FTN wrote:538 this morning has it 303-234 and 50.0-47.5

298-240, 49.8-48.

Another couple days of McCain polling ahead, and I imagine 538 will have them back around 50/50.

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

mpmcgraw wrote:JESUS(well not exactly jesus some man who we are to believe talks to god and a council he appoints) SAYZ ABORTION KILLS BABIES!!!!

JESUS ALSO SAYZ DONT TEACH ABOUT PROPER SAFE SEX METHODS TEACH ABSTINENCE. THIS IS WORKING WELL IN AMERICA SEE. RIGHT. I MEAN IT IS ISNT IT. IT HAS TO BE JESUS SAYS SO. ITS NOT LIKE THERE ARE ALOT OF TEEN BABIES OR A GROSS AMOUNT OF STD'S AMONG TEENS.

Why liberalism isn't convincing, Exhibit A.

I think it's more like you're getting a "failures of the education system" thing there.

You mean failures of liberalism, Exhibit B!!!!

Dude, you set me up so well.

You seem to be serious-averse these days, so maybe this is a wasted question. But do you really believe this with your thinking brain?

Laexile wrote:

BuddyGroom wrote:Based on the record of the last four years, the Republicans deserve to win this election?

This is a Democratic concept that I don't get. Are we interested in punishing the Party that is perceived to have gotten us into this mess or actually getting us out of the mess? America doesn't owe it to the Democrats because the Republicans messed up. They actually need to sell America they have solutions. The Democratic platform of "We're not Republicans" worked in 2006 but eventually America will want to know what you're offering. That's why the "vote for Obama because McCain is in the same party as Bush" campaign isn't working.

Bush:Wade::McCain:Gillick

dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

mpmcgraw wrote:JESUS(well not exactly jesus some man who we are to believe talks to god and a council he appoints) SAYZ ABORTION KILLS BABIES!!!!

JESUS ALSO SAYZ DONT TEACH ABOUT PROPER SAFE SEX METHODS TEACH ABSTINENCE. THIS IS WORKING WELL IN AMERICA SEE. RIGHT. I MEAN IT IS ISNT IT. IT HAS TO BE JESUS SAYS SO. ITS NOT LIKE THERE ARE ALOT OF TEEN BABIES OR A GROSS AMOUNT OF STD'S AMONG TEENS.

Why liberalism isn't convincing, Exhibit A.

I think it's more like you're getting a "failures of the education system" thing there.

There is absolutely nothing incorrect about that post.

Tell me more about how cutting the military spending and sending it to african babies would be great. Because as you know the ridiculous pentagon projects will suffer from that. Our grunts on the ground that were already painfully undersupplied during the invasion of Iraq and everything thereafter definitely won't be the ones dying and fighting undersupplied because of military cuts. Only the pentagon and big defense companies would suffer.

Tru dat right?

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:2) What the hell is community organizing? Honestly.

I meant to post this after gr's question last week--read it over the weekend:

Republicans Think 'Community Organizers' Don't Create Much Change. Barack Obama Actually Agrees With Them.

dajafi, i ment to post today that i read the same piece late last week, along with a few others and when i get a chnace to go back and collect them, i'll post them, if anyone's interested. by all accounts, obama the persin, in conext of being a community organizer, deserves at least the benefit of the doubt on this. since it was his first "real job" or whatever out of school, its ludicris to expect it to be anything of major accomplishment. my first job was covering high school sports for the daily. if i ran for city council tomorrow, i might mention that i worked in the newspaper industry, but i wouldn't call a whole lot of attention to it.

the problem, in my honest view, starts with two things: one, until a few months ago, the campaign readily touted this experience as cerntal to his candidacy. i think i get what they mean -- in how he views the world affecting change, community by community, but it's a stretch in reality, at the presidential level. the other issue, which is the focus of the above article, is that obama apparently went from thinking change comes from organizing -- the Alinsky model -- to thinking change must come from a single champion -- the opposite of the Alinsky model. in this context, it makes no sense to me why he would really bring up the community organizing period at all in the way that he has, since he apparently doesn't really agree with it's promise anymore. its one thing to say that you did soemthing. its another to base a chunck of your campaign's message around it.

this is far from the most pressing issue in the campaign, but i think it had to come up at some point, given the rather polarizing response to Palin's experience in the first week and the lack of reporting on Obama's own background thusfar. circling back to what dajafi and i said around pages 14 or somewhere in this thread, the expereience debate should be moot by now. the candidates themselves should just move on from it. it is flawed on both sides.

mpmcgraw wrote:

dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

mpmcgraw wrote:JESUS(well not exactly jesus some man who we are to believe talks to god and a council he appoints) SAYZ ABORTION KILLS BABIES!!!!

JESUS ALSO SAYZ DONT TEACH ABOUT PROPER SAFE SEX METHODS TEACH ABSTINENCE. THIS IS WORKING WELL IN AMERICA SEE. RIGHT. I MEAN IT IS ISNT IT. IT HAS TO BE JESUS SAYS SO. ITS NOT LIKE THERE ARE ALOT OF TEEN BABIES OR A GROSS AMOUNT OF STD'S AMONG TEENS.

