Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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The re-emergence of Sinead O'Connor. As a television moment, Sinead O'Connor's appearance on SNL when she ripped a photo of the Pope up has to rank among the most controversial; and even though the backstory of her wounds wa compelling, that didn't stop a NYC audience from booing her off the stage of MSG at the Bob-fest. The recent news of abuse has put that moment in a different light, and I saw it last May. (Aren't you glad you read this blog?) Others are picking it up, allbeit many years in coming. It doesn't need to rain so much when you're driving. We're touring a half-dozen colleges this week, and it's rained every day. The combination of crazy traffic getting to the Holland Tunnel and rain through NJ and PA made for a long drive Sunday. And the rain has not let up, becoming quite intense yesterday. Lots of flood warnings here in MA, and we hear RI is under a state of emergency. Traipsing around campuses in this weather isn't fun either. My hat's off to the student guides, who traipse backwards in all this. Oh, and local TV news. We encountered this guy in western NY... On Sunday night he had nothing better to do than reprise something he'd said two years ago. And, yes, he had the same closer. 
Can't the Republicans do better? I don't care what their story is at this point, but it's pathetic that the Republican National Committee spent so much at a bondage-themed strip club. I don't care if t was just for meals; are they really so clueless about how this would look? Can't they do the Google and find out in advance what the business is? Or did they, and decide to go ahead? I knew they claimed to be the "daddy" party, but this is a different kid of daddy, if you ask me.
Quick: look inside your KFC buckets! An amateur paleontologist in Texas has found the oldest bird fossils in North America, going back some 96 million years. The earth sciences curator of the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science, Tony Fiurello, described the fossils as "reminiscent of what you might find in the bottom of a KFC bucket." I remember a cowboy at the bottom of my cereal bowl, of course. Tax cuts for the rich? On it. Extension of jobless benefits? Not so much. The unemployed vote, too, Republicans. How many different ways do you want to break the backs of the bulk of America?
More from the "Blame America First" crowd. Harumph. I've always loved this song, so sad, and such a haunting melody. Something I've always wondered about health care reform (he says ironically), is this: if the Republicans had so many great ideas about reforming health care, how come it took the Democrats to take care of horrible things like kids' preexisting conditions? Weren't the Republicans in charge, like, forever? I guess the pro-life party doesn't have kids, or something. Weird. Justice Scalia sheds a tear. As in, like, how come Beethoven can't write any more symphonies? Only, for Scalia it's more like we want more Jack Bauer case law! David Frum purged from AEI? That's the word, click through and read something interesting about the way they handled the health care debate. You probably know that on Sunday, going into the Big Vote In The House, Frum had turned Jim DeMint's declaration that this could be Obama's "Waterloo" into it being the Republicans' instead. Read it. And weep a bit for our country.
The politics of specific spending cuts. One of the problems that confronts Republicans who make noises about repealing health care reform is that while it's easy for them to speak in broad generalities about it being "too big," as soon as they start taking questions they're vulnerable. (Broad generalities is the coin of the realm whenever you talk about spending cuts, because when you get specific some individuals or interests recognize they're the target. So too often they revert saying stuff like "trim the fat.") I think it was Rachel Maddow who pointed out last week that some of the same Republicans who'd talked about the bill being too big, too expensive, too deficit-producing, were more than happy to commit to more expensive Bush tax cuts. So here's the line the Democrats are wisely drawing:
Shoring up vulnerable Democrats by providing them with the specific benefits as they relate to their districts makes a lot of sense:
In a way it's like humanizing abstract prejudice through familiarity with individuals. The Democrats have done a superb job in the health care debate by providing richly detailed anecdotes about those who have suffered for lack of insurance; who could forget Representative Slaughter's report of the constituent forced to use her belated sister's poorly fitting dentures, and Rush Limbaugh's callous reactions? This is precisely why Alan Grayson (D-FL) raised a ruckus on the House floor about the estimated 45,000 people who die every year, unnecessarily, for lack of insurance; and why no Repuublican will mention that figure — the Republicans have no effective reply, and they know it. So they call out Grayson on his demeanor instead. So, Republicans: who do you want to hurt by repealing what?
