Robotman oddly cheery: US General Election 2012 part IV

The last 7 days. Fill 'er up!

*barfs*

Speaking for us all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjrthOPLAKM

hey world, don't film your kids crying and put it on the internet. you think it's funny? no, it's fucked up.

they see me trollin...

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/barack-obama-is-a-great-president-yes-great.html

"For anybody who voted for Obama in 2008 and had even the vaguest sense of his platform, the notion that he has fallen short of some plausible performance threshold seems to me unfathomable."

http://imgs.isidewith.com/results-image/195622771.jpg

"The sense among Obama’s wavering supporters that he has failed rests upon a two-part indictment."

What an idiot.

gtfo with those isidewith jpgs

Ohio Ohio Ohio

http://www.wlwt.com/news/politics/Husted-Suspend-court-ruling-to-avoid-confusion/-/9837768/17199052/-/7kpc8dz/-/index.html?absolute=true&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=wlwt

Ohio's top elections official wants a court to suspend a federal ruling expanding the conditions under which provisional ballots are counted in the battleground state.

U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley ruled last week that provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct and in the wrong polling location altogether must still be counted in Ohio.

Secretary of State Jon Husted is appealing the decision to the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. His attorneys urgently asked the court on Friday for a stay on the order, pending its appeal.

They argued the suspension was needed so the election could proceed without the harm and confusion caused by last-minute litigation.

Marbley said he based his decision on the rationale that such problems arise because of mistakes by poll workers.

COUNT THE VOTES

Husted is a real piece of work.

is there a decent article/can someone sum up easily how the frankenstorm will effect this ting?

Frankenstorm might diminish Obama popular vote margin in NY and NJ, but I'm still worried about the close battleground states no matter what Nate Silver is projecting:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-politics/post/poll-presidential-race-too-close-to-call-in-virginia/2012/10/31/507469c6-235e-11e2-8448-81b1ce7d6978_blog.html?hpid=z2

ad for sean duffy, the real world congressman

http://youtu.be/errkE2orSmk

EMMA: Hey, Olivia. What’s it gonna be?
OLIVIA: Hi Emma. Hmmm. Latte, cappuccino? I can’t make up my mind.
EMMA: That’s how I felt about this election… until I took a good look at the candidates.
OLIVIA: And?
EMMA: I’m for Sean Duffy. He’s pretty cool, actually. He’s part of this new generation of leaders, the kind we need in Washington. He’s a good husband and father and he fights for small businesses, like mine. So I can keep the doors open and even hire more people.
OLIVIA: He’s the cute one, right?

that transcript sounds verbatim like the young twentysomethings I used to work with circa 2004

lol dogg your wife used to polish Puck's nutz

http://por-img.cimcontent.net/api/assets/bin-201210/6d95d06b8b328ba97f9b8a66f16bc661.jpg

(Sean "The Cute One" Duffy, not DJP!)

was gonna say

remember when she was applying to get into some top-ranked grad school program while on the show (I think either Stanford or Princeton?) and when she didn't get in she started ranting about Affirmative Action? did actual Harvard grad Pam ever hear that and lol at her?

Robotman oddly cheery: US General Election 2012 part IV

^^^ this is excellent (i loved the JLA discussion last thread), am sad though that we long since missed the window to have the highly topical "The Symmetries Are Just The Right Height"

one of my two conservative friends on FB keeps going on and on about how people are being "banned from fB" for criticizing Obama. Where is this nonsense originating from?

ever since i took over fB

the contents of his empty echoey head?

people seem to have difficulty distinguishing between "criticizing Obama" and "being a big fucking racist"

try pointing this out to your friend, along with asking him how many birther jokes he's posted, see what happens

people seem to have difficulty distinguishing between "criticizing Obama" and "being a big fucking racist"

Balloon Juice has this problem apparently

http://www.splicetoday.com/pop-culture/what-me-worry

I really love the layout of Splice Today, fwiw. Really nice design.

Needs more links at the top.

Approps of nothing much, I'm listening to NPR for the first time in more than a year. Man, I've missed this. Somehow since moving to Texas I've lost touch with it.

i'm watching an NBA feed from michigan and there was an ad for JUDGES saying something like "they've fought for our jobs" or something to that effect. pretty gross

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/the-making-of-romneys-storm-relief-event?s=mobile

"the frequency of extreme weather situations"

I love this campaign ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alzz11k9yMk

Nate Silver ‏@fivethirtyeight
In our model, Romney has just a 3% chance of winning conditional upon losing Ohio; Obama has just an 8% chance.

what is nate silver's favorite baseball team

"....ahhhhhh....that was nice"

I thought if Obama loses Ohio, he still has a lot more ways to get 270?

yeah but in the universe where he loses ohio he isn't likely to win a lot of those other ways to get to 270

that Ohio is such a close call means whether it goes his way is kind of independent of whether other states go his way, though

xp that's not how 538 works though? The universe where he loses Ohio is just the universe where the actual poll there was on the low side of the margin of error.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTH

S

I think this Jeep bullshit will drive Mitt's independent numbers in Ohio down even further by next Tuesday. EVERY paper in the state is saying it's a load of bullshit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SecretwarsII3.png

i think mitt could shit in a pizza box on stage during a press conference and it wouldn't change a damn thing

Biggest obstacle to that happening is that Mitt doesn't know what pizza is.

xp that's not how 538 works though? The universe where he loses Ohio is just the universe where the actual poll there was on the low side of the margin of error.

― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that is how 538 works! that's why there's only an 8% chance of him winning if he doesn't win ohio, even though there are plenty of different ways he can...the ohio was on the low side of the margin of error' universes are that 8%.

that Ohio is such a close call means whether it goes his way is kind of independent of whether other states go his way, though

― some dude, Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:36 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

? it's not independent because for the most part the country swings as a whole not on a state-by-state basis

Yeah, the whole idea is that it's all related. In 92% of the universes where Obama is underperforming badly enough to lose Ohio, he loses a lot of other states along the way because to do that he's got to be seriously underperforming in general.

SEX SCANDAL TO HIT CAMPAIGN...

STORY SAID TO INVOLVE POWERFUL SENATOR, SOURCES TELL DRUDGE. DAILY CALLER PLANS LATE NIGHT RELEASE...

hurry up drudge, only a few more hours left in october

Christie and Sooki, sitting in a tree.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/20/shock-poll-obama-could-lose-illinois

lol @ Daily Caller

"A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should be winning handsomely."

Translation: Obama ahead by 12 points, pointing out the president's long road to victory in his home state.

wait you're telling me a shocking poll shows Romney ahead in the wealthy suburbs of a large city?

lol

Speaking of candidates. There’s this guy Barrack “You-didn’t-build-that, and-if-you-do-I’m going-to-take-it-from-you” Obama and his faithful side kick Joe “They’re-going-to-put -you-back-in-chains” Biden running against Team Recovery Romney & Ryan. Could you do me a small favor . . . you see sir I’m just a little guy, full of common sense and a good heart, so I don’t know how to put this, but could you pass the word to Mr. Ryan to bring one of those defibrillators with him on the debate stage just so he can be johnny on the spot and keep Mr. Biden from coding out? In fact you should too. Because if Joe Biden is President for even one day he would get us in a war and lose it in the space of 24 hours.

hahaha god, the sloppiness with numbers is just nuts. Cook County has 40% of Illinois's total population - winning it by 12 points sounds pretty good to me.

BREAKING STORY: Obama losing in straw poll of my immediate family, much lower result than expected although I couldn't get ahold of my brother so I'm not sure! Also they all live in Tennessee! But I live in New York - does this mean Obama's margins are much lower in what should be a "safe" state for him? This could be a Romney landslide!

the first paragraph is great too

I need a little lift today so I thought a note to you might do the trick. As of this point you are doing well to let gutter snipes like me get into the gutter and fight it out with the other gutter snipes. Sir, know this, I’m proud to do it even if it means voluntarily giving up that last shred of decency before the TSA officer reaches for my yang. I must admit that you possess a stronger spine then I. If someone accused me of whacking their wife I would be more upset about it. I guess this is politics though and it’s a far rougher world beyond our borders so taking those hits are just marginal preparation for what is to come. During the primary I did a bit of that and I apologize for it. But you are a better candidate for the experience.

that's address to Mr. Romney

do we have a political comments thread thread?

http://i45.tinypic.com/vy1t3b.png

Start one !

please don't

Tbh that is a pretty slim margin for Cook County, which actually isn't very wealthy. (The wealthy burbs are in DuPage and Lake.) Obama won Cook 76% to 23% in 2008. But I suspect those numbers aren't completely accurate.

Meanwhile, Silver punches Obama up to a 78.4% chance of victory, even as the popular vote totals move only a tenth of a percentage point in his direction. He hasn't blogged it yet but I think this may be some of that late-game "if the polls aren't moving, that means time is running out for the guy who's behind to have some kind of miracle" machinery?

i think that's his model

there were like 8 Obama leaning polls in Ohio released today too.

Yeah, but you'd sort of expect those to move the popular vote numbers, right?

the popular vote %s have to reflect the national polls, which aren't as good for obama as the swing state polls. he adjusts the state+national in both directions but in the end his model spits out something where obama is heavily heavily favored because ohio looks so good even tho the popular vote is/could be quite close.

he also just believes the state polls have more credibility due to history and weighs for that, but that's something that he admits he could be wrong about

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/10/npr-apologizes-to-abigael-evans-147847.html

presumably this means nothing: http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17613-uaw-charges-romney-with-profiteering-from-auto-bailout

and i would assume neither does the Daily Caller's big revelation: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/01/women-sen-bob-menendez-paid-us-for-sex-in-the-dominican-republic/

Tbh that is a pretty slim margin for Cook County, which actually isn't very wealthy. (The wealthy burbs are in DuPage and Lake.) Obama won Cook 76% to 23% in 2008. But I suspect those numbers aren't completely accurate.

― Sandy Denny Real Estate (jaymc), Wednesday, October 31, 2012 11:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah cook county will probably split 60/40 (best case for romney)... maybe 65/35.

actually 65/35 is more likely.

ha Nate Silver just publicly bet joe scarborough $1k that Obama will win.

http://twitter.com/#!/fivethirtyeight/status/263948379497840641

I voted! Smoke weed get gay married.

Lol

I voted against weed in Oregon b/c the bill is hella stupid and also I'm a fascist.

What's up with Oregon's weed bill?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcs1vq7UjS1rk5d6vo1_1280.jpg

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Cannabis_Tax_Act

They've raise like no money, have run no ads that I've seen, and haven't been endorsed by any non-fringe figures that I'm aware of.

They should just steal ours. We have a former FBI agent on our tv every ten minutes telling us about the evils of the drug war. The true hilarity of this campaign is the fact that the opposition has been mostly run by dispensaries trying to protect their turf with all these bullshit scare tactics. You'd never think that Hempfest could turn into a huge anti-legalization rally but http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/08/21/did-the-medical-marijuana-industry-go-too-far-campaigning-against-pot-legalization-initiative-502-at-hempfest-this-weekend

At any rate, every poll has shown the yeses ahead by a good margin, so I'm not even worried about it.

xp that's not how 538 works though? The universe where he loses Ohio is just the universe where the actual poll there was on the low side of the margin of error.

― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that is how 538 works! that's why there's only an 8% chance of him winning if he doesn't win ohio, even though there are plenty of different ways he can...the ohio was on the low side of the margin of error' universes are that 8%.

