Democracy In Distress

Farewell, Snip.it (& thanks!)

2013-01-23T12:52:00.001-08:00

So, Snip.it was bought by Yahoo and is being shut down. They've put together a "Hall of Fame" of contributors and I was named as one of the top contributors in the "Politics & World" category...

From an email I received from their Content Director:

I want to personally thank you for all your amazing contributions to the product, both in your snips and in your feedback to us. I’ve been continually impressed by all the interesting, unique content you’ve unearthed, as well as your thoughtful commentary on it. The quality of your contributions made the site an absolute joy to browse.
To honor all of your support and contributions, we’ve included you in our Snip.it Hall of Fame, a place to celebrate our top snippers. We’ve included your Twitter handle, so people can continue to follow your insights.

https://snip.it/awards

We've also created a Snip.it Hall of Fame, where we’re honoring some of the top contributors to the Snip.it community. We’ve included their Twitter handles so you can continue to stay connected and follow their insights.

I joined Snip.it while it was still in beta and have posted to it more days than not since then. They’ve been cool, it’s a great service, and their staff has been very supportive. From nearly the beginning, they featured my content, which I was pretty proud of, and I seem to have attracted quite a few followers there.

Supposedly, they will be reinventing themselves with Yahoo. I hope so. They were a great service.

https://snip.it/

We are thrilled at the opportunity to bring Snip.it's vision to a larger scale at Yahoo!. While we can't share the specifics of what we'll be building, we are excited about the opportunity to take social news to new, exciting heights at Yahoo!. The Yahoo! team is passionate about inspiring and entertaining the world’s daily habits, and certainly sharing news and information is something we all do every day. The vision and energy at the company is contagious, and we’re so excited to be part of all that is to come.

So now, I just need to figure out what to do with the links I’ve saved there. There are a couple ways to download them for future use, and I’ll be taking a look at how to get these back out there, when I have a little time…

I just deleted the Snip It button from my browser. That makes me sad.

Unfortunately, in life, with both the good and the bad, “This, too, shall pass…”

My Collections: HTML Links

Snip.it: All My Base Belong To You - HTML Links
Snip.it: Democracy In Distress - HTML Links
Snip.it: Favorites
Snip.it: Retrovirus Lab - HTML Links
Snip.it: Rubble - HTML Links
Snip.it: Suburban Eschatology Part Two - HTML Links

Yahoo Is In Talks To Buy A Site We Actually Use, Snip.It

Snip.It is a social site that resembles a mash up of Pinterest's collections and Instapaper's ability to save links for consumption later.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-acquires-snipit-2013-1#ixzz2IoskdMnR

Yahoo Poised to Acquire Content Curation Site Snip.it - Liz Gannes - News - AllThingsD:

Snip.it was founded by Ramy Adeeb, who was formerly a principal at Khosla Ventures, and has funding from Khosla, True Ventures, Charles River Ventures and SV Angel.
Yahoo is paying “mid teens” of millions of dollars for the company, according to a source.

…

Kara Swisher yesterday described Yahoo’s new approach to content:

While one might argue that Google is already the Google of content, the plan is to make Yahoo more relevant by tailoring it to the individual and make the site a “trusted destination to get them to where they want to go and keep going back.”
Thus, the thinking goes, while Google is the place people come to search for links, Yahoo then becomes the place users come to find content. That means more partnership deals from third-party sources, with an additional social component layer and synced across a number of devices and platforms, especially video.

from tag Litt

from tag New

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Senate Less Broken Than News Media

2013-01-04T08:48:00.001-08:00

This is such an important clip. The meat and bones is a couple minutes in, but beyond the confirmations finally being passed, O’Donnell words on how the media covers the “narrative” of the Senate versus the truth of how the institution actually works are just dead on.

Really, the news media is much more broken than the Senate, and that is saying quite a bit. Unfortunately, it also contributes quite a bit to what is broken in our government these days.

This first clip is from the end of the segment, and is the most important part. The entire clip, covering Reid and, it is important to note, McConnell’s actions on New Year’s Day is also worth watching and at the bottom of the post.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

VIA I love it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is President on Facebook:

No vacation for Harry Reid in the Senate...

"That may look boring to you, but that's the most exciting moment in Senate history..." (for someone appointed by Obama - who can't get anyone confirmed in a grid-locked Senate.)

~Lawrence O'Donnell, on watching the C-Span video of Reid reading the list of nomination bills. O'donnell is apparently the ONLY one other than the C-SPAN live coverage to even mention this phenomenal accomplishment! ~m

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

from tag Win

from tag Media

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One Day On Earth: 12.12.12… So it begins

2012-12-09T14:39:00.001-08:00

Pretty much the same post I threw up in late October about NaNoWriMo 2012.

Between working on this project and finishing the NaNoWriMo novel (I did get over 50,000 words in during November to “win” the event), I won’t be posting much on the blogs until 2013.

I wanted to do something quick and easy for One Day since the more complex idea a friend and I had will be impossible, since I am in Sacramento and not Portland, but things happen and after doing some planning and discovering that there is a theme for this years event, my idea for this year will be pretty complicated to edit.

Of course, I won’t be filming until Wednesday 12.12.12, but before then there is some prep work, and after there is going to be a whole bunch of editing. And a whole bunch of writing on the novel. And a whole bunch of major life stuff.

So the blogs will remain on hold for the time being.

Yes, this is being reposted everywhere…

One Day on Earth - Film on 12.12.12 from One Day on Earth on Vimeo.

One Day On Earth - 11-11-11 - Gresham and Portland, Oregon (720p) from A. F. Litt on Vimeo.

http://www.onedayonearth.org

from tag NaNoWriMo

from tag Earth

(more..)

2012 Election: Lazy thoughts on the morning after…

2012-11-07T10:34:00.001-08:00

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president

I could have slept for another hour, but laying in bed, listening to NPR, my head kept filling with sleepy thoughts about yesterday so I decided to jot them down…

Florida. You’re Fired.

Florida… You are just like every woman I’ve known from Miami. Crazy and sexy. And crazy. And, did I mention, because I want to be very clear about this, crazy.

But still damn sexy.

Good job America. Probably a wise idea not to invite Florida to the party this year. Yeah, they look way hot, but then they show up, get all sloppy, make out with the wrong guy, pass out, and stay too late.

Sometimes, at their worst, you get up the next day and find them still passed out on your carpet for the twenty plus mornings...

And she’s still sexy all down there on the floor like that. Must have something to do with all that crazy.

I think both parties now have had enough of Florida and will pretty much not playing there any more. There are other, more solid and predictable ways to win an election that getting caught in the swamp down there.

Speeches

Good speeches from everyone. Blown away by Obama's. Sure, it was more enthusiasm than content but its his night and it rocked. There will be time for nuts and bolts later. Romney seemed to come in a little later than he should have, but from what I understand, part of this might have been because he had not prepared a concession speech.

I am also sure they were taking a real close look at Florida and Ohio, but after Virginia went blue, all hope was lost.

Apparently they had ground teams of lawyers ready to go in Ohio and Florida and a third team ready to pounce on a third state, but Obama’s lead was significant enough in enough states that it was clear that there would be no legal recourse that could snatch a victory from the ashes.

For the most part, though, I think we were all surprised by how early this was called last night. I was amazed when CBS, our choice for the evening, called it around 8:30 our time. I was guessing it would be around 10 pm our time before this happened. Not the first blown call of mine about yesterday.

I think this is why it took so long for both candidates to make it to the stage last night.

Red States Vs. Blue States

From here on out in presidential elections, I am feeling like we have some new blue states. This was a partisan election and there really was little in the way of swing. The Democrats won because they ran the better campaign, especially when it came to local organization. Turn out was the deciding factor, and the Democrats won yesterday.

It is hard to tell and I am sure it will be close in these “swing” states next time around as well, but I think the blue state club is getting a little bigger.

This is going to be tough for the GOP the next time out. Earlier I wrote about not inviting Florida to the party any more, but the GOP may have little choice. It may be the only true big swing state left.

Though this is not entirely true. In an election that is less closely contested, there is some room for swing. But three out of the last four presidential elections have been partisan elections without a breakout front runner going into election day, and let’s remember, 2008 was pretty close too with McCain not completely out of the game as America headed out to the polls.

Nate Silver

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/live-blog-the-2012-presidential-election/

I was wrong to ever doubt you, man. Whoa. He called this one. Nailed it. Still not sure about Florida, but he only put the odds of an Obama victory there at a little over 50%, so either way, I’d say he picked 50 out of 50 this year.

On the right are his last predictions from election day morning.

Election Coverage

I stuck with CBS last night because it came in on our rabbit ears and the other option, ABC, kept cutting over to the local election coverage which, quite frankly, bored the heck out of me. Plus, the ABC team was awful. Diane Sawyer, off script? Oh my. My head hurts.

CBS seemed a little better.

But, really, what just strikes me is how so many people were surprised by the results last night.

These days everyone is looking for a narrative thread in their reporting. They are focused on telling stories, not on reporting the facts.

So we had the narrative of Romney’s “momentum.” This was fueled by the GOP talking heads trying to sell the story, which was never really backed up in the polls, and the media buying it.

Looking for facts to maintain this narrative arc, too much attention was put on the national polls, which have been worthless since the 2000 election.

Sure, those polls are an interesting piece of the puzzle, but they are a small piece. But it was the piece that supported the narrative so they were given too much weight by the press going in.

Yesterday, glancing around most of the national news websites, the screaming headlines were that the race was too close to call and that anything could happen on election night. Of course, if you drilled down a bit- quite a bit- it became clear that Obama pretty much wrapped this one up about ten days ago and had only been increasing his lead since then, around the time I made my first prediction.

So the media narrative last night concluded with Obama smashing through with an unexpectedly large victory in the electoral college, either coming from behind for a decisive 4th quarter victory, or breaking away from a tied game in the final seconds.

However, the facts never supported these narratives. And, once upon a time, it was the press’ job to tell us the facts to the best of their ability, not to construct narrative arcs for us.

So 2012 is a big media fail in my book. Not quite “Dewey Defeats Truman”, but close.

The real story of this election is the validation of modeling systems such as Nate Silver’s. There were a number of intangibles heading into this election day and those of us following this part of the story through the last days of the campaign were all second guessing whether these models really considered and accounted for all of the “intangibles”.

I, myself, tried to “correct” Nate’s numbers with my own assumptions about over and under polling and turn out. I did call that the GOP would have a harder time getting out their base, but I missed that the Democrats would do even better than they did in 2008 in getting the blue base out.

In the raw polls, in most states, there was an underperforming candidate, and it was Obama.

This the big story and surprise this morning. Not that the President won the states he won, but the margins by which he won them.

Now, the right wing media… Wow. If the mainstream media failed to mention that Obama pretty much had the election locked up, well, the right was going not only with a Romney win but some were even going all the way to Romney landslide.

Were these people stupid? No. Well, some of them, but not all of them. I’ve said it before, this was the only play left in the game book. 1% or 2% will just vote for who they think will win. Those are votes you want. If Obama lost, I would be bashing them this morning for NOT playing this card. They might have been able to run the numbers up a little more if they had.

It is also about the base. If our guy is going down, it is hard to get the motivation to go stand in line for minutes to hours to vote. Hell, if you’re like me, sometimes its even hard to get the ballot in the mailbox, even when you are fired up! But when you are already demoralized?

So this was pretty much a calculated move to get their base up out of their lazy boys. Be a part of something big!

What shocks me is that it looks like a lot of people who should have known better fell for it. Including, it appears, Romney himself. I think he really expected to win last night. Maybe not by a lot, but by enough.

I know not everyone at the top level of his campaign felt this way or else he wouldn’t have been wasting time and treasure in Pennsylvania the last few days. That was a pure desperation move, born from irretrievably losing Ohio in the final days.

