1853 - George Washington Murray is born near Rembert, South Carolina. A two-term congressman from his home state, Murray will also be an inventor and holder of eight patents for agricultural tools.
1862 - Five days after Union forces won the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln issues a preliminary emancipation proclamation. It states that if the rebelling states did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863, he would declare their slaves to be "forever free."
1915 - Xavier University of Louisiana opens in New Orleans, the first Catholic college for African Americans in the United States.
1941 - Chester Lovelle Talton is born in Eldorado, Arkansas. At 49, he will become the first African American Episcopalian bishop to be ordained in the western United States. As suffragan bishop of the diocese of LosAngeles, he becomes the religious leader of Episcopalians in the fourth-largest diocese in the United States.
1949 - Lee Harold Carmichael is born in Jacksonville, Florida. He will become an American football wide receiver in the NFL. He will play 13 seasons for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1971 to 1983, and one season for the Dallas Cowboys in 1984. He will play his college football at Southern University. He will be selected to four Pro Bowls in his NFL career, and will lead the league in receptions during the 1973 season. He will also be the Eagles' top receiver of Super Bowl XV, with 6 catches for 91 yards. He will end his career with 590 receptions for 8,985 yards with 79 career touchdown catches, along with 64 rushing yards on 9 carries. He will rank 18th all-time in career touchdown receptions. He will be selected to the NFL 1970s All-Decade Team by voters of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He will become Director of Player Programs for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2006.
1950 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, director of the UN Trusteeship division and former professor of political science at Howard University, is awarded the Nobel Peace prize for successful mediation of the Palestinian peace accord.
1954 - Shari Belafonte(Harper now Behrens) is born in New York City, New York. She will become is an American actress, model, writer and singer. The daughter of singer Harry Belafonte, she will be best known for her role as Julie Gilette on the 1980s television series "Hotel" and as a spokesperson for the diet supplement "Slim-Fast" during the 1990s.
1960 - The Republic of Mali proclaims its independence.
1961 - The Interstate Commerce Commission issues regulation prohibiting segregation on interstate buses and in terminal facilities.
1969 - San Francisco Giant, Willie Mays, becomes the first player since Babe Ruth to hit 600 home runs.
1985 - Robert Guillaume wins an Emmy for best leading actor in a comedy for Benson while The Cosby Show wins for best comedy series.
1989 - Edward Perkins, the first African American ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, becomes director-general of the United States Foreign Service. The first African American named to the post, Perkins will be credited with bringing more minorities into the foreign service.
1990 - After a long courtship and 9-month engagement, plezWorld marries plezWife in a momentous ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia. They remain married to this day and have one precocious 7-year old daughter from their union, the SugarPlum.
You can review a daily list of Black History here.
plez sez: celebrating 18 wonderful years with the plezWife...
While plezWorld was immersed in Sunday Night Football (watching the Cowboys throttle the Packers), the rest of the television universe was doling out little gold statues to the best that tv had to offer for the past 12 months.
It was not surprise to me that "John Adams" - the HBO mini-series - would rack up the lion's share of the awards while setting an Emmy record with 13 wins (from its 23 nominations), including Paul Giamatti as John Adams (Best Lead Actor in a Mini-Series), Laura Linney as Abigail Adams (Best Lead Actress in a Mini-Series), Tom Wilkinson as Ben Franklin (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series), and Kirk Ellis (Outstanding Writing for a Mini-Series). I received a boxed set of the mini-series for my birthday, one of my favorite gifts.
I made some bold prognostications a few months back when the Emmy nominations were first announced, so I guess many of you are wondering how I fared. Check the box below, the winners are in BOLD print:
Notable Emmy Winners:
COMEDY COMEDY SERIES Curb Your Enthusiasm Entourage The Office 30 Rock Two and a Half Men
ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock Steve Carell, The Office Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies Tony Shalhoub, Monk Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men
ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES Christina Applegate, Samantha Who? America Ferrera, Ugly Betty Tina Fey, 30 Rock Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men Kevin Dillon, Entourage Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother Jeremy Piven, Entourage Rainn Wilson, The Office
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live Jean Smart, Samantha Who? Holland Taylor, Two and a Half Men Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty
DRAMA DRAMA SERIES Boston Legal Damages Dexter House Lost Mad Men
ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad Michael C. Hall, Dexter Jon Hamm, Mad Men Hugh Laurie, House James Spader, Boston Legal
ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES Glenn Close, Damages Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Holly Hunter, Saving Grace Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES Ted Danson, Damages Michael Emerson, Lost Zeljko Ivanek, Damages William Shatner, Boston Legal John Slattery, Mad Men
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES Candice Bergen, Boston Legal Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy Dianne Wiest, In Treatment Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy
REALITY REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM The Amazing Race American Idol Dancing With The Stars Project Runway Top Chef
HOST FOR A REALITY OR REALITY-COMPETITION PROGRAM Tom Bergeron, Dancing With the Stars Heidi Klum, Project Runway Howie Mandel, Deal or No Deal Jeff Probst, Survivor Ryan Seacrest, American Idol
VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SERIES The Colbert Report The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Late Show With David Letterman Real Time With Bill Maher Saturday Night Live
VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SPECIAL Bill Maher: The Decider George Carlin: It’s Bad For Ya! James Taylor: One Man Band Kathy Griffin: Straight To Hell The Kennedy Center Honors Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project
MINISERIES or MOVIE OUTSTANDING MINISERIES OR MOVIE The Andromeda Strain Cranford John Adams Tin Man
MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE Bernard and Doris Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale The Memory Keeper’s Daughter A Raisin In The Sun Recount
ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE Ralph Fiennes, Bernard And Doris Ricky Gervais, Extras Paul Giamatti, John Adams Kevin Spacey, Recount Tom Wilkinson, Recount
ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE Judi Dench, Cranford Catherine Keener, An American Crime Laura Linney, John Adams Phylicia Rashad, A Raisin in the Sun Susan Sarandon, Bernard And Doris
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE Bob Balaban, Recount Stephen Dillane, John Adams Denis Leary, Recount David Morse, John Adams Tom Wilkinson, John Adams
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE Dame Eileen Atkins, Cranford Laura Dern, Recount Ashley Jensen, Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale Audra McDonald, A Raisin in the Sun Alfre Woodard, Pictures Of Hollis Woods
plez sez: i guess i need to hang a "Out of Order" sign on my old crystal ball when it comes to picking Emmy winners... the only one i got right was "John Adams"!
well, i did limit my winners to the shows that i actually watch and this year i have been watching "Mad Men," which is surprisingly well made and produced. there's always next year!
