30 seconds

If the RNC could get this down to 30 seconds it would be a devastating ad.

First amendment: the first to go?

Drudge is reporting that Barack Obama has kicked three reporters off his campaign plan.  Coincidentally, all three reporters are from newspapers that endorsed John McCain.  Since so few newspapers endorsed the GOP candidate, we can safely rule out the possibility of coincidence.

This is a man whose candidacey has only been possible because of the complicity of the media.  Surveys show he has more than 90% support among the media.  Yet that’s not enough for him.  Dissent–even the token variety–will not be tolerated.  Cross him and you’re out. 

You might not care about the New York Post, or Fox News, or Rush Limbaugh, but when he’s done there, where will he stop?

I’m switching my vote

This does it for me.  I’m switching sides.  If I had known that a President Obama means that I won’t ever have to worry about paying my mortgage or being able to afford gas for my car then I would have been on his bandwagon earlier. 

(ht: GR)

Exit polling is worthless

Remember 2004?  The early exit polls indicated a Kerry landslide.  By mid-afternoon when the results began to leak the Kerry campaign grew giddy and the Bush folks morose.  Then the real results came in and . . . four more years.

Here is why:

Every election, the television networks conduct exit polls of people as they leave their polling places on Election Day. If you were asked to participate, how likely is it you would be willing to spend 10 minutes filling out a questionnaire?Obama Supporters: Very likely (46%), Somewhat likely (31%), Not very likely (9%), Not at all likely (11%)

McCain Supporters: Very likely (35%), Somewhat likely (29%), Not very likely (16%), Not at all likely (16%)

Exit polling is self-selected. I’ve actually been part of one once before. The first question the pollster asks is, “Would you like to participate in an exit poll?” According to this poll Obama supporters are 13-points more likely to answer yes to that first question.   One-third of McCain supporters won’t answer an exit poll, while only one-fifth of Obama supporters won’t.  That makes exit polls almost completely worthless.

Of course, we don’t know how many people self-selected out of the survey that produced these results, so it may be worthless too.

For more on polling I recommend again: Fondle your own balls.

This doesn’t surprise me

If Iraqis could vote it would be for McCain.  He after all, played a large part in the change in strategy that rescued the Iraqis from Al Qaeda tyranny.

In related news:  Wasit was returned to provincial control.  As was the province of Babil (Babylon) just south of Baghdad.  This makes thirteen provinces now completely under Iraqi control  The only remaining provinces awaiting transfer of authority are Baghdad, Diyala, Ninewa, Tamim (Kirkuk), and Salah ad Din.

Fondle your own balls

I have a fair bit of experience with polls, and this is probably the best primer on the subject that I’ve recently read.

McCain be old

It’s supposed to be an anti-McCain ad that digs at him because his age, but I think it would make a great pro-McCain ad.  He should run excerpts from it in Florida and Pennsylvania especially. Humor works on undecideds.

My favorite line:

The Bible story is actually ‘McCain and Able’

(ht: AK)

Despair.com

I’ve now seen and heard much of Barack Obama’s infomercial.  For a man whose mantra is hope his message is despair.

Speaking of Despair:

(ht: MK)

Aunt Zeituni is the October Surprise

The first 15 minutes of Rush Limbaugh’s show today is devastating.  He contrasted the story of Barack Obama’s aunt living in a Boston slum with Barack Obama’s rhetoric:  “I am my brother’s keeper,”  “Whatever we do to the least among us,” etc.  I’ll try to find the audio.

This is the kind of story that gets legs.  It is the October Surprise.  And I called it–to the day.  (Okay, the story came out Wednesday night, but since it was in a London paper, there the story was released on the Thursday before the election.)

America in microcosm

Pennsylvania and Ohio are a lot alike.  I grew up in one and have driven countless times the length and breadth of the other.  Both states are industrial and rural.  Blue collar and professional.  Old cities and new suburbs.  They are America in microcosm.  That is why every year Ohio and Pennsylvania are presidential battlegrounds.

Politically, the Keystone State tends to be a point or two more Democratic than the nation as a whole, while the Buckeye State leans a point or two in the opposite direction.

The similarity of Pennsylvania to America is reason enough that this Mason-Dixon poll should give Barack Obama concern and John McCain hope.  It has Barack Obama leading in the state by a margin of 47-43 with 9 percent undecided.  My own reading of all the polls tells me that this is very close to where America is: Obama probably leads by 3 to 4 points, but with less than half the vote.  The remaining undecideds are demographically more inclined to support McCain.  Most of them won’t support Obama, but they might not vote at all. 

They’re looking to John McCain for a reason to vote.