Call it Reagan Nostalgia -- that sounds better than "I watched Dallas last night."

Overall-- well, you know, it's a soap opera. It was fun to watch JR's eyes open and glitter as the thought of competition and backstabbing awoke him from a decade-long depression.

Other than that... I grew bored in the second show, as they kept arguing about the same basic stuff. The contract, the deal, the Hispanic woman and her father who is not her father.

One thing I pegged immediately -- immediately -- is that Bobby's son's wife is a goldigging conwoman -- her mention that everyone has a tell is her own tell -- and her "brother" is likely actually her husband. What game they're running I don't know; the simple game, in real life, would be to just get married and take the kid's money. But this is a soap opera, so it must be much, much more convoluted than that. At some point, we'll find out the guy blames Bobby for his dad's death, or something. Or that the girl is Bobby's unacknowledged love-baby from an affair.

You know, Dark Family Secret Stuff. It can't just be about money. That's fine for real life, but in melodarama you need, uh, "resonance" or whatever.

When you're running a show that needs to get to 10 episodes without a great deal changing in the basic set-up, you need a lot of convolution and revealed secrets.

I have to admit, I enjoyed hearing the theme.

Posted by: Ace at 01:45 PM | Comments (150)
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Kaus wonders.

According to the Rushfield Theory of Buzzdeath–that in the New Media environment, generating “buzz” typically produces a counter-reaction that leaves you worse off than before–this is a mistake for Obama. … Actually, rushing out a “major” speech on the economy is a mistake even under the older theory that a President can seem desperate and overxposed. … Why does Obama have to win the week, or the month? It’s June! Obama doesn’t have to win June. …

As I noted, Jonathan Alter panned the speech; so did another liberal from Daily Beast. That left MSNBC's hosts to spin furiously that the speech was amazing.

Apparently hectored by Obama partisans, Jonathan Alter indicated that he was aware of the Full Metal Cocoon the left had built around itself.

Just cheerleading BO doesnÂ’t help him. He needs a sharper, more cogent message with some memorable lines. I ainÂ’t walking my criticism back

— Jonathan Alter (@jonathanalter) June 14, 2012

Well, what he actually needs are better facts, but as those are unlikely to be forthcoming, sure, he needs "memorable lines." For all the good that will do.

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (135)
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The public sector, on the other hand, is doin' great.

[U]nemployment rates have been consistently and substantially lower in the public sector than in the private sector. The recession and its aftermath are no exception. Last month, government workers had the lowest unemployment rate (4.2 percent) of any class of worker categorized by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The next lowest unemployment rate, 4.9 percent, is for workers in the burgeoning energy industry. Construction workers, by contrast, are unemployed at nearly three times the rate of government workers.

Public employees tend to be more educated and experienced than the average private-sector worker, so one could argue that government workers just naturally have lower unemployment rates. The figure above tests this possibility, comparing public-sector unemployment rates with the unemployment rates of comparably skilled workers in the private sector over time. In other words, the private-sector line shows the unemployment rate that a typical public worker might face if he took his skills to the private sector.

Much of the difference between the two lines — an average of 3.3 percentage points over the past eleven years — is likely to reflect a perk of government work, one that public employees have enjoyed for a long time. That the gap narrowed slightly in 2011 — after exploding since 2008 — isn’t evidence that the private sector is “doing fine” and the public sector is ailing.

Not convinced yet? Okay, how about you just add up all the wages earned in each sector. This measures lost wages from unemployed folks, as well as wage stagnation (or wage growth). It's the sum total grand-poobah stat -- here's the money flowing into that sector.

While all sectors show net increases (natural effect of inflation), the public sector is wildly outpacing gains in the private sector -- especially the federal public sector.

But state and local governments saw greater payroll growth (10.8 and 8.5 percent respectively) than the private sector (6.4 percent), and the federal government grew most impressively of all (20.6 percent).

Jay Cost put this starkly a few days ago: Obama wants to take money from Republican clients (general taxpayers) to give it to Democratic clients (public sector workers).

