He's certainly the favorite, but I think it's odd that so many commentators seem to think the race is over. In 2000, with the same number of days to go in the presidential contest, four polls were published, giving George Bush a 4.5% lead over Al Gore. As we know, Gore wound up winning the popular vote, and came within a few hundred votes in Florida of winning the presidency. Over at RealClearPolitics.com, the two polls published so far today give Obama a 4.5% lead on average, and the average of all recent polls gives him a 5% lead.
Again, Obama is obviously the favorite. But the Democrats would be wise to hold off on all the talk of who is going to be in Obama's cabinet, the special session they will hold in Congress in November to start working on the Obama agenda, etc., and focus on winning the election.
That's why RCP still has Obama at 286 electoral votes, and 364 when "tossups" leaning his way are included. Also, the "race is tightening" meme, while supported by Gallup's "traditional likely voter" metric is undercut by other polls -- Rasmussen has Obama up another point today, and I could cherry-pick some more.
Also, I'm guessing Colin Powell's endorsement will help Obama, at least tat the margins.
Still, I entirely agree with you, David, that Democrats would be wise to hold off the talk of all you list, and that they should focus on winning the election. But let me tell you, as someone working for/with the Obama campaign: we are.
There's nothing deadlier than a premature gloat.
Respectfully, you're wrong. You're predicting a Bradley effect of over 15%?
If you want to feel better, check out the threads debunking the Bradley effect over at www.fivethirtyeight.com
Do you really think 15% of the electorate is are lying to anonymous pollsters over the phone -- and in many cases, automated polling with no "real person" at all -- because they are afraid to appear racist to a faceless stranger or machine?
Right, the Bradley effect is supposed to describe people who are afraid that pollsters will *think* that they are racists, not that they actually necessarily *are* racists.
Now my question to you: given how polls are done these days, given the policy differences between McCain and Obama, given the accuracy of most polls for black candidates of various stripes in various elections in the past decade, and given the accuracy of the polls for most of Obama's primary performances, what percentage of voters do YOU think are currently telling pollsters that they will vote for Obama when REALLY they intend to vote for McCain?
From a strategic viewpoint, I also disagree with your last sentence. If Obama starts announcing cabinet positions where he plans to place more well-regarded, senior, experienced people, it's only going to help him during the election by showing he'll rely on experienced people to make up for his own lack of experience. Likewise, if he can say Congress is behind him and they'll pass some comprehensive program as soon as he's elected, it will make him look more presidential, active, etc. That policy will also bring back echoes of FDR which most people regard favorably regardless of whether his programs actually worked or were harmful.
the RCP average polls only take into account of polls done over the last week or so in each state-by virtue of their average-they help eliminate problems in the polling methodologies of various polls.
looking at the RCP state by state we have obama 'solid' in 243 states (solid seems to mean ahead by 9%) and leaning in 37 states (which seems to mean ahead by between 5 or 6% and 9%).
we also show a trend toward states moving toward obama. since 10/9-there have been no RCP state changes from leaning to solid or from toss up in mcains favor..and there have been 8 pro obama changes. Since 10/3 there have been 14 pro obama change and only 1 pro mcain change in the rcp averages.
its certainty true that things can change and that a canadiate can catch up..(RCP avrages montorously favored btoh hilary and juliani early in the primaries)...but thre is a huge diffrence between catching up with months to go and catching up with weeks to go.
Furthermore, it seems that the economy is the thing going for obama-since his lead seems to have taken off since the bailout talk-and that talk is not over...fresh developments will continue to occur from now through the elections.
Its also not comparable to 1948 like situations where a candidate has indeed 'caught up' a lot at the end-those cases were also not subject to the rigor of RCP...and the candidate who caught up may have been much closer to the tie than shown by the one or two national polls at the time.
As far as the Bradley effect-one could probably not expect as much of a Bradley effect in this day and age where black politicians and judges are fairly commonplace. Even if there is one-obama is so far ahead on a state be state basis to preclude it from having much of an effect.
Go Sox.
Unless the fraudulent registrations turn into fraudulent votes.
In retrospect, that explains a lot about how the last 8 years have gone.
They also showed 3,000 block walkers going through union neighborhoods in Michigan, a mass of Red McCain/Palin TShirts
Then they showed 10,000 plus volunteers at an orientation meeting in Virginia for McCain/Palin
AlJazeera also mentioned the makeup of the crowds - Palin its almost exclusively families and single mothers whereas Obamas rallies are only getting the really big crowds out if there is a band - and its always near a major university
One thing to watch on election night when the results start to be reported is how quickly and how vigorously Hussein is declared the winner. I believe it was 2000 when Rather declared Gore the winner in Florida very early to keep the Conservative voters in the Florida Panhandle away from the polls. Look for a LOT of the same on Election Night. Look even for fake news from the media, things like roads blocked due to accidents, news of fires and unchecked fake notices, e.g., reports of fake concession speeches. Where vote theft will be major, Philadelphia, Newark, St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, etc., look for the media to encourage urban voters to go to the polls. There will be lots of "street money!"
Thinking back to 2004, I remember we got tons of shocking stories about thousands of tons of missing explosives, horrifying news of civil war in iraq and so on. Days before the election.
In 2000, we got Bush's drunk driving record and so on.
Although a lot of the October surprises seem to be relatively old stories that the media gets ahold of and then decided to save for a key moment.
I've been wondering how the numbers work for that. Let's say there is some vast conspiracy to steal the election for the Dems. What would be a good number of fraudulent votes to aim for in a swing state? 5,000? 10,000? Let's go with 5,000. So you need to turn 5,000 fraudulent registrations into fraudulent votes.
You don't need to have one person per fraudulent vote, you can probably get away with having each person that's in on the conspiracy to vote multiple times. Let's say each person votes in five different precincts. So you would need 1,000 people to be in on it. That's 1,000 people willing to commit five counts of a Federal felony. And even with that 5,000 votes is not going to guarantee a win.
Spread this conspiracy out to every swing state and you are going to need 8,000 people. Does anyone really think something like that could be kept quiet? And if ACORN is really trying to steal the election, why would they turn in obviously fraudulent registrations? All that does is put the focus on them. This entire voter fraud conspiracy strikes me as an underpants gnome sort of scheme:
1) Submit fraudulent registrations
2) ?????
3) Steal the election
No one has explained the logistics of 2) that doesn't involve a large amount of tin foil.
Back on topic, it's Obama's race to lose, but the campaign's ground game is not relaxing. The Powell endorsement is a big motivator, regardless of its effect on moderate Republicans. It wouldn't surprise me if rumors about having Powell serve in some official capacity start spreading around. Probably the same thing for rumors about Lugar. Obama will probably start shoring up his bipartisanship to show his desire to govern from the middle. It will help counteract all the shrieks about socialism and communism coming from the wingnuts.
Speaking of Obama's ground game, it's one thing the media hasn't covered much and I think a lot of people are going to be shocked at just how good it is. A few days ago a blogger noted that there were 10,000 events that had been organized for the Obama campaign between then and election day. Over at Five Thirty Eight they've been comparing the local efforts between the two campaigns and the differences are stark.
The ground game will probably be one of the bigger stories post-election.
I intend to vote for McCain, and in my state at least it is a toss up, but I don't think McCain can pull off the number of states required.
I am not sure I believe in the Bradley affect either-sure there are probably some people who lie, but I just don't see this in large enough numbers to swing enough to help McCain.
Should Obama be breaking out the champagne in a victory celebration just yet? Nope, there are still three more weeks, and a lot can go wrong, but at this point I think it will take a huge mistake that the media actually cares about covering to change the direction of the polls. I do expect the race-at least popular vote wise to be a close one, and one closer than the polls seem to indicate. I suspect Obama will have a pretty clear electoral vote win.
The Ohio Secretary of state has 200,000 mismatched votes that she isn't sharing with the local election boards.
And it isn't necessarily that you need that many voters. Just choose a few big cities and haul several people around from precinct to precinct. Or better yet, a few dirty local election commissioners could look at the roles and who didn't vote and help them cast a few votes.
My opinion is that in order for voter fraud to work you do have to have at lest one local election commissioner in on the deal-and it doesn't necessarily need real voters casting votes to perpetrate. Just some knowledge of who the "fake" registered voters are.
(link)
EricPWJohnson (mail):
AlJazeera English lang broadcasts here in Qatar show a different picture - sure they are pulling for Obama - but they do show both sides Palin has throngs of people st her rallies and so does John.