BEST COMEDY SERIES: 30 Rock plezWorld PICK: Curb Your Enthusiasm
BEST DRAMA SERIES: Mad Men plezWorld PICK: Damages
BEST REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM: The Amazing Race plezWorld PICK: Project Runway
BEST REALITY SERIES: ??? plezWorld PICK: Extreme Makeover
BEST VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SERIES: The Daily Show with John Stewart plezWorld PICK: Real Time with Bill Maher
BEST MINISERIES: John Adams plezWorld PICK: John Adams
BEST MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE: Recount plezWorld PICK: Recount
i just have to reiterate my feelings on this subject: for the past five seasons, The Wire has been by far the best drama that i've watched. it was gritty. it was realistic. and this past season was its last season... the emmy gods really messed up for not recognizing this groundbreaking program.
With Tech's backup quarterback taking over in the first quarter of the game for an injured Josh Nesbitt (hamstring) and accounting for all but one score, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets THUMPED the Mississippi State Bulldogs by a score of 38-7... and it wasn't that close.
The end of the first quarter had us up 14-0 and Tech went into the locker room for half time with a 21-0 score. Tech's defense was stifling, MSU's offense was anemic. MSU's vaunted defense was stout, but Tech's triple option found big gaps in coverage (including one 88-yard scamper for a touchdown by RB Jonathan Dwyer).
I predicted a shutout (21-0) and came pretty close, save the fourth quarter mercy TD that was allowed by Tech (the score was already 31-0)!
Commemorative Tailgate Party T-shirt Pic courtesy of my Palm Treo 680
plez sez: plezWife wasn't up for the tailgate party excitement, so it was just me and the SugarPlum. the tailgate party was off the chain and it lasted throughout the game, postgame, and until the last day's light. The Low Down Nupes know how to throw a party (and i want to thank the brothers from Mississippi State who hung out with us all day)!
i do feel bad for MSU Head Coach Sylvester Croom. as one of a scant few Black head coaches in college football, i would like to see him do well, and it pains me to watch his team in such a sorry situation. if not for a lack of talent available in the fair state of mississippi, i'm inclined to believe that being a Div-1 head coach isn't his forte: MSU lacked discipline (too many costly penalties), the quarterback(s) - two were used during the game - were not SEC caliber quarterbacks, the offensive scheme lacked imagination, and Tech's defense continually broke down the MSU defense (that held Auburn to one field goal last week). it seems to me that his talents as a head coach would be better utilized at a college that plays on a lower level (is there still a Div 2?) or at the type of college where the football games are usually attended by those who come to see the band at halftime!
In celebration of Tech's BIG WIN on Saturday, let's strike up the band with the "Ramblin' Wreck Song"
Last week, Mississippi State lost a baseball score game (3-2) to Auburn, while Georgia Tech went into Blacksburg and lost a squeaker to Virginia Tech on a late field goal. MSU has no offense, and Tech has one of the best defenses. MSU is acclimated to losing to even mediocre competition, while Tech will be running at them with the triple option (something MSU has never encountered).
The early line is 7 1/2 points in favor of the Yellow Jackets. But with Tech's solid defense and an offense that is improving with each week, all the cowbells in the world won't keep the "other Bulldogs" within shouting distance of Tech... I predict that Tech will thrash MSU with a score of 21-0.
plez sez: i wrote this post after ambling home after an evening of revelry at a mixer of the Black alumni from Mississippi State and Georgia Tech in downtown Atlanta. tomorrow morning, i have to be on campus at 8:00 AM, because the Georgia Tech chapter of my fraternity is hosting a joint tailgate party with my frat brothers from the MSU chapter. the game has a 12:00 noon kick-off and gets the local tv coverage before the big games that come on at 3:30 PM.
In anticipation of a BIG WIN on Saturday, let's strike up the band with the "Ramblin' Wreck Song"
It doesn't take an economist to recognize that our economy is in pretty bad shape and in the opinion of plezWorld we are teetering on the brink of recession. Loss of jobs, shrinking value of the dollar, the mortgage crisis, the high number of homes in foreclosure, the financial institution collapses of the past 3 months, inflation, and soaring gasoline prices point to the horrible shape of our economy.
The Bush Administration has allowed our economy to go into the tank with very few initiatives to fix the problems. Sen. John McCain has not offered any tangible solutions (as little as 24 hours ago, he was saying that the "fundamentals of our economy" were strong). Sen. Barack Obama appears to be the only presidential candidate who has even attempted to address American's economic woes.
Barack Obama: Confronting an Economic Crisis Golden, Colorado on September 16, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama has spelled out his Plan for the Economy in great detail:
Tax Cut for Middle Class American Families Cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families, because the economy needs to be revitalized from the bottom up, not top down. Read more...
Energy Rebates Enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. Read more...
Create Jobs through Fair Trade Obama and Biden believe that trade with foreign nations should create American jobs, not send them overseas. They will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security. Read more...
Create 5 Million Green Jobs Obama and Biden believe that we should invest in innovation and manufacturing jobs in the growing clean energy market, freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil within a decade and creating 5 million green jobs. Read more...
New Jobs Through National Infrastructure Investment Obama and Biden believe that rebuilding our highways, bridges, roads, ports, air, and train systems will create jobs, ensure safety, and bolster our long-term competitiveness. Read more...
Technology, Innovation and Creating Jobs Increase federal support for research, technology and innovation for companies and universities so that American workers can lead the world in cutting edge jobs and products. Read more...
Support Small Business Level the playing field for small business by eliminating all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses. Read more...
Labor Strengthen the ability of workers to organize for good wages, healthcare, and secure pensions. Obama and Biden will fight for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Obama and Biden will ensure that labor appointees support workers' rights and will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. Obama and Biden will also increase the minimum wage and make sure it remains a real wage year over year. Read more...
Protect Homeownership and Crack Down on Mortgage Fraud Crack down on fraudulent brokers and lenders. They will make sure homebuyers have honest and complete information about their mortgage options, and they will give a tax credit to all middle-class homeowners. Read more...
Address Predatory Credit Card Practices Establish a five-star rating system so that every consumer knows the risk involved in credit card borrowing. They will establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to stop credit card companies from exploiting consumers with unfair practices. Read more...
Reform Bankruptcy Laws Reform our bankruptcy laws to protect working people, to ban executive bonuses for bankrupt companies, and to require disclosure of all pension investments. Read more...
Work/Family Balance Help working families by doubling funding for after-school programs, expanding the Family Medical Leave Act. They will provide low-income families with a refundable tax credit to help with their child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules. Read more...
Read the Obama Economic Plan in its entirety at barackobama.com.
Read the CNN.com article about how the next president needs to address the economy here.
Read the CNN.com article about how Obama has moved ahead in national polls here.
Read the New York Times article about which candidate the polls favor for CHANGEhere.
plez sez: i support the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama.
this country needs a BIG CHANGE, not cosmetic change (not by changing one pit bull for a different pit bull wearing lipstick). this country needs a president who is thoughtful and progressive, not a someone who relies on polls and a fading gut instinct. we need leadership who can clearly articulate a vision, not a neanderthal whose only plan is to attack his opponent's plan.
