Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Seen in downtown Princeton
You don't see bumper stickers like this very often in downtown Princeton...
Takes less courage these days.
24 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed May 25, 11:07:00 AM:
classic...
I winced when I watched the coverage of Mr. Obama in Ireland.
All that taxpayer funds to send an unaccomplished, vicious partisan, deceitful politician overseas to bask in the glow of the Irish.
With all the problems we face, partly because of Mr. Obama and his Party's awful policies, seeing such largess was a harsh contradiction.
The storms ravaging the Midwest, the high unemployment, disastrous GDP growth, overwhelming deficits, "unilateral" military actions, etc. - the images of the President having such a grand time reminded one of a vacant/spoiled Presidency.
I see a few begin to push for Mrs Palin, others continue to debase those sound CEO's running as potential GOP Nominees. I hope - pray we don't enable this mess further with a mindless emotive flop, like the one in Delaware. We cannot afford to give this Democratic Party failure anything. And the 'hockey mom' fan fare is a recipe for another 4 years of Obama.
By 
Chris Wysocki, at
Wed May 25, 11:14:00 AM:
And a Red Sox fan to boot. This guy is just looking for trouble!
By , at
Wed May 25, 11:52:00 AM:
Thought you meant the Red Sox sticker. Then I scrolled
down a bit.
By , at
Wed May 25, 12:12:00 PM:
Here in Princeton, as many already know, Democrats rule completely. During the Bush years Gore or Kerry stickers stayed on cars all the way through, accompanied by the usual assortment of "denigrate Bush" stickers.
What I find amazing today is that I see very few Obama stickers in town. Almost none in fact. In the last month I bet I've only seen two or three Obama stickers, including one on a memorable CWA union "political team member" car that had lots of other anti-Christie stickers on it, in the Whole Foods parking lot. Enthusiasm for the Democrats seems noticeably very low to me, even here in a one party town. What about your communities? Is anyone seeing high enthusiasm for Democrats and the President?
I think this next election is one where the Democrats have lower than usual turnout, and spend a ton of money destroying the reputation of whomever the GOP candidate is, hoping they can thereby drive GOP turnout similarly low.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed May 25, 01:11:00 PM:
Unfortunately for them, GOP (and, increasingly, independent) turnout will be driven not by love of the nominee, but hatred of Obama. It's an axiom of politics that it is easier to run against something than to run for, and Obama is chock-full of things to run against: character AND performance. Not only is he a shitty president, he's a petty, thin-skinned, bullying, narcissistic dick to boot.
The stars are aligning, as far as the battlefield is concerned. It's a matter of finding the right candidate. A milque-toast moderate will fail to attract the Obama-haters, who will see the choice as Democrat 1 and Democrat 2, and lose. I won't address the possibility of a fire-breathing reactionary, because I don't think the newly expanded Republican electorate is all that interested in nutcases and ideologues, whatever the Internet has to say about it [RON PAUL R3VOLUT1ON!].
A 'milque-toast moderate' would probably be anyone who 1) has ever praised Obama on the merits, 2) said nice things about more government (esp. healthcare) mandates and higher taxes. Sorry, Romney.
Social moderation is probably fine; people are far, far more concerned about the wretched state of the national treasury, taxes, and pathetic economic growth. It will also attract more independents and Democrat defectors. Turns out that a lot of 'liberals' are actually only social liberals, not communists.
Foreign policy weakness is probably also fine; hell, Obama was elected (in 2008, when foreign policy mattered a lot more), and he doesn't know God Save the Queen from the Austrian language.
Where they will need to have core competence is domestic policy, number-crunching, and a bit of charisma. They need to be able to explain to the electorate just how awful Obama and his policies are for the country, and how completely and totally fucked we are on current trajectories.
I think it would also be good if the candidate were not in Congress, so they could run against them as an institution that is perfectly happy to feed their constituents sunshine and rainbow lies while pissing away or stealing billions of dollars and chipping away at our freedoms and burying commerce in mountains of regulations, red tape, and bureaucrats.
That was a bit of a tangent, wasn't it?
By , at
Wed May 25, 01:26:00 PM:
Fuzzy logic:
It's still early, but by November 2012 a Republican could challege Obama for New Jersey's 14 electoral votes.
If a Republican can credibly challenge in New Jersey, then they've already won Pennsylvania and Ohio.
