A bitter old lefty, who for years headed a major network news organization. And was insisted to be "straight down the middle."

“Keep in mind: The whole upper tier of Ohio state government is in the hands of the GOP now,” Rather explained in a Facebook post this morning. “In very close voting they have the power to influence what votes are counted and how.”

Rather warned, “Remember Ohio, Bush v. Kerry in 2004 and Florida, Bush v. Gore in 2000.”

Dan Rather just pushed the discredited wild-eyed-leftist claim that Ohio was "stolen" in 2004.

Posted by: Ace at 08:24 AM | Comments (296)
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I bet y'all didn't know that you could learn a lot about how to succeed in politics by listening to classic rock.

It's true. On a related note, you can also learn a lot by listening to Foreigner.

See what I did there? Poor Foreigner...they tried so hard.

But I digress...let me turn back to the subject at hand.

Head Games. more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 07:37 AM | Comments (215)
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• Obama's Ohio Lead Narrows in D+9 Poll
  
• Christie Unloads On Obama In VA Speech
  
• George McGovern Died This Weekend
  
• The UN Is A Serious Organization
  
• Romney's New Ad.
  
• Anti-Muslim Film Maker Still In Jail
  
• Pay Gap Widens Between Government And Private Sector
  
• Taxes To Go Up For 163 Million Americans
  
• October Non-Surprise
  
• The Preference Cascade
  
• Advice to the Wealthy, Sell
  
• What Will Bob Schieffer Do Tonight?
  
• Aussie Radio Shock Jock Forced Into Factual Accuracy Training(read: Re-education camp)
  
• Third Debate: Romney Needs A Tie
  
• Don't Freak Out Over This, The CBS Station Was Probably Just Checking It's Election Software
  

Bleg: 15 days. Fifteen. The stimulus, cash for clunkers, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Obamacare, the US aided attempted coup in Honduras(forgot about that one, huh?), Egypt, Syria, Libya, Ambassador Stephens, blaming a youtube video, the bowing before foreign leaders, sequestration, etc. The list goes on. There are a million reasons not to vote for Obama this year. There are trillions of reasons to volunteer to help elect Romney.

As Gabe mentioned, the campaign is now in GOTV mode. In 2008 all the polls had Obama ahead at this point and Obama comfortably won the election. Well all the polls have this race as being tied or Romney ahead by a few. It is a close election. It will be a close election up until November 6th. We will win if we turn out more of our people than they do.

When watching a football game, there is nothing you can do to help your team win. You are just a spectator. You sit back, watch, and hope your team plays well. Elections are different. You can play a role. You can help your team win.

What are you doing to help? Have you signed up to be a part of Romney's election day task force? The link is right here.

If you are unable to take off election day, then are you making phone calls or going door to door? Are you doing literature drops at people's mailboxes? Have you made a donation?

Don't think short term. Not only would we oust Obama, but we'd be putting Paul Ryan on the fast track to be the next Republican President after Romney.

Do what you have to do to get yourself psyched up to volunteer. I hate making phone calls and going door to door, but that isn't stopping me from making calls and going door to door.

Follow me on Twitter more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:19 AM | Comments (285)
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Happy Monday.

Politico has new "battleground" tracking. Overall, Romney leads Obama, 49 to 47 percent. But he leads 50-48 in 10 swing states. This one's notable because the same poll hasn't found a Romney lead since May. (May? Wha?) Once again, the trends are in the right direction. There are 15 days left. Will it be enough?

Awww, Microsoft is now a week away from rolling out Windows 8. The major problem: it's such a radical change from previous Windows versions that nobody knows how to use it.

Obama is making a late push for black voters. The campaign really has become a turnout nightmare for Democrats. So much so that Obama has invited Rev. Wright back into the fold.

The NY Times is already signalling that we're at the end of the campaign rally misery and it's time to switch to the door-to-door GOTV misery. Or at least it's over for Democrats...

The NY Post has now discovered the Obama foreign donation scandal. Democrats just don't care.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (343)
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And another week begins. 

Study: Republicans More Informed than Democrats

In pretty much all areas.

In a scientific survey of 1,168 adults conducted during September and October of last year, respondents were asked not only multiple-choice questions, but also queries using maps, photographs and symbols. Among other subjects, participants identified international leaders, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, nations on a world map, the current unemployment and poverty rates and war casualty totals.

In a 2010 Pew survey, Republicans outperformed Democrats on 10 of 12 questions, with one tie and Democrats outperforming Republicans on just 1 of the 12. In the latest survey, however, Republicans outperformed Democrats on every single one of 19 questions.

So maybe the Democrats should try being less 'reality'-based and watch more 'Faux News'.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:13 PM | Comments (907)
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Did the Cowgirls lose yet? No? Lucky break.

*posting this from the iPad I won this weekend in the evening wear contest.

Sunday night games, Jets down by 10 against NE, and the Jags have a touchdown over Oakland.

Hope you morons had a great weekend. Let me put my sunday evening NFL in you.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:30 PM | Comments (407)
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Jim Hoft is only speculating, but he's going by percolating interest from left wing blogs for a particular story

If he's right, it's neither surprise nor October, given that it has been reported on before, to yawns.

The big scandal (assuming his guess is right)? Romney, a pro-life representative of a pro-life church, urged a congregant to carry a baby to term, despite the doctor advising her to abort it (based on possible complications from clotting).

“He regaled me with stories of his sister and her retarded child and what a blessing the child had been to the family,” Sheldon wrote of the incident. “He told me that ‘as your bishop, my concern is with the child.’”

As Bob Ueker said in Major League, about a flyball that was caught in short centerfield: "Reggie, I don't think this one quite has the distance."

