Posts Tagged ‘Elections’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The New York Times Really Does Think You’re a Moron

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Right after I talked about how the mainstream media thinks you’re stupid enough to swallow badly skewed polls, Jim Geraghty reports that the New York Times is proving my point all over again by publishing a poll with more Democrats and fewer Republicans in the sample than in 2008 exit polls.

Ohio 2008 exits: 39% Democrat, 31% Republican, 30% Independent.

Ohio New York Times/Quinnipiac 2012 sample: 35% Democrat, 26% Republican, 35% Independent.

In this sample, the partisan split is D+9 compared to D+8 four years ago, and the GOP is five percentage points smaller than in 2008.

Pennsylvania 2008 exits: 44% Democrat, 37% Republican, 18% Independent.

Pennsylvania New York Times/Quinnipiac 2012 sample: 39% Democrat, 28% Republican, 27% Independent.

Somehow a D+7 split has turned into D+11 split, and Republicans’ share of the electorate is nine percentage points less than they were four years ago.

Florida 2008 exits: 37% Democrat, 34% Republican, 29% Independent.

Florida New York Times/Quinnipiac 2012 sample: 36% Democrat, 27% Republican, 33% Independent.

Each party’s share only shifts a few percentage points, but the overall split goes from D+3 to D+9.

One again, the New York Times thinks Republicans are too stupid to figure out the con. If they’re going to be that absurdly biased, why not just cut out the middleman and poll Obama for America staffers directly?

Remember: The business model of The New York Times is to envelop liberals in a soft, warm, comforting cocoon of reassurance that their ideas and leaders are popular. You saw this in 2010, when it dangerously blinded them to the coming Republican wave until too late. The same patterns is repeating itself this year.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch | No Comments »

A Bit on Polling (or, Why the Media Thinks You’re a Moron)

Tuesday, September 25th, 2012

Remember how how incredibly tight the 1980 election was? How Ronald Reagan managed to edge Jimmy Carter at the last minute despite losing Texas and New York?

Probably not, mainly because that didn’t happen. But as Jeffrey Lord’s story makes clear, that was the narrative the New York Times was pushing most of the fall, and they had “polls” to back it up.

In the pantheon of lies, damn lies, and statistics, polls aren’t even as valid as statistics. At this point, polls by the usual MSM suspects (NYT, PPP, CBS, MS/NBC, Time, Newsweek, NPR, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, just to name a few) aren’t designed to gauge the race, they’re designed to encourage Democrats and discourage Republicans. They are, as Lord notes and Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee admitted to Ed Rollins, offering up “in kind contributions” to the Democrats.

So let’s take a brief look at the many ways in which the MSM is distorting polls for the benefit of Obama and the Democrats.

  • Dick Morris (who knows a thing or two about polling) thinks the idea that an Obama victory is in the offing is bunk. “All of the polling out there uses some variant of the 2008 election turnout as its model for weighting respondents and this overstates the Democratic vote by a huge margin.” He also notes that even the skewed polls show Obama at less than 50%, and “the undecided vote always goes against the incumbent.”
  • By one analysis, pollsters are oversampling Democrats by an average of 6.1%.
  • More evidence that the media is oversampling Democrats.
  • A technical analysis of how that dynamic applies to Pennsylvania.
  • Jay Cost notes that “polls that do a poor job of differentiating enthusiastic non-voters from enthusiastic voters are going to overestimate Obama’s margin.”

    • Every week you see the media going to bat for Obama, and every week we see more evidence of lack of enthusiasm on the part of Democrats compared to 2008. 2010 did happen, no matter how much the media would like to pretend it didn’t. The Tea Party hasn’t gone away, nor suddenly decided that they like Obama’s free-spending ways after all. The fundamentals of our ailing economy and staggering unemployment haven’t gone away either. And remember: Republicans now outnumber Democrats in party identification.

    There’s a lot better chance that this election’s results will look like 1980 than that they will look like 2008.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for September 23, 2012

    Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

    Random swarm of interesting links for your amusement and edification:

  • Just in case you didn’t notice, in Obama’s interview with Univision (where he faced much tougher questions that from America’s lapdog media), Obama pretty much admitted that he failed, because “you can’t change Washington from the inside.” Really? I’m sure that platform would have gotten you a lot of votes in 2008.
  • Nice George Will profile of Tea Party-backed Utah congressional candidate Mia Love.
  • Why Wisconsin is in play in 2012.
  • Mitt Romney donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011. Meanwhile, Obama was too busy to donate $400 so his half-brother could eat for a year.
  • Barack Obama is so awesome he can fit 18,000 people in a 5,000 seat arena.
  • In what high esteem to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid hold Obama? Take a look:

  • More Shenanigans on the Round Rock ISD board.
  • Don’t read this if you love dogs or have high blood pressure. More of that special quality of service we’ve come to expect from United Airlines.
  • Finally, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Most Embarrassing Emmy Awards Outfit of All Time:

    • Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »

    Proposed Romney Ad: Burying the American Dream

    Thursday, September 20th, 2012

    FADE IN: Long shot of funeral.

