Do not forget to vote - this election, regardless of what state you live in, means too much. Every vote counts.
Remember 1980?
The polls being touted by much of the mainstream media continue to promote that 'it's too close to call' to a slight Obama advantage - as we look at the RealClearPolitic average of cooked polls.
Which is more of a concern? The polls that have toplines that run 180 degrees to the internals within the polls? How about what your own lyin' eyes are showing you - with Mitt Romney getting 30,000 to stand for hours in near freezing temperatures in blue Bucks County, Pennsylvania - or 15,000+ attending a Romney rally in New Hampshire - or 35,000+ attending a Romney rally in Ohio.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama's campaign is drawing fractions of what they did in 2008 - 15,000 vs 80,000 in Cleveland - even with Bruce Springsteen with him. Throughout this campaign - the polls and our eyes have been showing us that the enthusiasm and turnout for Obama campaign events are all down substantially from the 2008 levels - but we're expected to believe it when we're told that they'll turnout to the polls across the country at numbers 25% to 40% greater than they did in the year of 'Hope and Change' to pull the lever to put the first African-American into the White House?
Over 30 major national newspapers have switched their 2008 endorsements from Barack Obama to endorse Mitt Romney in 2012....and only 3 have moved from endorsing the GOP candidate to endorsing Barack Obama. In deep blue New York, and deeper blue New York City, only the ultra liberal / progressive New York Times is still endorsing Barack Obama in 2012. Newsday, New York Observer, and the New York Daily News endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and this year are all endorsing Mitt Romney for President because of Barack Obama's feckless leadership. They join the New York Post, the only NYC paper to endorse John McCain as supporting Mitt Romney.
Here's a first hand account of the Mitt Romney rally in suburban Philadelphia's Buck County - a very blue county...
Ragged at first, the cheers swelled to a roar as the Romney campaign bus wheeled into the arena. Mitt and Ann Romney emerged, and it was like a wall of sound fell on the crowd. The Romneys strode to the stage, embraced, and after immediate pleasantries, Ann introduced Mitt.Where is the media coverage of this and other huge Romney crowds?
I keep hearing how wooden Romney is on the stump. They must have meant some other Romney. This one was fluid, his voice at turns powerful and emotional. I don’t know how the crowd noise came across on TV, but in person, it was its own physical presence, vibrating everyone with its intensity. Except when Romney grew sober when relating a sad anecdote; then the crowd simply disappeared, for both the speaker and the listener. A rousing crescendo of a conclusion by Romney, capped off by a surprisingly good fireworks display, and the rally was over. It took some people more than three hours to escape the traffic.
Romney didn’t say anything new. But he connected with the crowd on both emotional and intellectual levels.
One of the last major polls of this race captures all that is wrong - not only with the polls / pollsters, but with the complete and utter lack of integrity, professionalism, and competence of the mainstream media who cannot remain impartial, objective, and professional in their reporting of this election.
Let's look at CNN's last poll for the campaign - released late Sunday night. They are promoting that the race is a perfect tie - 'too close to call' - just as in 1980. Obama 49% and Romney 49% in the national poll - razor thin as they say.
Almost all of the media elements continue to tout that topline number - Obama 49% and Romney 49%.
Read the details of CNN's own report, and they will tell you that the candidates are tied 'on ALMOST every major indicator'. But there is one key indicator that catches not only my eye - but the eyes of many who are objectively looking at these polls. That indicator buried within the internals of this last CNN poll? Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by 22 points among self-described independent / unaffiliated voters.
Let's pretend we don't work for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, MSNBC, NBC News, CNN, CBS, Headline News, the Associated Press, and dozens of other news organizations and ask a simple question:
In a poll where one is either a Democrat, Republican, or Independent - and one candidate has a 22 point lead among Independents - HOW THE 'EFF CAN THAT CANDIDATE BE TIED IN THE TOPLINE OF THE POLL?It's a simple question -and one I've asked for months as we've tried to understand the polls this cycle.
The answer is simple, clear, and one that I've covered before.
The party affiliation split in the CNN poll is D=40%; R=30%; I=29%.
In 2008, with that massive pro-Obama pro-Democrat enthusiasm and surge, combined with a matching disinterest on the GOP side, had a national party affiliation split of D=39%; R=32%; I=29%. Within the 53% of the popular vote that Barack Obama won - he won independents by 8 points.
Not only this - but within the internals of the CNN poll, GOP voters have a 5 point advantage in the category of 'extremely enthusiastic' about the 2012 race.
