Skewed, Screwed, And Tattooed

If we're to believe the likely voter model for the latest USA/Today Gallup poll, then Mitt Romney will win in a cakewalk.

Mitt Romney leads President Obama by four percentage points among likely voters in the nation's top battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, and he has growing enthusiasm among women to thank.

As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds female voters much more engaged in the election and increasingly concerned about the deficit and debt issues that favor Romney. The Republican nominee now ties the president among women who are likely voters, 48%-48%, while he leads by 12 points among men.

If that's true, Obama's dead.  Gone.  Toast.  Tied among women and a 12 point edge among men pretty much equals a Romney win equivalent to Obama's margin over John McCain in 2008.

The Obama camp doesn't buy it for a second.

"In the last election, Gallup's registered voter model — not its likely voter model — was a much more accurate predictor, with their likely model missing the mark in 2010 by 9 points right before the election," Benenson says. "That explains why Gallup's results are way out of line with a dozen recent swing state polls that show the president with a double-digit lead among women."

Among all registered voters in the survey, Obama leads by nine points among women and by two points overall, 49%-47%. 

So, Gallup's likely voter model is skewed toward Mitt Romney here by seven to nine points overall, which is the equivalent of 14-18 points with women voters.  If you believe that's how this election will play out, then yes, he'll win and win handily.

But that's ignoring the fact that Gallup's likely voter model was a disaster 2 years ago.  It looks to be equally disastrous now.

StupidiNews!

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is taking responsibility for State Department security lapses in Libya.
• A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds the Romney/Ryan Medicare/Medicaid plan would hurt Florida seniors the most.
• The second Presidential debate gets underway this evening at Hofstra University in New York in a town hall style format.
• China looks to fall from its perch as the US's chief creditor, as shrinking foreign demand for US debt makes way for Japan.
• Apple has hired Amazon.com's A9 search engine creator to tutor the iPhone's "personal digital assistant" Siri.

Last Call

Frank Rich takes to New York Magazine to let us know that as the Boomers (like Frank Rich) fully join the ranks of the "keep your government hand of my Medicare/Medicaid!" nation with an overwhelming bloc of voting power, the rest of America is pretty much screwed down the road.

Such is the power of denial that we simply refuse to concede that, by the metric of intractability, at least, conservatives are the cockroaches of the American body politic, poised to outlast us all. And so, after Obama’s victory in 2008, the Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg spoke for sentimental liberal triumphalists everywhere when he concluded that America is now “in a progressive period” and that “the conservative movement brought about by the Gingrich revolution has been crushed.” That progressive period lasted all of a year, giving way to the 2009 gubernatorial victories of the conservatives Bob McDonnell (in the purple state of Virginia) and Chris Christie (in blue New Jersey), as well as that summer’s raucous Obamacare protests. Few Democrats had imagined that the new African-American president would be besieged so quickly by a conservative populist movement whose adherents dressed in 1776 drag and worshipped the frothing-at-the-blackboard Glenn Beck. Or that such a movement would administer a “shellacking” in the midterms.

Should Romney lead another shellacking of the Democrats this year, some liberals may squeeze out a modicum of solace by viewing it as the lesser of two evils: The man from Bain is no radical but a product of the traditional Republican conservative Establishment bankrolled by Wall Street. We are already being sold that story line by “centrist” GOP grandees on the Sunday talk shows and mainstream op-ed pages who repeatedly tell us that Romney is only pretending to be a hard-line ideologue to temporarily placate his party’s unruly base and that the “real” Romney is the center-right pragmatist who suddenly materialized out of nowhere at the first debate.

Should Romney lose in November, a far happier liberal scenario can be entertained: For all their qualms about stimulus spending and Obamacare, perhaps voters still prefer the party of modest government activism to the party of no government. Polls provide support for this view. In the latest Pew survey, the GOP as a whole is almost as unpopular as the tea party: Only 27 percent of Americans describe themselves as Republican (as opposed to 31 percent Democratic and 36 percent Independent).

One can almost write the obituaries for the right that would appear after a Romney defeat right now. Even the millions spent by Karl Rove’s sugar daddies in the post–Citizens United era had failed to sell a far-right GOP to American voters. Once again the republic has been saved from the crazies by good old bipartisan centrist common sense.

