Job #1 for the Republicans in the next Congress? Destroy Obama.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has weighed in on what he believes to be the most important issue for Senate Republicans during the next session of Congress. No, friends, it’s not the economy; it’s not jobs; it’s not the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; it’s not national security or energy independence. …
Article comments
— go to most recent comments76 - handyguy
#76:
No, I will not.
The NBPP themselves claimed to be there to "protect" black voters. They are a tiny fringe organization, and their actions are ridiculous and irrational. The guy didn't attack anyone and no individual claimed to have been harassed. So how is this deliberate or documented? [And this was a mostly black precinct; not the most likely place to intimidate white voters, since there were few if any!]
This is yet another example: if the conservative propagandists push a story, you swallow it with little skepticism or critical thinking.
77 - Baronius
Come on, Handy! What are you even talking about?
I've made reference to those specific elections because they were the subject of the NJ article, which is what we're talking about. Of course I know who won the presidency after those elections. That's the point of the article!
I was responding to Bicho and Zing's absurd claim that the decline in President Obama's popularity is unrelated to the decline in Democratic candidates' poll numbers.
78 - handyguy
#80
I wasn't arguing with you, just pointing out how frequently political winds shift. I think you enjoy political history/trivia as much as I do.
79 - Irene Athena
El B -- if they'd interviewed 3084 people coming out of the same living in a city of population 1 million, no I wouldn't consider it an adequate sample size. That's like picking 2 orange balls out of a bag of 100 balls, some blue and some orange, and assuming they're all orange.
If however, participants in the poll were taken at random from all over the U.S., I would have much more confidence in the results. Much, much more.
80 - Irene Athena
take out "living in" in the first sentence.
81 - handyguy
The Harris poll is an online poll, which may be why RealClearPolitics doesn't include it in their averaging of polls. The Gallup telephone poll for the same dates as the Harris showed 44% approval, 48% disapproval.
82 - Irene Athena
Maybe the political/history buffs could tell you how often the vote of the electoral college differs from the popular vote, AND by how much--that second part's really important. That ties into the discussion you and I, El Bicho, have been having: can you get at the truth of how a yes/no decision would be answered by everyone in a large population were asked, by taking a poll from a relatively small sample of that population?
83 - handyguy
The electoral college is not a poll or a sample, so I don't understand what you mean.
84 - Alan Kurtz
But why do you (#84) validate the Gallup poll and discredit the Harris poll? You must believe telephone polls are inherently more reliable than online polls. If so, then El Bicho's complaint about insufficient sample size is irrelevant. The difference between believability and incredulity is based solely on the poll being conducted by phone instead of online.
85 - zingzing
baronius: "I was responding to Bicho and Zing's absurd claim that the decline in President Obama's popularity is unrelated to the decline in Democratic candidates' poll numbers."
but that's not even close to what i claimed, or what eb claimed. go look up the definition of a "referendum." the relationship between obama's poll numbers and the candidates poll numbers is clear, if a bit misleading. many people do think obama is a dem, and this guy's a dem, so if this guy is in the same party as that guy, they're the same thing. but many people don't think that. these are local elections with local issues. but i'm sure that if you take a look, not all dems are going down in the polls. and not all reps are going up. there's a lot more going on. but to simplify and draw dubious connections has been a republican trait as of late, so maybe you could be more correct than i think. sigh.
86 - zingzing
that said, the fact that we've devolved into curb-stomping and prank antics as public "debate," and that most of the candidate debates just involve he-said/she-said accusatorial shouting matches, maybe people are just seeing red and blue these days, damn any real issues.
87 - Baronius
Yup, Zing. When voters vote for your side, they're expressing their true priorities, but when they vote for the other side they're having a temper tantrum.
88 - zingzing
heh. well. stop having a tantrum and vote for my side (where you true priorities are actually reflected, even if you don't know it). problem solved? sigh.
89 - Baronius
My mistake was that when you said it's not a referendum on Obama, I thought you meant it in the manner that everyone uses the expression. Clearly, you meant that we haven't re-written the Constitution to allow the President to be directly voted out of office.
90 - Alan Kurtz
It's revealing that two commenters in this thread have questioned the reliability of the Harris Poll. In the case of El Bicho, it's obviously just a matter of being ignorant of the science of statistics. With handyguy, however, it seems to be a misunderstanding of the history and methodology of public opinion polling.
