Is there any way to actually compare?
The party making the fewest poorly sourced prostitution accusations at the last minute has the better ground game?
1. I've noticed that this campaign has been strikingly free of those compared to previous years. One thing even Romney hasn't lied about. I wonder if there was a backstage agreement.
I'm going to link to my earlier request. My shitty research skills haven't yielded anything better yet. I'd be interested in, say, estimates of the number of electoral votes and Congressional seats that could be or could've been stolen with the tolerances given by pre-election and exit polls. Also, maybe some attempt to address the problems in likely voter modelling and controlling for the possibility of attempts to bias them systematically. Like comparisons with voting machine type and company, and maybe party affiliation of the locals in charge of the election. This would be difficult, I know, but there has to be better than that "Trust me; I'm a neuroscientist. You're being paranoid." crap.
Digby has been following this, TrueTheVote in Ohio and Wisconsin. She has better articles on the National Organization but I'm not searching her archives. There's a quote from a Republican promising "ten Floridas" this year. There are armies of lawyers on both sides prepared to hit the courts.
Apparently Digby killed comments a while back. Heh.
It has been said that the early voting and more official boots on the ground shows Obama has the better ground game. It has also been said that Republicans depend of free GOTV labor more, churches etc.
If I were Republican and going to steal it, I would hold back on early voting. What are the exit polls gonna look like, if a third of Democrats have already voted.
As we saw, what will likely matter most is the 12-24 hours after the polls closed. If Romney is declared by the media, it will be tough to get him out.
"What are the exit polls gonna look like, if a third of Democrats have already voted."
I'm pretty sure they adjust for this, just like how they adjust likely voter models in pre-election polls based on who's already voted.
Do any of the other election predictors account in any way for likely fraud and suppression efforts? I don't follow it closely but I don't think Silver's 538 does--not even suppresion efforts that are openly advertized and expected--bogus ID laws, etc., much less the negarious stuff that we'll actually see on election day.)
Actually, there are two stages, and the first thing Democrats need to do is make sure Obama does not concede Tuesday night, no matter what the counts look like.
If Kerrey had held out for a couple days, we might have had a little more accountable systems in Ohio and elsewhere.
If Obama gets his landslide, feel free to call out "Crazy Bob"
But part of the reason I am no longer a Democrat is the lack of fight in 2000, 2002 AUMF, 2004, etc etc
Disappointed as I've been with much of Obama's performance, I tend to think that he & his people are pretty good at the technical stuff, which includes GOTV, poll watching & etc.
Plus the latest polls look encouraging.
Hey, I just saw someone in Scott Lemieux's comments alluding to rumours Rmoney is on some kind of weird liquid diet for the campaign. Does anyone know what the rumour is? My Google search was nothing but false positives.
9: Presumably they're referring to when he expels his digestive enzymes onto his prey directly, and then ingests the resulting slurry.
Leaving aside fraud, I would not be complacent about Obama's chances. First, good, impartial statisticians are calling this race too close to call . Second, the Republicans will be doing an ad blitz over the last weekend that the Democrats will not have the money to fully contest.
A few months ago, the political scientist Douglas Hibbs reported that his venerable "bread and peace" ...
Stopped reading.
Okay, I started again, but sheesh.
12 -- A blitz that merely bounces the rubble may not amount to much. People in the swing states have seen an awful lot of ads already.
& etc
I'll chalk this one up to Sandy and election angst, but I get the feeling that standards are slipping around here.
12 -- But yes, I think Romney can still win it, and have consistently done. Even without ballot fraud. (Not without common law fraud, in which he has already engaged repeatedly.)
I have come to believe that the popular vote margin may prove important, socially if not legally, and that people thinking of sending unintelligible "statements" in safe states should rethink.
"common law fraud"
I thought we weren't touching the whole Mormon wives thing.
10: Of course. That and the black meat of the centipede.
12, 14: I suspect we're well past the point of diminishing returns for political ads and probably into the realm of actively negative responses.
17: I have come to think that you're overly concerned about what other people will do with their vote, and especially that you're far too committed to the idea that people on the left have some obligation* to the Democratic Party that they do not in fact have. I have come to think all of this despite myself being a committed (albeit deeply unsatisfied) Democrat.
Mostly, though, I wish you'd take seriously the idea that the current system isn't serving the interests of a great many people in this country and that the vote is, by design, the way that such people are supposed to express their political preferences. If you, and people like you, keep telling such people to swallow their anger and vote the Democratic ticket, I wonder if they'll eventually look for other outlets for their anger and reject politics entirely.
Certainly that's what's happening with my students this year. Four years ago they were fired up and ready to go. This time, sadly, I can't even get them to vote their own interests -- for Prop 30 -- much less for Obama (which isn't my business at all, and I don't broach the subject with them except when they want to talk about it outside of class).
* Moral? Procedural? Other? I can't really tell any more.
First, good, impartial statisticians are calling this race too close to call
Gelman's looking very clear-eyed at the prediction that Obama has a 72% chance according to 538. But, first, that's already up to 79%, and Nate's prediction will grow more confident as the window shrinks.
Here's what I mean: Gelman says "If I flipped a coin weighted 70-30 heads, no one would be surprised to to see it land heads." But that's really a now-cast. The 30% Romney chance is largely because we don't know how the next three days will go. (And the past three days have gone incredibly fortunately for Obama's chances, and that's not yet in the polls.)
Shorter Von: the lessons of 2000 shouldn't only be "Hate on Nader voters."
20: Maybe not in general, but for me certainly. I would now like Medicare reconfigured to exclude both Rothfus's and Critz's mothers.
12: you're right that Romney can win. I've believed that all along, obviously. But your reasoning is, as usual, either dumb or disingenuous (I can never tell). That said, down-ticket Democrats are getting their asses kicked in the ad wars. The President, though, is doing just fine. Surely, given where you work, you know this.
22
Here's what I mean: Gelman says "If I flipped a coin weighted 70-30 heads, no one would be surprised to to see it land heads." But that's really a now-cast. The 30% Romney chance is largely because we don't know how the next three days will go. (And the past three days have gone incredibly fortunately for Obama's chances, and that's not yet in the polls.)
As of now Silver's now-cast is 81.4% for Obama as opposed to 79.0% for Nov. 6. This shows that according to Silver's model most of Romney's chances are coming from the possibility of bias in the polls not opinion shifts between now and Tuesday.
Right, Gelman should have used the now-cast on Oct 30th to make that point, and who knows what that was then. I'm reading his column to mean that he'd feel more comfortable predicting a 81.4% model than a 72% model.
21
... This time, sadly, I can't even get them to vote their own interests -- for Prop 30 -- ...
It would certainly annoy me (as a student) if a professor used class time to propagandize for a proposition primarily benefiting professors.
How fun would Shearer be to have as a student?
12, 14, 20: the effects of political advertising seem to wear off quickly--most in a week, most of the rest in two. So Romney's final barrage might well matter. That said, I'm not sure folks have really tested this hypothesized exhaustion/over-exposure effect.
27
Right, Gelman should have used the now-cast on Oct 30th to make that point, and who knows what that was then. ...
You can read past predictions off Silver's graphs. The now-cast numbers were:
10/27 - 76.8
10/28 - 80.1
10/29 - 75.2
10/30 - 79.5
10/31 - 81.4
28: hey, James, I explicitly said that I don't bring up the issue in class. Also, I'll be just fine if 30 fails, thanks for your concern; my students, though, will face an immediate 20%* tuition increase. Which is to say, it's their interests and not mine that are on the line. Tenure is awesome that way.
* Look, James! A number! Make friends with it!
21 -- I think it makes a real difference which of the major party guys wins, even if your students don't see it that way. Of course the Dem party could be better. But not voting or vanity protest voting isn't going to improve it. Actual involvement can.
I'm not saying that anyone has an obligation to vote one way or another. But we are each responsible for the consequences of our actions, whatever they might be. People who don't want to be responsible for the actions of a President Romney might want to think about what actions or inactions of theirs increase or diminish that responsibility.
(I don't hate people who voted for Nader. I don't think much of those who did so (or advocated doing so) knowing that it might cost Gore the election because they thought costing Gore the election was on balance a price worth paying, and are now in their 12th year of denying that their vote/advocacy had any such impact. I think they were objectively wrong about it being a price worth paying, but denying that they had a role in imposing that price is wrong at a completely different level.)
How fun would Shearer be to have as a student?
I'm sure Shearer stopped going to classrooms as soon as he reached the age of emancipation. If you can't learn everything from books or from your parents you become an illiterate criminal, so what's the point? Teachers either have no effect or do more harm than good by forcing the worthy to interact with the unworthy.
29: the thing that would be awful would be that the other students would snicker every time he raised his hand. Honestly, I can't stand that and try to shut it down whenever I see it happening to some poor Shearer. Of course, I also can't watch more than a minute of the British Office, so.
I've taught classes at Harvard, I've had like 30 goddamn Shearers.
When they're in college they focus their passive-aggressive complaints on grading, though, not on politics.
31: Ok, and I think his column would have been less up-in-the-air if he'd used the 10/30 now-cast prediction of 79.5%.
"Too close to call" is such a strange metric in this case. I mean, of course it's too close to call. 2008 was too close to call. I understand why Gelman uses it, but I think the majority of people use it to mean "we have no good information about who is likely to win" which is obviously, massively incorrect.
vanity voting
Yup, it's that kind of thing that's started to make me think your lawn is getting bigger than you can tend, oldster. People are supposed to vote for who they think is the best candidate. Even still, it makes me antsy when someone in, say, Ohio thinks that person is Jill Stein (or anyone who isn't Barack Obama). But I still try to avoid calling them fools or selfish or whatever for making the choice they're making, as it's their choice to make. They are engaged with the process, after all.
I don't disagree with much else of what you've said, by the way. But I think your vision of involvement is far too crimped. And again, your judgmental tone has begun to rankle. You shouldn't care, I don't think, but I did want to say something.
32
... hey, James, I explicitly said that I don't bring up the issue in class. ...
I read your comment as saying you didn't bring up the Presidential race in class. I am glad to hear you don't bring up prop 30 either.
"People are supposed to vote for who they think is the best candidate."
Maybe in pony land. I think people are supposed to vote in a way that leads to the outcome they most prefer. Casting a vote for someone with no chance of winning that results in someone who will actively harm your interests seems... unwise.
But your reasoning is, as usual, either dumb or disingenuous (I can never tell).
