming here from downstate and they’re gonna put all of these jokers out of business and not a moment too soon.

  127. 127.

    Seanly

    @jeremy:

    Oh, I haven’t been too much of liberal nervous nellie. I’d love to see Obama’s GOTV add 2% to a lot of the swing states. I know the media has to make this election seem like a horse race so it can be a little WTF to see a business-friendly rag predcit a landslide.

  128. 128.

    shortstop

    @Napoleon: Somebody doesn’t understand how the electoral college works and why national polls aren’t what he or she should be looking at.

  129. 129.

    Napoleon

    @Joel:

    The raw data he uses does appear sound, but then he applies some kind of secret sauce, like Nate Silver does, to come up with a probability number. Both him and Silver are not predicting % or EV but PROBIBILITES OF THE SAME. That is why the response give to me above that “well last time Wang was within 1 EV” is just flat out non-responsive. Now I have no way of judging how sound the secret sauce is outside of applying common sense to what I am being told, and anyone who 12 days out (and by the way if we were 1 day out would still feel the same) who tells me that Obama has a 9 in 10 chance to win in large part based on a state that has not had a poll showing Obama at 50% smells. It doesn’t pass that laugh test. Now if in the last month BO had been up here 50/47 over MR, maybe 90% makes sense, but you cannot tell me there is only 1 in 10 chance something doesn’t change by election day or there are slight flaws in the numbers such that when the results are known they are not 2 or 3 points off of what was expected (which is not unusual) or that the undecided simply break in mass to MR (especially since demographically MR ought to win Ohio by 2 or 3 points).

  130. 130.

    JCT

    @blingee:

    That outta make Jennifer Rubins head explode.

    We should be so lucky. Besides, since it’s so fucking empty there won’t be any collateral damage. Win-win.

  131. 131.

    Napoleon

    @shortstop:

    I do – Obama has never been at 50% here in Ohio, a state filled to the gills with old white people. Wang’s estimate that BO is probability at 90% is laughable and only an idiot would believe it. Nate Silver’s 70% sounds much more in line with, you know, reality.

  136. 136.

    shortstop

    @catclub: God, what a performance last night. I’m sorry I made that muttered crack about his weight last week when he bobbled that catch and could not get up off his knees.

  137. 137.

    Mnemosyne

    @Napoleon:

    Dude, you were freaking out the other day because of that article that said that Ohio’s white people are not turning towards Romney like they are in other states because you were somehow convinced that the article proved that they actually were. (IMO, two words why they’re not: auto industry. They know who saved it.)

    I think your stress is affecting your reading comprehension. Go lie down. We’ll tell you when Election Day is.

  138. 138.

    MikeJ

    @eemom: Does the woman with the right hand drive Volvo estate and “nodrivr” licence plate still live there? Used to see her every day.

  139. 139.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Cassidy: Neat. I think what they’re trying to do is pretty awesome. Although I’m struggling what they mean by a sidescroller with better physics. Back when I wore onions on my belt there wasn’t anything wrong with our physics engines!

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Halocene Human: I would cheerfully sign on for a constitutional amendment that the names of spouses and children never be mentioned in politicial campaigns. That said: I really dislike that woman. She’s a modern, Mormon version of Barbara Bush, and underneath all the upper class suburban matron gentility is just as nasty a bitch, who raised a brood of entitled, overgrown punks every bit as in need of a round of dopeslaps as the Bush whelps. Probably more. And race-baiting, war-of-convenience-monger and low-rent McCarthyite Poppy Bush is a modern Eisenhower when compared to Willard.

  142. 142.

    Napoleon

    @Mnemosyne:

    You are the person with the reading comprehension problem. I brought it up the other day for the same reason I am bringing it up today, demographin “gravity” is not in Obama’s favor. So exactly how is it Wang gives Obama a 90% chance of a win. Not one person up thread has attempted to defend that number after I called it into question in my first post.

    And yeah I have heard of the auto industry being that I can drive to something like 6-10 major facilities within an hours distance.

    But still 1/2 of the likely voters in this state have not, according to polling results, been able to say they will pull the lever for Obama.

