says EPIC-MRA, who found Obama's 48-42 lead last month has shrunk to 49-46 in the latest Likely Voter survey taken just before RNC kickoff.

In it, Michigan independents split 51-38 for Romney, women split only 51-44 for Obama, men are a knifes' edge 48/47 for Romney.

Current RCP average in the state? Obama +1.2, closer than all but Florida, Iowa, and Virginia. If you add those states to Romney's no-tossup total, you get exactly 270 with Michigan. Without Ohio.

All before the speeches, and all before Romney's Death Star V2.0 unleashes tomorrow.

Go Big.

Posted by: CAC at 03:00 PM | Comments (14)
Post contains 104 words, total size 1 kb.

You don't know who he is, do you?

Well you can be excused for not knowing who he is -- after all, you spend all your time watching movies and tv shows and reading entertainment-industry trade papers, so how could you know who he is?*

He was the guy who "starred" in American Pie until people saw the film and decided Seann William Scott ("Stiffler") was actually the star, despite only being in the movie for 20 minutes.

He's now apparently doing voice-over work for cartoons -- the new Ninja Turtles on Nickelodeon. So, really lighting it up, career-wise. And also: Maybe your kids don't need to watch Ninja Turtles, eh?

Just degrading nastiness for the sake of it.

* Joke swiped from Chloris Leachman from one of the Comedy Central Roasts.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (270)
Post contains 148 words, total size 1 kb.

Revolutionary War third-person shooter/tomahawker.

It's like The Patriot with ninja shit.

Via steve_in_hb.

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Comments (62)
Post contains 47 words, total size 1 kb.

Ah yes. My secret unexpressed caveat about my optimism: It was a powerful, devastating, electrifying speech.

But it only has an effect if lots and lots of people saw it.

It turns out that not a lot of people saw it.

The speech was better than Palin's -- and Palin's, of course, was electrifying -- but only somewhat more than half her audience saw it.

I had expected a big Palin-sized bounce -- remember, McCain-Palin surged ahead of Obama on the strength of their convention, and her speech, in particular -- but now I don't see that happening.

The other problem, besides a tremendous speech just not reaching enough people, is that if there aren't many witnesses, the media can lie and claim whatever they like happened.

Which is what they're doing.

So, we're going to have to fight this election after all.

Bounce: Via @conartcritic, no cite, but I trust him:

Reuters 44 Romney 42 Obama. Pre convention tracker Obama was +4. 6 pt shift

Cite: This is an online tracking poll of LVs. Not a non-scientific online poll like the media does to suck traffic-hits, but usually people view this sort of polling skeptically. Not sure why.

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (447)
Post contains 251 words, total size 2 kb.

44-42 Now, Registered Voters.
The bounce has begun.

Posted by: CAC at 12:55 PM | Comments (37)
Post contains 18 words, total size 1 kb.

Dick Morris said something last night I agreed with: The Obama campaign has made an issue of Bain. Romney cannot ignore that issue; silence is usually treated as concession of fault. He has to provide an answer, Morris said.

Makes sense.

Romney probably will talk about Bain in his speech, but he's also got nine videos promoting his career at Bain. I hope he takes Dick Morris' advice and runs them on TV.

Many of these ads are too long for TV (some are almost two minutes long). The one below is 1:00, which means it could run on TV.

Web-only doesn't mean anything. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (122)
Post contains 120 words, total size 1 kb.

I was just trying to get Chris Matthews to say something stupid -- it's been hours -- offering him up Ryan's mention that this was not a "dark hour" in America, but the "dawn before we remembered who we were."

Dark hour? Come on. That's easy.

But so far he's not jumping on my bandwagon.

So, I'll have to go back to last night's stupidities.

This is rich:

But I go back to living in DC all these years. I've lived there 40 years, a black-majority city, and anybody who wants to get up early in Washington and drive down North Capitol (Street) and drive past Florida Avenue, sees nothing but youn-, but black people up at 6:30 in the morning going to work. That's where they're going, to work, and not at big-wage jobs and not to get a welfare check, they're out working hard all day and not coming home with a fantastic paycheck. So this notion of blacks live on welfare and whites live on work is a brilliant political ploy but it's not true, Rachel (Maddow). And you know it, I know it.

Newsbusters fact-checks his claim. He doesn't live in DC; he lives in the tony white rich Maryland suburb of Chevy Chase. And:

According to census data at Maryland-Demographics.com, 1,953 people lived in Chevy Chase Village as of 2010. Of those nearly 2,000 residents, 10 were black. That's right -- ten. As in, one-half of one percent. Ninety-three percent of its residents were white, the remaining percentage other minorities.

Now if Chris Matthews intended to claim he was a good, racially tolerant guy for living in a majority-minority city, what does it say about him -- per his own syllogism -- that he actually lives in a town with only ten (ten!!!) black folks in it?

This one's for Jane D'oh. It's old by now, but worth mentioning again: Chris Matthews asked Condi Rice if her speech was a "rejoinder to all the birtherism."

It's now quite clear why Chris Matthews likes noted Conspiracy Theorist and Interuterine Detective Agency owner Andrew Sullivan so much.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (302)
Post contains 354 words, total size 2 kb.

Pretty good.

Apparently Crossroads now has a sub-brand, "Crossroads Generation," faux-hippishly abbreviated "XG."

So we'll be making a play for these, what do you call them, fools.

