Daily Kos has jumped the shark

Palin’s faked “pregnancy”?  Covering for teen daughter?

Classy. I hope the left just keeps on driving women to McCain.

A tip of the conservative ball cap to The Jawa Report.

Filed under: 2008, Democrats, Elections, presidential , 2008 presidential election, Daily Kos, Democrat, liberal, Sarah Palin

Enough blogging

I’m going for a walk to downtown Waukesha.

Filed under: Waukesha, Wisconsin , 105 Harley anniversary, Weekend in Waukesha

McCain texting his VP choice

I couldn’t resist.

Especially after seeing this on techPresident.

I tried to sign back in, but, of course, I’ve forgotten my password (none of the ones I thought I had used worked). So I clicked to have it sent to me and lo and behold, they have no record of my e-mail address!

Evidently signing up for the previous McCainSpace had no effect on the latest one. I signed up for one with no problem.

But McCain seems to be light years behind Obama in this area.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, Political cartoons, Technology, presidential , Barack Obama, John McCain, Political cartoons, social networking

How Pollsters Affect Poll Results

Professor Charles Franklin of Political Arithmetik has an excellent post on “house effects,” or how different pollsters differ in their results. Any one interested in polls and polling should bookmark his site as well as Pollster.com where his posts are mirrored. The latter site has an electoral map up. Compare it to the one at RealClearPolitics.com

Who does the poll affects the results. Some. These are called “house effects” because they are systematic effects due to survey “house” or polling organization. It is perhaps easy to think of these effects as “bias” but that is misleading. The differences are due to a variety of factors that represent reasonable differences in practice from one organization to another.

He then gives the different variables that cause differences in results with a nifty graph (I’m a graph geek almost as much as a map geek).

Definitely worth a look.

Filed under: Polls and polling , Polls and polling

OK, now a wrong one

From April 9

Joe Maddon is predicting a .500 record for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays this year. Right. But they probably won’t finish last thanks to the Orioles. Maybe 70 wins will help get them that new stadium at the waterfront.

They have that .500 record with 30 games left. But last night they still only drew 14,039,

making it the sixth consecutive Rays’ home game with a turnout under 20,000.

As a Rays fan, the team’s performance has been exciting. Every time I thought, “OK, now they start their slide,” they haven’t.

They still could they play 3 at home and 3 away against both the Red Sox and Yankees. Seventeen of their last 30 are on the road. Two or three key players are injured, although Longoria may come back next week, Crawford is basically done for the regular season.

I’ve also followed enough baseball to remember other collapses. Brewer fans remember last year all too well.

But for an eleven year old team that has been the doormat of the major leagues since their inception, this year has been exciting, no matter where they end up.

Hopefully baseball fever will catch in Tampa Bay.

Filed under: Wisconsin , major league baseball, Tampa Bay Rays

I hate to brag…

From February 6,

McCain’s age will force him to look for a younger person that could be seen as stepping into the Presidency (e.g., NOT Dan Quayle). The presence of Obama, Clinton or both on the Democratic ticket will bring pressure to select a woman or an African American or both (Condi Rice, anyone?).

And I’ll give credit to Zach who commented on that same post,

McCain will have no shortage of options, but I’d think his best bet would be to go with a sitting governor as his VP choice, in order to bring some executive experience to the ticket.

Younger, woman, a sitting governor.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, presidential , 2008 presidential election, John McCain, Republican Party, Sarah Palin

It’s started

In the day of instant filing and reading of news stories, it didn’t take long for the Democrats to respond.

She’s too young. She’s inexperienced.

I care about experience in the first chair, not the second. But experience is not the only criterion.

So to my left-of-center friends, keep it coming.

Keep criticizing a woman, small-town America and whatever else you’re going to bring up.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, presidential , 2008 presidential election

The tickets are set

If Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is indeed McCain’s choice.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, Republican, presidential , 2008 presidential election, John McCain, Sarah Palin

Headline of the day

The Associated Press: Obama’s speech to stress change

Wow. Really?

(a tip of the conservative Tampa Bay Rays cap to James Taranto at WSJ).

And speaking of change (also via Taranto):

Kerry, though, manages to muddy up the moreofthesame message:

Who can we trust to keep America safe? When Barack Obama promised to honor the best traditions of both parties and talk to our enemies, John McCain scoffed. George Bush called it “the soft comfort of appeasement.” But today, Bush’s diplomats are doing exactly what Obama said: talking with Iran. . . .

When we called for a timetable to make Iraqis stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home, John McCain called it “cut and run.” But today, even President Bush has seen the light. He and Prime Minister Maliki agree on–guess what?–a timetable.

In both these cases, Kerry is promising that Obama will continue Bush administration policies while McCain will deviate from them. Can we really afford four more years of the same?

And more, concerning tonight’s Greek architectural set:

Politico’s Ben Smith²⁸ offers a theory:

George W. Bush accepted his own nomination in 2004 on a set with a similar neoclassical theme, with columns rising on either side of him, as the pictures above and below show.

Indeed, the Bush set and the Obama sets currently look strikingly similar, with the podium set well in front of the columns, and connected by a path.

Can we really afford four more years of the same?

UPDATE: All kidding aside, I would say that Obama being a presidential candidate is a great moment in American history, but the left wouldn’t believe me.

Filed under: 2008, Democrats, Elections, presidential , Barack Obama

Quote of the day 8-28-08

Today’s quote comes from Kyle Prast blogging at Practically Speaking,

The more I find out about Obama, the better McCain looks.

Unfortunately, she’s right.

Filed under: Quote of the day , 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama, John McCain, Quote of the day