  143. 143.

    gwangung

    @Napoleon:

    The raw data he uses does appear sound, but then he applies some kind of secret sauce,

    So, basically, still no methodological meat.

  144. 144.

    Another Halocene Human

    @aimai: You walked into Southie and came out alive?!

    Last time I was in South Boston, it felt like the fucking DMZ. And I say that as someone who’s spent quality time in Ashmont (yes, women got mugged and raped there), Dudley Square, even Morrissey fucking Boulevard. Southie is just creepy. The hills have eyes or something.

  146. 146.

    Another Halocene Human

    Anyway, I thought Southie was Racists for Romney territory. Even though all of them would need to be spanked on their bottoms for voting for a Norman conqueror (English AND Viking, it’s like a double shit sundae, if you’re a Celt) over our Barack O’Bama from old Munegal.

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Uncle Ebeneezer: “Senator, could you first define the word ‘feckless’, and then explain to us how it fits the Obama foreign policy, and what policies you would prefer?”

  149. 149.

    Michael

    @Napoleon: You should go read the site and the methodology. Its quite convincing. The short version is, based on state polls, Romney would need ~1.6% uniform swing across all the states to surpass Obama in EV votes. Historically, races almost never move 1.6 pts in the final 12 days. On the contrary, voters who are undecided in the last 2 weeks tend to split nearly evenly, with maybe a slight lean to the challenger. But with only ~4% undecided, Romney would need to win ~70% of all undecideds, or peel off Obama supports.

    Again, the evidence of past elections suggest movement of that magnitude is vanishingly small.

    As for Silver’s more realistic calculation, that is still including economic data. His “now cast”, which is more sensitive to recent polls and ignores economic data, has it at 75%. But that also includes the influence of national polls and trackers, and Silver himself has discussed how (a) state polls are more reliable than national polls, and (b) how Obama has performed better in state polls than in national polls. So you’d expect in Silver’s model, if it only looked at state polls, to have Obama likely above 80% as well. There’s less daylight between them than you think.

    Lastly, Silver uses adjusted averages, whereas Wang uses median analysis. We can debate the wisdom of this, but one thing is undisputed: outliers have a smaller impact on median analysis than they do on adjusted averages. So Wang’s analysis isn’t being distorted by the national Gallup tracker (like Nate’s is), and isn’t being pulled down on the state leve by one or two random polls showing a tied Michigan or a Romney lead in PA, or whatever. Not only does Nate’s model put more weight on those, but then it has those polls inform its idea of what’s going on elsewhere in the country.

  151. 151.

    MikeJ

    More stat porn. Warning, the author admits it’s half assed thrown together, bad or no methodology. But fun if you like R and Bayes.

    And after I typed in the comment I hit reload on the target page and can’t get to the site. Grr.

  157. 157.

    Michael

    @Napoleon: Of the last 10 polls in Ohio, Obama has lead in 6 (range +1 to +5) and tied in 4. The statistical likelihood that Romney is actually leading there is basically zero based on those polls. The likelihood that its actually tied is alos quite small. Those are the results you’d expect if Obama had a ~2 pt lead. About half the polls show him 1-2 points below that, and half show him 1-3 pts above that.

    If we are that certain that Obama holds a real, 2% lead in Ohio with 10 days to go, then the question is how certain you are that Romney cannot make up that lead. Wang has a lot of data that suggests races change that much in the last 12 days less than 1 in 6 times (16%), and that when they do move, they tend to revert towards the mean, which in this case means you’d expect the numbers to move slightly more to Obama over the last 12 days.

    Which is why you end up with something like 11% chance that Romney wins. Because historically, races just don’t move that much in the last 12 days.

  158. 158.

    Anonymous

    @Napoleon:

    For all the praise Silver gets, when it comes to successful predictions, Wang’s been more accurate than Silver in the past few years; his predictions are better. That should earn him at least the benefit of the doubt — his predictive success trumps your “laugh test” (sure sounds scientific).

    (And note: Silver builds in more uncertainty in his model, which Wang has argued is unwarranted when it comes to getting actual results. Silver’s certainty uncertainty seems intuitive to me, but predictive success is the bottom line, and since 538’s been up, Silver’s less accurate than Wang.)