― iatee, Thursday, 1 November 2012 02:44 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It really isn't, dude - his model says "The projected vote share is 50.7 Obama / 48.1 Romney, Obama 2.6 points up but the margin of error is 3.2 points" so there's a statistical space where on the one hand it could be .6 points to Romney and on the other it could be 5.8 to Obama, and 20% of the time it's more than 2.6 points to Romney, and so the bottom line is "80% Obama win in Ohio".

Like with Washington, the projected vote is 55.6/43.1 Obama, margin of error is 3.9, so it's 100% Obama - no way he can lose (if the model is right, if more polls don't come along to shift the model, etc).

Notions of massive cross-country swings to / from Obama aren't in the model, he's not actually simulating multiple universes, just trying to figure out what the polls are telling us and how much we can trust them.

Bah, I've got the maths wrong there I think - margin of error on the vote share is 3.6, means that the real numbers that he's trying to estimate could be 47.5 O / 51.3 R on the one hand and 53.9 O / 44.7 R on the other, so the spread is 3.8 Romney to 8.8 Obama, and "anything more than 2.6 points error towards Romney" is 20%.

it seems doubtful that the oregon weed initiative will pass, but i'm still voting for it on the grounds that certain people in my life REALLY need to be smoking weed.

A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTrPNoNvsSFabBjiUpm2c9I10lJIaN12e3cuZQvHCgrhUwYBxER58-6KQ

Notions of massive cross-country swings to / from Obama aren't in the model, he's not actually simulating multiple universes, just trying to figure out what the polls are telling us and how much we can trust them.

dude, he is *literally simulating multiple universes*. that is what his model does. that is what he announces he is doing every day. I am just getting the sense you don't read his blog. "80% to win ohio" means that in in the 100,000 simulations he ran, obama won 80,000.

3.6 3.2 44.7 44.9 please try harder, have you considered more coffee?

(er, that is directed at me)

He's not running the Matrix, is what I mean, he's considering different permutations within what the polls tell us.

iatee, i think andrew is saying that in each realisation, each state is independent. e.g. if ohio goes an extra 3% over the mean prediction for obama because of noise in one realisation, that doesn't affect other states, which are just as likely to go an extra 3% for romney.

no idea which of you is right..

Yeah, that's it.

from the methodology page: The local and national components of the error calculation are then randomly generated  (according to a normal distribution) over the course of 100,000 simulation runs. In each simulation run, the degree of national movement is assumed to be the same for all candidates: for instance, all the Republican candidates might receive a 3-point bonus in one simulation, or all the Democrats a 4-point bonus in another. The local error component, meanwhile, is calculated separately for each individual candidate or state. In this way, we avoid the misleading assumption that the results of each election are uncorrelated with one another.

there is the 'chance of ohio error' and the chance that the national polls were off - that hits every state - and they're both incorporated

iatee is right

(victory dance)

dude, he is *literally simulating multiple universes*

Nate Silver:

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR6zUv49SdkPvaPGaCZNxHhvLjmzzn8Nccid4KQIUiGOxl5V7ze

That's the Senate methodology page! Hence "all the Republican candidates might receive a 3-point bonus in one simulation" which is not the same as "the Republican candidate in the Presidential might receive a 3-point bonus over all states".

I'm pretty sure he does the same thing for the Presidential.

But they're different things!

why would he go to the trouble of incorporating covariance between separate state-level senate elections, but not bother with the presidential, where the case for including it is much stronger?

State level elections will vary according to bigger news - the presidential election is the bigger news. And it's not like the work of changing people's minds is being spread evenly across the states - everyone's concentrating on a few states now. Hence the prospect of Obama winning the Electoral but losing the Popular - not that it's getting more likely, but it was conceivable for 15 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8R2TZ2D2bM

Nate Silver is an American hero

Tbh that is a pretty slim margin for Cook County, which actually isn't very wealthy.

Aren't Wilmette, Winnetka, and Kenilworth in Cook County? Those are three of the wealthiest municipalities in the US, iirc.

andrew, think about it like this. the 538 MOE for Virginia is +/- 2.9. let’s say someone from the future comes back today and tells you that Obama’s end result in Virginia was 2.8 points below the 538 projection. you, right now, have to bet on the election that’s going to happen next week, but can only bet on the result of states that aren’t Virginia. how would that information affect your bet on other states?

and I think his methodology page was written during the midterms, which is why it reads as senate based, but you can reach it by going to the 538 homepage and clicking on 'methodology'. not 'senate methodology'

worst moderator ever on that bachmann vid

No I understand and agree with you on that iatee, I just don't know that's what 538 does, which is why I was surprised by that tweet.

if you agree that this covariance exists why do you think he wouldn’t include it in the model if his goal is to produce the best predictions?

just as a final stamp on this, here is today's post:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/oct-31-obamas-electoral-college-firewall-holding-in-polls/?hp

Mr. Romney could also circumvent his need to win Ohio by carrying Wisconsin, but that is looking tough for him. In Ohio, Mr. Romney is behind by two or three percentage points, on average, in the polls. In Wisconsin, Mr. Romney’s better polls have him down by two or three points, while his worst ones have him six to eight points instead. There’s still enough upside to winning Wisconsin that Mr. Romney should not give up on it, in my view, but his chances are down to 12 percent in the forecast, and most of those cases involve outcomes where he has already won Ohio anyway.

in other news I think this is interesting:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/michigan-poll-obama-by-6-points-half-say

Half of those polled said the rescue of GM and Chrysler was a deciding factor in their support – and of those, nearly two-thirds backed Obama. Among the slightly less than half that said it wasn’t a deciding factor, Romney had the edge, but by less -- 56% to 33%. Meanwhile, the number of Michigan voters giving Obama favorable marks rose 4 percentage points to 55% from the early October survey; Romney’s remained constant at 45%.

Nate Silver just got pwned by this far more accurate prediction:

http://www.unskewedpolls.com/map_unskewed_projection_10_25_2012.gif

http://www.unskewedpolls.com/unskewed_projection_2012%20president_02.cfm

hahahahahaha what the hell

Perhaps some of the most surprising states to some will be the following:

Colorado: 54-45 Romney -- a suprise for many still expecting Obama to carry Colorado

Connecticut: 51-47 Obama -- closer than expected, and probably an indication that Linda McMahon wins the state's U.S. Senate seat

Florida: 54-46 Romney

Iowa: 54-46 Romney -- many don't expect this

Maine: 49-49 Obama -- much closer than expected

Michigan: 51-48 Romney -- the surprise of the night, Romney's home state ties are more key than Obama's claims to have "saved" the domestic auto industry

Nevada: 52-47 Romney -- this will surprise many

Minnesota: 51-47 Romney -- this will surprise many

New Hampshire: 53-46 Romney

New Jersey: 50-49 Obama -- much much closer than expected, the Romney campaign will re-allocate resources to New Jersey if they believe this number

New Mexico: 53-46 Romney -- most don't expect Romney to win New Mexico

Ohio: 54-46 Romney -- Late momentum and great ground game win the Buckeye state for Romney

Oregon: 52-46 Romney -- major surprise

Pennsylvania: 53-47 Romney -- big time upset

Washington: 51-49 Obama -- closer than expected

dude, just

this will surprise many

BIG TIME UPSET (oh btw he's also gonna win MN)

"How'd you get these results?"
"I'm telling you – they'll surprise many."

TWSM

^ yes!

This projection is expected to be spot-on accurate for predicting the outcome in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and close to the actual popular vote.

now she want a photo
you already know tho
this will surprise many
that's the motto nigga, TWSM

hahaha omg was just thinking that it looked like drake-ese

many don't expect this

can we change thread title to that

Major Surprise, with his sidekick Captain Unexpected

New Jersey: 50-49 Obama -- much much closer than expected, the Romney campaign will re-allocate resources to New Jersey if they are crazy enough to believe this number

what are they going to do when election day happens and none of those except Florida, NH and maybe Colorado happen

try again in 2014

http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq313/doctorcasino/twsm.jpg

xxxpost voting this for election day thread title

Even if Romney wins those 3, will they be anywhere close to his predicted margin?

xpost

the surprise of the night, Romney's home state ties are more key than Obama's claims to have "saved" the domestic auto industry

Yes, Romney has done so much for Michigan.

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/10/whats-the-game

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7C955559-B4D1-45AB-8CB3-C63C14A02F58

$700k ad buy for akin, nobody talking.

alright, alright, the pressure is too much, i can't take it!

it was me. i'm the mystery 700k donor.

btw frontline just ran a pretty great episode about this kind of tomfoolery:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/big-sky-big-money/

the detail about that story tho is that it's not dark money! it has to be party money, but neither the RNC or NRSC are answering questions.

featuring incredibly slimy lawyer: http://i47.tinypic.com/358w9qr.jpg

oops, sorry for posting a huge image and sorry for not reading through the link, goole - you're right!

weird.

wau

suprised the unskewed dude didnt just give romney california too..

because fuck it thats why.

California: 49-44 Romney -- results very different than expected, major surprise here

What are the baseline no-contest gimme electoral points either side can expect at this point? Do Democrats start each election with a slight leg-up, given NY+California?

"at this point" meaning our current epoch, not just this election cycle

xpost -- Same way that the GOP gets Texas.

Haven't Silver and the rest used a Democrat baseline of 237 (Kerry states) the last two elections?

I guess this map of a theoretical pre-convention baseline (from "the Pragmatic Conservative") looks relatively accurate:

http://thepragmaticconservative.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/basline-map.jpg

Would almost want to take Minnesota off the true blue there, lately, which jives with my assumption that the two parties more or less own an equal number of electoral votes at the starting line.

What are the baseline no-contest gimme electoral points either side can expect at this point? Do Democrats start each election with a slight leg-up, given NY+California?

Haven't Silver and the rest used a Democrat baseline of 237 (Kerry states) the last two elections?

well kerry won nh and the midwest is blueish but 'in play' - if romney had an amazing election, he could win some kerry states, but would never win CA etc.

the left coast and the northeast are solid blue in presidential electoins. the non-virginia/nc/fl south is very solid red as are all the west coast / central states w/ low population.

things are relatively 'fair' insofar as the electoral college and current voter distribution goes but that's not necessarily something that's built into the system, it's kinda just a coincidence. you could reimagine ways where if certain states were different, one party would have an overwhelming electoral college advantage from the get go, but that's not the case at the moment.

Yeah, I mean, granted, the idea of a permanent advantage in almost any state is not realistic.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/01/blogger-in-bear-suit-steals-kids-halloween-candy-to-make-point-about-obama

amazing

British viewers: are you getting annoyed by Matt Frei's 'take' on America?

things are relatively 'fair' insofar as the electoral college and current voter distribution goes but that's not necessarily something that's built into the system, it's kinda just a coincidence. you could reimagine ways where if certain states were different, one party would have an overwhelming electoral college advantage from the get go, but that's not the case at the moment.

― iatee, Thursday, November 1, 2012 2:53 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if this were the case the parties would end up realigning wouldnt they? a party that keeps getting beaten in presidential elections b/c of 1 state is going to have to change its positions to become competitive in that state

Bloomberg endorses Obama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJSMQnkW2U4&feature=plcp

USA! USA! USA!