Strip all the rhetoric and appeals to emotion and reason; this is election is simply about taking money from Republican voters to give it to Democratic voters.

The question is that simple.

The answer is even simpler.

The answer is "no."

Posted by: Ace at 12:45 PM | Comments (133)
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Sorry to throw another horserace/poll post at you, but this one is special.

ConArt critic has been making the case that blue states are in play; I personally have been questioning the conventional ill-wisdom that "it's going to be close." It's often not close at all, and yet every election prediction is "it's going to be close."

Well, if that's the eternal prediction, and yet never takes into account that sometimes it's not close at all, then that's not really a prediction. That's just something people say, because it sounds safe.

Two posts about this, the possibility of the race not being particularly close.

First, Henrik Temp wonders why every analysis begins with the 2008 election as the baseline. The 2010 election was more recent, and conditions have not significantly changed since 2010.

So what happens if you begin your analysis with the expectation that 2012 will be more like 2010 than 2008? That's the 338 - 200 electoral vote prediction.

Personally I've been splitting the difference myself, assuming that 2012 will be about halfway between 2010 and 2008.

But Michael Barone does some digging into his own almanac and discovers something interesting.

t seems to be a standard rule in assessing the prospects of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in particular states to use the November 2008 numbers as a benchmark. However, as I have pointed out, in the last three presidential elections, the winning candidate has won a percentage of the popular vote identical to or within 1% of the percentage of the popular vote for the House of Representatives in the election held two years before. In this case, the November 2010 results are very different from 2008. In 2008 Obama won 53% of the popular vote. In 2010 House Democrats won 45% of the popular vote.

Thus, while most seem to discount the midterms as predictive -- and most seem to almost completely ignore 2010 as if it's an obvious aberration -- in fact, at least over the past three cycles, the midterms have been highly predictive. They've predicted the presidential vote to within 1%.

Given that circumstances from 2010 have not improved -- indeed, it seems likely Obama's position has deteriorated -- why would we expect 2012 to break this pattern?

Because Obama's on the ballot, officially, now? But he urged his supporters to treat voting for Democrats in 2010 as a proxy for voting for him. He nationalized the election, or tried to. (Then again, individual Democrats had a different idea, and tried to localize it.)

Barone charts out Obama's current support levels in the swing states versus the Democratic vote share in 2010.

The first thing to note is that ObamaÂ’s current percentage is closer to the 2010 Democratic percentage than to ObamaÂ’s 2008 percentage in every state but three. The exceptions are Nevada and Arizona, where the current Obama percentage is right in the middle of the two, and Florida, where the Democratic percentage in 2010 was very low because Democrats failed to contest three of the then 25 districts and because the Republican districting plan then in effect left few target seats for Democrats to seriously contest.

Second, itÂ’s worth noting that in only four states is Obama at 50% or 51%. It should be added that he leads Romney by double digits in New Jersey, New Mexico and Minnesota; for the moment, at least, those look pretty safe for Obama.

Barone finds that if the indicator of 2010 does predict 2012 within 1%, the vote count will be similar to that predicted by Temp.

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (306)
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Previously, a EpicMRA poll was the outliner showed Romney up by 1 among likely voters, 47-46. @conartcritic thought that was probably an outlier.

But maybe not. a new poll by Foster McCollum White (PDF) puts Obama up by only 1.41% -- a statistical tie -- and furthermore with registered voters. The poll is automated, but then, so are Rasmussen's, and Rasmussen is accurate enough.

(Note: There is an error in this pdf, dating it from February 27th. However, the release notes Scott Walker's recent win in Wisconsin and Obama's gaffe. The poll is actually from June 12, as it notes in the actual text.)

Here are some quotes:

President Barack Obama and former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney are in a statistical tie making Michigan a serious toss-up state heading into the summer months before the convention. [bold in original]

...

