In the Last Nerve Department, PBS had Sullivan on to make, and I shit you not, the "conservative case for voting Democratic." (Safe to click; it's Newsbusters.)

Today on Sullivan: "A vote for Republicans is a vote for torture." Actually, that's not a half-bad campaign slogan; but not in the way he means it.

And of course Sulllivan continues his attack on NRO as a bunch of hateful homophobes in a post called "Conservative Degeneracy Watch." And more attacks today.

Degeneracy. Well, by all means, let's keep this civil and thoughtful, like his important new book, Anyone Who Doesn't Celebrate Me In All My Messianic Fabulousness Is A Vicious Gay-Hater.

I think my jaw just about dropped the other day when I read him claiming the main problem with "Christianism" is the fact the seek political influence. In other words, the Church of St. Andrew now makes it a requirement of "true Christianity" that if you love Jesus, you either will not vote at all (political power corrupts the spirit!) or will vote against your political preferences (in order to insulate yourself from the corrupting temptations of political power).

Meanwhile, he claims to be both a "true conservative" and a "true Christian," and he doesn't seem to be withdrawing from the arena of political struggle himself. No, he wants only those Christians who disagree with him to be Good Christians by becoming non-voters.

If he could just subtract you all from the polls in one swoop, he'd finally be able to get a federally-issued Certificate of Going Steady for himself and his boyfriend.

That is arrogance beyond belief. To so nakedly and transparently suggest that Jesus cries when you vote in order to convince some (very dumb) Christians to give up their God-given right to have a say in their own government.

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Posted by: Ace at 03:14 PM | Comments (29)
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Okay, it's not really in the bag. Not even close. What we're facing here, folks, even given the fact that the polls skew in favor of Democrats, is as dauting as an 8-8 team needing help from three different teams in order to back-door its way into the playoffs.

We are not mathematically out of it-- but a hell of a lot of things need to break our way to win this.

Still, I take some solace in Mary Katherine Ham's catch:

Last night on Fox, I heard a Democratic strategist on Fox touting the "energized youth vote" as the key to victory, and claiming those cell-phone-only kids weren't being accurately polled, which had a panicky feel to it. I was encouraged. You know why? What does that sound like? Oh, that's right--2004, and 2002, and 2000. Listen, if you rely on college kids to put you over the edge, you're going down.

She's right. I keep hearing today the same crap I heard about in 2004 -- like the fact that so many "young people" now rely on cell-phones, and we can't poll them. And presumably they're 90% Democrats, because hey, anyone who's tech-edge must be politically enlightened, right?

Do geeks skew Democrat? I don't think so. I think geeks skew extreme, either extremely liberal, extremely libertarian, extremely conservative, or extremely apolitical (i.e., extremely into World of Warcraft). A lot of people are giving up on landlines lately, and it's not merely these cutting-edge college-age hipsters and their newfangled talkie whatsits.

The idea that it's just liberals giving up on landline phones would come as a surprise to many frequent internet users, who are giving up on landlines in a big way, and who, of couse, skew Republican.

This isn't a proof they're seriously worried, but it does suggest their confidence is shaken. Because you don't start talking about the "energized youth vote" and "hipster liberals too cool for landline phones" unless you're looking for additional, almost certainly phantasmal support you're starting to worry you just might need.

And, of course, will not get.

Via ALF, with a big blogopshere election-prediction round-up. Including Peter Beinert of TNR also crying raaaaaacism.

And not, of course, because whitebread Maryland liberals won't give a hard-workin' brotha a chance.

He also tells me St. Andrew Of The Sacred Heart-Ache, dedicated opponent of bigotry (except against Jews, who, quite frankly, kind of have been asking for it lately), is crying raaaaacism too.

No link for Shrill Shill. I'll just post what he posted, like he does with the rest of the blogosphere. I think I'll even just swipe his bandwidth.

Raaaaaacist!

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (45)
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Hmmm, good point Chris.

I wonder if there are any other reasons that Tennessee might vote against Harold Ford.