Anyone who know what people think will happen demographically? The sunbelt (especially arizona and texas) will probably become more blueish, due to immigration, right? The lessening of workers influence in the midwest making it more reddish?

my very outside hope/wish for the next couple days: if the michigan and iowa newspapers un-endorse romney for the jeep/china lies or maybe sandy haplessness

if this were the case the parties would end up realigning wouldnt they? a party that keeps getting beaten in presidential elections b/c of 1 state is going to have to change its positions to become competitive in that state

― max, 1 minute ago

that's roughly how it could/does work at the moment and part of the reason why the hard left is structurally at a disadvantage ie when parties realign that's an advantage for the people towards whom the parties are realigning. so the advantage is still there, it's just less obvious.

but you can still imagine situations where the voter/state/issue distributions aren't smooth enough for something like that to easily happen, and a polarized minority of the population could have something of a lock on the electoral college.

gukbe that clip is nuts. terrifying.

That map Eric put up--is Illinois solidly blue like NY and California, or is that a temporary thing because of Obama?

it's solid blue over the last two decades but not as overwhelmingly because chicago isn't as big a % of the state population as nyc is for ny state and the urban areas in ca are in ca

a polarized minority of the population could have something of a lock on the electoral college.

one easy way to imagine this is if all the people who live in california / ny state but are as crazy as the people in idaho and wyoming took over all the small population blue states, and all the people who were in those states moved to texas

illinois' solid blue but not like ny or cali. i do wonder what the gop's fortunes going forward would look like if prop 187 had never happened.

That clip Gukbe posted is staggering. Is Romney the ultimate empty suit?

NEED a gif of .26 -> .31, & its terrifying split second camera stare, on the romney clip above. NEED IT.
ideally when it reaches .31 it switches up and the background changes to this

http://opinionatedalex.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/vertigo-crazy.jpg

help us lagoon obi wan

I think it could be a seamless gif, his sideways looks come back to where they start almost.

just got posted by j. in the Romney/Ryan anxiety thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxMD02zU9SE

absolute MUST WATCH mandatory viewing and an INCREDIBLE counterpart to the damning silence in Gukbe's USA USA clip

yeah wow

love the handwaving at splits the mountain, comes in to kill all the jews, the whole bit

that would also be a great gif, hand right at the camera WHOOSH

iatee yeah i think the 50/50 split is actually the exact opposite of a coincidence

haha that clip is like just one reality-tick away from everybody shouting "ECW! ECW!!"

obama looks really awkward wearing 'normal person' clothes

not as awkward as mitt does but still

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxMD02zU9SE

absolute MUST WATCH mandatory viewing and an INCREDIBLE counterpart to the damning silence in Gukbe's USA USA clip

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, November 1, 2012 7:51 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...

this man, in every way, lacks the temperament required to be the president of this country

the uk coverage of this election is really dreadful, they have really overplayed the 'romney surge' and every single segment uses the phrase 'on a knife-edge'

just now on sky (murdoch but notionally 'editorially independent' by law iirc) after some ~expert~ says obama could win while losing popular vote, the closing analysis was 'superstorm sandy could wreak havoc with obama's attempt to win a popular mandate'

that is true though

though tbf i don't think 1) he'll lose the popular vote 2) have much of a mandate anyway 3) not that the republicans would care if he have one

they did briefly mention lowered popular vote in ny/nj etc but the main narrative seems to about delegitimizing obama now that post-convention romney hype is no longer possible

The Economist's reluctant endorsement:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21565623-america-could-do-better-barack-obama-sadly-mitt-romney-does-not-fit-bill-which-one

iatee yeah i think the 50/50 split is actually the exact opposite of a coincidence

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), 11 minutes

well like I said you can imagine some element of parties shifting to fit the numbers but I think it's a stretch to that national party political ideology (as much as it even exists) is the way it is just to maximize pres election win chances.

politics today really operates on a rural/urban divide rather than a state by state divide and it's a coincidence that the most urbanized part of the country has lots of small states.

Which national figure, in a perfect (both houses united; clear, benign goals etc) world would be better than Obama? Serious question.

Metternich.

though tbf i don't think 1) he'll lose the popular vote 2) have much of a mandate anyway 3) not that the republicans would care if he have one

I think mandate is mostly a make believe concept, like you have yr approval rating and a certain congress to work w/, gl, but mystic philosophical things don't really count for much.

help us lagoon obi wan

― beef richards (Mr. Que), Thursday, November 1, 2012 3:50 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha I tried to make a gif recently and my work flows all busted up dont even have the right programs anymore rip

You miss the spirit of my question but sure xp

mandate is real as much as people believe its real

people being congress of course

"Mandate" is a buzzword like "momentum." Dubya said he had a mandate after barely winning in '04.

yeah they got very butch w/ it, lots of 'damn right we have a mandate' and then managed to collapse into lame duck status before the next world series had even rolled around.

the 'no mandate' cudgel will be the gop's new excuse to block any and all obama legislation in the next term

attempting to privatize social security may have been a lil ambitious

Missouri.

Not even Missourians have a bigger hard-on for their state than Mormons.

Maybe that's a discussion for another thread.

Can't do the vertigo bit, but

http://gifsoup.com/view5/4251762/mitt-o.gif

VA <3 itt

the 'no mandate' cudgel will be the gop's new excuse to block any and all obama legislation in the next term

― johnathan lee riche$ (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, November 1, 2012 8:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

let me introduce you to my friend, Mitch McConnell

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/strict-obstructionist/308344/

polyphonic TY!!!

obama had a 'huge mandate' and the gop blocked any and all legislation, so it basically doesn't matter

yah thats what my link says u should check it out

love how the unskewed polls guy doesn't just have romney winning all the tossup states, but winning them in blowouts -- ohio by eight points!

http://reason.com/assets/mc/mwelch/2012_02/mcconnell_turtle.jpg

pottery

yeah my only hopes for obama 2.0 are a finger in the dike, two more justicies, obamacare enacted, finish afghan drawdown and no new wars (or more specifically no new invasions and occupations), and maybe if we're lucky immigration reform.

Don't know if this has any effect on anything whatsoever, but: UAW Files Charges Against Romney on His Auto Bailout Profiteering

For Mitt Romney, it's one scary Halloween. The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon he will charged with violating the federal Ethics in Government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bail-out.

At a press conference in Toledo, Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers, will announce that his union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have filed a formal complaint with the US Office of Government Ethics in Washington stating that Gov. Romney improperly hid a profit of $15.3 million to $115.0 million in Ann Romney's so-called "blind" trust.

. . . According to ethics law expert Dan Curry who drafted the ethics complaint, Ann Romney does not have a federally-approved blind trust. An approved "blind" trust may not be used to hide a major investment which could be affected by Romney if he were to be elected President. Other groups joining the UAW and CREW include Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union, Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group.

President Obama's approved trust, for example, contains only highly-diversified mutual funds on which Presidential action can have little effect. By contrast, the auto bail-out provided a windfall of over 4,000% on one single Romney investment.

In 2009, Ann Romney partnered with her husband's key donor, billionaire Paul Singer, who secretly bought a controlling interest in Delphi Auto, the former GM auto parts division. Singer's hedge fund, Elliott Management, threatened to cut off GM's supply of steering columns unless GM and the government's TARP auto bail-out fund provided Delphi with huge payments. While the US treasury complained this was "extortion," the hedge funds received, ultimately, $12.9 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

As a result, the shares Singer and Romney bought for just 67 cents are today worth over $30, a 4,000% gain. Singer's hedge fund made a profit of $1.27 billion and the Romneys' tens of millions.

The UAW complaint calls for Romney to reveal exactly how much he made off Delphi -- and continues to make. The Singer syndicate, once in control of Delphi, eliminated every single UAW job --25,000-- and moved almost all auto parts production to Mexico and China where Delphi now employs 25,000 auto parts workers.

in the 'off the record interview' w/ the iowa paper he mentioned immigration reform as likely and the is gop will be hitting themselves in the face if they put up too much resistence

xp

irl lol at that McConnell pic. No matter how many times I see him placed next to a blobfish or other creature it never gets old.

yeah my only hopes for obama 2.0 are a finger in the dike, two more justicies, obamacare enacted, finish afghan drawdown and no new wars (or more specifically no new invasions and occupations), and maybe if we're lucky immigration reform.

― balls, Thursday, November 1, 2012 8:44 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

4 Justices from one prez would be a pretty huge victory

kinda depressing, but huge

Let's not forget Bush and the entire GOP leadership lobbying to keep Terry Schiavo alive.

I cannot see that name without humming "is kind of alive-o"

It would be nice though if one of the Court seats could get flipped.

(And Ford's Stevens for Obama's Kagan doesn't count.)

In terms of criminal procedure, Kagan was a flip backwards.

thnx for the image of Kagan jumping Matrix-style into Nino's chambers.

attempting to privatize social security may have been a lil ambitious

― lag∞n, Thursday, November 1, 2012 8:39 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

PERSONAL ACCOUNTS

GRIDLOCK

LOCKBOX

WHERE'S THE BEEF

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE

http://img.youtube.com/vi/eFTLKWw542g/0.jpg

Another Romney scandal that won't change a damn thing

Not really any big news here, but well presented proportional map of election funding: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-map-morphed-by-money

stuff like that uaw deal and his fema hating and that shitty jeep ad makes me wish (dear god what am i saying) that there was one more late debate just so we could all watch that asshole get the shit kicked out of him on national tv.

“@ezraklein: 1. Bloomberg's endorsement is one of the most fascinating and strategically designed endorsements I've seen.”
“@ezraklein: 2. By endorsing this close to the election, he's trying to impose a real cost on the Republican Party for climate denialism.”
“@ezraklein: 3. By attacking Obama and praising the old Romney in his op-ed, he's buttressing his role as an arbiter of the center.”
“@ezraklein: 4. And then he's spending that credibility to make "acting to stop climate change" a centrist issue.”
“@ezraklein: 5. Bloomberg's not endorsing Obama so much as he's trying to reset the incentives on climate change. It's a huge play.”
“@ezraklein: 6. And by tying the endorsement to Sandy, Bloomberg is trying to cement the idea that Sandy=climate change”
“@ezraklein: 7. Making it at least a bit more likely that the political elites will see Sandy as a proper forcing event for action on climate change.”

is the idea here that Bloomy has principles, or is he actually interested in the quagmire of national office?

imagining Klein stripping off one item of clothing at a time as he tweets

That unskewedpolls thing is just nuts. It reminds me of RCP's prediction on the eve of the 2000 election...

http://web.archive.org/web/20001110051000/www.realclearpolitics.com/Polls/polls-EC_ALWAYS.html

hahahaha

what

I mean bloomie has views on stuff and uses his klout to push those views on stuff. some of them are good, like his views on climate change. 'principles' might be the wrong http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9wfslPmRp1rqc2vjo1_500.jpg when its clear what he's doing is so calculated.

xp

haha

They have drive-through voting in Colorado? Is this the first election for that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjNY4o_i5RY

haha i love that that is still in place

Who wrote that insanity?

word

nope still dont know that one

it's good to know that republican pundits have always been psychotic and it's not a recent phenomenon

no it actually is w0rd but it only happens for me

I think everyone should get a personalized autoreplace and they should be randomly generated and only last for a day, and the longer your paragraph the more likely you get an autoreplace

RCP nowadays, of course, isn't nearly as nuts and just averages the numbers (even all the RED LINKS on their site alternate between pro-D and pro-R). Makes you wonder what kind of depth of data was available in 2000 for such drivel to be written. I saw another archived page - can't find it now - where RCP did their state-by-state breakdown and it was very much like the unskewedpolls article. "Latest poll average: Gore 47 Bush 45; blah blah energy policy blah blah grass roots... we say BUSH +6", etc for every state that wasn't Vermont, basically.

poor alex in sf, thought he got an otm from jjjusten there for a moment

haha so hurt

i don't see any problem with the Romney video. He doesn't seem overly angry or anything. non-issue.

you guys are aware that the Muppet Show "did" Star Wars back in its original run right

Jjjustin OTM

^^^ this, far and away

xpost to shakey mo

Lucas and Henson and Frank Oz were buds.