What I can't tell is the source of your committment to being a sputtering ass whenever you respond to one of my comments. As I recall, your last hysterical seizure concerned a fairly straightforward point I made about Obama's centrism making him an uncertain ally to liberals and in many ways a mediocre president so far from a liberal perspective. Yet here you are in this thread apparently lecturing C-Carp about the way the Democratic party has betrayed the liberal base.
Conventional wisdom regarding ads is that they are most effective at the end of campaigns . But I have no problem with the idea that the unprecedented spending in this campaign has pushed ads into negative return territory and rendered old wisdom less applicable. A number of comments above made that point without the stupid and gratuitous personal slams.
Yeah, I can't endorse the position that the Democrats have in any way earned the vote of people on the left and, in fact, have often seemed to go out of their way to alienate those voters. However, CC is right that whatever message a third-party presidential vote is intended to send, the Democratic Party is vanishingly unlikely to hear it or to respond in any way that would make the messengers happy.
The effective pressure point there is probably primary challenges.
44: I find it hard to take that you make points that are either incredibly wrong or incredibly obvious in a tone of perfect certitude or stentorian fatuousness: "Giants walked the earth then!" Really, PGD, you're an ass. And when election time rolls around, and you feel the need to declaim from on high, I get sick of it fairly quickly. It's that simple.
I forget which Reasonable Moderate Democrat makes this point (Ygleasias? Drum?), but national elections are not the right pressure point at all. Electing liberals at the local or state level is how you build an intra-party constituency for views not currently represented.
Getting' it right in that order as they disagree on things.
Presidential votes were not designed as an optimal system for allowing voters to express fine-grained opinions on change in the country as it exists now, which is to say they weren't designed in the context of hundreds of millions of voters in a two-party system. That they are an ill fit for this role is not surprising.
43: agreed (and I think I'm on the record as saying just this lots and lots of times). But mocking them for their choice, as though there's no reason for it other than a fit of juvenile pique, also unwise.
national elections are not the right pressure point at all. Electing liberals at the local or state level is how you build an intra-party constituency for views not currently represented.
This has been obvious for so long that I'm puzzled why no effective effort along these lines has come from the left.
46.last: or occupying on up some parks.
51: it's way harder than casting a meaningless protest vote?
42: it's easy to see how you could have mis-read it that way. That's why I didn't jump down your throat and call you a racist, bullying asshole. Seriously, though, President Yudof and Chancellor Katehi (and presumably the chancellors of the other UCs) have all been sending out e-mails that I assume they think stop justthisside of lobbying. It's making me very uncomfortable, honestly, as I think they've crossed the line.
a proposition primarily benefiting professors.
Because increasing taxes on the wealthy and mostly distributing them to K-12 schools is obviously a devious plot to better educate children so that they will attend universities and fall into the evil grip of... the professors.
34
I'm sure Shearer stopped going to classrooms as soon as he reached the age of emancipation. If you can't learn everything from books or from your parents you become an illiterate criminal, so what's the point? ...
Getting the credential of course.
54: probably marginally less problematic than employers doing that.
Is The Professors the name of the world's second dirtiest joke?
56: But surely you would just take the tests, not listen to the lectures.
44: also, I think the last time I insulted you was either one of the countless times you shilled for Dr. Paul or the idiotic thread in which you insisted that that shitass WaPo process story about the debt ceiling negotiations could tell us anything about what the President is going to do re. Social Security in his next term*. If I recall correctly, I insisted that either you know something -- which, given your job, you may -- in which case you should say so. Or you don't -- which, given that you're an idiot, seems equally likely -- in which case you should shut up.
* Insha'Allah.
58: That would be "The Priesthood".
Is it really that difficult to imagine the election going to Romeny without stealing? You need to get outside your bubble, Pauline.
57: I'm not sure that's true, actually. We're still a state agency bound by pretty much absolute, no-wiggle-room rules regarding lobbying. Private employers, as I understand it, might have a bit more leeway. But I don't know enough about the latter case (private employers) to say for sure. Regardless, I know that some of my students feel really upset by the lobbying, and I'm not convinced that it's doing more good than harm.
At this point, yes, it is difficult to imagine. A week after the first debate, it was not difficult to imagine. My bubble contains SCIENCE and STATISTICS.
Oh, Heebie. Got it. Remember, Sifu, there is an OP.
64: I meant morally, not legally.
My bubble contains SCIENCE and STATISTICS.
Ha! So you admit that you're a commieliberallattedrinkingsocialist!
23: I don't hate on Nader voters, but I do disagree with the ones (like Nader himself) who took no lesson from that experience. Same with Bush voters in 2000.
Heck, I will say that people who supported the Iraq War in 2003 ought not be mocked. In real-time, a lot of otherwise reasonable people found that call a tough one to make, and I entirely understand why. Of course, my sympathy is limited to those who actually learned something from that situation.
But if you dismiss me - as you do Charley - by noting that I am "overly concerned about what other people will do with their vote," I have to concede that you are correct.
How do you make the electoral map add up to a Romney victory? It seems like every combination of swing states leaves him losing. Somtimes by a little, sometimes by a lot, but losing.
And in related news, Spanier charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, endangering the welfare of children, and conspiracy.
37
When they're in college they focus their passive-aggressive complaints on grading, though, not on politics.
You mean like the math professor I had who gave a take home test in which (because he couldn't be bothered to proof read) he left out one of the conditions for the theorem we were supposed to prove. So after wasting who knows how many hours trying to prove it I finally came up with a simple counterexample. So I get the test back and I got 10 points out of 20. So I complain and in the ensuing discussion I learn that many of the other students had gotten 20/20. And no they hadn't come up with the counterexample and then figured out the omitted condition they had just merrily "proved" a false theorem. And no the professor hadn't checked their proofs to see if they made any sense at all. At which point he agreed to to give me the 20 points but I am still irritated.
How do you make the electoral map add up to a Romney victory? It seems like every combination of swing states leaves him losing. Somtimes by a little, sometimes by a lot, but losing.
So you disagree with Silver that Romney has a 20% chance? I think Silver justifies his argument in two ways:
1. We can't know precisely how accurate the polls are.
2. Today isn't election day. Things can change.
I admit I didn't actually imagine that the map could look like this.
72. To Romney: FL, NC, VA, CO, WI plus NH
76: I don't disagree with anyone about anything. I just wasn't sure what specific electoral scenario was being held out as a hypothetical Romney victory.
But, reading 538 now, it looks like there are a few different (unrealistic) possibilities.
Voting Green to signal moving the Democratic party to the left is the intellectual equivalent of invading Iraq to signal how tough we are at fighting terrorism.
Look, this isn't rocket science. There are plenty of well established ways to move the Democratic party to the left, including but not limited to supporting left candidates in primaries and supporting the interest groups that back the progressive wing of the party. Voting for third party candidates in Presidential elections isn't one of them, and it's particularly counterproductive and futile to go on a out this weeks before the election.
To the extent your students don't get this, they're being dumb. I mean, not badly intentioned, and not incomprehensible, but dumb, and it's worth calling out the dumbness to its face.
I never know whether to smile when James displays self-awareness or to begin looking over my shoulder for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And this is the kind of awesomeness that is supposed to move the numbers in the final weekend.
80: yes, because mocking people, especially people over whom one holds power, is always the most persuasive form of argument. Seriously, it's taken me a few years, but I've come to the conclusion that unfogged rules don't translate well to interactions with my students (or to faculty meetings). Also, this is why I mentioned to Charley that I don't think he should care that I'm a bit tired of his rhetoric around this issue. Because unfogged rules are still in effect -- or at least should be -- at unfogged. Here that, PGD, you dipshit?
After my experience last year I'm very concerned about voter intimidation. If they pretend my identification isn't good enough I'm calling the ACLU.
82 Rassmussen has WI as a tie, but you are right that other polls show Obama in the lead by a slim margin. But certainly within a margin of error that does not equate to a stolen election.
80: yes, because mocking people, especially people over whom one holds power, is always the most persuasive form of argument.
I am totes going to try this should I at some point have any power over anyone.
Yeah, I think at this point you need a slight bias to the polls and some swing state victories eked out to get Romney to 270. This will, of course, be attributed to a depressed Democratic base and enthusiastic but shy Republicans.
71: In real-time, a lot of otherwise reasonable people found that call a tough one to make, and I entirely understand why.
Oh come on! Everybody with any sense knew that:
1. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11
2. There were no WMDs in Iraq
3. The entire basis of the Bush/Cheney case for war was built on falsehoods.
If people still found opposing the war "a tough call to make", then their critical thinking skills are so sub-par that they should not be allowed to participate in politics.
I'm not saying that mocking or insulting your students is the best way for you to call them out for being dumb. But they're still being dumb.
87: Should've opted for the Biblical marriage, heathenwuss.
I just wasn't sure what specific electoral scenario was being held out as a hypothetical Romney victory.
The electoral scenario is sort of a variation on "a rising tide lifts all boats." If one side's supporters have been systematically undercounted/overcounted, or if something dramatic happens between now and election day, then we could be in for a surprise.
Me, I think it's inconceivable that Americans, once they are in the poll booth, could actually vote Romney in. It'd be like voting in Reagan in 1980, or Bush in 2004.
Using university resources for campaigning/lobbying - depending how it's done - is a 501c(3[?]) violation, I think. I remember it coming up in either 2004 or 2008. Although I guess there could be different rules for private non-profits than for public universities.
Private for profit universities can probably offer certificate programs in voting for whatever the people running them want people to vote for.
People are supposed to vote for who they think is the best candidate.
I don't agree with this. We're electing coalitions. Pick the one you think best.
Others have said it, but really the roadmap is pretty clear from our friends in the Tea Party. They'll do just fine, better than fine, in gerrymandered safe House seats. Last time out, they found that being willing to tank a moderate in favor of an extremist doesn't work so well in non-gerrymandered seats, like the US Senate -- and this has been a major problem for success of their movement. They'd have been better off with Rs in Senate seats in Nevada, Delaware, and a couple of other places. It may not work out for them in Indiana and Missouri this year. On the other hand, some Senate seats are safe enough that they can win them -- like Texas, I suppose -- so there's no reason not to go balls to the wallin the primary. State legislative seats are gerrymandered in most states, and provide the same kind of opportunities should some kind of leftish organization emerge. Contending for the presidency, though, is counterproductive madness.
And all the worse because under the theory of change through presidential voting, losses by the Dem candidate who didn't do enough to win the leftish vote are features not bugs.
I'm sorry, Von, that my tone bothers you. I'm not concerned about the souls of most of the people who are making what I think is an unwise choice on the criteria they announce themselves. I am concerned, though, about the votes that neutralize )and more) my own vote. Aren't you?
