Joust The Facts

315

UPDATE 11/3/12 0710: Not so out on a limb, perhaps?  Michael Barone is on the 315 number also.  But I had it first! (HT: Hot Air)

Okay, now I'm really out on a limb here.  Below is my electoral map, produced at Real Clear Politics.  (You can go here and create your own map.  It can't be less likely than mine).  Light colors = leaners.  Medium colors = likely.  Deep colors = solid.

Yeah, I know.  Shocking.  Way outside the bounds of current expert opinion.  Although ... Dick Morris sees a landslide coming, Karl Rove sees a solid Romney victory, and lots of folks find something more than a bit fishy in usually relatively honest polls.  A few comments are quite obviously necessary by way of explanation.

Most important, I think, is to realize that Barack Obama's mojo just ain't what it was in 2008.  Then he rode a wave of euphoria over hope and change, capitalizing on a horrific economic collapse and several years (at least) of Bush fatigue replete with non-stop bashing by the DPM (Democratic Partisan Media)*.  In 2008 the GOP was depressed.  They were not enthused by the McCain candidacy, Obama-mania was raging, and the DPM had successfully "other-ized" Sarah Palin. The national vote even with that "perfect storm" of opportunity was 53-46, a 6.5 million vote spread out of 124 million votes cast.  Democrats and Obama voters came in waves; Republicans stayed home.  Obama won independents by 8, 52-44.

But now?  He's had three plus years to get things moving economically.  He hasn't.  He preaches class warfare and re-distribution.  He organizes a job council, then doesn't meet with them.  He piles up $6 trillion in increased debt.  Realizing that's a problem, he creates the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission, then ignores the findings.  He blocks the Keystone XL pipeline, making Canada sell their oil to China and stomping on more American jobs.  He funds through the Department of Energy loan program a steady stream of green boondoggles, costing American taxpayers even more of their hard-earned bread.  He rams through a takeover of one-sixth of the economy against the will of the people, and with their freedom and choice in medicine curtailed they predictably do not grow to love the program.

So is it likely that waves of enthusiastic Democratic voters will be flooding the booths come Tuesday?  I think not.  What about Republicans?  Every poll confirms an enthusiasm gap in favor of the GOP.  That's a lot different from 2008.  Gallup is currently showing a 5 point Romney advantage with likely voters, based in large part on the greater enthusiasm of GOP voters to get to the ballot box.  Just about every survey shows Mr. Romney flipping Mr. Obama's advantage with independents, winning them by 8-14 points.  Also, Gallup shows men going for Romney by 57-43, a 14 point spread, vs. losing women by 54-46, an 8 point spread. 

You'd have to have a boatload more ladies than men voting to make up for that deficit.

So it's 315.  Mitt Romney will win Pennsylvania - didn't they elect Pat Toomey just two years ago?  He'll win Ohio - barely - but it'll be closer than the national vote because Mr. Obama has been doing all he can to hold that state.  He'll win Virginia and Colorado.  He'll win Iowa, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.  I don't have him getting over the top in Minnesota, Oregon, Michigan or Nevada, but those states will be close.  Very close.  I have Connecticut and New Jersey close, but I think Sandy will probably keep those with the president, as the representative of federal assistance.

I could be wrong, but Mr. Romney's sizeable advantage with independents should swing the popular vote, the electoral college, and the presidency in his direction.  I'm just hoping that each and every state, no matter on which side it falls, is both outside the margin of fraud and outside the margin of litigation.  We don't need another Gore-athon like Florida 2000, and we don't need thousands of disappointed conspiracy theorists screaming DIEBOLD!!! at the top of their hyper-partisan lungs because their candidate came up 120,000 votes short.  We need a definitve answer on November 7; here's hoping we get that.

