Politics Blog

Kitty Litter has a blog roundup including some things I had not seen before, and if you scroll down, also some good news from Iraq that you aren’t likely to see in the MSM.

Ciruli Associates has a new poll out in Colorado showing a dead heat in the race for the Senate seat. Salazar wins 46% of the vote, and Coors wins 45%. Among undecideds, Coors seems to have the advantage.

In the Presidential race, the poll reports that President Bush has a large lead - 51% to 39% over Kerry.

Kerry has very high unfavorables, and President Bush has a strong advantage on several key domestic issues.

You have got to see the new Bush ad.

Check out the “Macho Man” story at USA Today and click onthe link to the photos. Sorry, John, but this is not even close. I know manly men, I married one, and you, John Kerry, are no manly man.

Go easy on me with the complaints about this post. I know there are immensely important things going on in the world, but heck, that is why we sometimes need a little break like this to keep from being overwhelmed. (Thanks to STLscott for directing me to this story)

I love this article in USAToday about bloggers. Not only does it show a screen shot of Rathergate.com, but it continually refers to the mainstream media as the “old media.”

I missed this loving tribute yesterday to Jean Dover Elliott by her son, Scott, who runs ElectionProjection.com. Many of us continue to have you in our thoughts and prayers, Scott.

I was listening to KUOW, my local NPR station, this morning. I listen to NPR only because I love hearing liberals whine about how bad things are, and how powerless they are to do anything about it. Today’s guest was Lewis Lapham (yes, that Lewis Lapham.) It was a particularly well-cocooned show (audio here.) At one point, a caller named Alan said President Bush is a traitor and belongs in jail. Lapham said he agreed with Alan. I couldn’t even bring myself to be outraged.

This is what modern liberalism has come to: elitist graybeards sadly shaking their heads at the sorry state of the world.

And it occurred to me that liberal pessimism explains why they’ve been losing ground for the last two decades.

Liberals weren’t always pessimistic. FDR, Truman, Kennedy and LBJ were optimists who had big ideas. In his inaugural speech, FDR said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Other Democrat presidents similarly exuded hope and optimism. Meanwhile, conservatives were reduced to darkly muttering about the ballooning budget deficit.

Then came Vietnam. Post-Vietnam Democrats are negativist cynics. In their eyes, America can do no good and the world is a depressing place. The ’70s solidified these liberal beliefs. The liberals of today refer constantly to Vietnam and Watergate because those moments define today’s liberalism.

Meanwhile, conservatives became the Morning in America party. Reagan won the Cold War and defeated recession. Bush 41 prevailed effortlessly in Iraq. Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America implemented much-needed reforms. Conservatives today have big ideas and are confident they can implement them.

Nowhere is the contrast more visible than on Iraq. John Kerry nags and nags, while President Bush lays out a hopeful vision of the future. Who benefits from the contrast? If you believe, like me, that Americans are optimistic and hopeful at heart, the answer is obvious. And Kerry is making a giant mistake by making Iraq the centerpiece of the presidential campaign.

Ahhhh, those crazy polls. Everybody’s talking about them, so today I’m going to talk about the poll comments.

RealClearPolitics had a couple views on the polls’ disparities, supposedly representing the Left and Right perspectives. At a site named “The Hill”, commentators Mark Mellman and David Hill opined on what the present polls mean. So, I pulled out the old fisking shears, and did a little read n’ clip.

Mellman’s post came first. The Hill notes that “Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982, including Sen. John Kerry this year.” I also noted that the Mellman Group did Kerry’s private polling during the Primaries this spring, and I suspect is doing his internal polling now. This perspective helps to explain some of his claims. For instance, when Mellman writes,
“Just say the polls aren’t clear”, what he really means is, he wants to deny the clear trend in every poll towards President Bush. When he writes, “This is neither a diatribe against the press nor against Gallup’s likely-voter model. It is a plea for modesty in media interpretation of poll data.”, he is simply saying that he doesn’t like Gallup and Newsweek and TIME giving big leads to the President, and would prefer that the public only pay attention to the polls which say what he wants to hear. Denial in a candidate is not that uncommon, but it’s rather sad to see a pollster in denial, as we do with Mr. Mellman. I have said all along, that it is foolhardy to ignore any poll, simply because you don’t like it; it makes it too easy to try to explain away unpleasant reality, or excuse your candidate’s failures. Mr. Mellman is proving my point.