Something, something, won't take their own side in an argument, something.
My experience of arguments about third-party voting is that whether a vote is a vanity vote or an expression of sanctimonious superiority over those delusional fools who just don't understand what's good for the country is almost completely independent of which candidate the voter happens to be choosing.
It could be the lingering after effect of first voting in the California recall, but I generally feel like I'm throwing my vote away whether or not I actually vote.
I'm not suggesting you do anything with your students, Von.
90: nope, they're not; they're being unsophisticated. Look, the (entirely right -- again, I've made this point myself about a million times) argument that you're making about presidential elections is actually pretty complicated for people who have almost no understanding of Civics 101. I try to teach them this stuff in my classes -- especially the classes I teach on the Civil War and the 1960s (1968, anyone?), but the subtlety bangs up against the fact that national politics is atrociously ugly, that corporations appear to control the process, and that older generations are taking a shit on them every single day. They're pissed. They don't want to vote for Barack Obama or Jerry Brown's Prop 30. They want their voices to be heard, so they get involved with with the Occupy movement or vote for Jill Stein. I've got to believe, based on some (admittedly pretty crappy) polling that I've seen, that this is happening around the country.
Mocking them, or calling them stupid, isn't going to help. Now that you've moderated your rhetoric, I think we're on the same page. They need to be educated. I suspect Charley believes the same thing. But he's been so pissed for so long about these issues that he keeps lashing out instead of making that point. That's all I meant.
89: And yet, here we are in America, where the significant majority of people held this ridiculous position. And a tiny minority voted for Nader, despite the obvious reasons not to do so.
I'm a small-d democrat at heart, and think these people ought to nonetheless be "permitted to participate in politics."
But I don't have any particular problem with mocking the ones who haven't repented. For the ones who regret past choices, mockery seems like piling on - they already feel bad and have already resolved to do better in the future. That's where I'd draw the line that Von draws in a different place in 23.
They want their voices to be heard, so they get involved with with the Occupy movement or vote for Jill Stein
These things do not seem terribly similar.
94: you don't have to be sorry, Charley. I don't care what you say here, though I do sometimes wonder who's lurking. My point is that you're a pretty subtle guy, but your rhetoric around third-party voting has been blunt enough that it misses some important points lately. Again, you and I are on the same side on these issues. I just think that insisting that everybody voting for Stein out of vanity, as you did above, is wrong.
I also suspect, and now I'm talking to Halford as well as Charley, that most people who claim to have a legible road map for moving the Democratic Party to the left are completely full of shit.
100: they aren't. That's why I said "or" and not "and".
I disagree with 40, the 2008 presidential election was not too close to call.
98,99 -- I agree with 99.3. I think my concern about the popular vote count in "safe" states is legitimate, and recall a discussion not very long ago in which a bunch of people -- adults posting to an ecletic web magazine, not students who haven't learned the basics of how our system works -- took the other view. I think the signals we've had from the Village over the last week or so underline my point on this, and undermine the notion that there are states where a vote for Stein doesn't have political consequences.
I also think you're reading emotions into my posts today that I'm not feeling.
That is to say, the day of the election we already knew that Obama was going to win at a certainty level comparable or better certainty level than news organizations use to call individual states during the election night.
You probably need both the carrot and the stick. I mean, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but it's not like shunning and mocking don't have their uses, depending on the constituency. People should feel embarrassed about having been Nader voters in 2000 or Stein voters today.
I also want to emphasize how different joining Occupy and voting for Jill Stein are. I've been pretty disappointed with the former in practice but in general it's exactly the kind of movement building thing progressive people should be doing. Voting for Stein is at best promoting a total dead end for progressives and at worst throwing the government over to villains.
But I think, Von, that you do me wrong to claim that I am saying all votes for Stein are vanity. No, I think a great many -- probably most -- are part of a misguided effort to make a political difference.
There's a subset of Stein voters who are expressing what sounds like vanity to me: and the best marker of such people is that in these conversations, they immediately go to concern trolling (if you Dems were nicer, we'd vote for your candidate) rather than presenting a reasonable (even if wrong) argument for how their vote might actually move the ball downfield in the direction they want it to go. Voting for Stein because I, and a bunch of other people, were mean on the internet is worthy of mockery. And I wouldn't bring this up if it wasn't a very common trope in these discussions.
If the Republicans weren't already taking a maximalist approach to opposition, I'd think that margin in the safe states might mean something. Since they are, I think an Obama win is pretty much going to be just an Obama win. Anyway, my primary motivation for voting this year is state stuff and the local House race.
104: I'm not reading emotions into anything today; I'm reading rhetoric, and probably not very carefully at that. Still, calling something a vanity vote seems to me like incendiary rhetoric. But in the past, you've said that you were pissed, so that's from whence that came. Anyway, I don't think we're disagreeing about anything meaningful at this point. I just found myself tired of hearing you make fun of people choosing to vote third party. I tend to view that issue through the experience of my students, who are doing so in a state that's safe for Obama. I don't think my students are vain or stupid.
The only issue that's left, as far as I can tell, is whether it would be better or worse for Obama to win the electoral college but lose the popular vote. I'm agnostic on that, for now, as I think it could damage his second term -- though I think he's going to be a lame duck on day 27 regardless -- but want the electoral college to die a quick death. NPV, anyone?
Bill Clinton or a voice facsimile is right at this moment leaving a message telling me to vote no on prop 32. How can I deny that voice?
108.1: fair enough.
108.2: I hope you're not putting me in this camp. I don't think I've ever concern trolled in this (or any other) way. And I don't think my students are going to vote for Stein because they think Democrats are meanies. They're voting for Stein because they think Obama is bought and paid for by Wall Street (true, though the other guy is worse) and because they want massive change in the system (Tigre is right that they're silly to think a vote for Stein will bring such change, but I think he's equally silly to suggest that there's a better road map for them to follow).
I'm perfectly willing to make fun of your students. They're being stupid, and I don't have any interaction with them. If I did, I'd probably be polite and friendly and do all the other things that work in persuading people. But since I don't, to the extent they're Jill Stein or No on 30 voters, I feel confident in calling them here a bunch of deluded fucking morons.
99: where the significant majority of people held this ridiculous position
Well, that's why I'm against, in descending order:
Capitalism
The State
Bourgeois democracy
Winner-take-all elections
Non-proportional representation
The US electoral system
The Republican Party
112.2 -- I'm not putting you in that camp. Nor your students.
And your point about being tired of my comments on this subject is unassailable. I'm done for the day.
And of course there's a better road map for them to follow. If their main issue is control by big finance, I can give them a list of 10 organizations right now in California they could get involved with, none of which back Jill Stein.
I'm voting for Obama entirely as a protest vote against Jill Stein and her vanity campaign.
I don't understand a protest vote against an initiative. There is either yes or no, there is no third party (although I guess prop 38 is sort of the third party here?)
Looking at Coates today and I saw his link to this. I had no idea Unskewed polls was that far from sane. Unskewed is calling PA for Roomney and saying he'll win by nearly 7%.
116: they want systemic change, Tigre. They don't want to nibble; they're idealistic and think the entire system is deeply corrupt. Are they wrong? No, they are not. Will voting for Jill Stein improve things? No, it will not (I don't think). Will your organizations improve things. Yes, they will. But only incrementally. The system will still be corrupt, perhaps irreparably so. We're all Puritans. Some of them are just Pilgrims.
119: I fucking hate the phrase "epistemic closure", but I really don't know what else to call what's happening to people, especially people on the right, in this country.
And I should probably shut up now.
110: that's from whence that came
We have standards here, Von.
That map is awesome as an indicator of mental illness. I mean, why not also give Maine (votes for Republican senators!) MA (Romney home state!) CT (Wall St. commuters!) NJ (Christie!) and WA (close recent governor race!) to Romney and push him over 400 EV?
Holy crap, looking at his table, he almost did do all of those things except MA.
No one I know can even see epistemic closure.
Will your organizations improve things. Yes, they will. But only incrementally.
This seems unrealistically optimistic. Maybe they'll slow down the destruction, maybe, but most likely by far they'll have no effect.
: they want systemic change
Well, presumably, they're about 18. But they should learn that the US political system -- in any manner -- is not designed, ever, to provide "systemic" change and never has been. Let them work with Occupy and vote for Obama.
124: Everyone I know voted for it.
but the subtlety bangs up against the fact that national politics is atrociously ugly, that corporations appear to control the process, and that older generations are taking a shit on them every single day. They're pissed. They don't want to vote for Barack Obama or Jerry Brown's Prop 30. They want their voices to be heard, so they get involved with with the Occupy movement or vote for Jill Stein. I've got to believe, based on some (admittedly pretty crappy) polling that I've seen, that this is happening around the country.
So very, very, very different from our students, who are not aware that national politics are atrociously ugly, that corporations lobby, nor that they're being shat on, and are not pissed but abso-fucking-certain that each person's ills are solely the result of lack of personal effort and drive.
Respectable Murderers An Open Letter to Dan Ellsberg
David Swanson, lifelong issue activist has a diary at FDL, has already voted for Jill Stein in Virginia. He is taping a debate with Ellsberg for radio broadcast Monday night.
He explains why and how issue advocacy and local politics has become much harder under Obama and a Democratic Party that knows it doesn't have to earn the votes of its left center base.
In other news, Elizabeth Warren has changed her campaign to run against Obama Geithner and their coddling of banksters...wait. That's fucking impossible.
(Tigre is right that they're silly to think a vote for Stein will bring such change, but I think he's equally silly to suggest that there's a better road map for them to follow).
Futility is beguiling these days, and I can be as pessimistic as anyone, but I really think futility isn't an accurate representation of reality. In fact, Obama's 2008 election moved the country a large distance to the left, by comparison to where it would have been. His reelection will do the same.
Any progressive roadmap has to include the idea of forming a majority coalition. I wish we could have found a better coalition than the one behind Obama, but we didn't, and there it is. Denying that bit of reality doesn't accomplish anything useful, and denying the need for coalition politics in general pretty much guarantees failure.
Wait. Is an epistema when you shoot water up your ass or am I confused?
Systemic change, my straw ass
I wanted people to have good jobs and keep their fucking houses. Any way it could happen, there were trillions being thrown around in 2009.
That was not a monstrously Stalinist radical thing to ask
Y'all are in radical denial about the degree of fucking Democratic Party fail.
Now a lot of those people who lost their houses and credit rating will indeed vote for Obama, knowing he will not help them or help the next group in trouble. But giving up all hope in electoral politics is really hard, and the scum will use that fear and desperation to make their bankster friends billionaires.