If a Republican wins Pennsylvania and Ohio, they'll get over 300 electoral votes -- more than the magic 270.
****
I raise this because the current MSM buzz is that the odds favor Obama to win. But if his support in trendy Princeton is getting wobbly, then he's actually already in trouble.
I'm convinced that Obama announced his candidacy so early so that he could raise money while he has a lenghty window to reward and punish. If his initial fundraising comes in low, it'd be an interesting tell.
By , at
Wed May 25, 01:41:00 PM:
Follow-up to DF82:
I was glad to see Pawlenty make a bold opening. He's running to not be a 'milque-toast moderate'. Sarah may not have to run after all. Developing.
I googled "ethanol Romney" for giggles. All I could see was that when asked directly back in 2007 what he thought about ethanol subsidies, Romney was for "energy indepedence". There's not a single policy position on Romney's current officlal website. I suppose that's because he's still running Monte Carlo simulations for "political outreach optimization".
By victoria, at
Wed May 25, 02:46:00 PM:
So what you are saying, Dawn, is that there is no candidate at the moment to challenge Obama. Not one of the "declared" or "undeclared" candidates has any sort of charisma or positive message to draw people to him/her. The only person I see that I would even consider voting for is Christie, as he is a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, my kind of Republican.
Seeing as how you are full of irrational "Obama derangement" it should be easy for him to defeat any candidate who thinks and articulates like you do.
Good luck.
Vicki from Pasadena
By , at
Wed May 25, 03:01:00 PM:
Notice the 732 area code and not 609. I think that explains a good deal.
By , at
Wed May 25, 04:20:00 PM:
TH, it's considered good form to fuzz out the actual license p[late number in a situation like this.
JLW III
By , at
Wed May 25, 05:57:00 PM:
vicki pasadena ca was kind enough to bless this blog with some words of wisdom back in October 2010. I can tell, just by looking at the results of the poll, just who your readers are. Here is the reality, the Republicans will gain less than 18 seats and will not gain the majority in either the house or the senate. Mark my words.
Duly marked. As far as I can tell, 63 is not less than 18. At least that is what I learned in first grade. Maybe 63 is less than 18 in Vick-Math.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed May 25, 10:33:00 PM:
JLW III, yeah, but I do not know why it is considered good form. Seems to me if you are going to drive around with bumper stickers you are advertising your point of view. Live by the stickers, die by the stickers. (That said, when I put pictures of my own car up I usually fuzz out the plates, but it's my blog!) Anyway, it is extra work and I was busy...
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu May 26, 12:31:00 PM:
"So what you are saying, Dawn, is that there is no candidate at the moment to challenge Obama"
Not in the slightest. Lrn2politic, and maybe re-read what I said, and it would be obvious that I was explaining that I think the boundaries of acceptable primary campaigning are expanded this year, making it EASIER to field a winnable candidate in the general. Or at least that's what I would advise if I believed in the slightest that you were interested in genuine discussion rather than inventing a pathetic 'gotcha' cheap-shot for yourself.
"Seeing as how you are full of irrational "Obama derangement" it should be easy for him to defeat any candidate who thinks and articulates like you do."
Who are you to judge anyone about 'irrational derangement?' Do you have Alzheimer's? Do you not remember the many hours you've spent here yelling about Glenn Beck and George Bush? Or are you just a terrible hypocrite?
I can spend an hour typing out reasons that Obama is a shitty president and a bad person, starting with serial insults to the British, extorting BP for a fire started by the Coast Guard even while receiving record campaign contributions from them, and making fun of the Special Olympics on TV, and finishing with launching a new foreign war based merely on his divine right, single-handedly scuttling Arab-Israeli negotiations with his own ineptitude and arrogance, and making a habit of attacking people whose politics he doesn't like as they're bound by protocol to sit in front of him, silent. It isn't hard. He's a shitty president and a bad person.
But the best part is the knowledge that you cannot do the same about Bush without mentioning a dozen things that Obama has also done, like kept open Guantanamo, or OK'ing the assassination of American citizens, or extending the dreaded 'Bush tax cuts' and the PATRIOT Act.
So, talk some more about irrational feelings? Please?
"Good luck."
Liar.
By , at
Thu May 26, 12:35:00 PM:
vicki pasadena ca was kind enough to bless this blog with some words of wisdom back in October 2010...
somebody has way too much hands on his hands
By , at
Thu May 26, 12:41:00 PM:
Thankfully, more 52% of the nation disagrees with you, Dawn.
