This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
|
Chris Weigant posted his latest Electoral update yesterday, quoting some of my commentary as well.
Electoral Math — Obama Sure Could Use A Bump
(Chris Weigant, Huffington Post, 20 Aug 2008)
It’s time once again to take a look at how the electoral math is shaping up for Barack Obama and John McCain. While the news this time around isn’t all that great for Obama, I wanted to take another of these snapshots of the polls — before the running mates are announced and before the conventions happen — in order to provide a statistical baseline to see how big a “bump” in the polls either candidate will get in the next few weeks. My analysis in short: while the news isn’t dire quite yet, Obama could certainly use such a bump at this point.
Take a look at the whole thing.
A few people are arguing that the fact Obama has slipped in the polls over the last month is not really a real problem for Obama, but rather it is just smart strategy, and Obama is outsmarting McCain by getting him to expend all his resources early, and Obama will come back and crush him later when he is tired and has nothing left.
Obama’s Rope A Dope
(Deannie Mills, Huffington Post, 20 Aug 2008)
I have been thinking a lot lately about Ali’s boxing career and especially his “rope-a-dope” strategy.
And I think it’s come to life again, in the Obama campaign.
Obama has taken many body blows during this lengthy campaign, first from Hillary Clinton and her many surrogates, and now from John McCain and his two surrogates, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. Recently, during the only real vacation he’s had in two years, the McCain campaign released a different sneering smear-ad pretty much every day of the week.
…
The fight’s over!
But, see, all this tongue-wagging really fails to take into account that this political boxer may actually have a strategy of his own. Call it, roping a dope.
All summer, during the early rounds of the fight, most Americans have not been paying that much attention while McCain has landed one body-blow after another. When they do look up, they see a fighter on the ropes, holding up his fists to protect his face, maybe getting in a jab or two in self-defense.
He’s weak! they cry. He’s getting the crap beat out of him!
But is he? Is he REALLY?
Right now he’s got a fortune in the bank, no debt, more money pouring in every month–and while that’s going on, he’s working hard to unify a party exhausted and irritated at one another after the tiresome primary season. Call it lots and lots of working out at the gym, strengthening those abs so they can withstand the hard punches.
Meanwhile, his trainer stepped in before the match and loosened the ropes–meaning, it may not be readily apparent simply because the campaign hasn’t trumpeted it loudly to media far and wide–but hard-hitting Obama attack ads have been quietly playing in swing states all over the country, delivering sharp jabs to McCain. They don’t smear McCain’s character or make up baseless crap about him or pretend that Britney Spears matters worth a damn to anybody in this country except Britney Spears–but they deliver sharp counterpunches on McCain’s weakest policy positions, and they’re landing more than a few bruises in the states where the fight hangs in the balance.
…
By the time we get to the last couple of rounds of this fight, Obama is going to come full-on into his own. He will get his strength and stamina from US–all of us out here who are in the ring with him. We will be energized and, to coin a phrase, “fired up and ready to go.”
And when that happens, most of the country WILL be watching. They’ll see a tired old man throwing ineffectual, wild punches.
And they’ll see a fighter in his prime, dancing away from the ropes, landing the knock-out blows.
Hmmm. There are possibly some good points in there. But I’m not sure I really buy it. I’m not sure that in this kind of game, which is of course NOT boxing, that it is ever the “smart thing to do” to let your opponent take the momentum and lead the media narrative for a month.
Just finishing lunch, so no time for nice pictures, but…
Fay stalls, soaks Melbourne in “historic and hazardous rainfall event”
(Brendan Loy, Weather Nerd, Pajamas Media, 20 Aug 2008)
The Melbourne area, on Florida’s east coast, is getting absolutely pummeled right now by Tropical Storm Fay’s soaking rains, as the storm’s southern rain bands — which seem to be intensifying — “train” over the region, dumping 1-2 inches an hour in some spots.
Read the article for more details. Sounds like flooding and such is going to be pretty bad.
