Barack
Have to make an entry. The idea this election season has been to put down my thoughts and predictions as a way of testing my understanding. If it's written down I can't misremember how perceptive I was. I have lost interest in the race.
Six weeks ago --whenever, but after Texas-- I said Barack was no longer the Messiah, so his support would have peaked. From then on the horse race would be just between a part of a horse and a hack from Chicago. Hillary's support wouldn't go down, because everybody who supported her already knew she was a jerk, but Obama's wouldn't go up because he was now just a politician, and not a very good one at that.
He certainly does have baggage, but the polls haven't gone quite as I'd expected. Some fluctuation, more to Obama's benefit than Hillary's, but actually fairly steady; neither has collapsed, neither has taken off. Obama is accumulating negatives, but so far it hasn't shown up in the polls.
McCain has gone up steadily. For this time of the season, with supposedly immense public dissatisfaction with his party's president, with woes economic and other, his numbers are extraordinary. He should be down ten or fifteen points, but instead he's even with, or leads, either Obama or Hillary. This rise is the general public's response to Hillary the horse and Barack the hack. There is movement among those only marginally attracted to the new king. But what about Democrats?
This is where I lack insight. It appears both camps are pretty firmly dug in and emotional and not about to change their preferences, whatever new information might come out. This surprises me, because, as I said, while I thought Hillary would be solid, I thought Barack could only be damaged, and to my mind he's been damaged more, and more quickly, than I had expected. Yet he has gone up in the polls. This makes no sense.
There has to be a pathology here. Maybe it's just that if you're a Democrat you can't criticize another Democrat if he's black? That would be racist. It seems this is a party piety, it's the faith by which you know you're a liberal.
I take pieties as being public. Always the right thing must be said. But how internal is that perfect faith? Can you say one thing, yet vote another? I don't know. I do know that among a certain set of liberals the more a back Democrat is attacked the more he must be defended, and the more justified the attack the more vehement the defense, the more powerful the commitment to the candidate.
This is pathology but it is a Democrat thing and it's going to happen. But what percentage? How many will say one thing but in a polling place do another? There have got to be Democrats who have followed the same path as myself, initially considering Barack a decent honest fellow fundamentally unconscious of race, who now find him not quite that; maybe rather: loser, jerk, snot, hypocrite and flim-flam man. Are they going to vote for a guy like that? After all, there is another Democrat available. It's true Hillary does have her own descriptive identity, but the difference between what she says and what she is doesn't fool anybody, and at least she's not a loser.
So, Hillary by fourteen points in Pennsylvania.
There. I've made my prediction. On this prediction my reputation will rest, to rise or to fall. Actually, mostly I'm just taking information from Jay Cost. He notes that Ohio and Pennsylvania are demographically very similar, and that the pattern of polling over time-- Hillary's fall in percentage, Barack's rise, though Hillary still maintaining a lead-- are virtually identical between the two states. That's all Jay Cost says. He makes no prediction. He says: "You can't predict tomorrow by yesterday", or something like that.
But he's just protecting rep. In fact the probabilities are that the dynamisms are the same (though some psychologically obscure) so the pattern will be the same. Add to that Obama's new negatives (which has to mean something to at least some Democrats) and I think Hillary's numbers will be better in Pennsylvania than in Ohio. Ohio she won by ten, so Pennsylvania she wins by fourteen.
My personal argument is this: polling is PC, and a public statement is a party piety, it's reflexive; but the voting booth is private, and I just bet'cha that in private a lot of Democrats will sin.
Six weeks ago --whenever, but after Texas-- I said Barack was no longer the Messiah, so his support would have peaked. From then on the horse race would be just between a part of a horse and a hack from Chicago. Hillary's support wouldn't go down, because everybody who supported her already knew she was a jerk, but Obama's wouldn't go up because he was now just a politician, and not a very good one at that.
He certainly does have baggage, but the polls haven't gone quite as I'd expected. Some fluctuation, more to Obama's benefit than Hillary's, but actually fairly steady; neither has collapsed, neither has taken off. Obama is accumulating negatives, but so far it hasn't shown up in the polls.
McCain has gone up steadily. For this time of the season, with supposedly immense public dissatisfaction with his party's president, with woes economic and other, his numbers are extraordinary. He should be down ten or fifteen points, but instead he's even with, or leads, either Obama or Hillary. This rise is the general public's response to Hillary the horse and Barack the hack. There is movement among those only marginally attracted to the new king. But what about Democrats?
This is where I lack insight. It appears both camps are pretty firmly dug in and emotional and not about to change their preferences, whatever new information might come out. This surprises me, because, as I said, while I thought Hillary would be solid, I thought Barack could only be damaged, and to my mind he's been damaged more, and more quickly, than I had expected. Yet he has gone up in the polls. This makes no sense.
There has to be a pathology here. Maybe it's just that if you're a Democrat you can't criticize another Democrat if he's black? That would be racist. It seems this is a party piety, it's the faith by which you know you're a liberal.
I take pieties as being public. Always the right thing must be said. But how internal is that perfect faith? Can you say one thing, yet vote another? I don't know. I do know that among a certain set of liberals the more a back Democrat is attacked the more he must be defended, and the more justified the attack the more vehement the defense, the more powerful the commitment to the candidate.
This is pathology but it is a Democrat thing and it's going to happen. But what percentage? How many will say one thing but in a polling place do another? There have got to be Democrats who have followed the same path as myself, initially considering Barack a decent honest fellow fundamentally unconscious of race, who now find him not quite that; maybe rather: loser, jerk, snot, hypocrite and flim-flam man. Are they going to vote for a guy like that? After all, there is another Democrat available. It's true Hillary does have her own descriptive identity, but the difference between what she says and what she is doesn't fool anybody, and at least she's not a loser.
So, Hillary by fourteen points in Pennsylvania.
There. I've made my prediction. On this prediction my reputation will rest, to rise or to fall. Actually, mostly I'm just taking information from Jay Cost. He notes that Ohio and Pennsylvania are demographically very similar, and that the pattern of polling over time-- Hillary's fall in percentage, Barack's rise, though Hillary still maintaining a lead-- are virtually identical between the two states. That's all Jay Cost says. He makes no prediction. He says: "You can't predict tomorrow by yesterday", or something like that.
But he's just protecting rep. In fact the probabilities are that the dynamisms are the same (though some psychologically obscure) so the pattern will be the same. Add to that Obama's new negatives (which has to mean something to at least some Democrats) and I think Hillary's numbers will be better in Pennsylvania than in Ohio. Ohio she won by ten, so Pennsylvania she wins by fourteen.
My personal argument is this: polling is PC, and a public statement is a party piety, it's reflexive; but the voting booth is private, and I just bet'cha that in private a lot of Democrats will sin.
posted by mouse at 11:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home