Does McCain already have the Election won?

[Big Phil]

I think it would only be 8 or twelve, but yes. I don't think the country stands a chance of being fixed unless the democrats grow some stones, and I don't see that happening if Obama wins. Regardless of the changes Obama brings to the presidency (and I think the republicans are going to fight him every step of the way, especially since it doesn't look like the Dems are going to get a fillibuster-proof majority after the idiotic leadership refused to bring S-CHIP up for a vote), I don't think it's going to bring any change to our political process. I think "Deregulation increasing company profits and strengthening our economy", "Tax cuts for the rich trickling down to the middle class" and etc. arguments will have the same effects they have now, and nothing will change.

Not with the supreme court, and federal court appointments, and the infrastructural collapse. It takes a LOT of money, time, and energy to rebuild a ghetto once you create one.

Like I said, I'm aware it would fuck everyone over for a good 8 or twelve years, but after that we may have a real shot at throwing out arch-conservative politics forever.

If obama wins, the worst that can happen is the status quo will be maintained. If McCain wins, it is the outlier best case scenario that that will also be the case.

That may be the immediate effects, but I'm looking at the big picture. In the long run, the total amount of suffering would be less.

DA - where do you live that you somehow think destroying the country is a good solution and you won't be affected or harmed by it?

[RedImperator]

Poor Dominus Atheos. He finally manages to outsmart somebody, and it turns out to be himself.

[Patrick Degan]

IMO, in the long run a McCain presidency will be better for the country then an Obama presidency. The democrats have learned a lot of lessons from Kerry's clusterfuck of a campaign in 2004, but not the right ones. Here's my prediction of what would happen after a McCain victory:

• I think if someone who a lot of liberals (myself included up until just recently) look to as their savior loses, especially narrowly, then they will finally learn what sort of tactics it takes to win an election, and nominate someone in 2012 who is willing to do them.
• I think if someone who is willing to go after McCain on the issues I've listed previously in the thread, they would probably win by 10% or more.
• I think that if after Kerry's and Obama's loss, someone is elected by that kind of margin the Democratic party will finally get it through their thick skulls that the key to beating the republicans isn't to compromise with them (that is, roll over on every issue), but to attack them.
• I think that if democrats start attacking republicans on all their reprehensible, heinous and flagrant shit that they pull, it isn't going to fly nearly as well as it has been.
• I think that if their reprehensible, heinous and flagrant shit doesn't fly anymore, then we stand a real chance of fixing this country, and this planet.
• I don't think any of the stuff I just said is going to happen if Obama wins.

Obviously there's no guarantee any of that will definitely happen if Obama loses, but I think that there is enough of a chance that it is worth it to support McCain in 2008.

Frankly, you are out of your tiny mind. Playing the politics of the ideal and ignoring the very real consequences of a Gimp/Barbie maladministration on top of a Chimp maladministration.

Shall I sum up your entire position for you: Obama isn't mean enough on the Gimp, therefore he really doesn't want to win, therefore he has no chance to win, and since he's just Republican-lite like Gore and Kerry were, and we need "real" Democrats to step up and reverse the course the country's headed toward, and Americans don't really care, let's have the Gimp/Barbie ticket elected so the country gets so fucked up that Americans will rise en-masse and vote "real" Democrats back into power and we can have the New Deal back the next day.

Essentially, the same sort of broken logic Ralph Nader used in 2000 by which he did his own small bit to help usher in the Texification of American national politics, a lie-based war, a drowned city and the economic and financial trainwreck we're now in. Only a moron argues that four more years of this sort of misrule and mismanagement is somehow a good thing if it serves some alleged "higher purpose" in the long run.

Fuck your "higher purpose". This country is in trouble NOW. Are you capable of processing that fact? That means it's most immediate problems need fixing NOW. Not four or eight years from now. The only imperative is the defeat of the Gimp/Barbie ticket. Anything else is manifest irresponsibility.

How the hell do you figure?

It's called having a reality-based worldview.

It might be possible to fix the country right now, but what's stopping it from braking again the next time an arch-conservative gets into office? Any fixes we apply would only last that long. If Obama loses and the Democrats grow a backbone, we may never have to worry about an arch-conservative getting into office again.

Imbecilic. You're still betting on a not-at-all guaranteed "perfect future" and willing to sacrifice the present and immediate future to gain your utopia.

[Darth Wong]

Dominus Asinine: do you honestly not understand that you can't override real, objective harm by appealing to the unreliable predictions of your worldview?

