Obama's lead in the polls is bad news for Obama explains the NYT's Adam Nagourney -- he should be winning by a larger margin.
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More Bad News
28 Jul 2008 07:11 pm
Comments (75)
Ah, Concern Trolling. The latest Media Sport.
Seriously, you just can't make this stuff up.
Nagourney has always been a total douchebag. He loves to write columns solely to piss off the liberals.
AdNags symbolizes everything that is wrong with the corporate media. Vain. Slothful. Biased. Opinionated. Egotistical. I could go on, but it's too depressing. At least they're going the way of the horse and buggy.
Matt
Don't forget "Obamas Jewish Problem."
So far, he is only beating McCain by thirty percent!
That's bad!
Nagourney is a a wanker liberal - he does not know how to present a plausible GOP argument, so he just prints talking point BS.
This might have something to do with it:
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/a_respite_and_a_migration.php#comments
Marc,
Johnny McCain is interesting, but I wish to draw your attention to this from the New Republic.
"Around midnight on July 16, New York Times chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney received a terse e-mail from Barack Obama's press office. The campaign was irked by the Times' latest poll and Nagourney and Megan Thee's accompanying front-page piece titled "Poll Finds Obama Isn't Closing Divide on Race," which was running in the morning's paper. Nagourney answered the query, the substance of which he says was minor, and went to bed, thinking the matter resolved.
But, the next morning, Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing his piece that the Obama campaign had released to reporters and bloggers like The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and Politico's Ben Smith. Nagourney had not heard the complaints from the Obama camp and had no idea they were so steamed. "I'm looking at this thing, and I'm like, 'What the hell is this?' " Nagourney recently recalled. "I really flipped out."
Later that afternoon, Nagourney got permission from Times editors to e-mail Sargent a response to the Obama memo. But the episode still grates. "I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others," Nagourney tells me. "I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I'm a political opponent."
It shadowed him as he struggled against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in many states through the primaries - results that sometimes stood at odds with the huge, enthusiastic crowds that turned out to see him. It was there in the exit polls that suggested that many Democrats were uncomfortable with Obama, putting an asterisk next to some of his biggest primary victories.
W.
T.
F?
Seriously, is this a joke?
Yeah, a 46-year-old black guy with a strange name and four years in the Senate is mopping the floor with the press favorite, so they complain that the mop isn't wet enough.
For the last month, they've been harping on Obama not collecting enough money from Clinton donors. Turns out he picked up $1.2MM in June from Clinton donors, and McCain a whopping eleven grand. Some failure, that.
Now last week, he goes abroad and looks more presidential than anyone since Reagan went riding with the Queen, which really trashes the whole McCain-knows-the-world mantra.
When will the press stop trying to show why they're smarter than we, and just tell us what's going on?
You know why Nagourney wrote this, right?
Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing his piece that the Obama campaign had released to reporters and bloggers like The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and Politico's Ben Smith. Nagourney had not heard the complaints from the Obama camp and had no idea they were so steamed. "I'm looking at this thing, and I'm like, 'What the hell is this?'" Nagourney recently recalled. "I really flipped out."
(link)
Of course it's a bad news.
The guy is running against an early Alzheimer stricken old f-ck!
Speaking of an early Alzheimer stricken old f-cks, I can't help but wonder about the intellectual capacities of the American people who support this double digit IQ of a candidate.
Ignorance is truly a bliss in America. Enjoy your "freedom!"
Matt,
One question - speaking of lib wankers - why did your old pals at The New Republic (Gabe et al) write a piece today that called Obama a "prom queen?"
Why not call him a "Prom King," if you must use such a stupid theme?
Afterall, Obama is a man. He is not effeminate.
So why call him a prom queen?
Why does TNR have to act like doofuses? This is the kind of things that Dowd does.
Presumably, TNR wants Obama to win. So why?
Yep, a 51%-49%, 270-268 EV win by Obama in November would absolutely crush me. Rending garments, drowning my sorrows in gin. Why oh why couldn't he win Nevada, I will scream in anger.
