The trumped up war between the generations
Are the old taking from the young – or the young taking from the old? Both, according to the right.
The motive is to undermine public support for entitlements. Who’s winning or who’s losing, in their view, depends on the opportunity.
TRUMPED UP WAR BETWEEN THE GENERATIONS
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Tags: culture, generations, health care, liberals, Obama, politics, right wing, Social Security, Washington
Thinking gets better in Obama’s second term
Call me a wild-eyed optimist, but the atmospherics in Washington seemed to have made a turn for the better.
THINKING GETS BETTER, THE SECOND TERM AROUND
Tags: John Boehner, Obama, politics, Republicans, Washington
Chris Christie’s point in a picture
As the Grand Old Party embarks on its long overdue “conversation” between blue-state Republicans and red-state ones, it’s useful to recall which color Republicans’ states provide the money — as NJ’s Chris Christie did so vividly in his blow-up over delayed funding for Sandy victims.
Here is a cartogram of the United States, showing the outsized contribution of federal revenue from the West Coast, the Upper Midwest and the Northeast.
Tags: Chris Christie, politics, Republicans, Sandy, taxes, taxpayers
The politics of threat
How is it that threatening the health of America’s economy has become a “negotiating tool” in Washington?
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Tags: Obama, politics, Republicans, taxes, Tea Party, Washington
More drug war insanity
Getting arrested for smoking pot behind the bleachers could stop you from joining the Navy, but admitting to smoking pot doesn’t prevent you from serving as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
CRASHING FEDERAL HYPOCRISY ON POT
And a tip of the hat to Colorado and Washington voters for legalizing recreational use of marijuana.
Tags: Colorado, Democrats, Obama, politics, Republicans, War on Drugs, Washington state
Peggy Noonan hits a triple
Gen. George Patton
Her suggestion that Europeans loved American military leaders in World War II because, like General Eisenhauer, they weren’t egomaniacs covering themselves in medals (unlike the flawed General Petraeus) may have been overly simple. Consider General George Patton.
Nevertheless, Noonan perfectly describes the flashy, showy, braggy Facebook/YouTube/Twitter world of Petraeus’s consort, Paula Broadwell.
Noonan often gets to third base making a fine social observation, but then reaches for a non sequitur with which to whack a Democrat or two. And so in the last few paragraphs she turns to Obama saying, “He talks about the fiscal cliff but not in a way that shows a real eagerness for compromise.”
You mean that Obama’s vow to look for serious savings in Medicare, holy ground for Democrats, isn’t showing eagerness for compromise? Peggy!
Anyhow, great read. I look forward to Noonan writing something this perceptive but free from forced partisan play. When she does, over the fence it will go.
Tags: culture, Democrats, media, Obama, Peggy Noonan, Petraeus, politics, Republicans
Dumb exit poll questions
Few questions are more meaningless than, “Should government be bigger or smaller?” Pollsters ask it (and similar dumb questions) all the time.
QUESTIONABLE EXIT POLL QUESTIONS
Tags: politics, Washington
Politico’s misleading headline
Polls may be wrong, but they do not show the battleground states tied. Obama is ahead in most of them.
We who breathe polling know that one of the surveys is officially called the POLITICO-George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll. But today’s offering is a national poll. It is not limited to what we call the battleground states. Were that the case, the results would be more exciting than they are.
For truth in advertising GW should change the name.
Meanwhile, Politico should not do this:
Cillizza and Blitzer drum up business
Sam Wang, a modeler at Princeton and the brains behind the Princeton Election Consortium, calls out some political reporters for creating tossups to keep their audience tuned in on a race that seems to be losing excitement as Obama solidifies his leads.
Wang cites The Washington Post’s’ Chris Cillizza, who just moved Ohio back into the “tossup” column — and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who called Ohio a “tie” based on a single poll, interestingly a poll that showed Obama +4 and was conducted by CNN.
Wang writes:
The news media have an incentive to fuzz up the picture: ratings and profit. A message that the cake is fully baked does not automatically bring back the viewers.
My only complaint is his use of the term “the news media” to refer to a few, albeit high profile, drummers.
Political parallel universes
In response to Romney ads claiming Obama bailed out car companies to send the work to China, a GM spokesman says:
We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.
Samples from struggling Romney forces:
A WSJ editorial today:
We know liberals are worried that President Obama might lose next week, but are they so panicky that they want to suggest even before the storm has passed that Mitt Romney and Republicans are against disaster relief? Apparently
. . . and so on.
Meanwhile, the Princeton Election Consortium’s modelers…
Tags: media, Obama, politics, right wing, Romney