A lot of his supporters drank the kool-aid. The buzz I’ve seen from the other side is not, shucks, we lost a close one but, rather, “What the hell happened? We were supposed to win.”

The word Mandate is as meaningless as the word Momentum

Kudos, so far, to the Dems for not going here, but I am hearing a lot of talking heads trying to use the word mandate this morning. In 2004, the GOP was using this word after winning one of the narrowest presidential victories of the last 50 years, but since it was a larger margin than they had in 2000, they took a swing at claiming a mandate and got a little traction in the press for their efforts.

This year, since Obama won by a narrower margin than 2008, every one is saying that there is no mandate… Okay. I won’t argue.

Because it is a meaningless word.

There are many factors that will determine the level of bipartisanship through the next congressional term. The president’s margin of victory was never going to be one of them. Mostly, because of historical patterns, the GOP should know that they do not have the luxury of being a do nothing congress heading into 2014.

It will be a repeat of 2010 unless they do something. Anything. And since they are stuck with Obama for two years past 2014, they should be aware enough to know that he holds all the cards now.

And it has nothing to do with 2012 margins.

Zombie Parties

During the 1980s, the Democratic Party was declared dead. In the 1990s, the Republican party was declared dead. In the aughts, the Democratic Party was declared dead. In the teens, starting last night, I’ve been hearing, guess it, guess it…

No party is dead. Yes, the Democrats have figured out how to win presidential elections, I will give them this. This is the first knock down, drag out, get your base to the polls or you are going to lose partisan election that they have won in a very long time, perhaps in my lifetime, and it is good to see. It is healthy.

And I think the GOP needs to solve it’s little Tea Party problem before it can get back in that game.

But they are not dead. Like I said, I think we’ve got a couple new blue states in the presidential elections. This is a story really told when you look at the county by county red v. blue maps. But it does not mean that the GOP is out “for a generation” as people are always saying about one party or another.

The House

The flip side is the House. A true sign of how close this election really was is the House races. It took everything, EVERYTHING, the Dems had to hang onto the presidency and there was not much left for the House.

I really think if more effort had been put into it, they could have taken the House this year. But it took so much effort to keep Obama in office that there was nothing left.

I know, myself, I barely paid any attention to the Congressional races this year. Partly that is due to the fact that I live in a solidly blue district where our incumbent usually only has token competition from year to year, but it is also because everyone was working so hard on the presidential campaign that we just didn’t have much left for the House this year.

2014? That is a different story. If the new Democrat machine targets the house, it is theirs, unless the Republican caucus really makes some big strategic changes over the next two years. If they do, then they might actually hang on to it. The ball is very much in their hands.

I think the GOP will start working with Obama. They’ll have to if they want to survive in the House.

Up through last night the GOP caucus has been saying they want to negotiate with Obama, but their definition of negotiate is, “Give us what we want, exactly as we want it, or we will say you are playing partisan politics and shred you in the next election.”

We’ll see if the current crop of Reps is smart enough to figure out that this game is played out. They will need to change strategies or they are going down hard in the midterms.

When functioning well, I actually think having some party splits between the executive and legislative branches of government can be a healthy thing. When it works, it works by getting the best ideas through from each party, and blocking the more sketchy ideas. But what we’ve had for awhile, coming to a head with the current Congress, is far from that. There is nothing healthy about the state of Congress right now at all.

Can they change? That is the real question. They may not be able to unless the entire Republican Party grows a pair and quits being held hostage by the Tea Party. It cost them the presidency this year and will cost them the House in 2014 unless the party grown ups man up and take a stand for sanity.

Post-Election Silence

I’m not going away permanently, but now that the election is over, I’ll be posting to this blog on a much less frequent basis. I’ll still be checking in from time to time, but probably not much until December.

Finally, now that this long national debate is over, I can focus on writing the NaNoWriMo novel that I should have been working on this morning instead of writing this post!

This blog has been around since 2004, though. Sometimes I drift away, but I always come back, eventually.

I Love This Speech

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/06/us/politics/06-obama-election-night-speech.html

from tag Vote

Democracy In Distress: 2012 Election: Electoral Prediction Revised

from tag Win

from tag Obama

(more..)

2012 Election: Yes, I Did!

2012-11-06T11:00:00.001-08:00

Yes, I did.

How we do it in Oregon! (Well, if we didn't mail the damned thing weeks ago)

Beware: Posting a Picture of Your Marked Ballot to Facebook May Be Illegal - Rebecca J. Rosen - The Atlantic:

Want to share your vote with the world? Don't do it by photo unless you are sure of the laws in your state.

Here's to a little civil disobedience!

These laws are important in polling places, where showing a filled out ballot to another person can be seen as campaigning or even voter intimidation. Taking a picture of a ballot at home? Harmless.

PS: This fellow lost last night. Seems like a fine person, but there were some concerns that he’s be messing with voting rights.

from tag Obama

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2012 Election: Electoral Prediction Revised

2012-11-04T11:13:00.001-08:00

Okay… I am revising my predictions for Tuesday. Slightly. I will point out that my electoral count has not changed much since my first prediction, but I think I have a better view as to how we will arrive there.

On the right are Nate Silver’s current predictions. He’s using math. I am using his math, a couple different poll averages, and then spinning it through my gut.

When I made my first prediction, it looked like Colorado was more likely to go Obama than Virginia. Today, I thought about flip flopping those two states. However, they are both close enough that I am actually going to toss both of them over to Romney right now.

If I was running the Obama campaign, does this mean that I’d concede these states and refocus the spending on other states? Oh hell no. In fact, Nate Silver has both Colorado and Virginia going blue on Tuesday night, but I don’t like the odds he has on Colorado and, well, Virginia is Virginia. They might not have a working telephone when the pollsters call, but they will probably vote, so I want a big margin there before I go blue with Virginia. Yes, Obama has made gains there since I made my prediction. Not enough for me to turn it blue, though.

So, Ohio. Well… I still am nervous about Ohio. Flip this red and, with my other updates, we’ve got President Romney.

I am, however, cautiously accepting conventional wisdom today and turning it blue. I think Obama is pulling ahead just enough now for me to lay to rest my immediate fear about, um, intangible and unpredictable factors in Ohio affecting the outcome on Tuesday.

One major factor in all of my predictions? Romney out performing the polls by 1% to 3%, depending on the state. This is why I’ve also tossed New Hampshire to Romney. This is a really close call for me. My gut does lean towards Obama here, he does have a 2% lead in the poll average (1.5% on RCP) and Nate has it with a 79.4% chance of an Obama win here, but it is just not enough for me. This is a state where I want to see Obama leading by 3% in all the averages and Nate showing at least an 80%. I hope to be wrong here, but I am being very conservative in my predictions.

So, looking at the vote totals, I am still pretty close to my original prediction. In fact, I almost let my original map stand, since it did have the caveat that it was more about predicting the vote totals rather than how we get there in two nights and I wasn’t sure that a 5 vote change in my prediction was enough to warrant a second post.

But there were enough changes in my state by state predictions, I felt, to justify taking a little time to revise my map.

It is a tight race. Not as tight as many in the media would have you think, but a little tighter than many pollsters and pundits are predicting right now, I think. I still think Obama getting close to or more than 300 voted is pretty unlikely. However, I think his re-election is pretty likely.

I think this is it. I no longer see any new factors having time to gain enough traction between this morning and Tuesday morning to significantly change my predictions. Of course, Romney may be discovered to have a second, third, and fourth wives or being a paid operative of the Chinese government and Obama may reveal himself to be the Anti-Christ, but really?

I think all of the cards are on the table now and even Sandy, well… Obama has at least a 10 point lead in the states the most affected by the storm, so while changes in margins there are possible due to the devastation, I do not think they will be enough to change the outcome in those states.

Popular Vote: Too Close To Predict

As for the popular vote? I’ll revise that to being a coin toss. I am changing my prediction of a Romney victory there to a too close to call prediction right now. Edge to Obama, perhaps, but I won’t put my money on that bet either way right now.

Previous Prediction

2012 Election: Polls & Predictions… A narrow and divided victory for Obama?
Election 2012: Ohio for Romney? Really?

from tag Polls

from tag Romney

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Election 2012: Ohio for Romney? Really?

2012-10-27T14:01:00.001-07:00

Yes. I am sticking to my map. Some disagree with predicting that Ohio will go for Romney. Here is a closer look at that...

Honestly, fear of fraud is one reason I put Ohio in the red.

The second reason is that I am not confident that Obama will sweep the toss up states, and this is a way to show that one of the worst possibilities for Obama would still lead to a narrow victory, more a case playing with the vote numbers than actually predicting which specific states will break red or blue...

But the main reason? I am having a lot of flashbacks to Ohio in 2004 right now.

Here are the pre-election polls for 2004 in Ohio:

D.C. Political Report: Slight Republican
Associated Press: Toss Up
CNN: Kerry
Cook Political Report: Toss Up
Newsweek: Toss Up
New York Times: Toss Up
Rasmussen Reports: Toss Up
Research 2000: Toss Up
Washington Post: Battleground
Washington Times: Battleground
Zogby International: Tied
Washington Dispatch: Kerry

I think Ohio is harder to call than a lot of states due to its demographics and mix of urban and rural areas.

I really hope that it goes to Obama, that would make this election a slam dunk for him. But, I am not ready to bet on it.

I am pretty sure this is why a lot of other people are not ready to call Ohio one way or the other yet, also, even though it is leaning Obama, just as it was leaning Kerry in 2004.

United States presidential election in Ohio, 2004 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Pre-election polling showed a lot of volatility throughout the general election. In September, Bush was gaining momentum here reaching over 50% in several polls and even reaching double digit margins in some.
But in October, Kerry gained back momentum as he started winning many of the polls, leading between 48% to as high as 50%. The last 3 polls averaged Kerry leading 49% to 48%.

from tag Voting

Democracy In Distress: Putin, Clinton, & Bush… Oh my! The current, dynastic period of American history

from tag 2004

Democracy In Distress: How Mitt Romney will win tonight’s debate

from tag Kerry

from tag History

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2012 Election: Polls & Predictions… A narrow and divided victory for Obama?

2012-10-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

It’s getting close to the end now and I am starting to get some gut feelings about this one. Still, overall, I wouldn’t be surprised by either outcome in the presidential race. However, I would be slightly less surprised if Obama won.

November 6 is going to be an interesting night.

Game Changers

A little over a week out… Is it too late for any game changers?

Probably, but a few things do come to mind. First, Florida looks like it is tightening up again. If it tilts blue, done. Early night a week from Tuesday and we all get a good night’s sleep.

Also, as we get a little closer, there is always the possibility that the press starts paying more attention to the fact that it is really going to be tough for Romney to win the Electoral Vote unless the polls are as far off as Dewey / Truman in 1948. If the media starts talking about Obama’s Electoral Vote Firewall instead of Romney’s questionable momentum (basically manufactured by GOP talking heads, not recent polls), then this could break more in Obama’s direction.

Why? Because 1% to 2% of these idiotic, undecided swing voters are going to vote for whoever is in the lead because they want to vote for the winner. Usually this segment is small enough that it does not effect the outcome of the election, but in super tight races? Who knows? Usually when super tight races head into election day, they are too close to call and these folks stay home. But if Obama is looking solid heading into election day, these folks might show up and vote for him, increasing his possible margin of victory.

Hell, they might even win Obama the popular vote, but more on that later.

Another possibility, especially if the press starts giving more time to Obama’s Electoral Vote advantages… Romney starts making some last minute, desperate Hail Mary swings through the silly zone. When this guy goes big, he starts getting strange.

At this point, though, can any further goofy headlines effect Romney? Who knows? But if he is feeling desperate, we may see some interesting moments a la John McCain’s “See, I’m Not To Old To Be President” marathon bus tour on the eve of the election.

