Ain’t nothing scarier, Team McCheese is praying, to the intended targets of this play than a proud black man surrounded by a devoted throng and walls of cameras and microphones.

When the 3-pointer didn’t give McCheese the imagery he tried to morph it into, and the timetable came back and bit on his hind pockets, and Obama smoothly dismisses McCheese’s criticisms and makes McCheese look about 9 inches tall, this is what he’s left with.

Breaking: Obama raises both arms above his head – Team McCain screams disrespect for war wounded.

Remember the movie “Amadaus?” McSame is morphing into Antonio Salieri. He’s fanatically jealous of the talent he’s competing with. Obama has a gift, McSame doesn’t.

Hi all,

I’ve been listening to a bunch of people in the last week talk about polls and fretting about a daily tracking poll that shows Obama behind McCain here or there where he was ahead before and so on

So I decided to do a little more prospective and retrospective looking at polls and trend lines. Data used is from http://www.pollster.com No data was available for Washington DC so it is not included in the Electoral College totals. Data is long-term from the beginning of the primaries in 2007 when both candidates had lots of competition from others in their respective parties, and the trend lines started out usually reversed from the position they are now. Of course, Obama’s primary didn’t ‘end’ until June, while McCain was done in March. But the trends had already begun shifting before June, and after March when the comparisons started becoming about McCain only versus Obama most likely. . If the Electoral College numbers are off – it’s my fault – brain dead doing this at 3 am but couldn’t sleep, waiting for meds to kick in. So please forgive.

Trendlines are actually a better indication of what is going on than a single day or weeks worth of tracking polls. A daily or even a weekly poll is a snapshot in a very short period of time, and with the 24-hour news cycle and a bit of media ‘push’ can push a poll anywhere up to 10 points either in the up or down direction. And after a few days the same thing can happen in the opposite direction. Using a graph, you plot the poll numbers for both candidates over time, and after a while, you either can directly notice a trend up or down, or using some statistical calculations, can determine a mean over your determined time frame.

Nationally, McCain started ahead of Obama but Obama quickly gained ground and stayed ahead of him until around the end of December/beginning of January when their positions were essentially tied. McCain pulled ahead of Obama in March, but then Obama reclaimed the upper hand. The national trend line has quite a lot of ups and downs, but it is trending upward overall for Obama, and McCain keeps sliding. There are still 14% undecided and 5% voting for other candidates so there is much room to move still for both candidates.

Bob Barr was polling at about 5% in a couple of states at the beginning of his race, but support has dropped off steeply in the interim and he is currently at about 1% in both those states. Ralph Nader is holding at about 5% in Georgia, the only state where he has meaningful numbers currently.

Some interesting trends showed up. Currently both candidates are leading in 25 states each. McCain’s trend line is downward in 18 of his states, flat in 3, and up in 4 (ND, NE, NV, UT) In AK Obama’s trend line is also upward while in LA and SC, Obama matches McCain’s downward trend line. In SD Obama is flat against McCain’s downward trend so if he just stays steady, McCain may eventually drop below. In TN, both candidates are flat. McCain’s list of states currently gives him 229 Electoral College votes.

NOTE: Flat usually means there was only one poll, or there were two or three, both taken in the same or nearly the same time-frame.

Obama’s trend line is upward in 17 states, flat in 3 and downward in 5 states (IA, IL, ME, OR, WA). Obama’s downward trending states are interesting because in IA, ME, OR, WA McCain’s trend is also in the downward direction so at present there seems to be no danger of Obama losing those states. In IL, Obama’s trend line is steeply downward, however McCain’s is flat, and Obama currently leads the state with 60+% . Obama’s Electoral College total is currently at 306.

FL, IN, MO, NC, and TX are all within the margin of error, and while McCain is on top currently, his trend line is down in all five states, and Obama’s is up. These data strongly suggest that Obama will be in the lead there within the next two-three weeks, adding 98 Electoral votes to his total, and of course subtracting them from McCain.

So…..most of the so-called battleground states are already in the Obama column, and given the trend lines, will stay that way. A couple that aren’t yet are among the five ‘cross-over’ states where the race is within the margin of error and the trend lines are in Obama’s favor.

Obama needs to keep doing what he is doing – and if McCain keeps doing what he is doing – it will truly be a landslide.