History is replete with ideological fools who were willing to do harm in the real world in pursuit of some goal whose very existence was entirely predicated upon an unreliable belief system. How is yours any different?

[Robert Treder]

I don't know if DA realizes, it, but his reasoning is similar to that of the Neocons who got us into this mess in the first place ... if we just do this one bad thing, the world will surely act in the way that we imagine they will act, and everything will be a-ok.

The problem is that you can't predict what people will do, and in this case, as with the Neocons and Iraq, you're not even predicting something that people are terribly likely to do. Why should we think that if the country gets worse, people will then respond by making it better? Because you say so? You're not even that smart; you're floating this idea, after all.

The truth is, things could get worse, and keep getting worse. There's never anything stopping that from happening, so maybe you should start thinking about trying to make things better instead of grabbing attention and thinking outside the box. If you vote for McCain because of your dumbass idea, you're as bad as someone who votes for him because he's white: neither of you make any god-damned sense.

Oh, and House is a horrible television show.

[Tribun]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... a-225.html

Latest numbers.
Seems that McFries loosing ground is gaining speed.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Looks like that Rothschild cunt threw her support behind McCain.

Clinton fundraiser backs McCain over Obama
By ANN SANNER – 42 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Hillary Rodham Clinton fundraiser threw her support behind Republican John McCain on Wednesday, saying he will lead the country in a centrist fashion and accusing the Democrats of becoming too extreme.
"I believe that Barack Obama, with MoveOn.org and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, has taken the Democratic Party — and they will continue to — too far to the left," Lynn Forester de Rothschild said. "I'm not comfortable there."
Rothschild is also a member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee. She said she would be stepping down from her position on the committee but will not switch political parties.
Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said in an e-mail that the New York senator disagrees with Rothschild's decision to endorse McCain.
"Senator Clinton has been criss-crossing the country and doing whatever she can to make the very clear case that the Obama-Biden ticket represents the new ideas and positive change we need right now, and the McCain-Palin ticket does not," Strand said in the e-mail.
Rothschild said she was excited by the prospect of a woman being in the White House, even though she and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin disagree on issues. The Alaska governor opposes abortion except in the case of a threat to the mother's life. Rothschild said she supports abortion rights.
"I believe that the McCain-Palin government will be a centrist government," Rothschild said. "It's not going to be an ideological government."
Rothschild is a member of the DNC's Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York. She was one of Clinton's top fundraisers, bringing in more than $100,000 for her presidential campaign. She built a multimillion-dollar telecommunications company before marrying international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.
Rothschild said she has not discussed her support for McCain with Clinton.
"I'm sure she is not pleased with what I'm doing today," she said. "But you know what? I have to do what I believe in."

Every time I see the name Rothschild, it constantly reminds me of the line from Thief 2 where the Rothschild the third was whining like a baby about not being invited to the party.

[Stormbringer]

And for the record, yes, you pollyannas Politics is a fucking bloodsport. This isn't some fucking game, ok. Maybe it's because i'm not what you'd call "middle class" here but let me give you my opinion: i work at fucking Wal-Mart, i workl hard, the economy is screwing me, my mom and my girlfriend-possibly-wife over beyond all reason. Gasoline is like liquid gold, rice...FUCKING RICE...costs like ten dollars here. The economy is about to literally collapse, and to top it all off, we have TWO fucking wars raging at this moment, wars which even by the most hopelessly optimistic view ill not end within this decade. Oh and we're pretty much about to go to war with Pakistan too, from what i hear.

I can appreciate that things are hard. Believe me, I know damn well how bad things. Try starting off a career in a field boned so hard by Bush that you're tonsils are getting bukkaked. Believe me, I can understand your frustration.

And none of that makes what you're saying any less retarded!

Want a narrow victory to humiliate the Republicans? Watch the Democrats suffer under four years of Republican obstruction.

You're nothing but an idiot that can't tell the difference between the governance of a nation and idiotic sports rivalry. You want to see the Republican fucked, they want to fuck you. Soon everyone's bleeding from the ass. And how the hell does that help anything?

The whole mess is the result of idiots like you deciding things on emotion. That's a poor way to make decisions and it's lead to the kind of entrenched party lines we see these days. Those emotional reactions are part of why it's so unthinkable for many people to cross partisan lines, even against overwhelming evidence. What you're advocating won't lead to good government, it's already lead to bitter partisanship and a total lack of scruples. You can't suddenly go from win at all costs to reasonable, rational government. It's given us the last eight years, at the very least.

[Stark]

Dominus Asinine: do you honestly not understand that you can't override real, objective harm by appealing to the unreliable predictions of your worldview?