Did they show the 100,000 people (supposedly) Obama had at his St. Louis rally? Don't know if that's the real number, but it was enormous.
Yes, if the popular vote narrows to 1%, some, maybe most, of the eight or so states Obama only needs one of that are now leaning to Obama could flip. Heck, as of today, I'm not sure how Ohio will go. But Obama is out-polling his national numbers in a couple of states either one of which would put him over 270: VA and, I believe, CO. So I still see Obama winning the electoral college in a 1% popular vote scenario.
Also, of course none of this matters until voters vote. So I'll say this as to "ground game." I volunteered in Ohio for Gore, Kerry, and Obama. I was always very impressed with the Republican GOTV efforts on the other side. I don't know what Republican efforts will be like this year, but I'll tell you honestly that the Obama GOTV operation campaign is much better than the Gore or Kerry GOTVs were. Which is another reason I like Obama in a 1% race.
So I'm not measuring drapes yet, but I'll repeat: McCain has a much tougher road to 270.
McCain can change this, although the later it gets the harder that will be. But, at least looking at the state-by-state polls, the closeness of the popular vote is masking the true strength of Obama's position.
And again, Obama needs only ONE of those three (or COL, NV, OH, or MO. . .) to win.
Doubt it-at least not in a remarkable way-I think mostly because very few people are surprised and I think it depends on why indpendants are independent,.
It might help if Powell does campaigning for him, but the endorsement alone, not so sure it will make a big difference.
Shoot I am not sure endorsements mean all that much anyway.
OK...Anyone that believes this..please send social security, credit card, and checking account number to this e-mail address in Nigeria...thank you...
Money talks.
Powell is has a base that dates back to the men and women in uniform from Gulf War I and II. McCain brings to the table a family military that dates to the Punic Wars, but most of his base are either dead or retired.
Make no mistake about it. Most adults and high schoolers still can not locate Vietnam on a map, but at least they think they know about home country of Osama Bin Laden - Iraq. Like McCain they believe there is not a dime worth a difference between Sunni and Shia.
This one is in the bag and would the last Conservative turn off the lights and let old men like McCain not flow a fuse so he can rest in peace.
Except that he is getting money from Doodad Pro and Good Will. I suspect when all is said and done, Obama will be president and he will be president whose campaign will be receiving a pretty big fine for violations on campaign contritubtions. He has already had to send money back to foreign supporters.
That said, I am sick of obama commercials. And if I hear the dumb healthcare one that has been fact check as getting wrong one more time I think I will gouge my eyes out.
My daughter has started a count down to election day when she won't have to listen to another campaign commercial.
Wouldn't it be a lot less painful just to hit the Mute button?
I hope Republicans continue to discount every critique of their party Powell just made and believe he didn't mean anything by it, he's just going for the black guy. It's a great way to keep losing.
Why not just move out of the damned swing state?
There are several problems with this. Obama was spending big money all along, long before McCain got nominated. McCain elected federal financing while Obama broke his pledge to do likewise.
But all that's besides the point. However he got his money, it's the prime mover behind his success, along with substantial help from the media.
They are mostly radio commercials. We don't watch much TV here, but when we do pretty much Obama is on during every break.
I almost wonder if it isn't over saturation. It isn't even a different ad half the time, just the same one every 10 minutes or so. Not necessarily that it hurts him, but to the point that it isn't going to do anything to help him.
Like Kelly, I strongly encourage you to ignore all the thoughtful, substantive points Powell made, points that have been made by moderates and conservatives throughout the campaign about problems with today's Republican party. I say that as a Democrat.
It's not completely impossible for things to turn around, but at this point McCain's last best hope is a surprise revelation about Obama's background. That or a terrorist attack.
I don't think there is anything McCain can do to keep the train from running him over.
I do think a surprise revelation about Obama could change the race, but I think it would have to come from the media or be something that readily ties to Obama.
A few major Obama gaffes though could sink him. Too many Joe the Plumber like answers where they go after the plumber rather than try to control the damage of the message or another "Bitter" type comment could hurt him, but my bet is that Obama is very careful about media appearances in Joe like neighborhoods and I bet he doesn't take any questions. Obama isn't an idiot, he does seem to learn from his mistakes-at least when it comes to campaigning.
I, for one, would be very interested in knowing who Obama plans to have in his cabinet. Same goes for McCain, perhaps even more so, given that McCain's health might deteriorate and Palin might have to assume to presidency.
Obama gains 1 in Rasmussen poll; he gains 2 in Gallup registered voter poll (to +10), gains 3 in one of Gallup's likely voter models, and gains 1 in Gallup's other likely voter model.
Also, he drew a reported 100,000 to a rally in Missouri yesterday. Today he got Colin Powell's endorsement. And he just announced record fundraising numbers.
Yes, some things could happen in the next less-than-two-and-a-half-weeks. But I don't see much momentum for McCain. Obama would have to make a huge, huge mistake. And he's not the type to do that. Which, come to think of it, is part of the reason why he's winning.
You can certainly disagree, but I don't see any basis to say that his real motivation was all about race. That is, unless your real goal is to delegitimize Powell so that you don't have to consider his criticism as a serious argument.
Then how would gouging your eyes out help? Shouldn't you puncture your ear drums or something?
I almost feel the waiting was designed to minimize the dialogue. Sure, all this can be true and simply reflect Powell's support for Obama's positions, but then why "float" the idea of an endorsement back in August? Why not keep this completely under wraps?
The McCain/Palin ticket is the most liberal Republican ticket in the history of the United States (by a significant margin). The Obama/Biden ticket is the most liberal presidential ticket in the history of the United States (by an even more significant margin). So, an Obama endorsement does not make sense for someone with moderate or centrist views (and perhaps not even from someone with moderate liberal views). This is not to say that Powell's endorsement had anything to do with race; after all, Chris Buckley and Doug Kmiec also made an endorsement that was completely nonsensical given their moderate (or even arguably right-leaning) political views.
That sort of IMPLIES that it is a racial reason, though I wouldn't call it racist. The more that word gets applied to marginal situations, the less it actually means. Secondly, lay off Colin Powell. I doubt that his reasons for voting for Obama are race-related and I think you underestimate his analyses of various issues at your own peril. Remember, his name was widely circulated as a potential Republican nominee within about the last decade.
2. It's not the racists who cause the Bradly effect- racists generally don't care what anyone else thinks of them. It's the non-racists- good ordinary American- who say they are voting for or leaning to Obama because of the meme that the only reason not to support Obama is racism. I agree that the Bradley effect would be minimal but for this phenomenon. There are multiple legitimate reasons to support McCain over Obama, but anyone who expresses an opinion based on these reasons will be called a racist, and this will regenerate a Bradley effect where one would not have existed.
3. Analogous point for Palin supporters. She has supporters who will vote for her privately, but do not want to risk the ridicule of their betters by being open about it.
4. The hardest part of polling is figuring out exactly who will vote. Obama's most fervent supporters are the young folks, who are and always will remain the voters of the future. The old folks are more reliable voters, and they can remember Vietnam and find it on a map, and they remember the halcyon days of Jimmy Carter and undivided liberal government.
This isn't over folks.
Of course, as you admitted you are campaigning for Obama, you don't want Powell's endorsement to be about race. You want it to be about everything but race so it works for you. You can try your best to spin it but I think you are a fool if you don't see how it’s going to be interpreted. Basically the Powell endorsement won't have as much kick as you want, because he is black. Sucks maybe but that’s the way it is.
Orin you tend to always try and view things in the best possible light. My point is not to delegitimize Powell (though I understand that argument) but because of the situation we are in his justifications face headwinds from the reality of racial bias. I am not creating the delegitimizing, the environment was already in place when we woke up today.
True, but the fear of being thought a racist (whether one is or isn't) is the most well studied and documented reason for concealing one's true preference . . . do you have more elaborate thoughts on this, Sasha?
I'm curious about the qualification in this statement.
It certainly applies to his (sensible) statements about taxes, but much of the criticism was levelled at McCain's tactics, the nature of the attacks on Obama, and GOP divisiveness in general. He specifically mentioned Michele Bachman's call for investigating to discover anti-American Congressmen, whispers about Obama being a Muslim, and so on. He also suggested that Palin was a poor choice for VP.
Why couldn't staunch conservatives make similar criticisms, since they are not based on policy matters or philosophical differences about government?
Pro-McCain 527's have raised a lot more than pro-Obama ones but the inability to coordinate with the campaign makes their efforts less effective.
