dajafi wrote:Perfect:

At the front of the bookstore, a display of "Going Rogue" books sat next to a table loaded with tomes by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Vladimir Nabokov. NBC, CNN, ABC and other networks set up their live shots nearby. And Judith Doctor, 69, asked a Barnes and Noble employee for an orange wristband, to no avail.

Doctor, a self-described spiritual therapist, said that Americans have mostly misunderstood Palin's visceral appeal. It has nothing to do with her politics, or her folksiness, or her looks, she asserted.

"She's alive inside, and that radiates energy, and people who are not psychologically alive inside are fascinated by that. There's a wire in those left-wing liberals that has never been quickened, and Sarah's got it."

Doctor described the day she saw Palin introduced as McCain's running mate as one in which "an electric shock went through me. I began to weep. There is something about that woman that has destiny, whether it's in politics, to be president, or to host a talk show."

dajafi wrote:This is troubling:

A new Public Policy Pollling survey finds that 52% of Republican voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately.

To be sure, a lot of Democrats probably felt this way about Bush. But those elections, 2000 in particular, were really close, with much more in the way of reported irregularities. Obama's wasn't a blowout, but it was more comparable to '88, '92 or '96--not particularly late election nights.

That many on the right seem to perceive ACORN as American politics' answer to SPECTRE would be really funny if it weren't so depressing.

I was pretty shocked by this new poll that found that 52 percent of Republican voters think ACORN stole the 2008 presidential election for Obama. I wanted to get some perspective, though, so I looked for polls that assessed voters' feelings about the 2000 elections. I figured that, even with hanging chads and all, fewer Democratic voters would have considered Bush illegitimate back then than those Republicans who now feel that way about Obama. So I was pretty shocked to find this CBS Poll from January '01, which found that 76 percent of Democrats didn't consider Bush the legitimate winner of the 2000 election. Now, granted, this poll was taken only a few months after the Florida fiasco--which, unlike ACORN, was actually real, not to mention fresh--but still . . . 76 percent!

dajafi wrote:It's an obvious comparison, but not a fair one.

Gore won the national popular vote by a small but real margin, so right there anyone who considers the EC illegitimate as the arbiter of victory in what labels itself as a democracy is alienated. In Florida, there's considerable reason to think more people intended to vote for Gore, if not actually did--even before you get to the shenanigans of Katharine Harris or a Supreme Court decision that was so legally flimsy they actually said. "don't use this as precedent." I'm surprised it wasn't higher than 76 percent.

jerseyhoya wrote:Also I think the fact that it was an automated poll drove that number higher than it is in reality. They hear, "Press 1 if you think ACORN stole the election for Barack Obama, Press 2 if you think Barack Obama won the election legitimately" and think, hell yeah that ACORN group stole the election for that socialist. If they were asked a follow up of "Do you really think ACORN stole the election for Barack Obama, Press 1 for Yes, Press 2 for No." I think there'd be a fair bit of drop off.

Rep. Dennis Moore (D-Kan.) will be retiring after serving six terms in the House, according to the congressman's office, a decision which gives House Republicans a golden opportunity to pick up his seat next year.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Rep. Dennis Moore (D-Kan.) will be retiring after serving six terms in the House, according to the congressman's office, a decision which gives House Republicans a golden opportunity to pick up his seat next year.

We're like 10 of these away from legitimately putting the House in play

One thing I'll say for the GOP: early on they figured out Obama's Achilles' heel -- his unswerving commitment to his persona as a post-partisan healer, his fatuous self-regard and squeamishness about fighting hand-to-hand combat with Republicans. By positioning himself as the anti-Clinton and anti-Bush, Obama may be denied what both of his predecessors achieved: a second term.

dajafi wrote:Interesting, and deeply depressing, comment to Ezra Klein's blog:

One thing I'll say for the GOP: early on they figured out Obama's Achilles' heel -- his unswerving commitment to his persona as a post-partisan healer, his fatuous self-regard and squeamishness about fighting hand-to-hand combat with Republicans. By positioning himself as the anti-Clinton and anti-Bush, Obama may be denied what both of his predecessors achieved: a second term.

Last year "they" wanted me to transcend my cynicism and vote for change. Well, here we have it. Held hostage by the Walton Family's pet poodle. And that's after we got held up by a New Orleans hooker for $300 million.

jerseyhoya wrote:Obama's apparently gonna send 34k more troops to Afghanistan. Almost all of McChrystal's request. I'm surprised.

Is the left going to have a conniption over this?