Playing a game of "What's the stupdest thing you've ever done?," a man answers "Shot a guy in the head."

Now, Rose is charged with open murder and armed robbery in the March 22 slaying of 60-year-old Edgar Hawkes.

John Kerry immediately praised him for his service in the miltitary. Told the man wasn't in the military, Kerry shook his head and said, "It's due to Bush's illegal war in Iraq that otherwise exceptional candidates for military service choose instead a career of eating dirt and growing alfalfa in their belly buttons."

Posted by: Ace at 08:13 AM | Comments (14)
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Just....stunning.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said she fears judges are under growing political attack nationwide.

"I'm increasingly concerned about the current climate of challenge to judicial independence," O'Connor told a gathering of state judges from around the country Friday.

Like they say, if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

To recap, because I can't even believe this shit:
There's a nationwide backlash against judicial activism, and Sandra Day O'Connor thinks the cure to this backlash is more judicial activism.
Unreal.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:46 AM | Comments (62)
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The Washington Post's Pollster.com blog says the Democrats peaked 10 days ago.

PoliPundit says a 6% Democatic generic ballot lead actually translates to a 10+ Republican majority of seats in the House.

Someone was asking what channel the electons should be watched on.

Well, we should know pretty early. One of the states with earlier poll closings -- Georgia, Ohio -- should start to tell us if the Dems are actually winning, and if so, whether big or not really very much at all.

If they're not winning by enough to take the House, dang, I'm going to be watching MSNBC, to watch Chris Matthews piss tears all over himself.

Posted by: Ace at 08:33 PM | Comments (65)
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Gallup says that's "still strong," which it it is, I guess, but just on the edge of strong.

Call it moderately strong. Or maybe strongish.

So we have three recent polls confirming that the national generic ballot has shrunk from the mid-teens to either 4, or 6, or 7. From a commanding lead -- a daunting lead, a dire lead -- to a mere edge.

"Based on history, a 7-point lead among likely voters still suggest Democrats will take enough votes to win a majority of seats in the House," says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. What gives some analysts pause, however, is the sophisticated redistricting over the past decade that has made most congressional districts less competitive.

What's more, President Bush's last-ditch push for votes and Sen. John Kerry's comments that seemed to denigrate the education level of U.S. forces in Iraq have helped energize GOP voters. A Democratic advantage of 23 percentage points a month ago and 13 points two weeks ago is now down to 7.

A Pew Research Center survey released Sunday also showed that an 11-point edge for Democrats on the congressional ballot two weeks ago had narrowed to 4 points among likely voters. "It's gone from a slam-dunk for Democrats to take the House to a pretty good chance," says Andy Kohut, director of the center.

Gallup says that its own poll in 1994 showed the same reading -- 51-44, but the other way around (in favor of Republicans).

But then, poll results consistently underpredict Republican turnout.

A.J. Strata notes that Gallup also had the Dems up in this poll in 2002 and 2004, and we all know how that turned out.

Add 3-4 points to the Republicans' poll numbers in a midterm to guestimate actual votes.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Trend Or Just Plain Ol' Cherry Pickin': I'll say trend. Geraghty notes there's a lot of good news for a lot of formerly shaky Republcians lately.

In the "but that's what you'd expect them to say" category, Jim Talent's people say their internal polls look "fantastic." Still, down only 1 point to McCaskill.

It will depend, as someone said, on how animated the dead are to vote. Necro-Americans go overwhelmingly for the Democrats.

Because, you know, when you're dead, you just don't give a shit about taxes.

Posted by: Ace at 06:40 PM | Comments (60)
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On one hand, it's another unexpected possible Republican retention.

On the other hand, it's Lincoln Friggin' Chafee.

On the Zaphod Beeblebrox third hand, if ultra-Democratic Rhode Island is willing to keep a Republican incumbent, maybe purple Pennsylvania might wind up supporting Rick Santorum.

On the fourth hand, look, this was counted as a gimme Democratic pick-up.

The races in which the polling is most accurate -- Senate races -- keep showing formerly left-for-dead candidates (Burns, Steele, Chafee) now coming back to tie or slightly edge their Democratic opponents. In the past weeks, the Senate race has gone from assuming Montana and Rhode Island and Maryland would fall to the Democrats, and wondering if the Republicans could hold MO, TN, and VA, to being fairly confident the Republicans would hold TN, and now wondering if the Democrats can actually manage to take MT and RI.

Their gimme pick-ups have become toss-ups, and their sure thing in Maryland has become a toss-up/lean R net pick-up.

This will make Chuckie Schumer cry.

That alone is reason to be grateful for a Chafee victory.

But if Senate races are firming in favor of Republicans, is it really terribly likely House races are going the opposite direction?

Trend Watch: Latest poll shows Kean only trailing by three. Again, striking distance.

These could be outliers, of course. They disagree with previous polls.

But the new Kean and Chafee poll seem to agree with each other, as well as with the fresh WaPo & Pew generics.

Not So Much Of A Trend... Checking the other contested Senate races, there doesn't seem to be a late firming of support for Republican candidates. In some cases, sure. In other cases, not so much.

