Elections 2009-2012, Part 3

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SquidInk
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Post by SquidInk » 07-15-2012 11:29 AM

NYT LINK

Oh boy... :rolleyes:
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Post by voguy » 07-15-2012 12:59 PM

Then you have people like Joe Biden telling the NAACP that if Romney is elected they will all be cast back the the early 1900s days of bigotry.

Oh how I wish that when men like Obama, Biden, and Romney would lie as they do, they would get a sudden and severe pain, like someone using a pliers on ones testicle. They have NO motivation not to lie, and other than excruciating pain, I can think of no other option.

The big problem is not only their lying, but the dumbasses we call countrymen that BELIEVE the lies without so much as checking a fact. What does that say for our citizens?
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson

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Post by Dale O Sea » 07-15-2012 01:39 PM

This election is a literal sh!t-storm of honesty. They are spinning the truth into a web of believable BS so they can get (re)elected for their and their backer's sake, not this country's sake or the Constitution's sake and most of all, not the people's sake.

How is OLD doc Ron Paul looking about now?

Bah! None of this matters..it's all about the sex appeal. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHWAeSmSlB0

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Post by Diogenes » 07-15-2012 03:21 PM

Revving up the base and other constituents - so manipulate, manipulate and manipulate some more.

Actually looking forward to the debates.
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Post by SquidInk » 08-23-2012 09:50 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/1 ... ref=topbar
Mitt Romney could be crawling to a White House victory if the efforts of a namesake cockroach are any indication.

Every four years, the New Jersey Pest Management Association holds a "presidential cockroach derby" that picks two Madagascar hissing cockroaches to stand in for the Republican and Democratic nominees and races them on a three-foot-long track.

This year marked the 16th Running of the Roaches and pitted a Romney roach against a Barack Obama bug, each with a tiny caricature of the nominees taped to their backs.
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Post by SquidInk » 08-23-2012 09:57 AM

http://www.myfoxlubbock.com/news/local/ ... eUnmA.cspx
Judge Head said he and the county must be prepared for many contingencies, one that he particularly fears, is if President Obama is reelected.

“He's going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN, and what is going to happen when that happens?,” Head asked.

“I'm thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we're not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we're talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.
Related: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/ ... eories.php
Mitt Romney’s quest to boost conservative enthusiasm for his campaign reached the far-right edge of the GOP Wednesday, when Romney leaned hard into two conspiracy theories on the United Nations during an Ohio town tall.

An audience member asked Romney about the U.N.’s plan to “backdoor and tear down our freedoms.” Romney’s offered a tepid defense of the international body, while also giving a wink and a nod toward some of the edgier American conspiracy theories on the organization.
heh.
“Turning to the United Nations to tell us how to raise our kids, or whether we can have the Second Amendment rights that our Constitution gave us, I mean these, that is the wrong way to go, all right. Do not cede sovereignty, I’m happy to talk to people there, I’m not willing to give American sovereignty in any way shape or form to the United Nations or any other body, we are a free nation, we fought for freedom and independence, we’re going to keep freedom and independence.”
It just keeps getting better.
Last edited by SquidInk on 08-23-2012 10:03 AM, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SquidInk » 08-23-2012 09:58 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/2 ... ostpopular
Two University of Colorado professors, one from Boulder and one from Denver, have put together an Electoral College forecast model to predict who will win the 2012 presidential election and the result is bad news for Barack Obama. The model points to a Mitt Romney victory in 2012.

Ken Bickers from CU-Boulder and Michael Berry from CU-Denver, the two political science professors who devised the prediction model, say that it has correctly forecast every winner of the electoral race since 1980.

"Based on our forecasting model, it becomes clear that the president is in electoral trouble," Bickers said in a press statement.

To predict the race's outcome, the model uses economic indicators from all 50 states and it shows 320 electoral votes for Romney and 218 for Obama, according to The Associated Press. The model also suggests that Romney will win every state currently considered a swing state which includes Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Colorado.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2 ... study-says
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Post by kbot » 08-24-2012 06:01 AM

The way I had heard it explained was that if Romney had won Pennsylvania (Florida probably being a given at this point), then it was pretty much a safe bet that he'd win in 2012.

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Post by Riddick » 08-24-2012 04:14 PM

To predict the race's outcome, the model uses economic indicators from all 50 states and it shows 320 electoral votes for Romney and 218 for Obama, according to The Associated Press. The model also suggests that Romney will win every state currently considered a swing state which includes Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Colorado.
WOW! Talk about a rebuke and a refute of Mr Hope and Change!

Using RPC's custom map, here's how 320-218 looks cartologically -

Image

Not near the fun a tie would be. Better we have mayhem, eh? :D

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Post by SquidInk » 09-12-2012 09:07 AM

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damia ... s-working/
The reported murder of the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, on September 11 is a crude and sickening attempt by Islamists to disturb the internal peace of the United States in a such a way as to throw its election process into disarray. And it seems to be working. Here's Mitt Romney, speaking before reports of the ambassador's death emerged:

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathise with those who waged the attacks.”
Here's the Obama campaign:

“We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.”

