Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sgtclub
No men maybe, and Bush already leads by a large margin of men. Most women will not be watching and Bush is doing far better among women than he did in 2000.

I'm not sure why you have the confidence that you do. I hope it's true, but my gut tells me that the race is tightening.

Ah, but you're forgetting the Slave Corollary, which involves Possession Of The Remote.

Remember, Club. Zogby and Gallup Polls + Botox + Playoffs + Flip-Floppery + Dog Hostage-Taking = Crushing Electoral Victory.

No sweat.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Buck up, pinstripe boy
their pitching may be weak, but
they've still got lumber

Uh, for the record, this applies to the hated Yankees, although one could say that it also fits for BC-04.

[SlaveNoMore]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Ah, but you're forgetting the Slave Corollary, which involves Possession Of The Remote.

Remember, Club. Zogby and Gallup Polls + Botox + Playoffs + Flip-Floppery + Dog Hostage-Taking = Crushing Electoral Victory.

No sweat.

Wouldn't call it crushing, but yes, I've called this shot.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
And for every massacre victim that you can't point to in a conceal-carry or more state, I'll do my best to avoid googling to find the dozens of uncharged survivors of gun violence who have survived only by flouting the law and having a gun handy when a gun was needed to ward off an armed criminal. Happens all the time in the anti-gun spots, and I'll be damned if I can think of even one time when anybody has been willing to prosecute the armed self-defender.

Okay. And I'll refrain from googling all the kids who shoot themselves or others because their parents keep guns in the home, or about the reduction in killings with assault weapons under the ban that the Repubs gleefully let lapse.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Um, I think that when he says he no longer has "the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically," I think that he's not saying they're genuine anymore. That, you know, they might be ... um ... fake.

Sure, this apology doesn't come with him wearing a mask over his head, and lying prostrate and naked, so it may not satisfy all of his critics. Nevertheless, I think it covers the basics.

I'm trying to imagine who would be MORE satisfied by Dan Rather being naked.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Zogby: Bush 46, Kerry 45 (LVs)
Gallup: Bush 49, Kerry 47 (RVs)
LA Times: Kerry 49, Bush 47 (RVs)
Newsweek: Kerry 49, Bush 46 (RVs)

Take all of these polls with a grain of salt. Kerry fans should look at this article for an explanation of why things are better for the Dems than these numbers might suggest. Bush fans will be happier if they don't read the piece.

Why bother with registered voters, rather than likely?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Why bother with registered voters, rather than likely?

The determination of likely voters takes into account number of times previously voted, years at address, etc. Given the Dems huge effort at voter registration this year, coupled with the number of ABB voters, it's hard to tell which is more predictive of the final outcome.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Given the Dems huge effort at voter registration this year, coupled with the number of ABB voters, it's hard to tell which is more predictive of the final outcome.

Is this true? What is the evidence of increased voter registration, other than word of mouth?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Is this true? What is the evidence of increased voter registration, other than word of mouth?

This kind of brainless question is why we love you, club.

Think about whether people keep records of who's registered to vote, and if so, where they might be kept, and if people could compare such records now to what they used to be in order to track things like the rate of registration.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Okay. And I'll refrain from googling all the kids who shoot themselves or others because their parents keep guns in the home, or about the reduction in killings with assault weapons under the ban that the Repubs gleefully let lapse.

1.) The parents should be prosecuted, and if guns are kept unsafely in the house, they should be arrested and prosecuted the moment the situation is discovered. In my experience, those kids are either the children of 1.) police officers (who should be fired and prosecuted) or 2.) people who place the kids in conditions where children get their hands on illegal weapons.

In either case, the weapons are there with or without a concealed carry law or other permissive-possesion law. I would truly be surprised if permissive gun laws made a difference in either case. We've seen the description of it in Texas here a few weeks ago, and I know it was all too common still in a draconian city like Chicago. Does it happen a lot in VA?

2.) If anyone else would like to google any credible estimate of the decrease in murders due to the assault weapons ban, please let me know. I'll donate $100 to Lawtalkers if any estimate says it is more than 50 per year nationwide. And I'll be reasonable with the term "credible" by letting Ty be the judge of the source as reasonably impartial. And I'd swear someone else said the decrease in homicides was the result of crack-war truces and the long-term effects of legalized abortion (ugh, that last part is a tasteless remark if I knew any bounds).

