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Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Rover said:
I seriously doubt the Dems will dump him on their own.
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He's the classic compromise place holder who holds his job because he offends nobody but can't lead because he offends nobody. He's Gerald Ford.

It could be better; it could be Durbin or Schumer. It could be worse; it could be a blue dog. It could be a total disaster; it could be Murray.
 
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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Rover said:
I'm not sure what the problem with Pelosi would be as she's passed just about every major legislative priority through the House. As others have said, the people most distant from her are also the ones most likely losing this November. Come 2012 when the Obama voters come out to the polls once again she's most likely have a more liberal caucus.

Reid however needs to go. While I hate giving up Senate seats, sometimes its for the greater good (Bob Torricelli is the last time I really felt like this). Simply put, he's hapless, much like Daschle was. I'd much rather see a guy like Schumer who came up in rough and tumble NYC politics taking the reigns. Problem is poor opposition in Nevada might save his @zz, and I seriously doubt the Dems will dump him on their own.
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Ahhhh, The Torch. Don't hear much about him these days. Aside from the ongoing corruption-a-thon that was the hallmark of his service, my favorite memory of this cheese ball was when he was waxing emotional about the anti-Italian tone of the Kefauver hearings into organized crime. The Torch claimed to have vivid memories of how hurtful it was to have all the goombas pleading the fifth on national TV. Just one little problem: The Torch was 2 or 3 when those hearings were a national obsession, and he doesn't remember bupkus about them. But hey, it's a good story.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Remember when Rasmussen was "the most accurate pollster", and we should have all listened to them? Oh well.
 
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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Kepler said:
Remember when Rasmussen was "the most accurate pollster", and we should have all listened to them? Oh well.
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I liked the analogy someone pointed out in the comments. Would you want a scouting report on Roy Halladay from 2000, or one from 2008? Yes, Rasmussen did poorly in forecasting the 2000 election, but if their polling skills have improved since then, shouldn't the main rating be focused on the latest election?
I'm not even defending Rasmussen really, I just think looking at 2000 results to forecast how well a pollster will be able to predict 2010 results is a little silly. I don't think Rasmussen is doing anything sinister, or even biased really. He's betting on a turnout of enthusiastic Republicans this fall, coupled with not so enthusiastic Democrats. As such, he polls more Republicans than other polls do, and hence R's do better in his polls. So essentially he's betting his reputation as a reliable pollster on the November voter makeup. If he's wrong, he'll be rightly pilloried, if he's right, he deserves kudos for seeing it coming.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

This is the latest polling regarding Blumenthal:

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1284.xml?ReleaseID=1459&What=&strArea=;&strTime=0

Still think they should have gone with Simmons, especially in light of these comments by the ex-Congressman:

In an interview with the conservative National Review, the former congressman said McMahon cannot defeat state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic nominee:
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Former Rep. Rob Simmons (R., Conn.) tells National Review Online that he does not think that Linda McMahon can win in the Nutmeg State. "No, I don't think so at all," he tells us. And if McMahon asks Simmons for help on the trail, he says he'll say he is "preoccupied."
[...] But the ex-congressman said McMahon could also face attacks on her character on the trail due to allegations of suspect activity during her tenure running the wrestling circuit.

"While she was there, they had a mentally-handicapped character, Eugene, who they thought was humorous," he said. "I find that whole issue, and how it was handled by [McMahon], severely disappointing," adding that she has "countless entertainment products that she'll have to defend, especially when Democrats make them known to the public in coming months."
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Regarding Rasmussen, Nate Silver could have looked out here as I tagged him as having a GOP bias of 2-8% in every swing state that he polled the weekend before the 2008 election. In no swing states did he have a bias for Obama. That's not a statistical anomoly, that's a guy with an agenda. Nothing wrong with that mind you, it just is what it is.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

WeWantMore said:
I liked the analogy someone pointed out in the comments. Would you want a scouting report on Roy Halladay from 2000, or one from 2008? Yes, Rasmussen did poorly in forecasting the 2000 election, but if their polling skills have improved since then, shouldn't the main rating be focused on the latest election?
I'm not even defending Rasmussen really, I just think looking at 2000 results to forecast how well a pollster will be able to predict 2010 results is a little silly. I don't think Rasmussen is doing anything sinister, or even biased really. He's betting on a turnout of enthusiastic Republicans this fall, coupled with not so enthusiastic Democrats. As such, he polls more Republicans than other polls do, and hence R's do better in his polls. So essentially he's betting his reputation as a reliable pollster on the November voter makeup. If he's wrong, he'll be rightly pilloried, if he's right, he deserves kudos for seeing it coming.
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Two things on this. First, you may not be aware that Rasmussen has been riding his 2004 results, which were pretty good, forever, and his apologists are constantly using them to rebut claims that Rasmussen's samples are deliberately skewed. So this is a goose/gander argument -- if he's going to use work that's 6 years out to claim relevance today, then you may as well look at his whole body of work.

