The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

OHIO OR BOSTON?

Posted on | November 4, 2012 | 40 Comments

BLUE ASH, Ohio
Ali Akbar stayed up all night crunching numbers for an election analysis that’s going to blow some peoples’ minds later today. A few hints:

Is the media trying to play a Jedi mind-trick on us? Have the manufacturers of the Conventional Wisdom sold us a prefabricated narrative about a surge of enthusiasm for Obama, with the intent of using bandwagon psychology to discourage Republicans and tip undecided voters toward the Democrat?

Does a wild bear defecate in the forest?

In some future textbook about media bias, it will be noted that on the Sunday before Election Day 2012, a New York Times article about get-out-the-vote operations in Ohio buried this fact in the 57th paragraph:

“This is the first time in many cycles that the Republican presidential campaign has emphasized door-knocking over phone banks,” [Romney campaign Ohio field director Scott] Jennings said. Across Ohio, he said, Mr. Romney’s campaign is knocking on 19 times as many doors as Senator John McCain’s campaign did four years ago.

As Perry White of the Daily Planet might say, “Great Caesar’s ghost!” Isn’t this the most important fact in the entire story, Lois Lane? A historically unprecedented Republican door-to-door canvassing operation in what both sides agree is the most crucial swing state of them all? And this is in the 57th paragraph?

Meanwhile, last night, Nate Silver increased his Magical Projection Model™ number to better than 4-to-1 odds against a Romney win.

The question that faces us today — and I’m gonna need a nap at some point, after Ali woke me up before 8 a.m. with his numbers — is whether:

  • A. We should stick with our original plan to drive to Boston for Romney’s Tuesday night victory celebration; or
  • B. Ride it out here in Ohio all the way, and attend Tuesday’s Ohio victory party at the Renaissance Hotel in Columbus?

Let the readers and tip-jar hitters decide.

Either way, we’re going all the way to Election Night until this campaign (and, if need be, the recount) is over.




 

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Category: Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Ohio, Polls

Rudy Giuliani Ohio Remarks

Posted on | November 4, 2012 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

A jolly good pep talk:

via The Tatler

Category: Election 2012

OHIO: MATH IS HARD

Posted on | November 3, 2012 | 30 Comments

Nate Silver approaches a clue and almost gets it:

For Romney to Win, State Polls
Must Be Statistically Biased

Missed it by that much, as Maxwell Smart might say.

His headline summarizes exactly what Republican poll-mongers have been saying since September, as they see poll after poll with crazy oversamples of Democrats. As for example, the NBC/WSJ/Marist poll that has Obama winning Ohio by 6 points — SIX FREAKING POINTS! — about which Ed Morrissey says, “all you need to know is this: the D/R/I is 38/29/32.  In 2008, the exit polls showed a split of 39/31/30, and in 2010 36/37/28.”

Stop for a second and think about that: What this poll is telling us is that partisan ID has shifted 2 points toward Democrats since 2008, which was the best year for Democrats since LBJ won a landslide in ’64. Therefore, we must choose between two alternative explanations:

  1. Obama is headed toward a world-historic victory based upon the remarkable popularity of the Democratic Party; or
  2. The poll sample is fucked-up beyond all comprehension.

Take your pick, eh? When the sample is D+9 and yet Obama is winning by only 6 points, why should anyone doubt that the NBC/WSJ/Marist lead is entirely a function of the Democrat oversample? And if this is not purposeful bias (i.e., the pollsters actively “modeling” the sample), then we must ask ourselves, “Why would Democrats be so absurdly over-represented?” Could this have something to do with what Dan Collins reports from Wisconsin?

I’m subjected to endless phone calls from the RNC, AFP and other PACs, and the endless polls and pushes masquerading as polls. I may be unemployed, but I have work to do, so I pick up the phone, find out who’s calling, and hang up. I’m going to be poll observing, and my brother Tim and his wife have been knocking on doors and manning the phone banks when they’re not at work, helping to GOTV.
I imagine that there are a lot of people who’ve gone beyond the saturation point, like me, so I’m not putting a lot of stock in any polling coming out of Wisconsin, and I figure it’s got to be the same in OH and IA and VA. But Wisconsin was already suffering from politics fatigue before it once again became a swing state. I imagine, too, that there are just a lot of voters like me who have had it with the incessant calls, and who are no longer participating in polling or answering pitches from campaigns.

Think about it: Multiple entities on the Right are targeting GOP-leaning voters in the swing states with a non-stop flood of phone calls and it may be that, as a result, the pollsters simply can’t get through to self-identified Republicans, so there is an under-sample of Republicans which no pollster can verify or compensate for, without resorting to artificial assumptions about the actual composition of the electorate.

Anyway, I don’t have much interest in numbers-crunching, nor time to get down into the metrics, which is why I’m glad Ali Akbar did it today:

Ohio Math: Numbers Equal Trouble for Democrats

UPDATE: Michael Flynn at Breitbart.com Friday:

This morning, because the sun rose in the East, Nate Silver again increased his odds of Obama winning reelection. Silver now estimates Obama’s chances of reelection at a precise 83.7%.