1. While there are some stations dispensing water, they don't look to be adequate2. Food is not being delivered consistently, and it appears to be mainly not being delivered. From his canvassing, many restaurants and groceries were expecting deliveries and most did not get them. The high end restaurants appear to be getting priority in resupply.
The National Guard is working supply.
Is an epistema when you shoot water up your ass or am I confused?
You're confused. It's the incision to prevent tearing during childbirth.
"and keep their fucking houses"
I don't think a pro-prostitution platform is going to play outside of Nevada.
133: And they have to close the epistema after the baby is born. Got it.
132: bob, you're in New York helping, right? Like you were in Kansas after Dr. Tiller's murder? Leaving that aside, can you please decide, once and for all, if you want Obama to win or lose? I seriously can't keep up with your bullshit. We're responsible when the election is stolen and Obama loses. We're responsible when Obama wins. We're responsible when momofuku gets bottled water. Sheesh, you're like my fucking grandmother with all the guilt.
Sigh. I guess you guys would rather bicker than do my research for me.
There is a ton of epistemic closure going around. I see it everywhere.
Cramdown and student debt relief was a moral and economic necessity in 2009. We have seen why.
Whole generations and demographics have been damaged or destroyed by the last four years.
Blaming Republicans obviously is not going to help those people at all, we still have close races in both branches and all elections.
And we are not going to get a super-majority of Kuciniches anytime soon. Party is too strong to get radicals winning primaries. (Mid-Late 60s had some weakened incumbents and structural change, SCOTUS commanded redistricting)
So we have to make our current crop of Democrats better, by threatening them with unemployment. That is what we have.
136:Wafer, I am reassured and encouraged by Rauchway moving to Crooked Timber. Only thing left at EotAW appears to be the nostalgic imperialist.
But Rauchway knows that FDR did do cramdown, and debt relief by the truckload. Like 50% by some calculations (Gold). I think he is slightly more disappointed. In Obama too.
Don't be confused, Wafer. Be the bankster tool of your dreams.
So we have to make our current crop of Democrats better, by threatening them with unemployment.
You mean sent them to graduate school?
My vote, in a safe state, will go to Jill Stein. Not because I'm deluded or stupid, but because I believe my vote has no impact, and it feels good to mark the ballot for someone whose opinions I largely agree with. Is this a "vanity vote"? Probably. Do I care? Not really.
Am I embarrassed enough to hide my identity? Clearly.
I thought you were somebody new and was thinking it was a good pseud.
And they have to close the epistema after the baby is born. Got it.
No, no. You have to close the epistema after Jesus is born, and you get it in your hands.
My important votes are mostly set (Still haven't figured out what I think about the MA "death with dignity" proposition). I'm down to figuring out how best to signal the stupidity of the nonbinding ballot questions instructing my state rep to back a nonbinding state resolution calling on Congress to do something idealistic. Vote no on all of them? Leave them blank while voting on everything else?
I miss my neb-destroyed over-hypenation phase.
I fucking hate the phrase "epistemic closure"
So does this one now have to go on the ash-heap of Unfogged history, along with "Overton Window" and "privilege"?
I dunno. I find them all useful. Analogies should stay banned, though.
144: He's got the whole World Historical Individual in His hands.
@147
Clearly we need a grand synthesis in the form of a theory of epistemically privileged Overton window closure.
149: That sounds like it would go great with some organic, locally-sourced artisanal sandwiches.
the ash-heap of Unfogged history, along with "Overton Window" and "privilege"
A conservative friend just taunted me "Michelle Bachman says hi" and I can't think of anything funny and pithy and eviscerating to respond. Help?
This is the most useful thing I've done in a week.
And the foe commented hahaha. So I win! by cheating. But I'm not sorry.
Bloomberg endorsed Obama!
Oh, no!
Could this be the game-changer that will throw the election to Romney?
The election is already over in favor of Obama, Dick Morris predicted a Romney landslide.
Dick Morris wants your feet. Let him smell your feet, lick your toes, save the linty bits for stuffing his pillow.
161: I saw that prediction and had the same reaction. Obama might take Utah.
I think Obama walking arm in arm with Chris Christie is going to help him a decent amount in these last few days. It's getting harder to paint Obama as an angry Black Panther Muslim partisan when he's literally hugging a popular white Republican governor. On a bigger level, the storm is going to help Obama because disaster relief is one of the few bipartisan issues people unanimously think the government should be in charge of. Luckily Romney decided to pick on FEMA at some point, and now looks like an idiot. Unfortunately, that won't matter as much as it should, but then if things that should matter did, the election wouldn't be close.
Also, 79% of Republicans, and 58% of Americans in general, openly admit to being racist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel this is a slide backwards.
What a sellout. I thought for sure Bloomberg would endorse Jill Stein.
Also, Chris Christie: stabbing Romney in the back, or rising above partisanship?
@152
Michelle Bachmann was a Swiss citizen for over 30 years. That should be good for something. Of course, Switzerland is the worst European country, so I'm not surprised it would give Michelle Bachmann citizenship, but not brown people born on Swiss soil.
166: Jeff Goldberg explained this already -- Chris Christie is making another attempt to get his hero, Bruce Springsteen, to like him.
And Bloomberg has now endorsed Obama. Almost enough to make me believe in god.
I don't get 153, and google doesn't help. Am I an idiot [for this reason]?
Also, 79% of Republicans, and 58% of Americans in general, openly admit to being racist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel this is a slide backwards.
You have to be more specific about the kind of racism. You know, anti-Chinese, anti-white or whatever.
I had to break 153 down into two parts before I got it.
Don't think the relative responsiveness of Unfogged to heebie's request has gone unnoticed.
170: google "Marcus Bachmann" and see what autocomplete offers you.
Also, Chris Christie: stabbing Romney in the back, or rising above partisanship?
Christie and Obama have the same interest in portraying the emergency response as being well-handled.
Oh cool. I hope he pulls a Michael Huffington and comes out soon.
I'm not sure the world has room for another giant web-only news and bullshit aggregator.
But they should learn that the US political system -- in any manner -- is not designed, ever, to provide "systemic" change and never has been. Let them work with Occupy with unions and rebuild the labor movement and vote for Obama.
The reason that this needs to be coupled with voting D for presidents is the Supreme Court.
Did people link Bloomberg's endorsement? It leads with climate change.
Bloomberg did throw in:
"Rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice," Mr. Bloomberg said of Mr. Obama, "he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it."Best tweet in response (from Jacob Weisberg): "Shorter Mike Bloomberg: Obama doesn't love rich people enough, but he's more likely to save their beach houses."
35
29: the thing that would be awful would be that the other students would snicker every time he raised his hand. Honestly, I can't stand that and try to shut it down whenever I see it happening to some poor Shearer. Of course, I also can't watch more than a minute of the British Office, so.
Does that sort of thing happen a lot these days? I don't remember it from my long ago student days but perhaps that just means they weren't laughing at me.
But also Greg Sargent: "Shorter Mike Bloomberg: I want a president who doesn't think slowing the rise of the oceans is a gag line."
175: Christie and Obama also have the same interest in Romney not being president in the next eight years. Christie has a much better shot at the nomination if he doesn't have to take on a sitting president or vp.
Got my assignment for Election Day. I'm going to be driving around some of the most desolate parts of North Phila. Hopefully I can be of some use. (We're really just supposed to track election issues and report them to the hotline, but of course we are allowed to sort out minor challenges on our own if necessary.)
CCarp: Why does the popular vote matter? It sends a message?
I'm not Carp, and I don't know that the popular vote matters that much, but a divided popular/electoral college vote may help a Republican argument that the new administration lacks a "mandate."
That's not my main reason for extreme hostility towards people who vote Green in safe Obama states, though. My main reason is that those voters are helping to build an organization that is at best worthless and at worst affirmatively harmful to progressive causes. The justification that "my vote doesn't matter" is I guess sort of true, but ceases to apply as soon as you do any advocacy at all on this issue, and in any event is kind of lame and self-indulgent.
If I could back in time to the much younger Witt, who never believed that her vote didn't matter but did believe that a protest vote could mean something, it would be to emphasize the importance of downticket races.
I remain convinced that the single most valuable contribution a political journalist can make is to thoroughly describe the duties and responsibilities of a lower office, and profile the candidates who are running for it.
187
I'm not Carp, and I don't know that the popular vote matters that much, but a divided popular/electoral college vote may help a Republican argument that the new administration lacks a "mandate."
According to 538 there is currently a 5.1% chance that Obama will lose the popular vote but win in the electoral college. If that were to happen I think it would seriously weaken his ability to get anything done (and probably lead to big losses in 2014).
Seriously, why the fuck am I being asked to vote for clerk of courts, sheriff, or register of deeds (and in off years, register of probate and family court judge)? How the hell am I supposed to know about those candidates or offices when there are no blogs that talk about them?
It's a question of how much headwind O is going to have in the second term. On the night Clinton was first elected, or maybe the day after, Sen Dole said he viewed his job as speaking for the 57% of people who didn't vote for Clinton. Not a legal question of the legitimacy of the win, but a political point about the legitimacy of obstruction. I'm not concerned so much with what Boehner and McConnell are going to do -- we already know they'll be fairly obstructive -- but I think we have to worry about the Village and the more marginal members of our coalition.
Even outside the Villagers it can matter. A friend of a close friend is running for the senate in North Dakota. She just might win -- I think the latest polls make it very close -- although Obama is sure to lose there. I can imagine her caring (or having to act like she cares), if both she and Obama win, what the margin looks like, when she has to take some tough votes.
190
Seriously, why the fuck am I being asked to vote for clerk of courts, sheriff, or register of deeds (and in off years, register of probate and family court judge)? How the hell am I supposed to know about those candidates or offices when there are no blogs that talk about them
Are there really no blogs about them? I thought there were blogs about practically everything.
Are these partisan offices?
190 -- You can bet that the candidates have pretty strong opinions. Send them emails.
Officially yes, effectively no- it's MA, once you win the Dem primary you're typically unopposed in the general. I think the only nonpartisan races are the city ones (school board, city council.)
Admittedly I haven't really looked for blogs on the races (I'm sure the candidates have them.) I found some articles- looks like the only contested race is sheriff, incumbent is a prosecutor appointed mid-term by Patrick, challenger is a corrections officer, independent.
I missed the real election this year which for these offices is the primary, due to us having a child that day.
191:Suzy Khimm at WaPo interviews Grover. Grover is evil, but I hope no one thinks Grover is dumb.