Gov. Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, refuses to comply with a subpoena issued by state lawmakers investigating her firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner. The McCain-Palin campaign is working overtime to sabotage the investigation into whether Gov. Palin pressured then Public Safety Commissioner Monegan to fire her ex-brother-in-law before firing Monegan for not following her orders. Palin has said Monegan was dismissed over budget disagreements and denies any wrongdoing.
CNN.com reports that state Senate committee is scheduled to meet Friday to take statements from the 12 people they subpoenaed last week, including Todd Palin. But McCain-Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said Todd Palin would not face a "fair hearing" before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The campaign has stepped up its attacks on the Legislature's investigation of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan's firing in the past week, saying the governor won't cooperate with an inquiry that it says is "tainted" by partisan politics.
The governor originally pledged to cooperate with the state Legislature's investigation of her July dismissal of Monegan. Since his firing, Monegan has accused Palin of trying to pressure him into firing her former brother-in-law, a state trooper who had been involved in an acrimonious divorce from the governor's sister. Since becoming Sen. John McCain's running mate, she has argued that the investigation belongs before the state Personnel Board, whose members are appointed by the governor.
In a new twist, Comella said Alaska state law bars ethics investigations of people running for elected office. She is reported as saying, "That law was passed to insulate legislative investigations from exactly the kind of political maneuvering we are seeing in this inquiry."
Since Todd Palin is not running for elected office, I wonder how the Alaska state law allows him to ignore the subpoena? what executive privilege is he claiming?
Palin initially denied that anyone in her administration or family had pressed for action against her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, whom she has branded a "rogue trooper." But in August, just two weeks before her nomination, she acknowledged that members of her staff had contacted Monegan's office nearly two dozen times about the trooper and suspended one aide whose February call to a state police lieutenant on the matter was tape-recorded.
And Todd Palin was a "principal critic" of Wooten and had "many contacts" with Department of Public Safety officials about his status, Stephen Branchflower, the former prosecutor hired by the state Legislature to investigate the firing, told lawmakers last week.
The controversy has led to more scrutiny of Todd Palin's role in his wife's administration. Documents released during the Monegan inquiry suggest that the oil-rig worker and champion snowmobile racer, nicknamed the "first dude," has been copied in on e-mails on numerous issues ranging from public criticism of the governor to meetings with corporate leaders. But Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said Todd Palin's role in the administration "has not been inappropriate."
Read the CNN.com article about Todd Palin's refusal to cooperate with the investigation here.
Read the CNN.com article about Sarah Palin's lawsuit to halt the investigation here.
Read the CNN.com article about Palin's staff's refusal to cooperate with the investigation here.
plez sez: i've almost grown tired of writing about this woman... but i'm still incredulous about john mccain sticking with her through this "troopergate" mess! the luster has worn off of the crown and the lipstick is fading on this pit bull... and i am convinced that we haven't seen all of the dirt on the Palin family.
there are reports that todd palin was calling monegan and putting pressure on him to fire wooten. todd is an unemployed "snowboard champion," why he was conducting the business of the state is beyond ridiculous. ms. congeniality would've probably gotten the boot from alaska voters after her first term.
i hope that john mccain loses, but if by some miracle he wins, i'd hate for his second-in-command to be this ditzy boob for the north country... mccain needs to drop palin like a bad habit!
Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model kicked off a few weeks ago with a bevy a nubile beauties from around the country (and one big surprise - one of the girls is a dude!).
Yessir!
The girl who doesn't really look like a girl, really isn't a girl... Isis is a pre-op transsexual dude! As if there isn't enough drama with 14 girls dukin' it out for a modeling contract for Tyra Banks... now add in a fake girl and watch the weave fly!
Hump Day is my chance to appreciate the fairer sex. The premise of the show is easy: ex-Super Model Tyra Banks and her cast of characters take 14 young women from around America and transforms them into super models by the end of the cycle. Using weekly photo shoot competitions and a final runway show, the last contestant standing is crowned America's Next Top Model (ANTM); she gets a photo spread in Seventeen magazine, a modeling contract, and all the Cover Girl cosmetics that she can stuff in an overnight bag.
In past cycles (8 & 9 to be exact), I successfully picked the eventual winner. Cycle 11 is going to be a challenge, because there was a big shake up in the plezWorld rankings after the hair makeover episode... my favorite contestant from Week 1 (Brittany) was eliminated! She was by far the most beautiful girl out of the bunch (maybe too beautiful), her good looks and her lack of ability to draw the most from them during the swimsuit photo shoot caused her demise after Week Three.
So now plezWorld is in a quandary as to who is in the Top Three.
Will it be the southern belle Clark with her new brunette truss? Will it be the exotic Sheena who figures to be a younger version of Kimora Lee Simmons? Will it be the quirky Euro-look of Marjorie? Or will plezWorld go with the surprisingly awesome shots of Joslyn (the lone Black girl who remains in the competition)? Well, the ballots are in... and I even bounced a few ideas off of plezWife, but she isn't much help as she is still reeling with the loss of Brittany!
Without further ado, I present the plezWorldTop Three Prediction for Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model:
Elina - She's mysterious and a bit of an enigma... and she's killer gorgeous with that red hair after the makeover!
Joslyn - Not very impressive in person (even though, I love her Southern accent), but her pictures are stunning!
Marjorie - Think of a pretty Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" ... right down to the quaint European accent!
Did you miss it last week? Watch full episodes of the current cycle here!
Over the weekend, I got sidetracked because sitemeter took a powder. Well, plezWorld is back with my sights set on that FRAUD and FAKE Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. She's a liar. She's a charlatan. She's a separatist and a secessionist. She's left her family (young daughter, pregnant teenage daughter, and baby boy with Down syndrome who was probably birthed by her teenage daughter - check it out here, here, and here) to scratch her high aspirations itch. Don't forget about her strong arm tactics that led to the Troopergate investigation, that she no longer plans to cooperate with.
And to top it off, she wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade (the right of American women to have the choice to have an abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy). Well, I'm not the only one things ole girl is trying to "fake her way to the top."
On September 12, Bloomberg.com has an article that called Sarah Palin "clueless during her interview with ABC News's Charles Gibson, read full article here, excerpts follow:
ABC News anchor Charles Gibson got the get, the first mano- a-womano sit down with the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.
Palin may not have blinked when John McCain asked her to be his running mate. Last night, however, found her frozen in the Klieg lights as the dogged interlocutor set his sights on his visitor.
Peering down at Palin through reading glasses set at the tip of his nose, foot circling over knee ever more impatiently, Gibson, 65, wouldn't let her coast. Yes, she had mastered the pronunciation of Georgia president Mikhail Saakashvili's name, not to mention that of Iran's Mahmud Ahmadinejad. And maybe that would have been good enough on ``Good Morning America.''
But no-one had coached her in something called the Bush Doctrine. Doctrine? What doctrine would that be, Charlie?
Palin, 44, apparently never heard of the Bush Doctrine until yesterday. She flashed a smile nearly as frozen as her running- mate's and did that tenth-grader thing of tap-dancing around the question, skittishly ad libbing her way with gibberish about Bush's ``global vision.''
