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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Come next Tuesday night, we’ll get a resolution (let’s hope) to a great ongoing battle of 2012: not just the Presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but the one between the pundits trying to analyze that race with their guts and a new breed of statistics gurus trying to forecast it with data.
In Election 2012 as seen by the pundits–political journalists on the trail, commentators in cable-news studios–the campaign is a jump ball. There’s a slight lead for Mitt Romney in national polls and slight leads for Barack Obama in swing-state polls, and no good way of predicting next Tuesday’s outcome beyond flipping a coin. ...
Bonus link: Esquire - The Enemies of Nate Silver
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It is a good question, but I am still in favor of reform. Filibuster is just a bit too undemocratic, or put another way there are plenty of veto points to prevent action built into the system - in the modern configuration of parties and partisanship I don't think the filibuster is a good idea any more (if it ever was).
Shorter answer: Elections should have consequences and historically high levels of use of the filibuster shouldn't be one of them.
Aside: Hey I don't want kill lists in the hands of any president, but I am in a minority on that one.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Link
The post also contains both the overall standard error of each and the standard error weighted by electoral votes. (Everybody did better on the weighted metric because several of the large states were pretty easy)
I don't disagree and I don't like what the filibuster has become. But it has its place. There needs to be a fairly high cost to carrying one out, though. It should be hard and dramatic. It shouldn't be leaking that you're going to do it.
So, I'm all for reform.
So, I'm all for reform.
Me too. There's got to be some kind of a sensible middle ground between no filibuster at all and what we have now. I hope it can be negotiated.
I hated all of that.
I didn't hate it, but it sure as hell wasn't R&B's heyday.
If the Senate is close to evenly divided, getting a handful of the other side should be a pass, not getting 20% of the other side.
Ending the filibuster (and holds!) would also allow the President to do what the President is supposed to be able to do, appoint officials and judges. Voting against judges is perfectly fair, but holding them up because they can only get 59 votes is silly. If the Senate is held by the opposite party, then the White House will have to deal with that as Clinton and Hatch did in the 90s. But letting individual senators hold up appointments is dumb, and letting 40 senators block them, is not reasonable.
In terms of the kill list question, I dislike having it in Obama's hands and would dislike just as much having it in Romney's. The problem is the one the Adams/Jefferson transition suggested; people out of power critique government, but new executives are not likely to feel as constrained once they're sworn in. I don't know how to get out of that cycle. In the 19th century it happened when Congress asserted its authority over the President, which has its own challenges. But I don't see that happening soon.
...coming back after lunch....
Mock me if you will, but I'm going total pioneer this fall. I grew some Oaxacan Green Dent corn this year and am going to try my hand at making my own masa for tamales and tortillas. I've never nixtamalized corn before, but if peasants can do it, I can.
Followed by "aping" in the next sentence. Presumably Obama was too profligate with spending to be considered niggardly.
We may as well drop the filibuster argument as we're unlikely to resolve anything. But, yeah, holds are stupid.
I don't think the Bush brand would play well with swing voters at this point. Might be better in 2016, but in addition, Jeb, whatever his merits, is not a "fresh face." I also think that running a third guy from the same family for POTUS might strike people as being too dynastic. The Kennedys of course wanted to do this; we will never know how it would have turned out.
Hillary would have some of the same problems, and other ones, but I think the Clinton brand is stronger in the center.
the ONLY thing that ever got airtime up here was To Build a Fire.
Since you mentioned Scarred but Smarter I presume you are overlooking Whisper Tames the Lion, which song and album are imho far catchier than Mystery Road, as was Fly Me Courageous- but UI can see someone not seeing Fly Me as "really" a Dryvin N Cryin Album...
Are you trying to break this thread? If that was the reason to drop arguments the whole internet would dry up (excepting porn of course).
These are Republicans you're talking about. There will be no fresh faces.
Weird, it's the only one of theirs I ever owned, I just sort of assumed that was the way they sounded on all the albums I didn't have any interest in afterwards. Fly Me Courageous, wasn't bad, just nothing special it seemed.
