And stupid. His one worthwhile achievement is now a big error. What the #### qualifies him as president his hair?

Is there anything, Joe, that you wouldn't attempt to vindicate if someone you see as on the other side is doing the same or worse? Is that really how you live your life and establish your values?

Even if every member of a street gang was a terrorist, I don't see the point. So there are various people who do bad things, so …?

The stated reason would be an ability to see a mistake and adapt accordingly

Admitting a mistake is a pretty low bar as presidential qualifications are concerned. Why should he be president if he did nothing worthwhile in his only other government position?

Right, which is why it bears repeating: for all its stumbles, the fundamental difficulty for Romney hasn't been the execution of the campaign. It's been the content of the GOP platform.

Funny how Obama supporters weren't asking that question in 2008.

You had your chance in 2008 and you ran dumb and dumber. What qualifies the fool you're running now?

Non-responsive to #8005.

But to answer your question, Romney's big success with the Salt Lake Olympics was much bigger and better than anything Obama ever achieved in or out of government.

It's entirely true that this is a hugely important factor. But the GOP's ever-rightward shift appears likely to have reached the point at which it's a liability in the national general election.

I'm not going to list the Obama achievements as president that overshadow managing, with well over 1 billion dollars of federal help, a winter carnival, because that's what you want me to do. However, so that I'm being responsive, your response is idiotic.

And this is a ridiculous statement in that it pretends that the GOP platform is unchanged since GWB ran, not to mention since the 1980s and earlier.

It is also stupid in that it assumes voters don't have a vivid memory of GWB's actual legacy, which is WHY the majority of the population is saying no to the GOP.

Obama had far less qualifications than Romney back in 2008, but since Obama is president now, he should win by default, since the only Republican alive with the same presidential experience and remaining presidential eligibility isn't a candidate. Very convenient.

Compare the positions offered by the pool of Republican primary candidates in 2012 with those in 2000 and say again with a straight face that there's been no ever-rightward shift.

The Republicans had their chance in 2008 and ran weak candidates. Now they are running another weak candidate whose sole government achievement he's embarrassed to discuss. See you in four years.

There's no ever-rightward shift. See for example the trend in the GOP on same-sex marriage and global warming.

Were you in a coma in November 2010?

You do realize that general election is not in any way similar to a midterm, right? Is this the sliver of driftwood the nutters are clinging to? That the general election of 2012 will behave demographically and thus electorally like the midterm election of 2010? Are you people really that stupid?

It is also stupid in that it assumes voters don't have a vivid memory of GWB's actual legacy, which is WHY the majority of the population is saying no to the GOP.

And here all this time I thought you were a GOPer, Joe. Please pardon my mistake.

“First of all, we’ve had 9 days of lies…If a president of either party…had had a terrorist incident and gotten on an airplane [after remarks] and flown off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, they would have been crucified…it should have been, should have been, the equivalent, for Barack Obama, of George Bush’s “flying over Katrina” moment. But nothing was said at all. Nothing will be said. [...] It is [unacceptable] to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know. [The MSM] has made themselves the enemy of the American people. It is a threat to the very future of the country; we’ve crossed a new and frightening line on the slippery slope, and it needs to be talked about.”

Right, which is why it bears repeating: for all its stumbles, the fundamental difficulty for Romney hasn't been the execution of the campaign. It's been the content of the GOP platform.

It will be interesting if essentially the same approval metrics that translated into a bloodbath in 2010 for Dems might still lead to an Obama re-election victory in 2012. The closeness of the polls really speaks to Romney's weaknesses as a candidate (and campaign).

Also, your reliance on Rasmussen, which, its Republican house effect aside, has some of the most backward methodology in the polling business (i.e., they're landline only, which likely explains a good bit of the Republican house effect), to the apparent exclusion of every other polling outfit on the planet, is kind of cute.

It will be interesting if essentially the same approval metrics that translated into a bloodbath in 2010 for Dems might still lead to an Obama re-election victory in 2012.

but Romney would not be picking up votes by promising to raise taxes.

Obama isn't running against the incumbent House. He's running against Mitt Romney. Is this really the ray of hope to which the Dick Morris Brigades cling?

Nothing about the constantly evolving tale the Obama administration has been weaving about the attacks in the Middle East makes sense, unless it is seen as a deliberate attempt to mislead Americans into believing al Qaeda has been decimated, as President Obama has been know to assert. After dancing on Osama bin Laden’s grave for a week in Charlotte, the administration was faced with the reality that the war on terror is still quite on.