Why liberalism isn't convincing, Exhibit A.

I think it's more like you're getting a "failures of the education system" thing there.

There is absolutely nothing incorrect about that post.

Tell me more about how cutting the military spending and sending it to african babies would be great. Because as you know the ridiculous pentagon projects will suffer from that. Our grunts in the ground that were already painfully undersupplied during the invasion of Iraq and everything thereafter definitely won't be the ones dying and fighting undersupplied because of military cuts. Only the pentagon and big defense companies would suffer.

Tru dat right?

What the hell are you talking about?

A little hint: maybe, just maybe, the rhetorical tack of EXTREME OVERSTATEMENT OF EVERYTHING WITH CAPITAL LETTERS 'N' THA OCCAZHIONAL NIZZOD TO THA HIZZIP HIZZOP isn't the only sort of argument you should make.

Well I took sort of an extreme turn in a different direction with that conversation there, but I thought that was pretty coherent if you got where I was going. I threw the tru dat in there because I watched a bob saget set last night and its stuck in my head.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Laexile wrote:

BuddyGroom wrote:Based on the record of the last four years, the Republicans deserve to win this election?

This is a Democratic concept that I don't get. Are we interested in punishing the Party that is perceived to have gotten us into this mess or actually getting us out of the mess? America doesn't owe it to the Democrats because the Republicans messed up. They actually need to sell America they have solutions. The Democratic platform of "We're not Republicans" worked in 2006 but eventually America will want to know what you're offering. That's why the "vote for Obama because McCain is in the same party as Bush" campaign isn't working.

Bush:Wade::McCain:Gillick

LOL. That's awesome.

mpmcgraw wrote:Well I took sort of an extreme turn in a different direction with that conversation there, but I thought that was pretty coherent if you got where I was going. I threw the tru dat in there because I watched a bob saget set last night and its stuck in my head.

Sarcastically misrepresenting your opponents' positions usually reads quite lamely, IMO, even if there are "factoids" sprinkled in. I dislike it when people do this instead of arguing a point.

OMG WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDRENZ!?!

dajafi wrote:You seem to be serious-averse these days, so maybe this is a wasted question. But do you really believe this with your thinking brain?

I was kidding, but I do think that teachers unions have too much self-interested influence in schools to the disadvantage of students and parents. I won't go so far as to say that liberal = self interest but that's the political machine they use, lobby, and succeed with. I also think all the "experimenting" with education over the past 30 years has proven out poorly - more experimenting or more money isn't likely to start fixing the problem.

dajafi wrote:A little hint: maybe, just maybe, the rhetorical tack of EXTREME OVERSTATEMENT OF EVERYTHING WITH CAPITAL LETTERS 'N' THA OCCAZHIONAL NIZZOD TO THA HIZZIP HIZZOP isn't the only sort of argument you should make.

If the Wheelies were real....

BuddyGroom wrote:1) You are aware, aren't you, that Congress's low approval ratings result from polls in which Democrats, Republicans, independents and others are queried? In other words, Congress's low approval ratings are not simply a reflection on the perfomance of congressional Democrats, but of Congress as a whole.

Congress run by ineffective Democrats. By this logic Bush doesn't deserve as much scorn because the entire government isn't made up of only Republicans. You have to settle your scope somewhere and take the lumps that make sense or you end up nowhere.

BuddyGroom wrote:Also, find me a poll, anywhere, that indicates Republicans are even going to break even in House or Senate races this year.

Irrelevant. I told dajafi back in 2006 that I didn't think the Democrat wins were a reflection of America's sudden turn to left of center politics, but a large loud vote the bums out movement (in other words, a vote against not a vote for). Based on people's overall opinion of congress, I'd say there's more than a little evidence to support my prediction, this year is no different.

BuddyGroom wrote:2) Palin has precious few credentials.

As does Obama, and all she's doing is aiming for the "keep it warm and break an unlikely tie" seat.

3) No, the religious right would not, whether you concede that or not.

Whatever. You say then I say then you say then I say...

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:You seem to be serious-averse these days, so maybe this is a wasted question. But do you really believe this with your thinking brain?

I was kidding, but I do think that teachers unions have too much self-interested influence in schools to the disadvantage of students and parents. I won't go so far as to say that liberal = self interest but that's the political machine they use, lobby, and succeed with. I also think all the "experimenting" with education over the past 30 years has proven out poorly - more experimenting or more money isn't likely to start fixing the problem.

Maybe I'm overstating the trend because I agree with you, but it seems more and more that this is a majority view (as in, maybe 99 percent of people on the right, 55 percent of people on the left). If there weren't considerable sympathy for this view on the center-left, something like this--DC's attempt to kill job security guarantees in exchange for much higher teacher pay--wouldn't even be on the table.