According to AFP, "Romney appeared to be referring to a statement from the US embassy in Cairo – issued hours before the protest – in which it condemned 'the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions'.”

President Obama will indeed have tough questions to answer about why Mr Stevens was vulnerable to this attack, on the anniversary of 9/11 of all days. But it's hard to read Romney's statement without thinking that the Republican contender was jumping in with indecent haste.

This bickering is more proof, as if any were needed, that American politics is not only disastrously divided but opportunistic. As the Islamists know perfectly well.
Of course.
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Post by HB3 » 09-12-2012 09:39 AM

Good for Romney, I guess, but Republicans have been just as bad about spreading "democracy" to the Middle East.

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Post by Diogenes » 09-12-2012 11:30 AM

Honestly one does have to question what appears apathy towards stronger security - in lieu of what has been going on there and 9/11.

Is that Monday Morning Quarterbacking or simply what thoughtful folks would ask?
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Post by Diogenes » 09-12-2012 12:29 PM

A man's character is his fate

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Post by Riddick » 09-20-2012 12:50 PM

From wsj.com:
  • POLITICAL DIARY
    September 20, 2012, 12:13 p.m. ET

    Wisconsin Senate Race Tightens
    The balance of the Senate could come down to just a few key races this year. Add the contest in Wisconsin to that list.

    By Matthew Payne

    The balance of the Senate could come down to just a few key races this year. Add the contest in Wisconsin to that list.

    A few weeks ago, the fight to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl seemed decidedly in the Republican column. But two polls released Wednesday put the race in a dead heat—even leaning Democratic. First, a Qunnipiac/CBS/New York Times survey found former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson tied with Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin at 47%—with 6% of voters still undecided. Then Marquette Law School released a poll that showed Ms. Baldwin leading among likely voters by nine points.

    The tightening of the contest is somewhat surprising. Ms. Baldwin represents a far-left contingent of the Madison Democratic Party establishment. And after overwhelmingly ratifying collective bargaining reforms earlier this summer, Wisconsin seemed to be heading in a more conservative direction. As recently as mid-August, both Marquette and Qunnipiac released polls that put Mr. Thompson in the lead by six and nine points, respectively.

    So why the huge shift? One reason is that the former governor is being outspent 3-to-1. The Thompson campaign is struggling to keep up after a tough primary fight which drained much of its resources. And according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, more than $4 million has been spent on attack ads targeting Mr. Thompson.

    So far those ads seem to be working. The Marquette poll found that the former governor's unfavorability rating rose by six points since last month's poll. The ads seem to be having an impact on independents especially. The poll found Mr. Thompson leading that group by 10 points a month ago. Now he's losing them by 12.

    The good news for the former governor is that the conservative group Crossroads GPS is spending nearly $1 million on ads of their own targeting Ms. Baldwin. But he'll need more help than that if he expects to reverse the recent trend. Expect this race to be a slugfest all the way to November.

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Post by Riddick » 09-21-2012 06:53 PM

From blogs.nytimes.com:
  • September 20, 2012, 12:02 am
    Senate Forecast: What Has Gone Wrong for G.O.P. Candidates?
    By NATE SILVER

    The trend in the presidential race has been difficult to discern lately. President Obama has very probably gained ground since the conventions, but it’s hard to say exactly how much, and how quickly his bounce is eroding.

    There are no such ambiguities in the race for control of the Senate, however. Polls show key races shifting decisively toward the Democrats, with the Republican position deteriorating almost by the day.

    Since we published our initial Senate forecast on Tuesday, Republicans have seen an additional decline in their standing in two major races.

    Two polls of Virginia published on Wednesday gave the Democrat, the former Gov. Tim Kaine, leads of 4 and 7 percentage points over the Republican, the former Senator George Allen. The FiveThirtyEight forecast model now gives Mr. Kaine roughly a 75 percent chance of winning the seat on the strength of the new polls, up from about 60 percent in Tuesday’s forecast.

    The other problematic state for Republicans is Wisconsin, where their candidate, the former Gov. Tommy Thompson, had once appeared to hold the advantage.

    Mr. Thompson’s Democratic opponent, Representative Tammy Baldwin, had published an internal poll earlier this week showing her pulling into the lead. The FiveThirtyEight Senate and presidential forecasts do not use internal polls released directly by the campaigns, as they typically exaggerate their candidate’s standing.

    However, in this case, public polls have now confirmed that the race seems to have shifted. A poll by The New York Times, CBS News and Quinnipiac University showed Ms. Baldwin having drawn into a tie with Mr. Thompson, after trailing him by 6 percentage points last month.

    A Marquette University poll, also published on Wednesday, showed a much sharper reversal, with Ms. Baldwin going from a 9-point deficit to a 9-point lead. The Marquette poll appears to be a bit of an outlier — it also had Mr. Obama leading in the presidential race in Wisconsin by a 14-point margin, a somewhat implausible figure. Nonetheless, the model now has Ms. Baldwin as the slight favorite, with about a 60 percent chance of winning.