Never mind that a fourth-grader could see that the Libya attack was anything but a spontaneous riot over an Internet video the administration, following the lead of the Islamists, has elevated to the genre of “movie.”

Whichever is the case, the media could stand to have a lot more curiosity about the safety of the United States. Thankfully, a few reporters are doing their jobs. While most of the media herd was fretting that Mitt Romney paid too much in taxes, The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake discovered that the administration had known within 24 hours that al Qaeda was behind the attack in Benghazi.

Professor Jacobson has uncovered this morning a case in which Elizabeth Warren entered an appearance in a federal appellate court as a representative of a Massachusetts client in a case that appears to have clearly implicated Massachusetts law. Although this is still a federal appellate court, because we’re dealing with a Massachusetts client and issues of Massachusetts law, this looks really, really bad for Professor Warren. With this bombshell, I would no longer view the case against her as weak.

In just the last few days even more information has come forward which supports my original position. We learned that Warren represented to the Texas Bar that her “primary practice location” was in Cambridge.

We also learned that Warren had a law practice going beyond brief writing, including being hired to provide legal advice to various creditors’ committees in bankruptcy cases, in which she represented to the Court that her “Billing Statement is in the same form regularly used by Professor Warren to bill her clients” and in which the work was performed, at $675 per hour as of 2002, from her Cambridge office. There will be more such examples detailed in coming days.

Yet still, Warren defenders persist in defending on the basis that Warren just wrote a few Briefs for out of state cases and never did anything for a Massachusetts client in Massachusetts, much less on a Massachusetts issue of law.

I consider that test irrelevant, but in any event, Warren did represent a Massachusetts client in Massachusetts on a Massachusetts legal issue.

The case was an appeal in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston in the case of Cadle Company v. Schlictmann.

...

Based on the First Circuit docket available through PACER, it appears that Warren and three other Harvard Law professors were brought in to try to convince the First Circuit to reconsider its decision. The Schlichtmann representation is not a case previously disclosed by the Warren campaign.

To the lawyers on both sides here, what do you think?

The stated reason would be an ability to see a mistake and adapt accordingly, rather than continuing on a bad course like Obama is doing with Afghanistan.

Someone here knows more about this than I do, but is Obama continuing on a bad course in Afghanistan?

Investors eye the 'cliff' as Obama gains in polls

By MATTHEW CRAFT, AP Business Writer – 47 minutes ago

Analysts at investment firms have kept a close eye on polling numbers and especially on the Intrade, an online marketplace where members can trade predictions on events like elections. Polls show voters leaning toward Obama in key swing states. On Intrade, the odds have swung strongly in Obama's direction, jumping to a 76 percent chance of re-election, up from 51 percent at the start of September.

Everybody predicted the 2010 bloodbath. So Silver underestimated the GOP House gains by, what, 10 seats? BFD. As for the 2012 race, it's not just Silver who disagrees with Rasmussen--it's pretty much everybody (and Silver's model incorporates Rasmussen's polling in any case).

Homer Bailey's got a no-no in the 9th.

As we explained in yesterday's Slatest PM newsletter, some conservatives are becoming increasingly vocal regarding their doubts about recent polls that show President Obama pulling out in front of Mitt Romney. In short, they contend that pretty much everyone but the conservative pollsters over at Rasmussen are relying on turnout models that unfairly favor Democrats. If the models were tweaked appropriately, they say, Mitt Romney would have a substantial lead coming down the home stretch.

Or at least that's what their "unskewed" polls had been showing up until yesterday when Fox News released its latest survey, which showed Obama up by 5 points, 48 percent to Romney's 43.

Dean Chambers, who runs unskewedpolls.com, quicky worked his usual magic on the Fox data but this time his "unskewing" wasn't enough to move the numbers in the GOP's favor. The result: Obama up by 2 points. While that's obviously less than the gap the Fox News poll showed, it's nonetheless noteworthy because it's a major departure from the past dozen or so of Chambers' "unskewed" polls that claimed to have Romney well on his way to a historic victory this fall.

