October 10, 2012

The Problem With the Pew Poll

Abstract: This is a long thread, so I post my conclusion right here. The recent Pew presidential poll that everyone is so excited about predicts that both Hispanics and Blacks are going to stay home this election, while white men will follow the old adage “Vote early, vote often.”

Team Romney must be jumping for joy. The latest Pew Poll shows him surging ahead of Obama among likely voters, 49 to 45% in the wake of last week’s debate. Sure, Romney lied and lied and again. But, we are told, America secretly wants a braggart and a bully to be its leader----

Excuse me, make that white America. Male white America. But America is no longer overwhelming white. Minorities are set to become the new “majority” sometime in the near future. And as their numbers rise, their political clout rises, too.

I decided to do a little investigating, so I turned to a reliable polling firm---Pew--- to see how the rising percentage of minority (nonwhite) voters has affected presidential races in the recent past. Here is a tabulation of votes cast by race from 1988 to 2008. Note that the total percentage was 82% white in 1988. By 2008 that number had fallen to 73.4 percent. Minority participation went up, with 24% of the votes cast in 2008 coming from Blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Black women, in particular, saw their participation rise.

The levels of participation by black, Hispanic and Asian eligible voters all increased from 2004 to 2008, reducing the voter participation gap between themselves and white eligible voters. This was particularly true for black eligible voters. Their voter turnout rate increased 4.9 percentage points, from 60.3% in 2004 to 65.3% in 2008, nearly matching the voter turnout rate of white eligible voters (66.1%). For Hispanics, participation levels also increased, with the voter turnout rate rising 2.7 percentage points, from 47.2% in 2004 to 49.9% in 2008. Among Asians, voter participation rates increased from 44.6% in 2004 to 47.0% in 2008. Meanwhile, among white eligible voters, the voter turnout rate fell slightly, from 67.2% in 2004 to 66.1% in 2008.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1209/racial-ethnic-voters-presidential-election

Now, let’s do what most of us never do. Let’s look at the makeup of the so called “likely” voters that Pew polled last week. To do so, we have to turn to page two (something we really ought to do before we start talking about poll numbers). According to Pew, this year minority voters are going to become apathetic, while white voters will develop a re-surging interest in presidential politics.
http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/08/romneys-strong-debate-performance-erases-obamas-lead/2/

Pew says that Latino voter turnout is going to be bad. In 2008, Hispanics cast 7.4% of the vote. This year, despite their growing numbers, they will count for only 7% of the vote----even though their percentage participation has been growing steadily for the last decade. (Go, look at the numbers). The curve suggests that with steady population growth and participation, Latinos should make up 9% of the votes cast.

Blacks are also planning to stay home, according to Pew, with their 12% in 2008 dropping to 11% this year. Why? Are they really so disgusted by the abolition of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, that they plan to send Obama a strong message by allowing a Mormon to become president? I think we all know about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ problems with Black folks. Whom do African-Americans fear more? Gays in the military or a member of a Church who was brought up to believe that they are a cursed race?

“Other Non-Hispanic”---a new group for Pew which replaces Asian in 2008 jumps from 2.5 to 5%. Who are the “Other Non-Hispanics”? Asians? Native Americans? People of mixed race (Latino plus Black, Black plus white)? Wish I knew. If we just lump them in with minority voters, then Pew is projecting that 23% of the votes cast will be from non-European-Americans—a slight increase from 2008. If the increase is made up of people who just wouldn’t say, or maybe whites who are proud that their great grandmother was Cherokee, then Pew is guessing that minorities are going to stay home---or else have their votes challenged in such great number by poll workers that their population gains will mean nothing.

Now, if you pay attention to population demographics, you are probably wondering “What about that surge in Latinos that we keep reading about?” According to the U.S. Census, the number of Hispanics in the U.S grew from 35 million to 50 million between 2000 and 2010. In 2008, those voters went 2 out of 3 for Obama.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/31/hispanic-population-rising-faster-than-anticipated_n_869209.html

Polls this year suggest that Latinos still favor Democrats by a margin of 2 to 1. Too bad for Obama that Pew thinks they are sitting this one out.