You Want More? I Don't - The Joust The Facts Endorsement

Exactly four years ago, on October 30, 2008, The Joust The Facts endorsement for President of the United States reviewed the lack of accomplishment, inexperience, nebulous feel-good gestalt and nefarious associations of then-Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.  It's worth revisiting not only to see what the problems with his candidacy were four years ago, but mainly to see just how obvious those deficiencies were to even a political neophyte like myself.  I don't think the Wall Street Journal or NY Times will be calling me looking for their next political columnist.  Particularly not the Times.  But here's a snippet - see if anything rings true to you, given what we now know.

Sen. Barack Obama has run a very strong campaign, knocking off first the presumptive nominee when the campaign started, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and now standing on the doorstep of a general election win over war hero and Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.  Mr. Obama delivers an elegant speech, professing a politics of "hope" and "change."  While both are nebulous concepts at best they do resonate.  "Hope" and "change" make him look and sound forward-looking and optimistic.  But campaigns do not make the candidate.  Rather, the candidate is what he is, and all of the pomp and window dressing and platitudes and Greek columns in the world can't change that.

If that is indeed the case, then what is Sen. Obama?  He's only been in the public eye since 2004, when he stepped onto the stage at the Democratic Convention wowing the audience with his speech on his way to the Senate.  The media hasn't helped us to know more, failing to scrutinize adequately his many questionable past associations and pronouncements, glossing over some, excusing some, ignoring some...

We know that Mr. Obama has had quite a few associations with Marxists.  Yes, I used the word.  He has espoused redistributionist economics, in his tax plan where income tax credits can go to those who pay no income taxes, in his discussion of the civil rights movement in 2001 in the now famous tape, and in his off the cuff explanation to Joe The Plumber.  It is hard to argue that his economic philosophy is not more socialist than free-market, and even harder to argue that that philosophy will lead to rising incomes, rising GDP, and more jobs.  Having seen stagflation before, I don't want to see it again.  His energy policy is blind to the need for additional drilling and nuclear power, the latter of which is quite 'green', certainly green enough for France.

Let me emphasize that important line:

It is hard to argue that his economic philosophy is not more socialist than free-market, and even harder to argue that that philosophy will lead to rising incomes, rising GDP, and more jobs.

Check, check and checkmate.  America has seen in Obama's economic stewardship falling incomes, anemic and stagnant GDP growth, and job creation insufficient to bring back the lost jobs from the recession.  Some of Mr. Obama's job claims were dependent on a new metric, jobs "created or saved."  Here's a convenient video of the deception involved in Mr. Obama's claims of robust job creation, courtesy of Political Math.

And with that record we now have $6 Trillion more in national debt, in just 4 years time.  So economically his record has been less than stellar, much as I had anticipated four years ago.

How about in terms of foreign policy? Well, there's alienating our ally, Poland, in several instances; dissing another staunch ally, Israel, again several times; looking towards increased flexibility after November 6; bowing to a Saudi royal, among others.  And, oh yeah, Benghazi.  Benghazi?  Benghazi.  If you read the New York Times this may be news to you, but back on September 11 four Americans including two heroic ex-Navy Seals and the Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, were murdered by terrorists in the American consulate there.  Help was called for.  Help could have arrived.  Help didn't.  We won't get into Iraq and Afghanistan here.

Recall, also, that Mr. Obama's signature achievements in his four years are the 'stimulus,' ObamaCare, killing Osama Bin Laden and saving GM.  Let's go in reverse order.  "Saving" General Motors meant transferring wealth from bondholders and taxpayers to the company's autoworkers,  and the company is still on shaky footing - look at the sales of the Volt, for example.  And yes, Bin Laden is dead.  The intelligence community found him, Seal Team 6 got the job done, and Mr. Obama gave the operation the thumbs up.  Terrorist fighter?  Benghazi!

ObamaCare is one of the worst monstrosities foisted upon American citizens imaginable.  Nancy Pelosi famously said that we had to pass the bill to know what was in it.  Well, now we know, and we don't like it.  Bottlenecks, waiting lists, doctor shortages, losing your doctor, paying more for insurance, paying for insurance coverages you don't need or want, loss of freedom, IPAB.  The administration knows what medicine you need, and they want you to swallow it and like it.  Oh, and there's $716B less for Medicare, by the way.