As usual, making a campaign promise and breaking it later turns out to be a winning proposition. Remember the '94 Republicans who pledged to serve no more than 3 terms? Except the ones the voters kicked out of office, they're still around. The only time I can think of when a politician lost out by breaking a campaign promise was Bush Sr.'s "read my lips" pledge.
I've never been so glad to live in a blue state. I can watch the Rays collapse without sitting through any ads more annoying than the usual stream of Cia1is promotions.
I'm torn between hoping the dems win the whitehouse and large majorities in the house and senate, because it would pretty much guarantee that they'll quickly implement an over-the-top agenda and get thrown out), and hoping they win the whitehouse but pick up no meaningful ground in the legislative branch. The latter is about the only outcome that might force the GOP to consider its many sins at some length. (And that's way overdue.)
1. If Biden had been the Dem nominee, does anyone believe that Powell would have endorsed him? Are there any substantive differences between Biden and Obama, any difference at all except race? Is this not the very definition of racism- supporting one man over another because of the color of his skin?
Very circular argument.
Quite possibly Powell would have endorsed Biden, or at least stayed neutral. His arguments about Palin and Supreme Court nominees would still apply, and he wouldn't even have to worry about inexperience.
That's what Colin Powell was talking about. One campaign is talking about joining together, the other is trying to divide.
But hey, maybe Powell really is putting race before country. Maybe Powell is lying about everything he said. Your call.
Sure, put your fingers in your ears and throw more and more moderates and conservatives (Parker, Buckley, Brooks, Will, Krauthamemr, Powell, etc., etc.) under the bus. Nothing's wrong with the Republican party!
Anyway, it doesn't matter what people who have made up their minds (me and you) think of the Powell endorsement. I've said it might matter to some undecided military or ex-military in VA, NC, and FL. You, apparently, think they will all say, "gee, a black guy supporting a black guy, all those black folks have lost their credibility."
I'm happy to have that be the condensed version of the Dem and Repub reactions.
Maybe I misunderstood the thread, but then is your point that Powell is not acting on the basis of race, but that some people are going to think so because they're racists and think black people don't vote on the merits? That may be true, but I don't understand the relevance of it: Presumably racist voters are not voting for Obama.
Byomtov writes:
In my experience, one of the things that makes one a "staunch" conservative is a lack of interest in criticizing conservatives on grounds unrelated to conservatism. Indeed, when I occasionally criticize conservatives for reasons unrelated to their conservativism, it is common for some of the self-identified "staunch" conservatives in the comment thread to criticize me for being liberal (or at least not a true conservative). The idea seems to be that if you criticize someone who is conservative then you are not conservative, even if you are criticizing something unrelated to conservative ideas.
To be clear, though, that's not why I'm saying Powell is a moderate.
Drawing a conclusion about your views on race is left as an exercise for the reader.
Except Obama's ideas are all 80 or so years old and were mistakes when they were first put into practice by FDR.
Powell's stated reasons do not square with any identifiable thing about Obama's campaign rhetoric, and actually conflict with Obama's past. His endorsement only square's with Obama's ethnic group. Powell has reduced his moral stature in history with this.
McCain is the moderate Powell claims to want, as the Observer noted.
Since Powell's words don't match up with the deed, something else explains it.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
It's the way that previously unregistered AA's are turning out for him that indicts their claims they aren't voting for his skin color.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Right. It's not like McCain put a woman on the ticket hoping to pick up the votes of Hillary supporters on the sole basis that they were women.
Please advise the Republican Party to run on your "Obama will be the next FDR! (and we think that's bad)" platform.
In fact, wasn't there a thread about the wisdom of that in the VC recently?
But he doesn't have the political courage. Instead, he's just a sleazing, scumbag of a politician who's not changed his character since birth.
American owes this man nothing. Certainly not the White House.
.
That bears repeating for emphasis.
Anyone that wants to be president at this time is a glutton for abuse and punishment. I give who ever wins 1 term in office. This is the Age of the Big Disappointment.
Interesting. I see exactly the opposite way. Your answer seems to me to imply that there's some place we can go to discover the true meaning of "conservatism" (or, for that matter, "liberalism"). I don't see it that way. To me, "conservatism" is defined by what self-proclaimed conservatives generally say (and same for liberals, of course). Thus, it's precisely those statements which seem to be erroneous or inconsistent with what other "conservatives" believe which would call for criticism in my view.
Well to go with that tripe for a moment, then what does that say about Hillary? And I suppose you just don't believe Palin shook up the corrupt AK GOP establishment by running against their corruption, spending, and their being overly cozy with Big Oil?
FDR's disastrous economic policies deepened and lengthened the Depression. Arguing against that has all the intellectual honesty as arguing against gravity. I suppose you'll claim the numbers have a conservative bias in response?
You're absolutely right Shertaugh:
America owes Obama nothing. Certainly not the White House.
He hasn't shown he has the chops.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
No actual counterpoint, then?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
At this point in time I am inclined (con law aside) to declare that polls are verboten, TV airheads need to get real jobs, candidate media spots are limited to just a couple of weeks before election day, etc.
Political campaigns are generally painful to experience, but this one has risen to new and unprecedented levels by the actions of both candidates.
I think the endorsement may be due to race, but not the vote and I don't know that this is necessarily a bad thing.
Obama is giving a stump speech right now. He is talking about all Americans coming together in tough times, that America is greatest when we work together. Compare that to Gov. Palin talking about "pro-America areas" or the McCain spokesman that was talking about "real Virginia."
That;s because he is in the lead. When you are winning you can rest on your laurels and spout platitudes about working togetherp especially when you know you will likely have one of the largest democratic majorities every. He doesn't really have to work with the GOP and knows it, and they probably won't bother unless it is for something really controversial so they can stick a few republicans on it to be the fall guy.
But I don't believe for a second that Obama has any intention of being bipartisan, he is just spouting pretty platitudes.
Now, given the economic realities, putting all of one's favorite policies into place may be difficult in '08.
In January you can come over to my place and watch the Obama swearing in or stay home, sulk, whine and drink beer. Life goes on pal, even if you are under, on or missed the bus.
Refreshing to see reality making a dent.
Except for the disconnect between what Powell claims his reasons to be and what Obama has claimed he'll do and has done. And let slip to Joe the Plumber.
Are you arguing Obama is more centrist in his record and stated policy preferences than McCain?
Well clearly Powell is ignoring the differences between what he says he wants and what Obama has done and said, what do you imagine the reason for that to be? I suspect it is the same reason AA vote registration is so much higher this time around than times past, and why the small fraction of AA's who are voting GOP is reported to be falling in this election.
Racism.
Their racism.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
"completely nonsensical given their moderate (or even arguably right-leaning) political views."
For a moderate conservative, given that African-Americans tend to hold conservative views on many issues, voting for a center-left ticket headed by an African-American candidate might be preferable to voting for a center ticket without one if the election of that ticket frees up African-Americans to vote on their conservative views rather than their grievances.
"But I don't think that will be true this time, because Obama actually got all those college students to the polls in the primaries."
Perhaps. But these guys predicted it in 1991. And Palin wasn't on the ballot in the primaries.
Right. It's not like John McCain ever promised to spread the wealth. I mean, he certainly hasn't proposed to spend $300 billion to buy up peoples' mortgages, has he?
Nope, no spreading the wealth there.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
The odds of 60 (or more) Dems in the Senate is ~30%. Somehow, I don't think that the GOP minority Senators will have much qualms obstructing (and more power to them, I wholeheartedly approve) Obama's legislative agenda as forcefully as Senate rules allow them.
It's not socialism when Republicans do it, it's just doing the hard things that need to be done. I can guarantee if a Democratic president tried to do the stuff that Bush is getting away with he would be impeached.
Tom Perkins, did you vote for Bush? Twice? Motes, eyes, etc.
Peggy Noonan said it best. The GOP got beat up because they had empty bags. No frame. No story. They simply had lots of catch words that given the past Bush/GOP record and the present conditions voters can not relate to McCain. In 2004 it was vote for Bush or you'll die, Liberals will be teaching kids Jim that marry Joe the Plumber, and Kerry will give you money to welfare Queens. At the end of the day voters must think, how can McCain be both an outsider and yet remain a Republican even if he voted for the Bush agenda 90% of the time?!
I personally find it impossible to believe McCain will win, but if he does win the popular vote it won't be by 10%.
