Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
(This is the politics board. If we cut out all stupid arguments, we might as well just run penis enlargement ads.)

That reminds me. I want my money back, you gonef!

[SlaveNoMore]

Gattigap
And, apparently the TV media fell for it and televised the fucking thing. Nice, free advertising. It's a perk of the job, I guess. Think they'll televise a Kerry stump speech?

They already do.

Every night when Rather and Brokaw and Lehrer take a seat.

[SlaveNoMore]

taxwonk
My goodness, and you accused Clinton of parsing words too carefully. Why, my dear boy, I'm just amazed the Good Lord don't just turn y'all's tongue black and make it fall right off.

Yes, we did.

But when you decided that it was okay for him to question was "is" is, the new standard was set.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
fwiw, I heart Halliburton.

Client pleaser.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Yes, we did.

But when you decided that it was okay for him to question was "is" is, the new standard was set.

You know, the comparison to Clinton is hardly flattering for you. A great many Democrats were appalled by and disappointed with Clinton. They didn't agree that he should be impeached, but they agreed publicly that he was wrong. Remember Lieberman scolding him on the floor of the Senate? Now try to imagine a GOP Senator doing the same to (e.g.) Cheney these days.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
You know, the comparison to Clinton is hardly flattering for you. A great many Democrats were appalled by and disappointed with Clinton. They didn't agree that he should be impeached, but they agreed publicly that he was wrong. Remember Lieberman scolding him on the floor of the Senate? Now try to imagine a GOP Senator doing the same to (e.g.) Cheney these days.

Well, if Cheney lies in an investigation under oath, I would hope someone would openly criticize him.

However, the circumstances you are comparing are hardly comparable.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Now try to imagine a GOP Senator doing the same to (e.g.) Cheney these days.

Can you point to a lie under oath to help us with visualization?

[LessinSF]

Get your bets down - http://online.wsj.com/public/resourc...04-an1006.html

[SlaveNoMore]

Less, where is Zogby getting his numbers? Because I read this earlier today:

U.S. President George Bush has a slight lead over Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry in a poll of registered Iowa voters released Wednesday.

Bush garnered 46 percent in the two-day poll of registered Iowa voters against 43 percent for Kerry. Liberal independent Ralph Nader's support was at 3 percent in the poll, conducted by the Democrat firm Harstead Strategy Research, while 8 percent of the 717 registered voters surveyed said they remained undecided.

The president's 3 point lead over Kerry is inside the poll's 3.7 percentage point error margin.

The survey, which was undertaken for Americans Coming Together, a pro-Kerry 527 organization, also showed by 50 percent to 44 percent, voters in Iowa approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president.

Note that this poll was taken sponsored by a pro-Kerry 527

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Well, if Cheney lies in an investigation under oath, I would hope someone would openly criticize him.

However, the circumstances you are comparing are hardly comparable.

I'm sorry, I thought you were just suggesting that a similar standard of truthfulness applies.

eta: That's a line I can see NRO getting behind: 'So Cheney lied to the American people; it's not like he swore an oath to tell the truth.'

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Less, where is Zogby getting his numbers? Because I read this earlier today:

Note that this poll was taken sponsored by a pro-Kerry 527

(1) There are so many state polls floating around that it's very hard to know which ones are worth paying attention to.

(2) According to an article I linked here a few days ago by Guy Molyneux in TAP, the important number to watch is not the spread between Bush and Kerry, but whether Bush is polling at 50% or higher. As a rule, incumbent presidents tend to poll just below or at the last polls, while the challengers pick up an average of 4% from the last poll. So I see the Iowa numbers that you posted here, and am heartened, because Bush is well below 50%. YMMV.

[LessinSF]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Less, where is Zogby getting his numbers?

This is the Zogby website - http://www.zogby.com . Problem is some of it requires paying him. Here is the FAQ - http://www.zogby.com/about/faq.cfm , containing the following:

I read a lot of polls and yours is so different from the others - what makes your answers so different (and accurate)?

"We poll only likely voters who are different from just all adults. In addition, we poll all day long - 9am to 9pm local time (to the region we're calling). Finally, we apply weighting for party identification to ensure that there is no built-in Democratic bias in our sampling."

I further understand (from a friend involved in the CA Republican party) that his decisions on whether a state will go Kerry v. Bush also considers built-in assumptions about voter turnout (heavier turnout favoring the Dems), as do other polls, but that he is assuming higher turnout than are others (and some of the others).

Here is his further breakdown of the post-debate numbers - http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=874

Here is his methodology - http://www.zogby.com/methodology/index.cfm

He was the only one to get 2000 right - http://www.ncpp.org/1936-2000.htm

Here's an article about him, including discussion about how he was the only one to get the 1996 election right - http://www.chriscmooney.com/PDF/Zogby.pdf

That said, here is his own article about his fuck-up of the 2002 midterm elections - http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=648

and here's an interesting study comparing 20 polls in the CA 2003 recall election and why they all basically suck - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1004883/posts

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
According to an article I linked here a few days ago by Guy Molyneux in TAP, the important number to watch is not the spread between Bush and Kerry, but whether Bush is polling at 50% or higher. As a rule, incumbent presidents tend to poll just below or at the last polls, while the challengers pick up an average of 4% from the last poll. So I see the Iowa numbers that you posted here, and am heartened, because Bush is well below 50%. YMMV.

If I read that article correctly, its not "vote for" as the 50% barometer - rather, its "approval rating"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
If I read that article correctly, its not "vote for" as the 50% barometer - rather, its "approval rating"

The article is here. The second, third and fourth paragraphs say:

• Almost all poll reporting focuses on the “spread,” that is, the difference in the percentage supporting Bush and John Kerry. If we take an average of the most recent ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, and NBC/Wall Street Journal surveys, it shows Bush with 49 percent and Kerry with 44 percent among registered voters. Such survey results are invariably reduced to the shorthand “Bush up 5,” which sounds like a comfortable lead.
  
  However, in incumbent elections, the incumbent’s percentage of the vote is a far better indicator of the state of the race than the spread. In fact, the percentage of the vote an incumbent president receives in surveys is an extraordinarily accurate predictor of the percentage he will receive on election day -- even though the survey results also include a pool of undecided voters. Hence the 50-percent rule: An incumbent who fails to poll above 50 percent is in grave jeopardy of losing his job.
  
  But is it really possible for Kerry to close a 5-point gap, absent some fundamental change in voter preference? To find historical precedent, we must reach back in history all the way to 1996, the most recent incumbent presidential election. Bill Clinton averaged 51 percent in the final polls but received 49 percent on election day, while Bob Dole averaged 37 percent but received 41 percent -- a net shift of 6 points. Not only can Kerry close such a gap, it is extremely likely that he will.

I haven't trolled for other pollsters who agree or disagree with this, but the numerical support in the article seems fairly convincing. OTOH, four (elections with incumbent presidents) is not a huge sample size. (The article is a week old, so the reference to the most recent poll is not right any more.)

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I thought it was interesting that God didn't come up at all in this.
. . .

Cheney isn't exactly the Religious Right spokesmodel, but it seemed that he totally ignored that constituancy.

That is Bush's portfolio -- and in forums accessible to the broader public, he reaches out subtly, almost in code. I recall at least two (one commentator said three) uncited biblical references and/or biblical-sounding phrases from his first debate.

"I have climbed the mighty mountain, and I have seen the valley below, and it is the valley of peace."

They know Shrub's their man, or close enough to get them to turn out for them. [They don't seem to notice that its 98% lip service with no real concerted action (but don't worry Bilmore, I'm not suggesting Bush is calcualting or anything.)]

S_A_M