The 'stimulus' didn't stimulate, and it's not because it was too small.  What, we needed $12 trillion in new debt, not just $6 trillion?  Private businesses hiring private individuals to grow their businesses is the engine that moves the economic wheels, and with the specters of ObamaCare, fiscal cliffs, exploding debt and blossoming over-regulation, that just isn't happening.

So we can see that Mr. Obama lived up to expectations here at Joust The Facts.  He failed.  But what about Mitt Romney?  Well, he has much more of a record than Mr. Obama did four years ago, having successfully governed Massachusetts, a deeply blue state, as a Republican governor.  His RomneyCare is bad, but it pales in comparison to the much more coercive ObamaCare, and it may have been the best he could have done with a legislature that, being 85% Democrat, could pass what it wanted and override his veto.  He stepped in and righted the troubled Salt Lake City Olympics from 2000-02.  He has been a successful executive.

The economy needs to have politicians stop playing politics with it, and Mr. Romney knows this.  Mr. Obama came in and turned his back on Republicans from the start; huge congressional majorities his first two years didn't improve that attitude.  Mr. Romney won't be so dismissive.  Entitlements need reform.  Mr. Obama didn't tackle this necessary task during his first two years with his huge majorities, and he didn't do so with a Republican House.  Mr. Romney will.

Mitt Romney knows that businesses need certainty, the ability to see their future and plan for it.  Mr. Obama sees business as a large piggy bank that should be required to hire workers and pay higher taxes, or as a way to push an ideological agenda in ways that help his bigger donors.  Mr. Romney is a capitalist, and conveniently the American economic soul is also capitalist.  The debates did Mr. Romney the primary service of exposing his reasonableness to a wider audience.  His jump in the polls after the first debate is attributable to the fact that he didn't and doesn't look and sound like the soulless caricature of him touted by the Obama campaign.  He looked ... what's the word ... presidential.

And indeed he is.  Joust The Facts issues a hearty and hopeful endorsesment of Mitt Romney for president.

Apropos of Nothing ...

Just because I thought you needed a break from the endless stream of ads screeching about how Mitt Romney is going to steal your life savings and give it to Donald Trump and Bill Gates, or rip out your uterus and let his Supreme Court nominees play volleyball with it.

You're welcome.

Can't The White House Handle The Truth?

In A Few Good Men Jack Nicholson, as Col. Nathan Jessup famously declared to Lt. Daniel Caffey (played by Tom Cruise), "You can't handle the truth!"  The question today is, can the White House?  In the second presidential debate Barack Obama declared self-righteously that he had identified the Benghazi terrorist attack an "act of terror" in the Rose Garden speech the next day.  That requires very generous inference from the speech.  Then spokespeople, representatives and administration officials, including press secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and UN Ambassador Susan Rice, spent the next 2 weeks identifying a spontaneous demonstration generated by outrage over an obscure internet video trailer as the real source of the problem.  Have a look.

Well, today we learn that immediately after the attack, within hours, the White House was informed that this was most likely not a "spontaneous demonstration" gone awry, by State Department emails

(Reuters) - Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi assault, which President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials ultimately acknowledged was a "terrorist" attack carried out by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers.

Administration spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film.

While officials did mention the possible involvement of "extremists," they did not lay blame on any specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.

At the very least, such emails should have tempered the full-court press that deflected blame to the allegedly offending video.  A question I asked earlier is this:

If it is irresponsible to declare this a terrorist attack without definitive evidence that it was, why was it not also irresponsible to absolve terrorists and affix the blame to the video without the same definitive evidence?