Like you I agree that some voters will make race-based decisions. I don't really know how big that effect is. Also, maybe some voters have non-racist reasons to be against McCain but think it makes them sound progressive to lie to pollsters about being for Obama? Whatever happens in a couple of weeks, scholars and ordinary people will have plenty of fodder for discussion about voter behavior, that is for sure.
Except Palin is at least as qualified as Obama is--is at least as qualified as a certain haberdasher was--Powell protests too much. His excuses are hollow, not in comport with reality.
And for that matter, who did Obama pick as VP? Joe "J-O-B-S is a three letter word" Biden. Imagine, if you can be honest, how the media would have treated that idiocy if Palin had said it.
I suppose it can only be a mystery what there is about Obama that Powell has decided to like, such that Powell employs tests against the McCain ticket which Obama miserably fails.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Because University of Idaho Boise is really just like Harvard?
Elitist.
Warren Buffet, the second wealthiest human on the plant, supports Barack Obama; why would he support a socialist?
Not merely elitist, but beside the point.
Palin has done more with her sheepskin from Boise than Obama has with one from the Ivy League.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
The numbers are right, and the numbers don't have a conservative bias. But the numbers are irrelevant. Joseph Slater is right because the electorate, by and large, believes FDR saved the economy. For reasons Ilya Somin and Bryan Caplan address in their work on the ignorance of voters, any amount of numbers thrown at the voters won't matter. Running on "Obama is the next FDR, and FDR was horrible for the American economy" won't work because nowhere near enough people agree with the second half of the statement.
Oh, wait, that's the exact opposite of reality. Palin is a disgraceful pick; utterly un-informed about matters of national policy. But hey, if Putin rears his head in our air space, she'll be ready. Not like she's ever demonstrated any attempt to engage with Russia as governor, but she's got the air space covered.
Kelly, maybe CP didn't support BO because of race. How about something cynical instead. He waited to see what candidate looked like the winner...tossed him his support...and hopefully lands a nice cabinet spot? Now THAT is 'transformational' thinking...
Trad are you from Chicago? Or even Illinois?
1. I believe Obama is a socialist in the European style-but I work with a very liberal friend who is a huge Obama supporter and she thinks the government should take over the oil industry, and she believe obama will do it, so there are some liberals out there who have no problems with the idea of nationalized industries-just depends on the industry-healthcare and oil are the two I hear about. Although she never really indicated just how the government should take over the industry, but she didn't think the government should buy the companies-since it was just a bunch of rich executives (wonder how much stock she has in some of those companies) and she figured Uncle Sam wouldn't fire any employees-they would just become government employees.
2. Buffet supports him, because he has so much money tax policy-especially on income doesn't matter. But it is the wealthy-those who own their own businesses, who are building their businesses that would be harmed by tax increases. Buffet's wealth inoculates him from a lot of the tax policy-how much income does he actually earn each year to be taxes as a percentage of his overall wealth?
Well, maybe so for the white racists, but ALL the black racists are voting for Obama, some, multiple times.
Yes, he certainly does. It's not even unprecedented.
Which Joe was Armand Hammer buddy with--hint, not Biden or the Plumber.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Because he hates America. iirc, Buffet has complained about cap gains:
People can argue about Buffet's views on tax policy, but I learned long ago not to bet against Buffet in business.
It's the Republican grassy knoll.
This is a dead issue. News reports show voters are voting for McCain on a single issue cause he is an old war hero or that he opposes abortion. What do we call these people? The leader of a major black church supports McCain because of the abortion issue. I bet you can find like minded voters for Obama.
Socialism - in full blown socialism, we would be nationalizing industries (*cough* bailout *cough* *cough*), eradicating private property, and giving the workers control of the means of production. Obama, a socialist? Bah. Obama's stance on free trade is not all that different from other liberals who are on the right of progressives...liberals like change in small does - they just rearange the furnature, put on a coat of paint or change the curtains but he's a market driven capitalist that I like, and I will vote for him as soon as my ball out check comes in the mail. Mwahahha.
Obviously, McCain believes that taking excess money from the Treasury (more than $250+ billions from the Clinton Administration) and giving it to the largest corporations and the wealthy in the USA, and then taxing the working person is acceptable. Huckabee called giving the working person tax breaks nothing less than welfare, which appears to be McCain's misleading message today. Does this mean that Corporate America has been on welfare for the past 8-years? The GOP believes that if you are not an investor you are labor scum or worse on welfare but in any case you are not worthy of a tax cut because you will get spoiled by shopping at WalMart.
Sarah Palin redistributes oil revenue to her population every year ... thats not socialism? Sarah Palin pals around with secessionists... thats patriotic? Sarah Palin says we need to know the 'real' Obama... who's written two autobiographies and participated in 26 public debates. Palin won't even do an interview with out a life line.
Top 10% Wealthy benefit from Government Socialism while the 90% of us abide by Capitalism - Trickle Down Pyramid PONZIE Scheme. We have this under the Neo Cons! Americans are Middle Class or at least pretend they are because they are up to their azz in debt, but about 60% of them earn less than $55,000 a year, like Palin most do not own a passport, think a visit to a foreign country is breakfast at IHOP or a vacation at DisneyWorld and if they are lucky their biggest asset is their family home. You know the American Empire is in decline when Americans trusts a man that does not own how many houses he owns and has never held a real job.
Just in case you are still reading this thread, are you still endorsing McCain? These days you seem to be spending so much time defending Obama and his endorsers that one can reasonably question that.
Are you saying that you think anyone who believes there is racial bias in the black vote right now is a racist themselves?
Are you saying a black man could wear a McCain t-shirt and walk around today without being called a "race traitor"?
Are you saying if Obama loses the election it won't be blamed on racists?
This is in our face every day now and I think you are going way out on limb to assume someone is a racist when they point out a racial bias in this current election. If one were to even suggest a black person might not vote on merits alone(elite or not) they are immediately determined a racist?
I do think it’s correct and noble to judge every person as an individual. However I don't think it's racist to notice trends. You would have to live a lie and act naïve all the time.
I presume the source of this comment is the (London) Sunday Times:
I would definitely take this with a grain of salt, as this is the same organization that predicted a Bristol Palin wedding that would be a game-changing October surprise. Last I heard the "wedding" will take place this summer. (My bet is that if McCain-Palin loses there will be no wedding and Bristol and Levi will slip into obscurity.)
Of course Pelosi would say it's in the bag for Obama, do you think a Democratic leader would say "maybe Obama will lose?" She has to express supreme confidence in the Democratic candidate. Frankly, I hope Obama loses the popular vote but wins the Electoral College and thus the Presidency. Then conservatives can feel what Democrats have felt for the past eight years: "We wuz robbed!"
normal state for 12 years
Trad are you from Chicago? Or even Illinois?
I spent more than 20 years living in Cook County. And I'm with vmark: If that is a "normal" place, then I'm happy to be in the abnormal Hoosier State.
Illinois has sent three governors to prison in my lifetime. Blagojevich may make it four. How does that compare to Louisiana?
Normal?
Obama has a precedent of custom and law. The Bush Admin had or has state paid advisers such as Rove and Meirs, and of course signing statements. Remember all of the stuff of law and precedent for better or worse that Bush enacted carries over to Obama. I can hear the GOP crying about the Bill of Rights, yet they were among the first in line to drown it in a glass of cola and ice.
1) Submit fraudulent registrations
2) ?????
3) Steal the election
No one has explained the logistics of 2) that doesn't involve a large amount of tin foil.
Ok, here's the missing explanation.
1) Submit fraudulent registrations, including registrations for disenfranchised felons.
2) Have disenfranchised felon vote. This happens every election, and the votes are not invalidated retroactively.
3) Steal the election.
Or :
1) Submit fraudulent registrations in a state which does not require picture ID or verification of ID.
2) Submit fraudulent absentee ballot, which will also be counted and not invalidated retroactively.
3) Steal the election
This pretense that voter registration fraud cannot possibly result in voter fraud... methinks the lady doth protest too much. Now sure, one can make a reasonable argument that the few thousand fraudulent votes one could conceivably "steal" via these methods would be unlikely to sway an election. But then, of course, we'd have to explain all of the whining about a few thousand voters in 2000...
=darwin
Since Nixon, the GOP has demonstrated again and again that they do not need the Blk vote to win the White House...it wins despite the Blk vote
By flooding the system with bogus registrations, more bogus votes can be validated with systems like the one we use here in Austin. The bogus votes need not be entered one at a time by a fraudulent voter walking through the front door, a corrupt volunteer poll worker is much more efficient.