Most likely… I predict we might see things firming up a little bit more for Obama in the state by state races, but I think we are pretty much heading into the popular vote within the margin of error, therefore tied.

So yes. I am going ahead and posting my predictions for November 6.

I reserve the right to change my mind later if something crazy happens.

Numbers & Predictions: All Hail Nate Silver

First of all… Let’s jam through the who’s, what’s, and what’s everyone saying…

Five Thirty Eight: Nate Silver's Political Calculus: Oct. 25: The State of the States - NYTimes.com:

Thursday was a busy day for the polls, with some bright spots for each candidate. But it made clear that Barack Obama maintains a narrow lead in the polling averages in states that would get him to 270 electoral votes. Mr. Obama also remains roughly tied in the polls in two other states, Colorado and Virginia, that could serve as second lines of defense for him if he were to lose a state like Ohio.
The day featured the release of 10 national polls, but there was little in the way of a consistent pattern in them.

Nate Silver's Newest Prediction: 73% Obama!:

Although the race is still close in several swing states, statistical guru Nate Silver’s newest prediction is 73.1% Obama to 26.9% Romney

Nate Silver’s track record on election predictions is pretty solid, so much so that the GOP is going after him, apparently.

Republicans Desperate to Spin Romney as the Front-Runner Are Becoming 'Nate Silver Truthers' | Alternet:

…in recent days, the Romney-Ryan campaign has claimed that it's moving ahead. As Jonathan Chait noted, “This is a bluff. Romney is carefully attempting to project an atmosphere of momentum, in the hopes of winning positive media coverage and, thus, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Despite zero evidence that Romney has made any gains since receiving a healthy bounce from the first debate, reporters appear to be buying it, with a raft of lazy stories about Mitt Romney's supposed “momentum.”
A significant problem for conservatives bent on spinning this alternate reality is New York Times ' polling guru Nate Silver and his 538 forecast model, which called 49 out of 50 states accurately in 2008 and is considered the industry's gold standard (the model also pretty much nailed the 2010 mid-terms).

Yeah, don’t even get me started on the “raft of lazy stories about Mitt Romney's supposed ‘momentum.’” I called that one back before the first debate.

Democracy In Distress: How Mitt Romney will win the first debate:

…what happens next really depends on media spin. Not the partisan talking heads, but the producers, writers, editors, reporters and directors out there.
The media wants a story to tell. If the election is pretty much settled a month out, that leaves four weeks of dead air time… Which they will fill by trying to create the feeling that the race is much closer than it really is. The problem? People will start believing it, and everyone loves a come from behind underdog, right?

Sorry, got distracted there for a second. The press is dead to me and I mourn them from time to time…

Numbers & Predictions: Nate Silver vs. My Gut

So, Nate’s current prediction...

This map brings the Electoral Vote in with Obama winning 303 to 235. Even if he only calls 49 out of 50, it is a happy night for Team Obama.

Unless, of course, Nate blows the Ohio call for Obama.

Oh. Oops. Sorry, that was the conventional wisdom I’ve been hearing from press outlets hungry for a story.

If only one of Nate’s Obama states go for Romney instead, pulling off the 49 out of 50 prediction from 2008, then Obama still wins “easily.”

Colorado, Virginia, and Ohio pretty much ALL have to shift over to Romney for the U.S. to elect its first Mormon president with a final electoral count of 275 Romney to 263 Obama. (P.S. I have no problem with a Mormon President and, I fear, that might be the coolest thing about a Romney Administration…)

Of course, there are other paths to 270 for Romney, but this would be the most likely.

There are also a couple paths that lead to the House of Representatives deciding this one. Even more unlikely than a Romney presidency, but more likely than in most elections.

Nate’s calling this for Obama with a pretty big margin in the Electoral Vote and a bigger margin in the Popular Vote than I am comfortable with right now.

I think it’s going to be closer. How much closer? 2000 close?

I hope not. But my Electoral College prediction looks frightenly similar to the 2000 numbers.

My Prediction for the Electoral Vote: Obama Wins, 272 to 266

Right now, my personal prediction looks a lot tighter than Nate’s.

This is the tightest it can be with Obama still coming out on top. Right now, too many things have to break Romney’s way for him to win, in too many states that are leaning blue. However, unlike Nate Silver, I do not see Obama sweeping all of the “tied” states right now. This is my worst case scenario for an Obama victory, but I do not think Obama will break 300, though as of now I think he will get 270.

And I am worried enough about shenanigans in Ohio that I am tossing the state to Romney in my prediction.

Obama-Romney Race May Hinge on 2 Ohio Counties | RealClearPolitics:

If the race for president can be boiled down to two key counties in one key state, then those jurisdictions are Hamilton and Cuyahoga, here in the Buckeye State.

And, as Dan Rather put it on election night in 2000, "This race is tight like a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach."

My Prediction for the Popular Vote: Mitt Romney Wins

As for the popular vote, unless some of the game changers I mentioned above occur, I am predicting that Romney will win the popular vote. Yeah, I know Nate went with Obama. But I don’t.

I don’t like or trust CNN polling this year. I think they are swinging towards Romney where possible and I believe that they are holding back on making some pretty solid calls on the electoral map just to keep viewers interested and watching, but I do feel like Romney has a slightly insurmountable lead in the COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS national polls.

However, CNN is not the only one showing Romney holding steady in the national polls.

The polls are pretty much all over the place, but with Obama only leading in three of eleven and tied in one other, I think it is looking pretty bad for Obama in the popular vote. But, as I said earlier, it doesn’t matter. Even if we all slept through our civics classes back in junior high, everyone should be real clear on this after the 2000 election - the national popular vote decides nothing.

This Day In History

So, how does this year compare to years past…

2000 was all over the place, a lot like this year. Below is a link to 10 different polls from this date in 2000.

Bush led in 8 out of 10 polls by margins ranging from 2% to 7%. Gore led in two polls, by 2% and 3%.

However, the most interesting numbers in these polls come from the swing between Likely Voters and Registered Voters in Newsweek’s poll.

Bush Gains Back Lead in CNN Poll; Gore Maintains Zogby Poll Lead:

Thursday, Oct. 26, 2000
NewsWeek – likely voters (Oct. 18-20)

Bush 48%
Gore 41%

NewsWeek – all registered voters (Oct. 18-20)

Gore 45%
Bush 42%

If this year’s election is still up for grabs, then I predict it will be decided by which side gets their base out and by which side can motivate swing voters leaning in their direction to actually show up and vote.

This could be a real problem for both sides. Obama’s base is somewhat dissatisfied with him not living up to the superhuman expectations built up in 2008, and Romney’s party actually thought about going with winners like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum before giving into the inevitable and nominating the only candidate that had with a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Obama.

When it comes down to it, I think the advantage here goes to Romney. I think the far right’s hatred of Obama will overcome their ambivalence about Romney. And I don’t think the far left has a motivational force of that caliber working on its side this time around, though the “rape is a gift from God” stories couldn’t have hit at a worse time for the GOP. But it is probably not enough to balance out the Obama hatred.

However, will that be enough to beat Obama? Probably not. In 2004, the far left had this hatred for the GOP candidate working on their side. They also had their own version of Romney in John Kerry. It was a close election, it came down to Ohio, there might even have been a few shenanigans in Ohio, but not enough to make a difference in the outcome, most likely. It was Bush’s night with or without the shenanigans.

Electoral Maps 1972-2008:

The 2004 US Presidential Election
The electoral map shown below depicts the results of the 2004 U.S. presidential election in which George W. Bush defeated John Kerry. Bush carried 31 states and 50.7% of the popular vote.

Here is a look at the 2004 polls from this point in that election. Today we probably have about a 1% spread between Romney and Obama. Kerry was down by around 2%. All within the margin of error for everything.

One thing is for certain, this is no 2008, when Obama comfortably had the popular vote wrapped up by this point.

Are We Locked In? Is This A Done Deal?

Well, in the past, including these elections we are looking at here, there have been some changes in the polls heading into the last week. Usually whomever leads through October wins, which is what the GOP is counting on right now.

However, this is not always the case. Of course there was Dewey / Truman in 1948. The GOP candidate was leading Truman by fairly large margins from the spring on. The final Gallup poll had Truman losing with 44.5%, and he was behind by about 5% at the end of October. He ended up winning with 49.9% of the popular vote.

In 1952, in the Gallup poll, Stevenson shot up by about 10% in the last couple weeks of the election, with Eisenhower at 51% in the final survey. It wasn’t enough and the General won with 55.4% of the popular vote.

1960… Nixon closed around a 4% gap to a 2% gap in the last month or so, and this momentum continued to election day with Kennedy barely squeaking out a 50.1% victory in the popular vote. In fact, this election was so close, that in a different day and age, it might have gone like 2000.

In 1968 we had a three party election with Wallace absorbing 13.53% of the popular vote and winning five states (46 electoral votes). Through October into November, Humphrey closed an 8% gap to about 1% going into election day. But Nixon’s lead held, of course.

Perhaps the modern election that most resembles the 2012 race is the 1976 contest between Ford and Carter.

1976 Gallup tracking poll: Ford vs. Carter(very interesting reading!!):

Ford made up additional ground following the third debate in late October, again pulling even. In the final pre-election poll, Gallup's numbers indicated a statistical dead heat among likely voters, with Ford at 49% and Carter 48% (the unallocated numbers had Ford at 47% and Carter at 46%). The actual outcome was 50% for Carter and 48% for Ford. The election was so close that it was not certain that Carter would win until the morning after Election Day.

Then of course, we have the 2000 election… At one point in October, Gore was actually down by 13% in the Gallup survey. By this week in 2000, Gore had closed the gap to 5% according to Gallup, and he continued to surge (if Gallup’s numbers were right, which is unlikely looking at the chaos in the polls that year).

Of course, Gore ended up winning the popular vote 48.38% to 47.87%. Of course, 543,895 popular votes count for nothing compared to Bush’s five extra electoral votes (271-266).

So is this over? Absolutely not, when it comes to the popular vote. However, Obama is looking pretty solid in the Electoral College unless the polls are off by 1948 margins, which is pretty unlikely considering the refinements in the polling process over the last 64 years.

Could This Be Another Bush / Gore Style Nightmare?

Short answer, yes. It is possible.

Could it break like 1960, where Nixon chose not to contest the counts in several close precincts? Maybe.

My gut tells me that it all depends on who is up and who is down. I suspect the man that will say anything to be president would push it as far as it went in 2000, clinging to any chance at all to be president (for all you tea partiers that think I am talking about Obama, sorry). Obama, I suspect, is smart enough to see how damaging that process can be to the country, and might not take it that far.

Even in 2004, there were enough questions in Ohio that some thought that Kerry should have called for some recounts. He, however, chose to accept what was probably inevitable and to go out as a classy winner instead of a sore loser. This was not like 2000 where it was very likely that more voters did vote for the candidate that lost than the candidate that won in the disputed state. This was less unlikely to be the case in Ohio in 2004.

Unfortunately for Obama, the elections this year most resembles, poll wise, are 1960, 1976, and 2000. Like 2000, the polls are a bit all over the place. Like 1976, we have an fairly unpopular incumbent and an untested outsider hovering within a percentage point of each other. Like 1960, we have a candidate losing the first debate only to slowly crawl his way back in the polls through the later debates and up into the election.

The final results for the 1960? “In the national popular vote, Kennedy beat Nixon by just one tenth of one percentage point (0.1%)—the closest popular-vote margin of the 20th century. In the Electoral College, Kennedy's victory was larger, as he took 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win).” (Wikipedia)

303 is also the number Nate Silver is calling for Obama as of the evening of the 26th, according to his map, at least.

So, parallels? 1960, Romney as Kennedy, Obama as Nixon because of the debates…. Romney wins. 1976… Incumbent loses to challenger. Romney wins. 2000… Late surging Gore pulls off a popular vote victory and loses the election. Romney wins.