Pretty sure porn has a resolution.
If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong.
Heh. That has been their MO; I think they may change it after going O-for-Bama (easy college football joke in there).
I certainly agree that the GOP can make inroads into groups of voters we call "Latinos" if they are smart about it, but I definitely don't think it will be as easy as Rubio + immigration.
Wow, you're right. If that doesn't go viral, I give up trying to understand these things.
There's really no construction of "darker" that makes sense other than a racialist one. The arts of public persuasion aren't dark, they're lofty (*), and there's no subset of public rhetoric for which "darker" even comes close to a serious description. (Not that Krauthammer gives us any reason to believe he was talking about a subset.)
(*) The great public rhetoricians have been publicly celebrated for millenia, in nearly every society.
The GOP is South Carolina football? That might work on a number of levels.
I actually thought of the race angle when I first quoted the bit last page, but decided against going down that road. Trying to think the best of other people I guess.
Maybe I'm way off, but that's jaw-dropping.
I'm going to say you're not off. In fact, I'm going to say that if it were me or Andy or one of the other folks who regularly "hear the dog whistle" and argue it here, it would perhaps be off. But the fact that it jumps at *you*...
It depends on the resolution. Its not so great in HD.
Oh, Kentucky. This does not surprise me.
This is good writing. Had she voted he might be down a vote.
Agreed, I didn't take it that way. I interpreted that he was inferring "black magic" kind of wizardry, not a racial thing.
If Krauthammer actually stuck aping and darker in there as some sort of racialism, he is even dumber about these issues than I thought. If the argument is that it was a Freudian slip revealing racialist animus...well, I don't like the guy, but I would give him the BOTD there.
Me too. His shallowness and refusal to even begin to question his own assumptions is enough to render him foolish. I don't perceive a dog whistle here on top of that.
It's hard to imagine a buddy of John Podhertz would have underlying racial issues, right?
That, to me, is almost the core definition of a racist.
Those were appalling sentences. I'd fire the ####### guy.
(*) Or, worse, that even though he has achieved the office of the presidency -- twice -- he is still defined primarily by his blackness.
Obviously, I don't know what is in Krauthammer's head (right now, I see him as getting the same brain X-ray results as Ralph Kramden) but the "darker" thing just struck me as a coincidental, if mildly ill-advised, word choice. I thought he was just doing the George Will thing or AnyPundiThing: the other side is wrong and dumber than Tommy Lasorda's dogs, so when they win, it is because they cheated somehow and the public is gullible and lazy. If Krauthammer actually stuck aping and darker in there as some sort of racialism, he is even more ignorant about these issues than I thought. If the argument is that it was a Freudian slip revealing racialist animus...well, I don't like the guy, but I would give him the BOTD there.
Glad to see that someone else didn't hear any dog whistling. Krauthammer may be both clueless and reactionary and prone to seeing the dark side of everything liberal, but he's never engaged in Birtherism or anything remotely resembling it. There are plenty of ways to dog whistle, but this wasn't one of them.
So we were better off with those grainy movies from the 50s?
If I'm not mistaken, isn't Broun an MD?
EDIT: ahh yess... this is why we don't skip words in sentences we read!
You may be right. All I'm saying is that I didn't take it that way when I read it, I just thought it was ridiculous on its own.
Amazing. Within two sentences you're awarding yourself a PhD in Mind Reading and ignoring the legacy of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater**, neither of whom made a habit of waking up on the sunny side of their caves.
**Not to mention Herr Godwin's propaganda minister.
And here I've always thought I was supposed to be the master of the scare quote.
Of course I should allow for the possibility that everything you've written about this mini-topic is nothing but a big put-on. If so, color me embarrassed, and I apologize.
Ditto...
But that's probably because when I hear or read Krauthammer, all I hear is mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah -- it's Charlie Brown teacher stuff... the words don't matter, it's all new ways to just say the same old thing over and over again.
I find him as repetitive and boring as say, EJ Dionne.