Dream on.

Sadly, he's mostly right.  If Romney wins, we get a Tea Party nation.  If Romney loses, the backlash against President Obama will make 2010 look like, well, a child's tea party.  Either America gets fed up with the know-nothing stupidity of the right, or good people will simply give up and stop fighting, eager to simply protect what they have left and slink away into the twilight of giving a damn.

Since the former has basically never happened in American history, Rich has a point.  At some point we will have a Republican president again.  When that happens, it's pretty much over for America. The GOP is lost to reason.  If it gets in power again -- when, rather -- on that day we'll learn just how much America has left in it.

My guess is after 2012, the country will just be too ravaged to rally.  Such begins the decline.

Carrie Remake Emphasizes Modern Approach

There is a remake of Carrie underway, the classic movie originally starring Sissy Spacek and based on the first novel by Stephen King.  In an article on Wired, there is great emphasis on how the story unfolds and how it has been modernized so that young viewers will get the references.  The original is nearly forty years old now, and a bit dated.

I suppose my problem isn't the dated references, that is just window dressing on an amazing story.  My problem is the retelling skips at least two things that made Carrie different.  Her utter isolation, and Carrie herself.  Even King says in his memoir On Writing that he didn't like Carrie White.  He wanted to, he tried to, and in the end he would have been one of the kids throwing tampons and yelling at the big sluggish beast of a girl who had never known a touch of good fortune.  On Writing actually introduces you to the girl who started the idea of the perpetually bullied girl, an interesting story to read.

This let Carrie be an entirely different character.  It's a big creepy that King was able to get into the mind of a teenage girl, but his distaste colored his portrayal so that the reader didn't really like her either.  In that particular setting, that one in a million story that doesn't rely on liking your protagonist, it made a diamond out of the rough.  We wanted to slap Carrie, her mother grossed us out, and we knew it was wrong.  That was the beauty of the story.  That was the point.  We had to confront our inner bullies while we watched Carrie deal with her classmates.  The gorgeous girl playing Carrie tells me this will be lost in the gore and the horror.

If I had to tip my hat to one thing, it would be casting Julianne Moore as Carrie's insane mother, Margaret White.  Moore has the chops to scare us, and the intelligence to see the many layers of the character.  Like anyone, no character is all good or all evil.  Moore can make her scary and keep her human.  It was her simple and twisted humanity that made her so scary to begin with.

Lethal Force Not Necessarily Necessary

A University of South Alabama campus police officer who fatally shot a naked student was carrying pepper spray and a baton at the time, the school said Friday.

University spokesman Keith Ayers said Officer Trevis Austin, a four-year employee in his first police job, was armed with all three weapons when he walked outside the police station with his gun drawn to confront Gil Collar. The 18-year-old college freshman was naked when he banged on police department windows in the pre-dawn hours last Saturday.

It's unclear why Austin went for his gun first, but the sheriff has said the decision was proper.

Authorities said Collar, a 5-foot-7, 140-pound high school wrestler in his first semester of college, was on LSD when he moved aggressively toward the officer in an athletic stance, prompting the shooting. But surveillance video shows the student never tried to grab the officer's weapon or got within 4 or 5 feet of Austin.

A copy of the university's weapons policy, released to The Associated Press in response to an open records request, shows an officer's actions in cases where force is necessary should be based on how much a suspect resists. Deadly force is justified only when a suspect has the intent, ability and opportunity to kill or injure someone else, the policy states.

The policy says that an officer's attempt to control a situation "should match (the) level of resistance then move up or down as resistance changes." But Ayers declined comment on how the guidelines are interpreted when an officer is confronted by someone who doesn't have a weapon, yet could present a threat.

"The university is withholding further comment at this time as the district attorney and sheriff's office have time to conduct a thorough external review," he said.

An attorney for Collar's family, former Alabama Lt. Gov. Jere Beasley, said the university's policy "totally gives support to our position" that the shooting wasn't justified.

"There is no question the required force here was much less than shooting somebody," he said. "He could not say his life was in jeopardy or he was in fear of bodily harm."