    CUT TO: Shot of Obama in a black suit standing near an open grave.

    Obama: The American Dream enjoyed over 200 years of life.

    CUT TO: Men with Obama For America t-shirts with shovels picking up dirt from a pile labeled DEFICIT SPENDING and tossing it down into the grave.

    Obama: But it’s time for us to bury it today. It’s outlived its usefulness.

    CUT TO: Several young children at the bottom of the grave, already partially buried, as dirt rains down on their heads.

    Child: Wait, we’re not dead! Stop burying us!

    CUT To: Obama.

    Obama: It was a fine dream, but we have to move on to another dream: Of a government welfare state present at every moment of every American’s lives…

    CUT TO: Men shoveling in more dirt.

    Obama: From the cradle…

    CUT TO: Children in hole.

    Obama:…to the grave.

    Children: Stop! Just give us a chance! We want our dreams too!

    CUT TO: Obama.

    Obama: Farewell American dream. It was nice while it last.

    CUT TO: Children in grave.

    Children: Stop! Stop!

    CUT TO: Long shot of funeral, as the men continue to fill the grave.

    Children: (screaming) STOOOOOOOP!

    FADE OUT

    Anyone know the best way to send this to Romney, Restore Our Future, or American Crossroads?

    Tags:, , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Elections | No Comments »

    Polling in Perspective (or: Chill)

    Monday, September 10th, 2012

    This is the time of year when the political world is awash in polls. Some otherwise sensible Republicans take a look at those polls and go “Oh my God! Obama is up by 2! Or 5! He got a big convention bounce!”

    I could wade into the murky swamps of different polling companies, different methodologies, different biases, the problem with cell phone vs. landline samples, partisan weighting screens, the comparison between citizens, registered voters and likely voters, or a dozen other variables. But I’m not going to.

    Instead, one piece of advice, and one explanation.

    The advice: Chill.

    The explanation: Barack Obama was elected in 2008 with 52.9% of the popular vote to 45.7% for John McCain, the best popular vote margin of any Democratic Presidential contender since Lyndon Baines Johnson captured 61.1% of the vote in 1964. (People forget that Bill Clinton, for all his retrospective popularity, never broke 50% of the popular vote; Al Gore got 48.4% of the vote while losing in the electoral college in 2000.) Ignoring (for now) the electoral college and minor changes in the composition of voters, that means only 4% of the people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 need to switch their vote for Mitt Romney to win.

    Do you think Obama might be 4% less popular than he was four years ago? Perhaps among those who have lost their jobs? There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Obama is less popular than he was four years ago, his inability to fill campaign events the way he used to being one, and numerous elected Democrats in tough reelection fights avoiding the DNC being another. So who are you going to believe: MSM polls or your lying eyes?

    The media is desperately trying to pretend that 2010 never happened, or that it was an aberration.

    The polls are part of the media trying desperately to maintain what Instapundit Glenn Reynolds calls “preference falsification,” a willingness on the part of the political and media establishment to manufacture a false consensus that (in this case) liberal policies and politicians are popular. When it comes to the current election, the question might be most crassly boiled down to “Do you support Obama, or are you a racist?” In 2010 and now we’re finally seeing a “preference cascade” of people unwilling to buy that liberal narrative. The walls are finally coming down.

    Which is not to say the election is in the bag for Romney. There’s still a lot of hard work to be done, and a lot of work to make sure Republicans and anti-Obama independents get to the polls, especially in swing states. But there’s no reason to get worked up over each and every little poll. Time is not on Obama’s side.

    Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Economics, Elections, Media Watch | No Comments »

    Today’s Award for Most Delusion Democratic Optimism…

    Thursday, September 6th, 2012

    …goes to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee for predicting that Texas will turn into a Democratic blue state “as early as 2014.”

    Yeah, right.

    Maybe you should, oh, I don’t know, elect a single statewide office-holder before asserting that Texas is turning blue…

    Tags:, , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »

    Dewhurst Running for Re-Election Again in 2014

    Thursday, August 30th, 2012

    David Dewhurst says he’s running for reelection as Lt. Governor in 2014. This puts him on collision course with Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who also announced he’s running for the office some ten minutes after Dewhurst conceded the Senate race.

    Can Patterson take Dewhurst? Hard to say. The Senate race defeat proved he’s vulnerable when faced with the right candidate, but Dewhurst will start off with a considerable fundraising advantage, and big donors may be more fearful of backing Patterson knowing that Dewhurst will control the state legislative agenda for the next two years. But if Dewhurst makes the same mistakes he did in the Senate race, and the Tea Party backs Patterson as strongly as they did Cruz, then yes, Dewhurst could lose. But neither of those is a given.