President ObamaÂ’s Michigan lead has deteriorated into a dead heat with Republican nominee Mitt Romney. President Obama leads former Governor Romney with a scant 1.41 point margin, 46.89% to 45.48%. Michigan was considered solidly Democrat, but based on the feedback from Michigan respondents, Michigan will likely be a very competitive state.

...

“The past week for President Obama was hurtful to his numbers”, per Eric Foster, chief pollster and President of Foster McCollum White & Associates. “The campaign is very fluid, but the President’s campaign may want to shift its focus towards presenting more of a business case narrative of why voters should re-elect President Obama."

Is this a Republican shop? Seems not.

Foster and Baydoun actually have a reputation for representing Democratic Party interests.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Comments (218)
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He's speaking at a factory. He was just criticizing Obama on coal policy, noting Obama promised that coal plants would go "bankrupt" under his policies, as well as his failure to permit the XL pipeline. He vowed he'd get that oil down from Canada, if he had to build the pipeline himself.

Ben Domench says this is just his standard stump speech. He thus needs no TelePromTer, which should create a useful distinction in dueling video tonight.

Obama's supposed to speak at 1:45 but, as Gabe notes, that probably means 2-ish.

Clinton Set a Deadline in 2010: Clinton made an argument in 2010 in this very same community college where Obama is to speak.

In September 2010, Clinton told his Cuyahoga Community College audience in Cleveland that Democrats deserved two more years to fix the nation's economy.

"The Democrats are saying something like this: 'We found a big hole that we did not dig. We didn't get it filled in 21 months, but at least we quit digging,'" Clinton said at the time. "'Give us two more years. If it doesn't work, vote us out.'"

Kind of Obvious: He agrees with Romney that the economy is the most pressing issue, but then hits his "framing" point: "But this election is still a choice." A choice, not a referendum.

A make or break moment for the middle class, he says.

What's holding us back is a stalemate in Washington over two fundamentally different views of which direction we should take the country. This election is your chance to break that stalemate.

This election is a choice between two paths. Nothing is more important than an "honest debate" over which path.

Okay, now he says we have to figure out how we got here. We're back to Bush.

He claims that under Bush it was growing harder to find a job to put food on the table. Compared to now, dude?

So how did this theory work out? (Crowd laughs, a little.) "For the wealthiest Americans it worked out pretty good."

Streaming: At MSNBC.com. Foxnews has bailed on the same-old same old, but MSNBC cable, of course, is staying with Derp Leader's words.

Now discussing the Republicans' plan, which he says consists of stripping government down to national security and a couple of other core functions. (If only.)

Claims the only tax subsidies Republicans could cut as part of tax reform are those that aid retirement, education, and health care.

Claims "this is not my opinion, this is facts."

"I'm giving you an honest presentation of what he's proposing... I'm looking forward to the press following up, so you can know I'm not exaggerating."

Claims Romney's plan is to make America into a third-world country so it can compete with such countries. Rejects this, as such countries do not have a strong middle class or "standard of living."

Returns to "asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute their fair share."

Claims "independent" analysts predict his policies will create one million jobs. "This is the vision I intend to pursue in my second term as President."

I thought he was wrapping up, but now Derp Leader has babbled on for six more minutes. He claims that Abraham Lincoln was the author of socialism (government must do what we can't do ourselves), and that these Wingnuts have embraced a scary laissez-faire "Market is Everything" approach wherein "government is the enemy."

Once again he gins up teachers: He wants to get rid of "teaching to the test" (the thing teachers hate, as it provides a hard-math benchmark of performance). That gets applause, and as the applause drowns him out, he adds "and get rid of teachers who aren't performing."

Then he says he wants to "recruit an army of new teachers."

I wasn't aware that the current economic problems in this country were caused by a Teacher Deficit. I sort of thought we had about the right number.

"Let's double down" on his clean energy proposals. Talking about electric cars and energy-efficient buildings, ending "oil subsidies" (aka standard tax treatment where you deduct your costs from your income to find profit).

Heh: Romney campaign bus driving around Obama speech site, honking its horn.