Gibson was having none of it, pressing her for specifics she didn't have at her command and finally -- his glare set to iceberg blue, foot circling like a lasso -- he impatiently explained what the doctrine is, when it was introduced, and gave her another chance to answer.
Few Overseas Trips
My sympathy for Palin lasted only as long as it took me to remember that it was Palin who had insisted, at the top of the interview, that she's ready to lead the country on a moment's notice. Asked whether she had ever been outside the U.S. before her recent trip to the Middle East, she answered, ``Canada. Mexico.'' Asked what heads of state she had dealt with, she referenced all those trade delegations that came to Alaska looking to do some business.
When the interview turned to Iraq and Iran, Palin's innocence of diplomatic nuance, not to mention global politics, was something she couldn't dance around. We're America, she said, we don't have to put up with those uppity Eye-ranians.
Does she believe we are doing God's will in Iraq? ``I wouldn't presume to know God's will, Charlie,'' she answered gamely. Gibson was ready with a clip of her sermonizing not long ago in church and she danced around that one, too.
Gibson didn't ask the candidate if she has any clue about the principle of separation of church and state on which her beloved United States was founded. I wish he had.
On September 12, an editorial in the New York Times discussed her lack of a world view, read the full article below and below:
As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking.
If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.
It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.
What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications.
The idea that Americans want leaders who have none of those things — who are so blindly certain of what Ms. Palin calls “the mission” that they won’t even pause for reflection — shows a contempt for voters and raises frightening questions about how Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin plan to run this country.
One of the many bizarre moments in the questioning by ABC News’s Charles Gibson was when Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, excused her lack of international experience by sneering that Americans don’t want “somebody’s big fat résumé maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state.”
We know we were all supposed to think of Joe Biden. But it sure sounded like a good description of Mr. McCain. Those decades of experience earned the Arizona senator the admiration of people in both parties. They are why he was our preferred candidate in the Republican primaries.
The interviews made clear why Americans should worry about Ms. Palin’s thin résumé and lack of experience. Consider her befuddlement when Mr. Gibson referred to President Bush’s “doctrine” and her remark about having insight into Russia because she can see it from her state.
But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home.
Ms. Palin talked repeatedly about never blinking. When Mr. McCain asked her to run for vice president? “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission,” she said, that “you can’t blink.”
Fighting terrorism? “We must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”
Her answers about why she had told her church that President Bush’s failed policy in Iraq was “God’s plan” did nothing to dispel our concerns about her confusion between faith and policy. Her claim that she was quoting a completely unrelated comment by Lincoln was absurd.
This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis.
In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation.
On September 12, Bob Herbert's New York Times article simply reads "She's Not Ready," read the full article here and below:
While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.
How is it that this woman could have been selected to be the vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket? How is it that so much of the mainstream media has dropped all pretense of seriousness to hop aboard the bandwagon and go along for the giddy ride?
For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on “American Idol.”
Ms. Palin may be a perfectly competent and reasonably intelligent woman (however troubling her views on evolution and global warming may be), but she is not ready to be vice president.
With most candidates for high public office, the question is whether one agrees with them on the major issues of the day. With Ms. Palin, it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing. She doesn’t appear to understand some of the most important issues.
“Do you believe in the Bush doctrine?” Mr. Gibson asked during the interview. Ms. Palin looked like an unprepared student who wanted nothing so much as to escape this encounter with the school principal.
Clueless, she asked, “In what respect, Charlie?”
“Well, what do you interpret it to be?” said Mr. Gibson.
“His worldview?” asked Ms. Palin.
Later, in the spin zones of cable TV, commentators repeatedly made the point that there are probably very few voters — some specifically mentioned “hockey moms” — who could explain the Bush doctrine. But that’s exactly the reason we have such long and intense campaigns. You want to find the individuals who best understand these issues, who will address them in sophisticated and creative ways that enhance the well-being of the nation.
The Bush doctrine, which flung open the doors to the catastrophe in Iraq, was such a fundamental aspect of the administration’s foreign policy that it staggers the imagination that we could have someone no further than a whisper away from the White House who doesn’t even know what it is.
You can’t imagine that John McCain or Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or Joe Lieberman would not know what the Bush doctrine is. But Sarah Palin? Absolutely clueless.
Ms. Palin’s problem is not that she was mayor of a small town or has only been in the Alaska governor’s office a short while. Her problem (and now ours) is that she is not well versed on the critical matters confronting the country at one of the most crucial turning points in its history.
The economy is in a tailspin. The financial sector is lurching about on rubbery legs. We’re mired in self-defeating energy policies. We’re at war. And we are still vulnerable to the very real threat of international terrorism.
With all of that and more being the case, how can it be a good idea to set in motion the possibility that Americans might wake up one morning to find that Sarah Palin is president?
I feel for Ms. Palin’s son who has been shipped off to the war in Iraq. But at his deployment ceremony, which was on the same day as the Charlie Gibson interview, Sept. 11, she told the audience of soldiers that they would be fighting “the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”
Was she deliberately falsifying history, or does she still not know that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?
To burnish the foreign policy credentials of a vice presidential candidate who never even had a passport until last year, the Republicans have been touting Alaska’s proximity to Russia. (Imagine the derisive laughter in conservative circles if the Democrats had tried such nonsense.) So Mr. Gibson asked Ms. Palin, “What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?”
She said, “They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska. From an island in Alaska.”
Mr. Gibson tried again. “But what insight does that give you,” he asked, “into what they’re doing in Georgia?”
John McCain, who is shameless about promoting himself as America’s ultimate patriot, put the best interests of the nation aside in making his incredibly reckless choice of a running mate. But there is a profound double standard in this country. The likes of John McCain and George W. Bush can do the craziest, most irresponsible things imaginable, and it only seems to help them politically.
McCain's top economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP is quoted as saying that Sarah Palin is not ready to run a corporation. The CNN.com article reads "Palin not ready to run a corporation," read the full article here and excerpts below:
Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO turned top John McCain aide, said she doesn't think Sarah Palin is qualified to run a major corporation. For that matter, Fiorina said, McCain, Obama and Biden aren't capable of that kind of job either.
The Republican presidential candidate has been trying to portray himself as someone who can fix the country's economic woes. But that is a far different task than running a Fortune 500 corporation, Fiorina told MSNBC Tuesday.
Democratic candidate Barack Obama's camp immediately circulated copies of her words -- which didn't exactly paint their candidate in a soft light, either.
"Well, I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation, I don't think Barack Obama could run a major corporation, I don't think Joe Biden could run a major corporation," Fiorina said.
"It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company. So, of course, to run a business, you have to have a lifetime of experience in business, but that's not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe Biden or Barack Obama are doing."
Fiorina was president of Hewlett-Packard until her high-profile ousting in 2006 after the company's unfavorable performance.