Good morning, pups. It’s Cohen and Kristof this morning. We’re spared La Collins today, as she’s off. Mr. Cohen’s column is titled “Slow Train to Champagne.” He says champagne has no need to jump on the easy-drinking bandwagon; it’s a recession-free zone. Mr. Kristof gives us “A Farm Boy Reflects,” and he tells us that the most important election this November that you’ve never heard of is a referendum on animal rights in California.

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got spiced zucchini muffins this morning. A big thanks to lokywoky for the polling information above — it makes sense. Have a great day.

As is often the case, both Attaturk and Driftglass smack this topic out of the park.

good night all

Good morning and thanks Attaturk. I just read Jake Tapper and now I feel like I need another shower. What a tool.

The NYT has an opinion piece about electronic voting machines. I’ve screamed and howled about these things since what happened in Georgia in 2002, the first example used in the piece. I thought that maybe with Democrats in the majority in Congress the issue might be addressed, but sadly no… Voting without a verifiable paper trail should be outlawed at the Federal level. /rant

good morning all, these few stories are off topic but I don’t want to wait to post them, they are incredible stories from raw story;

first story

In a little-reported brief filed late Tuesday with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Bush administration asked the court to keep any review of the warrantless wiretapping law passed earlier this year by Congress secret.

The administration also asked that the court refuse to accept legal briefs from anyone other than the Justice Department itself.

that’s like saying;

“judge, I don’t want the police to be allowed to put me in jail, I want to be the only person with that authorit, myself and whoever I higher and nobody else, will you sign off on that?”

if this request doesn’t make the light of day the president will again get himdself immunized

check this out

the president actually barred democrats from one of his bill signing, this looks benign but it demonstrates how much contempt he has for congress

In a seeming effort to blunt attention to the fact he was signing a bill he once rebuked as socialistic, President George W. Bush quietly approved a massive mortgage rescue bill shortly after 7 a.m. in the Oval Office and announced his signature by email.

“Only a few aides and administration officials were present, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Steve Preston and James B. Lockhart III, the Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO),” Politico’s Mike Allen remarked. “The White House announced the signing by e-mail moments later.”

A senior Bush official told Allen the Administration had no desire to herald the Democrats who shepherded the bill through their congressional committees, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA).

Typically bills are accompanied by a signing ceremony, replete with souvenir pens.

now check this out, this one is the most important but because the story comes way too late it will get no play, we need to get this publicized in our attempt to immunize ourselves before the next election

I remind everyone, ALL democrats knew of these issues LONG AGO and they did NOTHING about it, it’s as if they WANT to be unseated with stolen ballots from fixed machines;

Georgia complained to Diebold about patch after election

On Dec. 3, 2002, Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox’s office faxed documents to the then-president of Diebold Election Systems Bob Urosevich listing a series of issues that occurred shortly before the November 2002 election.

Documents provided to RAW STORY by a whistleblower close to Cox’s office show that one of the key problems Georgia officials were trying to resolve was related to an unauthorized patch installed on machines prior to the election

that one comes from here

I feel like it’s going to be a day of rants. I might have to turn off the tv.

ah, g’morning marion who is now in savannah!

I posted a snippet on that georgia voting machine story you so nicely beat me to the punch

We apparently have the same concerns about the infernal things! Maybe with a Democrat in the White House something can/will be done. Feet must be held to the fire on this.

I might have to turn off the tv.

Highly recommend this approach……it doesn’t seem to lower my rant threshold but sure as spit does improve the blood pressure.

# 12’s for you……boy, will it be nice when the techies get the forkin’ squirrels outta the toobz!

you so nicely beat me to the punch

Drinking way too early this morning are we?

The evidence that Diebold, and the other vote fixing companies, put in patches and made changes to the software to ensure a GOP “victory” has been known for a long time… ever since 2000 but the democrats have been less than interested in doing anything about it. I can only assume that they are hoping to do the same damn thing. What ever is going on it only goes to ensure that the corporate candidates get into and stay in office, our votes do not count.

Apparently somebody sneaks in from time to time and snarls up the toobz so they don’t connect properly and the squirrels get lost. Maybe if they were using lab rats instead of squirrels they could figure out the maze…

you so nicely beat me to the punch

Drinking way too early this morning are we?

I often make my way over to the punch bowl or coffee shop if I think marion is going to be there

E-mail response sent to the Washington Post’s Dana Millbank just after reading his column on Tuesday night’s web edition

Dear Mr. Millbank,

You can’t tell how much I appreciated your column of July 30 on how Obama has become so presumptuous.