(Weasel Zippers got a drudge link on that.)

Okay he just won't stop. I can't take it anymore. I'm done.

Jonathan Alter... calls it one of Obama's least-effective speeches, noting, as was obvious (I gave up) it was "long winded."

Too long, didn't listen.

Obama doesn't show much discipline in these speeches. He just keeps jabbering, unwilling to cut a single word. He can't prioritize, and so just keeps throwing what I'd call "word-money" at the problem.

See what I'm doing there?

Anyway, MSNBC's guest Johanthan Alter found the speech "unconvincing" and I think "uninspiring," and of course the MSNBC host had to argue vigorously with him about how wonderful it all was.

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (442)
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It's called the Preserving Freedom From Unwarranted Surveillance Act. Rand Paul explains:

Well, you know, I got the idea from Representative Austin Scott. So I have to give him some credit from Georgia. He told me about the bill recently. We picked it up and are introducing it as the senate version. Yeah, IÂ’m a big fan of the fourth amendment. Not only do I like the second amendment, I like the fourth amendment. I think you should have to have a warrant to invade people's privacy and to spy on them. And so I think it's very important. And this just basically restates the Constitution. But sometimes you have to restate the Constitution because many up here seem so ignore it. And Representative Scott when he told me about the bill he said, look, when IÂ’m out hunting on my property, I don't want them spying on me. And IÂ’m not a hunter. But when IÂ’m separating out my recyclables, I don't want them having a drone to make sure IÂ’m putting my newspaper in the proper bin.

Costello: Well, we've already got drone launch sites in more than 20 states. Police are pretty excited about this new crime fighting tool. So would your bill make these launch sites go away?

Paul: What it would do is there's a balancing act. I mean police do have power and I want police to catch rapists and murderers. But they ask a judge and we separate the police from the people who finally make the decision on someone coming in your house. So even if a rapist is loose in D.C. tonight, the police will call a judge in the middle of the night, wake him or her up and say, we think there's a rapist in the neighborhood. Can we go in x address? And so those are things that are very, very important to protecting innocent individuals. And a drone is a very, very powerful way of snooping on behavior. And I don't want them monitoring every bit of my behavior. And IÂ’m not joking about the recyclables. I mean, we've had different states and cities trying to punish people criminally for not separating out the recyclables. We don't want a nanny state that watches every minute of our day. It's not that there will be no drones it's just that drones will only be used when a judge says that it's proper.

In this time of low congressional approval ratings and heated rhetoric about division, partisanship, and the inability to get things done, this seems like a layup.

Video below the fold. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 08:52 AM | Comments (213)
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This ad is pure genius and, because it's an homage to an old 2008 Obama ad, guaranteed to grab a ton of free media today, in addition to a $3.24 million ad buy in seven battleground states.

Compare:

What's good for the goose...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:32 AM | Comments (401)
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Happy Thursday.

According to a new Gallup poll, more Americans blame Bush for the current state of the economy than blame Obama. Still.

In addition to being Flag Day, today is the 237th Birthday of the U.S. Army.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:57 AM | Comments (338)
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Listening to the Presidents

The earliest recording of a human voice dates from about 1860 and the first American President to be recorded was Benjamin Harrison in 1889 - which means that sadly we'll never know what Washington's or Lincoln's voices sounded like. But Michigan State University does have an archive of recordings of every president from Harrison up through Obama.

To modern ears their voices sound high-pitched and have an rather affected style. I suspect that the high-pitch is partially due to limitations of the microphones and recording methods of the period. And the speaking style likely reflects the fashion of the times as well as the fact that most of them had come from a background of speaking to large crowds without any amplification.

But to me William Taft's speaking sounds the most modern in style and pitch of all of them.

• Benjamin Harrison
• Grover Cleveland
• William McKinley
• Theodore Roosevelt
• William Howard Taft
• Woodrow Wilson
• Warren G. Harding
• Calvin Coolidge
• Herbert Hoover

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:40 PM | Comments (552)
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