Santorum just had one of his worst polls ever, for example, down 13 to Empty Suit.

Posted by: Ace at 05:36 PM | Comments (41)
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Blue Crab Boulevard links an AP article that mentions, quite begrudgingly, and near the end of the piece, the Pew Poll showing the net seven point gain for the GOP on the generic ballot question (from Dems +11 to Dems +4 -- which, based on past experience, is within striking distance of an actual outright Republican win).

The actual press release from Pew is here, which has the contest as 40-48 among registered voters.

So, 10-12% of the electorate is still undecided. Presumably most of these people won't vote. And to the extent they do -- if late deciders are breaking for Republicans, perhaps even later deciders will break the GOP's way as well.

Now here's something interesting. Fred Barnes is fond at pointing out that in 2006, 60%+ of polled adults say they approve of their own representative. He compares this with the 1994 elections in which less than 50% of the public expressed approval for their own represenative.

A 1994-style Democratic sweep, it seems, would be heralded by both a big edge in the generic ballot and majority disapproval of one's own representative. The Dems have never had the latter, and now, with two big polls just before the election, they seem not to have the former either.

Sure, the last two polls put them at either +4 or +6. But Republicans tend to overperform polls. They're likelier voters than likely voter models tend to show.

And, again, the 1994 Republican sweep had at least one poll -- the Washington Post's -- with Democrats at plus five on the generic ballot question.

And we all know how that turned out for them.

The narrowing of the Democratic lead raises questions about whether the party will win a large enough share of the popular vote to recapture control of the House of Representatives. The relationship between a party's share of the popular vote and the number of seats it wins is less certain than it once was, in large part because of the increasing prevalence of safe seat redistricting. As a result, forecasting seat gains from national surveys has become more difficult.

True enough, but it's still hard to rack up big gains in the House without a racking up a sizable advantage in total votes.

The survey suggests that the judgment of undecided voters will be crucial to the outcome of many congressional races this year. As many as 19% of voters now only lean to a candidate or are flatly undecided. The Democrats hold a 44% to 35% lead among committed voters. But the race is more even among voters who are less strongly committed to a candidate; those who only lean to a candidate divide almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats (5% lean Republican/4% lean Democrat).

Well, as Hillary Clinton said, "You don't have to fall in love, you just have to fall in line."

All right, I'm sorry I said that. Not exactly the sort of sentiment likely to get a reluctant Republican voter to pull the lever for the GOP. I just mean that ultimately, she's right -- given a choice between two options, you don't have to be wildly enthusiastic about your ultimate choice; you just have to feel that choice is better than the other one.

It's not exactly a rallying cry to say "Vote Republican -- we piss you off marginally less than the Democrats," but, alas, that's the case in most elections.

I think Republicans were a little spoiled from 2000 to 2004. Bush and the Republicans made big advances in the policies we preferred, and kept (or strongly tried to keep) most of the promises they made. In my memory, that's pretty much an aberration -- it's rare that most of a party's voters actually strongly approve of its leaders' performances.

The current situation seems, to me at least, to be the far more common one -- bitching and complaining about incompetence, cowardice, corruption, etc., while utlimately, reluctantly, giving them your support.

Republican gains in the new poll reflect a number of late-breaking trends. First, Republicans have become more engaged and enthused in the election than they had been in September and October. ....Republicans now register a greater likelihood of voting than do Democrats, as is typical in mid-term elections.

The Republicans also have made major gains, in a relatively short time period, among independent voters. Since early this year, the Democratic advantage in the generic House ballot has been built largely on a solid lead among independents. As recently as mid-October, 47% of independent voters said they were voting for the Democratic candidate in their district, compared with 29% who favored the Republican. Currently, Democrats lead by 44%-33% among independent voters.

Still a big lead, but they're breaking our way so far, there's no obvious reason to suppose they won't continue to do so as the election approaches. Losing independents fairly narrowly -- by eight or so -- probably means a Republican win, or tie (which is just as good as win at this point).

If I had to bet, I'd say we still lose the House, though more narrowly than we'd previously feared. But the possibility of continued GOP control is no longer merely theoretical, and not even a longshot. It's less likely than a Democratic win, but it's a 60/40 propositon at this point.

It really depends, as Jack Straw sagely observed, on the actual voting, and then, of course, Diebold throwing out the real votes and giving Republicans a 70-30 victory.

Posted by: Ace at 05:03 PM | Comments (19)
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They've got their game faces on, too.

The Washington Post pretty much ignores the implications of its own poll -- showing a dramatic tightening of the race -- and still bases its "analysis" on previous polls now possibly a bit suspect. In other words, they don't care what their latest, most predictive poll says, they've got their story (from past polls) and they're sticking to it.

Reminds me, of course, of the all-time classic of liberal cocooning-- Mickey Kaus' favorite tale, the story of the final 2002 poll showing a huge swing in favor of Republicans, which the NYT's go-to cocooning artist decided to bury as far as news and highlight minor findings like "Most Americans concerned with financial scandals."