So, with all the poll data showing GOP voters are substantially (to far) more excited - are we to really believe that when Mitt Romney draws 30,000 in near freezing temps in blue Pennsylvania, 30,000 in Ohio, and 15,000 in New Hampshire - CNN is modeling their turnout model to include a Democrat turnout / enthusiasm larger than 2008 and a GOP turnout model 2 points (nearly10%) below the year of great GOP disinterest?
Can you say 'cooked poll'?
I knew you could.
But that's not the only evidence to consider in this, or rather one of a long line of, BS polls.
In 2008, Barack Obama won the gender gap by +14 points. He was +13 with women over John McCain, and +1 among men. But the internals of the above CNN poll show that Mitt Romney has a +9 point lead among men while Barack Obama only holds a +8 lead among women.
We are then expected to believe that with Mitt Romney overcoming the gender gap (O+14 in 2008, R+1 in the CNN 2012 poll), he's still only tied?
It's news like this that prompted Obama Campaign Deputy Manager, Stephanie Cutter (yes, we know she has a challenge with the truth), to take to the airwaves to try to continue the Obama campaign effort to imitate 'all is well'...
...while maintaining the importance for the Democrats to not be discourage and turn out in large numbers [while also discouraging Republicans from turning out as the election is supposed to be a fait accompli..]
“My warning, we need to stay calm for much of the day,” Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said, touting thousands of early ballots already submitted by voters. “We’ve already banked a pretty big portion of our vote.” …When your campaign is in trouble - particularly when you are in the incumbent - you want to keep your side from panicking and do whatever you can to discourage the turnout of the other side. If they get complacent - then they might not turnout in the numbers needed to ensure a win.
“Keep calm and tweet on,” Ms. Cutter said. “So, no matter what you hear tomorrow about turnout in Republican counties or exit polls, particularly early in the day, please remember and remind your readers that, because of early votes, we’re where we need to be to win….I don’t think there’s going to be official exits until the end of the day, but if things leak out that aren’t validated or weighted, please stay calm.”
With the polls - this takes a slightly different twist. If it is tied, then it is a turnout battle. If your base is disinterested and discouraged, hearing that it's 'too close to call' will, hopefully, maximize their turnout.
Is there a difference between punditry and sophistry?
I think so - and it's often very easy to see in today's mainstream media. Writing in the Daily Beast, part of Newsweek (or is the partisan Newsweek magazine now part of the partisan progressive Daily Beast), Howard Kurtz says that a Romney win tomorrow would be a 'crushing blow for the punditocracy'.
Huh?
The mainstream media, largely progressive in their viewpoint, have moved well beyond punditocracy since 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and the present campaign - fully into the being little more than sophists.
What a Romney win tomorrow will demonstrate, beyond a complete repudiation of the progressive / Keynesian agenda, is that far too much of the mainstream media are little more than sophists - without any pretenses towards objectivity or professionalism left in their definition. And they ridicule 'bloggers in pajamas'.
I'm the first to admit that my prediction for the Presidential race is an aggressive one. But now I'm seeing other prominent pundits that are not only predicting a Mitt Romney win based on their analysis of the state of the race, but predicting a win that is beyond just being a 'squeaker'...
Karl Rove is the most conservative - saying that Mitt Romney will gain at least 279 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win.
George Will is calling the Romney electoral vote total to be 321 - calling Minnesota to go Romney. Minnesota didn't even go GOP in Ronald Reagan's historic landslide win of 1984.
Dick Morris is perhaps one of the most bullish of the professional pundits - saying that this will be 1980 like with Romney gaining 320+ electoral votes.
Acclaimed Las Vegas oddsmaker, Wayne Allen Root, is calling for a 5-7 point advantage for Mitt Romney in the popular vote (52-47 at least for Romney) and 310+ electoral votes for the GOP candidate.
Glenn Beck is seeing it pretty much as George Will does - and an earlier post touted Michael Barone's 315 EV level for Mitt Romney.
All of these are quite similar to my prognostication - and using similar analysis and justifications to reach their levels.
But, yes, according to CNN, MSNBC, ABC / WashPoo, NBC / WSJ / Marist, and Quinnipiac - it's too close to call just like it was at this point in 1980 where we had another GOP candidate facing off against an arrogrant micro-managing incompetent progressive enamored in their cult of personality - and utterly failing at the basic responsibility of governance.
In the New York Daily News endorsement of Mitt Romney, they had this to say...
“Four years ago, the Daily News endorsed Obama, seeing a historic figure whose intelligence, political skills and empathy with common folk positioned him to build on the small practical experience he would bring to the world’s toughest job. We valued Obama’s pledge to govern with bold pragmatism and bipartisanship. The hopes of those days went unfulfilled. . . . The regrettable truth is that Obama built a record of miscalculations and missed opportunities.”Long Island's Newsday had this to say in their endorsement of Mitt Romney....
