I'll probably want to do a poll-watching post every so often as the presidential election nears. Here you go!
This time, there's a myth that needs dispelling.
The race for the White House is often described as "neck-and-neck" or too close to call. On its face, that looks accurate. Gallup offers us this chart, titled "Obama 48, Romney 46 in Swing States."
Real Clear Politics informs us that there are still 100 electoral votes up for grabs, with Obama securely holding on to 247 and Romney clinging to 191. It takes 270 to win, and neither man has that many sewn up.
Fivethirtyeight.com tells us that the President carried a 60-70 percent chance of re-election through the summer, and right now wins three-quarters of its program's simulations. It gives Obama a 3.3 percent lead in the popular vote.
Close race, right? Just a couple points here or there, sometimes three, sometimes four. It'll come down to the wire, right? Maybe we'll be up all night on Election Day, holding our breath as votes trickle in from Ohio, or maybe we'll even get treated to another recount in Florida? Stay tuned! Right?
Hogwash. The race isn't anywhere near as competitive as it sounds.
To support my point, I'd like to invoke something called the "Rule of Fifty." (Please don't google it, because I just made it up. And it just sends you to some chess thingy. You're not even playing chess right now, are you? Didn't think so.)
Premise of Fraley's Rule of Fifty: We live in hyper-partisan times. When a voter chooses his or her preferred candidate, it's very difficult to change his or her mind. The voter may take his time making his choice; she may remain undecided for a long time, through the primaries, while mini-scandals erupt, all summer long.
But when that voters settles on a candidate, he's actually settled on that candidate in a permanent way, and it would take a great deal of upheaval to change his mind.
My argument: A 44-38 lead for the Democrat in June means nothing. A 50-47 lead in late September means everything. The race is actually closer in the first scenario, when minds are changeable and the pool of undecided voters is large. Even though the Democrat has a lead twice as large in June, the three-point lead in September is far more significant. There is no pool of undecided voters in the second scenario -- just a puddle.
The late three-point lead is more powerful because people's minds are made up. If yours is, think about what it would take to change it.
Now, some numbers. If numbers creep you out, skip ahead to the wordy wordthings later on. All numbers are recent reputable poll results with Obama's "score" listed first.
Florida: 48-47. 49-44. 49-46.
Ohio: 48-44. 49-42. 51-46.
Virginia: 50-46. 50-43. 52-44.
(I left out unreliable polls who have shown an unreasonable partisan bent one way or the other.)
If Obama wins even one of these states, the electoral math becomes impossible for Romney. Not only must the Republican win all three, but he probably has to steal another pretty blue state like Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, Wisconsin, or New Hampshire, and even then it might not be enough to dethrone the President.
And, oh, by the way, Obama polls better in the five states just listed. Far more fifties than forties.
As Romney offers to the public gaffe upon gaffe upon gaffe upon piss-poor convention, Obama's starting to scrape 50, or reaching it, or crossing it, everywhere that matters.
(Visit this awesome place called 538 for more data. Blogger Nate Silver is a numbers guru, who dispassionately gathers polls to make political predictions. He is the best.)
The Rule of Fifty receives confirmation in job approval polls. Say you're the President. (Don't actually say that. You sounds foolish when you say those words!) You might slog your way through your first term with job approval ratings in the forties. If you're a terrible Chief Executive, you might flirt with the thirties. If you're truly an abysmal farce of a president, you might dip into the twenties. (Like him. Or him.)
But if you're in the fifties, people aren't going to vote you out of office, unless the challenger's charisma is so overwhelming that his positive ratings outshine yours by a large margin.
President Barack Hussein Obama (I still stifle a giggle when I type that sequence of words) has seen his job approval settle at 50 percent, just in time.
[ You don't have to trust me on that. Just check out the chart at Real Clear Politics with the numbers. Click on it. It is pretty.]
Meanwhile, presidential wannabe Willard Mitt Romney (Esquire) logs more approval numbers in the 30's than the 50's. There is a gap there too. So many gaps.
Enough stats. Barring a Mayan Apocalypse, we're going to get four more years of President Obama. If that causes your head to explode, sorry.*
* apology is insincere.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
No, Screw You, Mitt Romney
Screw you, Mitt Rommey.