Then it will be January and he'll be President so I won't give a shit.
Nagourney often prints false stories about candidates that he supposedly roots for and votes for.
Why is this?
I think he does not really know how to formulate a real Republican reply to a Dem idea. He is a bit out of his depth and he is defensive about alleged liberal bias
So to avoid the charge, he just prints stuff Republicans send him.
Sort of like Chris Matthews feeling he has to like and say Bush threw a strike at a baseball game, even though Bush missed the strike zone by a mile.
THe is not a grown up - Obama was right - Besides the Bush people often complain to to people on the Board of Directors and senior mgmt and large stockholders.
But Adam complains about a call to an editor?
Let's see: Obama is a charismatic, eloquent, well-informed, politically-skilled moderate Democrat. McCain is an old man, a poor public speaker, prone to gaffes, with seemingly little interest in or knowledge of domestic policy issues. Obama also represents the currently more popular of the two parties, while McCain is saddled with Bush-and-GOP fatigue, and the legacy of an unpopular war.
Despite all these huge apparent advantages for Obama, he is barely ahead of McCain in the polls.
And yet a journalist who dares to suggest that, given these facts, Obama ought to be further ahead than he is must be a secret tool of the GOP.
Yes, that must be it.
Nagourney's quickly devolving into self-parody here. I wonder what he'll write when Obama wins in November?
Well, by how much should Obama be up? Economic fundamentals suggest about 4%, see for instance Ray Fair's model: http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/vote2008/index2.htm
Not that economics is the only thing that matters and there is model and estimation risk in the Fair model prediction. Nevertheless, elections are basically partisan events and partisan identities are pretty stable. Candidates don't win in landslides unless the fundamentals are horrible for one side or one candidate comes off as crazy to independent voters. Neither is there yet for this election. Not that it can't happen by November.
Well, as an ethical point Obama should be winning by more, because the idea that more than a negligible percentage of Americans would vote for McCain is very disturbing. But as a practical political matter it's fine for Obama to be ahead by less than he ought, so long as he wins. I wouldn't pay a dime for votes past that point. If Republicans have taught us anything, it's that all you have to do is win the effin' election.
Remember 50-50 nation?
There are a lot fewer swing voters than there used to be.
Bush "won" by -0.1% in 2000.
He won by 2.something% in 2004.
Obama is up by six or something.
Given the closeness of the electorate, that means either that the Democrats have edged ahead, or that Obama is kicking butt among the small body of swing voters. Neither of these scenarios are good news for McCain.
Here's a story with good headlines (Stacked 1930's style):
"GOP worries that famous Senator can't crack 40%" "Seeking ways to replace presumptive nominee"
"Is latest health issue a ticket out?
Cause really, if I were running the GOP and seeing that we have a complete dud out there. A dud that could barely beat a dead man (The dead being any of the 10 stiffs the GOP put up in the primaries). I would act quickly t remove that cancer.
I'd go to Jeb, Rick Perry, Gen. Petreus...basically anybody with some name id and Republican voter registration card. Smoke-filled rooms are the GOP's only hope in 2008.
Well, as an ethical point Obama should be winning by more, because the idea that more than a negligible percentage of Americans would vote for McCain is very disturbing.
Brilliant. It's "unethical" for Americans to vote for a candidate you don't want them to vote for.
But as a practical political matter it's fine for Obama to be ahead by less than he ought, so long as he wins. I wouldn't pay a dime for votes past that point.
Then you're very shortsighted. The larger the margin of victory, the more political power the winner is likely to gain. A candidate who wins big is more likely to be seen as having a popular mandate for his ideas than a candidate who just squeaks through to victory. A big win for Obama would also likely have a larger "coattail" effect on congressional elections.
"It is a question that has hovered over Senator Barack Obama even as he has passed milestone after milestone in his race for the White House: Why is he not doing better?"