But, Obama fans, take faith in the 2004 election…. In many ways, this year’s election bears more resemblance to that one than any of these others when looking at more than just the polls.

And our, oh sweet Jesus, Bush wins in the end.

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from tag Polls

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NaNoWriMo…. So it begins

2012-10-22T23:57:00.001-07:00

Decided to throw this up everywhere tonight. With the election, I won't be disappearing from here entirely, but...

Pretty much starting in on NaNoWriMo this week. Not with the actual writing, but with character outlines, plot development, outlining, and a smidgen of research. More than anything, preseason training for writing a novel in one month.

Won't be around here much until December (except for when my laptop seizes up and I am spending time on the desktop waiting for spinning circles and endless hourglasses to work themselves out).

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2012, Debate # 2 analysis & how late night comedy writers will select our next President

2012-10-18T11:50:00.001-07:00

While Tuesday’s debate was definitely a win for Obama, it left me with some very ambivalent feelings afterwards… The following is compiled from my Facebook posts that evening:

Yes, he's not my guy, and I wasn't rooting for him, but from as an unbiased as a perspective as I can manage, I just need to say this...

I think Mitt Romney's debate tonight was the worst performance I've ever seen by a presidential candidate from either party ever. (Well, since the first one I watched in 1984, at least).

Yeah, the post debate “Who Won Tonight?” polls are close, because about 95% of those polled will say their guy won, no matter what. And don't give me that undecided voter crap on a spot poll taken in the five minutes before the candidates have even left the stage.

But this was a bad night for Romney. It may take a few days for that really to emerge. But it was bad. Bad Bad Bad Bad. Bad.

Bad candidate. Bad. "Was he just trying to help Paul Ryan feel better?" bad.

Going to the mat, standing by his misquote of the President, and then getting fact checked on the spot by the moderator, basically at his own request? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!

This man wants to be the leader of the free world? Oh hells no.

See, this pisses me off. Yeah, I want Romney and Ryan to lose, but this shit is just bad for America, PERIOD.

I WANT two qualified candidates. I want a tough, close election because there is a real choice, not because of blind party loyalties. I want to be able to take both the GOP and the Democrats seriously. While I rarely vote Republican, I want the option!

I take Obama seriously. Everyone else can pretty much piss off and die at this point. American politics? Dead.

Yeah, I was typing with fists on Tuesday…

As for the Town Hall format, the moderators (though a big thumbs up to Crowley, it’s not like she busted in unsolicited), and the debate coverage in general… In response to this post, “BTW, am I the only person that thinks regular Americans seem to ask better questions than paid reporters?—Dave” on The Pragmatic Progressive Page, I spat out, “Of course they do. Journalism is dead.”

Not a good campaign cycle for America.

Considering Romney’s train wreck of a performance on Tuesday, he is lucky that the takeaway is the “binders full of women” comment. This will not help him, but there were far worse gaffes in the evening than this one.

So, Obama supporters, yes it is funny, but shut up about it. People forgive legitimate jumbles of words in high stress situations. Instead, pound on him for the real mistakes.

Women in the workplace? Sure, and we’ll even try to get them home in time to cook dinner.

Getting fact checked by the moderator, at his own request, and losing a point where he actually has some valid concerns and questions about a serious national security failure?

Saying that gun violence would be reduced if only there were more two parent families?

This is what noise should be made about, not the “Binders Full of Women.” These jokes are funny, but they actually help Romney more than hurting him by distracting from his real gaffes on Tuesday. Gaffes that might actually work towards changing public perceptions about the GOP contender.

This first clip illustrates a couple points I've been making in several of my posts.

First, people are going to think their candidate won no matter what happened in the debate.

Second, those on the fence are going to be swayed not by what happened during the 90 minute debate, but by the sound bites they hear on a two minute news segment, or by the jokes they hear on late night shows, Facebook, and other sources.

These people are shown supporting their candidate, declaring it a win for their guy, spouting pre-debate buzz about debate expectations, without realizing that the debate has not even happened yet.

And people like this are going to be the one who decide this election, not the well informed voters who, on a regular basis, actually follow the issues being discussed in the debates.

This election will be won by whomever attracts the least attention from the comics. In elections that are not close, the jokes probably serve more as a barometer of public opinion, but in close elections, or even elections at decisive turning points, these jokes can actually shape public perceptions enough that they can change the outcome of an election.

A lot of words have been written over the years about how so many in the younger generations get most of their news from The Daily Show, Colbert, and other such sources, but this is not really a new phenomenon.

More than being the source for news, late night comics have provided the analysis of events that really tend to define how many Americans perceive their candidates. Dukakis was slayed by these folks, losing his lead in 1988 after a series of gaffes that gave the comedy writers a bushel of full of material. That election ended up not being as close as the last few, but…

Gore and the lock box in 2000? Probably worth at least a few hundred votes in Florida.

Kerry / Bush in 2004? Both were hammered about equally as hard. Well, in these cases, we see that the tie goes to the incumbent.

In 2008, one of the most masterful pieces of the Obama campaign was staying out of the late night headlights. McCain, wandering around the town hall debate, Palin’s, well, everything? These jokes sealed the deal for Obama. The piling on as the outcome of the election looked more and more certain through the month of October?

This year, we see this playing out again. Obama broadens his lead after a series of humorous gaffes by Romney, the race tightens after Obama is hammered in late night after the first debate, and now? Well, over the next few nights, we’ll see, though I think we know where this will go.

So, the winner of the debates is pretty much decided by headlines and short sound bites on the evening and morning news shows. The fallout, the shifts of momentum in close races, especially after conventions and debates? Decided by the late night comics.

A lot of people are saying that the damage done by the first debate to the Obama campaign may have been irreversible. Not necessarily ensuring a Romney victory, but ensuring a very close and tense election night. And it might have been the deciding factor if Romney had been able to settle down and keep a low profile for the next two debates and not make any more bad mistakes. Staying on script, never freewheeling it in public, let alone in front of cameras…

He didn’t do that.

Earlier, I mentioned The Daily Show, and they have always (deservedly, my bias) gone harder after the GOP than the Dems, but this show does not have the influence of Saturday Night Live, Leno, and Letterman because its viewers tend to be progressive anyway. Same for Fox News. Whatever these two outlets are saying about the candidates may influence the

passion of the GOP or Democratic base, but they don’t have much of an influence on the almost completely apolitical swing voters who decide close elections.

I was hoping to post up the Leno and Letterman monologues from last night, but I couldn’t find them anywhere yet. Apparently, CBS and NBC like to not post them online anywhere until they are stale and irrelevant. I haven’t seen them yet, myself.

So here’s Conan instead.

from tag Romney

from tag Obama

Democracy In Distress: Chart: Barack Obama & Ronald Reagan... Separated at birth?

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2012 Vice Presidential Debate Results, Predictions for Tuesday & November

2012-10-12T01:39:00.002-07:00

I threw a lot of good links up on the Facebook page tonight, but here is my wrap up of tonight’s debate.

First of all, I think the most overlooked moment of the debate, so far, was when Paul Ryan responded to the question about what he would say to a war vet dismayed by the ugly nature of the political attack ads this year by launching into a four minute bash on everything he saw as flawed about the Obama administration.

Secondly, Bill Maher won the interwebs tonight with the tweet on the right here…

As for who won and who lost, shortly after the debate, I posted the following…

Overall, I think Biden gave a lot for people to talk about.

While they may say he was too intense, I think he did a good job of waving the bullsh... er, "malarky" flag when Ryan started confusing talking points with facts and I think this will serve the campaign well.

I think this was the only real mistake in the first debate. Team Obama figured the press would do their job and call out Romney on his factual errors and flip flops but, instead, the press got so hot and bothered at the idea that the race might end up narrowing that the facts and flip flops never really received much attention at all.

Watching the ABC coverage tonight, though, I was left thinking... If the infamous "eye roll" Gore/Bush debate was held this year, I think Gore's performance would have gone over much better than it did in 2000. Our views of what behavior is considered "Presidential" seems to have changed a bit in 12 years.

I haven’t seen anyone other than the one CNN poll and Fox declaring this a victory for Paul Ryan, and even Fox only gives it to Ryan on a technicality, saying that Biden was mean and scary. A few networks and publications are calling this a draw, but most seem to be leaning towards or declaring this a Biden victory.

I think that Biden winning will be the consensus by tomorrow morning, and for the late night comics, and as I wrote the other day, they are the ones who really count. I know the Democrats on FB are pumped up. Much more noise and chest thumping than after the first debate.

Hell, even I was getting burned out on all the Muppets. And I freaking love pissed off Muppets!

If a Biden victory is the consensus, it really doesn’t matter much what actually happened in the debate, people will be hearing that Biden won, which is good for the Obama campaign.

Of course there will be discussions on whether or not Biden was too over the top, but like I wrote earlier, I this this will just serve to draw more attention the Ryan’s factual inaccuracies and to the Romney / Ryan campaign flip flopping on issues, which is a plus for Obama.

So what does this victory mean in the long run?

While Vice Presidential debates have, arguably, never changed the course of a Presidential campaign, I do see the final battle lines being drawn out tonight, the laying out of the strategies the two campaigns will be following into Election Day, and those are pretty revealing.

The first thing I really notice is that the Romney / Ryan campaign is spending a lot of time and treasure on their big foreign policy “October Surprise.”

The GOP’s big theme heading into the final stretch is using the Libyan incident as a centerpiece to focus on what they are calling Obama’s Unraveling Foreign Policy. Ryan was all over this tonight. And it seemed to lack traction. This really seems like a losing attack for them.

One area I feel that most people are pretty happy with Obama is his foreign policy, and for all the noise Ryan made tonight, the few little pieces he had to back up his rhetoric with seemed small and nit picky. I think one area where Biden had a clear win tonight was leveling him on these attacks.

Continuing to attack the President, who got Osama bin Laden and who is ending two unpopular wars, on his foreign policy feels like a losing strategy to me.

On each attack point tonight, the result was Ryan essentially conceding that Romney wouldn’t be handling the situations any differently. And when Ryan went after Obama’s relationship with Israel, well, again, he was flattened. Badly.

In the end, I do not think anyone except for some, not even all, Fox News viewers feel like American foreign policy is in any way “unraveling” right now. This whole argument, let alone making it a centerpiece of the campaign in October, makes me feel like the Romney campaign is very out of touch with the public right now.

So, that probably leaves them running back to the economy, the deficit and tax reform, and “Obamacare.”

The economy is still tough for them, which is why they gave the foreign policy attacks a whirl in the first place. People are willing to listen to their ideas on the economy, hell, I want to hear them. But other than slogans and their vague “Five Point Plan,” they offer no real details. Until they offer details, Obama wins on the economy.

Even tonight, Ryan was spending more time talking about how Obama promised a stronger recovery and let people down, but not denying that there has been recovery. Until the GOP offers something more than vague tax breaks as a strategy for putting more people to work, Obama wins the issue. Barely.

As far as deficit reduction and tax reform goes… Well, vagueness is again killing Romney and Ryan. When asked specific questions, they shuffle, weave and dart. Without specifics, Obama wins again, though, again, barely. And after the 47% comment, I don’t think there’s much trust out there for Romney on his promises not to raise taxes on low and middle income families.

Obamacare? This is a bad issue for the GOP since it is based on Romneycare. People’s eyes glaze over when Romney darts back with, well, it’s great for states, just not at the federal level. And, overall, most people like most of it. For all the talk of panels, I think most people do just hear the old, silly, losing rhetoric of Death Panels from 2008. We’re going to keep everything that most people like except for the parts that the tea party doesn’t like seems to be Romney’s alternative to the current reforms. I don’t think people want to rebuild the wheel if it is going to look pretty much the same as before. So, Obama wins the issue. Again.

So where does this leave us.