“Had Barack Obama done the job of president with the same passion and vision he displayed in seeking it, he would likely deserve another term. He did not. . . . Romney’s potential to put America back to work earns him our endorsement.”That's quite damning.
What else is quite damning to Barack Obama are the realties of conditions in New York City ( incl. Staten Island) and New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I really believe that this is becoming Barack Obama's 'Katrina' - given the unpreparedness of the local authorities combined with the fecklessness and incompetence of not only the local authorities to provide direct aid and assistance to the victims, but also the incompetence and fecklessness of the federal government to provide basic assistance, water, food, electricity, security, clothing, and shelter to the victims - now 8 days after the category 1 storm hit.
President Obama conducted a 'mission accomplished' / photo op / campaign stop through the Jersey shore - and received undeserved acclaim from Chris Christie for simply deciding to open the federal coffers (this time) for a state led by a Republican. But since that 'tour' - what has been done?
To me, however, like Katrina, the federal government and President are not entirely at blame or fault. My deepest contempt is towards the local officials - ranging from Mayor Bloomberg in NYC to NJ State / County / City emergency preparedness officials. Did you really have a plan? If you did - have you ever tested the plan in a simulation that modeled a direct hit by a Cat One Hurricane?
I've done this many many times in my career in IT - and have successfully managed large organizations through large scale disasters with minimal impact on systems or the organizations capability to operate. But in the NYC Metro area?
Why don't we require every gasoline station to maintain an emergency power source to power gas pumps when off the grid? Why can't we quickly deploy trucks with potable water, fuel, food (even MRE's), and basic clothing / blankets into critically hit areas - beating out even the commendable efforts of civilians to organized food drives, blanket drives, and clothing drives. The only aid most of the critically damaged areas are getting today are not from the government - but from other residents giving of themselves to help their neighbors.
Here is SoCal we live with the threat of a major earthquake. Some of us have real earthquake kits - food, water, clothing, shelter, supplies that will allow 2-5 days of living. Some of us have these kits for our pets as well. Unfortunately, many do not.
But the rule of thumb we try to work with - to convince the citizens of this area that is needed - is to not count on government assistance of any form for at least 3 - 5 days in the event of a catastrophe. That means 3-5 days worth of food and water for each person / pet. Shelter that can be used for the same amount of time. Batteries for 3-5 days. Clothing for 3-5 days - across multiple seasons. Gasoline for at least one vehicle and a generator (if have one) for 3-5 days of normal use. If we prepare as individuals - then we lessen our dependence on a government that may be overwhelmed and unable to assist us 'little people' beyond photo ops and getting a 1-800-FEMA number.
Libya continues to be an albatross hanging from the neck of our government....
The network of Dan Rather - 'Fake, But Accurate' bias - CBS has learned little since Dan's disgrace in October 2004.
After burying the full interview between Barack Obama and 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft for nearly two months, as the Administration tried to spin their incompetence, fecklessness, and contempt towards American lives (when compared to their political expediency) - in response to some strong work done by Fox News on the issue of Libya - we now know that the spin that Obama called the attack a terrorist attack from day one is completely and utterly a lie.
Not only is Obama's credibility shot - but so is that of CBS News - particularly since nothing has really changed around their integrity since October 2004. Is there any wonder why their viewership is cratering?
Oh, I forgot that yesterday was supposed to be the 'Million Muppet March' - a mass demonstration to show the opposition to call from Mitt Romney to stop using taxpayer funds to subsidize PBS. Reports are that the march only came 995,500 marchers short of their one million marcher target. To me - this is a no-brainer - but what was interesting was yet another measurement of the lack of enthusiasm, reach, and influence of the Obama campaign team.
Also yesterday, the anniversary of Iran's act of war against the US - the November 4, 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran - and the capture of 52 American diplomatic hostages. The holding of the 52 ended 444 days later - on January 20, 1981 - but from the actions of the Mad Mullah's of Iran - the intent to wage war against the US / Western Civilization continues still.
It's still time to see the world as it is - and not as we want to see it (based on political bias).
I'm working tomorrow - Election Day - but I will be posting in the evening if I can. It's a bit of a challenge here on the left coast - mid-evening (8-9pm) is 11pm-midnight on the east coast. PLEASE VOTE - and follow all voting laws. This is a critical election for our nation- and the people need to speak their voices. Our polls here in SoCal open at 7am - and I will be there shortly after 7 to cast my vote. It's my #1 priority for tomorrow -work comes 2nd. Here's some last points to ponder...
At the least, on Wednesday, I suspect I will either be celebrating or prepping a crow dinner to eat.
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