    What made Dewhurst decide to run again? Well, maybe Rick Perry saying he’s he’s likely to run for Governor again had something to do with it…

    Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Ted Cruz’s RNC Speech

    Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

    If you couldn’t catch Ted Cruz’s RNC Speech, here it is:

    Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas, video | No Comments »

    Will Kinky Friedman Run for Governor Again? Will Rick Perry?

    Thursday, August 9th, 2012

    Word is he’s considering a run in 2014.

    Could Kinky get nominated? Sure. You saw how little effort it took to run as a Democratic statewide for the Senate, and Kinky starts off with greater name recognition than any of the Dems in that race. There’s little indication any prominent Democrat wants to go through the meat-grinder of a statewide race (though if I were to guess, trial lawyer Jason A. Gibson, who launched an abortive Senate bid before Sadler got stamped with the union label, might make a run). Kinky’s probably to the right of the Democratic primary electorate, but I don’t see anyone with his name recognition talking about a run.

    Could Kinky do better than he did in 2006? Sure. Kinky only got 12.5% of the vote, coming in fourth. Even Democrat Chris Bell did better in that four-way race, pulling in just shy of 30% of the vote. That’s probably his absolute floor if he gets the Democratic nomination, and it’s probably closer to 40%.

    Could Kinky win? Doubtful, but not impossible. Save for 2006, Democratic gubernatorial candidates have pulled in between 40% (Tony Sanchez) and 42% (Bill White) of the vote against Rick Perry. Perry clearly damaged his popularity with the missteps of his abortive Presidential run (and, to a lesser extent, his endorsement of David Dewhurst’s failed senatorial campaign), though probably not enough to lose to Kinky (or any other Democrat), assuming he runs again. But two years is a long time, both good and bad. Perry has time to recover, but also to make a catastrophic error or fumble a crisis. And while it’s not nearly as widespread as the MSM would like you to believe, there is a certain amount of Perry fatigue among even Republican voters. Perry’s already the longest serving Governor in Texas history, having replaced George W. Bush on December 21, 2000. That’s an awful long time for anyone to be in the same office, and there are plenty of people ready to make the argument that it’s too long.

    Will Rick Perry run again in 2014? Answer cloudy, ask again later. Maybe even Perry doesn’t know yet. Word is that Attorney General Greg Abbott is itching for the office, and may run even if Perry doesn’t opt to retire. If I had to guess, I think it’s slightly more likely that Perry retires than that he runs again. He has nothing left to prove at a statewide level. Dewhurst’s implosion proved that even the most well-heeled Texas incumbents are vulnerable to a challenge from the right. Perry has very little to gain and much to lose from hanging on, and a Perry-Abbott race would be a brutal smackdown that could go either way. It would probably be in Perry’s best interest to assume that Texas A&M Presidency rumor has the diehard Aggie angling for as his post-gubernatorial sinecure, and possibly contemplate another Presidential run at the end of Romney’s second term. But Perry would hardly be the first politician to stay in office too long.

    Another gubernatorial run might not be good for Kinky, but it would be be good for the Texas Democratic Party, which resembles a moldy thing in a jar more than a viable alternative. Kinky might (might) even be able to shake off the stultifying far-left political correctness that has rendered the party uncompetitive in statewide races.

    It would also be good for the Republican Party of Texas; once you get past the Tea Party, there’s no one left to keep them honest.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »

    Dispatches from the Ted Cruz Victory Lap

    Monday, August 6th, 2012

    The echos from Ted Cruz’s victory over Dewhurst are still echoing not only around the state, but the nation as well. Here’s just a small sampling of the most important reactions:

  • Cruz’s victory is a wakeup call for the establishment.

    “It’s difficult to overstate the achievement of Cruz beating Dewhurst,” said Democratic strategist Harold Cook of Austin. “That Cruz won amplifies the extent to which tea partiers are at war with establishment Republicans, and at the moment, winning it.”

  • Jonah Goldberg looks at the Cruz campaign and sees an end to boring white guy candidates. Emphasis on the “boring.”
  • Cruz was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News:

  • National Review covered his Fox News appearance.
  • The Hill takes notice as well.
  • Forbes gets it: “We’re tired of the big-spending compromises!”
  • Michael Barone on the MSM failing to credit the Tea Party in Cruz’s victory. Dunno, maybe out of state, but I saw a lot of Tea Party mentions from Texas outlets.
  • Cruz gives Romney a hand in pushing back on Obama’s “you didn’t build that” gaffe.
  • Cruz isn’t the only conservative Hispanic Republican winning big these days.
  • The Houston Chronicle interviews Vincent Harris, the head of Cruz’s social media team.
  • This bland “Hispanics are our future” thumbsucker does have one standout line that deserves repeating: Cruz’s victory demonstrated that “Texas Republicans are more interested in conservative ideals than in ethnicity.”
  • A Democratic analyst’s look at Cruz’s victory. Don’t agree with it 100%, but it’s focused on technical analysis and free of liberal bile (unlike the column of certain former Texas Agricultural Commissioner I’m not linking to).

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas, video | No Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »