Mickey Kaus & the Rasmussen Generic Congressional Ballot Poll.

Mickey’s asking why it went down to R+1 (41/40) this week, after being R+5 to R+7 for the last few weeks month, more or less.  While I can easily see le affaire Joe Wilson causing a point or two for the bounce among Democrats, I’m going to speculate (read: ‘guess’) that the main reason is due to the intersection of two factors:

  1. Rasmussen’s Generic Congressional Ballot Poll is gathered over a week; in this case, September 7th through September 13th.
  2. On September 9th, the (Democratic) President made a speech that had the immediate effect of improving both  support for the Democrats’ health care rationing bill and his own favorable numbers.

It is not unreasonable to conclude that a speech that had this effect could also have influenced the GCB Poll for last week.  Unfortunately for the Democrats, it is also not unreasonable to conclude that this influence might be as ephemeral as the (now-vanished) increased support for health care.  Seeing what the numbers are next week will be interesting.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

*How* much trouble is ACORN in right now?

Let me put it this way: after seeing the first part of the San Bernardino ACORN video – the one where the ACORN stooge is bragging about her husband’s death, her running of her own brothel, and the way that she knows Senator Barbara Boxer – GayPatriot called up Boxer’s office*. He’s reporting that the Senator’s staff is pointing out in their responses that their boss voted to defund ACORN.  When Senator Barbara Boxer can see the writing on the wall…

DOOM.

Wonderful, wonderful DOOM.

*H/T Instapundit.

Moe Lane

PS: One of my colleagues has noted privately something to the effect that the problem with all of this is that Andrew Breitbart has raised the expectations of what constitutes a successful website launch to totally unsustainable levels.

Crossposted to RedState.

You know, I don’t even *like* Starbucks…

…what?  Sorry: their coffee tastes burnt to me, sorry*.  I’m a philistine Dunkin Donuts coffee-drinker, and I don’t care who knows it.

Nonetheless, Haibane has the right of it: this guy is an ass.  I mean, really: what was the point of actually hurting somebody else in order to test a marketing ploy?

Moe Lane

*Good peppermint hot chocolate in the winter, or whatever it is that that is.

Student uses katana to slay thief.

I heard about this at, of all things, the local library.

A Johns Hopkins University medical student armed with a samurai sword killed a man who allegedly broke into his garage early Tuesday, Baltimore police said.

[snip]

…the student said that he heard a commotion in the house and went downstairs with the samurai sword. The student said he told the man to leave, but the suspected burglar lunged at him instead. That’s when, according to [Batlimore police spokesman Anthony] Guglielmi, the student defended himself, cutting off the man’s hand and causing a severe laceration to the man’s upper body.

The librarian seemed mostly confused about the fact that somebody had a sword lying around in the first place; this was bemusing to me, seeing as most of my friends have a wide range of melee weapons (medieval re-enactor, remember?). At any rate, important safety tip: when you’re robbing a place and are confronted with a guy carrying two feet of razor-sharp, high-carbon steel… don’t be this guy.

Moe Lane

Rasmussen: Obamacare support drops six points overnight.

We call this ‘free fall.’

…Actually, we call it “a really, really good one-day result falls gets cycled out of the three-day average” – but going from 51/46 to 45/52 is still a pretty dramatic event.

Also, funny.

Moe Lane

PS: Hey! Why doesn’t the President make some more speeches? That should perk things right up.

PPS: Rasmussen is also noting that the President’s favorable ratings (50%) are at pre-speech levels, too.

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Never mind.’

While I agree with Tim Blair that karma is… kind of entertaining, sometimes… I think that the most important thing that should be taken away from this video is the frustration and worry in our soldiers’ voices as they try to line up a shot that doesn’t endanger either a kid, or some guy just walking along.

By the way: using kids like this is an actual war crime.  I note this because those elements of the Left that are now calling for abandoning Afghanistan (a sentiment that I, like POWIP, do not share, and never mind who the President is) can always use this kind of moral and ethical calibration.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Politico offers the unkindest cut of all towards POTUS.

They analyze the President’s performance to date, and conclude that his new life goal should be… mediocrity.

What all this means is, barring some unforeseeable world event, Obama’s will probably not be a historic presidency. He will have some successes and a lot of failures. His opposition won’t roll over, and his party will refuse to go along with his more costly, and thus risky, schemes. He won’t coast to reelection.

So Obama now has the chance to be the sort of president Bush would have been if the World Trade Center towers had not come down. Here’s hoping he makes the best of it.

Via Instapundit. I personally doubt that it will happen; there are far too many Democratic partisans out there who absolutely need this President to be… whatever it is that they are not, and know that they are not.  They will not be pleased to see this administration try to revise its hopes and goals so as to be more in line with its abilities, and they will do their level best to stop that change.

Just the way it is.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Joe Wilson should sponsor House version of Johanns Amendment.

Yesterday, the Senate surprisingly adopted the Johanns Amendment (which denies ACORN HUD/transportation funds), 83-7. Obviously, House Republicans will need to introduce (and presumably pass, in a similarly lopsided manner) their own version, in order to make it clear to the Democratic-controlled reconciliation committee that this is not to be reversed when they think that nobody’s looking. This amendment will need someone to formally offer it – and clearly the choice must be Rep. Joe Wilson (R, SC).

Discuss.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.