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Wednesday, October 31, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

And they all want to be President! Via Bainbridge.

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By Steven L. Taylor

Via the Miami Herald: Ludacris joins elves at Dolphin Mall

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By Steven L. Taylor

Joe Biden on Rudy Giuliani: “He only uses three words in a sentence: A noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

Sadly, pretty much spot on.

h/t: The Debatable Land via OTB

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By Steven L. Taylor

Via Rasmussen: Stephen Colbert Tops Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich in Presidential Poll:

Given a choice between Colbert running as a Democrat and Republican Congressman Ron Paul, 36% of voters prefer Colbert while Paul attracts 32%. Twenty-one percent (21%) say they’d vote for some other candidate while 10% are not sure.

If the choice is between Colbert as a Republican and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, it’s Colbert 37%, Kucinich 32%. Nineteen percent (19%) would vote for some other candidate and 11% are not sure.

Let’s face it: that’s kind of funny. Of course, it is also the power of name recognition and that fact one suspects that most people (one hopes) understands that the Colbert thing is a joke anyway.

Still, no fun to be the real candidates who are considered joke-worthy enough themselves to be included in the poll in the first place.

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By Steven L. Taylor

When the government and Halloween meet:

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Tuesday, October 30, 2024
By Steven L. Taylor

And to think, I tell my students that one of the main problems with social scientific inquiry is the inability to conduct controlled experiments! Too bad I don’t have the budget for this kind of work: Political Scientists Discover New Form of Government.

h/t: A&I

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By Steven L. Taylor

Speaking of bombing Iran, Norman Podhoretz argued on the Newshour last night that opposing such an attack is to be equated with appeasing Hitler (indeed, towards the end of the clip, he specifically cites Munich).

The link above has the video and a partial transcript.

And again: Podhoretz is a key adviser to the Giuliani campaign on foreign policy matters.

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By Steven L. Taylor

Via the AFP: Dogs shoot man on hunting trip

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By Steven L. Taylor

To follow up on the previous post:

Via here, we note that 49% is pretty good in terms of recent history, so again, the fact that Hillary is consistently polling in the4 46%-49% shouldn’t be construed as an obvious negative, especially at this stage of the game:

Popular Vote Winners, by Percentage, 1960-2004

2004: 53.16%
2000: (pop vote): 48.48%
1996: 49.95%
1992: 43.28%
1988: 53.89%
1984: 59.17%
1980: 51.59%
1976: 55.20%
1972: 60.91%
1968: 43.31%
1964: 61.20%
1960: 50.05%

Now, granted, all of the bolded dates had a significant (to varying degrees) third party candidates to siphon votes from one (or both) candidates. Still, at a minimum the notion that Hillary, sans an actual general election campaign, cannot possibly find a few percentage points, is wishful thinking. Certainly is it rather early to be pronouncing sureties about the numbers.

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By Steven L. Taylor

Jim Geraghty notes

Pollster Scott Rasmussen just shared this fascinating observation in an interview: When you average the head-to-head matchups with Hillary Clinton vs. any of the Republicans, she’s always getting 46 to 49 percent against any of them.

The report on the poll can be found here.

Now, some see this as of great significance vis-a-vis Hillary, such as the Influence Peddler who asks Is Hillary a Sure Loser?.

Well, no. There are two key reasons. First, 46%-49% is a winning range. Second, the issues isn’t (as we should all be quite aware of by now) the direct head-to-head vote, but the state-by-state vote. One suspects that the anti-Hillary sentiments are over-represented in Red states and under-represented in Blue states.

I must confess, I am amazed every single electoral cycle as to the way in which “analysts” like to focus on the overall head-to-head numbers while ignoring the state-by-state numbers. I recognize that state-by-state polling doesn’t exist yet, but the lack of data doesn’t justify pretending like available data are sufficient.

The report on the poll highlights the fact that Ron Paul wins 38% against Hillary, which, no doubt, will cause a great deal of joy in the Paulista camps (I can see it now: “See he has 38% support already–just think where he could go if given the chance!”) However, not so fast. First, I would note the title of Rasmussen report (emphasis mine): “Poll Matching Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul Tells A Lot About Clinton, Little About Paul.” Further, the write-up states (emphasis theirs):

Among all voters, Clinton attracts 48% support. Among the voters who have never heard of Ron Paul or don’t know enough to have an opinion, guess what. Clinton attracts the exact same total–48% of the vote. So whether or not people have heard of Ron Paul as the challenger, support for Clinton doesn’t change.

In other words, the name could have been “Ferderico Bocifitania” and the anti-Hillary needle wouldn’t have much budged.

As I said at OTB:

Actually, that shouldn’t be a shock. Surely in a head-to-head poll of Hillary v. Any Republican (Ron Paul, John Smith, whomever) the Rep would get somewhere in the high thirties. Wouldn’t that simply demonstrate the baseline GOP vote?

Nevertheless, I expect somebody, somewhere in the Paulista camp to argue that these numbers show that Paul is a viable candidate.

To which I would reply: yes, like many (most? all?) of the current GOP crop, he is a viable candidate to lose the election in 2024. (I say that as a matter of empirical fact, and not as anything else).

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