The odds of tropical storm force winds at my old house in Palm Bay, FL went above 50% in this morning’s update from the NHC:
Of course, I don’t live there any more, and where I am I think the odds of tropical storm force winds are pretty low I would think. :-)
My Curmudgeon’s Corner cohost is of course also looking like he’ll get some weather out of this in Miami as well. I trust nothing too bad though. Looks like only a 60% chance or so of tropical storm force winds and pretty much no chance of hurricane force winds. So all should be fine.
Several places are now reporting that the deal is done, and Hillary Clinton’s name WILL be placed into nomination at the convention. Good. I do not like Hillary, but I like the idea of the vote at the convention actually somewhat resembling the numbers that came out of the primary process rather than being artificially unanimous.
Of course, this will give all the superdelegates (and the rest of the delegates for that matter) one last chance to change their minds and go for Clinton after all… Nah… won’t happen. :-)
As was announced earlier, on Wednesday Chris Weigant included a link to us on one of his Huffington Post columns. This site is indeed getting some extra traffic due to this. So for those new people, welcome.
Besides the 2008 Electoral College Prediction pages and the blog itself, other popular items here include the:
If you find any of this interesting, please do come back.
In the meantime, for regular readers, here is the article that mentions this site… along with additional analysis of the state of the race.
Electoral Math Charts Updated
(Chris Weigant, Huffington Post, 6 Aug 2008)
It’s time once again to take a look at the Electoral College math from state-level polling. Nationwide polls are not completely meaningless, but they are pretty irrelevant — because that’s not how we elect a president. You have to win enough states to get more than half the electoral votes in the Electoral College. While many would like to change this system, it’s what we’ve got for the 2008 election, and so looking at the state-level polling is much more important to figure out where the race is right now, and what the trends are.
…
[Blatant website plug: ChrisWeigant.com has just added a new 2008 Electoral Graphics page with a constantly-updated electoral graph and electoral map. These are different graphs than the ones I use here, and are created by Samuel Minter of Abulsme.com. The data gathering and methodology he uses is superior to what I have used, as he averages the last five state polls for every state (which smoothes out the outlier poll numbers). I encourage you to check this page on a daily basis to see how the trendlines are moving, right up to the election.]
I don’t believe it is the same set of documents being talked about, but when reading today’s notes from Ron Suskind, I was reminded of my post “Follow the Forger” from October 2003. Well, Suskind claims to have found at least one forger of documents related to the Iraq/Niger/Yellowcake connection that was claimed but did not exist.
The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened?
(Ron Suskind, Huffington Post, 5 Aug 2008)
What just happened? Evidence. A secret that has been judiciously kept for five years just spilled out. All of what follows is new, never reported in any way:
The Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush — a man still carrying with $1 million reward for capture, the Jack of Diamonds in Bush’s famous deck of wanted men — has been America’s secret source on Iraq. Starting in January of 2003, with Blair and Bush watching, his secret reports began to flow to officials on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that there were no WMD and that Hussein was acting so odd because of fear that the Iranians would find out he was a toothless tiger. The U.S. deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, “resettled” Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money.
In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD — as Habbush had foretold — the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a “small team from the al Qaeda organization.”
The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conduction disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil.
Mr Suskind is of course promoting a new book![]() where he goes into these accusations in more detail I gather. I have not read it. I have no good way to evaluate if any of it is true.
But… If even 5% of all the things this administration has been accused of over the last 7+ years are even partially true, then the fact that there have not been full fledged impeachment proceedings is extremely shameful.
I wonder just how many preemptive pardons will be issued on January 19th. I am anticipating quite a few.
Not that I really think even a potential Obama administration would be interested in going after any of these jokers (including W). Instead they will look the other way and decide to worry about the future rather than the past, to not reopen old wounds, to “heal” etc. Blah Blah Blah.
Sorry, these folks need to be held to account. All the way up and down the command chain. Including W and Cheney.
And another rumor gets popped. At least for the moment.
Bayh: Obama hasn’t asked me to join ticket
(Mary Beth Schneider, Indystar.com, 5 Aug 2008)
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., told The Indianapolis Star today that Sen. Barack Obama has not asked him to be his running mate and that he’s not expecting Obama to announce his vice presidential pick when Obama is in Indiana Wednesday.
Asked if he will be Obama’s vice presidential choice, Bayh said; “I have no idea. You’d have to ask him.”