Update: Good photoshop. Not a funny one, a serious one. Via @melissatweets. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:03 AM | Comments (183)
Post contains 67 words, total size 1 kb.

I think the election is over. I think it is so over we need a new Latin tense to describe how over it is, the Past Pluperfect Noncontinuing Historical Past Tense.

So, what the hell are we going to do for two months?

That's where Romney and Ryan are going to have to step the hell up. To make this entertaining, and not just a snoozer of a blowout, they're going to have to deliberately make some bad choices. They're going to have to fight to keep this close, to keep it interesting.

They're going to have to schedule some gaffes.

I was spitballing last night about some of the things they could do for us. You might have your own ideas.

* Mitt Romney should start wearing a top hat, spats, and a monocle.

* Paul Ryan should announce his marital status is now "Swingle."

* Mitt Romney can reveal he subscribes to Poop Magazine. And in fact doesn't just subscribe, but invested Bain Capital funds in it. Bain Capital funds that otherwise would have gone towards Not Murdering People With Cancer.

* When citizens present their babies for Paul Ryan to kiss, he should say, "Sorry, lady, but I don't kiss garbage."

* Both candidates should pick a swing state we absolutely need and then begin insulting residents of that state for no good reason. Mitt Romney can start things off by referring to residents of Florida as "Floritards." Paul Ryan can walk into Ohio rallies and say, "What the crap smells so bad? Oh, right: dirty filthy Ohio shit-mongrels."

* Mitt Romney should start using the word "choad" casually, in tv interviews. He should also say "sext" whenever he means "email," "text," "call," or "tell." As in: "I'll be sexting the public my plan for tax reform later."

* Mitt Romney should begin referring to Ann Romney as "My publicly-acknowledged sister-wife."

* Paul Ryan should arrange for himself to be photographed leaving an American Legion bathroom, with the American flag stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

* Whenever Ann and Mitt Romney appear in joint interviews, Ann should flinch at Mitt's slightest movement, and then whisper frantically to the interviewer: "Sometimes he gets so very angry with me."

* Paul Ryan should make frequent, cryptic references to "my side-piece in Madison."

* Mitt Romney should start saying things like "Joe Biden makes me so angry I want to punch him right in the wife."

* Whenever Paul Ryan doesn't like the premise of a reporter's question, he should sharply say "Zionist lies!!!," with sibilants a-crackin'.

* If asked about his Mormonism, and tensions with the evangelical community, Mitt Romney should get a cigar and start doing the Edward G. Robinson voice: "So where's your Messiah now, ay? See? Yeah. See? Yeaaahh."

* Mitt Romney should come out to the stage at the Convention riding Rafalca. On the stage will be a makeshift, poorly-ventilated smithy where poor children are forced to make golden horseshoes for Rafalca. When the children, singed and sooty, are finished with their difficult, dangerous task, Mitt Romney should pay them in chicken bones and old, misprinted issues of Poop Magazine.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (555)
Post contains 547 words, total size 4 kb.

In final sum, when public opinion shifts on the Main Question its opinion on subsidiary questions will shift to match that opinion.

I didn't want to link the HuffPo but this guy adds something:

Today's Gallup Poll, "GOP Favorability Matches 2008 Pre-Convention Level," shows the pre-convention favorability ratings of the two Parties going back as far as 1992. For the very first time, the favorable/unfavorable ratios are now higher for the Republican Party than for the Democratic Party. For the first time ever, the Democratic favorability ratio, which has always been within the range of 1.20 to 1.56, is now below 1. It is a stunningly low .83, which is 31% lower than the prior Democratic Party low of 1.20, which was reached in 2004.

By contrast, the Republican ratio is now .88, which compares with the 2008 ratio of .80, which was that Party's lowest-ever ratio, reached at the end of the Bush Presidency.

I think we might look back at this year as the Last Days of Democratic Fantasy. By which I mean this: They simply have refused to acknowledge, publicly but also I believe to themselves, that Obama's economic record, whether it's fault or not, is horrible and something that would lead to an electoral defeat in 8 or 9 runs out of 10.

They're not, I think, merely attempting to divert the public's attention from this fact; they're also heroically striving to con themselves. They're only looking at the possible pathways in which Obama can win, which causes them to posit things like "all Obama needs to do is get the unemployment rate under 8%." They trotted that out last year, based on nothing, except their realization that that was the best he could hope for.

Now that it appears that that won't be happening, they have abandoned this rule-of-thumb. You don't hear them saying this anymore.

And 8% was never the historic line of demarcation between reelection and ejection. Reagan's 7.2% was the highest unemployment rate for any president who went on to win renomination, and that 7.2% is deceptive, because at the time of the election the economy was growing strongly (9% in one quarter) and the unemployment rate was plummeting.

Obama's is ticking up.

The point is, being partisans, and being emotionally invested in Obama, they wish to see Obama win. And that causes them to optimistically consider only the scenarios in which, somehow, an 8.3% unemployment rate doesn't matter.

But there's no reason to think such a thing except the emotional partisan rooting interest of wishing to believe such a thing. There's no evidence for any of this thinking. It's not thinking. It's wishcasting.

The Days of Democratic Fantasy are soon to end. It will soon become apparent that yes, 40+ months of an 8+% unemployment rate is, in fact, a very high hurdle for an incumbent to clear, and it was only deranged optimism that kept the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) from seizing on this simple truth.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (329)
Post contains 530 words, total size 4 kb.