What’s New Today
Story #1 tells
us what Gallup has learned about the electorate and it isn’t good for the
Democrats. #2 looks at what a preference
cascade is as I conjecture that this will be the undoing of BHO in the coming
election. #3 is a new anti-Obama
ad. #4 talks about Obama’s bio. It seems Barack was the first birther. #5 asks the question, is a national
egg-laying hen standard something worthy of the Senate or should they focus on
things like a budget?
Today’s Thoughts
Richard Furillo stood with his son Matthew at his
son’s workplace; a lifelong Democrat, he voted for Obama in 2008 but won’t again.
“I don’t know why I did it but I cannot
stand any more ‘change,’” he said, referring to the president’s old
campaign slogan.
Discrimination
has become a nasty word which is used politically by the left.
Yet we discriminate extensively within our society and even within the
Constitution. If you are under 18 you
cannot vote. If you are under 21 you
cannot drink. If you are under 35 you
can’t be President. But to discriminate you have to have standards, which is why the left
hates it.
As some market watchers have raised the probably of
another recession to 100%, the one good thing for Obama in this news is the price of gasoline should drop.
1. Gallup: America self
identifies and the election
Americans are
more than twice as likely to identify themselves as conservative rather than
liberal on economic issues, 46% to 20%. The gap is narrower on social issues,
but conservatives still outnumber liberals, 38% to 28%.
Here are a
couple of graphs. The one shows
the breakdown on economic and social issues.
It indicates that Romney is smart to focus on economic issues. On economic issues only, if Romney secures
the economic conservatives he need only win 4+percent of the moderates to win
the election.
The second graph
is even more interesting. If you give
Obama the social liberals regardless of their economic views (a reasonable
thing to do), and the economic liberals Obama stands with 33% of the vote. Give Romney the Economic conservative less
the socially liberal ones and the socially conservative (Obama probably did
that with his stance on gay marriage) but economically moderate, Romney has 48%
of the vote. This leaves 15% economically moderate and socially moderate who if
Obama gets 100% of them he ties Romney 48-48.
My sense is with the economy like it is, the economically moderate will
break for Romney 9-6 percent or 8-7, which gives Romney 56-57% and Obama 39-40%
of the vote. Despite what you are
hearing, this is going to be a landslide for the Republicans.
2. The Preference Cascade Begins?
…What I believe we are seeing here is the
beginning of a “preference cascade,” a term made popular by Glenn Reynolds
of Instapundit fame. It’s a fascinating concept, applied originally to
the process by which oppressive governments fall.
A large
population can be dominated by a small group only by persuading all dissenters
that they stand alone. Most of their fellow citizens are portrayed
as loyal to the regime, and everyone around the dissident is a potential
informer. A huge dissident population can therefore be suppressed, by
making them believe they’re all lonely
voices in the wilderness… until the day they begin realizing they are not alone,
and most people don’t support the regime. The process by which
dissent becomes seen as commonplace, and eventually overwhelming, is the
preference cascade…
….A preference cascade can flow in positive
directions as well. Those who believe they are alone in holding a
positive opinion about something are delighted to discover that its fan base is
much larger than they believed, and approval quickly snowballs. Anyone
who has watched a “cult” phenomenon go “mainstream” has witnessed this.
That’s what
began happening over the past couple of weeks: a large number of people
discovered it’s okay to strongly disapprove of Barack Obama. His
popularity has always been buttressed by the conviction – very aggressively
pushed by his supporters – that disapproval
of his personal or official conduct is immoral. You’re
presumptively “racist” if you disagree with him, or at least a greedy tool of
the Evil Rich, or a “Tea Party extremist.”
A negative
mirror image of this narrative was installed around Mitt Romney, who is
supposedly a fat-cat extremist (and, thanks to the insidious War On Mormons, a
religious nut) who nobody likes... even though large numbers of people in many
different states voted for him in the primaries. Of course he has his
critics, and I’m not seeking to dismiss the intensity or sincerity of that
criticism… but the idea was to make
Romney supporters feel isolated going into the general election, particularly
the people who don’t really get involved in primary elections.
Both
of those convergent narratives began crumbling this week: Obama is deeply vulnerable, and his campaign has no real answer to
criticism of his record – they’ve even tried floating an outright fraud,
the now-infamous Rex Nutting charts that presented Obama as some kind of fiscal
hawk. (Stop laughing – major media figures took this garbage seriously
for a couple of days, and Team Obama did push it.) Major
Democrats, beginning with Newark mayor Cory Booker, expressed criticism of the
Obama campaign… and the Left reacted with shrieking hysteria and vows of
personal destruction for the “traitors.”…
You actually see
this happen in a lot of elections. The “experts”
have been trying to convince us that this election will be too close to
call. It has the effect of keeping Obama
supporters hopeful and keeping Romney supporters more discouraged than they
should be. This election won’t be
close. History has shown us over and
over again economics like we have now is deadly for incumbents. Look at Europe. Where has an incumbent been returned to
power? And this preference cascade will
happen here and Obama and the Democrats will be swept from the power they
currently enjoy.
3. New Ad: What
the election will be about
These
kinds of ads will beat BHO like a drum.
4. Obama: Kenyan born according to his own bio
Of the three possibilities, number three may be discarded on its face as absurd. Everyone in the publishing industry knows that authors write their own bios. At the very least, authors approve their own bios. I've written some law review articles, and in the law journal context, author bios are normally brief. Even so, in every instance, the respective publishers printed only what I approved.
Mr. Obama's Acton & Dystel bio is fairly lengthy and detailed. To believe that Obama had no knowledge of the born-in-Kenya "error" requires more than just believing he didn't sign off on it. We would also have to believe that Obama didn't care to read his bio in the 36-page promotional booklet after publication and distribution. That is also a huge stretch. Did Obama get a copy? Of course he did -- that's another publishing standard….
This
is an issue of character and with the coming election character will be a very
important issue. People want to know the
character of Mitt Romney. Will he follow
through on his promises? People also
want to know the character of Barack Obama.
What did he mean when he told the Russians he will have more “flexibility”
after his last election? Does Obama go
even harder left if he gets reelected?
5. Senate Looks to have National Egg-Laying Hen Standard
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and a half dozen other
senators have proposed legislation setting a uniform national standard for the
treatment of egg-laying hens,
which would ensure egg producers aren't blocked from selling across state lines
due to differing state standards.
Feinstein said on Thursday that six states already have their own
standards, and 18 others could put their own rules in place soon, which could
cause problems in the years ahead. She said beginning in 2015, for example,
eggs produced in Iowa and Indiana will not be able to ship to California
because they will not meet California's standards.
"Different standards in
Michigan and Ohio will take effect later, further adding to the patchwork of
regulations," she said. "As
states with disparate standards continue to protect their own egg producers by
banning the sale of eggs from States with lower or no standards, a complicated
web of state laws will impair interstate commerce."…
Does
this really sound like something the founders had in mind when the created the
Senate? And in view of the Senate not
having passed a budget in three years, aren’t there more important things they
should be looking into?
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