One of two equally absurd assumptions seems to be at work:
1) A candidate must gain support and pull away from his rival in the other party, simply because he passes "milestones" (i.e. what? winnning the nomination?), or else something is wrong. What about milestone after milestone that McCain passed? They can't both get a bounce from passing milestones.
2) A historically significant candidacy must kick more and more butt over the other party, or else something is wrong. So the first black guy should be winning by 20 by now. But he's not! Has he done enough to satisfy whites?!
In fairness, this might be a case of a lead being stupid merely because it grabs attention. Further down in the article Nagourney admits that there hasn't been an open-election landslide in a very long time.
Now that journalists have got a handle on the effect of retrospective voting on election outcomes, they're ready to move on to enduring demographic patterns and party ID effects. In about 150 years they'll be all the way through political science 101.
Uh oh -- Ludacris is releasing a pro-Obama single:
http://hiphopst.blogspot.com/2008/07/ludacris-politics-obama-is-here.html
Nagorney consistently writes awful pieces pushing questionable/erroneous theses against Democrats.
"Struggling" in primaries against the favorite?
Claiming that Barr/Nader are having a "minimal" impact even though a number of polls have them with a combined 5% of the vote? Headlining the piece to detract from Obama's campaign while the article's data bolsters his lead?
Is he ignorant or mendacious?
Bush "won" by -0.1% in 2000. He won by 2.something% in 2004. Obama is up by six or something.
Er, Obama's average lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll over the past month has been something like three to four points, not six.
In 2000, post-Labor Day polls were showing Gore up an average of 5 points over Bush. Yet in the actual election, Gore got only 0.5% more popular votes than Bush. The polls overstated Gore's lead by almost 5 percentage points compared to the actual outcome of the election.
Uh, no Mixner, the post-Labor Day polls showed the opinion as it stood at the time, not as it would stand months later on Election Day.
the NYT's political coverage in general has been total garbage this cycle. inane, poorly written, self-sustaining narratives without a hint of the actual reporting that the greater organization can still bring to bear. it's like once you get to their Politics desk you have to leave your brain stem at the front office.
Nagourney and Zeleny are both tools. sniveling, lazy, and prone to just tack whichever way the wind from the greater MainStream Media's ass is blowing.
Actually I read the article and to me at least, it makes a lot of sense and is not nearly as hacky as the headline proclaims.
I think Obama SHOULD be doing better, certainly above 50% consistently but there are reasons he's not.
The larger the margin of victory, the more political power the winner is likely to gain. A candidate who wins big is more likely to be seen as having a popular mandate for his ideas than a candidate who just squeaks through to victory. A big win for Obama would also likely have a larger "coattail" effect on congressional elections.
W proves you wrong. He had a negative popular mandate in 2000 and yet harnessed more raw political power than any other president in recent memory. The 2002 elections brought Repubs more seats in Congress, and though the differential in 2004 was just slightly in his favor, W acted as if he had won 75% of the vote and started talking about getting rid of Social Security. It's all about the sense of entitlement and/or impossible to predict events like 9/11; the numerical results (as opposed to winning or losing) in an election have a trivial effect on power.
Uh, no Mixner, the post-Labor Day polls showed the opinion as it stood at the time, not as it would stand months later on Election Day.
Well done. So given that the post-Labor Day polls in 2000 were such a poor predictor of actual voting behavior months later, it would be very foolish to make a confident prediction of the outcome of this year's election on the basis of current polls, more than a month before Labor Day.
Er, Obama's average lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll over the past month has been something like three to four points, not six.
Inserting the necessary caveats that I wouldn't bet the used post-its on my desk based on the summer tracking polls.....Obama never falls below 45, and McCain never goes above 44. I don't suggest ignoring McCain or taking anything for granted (though I have suggested several times that no one could possibly be this inept, and it's all a plan to lull the Dems into a false sense of inevitability, so that if McCain starts keeping the Suni and Shia straight in October it will be considered a huge turnaround and potential knockout blow), but this persistent concern trolling that the lead is never big enough is getting silly.