Bayh will be introducing Obama at Wednesday’s town hall meeting in Elkhart, but said he knows of no plans for a private meeting with Obama, even though both men are flying into northern Indiana tonight. The length of Obama’s visit here — he arrives at about 6:30 p.m. and isn’t scheduled to leave until about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday — had acceleratd already flying rumors that Bayh will be Obama’s choice.
But Bayh said he believed the campaign was trying to add another stop in Indiana, accounting for the length of the visit.
(via TPM Election Central)
The rumors all over the place seem to be veering quickly in the direction of Evan Bayh for Obama’s Veep. I saw it first on Brendan Loy’s blog while I was at Seafair Sunday… I just never had a chance to post.
Obama to announce Evan Bayh as veep in Elkhart on Wednesday?
(Brendan Loy, 3 Aug 2008)
With the Beijing Olympics set to begin Friday, and continuing until the day before the Democratic National Convention starts, Barack Obama’s last chance to make a pre-convention vice-presidential selection without competing against the Olympics in the news cycle would be early this week… say, Tuesday or Wednesday.
…
As the article notes, 21 hours in northern Indiana “seems like an awfully long time to be in one place.”
…
Anyway, what could this mean? A long, mid-week visit to Indiana, right before the Olympics? Could this be the big announcement at last? Obama-Weis ’08? ;)
Actually, the speculation is that it could mean Bayh’s the guy
“The visit…could be to announce the selection of Senator Evan Bayh as Obama’s running mate. … Democratic sources say Secret Service is working out details with local police that would include a motorcade. … Sources say the details appear to be different than a normal presidential candidate visit.”
There will be a rally in Elkhart on Wednesday morning, according to the South Bend Tribune. There is no official word yet on whether Bayh will be in attendance. The event will be open to the public.
I guess there won’t be long to wait to see if this is true, or if it is just another random rumor.
As I mentioned on this week’s podcast none of the veep possibilities really excite me. And that includes Bayh. But maybe he’d push Indiana out of swing state status to a clear Obama lead.
I continue to think that even now, this late in the process, they should get no delegates at all. That was the original sanction, and anything other than that shows that the rules are meant to be flaunted and mean nothing.
Obama Asks That Florida and Michigan Delegations Get Full Votes
(M.S. Bellows, Jr., Huffington Post, 3 Aug 2008)
The Obama campaign just issued a press release containing a letter to the DNC Credentials Committee asking that the Democratic National Convention delegations from Florida and Michigan be seated with full, rather than half, votes. That request brings the contentious “early primary” dispute over those two states full-circle: Hillary Clinton’s supporters previously had suggested that she might appeal to the same Credentials Committee to have those delegations seated in full despite the fact that those states violated party rules by holding their primaries too soon, with the intention that those votes could throw the nomination to Clinton. Obama’s letter today displays the degree of finality and inevitability his nomination has garnered since Clinton conceded, and is an effort to mend fences with Michigan and Florida voters and Clinton supporters.
Of course, the final vote at the convention may also look very different than the final delegate tally from before Clinton’s concession as well, as there is a move (supported by Clinton herself) to not even have Clinton placed into nomination, but instead to nominate Obama essentially by acclimation. As anybody who has read or listened to anything I’ve had to say this year knows, I am no fan of Hillary Clinton. But I still think this is bullshit. Ideally, the role call vote at the convention should reflect the results of all the various primaries and caucuses. This should mean that Hillary (and the others who earned delegates) should indeed get their chance to have those delegates counted.
Of course, as I repeatedly pointed out through the whole primary season, delegates are not ACTUALLY bound my anything, even those pledged delegates. They can do whatever they want. So I guess it is OK if Hillary delegates choose to vote for Obama. I just wish they would stick to their guns and vote for the candidate they truly supported. The winner would remain the same, but the result would be more “true”. And THEN they can all rally behind the nominee or whatnot.
Oh well. It doesn’t look like that is what will happen.
(Please keep in mind, this is from the same person that believes it is a travesty in baseball when they don’t play the second half of the ninth inning if the team up to bat in that second half is already ahead, because yes, the winner has already been determined, but not what the final score SHOULD be.)
|
|