Or as Colonel Jessup said: "Please tell me you haven't pinned the fates of two men" on crap like this.

Posted by: Ace at 12:42 PM | Comments (549)
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I don't even want to know what that means.

But seriously, when your planned rally turns into an "intimate gathering" -- it's not good.

I recently had an intimate gathering in a parking lot.

My court date is January 10th.

Video: ...of the world's saddest intimate gathering.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (204)
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First check this story in the Reno Gazette-Journal. Remember that name.

There is no mention of how many people came out to see the Flukester. Correction: I missed the first sentence. It does in fact say "about ten people" came to see her.

The picture focuses on Fluke -- just Fluke. The crowd she's speaking to could be any number you like. It could be vast.

Here's another photo from the... event. From a perspective the Reno Gazette-Journal did not fancy.

The crowd is not vast.

Here's the Daily Caller's coverage.

Sandra Fluke delivers campaign speech to mostly empty parking lot in north Reno

Women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke on Saturday delivered a speech to ten Nevada residents in the mostly empty parking lot of a Sak ‘N Save grocery store in north Reno, taking “center stage” to urge them to vote for President Barack Obama, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.

...

The event had been promoted in the Gazette-Journal for days in advance, though the paper did not make it clear whether Fluke would be speaking in the parking lot or the produce aisle.

So the RGJ promoted this appearance for days. Then when she spoke to an embarrassingly small crowd, they edited out any information about attendance, including chosing a picture based primarily on the fact it offered no hints about crowd size.

But they're not biased. They certainly don't give their Designated Heroes favorable coverage and their Designated Villains unfavorable coverage. Nope. It's straight down the middle. They just want to get the story right, you know.

Correction: Much of this post is simply in error, because I missed the first sentence (!!!-- Wow, even the first sentence I blew).

They did report the number of people who came out to see her... generously rounding up to "about ten." (Eight or nine is "about ten." Under a dozen we usually count and don't round to the nearest ten.)

The only leg I have to stand on here is the picture, which does not show the embarrassing crowd size.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (260)
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Although no other poll has the race as this not close, I sure feel better that one poll shows Romney way out in front.

Gallup's Frank Newport appeared on Fox News Sunday and defended his poll -- now maligned by most of the left -- as "extremely solid." Although liberals gripe that Gallup's likely voters screen is just too damn tough (it asks you where you local polling place is, for example: Likely Voters should know that), I would like to offer the possibility that other polls' screens are too soft.

Plus, Gallup now has Romney ahead with registered voters. Actually, they've had him ahead there for about a week. What's up with that?

An important thing to watch is directionality. The WSJ/MSNBC poll has generally been very favorable to Obama (the last poll had Obama out front 49-46), but now shows it as a 47-47 tie.

Rasmussen continues showing it 49-47. That's big. Rasmussen has tended to bounce around, sometimes showing a small Obama lead, sometimes a small Romney lead. Lately it's been steady for a small Romney lead (or a tie). Even nicer is Romney's four point lead, 50-46, in a battleground poll of eleven swing states (taken as a whole).

Holy Schneikies: I don't know what to make of the IBD/TIPP daily tracker poll, which has generally been somewhat favorable to Obama. It now gives him a 5.7% lead.

Oddly -- implausibly -- it claims that "moderates" favor Obama by twenty two points.

Self-described “moderates” now prefer Obama over Romney by 22 points, the second largest margin since we began polling.

Obama holds a hefty 35-point lead among urban dwellers, and a comfortable 5-point lead in the suburbs.

Yeah I don't know what the funk is going on there.

One indication that this poll might be a little goofy is that they provide breakdowns for four broad regions of the US (NE, South, Midwest, West). Obama is leading big in all areas except the South.

In the South, Romney's ahead... by a single point, 46-45.

That doesn't seem credible to me.

It also has what seems to be a weak Likely Voter screen:

Sample Size: 913 likely voters (identified from 1044 registered voters with party affiliation of 37% Dem, 30% GOP, 32% Ind.)
Methodology: Traditional telephone methodology using Random Digit Dial (RDD) landline and cell phone samples

That means that more than 90% of registered voters are likely voters.

Which is not the case.

The partisan split is D+7 among the registered pool, I think. Actually they're unclear if this is the split among likelies or just registered. Even if they mean this is the split in the pool of registered voters (so we don't know the split in the Likely Voter pool), with 91% or more of registered voters being deemed "Likely Voters" the split wouldn't end up being too different.

Via @drawandstrike, they also say that 7% of Democrats will vote for Romney, but 9% of Republicans will vote for Obama.

Again, I find that unlikely.

Real Clear Politics: Has Obama with a 0.2% lead!

There are now four polls giving Obama an edge and four polls giving Romney an edge.

The two polls showing big leads are Gallup and IBD/TIPP. Gallup +7 Romney, TIPP +5.7% Obama.

Ehh. I guess overall it's a straight up tie. I tend to think tied polls are good for Republicans, though, and somewhat good for challengers generally.

One More Thing About IBD/TIPP: It says that 22% of conservative-identifying voters are voting for Obama.

Now, there is a segment of "conservative" voters who do vote Democratic. They are what Obama elegantly termed the "bitter clingers." While they are culturally conservative, they are generally in favor of Big Government largesse (though they won't call it that-- they'll put it in populist terms like "givin' the little guy a fair shake.")

That said, it seems unlikely to me that only 69% of conservative-leaning voters support Romney. 22% support Obama, supposedly, and 7% are... undecided?

Posted by: Ace at 10:09 AM | Comments (203)
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