And keep in mind, the abstract Dem label always plays better in polls than actual Dems matched against actual Repubs, with faces and positions and voting records and irritating quirks. Just to pre-empt the "but isn't it a concern that Obama doesn't poll even better than the Dem party" concern troll.
This URL to Rasmussen shows the average weekly lead throughout the 2004 campaign. Obama is currently holding leads greater than either candidate held.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2004/week_by_week_numbers
I could not find a similar page for the 2000 election.
Let's see: Obama is a charismatic, eloquent, well-informed, politically-skilled moderate Democrat. McCain is an old man, a poor public speaker, prone to gaffes, with seemingly little interest in or knowledge of domestic policy issues. Obama also represents the currently more popular of the two parties, while McCain is saddled with Bush-and-GOP fatigue, and the legacy of an unpopular war.
Despite all these huge apparent advantages for Obama, he is barely ahead of McCain in the polls.
Let's see: McCain is a popular, moderate, high profile, nationally prominent war-hero Republican. Obama is a newcomer, unfamiliar to most Americans as recently as nine months ago, and possesses little in the way of foreign policy experience and nothing in the way of military experience. Obama is also a man of African heritage in a nation with a long history of racial animus toward black people, while McCain, the son of an admiral, hails from the country's traditional power-yielding WASP ruling class. Obama moreover was forced to fight an exceedingly bitter primary battle that risked bruising the feelings and sensibilities of millions of Democratic base voters, whereas McCain closed out his competition relatively early, and immediately set about unifying his party.
Despite all these apparent huge advantages for McCain, it is Obama who has consistently maintained a lead in the polls, and by some accounts now possesses a near double digit lead over John McCain.
This URL to Rasmussen shows the average weekly lead throughout the 2004 campaign. Obama is currently holding leads greater than either candidate held.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2004/week_by_week_numbers
I could not find a similar page for the 2000 election.
matt,
W proves you wrong. He had a negative popular mandate in 2000 and yet harnessed more raw political power than any other president in recent memory. The 2002 elections brought Repubs more seats in Congress,
First, no one example could "disprove" a claim about what is more likely. (You did see that word "likely" in the text of mine you quoted, didn't you? It appears twice, so you ought to have noticed it.)
And second, you seem to be overlooking a teeny thing in late 2001 called "9/11", which almost certainly worked to the political advantage of Bush and the GOP in the 2002 elections.
The view that the margin of victory in a presidential election has no effect on political power at all, that a 0.1-point margin is just as good as a 20-point margin, is certainly a novel idea, but not one I've ever heard from any serious political analyst.
Nobody is allowed to pontificate about the future apart from me.
Jasper,
Despite all these apparent huge advantages for McCain, it is Obama who has consistently maintained a lead in the polls, and by some accounts now possesses a near double digit lead over John McCain.
If you think the things you listed really are "huge advantages" that McCain has over Obama, you should be very worried indeed about Obama's chances in November.
jeez, what a surprise: mixner making shit up. imagine that?
http://www.pollingreport.com/2000.htm#TRIAL
In mixner's fantasy world, a bush lead is remembered as a gore lead, which then leads to...well, who knows what his further conclusion is.
something about democrats bad, republicans good, mixner the smartest of them all....
Obama is currently holding leads greater than either candidate held. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2004/week_by_week_numbers
Yet another illustration of the unreliability of early polls. As late as August 12, Kerry was leading Bush in Rasmussen's tracking poll by 2.8 points. Obama's lead over McCain in Rasmussen's current tracking poll is 3 points. In 2004, Bush went on to win by almost 3 points.
Obama is black. McCain is white. That's why Obama's not performing up to "expectations." This isn't rocket science, folks. Get out of whatever bubble you're living in.
And fuck Nagourney.
The soft watch of hokum at the court
with Geraghty's holeflue barking time
Braille and krill deflower sotted fugue
the bumbard frots, and carnal drift ensigns
the horrent maul. To wrap up Tiergartenly
misquote the KJV; try to punt a bugling
clarion that sells the zoneland short.