The full article expands more on the circumstances.  A few things bother me, and this excerpt catches it.  First, the sheriff calls it a proper shooting when the facts aren't all in yet.  That tells me he is biased and determined to either sweep this under the rug, protect his officer or both.

The policy says his actions should match the level of resistance.  Is an aggressive stance asking to be shot?  I don't think so.  The kid may have been nuts, he may have needed help, we'll never know.  He was killed before getting a chance to be checked out.

The victim was small.  Small enough that most law enforcement officers could have physically restrained him if necessary.  This was not a hulk looking for something to smash.  140 pounds is not generally a big enough person to maim or kill, the level of threat that would seem logical for a lethal response.

PCP is scary stuff.  The cop didn't know that at the time.  He stepped out and shot a young man based on his banging on windows and looking aggressive.  That doesn't cut it for me, and I doubt his family is impressed either.

He was right to go investigate.  He should have had someone accompany him, it's the best way to control a situation without killing someone.  He should have used a nonlethal measure before resorting to killing someone.  Nothing else makes sense, at least to me.

Suspicious? Nah.

A man was found dead in a car, riddled with bullets, and was there for hours before foot patrol discovered him.  He was slumped over the wheel, the car was still running and the windshield wipers still moving long after the rain had moved on.

Gunshots were heard but not reported, which could have led to an earlier discovery.  Police comment that the area has become numb to violence and reports of gunfire are rare.

The man has not been identified, but I expect more to come out when the details are analyzed.  If it wasn't a robbery, it sure looks like a hit to me.

I... Want... My BOOMSTICK!

I am one of the not-enthused fans mentioned below.  I do not like remakes, I do not like reboots, I think it's time to raise the bar for creativity in cinema.  The original Evil Dead movies were a brilliant combination of humor and B-movie horror.

It is my understanding that the new Evil Dead will be far scarier and without the humor.  Okay, but why pull on the name of a fabulous and much loved classic?  Why not just make a new movie that gives a nod to a classic?  I love Bruce Campbell and always have.  He won me over with "This... is... my BOOMSTICK!" and has been one of my favorite people ever since.

NEW YORK – Bruce Campbell, the original Ash from The Evil Dead, knows some fans aren’t excited about the 1981 film’s forthcoming reboot. He’s read all about the backlash, but he would like everyone to know they have nothing to worry about.

“We did not screw you over on this movie,” Campbell told the crowd at New York Comic Con, which greeted him with a Springsteen-eque chant of “Bruuuuuuuuce.”

Campbell, who is a producer on the film but not appearing in it, said it was time to do a remake of the original instead of another sequel because, well, the original “Ash” is a little past his prime.

“We realized maybe it’s just too late to strap on the chainsaw one more time.” Campbell said Saturday. “It’s time to give these people what they want.”

“That just scared the shit out of me,” said Jane Levy (Suburgatory), who plays Evil Dead’s female protagonist Mia, after the clip finished.

Perhaps they can salvage a few lines from the movie.  Based on what I see, "Honey, you got real ugly" would be appropriate.

Walla Walla Bing Bang

Well, if Mark Sanford's "throwing spears" comment wasn't bad enough, now we have this story out of New Jersey about a businessmen who has put up a rather offensive display portraying the President as a "witch doctor".

A New Jersey business owner and self-described “political independent” has drawn criticism after setting up a display that includes a picture depicting President Barack Obama as a “witch doctor.”

“Call it what you want, I’m not taking it down,” Bill Skuby told WABC-TV regarding the display, which also has Obama’s picture on a tombstone above the words, “I told you I was sick,” an apparent reference to the Affordable Care Act.

Nice. Oh, this guy is a champ, by the way.

“A lot of people feel the way I feel, but are just afraid to say it,” he told the newspaper. “It always comes down to the race card.”

Skuby also told the newspaper he doesn’t believe he is a racist, on account of his son marrying a woman with a biracial child and raising it as part of their family.

I can't be a racist, because being white, I say I'm not racist.  So we've got this prick being a racist and then assuming white privilege to deny his racism.  He's the victim here, you see.  All of you are so mean and he of course is sorry all of you people are so sensitive.  Geez.  It's just a Halloween display.

I've got a display I'd like to put up on November 7th in response.  Just sayin'.