Right now, Obama is still looking pretty strong in the electoral vote. National popular vote polls can bite me, they mean nothing.

There are some indicators coming out over the last 48 hours that Romney’s bump in the polls from the first debate may be fading. And being continually fact checked by his own campaign is going to start killing him again. The only thing that saved his tail on that this week was the fact that most of the news coverage was breathlessly heaving about the fact that the race seemed to be heating up and wondering if they could get away with awarding Romney the front runner status (Answer? No, due to that pesky, state by state way we elect our presidents). His continued battle with foot-in-the-mouth-syndrome was largely overlooked, but it won’t be for much longer.

Another thing to consider is that the polls for the last week were all over the place. It is tough to form a clear view from them, because there was a lot of noise and chaos last week mucking up the machinery.

Momentum is also a word being used a lot. Too much right now. Momentum is built over time. One win, even if the first debate was a big win for Romney, does not really change momentum.

A disastrous September, one debate win, and then a likely debate loss tonight leading, four day later, into a debate that Obama is almost certain to win (if only for the same reasons that Romney was certain to win the first one)… Well, this time next week it may be very difficult to talk about momentum in the Romney campaign with a straight face, let alone without a snicker.

The fact that the next debate is only four days away is also a win for Obama, and I do predict that he will win this one with about the same confidence that I predicted that Romney would win the last one. The pummeling that the President received after the first debate has lowered the expectations on him to the point where he will likely win if he just stays awake through the whole thing.

But this time, my prediction is not just based on expectations going in. Expectations are only the first key.

The second key to the next debate is its format: Town Hall. Romney has never been good with the one on one sessions with regular folks and now he is bringing the 47% comment into the room with him.

The third key is two debates worth of shaky truths and flip flops from the previous debates. Now I do not expect Obama to go after Romney like Biden went after Ryan tonight, but I do expect to see him using the next two debates as his platform to address some of these issues. Probably more gently on Tuesday and, unless the race has broken out one way or the other by the third debate, slightly more aggressively in the final debate, away from the town hall audience.

However, unless Romney is pulling away in the key states by the third debate, I would not expect to see Obama throwing up a hail mary and really bashing on Mitt. I still think the plan will be, for the most part, to let the Romney campaign hang itself by flip flopping everywhichway on every issue, under the national spotlights of the debate platforms, until the last remaining undecided voters are just sick of it.

Still, I do expect to see more engagement from the president on Tuesday. From the beginning I think the strategy was to stand back and to let Romney have the night the first time around and to just not make many mistakes while looking presidential and above it all. He may have missed the mark by a bit on that, but I am sure that was the plan.

Obama is playing rochambeau with Romney and he let Mitt kick first. Tuesday is Obama’s turn. He will step it up. And I think it will go well for him.

Finally, predictions for November...

Obama should have this one barring a real collapse in either of the final two debates. I think he takes it even if he does in the next two what he did in the first. Because even if he does exactly what he did in the first debate in the next debate, he will get better press. Victory in November might be by exactly the margins we are seeing right now, and he may even lose the popular vote, but he should win the electoral college and a second term.

Slight improvement in at least one of the next two debates? Then I think he wins solidly. It won’t be a landslide, it won’t even be by the margins he was running up a couple weeks ago, but we shouldn’t be having that late of a night on Election Day.

On a side note, I wanted to throw this up here…

On CNN’s poll results ("CNN/ORC poll: 48% of registered voters watching debate say Ryan won. 44% say Biden won. Sampling error is +/- 5%." – CNN), I posted this in response to a comment that the poll results reflected CNN’s viewers these days:

Over the last few years, I don't think CNN is drifting to the right, I think it is drifting to the stupid.

I used to rely on them as being somewhat centrist and fairly well balanced between MSNBC and FOX, but still "Mainstream" enough to rely on as a reasonable sample of what "typical" Americans were watching.

These days I get most of my news from NPR and, watching CNN's post debate "analysis" after the first debate, well, my head hurt a lot. Not because I disagreed with what they were saying, but because what they were saying was just meaningless drivel that really didn't have much to do with anything.

On the first debate, CNN went from draw, to Romney might have had an edge, to Romney destroyed Obama, to Romney has regained the edge and the front runner status in about five minutes and then built the rest of their analyses around this headline without any facts to support it, since it takes days for the poll numbers to roll in.

Unfortunately, most of the major news outlets did this, so people who did not actually watch the debate ended up with a pretty skewered version of what happened during the first debate.

And I will head to bed on this…

from tag Polls

from tag Politics

from tag Romney

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GOP: Selling the American Dream and Winning Elections

2012-10-10T10:54:00.001-07:00

This morning on OPB, the local NPR radio station, they had a brief clip from the president of the Portland State University Republicans...

Her main argument for the GOP and Romney, her main attraction to the GOP, was her perception that the Republicans’ primary ethic was success through hard work. She said that this fit well with her family's worldview, since her parents were immigrants who achieved "the American Dream." She also felt the Republicans were more pro-American, more patriotic.

Of course, “arbeit macht frei” sounds familiar... Where have I heard that before?

So, through all of the noise and clatter, what she is taking from the campaigns so far is that the idea of working really hard to achieve success is a Republican ethic. I suppose, for the Democrats’ ethics, she probably shares Romney’s stated view on 47% of America, though, to be fair, she did not mention the Democrats at all.

This is how the GOP gets so many to vote for them, to vote against their best interests. The message is to work hard, keep doing what you are doing, and we’ll get the government to quit supporting those who aren’t working as hard and to remove those who are standing in your way on the path to success.

Of course, in reality, most GOP policies do nothing to help these folks at all. If anything, especially with the current platform, it harms them and takes away many of their protections. And, likely, a Romney victory would result in these folks paying higher taxes, one way or the other, and students, perhaps even the one interviewed on the radio this morning, no longer being able to attend college due to higher costs and reduced financial aid availability.

I would spend the morning collecting stats and historical trends from Republican Congresses and Presidencies, but lets face it… For voters like this young woman, those stats mean nothing. They had her at "work brings freedom."

To be fair, this sounded like the ideas of someone very young who has not really had any real world experience. I don’t know, but it’s what she sounded like to me.

Now, I have no problem with people who are Republicans because they feel that the specific policies and platforms, economic plans, etc. are right for America. I usually disagree with them, but they have their vote and I have mine.

What bothered me here was that she did not talk about economic plans or specific ideas on solving real issues our country was facing, she spoke only of vague generalities and meaningless, emotional slogans. And, to her, the GOP is the party supporting the American Dream.

Of course, this young woman’s vote was probably never up for grabs this year. Her reasons for being a Republican may be silly, but she is one and it is unlikely that she ever considered voting for Obama this year. Party faithful tend to look for reasons to continue to support their candidate, even through disaterous campaigns, rather than looking for reasons to switch their vote to the other guy.

But this clip still tells me a lot about how this election is going, and how recent elections have gone down.

To me, this is a really clear example of how the two parties different ideas distill down to many people, dripping down through incompetent or biased media sources, through tea party / extremist sloganeering, to arrive, stripped of any meaning or sense, to wash and water the preconceived biases of the ordinary voter who does not spend hours, not even every day, but every election, picking their party and candidate…

What dripped down to this student was that the GOP is the party protecting the American dream. Details on how they are doing this? Not necessary. She trusts the signs.

This election will be decided by 5% of the voters in five or so states. If they have not made up their mind yet, they are probably relying on semi-hysterical and mostly meaningless sound bites on the evening and morning news shows, vague notions bantered about by late night comics, Facebook graphics, and water cooler talking points for their information.

What is distilling down to these people is important. It will decide this election. It is easy to laugh and dismiss people who sound like this student sounded this morning, and that is a huge mistake because whichever candidate does the best job at targeting voters like her, albeit ones who have not made up their minds, will win every time.

Historically, the Republicans have the process down. The Democrats are slowly catching up, but still tend to fall into the trap that they can win on the intelligence and strength of their ideas and that sound bites are petty and worthless. No, they can’t win this way.

It is why so many Democrats were baffled by Romney’s “defeat” of Obama in the first debate. Obama brought the facts, Romney brought the persona, and Romney “won.”

As much as I hate to say it, to win, the Democrats must become masters of the very broken, very evil, sound bite and slogan driven PR machine that removes all thought and depth from their arguments and promises everyone success and happiness and ponies as a reward for voting Democrat.

Unfortunately, for the last twelve years or more, the Democrats seem incapable of actually winning elections. The only times they actually win, including the mid-term congressional elections as well as the presidency, is when the GOP screws up so bad that the voters come crawling back to give the Dems one more chance.

Before the first debate, the widening lead in the polls was not due to the strength of the Democrats’ arguments, but due to the ineptness of the Romney campaign. He seems silly, I am not voting for him! Tax codes? Health care? Foreign policy? Nope. Mitt looked silly. Now that Mitt doesn’t seem so silly, these voters are torn again.

This election will be decided by Leno and Letterman and the like, not even by Fox News or The Daily Show, whose viewers were never really in play to start with. The candidate who wins will be the one who provides the least fuel for the jokes, not by the campaign that offers the best, or, at least, the most coherent, ideas for the future of our country. It is sad and it is why, I can’t see for a long time, calling this blog anything but Democracy In Distress.

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Christian persecution in America?

2012-10-07T00:09:00.001-07:00

This has always frustrated me. We can talk about the death of spiritual principals and how those who do try to follow a spiritual way of life, whether or not I agree with them, are probably falling into a minority in this country, but to claim you are persecuted for being a Christian in the USA? That just makes me want to puke.

from tag Religion

from tag Fear

from tag Christianity

from tag Ignorance

Democracy In Distress: Comic: God hates who?

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It’s a Trap! Thoughts on the 1st Obama / Romney Debate

2012-10-04T10:58:00.001-07:00

Well, it’s going down about how I expected…

(How Mitt Romney will win tonight’s debate)

After taking a little time last night and this morning to read some reactions and taking some time to process my own thoughts, I am ready to throw my two cents into the ring.

First of all, I hate it when a team loses a close game and then all the fans blame the officiating. Bad form. If the game wasn’t close, the refs’ calls would not influence the outcome. Bottom line, whomever won or lost the debate, leave poor Jim Lehrer alone!

Second of all, did Obama really lose? Or, more importantly, could Obama have won this at all?

As I wrote yesterday, there is no way that Romney was going to look bad last night. After everything that went down in September, even those of us who knew better were half expecting a drooling moron to stumble out onto stage with his shoelaces tied together.

With the expectations so low, there was no way that Romney wasn’t going to come off surprisingly well. Let’s not forget, one of the biggest selling points for him early on in the primaries was that he looked and spoke the most like a president out of anyone else in the GOP clown show field of contenders this year.

Yes, Romney looks and talks like a president. Casting a movie? He is your guy. Hiring a real president? Well, that is a different story.

My point is, Romney was made for last night. Obama does well, and I think he did well last night, more on the President later, but Romney’s a candidate perfectly built for this debate format. Stand up there, look and sound “presidential,” and don’t worry a bit about the hollow content of the words.

The way these debates are “judged,” and I use the term loosely, the candidate whose performance most resembles a cardboard cutout movie president is usually declared the winner in debates with last night’s format.

Couple this with the low expectations on Romney and Obama didn’t stand a chance last night.

Going in, I think his campaign knew it. And these guys and gals are true pros from Dover. 2008 and this year are two of the most seamless campaigns I’ve ever seen. No real mis-steps at all. Almost perfectly planned and executed. So, was this the first big “gaffe” of the campaign?

I think not.

I know a lot of Obama supporters were hungry for a decisive, knock out blow last night and mistakenly thought that Romney was primed to receive just such a blow, but he was not. As I said, there was no way Romney was going to lose this debate.

The only real question was how badly the President was going to get beaten last night, and how badly the loss was going to damage his re-election odds.

