Sarah Hoyt @ The PJ Tatler:
Recently I’ve been reading the anti-Obama blogsphere, and yesterday it finally got to me.
I have only one question to ask – are you insane?
No, let me add a few other questions: Have you gone completely out of your minds? Do you want to lose? And do you understand fully what a loss would mean?
I hate to say it but I think the answers are yes, yes, yes and no.
I don’t like yelling at people on the right. Like Reagan, I hold on to the idea that there are no enemies on the right. I prefer to make my points in nicer ways. However, there comes a time any good housewife reaches for the broom. It is now time for the broom.
Yesterday at various blogs I read over and over again that the Dem convention gave Obama a big bounce, that he’s winning, that his approval is now over 50%, that their enthusiasm is as high as that of the Republican crowd, that–
And then you look at the polls that caused this “sky is falling” fit. What are those polls? Those polls are, in fact, the same old sh*te. They poll all adults, which you KNOW skews Democrat. They poll registered voters, which you know skews Democrat. They poll with a skew of 4% Democrats over Republicans as though this were still 2008, as if 2010 had never happened.
Then all the people on the right echo these as though they were legitimate and say “oh, but the polls were correct before.”
Really? The polls were correct before? When? The very last polls before the elections, when pollsters try to salvage their reputation? Sometimes. More or less. Kind of. But up till then when something can be got from the propaganda and from seeding despondency on the right, the polls have been insanely skewed.
Beyond all that, 2008 and before was a different game. The unemployment statistics used to be more or less correct, too, and, oh, yeah, the Justice Department didn’t used to sue pollsters. Neither of those is true anymore.
But, you’ll say “that’s too much like a conspiracy theory” – I’m no fonder of conspiracy theories than you are, and I refuse to believe that someone has (for instance) been keeping secrets for centuries. However, unless you are going to deny that Journolist ever existed, that respectable journalists engaged to elect Barack Obama despite his deep negatives by coordinating attacks on anyone who challenged him, you can’t say they don’t conspire on the propaganda front. In fact, that’s all they have. The propaganda front.
They can’t govern. Marxism has never worked in the real world and will never work. But they’re good at the propaganda front, because it’s easy to make people go along with you who are in professions where they depend on being seen as cool and hip: the media, entertainment. And if that fails there’s the Chicago boot of the Justice Department.
Which brings me back to – what are you thinking? Why are you echoing flawed polls? Why are you telling us it’s all over? That we don’t have a fighting chance, that Obama will be elected again?
Do I want you to sound all cheery? No. Of course not. If there are real difficulties, show them. But must you do the propaganda job for the other side?
I would offer the following as historical litany on the actual 38% unemployment in this nation:
Prices are going up. Unemployment is continue to go up. And we have not had the necessary correction for the financial bubble created by our Federal Reserve system. Auditing the federal reserve–Mitt.
Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders. 43 MILLION PLUS ON WELFARE-so screwed is this nation of freeloaders. a FERERAL FREELOADER union SHOULD BE FORMED. Monthly fees are 50-60% yur welfare check..This is an idea we could all live with-well except the freeloading democ”rats'”.
The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. wall street and the bogus, failed ballon-out (aka golden parachutes).
No longer up on Drudge, but…..
Also….
I think Matt is making the same point as Sarah Hoyt @ The PJ Tatler.
Polls are highly susceptible to being gamed.
One other skew to them is that most calls come to homes during business hours when anyone with a job is out.
And one tactic I read Obama felt he had to use was to dishearten the white, working male voter into staying home.
See all about this in: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/the-politics-of-anything-goes/
His media will pick and choose among polls to help him look best.
It is part of the fallacy of the band wagon.
Which is worse: Gaming the polls, or gaming the elections like Republicans have done it the past with ‘caging’ and are presently doing by disenfranchising voters through requiring specific form of ID—on the basis of preventing an insignificant amount of voter fraud.
I pay no attention to the polls. I vote in every election, even though I live in a suburb that votes Democrat 2:1. Should I just stay home because my vote never counts? Bullcrap! People, I implore you: just go vote. Pay no attention to the man behind the poll. No one can blame me for Obama’s victory in 2008, and if he gains a second term, I will not accept any blame, for I voted against him then (held my nose to vote for RINO McCain) and I will vote against him again in November (holding my nose for yet another RINO). In the meantime, I’m working to push liberty-minded folks up the political ladder. If you aren’t involved in local politics, you are not helping to push qualified persons up the political ladder. You can’t do nothing for four years and then complain that all you’ve got is a choice of the lesser of two evils. Stop allowing the lesser of two evils to rise to prominence in the first place! Politics is a process, not an event. Work hard. It will take years to cull the elephant herd of all its RINOs. Get involved. Stay involved. Be persistent. Stay focused. And ignore the polls!