Oh well, there's always 2016...
By , at
Thu May 26, 01:08:00 PM:
The best poll I've found for this is the Rasmussen one that compares "strongly approve" to "strongly disapprove". It gives a good sense of who's likely to vote and how, not just "man in the street" sentiment.
Obama has recently improved from 40% strongly disapprove to 35% strongly dissapprove, while moving from 20% strongly approve to 25% strongly approve -- that's still "negative 10" but Obama has at times been over "negative 20".
Obama's been getting a bump from executing a hit on Bin Laden, as expected.
He'll never get over 25% strongly approve, but will never go much lower. He'll always get 20%
But if he goes back over 40% strongly dissapprove then he's in trouble. If he goes over 50%, he's toast.
That's why the Republicans need a candidate who will take Obama's policies head on. The candidate has to be able to attack Obama directly.
I don't see how we get from here to November 2012 in stasis. There's lots of bad things poised to happen, and we're already in stagnation.
The electoral map also favors the Republican, much like it did for Bush when he beat Gore in 2000 while losing the popular vote, even more so.
By , at
Thu May 26, 06:33:00 PM:
The best poll I've found for this is the Rasmussen one....
Following 2010 elections, Rasmussen was found to be the least accurate of all major pollsters--off by several percentage points in most of the elections--and with a more decidedly conservative bent than its peer pollsters.
If you want a more accurate snapshot, albeit one potentially less favorable to your position, you should go with the Real Clear Politics average (see link at 12:42 pm comment), which weighs all the major pollsters including Rasmussen on the one end and AP on the other.
Less fun for partisan purposes, but a far better reality check in the long run.
By , at
Thu May 26, 09:17:00 PM:
By Gary Rosen, at
Fri May 27, 02:49:00 AM:
To elaborate a bit on Ig's last comment :^), Rasmussen came within one percent of calling the 2008 election exactly. But the leftwing nuts can always find some misapplication of statistics and logic to call this "less accurate".
By , at
Fri May 27, 07:34:00 AM:
Gary, my comment about Rasmussen's poor polling performance and bias was in connection with the 2010 election.
"The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Report...missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters."
As for the 2008 election, Rasmussen's final poll was half a point off in the spread. As were six other pollsters including Pew, McClatchy and CNN.
By , at
Fri May 27, 09:37:00 AM:
All polls have biases. Rasmussen has a bias toward "likely to vote" and better reflects strength of feeling. Many other polls force an answer that the subject may not feel strongly about.
I don't read polls for accuracy necessarily. But the better polls are at least internally consistent. So I look at polls like Rasmussen to assess momentum shifts over time.
Right now a lot of people strongly dissapprove of Obama, but less so than a month ago and much less so than around the time of the 2010 election. If it stays where it is, he wins in 2012. If it goes back up to 45% or more, he loses. Its the best single metric I know of.
I don't think you can drive Obama's negative numbers up without tying him to the long-term implications of his policies -- you have to take the fight to him and call him out.
Speaking of bias, and the article cited that "Rasmussen sucks", nearly everything The New York Times writes about is commissioned by its editors to deliver a pre-ordained outcome. "All the news that fits." I looked at the NYT's data. Rasmussen did way more polls than the others which suggests it had a lot of smaller, low budget polls in its mix which affected its average accuracy. You might get a different result if you compared just apples to apples of the bigger polls that they did. If you dug in, I'd expect to find even more biases in this data set.
But Anon doesn't really care about that does he. So once again, blow me.
By , at
Sat May 28, 12:28:00 PM:
So once again, blow me
Pffftt. You can't even get lucky on line.
By , at
Sun May 29, 01:13:00 PM:
Dear Anon, Where I come from, "blow me" is just a nicer way to say "fuck off". Nothing sexual about either.
I try not to do ad hominems here, but your comments above make me think you're a troll. You're welcome to prove me wrong, but I doubt you will. I for one actually like taking on well-argued leftie positions, if that's the way you roll, but I doubt that's what you're about. All you want to do is derail and distract.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sun May 29, 09:31:00 PM:
This isn't sounding like a conversation I want to enter, but I do have a bit to mention.
I don't want a charismatic candidate. Charisma has screwed us, thanks. I'm looking for boring. I wonder how much of the "need" for charisma touted in the media is self-fulfilling.