(All profanity has been edited out of this post. But you can add it back in, mentally. All right. Here we go.)
"There are 47 percent who are with him [President Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it... [My job] is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Well, screw you, Mitt Romney. I run a business that I started from scratch nine years ago. I work 50 hours a week to support a family.
Screw you hard, Mitt Romney, I pay my fair share in taxes every year. My taxation rate is higher than yours.
Screw you, Mitt Romney. Fifteen percent of my income goes toward health care costs, and I'm a moocher?
Screw you once again, but not for the last time, Willard Romney. I stayed home part-time with my first child when he was an infant, even though I couldn't really afford it, to give him the kind of nurturing he deserved.
Screw you even more, Romney. I am no victim. I make my own choices, and I choose to ridicule you for being a douchebag.
Screw you even harder, Mitt Romney. We are all dependent on government to an extent. Veterans, students, the elderly, the sick, teachers, cops, firefighters, single moms with deadbeat ex-husbands, the disabled, and everyone who buys food. Oh, and everyone who enjoys the protection of our awesome military. So, all of us, in other words. Yeah, screw you. From all of us who rely on the government in one or more aspects of our lives.
Screw you, Mitt Romney, for declaring your intent to become president in one breath, then in the next one, dismissing half the population as people you don't need to worry about if elected.
And if you produced that quote because you were at a fund-raiser and that's what you thought your donors wanted to hear, then screw you one final time. You just forfeited all benefit of the doubt I would otherwise have granted you.
Now go lose this election, because screw you.
(All profanity has been edited out of this post. But you can add it back in, mentally. All right. Here we go.)
"There are 47 percent who are with him [President Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it... [My job] is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Well, screw you, Mitt Romney. I run a business that I started from scratch nine years ago. I work 50 hours a week to support a family.
Screw you hard, Mitt Romney, I pay my fair share in taxes every year. My taxation rate is higher than yours.
Screw you, Mitt Romney. Fifteen percent of my income goes toward health care costs, and I'm a moocher?
Screw you once again, but not for the last time, Willard Romney. I stayed home part-time with my first child when he was an infant, even though I couldn't really afford it, to give him the kind of nurturing he deserved.
Screw you even more, Romney. I am no victim. I make my own choices, and I choose to ridicule you for being a douchebag.
Screw you even harder, Mitt Romney. We are all dependent on government to an extent. Veterans, students, the elderly, the sick, teachers, cops, firefighters, single moms with deadbeat ex-husbands, the disabled, and everyone who buys food. Oh, and everyone who enjoys the protection of our awesome military. So, all of us, in other words. Yeah, screw you. From all of us who rely on the government in one or more aspects of our lives.
Screw you, Mitt Romney, for declaring your intent to become president in one breath, then in the next one, dismissing half the population as people you don't need to worry about if elected.
And if you produced that quote because you were at a fund-raiser and that's what you thought your donors wanted to hear, then screw you one final time. You just forfeited all benefit of the doubt I would otherwise have granted you.
Now go lose this election, because screw you.
Hell Is No People
(That's a play on Jean-Paul Sartre's famous line. Free culture!)
It's easy to populate hell, at first.
Stir in one cup of Hitler, a few tablespoons of Pol Pot, add a dash of fresh Manson, sprinkle some Osama on top, and cook over brimstone for, well, eternity.
The world has seen no shortage of evil perpetrated by selfish humans. I could easily add more "ingredients." They wouldn't even have to be mass murderers or serial killers. Plenty of people have produced plenty of evil actions. It happens every day.
But I'd like to suggest that not a single person deserves hell, at least not if it's defined as everlasting torment. Not bin Laden, not Adolf. Not the misguided Crusader who raped and pillaged his way through the Holy Land. Not the Soviet leader who sent millions to their death in labor camps. Not the serial kidnapper-murderer.
Only a warped sense of justice allows for another being's lifetime of maliciousness to be punished with an eternity of pain. Any punishment that becomes everlasting... have you even really considered it?