Some people who are president-centric say now Obama can do anything he wants -- he can drive the economy into the bridge abutment and not care what happens. Yeah, he could if he were the only hand on the steering wheel. But there are 20 Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2014. Those people in 2008 -- from Alaska, Arkansas and South Dakota -- who may not come back in a good year for Democrats sure aren't coming back if Obama has a "Thelma and Louise" moment over the fiscal cliff. If they want to do that, they aren't coming back. It's the Democratic Senate that would explain..."We do not intend to commit political suicide two years before the end of our term." They could lose 10 or more of 20 seats. They could lose the ability to filibuster in the Senate after 2014. They could lose that in an okay year, sure, and they're much more likely if they make life difficult for themselves.
The really atrocious elections are those for judges. I'm a litigator who appears before LA Superior Court judges all the time -- i.e., the most direct and theoretically knowledgeable constituency in these elections -- and I almost never have any useful knowledge about the candidates, unless it's a sitting judge up for reelection (who I almost always vote for on principle).
It is ludicrous to expect any knowledge whatsoever by the general public on those elections. They're also nonpartisan (partisan elections for judges have their own problems, but you could at least use the D or the R to make an informed guess as to judicial philosophy). It's absurd.
(If you're in LA County, just go to the County Bar Association's web page and pick whomever they endorse. It's what I do).
I'm not Carp, and I don't know that the popular vote matters that much, but a divided popular/electoral college vote may help a Republican argument that the new administration lacks a "mandate." that the election is an illegitimate result of voter fraud and Romney should be installed as president.
The really atrocious elections are those for judges
IANAL, but voting for judges does make sense to me, if only to vote out the ones that have made the news for whatever reason. Voting by D or R, not so much.
TLL, I think you live in LA County. Other than Rose Bird (whom I fear you probably voted to remove) have you ever voted to remove a judge based on anything you've heard in the news?
I mean, honestly, the idea that Nate Silver has somehow damaged the sacred Times name is enough to make JP Stormcrow say something grumpy, I bet.
201. Once, when I lived in San Bernardino County. Judge was DUI. I do not remember if he lost, ut I voted to kick his ass out.
202 203
The attacks on Silver have been generally nonsense but the NYT has good reasons for not wanting him (or any other reporter) to be betting on the election.
I've voted against judges. I don't like judicial elections, and am glad we have the federal system we have.
201. cont'd And don't forget Lemkau
The incumbent sheriff where SP and I are robo-called my cell phone yesterday, so he lost my vote. I called the campaign and they were surprisingly contrite.
I still filed the FCC complaint with the potential $16k-per-violation fine, though.
The incumbent sheriff where SP and I and many others.
Somebody's been robocalling me, but I never answer calls with blocked CallerID and they never leave a message, so dunno who it is.
Right, by making a bet (with proceeds going to Red Cross) Silver might damage the hard-won credibility the Times built up based on the work of people like Judith Miller and Jayson Blair.
I finally answered an unknown caller ID and now I'm going to NH on Saturday to knock on doors for Obama.
Yeah it wouldn't surprise me if it was them.
Which I guess doesn't count as "robocalling" but whatever. Maybe it's a robot who fooled the phonebank manager into thinking they were a real person.
You know, with polymers and so on.
212: Judith Miller and Jayson Blair call you? Are they looking for work in your lab?
@171
Anti-black racism. Apparently 58% of Americans are willing to admit publicly they hate black people.
@173
I think being a Swiss citizen is pretty damning.
robo-called my cell phone yesterday
Mine too! I also filed a complaint.
215: Whence those figures? I thought the numbers were about a third (of general populace) admitting to "racist feelings" and a higher percentage believing race relations were poor, but that was a while back now.
210: Not to mention self-protective media">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/nyregion/bloomberg-endorses-obama-saying-hurricane-sandy-affected-decision.html?smid=tw-nytmetro&pagewanted=all">media insidery gems like this:
Yet until the storm, climate change had not been much of an issue in the presidential campaign. The topic did not come up during the three presidential debates, and the candidates have not provided detailed legislative or regulatory plans outlining their stances on the issue.
It didn't come up! I mean, we poor lil' ol' helpless journalists couldn't possibly have anything to do with that.
Sorry about the HTML.
Catching up on the thread:
My experience is that candidates for minor offices are happy to talk about why to vote for them, but not at *all* good at telling you the purpose or duties of the office. In fact I think they sometimes actively resist (I suspect for fear that you will decide IT DOESN'T NEED TO EXIST) which frankly in some cases it probably doesn't.
There are (very) occasional "explainers" put out by a nonpartisan city organization, but I've never seen the equivalent for the suburbs. I dutifully give the good old League of Women Voters a little money and each year they do a decent job of compiling a nonpartisan voter's guide, but all that contains is the candidates' answers to basic questions. It doesn't tell you about the office they're running for. If there are local politics blogs that explain row offices* I've never seen them.
*I have no idea if this expression is unique to Philadelphia but it is certainly unknown in many other parts of the US.
I've definitely voted to remove a judge. I think electing them is a stupid system but frankly every system has its flaws.
And I had no idea you could complain to the FCC about robo-calls to your cell phone. Really helpful, thanks.
Back when I was still holding firm in not voting based on my anarchist principles, one of the things that irritated me most was having other radicals get all sanctimonious about how they voted, even though they only voted in Presidential elections, didn't vote in the primaries even then, and had virtually no idea about any of the names down ticket -- even the US House and Senate candidates! So infuriating!!! I have been a politics/current events junkie all my life, and these people presume to tell me that I'm deficient because I don't put up a pretense of being Very Serious when it comes to electoral politics? Jackasses.
217: there was some story out this week about how racism according to those implicit racism tests had increased over the past four years, up from 45% or something.
Maybe they were just double-counting.
PA definitely has the weirdest and most pointless elected offices. What the hell is a Protonotary? Registrar of Wills? Why are you voting for Coroner? I refuse to believe any of those people do anything important.
Fifty-one percent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes. And 56% have implicit bias.
So says an AP poll. I didn't read the methodology, though. These things are all over the map in terms of rigor.
I'm sorry, Prothonotary. Pennsylvanians really do hold elections for this incomprehensible office.
Dude, the coroner totally does. You gotta have a medical examiner to tell you how folks die.
The maddening thing, though, is that appointed or officially authorized ones can do even more damage.
224: Oh, they're talking about measures of implicit racism. Yeah, it wasn't any kind of secret that there was still tons of that in 2008; most of the polls at that time just captured who was willing to admit to racism, which is completely different. I somehow doubt there's been much of a "backward slide" in this department, we just have more data than we did before.
Actually, the elected coroner job would be a great chance for anyone named Quincy. That guy would sweep up year after year.
(Whoops, should have read more carefully -- it is in fact a three-point gain compared to a similar poll in 2008. Still, doesn't strike me as all that newsworthy.)
Also, I challenge any of the PA residents to tell me what the Prothonotary does. No cheating or use of google or Wikipedia.
223: I seem to remember that Coroner is actually a fairly political position; it's a position that requires putting together a budget and advocating for it, prioritizing where resources for investigations go. I read something a few years ago outlining the ways in which some coroners' offices/departments in some states and counties were so dreadfully managed that justice pretty much couldn't -- or rather, wouldn't -- be done for (certain) victims of (certain) crimes.
Why are you voting for Coroner?
Love.
I loved Quincy so so much. "Why do they write songs about hate, when they can write songs about love?" Best.
229: I think it's somewhat noteworthy because it confirms what has seemed like increasing amounts of racism. Not hugely, but still.
@227
Well, 48% in 2008 vs. 51% in 2012 is a "backward slide." As is 56% in 2012 from 49% in 2008. Again, maybe I'm in a bubble, but even though my number was a bit off above, I find the fact that over 50% of Americans are willing to openly admit they don't like black people kind of shocking and appalling.
This is what I find most puzzling from the SLC Times: "The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one group of partisans. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 percent among Republicans compared with 32 percent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 percent)."
Apparently, 13% of Republicans openly admit to being racist against black people but aren't implicitly so. Why would people admit to racism they don't exhibit?*
*Someone feel free to look up the methodology and point out how it's flawed, because I don't have time to.
226 - Witt, is that the bite mark coroner or the dude who was just rubber-stamping stuff that DAs gave him? I remember Balko going after two different coroners.
I feel very fortunate that there's never been opposition for the soil inspector since I've been voting.
209: I get a lot of calls with apparently fake caller IDs - the robocall gives a different name that what appears. But I let pretty much all calls go to voicemail unless it's a call I'm expecting. The Clinton call I mentioned earlier gave an Arkansas cell phone as the ID. Somehow, I don't think Clinton took a break from whatever he was doing to call me from the road.
OK, what are some of the Prothonotary's responsibilities. "Court clerking is at a crossroads, and this election provides you with a clear choice."
235: that was an awesome episode! I think I can still remember the words to the song. But the "deadly pot" episode was even better.
243: Lawyers bring them papers and they stamp them and put them in folders.
244: Also the ergot poisoning on the cruise ship.
236: Maybe. It's just that minor fluctuations in the overall level of background racism are pretty normal. Generally speaking, you have economic hardship, racism gets worse. (Among other factors.) With the Tea Party having spent four years unsubtly scapegoating Obama for every day of bad weather, it's actually more surprising that the needle has shifted as little as it has. (But of course it wouldn't be an "Obama's reelection is in peril!" story framed that way.)
We have a non-partisan election for Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor every two years. Last election a high school classmate of mine ran for it and lost.
209 Somebody's been robocalling me, but I never answer calls with blocked CallerID and they never leave a message
I get at least 3 calls per day from "Unknown," usually one at 9 AM, one at noon, and one at 6 PM. This has been going on for at least 6 months. I refuse to answer and they refuse to leave a message.
The race for county surveyor was contested in quite acrimonious fashion once in the jurisdiction where I grew up, with rumors circulating about official malfeasance on the part of one candidate and personal scandal on the part of the other. I was too young to vote, but would presumably have voted for the D on principle without even knowing the party's official position on the metes and bounds system.
249: He did fine on the soil portion, but lost the debate when he identified water as "a flavorless mixer."
I keep getting robocalls from one of those spammers that tries to defraud you by saying you won a cruise. After the first 3 times, I no longer give them my credit card information unless they agree to upgrade me to first class.
246: a special two-part episode, IIRC. "Slowboat to Madness", or some such.
I got an anonymous text message telling me that Obama has taken something like $70 million from Medicare so why not get rid of Medicare or turn it into a voucher program or pit the elderly against each other in a battle for survival televised on CCTV broadcast only to the homes of the very wealthy and asking what will happen with four more years?