I'd also be interested in why such mendacity would be necessary.  Perhaps it was thought that it might deflect the questions about lax security.  After all, if it was an un-anticipated spontaneous demonstration that ran amok, how could such an event have been anticipated?  Perhaps it was because the White House sees insults to Islam as the source of Islamic rage.  Which, of course, leads to the incorrect conclusion that according to the administration such rage and killing is understandable if not justifiable whenever insults to Islam occur, and also to the conclusion that the First Amendment in the US Constitution should not protect such speech.  Perhaps it's because with Romney winning on the economy, Obama couldn't afford to lose face in foreign policy before November 6.  In that event, who would then be playing politics with the loss of American lives?

Ambassador Susan Rice's earnest Tour de Jon Lovitz on five Sunday morning talk shows several days after the attack focused on the video and the word "spontaneous" and made nary a mention of a terrorist attack as the most likely explanation.  Yet that appears to be the one that should have been foremost in administration thinking.  Spontaneous, indeed.

More from Allahpundit here.

The Joust The Facts "Quote Of The Day"

From Robert Samuelson, at Real Clear Politics about yet another insidious design flaw in the unpopular health care reform known in Orwellian fashion as the  "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," or more colloquially as ObamaCare.  Mr. Samuelson's article addresses the definitions of full-time and part-time workers.  For the latter under ObamaCare the employer does not have to provide health insurance; once you reach 50 of the former, however, you do.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines part time as less than 35 hours, while the PPACA defines part-time as less than 30 hours.  Problem?  Yes.

The argument about Obamacare is often framed as a moral issue. It's the caring and compassionate against the cruel and heartless. That's the rhetoric; the reality is different. Many of us who oppose Obamacare don't do so because we enjoy seeing people suffer. We believe that, in an ideal world, everyone would have insurance. But we also think that Obamacare has huge drawbacks that outweigh its plausible benefits.

It creates powerful pressures against companies hiring full-time workers -- precisely the wrong approach after the worst economic slump since the Depression. There will be more bewildering regulations, more regulatory uncertainties, more unintended side effects and more disappointments. A costly and opaque system will become more so.

Amen to that.

They Push-Polled The Wrong Voter

A rough transcript of a poll call - from an actual human this time! - that I answered tonight.  I fielded the call, and rather than hanging up (I really didn't have much else to do at the time) I decided to answer and see where this was heading.  And so it began benignly with the first two questions:

PP: Using strongly favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, and strongly unfavorable, what is your opinion of [candidate for president]?  And using the same grading, how about [candidate for president]?

and then

PP: If the election were held today, would you be voting for [candidate for president] or [candidate for president]

I answered these - they actually presented the choices evenly, and without bias in the presentation.  But then it started

PP: I'd like to ask your opinion of several public policy issues.  Are you in favor of or against privatizing Medicare.

Me: You're asking the wrong guy.  I'm a doctor, and I'm well informed about the issues of Medicare.  Neither side is proposing privatizing Medicare.  Rather the ...

And then she cut me off and moved on to question two.

PP: Are your in favor of or against cuts to social security and Medicare?

Me: Again, that's a rather broad brush you're using.  Are you referring to the money that was transferred from Medicare to Obamacare to try to make that solvent?  Or is there another specific policy proposal that your referring to?

And so we moved on to question three, still with no answers for the first two policy questions.  Funny, they seemed to want a dull "yes" or "no", and I wanted a policy discussion.  And so we moved on.

PP: Are you in favor of or against tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans?

Me: You seem to be referring to the so-called "expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts."  You should know, however, that the current rates have been in place for 9 years and "extending the tax cuts" is really preventing a tax rate increase ...

PP: Thank you very much. {click}

I knew with patience that I could get them to hang up on me. Unfortunately I didn't make note of the organization making the call.  I wonder how they'll record my answers?  This might dovetail nicely with this story, about the current affairs knowledge of Republicans vs. Democrats according to a Pew study.

Did The Sox Just Blunder Again?