And I don't mean "considered it" as in, "imagined what it would be like to burn forever." Nobody but the most myopic literalist would argue that an actual lake of fire burns bad people, always. That's just silly and brainless. But even hell as a place at all, or as a state of mind, breaks down pretty quickly no matter what shape the punishment takes. Un-ending, un-endable pain, of any type, is not a just consequence commensurate with the crime.
No matter the crime.
I'll even take this one step farther. If there is a Satan, even it doesn't deserve hell. I don't care what it did to "earn" hell. It didn't deserve it. Eternal punishment isn't just something you mete out, if you're the one doing the meting. It's cruel. It's actually worse than the original crime.
One step farther still. Yes, that means I believe God's worse than Hitler, if hell is Adolf's final destination.
The last stop on this theological rabbit hole is to conclude that if God sends souls to hell, then God is more evil than Satan.
(I suppose this explains why I have to tune the Bible out when it promises hell for certain individuals.)
It's entirely possible that I suffer from a lack of perspective. I have the enviable luxury of talking about hell in purely philosophical terms, with the fortunate detachment that comes from never having to deal with the murder of a loved one. I don't have the life experience of someone whose son, whose sister, whose parent was killed. I never survived a genocide; I don't have a pastful of trauma to sort through. Nobody has ever hurt me very badly, and I'm lucky that way.
But is there a way for a person to perform enough evil to deserve an eternity of torment? I can't think of one. I welcome all enlightened answers to that very real question.
P.S. As I eliminate hell, my vision of heaven takes a hit as well. That's the next post in this series, I guess.
It's easy to populate hell, at first.
Stir in one cup of Hitler, a few tablespoons of Pol Pot, add a dash of fresh Manson, sprinkle some Osama on top, and cook over brimstone for, well, eternity.
The world has seen no shortage of evil perpetrated by selfish humans. I could easily add more "ingredients." They wouldn't even have to be mass murderers or serial killers. Plenty of people have produced plenty of evil actions. It happens every day.
But I'd like to suggest that not a single person deserves hell, at least not if it's defined as everlasting torment. Not bin Laden, not Adolf. Not the misguided Crusader who raped and pillaged his way through the Holy Land. Not the Soviet leader who sent millions to their death in labor camps. Not the serial kidnapper-murderer.
Only a warped sense of justice allows for another being's lifetime of maliciousness to be punished with an eternity of pain. Any punishment that becomes everlasting... have you even really considered it?
And I don't mean "considered it" as in, "imagined what it would be like to burn forever." Nobody but the most myopic literalist would argue that an actual lake of fire burns bad people, always. That's just silly and brainless. But even hell as a place at all, or as a state of mind, breaks down pretty quickly no matter what shape the punishment takes. Un-ending, un-endable pain, of any type, is not a just consequence commensurate with the crime.
No matter the crime.I'll even take this one step farther. If there is a Satan, even it doesn't deserve hell. I don't care what it did to "earn" hell. It didn't deserve it. Eternal punishment isn't just something you mete out, if you're the one doing the meting. It's cruel. It's actually worse than the original crime.
One step farther still. Yes, that means I believe God's worse than Hitler, if hell is Adolf's final destination.
The last stop on this theological rabbit hole is to conclude that if God sends souls to hell, then God is more evil than Satan.
(I suppose this explains why I have to tune the Bible out when it promises hell for certain individuals.)
It's entirely possible that I suffer from a lack of perspective. I have the enviable luxury of talking about hell in purely philosophical terms, with the fortunate detachment that comes from never having to deal with the murder of a loved one. I don't have the life experience of someone whose son, whose sister, whose parent was killed. I never survived a genocide; I don't have a pastful of trauma to sort through. Nobody has ever hurt me very badly, and I'm lucky that way.
But is there a way for a person to perform enough evil to deserve an eternity of torment? I can't think of one. I welcome all enlightened answers to that very real question.
P.S. As I eliminate hell, my vision of heaven takes a hit as well. That's the next post in this series, I guess.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Now or Never? Yabetcha
In the Republican leadership's dream scenario, the run-up to the 2012 election goes something like this:
/dream sequence music plays/
/picture goes fuzzy, then sharpens again/
Economy still in doldrums. Growth is slow and fitful.