History is replete with ideological fools who were willing to do harm in the real world in pursuit of some goal whose very existence was entirely predicated upon an unreliable belief system. How is yours any different?

Oh Mike, have you forgetten his masterstroke? He 'won't argue' about his mental state! He thus instantly dodges all calls to explain how any of his idea makes sense, and he simply ignores people like you and I who point out that deliberately creating suffering for a chance to roll the dice on 'better days' is stupid if you don't have good odds of success.

[Tribun]

Gods, I looked at the latest polls results (link in my last post further up) and this almost looks like a massacre for McCain. He had lost his lead and almost all polls now again saw Obama in front.

Normal reaction or result of this week's events?

[RedImperator]

Gods, I looked at the latest polls results (link in my last post further up) and this almost looks like a massacre for McCain. He had lost his lead and almost all polls now again saw Obama in front.

Normal reaction or result of this week's events?

I would suggest the same caution I did when people were panicking. First, national polls don't count, only state polls, and the situation there, at least for now, looks better for McCain. Second, it's still too early--we haven't had any debates yet, and 50 days is an eternity in politics (I'll remind everyone that Hilly Clinton lost a 30 point national lead in about the same amount of time). What this looks like to me is the McCain bounce fading--which everyone knew would happen--and the luster rubbing off Sarah Palin. I expect McCain to get hammered next week, when polls taken during the collapse of Lehman and AIG and the free-fall of the Dow start showing up. He didn't help himself by flip-flopping on an AIG bailout in the space of two days or repeating "the fundamentals of our economy are sound" on Monday. But even if Obama goes up by 10 (not happening), I won't celebrate. Everybody ought to lock the champaign bottles in the same cabinet they're hiding the razorblades. This is going to be close and we really won't have any idea who will win until a few days before election day, if not the election night itself, barring some major gaffe or October Surprise.

[Tribun]

Yeah, I'm normally careful as well. And 50 days indeed is a long time.
But at least it is assuring that McCain doesn't have a sure ticket to the White House.

[Yogi]

Want a narrow victory to humiliate the Republicans? Watch the Democrats suffer under four years of Republican obstruction.

See, it's statements like this that puzzle me. Is there some reason you think that the Repubilcians won't obstruct, or obstruct less, is Obama wins by a large margin?

You want to see the Republican fucked, they want to fuck you. Soon everyone's bleeding from the ass. And how the hell does that help anything?

So, what alternative are you proposing? That we stop trying to fuck over the Republicians? If so, what benefit do you see that causing, or is this a "Moral High Ground" thing?

What you're advocating won't lead to good government, it's already lead to bitter partisanship and a total lack of scruples. You can't suddenly go from win at all costs to reasonable, rational government. It's given us the last eight years, at the very least.

The past eight years happened because of the Republician's complete lack of scruples and the Democrat's reluctance to hit back. I'd like to try something else now.

[irishmick79]

From what I've seen so far, it takes the state polls a few days to catch up with emerging trends in the nationals. I fully expect McCain to give ground in state polling over the next few days. If he dips even further in the national polls next week, the state numbers could start to look a little scary for the McCain camp.

This could be trouble for McCain, in the sense that the economy is going to dominate the campaign narrative barring some unforseen foreign policy crisis, at least until the foreign policy debate next month. The McCain campaign has also lost some credibility recently with the ads they've run against Obama and the whole lipstick crap. It might be difficult for McCain to change the narrative and momentum of the campaign away from issues that tend to benefit Obama in the next few days.

Also, Palin's favorability ratings are taking a nosedive. There's a real possibility that she could wind up becoming a liability for McCain rather than the asset the republicans got all excited about.

Obama is in a very, very good position right now.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Don't forget to look at the overall trend, the polls have been terrible for McCain this election season so far. McCain is in a much tighter, crappier spot than Bush was. This is Barack's election to lose, considering the number of registered Democrats and Bush fatigue. But its can happen.

[Stormbringer]

Want a narrow victory to humiliate the Republicans? Watch the Democrats suffer under four years of Republican obstruction.

See, it's statements like this that puzzle me. Is there some reason you think that the Repubilcians won't obstruct, or obstruct less, is Obama wins by a large margin?

They'll oppose him for certain. But there is a huge difference in public opinion between a narrow win and getting in purely on a technicality. If Obama repeats Bush's 2000 election, then expect the Republicans to complain long, loud, and then dig in. It's not just what the Republicans want to do, it's what the public is willing to let them do.

You want to see the Republican fucked, they want to fuck you. Soon everyone's bleeding from the ass. And how the hell does that help anything?