We'll let Chambers explain what he did:

"When the data from the Fox News poll is unskewed by weighting their reported percentages between Romney and Obama to the partisan affiliations showed by Rasmussen's extensive data results on that issue, the overall picture of the race is different. With Republicans weighted 34.8 percent, Democrats at 35.2 percent and Independents at 30.0 percent, the results calculate to Obama leading but by a smaller 46 percent to 44 percent margin over Romney"

“First of all, we’ve had 9 days of lies…If a president of either party…had had a terrorist incident and gotten on an airplane [after remarks] and flown off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, they would have been crucified…it should have been, should have been, the equivalent, for Barack Obama, of George Bush’s “flying over Katrina” moment. But nothing was said at all. Nothing will be said. [...] It is [unacceptable] to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know. [The MSM] has made themselves the enemy of the American people. It is a threat to the very future of the country; we’ve crossed a new and frightening line on the slippery slope, and it needs to be talked about.”


Who said it?

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.

If one focused solely on the final poll issued by Rasmussen Reports or Pulse Opinion Research in each state — rather than including all polls within the three-week interval — it would not have made much difference. Their average error would be 5.7 points rather than 5.8, and their average bias 3.8 points rather than 3.9.

Nor did it make much difference whether the polls were branded as Rasmussen Reports surveys, or instead, were commissioned for Fox News by its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research. (Both sets of surveys used an essentially identical methodology.) Polls branded as Rasmussen Reports missed by an average of 5.9 points and had a 3.9 point bias. The polls it commissioned on behalf of Fox News had a 5.1 point error, and a 3.6 point bias.

Rasmussen’s polls have come under heavy criticism throughout this election cycle, including from FiveThirtyEight. We have critiqued the firm for its cavalier attitude toward polling convention. Rasmussen, for instance, generally conducts all of its interviews during a single, 4-hour window; speaks with the first person it reaches on the phone rather than using a random selection process; does not call cellphones; does not call back respondents whom it misses initially; and uses a computer script rather than live interviewers to conduct its surveys. These are cost-saving measures which contribute to very low response rates and may lead to biased samples.

Rasmussen also weights their surveys based on preordained assumptions about the party identification of voters in each state, a relatively unusual practice that many polling firms consider dubious since party identification (unlike characteristics like age and gender) is often quite fluid.

Rasmussen’s polls — after a poor debut in 2000 in which they picked the wrong winner in 7 key states in that year’s Presidential race — nevertheless had performed quite strongly in in 2004 and 2006. And they were about average in 2008. But their polls were poor this year [2010].

Once again, Intrade is saying "YOO-HOO, JOE, WE'RE OVER HERE! MONEY TALKS AND BOOLSHEET WALKS!"

Intrade is little more than pool-hall bravado.

Rasmussen’s polls — after a poor debut in 2000 in which they picked the wrong winner in 7 key states in that year’s Presidential race — nevertheless had performed quite strongly in in 2004 and 2006. And they were about average in 2008. But their polls were poor this year [2010].

but Romney would not be picking up votes by promising to raise taxes.

You don't think he could? (Honest question).

If he proposed some kind of moderate tax increase on upper incomes paired with spending cuts to get the deficit under control, it could really help his position as an economic guy who knows how to get us out of this mess - and can actually get it done, unlike Obama. But by sticking to no tax raises ever, he makes himself look more ideological and obstructionist when he wants to look pragmatic. At least, I think that's possible, but this is not my area of expertise.

IOW with 6 weeks to go and the economic metrics more or less stagnant (some slightly better today, some worse), and with "events" just as likely to fall in either direction, you're saying that even though you see Romney as a 51-49 favorite, he's not worth a flyer where you're getting a better than 3 to 1 payoff?

You've got to remember that undecided voters are not thoughtful people weighing the pros and cons of each candidate and just unable to decide who they like better; they're morons who don't pay attention.

Since IANAL, to the lawyers on both sides here, what do you think?

The Libya debacle is proof that the media is in the bag for Obama

No. (Honest answer. Not snarky.) Roughly speaking, there are two types of people who are more likely to vote for someone who promises to raise taxes: lefties who cackle with glee at the thought of soaking the rich, and David Broder. The first group aren't going to vote for Romney regardless, and the second group is dead.

everyone but the conservative pollsters over at Rasmussen are relying on turnout models that unfairly favor Democrats

And yet, in all 8000 posts in this thread, not one of the Leon Trotsky cheering section left here has identified any such 'content' that has hurt Romney. The only hard right position Romney has stuck to is to never ever raise taxes -- but Romney would not be picking up votes by promising to raise taxes.

Q: [to Gingrich]:We heard from Gov. Romney, that self-deportation, or illegal immigrants leaving the country voluntarily, is a possible solution. You've suggested that self-deportation is "an Obama level fantasy."