If Obama went in swinging, he would have looked desperate and cheap to many Americans, would have provided fodder for the Romney campaign through the entire month of October, and potentially would have walked away from last night with his campaign in real trouble.

Yes, the left was hungry for red meat, but the rest of the country wanted to see what Romney had to say. If Obama went after Romney hard last night, I think instead of the President being criticized for seeming a little off his game, a little tired, a little out of practice and, maybe, even a little nervous, I think the criticisms would have been much more harsh if he seemed angry, combative, or, God forbid, mean.

Such a performance would have been called “unpresidential.” And that is the worst label you can take away from one of these debates.

So, I believe, Obama intentionally stood back a little and let Romney have his night. The goal was damage control, in a sense. Let Romney have a little win, not a big win, and then hang him with his own words over the next couple weeks.

In fact, this is probably the second part of Team Obama’s strategy last night.

Let Romney feel good about how things were going, gently chide the worst of the attacks and spins, but just let him roll on, providing more and more amorphous “details” while contradicting his own stated policies over and over with more and more confidence, and then completely devastate him with swing state ads over the next few weeks before the election.

When looking at last night’s debate from this perspective, it would seem like Obama did achieve these goals.

Romney “won” his inevitable victory without really damaging Obama and the President didn’t give the Romney campaign much, if anything, to use against him later. And Romney flip flopped on issues to such a degree that there may not be enough time left in the campaign to call him on every point and detail, but more than enough time to effectively hang him with his own words.

It was a trap, I tell you… Now we’ll see if it worked.

A final thought on Obama’s performance. Perhaps some of his nervousness and apparent discomfort early on actually came from his feelings about last night’s strategy. Maybe Obama, too, wanted to go after Romney and wasn’t entirely comfortable with the strategy of laying low and letting Romney have his night. However, he showed a lot of poise, overall, in trusting his team and sticking to the game plan.

Of course, the Democrats’ ace in the hole is the format of the second debate. If Romney is the perfect candidate for last night’s format, then the town hall format of the next debate is Obama’s. The embarrassing Romney performance that many Democrats were hoping for last night may still be on the schedule… Just not in the time slot they expected. Romney has a bit of explaining to do to 47% of America, and it will be interesting to see how he handles their questions in the next debate.

I think we can all agree, dealing with the “public” is not one of Prince Romney’s strong points.

Then, if needed, Obama can always go after Romney hard in the third debate when the playing field is leveled and the expectations on Romney are higher, when he needs to do more than just show up with his pants on to win.

Let’s face it. The image of Romney as an incompetent moron was an unexpected gift keeping his campaign down and out through September, but it was unexpected and unsustainable. Let’s move past it now, early, and get back to the strategies that are really going to matter, really going to decide this election in the long run.

As for the embarrassing media commentary last night, I’ll leave it with this…

Right Off A Cliff: Status Update:

President Obama sucked it up tonight....

But we feel it was done on purpose. The key issues against Romney such as the 47% comment, offshore bank accounts, the ER health care comment, his tax returns...none of this was mentioned. Which even on a bad night you'd mention at least 1...if not more.

It seems Obama came out knowing Romney would go full out and decided you know, people have short memories it's better to hammer him on these issues the last 2 debates than explode with them in the first debate and have them forgotten weeks later.

Romney, to his credit, was well prepared. Though anyone who knows what's been going on knows that more than half of what he said tonight is a complete contradiction to what he's stood for the last 18 months. Hearing him say he likes regulation is something you have NEVER heard him say...ever. It's a complete 180 on what he's run on since the beginning.

The moderator was flat awful as well. The topics were disorganized and format was terrible.

Make no mistake though...Obama must come out stronger the next debate or Romney is going to close the gap in a hurry.

Mitt Romney Gives Obama All The Lies He Needs to Hang Him With:

As Ed Schultz loses his mind on MSNBC and claims that Obama didn’t try to “win” the debate, the reality is that Romney gave the Obama people a treasure trove of lies to attack the Republican nominee with from now until the next debate. For Barack Obama this debate wasn’t about getting into some sort of ugly street fight. Voters like Obama exactly because he doesn’t do that. For Obama this debate was about who do you trust more?

Mitt Romney stood up and lied to the American people repeatedly. Obama is the trusted candidate with the vision. Romney is the challenger who had to be in chase mode because he is losing.

This debate wasn’t a game changer for Romney, despite what Republicans may think. His biggest problem is he is still Mitt Romney. While the media may give it to Romney, voters are still likely to stick with Obama."

Debates don’t move polls. Debate winners do. | The Signal - Yahoo! News:

…debates have a reach beyond the immediate bump or slide in the polls as they seep into the narrative and offer up ammunition for campaign commercials. With nearly two full weeks until the next presidential debate, the results of this one have a long time to hang around. Romney's solid performance can lead to new donations that, in turn, lead to better poll numbers in the following weeks.

In this way, debates are the opposite of conventions, in which we advise you to ignore the bump in the polls since it inevitably fades. After debates, we advise you to ignore the nonbump in the polls, because it may grow.

A note on the above clip: In this case, I think the Democrats come away with much more in the way of “ammunition for campaign commercials.” I suspect that this “victory” for Romney may turn out to be a fairly bittersweet one.

Colorado presidential debate: Media piles on moderator Jim Lehrer - Mackenzie Weinger - POLITICO.com:

The consensus: Lehrer did not control the debate, failed to enforce the time limits, did not press the candidates enough and generally was steamrolled by the presidential candidates, Mitt Romney in particular.

from tag Polls

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How Mitt Romney will win tonight’s debate

2012-10-03T11:26:00.001-07:00

Looking at the build up for tonight’s debate, well… Hee! I can smell the desperation from here...

However, I beg everyone, remember 2000 & 2004. Gore & Kerry were supposed to destroy W. as bad as Obama is expected to destroy Romney tonight... And those first debates were spun into "wins" for Bush, pretty much because he held his own and didn't start crying like a two year old.

Expectations are so low for Romney tonight that it will be called a win for him if he doesn't embarrass himself, and since most Americans will only check out the talking head soundbites, not the debates themselves, they will believe it.

Yes, it is looking good for Obama right now, but this is not over yet. And, chances are, unless Romney completely blows it, most Americans will hear that Romney wins tonight. That is my prediction. Will it be enough to even him up in the polls? Who know…

Just remember, listening to the media (not just Fox), and it sounded like there was a real battle for the GOP nomination this year. When you look at the real numbers and how they were accumulated, it was an pretty clean and decisive cake walk to the nomination for Romney. Less of a battle than Clinton / Obama in 2008, and even less than McCain / Huckabee in 2008 and Bush / McCain in 2000.

As was just being discussed on NPR, in 2000, Gore went into the first debate with Bush holding a five point lead. After the debate, he was behind five points, and everyone expected Gore to destroy Bush in the debates before they actually happened. Sounds like a familiar scenario, right?

Of course, I do not think Obama will be sighing and checking his watch…

More so than what happens on stage tonight, what happens next really depends on media spin. Not the partisan talking heads, but the producers, writers, editors, reporters and directors out there.

The media wants a story to tell. If the election is pretty much settled a month out, that leaves four weeks of dead air time… Which they will fill by trying to create the feeling that the race is much closer than it really is. The problem? People will start believing it, and everyone loves a come from behind underdog, right?

This is a process that will probably start tonight.

This thing is not over and Romney still has a real chance of taking office in January.

Why debate is crucial for Obama, too - CNN.com:

It would appear, then, that Obama can simply go for caution, choosing a clinch in the center of the ring over hard punches, and walking away with a tie. But on closer examination, Obama ought to be pressing for a victory, too.

In some polls over recent weeks, especially from key states, the president has now opened up a second possible path to re-election. For a long time, his campaign advisers have assumed that he would win but that his margin of victory would be narrow -- less than three points. Even now, his advisers -- even as they are quietly confident about the ultimate outcome -- are running scared, assuming the race will likely close significantly in the final weeks.

Debate coach: Obama, Romney are top performers - CNN.com:

If you've been hearing the spin, the only reason to watch the inevitable train wreck of the upcoming debates would be to see just how inept both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are at debating. And that spin is self-criticism. Their own campaigns would have us believe that these two candidates can't piece together a complete sentence between the two of them.

But I'm here to tell you: It ain't so.

These are two of the better presidential debaters we've witnessed, and I'm anticipating excellent debates. If you haven't watched Obama, I can assure you that he more than held his own four years ago in the debates against John McCain.
And if you haven't seen Romney, then take my word for it. He debated poorly in only two of his (almost 20) debates this past year. His game is consistently solid.

THE RACE: Few knockout punches occur in debates - Yahoo! News:

But unlike election results or prize fights, there are seldom knock-out punches or clear-cut winners in debates. Sometimes it takes days for a consensus to emerge — if ever.
Richard Nixon's haggard appearance vs. John F. Kennedy's vigor is widely cited as contributing to a Kennedy victory in the first 1960 debate. But polls showed that was true mostly for those who watched it on TV, while those listening to the radio generally picked Nixon as victor. And Nixon did better in three later debates.
Few gaffes are as striking as President Gerald Ford's 1976 erroneous claim that Eastern Europe was not under Soviet domination. But Ford had held his own in an earlier debate, and many other factors contributed to his defeat by Jimmy Carter.
Michael Dukakis in 1988 and John Kerry in 2004 were generally deemed superior technical debaters — but both lost to a George Bush.

10 debate moments that mattered - CNN.com:

Goodwin describes 10 key presidential and vice presidential debates that made a difference:

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Romney’s plunge towards the debates: Don’t count him out yet

2012-09-23T21:34:00.001-07:00

Saw this earlier…

Democracy In Distress shared Right Off A Cliff's status

You couldn't have scripted a better candidate than Romney.

We actually enjoy when he's featured on national television because it's just so ridiculous. NO one likes this guy...not even Republicans. He's a clown. Every time he opens his mouth it's simply fantastic for liberals. He can't even handle a Fox News interview without looking like an idiot. And guess what...

We still have the debates! They're going to be gold. We've never seen a time where one political party was actually anticipating political debates like Democrats are anxiously awaiting the ones approaching in a couple of weeks.

Just like with the G-O-P primary...the more the American people learn about Romney the more they dislike him. Hell in the state he was born and the one where he was governor he's in line for a massive defeat.

And the icing on the cake is his wife....WOW. She's by far one of the least likeable wives to a candidate that we've ever seen.

The next few weeks are going to be amazing. Just keep on talking Mitt...keep on talking.

Responded with this…

I do have one worry about the debates... Anyone remember the 2004 Kerry/Bush debates?
That year, the democrats were pretty much as eager for the debates as they are this year. Unfortunately, by the time they rolled around, the expectations on W. were so low that all he pretty much had to do was NOT make a huge mistake to "win."

On the flip side, Kerry suffered from a lot of the same likability problems that Romney suffers from. So really, this year we have a candidate that pretty much is a combination of the worst of Kerry's traits combined with the worst of Bush's traits... Going up against a very skilled debater.

While it should go well for Obama, I still am on the guard for 2004 style spin from the GOP. If Romney does not actually spontaneously combust on stage, they will claim that he "exceeded expectations" and therefore "won the debate."

Since most people do not actually watch the debates, they will hear this on the news the next morning and believe it.

Unfortunately, the debates will not be a guaranteed K.O. punch to Romney.

from tag Bush

Democracy In Distress: Putin, Clinton, & Bush… Oh my! The current, dynastic period of American history

from tag Romney

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Mitt Romney & Class Warfare, the 47%

2012-09-19T14:14:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: September 24, 2012 Apparently I was in a bit of a hurry when I posted this, linking to TYT playlists and not to the specific Romney videos that I intended. So, the first two videos are going to be off topic. Lesson learned, I will watch for this in future posts and try not to repeat the mistakes of the past...