Also, ten bucks says they could have gotten Carrie Fischer to cameo/host if they'd offered enough drugs

man drudge is really losing his shit right now.

"Claim: 'Hail Obama' Chants at First Lady Rally..."

god, drudge really is the scum of the earth

it's embarrassing that he has any level of influence whatsoever

They take what they can get, etc.

See also: Rush. Beck, Hannity, et al.

It's not quite as barbaric as Adolf Giuliani's, but Bloomberg's megalomania knows no bounds.

seriously who the fuck cares what Bloomie thinks at this late date. everyone knows Obama's gonna carry NY

I'd go so far as to call it vomitorious xp

http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/11/good-use-of-endorsement.html

it has nothing to do w/ convincing people in nyc to vote for obama

it is a message to national, u know, "moderates" who were always going to vote for Bamster

well as much it is a msg to them, do you think it's a bad thing for them to be thinking about global warming?

I'm irritated that it hasn't been mentioned at all until now

I think it's a bad thing to imply that Bam will do shit about global warming.

All moderates already believe in it and don't mind ignoring it when voting.

"I think it's a bad thing to imply that Bam will do shit about global warming."

I think it's extremely naive (no shock there Morbs) to imply that any single individual could really "do shit" about global warming.

maybe but i'd like to hear more about Mitt's wind-powered cars

by doing anything, in the case of POTUS, I mean "open your fucking mouth to say something besides 'clean coal'"

any prominent politician making big public overtures towards the necessity to do really anything about global warming at this late stage is a net positive.

...now that it's too late. agreed!

plz see "terrifying math" thread

So wait, if it's too late, what's wrong with "ignoring it when voting"?

All moderates already believe in it and don't mind ignoring it when voting.

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Friday, November 2, 2012 2:45 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

many moderates want more oil exploration, support Keystone XL and then they also say they want to limit emissions.

forget it, he's on a roll

and it's cut with coke.

yeah i don't really see how this is a bad thing.

plz see "terrifying math" thread

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Thursday, November 1, 2012 9:53 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So wait, if it's too late, what's wrong with "ignoring it when voting"?

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, November 1, 2012 9:53 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm sure he'll get back to us on that with a very carefully reasoned answer snarky comment.

http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/claim-hail-obama-chants-first-lady-rally_660016.html

wow just wow

True. Would not lie.

lol

Mike Synan ‏@msynan
Possible RT:"@2p2politics: @msynan Does it make sense that students from a school whose chant is "Hail Wildcats" might adjust it?

https://twitter.com/msynan/status/264181968269344768

xpost

this is surely the backwards B of 2012

i feel like i need rosetta stone or something to understand tweets by right wing bloggers.

Taibbi's new post is great:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/hurricane-sandy-and-the-myth-of-the-big-government-vs-small-government-debate-20121101

The evolution of this whole antigovernment movement has been fascinating to watch. People who grew up in public schools, run straight to the embassy the instant they get a runny nose overseas, stuff burgers down their throats without worrying about E. Coli and sleep happily in planes they know have been inspected by the FAA (I regularly risked my life in Aeroflot liners for a decade and know the difference), can with straight faces make the argument that having to pay any taxes at all is tyranny. It's almost as if people feel the need to announce that they don't need any help with anything, ever – not even keeping bridges safe or drinking water clean.

It's this weird national paranoia about being seen as needy, or labeled a parasite who needs government aid, that leads to lunacies like the idea that having a strong disaster-relief agency qualifies as a "big government" concept, when in fact it's just sensible. If everyone could just admit that government is a fact of life, we could probably do a much better job of fixing it and managing its costs. Instead, we have to play this silly game where millions of us pretend we're above it all, that we don't walk on regularly-cleaned streets or fly in protected skies. It shouldn't take a once-in-a-generation hurricane for Americans to admit they need the government occasionally, but that's apparently where we are.

my only reply: don't vote, I'll die, everyone will be happy

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/02/opinion/obama-vision-for-america/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

tl;dr, but this made me chuckle:

Editor's note: Barack Obama is president of the United States.

Jobs reports numbers out: 171,000 jobs added, unemployment increases to 7.9 percent.

more than the ADP report

Probably about as good as Obama could hope for: a high (relative to current expectations) positive number, rate remains under the psychological 8.0 line.

Getting beyond the 8.0 line isn't a matter of psychology. It's all about patience and relaxation.

So obviously only one poll but in the latest IN Senate Donnelly up +11 over Mourdock.

That it is something that God intended to happen.

I can't vote and I won't be happy if you die Morbz! A no win situation over here.

xp Feel like Indiana voters have some way of just shutting that whole thing down.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/blacks-should-vote-republican-ad-ohio.php

^ for people who think that money in politics = money in politics it's always important to remember how much is basically lit on fire

also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/11/01/wapo-abc-tracking-poll-presidential-contest-as-close-as-close-can-be/

Beyond the frenetic finish in the political contest, Obama got another round of high praise for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Wednesday interviews. Overall, 79 percent of likely voters now give the president “excellent” or “good” marks for his response to the situation. Majorities across party lines agree on this score: 86 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of independents and 69 percent of Republicans offer positive ratings here.

i think i've been so behaviorally trained at this point that any hour that doesn't have a new election 'development' for me to react to feels like a disappointment

What the latest Jobs Report leaves out is that all 171,000 jobs are people joining The Polyphonic Spree, which is a step backwards. - [Eugene Mirman on twitter]

Lol

has this been linked yet?

Newtie is such a vicious prick

hahahahahahah the ads described in that story iatee linked to are SO BAD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hgKCglrKUQU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQaJiN2vW6I&feature=plcp

like these are so bad i would believe that "Empowered Citizens Network" is actually a leftie superPAC, just listen to the final disclaimer narration in that first one

Reminds me of Krusty's introduction of Poochie.

"Then, for a long time, nothing happened."

To sum it up, lots of very dead republicans once did great things for black americans.

Have we mentioned Larry Flynt's awesome new trolling yet?

Not bad, not great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Ep1LP9CXU

so much easier to vote for a multiple arrestee

http://rt.com/usa/news/jill-stein-arrested-texas-694/

what's flynt up to now?

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTjmDIDasTX_ohs6RIbYaCMk9UgNVb9dV1RNQz15T0I7bKTBVWP

Dear Mr. Mourdock,

I am offering you $1 million in cash, to be deposited in any bank you designate in the United States, Cayman Islands or Switzerland, for proof to substantiate your statement on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, that “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Please be kind enough to verify your claim for a wondering nation. I will accept for purposes of this reward any verifiable transcript of your personal conversations with God; letters, email, text messages or videos from God, or messages addressed to you from God transmitted by any third party, including the Republican National Committee or the Romney/Ryan campaign.

I assume that you would not have made this statement unless you had been authorized by God. No one who believes in God would ever use the Almighty’s name in vain. That would be blasphemy. I am eager to receive your proof and pay my $1 million reward to you. Please send evidence immediately to me.

This offer is valid until 8 P.M. (ET) on November 5, 2012.

Sincerely yours,

Okay, I lolled at "Broccoli Obama or Meat Romney." xpost

very magnanimous of you, Josh

Dear Larry Flynt,

If you send me a check for $1 million, I will give you proof of God.

Best,

Josh in Chicago

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQShgCt25w3DjWGuMVTBwDznaO6dQLRqLIYbuh0HFelwGlo6Fif5g

xp I dunno, clem, Brocolli Obama was kind of lol. Some nice visual humor, too.

lol

Flynt's a douchebag but he is an a+ politics troll

xp

Yeah that was next level

Mitt Romney's 917 False Claims of the election season

what up Brooklyn

Only 917? xp

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/02/dick_morris_sees_danger_signs.html

this guy

aNYthing6 • 10 minutes ago

When the hell has Pennsylvania ever been tied?

adastraperapathy aNYthing6 • 5 minutes ago

In Dick Morris's bedroom.

PA and MI have, relatively speaking, been two of Obama's more comfortable leads over the last many weeks. Dick Morris is on crack.

Alfred, I love your summation:

Romney leads a skeleton’s life, a symbol of the GOP’s chicanery. He has a sycophant’s attraction to power and the plutocrat’s inability to understand his privilege. He isn’t a man — he’s an early warning system, signaling to party satraps when he has to change a position because Barack Hussein Obama embraced it. There isn’t even a Republican Party anymore: it’s a list of pathologies.

sounds pretty accurate.

wow that's awesome alfred

Too kind. Thanks.

yeah dude thats amazing

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/416914_513744471971155_2118443999_n.jpg

Damn at that Maddow blog link

OMG balls

Alfred could you post a link to your article

yes pls

Looks like Gary Busey been dyein his hair again

Not an article: introductory remarks to an article I linked to.

http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/the-party-erred-only-in-its-excessive-compassion/

Damn at that Maddow blog link

― Raymond Cummings, Friday, 2 November 2012 21:51 (12 minutes ago) Permalink

which link?

No recent polls in the Carmona/Flake AZ race except a Rasmussen poll that's got Flake ahead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZENtH3psXl4

Are we at a point where we can handicap the accuracy of certain polls? I mean, presumably, everybody got a repeatable method wot has a built-in accuracy factor to it, right? I hated my undergrad probability class, but there's gotta be somebody out there presumably again not named Nate got off on it and has the stats posted.

I've been keeping calm-ish by throwing out the outlier polls on either side, so sayonara Rasmussen and whatever one gives Obama the biggest lead that day.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcu67oOmSI1qdpkauo1_500.jpg

whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?

oh, idk, vice presidential stuff.

"You're schmoopy."
"No--you're schmoopy."

Jill Stein endorsements, including Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Alex (Bill & Ted) Winter:

http://www.jillstein.org/endorsements?utm_campaign=endorsements&recruiter_id=198315

As for my own Stein vote, it boils down to what Doug Henwood wrote: "Romney believes in money. Obama believes in nothing."

hmm interesting

That is fucking stupid

well those last 2 posts need to be added to the Green site.

vote for morbius

I already did.

For schlump:

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/02/14884755-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-xli?lite

Worth a thousand reposts

Ah, what the hell

http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/will-romney-go-bulworth-during-last-days-of-campaign

awesome photo on that

http://www.splicetoday.com/vault/posts/0003/8747/rsz_romney_mitt__large.jpg?1351861085

haha oh wait that's your blog!

I didn't choose the picture! It was a good call for the headline. But yeah, I write for that site.

haha, excellent !

the CW is I "insult people" nonstop, but I haven't called anyone's opinion "fucking stupid" in a dog's age.

lol you haven't used those exact words in a few days /= you have stopped insulting ppl nonstop

I was calling the quote fucking stupid, but since you agree with it *shrug* congrats, I think you're an idiot

guys how in the hell do people STILL get drawn into this kind of shit with Morbs?

Mourdock and Donnelly completely flip flop on 538 odds report. Didn't change the overall Senate odds so Tester or someone must have gotten poor results.

http://cravencottagenewsround.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/nihilists.jpg

^ Obama, basically. Nothing "stupid" about that.

