U.S. 2012 Election

[The Bread Guy]

How many times have we heard from opposition politicians from every party state "We have to see the books", not believing the reports/fiscal info/statistics release by a government?

And then get into government, see things very differently, go with their own flow (and biases glasses through which to view and share the numbers), only to have a new opposition say "hey, we need to see the new books"?

I wouldn't put it past any administration.....

 

[Haletown]

I would not put it past the current administration to manipulate the info, any info.

How many times have we heard from opposition politicians from every party state "We have to see the books", not believing the reports/fiscal info/statistics release by a government?

The MSM is still in the bag for Obama so they can be selective in what and how they cover up for him.

For a different non political view . . .  Mama knows

http://maxedoutmama.blogspot.com/

 

[Redeye]

The MSM is still in the bag for Obozo so they can be selective in what and how they cover up for him.

For a different non political view . . .  Mama knows

http://maxedoutmama.blogspot.com/

I'm putting all my RRSP money into ALCOA and ALCAN. Seems like tinfoil sales are still brisk.

In other news, the NASDAQ broke a 3000 for the first time since 2000. All this good economic news will have little issue drowning out the noise if it continues.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I would not put it past the current administration to manipulate the info, any info.
...

Nor would I, after all, all administrations, Democrat and Republican, lie and cook the books to look better, especially in an election year ... and I do not quibble with the notion that the MSM is lazy and gullible and will not bother seeking independent verification  of the Commerce Department's guesstimates.

The "good news," for Obama, is on page 1; the corrections, if there are any, will be on page 7, near the bottom.

 

[vonGarvin]

I'm putting all my RRSP money into ALCOA and ALCAN. Seems like tinfoil sales are still brisk.

:rofl:

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Obozo

Haletown,....I have mentioned several times in this thread that we will not tolerate this sort of name-calling on this website.
This is your freebie warning, next time you will go into the warning system.
Bruce
Staff

 

[Haletown]

Haletown,....I have mentioned several times in this thread that we will not tolerate this sort of name-calling on this website.
This is your freebie warning, next time you will go into the warning system.
Bruce
Staff

Wilco.

Error corrected.

 

[211RadOp]

I guess Romney thinks that the US people "deserve" our oil.

Romney promises 'oil from Canada that we deserve'

CTVNews.ca Staff

Date: Wed. Feb. 29 2012 8:47 AM ET

In a speech marking his primary wins in Michigan and Arizona, U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has promised to get Americans the oil from Canada "that we deserve."

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120229/romney-michigan-victory-speech-oil-that-we-deserve-remarks-120229/

 

[cupper]

I may have said this before, but it is worth repeating in light of today's announcement from Maine GOP Senator Olympia Snowe.

She said she won't be seeking re-election at the end her term, because she is tire of the partisan polarization that has become the norm in congress.

It seems that a lot of the moderates from both parties are giving up on the institution because they no longer want to be in a system that serves no purpose other than to score points for their side against the other. The value obstruction and defeat over cooperation and compromise.

At least she is the first to truly state the real problem and why she is leaving, rather than pull the old "I want to spend more time with the family" line.

 

[a_majoor]

Alienating the base (again). This should do wonders for California's already dismal economic performance, and get yet another group of voters stirred up against the current Administration:

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/29/obama-ill-veto-bill-that-will-provide-water-to-californias-central-valley/

Obama: I’ll veto bill that will provide water to California’s Central Valley
posted at 2:30 pm on February 29, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

I’ve called the judicially-imposed drought in California’s Central Valley “the Dust Bowl Congress created” through its creation of the Endangered Species Act, invoked in this case by the Delta smelt, a fish that’s not suitable for eating.  Once a breadbasket for the nation, the cutoff of irrigation water to the Central Valley has destroyed agriculture and tens of thousands of jobs as a tradeoff for the endangered fish.  Now, however, voices of sanity in Congress have begun to speak on the man-made economic and agricultural disaster, as Rep. Devin Nunes builds support for his Sacramento-San Joaquin Water Reliability Act:

Nunes’ Sacramento-San Joaquin Water Reliability Act goes to a vote in the House Wednesday and if it passes, it will guarantee that water the farmers paid for finally gets to the parched Central Valley. It will put an end to the sorry stream of shriveled vineyards, blackened almond groves and unemployed farm workers standing in alms lines for bagged carrots from China.