Exactly. What is the basis for that very precise number?

Category: Election 2012, Ohio, Polls

FMJRA 2.0: After The Flood

Posted on | November 3, 2012 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

BOB MENENDEZ AND HOOKERS?

FROM OHIO: GROUND GAME REPORT

Mark October 30 on Your Calendar: Democrat Panic Hits Pandemic Stage

Fred Thompson Makes News With Benghazi Comments at AFP Event

BREAKING NEWS FROM OHIO: REPUBLICAN WOMEN ARE HOT

Judge Jeanine Rips BHO Over Benghazi, And There Is A Larger Problem

If Bias Doesn’t Matter …

Let’s Make These Children Cry

STORM CANCELS ROMNEY VIRGINIA EVENTS; OHIO, HERE WE COME UPDATE: BOOM! Mitt Romney Endorsed by Des Moines Register

@DanRiehl Update 27 October 2012

FMJRA 2.0: Dwayne Johnson Tribute Edition

FROM OHIO: ROMNEY GAINS IN STATE POLL, NOW TIED WITH OBAMA

Rule 5 Sunday: Half Your Age

Obama Gains Clarity After Benghazi

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.29.12

FROM OHIO: Schedule Scrambled; Obama, Romney Cancel Campaign Events

SCENES FROM ROMNEY-RYAN RALLY

@DanRiehl Update 29 Oct 2012

Al-Qaida Is On The Path To Defeat And Charlie Don’t Surf! UPDATE: Women United Lowers The Boom

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 10.30.12

‘We Leave Nobody Behind’

Raaaaacist, Sexist Republican Cuts Ad For Female Minority Candidate In Utah

Ladd Ehlinger, Jr. Hanging It Up?

‘Benghazi Story’, A Tea Party Protest

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.31.12

Shorter Gingrich: ‘Benghazi Fertilizer On Collision Course With The Air Circulator’

FROM OHIO: POLLS, POLLS, POLLS

KYRILLOS CAMPAIGN RESPONDS TO MENENDEZ SEX ACCUSATIONS

Christie/Obama Caption Contest

Democrat Troll Accounts Wage Hateful ‘War on Women’ Against Dana Loesch

BOYLE: SEN. MENENDEZ REFUSES TO RELEASE TRAVEL RECORDS

Could The Families Of Woods & Doherty Go On Fox To Comment?

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 11.02.12

Political Chick Flick In A Nutshell

‘The Greatest Feelings of Prejudice’

FOUR MORE DAYS: Kid Rock Tonight in the Only County That Matters

E-MAIL TO LARRY SINCLAIR

WEST CHESTER, OHIO: MASSIVE CROWD FOR ROMNEY-RYAN RALLY

Top linkers this week:

  1. (tied) Lower The Boom and Granite Grok (11)
  2. Daley Gator (9)
  3. Daily Pundit (8)
  4. Hogewash (7)
  5. (tied) Instapundit and Lonely Conservative (6)
  6. (tied) Da Tech Guy and Jackie Wellfonder (5)

Granite Grok gets extra kudos for submitting all those links via e-mail, which meant he had to copy all those links by hand. Also, this week we got a lot of Twitter and Facebook links, for which thanks, even though they aren’t reflected here. Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline for next week’s FMJRA is Friday, November 9.

Category: FMJRA Award

SCENES FROM OHIO ‘ALL-STAR’ RALLY

Posted on | November 3, 2012 | 17 Comments

A Romney supporter in West Chester, Ohio, Nov. 2, 2012 (Photo by Ali Akbar)

BLUE ASH, Ohio
Friday night’s event at Union Centre in West Chester has been called a Republican “all-star” rally, the largest so far for the Romney campaign, as the Cincinnati Enquirer reports:

The presidential race returned to Ohio for the final push Friday as GOP challenger Mitt Romney held a massive rally in the Republican heartland north of Cincinnati and President Barack Obama cut a swath through central Ohio.
“The question of the election comes down to this: Do you want more of the same or do you want real change?” Romney said Friday night in West Chester Township. “I promise change, and I actually have a record of achieving it.”
Romney spoke to a crowd of 30,000, according to West Chester Fire Chief Tony Goller – making it the largest rally of the campaign, said Romney spokesman Chris Maloney.