As a result -- deliberately ignoring their own poll results because they so desired the Democratic win they were anticipating -- they blew their own huge scoop. The NYT's poll had accurately predicted the 2002 gains by the GOP, but the NYT suppressed this because they just didn't want it to be true.

And now? Well, as Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes have been saying for months, the generic ballot question is not very predictive... until the last week of polling. It is now the last week of polling, and therefore its predictiveness is at its height.

And yet the WaPo blithely ignores this and spins the news as postive for the Democrats:

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows some narrowing in the Democratic advantage in House races. The survey gives the Democrats a six-percentage-point lead nationally among likely voters asked which party they prefer for Congress. It was 14 points two weeks ago, but this remains a larger advantage than they have had in recent midterm elections.

Eh, what's a huge eight-point shift in the closing days of the elections matter anyhow? (PS, I'm stealing this quote and this sentiment from someone else, but I forget who. My apologies.)

It should also be noted that this line -- "this [lead] remains a larger advantage than they have had in recent midterm elections" -- is particularly sad and pathetic.

Why sad and pathetic?

Because their previous leads on this question have resulted in actual electoral defeats.

So-- they lead on a polling question in which they've led before and still lost in actual voting.

But the good news is -- the lead this time is slightly bigger that the leads they've had before (and yet lost elections with).

Shhh-- listen close. You can practically hear the Big Blue Tidal Wave swelling.

But you ahve to listen really close.

Note: See the correction to my Gallup poll story below.

Or don't. I'll correct here.

I misread Kaus' piece as saying Gallup would show a similar shift. He didn't say that; he was quoting Real Clear Politics discussing the possibility Gallup might show a similar shift.

I just missed that "if" completely.

However, while I blew that, Pew, apparently, also shows a similar shift.

Still waiting on the third confirmation, though.

I apologize for my sloppiness.

Posted by: Ace at 03:49 PM | Comments (25)
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Stop the ACLU was up to 4 AM waiting for the verdict, so he deserves some traffic for his efforts. Plus he's put together a blog reaction round-up.

It's Official! By judicial degree, anti-American traitor Ramsey Clarke is a "mockery."

He will now have to sign up with the National Mockery Registry, so that police and neighbors can know they have a Convicted Mockery living among them.

It's Official: The UN Coddles Tyrants: They criticize Hussein's death sentence.

They had little to say about the death sentences he imposed on hundreds of thousands, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 02:57 PM | Comments (25)
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Oh, dear.

Corrected: No one has any tip as to Gallup's results, coming later tonight, as I mistakenly wrote. I misread Kaus' column.

...

I have to admit, when I linked and hyped that ABC/WaPo poll -- which showed a dramatic tightening on the Generic Ballot question, from Dems +14 to Dems merely +6 -- I pretty much figured it would turn out to be a fluke, or to have greatly overstated the shift towards the GOP.

Yeah, I didn't outright say so. Game faces, man. Perfect candor is nice and all, but when you're behind by six points with forty seconds to go and the ball on your twenty yard line, maybe that's not the time for the perfectly candid assessment, "You know, in all likelihood, we're going to lose this thing."

Anyone who says that deserves a kick in the nards.

Pew poll also shows a dramatic tightening-- from an 11 point Dem advantage a couple of weeks ago to a 4 point Dem advantage this weekend. One more example and it will be a Trend.

But as Goldfinger said: "Once is happenstance. Twice is conicdence. Third time it's enemy action."

Alas, we don't have that all-important third time.

But we may tonight, if Gallup confirms this trend. They're releasing a poll later.

Words of Wisdom: from JackStraw:

I believe I said, like 3 months ago now, it will all come down to get out the vote.

Question: How the hell did Diebold get the contract to tabulate telephone-poll results?

Big Correction/Boy Is My Face Red: I completely misread that Kaus bit -- saying "Keep your eye on Gallup" -- as actually saying that Gallup should be showing a similar shift.

Kaus didn't say that, and neither did Real Clearl Politics. I missed the key word "if."

Thanks to Allah for correcting me.

Posted by: Ace at 02:45 PM | Comments (30)
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How... utterly expected. They simply will not drop their claim that the only jobs being created are "burger-flippin'" jobs at Mickey D's.

Is it really possible that McDonald's corporation has added almost seven million new burger-flippers over the past four years?

According to ABCNews: Yes, that's pretty much the size of it.

They also wait until the 25th paragraph to note that October's not-quite-stellar jobs additions wer offset by large upward revisions in the August and September figures.

Plus, BizzyBlog honors me by spreading one meme of mine beyond this site. The one that points out that every positive economic report during the Clinton Administration was accompanied by a dramatic montage of cash registers busily opening and closing, the end of the day bell ringing at the NYSE with traders shouting with joy, and the Treasury's printing presses whirring to create new currency. (That last one may not really make any sort of sense, but it does convey visually, potently that "We all gots more money! Whoo-hoo! Why, the Treasury can hardly keep up with all the new money we're making!!!")

And to illustrate the great economic news during the Bush regime?

Ronald McDonald and his french-fry grease vats.

Posted by: Ace at 02:14 PM | Comments (35)
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