Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.
Albert Camus
Election Watch
The RCP House battle of projected lean/likely/strong shows the margin remaining the same, but each side losing 3 to toss ups: 222-175 in favor of the GOP, with another 2 Dem seats shifting from safe to likely.
If you have caught Karl Rove in recent appearances on Fox News' prime-time news commentary shows, he has made reference to the 70% rule. If we take the House seats in play as the lean Dem-toss up-lean Rep category (111 in the RCP count), this would suggest the GOP would win 78 seats. Of the 111 seats, 10 are Republican, which means a net gain of 68; with the current House count of 178 Republicans, we are looking at a prospective 246 seats for the Republicans to 189 for the Democrats. Of course, there are different estimates; Charlie Cook posits about 100 seats in play; assuming the same 10 seats held by the GOP, this means a 60 seat pickup to 238-197. (You can build confidence bands using the Dem share of 72% in the 2006 elections to the 64% figure in the 2008 elections.)
As for the RCP Senate count, if we take a dozen seats in play, 8 of the 12 minus the 4 currently held by Republicans plus the safe 2 seat takeaways (North Dakota and Arkansas) results in an estimated 47 seats for the GOP, leaving the Dems in control with 53.
All this, of course, is speculation. The Democrats usually field a strong turnout and have been more adept at the use of information technology, and it's difficult to know the effects of early voting, although there's no doubt which base is more motivated.
Fox News and Hypersensitive Nonsense
First of all, I want to say that I believe in civility. I don't believe in (or particularly like) narcissistic political leaders like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. I welcome readers but wasn't happy to find that one of them found me by searching for 'Obama is a jackass'. It probably had to do with the fact most of my posts reference Obama, and I've made up a tongue-in-cheek 'Jackass of the Year' award for a particularly obnoxious Democrat; however, I will not treat the President like most Democrats, including him, have done to former President Bush. I will poke fun at Obama, which I'm sure partisans don't like, but I've also criticized and mocked certain Republicans as well. I will also take shots at certain people like Glenn Beck (next segment), whom get a little too full of themselves.
There are several examples that can be cited, but a few will make the general point: there were leaks of alleged diva-like behavior from Sarah Palin, that she had rebelled in her handling (in fact, that's consistent with the fact that the campaign was slow in making her available to the press, and after Palin's disastrous interviews with ABC and CBS, McCain joined her for the last interview sequence with NBC; only Fox News with its fawning interviews were given wider access. ) Bill O'Reilly, on multiple occasions, not only tacitly assumed that the criticisms had no merit, but personally attacked McCain for not taking sides in a disagreements among his supporters. Then, several months later, David Letterman made a bad joke about one of Palin's daughters (keep in mind several comedians mocked the same daughter, Bristol, a year earlier without any response); Sarah Palin immediately seized on the fact that Letterman hadn't fact-checked which (underaged) Palin daughter attended the Yankee game in question with her, accused him of deliberately telling a rape joke involving a 13-year-old girl, and even when she accepted Letterman's public apology, she did it using politically correct rhetoric and tacitly repeated her smear of Letterman.
I think that Sarah Palin would have been better served to respond graciously and with tact in both of the circumstances. I don't like the feminist and politically correct rhetoric; Sarah Palin hasn't quite figured out yet that the politically correct police aren't her friends and a number of people, including myself, have had our fill with empty, abstract rhetoric and political spin. That is the absolute last thing we need after electing a President whom saturates the airwaves daily with 'hope', 'change', 'we are the ones we've been waiting for', whipping boys, and straw men...
I often have a habit of using anecdotes from my own experience in my posts. I'll give one minor example: there was a situation where I had been involved in a group presentation; I had an issue with certain promotional material being used in a scholarly context, and the leaders responded by breaking a commitment to me. The situation was resolved by an agreement to separate the presentations. The group went first--and then preempted my presentation by presenting my own ideas (which included some unique concepts not part of the literature). I had not expected the swerve, and what made the situation even worse was when I followed up with my own presentation, the group, now sitting in the front row, basically started loudly talking in the front row, blatantly interrupting me, ignoring and disrespecting me in front of the rest of the audience. (The moderator made no effort to address this adolescent behavior.) I made no attempt to confront the group after the presentation, although I rebuked the sheepish moderator for mishandling the situation. [As an aside, one of the MBA students who shared my office told me weeks later that Elizabeth, one of the women in the group, was attracted to me, and I should call her. Not a chance.] I could give many other examples, but what amazes me is that politicians generally have better people skills than most of us geeks but they let other people pull their chains.
I'm tired of the pettiness. Jerry Brown's campaign has been worried that Meg Whitman would do an end run around them and cut a pension reform deal with key public unions. That was the context for the now infamous "whore" remark made by one of his staffers in a meeting attended by Brown on an accidentally recorded tape. The term was not meant to denigrate Whitman personally but to suggest that she was willing to do or say almost anything to get elected. I think there are better ways to get one's point across, even in private discussions not knowing one is being recorded without his or her consent.
