Or is this only the most recent example of the triumph of hope over experience?
Thank you Bruce Bartlett -- /RPW
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
# 7 To Maintain One's Sanity
Sometimes, to maintain one's sanity, one needs corroboration of one's concerns from an outside source whose views normally differ from one's own. Finally, this is why I can't depend on current polls, but have to believe that a significant majority of Americans will come to their senses soon and will vote Democratic.
Or is this only the most recent example of the triumph of hope over experience?
Thank you Bruce Bartlett -- /RPW
Or is this only the most recent example of the triumph of hope over experience?
Thank you Bruce Bartlett -- /RPW
# 6 Breaking News(?) kind of, but what they need to do
This is kind of funny. Yesterday I posted that the Obama campaign needs to start talking about their plans for the future, especially for the next two years (leading up to the 2014 elections). This morning, I pulled this off Yahoo! news:
Obama to lay out 'specific agenda'
Obama to lay out 'specific agenda'
The president tells donors his campaign will transition to a more positive and forward-looking message.
Monday, July 30, 2012
# 5 Polls are not quite all over the place
It's true. The polls are almost all over the place. Last two posts I included two current polls, but this weekend and today several more appeared, and I have no idea how reliable they are. I took part in one, and found (according to those results) that slightly more than half the voters prefer Rmoney over Obama, a larger percentage think that current financial policies are not good AND that the country is not heading in the right direction. It almost seems that, depending on the day the polls are taken, so will the results vary.
In other words, nothing can be reliable indicators either of what's really on everyone's mind, or at least of what folk will think in a little more than three months.
I'll wait until Gallup releases its most recent polling figures. I'm part of the Gallup polling, but at least for past polls I don't seem to have much influence on the numbers.
Obama's forces need to keep the pressure on Rmoney, and ALSO propose long range ideas: i.e., that with Democratic House/Senate majorities and Democratic President, they can pass before the 2014 interim elections. It seems that neither side has made strong inroads on the independent vote or eroding any of the other side's votes. Unless something startling happens--such as Rmoney really dissing his foreign hosts as he tours England, Israel, and Poland--we seem not to be getting much movement.
What's that? He did? Fat lotta good his faux pas have done (whatever the plural of faux pas is).
I may lay off for a couple of weeks or more, until things heat up. /RPW
In other words, nothing can be reliable indicators either of what's really on everyone's mind, or at least of what folk will think in a little more than three months.
I'll wait until Gallup releases its most recent polling figures. I'm part of the Gallup polling, but at least for past polls I don't seem to have much influence on the numbers.
Obama's forces need to keep the pressure on Rmoney, and ALSO propose long range ideas: i.e., that with Democratic House/Senate majorities and Democratic President, they can pass before the 2014 interim elections. It seems that neither side has made strong inroads on the independent vote or eroding any of the other side's votes. Unless something startling happens--such as Rmoney really dissing his foreign hosts as he tours England, Israel, and Poland--we seem not to be getting much movement.
What's that? He did? Fat lotta good his faux pas have done (whatever the plural of faux pas is).
I may lay off for a couple of weeks or more, until things heat up. /RPW
Friday, July 27, 2012
# 3 EARLY ELECTORAL PROJECTIONS
EARLY ELECTORAL PROJECTIONS July 27, 2012
HuffPost 7/27/12 view of electoral vote distribution: 290 Obama, 191 Rmoney. I assume the mustard color is used for those states completely up in the air (or leaning Red), and several states' results in November will depend on how successful voter registration drives (read that voter suppression drives) are. As we move closer to the election, I'll post my own projections, but it's still WAY too early, and fortunes can change quickly at this point in the campaign. -- /RPW
HuffPost 7/27/12 view of electoral vote distribution: 290 Obama, 191 Rmoney. I assume the mustard color is used for those states completely up in the air (or leaning Red), and several states' results in November will depend on how successful voter registration drives (read that voter suppression drives) are. As we move closer to the election, I'll post my own projections, but it's still WAY too early, and fortunes can change quickly at this point in the campaign. -- /RPW
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
# 2 GOP VP Possibilities
GOP VP Possibilities
Four years ago, I thought that Tim Pawlenty, then Governor of Minnesota, would have made a perfect candidate to run as VP with John McCain at the top of the ticket. Pawlenty was a "true" conservative, not yet at that time catering to the extreme far right, and could have served to help legitimize McCain's conservative credentials. After only slightly considering Pawlenty and turning down Mitt Romney, McCain chose Sarah Palin. Despite a friend who lives in Anchorage and who had predicted a few years earlier that Palin was an up-and-coming Republican national star, I (and apparently lots of others) never considered her for the 2008 VP slot.
