Presidential election minus 21 weeks

Duke it out here. Those participating in the US election threads are advised that they do so at their own risk.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,623 comments on “Presidential election minus 21 weeks”

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  3. Possum,

    Not sure if this is a double post.

    With Catrina cracking the whip it is “Giro Possumus” (On yer bike) and at the end of the day is it “in vino Possumus”.

  7. More substance…
    In Florida alone, more than half a million black registered voters stayed home in 2004. Hundreds of thousands more African Americans are eligible to vote but not registered. And campaign analysts have identified similar potential in North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and Ohio.

    “I think the numbers are going to be astonishing,” said Florida state Rep. Joseph A. Gibbons, who heads the state’s black legislative caucus and has been discussing the strategy with leading Democrats.

    more……

    http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-blackvote23-2008jun23,0,4641688.story

  11. Diogenes,

    How many times can you use a “substance” until it is addictive? One PBer seems to be in to “substance” abuse.

  12. Chis B at 1510
    And just last night I was talking with friends and the subject of death came up.
    What are the words on your death certificate?
    For me – its death by misadventure.

  16. GG

    A substance becomes addictive for a number of reasons. The bottom line is when the use of that substance has significant adverse effects on the person’s functioning on a medical, social, financial or psychological level.

  20. Catrina @ 1515 Re the celebration of Darwinism –
    There are still a few independent jurists left, and more power to them. Hopefully Barack will be in the position to ensure the appointment of many more Jones III’s to the various benches:

    Events will include a talk by John E. Jones III, a federal judge who ruled in 2005 that teaching intelligent design — the belief that some aspects of nature are so complex that they must be the work of a higher power rather than of evolution — in public school science classes was unconstitutional.

  21. I’ve noticed a few people have alluded to a poll(s) that point out that people are more concerned about McCain’s age than Obama’s race.

    I’d be cautious with such polls. I think that its far more socially acceptable to be ageist than racist and that these polls may merely be reflective of this.

  22. Yo ho ho @ 1521 – Careful, you’ll get them fired up again about the their pet ‘Bradley Effect’ …

  26. Yo Ho Ho and others.

    EV sums up the situation nicely.

    “It is inevitable that both parties, especially the 527s aligned with them, will try to exploit these fears to the hilt. The Democratic 527s have a slight advantage here because overt racism is really taboo. You can’t have a TV commercial with some macho guy in a pickup truck saying “I ain’t a votin’ for no black guy.” The backlash would be horrific. On the other hand, imagine a commercial with a friendly, absent-minded old man sitting on a park bench with a grandchild on his lap asking: “Grandpa, could you be President?” and having grandpa reply: “When I was young, I dreamed of being President, but at my age it’s impossible. It’s the toughest job in the world and I need my naps” It is probably acceptable if done with humor. Exploiting these fears of blacks and old people will call on all the creative powers of the advertising producers, but if these factors are going to be more important than the candidates respective health plans, you can bet they are going to try. The trick is to throw the mud but not have any of it get on you.”

    http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Jun22.html

  27. In the 2006 election the Republican senate candidate was caught calling a black camerman a “maccaca” which means monkey. Witnesses then came out and pointed out that he also had a Confederate flag in his office along with a noose hanging from a wall. This cost him his senate seat which was won by Jim Webb.
    This happened in the Confederate seat of Virginia. Times are a changing.

  30. GG at 1529
    Some people could view you answer as something delivered by a wimp sitting on a fence. But I could never say such a thing.

  31. GG , just dropped by to see my post #1464 mainly about the political leanings of journos and the 3 replies never addressed the post’s basis We find the Panch vainly defending his crappy biassed pro Obama DailyKos rag by blogging distortions as usual The Panch is as partisan as th neo cons who support Shawn Hanity Fox defending McCainn He mplicitly lied about my post as I nevr mentioned RCP’s but the Panch seemless does this regularly by moving goals , 2 times ago he trashed Edwards & 28 Dems usng similar distortions Last time his 6 posts on Kyoto lameley tried to imply Obama supports ratifying Kyoto which is a lie , and as for his self appointed impartiality well dust bins of his similar assertions are ful No wonder the Moderator has put a warning on this site for would be intellectually thinking posters effectively saying go to his other thread , the obamabots and disposal truth go hand in hand

  32. William,
    ta for passing on Ferny Grover’s email. Just received a reply about where to send his winning bottle from the HRC exit date comp. Ferny has had a very bothersome trot with his home connection effectively rendering his land line kaput for the last 3 weeks, however FG conveys his jovial best regards to all, including The 3 Reprobates. He’ll be back as soon as his cyber-hookup’s a goer.