Specifically, it should be noted that Harris Interactive, headquartered in New York City, has 800 fulltime employees and generates annual revenue of $168.4 million. Tracing its roots to Louis Harris & Associates, founded in 1956, Harris Interactive maintains over 40 years of polling data, spanning a wide array of social issues. The Harris Poll is the world's longest-running proprietary survey of public opinion. Harris Interactive services clients in over 200 countries, and has repeatedly won the prestigious David Ogilvy Research Award for its work on behalf of such corporate giants as General Motors and Bank of America. To suggest that Harris Interactive is unreliable is simply asinine.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
91 - handyguy
I don't claim any definitive knowledge of poll methodologies, but I believe most of the best-known, most widely reported polls are done by phone. I did find this article by a Harris executive defending their online polling.
RealClearPolitics includes the following 9 polls in their average:
Gallup, Rasmussen Reports, Newsweek, Politico/GWU/Battleground, NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl, Pew Research, Associated Press/GfK, FOX News, Reuters/Ipsos.
I can't find any reference as to why they don't include Harris.
Wikipedia has a pretty good article: look under "Opinion Poll."
92 - handyguy
I didn't say any individual poll is definitively reliable or unreliable. Averaging a number of polls, and making note of the range of numbers, makes more sense to me than just quoting the one poll that backs up one's argument.
And I'd appreciate your dialing back the "asinine" and "lies" venom. I really do try to put some thought into my comments and as with the New Black Panther issue, I'll happily acknowledge an error. Thanks.
93 - handyguy
By the way, George Gallup started polling in the 1930s and formed The Gallup Organization in 1958 after some mergers. Louis Harris worked for Roper in the 1940s, formed Louis Harris and Associates in 1958, and started the Harris Poll in 1962.
Harris Interactive is a more recent company formed by mergers in the 1990s. Obviously Harris hasn't always done Internet polling -- they did phone polls for decades; online polling started in 1999. And they still do some phone polling as well.
Gallup and Harris have both been well known names for a long time. The fact that recent polls by the two companies have very different results is the basis for an interesting discussion -- not name calling.
94 - Alan Kurtz
Today's Gallup Daily: Obama Job Approval poll (repeat: GALLUP) shows 48% disapprove and 44% approve. Your original contention on this thread (comment #35) was that "45-50% still support the president's policies."
So how did you get from Gallup's 44% to handyguy's 50%? Remember, in such polling, each percentage point represents millions of people.
95 - zingzing
baronius: "My mistake was that when you said it's not a referendum on Obama, I thought you meant it in the manner that everyone uses the expression."
call me a stickler. and never call yourself a liberal.
96 - zingzing
"Clearly, you meant that we haven't re-written the Constitution to allow the President to be directly voted out of office."
the point was more that he'll be up for reelection in 2 years, but he isn't now. he'll be there, no matter what happens next tuesday. and remember who signs the bills.
97 - handyguy
Alan, I told you I was using the RealClearPolitics average and I quoted the figures, 48.6% disapprove, 46.4% approve. And I was using this to extrapolate to the election, where the numbers will add up to 100%, more or less...thus the 45-50 and 50-55 ranges.
You just like to argue, and no point is too tiny. Percentages in polls are not precise measurements of the population -- they are estimates, with margins of error. And different polls have different figures, as we have seen.
98 - Alan Kurtz
I don't know how to break this to you gently, but when you round the number 46.4%, you do not get 50%. You get 46%, which under the circumstances is significantly less than 50%.
99 - Alan Kurtz
Anyhow, apart from the numbers themselves, my larger point is that you misrepresented matters of fact on this thread in support of your pro-Obama position. I'm sorry you don't like the term "liar," but it seems to fit.
Interesting, isn't it? As often as you've criticized my anti-Islamist positions, I can't recall that you ever called me out on a question of fact. That's because I don't have to make stuff up about Islam; the unadorned truth is so abhorrent that fabricated embellishments are unnecessary.
For example, the October 19 report of an Islamic Court in the United Arab Emirates ruling that it's perfectly OK for a man to beat his wife and children, as long as he doesn't leave any marks visible when they are dressed and go out in public.