Either way, I still don't see any reasonable way to keep a conspiracy that big a secret. And I'm not sure why ACORN would blow their cover by turning in fraudulent registrations, as required by law. If ACORN was attempting to steal the election, wouldn't they trash all of the Mickey Mouse registrations so they wouldn't garner so much media attention?
ACORN isn't trying to "steal" the election. They're merely prepping the system for the fraudulent votes and/or legal attacks of others.
There's really no question about it.
So there is no need to show up on election day to vote for him. He's already going to win, and it would be a lot of trouble for you to go to the polls.
Pass it on to your friends and neighbors.
Lived in Chicago for 12 years..On election day I couldn't get any of my drivers to work. They all worked for the "Machine" they would troll nursing homes, retirement villages, Salvation Army...and for a carton of smokes, chocolates, booze, they would "bribe and drive" these folks to polling places all over the city. Blind? No problem. I'll help you w/the ballot. Demented? For SURE not a problem...It's great. The drivers made an hourly rate plus a bonus if they hit a quota...I was amazed. It certainly was no secret. Tip of the day. If you are in Chicago on Nov 4th and see large 16 pass vans rolling in your direction...get out of the way. An editorial in the Chicago Trib from the late 1800's opined..."The only thing the Chicago City Council hasn't stolen is the pot belly stove. It is January and too hot to pick up and carry away..." Cheers!
This has all of the hallmarks of a classic conspiracy theory. Plenty of accusations about them, but no one can say who they are or how they accomplished their nefarious task.
While I agree that "what would have happened if" scenarios are an interesting parlor game and ultimately irrelevant, I think you can look at what actually did happen and see if what did happened can be measured a success or a failure.
From what I have read, the economic data in 1938 and 1939 wasn't horribly better than what Roosevelt inherited in 1933. And I think you can look at that data and decide whether his policies were successful or not.
Doesn't this start to sound a wee bit ridiculous to anyone else?
My point isn't based on the magnitude of the gains. My point is that everyone on this board seems to agree that the "real" issues are being overlooked by both campaigns. The claims are like this: (1) people are voting against Obama because they are racist, (2) people are voting for Obama because they don't like the McCain negative attacks, etc. etc. Hell, Democrats could win ALL the seats in both houses AND the presidency, and it wouldn't be a mandate. Same for Republicans. I know that when I wake up on November 15th, however, I'm not going to hear "Candidate X won, and guess what? It was so close he decided that he's just going to scrap his agenda."
I'm going to hear some bologna about how the election indicates that the voters want sweeping change, and that the imperial presidency is alive and well. But there just won't be evidence for that.
"Hitler saved the US from the Great Depression."
This comment is intended as a joke
That said, it is my prediction that President Obama will be much like President Clinton in 1993-1995, and believe he has a mandate for more change than the American people will stomach. As a result, they will overreact (as Republicans have done in the past asw well).
Pelosi will get 20 seats this year--and lose 40+ in 2010. Republicans won't gain as much in the Senate, since 2004 was such a Republican year in the Senate, but Obama will have to worry about losing the Senate in 2012 along with potentially also losing his re-election.
By the same logic, it's impossible to prove that the New Deal had anything to do with ending the Great Depression, too. To evaluate ANY real life policy, you're going to have to compare it with a hypothetical situtation in which other policies were followed instead.
What happened was that the economy improved significantly from 1933 through 1936. After the re-election, Roosevelt decided to tighten things up monetarily. As a result, we had another round of depression starting in '37 or '38 and didn't get out until wartime spending took over.
Darwin, ok, so you are saying ACORN is gathering up 1,000 ex-felons per state that are willing to commit multiple counts of a Federal felony?
No. I am most definitely not saying that.
(emphasis mine)
Many convicted felons remain on voter rolls, according to Sun Sentinel investigation
"
More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.
Many are faithful voters, with at least 4,900 turning out in past elections.
Florida's elections chief, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, acknowledged his staff has failed to remove thousands of ineligible felons because of a shortage of workers and a crush of new registrations in this critical swing state.
...
Several felon voters interviewed by the Sun Sentinel expressed confusion over automatic clemency and said they thought their voting rights had been restored. Some said they merely signed registration forms that were filled out by volunteers.
"If I wasn't able to vote, they wouldn't have given me my [voter registration] card," said John A. Henderson, 55, a Hallandale Beach Democrat. "I voted the last time and the times before that."
"
Pretty straightforward. ACORN doesn't have to "gather up 1,000 ex-felons per state that are willing to commit a Federal Felony" because they do so in the normal execution of their voter registration.
"
It's a third-degree felony for ineligible voters to knowingly cast ballots and for campaign workers and voters to submit false registration forms. Prosecutors and elections officials in South Florida could not recall any prosecutions related to felons registering or voting in recent years.
"
Note the key word "knowingly." If ACORN has, for example, a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding possible felony disenfranchisement and ex-felons do not understand their eligibility to vote, then they could conceivably vote illegally and have their vote counted without committing the "Federal Felony" of voter fraud.
FWIW, I think Felony Disenfranchisement is incredibly Un-American and should be discontinued entirely. However as the law stands, it provides an avenue for the fudging of a few thousands of votes, demographically in the Democratic direction. It's no surprise that activist groups have figured this out and are exploiting it within the bounds of the laws which constrain voter registration activities.
I don't think this is really a critical issue in an election-swinging sense, but I didn't think that is was in 2000 either, when everyone told me it was.. so which is it?
=darwin
Tom Perkins: If you're still reading, the original mention of Palin was not about re-hashing her qualifications or lack thereof. Rather, a poster had noted that Fox News edited out/didn't discuss that part of Powell's endorsement that criticized Palin.
If you look at the history, the unemployment rate rate peaked at 24.9% in 1933, Roosevelt's first year in office, dropped to about 17% in 1936, dropped a bit more to 14.3% in 1937, and rose to 19% in 1938.
So yes, Hitler's rise did more than anything else to end the Great Depression.
I agree that FDR deserves credit for chopping 10% off the unemployment numbers between 1933 and 1937, but the Depression was far from over in 1937 and did not end until World War II.
Votes on BO and JM policues
W' only won Ohio by what? 140k votes? This is not lost on any of the parties involved...
In Ohio you need ID to vote. So not only does ACORN need to get enough fraudulent registrations through (while raising suspicion by turning in obviously fraudulent registrations), ACORN needs to know which registrations were accepted. ACORN then needs to pass that information on to them so they can create multiple fake IDs for the 1,000 people that are going to show up to the polls.
To be clear, I don't think ACORN or equivalent is trying to do the above kind of fraud, because it's a low-percentage move given Ohio's ID requirement at polling places.
But you neglect to mention that the Ohio voter ID requirement :
a) Dates to 2002.
b) Exists as a result of concessions to Republicans in the post-2000 Help America Vote Act.
c) Was only resolved as a fully-settled issue in 2006 (news.cincinnati.com).
In other words, this sort of fraud was a plausible result of ACORN's registration activities in your example, Ohio, up until as recently as 2006, and it only became impossible then because of the wishes of the Republicans. Not quite the dramatic point it seems.. ?
=darwin
Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the cognitive narrative of the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda.
Obama is an empty suit with good speeches and a lot of money. McCain is an open book. Both have used propaganda, but at least I know what I'm getting with McCain/Palin.
If the Media wasn't in Obama's pocket, he would NEVER have beaten Hillary. I'm hoping the women voters vote for McCain/Palin and AGAINST Obama. Four years of Obama/Biden will be far worse than the Carter Presidency. I lived through that fiasco. Especially, with Pelosi and Reid it WILL BE FAR WORSE.
But Carter was the main reason we had eight years of Reagan (YEAH!!) So there's hope either way.
I actually suspect this is how most voter fraud happens.
Some systems are of course easier to game than others, but in the end I figure it is a corrupt election official or poll worker that commits the fraud.
In my ward you sign in, get a ballot, put it in the box (or now through the machine) and leave. If a campaign worker was corrupt, and had an idea of who was and wasn't a "real" voter on the list, they could sign in and cast a ballot-although they would have to get the person at the machine to cooperate, but I guess my point is that people determined to game a system, especially when they work the system can figure out ways around it.
I think maybe a good way to prevent fraud though would be to have double signatures at two stations with ID required. Check in at station one, show ID, sign in, get ballot, vote, place ballot in balloting container, check out, show ID, sign out, leave. This puts more bodies at each point, and perhaps have different parties working the different tables-so that one party can't game the whole thing.