Then there are the infamous multiple "bitch" references to Sharron Angle by The View's Joy Behar. Now, seriously: did anyone think that Joy Behar wasn't thinking that, even if she hadn't said it? I don't want the politically correct police giving coarse language any more power by putting it (like Fox News does) on heavy rotation. Do you honestly think that liberals/progressives whom used to joke about Bush and monkeys, or Whoopi Goldberg's crass humor making a play on words between female anatomy and the former President's surname, are more restrained in private? And we're not even talking about the prior breach of professionalism on The View when Joy and Whoopi walked out on Bill O'Reilly...
We get it: liberals/progressives aren't always nice people. The same can also be said about some conservatives: look at what Senators Vitter and Ensign and Governor Sanford did, as family value conservatives, to violate their marital vows. As Pope John XXIII once told an architect, whom submitted a plan--without a bathroom: "we are not angels".
What drives me crazy about Fox News is, instead of looking at the pension crisis in California in detail, they're spending much more airtime making much ado about nothing. Politicians should have thicker skin.
Don't sweat the small stuff.
Beck's Populist Rant on China and Manufacturing
I wrote a couple of segments that got lost due to browser or Blogger issues yesterday in the process of posting. His talk show does very well; he is a prolific author and sells out lecture halls. His websites probably get more hits in 5 minutes than mine do all day. I subscribe to his daily email, and one of my brothers in law has friended one of his Facebook groups. But I dislike populism with a passion.
But when Beck on Wednesday's show started one of his trademark doomsday scenarios, you could almost hear a neo-Perot "giant sucking sound" of American manufacturing jobs headed to China. Faithful readers of this blog probably already know the truth. The nature and extent of labor in manufacturing is changing, but we can no longer globally compete on the manufacture of certain goods with significant labor costs involving low-skilled labor. At one point, a significant amount of manpower was employed in agriculture, and those who would control the economy worried that laid-off farm workers would never be able to find jobs in the cities and towns.
We are creating a vibrant value-added manufacturing system with a need for a more efficient, higher-skilled labor force. While Beck contemptuously equates service jobs with working the lunch shift at McDonald's, I got a PhD in an interdisciplinary academic field that didn't have a program when I was in high school, and I've been working for several years in a profession (as an Oracle DBA) that also didn't exist a few decades back.
I'm not especially worried about most shoes or cellphones being manufactured outside of the US. Believe me, if and when American businessmen see money to be made on manufacturing shoes or cellphones (say, through creative destruction), they will do so.
So, Glenn, stop the madness: be more responsible in your current role as a radio/television host, and don't spread panic or wild conspiracy theories.
Political Humor
A few originals:
- The Washington DC area was under a tornado watch the other day. But the real storm is coming mid-term election night: the tornado is going to land the House of Representatives on top of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Then we're off on the road to 2012 to battle the Wizard of Id, Ego and Super-Ego.
- I remember when I was a kid, we would sometimes trick-or-treat at Halloween for a charity like UNICEF. Things have changed since then. In Democratic neighborhoods you now see kids going door-to-door in George W. Bush masks, asking for donations for the Committee to Reelect Barack Obama.
- It's World Series time again. You know what that means: the Democrats are coming up for their final at bats before the midterms, with Harry Reid in the batter's box, Nancy Pelosi on deck, and Barack Obama in the hole. A big, deep hole he in fact can't drive out of; today Obama met with some of the American heroes involved with the Chilean miner rescue; he wants to know if they also happen to be political consultants...
- I'm not saying that game shows are getting easier, but when Richard Blumenthal and Mark Kirk are two of the challengers in a revival of "To Tell the Truth"...
- Sharron Angle's campaign attorney is slamming the Nevada Democratic Secretary of State looking the other way on allegations of free food and gift cards by unions and other Harry Reid supporters. Hearing that, jealous California voters turning out for Proposition 19 are demanding free munchies.
- Harry Reid needs a catchy name for his supporters' food and gift card bribes to Nevada voters, after having recently negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, and Gator-Aid. For those voting for a another Reid term in the Senate, may I suggest the Gamblers' Free Buffet? After 4 times of wasting taxpayer money, surely this term will be a winner...
- I'm sure next week some California voters will be quoted saying, "Dude! Jerry Brown is on the ballot! I told you I didn't miss the vote for his reelection!"
- Obama was widely quoted telling the Republicans that they can't drive, that they have to sit in the back of the car. No doubt he learned something from his conversation with Shirley Sherrod; he also won't give American voters the full force of what he can do after the midterm elections...
- Alexi Giannoulias, Democratic candidate for Illinois' US Senate seat, once occupied by Peter Fitzgerald, wants everyone to know how well-qualified he is for the office: after presiding over the failure of his family-owned bank and the abysmal status quo of Illinois' state finances, he is ready for the challenge of the $13.6T national debt...
Hot Butter, "Popcorn"