And with good reason, as we have seen. But now Mitt Romney, rejected in 2008 by McCain after showing McCain's staff twenty-three years of his tax returns, faces a similar problem: choosing a VP candidate who can either (a) solidify his conservative credentials with the extremists, or (b) move him a bit more toward the middle without antagonizing the GOP far-right base. I really thought Condi Rice would be the best choice, for several reasons:
(1) she has strong foreign policy experience, even though I don't agree with much of what she did;
(2) she was Secretary of State for dubya, than whom we haven't had a more conservative president since Reagan, and maybe not even then;
(3) she is pretty well respected, in part for NOT giving Angela Merkel a back rub, and in part because she is very intelligent and can be reasoned with;
(4) a VP debate between her and Joe Biden might be disastrous for Biden.
But Rice has apparently closed that door. If her statements that she is NOT interested in running for VP are truthful, then Romney (a friend of mine on fb writes his name as "Rmoney") still has a big problem.
Eric Cantor (Virginia) and Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) have not estabished themselves as either centrist or popular, especially in the sense that they probably won't bring any additional votes to the ticket that Romney doesn't already have. Well, Cantor might help bring Virginia back to the Red column, but Ryan won't do the same for Wisconsin. And Cantor is nasty: once he starts campaigning, he'll repel more voters than he will attract.
Other potential GOP VP candidates follow. Jan Brewer is an idiot, as are Butch Otter (Idaho has four electoral votes and has already voted for Romney, I suspect), Bobby Jindal (certifiable if not as criminal then at least as REALLY politically and economically out of touch), and Scott Walker (Romney was already nine points behind Obama in Wisconsin when the recall of Walker was defeated, so there's apparently no coattail effect there).
There could be others, but frankly I'm back to two names. Tim Pawlenty, a legitimate conservative from what might become a battleground state were he to be on the Romney ticket. I honestly don't think Minnesota will go anywhere but Blue, and I recognize that Pawlenty has one big, major, perhaps-overwhelming, problem: he's a nebbish. I mean, really, folks, this man comes into a room, and everyone thinks two people have left; his speeches have been recorded for use by sleep-deprivation clinics. I'd list a third (the rhetoric of those last comments really needs a third addition to "how nebbishy IS Tim Pawlenty?") but I don't have a third.
There is an alternative, a quiet, rational, honest, good-guy-albeit-very-conservative possibility: former Utah governor and former US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Utah is almost as likely as Idaho to vote Republican, so nothing is to be gained in electoral votes. But Huntsman could solidify the Republican base, and he is certainly more intelligent and a better speaker than Romney. For the country, I would have preferred Huntsman to be the presidential candidate opposing Obama; at least then whichever major party candidate got elected, we'd have a reasonable and intelligent president. For the country, however, Obama is so much better than Romney that Huntsman may realize he has a better chance in 2016, IF he's interested at all in running for either position.
Chew on these thoughts fully before swallowing. And have a wonderful week or so. I'll be back as the spirit moves me. Or as the news does. /RPW
Four years ago, I thought that Tim Pawlenty, then Governor of Minnesota, would have made a perfect candidate to run as VP with John McCain at the top of the ticket. Pawlenty was a "true" conservative, not yet at that time catering to the extreme far right, and could have served to help legitimize McCain's conservative credentials. After only slightly considering Pawlenty and turning down Mitt Romney, McCain chose Sarah Palin. Despite a friend who lives in Anchorage and who had predicted a few years earlier that Palin was an up-and-coming Republican national star, I (and apparently lots of others) never considered her for the 2008 VP slot.
And with good reason, as we have seen. But now Mitt Romney, rejected in 2008 by McCain after showing McCain's staff twenty-three years of his tax returns, faces a similar problem: choosing a VP candidate who can either (a) solidify his conservative credentials with the extremists, or (b) move him a bit more toward the middle without antagonizing the GOP far-right base. I really thought Condi Rice would be the best choice, for several reasons:
(1) she has strong foreign policy experience, even though I don't agree with much of what she did;
(2) she was Secretary of State for dubya, than whom we haven't had a more conservative president since Reagan, and maybe not even then;
(3) she is pretty well respected, in part for NOT giving Angela Merkel a back rub, and in part because she is very intelligent and can be reasoned with;
(4) a VP debate between her and Joe Biden might be disastrous for Biden.