Two point five percent here and two percent there and one percent way over there really adds up when you are talking about a five point lead. Maybe Pew needs to repeat their poll and this time make sure that the ethnic demographics take into count the trend towards rising minority voter participation. Unless they are convinced that the GOP’s suppress the vote campaign is going to be massively successful.

Addendum: I don't want to give the impression that Pew "fixed" their poll. However, I wonder if they were so excited at finding any likely voters when they sampled cell phone users that they got sloppy on their other demographics. It is so much easier to find people on landlines.

October 7, 2012

Don't Read This Thread

There isn't an easy, tactful way to say this, so I am going to be blunt. The GOP loves to repeat itself. Romney thinks he is Ronald Reagan and Obama is Jimmy Carter. And we all know (from past experience) that the military and the intelligence community play (GOP) politics. Sometimes members of the administration play GOP politics---I am thinking of Henry Kissinger who deliberately stabbed LBJ in the back re: Vietnam peace in 1968 to help Dick Nixon. Therefore....

Be extra careful about any "secret" military missions being planned between now and election day. Assume that any such missions are public knowledge----and that the oil lobby will use that knowledge to forewarn its Saudi allies who will forewarn their Al Qaeda allies for the purpose of putting US citizens at risk and the Obama administration in the political hot seat.

I would really hate to see another round of Hostages for Votes ,wouldn't you?

October 4, 2012

Death by Split Screen: The First Presidential Debate and the Romney Smirk

A lot of words were tossed back and forth tonight, but it wasn't the words that determined the winner or loser. It was the camera. Poor Romney. When the president spoke, we got a split screen with Romney on the left. Now, if you know anything about neurophysiology, you realize that our two eyes see the world in very different ways. The left eye feeds information to the right brain---which judges facial expressions. That means every time that Romney smirked---you know, that little self satisfied look he gets with his mouth stretched tight and his eyes all beady and squinting---it went straight into my right brain, which said What a dick!.

As I was taking notes, I made note of the smirks. I counted thirteen of them. That means thirteen opportunities for the collective right brain of America to say to itself What a dick!

Not the impression Team Romney was striving for, I think.

While I am on the subject of body language, was it just me or did Romney morph from stiff to rabid bear to rabid weasel? As the 90 minutes passed, his speech became increasingly pressured. His stutter---

"B--b--but..."

---became worse. Sadly, the only time he showed any real enthusiasm was when describing the way that regulation is strangling business. This, we could see, was something he cared about. Business strangulation is a pretty serious crime, in Mitt Romney's eyes.

Kept waiting to hear those zingers that Team Romney promised us.

Substance wise, this debate was Romney's to lose, since the economy that Bush left in the toilet is still trying to crawl out of that toilet. However, if I did not know either man and if I did not speak English, I would have remarked upon Obama's sincere expression and his spontaneous smiles. And I would have wondered what kind of used car the fast talking, tight lipped squint eyed man to the left was trying to sell me.

Note to Team Romney---next time give your man a wire. Not to feed him facts. He's good with facts. Every time he smirks send him an electric shock. Maybe you can break him of that habit.

October 3, 2012

Team Romney Reminds America that Bush Fiddled While NOLA Sank

Romney's campaign is the gift that keeps on giving---to Obama. Today, in advance of the first debate, they want us all to remember that in 2007, then Senator Obama accused the Bush administration---you know, the last Republican administration---of deliberately turning its back on NOLA in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Obama was not the only one to reach this conclusion. Remember Anderson Cooper in New Orleans? Remember the massive anti-war protest in the fall of 2005 that turned into a massive Pro-NOLA, anti-Bush protest? I do. I was there. Remember how we cried seeing one of the nation's most beloved cities abandoned by the feds, because its citizens were mostly Democrats?

October 3, 2012

Senator Obama Talks About Empathy, GOP Has a Cow

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/81978.html?hp=l1_b8


Be sure to watch the “incriminating” video before you comment upon it.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/03/obama-in-2002-wealthy-embrace-nonviolence-because-they-want-to-make-sure-folks-dont-take-their-stuff/

I don’t know what Rush and Team Romney thought they heard, but what I heard was then Senator Obama discussing empathy for a minute and a half. Which is a minute and a half more empathy than Romney has ever shown.