    Grouse graphs, Vera. Very pseph-satisfying!

    Ron, delighted that you enjoyed the cartoon. Am a little surprised that you used your reply to take such a cheap shot at Pancho, although you’re quite correct about my pomposity.

    “Your post was a triffle pompous”.

    You sure know how to hurt a guy, Ron. Please understand that the syringe needle malfunctioned during my Humility Injection this morning and I’ve been totally out of control ever since. My doc says that if I stay the course going forward, things should be hunky-dory by the end of the month. Thank you for your understanding.

  35. Ron

    I’ve been to the other site. It’s scary over there. It’s like the Kevin Rudd Fan Club. Dissidents need not apply. As Orwell said:
    “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

  36. Catrina,

    Others say it is wise not to comment on a matter before you have sufficient information to draw a sensible conclusion. Clearly, that is not you either.

    Cheers.

  37. Ronny, glad I am worthy of such vitriol, but just as a reminder – the RCP polls were at the centre of your earlier stumble. 🙂 Hannity no less! And do you get the self appointed impartiality bit from my admittance of bias, or elsewhere on planet Ron. The black and white below is for your amusement.

    Pancho @1225 – “she snuck home in IN by a margin of 2 (where she was polling +8 and had leaked internals on the morning showing her up +12)”

    Ron @ 1242 – “Statistically Pancho is in error…both candidates had hillary down by 8 points 2 weeks out”

    Pancho @1246 – “SHE HAS BEEN EITHER AHEAD OR AT THE MARGIN OF ERROR IN EVERY SINGLE POLL”

    Pancho @1247 – “Here’s the RCP lineup of Indiana polls: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/in/indiana_democratic_primary-639.html#polls”

    Ron @1293 – “moved goal posts again , no RCP ever mentioned”

  39. Ron – For someone who obviously spends as long studying policy as you do I am surprised that you are not willing to look at this point of view – the Kyoto agreement is an instrument of the UN climate change regime. It is also all but at expiry point after being ignored by the current US admininstration. Obama stating he would ratify Kyoto at this stage would have far less impact than agreeing to be part of the regime moving forward. This is asides the point that ratification is done by Congress, and not the President. Obama’s position is to

    “Re-Engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change: The UNFCCC process is the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate problem and an Obama administration will work constructively within it.”

    This is a substantial undertaking, and a great departure from the current US position. Of course it remains to be seen whether anything substantial will come from it, but that is the case with everything really.

    I know that you like to compare this position to Rudd’s signing of Kyoto, but really, Rudd’s environmental credentials are far from proven in spite of Australia’s ratification. I am hopeful in this case as well, but await the ALPs response to the Garnaut report with interest.

  40. GG at 1536

    Others say it is wise not to comment on a matter before you have sufficient information to draw a sensible conclusion. Clearly, that is not you either.

    Can you point to an example of where I have an insufficiency of information or an example of a bad conclusion? Or is this just another example of the Gardner pissing in the wind?

  41. GG

    what we have here is th panch trying seemless to con the less read Obama supporters here that somehow Obama supports ratifying Kyoto. so everytime i say it , out he trots come the Obama lie , the red herring , Obama’s 13 memeber competing to Kyoto organization that allegedkly will ‘liase’ with Kyoto
    Al Obama had to do was say I syupport the ratifiaction of Kyoto & i’ll try to get it through congress

    RIGHT NOW , obama’s US is the only non ratifyer of Kyoto The only countrt in the world So instead of Obama joining the other 199 countries , Obama’s solution to him not supporting Kyoto , is initially t0 orm a new body of one country out of the 200 countrys (Obama’s US) what arrogance to hide his non ratiying Kyoto position , then ask 12 others to join and it will liase with Kyoto The truth is Obama has not the guts to say he support Kyoto and worse still he voted YES to the Bush/cheny oil & conservation Bill with McCain !!(Edwards & Hillary voted NO) As to your quots Panch , can you tell the truth , I never mentioned rcp , I talked of candidates polling a subject you clearly have no knowledge in

    As for cheap shots , no , i placed the panch with shawn Hannity , parisan & selective quoting of ones candidate just like Fox do

  42. GG @ 1536

    The jury is out on that one.

    One theory is that the more uncertain an outcome is, the longer we should delay making a decision, as we would fall prey to our inherent heuristic biases. The other theory is that humans are continually using subconscious rational processes to work things out with being aware of having reached a logical conclusion, such as “thin-slicing”.

    Far be it for me to say which is more applicable in a political setting.