One of the big things that got me supporting Obama for starters was when he went to the AFT and told them he was for merit pay. They endorsed Hillary, of course.

As for more money and experimenting, I'm of two minds. Obviously some of the innovations have worked at least in isolation (charter schools, etc); obviously they haven't moved the dial at scale. I agree that the bulit-in inertia, of which teachers unions are a huge part, is a big reason why.

Anyway, back to the mindless trash-talking.

dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:Meanwhile, thank Darwin our allies in the liberal commie homo media spent every on-air minute this weekend talking about Lynn Westmoreland calling the Obamas uppity. Oh, wait...

Hey, I was all over that Thursday.

Yeah, I know. Didn't quite happen, huh?

Well, if you go by a certain logic, it's what all Republicans think (it's just a fact) so the fact that someone said it isn't surprising, it's just grass is green and water is wet.

I'll be curious to see if it suddenly emerges as a story in a month or so.

Shore wrote:

dajafi wrote:A little hint: maybe, just maybe, the rhetorical tack of EXTREME OVERSTATEMENT OF EVERYTHING WITH CAPITAL LETTERS 'N' THA OCCAZHIONAL NIZZOD TO THA HIZZIP HIZZOP isn't the only sort of argument you should make.

If the Wheelies were real....

WORD!

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:Meanwhile, thank Darwin our allies in the liberal commie homo media spent every on-air minute this weekend talking about Lynn Westmoreland calling the Obamas uppity. Oh, wait...

Hey, I was all over that Thursday.

Yeah, I know. Didn't quite happen, huh?

Well, if you go by a certain logic, it's what all Republicans think (it's just a fact) so the fact that someone said it isn't surprising, it's just grass is green and water is wet.

I'll be curious to see if it suddenly emerges as a story in a month or so.

My impression was that you thought the wall-to-wall coverage of this "fact" would drown out the mojo from the RNC. I was just pointing out that this didn't prove to be the case--not that I was glued to the news this weekend, so I might have missed something, but Colbert was the only show I saw that did anything with it, and his angle was basically that he'd shown how fucking dumb Westmoreland was two years ago when he couldn't name the Ten Commandments he supposedly revered.

On a semi-related note, if I was given godlike power to do one single relatively unimportant thing, and I couldn't use it on behalf of the Phillies or Eagles, it would be to stop everyone, everywhere, from talking about "media bias." We all (me too) believe it so fervently, and none of us ever convince anyone else on it.

Shore wrote:

dajafi wrote:A little hint: maybe, just maybe, the rhetorical tack of EXTREME OVERSTATEMENT OF EVERYTHING WITH CAPITAL LETTERS 'N' THA OCCAZHIONAL NIZZOD TO THA HIZZIP HIZZOP isn't the only sort of argument you should make.

If the Wheelies were real....

Ah, praise from Caesar!

dajafi wrote:Maybe I'm overstating the trend because I agree with you, but it seems more and more that this is a majority view (as in, maybe 99 percent of people on the right, 55 percent of people on the left). If there weren't considerable sympathy for this view on the center-left, something like this--DC's attempt to kill job security guarantees in exchange for much higher teacher pay--wouldn't even be on the table.

I have seen the shift even in joe-not-interested-in-politics. A friend of mine lives in a town overrun with old people who vote against anything to do with the school just as a matter of obligation - so they created a resolution that said "say no if we can increase spending 15%" and won.

When I see those "Should we raise the budget... ask a child" billboards, I want to scream - I think that tactic is really losing fast.

In the end, call it jealousy or whatever - joe six pack doesn't like the idea that you can get raises and keep your job with no verifiable signs of progress (no, that's not a support of NCLB) - particularly in the world of dwindling labor unions.

As for more money and experimenting, I'm of two minds. Obviously some of the innovations have worked at least in isolation (charter schools, etc); obviously they haven't moved the dial at scale. I agree that the bulit-in inertia, of which teachers unions are a huge part, is a big reason why.

I'm just so tired of hearing that any government program or institution that fails would have worked if it just had more money. That's always the response, it's awful.

I also wish people would just relax with their irrational fear of "God" and give vouchers more play - I know, I know... INTELLECTUAL HERESY BURN THE NEANDERTHAL*!


*added that last bit so mcgraw could get a sense of what we were talking about.

VoxOrion wrote:I also wish people would just relax with their irrational fear of "God" and give vouchers more play - I know, I know... INTELLECTUAL HERESY BURN THE NEANDERTHAL*!


*added that last bit so mcgraw could get a sense of what we were talking about.

I'm not against vouchers per se any more than I am faith-based programs. Just want to see more to suggest that they work.

What annoyed me about Bush's faith-based was that the fact of the program, not their results, was the point. (If Obama wins and remakes the program, I'm hopeful he'll actually try to quantify the results and prove their value, or ditch 'em.) What I've seen from the right about vouchers seems the same. The point isn't to improve educational outcomes, it's to punish public schools--which, you have to admit, are pretty easy villains.