  162. 162.

    Michael

    @Anonymous: I think Wang is right about the uncertainty. Nate uses all sorts of econometric analysis. Wang’s point is that those metrics make sense for models that strive to predict an election a year or two out, or describe the conditions under which a guy would or would not be re-elected, etc. But that they don’t make sense being combined with polling data, because they’re already baked into that data.

    Which is to say, you’d expect 7.5% unemployment to hurt Obama in the polls. By then penalizing him further because of that number, you’re both double-counting it and adding more uncertainty.

    It makes sense when you think about it like that to ignore the econometric stuff.

    Nate suggests states co-vary, where Wang doesn’t make that assumption, but he’s evaluated the model with that built-in, and found that it doesn’t really change the state of the race or the prediction, just widens the confidence band and adds some uncertainty. So maybe instead of 10% he’d give Romney 17% or something with the states co-varying.

  164. 164.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    Dinesh D’Souza is in hot water with his stupid movie’s producer over the profits.

    @Bubblegum Tate: Tragic. His little rat-faced whore of a “fiance” that he really, really has never had sex with will probably leave him.

  167. 167.

    Anonymous

    @Michael:

    I agree. Should it turn out that Wang’s analysis is more accurate than Silver’s this year (and if so, Wang would have been better than 538 in every test of the latter’s existence), I would like to see Silver respond more to these legitimate criticisms (as opposed to say, the “unskewed” nonsense or whatever Fox is saying) of his model. If the bottom line is predictive success, then his model is not the best, and it would appear then that it could be better adjusted.

  169. 169.

    arguingwithsignposts

    OT, but people keep mentioning Wang, and polling has to do with numbers, and I’m reminded of Numberwang from Mitchell and Webb.

  170. 170.

    Paul

    @Xecky Gilchrist:

    Is 70% the threshold at which wingnuts stop saying polls = gospel and start unskewing again?

    Well, we saw plenty of people on the left doing the same thing, ie blame the pollsters over the last 2 1/2 weeks. Heck, a front pager here on BJ took an unfavorable poll and criticized it has having included too many Republicans. Well, that is exactly what the wingnuts did with their unskewed polls (ie claiming too many Democrats).

  171. 171.

    Tonybrown74

    @Another Halocene Human:

    You walked into Southie and came out alive?!
    __
    Last time I was in South Boston, it felt like the fucking DMZ. And I say that as someone who’s spent quality time in Ashmont (yes, women got mugged and raped there), Dudley Square, even Morrissey fucking Boulevard. Southie is just creepy. The hills have eyes or something.

    Um, when was the last time you’ve been in Southie?? I am a black gay man, and I have walked through southie many of times recently (Last time was Sunday evening). And I have had no drama with anyone.

    Boston has really come a long way since even the mid 90s. People really need to chill.

  172. 172.

    eemom

    wrt Silver, et al: I was talking to a Ph.D. statistician the other day and he said essentially that all so-called election prediction modelers are full of shit.

  174. 174.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    This is quite possibly the most hilarious thing I have seen this election.

    @The Red Pen: I have more than a passing acquaintance with statistical analysis and polling design. Their methodology – and I cringe at using that term because the more applicable thing to call what they’ve done is “bunch of random assumptions” – is insane. Seriously. That shit is deranged.

    That entire website reads like it was written by our pet Taco.

  176. 176.

    Anonymous

    @eemom:

    Maybe. But if predictive success counts for something, then given that some models are consistently more accurate than others, it seems likely that there’s something worthwhile and important there (even if there’s a lot of shit involved in them).

  177. 177.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @blingee: Yup, cue some classic Far Wrong poutrage–she gets a regular column to spew her reactionary bullshit, but after this she’ll be screaming her head off about “librul buy-ass” lying on her fainting couch clutching her pearls

  179. 179.

    Ash Can

    @Comrade Mary:

    ‘You know, kids have good instincts,’ Obama offered. ‘They look at the other guy and say, “Well, that’s a bullsh—-er, I can tell.”’