Or the October 24 report that Iranian authorities cut off the hand of a 32-year-old convicted thief in front of other prisoners, in accordance with the Iranian judiciary's strict reading of Islamic law.
I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. My imagination is not that twisted.
100 - Dr Dreadful
Your fate was written in 1979 in Teheran. It was stamped in 2001 in New York, and sealed in 2005, in New Orleans.
Not exactly quick on his feet, God, is he?
Even the legal system works faster than that.
Usually.
101 - El Bicho
"In the case of El Bicho, it's obviously just a matter of being ignorant of the science of statistics."
I am not ignorant of it. Just don't take them to be always be definitive. For example, I polled a few people and 100% find you to be a jerk. Does that mean everyone does? Maybe that's a bad example.
But who are we kidding? You are just upset that I disagreed with you and stated you were wrong. You should get a thinker hide like your Irvin persona instead of the frail flower who flies into a tizzy every time that happens.
102 - Alan Kurtz
Yes, "thinker [sic] hide" is an excellent description of Irvin. But, no, he's not my persona.
103 - El Bicho
"Your fate was written..."
If God wrote our fate, how was it not sealed at that same time? Was God leaving some wiggle room? Makes me doubt whether our fate is actually sealed. And why wait so long to write our fate? If you are all-knowing, shouldn't that have been known long before the Bicentennial?
104 - Dan
"The thing is, you really believe the MoveOn demonstrator was "violent," don't you? Without evidence."---handyguy
Fox has obtained some new video of this MoveOn employee psychoticly bum rushing Rands car and repeatedly jabbing the sharp rigid corner of her sign into the face of a passenger who's window was open. Just before she was wrestled to the ground and held there with a foot on the shoulder that only inadvertantly slid off, barely grazing her head. she's fine. and she's already impugned her character by lying about what she didn't know was videotaped.
"look at what i said. look at what you said. who's confused here? you don't even know what you say, or what the hell i'm complaining about."---zingzing
you said: "it's pathetic. if all you've got is lies, you don't even have a damn point." I then went on to clarify that my "point" was the answer to what the author of this article was questioning.
That point has since become the main focus of examination on this thread. Are you just pretending stupidity again?
"Got any support for this or just running your idiotic mouth?"---el bicho
saying "idiotic mouth" is in and of itself idiotic. You should go back to using a comment space to announce that you don't know why anyone responds to my "foolishness".
Top award for "progressive" nitwittedness goes to handyguy for clumsily revealing that he knows next to nothing about the stunning racial hatred exhibited by those new black panthers in intimidating white (mostly the old and female) voters right out in the open.
Then he goes on, after hastily consulting his kook websites, to tell us all about what went down. And he's wrong again on multiple accounts.
I miss when BC lefties could feel shame.
You guys spend an unhealthy amount of time patrolling these boards. Running interference for each other. Antagonizing more legitimate points of view as a gang.
Not only is it pathetic to make this activity a focal point of your lives, but it drives away people who have real and honorable intentions of ideological exploration.
105 - handyguy
The kook websites I consulted were news stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
I know that Dan actually believes Breitbartian propaganda is truth and anything a liberal or MSM reporter says is automatically a despicable lie. It makes having a conversation with him very nearly impossible, and he must be just a joy at parties.
106 - handyguy
If you reject anything to the left of Breitbart and Limbaugh as 'kook,' and accept everything B & L broadcast as gospel without critical examination, how does that in any way qualify as "honorable intentions of ideological exploration"?
107 - Irene Athena
If the 3085th person you polled about Alan said he was a good egg, you'd be pretty dang surprised, given that the first 3084 had told you he was a jerk, El Bicho, even if there were more than a million OTHER BC readers you didn't poll (in this thoroughly hypothetical scenario) who knew enough about his online activities to have an opinion. If I were better at explaining, this horse would not be so badly beaten up, so I'll give up now!
But it's a hypothetical situation. I think Alan is pretty funny, as I've said before, the same way Triumph the Comic Dog was funny: it's sometimes hard to be on the receiving end of the sarcasm UNLESS you roll with it and try to give him back as good as he's given you. I've watched some of the people here do that (even if Alan might have had to supply the "some of the people here" himself) and they often turn out to be pretty hilarious conversations, and even helpful for people who want to be better writers and critical thinkers.