Second, Rasmussen has said again and again that his basic modeling and sampling have not changed, and in fact he's critical of pollsters that tweak as always "fighting the last war." So it isn't using a scouting report ten years out to evaluate a pitcher now, it's using a scout's record in past evaluations to predict whether his new evaluations are any good when he says he's using the same methodology.

Rasmussen is the equivalent of Research 2000 -- an (unadmitted) in-house service with a strong affiliation that tends to generate the sort of results that affiliation wants to see. That isn't malignant, it is what it is. None of this is a criticism of Rasmussen, but of the dittoheads who have held it up as a paragon all these years -- they've been spouting nonsense, and it's nice to see that quantified. I'd make the same criticism if someone claimed R2000 was anything more than a shill for the Dems based on them accidentally falling into good results for a patch.
 
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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Kepler said:
Two things on this. First, you may not be aware that Rasmussen has been riding his 2004 results, which were pretty good, forever, and his apologists are constantly using them to rebut claims that Rasmussen's samples are deliberately skewed. So this is a goose/gander argument -- if he's going to use work that's 6 years out to claim relevance today, then you may as well look at his whole body of work.

Second, Rasmussen has said again and again that his basic modeling and sampling have not changed, and in fact he's critical of pollsters that tweak as always "fighting the last war." So it isn't using a scouting report ten years out to evaluate a pitcher now, it's using a scout's record in past evaluations to predict whether his new evaluations are any good when he says he's using the same methodology.
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The only evidence I've ever cited in defense of Rasmussen has been his 3rd place finish in Nate Silver's pollster ratings, I don't know how much of that exactly is based off of 2004, still I see your point.
Second, I don't really care what Rasmussen claims to be doing, I'm pretty sure that is what he's doing. Like I said, he'll either wind up with egg on his face or he'll get deserved credit.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Rover said:
Regarding Rasmussen, Nate Silver could have looked out here as I tagged him as having a GOP bias of 2-8% in every swing state that he polled the weekend before the 2008 election. In no swing states did he have a bias for Obama. That's not a statistical anomoly, that's a guy with an agenda. Nothing wrong with that mind you, it just is what it is.
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That's part of it, but what Rasmussen does is even more fun. As the election approaches he moves from all voters to likely voters, and his bias kicks in most for likely voters. So his results don't just show bias for the R, they show artificially-generated "trending" towards the R. That's a deliberate strategy to show an R favorite pulling away or an R underdog closing the gap.

It's quite brilliant, and utterly methodologically flawed. It will also tend to work roughly half the time, when R excitement does in fact build over the closing weeks.

Let's create a "poll" that works half the time right now: only poll Republicans. The Republican candidate will always win this poll (well, he better, or he has real problems). In years when the Republicans get a late, broad bump that will take a lot of close elections and push them into our win column, while the real polling services who use real math will split them about 50/50. Now we just claim all those wins as vindicating our "methodology." Voila. :p
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Rover said:
This is the latest polling regarding Blumenthal:

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1284.xml?ReleaseID=1459&What=&strArea=;&strTime=0

Still think they should have gone with Simmons, especially in light of these comments by the ex-Congressman:
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In a vacuum, based solely on the positions they've taken, I would have gone with McMahon. However, elections do not take place in a vacuum, purity is great, but electability is better. McMahon is far far too conservative for Connecticut, and as such she's going to get crushed in the polls.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Red Cloud said:
That must be your "working class hero" attitude.
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I never pretended to be the WCH, that's your gig. I'm choosing my surgeon on merit, you can choose yours on the virtues of honest poverty.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

You never fail to revert to your strawmen in the clutch. Awesome.
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Kos KY Senate Race Poll
2010 Senate
44% Paul (R), 41% Conway (D)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Rand Paul: 53 / 33
Jack Conway: 48 / 43
Barack Obama: 37 / 60
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Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

WeWantMore said:
Kos KY Senate Race Poll
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Odd that Paul has a +20 favorability rating but is polling in the low 40's. People like what he has to say but don't actually want him running anything? Sounds like he's better suited for a career in talk radio. :D
 
Re: Death to the Incumbent!! Your guide to the 2010 primaries

Jon said:
Would any body like a peanut?
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wallace-shawn-vizzini.jpg
 
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