So, what alternative are you proposing? That we stop trying to fuck over the Republicians? If so, what benefit do you see that causing, or is this a "Moral High Ground" thing?

It's not so much a moral high ground issue, though god knows the Dems need that. Rather it's about not letting partisan politics overshadow the business of governing. The last couple decades have seen the rise of an attitude of win or die. It's not the kind of politics where a part can lose and move on. It's an attitude of spite and a desperate desire to hold onto power at the expense of good government or even mediocre government. Both sides are way to focused on payback and past grievances and that's an unhealthy attitude.

What you're advocating won't lead to good government, it's already lead to bitter partisanship and a total lack of scruples. You can't suddenly go from win at all costs to reasonable, rational government. It's given us the last eight years, at the very least.

The past eight years happened because of the Republician's complete lack of scruples and the Democrat's reluctance to hit back. I'd like to try something else now.

So would I. But I'm not eager to swap Republican corruption for Democratic corruption. And Eighteen's attitude is a recipe for nothing but a continuation of the same dirty politics which have gotten us into this mess.

It's one thing to want some one that won't pull their punches and another entirely to want some one that hits below the belt.

[Guardsman Bass]

I hope this Iowa Poll is an outlier. How does a 12-point lead disappear over 4 days?

On the other hand, the same source has a poll showing Obama up +10 in Colorado, so maybe the polls are just all over the place right.

[General Zod]

I hope this Iowa Poll is an outlier. How does a 12-point lead disappear over 4 days?

It means the newness of Palin is wearing off and people are sobering up slightly.

[Guardsman Bass]

I hope this Iowa Poll is an outlier. How does a 12-point lead disappear over 4 days?

It means the newness of Palin is wearing off and people are sobering up slightly.

I'm talking about Obama - he was up something like +12 in the last poll on September 14 in Iowa. I'll try to clear that up next time.

[General Zod]

I hope this Iowa Poll is an outlier. How does a 12-point lead disappear over 4 days?

It means the newness of Palin is wearing off and people are sobering up slightly.

I'm talking about Obama - he was up something like +12 in the last poll on September 14 in Iowa. I'll try to clear that up next time.

Oh. Well, like it's been mentioned before I wouldn't put too much stock in polls either way. They fluctuate so much they're almost useless for figuring out whether a candidate is going to win a given state.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I'm talking about Obama - he was up something like +12 in the last poll on September 14 in Iowa. I'll try to clear that up next time.

A combination of random fluctuation plus Palin energizing the Republican base. In the past two presidential elections the margin in Iowa has been around or under one percent, so it's not surprising to see them running neck and neck. The earlier polls were probably just distort by the fugue that that the GOP is in nationwide. Palin was calculated to shake them out of it, and it seems to have worked.

[RedImperator]

You should never take a single poll in isolation. All of the websites which try to make state-by-state predictions average all polls in a state over a set period of time (Electoral-Vote.com uses the last two weeks), with more recent polls weighted more heavily. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of different sampling methods and statistical noise.

[Ender]

As good a place as any for this

EDIT: Its really weird when you compare those shots of McCain to Alex Moon's paintings of Old Bruce in Kingdom Come

[irishmick79]

I'm starting to think that McCain may have fucked himself hard on the economy this week. His response to the chaos on wall steet were virtually incoherent, and I suspect that a lot of voters are seeing his response as little more than a transparent effort to strike a populist tone. When the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal comes out and blasts you as being unpresidential for suggesting that you would fire the SEC chairman, you're having pretty bad week. Obama at least had the sense to wait and see what the Fed would do before shooting his mouth off about AIG, and now he can sit back and laugh while McCain looks like a flailing idiot desperate to gain some sort of traction.

It already seems like things are starting to break back towards Obama - some polls out today put Obama up by 9 in MI, up by 2 in OH, up by 5 in PA, and only down by 2-3 points in IN (data courtesy of the daily polls section of www.fivethirtyeight.com). If those numbers hold and Obama is able to win one or both of Nevada and Colorado, he'll win. He could lose Ohio and still have a pretty good shot to win right now.

[Pablo Sanchez]

McCain actually has a record of asserting that he would do things that would be obviously unfeasible, like threatening to kick Russia from the G8 even though it would require a unanimous vote to do so (meaning Russia would have to vote to remove itself!) and his famous solution to a millenia of sectarian conflict in Iraq: "sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.'”

So saying that he would fire the SEC chairman is not at all out of character, it's just further indication that he actually doesn't know what he's talking about but is very decisive in his ignorance.