Month: October 2012

#rsrh QotD, Gov. Hickenlooper* (D, CO) Is As Dumb As A Sack Of Hammers edition.

You’re gonna love this one. Via The Washington Beacon, via Instapundit:

“Lincoln wasn’t a great debater.”

…Yeah, he said that. We all just have to live with it.

Moe Lane

*Elections have consequences.

New Kickstarter: Hillfolk. [UPDATED, with extra wife-awesomeness]

Don’t know if I’m going to be able to get into this one – there are such things as budgets, and the well is not so much dry as it has been subjected to a dessication process – but it looks interesting, particularly the alternative settings. Plus, I know of (or even know) a bunch of the people writing for it.

So, check it out.

[UPDATE]: Or my wife can say, when I mentioned this post, “Ow, wow, are you going to Kickstarter Hillfolk?!?” and then spend five minutes raving about how using Robin Law’s concepts brought a whole new level of complexity and awesomeness to a one-shot that she was in. Which means that this now can go under House expenses, not personal ones. Hee.

#rsrh If you’re not on Twitter…

…then you are missing the most hysterical meltdown EVER about a simple Pew/CNN poll showing Romney ahead of Obama 49/45 among likely voters.  And I mean “hysterical” in every sense of the term.  The best ones are the folks who have suddenly discovered the joys of arguing partisan ID.  Personally, I consider R+3 (Pew’s finding for likely voters) a heck of a lot more believable than the D+8 or higher that we were supposedly seeing last month… but then, I’m a partisan hack, so that’s exactly what you’d EXPECT me to think.

Moe Lane

PS: Barack Obama really did screw up that debate, you know.

PPS: Don’t get cocky, kid.  Volunteer. Vote. Contribute.

Just got back from Looper.

Basic verdict: good, once you get past the fairly obvious gaping plot hole AND the fact that the pto-PRC agitprop is only mildly subtle (I personally think that it’s cute the way that the ChicComs think that we’re going to deal with societal problems the same way that they do; eg, badly).  But dear God but it was grim.

But it was grim that tried to take the concept of time travel seriously, so go ahead if you like the genre.

Moe Lane

PS: Saw the trailer for Red Dawn.  Still has an incredibly stupid premise, sorry.

#rsrh I imagine that this Gallup tracking poll is causing all sorts of entertaining panic right now.

Having a renowned pollster go from Obama +5 to tied in three days – among registered voters – tends to do that.

Mind you: the polls go up.  The polls go down. Case in point: Race tied in Rasmussen again.  My take on the whole thing is that Romney’s debate performance got him out of the hole – and that Obama hasn’t yet learned the right lessons from his screwup, assuming that he ever does – but let’s not get cocky.  Volunteer, if you’re worried.

VMI speech, 10/08/2012: Mitt Romney will promise to arm Syrian rebels, if elected.

From the text of his prepared remarks:

In Syria, I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets. Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran—rather than sitting on the sidelines. It is essential that we develop influence with those forces in Syria that will one day lead a country that sits at the heart of the Middle East.

Continue reading VMI speech, 10/08/2012: Mitt Romney will promise to arm Syrian rebels, if elected.

#rsrh Gallup quietly pronounces DOOM on Democratic hopes of retaking the House.

They do it fairly subtly, too: “U.S. registered voters are about as likely to say they would vote for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district if the election were held today as to say they would vote for the Republican candidate, 47% to 46%.”  Now, I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking But Moe, the Democrats are ahead by a point!  Yup!

They’re ahead on a poll of registered voters. Which, as Gallup itself concedes, “when Gallup has found congressional voting preferences close to even among registered voters, that is typically a better sign for the Republican Party, given usual Republican advantages in voter turnout.”  But let’s pretend for a moment that the above is a likely voter pool.  Gallup is touting the accuracy of its generic balloting in Congressional elections, so let’s take a look at these numbers for a second:

Year Gallup Election +/-
2010 16 8 63
2006 -8 -8 -30
2002 6 4 7
1998 -4 0 -5
1994 8 8 54
1990 -8 -10 -8

Those are the off-year Presidential election results, back to 1990 (data is spotty past that point).  ‘Gallup’ is the difference in the Republican & Democratic vote in their final survey; ‘election’ is the final spread in the two-party vote; …and ‘+/-‘ shows how many seats the Republicans actually gained or lost in that time period*.  As is fairly obvious: when the Republicans do great on the generic Congressional ballot they do fantastic.  When the Democrats do great on the generic they do… well, not all that great, but reasonably well.  And when the numbers are about the same (which? …Nothing much happens.  Now, at this point a bunch of readers have probably forgotten about 2008, which was not an off-year Presidential election; but I did not.  There was a complication with regard to the fact that the 2012 has not yet switched to a likely voter model, but fortunately in 2008 Gallup reported both likely and registered voters, so we can look at the way things went:

Oct Final Election +/-
-7 -8 -12 -21

‘Oct’ is the October 17, 2008 survey (44/51); ‘Final’ is the November 2, 2008 one (43/51).  As you can see there, it turns out that the significant gain of seats more or less reflects the distance between the Democrats and the Republicans at that point.  And that is why Gallup’s tie in the generic Congressional ballot doesn’t worry me; it’s essentially telling me that there won’t be much of a shift, if any.  Looking at 1998, which was the last time we had the first election after a dramatic flipping of the House to Republican hands… I could totally see the GOP losing five net seats this year.  Possibly even ten.

… And?  Right now there are 240 Republicans in Congress, and 190 Democrats (5 vacant seats).  Even assuming we lose every vacant seat election and another 10 besides, the 113th Congress will start with a 230/205 Republican/Democratic majority.  I don’t particularly want to lose those seats, of course; but we will still have a working majority.  Which is pretty much what everybody is expecting, even if they don’t particularly want to say so in public.

Moe Lane

PS: If you’re wondering why I’m not taking into account Barack Obama’s coat-tails, oh, that’s easy: I don’t think that he’ll have any.  Largely by Barack Obama’s own conscious choice.

*Gallup did not provide that information; I pulled it from Wikipedia.