253: Can I give your email to this Nigerian prince?
231 I seem to remember that Coroner is actually a fairly political position; it's a position that requires putting together a budget and advocating for it
By that definition, my job is a fairly political position.
I got a robocall from Cecile Richards telling me that Elizabeth Warren would protect my right to choose. I think they were looking for Fleur.
I kind of want to get another Yes on 32 peoplecall so I can yell at them (or their employers) for being liars and frauds. The last call I actually answered on 30 and 32 (bundled together) I cut off by telling them I'd made my decision before they could tell me what side they were on.
237.3 is interesting. My guess is what's happening there is that the implicit racism is so thick in the air in the GOP that people are actually pretending racism they don't feel just to get along. (It's perhaps not unlike non-religious people in heavily-religious locales who pretend religiosity they don't feel.)
I mean, I don't mean to seem overly blase about it. But still, on the whole I think it's actually a pretty amazing achievement that we live in a time where only half the American populace is implicitly racist, and a smaller fraction than that explicitly so. Not long ago that would have been nigh unimaginable. So I have an urge to put short-term fluctuations in perspective that way.
The Cyril Wecht case is about all I've ever heard about Pennsylvania coroners.
Second attempt to link to the Cyril Wecht case.
Similarly, we're electing the Register of Deeds here. The job seems important, sure, but it's not at all clear what distinguishes it from important appointed positions such as (state) Secretary of Transportation. There's policy, budgets, etc. in both cases.
On the Unknown callerid front, I regularly get calls from the American Red Cross with an Unknown ID. They keep asking for blood. Really! I have told them to quit calling. They keep calling. I have told them I won't give them any more blood until they quit calling. They keep calling. I haven't given blood to them in over three years now. (I have given to the military's blood drive instead.)
The only reason I gave the Red Cross my number in the 1st place was because they required it in case they needed to notify me of anything after the donation. Sneaky vampires.
The raw data (pdf) from the AP survey on racial attitudes is pretty interesting. Most of the questions seem reasonably well-formulated, though there are a couple of odd ones.
Annoyingly, the 30-page pdf does not answer my major question about the survey -- namely, whether the "implicit association" visual image test came before, after, or at a different time from the dozens of different questions on race. Because if the answer is "after," then that is some serious priming.
There is some good stuff in the pdf, though. The list of words used to describe each candidate on page 10 is interesting. The religion stuff on page 12 is funny -- 67% of people say Mitt Romney is Mormon and 26% say they don't know. What on earth is going on there?
On page 27, a quarter of Americans apparently think Barack Obama is "not at all similar" to other black Americans. I'd have to agree, but I doubt we have the same reasoning.
We're driving sloooowly to Oklahoma,although stopping tonight in Dallas, (hi McManus) and given that I don't have much love for TMBG, I'm really starting to love that song "on Mondays, I never go to work. On Tuesdays,I never go to work, etc."
I once listened to an NPR show--Leonard Lopate maybe?--on the NYC comptroller's race, in which a large % of the interview was about what exactly the comptroller did, with the interviewer being quite skeptical about their stated positions having any relevance at all. It was kind of charming.
I can see the argument for converting some minor elective positions to appointed ones, but I continue to see merit in holding these minor elections. The deal on offer to the office-holders is basically, "You get a comfortable sinecure as long as you run your department with a reasonable level of competence and don't make any severe screwups."
This isn't a bad deal for the citizenry, having the option of recalling someone who fails to make the trains run on time. A relative of mine served for decades as a minor elected official in charge of public records, and you'd better believe she was conscious that she had to face the voters every four years. The staff in her office were on their toes and unfailingly courteous -- she would have sacked anyone who gratuitously pissed off a potential voter.
One office I do think should be insulated from elections is the tax assessor -- too much scope for regulatory capture by the biggest property owners.
261
237.3 is interesting. My guess is what's happening there is that the implicit racism is so thick in the air in the GOP that people are actually pretending racism they don't feel just to get along. (It's perhaps not unlike non-religious people in heavily-religious locales who pretend religiosity they don't feel.)
An alternative explanation is the implicit racism test is a bunch of pseudo-scientific nonsense. Or perhaps it just isn't totally reliable, a false negative rate of 16% or so would explain the data.
As for trends, the racial attitude questions appear to be mixed in with a lot of other questions including assessments of Obama's performance as President which are likely affecting the results as these sorts of questions are known to be often quite context sensitive. This makes slight differences over time less meaningful.
Also the percentage saying explicitly that they don't like blacks is quite low. It is not clear how the higher percentage of explicit racists is being derived but I doubt the procedure is clear cut.
Prothonotary, Pennsylvania is the place where a rat comes out of a fake stump once a year in front of a crowd of goobers and the odd demented Englishman.
It is not clear how the higher percentage of explicit racists is being derived but I doubt the procedure is clear cut.
They monitor blog comments.
270: An alternative explanation is the implicit racism test is a bunch of pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Don't know that you're in a particularly good position to make that case, though, JBS, I hate to break it to you.
203: damaged the sacred Times name is enough to make JP Stormcrow say something grumpy, I bet.
Speaking of the New York End Times*, I suspect you (and by you I mean student-bullier man) have already seen this recent article. And further, based on some of your previous possibly unwise revelations on this here eclectic web magazine, that you are quite aware of the tensions described.
THINGS are getting ugly among the Jews of Cuyahoga County, with family splits and dinner invitations declined.
"Jews of Cuyahoga County" makes me think of "Swallows of San Juan Capistrano" or "Buzzards of Hinckley".
274: I can report with utmost certainty that that article is almost entirely bullshit. That community was never completely united. It still isn't. SHOCKING! Roger Cohen is an asshole, and nearly every politically active Jew on the East Side of Cleveland hates Josh Mandel, who's widely viewed as a complete prick. Seriously, if Robert Goldberg is right about his nonsensical prediction, I'll buy Roger Cohen a Coke or donate $10,000 to the Red Cross, whichever is less expensive. How many times will people claim that IN THIS ELECTION THE JEWS WILL VOTE REPUBLICAN before that canard dies.
In case it isn't clear, I speak for the Jews.
You could even say that I'm a Jew mouthpiece.
I speak for the trees, except the fucking oaks. They know why.
I'm going to violate the no one outside of a disaster area should criticize anyone inside it rule--especially someone probably doing a lot of good things, and with a ton of responsibility weighing one them--but only an insane megalomaniac dickhead would run a marathon in the middle of a city/region facing things like this, or this.
And by "run a marathon" I mean be the one person who could shut the absurdist farce down.
274: "Dinner invitations declined!" Oh, the humanity!
281: it's fucking nuts. I mean, really, he's going to divert police and other workers who could be helping with clean-up and rescue so a bunch of SWPLs can run their race? I can't believe he's that dumb. Really, if one person dies because they didn't get necessary supplies due to the marathon, I'm never going to stop puking.
276: Curious if you know of anyone who was there when Norm Coleman tried to out his "don't worry about Roe v. Wade under a Romney administration" shtick the other day?
I can see the argument for converting some minor elective positions to appointed ones, but I continue to see merit in holding these minor elections. The deal on offer to the office-holders is basically, "You get a comfortable sinecure as long as you run your department with a reasonable level of competence and don't make any severe screwups."
Or, you could invest in a competent, professional and independent civil service, insulated from the politicisation and pandering to voters!
283: well, you know, Castock, the Jews are like the Borg, so if one refuses a dinner invite from another, it means the whole collective crumbles.
285: no, I don't know anyone who goes to Republican Jewish Coalition dinners, you asshole.
I mean, I know we all look alike to you people.
284: Or things like this for instance: Staten Island Hotel Owner Refuses To Evict Evacuees To Honor Marathon Runners' Reservation".
Thinking about it, I dislike Paul Ryan a bit more than Josh Mandel, but it's a very close thing. They're cut from the same cloth, right? Fortunately, despite the gazillion dollars the goyim have spent to try to get Mandel elected, the Jews are still going to vote for Brown, who's a hero. Why don't people realize that Jews aren't single-issue voters? Seriously, why?
291: I have to admit that I've never really understood the Bloomberg hate before now -- sure, he's awful in many ways, but there are so many people who are worse. But man, he's definitely on my "I'd like to punch that person in the face" list now. Molly Munger still occupies the top spot, but Bloomberg is climbing the charts with a bullet.
293-294: self-hater. I bet you supported the Gaza flotilla, didn't you? Are you willing to trust the fate of the Jews to anyone other than Joshua Trevino?
286: Don't be silly. That would be Government.
For instance Chris Hayes: "Maybe I'm just in a bubble, but I don't know a single New Yorker who thinks having the marathon on Sunday is a good idea."
Although as he acknowledges, he might be Pauline Kael. (Although Wolcott had a good, thorough debunking of the assumed context of that "factoid" recently. "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.")
If someone has a few million in pocket change to drop on political advertising, I'd like to see a slick ad highlighting the Munger family contributions that comes up a good way to use the phrase "The Munger Games".
On further reflection I realize that I have once again been completely insensitive to Dr. Wafer and his special heritage.
298: I ran down the original article a couple of years ago. I thought I linked to the pdf from my old blog, but I can't find it. Oh well.
289: I mean, I know we all look alike to you people.
That's the excuse I use when my wife catches me sleeping around.
"The Munger Games"
This is very good. It's too late, of course, but still very good.
Somebody just vandalized the Republican Jews sign by my house. Second time in this election.
Why do you have a sign that says "Republican Jews"?
<insert totally tasteless Republican Jews/lambs' blood/passover jokethat I am pissed that I can't think of here>
I love it when tenured professors are torn apart by harmless things like teo.
Everybody needs a hobby. Mine is forgetting to indicate the possessive.
Even NYers with power are mightily displeased about the schools being closed but the marathon going on as scheduled (from a sample size of every NYC public school parent I know).
Republican Jews are playing in his basement next Friday, with the Sierra Altoids and Space Humpin' $19.99.
Online petition to postpone the marathon to spring 2013.
How do I do turn the font orange?
But seriously teo, very well played.
I suppose I am pretty harmless, in that I do you no specific harm.
Don't worry, so far I've mostly been using my powers for good. I went to Kotzebue yesterday; interesting place.
321: Who's to say that I'm not evil?
I hope you did an urple "my favorite bathroom stall is empty" fist pump after that one.
Oh, and another possible Nor'easter next week. (Should be much less powerful and mainly hit further north.)
Late, but just for clarity on the coroner/medical examiner issue: coroners are elected and needn't be MDs, MEs are appointed forensic pathologists. MEs have to point this out often.