Unemployment stubbornly remains above 8 percent.
The housing market has not recovered.
Unlimited corporate money flows into the party's coffers because of the Citizens United ruling.
Voter suppression programs are signed into law in key swing states.
The President's health care legislation remains unpopular.
No dream sequence music or fuzzy-unfuzzy effects necessary! Close those slash-marks! We are living in the Republican dream scenario! Conservatives could hardly have asked for better circumstances to retake the Oval Office!
And yet.
The Romney-Ryan ticket trails in the polls, with the numbers worsening by the day, with time running out. (47 days until November 6.) The President enjoys an 80 percent chance of re-election, according to forecasts by the mathematically rigorous and very non-partisan projections at fivethirtyeight.com. (Look there for more details, it's a great place.)
The Romney-Ryan ticket trails in the polls, with the numbers worsening by the day, with time running out. (47 days until November 6.) The President enjoys an 80 percent chance of re-election, according to forecasts by the mathematically rigorous and very non-partisan projections at fivethirtyeight.com. (Look there for more details, it's a great place.)
If a Republican can't win the White House in this climate, when can he?
He'll have to do it soon, if he wants to at all. The demographics aren't getting any better for R's. Just one race of humans gives more than half its votes to the conservative candidate, and that specific race is losing population share in dramatic fashion. By 2030, less than half of all Americans will be white.
Some numbers. Specifically, some percentages.
Blacks broke 91-3 for Obama.
Latinos made it 66-23 in support of Barack.
For Asians, it was 58-29 in favor of the President.
But that was 2008, you say. A valid criticism! Let us fetch some 2004 numbers.
Blacks: 88-11 for Kerry
Latinos: 53-44 for Kerry
Asians: 43-36 for Kerry.
You might want me to average out those figures. I might want that too. Since we agree, let's travel down that route as well. Averaging the last two election cycles:
Blacks: 90-7 for Democrats
Latinos: 60-34 for Democrats
Asians: 51-33 for Democrats
Those three ethnic groups, plus the ever-expanding racial category "other," will soon make up 50 percent of the population. Already, 44 percent of us are nonwhite.
But demographics don't even tell the whole story.
Some numbers. Specifically, some percentages.
Blacks broke 91-3 for Obama.
Latinos made it 66-23 in support of Barack.
For Asians, it was 58-29 in favor of the President.
But that was 2008, you say. A valid criticism! Let us fetch some 2004 numbers.
Blacks: 88-11 for Kerry
Latinos: 53-44 for Kerry
Asians: 43-36 for Kerry.
You might want me to average out those figures. I might want that too. Since we agree, let's travel down that route as well. Averaging the last two election cycles:
Blacks: 90-7 for Democrats
Latinos: 60-34 for Democrats
Asians: 51-33 for Democrats
Those three ethnic groups, plus the ever-expanding racial category "other," will soon make up 50 percent of the population. Already, 44 percent of us are nonwhite.
But demographics don't even tell the whole story.
The economic climate won't be this bad in 2016. All indicators suggest that the worst is over, or ending.
The ruling that allows unlimited corporate cash to influence elections can't last forever.
The hot-button issues aren't trending toward R's. Gay marriage (or as I like to call it, "marriage") is supported by more than half the electorate, with that number climbing quickly. Two out of three Americans support the idea of a separate tax bracket for millionaires, quite the opposite of what R's are suggesting, which is another well-deserved tax cut for those downtrodden yachters.
Republicans really need a win now, or failing that, a victory in 2016, against presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. (Oh yes. It's happening.) Because if this cycle or the next one passes them by, the changes they'll need to court minority voters without losing their base along the way... it's hard to see that happening.
So... good luck* with that!
* ed. note: sarcasm!
Republicans really need a win now, or failing that, a victory in 2016, against presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. (Oh yes. It's happening.) Because if this cycle or the next one passes them by, the changes they'll need to court minority voters without losing their base along the way... it's hard to see that happening.
So... good luck* with that!
* ed. note: sarcasm!
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