On a related note, never go to Montreal for you first strip club experience. Nothing else will ever compare. In the two clubs I was in, every single girl was gorgeous, healthy-looking, in amazing shape and between the ages of 19 and 25. If they weren't smiling, it was because they were mysterious, not pissed off or unhappy.
I actually did a little math on this, and the average age of the Republican nominees over the last 10 presidential elections (going back to Carter v. Ford in '76) was 66, compared to 53 for the Democrats. G. W. Bush is the only one on the Republican side who was under 60 (both elections, and next was Ford at 63), while Kerry was the only one on the Democrat side who was over 60 (and the next oldest were Mondale and Carter in '80 who were both 56). 2004 was also the only time that the Democrat was the older of the two candidates.
Another thing I found interesting with this election is that if Obama completes his second term, this will be the first time since Jefferson/Madison/Monroe that three consecutive presidents will have served two consecutive full terms each. Pointless trivia, but it amuses me.
QFT.
Vegas, Atlanta and Houston got nothing on Montreal when it comes to strip clubs.
This occurred to me as well, given that it is SBB--particularly the line about actually firing Krauthammer.
Isn't this the first time since then that 3 consecutive presidents have been elected to 2 terms in a row? (and it's been 4 out of 5) Of course having our 1840 through 1960 streak of "presidents elected in a year divided by 20 dying in office" didn't help matters.
Heh, this reminds me of a time in Montreal where I was out with 2 co-workers and our Montreal strip-club worthy waitress assumed I was the alpha of the table and played up to me all dinner long. Once she saw the woman at our table pull out the corporate card, the waitress never looked at me again.
The first thing, every single time, the absolute first thing I hear about before any other item regarding Montreal as a destination for travel is the strip clubs.
Pity Montreal isn't next door to Colorado... and both aren't next door to Chicago... or I'd have my weekend planned.
I knew he looked familiar!
I assume Krauthammer (I can just hear Colonel Klink saying that name) is wheelchair bound based on [6457]?
Love it, too, Bob. Thanks for posting.
A good bit of what follows has been well-covered in the past few pages (you guys have been really carrying the ball lately, making massive amounts of yardage by opening up the holes in the argu--hey, WTF, what's with the football analogy??), but I thought it was still worth posting the numbers...
Year, %
1980, 35
1982, 25
1984, 31
1986, 25
1988, 24
1990, 28
1992, 28
1994, 39
1996, 27
1998, 37
2000, 35
2002, 38
2004, 44
2006, 26
2008, 31
2010, 33
2012, 27
This is the poll data for the percent of votes for Republicans by Hispanics. Note, please, that the big downturn in the percentages in recent times occurs in 2006, which in no way was a point in time when the country was perceived to be in "hard times." The larger long-term pattern in the data suggests that Hispanic flirtation with the Republicans occurred in the 1994-2004 period, with percentages then reverting to their earlier levels from the 80s.
It sure looks as though it was something other than the pocketbook (or the desire for "big government") that contributed to the massive downturn in Republican support from Hispanics that occurred in between 2004-06. The argument that has been so tirelessly repeated here is at best an oversimplification.
As for Krauthammer, he's definitely pushing the line. 75% sour grapes, 25% latent racism. But Sam nailed it awhile back--the morph of the Republicans over the past half-centurey is one of the most harrowing events in American history...the party that freed the slaves (and yes, I know all about the contemporary political undercurrents and that Lincoln was a plaster saint only from the waist down and all that, so don't start on me, please...) is the one that systematically abandons and marginalizes minorities, and then tries to dupe 'em via the classic old "poison the minds of the lower orders" tactics with bent subway tokens like Thomas, Rubio, etc. I think they will continue to try to do this, at least for two-three more election cycles, in the hope that what happened here was an "aberration." Surely they realize by the fact that Latinos in AZ are on the same program as elsewhere in the SW (41% R vote in '08 dropped to 25% this time) that a continuation of the trend will soon put that state in play...adding that to NV, NM, and CO would really make it hard to get back to the White House (thus tossing away 31 EVs that used to be solidly in their pocket).