"If John McCain's top economic adviser doesn't think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis?" said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "Apparently, even the people who run his campaign agree that the economy is an issue John McCain doesn't understand as well as he should."
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In a related story, the Palin camp has gone paranoid on the Alaska Legislative investigation as to whether her administration put undue pressure to have a state trooper fired... the state trooper who is the ex-husband of one of her sisters; they were enbroiled in an ugly divorce.
CNN.com reports that Palin allies are now suing the two Democrats on the five person commission (the other three are Republicans), calling the probe a "McCarthyistic" inquisition. Read the entire article below:
Allies of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin asked a judge Tuesday to halt the state Legislature's investigation into the firing of her public service commissioner, calling the probe a "McCarthyistic" inquisition.
The five Republican state lawmakers who filed suit said the two Democrats and the former Anchorage prosecutor leading the probe "are unable to hold the balance between vindicating their own political interests and the interests of those who are being investigated."
Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, is battling allegations that she and her advisers pressured then-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire a state trooper going through a bitter custody dispute with Palin's sister -- and that Monegan was terminated when he refused. Palin says she fired Monegan over budget issues, and denies any wrongdoing.
One of those named in the lawsuit, Sen. Kim Elton, declined comment Tuesday.
Elton, the Democratic chairman of the bipartisan Legislative Council that commissioned the probe, and state Sen. Hollis French -- another Democrat and the lawmaker overseeing the investigation -- were named as defendants. So was Stephen Branchflower, the former Anchorage prosecutor hired to investigate Monegan's firing.
The lawsuit alleges that Elton, French and Branchflower "are conducting a McCarthyistic investigation in an unlawful, biased, partial and partisan political manner in order to impact the upcoming Alaska general and national presidential elections."
Palin originally pledged to cooperate with the investigation that the Alaska Legislative Council commissioned in July. But since becoming Sen. John McCain's running mate, campaign spokesmen have lashed out at the probe as "tainted" and "partisan," and fought to get the state Personnel Board to launch its own probe.
"I think it's fair to say that the governor is not going to cooperate with that investigation so long as it remained tainted and run by partisan individuals who have a predetermined conclusion," McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said Monday.
In particular, campaign officials singled out comments French made to ABC News that they said suggested the investigation could yield criminal charges or an "October Surprise" for the GOP ticket. And they accuse the probe of being "hijacked" by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign -- a charge the Obama campaign dismissed as "complete paranoia."
Monegan said he was repeatedly pressured to take action against State Trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's ex-brother-in-law, before his July dismissal.
Monday, the McCain-Palin campaign released documents it said bolster its argument that Monegan was fired over budget disputes and "egregious insubordination."
Read the CNN.com article about how Palin refuses to cooperate with the "Troopergate" investigation in Alaska that she vowed to support before she became John McCain's running mate here and here and here.
plez sez: ok, i admit it... i stole a line from "Dreamgirls" in my opening. but tina fey (one of the "not ready for prime time" players on SNL) is more credible as sarah palin than sarah palin as herself!
Saturday Night Live on September 13, 2008
this woman is bad for america on so many levels. and the decision making process that dredged her up from the dregs of alaskan politics to aspire to the second highest office in the land makes plezWorld wonder about the grasp that mccain and his handlers have on reality.
and is plezWorld the only one who sees something Bush-like in palin's behavior around this whole troopergate investigation? suing the commission members. refusing to cooperate with the commission. attempting to halt the investigation at all costs. hasn't EVERYTHING that has come out of the Bush white house been clouded with secrecy and the taint of executive privilege to hide misdeeds.
and what is up with her creepy husband shadowing her at all of the campaign stops?!?
Rocked by the subprime crisis, the company has lost more than $18 billion in the past nine months and has seen its stock price fall more than 91% so far this year. It already raised $20 billion in fresh capital earlier this year.
Its troubles stem from its sales of credit default swaps and from its subprime mortgage-backed securities holdings.
AIG has written down the value of the credit default swaps by $14.7 billion, pretax, in the first two quarters of this year, and has had to write down the value of its mortgage-backed securities as the housing market soured. The insurer could be forced to immediately come up with $18 billion to support its credit swap business if its ratings fall by as little as one notch.
This year's results have also included $12.2 billion in pretax writedowns, primarily because of "severe, rapid declines" in certain mortgage-backed securities and other investments.
Acting to avert a possible financial crisis worldwide, the Federal Reserve reversed course on Tuesday and agreed to an $85 billion bailout that would give the government an ownership stake in the troubled insurance giant American International Group, according to people briefed on the negotiations.
The decision, only two weeks after the Treasury took over the quasigovernment mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is the most radical intervention in private business in the central bank’s history.
With time running out after AIG failed to get a bank loan to avoid bankruptcy, Treasury Secterary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the Fed chairman Ben S. Bernanke convened a meeting with House and Senate leaders on Capitol Hill about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to explain the rescue plan.
They emerged just after 7:30 p.m. with Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke looking grim but top lawmakers generally expressing support for the plan. But the bailout is likely to prove controversial, because it effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by AIG and other institutions does business with.
What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but AIG’s its role as an enormous provider of financial insurance, which effectively requires it cover losses suffered by other institutions in the instance of defaults of securities that they have purchased. That means AIG is potentially on the hook for securities that were once considered safe.
If AIG had collapsed — and been unable to pay all of its insurance claims — institutional investors around the world would have been instantly forced to reappraise the value of billions of dollars in debt securities, which in turn would have reduced their own capital and the value of their own debt.
With an ear to the ground, waiting to see what would happen with AIG, Bloomberg.com reports that Asian stocks rose, helping the regional benchmark index rebound from the steepest plunge in eight months, after the Federal Reserve invoked emergency powers to save American International Group Inc. from collapse.
Read the New York Times article about the Fed takeover of AIG here.
Read the CNN.com article about the AIG bailout here.
Read the Bloomberg.com article about the worldwide reaction to the AIG bailout here.
plez sez: a band-aid was applied to another fragile house of cards on tuesday evening. how long will it be before there are no more band-aids for the rickety house of cards from XYZ financial firm (like lehman brothers)? plezWorld gets the strange feeling that the selective "saving" of these private firms that have our entire financial market by the shorthairs is only extending the day when the whole house of cards tumbles into the gutter of wall street, causing a catastrophic collapse of all world markets.
i'm no financial guru, but to my uninitiated eye, this AIG bailout appears to be the third or fourth "rescue" of financial institutions in last couple of weeks (Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Merril Lynch, Lehman Brothers, etc.). all of these companies fell victim to the slow bullet that was sub-prime mortgages that were given away like free coupons over the past decade... basically, the chickens are coming home to roost for the terribly bad decisions on the part of the institutions who are entrusted with maintaining the integrity of our economy. tuesday's bailout feels like warm jell-o being poured into a sieve, a lot is still oozing through the holes. how many more hits can my dwindling 401(k) and IRA take?
the millions of homeowners who are no longer in their homes have paid for this mistake. my subdivision is still littered with the overpriced unaffordable homes that were purchased and subsequently abandoned by overzealous speculators and equity-poor saps who signed the mortgage papers. when are the financial institutions that promoted this bad practice going to pay for their gross error? the economy is already in the crapper, these band-aids aren't making things any better, i would opine that these massive bailouts are only prolonging the inevitable "correction" that our economy so desperately needs. aren't economic downturns supposed to hurt? when are the folk on wall street going to feel the REAL PAIN that the rest of us are feeling?
and guess what? plezWorld hasn't been making a bunch of money this year while launching a new company in this very tenuous economy. WHO do i talk to about my bailout? for one thousandth of one percent (0.00001) of what the fed gave to AIG (less than a million dollars), plezWorld can be bailed out of my economic woes!
i can argue that my economic collapse will have dire consequences for my neighborhood and community... get back to me when ya'll have cut my check!