Hello

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
This kind of brainless question is why we love you, club.

Think about whether people keep records of who's registered to vote, and if so, where they might be kept, and if people could compare such records now to what they used to be in order to track things like the rate of registration.

I didn't think you took me for a complete idiot, just a partial one.

Where is the evidence that voter rolls have increased? I haven't seen anything on the topic.

I also note that those records are not exactly well-kept.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I didn't think you took me for a complete idiot, just a partial one.

Where is the evidence that voter rolls have increased? I haven't seen anything on the topic.

I also note that those records are not exactly well-kept.

I only keep track of Texas: http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/...9818813.htm?1c

ETA: the Harris County voterthon made it's 2000 goal over the weekend at Sharpstown Mall.

EATA more info since it's a registration newspaper:

Nearly 700,000 Texans have registered to vote since early March, a surge driven by interest in the presidential race and hotly contested congressional races, officials said Friday.

By Election Day, Nov. 2, more than 13 million Texans are expected to be registered to vote, said Luis Saenz, Texas' assistant secretary of state.

In the 2002 elections, when Republicans trounced Democrats for the state's top elected offices, registered voters totaled about 12.5 million.

Registration this year has been particularly heavy in Dallas and Travis counties. And in Harris County, election officials were conducting a "voter-thon" Friday in hope of getting more people to register.

In Tarrant County, more than 40,000 new voters have registered since the March 9 Republican and Democratic primaries, Elections Administrator Robert Parten said Friday.

He said he expects 50,000 more voters to register by the Monday deadline, bringing the number of registered voters in Tarrant County to more than 900,000.

Also, as much as it may irritate you, you might want to check out the America Coming Together stats. The whole point of that 512 was to register voters in the swing states (who may vote against Bush). They've been mobilizing since April or May, and they're very organized.

A lawyer at V&E estimates that she personally has registered about 350 people, and the local Tax Assessor/voter register says about 80 percent of Harris county are registered. BTW, the registration site is useful for cyberstalking and/or figuring out the real ages of local socialites.

[TalkSock]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I didn't think you took me for a complete idiot, just a partial one.

Where is the evidence that voter rolls have increased? I haven't seen anything on the topic.

I also note that those records are not exactly well-kept.

how about here?

Hordes of voters register in a dozen states
Deadlines offer glimpse of what nation may see on Election Day
Election offices were flooded with new voters in a dozen states Monday as registration deadlines offered a glimpse of what the nation might see a month from now.

Many officials reported record numbers of new voters, some said they were overwhelmed, and allegations were already flying about fraud and the disqualification of some voters’ applications.

“They’re coming in, in buckets,” said Pamela Swafford, deputy director of Ohio’s Hamilton County board of elections. By Monday morning, the county that includes Cincinnati had 64,045 new voter registrations on hand, more than twice the 29,178 it received four years ago.

“If you walk into our mail room, we have stacks and stacks of new forms coming in,” said Kara Sinkule, spokeswoman for Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, who oversees elections. “It’s a great problem to have.”

Her state is on pace to see a 50 percent increase in new voters for this presidential election compared to 2000. In the past year, 371,376 new voters registered, with 87,110 new voters in September alone. And the surge grew even bigger in the first few days of October.

Others speculate on the impact on the presidential race, and whether more Democrats are registering than Republicans, as some evidence indicates.

Pennsylvania’s suburban Montgomery County, the state’s largest Republican-leaning county, saw a bigger surge than the past two elections, with three Democrats registering for every two Republicans, said Joseph R. Passarella, the county’s director of voter services. An analysis by the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal found that registration was up higher in that state’s traditionally Democratic counties, and not as high in counties that usually vote GOP.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I didn't think you took me for a complete idiot, just a partial one.

Where is the evidence that voter rolls have increased? I haven't seen anything on the topic.

I also note that those records are not exactly well-kept.

Partial is indeed the default setting, much like Hank's setting on the dial when he reads mine.

Voter registration rolls are locally kept, so anyone seeking to do a comprehensive analysis would have to devote more energy to the task than our intrepid jounalistic corps seems inclined to devote.

That said, here's a bit on the news today with some partial, anecdotal evidence.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Why bother with registered voters, rather than likely?

If you want a more detailed answer to that, look at Ruy Texeira's blog. But the short answer is that more than a few weeks before the election, the models used to predict who is likely to vote are not particularly strong.