Jill Stein endorsements, including Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Alex (Bill & Ted) Winter:

lol

Solid Slate riff on Romney's white people non-problem, with this good graf:

... the election scripted for white voters—honestly, I'm not entirely sure what the story is. Republican campaigns have been using dog-whistle signals for so long that they seem to have forgotten how to make sounds in normal human hearing range. Mitt Romney appears to be running on the message that first of all, Obama hasn't accomplished anything, and second of all, he's going to repeal all the bad things that Obama has accomplished. And then Romney himself, as a practical businessman, is going to ... something something, small business, something, restore America, growth and jobs, tax cuts, something. It's a negative campaign in the pictorial sense: a blank space where the objects would go. A white space, if you will.

Silver is updating every couple hours now it seems like; O at 83.7% to win

trying to figure out though if they're going to be able to call it as soon as west coast polls close at 11 eastern and that pretty much relies on Ohio getting called in time.

top story on yahoo is an ap article about how romney is going to "close the deal"

a solid minority of you guys are assholes, vote for your fascist

admittedly Henwood's quote is hyperbole... the POTUS like his immed predecessor believes in murder and gittin' reelected.

a solid minority of you guys are assholes, vote for your fascist

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Saturday, November 3, 2012 7:02 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pat Buchanan's running again?

FASCIST

http://itmakessenseblog.com/files/2012/06/Fascist-Obama.jpg

michael barone says romney 315, obama 223

one reason being that 'you don't see many Obama signs on campuses.'

that article is so fucked. do americans really "oppose obama's policies" in great number? most who actually have some knowledge of his domestic policies approve of them. many of the people who "oppose" them have no idea what they are.

i could imagine nate silver doing a spit-take at that last word. read hilariously similar to unskewed's 'this will surprise many' at parts but the big oversell reminds me of that rcp bluff from 2000. silver earlier tonight tweeted: "Conditional upon Romney winning, his most likely electoral vote totals are 285, 275, 291, 281, 279, 302, 301, 292, 273, 286. Conditional upon Obama winning, his most likely outcomes are 332, 303, 347, 348, 333, 290, 281, 294, 318 electoral votes." i did my own map based on nothing but my queasiness and post-2004 unease, giving romney colorado and florida and still came up w/ 294 for obama. even if you gave romney another big toss-up state (ohio, virginia, for the sake of argument pennsylvania) it wouldn't be enough, he'd have to either take two of three or take penn and also get iowa. when the romney campaign was making a big deal about how they were putting penn on the board weigel started tweeting links to stories from 08 and 96 and 92 where the gop campaign made a big deal about a last minute gambit for pennsylvania that was gonna rewrite the race or whatever. meanwhile penn hasn't gone republican since 88. maybe the weather does diminish obama's votes in philly enough to make it competitive but it seems to me more a case of a campaign that has more money than sense. tuesday night if obama wins virginia i'll breathe easy, if he doesn't it's like any other year: waiting on ohio and florida. i'll also be voting for jill stein (note: i do not live in a swing state).

can't believe he has 347 that high, that would be every state obama took in 08 minus indiana.

that these guys think romney's going to wins landslide when every pres election since bush 41 have been either big dem victories or super tight GOP squeakers is a testament to the reality they live in.

well, things can change, but this year ain't gonna be when that happens.

I love this campaign ad:

― pretty even gender split (Eazy), Thursday, 1 November 2012 02:03 (2 days ago) Bookmark

this is a p sweet beach ime tbf

That Barone piece is laughable. Just before he starts running down states, he casually throws in the kind of disclaimer I'd use here: "fully aware that I'm likely to get some wrong." It looks so much more corrupt in a published piece, even in what I take it is a right-wing publication.

i'm fully aware that i'm likely completely full of shit, but that's what i'm paid for so how about romney with 350 electoral votes because - uh - racism/independents/hurricane/benghazi/economy/white_ppl/wrong_polls/sorcery/may_god_have_mercy_on_us_all

trying to figure out though if they're going to be able to call it as soon as west coast polls close at 11 eastern and that pretty much relies on Ohio getting called in time.

― Infamous dickbiscuits (silby), Saturday, November 3, 2012 1:53 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i doubt this a lot -- well be up all night for ohio, probably for fla and va too

Why the part of the election that doesn't matter may take days:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/109533/the-popular-vote-nightmare

brb going for early voting in Cleveland ROMNEY! ROMNEY! ROMNEY!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83254.html

put the whole christie/obama bff thing + the half-assed convention speech in perspective

Silver's article today is really good, though it feels like a guy trying to explain roulette to a gambler.

whoa xp

tho i think we all know this is the real reason christie turned on romney http://www.theawl.com/2012/11/chris-christie-looooooves-springsteen

haha I actually thought of that too

A number of you are probably checking in on 538 regularly, but if you're outside the paywall already (I will be by tomorrow--but I can use my work computer Monday), here's a good summary posted today:

My argument, rather, is this: we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him. Almost all of the chance that Mr. Romney has in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, about 16 percent to win the Electoral College, reflects this possibility.

Yes, of course: most of the arguments that the polls are necessarily biased against Mr. Romney reflect little more than wishful thinking.

Nevertheless, these arguments are potentially more intellectually coherent than the ones that propose that the race is “too close to call.” It isn’t. If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.

But the state polls may not be right. They could be biased. Based on the historical reliability of polls, we put the chance that they will be biased enough to elect Mr. Romney at 16 percent.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/nov-2-for-romney-to-win-state-polls-must-be-statistically-biased/#more-37099

just delete everything after the .html in the url or get the nytclean bookmarklet

Just got in line for early voting in Cuyahoga County. It's a freaking circus here, almost literally. Between voters, pollsters, campaigners, media, vendors and everything else it's just nuts.

I wish Michigan had early voting, we have so many proposals on the ballot that the lines are going to be hellish on Tuesday.

330,000 early voters in my state which has a general population of 3 million. I don't know what the mad rush is, but it's crazy.

just delete everything after the .html in the url or get the nytclean bookmarklet

― lag∞n, Saturday, November 3, 2012 11:18 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

after the ? but yeah

the question mark doesnt do anything kevin god

a solid minority of you guys are assholes, vote for your fascist

So you're basically saying, Morbs, that you have a problem with minorities?

Dammit, who allows political adverts during college football broadcasts

Three more days of horrible ads and then...blessed silence. (Well, except for all the normal ads coming back.)

I had to sit through a Romney ad to watch a Trapped in the Closet chapter someone sent me,

Did this already get linked, BTW? Rick Perlstein on fire here:

http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_long_con/

just delete everything after the .html in the url or get the nytclean bookmarklet

Can't be repeated enough.

I'm hoping my voter card shows up in the mail today

This is ALL about the look on her face:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/nov/02/southern-nevada-woman-arrested-suspicion-trying-vo/

perlstein piece is a good read

A temp employee of a county elections office in Oregon was caught tampering ballots for Republicans.

Ain't it wonderful to be clothed in the armor of the Lord and be armed with the sword of righteousness?

Possibly already linked but if not, oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY0M7IdNl7U

If we haven't posted this yet, here's Chris Rock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDxOSjgl5Z4

can we start a Viguerie-style letter-writing campaign to get Perlstein to write the third volume of his American conservatism project -- the rise of Ronald Reagan?

Pretty sure he's said that's already in the works.

http://www.wbez.org/amplified/historian-rick-perlstein-discusses-%E2%80%9C-rise-ronald-reagan%E2%80%9D-98007

Maybe you were kidding, not sure.

I had no idea. Thanks!

I think he maybe mentions embarking on it in either the intro or epilogue to Nixonland (unless I knew about it from an interview when Nixonland came out).

I'm Mitt Romney, and I'm as dumbfounded as you are by this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E44jOYvOKI

^^ Just another blatant attempt at whipping up a good froth.

Watch the expression on the lady behind him as he gets to the word "revenge."

That's no way to talk about Ann Romney.

misread that as "There's no way to talk about Ann Romney."

There isn't.

remember all that Washington insider blather about Mrs. Romnulent as the candidate's Secret Weapon

In context, according to TPM, Obama was talking about revenge for all the stupid Chrysler-moving-to-China ads. As dog-whistles go, quite audible.

Oh and uh BTW

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/2012/11/01/80077d70-2450-11e2-ba29-238a6ac36a08_story.html?hpid=z11

Help.

http://www.eclectablog.com/2012/11/karl-rove-begins-to-give-his-excuses-for-wasting-300-million-of-other-peoples-money.html

Everybody knows this, I just like that url.

gabbnebs of the world, unite and take over:

Though Republicans have great maps in 2012 and 2014, they will in turn face a brutal map in 2016. The GOP will have to defend seats in blue states like Illinois and Pennsylvania and swing states including Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida. Just as big Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008 make those classes ripe for GOP pickups in 2012 and 2014, the big GOP gains of 2010 make that class very tough for Republicans to defend in 2016.

CREAM! GET THE MONEY

lol at looking ahead to 2016 congressional races. as much as the 2014 map is a 'nightmare' for dems other than landrieu and hagan's cursed seat who looks like a real easy target for the gop? obv more seats to defend = more seats at risk but is eg mark warner really at risk?

The meltdown begins

Kathryn Jean Lopez ‏@kathrynlopez

long line outside of chevy chase, dc early voting center. thinking not a boost for romney.

Actual comment on my FB in response to me posting that Chris Rock vid from a dude I knew from my college radio days who did a killer weekly garage rock show. Dude has since fallen into the rabbit-hole of weird online rightwing horseshit, like posting Malkin links and wondering aloud why there wasn't more reporting on Benghazi. Even 10+ years ago when I knew the dude, a polite description of the guy would be "acid casualty."

"A white person voting for Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. "

I just didn't know people actually said things like that.

That simile has been going around for a few days; saw it in my FB feed earlier in the week.

meanwhile, Pee Wee Herman gives his endorsement in a column mainly talking about frozen custard.

Kingfish tell your friend I go for extra crispy myself. And that I hope he chokes on the bones.

i can't figure out which of these two anxieties to prioritize; a) systemic poll failure or b) voting fraud

Jesus Christ, did they just do a bulk deal with Youtube to stick these things in front of every and any vid possible, regardless of content or relevance? I'm trying to watch a gameplay vid from a 16 year old game and I gotta sit thru one

jeeeeezz

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/11/01/glitch-held-up-absentee-ballots.html

i can't help but wonder if that is just the tip of the iceberg wrt voter fraud or if it is an isolated case that we found out about bc our apparatus for detecting voter fraud is so sophisticated

Esquire's Charles P. Pierce has been a hero, blogging from Ft. Lauderdale about Floridian malfeasance:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/

His reluctant endorsement is worth a read too.

To be fair, this won't be the most unenthusiastic presidential vote I ever have cast. The prize for that one remains Jimmy Carter in 1976. I spent a year chasing that grinning peanut-farmer around the country on behalf of Mo Udall's campaign, organizing in the field in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, until the money ran out. All we did was finish second, over and over again. Hell, we finished second to him by an eyelash in Michigan after Mo had dropped out. Voting for Carter that fall was like draining my own blood with a turkey baster. I wasn't particularly ginned-up over Mondale in 1984, either. Neither did Bill Clinton make my lights shine either time he ran. And, to be perfectly honest, the only real enthusiasm I felt for this year's incumbent in 2008 came largely from being around people who were so transported by the idea of him. That and the fact that George W. Bush no longer would have anything to screw up.

