The Last Election Thread

[Ben Kenobi]

1. If you get laid off (aka lose your income) a bigger handout means a hell of a lot.

I'd rather keep my job then a handout, tyvm. My job pays just a bit more.

2. Everyone pays taxes - not everyone pays income taxes. There is a difference. And no, 40% of the population are not exempt from income taxes, unless you are claiming that the economic conditions thanks to republicans have been so bad that so many Americans are poor.

That's a true statement. Remember:

1. This includes those folks who's income is lower then the threshold, ie, poor folks.

2. Anyone who's a full time caregiver for their children.

3. Anyone who's retired and on a pension.

4. Folks on disability.

5. Students on student loans.

When you add up 1-5 you get 40 percent of those who are adults.

Heck, I've not yet made enough to pay taxes myself, although this year I probably will. I've instead finally paid off my student loans.

[Naked Gents Rut]

That Breitbart site is pretty ammusing, in the sense that anyone could think that is useful or meaningful journalism.

The article is from the AP, you ****ing dip****.

[GePap]

So what?

Did I say that site created the article? No, dip****. Also, just cause the AP creates a report doesn't mean that everyone has to run it .

Guess you must be sensitive about visiting dumb sites like that one.

[Naked Gents Rut]

3 newspapers endorse McCain; coincidentally, their reporters dumped from Obama plane

The Barack Obama for president campaign has kicked off its campaign plane three newspaper reporters.

The campaign says it was a tough decision deciding to boot the working reporters for the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News and the Washington Times. But, they say, there are only so many seats on the plane that the spunky new Christian Science Monitor politics blog calls "O-Force One."

And somebody had to go for these last few campaign days.

It's probably just a simple coincidence that all three newspapers recently endorsed Obama's Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, for the White House job.

"It feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth," quipped John Solomon, executive editor of the Times, which lost its seat after three years of travel with the candidate and just 72 hours after endorsing McCain.

That newspaper's website this afternoon headlined a report that Obama spent nearly $700,000 in U.S. campaign donations just on staging and lights for that Berlin victory rally last summer and those 200,000 Germans who can't vote over here. Gee, you could dress more than four Republican vice presidential candidates with that much money.

What's not to like in that news for the Obama campaign?

The Dallas paper reported no evidence its plane departure was political. Think about it: Why would a political campaign take retribution on reporters for a decision made by their publication's separate editorial boards? The publications, after all, pay their own way on the charters.

That would be a cheesy hardball -- and quite possibly counterproductive -- Chicago kind of thing for a frontrunner to do, especially one on a national unity ticket. A candidate's organization would have to reflect an enormous ego and over-confidence to pull something like that.

Next thing you know such a campaign might urge supporters to clog a radio station's phone lines or e-mail boxes just because it gave air-time to an Obama critic.

And it's certainly not the kind of hands-across-the-aisle, bipartisan change we need and/or can believe in a national capital that could use a large dose of both.

True, the Obama campaign has buttoned itself up from most press access, apparently fearing some kind of late-minute gaffe that might threaten its lead in most polls.

A reporter could choose to travel instead on the Joe Biden plane, plenty of seats there, and perhaps really exciting, except the old-time senator who ad libbed that Hillary Clinton might have been a better Democratic VP pick coincidentally hasn't done a media availability since right after the Republican convention in early September.

Amazingly, as Howard Kurtz points out, two seats did suddenly open up on the Obama campaign plane this weekend to accommodate Ebony and Essence magazine reporters. Another coincidence.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/obama-media.html

Gotta love that bipartisan spirit.

[Deity Dude]

New Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby poll for 10/31 has McCain leading 48% - 47%.

http://current.com/items/89475805_zogby_mccain_up_1

Is it possible?

[GePap]

No. Just go to www.fivethirtyeight.com to see why that poll is obviously such an outlier.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/obama-media.html

Gotta love that bipartisan spirit.

He learned it from watching McCain:

http://pwtenny.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/21/2024210-mccain-bans-time-magazine-reporter-joe-klein-from-his-plane-over-negative-campaign-coverage

[Ben Kenobi]

No. Just go to www.fivethirtyeight.com to see why that poll is obviously such an outlier.

McCain's got the momentum. Now all the sites are showing ND, MT, MO and IN flipped back to McCain.

Next up on the McCain train-- Florida and North Carolina.

All the rust belt is going to drop out of the 'safe' column again, and NH is back in play.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Deity Dude
New Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby poll for 10/31 has McCain leading 48% - 47%.

http://current.com/items/89475805_zogby_mccain_up_1

Is it possible?

That's not an accurate story. The poll is a rolling tracker, and it has Obama +5 overall. It was only 1/2 of 1 day of polling that had McCain up.

And as always... Zogby sucks. He has swings of 10, 15 points from day-to-day polling, because he doesn't weight his samples and uses outdated voter demographic models.

If you look at the polling composites, Obama has held a steady 6-7 point national lead for the past two weeks, and continues to do so.

[Deity Dude]

Well I know every other poll lately I've seen has Obama anywhere from 3% to 11% but Zogby is usually pretty reliable.

Also, I realize the important thing is the 51 different state polls but I just found this a very interesting trend if true.

[GePap]

If ANY site had Obama leading in Montana, North Dakota, and Missiouri, then McCain was in real deep ****.

[Naked Gents Rut]

He learned it from watching McCain

More reminiscent of Bush, actually.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Deity Dude
Well I know every other poll lately I've seen has Obama anywhere from 3% to 11% but Zogby is usually pretty reliable.

No, he really isn't as reliable as others.

Also, I realize the important thing is the 51 different state polls but I just found this a very interesting trend if true.

Trend? One data point does not a trend make.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
McCain's got the momentum. Now all the sites are showing ND, MT, MO and IN flipped back to McCain.

http://www.pollster.com/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/

Both those show All those states still toss-ups. Why do you lie so much?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Deity Dude
Well I know every other poll lately I've seen has Obama anywhere from 3% to 11% but Zogby is usually pretty reliable.

Nope, Zogby is of pretty middling reliability. He didn't perform well at all in the primaries, overall. He was also the one pollster who declared that Kerry was going to win on the eve of the 2004 election.

Zogby is a gadfly. He's out there to generate headlines rather than actually do reliable polls. So he'll trumpet anything that will get news, which in this environment are outliers.