To clean up sing of global sop,
submergence, peace -- with all all fluework
of love, real as it lasts.
howard,
I don't know what point you think you're trying to make. From the September 14, 2000 Slate piece Why Bush Is Toast:
Since Labor Day, the media have released about 20 polls on the presidential race. Three show a dead heat, one shows George W. Bush leading by a single percentage point, and the rest show Al Gore leading by one to 10 points. In the latest polls, Gore leads by an average of five points.
Gore was still leading Bush by an average of 5 points in polls taken six weeks closer to the election than we are now.
whereas McCain closed out his competition relatively early, and immediately set about unifying his party.
McCain didn't have to do much. I remember being sort of stunned at the stuff that got thrown the pipe through the media at the people who didn't immediately. I'm being vulgar and paraphrasing things but the tenor wasn't far off from "You are absolutely right, McCain should hate you, bunch of scum! I'd rather be doing jello shots with Hillary than babysitting you whiny pukes to! Shut up and get in line!"
And they did!
Nagourney's article wasn't unreasonable.
Basically he said the fact that Obama isn't blowing McCain out of the water in the polls is worrying some Democrats -- true, not matter how loud some of us shout -- and is giving some Republicans a glimmer of hope -- also true. He also included a good deal to indicate how little the polls really mean at this point.
If he was taking a dig at Obama, it's more in the timing than in the content of this article.
First, no one example could "disprove" a claim about what is more likely.
I see your style of discussion relies upon unprovable claims. Fair enough.
And second, you seem to be overlooking a teeny thing in late 2001 called "9/11"
From me: "It's all about the sense of entitlement and/or impossible to predict events like 9/11." Guess you didn't read that either? The point remains: W had a negative mandate and yet wielded far greater power--as in "my way or the highway"--than Clinton, the first Bush, Reagan, Carter... (There, I made a provable/disprovable claim, from which discussions are built)
The view that the margin of victory in a presidential election has no effect on political power at all, that a 0.1-point margin is just as good as a 20-point margin, is certainly a novel idea
Right, just look at W. Lots of power, no mandate, won second term. Bush 1, lots of comparative mandate, no power, lost.
not one I've ever heard from any serious political analyst.
Uh oh, now you've got me.
If Obama doesn't win 50.1% of the vote, it weakens his mandate. It won't be the end of the world, but it will matter, and will have an effect on how far he can extend legislation.
Actually, it is pretty weird that the Republican party candidate can manage as much as 30% of the vote. Given the total incompetence, corruption and dishonesty of the Bush administration.
But it really isn't very surprising because Bush and Rove found a bare majority stupid enough to elect Bush in 2004, even though it was already clear what a total dufus he was.
My guess is that the current situation will continue until Romney is announced as the Veep pick on the McCain side. Then McCain will begin a long slow slide to the mid 30s as people see McCain as George W. Bush, only more senile.
Obama supporters sometimes have a difficult time not understanding that other people don't necessarily see Obama as they do, i.e. the messiah.
I'm voting for him, of course, because I'm a Democrat, whatever his policies are is bound to be better than McCain's, and because I'm impressed with Obama's political skills.
Nagourney is just saying what a lot of people are saying. The article was legitimate reporting. Obama scores well with liberals and African-Americans, and does generally better with the Democratic base than one might have thought he would, given the tough primary fight.
That might just be enough to win. Hope so.
I've got some sorry news, here. If you are looking for legislative action in the next four years, Obama is telling you to get on it. It's all there in his theme. He can't make the congress do anything it doesn't want to do. The truth is no one has.
All this handwringing over him reaching out rhetorically on "centrist" style positions I don't get. Say congress got together and said to hell with it and nuked the health insurance industry with a single payer plan. Obama would probably sign it. He sure as hell wouldn't veto it. He'd probably laugh up his sleeve while he signed it with the way they all tried to buy Hillary in the primary and once it's done they've got no muscle to push anyone around.