    It would be only a modest exaggeration to say that it’s been hard to find any strong Senate polls for Republicans in the past two or three weeks. Wednesday also brought bad news for Republicans in Massachusetts, where a fourth consecutive poll showed the Democrat Elizabeth Warren ahead of Senator Scott Brown; in Connecticut, where a poll gave the Democrat Chris Murphy a slight advantage over their candidate, Linda McMahon; and in Florida, where a Fox News poll gave the Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson a 14-point lead.

    One exception has been in Maine, where two new polls on Wednesday showed a deterioration in the standing of the independent Angus King, who would probably caucus with the Democrats, at the expense of both the Republican, Secretary of State Charles Summers, and the Democrat, State Senator Cynthia Dill. The model now gives Mr. King an 84 percent chance of winning, Mr. Summers 11 percent, and Mrs. Dill 5 percent.

    But this is small compensation for the decline over the past two weeks of the Republicans’ position in Virginia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio, all of which have broken sharply to the Democrats.

    The Democrats’ chances of controlling the Senate have increased to 79 percent in the forecast, up from 70 percent on Tuesday.

    Had we run the model a month ago, based on polls through Aug. 19, the Democrats’ chances of maintaining Senate control would have been listed at just 39 percent.

    The velocity of the change is unusual. Although Senate races in different parts of the country can sometimes move in the same direction, there was never quite this rapid a shift in our Senate forecasts in 2008 or 2010.

    The forecast model is not doing anything particularly fancy; it’s just that an overwhelming number of Senate polls recently have shown the Democratic candidates’ standing improving.

    Republicans could also have some reason to be concerned about Nevada, which has not been polled recently but where their candidate, the appointed Senator Dean Heller, maintains a slight advantage over the Democratic Representative Shelley Berkeley. Mr. Heller is a fairly strong candidate, but if there is some sort of national tide against Republicans, he could become the underdog in that race as well.

    There’s one comforting thought for Republicans, however. It’s plausible that at least some of the Democrats’ gains reflect a boost from their convention, which could wear off. I have not studied whether conventions produce bounces in Congressional races and the model makes no assumptions about it, but it is a reasonable hypothesis.

    However, at least some of the shift appeared to predate the conventions. The model would have had Democrats’ chances of retaining the Senate improving to 50 percent from 39 percent over the course of the week beginning Aug. 19, before the Republican convention started.

    I can think of two major theories to explain why the shift is occurring, one focused on Mitt Romney, and another on the overall positioning of the Republican brand.

    Theory No. 1: Is Romney a Downballot Drag?

    Polls show that Mr. Romney has middling personal favorability ratings but that many voters will choose him anyway because of the deteriorating economy.

    Senate races, however, are less dictated by national economic conditions. Instead, they often turn more on the strengths and weaknesses of the individual candidates, and then by their stances on fiscal and social policy.

    Mr. Romney has not dictated much in the way of detailed programs in these areas, and some of the policy stances that he has articulated are unpopular.

    Mr. Romney has also been less able to campaign effectively against an unpopular Democratic initiative, the Democrats’ health care bill, because he passed a similar bill as governor of Massachusetts.

    Finally, some voters who disapprove of Mr. Obama, but who also have lukewarm feelings toward Mr. Romney, might lean toward voting Democrat for Senate in effort to ensure divided government, especially since Republicans also have control of the House.

    Theory No. 2: G.O.P. Conservatism Is Hurting

    An alternative hypothesis is that the shift has to do with overall perceptions of the Republican platform.

    Our research has shown that statistical measures of candidate ideology are a reasonably powerful predictor of the outcome of Senate races, with candidates who are rated as holding “extreme” views performing poorly.

    But in practice, ideology is in large part perceptual for voters, and may depend on which issues seem most salient at any given time.

    August, at which point the shift toward Democrats in Senate races appeared to begin, was dominated by two major news items: Mr. Romney’s selection of Representative Paul D. Ryan as his running mate, who has very conservative views on fiscal policy, and by the comments about rape made by the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, Todd Akin, which may have reinforced the idea that Republicans hold very conservative positions on social issues.

    These factors may have made it harder for Republicans to position themselves toward the ideological center. And in several states, including Missouri, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, Republicans nominated sub-optimally conservative candidates.

    More moderate Republican candidates, like Mr. Brown of Massachusetts and Mrs. McMahon of Connecticut, have increasingly sought to distance themselves from the national Republican brand, and sometimes also from the Republican presidential ticket.

    Some of these theories are speculative, to be sure. A large number of Senate races remain in play: of the several states in which there has been a shift against Republicans in the polls in recent weeks, perhaps only Florida seems completely lost.

    But if the trend continues, the question may no longer be whether Republicans can win the Senate — but how vulnerable they are to losing the House.

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