However, I am casting my vote for him (again) because of something that Dr. Jill Stein said the other night on TV, when she was being interviewed in the wake of that third-party candidates debate that Larry King hosted. I've known Jill socially for some time, and I admire her, and I agree with her on a marginally greater percentage of the issues than I do with the president. I think a lot of the snark aimed her way is unjustified. She's not responsible for the wankerific fantasies of renegade "progressives." I do not, however, think she is any more likely to become president — or any more qualified to be president — than I am. For example, I take a back seat to nobody in my scorn for the president's apparent naïvete concerning the virulent nature of his political opposition. But, listening to Stein talk about the glories of the "Green New Deal" she's going to pass through a Congress that is unlikely to differ much one way or the other from the one we have now, well, that makes Barack Obama sound like Huey Long. Still, I thought long and hard about tossing her my vote, because I live in the bluest of blue states, and I felt that, in casting my vote that way, I would absolve myself of complicity in the drone strikes, and in the inexcusable pass given to the Wall Street pirates, and in what I am sure is going to be an altogether dreadful Grand Bargain while not materially damaging the most important cause of all: making sure that Willard Romney is not president. And I might have done it, had Jill not gone on TV and talked about how those people who are voting for the incumbent president simply to make sure that Willard Romney is not president are doing so out of "fear."

Horse hockey.

in casting my vote that way, I would absolve myself of complicity in the drone strikes, and in the inexcusable pass given to the Wall Street pirates

Yes and i voted for Nader and lived in a fantasy land 2000-2008 where nothing bad happened.

Rupert Murdoch ‏@rupertmurdoch
Just look at European welfare state and broken countries. Some want US to follow, others not. Why can't we debate civilly?

makes you think

xpost -- Haha indeed sir. Ailes chuckling in the corner...

Pierce article is pretty OTM.

pierce is pretty otm

Yikes

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2012/11/03/early-voting-north-carolina_n_2069171.html

Jim Cramer is bullish on Obama:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/outlook-crystal-ball-contest

hahaha, wow

hmm so what are the 98 electoral votes that romney does win

I guess if obama won 2008 states + arizona, texas, montana, missouri...no that's still not enough

AK-TX-OK-MO-LA-MS-AL-GA-WV = 98

Unless he thinks TX is going Dem, I don't see many other ways to decipher that bullshit.

Handy interactive map, in case anybody hasn't already found their favorite yet.

http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/16/2012-electoral-college-calculator-map

"Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?" Cramer responded "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear."

texas going dem is 1000x more likely than idaho tho

We've had an Obama yard sign up for a couple of weeks, and last night someone took it, trashed it, and chucked it in the bushes! But whatevs. Where I live people go something like 89% democrat, so the joke's on that asshole.

Jim Cramer, You Are Cray

http://i.imgur.com/WFOtw.png

haha that is a vision of USA 2032 or something

what bothers me more is that he just isn't following the logic of what states might swing in a 10 point landslide

lol comment from the wapo crystal ball contest that featured picks from guy kawasaki and langley high school's 12th grade gov. class

Put your pundit's money where their mouth is: Why not base the November salary for each of the pundits on how their predictions turn out? If Democrats win big then Jim Cramer gets a whopping big bonus. If Republicans win then Andrew Beyer gets the cash prize. If they lose then send them home with pennies in their pay check. Might get us a bit less partisan waffle and a bit more honest judgement!

wyoming is not one of them, georgia is xp

Where's the Cramer map from? Trying to find it, I stumbled onto this:

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Jim-Cramer.jpg

Oh never find, just saw the WaPo link.

I dunno, maybe he thinks Oregon will go red while Oklahoma goes blue. That's the best I could do for a 440/98.

And it's still bananas.

Obama sweeps south, Romney picks off California + New York + New Jersey.

altho it appears fairly unlikely, cramer just couldn't refuse the odds he got on that bet

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/03/article-2227512-15D58F2C000005DC-963_634x586.jpg

California Gurls sewn up

In this fun game of Cramer vs Reality, I managed to get 440/98 by giving GA and SC to Obama, and having Romney take an aesthetically pleasingly contiguous sweep from Idaho to Alabama (11 states in all).

Still doesn't make sense (well DUH) cos Nebraska's 2nd congressional district would surely go DEM in this scenario, so it should be 441/97.

haha @ that chris rock video

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/ElectoralCollege1952.svg/800px-ElectoralCollege1952.svg.png

Ike had 442 to Stevenson's 89. All the votes have moved southwest and there are two more states, but still.

rip the days when florida only had 10 electoral votes

pa = cali and fuc texas

Texas will be a blue state within the next 4 general elections, imo.

unless there's a burrito stall

You'd think, but the demographic bomb hasn't slowed down the GOP yet.

Houston and the coastal south keep growing (basically unchecked) and Austin is reliably blue. At some point, the population in these two areas will tip the balance from Dallas and the sparsely populated western half of the state.

538's take seemed to be "eventually, but no reason to think it's anytime soon": http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/a-sense-of-waiting-for-godot-for-texas-democrats/

You'd think, but the demographic bomb hasn't slowed down the GOP yet.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 4 November 2012 02:03 (3 minutes ago) Permalink

well you don't really slow down until you start getting less than 50%.

Seems like the thing to watch would be municipal and state-legislature elections - perk up if you ever see one that had been Republican for the last generation turning blue again. I imagine that'd be a bellwether for shifts, before the state necessarily hits that less-than-50% mark for the presidential races.

the gerrymandering really hurt

when I moved to Houston I looked at the district gerrymandering and wanted to puke

Rupert Murdoch ‏@rupertmurdoch
Benghazi scandal. Look who has taken fall for O. America's finest non- political public servant: CIA chief David Petraeus.

Rupert Murdoch ‏@rupertmurdoch
Ignore last tweet. Sorry. Petraeus has NOT taken fall for O.

cracker jack reporting there

*falls for obama*

Matt Stoller, besieged:

Barack Obama is in a dog fight with this clown. Why? It isn’t because a few critics are writing articles in places like Salon. The answer, if you look at the data, is that Barack Obama has been a terrible President and an enemy to progressives. Unemployment is high. American household income since the recovery started in 2009 has dropped 5%. Poverty has increased substantially. Home equity – the main store of wealth for the middle class – has dropped by $5-7 trillion, in contrast to the increase in financial asset values held by Obama’s friends and donors. And this was done explicitly through Obama’s policies....

Obama broke a whole series of campaign promises that would have helped the middle class. These promises would have reduced household debt, raised the minimum wage, stopped outsourcing, and protected workers. He broke these promises for a reason – Barack Obama uses his power for what he believes in, and Barack Obama is a conservative technocrat. Obama sided with Wall Street. He probably made the foreclosure crisis worse with a series of programs designed to help banks but marketed to help homeowners. These were his policies, they reflected the views of his most valued advisors like Robert Rubin and his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Moreover, he’s proud of this record – the only mistake he cites in his first term is inadequately communicating how effective he has been, focusing too much on getting the policy right.

And the result is inequality in income gains that is higher than that under George W. Bush. Most of Obama’s defenders refuse to acknowledge Obama’s role in this policy mess. He deserves credit for the auto bailout, but when it comes to the bank bailouts, hey he’s just one man. What could we possibly expect? Yet, reelecting this man to a Presidency that is hamstrung by the system is the most important thing in the world. In other words, just as they’ve been arguing for years, Obama is both entirely powerless and utterly essential.

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/03/why_is_the_left_defending_obama/

ugh "he puts the left to sleep" more like Stoller puts ME to sleep amirite

Dennis Perrin‏@DennisThePerrin

@matthewstoller Well done, Matt. But speaking rationally to liberals about Obama is like explaining evolution to fundamentalists.

As an undecided leftist voter who had previously never, ever heard of the Obama years not being an unmitigated flood tide of progressivism, I really appreciate these links. Clearly the only sensible choice to advance a leftist agenda is to campaign ceaselessly for the defeat of Obama and the election of Romney, who will, it would seem, do much better on everything discussed in that block quote.

you see if Obama loses you can feel vindicated

those who congratulate themselves on being rational, file under people who never need to be listened to ever

if only Obama hadn't angered progressives, he'd be up 20% right now

My argument is that progressives should evaluate these risks honestly, with a clear-headed analysis of Obama’s track record.

lol you have no idea what an argument is but plz do continue

my you smugholes are stayin' up late!

hey Dr Casino... never mind

guyz all ethical frameworks are incoherent, just vote however you feel like at the time

do it morbz. DOCTOR FIGHT.

Obama came into office with a massive mandate, overwhelming control of Congress

deep question: does all the rationality in the world make a difference if you dont understand how the senate works

can't wait for Wednesday when all these nauseating Life of Pi ads will finally be gone

oh dammit

who do I vote for to stop those

Lincoln

This just comes down to fighting all arguments about Obama at once. I don't think anyone would really give a shit about the auto bailout if it didn't so greatly affect Ohio, and even then it's just an easy argument against the Right's "THE STIMULUS DID NOTHING/GOVERNMENT SUCKS". His housing stuff was disappointing, yes, and of course the rise in inequality is bad but it's also deeply connected to the recession and still generally operating in the same system we've been in for decades (not something that can be changed, ya know, overnight). So you can make arguments about his regulations not being enough and yet there's also been some very good stuff which is a step in the right direction (Too Big to Fail, for instance).

Argument that having Obama puts the left to sleep is just stupid. The biggest groundswells of popular movement from the left have tended to come when a Democrat is in office. You can say that there's apathy because we have a Democratic president but you can also say that when there's a Republican in office all the left cares about is stopping the incredible backsliding and putting anyone NOT of the right in office. Which, I think, has how things have tended to be.

lol that piece takes exactly the same approach as the romney campaign ie pretending that history started the moment obama took office, its not like i even disagree that many of obamas economic policies have been awful, but breathlessly reporting that Under Barack Obama, economic inequality in terms of income growth has skyrocketed to historically high levels is so lol, and double lol at what an unclear poorly executed sentence that is

I just, and I know this has been said before, but I just resent this idea that those of us who are progressives and are voting for Obama are all wide-eyed worshippers who really expect him to work miracles or even to stop doing terrible things. We know about all that stuff, okay? I'm ultimately, begrudgingly, voting for him because no one, certainly not Dr. Morbius, has been able to convincingly argue that Romney would not be worse on all of the above. I went through a long stretch there where I'd decided not to vote on deontological grounds, that it was just plain wrong to cast a vote for someone doing the things Obama is doing - what would I do when hypothetical grandkids or whatever came and asked, how COULD you vote for this man?, etc. And then my utilitarian ethics won out: Romney winning would be so self-evidently worse for so many people that I just have to hold my nose and do it. The opposition to the health care bill - one of the few things Romney's been consistent about! - has massive, real consequences. Sick people who would be treated under an Obama administration might or probably would not under a Romney administration.

Is that worth me feeling good about myself for not voting for the war criminal? Given that the other guy would also likely commit the same offenses, or escalate them? Unless you have secret evidence that Mitt Romney is planning to end the drone strikes, slash the Patriot Act, appoint justices who'll overturn Citizens United, and fight for a fully progressive tax code, I just don't get your undertaking what amounts to a year-long internet campaign for the guy, unless it's intended as a sort of permanent rolling wake-up call campaign for progressives to not get caught up in partisan election-year "rah rah go team" madness, which would be fine except that that's not what's going on on this message board, and so it all just seems like so much WAKE UP SHEEPLE preached to the converted. You're an intelligent guy and I, at least, would rather have an intelligent conversation with you than go through these classic ILX "Morbz argument" cycles, but you just insist on performing this progressive troll martinet...thing.

I dunno man, it's just so weird to see posts by you on like, friendly social threads and then to come back around to the politics threads where you just seem to give nobody you're speaking to any credit, as if we haven't thought about, maybe even agonized about this stuff.

*snore*

Xp

Doc, i DO NOT believe you are all "O" worshippers who really expect him to work miracles or even to stop doing terrible things.