Everybody could learn to laugh at themselves a little bit more often. Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody is flawed--probably DEEPLY--in some way.
108 - Irene Athena
Handyguy, the explanation is that the electoral college example I gave you was a really bad analogy to work with. Sorry about that. Dead horse though, I'll let someone else give it a try.
109 - Irene Athena
No, not themselves. himself? herself? At least I didn't say theirself, at whom I am laughing now. Thanks for answering El Bicho. See ya 'round.
110 - Irene Athena
I mean, thanks for answering the comment I made last night, not the one I just made, because...I really do need to stop making comments for awhile.
111 - Dan
another interesting sort of observation that is tangently relevant with this articles premises of questioning why Republican and Independent candidates are running in opposition to Obama, is the tactic of MoveON sending the deranged woman to disrupt the campaigns of progressive opponents.
On the face of it, Rand Paul is only running for election. He hasn't had a chance to vote for or against any policy to protest against. Even though Republican candidates usually seem more forthcoming about what they plan to do in office than Democrats, As a candidate they are still untested.
The answer to this seemingly odd, unexamined strategy is that progressives simply want to disrupt the democratic process. People are there to hear what Rand Paul has to say to determine if they will vote for him. Progressives oppose free assembly to engage in the American tradition of democracy.
It's a lot like vote fraud. Which Democrat city officials have just now been arrested for in Daytona FL. It looks like they've been caught changing a large number of early ballots.
Here we go, allegations of Democrat voter fraud all over the place and confirmation of fraud in Daytona.
112 - zingzing
"Progressives oppose free assembly to engage in the American tradition of democracy."
because someone came to voice her opinion (even if as a prank), you say we're the ones who oppose free assembly? excuse me, but who curb-stomped whom here, hrm?
113 - handyguy
I seem to remember a whole lotta Tea Partiers boisterously demonstrating, many with colorful signs. Some of them may in fact be deranged, but this has nothing to do with demonstrations or signs. I salute their first amendment rights [even though some of the signs offended me].
Similarly, the [rather soft spoken, mild mannered] young woman has the same right as other Americans to 'peaceably assemble' and express her opinion. She was never very likely to stop all those shouting, excited Paul supporters in their tracks.
Her avowed purpose was a photo op, her sign [a satirical congratulatory certificate concerning Republican-corporate intertwining] in the same frame as Paul. She ran close to his car in this attempt.
This is your definition of deranged? You borrowed this description from your hero Mr. Limbaugh possibly.
114 - handyguy
Allegations of fraud [which can be false or true] and real, proven fraud are two very different things.
The Bush DoJ issued a report on voter fraud during a 3-year period, 2002-2005, a period during which it was a "top priority." A total of 95 indictments, and 70 convictions. Maybe this meets your definition of widespread fraud.
Even if that had been a much higher number, it wouldn't have changed any election results.
Some conservatives can't believe a liberal could ever win a fair election. The Dems always cheat, and the media are all liberal shills. The cards are all stacked against our poor right-wing buddies. Their paranoia is boundless.
115 - zingzing
situational freedom of speech:
side a: let's prank 'em!
side b: let's fucking curb-stomp the bitch.
(respond to the situational evidence of the video you were instructed to view.)
question 1. which side (a or b) is fascist?
answer (circle one):
a
b
question 2: is one side expressing the first amendment of our constitution in the intent it was intended?
answer (circle one, although both are acceptable):
yes
absolutely not
question 3: who needs their head curb-stomped?
answer (understand one, you human):
no one, asshole.
116 - Baronius
Handy - You're trivializing two guys waving a club outside a polling place. Think about that.
117 - handyguy
Not to be picky, but only one guy waved a club. He is now under federal court injunction to stay away from polling places. Considering that no 'victim' stepped forward as a witness, that seems an appropriate resolution.
And I consider the rhetoric and tactics used to suppress voter turnout in minority districts just as disturbing and serious as a weirdo with a club. Billboards showing people behind bars with the slogan 'Vote Fraud is a Crime' -- not cool. TV ads suggesting that Latino voters should stay home because Obama is not on their side -- not cool.