September 17, 2012

I am the 47%

I am one of the 47%. I am definitely going to vote for Obama. So will my mother and her husband. My husband and my 21 year old son plan to vote for him as well. So will my sister and her adult daughter. That makes all of us part of the 47%. What do we have in common (besides a desire to see Obama serve a second term)? According to Mitt Romney, we are "dependent on government" and "believe that (we)are entitled to health care, to food, to housing".

Let’s analyze these claims one at a time, starting with health care. I have employer sponsored health care that covers me, my husband and my 21 year old college age son, so none of us gets healthcare from the “government”. Obamacare will allow my healthy son to stay on my insurance for five more years, but I am not sure that counts as being “dependent on government” for his health care. My mom’s husband is covered by his aerospace industry employer. My mother, a NASA retiree, is covered by NASA, Medicare and her husband’s insurance. That makes her super-insured. Is Romney trying to claim that her Medicare is a government handout? Does he think that federal agencies like NASA should not provide retirement insurance? My sister gets insurance for her and her two kids (one college aged) from her employer, a petrochemical refinery. She has a union and good benefits, but no one could call her insurance a government handout.

On to food. None of us gets food stamps. On the contrary, we donate to area food banks. None of our kids gets free school lunches. The only “free” food we get is that which we grow in our own gardens. Romney and Ryan may complain that the food my mother buy’s with her Social Security check is a government handout. But she is over 70 years old and worked her entire adult life paying into the Social Security system, so I tend to think of it as retirement income.

My home is paid for. My mother’s home is paid for. My sister is still paying a mortgage on her new home, but no one helps her make her payments.

I guess you could say that we are “dependent on government” since we use the roads and if we have a fire, we call the fire department and the public health department sprays for mosquitoes when West Nile is a problem and we rely on the FDA to make sure the food (which we buy with our own money) is safe to eat. But we aren’t getting any government services for “free”. All of us pay taxes. We pay income tax. We pay sales tax. We pay property tax. We pay fuel taxes and alcohol taxes. And when all the taxes are paid, we give to charity, too---

Come to think of it, we are not dependent upon the government. The government is dependent upon us. And we want to be sure that our tax dollars are spent wisely. We want to see our taxes spent on roads and disease prevention and good schools and clean air and water and national security and all the other things that government is supposed to provide. We absolutely do not want to see our tax dollars diverted into the accounts of people who are so rich they will never be able to spend all their money.

You know how I define the so called “47%”? We are the ones who want to have some control over how our country is run and our tax dollars are spent. We are the ones who think America is worth investing in. And Romney/Ryan despise us because we are too smart to buy their "trust us, we can pay for those tax cuts and still balance the budget" line.

September 10, 2012

Romney's Lies Can Kill You

This is for the guy who had a heart attack, lost his job and his insurance and now cannot get the care he needs to get himself back in shape in order to go back to work. Your blood pressure is through the roof. You can hardly climb the stairs to your second floor apartment without collapsing. At night, you wake up gasping for breath. Your wife is working two jobs in order to support you and your four kids. Neither job offers health insurance. Luckily, the rest of your family is healthy.

When you applied to buy private health insurance, you were laughed out the door. You are trying to hold on until 2014, when your pre-existing heart condition will not disqualify your from coverage. You are more than willing to pay, if it means staying alive and getting back in shape and eventually getting back to work so that you and your family won’t have to live in poverty.

You don’t think that it is fair that you will have to pay for insurance for your wife and your three kids, too---they aren’t sick. They don’t need insurance. They just need for you to get better, so you can get another job with good wages and benefits like the one you lost when you got sick.

Yesterday, you heard on Fox News that Romney feels your pain. He wants you to be able to buy insurance if you want it, regardless of how sick you are. He just doesn’t believe that your wife and kids need to pay for insurance they aren’t going to use. That sounds like a pretty good deal to you. You were going to vote for Obama, because Obamacare was your only hope. But now, you are thinking about Romney instead….