Now It's Time To Leave The Capsule If You Dare

Ground Control to Felix Baumgartner:  You've really made the grade!

The Austrian daredevil, in fact, rose to the edge of space Sunday -- 128,100 feet, or 24 miles, above the Earth -- before plunging faster than the speed of sound.

Minutes later, he landed in southeastern New Mexico and, dropping to his knees, pumped his fists to the sky.

"He made it -- tears of joy from Mission Control," his support team said.

Dubbed "Fearless Felix," the helicopter pilot and former soldier had parachuted from such landmarks as the Petronas Towers in Malaysia and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. And he'd been preparing for his latest feat for five years -- physically, mentally and logistically.

By most accounts, all the hard work paid off. According to preliminary findings cited by Brian Utley, an official observer monitoring the mission, the 43-year-old Baumgartner flew higher than anyone ever in a helium hot air balloon and broke the record for the highest jump.

Still, even Baumgartner seemed taken aback when Utley detailed how fast he had fallen at one point -- 833.9 mph, or Mach 1.24, smashing his goal to break the sound barrier.

And yes.  The guy floated up in a manned balloon capsule.  He depressurized it, opened up the door, and stepped out into space.  I watched this live, along with millions of others worldwide, and it was utterly incredible.

Give it a watch.

StupidiNews!

• Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by Taliban forces, has been flown to Britain for treatment.
• A new independent report commissioned by Britain's Parliament is urging MPs to legalize "soft drugs" like marijuana because the country's drug policy has failed.
• In Egypt, dozens of protesters were injured over the weekend during clashes with police in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
• Japan's Softbank is looking for approval to purchase a $20 billion 70% stake in Sprint Nextel, in what would be the largest foreign acquisition of a US company so far.
• Amazon will be issuing refund credit to Kindle customers as part of the class-action suit settlement with book publishers in 2013.

Last Call

Former GOP and finally Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania passed away Sunday afternoon at the age of 82.

For most of his 30 years as Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator and prominent moderate in Congress, Arlen Specter was a Republican, though often at odds with the GOP leadership.

He helped end the Supreme Court hopes of former federal appeals Judge Robert H. Bork, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan. Decades later, he was one of only three Republicans in Congress to vote for President Barack Obama's economic stimulus.

His breaks with his party were hardly a surprise: He had begun his political career as a Democrat and ended it as one, too.

In between, he was at the heart of several major American political events. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as an assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, developing the single-bullet theory in President John F. Kennedy's assassination. He came to the Senate in the Reagan landslide of 1980 and was a key voice in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of both Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Specter died Sunday died at his home in Philadelphia from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, said his son Shanin. He was 82. Over the years, Specter had fought two previous bouts with Hodgkin lymphoma, overcome a brain tumor and survived cardiac arrest following bypass surgery.

In the end, Specter voted for the Affordable Care Act as a Democrat before losing to Joe Sestak in the primary two years ago, but he was 80 even then.  It was a long career of service, and while his votes weren't always something I agreed with, he was the last of his breed:  the moderate Republican.

Compared to the Republicans in the Senate now?  I'd rather have 42 Arlen Specters.

Chuck You, Mark Sanford

This is pretty much race baiting/trolling on purpose by the Republicans.  Shocking, I know.

Former South Carolina Governor and Fox News contributor Mark Sanford wandered off the Appalachian Trail again Sunday morning when, in yet another completely isolated example of a Republican being totally-not-racist even though he sounds racist, said that President Obama is going to “come out and throw a lot of spears” at Tuesday’s upcoming debate.

America’s News HQ anchor Shannon Bream wasn’t in the shot, but she didn’t react audibly, and never skipped a beat in continuing to discuss expectations for Tuesday’s debate.

Gov. Sanford first praised former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney‘s performance at the first debate, then predicted that “You know, obviously Obama will come out in this case much more forcefully and he will throw a lot of spears.”

Yeah, sure, coming this close to using "spearchucker" from a guy from South Carolina is totally an accident.  Just like the shot-up campaign HQ window in Denver on Friday.

I'm just being overly sensitive, too.  Sure, that's it.