The insanity of the current policies against some of America’s most productive farmers in one of the world’s richest farm belts is largely the work leftist politicians from the wealthy enclaves of the San Francisco Bay Area. This group has exerted its political muscle on the less politically powerful region that produces more than half the fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. — with $26 billion in annual sales.
“The bill restores the flow of water and establishes a framework for meaningful environmental improvements. It is a repudiation of the left’s assault on rural communities, which began with the decimation of the West’s timber industry and now is focused on Central Valley agriculture,” Nunes told IBD.

The stand-alone bill, H.R. 1837, marks the first time Central Valley water shortages and the federal role in creating them will be considered directly in Congress.

That in itself is a damning indictment of the federal government, whose laws have created the disaster in California.  This first came to light more than two years ago, when Sean Hannity featured it on his national television show.  The delay in addressing it makes the financial situation worse with each passing day for farmers in the Valley, and for workers who now have to subsist on government handouts rather than earnings from productive jobs.

If Barack Obama has his way, though, that situation will continue indefinitely.  Late yesterday, the White House announced that Obama would veto Nunes’ bill because — I am not making this up — it would “unravel decades of work” on California water regulations … decades of work that brought California’s Central Valley to its current destruction:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 1837, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act because the bill would unravel decades of work to forge consensus, solutions, and settlements that equitably address some of California’s most complex water challenges.
H.R. 1837 would undermine five years of collaboration between local, State, and Federal stakeholders to develop the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan.  It would codify 20-year old, outdated science as the basis for managing California’s water resources, resulting in inequitable treatment of one group of water users over another.  And, contrary to 100 years of reclamation law that exhibits congressional deference to State water law, the bill would preempt California water law.

The bill also would reject the long-standing principle that beneficiaries should pay both the cost of developing water supplies and of mitigating any resulting development impacts, and would exacerbate current water shortages by repealing water pricing reforms that provide incentives for contractors to conserve water supplies.

Finally, H.R. 1837 would repeal the San Joaquin River Settlement Agreement, which the Congress enacted to resolve 18 years of contentious litigation.  Repeal of the settlement agreement would likely result in the resumption of costly litigation, creating an uncertain future for river restoration and water delivery operations for all water users on the San Joaquin River.

The Administration strongly supports efforts to provide a more reliable water supply for California and to protect, restore, and enhance the overall quality of the Bay-Delta environment.  The Administration has taken great strides toward achieving these co-equal goals through a coordinated Federal Action Plan, which has strengthened collaboration between Federal agencies and the State of California while achieving solid results.  Unfortunately, H.R. 1837 would undermine these efforts and the progress that has been made.  For this reason, were the Congress to pass H.R. 1837, the President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

Well, let’s take a look at California’s Central Valley and see what “five years of collaboration between local, State, and Federal stakeholders to develop the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan” has produced:

As for Obama’s stirring defense of federalism, the courts have already ruled that federal law — the Endangered Species Act — trumps California water law.  That’s the reason why a federal judge turned off the water spigots more than two years ago, and why California can’t get them turned back on.  If Obama was really concerned about federalism, he’d propose a repeal of the Endangered Species Act, which would also resolve this disaster.  Instead, Obama threatens to veto any attempt by Congress to fix what federal law has already broken.
Hopefully, Nunes’ bill gets clear sailing through Congress and Obama gets his bluff called.  If he wants to run as the Dust Bowl President in November, I say let him do it.

Update: I forgot the link to Investors Business Daily — my apologies

And a reader at Instapundit adds:

BARACK OBAMA DOESN’T CARE ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE: Obama: I’ll veto bill that will provide water to California’s Central Valley.