Voting for him -- OK, esp in SAFE STATES -- registers the same as if you were, though.

I mean, we never, ever had a single criticism against Tim Geitner for like 4 effin' years, right? Nothing but unmitigated praise this entire time, yessiree

I'll be honest. I'm not even begrudgingly voting for Obama. I don't agree with a fair amount of what he's done, but none of it has struck me as WTF WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT bad considering the political and cultural climate. I think he's probably on the better end of what the "left" of American can reasonably expect to put forward for President.

Of course I'm voting in Virginia so that's why I don't feel "begrudging" I guess.

Happily bumping a seven year old thread:

actually, blount...

I think he's probably on the better end of what the "left" of American can reasonably expect to put forward for President.

headsplode

Voting for him -- OK, esp in SAFE STATES -- registers the same as if you were, though.

I don't really buy this, but I think Jill Stein is kind of a joke and as I genuinely wouldn't want to see her as president I don't know that voting for the Green Party would be any more morally satisfying.

Yeah Morbs, I'm sorry for making your head explode. But really.

I'm voting absentee in Ohio FWIW.

obama is by far the best president this countrys has had in my lifetime, i did not have to hold my nose to vote for him at all, even tho i dont agree w/many things hes done

The opposition to the health care bill - one of the few things Romney's been consistent about! - has massive, real consequences. Sick people who would be treated under an Obama administration might or probably would not under a Romney administration.

Dude, I have (a luckily treatable) cancer and in the weeks since my diagnosis, I have found that our fixed healthcare system can go fuck a duck.

omg obama is totally responsible for the state of american healthcare too, because he invented it

I'm sure president stein will fix our health care system so rest easy

the Democrats refuse to advocate for a sane single-payer system. FUCK them, that is the measure of a failed 'liberal' party.

its almost like only part of the democratic party is liberal, weird to think abt

I'm really sorry to hear that, Morbius. Actually now I see why everybody was jumping on Aimless a little while back - I would have been too if I'd realized (though I know you said you didn't think much about it either way).

But again this is what I find so unfair in the way you're arguing here. I didn't say that the health care system was "fixed" or particularly good. I wanted single-payer! Probably most ILXors do! But do you think the system under an Obama presidency - given that a Jill Stein presidency is not going to happen - is better or worse than the system Romney is campaigning for? Yes or no?

(Don't wait for the translation!)

there was no way a single payer system would have happened.

lol due for the record it wasnt aimless

wait, sorry, who was it? my bad!

i would go find the thread but there are like eighty

yeah it was hamateurist

look, i'm tired of fighting

follow yr conscience

just expect nothing

yes or no?

oh yeah amateurist - also started with an A, give me that

my conscience is informed by a lot of things in complicated matters and it's totally fine with voting for Obama, even if I were in a safe state.

especially when the alternative is Rocky Anderson or NO WAR FOR OIL

i voted obama in arguably the safest state in the country, but i did vote for the united states marijuana party candidate fo senate, they unfortunately did not have anyone on the presidential ballot

feel like we probably should go to war for oil if it comes down to it ya know

kind of a bummer to pass up voting for the only socialist serving in congress but i just couldnt resist

there was no way a single payer system would have happened.

― Gukbe, Sunday, 4 November 2012 01:30 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think a bunch about the voting arguments itt, maybe inspired by the DO U SEE thinkpieces coming thick n fast, but can't quite motivate myself to get involved because arguing it is so circular. BUT just ftr, iirc single payer was at one point a joe-liberman-yes-vote away from happening. right? i seem to remember. i don't really say this especially critically, just that for a bunch of reasons - ie remembering to get worked up about lobbying culture - it seems salient to not get too distant from how it unwound.

am open to corrections btw

do you guys really care that little about zero due process and the prez -- ALL future prezzes -- as unquestioned executioner of citizens?

cuz that will be O's longest lasting contribution, til we drown

I care but I don't see how Romney winning is going to change that.

SO IT'S A TIE

no it isn't. because i'm not a single-issue voter.

single payer was nowhere near happening joe lieberman or not, maybe you are thinking of the public option, which is just an insurance plan offered by the government that functions m/l like any private plan, its basically the feds competing on cost to keeping the insurance companies honest, good idea but not nearly as important as it was made out to be

xps

oh i totally was

ty/sorry/my bad/carry on/carry on arguing til you drown

j0e, i'm talking about the Dems being brilliant about advocating single-payer 20-25 years ago... I thought you stoners had expansive minds.

The "public option" wasn't exactly a single payer system, but it was as close as the US will probably ever get to it barring a Swedish invasion. iirc it WAS Liberman whose vote put the kibosh on that.

tbh i think i that climate change is more important than the kill list/infinite detention issue but helpfully our not properly addressing will ensure that our drowning will happen much faster.

Morbs: the country has changed a lot in 20-25 years.

its almost like only part of the democratic party is liberal, weird to think abt

really? what part? RIP Feingold

Yes or no?

the country has changed a lot in 20-25 years.

I'm aware of that; mostly through the Democrats elbowing for a good money-cocksuck on Wall Streeters.

The "public option" wasn't exactly a single payer system, but it was as close as the US will probably ever get to it barring a Swedish invasion.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, November 4, 2012 1:43 AM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

vermont could v well have real single payer w/in the next few years using funding provisions instituted under obamacare fyi, not sure when the swedish invasion is scheduled

this wd be much more fun if we had chips and beer, or if i could share my oxycodone w/ you guys

Presidents have been killing people for as long as there's been presidents. Even when I don't know about it, I presume it's happening. Party matters not.

I have a lot of disagreements with the Dems, and I would love to see the ballot expand in real ways in the future, but I'm also a realist. This country has operated on a binary system for 150 years, gradually moving to the right the whole time, and the most any of us can actually do about it is vote for the candidate who will at least put the brakes on going all the way into a fascist theocracy.

Did Montpelier finally get an IKEA? xposts

do they need proofreaders in Vermont?

We just need to get rid of the electoral college and we're on our way

yes to chips and beer, all i have in the house is old crow

Presidents have been killing people for as long as there's been presidents.

does it have to get easier, under legal sanction? how much more cynical and powerless can we get?

j0e, i'm talking about the Dems being brilliant about advocating single-payer 20-25 years ago... I thought you stoners had expansive minds.

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Sunday, November 4, 2012 1:42 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the country would certainly be better off if they had passed something anything back then, or even better done nixons plan 40 years ago, and fyi i havent toked weed in many a year;)

well it's nice yer lookin out for the youf then, or ppl w/ glaucoma

hey im goin back to the Lincoln book til i fall asleep, g'night

g'night morbs. and god bless.

you get to read an extra hour Morbs, DST ends tonight!

This country has operated on a binary system for 150 years, gradually moving to the right the whole time, and the most any of us can actually do about it is vote for the candidate who will at least put the brakes on going all the way into a fascist theocracy.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, November 4, 2012 1:47 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha come on srsly dude do you think the country is more right than when only white men could vote you could be hanged for stealing a mans horse

btw princeton election consortium has obama at 98 or 99.8% to win depending which method you choose http://election.princeton.edu

Socially, no. Economically? Sure. The US has had brief swings leftward, largely under folks with the last name Roosevelt, but it's mostly been a slow trudge towards 21st century feudalism. xp

yeah when ppl get all upset about the state of american democracy I always want to point them to the 19th century, I mean come on xps

so youre advocating a return to the gold standard as progressive economic policy then

Me? No way.

time was, you saw a man stealing your horse, someone was there to throw a gold brick at him. now? just a callow youth, hepped up on his "johnny" fevers, throwing a brick of society.

I wonder what Eugene V. Debs thought about gay marriage

icey otm

too bad his obama vote didn't count tho :(

All I'm saying is don't be distracted by civil rights advancements and other social policy gifts when the lack of opportunities for upward mobility are designed to push Americans into a caste system.

Me? No way.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, November 4, 2012 1:01 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol ok good, i mean the argument is obvs v strong for a rightward swing over the last 30 years, tho even that isnt as one sided as it might seem, but come on 19th century america was a hella backward conservative place

it is kinda interesting to think abt what right and left even mean in that context tho, the world has changed a lot, like for instance i dont think grant even had email

Dude, I have (a luckily treatable) cancer and in the weeks since my diagnosis, I have found that our fixed healthcare system can go fuck a duck.

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Sunday, November 4, 2012 5:24 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The most important parts of Obamacare don't take effect until 2014. I look forward to hearing your opinions on it then.

That's.... easier for a straight white male to say than for some of the rest of us. xxp

I find the oncoming charge of the caste system over the past 150 years hard to square with Social Security, Welfare, Medicare etc.

tbh I think right and left are the wrong directions for the entire argument in politics. It really should be backward and forward. That sounds like sloganeering, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than right and left.

fwiw, I am tired as fuck right now and if you asked me add 2+2 I'd probably say 6.

All I'm saying is don't be distracted by civil rights advancements and other social policy gifts when the lack of opportunities for upward mobility are designed to push Americans into a caste system.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, November 4, 2012 1:08 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1. civil rights and the social safety net are extremely important achievements that have made millions of peoples lives substantially better 2. the era of greatest social mobility and wealth creation up and down the american economic spectrum was in the mid 20th century 3. now is still a better time to be alive than then imho

Voting for him -- OK, esp in SAFE STATES -- registers the same as if you were, though.
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Sunday, November 4, 2012 12:16 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so… what? what does this weasel word "register" mean? registers with whom? and with what consequences?
i hate to put words in your mouth, but given how pithy and dismissive your posts tend to be, and how seldom-if-ever you actually deign to explain yourself at any length, let me give it a shot. a lot of folks in my union believe that if progressives refuse to vote for obama en masse, that it will send a strong message to the democrats that they need to "tend to their base" more by fighting more strongly for labor, the environment, and other "progressive" causes (btw i'm old enough to find the idea that labor is a "progressive," rather than simply a mainstream, cause a little disconcerting).
i can't say i've ever found this logic particularly seductive, but i can still see its appeal. there are several problems with it that i can see:

1) it comes with enormous risk. this shouldn't need to be explained, since arguably we saw some of the consequences in 2000. the risk here is romney as president. to discount this you'd have to believe that romney will somehow be better or no worse than obama--not in some broad ideological sense, but in the sense of "causing less harm." i have yet to read a remotely convincing argument for this. morbius doesn't really make arguments as such, but he has frequently countered with the only apparently relevant point that obama is guilty-by-proxy of killing civilians in pakistan and elsewhere as part of the "war on terror." this is true. it's also true that his predecessor caused 100,000s more deaths thanks to an unwarranted attack on iraq. and that given the bellicosity of romney's foreign-policy advisors (who are much the same as bush's), it's much more likely that he would get us into a similar situation than obama. and it's hardly likely that romney is going to reduce the scope of the patriot act…. ok i could go on but this argument has been made possibly 100s of times on this and every other election thread. i won't even mention the domestic stuff because that has been tackled in the last 24 hours.
i get the sense, among morbius and some of my union comrades (i've honestly yet to meet anyone IRL outside of this group that has made the "no on obama" argument), that they imagine that a romney presidency would somehow make things so much worse that the only response would be some groundswell of progressive-populist sentiment, one which would have enough force to dislodge the entrenched monied interests and etc. to actually believe this requires, i think, an astoundingly naïve faith in a simple narrative of historical development, whether it's straightforwardly progressive or dialectical. it is to discount the complexity and uncertainty of human civilization. it's a religious notion, really--the faith in a destructive, then cleansing political apocalypse, followed by a redemption.
of course sometimes i get the sense that this "has-to-get-worse-before-it-gets-better" idea is just a projection of morbius's misanthropy and (self-?)disgust. or more cheaply, just a piece of rhetoric that allows one to be aloof from political conversations and to feel superior to those confused enough to take part in them….