    I’m sorry, I can’t seem to grab proper hold of my pearls; I’m laughing too hard. This is just screamingly funny — and so true, too!

  180. 180.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Uncle Ebeneezer:

    Mr. McCain, do the words Vietnam or Iraq ring any bells?

    No, no, you don’t understand. Those were both full of feck. Fecking fool of feck! Fecked up beyond all recognition!!

  182. 182.

    japa21

    @joes527: Should we take those results to mean Obama is actually getting 35% of the conservative vote? If so Romney is so screwed.

  183. 183.

    Supernumerary Charioteer

    @Elizabelle: And it’s still full of contrarian backflips and yowling for the ‘let’s get together and figure this out, gang!’ savior that never existed or will exist.

    Too often his administration treats business as an obstacle rather than a partner.

    Considering how the all-but-stated interest of the business community has been ‘damage, savage, and monkey-wrench the government, the working man, and the commonwealth at all turns’ for at least the last thirty years, I can’t see how it can be treated as anything but an obstacle if you’re not a colluder.

  186. 186.

    grandpa john

    @smintheus: This, You would think that by now most election poll watchers would realize that all polls do NOT have the same degree of reliability and that a poll is only as accurate as its cross tabs agree with reality. A poll that makes a blanket statement without having the cross tab data to support it or if the cross tabs are way out of line with what all other polls are showing is worthless. Just like Rasmussen with it known republican bias is currently flooding the poll averaging sites with polls from the swing states. Why? to drive the narrative that Romney is ahead. Doesn’t matter if they know they are lying, their job is to push the story not to present the facts.

  188. 188.

    grandpa john

    @BGinCHI: In checking cross tabs of a lot of polls, it appears that there are a lot of Hispanics in a lot of states that are being underpolled.

  189. 189.

    Tractarian

    @Napoleon:

    The incumbent’s failure to consistently reach 50% in polls of Ohio (despite leading the challenger in most polls) was a major reason why I was hopeful in 2004.

    Didn’t turn out so well for the challenger.

  192. 192.

    different-church-lady

    The difference between dems and cons: if it had been a divorce case that Obama had testified at that was unsealed today, you bet every wingnut website would be all about it 24/7. But here in reality world nobody’s interested in even nudging it a bit.

    I mean, c’mon, it’s probably not much at all, but can’t we at least have a little fun with the spanner that just got pitched towards the works?

  194. 194.

    Elizabelle

    @bago:

    Funny re the bipolar WaPost endorsement.

    As long as Jennifer Rubin and Charles Krauthammar are having A. Very. Bad. Day.

  196. 196.

    Mnemosyne

    @Napoleon:

    Other people have already addressed the actual polling numbers, so I’ll just go to this:

    I brought it up the other day for the same reason I am bringing it up today, demographin “gravity” is not in Obama’s favor.

    Believe it or not, it is not 1980 anymore. Romney can no longer win a national election solely on the white male vote.

    I know you have a “feeling” that the polls are wrong and that Ohio’s white voters are going to suddenly swing in Romney’s favor, but you’ve really gotta have something to back that up since there is no actual, yanno, data to back it up.

  197. 197.

    grandpa john

    @Napoleon: Maybe because your assumption is wrong. According to RCP, at least 7 polls by 6 different pollsters in the last 2 months have shown Obama over 50% in Ohio

  199. 199.

    DonkeyKong

    The short fingered vulgarian is no match for Black Metrosexual Abe Lincoln.

    You’re next Jack “have to have a billion for any woman to allow me to climb on top of her” Welch.

  200. 200.

    Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God

    @different-church-lady:

    The difference between dems and cons: if it had been a divorce case that Obama had testified at that was unsealed today, you bet every wingnut website would be all about it 24/7. But here in reality world nobody’s interested in even nudging it a bit.

    This, big-time. Not even local MA media is covering it very much, weird.

    You’d think a former Governor possibly lying under oath to save his buddy some alimony payments would be worth mentioning. Guess not.

  207. 207.

    Cathy D

    @eemom: small world!

    the yard signs are about 50/50 in my immediate neighborhood, but over all, there are too many Romney signs for comfort.

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