UPDATE: Reader Delos Walton writes:

It’s not just white people he hates. The Central Valley is heavily Hispanic as well. And one can make the valid point that these policies disproportionately hurts Hispanics since they constitute a significant percentage of the population in the western Central Valley. The type of jobs they garner in the western Central Valley typically are low wage, menial Blue Collar positions. No water, no jobs. Pretty simple. But perhaps, more importantly, the Central Valley is the type of place where people still cling to their guns and religon. Unsurprisingly, POTUS forgets where his organic lettuce, almonds and carrots come from. Similar to the Keystone decision, this is ideology over humans.

Maybe Obama just doesn’t like people.

 

[Haletown]

As per the Keystone decision, POTUS Obama needs the green vote, money and media support more than he needs the industrial or agricultural jobs and economic improvements.

The greens could make November miserable for him if they don't get what they want from him.  They are a core electoral component, along with big labor, that he must hold on to get his second term.  He'll most likely keep the big bucks flowing to favored green industries despite Solyndra and LightSquared fiascos to prove his green bonafides.


Simple electoral arithmetic for Obama.

 

[a_majoor]

I may have said this before, but it is worth repeating in light of today's announcement from Maine GOP Senator Olympia Snowe.

At least she is the first to truly state the real problem and why she is leaving, rather than pull the old "I want to spend more time with the family" line.

Except:

http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2012/snowe/

Did lawsuit factor in Olympia Snowe's departure?
By Bill Allison and Lindsay Young Feb 29 2012 6:35 p.m. 8 comments

Last August, while Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, was in the midst of an intensive round of fundraising for her 2012 reelection bid, a four-year-old civil lawsuit alleging fraud by an education company in which she and her husband are heavily invested became public.

Nationally, most of the coverage of Snowe's decision to drop her reelection bid has focused on the centrist Republican's frustration with the polarized politics on Capitol Hill. But in Maine, a few newspapers have speculated that her husband's legal entanglements had a role in Snowe's sudden and surprising decision, which left her with more than $3 million in her campaign coffers and her party without a Senate candidate less than three weeks before the filing deadline for Maine's June 12 primary.

According to the senator's most recent financial disclosure form, she and her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan Jr., have investments worth between $2 million and $10 million in Education Management Corp., a Pittsburgh-based company that operates for-profit higher education institutions. McKernan is chairman of the board of directors of the company, now embroiled in a lawsuit in which the federal government, 11 states and the District of Columbia are seeking to recover a portion of the $11 billion in federal student aid that the education firm has received since July 2003.

Originally filed in April 2007 by a pair of whistleblowers, the lawsuit alleges that the company violated a federal law that prohibits schools from paying admissions officers based on the number of students they recruit and enroll. Those numbers can affect a school's revenues because more students mean a school is potentially eligible for more federal aid dollars. The whistleblowers alleged, and provided documents indicating, that they were paid bounties for the number of students they enrolled.

The Justice Department's decision to intervene on Aug. 8 made the lawsuit, which had been under seal, public. In its complaint, Justice alleged that Education Management Corp. submitted "knowingly false, misrepresented, and/or improper certifications" to the Education Department, stating that it did not offer enrollment incentives to its admissions officers. Without those certifications, students enrolling at the the company's schools, which include Argosy University, Brown Mackie College and South University, would not be eligible for federal financial aid. The complaint names Snowe's husband, noting that in December 2006, while he was the company's chief executive officer, McKernan personally signed certifications that Education Management Corp.'s schools complied with the ban on offering compensation to admissions officers based on the number of students they recruit.

Education Management Corp. has asked that the case be dismissed. In a press release issued after the suit was announced, Bonnie Campbell, spokesperson for the company's legal team and a former attorney general of Iowa and Justice Dept. official, described the suit as "flat-out wrong." Campbell stated that the company's compensation policies for admissions officers were based on a number of factors, not solely the number of students they recruited, and had been developed with the aid of outside consultants to ensure they complied with federal law.

According to the company's most recent proxy statement, McKernan, who was briefly named as a defendant in the suit but removed, owns more than 835,000 shares in the company, worth more than $14.9 million at current prices. That was up from the 128,000 shares he owned when he became CEO in 2003. He joined the company in 1999, and stepped down from the CEO position in February 2007.