2) it seems like a bad strategy for national, as opposed to state and local, elections. progressives simply don't have the numbers, outside of a very few states, for their collective not-voting-for-obama to have a measurable impact on the nationwide election such that it would get democrats attention at the national level. there will still be many many more votes in the "great middle" and the national campaigns will be waged on that ground.
(i should add that some people note that you should vote for jill stein in a safe blue state. sure, go ahead. i won't get into whether stein is a "serious" candidate or not, because it doesn't much matter. but i would note that a bunch of green-party votes in a few blue states is not going to get the democrats' attention. so while voting stein in say, massachusetts, holds little risk, it holds little reward, too.)
another argument is that by voting for stein, you're helping to build a national third/alternative party. i'm very very skeptical that this will happen in our lifetimes (and hopefully they will be long, even morbius's) because of the deep ,deep entrenchment of the two-party system, which is deeply embedded in every facet of our government and civic life.
but even if building a strong third-party is your goal, i think that although presidential runs may get more press, this is best done at a local or state level. build up a constituency for the green party where the stakes are much lower. indeed, i live in the upper midwest, where the farmer-labor party once made great strides--not as an alternative to democrats, precisely, but as a kind of left partner. the result was a great deal of progressive legislation in places like wisconsin and minnesota, legislation that's being undone in my state by reactionary bullies as i type this.

anyway morbs is probably just going to respond to this with his usual bilious shorthand. if he actually replies at length (let's say, more than six full sentences), i'll eat my hat. or maybe i'll even send him some DVDs i think he will like.

but given his usual intractability, this post is in honesty more to get these ideas out from bouncing around in my head.

--amateurist

also i truly believe that morbius's haughtiness and dismissiveness is largely an attempt to making him seem (to himself no less than the rest of us) to be possessed of a superior intelligence. while others go about arguing subpoints, acknowledging gray areas, and so forth, he can wave his hand and cast us all as lacking the clear thinking necessary to come to such simple (i'd say simpleminded) conclusions. i've said before (on film and politics threads) that i think morbius is often bluffing, pretending to a more sophisticated understanding of matters than he possesses. (for example, the hackneyed contrarian positions he takes on certain films/filmmakers that he seems to think are going to startle us.) actually arguing at length would expose this, so he sticks to the dismissive, bullying posture.

i've met people like this before. IRL i tend to give them a wide berth, but for some reason i find it hard to do this on ILX.

sorry for typos.

or, what this guy said:

Pretending that electoral politics doesn’t really matter, even if the argument isn’t quite as terrible as this one, isn’t a theory of progressive change. It’s about congratulating yourself for being better than the people engaged in the compromises of politics. To again quote Garry Wills, “those who decide they are too good for politics may be right, but they are often the least qualified judges, either of their own virtue or the system’s viciousness.”

man this is why putting the clock backwards/forwards does

yeah

amateurist i used to kind of enjoy you being the only person left trying to actually argue w/ Morbius as if he'll ever go back and forth in any substantial way, but after you got banned from the fucking board for wishing death on him i thought maybe you'd realize it was time to fall back and not double down?

sorry! i felt like maybe it would be productive to actually explain my objections. i guess it's irrational to hope that it would open a dialogue.

i had no idea that people would actually take my comment on the previous thread remotely seriously as some kind of genuine feeling or threat. obv i don't wish death upon "morbius"--he doesn't even exist to me as but an internet persona, so i'm not even sure what that would mean. (i should have just written what i was thinking, which was that for somebody who is alive because of health insurance, arguing that throwing the vote to a guy who has vowed to effectively take away insurance from 1000s of people seems pretty ugly.) but i realize that it was way out of line. i'm not really sure why that in particular should be a reason to avoid getting into arguments with him at all, but frankly that's a good thing to avoid in general, as is this board in toto when i have work to do.

sorry that i upset people and sorry that it seems to some that i'm "doubling down" now. i'll just disappear for everyone's benefit.

call mitt "deacon blues"

http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2012/11/01/alabama-lsu-presidential-election/1674675/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/andy_staples/11/04/alabama-lsu-sec-bcs/index.html

Some other junky predictors (from 2008--haven't gone down the list for this year):

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1856094_1856096_1856102,00.html

Appreciate amateurist's lengthy posts. I sometimes tried, when I first started posting, to explain myself at length on political threads, but a) I'm Canadian, so it was weird, b) it can be exhausting, and c) a long post followed by a one-line joke (even a good one--especially a good one) is not a good feeling. So I basically stopped.

i hate to put http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9wfslPmRp1rqc2vjo1_500.jpgs in your mouth, but given how pithy and dismissive your posts tend to be, and how seldom-if-ever you actually deign to explain yourself at any length, let me give it a shot. a lot of folks in my union believe that if progressives refuse to vote for obama en masse, that it will send a strong message to the democrats that they need to "tend to their base" more by fighting more strongly for labor, the environment, and other "progressive" causes (btw i'm old enough to find the idea that labor is a "progressive," rather than simply a mainstream, cause a little disconcerting).
i can't say i've ever found this logic particularly seductive, but i can still see its appeal. there are several problems with it that i can see:

I think this logic falls apart from the start because it assumes that our electoral process is ignoring a certain group rather than aggregating the views of many groups. I mean 'the democrats need to be sent a message' assumes that a. there is this heart of the democratic party that can 'receive a message' and will make future decisions based on it and b. that voting third party creates information that didn't previously exist, ie someone will see 'jill stein got 2% instead of .5%' and believe that they learned something useful. but as I mentioned in another thread - can anyone here remember ralph nader's vote %s in 2008 and 2004 off the top of their head? there really isn't 'a message that's being sent' or someone to receive it.

sorry that i upset people and sorry that it seems to some that i'm "doubling down" now. i'll just disappear for everyone's benefit.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, November 4, 2012 7:32 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i find all this arguing w/mobs of which i am just as guilty as anyone a bit tiresome but dont assume just cause some dude wants you to fall back (lol) everyone does

feel like the reason morbses arguments get so much burn around here despite him not really putting too much effort into being coherent is a lot of people agree w/him kinda

what counts as a swing state for purposes of voting / not voting Obama? Obv OH is swing state and NY isn't. How about PA?

no state is gonna swing on one vote

iatee sent me a cool link yesterday that was partially about prisoners dilemma and voting which argued that rationality should not become a suicide pact. on zing atm or I'd link to it

you put in yr card and it insults you

Mathew Dowd said on "This Week" a few minutes ago that you know Romney's gonna lose because (a) his people tell reporters to ignore polls (b) his people insist on looking to the Real Results on Election Day.

Sorry--George Will sometimes makes me laugh (intentionally). When asked if the early Bain ads in Ohio had an effect: "Probably...and if he wins, Mr. Obama will have a mandate not to be Bain Capital."

one way to look at this is through albert hirschman's 'exit' and 'voice' framework. feel like people who vote third party believe that they are using 'voice' ie communication about their preferences when really they're just using their power of 'exit'. but that second power depends on leverage and in a system thats mathematically doomed to be two party it's always going to be an empty threat, esp when it comes to the presidential election. the only real 'exit' is to another country, where they have another voting system, where your political preferences can get aggregated via a parliament after the election instead of before the election.

protests / making your political 'voice' heard is important and morbs knows for a fact that I spent plenty of time @ zuccotti park, but that doesn't mean every opportunity for protest is equally worth taking or that all forms of protest have the same weight. I liked OWS because when I was one of 200 people at a park that was getting press coverage worldwide, that was a pretty good return on my protest dollar. but third party politics is like the single worst use of protest energy possible imo - you will always be ignored - for very simple mathematically reasons - except when you ruin everything. it's just the worst of both worlds.

the best we can hope for from third party politics is that it will split the right. because a. the far-right is much bigger than the far-left and b. they have recently been willing to throw elections by placing extremist ideology above winning. that's a really stupid thing to do! hopefully they'll double down on it.

as for what a true progressive can do for real 'voice' - lots of things! politics isn't just this one election, this one election is basically the end result of all the politics that already happened. spend your energy on that politics instead - you don't have to hold your nose if you donate or volunteer for an environmental or lgbt group instead of to the democratic party.

xp to myself I guess

mathematically reasons = mathematical reasons

The ”I'm not voting for obama because I'm not in a swing state” is so masturbatory

Also what is voting your conscious? Who the fuck told anyone that's what voting was? there are two options, take the best one, or the least worse one, and get on with it
Also, in the aftermath of sandy, I hope eastern libs in ”safe states” don't take shit for granted

im a subscriber to the view that our system will always have only two major parties but you know whats weird, mexico has three, dont really know enough abt mexico to say why

fwiw not sure if we were talking abt cramers obama 400 prediction itt thread

Jim Cramer ‏@jimcramer
Plus, one more thing, this election is like the stock market, everyone's long a close race. Everyone. So i have to take the other side!!!!

Jim Cramer ‏@jimcramer
No one is going to recall the guy who picks Obama by 10 electorals if it turns out to be 150 margin. Believe me.

Jim Cramer ‏@jimcramer
It might dawn on people scoffing about my call on the election, but i am basically taking the Over on Obama. Everyone else is too close

usually the exceptions are due to regionalist stuff xp

i dont think thats the case in mexico, at least not anymore than the republican party is a regional party here

yeah I mean there are exceptions to duvergers law, it's just when you look at them they produce results that are inherently less democratic. like there are tons of things that are broken about american politics, but the funny thing is a rigid two party-system can be considered something that 'works' because people can't win elections w/ 32% of the vote.

http://geo-mexico.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/politics-states-20101.jpg

http://geo-mexico.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sfederal-politics-2012.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QDCsA.png

Obama has drones, and if you don't vote for him then the part of your tax money that usually goes to war goes to build water plants in Africa instead.

read that Mexican political party as "Pan-Fried."

iirc nyt had a piece recently about how japanese media is studying our election bc they want to figure out how to have a successful two party system. i often take for granted that not only do we have a fairly resilient government (look at how often parliamentary governments collapse) but one that might be the envy of other countries.

The party only has electoral presence in central and Southern Mexico, whereas in the North its voting averages is only 5%. It has won gubernatorial races in some states including Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Guerrero and Michoacán, although most of them have been obtained with former members of the PRI). It has also maintained control over the Federal District (Mexico City) since 1997, with 3 former members of the PRI. In the 2003 local elections, 13 of the Federal District's 16 boroughs (delegaciones) were won by PRD candidates; in the 2006 election, that figure rose to 14

so I would say that's borderline 'regionalist' even if the politics itself aren't, the voter distribution is

which is again why a right-wing third party would be more feasible in america than a left-wing third party

maybe the gop will shrink down into a true southern regional party then we can have a sweet three party system

I almost wish the tea party had a more respectable name because I find it hard to believe 'the tea party' will ever be an actual political party

'oh ya I'm voting straight ticket tea'

(Canadian readers only) They could change it to Our Lady Peace instead.

the real story of this election: obama made a hurricane to stall mitt's momentum!

http://www.infowars.com/hurricane-sandy-divine-wind-for-obama/

I was wondering when someone was going to say that.

it's been making the rounds of republican thought leaders

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/nov-3-romneys-reason-to-play-for-pennsylvania/

i hope someone starts a thread devoted to republican excuses for why mittsy lost

i hope mittsy loses