I don't think that's going to happen, but if it's *gonna* happen it will be the product of organization, pressure, and work and not the sole product of a bully pulpit from the Oval Office.
matt,
I see your style of discussion relies upon unprovable claims.
No, you're wrong about that too. Not even this particular claim is unprovable, let alone claims involved in my "style of discussion."
From me: "It's all about the sense of entitlement and/or impossible to predict events like 9/11."
You're not making any sense. If you agree that the success of Bush and the GOP in the 2002 elections and beyond was largely the result of 9/11, then the fact that Bush had a "negative popular mandate in 2000" is irrelevant, isn't it? If it hadn't been for 9/11, the GOP probably would have done much worse in the 2002 elections and Bush would probably not have been able "harness" as much "raw political power" as he has.
The point remains: W had a negative mandate and yet wielded far greater power
And the rebuttal remains: W was only able to wield that power because the nation rallied around him in response to 9/11. If the "negative mandate" he had in 2000 had continued, he would never have had that power. In fact, there's a good chance he would have lost the presidency in 2004.
"a 46-year-old black guy with a strange name and four years in the Senate"
In the weeks leading up to the 1980 election, most polls indicated either a dead heat or a slight Reagan lead. Then Reagan went on to win by 10 points.
If people waited until the last minute to decide they prefered Reagan over Carter, it doesn't seem that unusual that it might take them a while to get used to the idea of a black guy with a funny name they hadn't even heard 3 years ago sitting in the Oval Office.
Mike
Obama supporters sometimes have a difficult time not understanding that other people don't necessarily see Obama as they do, i.e. the messiah.
It's a rerun of 1992. Bill Clinton was the golden boy, the charismatic young Democratic candidate, "the new JFK," whose mixture of charm, energy, intellect and political smarts was going to lead the country into a new progressive era.
What followed was eight years of growing disenchantment by the left with their one-time hero, as he governed as a pragmatic centrist, even a neo-conservative, and dashed their hopes of a new dawn for liberal politics.
Obama gives every indication that he would likewise govern as a Clintonian centrist. He'd probably nudge the country in a more progressive direction, but any hopes of major progressive reforms are probably forlorn. And he'd probably do a few things along the way that would really piss off the left, as Clinton did with Welfare Reform and DOMA and NAFTA.
Mixner, I sincerely hope that's the message getting out there.
I don't think it's true and I volunteered for his first run at the Illinois senate and every campaign since. I just lately joined up for the presidential run because it feels completely masturbatory in his district to try and get people to vote for Obama but I've known the guy awhile and what he's *really* good at is Jedi Mind Tricking people into thinking he's espousing what their views were all along no matter what they thought before and convincing them that what he wants to do is what they want to do.
Wow, Mixner is now the premiere troll at MY's. He's completely derailed the thread to be about him. I suppose he has to matter somewhere.
The important thing, though, is that Mixner is always wrong about the future. Obama by 15 in November is a sure thing.
Slightly OT, but did you guys just hear the wonderful, wonderful news about that POS Novak? Brain tumor!!!!!!!
One step closer to burning in hell for all eternity.
So there I was thinking he's Pragmatic Centrist Darth Obama when all along he's been Stealth Liberal Obi-Wan Obama.
Darn those Jedi Mind Tricks!
Isn't it possible to think one candidate as vastly preferable to another without thinking your preferred candidate is the Messiah?
Obama should be leading by a wider margin. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but why did he win by such a squeaker?
Remember, too close to call is close enough to steal.
Actually, I think Reagan was trailing Carter slightly in the polls until the final weekend of the 80 campaign. And this was despite the fact Carter's approval ratings were in the 30% range.
It's the slow season folks. And the press will not let go of the Obama should be doing better narrative because it leaves one less topic for the press to talk about.
Obama should be winning by at least 70 points, so discuss away guys.