A report from New America Foundation's Higher Ed Watch noted that Education Management Corp. in the words of its founder, Robert Knutson, was "oriented to the needs of [its] students" until 2006, when a group of private equity investors led by Goldman Sachs acquired the company. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that McKernan was involved in the acquisition talks, receiving the first contact about an acquisition and serving on a special committee to advise the board on the progress of talks. Goldman Sachs retained McKernan, but did away with the rest of the management, according to the Higher Ed Watch Report. The new management greatly increased enrollment at Education Management Corporation's schools, doubling it to 160,000 students.

The company's most recent annual report filed with the SEC shows that 74.3 percent of the company's revenues--some $2.6 billion--came from programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, which requires recipients to certify that they don't offer incentives to admissions officers based on the number of students they enroll.

When news of the lawsuit was released, political opponents of Snowe's raised the issue, the Lewiston (Me.) Sun Journal reported. Scott D'Amboise, a Republican challenging her in the Senate primary, called on her to resign, while Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Shripal Shah charged that Snowe and her husband may have personally profited while defrauding low income students.

At the time, Snowe dismissed the charges, citing the care the company took in developing its compensation policies. Her office did not respond to requests for comment.

The administration has been putting a lot of pressure on "for profit" education, mostly because the "not for profit" education sector is heavily dependent on government grants and heavily Democrat; a KO of a Republican senator as collateral damage would be icing on the cake.

 

[Jed]

Copied from an Email my uncle sent me. (A USA - Canadian  dual citizen)

This rather brilliantly cuts thru all the political double talk we get...........

This puts things it into a much better perspective and is
the same for many countries in Europe ...


Why the U.S. was downgraded:

* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed. budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts: $385

Got It ?????

OK now Lesson # 2:

Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:

Let's say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer
backup in your neighbourhood....and your home has sewage all the way up
to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ......
Raise the ceilings, or pump out the shit?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Just when one thinks things cannot get any worse for the GOP, Reuters reports that U.S. fourth-quarter growth revised to 3%, Reuters, Published Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012:

"The U.S. economy grew a bit faster than initially thought in the fourth quarter on slightly firmer consumer and business spending, which could help to allay fears of a sharp slowdown in growth in early 2012.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 3-per-cent annual rate, the quickest pace since the second quarter of 2010, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate. That was a step up from the 2.8 per cent pace it reported in January.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected fourth-quarter GDP would be unrevised at a 2.8 per cent pace. The economy grew at a 1.8-per-cent pace in the third quarter."

More on link


Maybe Obama is just stumbling along the right path or, at least, not the most wrong path, despite his political ideology. Maybe the devil you know is preferable to the devil you don't know.

But David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist for Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc, begs to differ in this article which is reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/david-rosenberg/rosy-us-jobs-picture-weve-been-down-this-path-before/article2354378/

Rosy U.S. jobs picture? We’ve been down this path before

DAVID ROSENBERG

From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Last updated Thursday, Mar. 01, 2012

There was widespread rejoicing over the improving U.S. jobs picture after the economy surprised everyone by adding 257,000 private-sector positions in January, its strongest monthly increase since last April.

The numbers provided a huge dose of encouragement to those who argue the United States has turned the corner, and that years of record-low interest rates and pump-priming stimulus are finally beginning to breathe life back into the economy.

But will the good news continue? I recall last spring, when U.S. payrolls were rising vigorously and the markets and forecasters extrapolated that performance into the future – erroneously as it turned out.

We may be headed down that same path again. Productivity slumped in the fourth quarter and, barring some burst of economic growth, employers are likely to respond by cutting jobs.

Some indicators, such as the Gallup measure of joblessness, are already showing marked weakness. According to Gallup, the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9 per cent in mid-February from 8.6 per cent in January. Gallup also found that 10 per cent of U.S. employees in mid-February were working part time but wanted full-time work – unchanged over the past month but still near a record high.

The problem is that many of the jobs that the U.S. economy is generating are in low-paying service sector jobs. (Yes, there are modest hints of a manufacturing rebound, but the factory jobs that are coming home are doing so at lower wage rates than when they left for Asia years ago.)