"McCain has gone in some of his ads -- similarly gone one step too far and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the '100 percent truth' test." - Former Bush advisor and current Fox News Network Analyst Karl Rove speaking on Fox News about Senator John McCain.
The Obama campaign jumped at the Republican strategist's tidbit:
"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove -- the man who held the previous record -- said McCain's ads have gone too far," said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor, in a statement sent to reporters minutes after Rove's on-air comments.
Sen. Barack Obama gave his thoughts on McCain's blatant attempt of obfuscation in the current campaign during a stop in Manchester, New Hampshire:
""They're going to talk about pigs, and they're going to talk about lipstick; they're going to talk about Paris Hilton, they're going to talk about Britney Spears. They will try to distort my record, and they will try to undermine your trust in what the Democrats intend to do."
McCain accuses Obama of being an empty suit, a celebrity. But he offers no plan, no solutions, and trots around the country puppy-doggin' behind Sarah Palin, like a groupie. All of the McCain ads are a gross distortion of the Obama plan or a smear of the Obama campaign... to date, I have not seen one substantive ad from McCain about what he would do if he gets to move into the White House.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In other news, the Obama campaign announced Sunday that it had raised $66 million in August. The new total bests the campaign's previous high of $55 million, which came in February during his tough primary fight with Clinton. The Obama campaign said more than half a million new donors contributed in August, when the Illinois senator accepted the Democratic presidential nomination and named Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate. The campaign had more than $77 million in cash on hand at the end of August, compared with about $66 million in July.
On September 1, McCain's campaign reported raising $47 million in August. That haul also set a monthly record for the Arizona senator, whose campaign says it received a financial shot in the arm after McCain picked Palin to join the ticket.
Read the CNN.com article about Karl Rove's quote here.
Read the CNN.com article about negative campaigning in 2008 here.
Read the AJC.com article about John McCain's sleazy campaign here.
plez sez: dirty campaigning goes back to the beginning of america's political process. john adams and thomas jefferson ran a pretty nasty campaign at a time when few americans knew or cared about the character of their elected officials... as long as they weren't running for election as KING!
the 2008 presidential campaign has been a minefield of supposed political correctness buttress with allegations of ageism, racism, reverse racism, sexism, and just about every other "ism" we can think of... with a black presidential candidate, a woman presidential candidate, an AARP member presidential candidate, a "hockey mom" vice presidential candidate, a mormon presidential candidate, and a pig-wearing-lipstick candidate! the fodder for television ads is rich and it would take the restraint of even the tamest of campaign managers to not fall victim to easy stereotyping and innuendo. and with Barack Obama running as a Black guy who really isn't running as a Black guy, it becomes an even more tenuous position to stay away from BOOGIE MAN references meant to scare the BeJesus out of white folk!
i can't wait for the debates in the coming weeks... we'll see what happens when we get Obama and mccain on the same stage for an hour to jab and poke at each other while maintaining a modicum of civility. i grew up in New York and i love a good argument...
to be honest, plezWorld isn't that crazy about the fake civility...
i wanna see Obama call mccain out for being a lily-livered POW who broke under a little pressure and gave out the few military secrets his stupid ass could remember to the viet cong;
i wanna see mccain call out Obama about his white momma and his tissue-paper thin foreign policy ("sarah palin with her worthless degree from Idaho has more experience in her little finger than all that high brow Harvard bullshit law degree that you wasted on those miserable south chicago streets");
i want Obama to call mccain out for ditching his crippled wheelchair-bound first wife for the MUCH YOUNGER, MUCH BLONDER cindy;
i want mccain to call Obama a pencil-necked geek who he'd take around back and whip his ass if he could lift those damn arms above his chest.
"Well, yo' momma liked it!"
now that would be a debate that i could rewind and watch a couple of times!
The Washington Post reports that Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."
"America can never go back to that false sense of security that came before September 11, 2001," she said at the deployment ceremony, which drew hundreds of military families who walked from their homes on the sprawling post to the airstrip where the service was held.
The idea that Iraq shared responsibility with al-Qaeda for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.
McCain aides were adamant that the ceremony had not been coordinated with the campaign, and officers at the installation said the Alaska governor had agreed to attend months before she was chosen for the GOP ticket. Palin's son Track, 19, will deploy to Iraq with his unit later this month. McCain's son Jimmy is with his Marine unit in Iraq, but the senator from Arizona has taken pains to keep him out of the campaign spotlight.
Read the Washington Post article about Palin's 9/11 comments here.
Read the CNN.com article about Palin's ABC interview here.
Read the ABC News.com article about Palin's interview here.
plez sez: okay, ya'll... this ain't even funny! i know that the candidates took a day off from haranguing each other's campaign for 9/11, but something has to be said about Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) and what she portends for this country!
she's only been out of the country once in her life (she didn't get a passport until August of last year so she could visit the Alaska National Guard in Kuwait). it took a few years, but even GEORGE W. BUSH now acknowledges that iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11! NOTHING! NADA! ZILCH! but there she is, broad as day, proclaiming that her son is going to protect us from those evil terrorists in iraq!
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Palin also appeared in an interview with ABC's Charles Gibson. her lack of foreign affairs knowledge showed like a slip under a cheap skirt.
i only caught a snippet or two of her interview with charles gibson, but it is quite evident that this woman is out of her league.
she claims that was unprovoked in their attack on georgia. when georgia had been tossing a few shells into south ossetia, before the russians RETALIATED by firing shells and running tanks into georgia. their response may've been a bit over the top, but they were provoked!
she had no idea what charles gibson was talking about when he asked her about the "bush doctrine." and then when he told her what it was, she still was clueless... talking about imminent threats to the united states! iraq was NEVER an imminent threat to the united states!
she took a hardline on possibly getting into a war with russia, if georgia was a part of NATO! hmmmmm... WHO are we gonna fight russia with?!? with combat brigades stretched to the max in iraq and afghanistan, we want no parts of russian tanks rumbling over the bering strait into alaska!
she has never met a foreign leader. her retort was that "if you look at history, there are a lot of vice presidents who haven't met foreign leaders." upon further inspection, over the past 30 years, there are NO vice presidents who have never met a foreign leader! this woman makes george w. bush seem like a rhodes scholar the way she revelled in her ignorance.
palin's grasp of foreign relations and her lack of the seriousness of the role of vice president make me wonder again... what the HECK was john mccain thinking when he picked this woman?!?
experience comes with time, but with good judgement, you either got it or you don't!