It's a defensible position, though I would agree w/ General Powell that the Court is plenty right-wing as it is. Even if Obama were to nominate someone as far-left as Thomas is far-right (Reinhardt?), I doubt that the nomination would clear the Senate, and a solid conservative majority would remain.
NPR the other day called the Court evenly split b/t right and left, with one moderate swing vote -- Anthony Kennedy. GMAFB, as they say.
I imagine that votes for the Reichstag in 1932 had similar justifications. Were they correct, those voters, I wonder?
This comment is intended as a joke
The problem with your statement, byomotov, is that your "joke" turns out to be completely accurate.
Well, maybe it needs a bit more, since the Japanese had something to do with our entry into WWII. And then, we attacked a nation, Germany, that never attacked us! Oh the lies!
WWII saved the nation's economy. Sorry if that distresses you, but that's thr truth.
...damn keyboard...
You have far more faith in Obama and the US senate he is getting than I do.
For one thing, I suspect McCain will continue to be principled on this issue and will vote in favor of any nominee that meets the constitutional requirements, and not on an ideological basis. He is voting for cloture, and probably wouldn't support or participate in a fillibuster.
I don't at all picture Obama nominating moderates or centrist judges-especially if it is left wing justices he will be replacing. I do wonder if Stevens and Ginsberg won't seize the moment and resign sometime in the first two years of Obama's presidency given they won't have to worry much about their replacements. If Obama can't put a liberal through with a liberal senate, then he will never get one through.
Bush=Hitler
Obama is a mulsim
Trig Palin really belonged to her daughter Bristol
Every time you vote democrat, God kills a kitten
With each side trying to paint the other not as mistaken, but as evil, it makes me wonder how we'll react to a true threat to our nation. Imagine if terrorists managed to pull off an attack on the US. We'd probably bicker so hard and see each other as the enemy, that we'd give the true enemy hope.
Oops, too late...
Every time you vote democrat, God kills a kitten
I'm going to turn that into a bumper sticker...is that OK?grr
That's a good site, thanks for pointing us to it. As far as I can tell the unemployment numbers come from this reference:But I can't find out what's the methodology behind the numbers. As this kind of thing is highly political one must be very skeptical until you find out how they were calculated.
That Fox did not repeat Powell's comments entire is not noteworthy. Also, while what you mentioned was that other poster's attempt to be pointed, my point is that knowing of those further words does nothing to burnish Powell's implicit claim that he's a moderate voting for new ideas, or that the Palin pick is any sort of valid indictment of the McCain campaign on the grounds of her inexperience.
There is still a gaping credibility problem on Powell's part when he makes excuses for his endorsement where the tests he applies to McCain's campaign are not ones where Obama is competitive.
Powell said the choice of an African-American candidate is electrifying, and I suspect that must have been the tingling going up the one guy's leg, and that it has burnt out Powell's faculties.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
One nit: To get a 15% swing, you'd need 7 1/2% Bradley Effect voters, not 15.
Read and decide for yourself. Is this too much to ask of some people?
Tom Perkins: Powell complained of a "narrow" Republican Party. Ignore that warning at your peril.
I agree. It's more accurate to say that his first term ameliorated the Depression, but certainly did not end it. The scale of the problem was simply too great.
Anderson, I assume "GMAFB" means "Gone Made an Accurate and Full Benchmark?" FWIW, I think it's just eaier to say something like, "That's Correct."
This is far from accurate. The two "conservative" Justices on the Court, Thomas and Scalia, merely enforce the Constitution. This is what judges are supposed to do and there is nothing conservative about this. Alito and Roberts generally enforce the Constitution, but often consider themselves to be bound by precedents created by left-wing Justices, so they are moderate liberals. Kennedy is farther left, since not only does he refuse to overrule wrong activist precedents, but he also is comfortable moving jurisprudence farther left (see, e.g., Rasul v. Bush, Boumediene v. Bush, Lawrence v. Texas). The other four justices consistently support judicial activism, i.e., making up things that have nothing to do with the Constitution to support their policy preferences (admittedly, the difference between these four and Kennedy is just one of degree).
If Scalia and Thomas were as conservative as Kennedy is liberal, they would argue that the Constitution *requires* states to prohibit, say, abortion. After all, this argument could be made as convincingly as the argument that the Constitution prohibits states from prohibiting abortion. Same could be said for dozens of other constitutional issues.
One can only hope. This is a proposition I support, along with the prosecution of both doctor and patient. Under the felony murder rule, both would be reponsible for the death of the fetus. To say Roe v. Wade is wrong on federalist grounds (that it should be left to the states) still allows the killing of human life. So if Roe is overturned, it should result in a ban on abortion, not merely changing the jurisdiction that allows the killing.
One can only hope that Republican politicians will summon enough gumption to run on this platform.
Really? And when they disagree, as they frequently do (see, e.g. Raich v. Ashcroft) which one is "merely enforc[ing] the Constitution" and which one is making stuff up?
I imagine that votes for the Reichstag in 1932 had similar justifications. Were they correct, those voters, I wonder?"
This is cheap imagery, even by Anderson standards.
When it is so obvious that you're a lying phony, that David Letterman, who respects John McCain's service, is ragging on John McCain night in and night out for being a lying phony, it's over. You've lost the American people.
Answer here.
When they disagree on Commerce Clause issues, Thomas is generally the one enforcing the Constitution; Scalia is not "making stuff up" but occasionally refuses to overrule precedent that he probably knows to be incorrect in this area. But on most cases where they disagree, e.g., Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, both present a reasonable view of what the Constitution says and I won't pretend that I know better than either of them as to what the correct ruling is.
If he thinks the Republicans are narrow, then genuinely he is become a fool. The party which tolerates no dissent today is the one headed by Obama.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
I see that my humor didn't get through. I fully appreciate that WWII was an economic stimulus. The joke I intended was the "Hoosier is a Nazi" spin of my comment. That's all.
Guess it failed. Sorry. I won't do it again.
Those who don't learn from history are condemned to ... what? mindless invocation of Godwin's Law?
It doesn't imply that McCain (not Bush, people, catch up with us here) = Hitler to suggest that "voting for the known evil" can lead to voting for an evil that ends up considerably worse than what's known. If I wanted to compare McCain, or Obama, to Hitler, I could certainly find more pertinent points of similarity.
Fwiw, I used to be a dem. I also used to be pro-life. Now, I happen to a pro-choice repub. fwiw, I am not beholden to the repub party, I'm way to libertarian for that, but I almost always vote repub, finding them vastly preferable to the dems... anyway.
I see far more "tolerance" among repubs, as a pro-choice person than I ever did among dems as a pro-lifer. This is also evidenced by the conventions where people such as arnold and guiliani are prominent speakers. try finding pro-life dems (of which there are many) actually being given prominent speaking positions at the dem conventions... nope.
I realize abortion is not "the all" but imo it's pretty representative in this comparison between the two parties.
BTW, the site you linked to is pretty interesting. There's a few things there you might consider.
The 1937-8 recession was due, according to the site, to a cutback in govt spending by FDR - hardly something we usually consider part of the New Deal.
Even with that downturn, GDP increased substantially from 1933 to 1938. The BLS reports that it went (in constant 2000 dollars) from $635.5 billion in 1933 to $879.7 billion in 1938, and increase of about 6.7% a year, despite the fact that there was a drop from 1937 ($911.1 billion) to 1938. Thereafter it took off, no doubt due to war spending.
So maybe something good was happening in there.
I'll put that down as "warning ignored."
FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
Note, I am not necessarily endorsing their conclusion, just bringing attention to it.
New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Ah, McCain supporters invoking nuance in defense of McCain, while describing Obama's tax plan as "spread the wealth" socialism.
If Republicans lose, I think a major factor in their loss will be a total and utter lack of self-awareness.
I "get" your joke now. I wasn't 100% sure when I first saw it and so I responded as if it was serious.
Except for Sarcastro's posts, I can't always tell when someone is being less than serious.
This is what I've seen as well -- FDR for once listened to the economists who were flipping out over deficit spending, and it got him a recession.
Re: the article linked by Kevin P, I'll be interested to see how it fares in the "marketplace of ideas" -- I'm not competent to judge the economic analysis myself, I suspect. But the Great Depression may be like the French Revolution, an event that's disappeared under its interpretations, as Nietzsche put it.