And I will admit that among my worries about proceeding with the NYC marathon is that it will potentially add to a "Obama doesn't care about Italian people"/"Obama's Katrina" narrative that is beginning to emerge in Drudgoid precincts and which will likely be in full force on Fox by this weekend.
Of course proceeding is wrong on many, many other more substantive fronts, but this is among my concerns, dude.
328.1: I'm sure Faux will attempt it, but, not a major threat, really.
That the "Obama had better hope FEMA doesn't screw up" narrative was bruited at all indicates some delusionality and selective memory -- Obama didn't delay in warning people, didn't put his unqualified horse-riding buddy in charge of the response, no member of his cabinet had to be harangued by the public into doing their jobs while out shoe-shopping -- but his cooperation with Republican hope Gov. Christie and the effectiveness of his response will have pretty effectively killed it stone dead. Recall that Katrina featured Fox mouthpieces finally losing their shit five days in when nothing had come from the White House except Potemkin village photo-ops.
(Honestly, Katrina was the most baffling moment of the Dubya Shitshow to me. Why would any politico ever fuck up or simply ignore the chance to win political points via disaster response?)
329: Yes, that is all correct. But I fear you are assuming logic and a respect for facts that is not in evidence when it comes to the hyperventilating right-wing media and their mainstream enablers.
I mean hopefully none of that will escape the asylum, but for instance search on "Hail Obama" right now to see the kinds of thing they're going for.
330: It's way more difficult to make myths gain traction when you have major Republican and independent figures debunking the myths. Like I said, I don't doubt that Wingnuttia will nevertheless have / is having a run at it. But given those two factors it will be a lot harder for the mainstream enablers to follow suit. The marathon is unlikely to be a major factor on those grounds, dislike on whatever other premise you see fit.
Castock is making a lot of sense here.
(The desperation in the "Hail Obama" bullshitting is palpable. And most of the major mainstream enablers have already come out in praise of the Hurricane Sandy response. Again: not a major threat, really.)
Yeesh, at least when some on the left were making the Bush/Hitler comparison it was on a more specific basis than personal popularity.
330: Incompetent people are incompetent.
Trust me on this one--having come downstairs this AM to Good Morning America blaring a bunch of anguished residents with FEMA/anyone outrage augmented by media concern trolls--the general theme (if not the most noxious parts) has/is going mainstream this weekend. "FEMA has generators in storage". Also dogs had to stay outside.
335: The desperation in the "Hail Obama" bullshitting is palpable.
Yes, I agree that things like that do show desperation (the big bosses spent a lot on this project and right now the ROI ain't looking so good).
But on judging the Sandy response, it ain't over until it's over.
Or, you could invest in a competent, professional and independent civil service, insulated from the politicisation and pandering to voters!
Why choose? Professional civil service + political accountability seems like a good system of checks and balances to me. For instance, I suspect people's frustrations with government would be mightily alleviated if the office of Commissioner of the Registry of Motor Vehicles were elective. Theoretically that office is accountable by way of ministerial responsibility and the election of the governor making the appointment, but in practice all the incentives point to "value the citizen's time at zero".
Look, I do not mean to overly concentrate on the electoral politics of the thing--but giving the timing, there it is.
The Bloomberg (NYC gov)/Staten Island* rift is a much more local thing as are a myriad of other internal NYC metro region tensions. And putting Humpty-Dumpty together again in any densely-populated urban area will be fraught with hard-to-address issues. So let's go run a marathon.
*A"city" of almost 500k tenuously connected to anywhere else by a few bridges and a ferry that's not running.
On the election in general, I think Romney (and even more his supporting PACs) are going to use a strategy over the last few days similar to the first debate. Just blast out a barrage of gibberish (getting the Romney-supporting ads here in P'burgh now). Hopefully, every one is suffering from political message fatigue and/or it will be recognized for the desperation it is. But boy is some of it is incredible--like this robocall presenting a "debate" between Obama and Netanyahu patched together from ausio clips.
Why are we getting ads when Romney is up by 7%?
on judging the Sandy response, it ain't over until it's over.
It's over.
The anti-Mandel ads are hilarious. Just show a lot of pictures of him looking like a 13yo in his big brother's suit (*all* pictures of him look like this) and talk about how in his last gig he hired lots of his completely unqualified college buddies.
The Sherrod Brown ads are Sherrod being dorky and excited (I love him so much) about car plants and driving around in a Chevy Cruze.
Have I mentioned here that the rural-to-exurban bits of NE seem to have made it a "thing" to put crappy old beach chairs in their front yards? Get it! An empty chair! HAW! It took me a while to realize "Oh ho ho! This is political commenary!" because maybe they just kept some crappy old furniture in their front yard? But no, it's definitely a "thing," usually accompanied by a Romney and a Mandel sign. Oh, and some other dude who looks like Brian Dennehy in "smiling Irish bastard" mode.
346: Missed revenue opportunity for Eastwood, there. He should be touring the country, offering to ramble at the empty chairs in people's yards.
Further to 306: It's worse that Hilter, if Hilter had stayed as an artist.
I suppose Bloomberg's endorsement is good news--it's better than the opposite. But he's claiming that his decision was impacted by hurricane Sandy? Really? Was he undecided before this? The fact that anyone would give any weight at all to the opinion of a person who couldn't make up his fucking mind until five days before the goddamn election is crazy. Or that we would listen to the perspective of someone who needed to have an actual goddamn hurricane to flood his city to decide that, you know, maybe climate change is an important issue after all. Hey, nothing about climate change has changed in the last week, you self-centered prick.
The most charitable possible reading of his endorsement is that he was already planning to vote for Obama, but the hurricane made him realize the election was important enough that he ought to go public with his support. Let that sink in for a few minutes, and it doesn't seem very charitable at all. But it's a lot better than the alternatives: like, the hurricane actually changed his mind about who to vote for, or, he just cynically wants to be friendly with the winner (and gain "moderate"/"bipartisan" brownie points in the process) and the hurricane gave him political cover to do that.
And instead of being mocked, he's hailed for his political "bravery."
349.1: and there was hardly any damage!
So little damage you can run a marathon.
Way less than anybody expected! No problemo!
Bloomberg is a creature of the financial markets, as is Romney. The same hands are pulling both of their strings. I don't know whether Bloomberg is biting the hand that feeds him (as a business owner rather than as a mayor who needs federal infrastructure support). But it's at least plausible that even an endorsement coerced by a natural disaster required courage. Also, any mention of climate change, which has not come up in public discussion, is helpful.
354: Ever since the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth, Boston has been cursed with insensitive asses.
356: that was written on Tuesday, when most of the damage estimates were much lower than they are now.
358: before people could even get in to see the damage (you insensitive ass).
Also, any mention of climate change, which has not come up in public discussion, is helpful.
Oh, I definitely agree with this. Again, I appreciate most of what he's saying he's saying (other than the gibberish about Romney's superior tax plans). So, in this particular case, I'm very glad that people are paying attention to it. I'm mostly dismayed that, in the general case, this is the sort of thing to which serious attention gets paids, instead of just being mocked.
360: presumably damage estimators make educated guesses about damage levels in areas they can't yet see, based on the actual damages they can see. I'd think that would be part and parcel of the process of estimation.
346: Probably in the rural to exurban bits of the SE, they are hanging empty chairs from trees.
Defense Department flying 17 aircraft from California to NY loaded with power generation equipment and crews.
I hope a condition on this was that if one freaking generator is used to support the Bloomberg Vanity Race that Obama will send Joe Biden up there after the election to skullfuck the bastard (since Obama himself seems to be not of the skullfucking persuasion).
365 was me.
And I agree with everything Sifu Tweety is saying but with more tiresome aggression, profanity and typos.
Biden apparently went with a friendlier approach to Bloomberg.
367: OK, so he indulged in a little foreplay.
But no, it's definitely a "thing,"
Are you sure? IME crappy lawn furniture in your front yard is a long time feature of rural-to-exurban everywhere. Stereotypes about cars on blocks and appliances in the front yard are generally not true,* but crappy furniture? Everywhere.
*Exception: Back-to-the-land type hippies in upstate NY sometimes had appliances on their porch. But they aren't really the kind of person who was supposed to belong to the stereotype anyway.
But he's claiming that his decision was impacted by hurricane Sandy? Really? Was he undecided before this? The fact that anyone would give any weight at all to the opinion of a person who couldn't make up his fucking mind until five days before the goddamn election is crazy. Or that we would listen to the perspective of someone who needed to have an actual goddamn hurricane to flood his city to decide that, you know, maybe climate change is an important issue after all.
OTOH, dramatic events change people's opinions. Also, I can imagine the thought "Jesus fuck, what if heckuvabrownie was still FEMA director" might have crossed his mind at some point.
370: If not spontaneously, maybe when heckuvabrownie himself came out and criticized Obama for responding too quickly.
364: Hmm. I wonder if I made that up, or if I was just dredging up from memory a half-forgotten news report like this one.
Also, I can imagine the thought "Jesus fuck, what if heckuvabrownie was still FEMA director" might have crossed his mind at some point.
Yes, no doubt--my point was that this thought ought to have crossed the mind of any intelligent and aware mayor before his city was underwater. The fact that it (apparently) didn't is a bad sign, not a good one.
Again, it's great that he came to this realization now, instead of just sticking his head deeper into his own sand, but that's faint praise.
I'm really not such a Cassandra as I appear. I fully believe the fundamentally rock solid position Obama is in at this point in the election campaign. I'm just trying to anticipate what puke from the puke funnel has any chance of sticking either broadly (ZOMG white people in Staten Island didn't get help) or specifically (a zillion incredible lying ads in specific swing states). I don't think either will, but I want to be able to efficiently deploy my "effective worrying" superpowers.
And believe it or not folks might actually want to watch this Geraldo on Fox & Friends segment on Benghazi. Many things to make you head explode in it--but Rivera in his anger actually ends up giving a very compelling argument against the Fox hate speech approach to the thing. on the network to their faces.
Geraldo has always been sort of a rogue agent for the RNC--very effective when he's on message, but liable to turn against them at unexpected moments. I expect he'll be put to bed soon; I'm surprised it hasn't happened before now.
I've always sort of liked Geraldo for no good reason. I was also totally excited about Al Capone's vaults and watched until the bitter end.
Me also. He was the reason I watched 20/20.
376: Yeah, well he takes a number of positions on the overall context of Benghazi in that clip that would still make your head explode, but his outrage that his military buddies are being slandered by Bolling and the Foxnuts leads him to absolutely nail them on the stupid impact of their hate speech.
I never understood Geraldo's appeal. The best I can say is that in his current enironment, he looks good by comparison.