I perked up in my seat this morning when reading a blog posting that suggested that the mainstream media (MSM) have been "playing with" the poll numbers to show a bigger bounce for John McCain after the Republican National Convention than for Barack Obama after the Democratic National Convention by altering the party identification (party ID) percentages of the samples. Being one to question these types of things, plezWorld decided to do some research into the matter. Polls, especially national polls, are not an exact science - that's why the numbers can vary over time (everyone doesn't answer the phone, everyone who answers does not agree to participate, some people only have a cell phone, etc.).
I found a terrific NPR audio file that has a very good explanation of polls and polling (I have the embedded file below and the show lasts about 55 minutes). In addition, I found some excellent information at FiveThiryEight that basically lays out the methodology for national polling.
Keep in mind, our president will be elected on a state-by-state basis, so national polls are only a small indicator as to who will win in November. Remember, Al Gore had a substantial popular vote advantage over George Bush, but they ran neck-and-neck in the state-by-state electoral college vote.
What follows are excerpts from blogs that raised the issue and answered the questions about polls.
From Seth Colter Walls at Huffington Post blog:
This week's mainstream coverage of the presidential horse-race has been dominated by a series of polls showing the McCain-Palin ticket with its first stable lead over Obama and Biden. Gallup's tracking poll, USA Today and CBS News all show the Republicans with some kind of lead over the Democratic ticket. But, interestingly, all three polls were also conducted using a higher sampling of Republican voters than in July, raising a question of methodology.
In a year in which Democrats have a lead of 11 million registered voters over Republicans, and have been adding to that advantage through a robust field operation, are pollsters over-sampling Republicans?
Despite a raft of advantages in the electorate for Democrats, in September's first Gallup tracking poll, an equal number of Republicans and Democrats were surveyed (including "leaners") from Sept. 3-5, compared to a 10-point Democratic identification advantage two weeks ago. That partisan makeup of the polling pool resulted in a 5-point lead for McCain in Sept. 5 tracking poll. Meanwhile, the new CBS poll features a 6-point swing in partisan composition toward Republicans, which plays some role in the poll's two-point lead for McCain. Finally, the latest USA Today poll, which claims a four-point edge for McCain, was arrived at after a 10-point swing in partisan makeup toward GOP respondents.
Some polling experts say the changing state of party affiliation in the field is slow to be reflected in polls themselves. Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg told the Huffington Post that "when it comes to registration and turnout, the polls often do a very bad job of taking those [factors] into account," because newly registered voters aren't in the voter files used by firms that survey public opinion. "You could make the argument they are under-representing new registrants," she said, which would mean that the Democrats new edge would not be taken into account.
Monday's USA Today poll had a 48-47 split between Democrats and Republicans surveyed. That represents a nearly 10 point shift in party identification toward Republicans since USA Today's July polling. When asked for comment, USA Today polling editor Jim Norman wrote that "it's possible" that their latest sample includes too many Republicans. Though he added, "it's also possible that we have too many Democrats," because "there's always the chance of an over- or under-representation" in polls.
Still, Norman admitted that the GOP identification in the latest survey has spiked. "The party ID in our most recent poll does show a shift away from what Gallup has been getting in earlier polls, going all the way back to 2005," Norman said. "But previous conventions -- the Republican one in 1988, the Democratic one in 1992, the Democratic one in 2000 -- have also shown shifts in party ID toward the party that had the convention, and those shifts seemed to last, to greater or lesser degrees, though the election. Further, I've been told by Gallup that their tracking poll has shown a similar shift in party ID since the Republican convention. ... I guarantee you we will be watching closely in all of our polls between now and election day to see whether there are further shifts in party ID in either direction."
And it's true. Gallup's own GOP identification (including leaners) has swung six points in the last month, from 42 percent of voters to 48, according to tables provided to the Huffington Post. Meanwhile, solid and leaning Democrats have fallen from 52 to 48 percent of those polled. For political scientists who believe that partisanship is largely stable over time -- and who take note of the advantage in voter registration being experienced by Democrats during the same period -- the newly GOP-heavy poll samples can raise eyebrows.
Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz is highly skeptical of the new Gallup, USA Today and CBS polls. About the latter, which showed a statistically insignificant two point lead for McCain, Abramowitz said: "One reason for the dramatic difference between the two recent CBS polls is that the two samples differed fairly dramatically in terms of partisan composition. The first sample was 35.2% Democratic, 26.2 percent Republicans, and 38.6 percent independent. The second sample was 34.9% Democratic, 31.1% Republican, and 34.0% independent. That's a change from a 9 point Democratic advantage to a 3.8 point Democratic advantage. That alone would probably explain about half of the difference in candidate preferences between the two [CBS] polls."
This DailyKos blog posting ran with the information in Huffington Post.
Excerpts from the DailyKos blog:
What about McCain's convention and the Palin factor? Good question. Those events certainly have helped, but McCain was just drawing from a previously depressed group within pre-existant, not additional GOP numbers. Now we need to make it clear. Dems, GOP and Independents can all swing within a specific group (and do, mainly through Independents, with some soft dems, soft repubs though).
Now this is not to say McCain-Palin haven't shown recent movement. They have. Their base (at the moment) seems energized. But the difference is, if party ID was truly representative Obama would still be leading comfortably, or big with most polls, or barely losing or keeping it tight (as he's doing now) with outlier polls like the recent 10 pt USA-Today LV Poll. In other words, when Dem party ID is down, and McCain makes movement, Obama's numbers are not going to appear robust. When party ID is accurately representative (which it rarely is) and there's movement towards Obama, then you get your Bloomberg, Newsweek 13-15 point blowout leads that the media hated. No more of those polls! Lol.
I think the truth or Barack's true representation, lies somewhere in the middle. I think Obama has a natural 5-8% lead out of the 15% Democratic cushion (+11 million out of 73million Dems, Repubs while splitting Indies). You may think his cushion is a little bit more or less (if you feel he has one at all). That's what I think. But if you follow these polls closely, it almost seems they cycle party ID regularly as if on a whim or some periodic schedule.
But my problem is, how come it seems everytime McCain makes a dramatic shift in the polls, it usually follows a good story line (this time Palin and the GOP convention bounce) and is preceded by a perceived inbalanced party ID shift or noticeable increase.
For any potential detractors of this type of article/diary. I would certainly have more faith, if every time a "new Horse Race Poll" came out, it didn't have the chicanery or stench of noticeable, inexplicable party ID shifts attached to/preceding it. Makes sense?
I don't think that's being too disillusioned or partisan.