Throw in rising gasoline prices and real incomes are in a squeeze. In fact, on a year-to-year basis, real after-tax incomes are actually sliding. This is not a good sign. In the past, shrinking incomes have been associated with an economy in recession, about to head into recession or just coming out of recession.

Of course, just because the U.S. economy isn’t producing jobs hand over fist doesn’t mean that certain companies and industries can’t perform well.

Consumer staples is one such sector, along with anything tied to the long-term theme of consumer frugality – dollar stores and discounters, home improvement and gardening-focused companies, among others. Tech, too, is a good place to be, especially in anything that can benefit from the rapid rise of smartphones and tablets.

Over all, though, the picture remains darker than recent headlines would suggest. For all the excitement over the recent jobs numbers, it’s remarkable how muted our expectations have become.

It’s worth pointing out that the highest level that unemployment hit following the 2001 tech wreck recession was 5.7 per cent. According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent forecast, the lowest unemployment rate the economy is likely to achieve by 2014 is 6.7 per cent. An unemployment rate that was once considered frightening is now supposed to be reason to rejoice.

The key driving force behind the stock market’s rise this year has been the investors’ willingness to pay higher prices for a dollar of earnings. Rising price-to-earnings ratios reflect the market’s belief that massive expansions of global central balance sheets will end up saving the day for dilapidated sovereign government balance sheets and woefully undercapitalized European banks.

The reality is that whatever improvement has taken place in the U.S. jobs market has been little more than a reflection of deteriorating productivity growth. As such, companies will respond in the spring by curbing their hiring plans. This is exactly what happened a year ago – to the detriment of market bulls.

The risks to the U.S. recovery are far larger than investors are pricing in at the current time. It is not jobs that people spend, but income – real income. Unfortunately on this front the U.S. economy and jobs market still has a ways to go.

David Rosenberg is chief economist with Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc. and author of the daily economic newsletter Breakfast with Dave.

If Rosenberg is right, if companies will, indeed, "repsond in the spring by curbing their hiring plans" then that is bad news for Obama.

Obama's approval ratings have climbed all the way up to about 50%, but he needs several months of sustained "good news," all the way to November, to win the election; he can, maybe, afford a weak spring but the summer and fall must be good or his campaign will be in real trouble and the GOP can win IF they have a credible candidate Americans believe can turn things around ~ neither Gingrich nor Santorum qualify, in my opinion.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Copied from an Email my uncle sent me. (A USA - Canadian  dual citizen)

This rather brilliantly cuts thru all the political double talk we get...........

This puts things it into a much better perspective and is
the same for many countries in Europe ...


Why the U.S. was downgraded:

* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed. budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts: $385

Got It ?????

OK now Lesson # 2:

Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:

Let's say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer
backup in your neighbourhood....and your home has sewage all the way up
to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ......
Raise the ceilings, or pump out the shit?

Obama would rather reinforce the doors and windows and hand out laxatives to everyone.

 

[Haletown]

Copied from an Email my uncle sent me. (A USA - Canadian  dual citizen)


OK now Lesson # 2:

Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:

Let's say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer
backup in your neighbourhood....and your home has sewage all the way up
to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ......
Raise the ceilings, or pump out the crap?

or blame it on George Bush 

 

[Haletown]

interesting story . . .

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/1cdafed6-6342-11e1-9245-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1o6QP1XeR

This election is going to be a watershed vote for America, one of those "more important" historical moments, a pivot point that will determine what political philosophical vision will prevail.

It is going to be a most entertaining campaign for political junkies to watch.

 

[larry Strong]

I wonder how thiss is going to go over:

GM temporarily halting production of its Chevrolet Volt


Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120304/gm-halts-chevrolet-volt-production-120304/#ixzz1oB7Q2LDC

DALLAS — General Motors Co. is suspending production of its Chevrolet Volt electric car for five weeks amid disappointing sales.

A GM spokesman said Friday that the company will shut down production of the Volt from March 19 until April 23, idling 1,300 workers at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.