Mellman goes on, trying to paint Karry’s position in a happy light: “It is abundantly clear that polls on the presidential contest conducted by respected survey-research firms are all over the place. Within a few days recently, two of the oldest names in the business had dramatically different results that would lead to conclusions about the race that are diametrically opposed. Harris said John Kerry was ahead by one point, while Gallup found Kerry trailing by eight. At about the same time, Pew had President Bush ahead by one while CBS pegged his lead at eight points.”

There are two large problems with Mellman’s dismissal of the polls’ variance. First, he is not looking below the surface, to see what the demographics say, to check the methodologies and verify that consistent measures are being used. And two, he is whistling past the graveyard, to ignore that all but Harris say Bush is ahead, and every sector of demographics shows movement in favor of Bush. Mellman claims “The conclusion is inescapable: at minimum, the polls produce an uncertain portrait of the state of the race.” Sorry, Mark, the concensus is that your boy is losing. Bush has the momentum in every sector, as is also evidenced by Kerry’s reactions in the past month – you don’t shake up your campaign team and hide from the reporters is you’re ahead or close.

Mellman says “Journalists with whom I have discussed the problem lean toward one response: “We trust the poll we paid for.” This is understandable as an economic criteria, but not as a journalistic one.” Mellman, however, does not look at the details in any of the polls, so doesn’t that put him one step behind the guys he’s criticizing? I’d say yes indeed!

Still in denial, Mellman tries again to deny the clear message from the polls: “The truth is clear. Uncertainty looms large. Uncertainty may not sell papers or create the aura of clairvoyance, but it has the benefit of accurately reflecting reality.” Of course, the certainty proclaimed by the polls belies your hope of uncertainty, Mark. How is pretending the race is close right now, going to help your guy stop digging his hole?

Mellman continues to attack the messenger: “The very latest polls in 2000 had Bush and Gore tied, but many of the closing stories in 2000 suggested a clear Bush lead in the polls. He lost the popular vote.” The DUI stunt and Gore’s last-week campaigning had something to do with the change, didn’t it Mark? And Roper confirms that most of the polls were within their Margin of Error on their vote call, so I wouldn’t be quick to tell people to check the history – it actually supports their claim, and proves yours to be wrong.

The other article was from David Hill, and since he’s the Republican, I should like him, right? Not so much, actually.

Mr. Hill wants to explore the worlds of “likely voters” and “all registered voters” , and from there dives into a guess at the turnout for this year, along with a written rebuke for anyone suggesting caution in regarding the claim that a voter is “likely” to vote. Mr. Hill admits that “A further barrier to acceptance of likely-voter modeling has been the secrecy that some pollsters impose to veil the formula whereby they declare a voter “likely to vote.”And the fact that likely-voter models may be built on proprietary opinion questions further encourages skepticism.” Mr. Hill does not, however, examine the polls who cite “likely voters” to consider whether they have explained themselves well enough to have their position accepted. Instead, Mr. Hill paints with a very broad brush, and the color he uses is his own opinion. Well enough, I have my own opinion and like it well enough to use it in forming my judgment, but I try to give the polling groups the chance to explain themselves.

Mr. Hill states “there are good ways of determining likelihood of voting that are totally based on demographic profiling. Simply knowing the region, age, gender, marital status, work status, length of residence, race and ethnicity of voters allows powerful prediction of likelihood of voting.” Uhhhh, no it doesn’t. I’ve been looking around, and while there are trends which accompany certain conditions, I have not seen any historical data which provides a model I would call a “powerful” predictor of turnout. General assumptions may be made, yes, and ballpark estimates, but I think Mr. Hill over-steps his claims.

Mr. Hill begins with a little racial profiling Taking the 2000 Census as his guide , Mr. Hill writes: “Many racial or ethnic groups vote less than do non-Hispanic whites. For example, it reports that among all voting-age Hispanics, just 28 percent voted in 2000. Even among Hispanic “citizens” of voting age, just 45 percent voted. And among Hispanic citizens who are registered to vote, only 79 percent voted. Similar patterns were noted among Asians and Pacific Islanders.” Mr. Hill defends his statement by saying, “Racial profiling may be wrong for policing, but it is right for pre-election polling.” Perhaps, but you might want to consider whether 4-year-old demographics, concerning a one-time event in unique conditions, might need to be matched against historical trends and the norm for sector performance. Otherwise, you are trying to tell me that because it happened that way once a few years back, it has to work out the same way now.

