Rev_Beezer wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:
Moreover, around these parts, lots of preachers are saying vote McCain, and there is some speculation (again, that's all it is) that people are not willing to publicly defy their pastor but intend to vote Obama.

Those preachers/pastors know that they're putting their church's tax-free status at risk, don't they?

I think they have ways of making their desires clear while staying within the letter of the law.

I just spent the last 20 minutes watching CNN. Anyway, they just outlines what they think is McCain's strategy--the claim is they've written off Iowa and New Mexico, and feel Colorado is drifting away. So that means they've got to win Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as all the other swing states.

Here are some McCain supporters who run off some other McCain supporters who are distributing anti-Muslim Obama materials at a rally. So, good for them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl2EndLZv7w&eurl=http://www.google.com/reader/view/?hl=en&tab=wy[/youtube]

So, wait, the nut people at McCain Palin rallies are closet Obama supporters? Wow, how clever!

TenuredVulture wrote:I just spent the last 20 minutes watching CNN. Anyway, they just outlines what they think is McCain's strategy--the claim is they've written off Iowa and New Mexico, and feel Colorado is drifting away. So that means they've got to win Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as all the other swing states.

Yeah, good luck with that PA plan, John:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... html#polls

Virginia is slipping away too:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... html#polls

Thinking about whom the "persuadable" voters are for McCain in PA and VA, you get the idea that the last two weeks might be even uglier than the campaign to this point.

TenuredVulture wrote:I just spent the last 20 minutes watching CNN. Anyway, they just outlines what they think is McCain's strategy--the claim is they've written off Iowa and New Mexico, and feel Colorado is drifting away.

Now there are reports of them also pulling ads from nursing homes.

Is "voter turnout" the percentage of registered voters who show or all adults?

dajafi wrote:Thinking about whom the "persuadable" voters are for McCain in PA and VA, you get the idea that the last two weeks might be even uglier than the campaign to this point.

Agreed. I hope at some point McCain decides that destroying his reputation and image (any more than has already been done) just isn't worth it.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Is "voter turnout" the percentage of registered voters who show or all adults?

I think most places calculate both but you hear % of registered.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Is "voter turnout" the percentage of registered voters who show or all adults?

56% voted in 2004, meaning of all eligible adults, including people who aren't registered.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Is "voter turnout" the percentage of registered voters who show or all adults?

56% voted in 2004, meaning of all eligible adults, including people who aren't registered.

That sounds more realistic. A National Geographic chart I saw yesterday had our turnout at 89%, which seemed crazy.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Is "voter turnout" the percentage of registered voters who show or all adults?

56% voted in 2004, meaning of all eligible adults, including people who aren't registered.

It's a little more complicated than that--there are three possible denominators--registered voters, eligible voters, and adults. Registered voters are just that--the number of people who are registered. Some of these people are dead (since your registration only expires when you fail to vote for 4 or 5 years, depending on jurisdiction). There are also people who move from one state to another and re-register--so, in 2001, I didn't not vote in NJ, even though I was a registered voter there, since I had moved to Arkansas (where I was also a registered voter). Other than those examples, the number is pretty precise, other than of course the dead people. Eligible voters are those who are legally entitled to vote--thus, it excludes resident aliens, illegal immigrants, and in some cases felons. It is difficult to get a precise handled on this number. Adults is the inclusive group, and generally census data is used to generate the number.

There's an article that came out a few years ago that suggested that turnout had not declined as much. The problem was the denominator--eligible voters--was systematically miscalculated, and did not take into account immigrants not eligible to vote.

[url=http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1008/GOP_Rep_Liberals_Hate_Real_Americans_That_Work_And_Achieve_And_Believe_In_God.html?showall]More from the Real America:
[/url]

Warming up a crowd in North Carolina on Saturday, Republican Rep. Robin Hayes offered the diagnosis that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

His remarks came shortly after he had said he would “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.”

Hayes had followed Rep. Patrick McHenry, also a North Carolina Republican, who laid out the choice between McCain and Obama.

“It’s like black and white,” yelled someone from the crowd.

Every time I get these little twinges of sympathy for Republicans, who are bearing an unfairly disproportionate share of the blame for the economic meltdown, something like this shows up.

dajafi wrote:[url=http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1008/GOP_Rep_Liberals_Hate_Real_Americans_That_Work_And_Achieve_And_Believe_In_God.html?showall]More from the Real America:
[/url]

Warming up a crowd in North Carolina on Saturday, Republican Rep. Robin Hayes offered the diagnosis that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

His remarks came shortly after he had said he would “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.”

Hayes had followed Rep. Patrick McHenry, also a North Carolina Republican, who laid out the choice between McCain and Obama.

“It’s like black and white,” yelled someone from the crowd.

Every time I get these little twinges of sympathy for Republicans, who are bearing an unfairly disproportionate share of the blame for the economic meltdown, something like this shows up.

Did the Bachmann comments get noted here?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/10/bachmann_goes_boom.html

We're getting our asses handed to us badly enough that we can't keep going around saying retarded things. Jesus.

Damn -- how do some of these people get elected in the first place? They seem to lack the most basic of common sense far too often

Woody wrote:Damn -- how do some of these people get elected in the first place? They seem to lack the most basic of common sense far too often

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ4wtwcrybM&feature=related[/youtube]

Woody wrote:Damn -- how do some of these people get elected in the first place? They seem to lack the most basic of common sense far too often

Bachmann got elected because she was the most conservative GOP candidate in an open seat that got vacated in 2006 when Mark Kennedy ran for Minnesota's open senate seat. She needed to be carried across the finish line by the NRCC, even though she was running against a very liberal opponent in the most conservative district in Minnesota.

Robin Hayes, I actually think he's a pretty good guy. I don't think that quote was his finest moment, but as far as I had heard before that, he's not particularly nuts. He was the one that cried when he voted for CAFTA.

The reason why Bachman and others say this stuff is because they believe it. And, as true believers (an annoying sub group of people on the left as well as the right) they simply assume that everyone else believes as they do.

It's like the phenomenon most of us I assume have experienced when some white person starts talking to you and seems to assume you're a racist asstard because you're white like them.