Scott Rasmussen noticed! If you've been reading here regularly, you know I've written that when pollster Scott Rasmussen's "Daily Presidential Approval Index" figure has bad news for Obama (e.g., it reaches a new low) he's sure to mention it. And about a week ago, when it was at -21 (21% more likely voters strongly disapproved of Obama's performance than strongly approved), he made the statement that whenever Obama gets active about healthcare, his ratings suffer. Further, I've noticed that when there's a turnaround, he's less interested in commenting. Such as this past Sunday, when that -21 had turned to -16: even though Obama had been more vocal and we were approaching the Big Vote. (A methodological footnote for the unfamiliar... Scott Rasmussen polls "likely voters," and his Presidential Index does two things: it's calculated by subtracting the percent that 'strongly disapprove' from the percent that 'strongly approve,' as you probably gathered. But it's also done on a three day rolling average. So on Day 4 he reports the polling results from days 1 through 3, averaged; on day 5 he reports the polling results from days 2 through 4. The reports for Day 4 and Day 5 have two days in common, so if you take the change in results between what's reported on Day 4 and the results reported on Day 5, the difference on the figures for the two days which don't overlap is three times the daily shift. So a one-day shift from -21 to -16 is itself huge, and worth comment.) Well, maybe the shift has gotten too big for him to ignore, because today, with his index now at -10, he commented. But, oh, it wasn't the most neutral of comments:
A "modest bounce," mind you. He also acts as if it's all sourced in a shift among Democrats:
Now, what he doesn't tell you in his write up is that there have been shifts in both ends of his scale, the two extremes which compose his index. While the "strongly approve" figure has shown a significant shift in the last three days, from 23% to 31%, and accounts for more of the 11 point improvement in the last three days, it's not like the decrease in "strongly disapprove" has stagnated: it's decreased by 3 points, from 44% to 41%. On a base of 1500 likely voters, each of these shifts is statistically significant and shouldn't be swept away. It would be nice if Rasmussen gave more support for his statement and provided not just the current levels for Democrats and Republicans, but also how they've shifted over the last three days on both scale points. He could be right that the shift is all due to Democrats, but he hasn't given us what we need in order to see it. (Is it possible that more Democrats now meet the criteria for being a "likely voter" as a result of being energized, helping even further?) (The trend data is here. The daily analysis is here, but he overwrites the content every day. Essentially it's a polling blog without permalinks, sorry. It's probably better for his marketing that way.) But to get back to where we were a moment ago, the shifts in the last three days in his polling have been very significant. When he remarks on "new lows" when the trend data edges down another point or two, but calls this a "modest bounce," well, you finish the sentence. But I'm reminded of a business moment about 20-25 years ago when an ad agency client wanted me to do "85% confidence" testing on his tracking study: looking for good news with a 10% rejection region in the positive end of the tail, and a 5% rejection region in the negative end of the tail. I guess it's okay if you admit you're being biased, but I don't think he was being so open with his client. And in other polling news... Although leading up to the big vote more Americans disapproved of the health care plan than approved, we'd also seen poll results that once people heard what was in the plan, approval increased. And CNN released a poll yesterday showing that although a minority approve of the plan, the majority either approves of it or doesn't think it's liberal enough, meaning repeal is a plank the Republicans are welcome to walk.
And Matt Yglesias reports a confirming poll result from Gallup, that more think the bill's passage was a good thing than think it was a bad thing. DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My comments should not be construed as representing those of my employer.
A cool hand at the tiller! In 2008, the slogan of the McCain-Palin ticket was "Country First." A noble idea, recognizing the importance of patriotism. And in the second Presidential debate, McCain promised he'd provide a "cool hand at the tiller." Remember that? So today we have the John McCain who was replaced by the alien pods:
Yeah, like I said a week or so ago, instead of their current zero cooperation, they're now promising less than zero cooperation; with all the issues facing this country, McCain wants to wreck the ship on the shoals. It's hard being a patriot, Senator. Try harder. And in the meantime a bunch of us are going to continue to pass on your cool hand.
Seeing any heads exploding? John Hinderaker's is: "This is a dark day in American history; one of the darkest." On this hugely important day, now that Bart Stupak has announced his support for the House bill, let's take a moment to breathe and talk about John Edwards' haircuts. Well, no, not his haircuts, actually, but let's take a moment to be appreciative of the impact his 2008 campaign had on the campaigns of both Obama and Clinton. It was Edwards who made health care reform a presidential campaign issue; Edwards was first, and the other, adaptive campaigns incorporated the issue into their campaigns as a defensive move. Yes, I'm grateful Edwards didn't get the nomination (even though he was my second choice, after Dodd); but let's just be grateful to Edwards, for a moment. Obama poll numbers rise as we approach health care reform. A huge positive shift in Rasmussen's Presidential Approval Index, from -21 to -16, and he's completely silent about the existence of the shift and why it might have occurred. The three-day rolling "strongly approve" figure went from 23% to 26% - - meaning that the last day's interviews were 9% higher than the first day of yesterday's three-day roller. On 500 interviews, that's a statistically significant shift. Likewise, when the "strongly disapprove" figure drops from 44% to 42%, that means yesterday's 500 were 6% lower than the 500 interviewed four days ago. Another significant shift. Of course, just the other day when it was at -21 he noted its extremity, and said that whenever Obama gets more vocal about health care reform, his numbers suffer. Today he's Silent Sam. Another hypothesis bites the dust with this one. (I'm not sure it makes sense to create an index of differences and report on that in a three-day roller; the point of a rolling average is to smooth blips, but the index - - as a difference score - - creates more blips.) DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My comments should not be construed as representing those of my employer. Mind the fringe. The Tea Party movement may not be inherently racist; its seeming lack of diversity may merely reflect the lack of diversity among the GOP. But it sure has its racist elements:
I don't see any reason why a small government orientation would have any conceptual relationship to racism, none. Perhaps the Tea Party movement is so diverse that its racist few are just an example of how diverse they are!
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