Perkins: Actually, it is an open question which party is narrower. The Republican Party certainly is far more accepting of centrists and moderates. But the Democratic Party has no problem tolerating extremes from the Left among its rank. The fact that Obama was associated with Ayers was not an obstacle to his political career; by contrast, I can't image that any Republican who is palling around with a guy who used to bomb abortion clinics would be elected to the Senate (let alone the White House). Socialists, black nationalists, radical atheists are all welcome in the Democratic Party. By contrast, open fascists, monarchists, white nationalists, feudalists or theocrats are not welcome in the Republican Party.
It's not a matter of being "off limits," but a matter of scale. Hitler burned Europe to the ground and killed nearly 20 million folks to do so. He can seriously be compared to Stalin, Pol Pot, and, on a smaller scale, to Kim il-Sung. But to compare any American politician to him is laughable. I love my Appalachian State Mountaineers, but if I tried to compare them to the Stellers Dynasty to the '70s, most people would, quite rightly, laugh me off the face of the Earth.
Additionally, the Hitler comparison is similar to the "facist" or "communist" argument - it is intended to shut down debate by establishing a moral high ground that is unassailable. The fact that it shows a complete lack of perspective is irrelevent to the accusing party.
Poltics becomes a much more civilized realm when we accept that the other side, as wrong as we feel their policies are, is not about to rape our daughters after burning the flesh off our faces.
Damn keyboard again. Hitler must be responsible!
During Edward Bernays' (known as the father of spin) lifetime and since, propaganda has usually had dirty connotations, loaded and identified with the evils of Nazi PR genius Joseph Goebbels, or the oafish efforts of the Soviet Communists. In his memoirs, Bernays wrote that he was "shocked" to discover that Goebbels kept copies of Bernays' writings in his own personal library, and that his theories were therefore helping to "engineer" the rise of the Third Reich.
In post modern America we use Goebbels and Bernays methods to give new meaning to words and phrases such as homeland security, un-American, support our troops, war on terror, death tax, and torture.
Goebbels is dead but he never left the house.
"I am always a little puzzled why one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century is off-limits for purposes of analogy or discussion.
Those who don't learn from history are condemned to ... what? mindless invocation of Godwin's Law?"
I think Godwin's original intention was to clear some space for some other common cultural references to take root, but I agree that it has metastasized in a troubling direction.
Are you sure? Consider this:
And speaking of inciting terrorism, Eric Rudolph put a bomb in a gay club. He said it was his duty to fight "the homosexual agenda." Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals." He also blamed 9/11 on "the pagans, the abortionists, and the feminists and the gays and lesbians." Aren't these statements a form of moral support to Rudolph? In 2006, McCain delivered the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University. Isn't that a form of moral support to Falwell? Why does McCain pal around with someone who provides moral support to an unrepentant terrorist?
And please explain how this is something other than support for "theocrats"(pdf):
Don't know if you're reading this, but Tom Perkins asked me to pass on the fact that Colin Powell is worried about the narrowing of the Republican Party.
Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball, Bachmann went well off the reservation when it comes to leveling political charges against the Democratic nominee.
...
Matthews later pressed her to name a single member of Congress other than Obama who she thought was anti-American. Bachmann, who initially wouldn't budge, called for a major "expose" into the matter.
"What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America," she said.
In the new Conservative order, radio, writers and TV shock jocks not only suggest that Liberals are un-American, but they are gay, pal around with terrorist, are a danger to business and children, suffer from a mental illness, but should be liquidated. Those that are government officials and Liberals are known to cower with the word Liberal to describe them selves. Conservative use the word to incite outrage because Liberal is out of favor in the mainstream despite the fact that it was Liberalism that gave America the quality of life that most demand, expect and enjoy.
Now, CB55, I put my name on this post - do you have the guts to put your name on the screed you posted?
Yeah, thought not.
Based upon Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda by Leonard W. Doob, published in Public Opinion and Propaganda; A Book of Readings edited for The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
1. Propagandist must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion.
2. Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority.
a. It must issue all the propaganda directives.
b. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale.
c. It must oversee other agencies' activities which have propaganda consequences
3. The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action.
4. Propaganda must affect the enemy's policy and action.
a. By suppressing propagandistically desirable material which can provide the enemy with useful intelligence
b. By openly disseminating propaganda whose content or tone causes the enemy to draw the desired conclusions
c. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself
d. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity
5. Declassified, operational information must be available to implement a propaganda campaign
6. To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium.
7. Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.
8. The purpose, content and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted.
9. Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored.
10. Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy's prestige or lends support to the propagandist's own objective.
11. Black rather than white propaganda may be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects.
12. Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.
13. Propaganda must be carefully timed.
a. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda.
b. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment
c. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness
14. Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.
a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses
b. They must be capable of being easily learned
c. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations
d. They must be boomerang-proof
15. Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events.
16. Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.
a. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat
b. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and which cannot be reduced by people themselves
17. Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration.
a. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated
b. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective
18. Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.
19. Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both.
If you expect and demand healthy food and not botualism in a can, think the Liberalism of Teddy Roosevelt.
If you expect and demand indoor plumbing and waste treatment think the wisdom of liberal Europe.
If you are able to read and write it is very liekly you were taught by some one who went to a public school, you are most likely to see a medical doctor that went to a school paid for by tax dollars
Before public fire and and public safety became common to all, only those of money had fire protection and physical security
It was Liberalism that freed the slaves and gave women the right to vote
I thought it was gin and tonic. LOL
All political and economic systems facilitate the redistribution of wealth including Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism. The very rich are not often to be found using the public library, attending public schools, or using public transit, but the public demands that they are taxed for such services because it is a public welfare good. I know people who feel slighted because they are forced to pay taxes for sports stadiums. They do not like sports and do not attend such events.
Let's see...
...Republicans freed the slaves...
...Republicans passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments...
...Republicans, by percentage, voted more in favor of the CRA of 1964 than democrats...
...Republicans enacted Affirmative Action...
...Republicans had the first African American Secretary of State...
...Republicans sent more money in aid to Africa than anyone ever dreamed.
On the other hand...
...democrats have the only serving US Senator who was ever a member of the KKK...
...democrats interned Jpaanese Americans without cause during WWII...
...democrats had one of their own stand in thr schoolhouse door...
...democrats enacted The Great Society, creating a culture of dependence we still haven't recovered from.
Yes, democrats have had their moments for civil rights, but don't act as if the Republicans are evil people who are trying to keep African Americans down. History would paint you an ugly picture.
Just because liberals are concentrated in the Democratic Party today doesn't mean they always were.
I wouldn't exactly say it that way, but there seem to be some issues. The RNC was 98.5% white.
Great statistic. And your evidence for this would be...
I think a lot of democrats are merely upset that history doesn't paint a great picture for them, and want to shift blame to the party that truly did something for civil rights.
Democrats have the words, Republicans have the results. If you can factually refute any of the historical information, please do so.
See here:
36/2380 is 1.5%.
I'm sure that living in the past is going to lead to lots of success for the GOP. Keep up the good work.
You forgot to mentioned the Republican Southern Strategy after the Civil War that led to over 100 years of Black lynchings and new slavery and the birth Civil Rights Movement over 100 years after the War when even Russia thought Blacks could vote, marry whom ever they wished and live where ever they could. I think president Ike called his appointment of justice Warren his worst mistake. Senator Thurmond is both a hero of the GOP and Dixiecrats. Southern strategy was reintroduced by president Nixon and amplified by Karl Rove and the New GOP. In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to a Republican method of carrying Southern states in the latter decades of the 19th century and the 20th century by exploiting racism among white voters.
Thanks for converting the subject from Liberals vs Con to Democrats vs the GOP...even if both do not always mean Liberal vs Con. For there are Cons and Libs in both parties, but me thinks the GOP has no room for Moderation or Libs.
On February 2, 2000, George W. Bush, as candidate for President, spoke during school's chapel hour. [110] Bush gave a standard stump speech making no specific reference to the University. His political opponents quickly noted his non-mention of the University's ban on interracial dating. During the Michigan primary, Bush was also criticized for not stating his opposition to the University's anti-Catholicism. (The John McCain campaign targeted Catholics with a "Catholic Voter Alert," phone calls reminding voters of Bush's visit to BJU.) Bush denied that he either knew of or approved what he regarded as BJU's intolerant policies. On February 26, Bush issued a formal letter of apology to Cardinal John O'Connor of New York for failing to denounce Bob Jones University's history of anti-Catholic statements. At a news conference following the letter's release, Bush said, "I make no excuses. I had an opportunity and I missed it. I regret that....I wish I had gotten up then and seized the moment to set a tone, a tone that I had set in Texas, a positive and inclusive tone." Also during the 2000 Republican primary campaign in South Carolina, Richard Hand, a BJU professor, spread a false e-mail rumor that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate child. (The McCains have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh, and later push polling also implied that the child was biracial.)