Sucker Punch Leaves Bus Driver Suspended

The Smoking Gun has a video and recap of a Cleveland bus driver who punches a rude passenger.  He has been suspended and his actions labeled unacceptable.

They're mostly right.

The punch wasn't necessary, but she was aggressive and her behavior was alarming enough that this would have escalated into self-defense shortly.  I'm not saying this excuses his actions, but it does expose a need to hold people in his position accountable while giving them support and resources to handle passengers like this.  Otherwise you end up with what we have here, a story where there are no innocents and no good came from their actions.

A Cleveland municipal bus driver has been suspended after video surfaced this week showing him decking a mouthy female rider with a bolo punch.

The confrontation between the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) worker and the unidentified woman was apparently filmed by another rider. It is unclear from the above clip, however, what triggered the dispute.

[WARNING: The video is peppered with curse words and racial slurs.]

The driver of bus 2802 leaves his seat after the woman appears to strike him. "You going to jail now," the driver says twice before throwing an uppercut that knocks the woman to the ground.

Soda Industry Fizzes Over And Sues

Soft-drink makers, restaurateurs and other businesses are suing to block New York City's move to end the sale of super-sized, sugary drinks in many eateries.

The American Beverage Association and others sued the city Friday. City officials had no immediate response.

The lawsuit says the unelected health board shouldn't be telling people how much soda to drink. The suit also says the rule "burdens consumers and unfairly harms small businesses."

Soda is unhealthy in large amounts.  However, no one drink or series of drinks is responsible for the decline of our health.  It is a long-term issue in which we strain our kidneys and heart and ultimately pay the price.

Restricting soft drinks makes sense, when done from a personal perspective.  It is not government's duty to regulate legal products that are harmless when the consumer is using their brain.  Restricting the size not only doesn't accomplish the goal of people drinking less, it also fails to address the core issue of making healthy choices.

I find the timing of this interesting.  I hate water, but have not allowed myself to have a soda or coffee until I drink an eight ounce serving of water.  Not only has this reduced my caffeine and soda intake, it has drastically increased my water intake.  I have never felt so great.  I understand what New York City is trying to do.  They're just doing it the wrong way, abusing their authority and overstepping their boundaries.

The Race Was Tightening Up Before The Debates

Yesterday on the podcast I gave my theory on why the polls have closed up so tightly, and not all of the race tightening action is because of the debates.  Smartypants points this out over at her place too.

For months now I've been saying that I don't pay attention to national polls. But I want to talk about them right now to make a point.

Everyone is assuming that the swing in the polls towards Romney is because of the first debate. But no matter how many times people say that - its just not true.

She points out that the polls started getting closer at the end of September, several days before the debate.  She also points out that Kevin Drum too has noticed this.

What's going on with the polls? I wrote something about this a few days ago, but I think it might have gotten buried, so I want to repeat it. According to both Pollster and Real Clear Politics, Mitt Romney began his big surge well before last week's debate. In the ten days before the debate, Pollster shows Romney gaining 2.4 points and RCP shows Romney gaining 1.8 points.

Romney has continued gaining since then, and Obama has continued falling, but this isn't solely a reaction to Obama's lousy debate performance. It started in late September. But why? Nothing special happened during that week to benefit Romney. Their ad buys remained about the same as always. The only thing I can think of is that it was just the inevitable rebound from the hit Romney took over the 47% video.

That might be it, but my theory I think is more plausible:  This was right about time that A) Mitt Romney was about to be written off for good, and B) right about when polling outfits changed from registered voters to likely voters.

Registered voters are hard statistics, you ask if the person is a registered voter or not.  If not, they don't get into the poll.  If you go just by registered voters, the Democrats have an advantage.

But each polling outfit has their own criteria for what a likely voter is.  And inevitably, likely voter models favor Republicans.

Usually polling outfits don't make the switch from registered voters to likely voters until about the first of October.  That's what I think happened here: combined with the debate, it turned into a serious boost for Romney in the polls.

Yes, some polling outfits have been using likely voter models now for months, but the criteria isn't always clear.  There's always a subjective component.  I think that subjective component has magnified Romney's momentum.

Notice that the Senate polls still favor the Democrats, in a big way.  That makes me all the more wary.

I think it's overblown.