The Volt was rolled out with great fanfare in late 2010 but has since hit bumps in the road. Sales have fallen short of expectations, and its reputation was bruised by an investigation into a possible fire risk.

It carries a high price tag -- around $41,000 before a U.S. tax credit of up to $7,500. Rising gasoline prices should boost the Volt's appeal, but there are plenty of other less-expensive cars that also get good mileage.

GM sold 7,671 Volts last year, below its original goal of 10,000 cars. The company stopped publicly announcing sales targets last year. It sold 1,023 Volts in February and 603 in January.

"The fact that GM is now facing an oversupply of Volts suggests that consumer demand is just not that strong for these vehicles," said Lacey Plache, chief economist for auto information site Edmunds.com.

GM spokesman Chris Lee said the company was "taking a temporary shutdown" of the assembly line.

"We're doing it to maintain our proper inventory levels as we align production with demand," he said.

Lee said a decision to allow Volt drivers to use carpool lanes in California should help demand. "We're just looking to increase sales, and we see a positive trend going forward," he said.

Although the Volt has not been a big seller, the low-emission vehicle has improved GM's reputation for innovation. Like its closest competitor, the Nissan Leaf, the Volt is rated at more than 90 miles per gallon by the EPA. The Volt is powered by a 400-pound battery pack on which the car can travel about 35 miles before it needs recharging. After that, a gasoline-powered generator drives the electric motor.

Battery fires broke out in three Volts after safety crash-testing last year, but federal regulators determined that the car was no more risky than vehicles with conventional gasoline engines. GM and federal officials believe that the fires were caused by coolant leaking from damaged plastic casing around the batteries after side-impact test crashes. They say that they don't know of any such fires in regular use of the cars.

Alan L. Baum, an auto-industry researcher in West Bloomfield, Mich., agreed but said the perception of a safety risk has hurt sales.

"It is taking GM more time than they thought to reverse that sentiment," Baum said. The good news, he said, is that buyers of electric and hybrid cars are probably willing to listen to GM's side in the fire story.

Last year, GM offered to buy back Volts from any customers worried about safety. In January the automaker advised Volt owners to take the cars to a dealer for free repairs. Steel was added to plates that protect the batteries.

The investigation into the fires made the Volt a political lightning rod. Republicans accused federal safety regulators of going easy on the Volt because the government owns a stake in GM after giving it a $50 billion bailout.

The director of the highway safety agency denied giving GM favorable treatment.

 

[a_majoor]

While this is from the last election, it only goes to show how "narrative" is being used to drown out facts. Look again at the poll numbers and see where John McCain slipped and what really caused him to lose the 2008 election:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/03/03/game-change-wrong-gallup-polls-prove-palin-reenergized-2008-campaign

WHOM DO YOU BELIEVE? HBO OR GALLUP?

by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro  1 day ago 535 POST A COMMENT

Despite the premise of "Game Change" - that Sarah Palin cost John McCain the 2008 presidential election - Gallup polls prove HBO's assertion categorically false. Palin wasn’t the reason the Republicans lost the election. She’s the only reason they had a fighting chance up until the time McCain suspended his presidential campaign in late September.

Gallup polls from the last presidential race prove that once Palin joined the ticket on Aug. 29, 2008, McCain’s ratings steadily climbed to a point where the Republican ticket even outshined Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

In the two weeks before Palin joined the McCain ticket, the Arizona senator drifted in the low 40 percentile range, mostly around 41, 42 and 43 percent, while Obama held as much as an 8 point lead at about 49 and 50 percent. Four days after Palin joined the ticket, however, McCain’s numbers climbed to 45 percent and Obama’s sank to 47 percent, narrowing the gap significantly from eight points to two.

Between Sept. 4-6, McCain and Palin actually overshot the Obama ticket by 3 percent with the Republicans in the lead at 48 percent and the Democrats at only 45. McCain consistently held that lead until Sept. 15, and then the candidates balanced out with Obama enjoying a mere three-point lead, and no lead at all from Sept. 22-24, when the numbers were tied at 46 percent.
So what happened?