The fire chief is cited by name, whereas I have not yet seen any official’s name attached to the false claim that the crowd was only 18,000, promoted by Associated Press’s DNC operative, Steve Peoples, among other lying swine in the press corps. But enough about that, for now. Unquestionably, the highlight of the evening was what CNN called a “fiery” speech by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani:

With new numbers showing the unemployment rate had ticked up to 7.9%, Giuliani said the Obama administration should be “ashamed of themselves” for framing the figure as a positive sign. . . .
“He should resign! He told us he would resign if he did this poorly,” Giuliani said, referring to a 2009 interview in which Obama vowed to turn the economy around in three years, otherwise there would be a “one-term proposition.”
Giuliani continued to fire off: “He lied. He has been a disaster. The worst president for our economy in our lifetime. He doesn’t want a second term. He wants a second chance, because he screwed it up the first time.”
The former mayor, who also ran for president in 2008, pivoted to Romney’s business experience, saying it should be considered a strength and blasted Democrats for making it a target on the campaign trail.
“They tried to humiliate him because of that. You know something, if Governor Romney can have the success for America that he had for Bain Capital, Thank God! Our people would be working again,” Giuliani said . . .
Giuliani received perhaps his biggest applause of the night when he focused on the Benghazi consulate attacks, which killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, in September. . . .
“Maybe if we had a president who was paying attention, we wouldn’t be going through all this investigation of what’s being covered up about Libya,” he said.

Here are more photos from the rally by Ali Akbar (click on any photo to see full-size):

The Next President of the United States, Mitt Romney.

America’s Comeback Team takes the stage in West Chester.

Mitt Romney greets the cheering crowd.

Supporters wave Ohio and U.S. flags over the crowd-control railing.

America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, slams into Obama’s record of failure.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Dave Weigel of Slate amid the crowd, interviewing a Romney supporter.

House Speaker John Boehner speaks at the rally in his home district. Butler County just happens to be the largest Republican county in Ohio.

The next Vice President of the United States, Paul Ryan.

Myself and Ali Akbar with Michael Zak, who blogs at Grand Old Partisan and is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party. Zak is in Ohio as a volunteer with the RNC’s get-out-the-vote operation, and has been walking precincts and knocking on doors for the GOP.




 

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Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Ohio, Paul Ryan

Words Matter, But The Motive Behind Them Drives The Deed

Posted on | November 3, 2012 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

#OccupyResoluteDesk is so, so thoroughly spent. Maybe this remark was a tell about why he hung Woods and Doherty out to dry?

via RBPundit

Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012

Ben & Jerry’s Are To Ice Cream What Clooney Is To Acting

Posted on | November 3, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

That is, good at their vocation, but full of hooey when they inject politics:

There isn’t much to dislike about Ben & Jerry’s. But when co-founder Ben Cohen publicly decries “money in politics,” he transforms from hip, counter-cultural icon into hypocritical censorship advocate. You can bet that Cohen will blame “money in politics” if Mitt Romney wins the election. If you care about your right to persuade your fellow citizens to vote for your candidate, or your right to be persuaded, you should be highly suspicious of Ben & Jerry’s latest gimmick.

I’ll restate something I had on Twitter recently.

IRONY

Those craving political solutions

to everything, costing money,

whine much about money in politics.

 

When these Lefties start agitating for returning to a Constitutionally limited form of government, this infantile mewling about the cash flows in politics will such much less, he said, reaching for his Cherry Garcia.

Category: Politics

WEST CHESTER, OHIO: MASSIVE CROWD FOR ROMNEY-RYAN RALLY

Posted on | November 2, 2012 | 50 Comments

That tiny speck on the stage? Rudy Giuliani.

BLUE ASH, Ohio
I’ll have more photos later, but right now I just want to tell you how awesome tonight’s rally was. Rudy Giuliani’s speech was off the hook — the best takedown of the Obama administration I’ve heard this entire cycle, bar none. What Rudy said about Benghazi was particularly brutal.

We left early to beat the traffic out of the rally, stopped by the Double Tree Hotel to see some people, and Ali Akbar discovered an Associated Press reporter on Twitter trying to deliberately lowball the crowd estimate and claim there was “low energy” among Republican voters here.

Three words: BULL FUCKING SHIT.

That crowd was at least — at least — 25,000 and probably more like 35,000. No one could honestly claim it was less than 20,000, and they were fired up.

The AP reporter? Steve Peoples, a lying hack who has been previously busted for trying the same dishonest partisan trick in August.

If a Democrat Party propagandist wants a paycheck, let him collect it from OFA or the DNC, not AP.

UPDATE: You know why I was so angry about this?

Because last night I watched a video.

Andrew’s not here. He’s everywhere. “Fuck you. War.”

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Ed Driscoll points out that the Cincinnati Enquirer, hardly a bastion of right-wing fanaticism, estimated Friday’s crowd at 30,000. Yet Steve Peoples reports 18,000?

Like I said, three words.

UPDATE III: I love this photo:

Young. Female. Republican. I know lots of young female Republicans, and yet the MSM wants to pretend they don’t exist. Just like Steve Peoples wishes out of existence more than 10,000 people.

UPDATE IV: Steve Peoples last tried to lowball the crowd estimate — and got caught by Tom Blumer of Newsbusters — when Paul Ryan came to Miami (Ohio) University in August. Guess what?

I was at that rally, too: “Math.”

UPDATE V: Video via Ace of Spades:

UPDATE VI (Smitty): Gay Patriot links. Thanks!




 

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Category: Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Media Bias, Ohio
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