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Is John McCain Counting on the Bradley Effect in Pennsylvania?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (19)Is John McCain's presidential campaign depending on voting booth racism—the so-called Bradley effect—in Pennsylvania? How else to explain the campaign's focus on a state that virtually every poll says should be safely in the Obama column?
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Edmund Morris's Misuse of Teddy Roosevelt and History in the New York Times
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (12)The historian Edmund Morris has an op-ed in today's New York Times in which, by cherry-picking quotes from Teddy Roosevelt, he attempts to make the case that America's 26th president would support Barack Obama.
Like those silly op-eds that are written in the open-letter style, this colloquy formula is nothing more than a crutch for someone too lazy or muddled to write a persuasive piece on his own. Morris's article, however, is detestable not just for its pedantic structure but for its perniciousness.
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Questions About Barack Obama's Online Fundraising Prowess
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (8)The Washington Post had an interesting story Sunday looking at concerns raised by Barack Obama's absurd fundraising success. The story's good, but as Ed Morrissey points out over at Hot Air, it leaves a critical question unanswered:
What makes the Obama campaign different from online retail operations? After all, we have spent almost 15 years buying and selling products and services on the Internet, and retailers know how to protect themselves and their customers. They employ a system that compares the billing information on the order to the information in the credit-card system—and when they don't match, the sale gets denied. Credit-card companies have gone an extra step in recent years by adding a security code to protect against fraudulent use.
The McCain campaign apparently uses these systems to prevent fraud. Why doesn't Team Obama?
It's a fair—and disquieting—question.
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Race, Racism, and the Media in the John McCain-Barack Obama Election
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (44)I direct your attention to Friday's edition of National Public Radio's All Things Considered. The program conducted a fascinating roundtable discussion with 15 voters from York, Pa. Race and the election was the main topic of conversation. The 15 voters were disarmingly honest, yet thoughtful and considered in their comments. One white woman admitted she feared street violence by some African-Americans if Sen. Barack Obama wins next week, as most polls predict he will:
"I don't want to sound racist, and I'm not racist.... But I feel if we put Obama in the White House, there will be chaos."
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John McCain's Coming 'Mea Culpa'
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (20)Jamie Stiehm over at HuffPo neatly captures something I've been wondering for a while: When will John McCain have one of his my honor dictates that I fess up for my sins? Anyone want to give an over/under? Post your thoughts below.
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The Polls May Be Screwy But Barack Obama's Lead Is Real Because He's Strong Among White Voters
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2008 Comment (65)OK, Rob. About those screwy polls. For those among us who are polling junkies, the fellows at fivethirtyeight.com have put together a couple of primers on the science of public opinion.
Here is an explanation of the many tracking polls, which explains how the various polling organizations get their samples and other tricks of the trade.
And this post goes over some of the same territory but with a persuasive analysis that the polls showing Barack Obama with a sizable lead are real.
Here's my favorite factoid, which is based on the reality that, despite the growing multicultural nature of American society, white folks still elect our presidents.
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John McCain's Chances of Victory
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2008 Comment (51)The chattering class and the conventional wisdom have it that the presidential race has been over since about two weeks ago and John McCain is toast.
Reading the national poll numbers, and even most maps of the electoral vote, it certainly seems that way. I refuse to prognosticate in even the most obvious of races. And I refuse to do so in this presidential race as I've been wrong at least a half-dozen times since the summer of '07 when the media declared Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee.
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Barack Obama Gains More Republican Support, Including From Charles Fried, a John McCain Adviser
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2008 Comment (10)Our "Five Things" today (over in the center column of the U.S. News opinion page, to the right of the Thomas Jefferson Street blog) is a list of major Republicans who have endorsed Barack Obama. Little did we realize how quickly the list would grow today.
Sure, Scott McClellan endorsing Obama probably won't come as a surprise in some conservative circles. And those same folks probably won't be taken aback at former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld's approval of the Democratic nominee.
But here's my favorite of the day: Charles Fried, a former solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, has endorsed Obama. Here's the kicker: Fried was an active member of John McCain's campaign as recently as last month, serving on a pair of campaign advisory committees (hat tip to TPM).
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Sarah Palin's Feminist Flip-Flop
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2008 Comment (133)You needn't be a Rhodes scholar to be able to keep your gender philosophy straight, particularly within the period of a month or so. Yet Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has flubbed even that, according to ABC's Political Radar:
In an interview on NBC Nightly News that aired yesterday, Brian Williams asked Palin: "Governor, are you a feminist?"
"I'm not gonna label myself anything, Brian," said Palin. "And I think that's what annoys a lot of Americans, especially in a political campaign, is to start trying to label different parts of America different, different backgrounds, different...I'm not going to put a label on myself."
But label herself is just what she did last month in an interview with CBS's Katie Couric, who asked her if she considered herself a feminist. Her answer was an unabashed, "I do."
These kinds of 180s are bad enough when they occur on major policy issues, such as federal bailouts, whether or not to cut taxes, etc. But when they occur within a short period of time and on a simpler question, it really calls into question the intelligence level of the interviewee.
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Alan Greenspan Speaks on the Financial Crisis
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2008 Comment (13)Rep. Henry Waxman runs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a way it hadn't been run in decades before his takeover. The California Democrat really knows how to stick the knife in and twist it. He did so today with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who retired as a beloved figure but who has since been found extremely culpable in the current credit crisis because he promoted less government oversight over derivatives.