Mr. Hill examines the historical trends in sex, age, marital status, and education. Unfortunately, he states only the general trend, not noting specifics to support his claim that a “powerful prediction” can be developed. Yet Mr. Hill expects the pollsters to somehow quantify his general comments, stating “We’re not all equally likely to vote. And the sooner pollsters factor that into their equations, the sooner we’ll get to the truth.”

All in all, I’d have to say Mr.Hill was more reasonable than Mr. Mellman, but I was not impressed with either man. Mr. Mellman seems to write with the desperation of a man denying the obvious, which I can only see as yet another obstacle for John Kerry’s chances of getting back into the race. Mr. Hill, however, had the opportunity to address some fascinating specifics, but instead, he completely ignored the hard data in the polls, and chose instead to demand the pollsters formulate an unknown quantity into their work. I have a mental image of the people at Harris and Gallup rolling their eyes as his expectations. There is a lot of significant information in the polls, consistent stuff, as well as useful indicators about where the parties will play to their best advantage, especially by geography. I guess it’s up to me and the other bloggers to point out the obvious.

It’s a funny thing to me. I see a race where the President has opened a clear lead, and while Kerry still has a chance, he is definitely losing right now. There are seven chances for John Kerry to get back into this:

1. Iraq – Kerry’s best chance to gain, is for the President to lose support, and the most likely place for that to happen is in Iraq, where beheading of hostages and constant warfare are hard to sell. The problem Kerry has, is that he has to be the one hoping for something bad to happen to U.S. troops, which is the image he has been trying to shake for months. It also hurts Kerry, that nothing said in a speech will change this arena much; we all understand we are in it for the long haul, and a Presidential candidate suggesting we should cut and run is not going to go over well.

2. The Economy – Almost every election is decided most by the condition of the Economy. With Unemployment down to 5.5%, Inflation well under control, Interest Rates still low, and the nation’s GDP and Housing and Business Starts all in good shape, this is very tough place for Kerry to get a toehold. Worse, the Economy doesn’t change quickly, so with less than six weeks to go, this key is definitely in President Bush’s pocket.

3-5. The Debates – As recently as July, Bush needed to have a solid performance in the debates to keep Kerry at bay. Now, Kerry’s got to hope that Bush gets arrogant, or makes some horrible gaffe on national television. Otherwise, any reasonable performance by the President will be enough to keep his lead. And from what I have seen of Kerry at a podium, he will not have the sort of charisma and eloquence to win over an audience that is not already in his corner. The only chance John Kerry has, is to become a completely different candidate at the debates, and one with clear charm, wit, and humor. I have seen those qualities in Bush before, but never yet in Kerry.

6. Scandal – This was where the October Surprise was going to hit Bush. Maybe John McCain would suddenly say something that ripped apart Bush’s image, or split his support. Maybe the National Guard issue was supposed to finally blow up, and perhaps prompt Bush to show some ill-chosen ire. But Dan Rather has made this card all but impossible for Kerry to play. After a campaign which saw the Left compare Bush to Hitler, where Kerry accused Republicans in general of being liars and crooks, and personally said that President Bush needed to prove his National Guard service was true, even as he denied reasonable questions on his conduct during the Vietnam War, CBS has overplayed their smear game to the point that further attacks on the President are likely to be dismissed by many voters, no matter what they claim.

7. Complacency – I watched a video last week of a sprinter who was well ahead of his competition. So far, in fact, that he turned to look, and tripped himself, and so lost the race because he began to gloat. In 2000, then-Governor Bush was cleanly ahead in all polls, when at the end, the combination of Gore’s last-day campaigning and the DUI-arrest smear cost him the Popular Vote, and almost the election. I believe the GOP officials who promise that lesson has been well-learned and measure have been taken to insure maximum GOTV effort this year, but even so, a guard against arrogance and overconfidence cannot be said too many times.

Kerry blowin’ in the wind. It’s such a popular theme that there are ads about it from the Club for Growth, the Bush campaign, and the Progress for America Voter Fund. Even Jay Leno made a joke about it!

Prestopundit has a picture up of a clever FReeper protest.