But Rice has apparently closed that door. If her statements that she is NOT interested in running for VP are truthful, then Romney (a friend of mine on fb writes his name as "Rmoney") still has a big problem.
Eric Cantor (Virginia) and Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) have not estabished themselves as either centrist or popular, especially in the sense that they probably won't bring any additional votes to the ticket that Romney doesn't already have. Well, Cantor might help bring Virginia back to the Red column, but Ryan won't do the same for Wisconsin. And Cantor is nasty: once he starts campaigning, he'll repel more voters than he will attract.
Other potential GOP VP candidates follow. Jan Brewer is an idiot, as are Butch Otter (Idaho has four electoral votes and has already voted for Romney, I suspect), Bobby Jindal (certifiable if not as criminal then at least as REALLY politically and economically out of touch), and Scott Walker (Romney was already nine points behind Obama in Wisconsin when the recall of Walker was defeated, so there's apparently no coattail effect there).
There could be others, but frankly I'm back to two names. Tim Pawlenty, a legitimate conservative from what might become a battleground state were he to be on the Romney ticket. I honestly don't think Minnesota will go anywhere but Blue, and I recognize that Pawlenty has one big, major, perhaps-overwhelming, problem: he's a nebbish. I mean, really, folks, this man comes into a room, and everyone thinks two people have left; his speeches have been recorded for use by sleep-deprivation clinics. I'd list a third (the rhetoric of those last comments really needs a third addition to "how nebbishy IS Tim Pawlenty?") but I don't have a third.
There is an alternative, a quiet, rational, honest, good-guy-albeit-very-conservative possibility: former Utah governor and former US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Utah is almost as likely as Idaho to vote Republican, so nothing is to be gained in electoral votes. But Huntsman could solidify the Republican base, and he is certainly more intelligent and a better speaker than Romney. For the country, I would have preferred Huntsman to be the presidential candidate opposing Obama; at least then whichever major party candidate got elected, we'd have a reasonable and intelligent president. For the country, however, Obama is so much better than Romney that Huntsman may realize he has a better chance in 2016, IF he's interested at all in running for either position.
Chew on these thoughts fully before swallowing. And have a wonderful week or so. I'll be back as the spirit moves me. Or as the news does. /RPW
Thursday, July 12, 2012
# 1 Ground Rules
Friday, July 13, 2012: Ground Rules and Terminology
I’m back, different blog name from four years ago, and probably less moderate, but I blame the Republican’t national leaders for moving me away from a steadier and firmer grip on my own reactions. So, if you’re interested in my point of view, and can stomach an occasional rant or two, stick with this blog for awhile. If you are a dyed-in-the-wool Republican (rather than a died-in-the-wool Republican’t), you may wish to start your own blog to counter my arguments and musings. While replies will be possible, and certainly welcomed, I don’t want to make this a he-said-she-said blog. Use your own blog if you wish to discourse upon your own views. Short comments, fine. As a thank-you in advance for your courtesy, I promise to attempt not to allow this blog to become merely an exercise in polemics.
“Obamacare” is a term I’m using in a different sense from the way the Republican’ts have used it. I’m using it positively, both because I support it as a grand beginning of universal health care in this country, and because I believe that, as people become more aware of the ACCURATE descriptions of its provisions (rather than the false descriptions weighing down Republican’t opposition), Obamacare will indeed gain positive connotations for Americans.
I will continue to post periodically, probably more often early and late in the campaign, and stretching out blog posts in the middle. Those of you who followed my blog four years ago [triton's Presidential Election Projections] will remember that, as the election gets closer, I will post my own electoral vote projections. I underestimated Obama’s victory margin in 2008, not figuring that Florida, Indiana, and one or two other states would go Blue.
So let me lay it on the line right now. Barring some major event (a negative “October Surprise”), I believe Obama will be re-elected by a large margin, not the statistically too-close-to-call margin now being bandied about by early pollsters. It may even be a larger margin than in 2008; it depends on how many Republican’t state houses are able to push through legislation that disenfranchises mainly Blue voters.
Y’all be well now, y'hear. /RPW
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)