In 2000, John McCain took the New Hampshire primary and was favored to win in South Carolina. Had he succeeded, he would likely have thwarted the presidential aspirations of George W. Bush and become the Republican nominee. But Bush strategist Karl Rove came to the rescue with a vicious smear tactic.
Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain...if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.
It worked. Owing largely to the Rove-orchestrated whispering campaign, Bush prevailed in South Carolina and secured the Republican nomination. The rest is history--specifically the tragic and blighted history of our young century. It worked in another way as well.
In 1854, the Republican Party was founded mainly to end slavery, and for two decades it honorably promoted African-American equality. Its first presidential nominee, pioneer James C. Frémont, took a staunch anti-slavery stand in 1856 and ran well, paving the way for Abraham Lincoln's election four years later. Lincoln was no radical. He believed white men superior to blacks and opposed the outright abolition of slavery. But he wanted to stop slavery's westward expansion in the hope that it would die out—a position that won him endorsements from leading African-Americans such as Frederick Douglass and 40 percent of the overall vote, enough for victory in a four-way race.
After the Civil War, the "Radical Republicans," who oversaw the Reconstruction of the South, brought blacks into electoral politics. Blacks naturally joined the GOP rather than the white supremacist Southern Democrats. In these golden years, black Republicans got the vote and even won elective office (Mississippi elected the nation's first African-American senator in 1870). Led by the GOP, the nation ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which ended slavery and gave black men full citizenship and the franchise.
The GOP's abandonment of African-Americans commenced with the presidential election of 1876. The party had already been subordinating its agenda of black equality to that of cultivating Northern industrialists when Ohio Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, to resolve a contested election, agreed to the notorious Compromise of 1876. In exchange for their support, Hayes promised Southern Democrats to withdraw federal troops from the South and to let them treat blacks as they pleased. Almost immediately, white supremacist, or "redeemer" Democrats regained power, heralding the reign of Jim Crow. Ironically, the compromise also crippled black Republicanism, as state Republican parties, to compete for white votes, engaged in racial me-tooism, purging blacks from the party or shunting them into "Black and Tan" delegations whose legitimacy was not always recognized.
By the Progressive Era, both the Republicans and the Democrats were generally uninterested in helping African-Americans. One issue that couldn't be ignored—though the parties tried—was the horror of lynching, which had become rampant in the post-Reconstruction South. Anti-lynching laws marked the last major civil rights issue on which Republicans were out in front.
In 1920 Leonidas Dyer, a Missouri Republican from a largely black St. Louis district, introduced an anti-lynching bill, which the new Republican president, Warren Harding, endorsed. The House passed it in January 1922 (231-199, with only 17 Republicans opposing and eight Northern or border-state Democrats in support). Yet even though they controlled the Senate too, the GOP couldn't, or wouldn't, pull out the stops to pass the law. While Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts supported the bill, the powerful Idaho Republican William Borah opposed it as meddling in states' rights and helped Southern Democrats kill it. The Borah-Lodge rift foretold a schism in the GOP between Northeastern liberals and a Midwestern and Western Old Guard that would later scramble the party's racial politics.
Meanwhile, blacks were fleeing the South for Northern cities. There, the Democrats' political machines delivered services and patronage to immigrants in exchange for their votes, and Democratic bosses shrewdly absorbed blacks into their system. In contrast, Republicans missed another opportunity. Their machines (yes, they existed too) reacted coolly to black voters' demands and to black politicians' ambitions—leading many to leave the party.
The realignment crystallized under President Franklin Roosevelt. In 1932, FDR won just 23 percent of the black vote. Yet he swiftly bolstered his black support. Gestures such as consulting a "black cabinet" of unofficial African-American advisers surely helped, but more important were his economic relief programs. The Depression hit black Americans disproportionately hard, and FDR's relief programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration, gave them much-needed aid and jobs. A popular song among Depression-era blacks made it plain:
Roosevelt! You're my man!
When the time come I ain't got a cent
You buy my groceries
And pay my rent.
Mr. Roosevelt, you're my man!
In Congress, meanwhile, Northern and Western Democrats took the lead on progressive racial legislation; it was two Democratic senators who in 1934 introduced the next major anti-lynching bill. Between 1932 and 1936, writes historian Nancy J. Weiss in Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: Black Politics in the Age of FDR, "Roosevelt and the New Deal changed the voting habits of black Americans in ways that have lasted to our own time."
Some Republicans still grasped desperately for black ballots. In an ideologically divided party, liberal leaders, such as presidential nominees Wendell Willkie and Thomas Dewey, incorporated pro-civil-rights language into the platforms. But their efforts paled next to Harry Truman's. Truman, the strongest civil rights president the nation had seen, won 70 percent of the black vote in 1948 with a bold, progressive racial agenda. He supported a Fair Employment Practices Commission to fight job discrimination and desegregated the military by executive order.
By the 1950s racial liberalism in the GOP was fading fast. Dwight Eisenhower, a conservative (though not a reactionary) on race, opposed Truman on key issues. In 1945 Eisenhower testified before Congress against integrating the military, and as president he resisted reviving the FEPC. He opposed the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education, which ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. (Bowing to the inevitable, the 1956 GOP platform endorsed Brown.) Ike remarked that "you cannot change people's hearts merely by laws"—repeatedly justifying his inaction in the face of rising demands for civil rights laws.
(At last week's convention, Bush adviser Condoleezza Rice said the Alabama Republican Party of 1952 registered her father to vote when the Democrats wouldn't. That may be true, but in much of the deep South then the GOP was virtually nonexistent. In Georgia, writes the historian Taylor Branch, "Barry Goldwater had trouble drawing crowds to fill even barber shops.")
Entering the 1960 election the Democrats, behind such leaders as Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Herbert Lehman of New York, had become the unquestioned party of civil rights. Richard Nixon, who always overestimated his own popularity with blacks, still hoped to fare well—Jackie Robinson, for one, endorsed him—and he probably had a stronger civil rights record than John F. Kennedy. But JFK courted the black vote, famously phoning Martin Luther King Jr.'s wife, Coretta, when the civil rights leader was jailed. Kennedy would have commanded the black vote anyway, but the closeness of the election led analysts to mythologize the phone call as critical.
The battle over the 1964 Civil Rights Act marked the last hurrah for racial liberalism within the GOP. President Lyndon Johnson, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and the liberal Democrats decided the time was ripe to pass a bill with teeth, their Southern party-mates be damned. While the Republican leadership took a wait-and-see position, younger GOP congressmen such as New York's John Lindsay (who later became a Democrat) and Maryland's Charles Mathias worked on the bill, helping it to passage in the House over Southern opposition.
In the Senate, Southern Democrats predictably undertook a filibuster, which boded ill. Never had civil rights advocates mustered the two-thirds supermajority needed to close off debate. At first, few Republican senators were willing to vote to end the filibuster, believing strongly in states' rights. But behind the scenes Vice President Hubert Humphrey negotiated with Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois, a supporter of the bill. Humphrey claimed that he courted Dirksen as avidly as he had wooed his wife, Muriel. Dirksen promised to round up enough Republican holdouts if Humphrey would attach amendments paying lip service to state and local control. The deal was struck, and after more than two months the Senate voted 71-29 for cloture, with six Republicans joining 23 Southern Democrats in opposition (44 Democrats and 27 Republicans voted aye).
Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, the Democrat who led the opposition, said Dirksen had "killed off a rapidly growing Republican Party in the South." But Russell had it backward. Significantly, the opponents of the 1964 law included the GOP's future leaders, including Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater and Texas Senate aspirant George H.W. Bush. They knew their electoral success depended on conservative support in the South and West.
Goldwater's "Operation Dixie" in his 1964 presidential race may have meant surrendering the black vote; LBJ won 94 percent that year. But it bore fruit four years later. Richard Nixon's successful "Southern Strategy" of 1968 became the blueprint for Ronald Reagan's Southern inroads and Lee Atwater and George Bush's Willie Hortonism.
By David Greenberg