  43. 1541 Ron

    Actually you are wrong there, although it is a forgivable error of omission. Kazakstan has also signed Kyoto but failed to ratify it. Borat was on to something!

  44. Ah, I see now! We’re just at cross purposes – when you said ‘Statistically Pancho is in error’, Ron, I assumed that you were referring to the statistics that I had previously quoted, hence I responded with an article linking you to all the RCP listed polls about said statistics. But actually I was doing something ‘parisian’ with red herrings or frogs legs or what have you, somehow linked to Edwards and Kyoto. Interesting as this is, again (I had forgotten) I think I’ll leave the floor to you now Ron.

  45. I have a suspicion that Bill Clinton “signed” Kyoto, but the treaty itself was never presented for ratification because not a single Senator could be found who would vote in favour. Maybe it was was never signed. I could easily be wrong. But the attitude of the Senate shows how difficult the politics of climate change are in the US. The big polluters are have a lot to lose if they do seriously reduce emissions, while the rest of us have a lot to lose if they don’t. It is not going to be easy to get win-all-round solutions. On the contrary, lose-all-round outcomes are far more likely. At least Obama is saying he will get back on board the multi-lateral train, which is the only way to get results on this issue. I dpn’t know what McCain is saying he will do, but then, who really cares. He’s going to lose anyway.

  47. GG
    this is the problem with panch misquotting
    Panch 1537 “Ron @ 1242 – “Statistically Pancho is in error…both candidates had hillary down by 8 points 2 weeks out”

    FIRST , He has quoted the first 5 words of the first sentence and put them with the words in the second sentence SECOND you’ll see the Panch lie that i refferred to rcp ‘s , no i did not , THIRD I talked about canddidates polling a somethings the panch obviously knows zero about , he moved the goal posts to hide the fact Hillarywon the last 3 mths & Obama the critical February one winninga heap of pledged dele’s , whats the problem , thats what happenned & Obama ended with the most pledged dele’s

    “1242
    Ron Says:
    June 20th, 2008 at 1:01 am
    Statistically Pancho is in error re the Dems Nominee campaign When hillary started to use (but still not fully correctly) political nous in the contest with Obama after 19th February , of the last 16 Primarys contested Hillary won 9 , and in those 16 Hillary won 600,000 more votes than Obama Re Indiana both candidates had hillary down by 8 points 2 weeks out from 3 to 1 Obama adverting supporterd by his nearby ILLinois States television stations pro obama presentaions that beam into the west of Indiana 7 won obama votes there Lets keep the record straight guys and the nearby State TV advantage well thats just politics”

  48. 1542
    Diogenes Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
    One theory is that the more uncertain an outcome is, the longer we should delay making a decision, as we would fall prey to our inherent heuristic biases. The other theory is that humans are continually using subconscious rational processes to work things out with being aware of having reached a logical conclusion, such as “thin-slicing”.
    …..
    And then there is the “irreversibility principle”. If the consequences of a particular course of action or inaction are irreversibly damaging, then you can’t afford to wait to find out exactly when or what kind of consequences will flow, it will be too late. By waiting, certainty may be achieved, but it will be useless.

    Paradoxically, you could say that present uncertainty itself has a high absolute value. This is because the existence of uncertainty with respect to biological processes implies the potential for a wide variety of future “system operating conditions”. In biological systems, a system with high certainty is one that is probably very different from the one we know and rely on.

    Much of the time we act to reduce uncertainty. If uncertainty is reduced, we feel we can make clearer choices about different courses of action. In financial modelling, this allows us to apply different discount values when considering future events and apply different “prices” to different choices. But the use of this kind of modelling is really only relevant when choice does in fact exist. If choice does not exist, because, say, the system we are relying on has ceased to operate, then estimations of certainty and uncertainty are not going to be much of a guide to action.

    There is the further consideration, which is that decisons about whether to act to sustain the environmental operating system or not are not decisions that we are entitled to make. The people who will be most affected by environmental change have not yet been born and we should not be making decisons in their absence. This defines us as custodians only, and demands that we do not permit envornmental destruction to occur.

    All in all, the philosophical case is: act early.

  49. Ron at 1547

    But Ron – think about it. You can’t even get English punctuation correct. It’s not like nobody has pointed this out – and its not like you have a valid excuse. Get you act together first – then work on the attack. For the time being you are a wimp. You need to recognize this and deal with it.

  50. Ron @ 1547….but who cares! Hillary lost and will soon be forgotten. There is no point fumbling and foaming about this poll or that. The maths was as inexorable as it was obvious. No amount of indignation, spluttering and foot-stamping ever could change the arithmetic for Hillary.

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