Put him next to Hugh Downs and he seems very dynamic, at least to a kid.
Yeah, but the proper comparison was Mike Wallace. I'm not even sure if Geraldo measures up to Wallace the Lesser on Fox.
Geraldo could never play for the Steelers. That's a strange comparison.
So yes, Geraldo is a dick. But it is rare to hear one employee of a network say to another employee: "That is an obscene lie." and "You're a politician trying to make a political point." Compelling TV. Strongest part is where he points out that the one father who has called Obama a murderer is doing so because he is being misled by the asshats on Fox. He basically undermines the whole FoxNews project.
His overall context is still fucked. Shorter Geraldo: "You fucked up, you had Obama on the lack of prep and the 'cover up', but you crazy mothrfuckers went too far and discredited yourselves with your attack on the real time response."
373 et al - Bloomberg has made a career of "centrism," and for him, there's a higher-than-average political cost associated with coming down strongly on one side of a partisan issue.
The cost/gain calculation changed somewhat with the hurricane. His opportunity to have an impact increased, and it was the right time to call attention to a big issue. His actual endorsement wasn't so much for Obama as it was for climate realism.
Among political sins, opportunism in the service of a worthy goal seems pretty minor.
DOn;t ever change Mr. Trump: "I will start reviewing various political reporters etc & websites as to their professionalism & fairness--many people asking for this."
As hundreds of thousands of Big Apple residents suffer in homes left without power by Hurricane Sandy, two massive generators are being run 24/7 in Central Park -- to juice a media tent for Sunday's New York City Marathon.
And a third "backup" unit sits idle, in case one of the generators fails.
Civil disobedience if they run it? Blockade the race. "Go Home or Help!"
And more evidence that the terrorists have won:
Holland [runner driving in from Connecticut to run - JPS] ran in the New York Marathon in 2001, just a couple months after September 11th, and expects the challenges created by Sandy will pale in comparison to those following that tragedy.Holy Fuck, Mr. Holland, if you can't think your way through how wrong that is you are ... well, what you evidently are.
Bloomberg has made a career of "centrism," and for him, there's a higher-than-average political cost associated with coming down strongly on one side of a partisan issue.
If by partisan issue you mean candidate, I agree. However, Bloomberg has frequently come down strongly on a partisan side with respect to actual issues. For non-economic ones, e.g. abortion or climate change it's generally been the liberal side, for economic ones, e.g. taxes or financial regulation it's been the reverse.
A rant about chronic cardio/SWPLness wouldn't be helpful here, would it? Probably not, so I'll STFU. But let me just say that in the post flood apocalypse you're better off with lifting and pull up skills than as a waif who can trot out 26.2.
Trotting 26.2 miles will get you out of the affected area and into somewhere with power.
Where you will be easy prey for roving gangs of Crossfit enthusiasts.
389 You'd think someone from CT would be aware of the general geography of NYC.
So you should only trot 26 miles and save the .2 so you can outdistance them.
Holy shit, the generators are being used for a pre-race pasta dinner/carbo-load.
I just drove through Beachwood (land of the people for whom VW speaks) and the Obama and Brown signs *vastly* outnumber the Romney and Mandel signs.
1. Ha. FB pimps the "Mitt Romney page" to me all the time and the number of my "friends" who "like" has been going steadily down over the past week -- from 5 to 1. I don't think they've all just unfriended me.
2. My worry is not so much that BHO will flatout *lose,* but rather that something janky will happen somewhere (Ohio) and that somewhere's dipshit Secretary of State will refuse to certify the results. This will then lead to shrieks of STOLEN ELECTION and KENYAN USURPER and weeks of not-very-uncertain uncertainty, all fires fanned by Fox News etc. This will in no way be helped if the popular vote has gone the other way.
the people for whom VW speaks
Historians?
396: The nexus of all evil has been found. It's like Ghostbusters.
399: Middle-aged white dudes with feelings, man.
Why can't they reroute the marathon? Like, through Connecticut?
Halford: weren't you going to do a 10k or a 10-miler half marathon or something with no prep other than crossfit? Did you do it (and which)? If so, how did it go?
I was going to with the GF but she wasn't up for it, so I didn't go. My sister who does both CF and distance running will be in town for Thanksgiving so maybe I'll try to go like 10 miles or so and see what happens.
Like, through Connecticut?
Or the ocean!
398.2 seems like a fair concern. On the other hand, I'm beginning to hope for a reasonably wide margin of victory in the Midwestern state of which oudemia speaks, where the trees are of a pleasing-but-not-quite-perfect height, a margin that won't lend itself to serious bullshit shenanigans. But of course, the governor and secretary of state there are both truly craven and also deeply depraved GOP hacks. One wonders which of their character flaws will be most manifest Tuesday night (and, alas, probably Wednesday morning).
404 to 403, you unfeeling bastard.
Also, I have learned today that Ativan has a much greater impact on me than Valium. I mean, both are delicious, but the former fucks me up waaaay more than the latter and lasts waaaay longer (which, I believe, it is supposed to do).
Oooh Ativan plus not actually going to sleep can lead to weird, weird, weird.
Looking forward to my delicious Coke, VW.
No, I slept, but here I am, twelve hours later, still floating along. That doesn't happen to me with Valium (which I think they should put in the drinking water, by the way).
412: I see that you're on both Ativan and Valium today, Megan. Good for you!
But of course, the governor and secretary of state there are both truly craven and also deeply depraved GOP hacks.
That governor did veto the state legislature's Pennsylvania-style ID-less voter disenfranchisement law.
Stereotypes about cars on blocks and appliances in the front yard are generally not true
Al Gore knows better.
I got Valium for my laser eye surgery. I loved it so much. I support putting it in drinking water. Let's write a proposition!
349: Or perhaps the hurricane and consequent need for federal aid made it more important to be on good terms with the president.
My brother is not usually someone who loudly shares his opinions in public, but he's going nuts on facebook over the stupidity of the storm situation (he's a volunteer fireman in a part of the state known for entitled assholes.) People stocking up on gas because they can, people walking their dogs over downed electrical wires, people complaining about why they have to keep running their generator & why can't the electrical company hurry up and send someone to fix their private utility poles.
I did finally hear from my mom on Wednesday, a tree is leaning on their house and they don't expect to have power for weeks but my brother offered to let them stay in his RV although that requires gas. They were supposed to leave town for a trip anyway so they might just stay somewhere else. My dad and father in law work in Manhattan, my brother in law and sister in law's sister live and work in NYC, no one seems to be having much trouble aside from the traffic- SIL'sS was looking for people to carpool with because there's an HOV3 restriction. Brother in law is supposed to run in the marathon.
Ohio Repubs keeping it classy.
415: Are you confusing states or did I miss something?
Rick Perlstein has a very nice observation in a piece on the Republican relationship with factuality:
for all the objections that conservatives have aired over Romney's suspect purity in these last months, not one prominent conservative has made Romney's dishonesty part of the brief against him.
It's time, in other words, to consider whether Romney's fluidity with the truth is, in fact, a feature and not a bug: a constituent part of his appeal to conservatives. The point here is not just that he lies when he says conservative things, even if he believes something different in his heart of hearts--but that lying is what makes you sound the way a conservative is supposed to sound, in pretty much the same way that curlicuing all around the note makes you sound like a contestant on American Idol is supposed to sound.
Via Digby, David Frum regretfully explains why has to vote for Romney:
The congressional Republicans have shown themselves a destructive and irrational force in American politics. But we won't reform the congressional GOP by re-electing President Obama. If anything, an Obama re-election will not only aggravate the extremism of the congressional GOP, but also empower them: an Obama re-election raises the odds in favor of big sixth-year sweep for the congressional GOP - and very possibly a seventh-year impeachment. A Romney election will at least discourage the congressional GOP from deliberately pushing the US into recession in 2013. Added bonus: a Romney presidency likely means that the congressional GOP will lose seats in 2014, as they deserve.
It's completely in keeping with arms for hostages thinking.
Power just returned to lower east side, people cheering, one guy yelled "Happy New Year!" (via someone's video on FB)
Fuck, I've read the column and now I think he's actually serious. WTF?
I'm not sure why that upsets me so much, but I don't remember feeling this angry in a while. Blood is boiling.
428 Paycheck and tribal loyalty. Ever since his criticism of modern conservatism got him run out of the movement his value has been as a reverse 'even The New Republic' writer. Plus it takes a while for people to turn against movements they've devoted their lives to.
422,423:The Rage of Caliban at seeing his reflection.
Yesterday I was pondering Frank Gorshin & Lou Antonio and their eternal battle. You know what, they were totally different. They were complete opposites, just like Democrats and Republicans. And so obsessed with their mirror-image they could see no other possibilities. It's a narcissism. This is not a call for people to get along. It's a plea to look away from the fucking mirror.
God the bourgeois are fucking boring. I read that Perlstein I wanted to scream.
Mass culture thereby reveals the fictitious quality which has characterized the individual throughout the bourgeois era and is wrong only in priding itself on this murky harmony between universal and particular. The principle of individuality was contradictory from the outset. First, no individuation was ever really achieved. The class-determined form of self-preservation maintained everyone at the level of mere species being. Every bourgeois character expressed the same thing, even and especially when deviating from it: the harshness of competitive society.Adorno & Horkheimer
431 not to 429/430. That's great news.
I wonder if Biden played a background role? "Thanks for the endorsement and all, but the jerk store called and they're out of you."
It seems to me there's some drug-terror drift that inspires doctors to have things they'll no longer prescribe because it's definitely going to turn you into a wild-eyed addict zombie thing roaming the streets. I had valium at one point and then the next time I told a doctor oh say could I have some pills for occasional fits of irrational terror (or words to that effect) they were like "oh sure, but here's some [I don't remember, Xanax maybe] because valium will turn you into a wild-eyed addict zombie thing roaming the streets." Now I think maybe they're slightly the same about Klonopin, which is why I have continued to go to a doctor in Park Slope who apparently has no such ethical concerns for years after moving out of Park Slope. I don't even use the stuff but once a month at most but it's nice not to be regarded with suspicion.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to roam the streets.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to roam the streets.
D'oh. Cancelled.
423, 428: The sentiment isn't solely Frum's; apparently David Brooks had a column to similar effect in the last couple of days. A few journalists/pundits report from the land of undecided voters that they think a President Romney will be a moderate, compromising Mitt, able to reach across the aisle gulf and control an otherwise recalcitrant House, since he's (sort of) one of their own.
Part of me marvels at the sheer brilliance of the GOP strategy over the last few years.