Like, I don't know, it's a Republican state, and he's a Democrat. Like, again, it's a state that favors constitutionalist judges, and he would vote with a Democratic majority in college to block such judges in favor of liberal activists.

Apparently it's the duty of white people everywhere to vote for black Democrats, even if such Democrats would work to thwart their political preferences.

Except, of course, in Maryland. In Maryland, not only are whites required to vote against the black candidate, but so are black voters.

(Because, presumably, he's not really black.)

PS: If "macaca" is such a horrendous racial slur, a kissing cousin of "nigger," how come the very, very racially-sensitive Chris Matthews says it every three minutes?

Including, for example, to say that George Allen is a "very affable fellow, unless, of course (smiling like kid in the cookie jar) you happen to be a macaca."

Posted by: Ace at 02:12 PM | Comments (29)
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Charlie Cook and Stu Rotherberg are considered good analysts of elections. Partisan, yes. But still good, and their opinions are worth considering.

Jay Cost notices something strange about their predictions, though. Even accepting their own premises as correct -- that is, even dividing the races as they do into "safe," "toss-up/but lean towards one party" and pure toss-ups, he still can't find the evidence of a "tidal wave" of 30-40 (or more) Democrats pick-ups.

Their own numbers belie this prediction.

Cost finds you can get to their estimates, but only by shifting most of the races as far as category in favor of the Democrats. Like, all "safe Republican" seats should be considered "toss-up/Lean Republican," all "toss-up/Lean Republican" should be considered "pure toss ups," all "Toss-ups/Lean Democrat" seats should be considered "Safe Democrat."

Shifting all races one full step towards Democrats' advantage gets you in the ballpark of their estimates.

There's not necessarily anything wrong with this -- they're "analysts," not pollsters, and thus can inject their own gut and guesswork into their predictions in a way that, for example, John Zogby would never, ever do -- but it is interesting to see that these vaunted analysts are not basing their predictions on the numbers, but upon their assumption that that the numbers significantly understate support for Democrats and must be adjusted accordingly.

Because, going by just the numbers, it looks like a far more moderate victory for the Democrats (25-26 seats or so).

And even that, of course, presumes that the numbers are actually accurate, and do not understate Republican support -- which of course almost every poll in the history of the universe has.

Posted by: Ace at 01:18 PM | Comments (36)
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Underscoring this, now that I think about it. (See question 35, near the very end of the poll.)

If 60% of the country really does support either gay marriage (FoxNews says 30%) or a legal arrangement with all the benefits of gay marriage, but not called gay marriage (another 30%), why aren't almost all Democrats actively running on this popular issue?

A 60/40 issue is a winning won -- and a strongly winning one. That's not just edging your opponents; that's beating them handily. That's better than the level of support tax cuts usually have, and they're fairly popular.

So if FoxNews is right -- America is queer for gay marriage -- why don't politicians capitalize on this?

Why do they obfuscate their views, and leave it up to the politically-insulated courts to impose gay marriage and/or gay marriage in all but name on states?

Why do amendments forbidding gay marriage consistently win?

In only one state -- New Jersey -- have the voters actually endorsed civiil unions (short of marriage). Even in New Jersey, the split is about 50/50 on the courts' fresh demand for either gay marriage or gay marriage by a different name than "marriage."

So, even if this FoxNews poll polled liberal-on-gay-marriage New Jersey about this issue, it would still have oversampled liberals on this issue by around ten raw percentage points.

How did this happen, exactly?

Either there's suddenly a surge in the popularity of gay marriage, to the extent it's now a winning issue to actively campaign on, or FoxNews ran into the usual problem of simply being able to reach far more liberal Democrats than Republican.

Doesn't this mean the poll overstates liberals' numbers by somewhere around ten full points, perhaps a point or two more or less?

I wonder what looking at this question, or similar questions (for which we think we know, ballpark, about the true public split on the issue), would show a similar skew towards liberals on other polls. All the polls, in fact.