So there I was thinking he's Pragmatic Centrist Darth Obama when all along he's been Stealth Liberal Obi-Wan Obama.
Well, lemme qualify that some. There are things Obama would have instincts to do that would drive Friedmanites and Chomsyites alike nuts. He has a plan to bail out the auto industry that you could very rightly call massive corporate welfare. There are other examples like that and some where I don't think they are just pragmatic concerns that trump ideology. If he's owned by anyone it's Exelon and if alternative energies get any love he's going to try like hell to make sure either they don't get enough to make nuclear and coal extinct or give them enough love to make them competitive.
mixner, the point i'm trying to make is that the slate article is wrong, and i've given you the pollingreport data to demonstrate it. if you have any actual data to support your misguided belief, bring it on....
howard,
mixner, the point i'm trying to make is that the slate article is wrong, and i've given you the pollingreport data to demonstrate it.
I'm sure you think that, but that's because you're too careless or impaired to read and understand even your own references.
Only two of the five trial heat polls you cite even cover the post-Labor Day period described in the Slate piece, and one of those shows a clear lead for Gore. You do realize that 9/28, 10/17 and 10/29 are all after September 14, don't you?
Oh look, it's the perfect moron Mixner pretending that Clinton's 8 years of peace and prosperity were instead a nightmare.
Fuck off dipshit. The 90s were a decade of loathsome Republican undermining of the very notion of respect for the rule of law and demonstrating their complete hatred for this nation.
It is true that their obsessive lying about Clinton resulted in a scandal fatigue and - like giving in to the 2-year-old demanding candy got them close enough so that in 2000 they managed to steal the election.
In 2001 their rank incompetence led to the most destructive terrorist attack - surpassing that of their fellow traveler McVeigh - in American history. They did demonstrate a phenomenal cynicism and turned their incompetence into a fearmongering campaign that resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents for the purpose of getting their idiot-in-chief a second term. A process that came within a couple of points of failing.
Without the knee-jerk nationalism that put them over the top in 2004, they were slaughtered in 2006. The emotions may not run as strong this year, but with all of his natural advantages it says something that John McCain can't break out of the low 40s.
That's the reality.
Historical comparisons simply do not provide us enough data to do regressions to determine the dependent and independent variables.
That's also reality.
When, in the very likely event, John McCain loses, it will not matter if he loses by 1%, -0.5%, or 20%, Obama will take office to the slings and arrows of Republicans who believe that it is their constitutional duty to harass, defame, and be generally objectionable in their attempts to de-legitimize Obama - just as they did with Clinton.
That too, is reality.
$100 Million wasted investigating Clinton's cock would have been better spent by having those FBI agents looking at counter-terrorism data. The Republicans cared more about getting Clinton than they did about getting bin Laden.
Next time you visit the site of the Twin Towers, thank a Republican.
Oh look, it's the perfect moron Mixner pretending that Clinton's 8 years of peace and prosperity were instead a nightmare.
These are the times when a thorough discussion of the merits of pie is in order.
Until this moment I believed that disemvowling was an invention of Lenin's Tomb.
To be fair, it's probably a more polite way to phrase the article than "why the hell are people still entertaining the idea of a McCain presidency? Don't they see how bad his campaign is SUCKING? His polls should be in the FLOOR right now, baby-- in the FLOOR."
Given that it's essentially the same story, I suppose this is arguably the more neutral way to present it.
McCain polls about 30 percentage points higher than what he deserves. This is a sad fact about our country, but Obama is winning.
As always, I agree polls are of very limited predictive value this far out.
That said, polls can tell you a bit about what is happening now. And as I have suggested before, what seems most relevant to me about the recent polling is that overall McCain has drifted down a bit since his post-clinch bump, and is now more or less stuck in the low-40s on average. I think that suggests he has indeed failed to overcome the general unpopularity of the Republican brand, and unless he figures out how to do that, I think he loses.