Here’s what will happen if Romney/Ryan do what they have already pledged to do. Obamacare will be repealed. When the year 2014 arrives, there will be no health insurance, not for you and not for your family. Because Romney wants the “market” to decide whether or not you are a good financial risk, and the market has already told you in no uncertain terms that it wants nothing to do with your bad heart. You will swallow your disappointment. In four more years you will qualify for Medicare. Maybe you can hang on until 2018. But wait! By the time you are old enough to apply for Medicare, Medicare will no longer exist. Instead, the government will give you a voucher and tell you to buy your own insurance. They will give you the same voucher they give the 65 year old woman down the street who jogs three miles every day and has perfect health. She will have no trouble getting insurance. You will get laughed out the door again. Assuming you live long enough to see your 65th birthday. Chances are, you will be dead by then. Your wife will continue to work two minimum wage jobs up until the day she has a stroke from that high blood pressure she did not know she had, because she never had the opportunity to get a medical checkup. From the hospital, she will be sent to a nursing home. Once every penny she owns has been spent, she will qualify for government assistance---Oops. Sorry. That was the old way. Under Romney/Ryan your state will be able to opt out of covering nursing home care for the disabled. But don’t worry. Your wife won’t be out on the street. The nursing home will be able to bill your kids for your wife’s long term care. After paying $250 a day to take care of their mother, the four of them will be too broke to buy health insurance for themselves.

Here’s what will happen if Obamacare is not repealed. If you are lucky, one of your wife’s employers will start offering health insurance for her and her family. Even if they don’t, since your family is financially strapped, you will receive money from the government to help you pay for health insurance . The insurer will not be able to deny you coverage because of your bad heart. The insurer will also have to provide your wife with that Pap and mammogram she has been putting off for the last four years. Your adult daughter will be able to afford birth control, and you will be able to stop worrying about what will happen if she gets pregnant. Your kids will be able to get check-ups. Most important of all, you will be able to see a cardiologist. Those blocked coronary arteries of yours can be fixed. You will get on medications that will make you feel like a new man. When you apply for jobs, employers will no longer look at you and think “That guy’s gonna drive our health insurance premiums through the roof!” Once you are back to work, you will qualify for excellent benefits. And those benefits will cover your adult daughter and you three teenagers until they are 26---out of college and with jobs of their own. When you reach retirement age, Medicare will be there for you. If the worst happens, and you require long term nursing home care, the government will pick up the tab, and your adult kids will not find themselves burdened with debt.

You are not powerless. You have a choice. Make the choice that makes sense and your future can be bright. Listen to Romney’s lies, and you will likely die prematurely.

September 10, 2012

David Gregory, GOP Shill Helps Romney Set Up a Big Lie About Healthcare

If Romney Flops on HealthCare for Pre-existing Conditions and the News Does Not Report It.....does the American independent voter utter a big sigh of relief and say to himself "Romney's just like Obama---but white"?

In a story from Associated Press featured prominently in today's Fort Worth Star Telegram, voters are assured that Romney will keep key provisions of Obama-Care, including insurance for those with pre-existing conditions and coverage for kids up to age 26 on their parents plans. We know this because that is what Romney told David Gregory on Meet the Press yesterday. Slick move, given that the only thing most folks object to about the bill is the requirement for coverage.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/09/09/4244456/obama-romney-spar-over-healthcare.html

Sound too good to be true? It is. The health insurance industry grudgingly agreed to accept folks with medical problems in exchange for the mandate. If the mandate is struck down---the centerpiece of the Romney/Ryan campaign---Blue Cross and the rest want nothing to do with your diabetes, hypertension, cancer. In the current health care marketplace, insurers make money only one way---by collecting money from the healthy and refusing to cover the sick.

Not surprisingly, when pressed on this point, the Romney campaign did a back flip that would have earned then 10s if there were an Olympics for flip-flopping.



http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/within-hours-mitt-romney-takes-back-everything-he-said-about-preexisting-conditio#13472967122231&action=collapse_widget&id=1485197

The author of the Mother Jones piece goes on to write:



Too bad most independent voters do not read Mother Jones. I decided to check around and see what other news outlets decided to cover the "flip" but not the "flop."

Not surprisingly, Fox News is absolutely delighted that Romney wants to let those with high blood pressure buy insurance. In an article titled Romney, Ryan sound bipartisan tone on taxes, health care we are told



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/10/romney-ryan-sound-bipartisan-tone-on-taxes-health-care/

Fox does not mention that Romney's solution is to let the insurance market decide. As we already know, writing policies for those who actually need health care does not make money---and the market goes where the money is.