I've been all over this on the Facebook page, but I thought I'd post these up here, just for the hell of it... It's been awhile, so why not?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

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Democracy In Distress: Marriage Equality: President Obama & North Carolina

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Democracy In Distress: Santorum & Obama: Which is worse for religion?

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The 8 Worst Examples of Fox News Election Journalism Malpractice (In Just 8 Weeks) | Alternet

2012-08-29T08:43:00.001-07:00

The 8 Worst Examples of Fox News Election Journalism Malpractice (In Just 8 Weeks) | Alternet: "Since the majority of rational news consumers will never see much of what Fox works so hard to invent, we have complied a list of some of the most dishonest moments so far in the 2012 election cycle. (Note: in order to pare this list down to a manageable length, it has been limited to just the past eight weeks. There's only so much bandwidth on the Internet.)" 'via Blog this'

A climate change grab bag…

2012-07-15T10:30:00.001-07:00

It’s Time for a Conversation, Climate Change Deniers - Truthdig:
June 2011 to June 2012 was the hottest 12-month period ever recorded in the mainland United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report from the National Climatic Data Center does not even include early July’s scorching temperatures that broke more than 2,000 individual heat records across the nation. The heat wave resulted in the deaths of 22 people and left millions without power for days.

Actor Denis Leary Pillories Selfish Americans in Song: "Kiss My Ass" | AlterNet:
You know how Americans are accused of being apathetic, glued to the couch and entertainment and uninterested in grave social issues, how we're selfish consumers guzzling the world's energy without a shred of moral compunction?

Well, actor Denis Leary has a new video on FunnyorDie that embodies that attitude in three short words.

Kiss My A$$ with Denis Leary from Denis Leary

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God, Politics, Education, & Evolution: Some recent articles

2012-06-22T09:56:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I‘ve posted. Life has been busy and the election is in it’s early summer slump. Even the barbs Romney and Obama are throwing at each other feel weak and half-hearted… But maybe that is just me. Maybe I am just weak and half hearted about the election right now. I am sure that I’ll get more fired up as we get further into the VP selection process and closer into the conventions.

Anyway, here’s a collection of recent articles on religion, politics and education from AlterNet…

As America Grows More Polarized, Conservatives Increasingly Reject Science and Rational Thought | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet:

In the 30 years since Gallup started asking people whether they believe humans evolved, evolved under the guidance of God, or were created fully formed by God, the percentage of people adhering to the creationist view has actually gone up slightly over time, and now stands at 46 percent of the population. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a growing problem of public rejection of science. At the same time, there’s been a steady rise in people who believe that humanity evolved without any supernatural guidance, and now stands at 15 percent. What this seeming conflict suggests is that the issue is getting more polarized, as people feel they either have to pick Team Evolution or Team Creationism.

…

The Tea Party has only intensified social pressure on conservative-leaning Americans to shun anything perceived as irreligious or academic. Science has always had a political edge to it, but the culture wars ramped up by the Tea Party have taken the problem to a whole new level.

…

According to a study published in American Sociological Review, since 1974, conservative trust in science has been in a free-fall, declining 25 percent. In 1974, conservatives were the most pro-science group, higher than liberals and moderates. Now they’re the least pro-science group of all, with liberals showing the most trust in science.

…

Any liberal who focuses on economic issues should pay close attention, because in many ways, the war on science is a war on the most vulnerable among us.

The public’s resistance to evolution might not seem like a big deal at first, since the main result of conservative activism is that high school biology programs give up teaching evolution, while universities retain their evidence-based curriculum. In fact, Kevin Drum argued in Mother Jones that creationism in schools didn’t really matter because, “knowledge of evolution adds only slightly to a 10th-grade understanding of biology.”

The problem with that is that someone who doesn’t get proper education early tends to lag behind for the rest of their educational career, and the 10th-grader who doesn’t get real biology courses will often be too far behind her better-educated peers in college to even consider a career in science. How many potential doctors and scientists are being lost because they didn’t have the economic advantage of going to a private school that did provide a proper education, but instead went to a public school that dished out creationist propaganda?

As PZ Myers argued, the poor public education in science means that a shrinking portion of the American public is going into careers in science. Americans from working class backgrounds who go into these careers are far more likely to use their education and career contacts to return to their communities and improve the economic and health conditions back home. But with these declining numbers of American scientists, that possibility is being shut down.

The public’s rejection of global warming is even more dangerous for working class and poor people. It’s well-understood that poorer people bear the brunt of environmental destruction, since they can’t afford to move out of polluted areas that are linked to health issues like asthma and cancer.

What Is Wrong With Our Education System? Almost Half the Population Doesn't Accept Evolution | Belief | AlterNet:

My brilliant husband, a sociologist and political theorist, refuses to get upset about the poll. It’s quite annoying, actually. He thinks questions like these primarily elicit affirmations of identity, not literal convictions; declaring your belief in creationism is another way of saying you’re a good Christian. That does rather beg the question of what a good Christian is, and why so many think it means refusing to use the brains God gave you. And yes, as you may have suspected, according to the Pew Research Center, evangelicals are far more likely than those of other faiths to hold creationist views; just 24 percent of them believe in evolution. Mormons come in even lower, at 22 percent, although official church doctrine has no problem with evolution.

…rejecting evolution expresses more than an inability to think critically; it relies on a fundamentally paranoid worldview. Think what the world would have to be like for evolution to be false. Almost every scientist on earth would have to be engaged in a fraud so complex and extensive it involved every field from archaeology, paleontology, geology and genetics to biology, chemistry and physics. And yet this massive concatenation of lies and delusion is so full of obvious holes that a pastor with a Bible-college degree or a homeschooling parent with no degree at all can see right through it.

…

Kenneth Miller, a biology professor at Brown University and practicing Catholic who is a leading voice against creationism, agrees with Princehouse. “Science education has been remarkably ineffective,” he told me. “Those of us in the scientific community who are religious have a tremendous amount of work to do in the faith community.” Why bother? “There’s a potential for great harm when nearly half the population rejects the central organizing principle of the biological sciences. It’s useful for us as a species to understand that we are a recent appearance on this planet and that 99.9 percent of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct.” Evangelical parents may care less that their children learn science than that they avoid going to hell, but Miller points out that many of the major challenges facing the nation—and the world—are scientific in nature: climate change and energy policy, for instance. “To have a near majority essentially rejecting the scientific method is very troubling,” he says. And to have solidly grounded science waved away as political and theological propaganda could not come at a worse time. “Sea-level rise” is a “left-wing term,” said Virginia state legislator Chris Stolle, a Republican, successfully urging its replacement in a state-commissioned study by the expression “recurrent flooding.”

The Truth About Religion in America: The Founders Loathed Superstition and We Were Never a Christian Nation | Belief | AlterNet:

One counterfeit idea that circulates with frustrating stubbornness is the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation. It’s one of the Christian Right’s mantras and a favorite talking point for televangelists, religious bloggers, born-again authors and lobbyists, and pulpit preachers.

…

Unlike some of the wackier positions taken by evangelicals—think Rapture—the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation has gone relatively mainstream. This is the case largely because the media-savvy Christian Right is good at getting across its message. A 2007 First Amendment Center poll revealed that 65 percent of Americans believe the founders intended the United States “to be a Christian nation”; over half of us think that this intention is actually spelled out somewhere in the Constitution.

…

So the notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is widespread. In the currency of ideas, it’s the ubiquitous penny. But like an actual penny, it doesn’t have a lot of value. That so many people think it does is largely because they don’t stop to consider what “founded as a Christian nation” might signify. Presumably the intended meaning is something like this: Christian principles are the bedrock of both our political system and founding documents because our founders were themselves Christians. Although wordier, this reformulation is just as perplexing because it’s not clear what’s meant by the term founders. Just who are we talking about here?

…

Americans in the late colonial and early republic years were often caught in a worldview clash between Christianity on the one hand and the Enlightenment on the other. Some reacted by clinging to their Christian faith and blasting Enlightenment “infidelity” with jeremiads, while others, as Jonathan Edwards grumbled in 1773, “wholly cast off the Christian religion and are professed infidels.” College students at Yale, Princeton, Harvard, King’s (present day Columbia), William and Mary, and Dartmouth gleefully embraced, at least for a while, the Enlightenment’s anti-biblical religion of Deism. In the 1790s, thanks largely to the efforts of Deist crusader Elihu Palmer, militant Deism—which rejected miracles, revelation, the authority of Scripture, and the divinity of Jesus—enjoyed a spurt of rather astounding popularity. But many people who lived at the founding of the nation tried to steer a middle course that combined, even if awkwardly at times, elements from both Christian and Enlightenment worldviews. This made for any number of nuanced possibilities when it came to Christian commitment, all of them much more complex than the Christian Right would prefer to acknowledge.

…

The Founding Fathers weren’t all Christian. Some, of course, were: Patrick Henry (Episcopalian), John Hancock (Congregationalist), John Jay (Episcopalian), and Sam Adams (Congregationalist), for example, were all devout and pretty conventional Christians. But the big players in the founding of the United States—such men as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and probably Alexander Hamilton—weren’t. Each of them was much more comfortable with a deistic understanding of God than a Christian one. For them, the deity was an impersonal First Cause who created a rationally patterned natural order and who was best worshiped through the exercise of reason and virtue. Most of them may have admired the ethical teachings of Jesus (although Paine conspicuously did not), but all of them loathed and rejected the priestcraft and superstition they associated with Christianity.

Despite this, the Christian Right insists on adopting these men (aside from Paine) as Christian founders. The usual justification is that each of them (again, except Paine) belonged to an established Christian denomination. But as we’ve already seen, formal membership by itself wasn’t then (or now) a fail-safe measure of an individual’s religious beliefs.

…

None of the founders, for example, used conventional Christian language when writing or speaking about God. Instead, the terms they favored—Supreme Architect, Author of Nature, First Cause, Nature’s God, Superattending Power—were unmistakably deistic. (One of the Christian Right’s most telling blind spots is its failure to pick up on the founders’ obviously non-Christian nomenclature.) Another indicator of their lack of conventional Christian commitment is the fact that while all of them had been baptized as infants, an initiation that of course made them nominally Christian, none who were members of denominations that offered the sacrament of Confirmation sought it as adults. Moreover, they generally did not take Communion when it was offered, nor did they typically involve themselves in church activities. Even when they did, it was no clear signal that they were orthodox Christians. George Washington, for example, served on the vestry in several Episcopalian parishes. But he avoided Confirmation and Communion, never used give-away Christian terms such as Lord or Redeemer, and rarely even referred to Jesus by name. Finally, none of them gave the slightest hint in their personal letters or diaries that they considered themselves committed Christians.

The obvious conclusion is that it’s a stretch to call the leading founders “Christians,” particularly of the evangelical sort. Most of them may not have been contemptuously anti-Christian (although Paine certainly was, with Jefferson a close second), but neither did they have much use for Christianity. They had so little regard for its central tenets, in fact, that they couldn’t square it with their consciences to salt their public statements with even an occasional Christian phrase. In this way they displayed an integrity that few vote-hungry politicians in our day feel moved to emulate. Revealingly, only a handful of their contemporaries seemed particularly bothered by their obvious indifference to Christianity, and those who made a big deal of it generally did so more for political reasons—as when Federalists attacked the “infidel” Jefferson in the presidential elections of 1800 and 1804—than from any sense of outraged orthodoxy. Then as now, what pretended to be a religious battle was often a political one.

…

In the Constitution, no mention whatsoever of God is made except in the document’s date (“Done ... in the year of our Lord ...”), an inexplicable oversight if its framers intended it to lay the foundation for a Christian nation. The Declaration of Independence does use religious language, but the religion is obviously Deism rather than Christianity. God is referred to as “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” of the physical “Laws of Nature” in addition to the “unalienable [moral] Rights” to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To interpret the document as even suggestively Christian is sheer fantasy or worse. On the contrary, both it and the Constitution clearly serve as precedents for the famous passage in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli—one which the Christian Right loves to hate—which affirms that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” The treaty, which sealed a routine diplomatic agreement between the U.S. and the Muslim state of Tripolitania, was unanimously ratified by the Senate and publicly endorsed and signed by President John Adams. That it was passed without debate or dissent attests to the fact that neither the president nor senators found its denial of a Christian foundation to the nation objectionable.