One last thought: we don't have great data on this subject, but it does seem the presence of third-party candidates hurts McCain more than Obama in polls. The actual support for third-party candidates may be exaggerated, but I think this is roundabout confirmation of the notion that McCain's supporters are relatively less enthusiastic about him than Obama's supporters are about Obama, which in turn helps confirm the Republican brand theory.
You've gotta make story out of nothing if you're to considered a great journalist. So Adam's the best in the business... (lol)
http://www.political-buzz.com/
This is the guy who spent a lot of time and effort undermining HRC. He now turns to attention to Obama. He is a douchebag: plain for all to see.
Not a one of you have yet sufficiently proven all of the things which I could potentially ask you to document.
Mixner writes:
W was only able to wield that power because the nation rallied around him in response to 9/11. If the "negative mandate" he had in 2000 had continued, he would never have had that power.
It's certainly true that Bush's power and influence went up after 9/11, but he was able to push an agenda pretty effectively before that. For example, he got his tax cut package through, instead of the Democratic tax cut package, despite the fact that the Democratic package was more popular, and (IIRC) the Democrats controlled the Senate.
It's a rerun of 1992. Bill Clinton was the golden boy, the charismatic young Democratic candidate, "the new JFK," whose mixture of charm, energy, intellect and political smarts was going to lead the country into a new progressive era.
What followed was eight years of growing disenchantment by the left with their one-time hero, as he governed as a pragmatic centrist, even a neo-conservative, and dashed their hopes of a new dawn for liberal politics.
That's quite a story, but I remember it a little differently. I remember Bill Clinton staging a 'Sistah Souljah moment,' vowing to 'end welfare as we know it,' balance the budget, sign NAFTA, and get tough on crime - not exactly the laundry list of progressive politics. He never ran as a progressive hero.
Then, shortly after he came to office by winning far less than 50% of the vote, the Republicans took both houses of Congress. Some - as in, pretty much everybody - would say that he spent his presidency back on his heels, playing defense against a conservative movement that set the agenda, pushing moderate ideas because that's all he could get through.
Rather a different situation from Obama, who is running as much more of a progressive, is likely to win with a much larger share of the vote, and will have a strongly-Democratic Congress during an era of Democratic ascendancy.
@Mixner: The 2004 election was a squeaker, yet Bush consolidated power in a highly effective fashion afterwards - that can't be explained away due to 9/11. As mentioned, his father won by a large margin, yet lacked the clout to enact sweeping changes comparable to those of his son.
That's quite a story, but I remember it a little differently. I remember Bill Clinton staging a 'Sistah Souljah moment,' vowing to 'end welfare as we know it,' balance the budget, sign NAFTA, and get tough on crime - not exactly the laundry list of progressive politics. He never ran as a progressive hero.
And neither is Obama, which is what makes the gushing devotion to both of them from the left so strange.
But I think Ed Marshall's posts reveal some of the mentality. The narrative is: Obama is secretly a lefty who is cunningly concealing his true political inclinations and running as a centrist in order to win the election. Once he's in office, he'll reveal his true colors and aggressively pursue a left-wing agenda.
I suspect they're going to be very, very disappointed, just as they were with Clinton. Assuming Obama actually wins, that is.
Rather a different situation from Obama, who is running as much more of a progressive,
Huh? On what issues is Obama running as "much more of a progressive" than Clinton did? As far as I can tell, Obama is running on a center-left platform on virtually everything, just as Clinton did. Even for the one big domestic policy issue on which Obama is seeking major change--health care--Obama's plan in 2008 is much less ambitious than Clinton's plan was in the early 90s. Obama's plan doesn't even include universal coverage, let alone a fundamental shift in health care financing.
For the latte-sipping croissant-munching elitists among us, here an article in a French paper wondering why Obama doesn't have a bigger lead in the polls. They make it sound like a reasonable question to ask.
Comments closed August 11, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Nagourney is a tool. He's bitter because the Obama campaign doesn't lick his nuts.
Posted by McCain's malignant mole | July 28, 2008 7:18 PM