The Republicans have not won a presidential election without a Bush or a Nixon on the ticket since Herbert Hoover (and whoever his VP was, I assume he wasn't named Bush or Nixon).
the GOP ticket, 2016
That seems harsh. Lincoln was a complex man, as well as a man of his times and a man who had to deal as complex set of parameters as any president. No, he wasn't a saint but he continually learned and moved in the right direction.
Don, you have some high standards. :)
Well, it's Montreal. What else is there to talk about? Poutine? Fond memories of Les Expos?
If you have both then they will cancel each other out. However you might have a chance if Nish Buxon runs.
Patraeus resigns as CIA Director - not wholly unexpected that he would be leaving - but apparently, he's resigning because of an affair.
The right wing is going to have a field day with that.
Charles Curtis was, no ####, a (roughly) 1/2 American Indian who grew up on a Kaw reservation! Hard to imagine that flying through the convention this year! Talk about dependency; he grew up literally in a dependent nation! He grew up speaking Kansa and French (which would make for a worse negative TV spot now!) The past is weird.
I'd call it a mix of embarrassment about his nearly Literary Digest-sized misprediction, his hatred of Obama's distinctly non-neocon foreign policy, and his contempt for pretty much everything about 21st century liberalism in general. The first and the third parts go into the sour grapes category, but the second part represents the true core of his belief system. You have to remember that in the 70's and 80's he was a major contributor to Marty Peretz's New Republic, a Scoop Jackson Cold War Democrat who went over to Reagan almost entirely because of foreign policy issues. On domestic issues he's a more recent convert to the rest of the GOP baggage, but at heart he's a man who just hates anything that remotely smacks of formal racial favoritism, while at the same time being oblivious to the sort of structural racism that still lingers in much of our society. Utterly typical Republican in that respect.
And then there's the whole wheelchair bit. Without trying to get into psychobabble, it's hard to believe that this hasn't had some effect in reinforcing his belief system. As a minor side note, he used to buy books from me on a fairly regular basis, but never once did he come into the shop, with its narrow and somewhat cluttered aisles**, instead always letting his wife pick them out and pick them up for him. She's a hell of a good woman, BTW, and it's no cliche to say that he'd almost certainly be lost without her.
**Though other such customers did come in and got around without any particular trouble.
Rank the Nixons in order of personal preference:
Richard
Mojo
Cynthia
Norm
Otis
Donnell
Russ
My college yearbook photo is a picture of me after I had jumped onstage with Mojo Nixon, performing in a bar in the San Jacintos.
George W
Jeb
Two-in-the
Barbara
Laura
I guess you might say....(removes sunglasses)
the surge didn't work after all.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
what happened between 2004-06 is obvious- Bush put forward an immigration reform plan and the nativists went nuts -
so in a sense JoeK is right- discussing immigration reform doesn't help the Rs- at best it's neutral at worst the Nativists start blogging and calling talk radio... and in a sense he's also obviously wrong- Dubya was pushing the needle to the right WRT the Hispanic vote - and that progress went poof thanks to the overly vocalized "Arpaio" faction
2. Push, Push, in the
3. Burning
4. Irving For
I didn't hate it, but it sure as hell wasn't R&B's heyday.
Was it even R&B?
OK, I'm going to need charts and graphs to sort this out.
Homer
Randy
Guy
Montreal used to be one of the great cities in the world for food. It's no longer in the first tier of places to eat, but it's still none too shabby on the eating front.
You can't take exist definitively, but Pew says that GWB actually got better support from Mormons than Romney (80%-78%)...
Habs riots?
I don't see it. I am always suspicious of these guys who are the favorites for way too long. Something usually is missing, usually the fire is not really there. So they never run, or the campaign is too halfhearted. I think the idea that the seas will part for the Bush name and he won't have to take any tough stands is naive. There need to be more authentic changes to their base. Plus if Barbara was the driving force behind a lot of this anyway, she will be in her 90s if she's still with us.
Re Drivin N Cryin:
I was a fan, but I think their approach came off as a little schizoid at the time.
Good question.
Sophia.
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