The Washington Post, aka the NeoCon News is rooting for Brother Jeb in 2016. Therefore, I was not surprised to see Romney's flip flopping get coverage at that paper.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/10/who-would-be-left-out-of-romneys-preexisting-conditions-plan-about-89-million-americans/



Let's just hope Americans read the Business Section of the WaPost. The Fort Worth paper posted the initial "flip" on its front page.

Yahoo News has a video feature entitled "Romney's position: Protection for pre-existing conditions" that is basically the Fox News piece. Meaning it is lies, lies, lies.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/opinion-15749653/romney-s-position-protection-for-pre-existing-conditions-30551131.html

The high holy of newspapers, the New York Times has this to say in an article entitled Romney, Easing, Says Health Law Isn’t All Bad



Be sure to read this part, too:



In other words, Romney has no beef with white Democrats. That's why he is running on the "I'm the same as Obama---but white!" platform.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/us/politics/romney-adopts-softer-tone-in-critique-of-obama.html

How does a Big Lie like this work? Get enough Republican shills in the press to report it, and a bunch of basically apolitical independents will hear it. And once they hear it, it will get stuck in their brains. And once it is lodged in their brains, they will believe it. And no matter how much you argue, no matter how much contradictory evidence you present, they will insist that their belief trumps your data. So, Democrats who do not want independent voters to go to the polls this fall convinced that Romney is just like Obama---but white need to nip this one in the bud right now. Let's hope the mainstream media will be as obliging to Dems as they have been to the GOP.

September 1, 2012

(US) Lack of Health Care for Millions Putting Lives at Risk Says Doctor

Another election, another round of articles about how bad folks in the U.K. have it with their cradle to grave insurance.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014214769

Really saddened to see this kind of private health insurance propaganda on the front page of DU. This family practice doc thinks we need to insure people first, and then we can work out the problems later. A system that flat out kills millions from the lack of any health care at all is much much worse than one that throws up a few barriers to care. Remember, the biggest barrier to care is having none at all.

August 22, 2012

GOP Knows It's on the Ropes When It Comes to Choice

You can tell, because they are trying to justify their truly draconian "no abortion ever, not even if your daughter is raped by space aliens and giving birth will kill her" party platform by insisting that rape does not cause pregnancy (Akin) and statutory rape does not cause pregnancy (King).

If these guys were really devout Catholics or Fundies, they would not try to justify their beliefs. They would stand up and proclaim proudly "Even if your girl is gang banged by a bunch of bikers, she got pregnant because God is punishing her for being such a slut" (Fundies) or "God is trying to make it up to her by giving her a sweet little baby that she can sell to some rich infertile white family if it has all its fingers and toes" (Catholics).

Why is the right wing of the GOP resorting to subterfuge, like insisting that no woman or girl or child of ten ever got pregnant from rape, and therefore they do not need to provide an exemption from their no abortion legislation? They are scared. Scared of Republican women. Women who are much more likely to be pro-choice.

What appears to be mind boggling stupidity about basic human reproduction is actually a nudge and a wink to Republican women. What the right wing men are saying is "Ordinary girls, poor girls, girls of color can't get raped, because they are whores who keep their legs wide open all the time. They practically have the words 'Make a semen donation here' tattooed on their thighs. They were put on this earth to breed babies." The flip side of this message, what you will never hear is "We understand that if a good girl, a white girl of wealth and breeding is violated, her parents will fly her out of the country in their private jet to get her a 'therapeutic D&C'. We aren't trying to stop our own daughters and nieces and sisters from getting abortions. We just want those welfare sluts to give society something back---like unwanted babies that we can adopt."

Will Republican women get the message? Will they embrace a "choice is not free, it costs a whole load of money" attitude? Doubtful. I expect to see a bunch of them staying home this fall. Some will even cross over to vote for Obama.

We hold up half the sky. We also hold up almost half of the Republican Party. The GOP is going down this fall, and all the Kochs Brothers ill gotten tax payer funded corporate welfare will not save them.