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Democracy In Distress: Suburban Eschatology Part Two - September 12th, 2010: 30 Mosques, 30 Days

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Marriage Equality: President Obama & North Carolina

2012-05-13T10:42:00.001-07:00

I think the President does a nice job of explaining his evolving position on marriage equality in the following email:

Friend --

Today, I was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer:
I believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

I hope you'll take a moment to watch the conversation, consider it, and weigh in yourself on behalf of marriage equality:

http://my.barackobama.com/Marriage

I've always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. I was reluctant to use the term marriage because of the very powerful traditions it evokes. And I thought civil union laws that conferred legal rights upon gay and lesbian couples were a solution.

But over the course of several years I've talked to friends and family about this. I've thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships who are raising kids together. Through our efforts to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, I've gotten to know some of the gay and lesbian troops who are serving our country with honor and distinction.

What I've come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens.

Even at my own dinner table, when I look at Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples, I know it wouldn't dawn on them that their friends' parents should be treated differently.

So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

I respect the beliefs of others, and the right of religious institutions to act in accordance with their own doctrines. But I believe that in the eyes of the law, all Americans should be treated equally. And where states enact same-sex marriage, no federal act should invalidate them.

If you agree, you can stand up with me here.

Thank you,
Barack

Unfortunately, President Obama’s shift on this issue, while important, does little to change actual policy. In fact, while this counts as one in the win column, in North Carolina, there is not only a set back on marriage equality, but yet another example of poorly written legislation coming out of the far right wing of the GOP.

It’s one thing to write laws that I disagree with, entirely another issue altogether to put poorly written laws in the books… One is politics, the other is incompetence.

4 Worst Media Misrepresentations of North Carolina's Anti-Gay Amendment One | Media | AlterNet:

UNC-Chapel Hill law professor Maxine Eichner has spoken extensively to delineate the definite consequences of the Amendment as well as the possible consequences. She says the Amendment definitely bars the state from passing same-sex marriage or civil union legislation, which extends rights to same-sex couples, in the future. Furthermore, it bans the State from passing domestic partnership laws, which extend legal rights to unmarried couples, no matter their sexual orientation. Not only that, but it invalidates “existing partnership benefits by municipalities for all unmarried couples,” no matter their sexual orientation. In other words, as Protect All NC Families, the coalition organization set up to fight Amendment One, explains on its website, the Amendment eliminates “health care, prescription drug coverage and other benefits for public employees and children receiving domestic partner benefits."

Of course, there is always the possibility that this new amendment does exactly what its authors want, limiting the legal rights of people who are immorally shacking up regardless of gender…

Considering the recent birth control debates, would this really be an unexpected development at this point?

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Democracy In Distress: An Occupy Wall Street / Occupy Together / Occupy Portland Grab-bag

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Photo of the Day by A. F. Litt: May 1, 2012, Labor creates all wealth

2012-05-01T08:42:00.001-07:00

Cross posted from : Rubble

Occupy Portland - N17: Occupy the Banks! Portland, Oregon. 11:05 AM

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JOIN THE CEL.LY TEXT LOOP: Type @may1pdx in the body of a text and send that text to 23559
20 excuses to get out of work!
Not all of these events have the consented support of the Occupy Portland General Assembly

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KONY 2012: Gresham, OR

2012-04-27T11:15:00.001-07:00

I was surprised to see a couple signs posted out in my neck of the woods earlier this week…

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General Election 2012: It’s on… Right after a nap… Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….

2012-04-26T07:26:00.001-07:00

This pretty much sums it up for me.

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The war on women & Santorum’s choice

2012-04-23T10:14:00.001-07:00

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As for this last image, on Facebook I wrote:

There is truth here. Not that these men are necessarily misogynists, they probably are not. But their campaign strategies are geared towards solidifying support of demographic groups who will actually vote for them, and in the general election the majority of women will vote Dem pretty much no matter what these fools do, so pissing them off really doesn't change the game for them at all.

Appealing to Non-College Educated White Males, however, the GOP's most dominant demographic, is a huge part of their game plan. The more heavily they dominate this segment of society, the more they can alienate these fellows from the democrats and Obama, the greater their chances of victory in the primaries and in November.

Being worried about what women think is a losing game for them, there is no reason for them to care what they think at all.

Since then, Romney has wrapped up the nomination. This came a little earlier than I thought it would. I actually suspected that Santorum would not give up until the convention, allowing the GOP as much of a chance as possible to try to get out of nominating Romney.

However, I think Santorum had a real moment of clarity leading to his withdrawal from the race. Brace yourselves, I am actually going to say something nice about this fellow.

I do suspect that staying in the race as long as humanly possible was Santorum's plan. I think, on the Friday before he dropped out, that he had every intention of still being in the race a week later.

I believe there were two factors that made him change his mind.

One, of course, was the fact that he was apparently looking at an embarrassing loss in his home state of Pennsylvania.

Santorum as the GOP’s next frontrunner

At this point in his campaign, politically, I think he should have been looking more towards the future than any real chance of being sworn in as president in 2013. Of course, he still had a long shot at widening the cracks between Romney and the, quite frankly, bigoted far right wing of the Republican Party to create some convention drama and an even longer shot at still derailing Romney’s nomination, either becoming the nominee himself or creating the possibility of another candidate stepping into the role.

But the odds of creating any of these scenarios were shrinking fast. Getting shellacked in Pennsylvania would have lowered the odds even further.

And I don’t think his eye should even have been on the nomination this year, at least for the last couple months. He should have been looking at 2016 or 2020, depending on Romney’s fate this fall. For Santorum, staying in the race as long as possible should have been all about positioning himself for the future. The longer he hung in there, collecting headlines if not delegates, he was building a solid foundation for a future run at the Presidency.

The GOP has a track record of elevating those who make a good showing one year to frontrunner status the next. Santorum’s campaign, for the last month or two, could have been following a John McCain strategy.

In 2000, McCain stayed in the race far past the point where Bush had locked up the nomination and was rewarded with front runner status for almost the entire duration of the 2008 Republican primaries, fairly easily wrapping up the nomination his next time out. Of course, he managed to stay in the race that year without becoming a joke.

In 2008, the McCain role was played not by Romney, but by Huckabee. However, since Huckabee decided, early, to sit this one out, Romney slid into the 2nd place role this year and, like McCain in 2008, has now completed a fairly easy primary season and secured the nomination without too much fuss or muss.

Let’s face it, the GOP primaries this year were not a close thing. Romney owned them. Most of the noise about any real competition this year was just that, noise from the media trying to keep a blowout interesting through the end of the fourth quarter. This is not to say that what competition there was wasn’t interesting, it was, and it revealed a lot about the nature of the GOP and its different demographic elements, but the race itself was not a close one at all.

If Santorum really wants to be president, he has a real chance at becoming the GOP front runner the next time around. Like McCain and Romney, he needs to spend the next four to eight years quietly organizing and he can, pretty much, claim early frontrunner status the next time around. Especially if the far right continues to dominate the party like it has, which is almost inevitable if Obama wins re-election.

However, this future front runner status depends on Santorum maintaining his credibility this year.

By pulling out when he did, the former Senator is ending on a relative high note, while he is still seen as a strong candidate. The story, however, could have changed if he stayed in the race and suffered an embarrassing loss in his home state.

So far, the humiliating 17 point loss of his Senate seat has remained out of the national press, for the most part, and has been forgotten by almost everyone.

After another brutal home state loss, I suspect that his past political failures would enter into the national conversation and the story would change from his relatively successful presidential campaign this year to his repeated failings as a candidate for political office.

In other words, the press about his campaign would turn from being mostly positive to mostly negative. By getting out now, as I said, he ends this year’s run on a high note and 2012 becomes a bright spot on his resume, not a hurdle to be overcome in the future.

Santorum’s Priorities

All of these considerations set aside, I still suspect that Santorum was in the race for the long run this year, until the weekend before he dropped out.

He was still seen as being a factor in this year’s nomination process, his campaign was still receiving decent press, though it was starting to turn a little negative as Pennsylvania approached, and, let’s face it, a part of me really wonders if Candidate Santorum is really savvy enough to consider the arguments I made above in defense of his campaign to this point and how it poses him for a future run for the nomination.

If there was ever a candidate to stay in the race far past the point of respectability, ruining his reputation and future in a blind run towards an unreachable finish line, it would seem to be the former Senator. This would be a move right out of his playbook, blind self-immolation.

Though I am sure his campaign advisors saw what I saw for the last couple of months and have been talking to the former Senator quite a bit about how long to stay in and when to drop out. In fact, I would strongly suspect that these voices in his ears were whispering that, in order to position himself properly for the next campaign, that he should drop out before the Pennsylvania contest.

And I am pretty sure that Santorum was ignoring these voices until his daughter was hospitalized the weekend before he dropped out.

That weekend, I bet, Rick got in touch not only with some big doses of reality but that he also took a long look at his priorities in life.

Whether or not he really believed that he still had a shot at the Presidency this year, I do not know, but even a rock would be having doubts by that point. But I think he was still having fun. I think, whether or not he believed he still had a chance, that he was enjoying the spotlight that was shining not only on himself but also on his (crazy, crazy, terrible, awful, horrible) political beliefs.

And, of course, inspiring national conversations about beliefs that are important to oneself would be a difficult role for anyone to walk away from. I suspect that as long as he was inspiring these conversations that Santorum wasn’t going anywhere, even if staying in the race eventually cost him his own political future.

Until his daughter’s hospitalization, I don’t think Santorum would have dropped out of the race until his campaign faded from the spotlight, until it resembled something like Newt Gingrich’s, and then I think he’d probably stay in the race until the money completely ran out or even longer, until, like Newt, he could sit there with his toe still in the pond while doing very little active campaigning.

But that takes a lot of time and effort and I am sure that even Santorum was beginning to see that his 2012 run was over. It is one thing to be taking time away from one’s family and an ill child when one has a real shot at the White House, it is quite another to take that time for what amounts to little more than political noisemaking and rabblerousing.

I think Santorum made a very healthy choice here for himself and his family. I applaud him for it. Sure, I wanted the man out of the race. Amusing (and infuriating) as he was, any chance he has at ever reaching the Oval Office needs to be shut down as soon as possible. But I also am glad to see him (or anyone) putting his family first like this.

Yet my applause are a little bitter sweet here. By making a great choice as a human and a father he has also, accidently, made a great political move. I would be very surprised if we are not dealing with frontrunner Santorum the next time out, and that is not a good thing for America at all.

I see his exit as coming about through the following process…

My advisors keep telling me that it is getting close to the time where I should walk away, but I am not there yet myself. Wait, I need to be with my family now. Oh, okay guys, let’s schedule a press event. Why are my advisors so happy? I though we were admitting defeat and going home? Why are they so happy about losing? Why are they chanting “2016… 2016… 2016…”? Boy, that volunteer has a cute butt, I wonder if he works out? Holy cow, I’ve got to go pray now!

Okay. I tried to keep those sorts of jabs out of this post. But I couldn’t resist just one.

See you the next time around, Rick. Though I can’t say that I look forward to it.

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Yeah, it’s been way too long since I posted here. I’ve been throwing a lot of links up on Facebook, Snip.it, and Pinterest, but I have not had any time at all to write for the last several weeks.

Follow me on those sites for more content between my posts, and from the links I share, you can get a pretty good idea of what is distressing our democracy on an almost daily basis.

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Democracy In Distress

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