Call It A Comeback
Mike Lawrence points out the remedy:
The Illinois GOP will rebound only if it is less dogmatic than Alan Keyes on social issues and absolutely intolerant of Fawell-like public betrayal and any shenanigans even approaching it.
Zorn never heard the phrase before—in academia it’s quite often used to deflate the royal we amongst friends. In the past, single authors were expected to use the royal we in writing–as the profession became more democratized this silly and patronizing artifact has become a target of ridicule. The only time I remember a couple professors ever getting testy was when a grad student defending his point said ‘we believe’. This was a double mistake. First, one demonstrates with evidence, second, unless there is a mouse in one’s pocket, it is grammatically incorrect.
Sleeping or Evangelizing?
Evangelizing.
If OPEC can’t significantly affect the price of oil when it can increase supply by 1.5 million barrels a day, how is ANWR supposed to do that when estimates put the maximum barrels a day at 876,000 in 2025?
Just curious.
Does the father figure head back to Florida because of this? Or does he stay safely in Greene County? My guess is heads back to Florida.
A. They’ll all be buried in Illinois
Austin Mayor points out a rather strange ID in the Post-Dispatch, Keyes’ picture is labeled as Obama when you let your cursor rest on the picture
They also mispell Keyes name in the caption. Welcome to my daily paper. If you wonder why I don’t criticize the Trib too much, it’s the comparison that makes it look so, so good.
If by deceiving you mean, clearly stating his consistent position for the entire race, I suppose that is deception, but I think we can all agree that isn’t a typical definition of deceiving. Alan is just nutty on this one–well on all of them, but complaining that Obama is against gay marriage, but for civil unions is sort of silly given Obama’s been clear on the issue.
And, Obama is actually in that middle third of voters who tend to be against gay marriage, but for some sort of institution like marriage for gay couples. I disagree, being in the slightly under a third of people who think that marriage should be available to gays and lesbians, but I can’t be too critical of a guy who is about average on the issue.
The Defense of Marriage Act is a direct assault on federalism from Keyes perspective so it’s a bit bizarre that he is so vocal about supporting it. DOMA denies federal benefits to gay and lesbian couples regardless of state law. If you argue state powers should be respected, arguing for DOMA is logically inconsistent.
Zorn accosted by evangelists on the way to work this morning. The whole rant by the woman sounds like a former school board member in the City of Saint Louis who put a curse on me for calling her mentally ill.
Someone in his comments suggests he started a physical confrontation. Huh?
Anyway, raving loons on mass transit or in a Senate race aren’t exactly the way to judge most people of conscience.
I think bad polls might degrade people’s confidence in social science, but I doubt it has much effect on how people vote.
Zorn points out one potential problem:
The problem with polls, such as it is, is the way public often interprets and then acts upon results.
A candidate who polls poorly in the early stages of a race, particularly a primary, often then has a very hard time raising campaign money ? who wants to throw his hard-earned down the rat hole of a loser’s coffers? ? which in turn makes it hard for him or her to show well in the polls or the Only Poll That Matters on Election Day.
It’s not clear to me that people act on the polls. I’m probably guilty of saying that a poll might deter turnout in such cases as the Keyes craziness, but even I’m not sure that is accurate. Even if there wasn’t a polling telling us that Keyes was screwed, isn’t the stench of death around the Keyes campaign and everything it touches pretty obvious? Even without showing a 45 point gap would anyone think differently?
I had a friend just run against a very connected incumbent for the 3rd District in Missouri. The polling for Jeff was horrible and even not that great on the last week from what I hear. Jeff lost by just over 1 percent of the vote–1700 votes. He ran a truly insurgent campaign and came so close to winning, but didn’t even though every conventional measure said he coudln’t do it. And he raised a lot of money despite having no poll standing and all of the establishment lined up against him. Polling hurt on some fundraising, but not much. Russ Carnahan’s connections hurt far more than any polling and that is something that can’t really be fixed.
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