ROMNEY: Those who come into the country legally would be given an identification card, and if employers hire someone without a card, then those employers would be severely sanctioned. If you do that, people who have come here illegally won't be able to find work. And over time, those people would tend to leave the country, or self-deport. I don't think anyone is interested in going around and rounding up people around the country and deporting 11 million illegal immigrants into America. Let's focus our attention on how to make legal immigration work and stop illegal immigration.

President Barack Obama continues to lead presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney by wide margins with Latinos, according to the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Telemundo poll.

Hispanics, the largest-growing segment of the U.S. population over the past decade, said they preferred Obama over Romney in the presidential race, 63 to 28 percent.

That margin has been relatively consistent since May when the poll started sampling additional Latino interviews. It’s also, though, far below the stated Romney campaign goal of winning 38 percent of the Hispanic vote.

Voters in three critical swing states broadly oppose the sweeping changes to Medicare proposed by Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and, by big margins, favor President Obama over Mitt Romney on the issue, according to new state polls by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Among seniors, the issue rivals the economy as a top voting issue, undercutting Romney's appeal in Florida, Ohio and Virginia. Generally, the more voters focus on Medicare, the more likely they are to support the president's bid for re-election.

Right, which is why it bears repeating: for all its stumbles, the fundamental difficulty for Romney hasn't been the execution of the campaign. It's been the content of the GOP platform.

Poll: Obama has 35-point lead with Latino voters

Which other plausible GOP candidate who didn't compete in the primaries would be running better than Romney, given the mood of the GOP primary electorate?

If you believe Obama's numbers, he's deported more Latinos than any president in history. Latinos would be fools to vote for Obama based on immigration, especially since Obama flat-out lied to Latinos in 2008 when he "promised" to pass amnesty.

If you believe Obama's numbers, he's deported more Latinos than any president in history.

I don't see any reason not to estimate it as equal to the likely margin by which Obama seems poised to win the general electorate, somewhere around 51-48 or 52-47.

Then you fail to grasp the significance of a 51-48/52-47 national margin in a country the size of the United States, particularly given the economic landscape dogging the incumbent.

I don't see any reason not to estimate it as equal to the likely margin by which Obama seems poised to win the general electorate, somewhere around 51-48 or 52-47.

Thus demonstrating your ignorance.

And why exactly was it that none of the above elected to compete for the nomination?

if you believe Obama's numbers, then he's more conservative on immigration than George W. Bush. That's so weird, since everything about him is crazy lefty.

That turnout models meme is nonsense, by the way. Party ID is fluid, and by not controlling for it, every pollster other than Rassmussen is picking up on something: the enthusiasm gap from 2010 has vanished, and Democrats have a strong party ID edge, as they have since basically the dawn of time. It's pure denialism.

I don't see any reason not to estimate it as equal to the likely margin by which Obama seems poised to win the general electorate, somewhere around 51-48 or 52-47.

In other words, because none of them calculated that they'd have as good a chance as Romney. Thanks for validating the point.

And yet, basically no one is predicting the Dems will retake the House, which means a bunch of districts that go for Obama will be going for the GOP House candidate. Other than gerrymandering, how do you explain this? Bad Dem candidates?

The Dems have been dangling the "amnesty" carrot in front of Latino voters for at least a decade now. At some point, one would think the "fool me once, fool me twice" principle would begin to have an effect.

This question is too stupid to validate with an answer. All I'll say is ... no, it's just too blockheadedly stupid to validate with an answer.

You sound like one of those McGovern people from 1972.

The incumbency effect*, although I should note that Sam Wang projects D's to take back the house. Generally, people tend to vote for incumbents, all things being equal. This is worth around 2-4 points on the generic congressional ballot. Currently, most house races are not heavily polled, but in general, Dem's would project to pick up anywhere between 1-12 seats. If things really break towards Obama (Country is D+5-7), Dems might take back the house. I would put that at like 20%.

*also, you shouldn't have to put "Other than gerrymandering." The 2010 redistricting looks to be roughly a wash, surprisingly enough.

Okay, then you're saying two things:

1. If the election were held today, Romney would win by 51 to 49.

2. OTOH you don't trust "events" not to put Obama over the top by the time November 6th rolls around.

The second part I can see, but regarding the first part you must really think that Nate's Now-Cast with Obama at 97.8% is fueled by drugs, because mere partisanship alone could hardly account for that big a gap between your reading of the race (as of today) and his.