However, if you will forgive me, I think that the word “presumptuous” is a little too high-falutin’ for the clientele whom you are trying to attract with this column. To be blunt, let’s just call a spade a spade, if you catch my drift. For a black man, Obama is getting a mite too uppity for his own good.

Great that you put him in his rightful place.

See you at the BBQ.

nice letter indeed

Radio Rwanda checks in:

Obama jabs McCain from behind with pointy stick,
hustles behind folds of mothers’s skirt to cry preemptively about reprisal

I don’t like to sound like a broken record,
but “pointy stick” is another, ah, well let’s say Freudian allusion,
after the subliminal image of the Large Black Victory Tower in yesterday’s McCain ad.

Just saying.

Morning! bright and shiny one here.

Maybe McCain should start talking about what he is going to do as President instead of whining about how popular Obama is. What a WATB.

Sometimes I think that someone on the inside is working to sabotage McCain’s campaign.
And, I agree that McC is morphing into Salieri. “Why Obama and not McCain?”

he has told us elliot, he is going to go forward with all those successful policies of the bush administration so he doesn’t really need to elaborate off of that;

1)bush tax increases for everyone, giving more of our assets to the middle class and making believe this is some sort of tax DECREASE

2)invade more middle east countries, further turning our dollar into crap, further destroying our military

however this has the economic value of decreasing the labor market, therefor insuring HIGHER WAGES FOR EVERYONE

3)more crap allowed dumped in my water, more cancer poured in my kids air

4)NO ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, this would SURELY ruin the great job strategy of the war

there are a bunch of other platforms, but really, all he has to say is;

“whatever bush did, that’s what I’m gonna do”

it certainly is!

thanks for the muffins Marion

Washington Journal:
7:30-8:00 REP. TIMOTHY MURPHY
R-Pennsylvania, 18th District
Energy & Commerce Committee Member
http://murphy.house.gov http://energycommerce.house.gov
Topic: Discuss today’s House Energy & Commerce hearing on the Salmonella outbreak. Guest will also discuss the oversight of the FDA & what he feels needs to be done to improve the safety of foods & drugs.

8:00 Roll Call hit (Mitchell)

8:00-8:30 REP. LYNN WOOLSEY
D-California, 6th District
Santa Rosa, San Rafael http://woolsey.house.gov
H.R. 1338: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.go…..rh.txt.pdf
Topic: Discussion on the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1338). The bill, which our guest is a co-sponsor of, would amend the Equal Pay Act to ensure that workers, regardless of gender, would be paid equally for their work. The Act will be debated later today in the House.

8:30-9:30 BRIG. GEN. THOMAS HARTMANN
Defense Department Office of Military
Commissions – Legal Adviser
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/commissions.html
Topic: U.S. Policy on Guantanamo Bay Detainees: Our guest will discuss among other topics, the status of the detainees at Guantanmo Bay as well as how the military commission system currently works. This week the House Armed Services Committee is holding hearings on the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

9:30-10:00 Newspaper Articles/Phones

Considering that Obama’s mother is no longer with us having died of cancer almost 13 years ago, and “mothers’s” is grammatically incorrect, this headline pretty accurately reflects the limited intelligence of its RedState author.

Well, I have thought whoever was the Repug nominee was pretty much a sacrificial lamb anyway considering the shambles W & Darth have left the country in, but it has gotten pretty pitiful. Altho’ as I said in a thread last night, I am inclined not to point it out too much until he is actually nominated lest the Rs get the idea to bang the gong and yank him off the stage.

Someone suggested that come early August McC will step down ‘due to health issues’. But who would replace him? If it’s Cheney’s choice of Mitt Romney then I’d be more worried than ever that Diebold will come through again.

Gotta go. Work beckons.

agreed

Republicans, working for you…not so much
more Attaturk upstairs

.
Lynn Woosley coming up on CSPAN on fair pay act

Just call him Gloria…Swanson. If he isn’t channeling his inner Sunset Boulevard, in all its metaphory goodiness, I don’t know who is.

perfect analogy!

would love to see the photoshop on that one

Just in…exclusive video of first version of Obama “celeb” ad. Watch it here. http://www.tagg-lines.com/2008…..video.html

Maybe McCain is “Baby Jane”?

Magnificent observation, Dr. Turk. That’s the best analogy of poor pitiful John Sidney I’ve seen.

I am disturbed by the pig bashing, though. We pigs are generally good and decent folk, and would never associate with an opportunistic pol like Senator McCain.