"Queer for:" This is a favorite throwback expression of mine. I don't think that when it was popular it had any connotation with homosexuality. I think it's a twenties-ism, and just means "goofy for, crazy for."

So I use it in that sense frequently. Here, of course, I'm also using it as a pun, as I'm talking about gay marriage.

Another "queer" expression I like is "queered," as in "screwed up, made chaotic." And "Queer Street," which is where you are after you've been socked in the jaw.

As in "If I find out you queered things between me and my girlfriend you're goinna be looking for your teeth three blocks north of Queer Street."

Anyway, I actually do like these non-queer uses of queer. It's actually a kind of cool word.

Just sayin'.

Posted by: Ace at 12:38 PM | Comments (43)
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Allen is, alas, on my list of predicted Republican defeats. I just have that feeling.

A new poll now has Webb up by eight. The catch, as usual, is that this poll sampled fewer Republicans (a net ten point raw percentage point loss, as compared to Democrats) from the same company's last poll -- taken ten days ago.

The Democrats gained ten points in party affiliation in as many days?

In Virginia, apparently, the Kerry slur against the troops was enthusiastically received. Webb ought to bring Kerry down there to call the troops baby-killers. They seem to be eating it up!

And of course as usual Republicans are less represented in the poll than they were in more-reliable (but not quite reliable) exit polls in 2004.

Meanwhile... EeyorePundit -- oh, wait, AllahPundit, I meant -- notes that a FoxNews poll shows the Dems up by 13 in the generic ballot.

The polls shows a 39-35 split, in favor of Democrats (of course) in party identification.

60% of respondants say that gay marriage should either be permitted as marriage itself or else some legal relationship just like marriage (but not called marriage) should be created. Splitting on that one 30/30.

I don't know. Seems to me that figure is a little high, no? By around five or even ten points. Sort of about the size of liberal oversampling we expect.

And of course he's got a lot of other stuff.

Like Dick Morris predicting a "Bloody Tuesday" rout for Republicans, which several readers noted made them feel a little better about their chances.

And of course this, Hezbollah's last appeal for a Democratic victory.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (25)
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A polling company says Santorum is now 4 points behind Casey-- not much at all.

Here's the thing. I hate to say something I can't prove, but I suspect this is actually an internal Santorum poll. The company's press release says it's an "independent" polling firm, but that seems to allow wiggle room -- a company can be "independent" and yet be hired as an independent contractor for a particular campaign.

Still, one poll says he can win.

Pennsylvanians-- vote. Santorum seems to be one of the Republcian Senators who legitimately deserves a vote. Not that best-of-a-bad lot thing. He's been a rock for conservatism and losing him to the Empty Suit, who's committed to almost nothing at all and is therefore even more free than most politicians to vote very liberal, would be a big and bad thing.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (24)
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He's dead-set against bigotry, of course, but he's willing to tolerate a little anti-semitism if it helps him stamp out important bigotry, such as bigotry against gay marriage or bigotry against the idea that Andrew Sullivan actually has something important to say.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (16)
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Pardon this long post. I've been meaning to write this for a while, and would up, as I usually do, stating the obvious with an excess of words.

But it's one day from the election, so if I don't put this up now, I have to wait another two years.

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Do the polls really mean very much?

Consider that the response rate for telephone polls is about 20%. Twenty. Percent. I knew it was low, but I didn't know it was that low. (And even that's just 20% of the people who have published phone numbers, which is itself a declining proportion of adults.)

We therefore have a huge problem with polling. We're not polling Americans, per se. We're polling a minority of Americans willing to actually sit through a twenty minute to half hour conversation with a complete stranger (or, in some cases, with a precorded human voice).

All polls assume this minority is actually reflective of the actual majority of Americans who will not spend such a large amount of wasted time on the phone. Is that assumption correct? And if it's not, can we determine if this minority is more likely to be a Democrat than a Republican? more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (66)
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Bush approval near all-time low!

Details of poll, such as partisan breakdown of respondants, completely unavailable!

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (42)
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