April 2006

ILLINOIS: Bush Punishing Topinka By Appearing With Her?

ArchPundit April 13, 2006 2 Comments

Why? Because Tom was right in comments, it cracks my ass up. It’s from the National Journal’s Hotline today.

There is something serious here though–and that is when she tries to distance herself from the national party, it distances herself from the people she needs to turn out. She’ll do well with moderates and independents, but without a base, I’m not sure that matters. Many will come home because of ABB–anybody but Blagojevich, but it certainly depresses turnout if she is running away from the national party and the national intensity numbers for Republicans are horrible already.

What is going to motivate socially conservative voters this fall in Illinois? Bush isn’t on the ballot. No Senate race. The downballot races aren’t terribly exciting for social conservatives. Pankau, I think, is the most conservative–well maybe the AG candidate, but frankly I had to think for a second to come up with Stu’s name. It seems farfetched that Petey the undercover homosexual lifestyle investigator is going to get his non-binding referendum on the ballot to suggest to ban gay marriage in the Constitution of Illinois.

There are four big house races, but in one, Weller is hardly a darling of anyone, and in another Zinga is just a bad candidate. Roskam and McSweeney will fire up the troops, but that is only in two Congressional Districts.

Giving Alexi’s problems Radogno has a very good shot despite poor early polling and if Blagojevich has any high placed indictments come down over the summer, it’s possible that Judy could win, but without these external events it’s really tough to figure out how Republicans don’t have a bad year when the base has nothing to go to the polls for.

You Heard It Here First

ArchPundit April 13, 2006 No Comments

Gee, rural schools are in trouble….

Mary Mitchell’s column is a good column and very serious problems faced in rural school areas currently.

Instead of beating a path to an urban school to try to make sense of these abysmal graduation rates, Time instead highlighted Shelbyville High School, about 30 miles outside of Indianapolis. There, an estimated 100 kids from the entering freshman class four years ago dropped out. Almost all of the dropouts interviewed by the Time reporter said “teachers and principals treated the ‘rich kids’ better.”

These were not voices echoing across gritty street corners. The students featured in the Time article were poor white kids, many of them from chaotic family backgrounds. Like the estimated 80 percent of Chicago Public School kids who qualify for free lunch, these students from small-town America fit the profile of kids who give up on earning a high school diploma.

There are some problems with the methodology by the Manhattan Institute, but the general issue is addressed decently–IOW, the got to essentially the right place with not the best way to get there.

Rural schools are in very serious trouble—it’s not by accident that the meth problems are so heavy in rural areas, the lack of jobs and increase in poverty is serious in those areas. As farming has changed, good paying jobs in the local communities are leaving–those that don’t leave are more likely to be left behind in the same kind of spiral we have seen in many urban neighborhoods.

Campaign Etiquette

ArchPundit April 13, 2006 No Comments

When you win a primary and you have filed an FEC complaint against your opponent without any actual evidence, be gracious and drop it when you win.

It really pisses people off to be dealing with 2 year old complaints whether or not they are the subject.

That is all.

New Survey USA Numbers

ArchPundit April 13, 2006 No Comments

Rod at 47 Approve, 49 Disapprove

That’s the highest Approval and lowest disapproval in the last year. Let’s remember that under 50 for an incumbent is a danger sign, but the track is rather consistent which is interesting. Still not long enough to say for sure, but it looks at least reasonable.

Over at Rich’s there are some good questions and I think it’s safe to say we need to see some more polls.

However, we do see some initial trends amongst Conservative voters in all of the categories broken down. It could well be the effect of the campaign to paint Topinka as liberal. That could be temporary or it might just be spite after a nasty primary, but I wouldn’t completely discount the general trend. I can’t stress enough that we need to see more polls, but that trend is consistent throughout all categories and may well indicate some weakness in the Republican base for Judy. That leaves open questions of whether the movement, if true, is temporary and such, but it can’t be a good sign.

Repeat After Me: Rich Guys Who Haven’t Been Vetted Are A Bad Idea

ArchPundit April 13, 2006 1 Comment

Obama is leaning on Alexi

Trib ripped Alexi

If you are a rich guy thinking of running for relativley high office, hire a private investigator along with someone who does opposition research and see what they dig up and make sure you have answers to all of it before you run. Otherwise, please don’t waste the voters’ time.

Or better yet, run for lower office and work your way up as Peter Fitzgerald did.

Lotta Tort Reform

ArchPundit April 11, 2006 2 Comments

Perhaps ironically, John Lott a former visiting professor at University of Chicago is suing Steven Levitt of U of C for defamation.

This might seem funny outside of academia, but within academia it’s friggen hysterical. The mild criticisms Levitt levels at Lott wouldn’t even count for interesting tiff at a professional meeting where borish behavior and concescending denouncements of others are the norm. To sue over such mild statements is bizarre and demonstrates just how thin skinned and bizarre John Lott is.

According to Levitt’s book: “When other scholars have tried to replicate [Lott’s] results, they found that right-to-carry laws simply don’t bring down crime.”

But according to Lott’s lawsuit: “In fact, every time that an economist or other researcher has replicated Lott’s research, he or she has confirmed Lott’s conclusion.”

By suggesting that Lott’s results could not be replicated, Levitt is “alleging that Lott falsified his results,” the lawsuit says.

Lott is seeking a court order to block further sales of “Freakonomics” until the offending statements are retracted and changed. He is also seeking unspecified money damages.

Lott acknowledged in the suit that some scholars have disagreed with his conclusions. But he said those researchers used “different data or methods to analyze the relationship between gun-control laws and crime” and made no attempt to “replicate” Lott’s work.

Replicating the results means using different methods, you dumbass. The point of replicability in the scientific method is that one should be able to conduct the research gathering new data and using different, but appropriate methodology to test the same hypotheses.

What’s most disturbing about this is that if Lott were successful, and he won’t be, it would have a chilling effect on peer review and the ability of academics to criticize one another’s work.

Kevin Drum also addresses how Lott is lying again (and sue me John, I double dog dare you)

Lott could actually make a decent saving face argument that while his research was flawed he found an important point that conceal carry doesn’t significantly increase crime which was heavily in dispute when he first did his research. Now there is some discussion over whether there are minor crime increases correlated with conceal carry, but that is far different than dire predictions of years agod.

But no, Lott makes a bigger ass of himself. I’m sure Tim will be having fun with this over at Deltoid–btw, Lott recently left AEI.

Speaking of Flatulence

ArchPundit April 11, 2006 No Comments

The ICFST goes to work with Roeser attacking Judy for being low rent.

Fran Eaton takes him on

Roeser fires back claiming Judy is bad because she brings up flatulence.

My question being whether spewing your verbal flatulence is worse than talking about actual flatulence?

What was it that he said about Meeks?