Unfortunately we'll know the answer to that question only after one year, or two, as we see how the managerial tenure of John Farrell turns out.  It seems the Sox came to an agreement with the Toronto Blue Jays to procure the services of the Jays' manager, former Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell.

Farrell, who received a three-year contract, will be introduced at Fenway Park on Monday or Tuesday.

The 50-year-old Farrell was the Red Sox pitching coach from 2007-10 before becoming the manager of the Blue Jays. Farrell was a modest 154-170 in two seasons, but the Red Sox believe he has the skills to lead the team back from its worst season in decades.

The Red Sox were 69-93 under Bobby Valentine, a season marked by underperformance, injuries, and controversy. Valentine’s style did not mesh well with general manager Ben Cherington, his coaching staff or with veteran players grown accustomed to the protective ways of former manager Terry Francona....

The Red Sox formally interviewed Padres special assistant Brad Ausmus, Orioles third base coach DeMarlo Hale, Yankees bench coach Tony Pena, and Dodgers third base coach Tim Wallach, and were impressed with all four. But their focus was on Farrell from the beginning of the process.

Hiring Farrell from the Blue Jays is acceptable from the compensation standpoint, as the Sox won't be giving up too much.  Mike Aviles is a terrific team player, who plays hard all the time and produces in the clutch at times, but his stats don't jolt you off the page.  So there's that.

And I don't have the sense of dread I did when they hired Valentine.  As I described him just before the hiring, in what was now a prescient post,

Just what the team needs, a self-promoting gadfly manager who has failed everywhere else.

Valentine's failures were legion.  He lost the team early, lost more of them as time went on, opened his mouth in frequent and unfortunate ways, and proved not to be the "smartest man in baseball" when making moves on the diamond.  His managing moves were often inexplicable.  Pinch hitting for Iglesias with two strikes already on him?  Seriously?

Looking at the list of the interviewees, I think I might have leaned toward three of the other four ahead of Farrell.  Bringing back Tony Pena, a former Manager Of The Year in Kansas City, and after a brief tenure in New York, would have made sense.  Brad Ausmus is widely regarded as sharp, and with a bright future in managing.  Both are former catchers who understand pitchers, pitching, and calling a game, all vital to a winning team.  DeMarlo Hale was with the Sox as a coach in various positions in the minors for about 9 years, then came back as a third base coach and bench coach for 5 more.  As a result, he was with the team during Terry Francona's successes and also with the Orioles last year during their own resurrection.

Farrell's record in Toronto has not impressed.  Toronto was 73-89 this year, four games better than the woeful Bostonians.  The prior year his team was an even .500, 81-81.  The pitching in Boston, after they finished first in pitching in 2007 winning the Series, steadily deteriorated under his watch.  (On the other hand, it deteriorated even further without him, so there's that.)

I hope I'm wrong.  I don't have the feeling of dread and catastrophic error that I did when Valentine was hired, but I would have rather seen a new face like an Ausmus, or a Ryne Sandberg or Sandy Alomar Jr. come in to settle the turmoil.  When you're starting from an epic failure of a year, at 69-93, you can take a chance on a bright light in the distance, hoping that as it comes into focus it turns out to be a star.

On Libya, And Lying, And Lameness

So I watched last night's debate with Gwendolyn by my side, and she questioned why I felt it necessary to watch a debate between the two men running for president when both of us know already who we're voting for.  And I had to admit, it would be really easy to switch the channel and watch My Cousin Vinny for the 32nd time, or catch Justin Verlander dispatching the Evil Empire in game three of the ALCS.  But then up popped a question on Libya.  And no, I'm not even going to get into the whole "Candy Crowley jumped in on Obama's side, was wrong to do so, and was wrong about what the President said in the Rose Garden" thing.

As I watched, I tweeted.  Here's a sample of my tweets (and a few re-tweets) from that segment.** (read from the bottom up)

Well, maybe I - and a number of others - were wrong.  We must have simply missed the answer, but it was there.  Just slipped past us.   Errr, no.