As the polls evidence above, when McCain first chose Palin to be his running mate, he energized the right and threw the left into a panic. The New York Times reported that, “McCain astonished the political world on Friday by naming Sarah Palin, a little-known governor of Alaska and self-described 'hockey mom' with almost no foreign policy experience, as his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.”

On Sept. 24, however, McCain shocked the country by saying that he was suspending his presidential campaign to help President George W. Bush and Congress solve the financial crisis. “It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration’s proposal,” McCain said in New York about the 2008 crisis. “We are running out of time.”

McCain advisor Mark Salter told the media that the suspension meant that the campaign would not hold any events or advertise.
Although the former war hero turned senator did it for the good of the country, it was perceived as a brash, erratic act, and that’s exactly how Obama portrayed it.

A Sept. 24, Bloomberg news report was only one illustration of many that pointed out that, “Historians noted that the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II didn’t prompt suspensions of presidential campaigns.” U.S. News and World Report published a Nov. 24, 2008 report titled, “McCain Suspends Campaign, Shocks Republicans” that made clear the reaction did not fare well across America, or even within the Republican Party:
The sound of jaws hitting the floor reverberated in Washington this afternoon when Republican presidential nominee John McCain announced that he would suspend his campaign and asked that Friday’s debate be postponed … McCain’s unprecedented step, coming hours before President George Bush will address the nation about the financial turmoil, had many Republicans scratching their heads...

“I’m puzzled,” said longtime McCain supporter Ed Rogers, chairman of BGR Holding, a lobbying firm formerly known as Barbour Griffith & Rogers. “I think we, us McCain people, we need the debate. Not having it just freezes the board, and the status of the game right now favors Obama. We don’t need to quit the game. We need to change the game.

Then Obama fired back that it was “more important than ever” for candidates to tell voters how they would deal with the crisis… “It’s going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once,” he said.

Some were intrigued as to how McCain’s decision would play out in the polls, but once he suspended his campaign in late September he never recaptured the lead he enjoyed with the breaking news of recruiting Palin.

It was downhill from there.

McCain’s campaign was taken out of suspension, but it never actually got back off the ground. From then, the gap between McCain and Obama only widened, leaving the Republicans at a severe disadvantage. McCain’s numbers remained steady around 42 and 43 percent throughout October, but Obama’s continued climbing, and by October 31, McCain’s standing had dropped to 40 percent and Obama’s had reached 53 percent - a devastating 13-percent gap.

After the election, on Nov. 7, 2008, an article published by Rasmussen reported that an overwhelming majority of Republican voters said that Palin actually gave McCain’s campaign a boost. “Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability.” Exit polls showed the same thing.
Campaign contributions of actors, directors, producers and HBO executives in charge of "Game Change," go a long way towards explaining why the movie would be so eager to dishonestly portray the Governor in so many dishonest ways -- including as a drag on the very ticket she energized.

So the factual evidence proves Governor Palin was a huge asset to the Republican campaign, but the need of the Democrtats to destroy her political career and the fact she rubbed the Republican establishment the wrong way (looking at her political background, Governor Palin essentially overturned the GOP establishment in Alaska and was quite effective in carrying out her campaign promises on energy and taxation by working effectively with both sides of the State legislature, which probably upset the Washington GOP establishment) provided the "narrative" of her career that we see today.

This is important to the 2012 campaign, the "narrative" of class warfare and redistribution is already written by the Democrats, the Republicans will have to overturn that "narrative" while staying on message with their own "narrative" (whatever that turns out to be. Looking at the various candidates left there are at leat three narratives, and three corresponding counter narratives that will be used to attack them).

 

[cupper]

The article conveniently overlooks the fact that most of the gaffs that Palin was crucified for took place after the period discussed in the article.

The infamous interview with Katie Couric aired on September 24th and 25th. And this was only the start of her less than stellar performance.

Also, the polls in the article appear to only cover the opinions of Republican voters, which would have a natural bias toward Palin. The voters that really matter are the independents who really make up the deciding factor in any US election.

:sarcasm: Gotta love the revisionist history of the right wing.