P.S. This is my first visit to this blog. I thank Rush Limbaugh for bringing it to my attention today.
@liberal1(objectivity):
Hmm. A “specific form” of ID. Such as an official photo ID, like a driver’s license. Or an ID given freely by most states. All one has to do is get there. And most states have sufficient numbers of DMV’s, or BMV’s, or whatever other alphabet collection they use, in order to service the public and their ID or auto-related licensing needs.
Please show me, or rather, US, the research that shows that requiring an official photo ID in order to vote disenfranchises the voter. We’ll all be waiting patiently for your posting.
Every state that requires ID also has a provision for Provisional Ballots.
If you show up without your ID, you can still vote on a Provisional Ballot.
Then, IF the state’s count requires going into those Provisional Ballots, they do…..ONLY THEN must you bring proof that your ballot was legal.
So, what’s the problem?
Remember, Absentee ballots are also held unless the count is close.
Again, only IF the count is close are they counted, either!
WUMINGREN
WELCOME TO FLOPPING ACES,
YES YOUR COMMENT IS MEANINFUL
THANK YOU
HERE IS AN OPINION FROM NORTH NEIGHBOR JOURNALIST,
let me shrink it to give you the words I find good to repeat here;
lock in limbo between hope and change, the voice was there but something in the face,
suggested that the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD had come late to his own party,
something in his eyes declared he would rather be anywhere but where he was facing,
20000 DEMOCRATS IN THE CONVENTION HALL, IN CHARLOTTE NC,
THIS WAS NOT THE SPEECH OF BARACK OBAMA’S LIFE, he gave that one four years ago,
when he had nothing to loose and everything to gain, by invoking the better ANGELS
OF THE AMERICAN’S NATURE, BY INSISTING THAT HIS FELLOW CITIZENS join hands
and embrace HOPE AND CHANGE, THIS WEEK, a mere two months before a battered des-illusion
electorate head to the polls
THE past four years has witnessed nearly unparalleled gridlock in CONGRESS,
MR OBAMA who once fashioned himself as the great consensus builder has failed at almost every turn
to nurture the moderation that has been so necessary to the course of AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY.
MEANWHILE THE VOICES OF EXTREMISM have grown louder, more hysterical, more delusional,
on virtually every major policy issue, today the absurdity that pass for received WISDOM are legion:
the SO CALLED “OBAMA CARE” IS A HEALTH PLAN DESIGNED TO BANKRUPT millions,
and EUTHANIZE OLD PEOPLE, AND THE HOPELESSLY INFIRM:
MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING is a vicious hoax perpetrated by unscrupulous eggheads
attempting to bilk TAX PAYERS for grant money:
AND cutting tax on the very wealthy is the surest path to economic recovery,
and MR OBAMA , has also been his own party’s political pinata, for his perceive lack of commitment
to transformational causes, AS WALL STREET JOURNAL COMMENTATOR
JAMES TARANTO OBSERVED on a BLOG POST A YEAR AGO,
NOT only does OBAMA’S re-election look to be in serious jeopardy, but his presidency has been
an almost unmitigated disaster for progressive liberalism,
Nearly every tenet of which has been revealed to be untenable either practically, politically, or both”
caught between this big rock and a very hard place has been MR OBAMA’S SALIENT CONDITION,
@liberal1(objectivity): Prove your point, your statements are without founding and just plain stupid.
@johngalt: Good luck with a request for proof, he has been asked to support his ridiculous positions in the past and failed as expected.
@johngalt, #5:
From Feds Block Texas Voter ID Law, March 12, 2012:
@Greg:
That doesn’t prove anything other than the percentage of hispanic people who may not hold a photo identification, Greg.
The fact is that a Texas state ID card costs $16. There are 254 counties in Texas. Every one of them has at least one DMV office, while more populous counties and areas have more than one. Additionally, Texas DMVs provide spanish language testing and materials for hispanic residents to obtain a license, or ID. At every DMV in the state.
There is, literally, no excuse for a person wanting to vote not to obtain an ID, whether it be a driver’s license or simple photo ID.
It is important for the individual to understand the difference between reality, and what is presented by other humans as reality.
People generally become insidious when politics are involved. This is the nature of the process. It is better than violence.
The standard in the law of nature is justice. She is indeed blind. Best we could do was a statue.
Just got a photo id for a friend of mine who recently became homeless. He will not vote. $25 in Massachusetts. He needs it to qualify for some form of state aid.
Every individual who posts a poll should be required to present a valid form of identification.
This is so simple… it is stupid to reiterate.