118 - Dan
"The incident was very minor and widely misrepresented by Fox News...there never was a voter who claimed to be intimidated."---handyguy
Bartle Bull, a civil rights veteran who ran RFK’s 1968 presidential campaign, was publisher of the Village Voice, was awarded the 2003 civil rights medal by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy for his voting-rights work in Mississippi didn't think it was a "very minor" incident. He was a poll watcher for about an hour at the precinct in question. He called it "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I have encountered in my life in political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s."
Of course it's possible in light of all of the liberal exaggerations of historic revisionism that there really wasn't much voter intimidation in Mississippi in the '60's.
Some more of his testimony:
"BULL: One of them was waving a baton like that, slapping against his hand, pointing at people. And several people â€" I was more or less at the end of the driveway, and several people began to walk up the driveways, saw these guys, and then went back and didn’t go on to vote.
QUESTION: Did the individuals that you saw turn around, those were people that you believed were coming to vote?
BULL: Oh, yes, yes. That’s the only reason you walk along that long block on the pavement, and then go in the long driveway. And several walked in, saw this at the door, and walked back out the drive."
Once again handyguy reveals his cluelessness. More judicious people who know which news outlets to trust have been informed of these facts since the start.
Even slightly more judicious people would not pretend to be informed, get caught, then carry on as if they are experts. On any subject.
It is the act of a ideologue zealot clown.
119 - Dan
"I seem to remember a whole lotta Tea Partiers boisterously demonstrating... I salute their first amendment rights."---handyguy
As already examined in #111, The tea partiers had something to protest. There was legislation (probably unconstitutional and against the will of the people) being signed in to law.
The unfortunate, Soros funded, brainwashee crashed a campaign rally with the intention to disrupt. The only thing she could logically be "protesting" is the right of people engaged in the democratic process to peacefully assemble and select a legislator, who may, if elected, go on to legislate something that is protestable.
120 - Dan
"Billboards showing people behind bars with the slogan 'Vote Fraud is a Crime' -- not cool"---handyguy
So then, for handyguy at least, vote fraud *is* cool. Of course, in this misguided admission, he tacitly acknowledges that vote fraud is near exclusively the province of Democrats. If Republicans were cheating, vote fraud would then become "uncool", and a sign acknowledging vote fraud illegal, "cool"
121 - handyguy
It wasn't a campaign rally, it was a debate between Paul and Conway. There were lotsa people there supporting both sides.
122 - handyguy
I'm sure the fact that this comes from MediaMatters will invalidate it for you. Nonetheless, Bartle Bull is not exactly a liberal Democrat these days. He has an ax to grind, and he was a poll watcher that day on behalf of the McCain campaign.
He said, "Character in the White House should be more important than charisma on the campaign trail... Barack Obama does not want to 'change' America. Barack Obama wants a different country."
Bull declared, "Obama's notion of economic fairness is pure Karl Marx plus a pocketful of Chicago-style 'community organization.'"
Recently, on Fox's America Live, Bull said of Obama: "I didn't like Obama from the beginning, I thought he was a hustler and I think he still is."
Bull [this year chaired] a campaign to draft Rudy Giuliani to run for New York Governor. What a Democrat.
123 - handyguy
I don't find voter fraud cool, I find it rare. Your paranoid feelings to the contrary, there is little or no evidence that voter fraud has changed election results. Those billboards are not public service announcements; they were bought with anonymous political money to intimidate voters in select neighborhoods.
124 - Dan
Unless you're planning on engaging in vote fraud, there is no reason to be intimidated by the billboards.
Al Franken most likely owes his seat to fraudulent voting. If voter fraud did not change election results, there would be no reason to engage in it.
You're right, MediaMatters has no credibility. If they are now smearing another semi-iconic civil rights leader, it only demonstrates how rigidly fascist the left is becoming. Same thing with NPR throwing a perfectly honest liberal (and hard headed one at that) like Juan Williams under the bus.
125 - Dr Dreadful
Unless you're planning on engaging in vote fraud, there is no reason to be intimidated by the billboards.
In an un-nuanced world, no.
In this one, advertising is targeted to the intended audience. That's why you will find copious ads for cosmetics in Cosmopolitan and none in FHM.
So, do we know if any of these billboards were posted in areas without high concentrations of minorities and young voters?