Right.  I didn't think he answered the question.  Now, onto the lameness.  I swung by Real Clear Politics to see what the topics of conversation might be, and was surprised ... shocked really ... to see this.

Oh, he did?  Really?  Here's the link to Mr. Drum's piece, and the actual title: "It's time for Romney to give Benghazi a rest."  The central point Mr. Drum makes is this:

But what I really wonder is: how has this become a serious question anyway? Why does anyone care if it took two weeks to decide that Benghazi was an act of terror? Two weeks! That's not exactly an eternity. Even if it were true that Obama spent a few days waiting for firm intelligence reports before making firm statements, is there anything wrong with that? Isn't that what a president should do?

It's a serious question because four people, including an ambassador, died.  It's a serious question because it highlights the truthfulness, or lack thereof, of the administration in dealing with this tragedy.  It's a serious question because Mr. Obama didn't treat those deaths as serious, choosing to go to fundraisers in Las Vegas when an ambassador had died. Here are a few inconvenient ones for those cheering Mr. Obama's answer (and Ms Crowley's partisan efforts) last night.

• The slain ambassador wrote in his journal about his own security concerns and his desire and need to improve security.
• Testimony in Congress by Eric Nordstrom indicates he was rebuffed for months in attempts to improve security.  And a Lt. Colonel who was the leader of a security team that was called home knew right away that it was a terrorist attack.
• The Libyans knew within less than 24 hours that a) no protest took place that day in Benghazi about any video, and b) the attackers were well-organized and associated with Al Qaeda.
• Despite that, administration officials spent almost two weeks repeatedly blaming the attack on an anti-Islam video trailer, including arresting the video's producer.  If they weren't sure it was terrorism initially, how were they so sure it was the video?  Are some out-on-a-limb accusations acceptable, but not others?

So no, this doesn't put the Benghazi story to rest.  Not at all.  And the fact that the President failed to answer Mr. Ladka's question of who declined the extra security, and misled viewers about his own statements on the day after the attack doesn't help him one iota.

*Let's just say that Mr. Obama didn't explicitly call it terrorism, and didn't specifically condemn that particular attack as a coordinated act of terror.  He did call it an "attack," and later in the speech condemned "acts of terror" generically.  But he also linked the attack to the video, as later that week so did Susan Rice on five separate Sunday morning shows.

**If anyone can inform me how to post the entire timeline of my tweets, or a section of them, I'd be most appreciative.  These are screenshots - best I could do.

Romney Responds

It used to be that "talking points" were the cherry-picked facts that you wanted to get out, to paint your side, your point of view, your plans in the most favorable light possible.  The Democrats changed that at some point - I think it was during the Bush-Gore election squabble in Florida, but it could have been earlier - to mean something completely different.  The word "fact" has a definition.  A fact is a known truth, something in reality and completely truthful, something that either exists or has existed and is known.  Sure the talking points were cherry-picked, but at least they were based in reality.

Now, however, what the Democrats' talking points represent is spin.  These are imaginary facts, impressions, and unfavorable interpretations of the other side that you want reported.  If a fact no longer has to be based in reality it can then can simply be invented.  Don't talk about Romney's actual tax plan, talk about the tax plan as you want people to believe it exists.  It is even more acceptable, encouraged actually, when the entity generally responsible for holding you accountable for your statements, journalists, are so in the tank that they never challenge your assertions.  Last night Mr. Obama finally got challenged on his 'facts,' and it wasn't pretty.

Here's a dramatization of Mitt Romney's response to many of Mr. Obama's talking points.  (mild language warning)

Of course, Mr. Romney would never use such language, and he did go on to eviscerate the talking points with cold, hard, real, truthful facts.  Winner by knockout, I'd say.  A compassionate referee would have stopped the fight in the third round.  That's a fact, but don't just take my word for it.