The moral of the story Kossacks is. Stay strong, volunteer, phone bank, campaign, donate and keep a positive perspective and read through the polls when you can and/or wait for trends, before you get yourself down.
I'm sure the state polls are being done the same way as well (minus a couple of potential outliers, like that North Carolina, SUSA poll).
That's why the Obama Campaign (if you notice) never seems to worry about these sorta things, as much as the breathless press and net-root supporters do. Keep in mind, this is the team (Obama's)that produced the "Obama Spreadsheet". Remember? Despite the myriad swings, soap operas, worry and drama during the democratic primaries, the Obama team pretty much nailed it (state election results & numbers)during the 58 contest. With that kind of success and forecasting under their belt. I'm sure they feel more than equipped to handle, the upcoming 50 state contest on November 4th, as well.
I'm not saying Obama can't lose. He can! We've all discussed the previous bounce models that may end this week or last a month. We'll see and follow this closely of course. Obama also needs to go on the offense (instead continually reacting on defense) and point out all of McCain-Palin's hypocrisies and lies.
Now Sarah Palin; regardless of what we think of her, is the latest media darling. Is there real substance there; probably not. Is she going to do a revealing, potentially game changing interview, who knows? Is the finally media going to do their job (despite McCain campaign threats to the contrary) and expose/vet this womans wafer thin record, credentials and scary positions? Who really knows. Geraldine Ferraro started out like Hot Cakes in 1984 for about a month or so, but her and Mondale's campaign imploded due to repeated scandal and gaffes(sound familiar?)
Don't forget; Democrats have all the structural advantages that laid the smart money on Obama in the first place(you know bad economy, bad incumbent President, negative job loss, etc.. That's all still there. I don't want to jinx Obama, but a little known fact is, that no incumbent party in history has every won the Presidency with all those negative factors against it/present (I know "knock on hard wood twice).
Make no mistake. It will be a fight, with the usual ups and downs and suprising trials and tribulations. But Obama should win (and it may be in the long run a convincing win). Once your in the middle of the storm you can never look ahead and see the clear blue skies. But they will come again (they always do). We will withstand this current storm. So let's take it all in perspective and continue to Press the media for fairness and Obama for toughness. It's too early to toss out the white flag for this fearless, beloved, 1st time black candidate.
I dont' want to hear no more metaphors of:
"The Sky Is Falling, because Obama and our election are calling!"
Okay!
This next blog posting goes a long way to explaining the methodology used by the national polling services. And it explains why some of the party ID percentages may change over time.
From Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEightblog writes on polling methodology:
So let's get a few things straight:
1. Polls that show changes in party ID composition are not "cooked", "rigged", or "biased". Changes in party ID composition may occur for a variety of reasons, including random chance, response bias, temporary changes in party affiliation, and longer-term changes in party affiliation. It is possible that, if the partisan ID composition of a poll shifts rapidly from week to week (more so than is likely from random chance alone, and more so than is precipitated from external events), this may be an indictment of a pollster's methodology -- that the pollster is having difficulty getting a good, random sample. But the notion that credible pollsters like Gallup or SurveyUSA are deliberately rigging their samples is patently ridiculous. Polling is a very competitive industry, with relatively low barriers to entry; they would go out of business in a hurry if they did this.
2. The decision a pollster faces is whether or not to weight its sample by party ID. In fact, the whole point is that pollsters like Gallup and SurveyUSA do not weight their samples by party ID -- they just tally the results, and let the chips fall where they may. So in some sense accusing them of "cooking" their samples has it backward; what you're really arguing is that they should weight their samples, presumably in a way that is more favorable to your preferred candidate.
However, there is no one right answer as to whether to weight by party ID is the superior choice. A couple of pollsters, notably Rasmussen, do weight their samples by party ID. These pollsters tend to get more stable results from week to week. However, more stable does not necessarily mean more accurate over the long run, as these pollsters may miss real changes in party ID that occur over time.
Rasmussen, which targets its party ID figures based on a rolling, three-month sample of interviews with thousands and thousands of voters, has what I consider to be a eminently reasonable approach. Even so, the true party ID composition of the electorate is difficult and perhaps impossible to ascertain. You can take a survey of party ID, but it is still a survey, and therefore itself may be subject to issues like poor methodology and response bias.
There might be some promise in targeting party ID figures based on actual changes in voter registration -- although many states have open (non-partisan) voter registration, and some of those that do require registration by party do not report these figures. Some state-level pollsters seem to flirt with this approach, although I do not believe that any of the more prolific, national pollsters do.
3. Changes in party affiliation are tied up in the notion of the "convention bounce". Successful party conventions usually produce some shift in the self-reported partisan composition of surveys taken in the days and weeks that follow them. This may be a form of response bias, if voters of a particular partisan persuasion are fired up by their convention and more likely to take a pollster's phone call. (It may particularly be a form of response bias if the poll is taken during the convention itself, as voters of a particular party may be more likely to be at home watching their party's convention, and therefore more available to take a phone call).
However, remember what the conventions are. They are the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention -- not the McCain National Convention and the Obama National Convention. They are big advertisements for the parties themselves. And so, it is not unlikely that, if voters respond favorably to a convention, they will respond favorably both to the candidate and to the candidate's party.
In other words, while some of these polls may have implausibly high numbers of self-reported Republicans in their samples, this is more a symptom of the convention bounce rather than a separate and distinct phenomenon. Moreover, conventions sometimes do trigger longer-term shifts in party identification. In 2004, for instance, the Republican convention appeared to cause a semi-permanent shift in party ID toward the Republicans, amounting to a couple of points. As I also argued recently, it is also plausible that unenthusiastic Republicans or Republican-leaning independents (which I call "shy Tories") were being undersampled prior to the Republican convention, until the convention renewed their enthusiasm.
The fact that the Bush administration is in its last days, that much of the dissatisfaction with the Republican Party had to do with George W. Bush, and that this is an election featuring two non-incumbents, is a salient factor here. It may be that, rather than trying to tie John McCain to George W. Bush, the Democrats should be making more of an effort to indict the Republican Party as a whole, of which John McCain is indisputably a member.
4. Responsible pollsters should always disclose the partisan ID composition of their samples, and should notate in their press releases when material shifts occur. Regardless of the above, there is little doubt that the partisan ID composition of a poll is an extremely important element in the proper interpretation of a poll. Pollsters should always report the partisan ID composition of their sample, and should qualify in their write-ups when substantial changes in party ID have occurred since their last survey.
-- Nate Silver at 9:48 AM
Charles H. Franklin does an excellent job of explaining how polling works and answers questions about the efficacy of the polling science. He even addresses a question on the Bradley Effect.
Political Arithmetik's Charles H. Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, where he teaches statistical analysis of polls, public opinion and election results was on NPR on Wednesday. Listen here.
Read the full blog posting at Huffington Posthere.
i'm not swayed by the polls, but there is no doubt that there is small population that may be swayed by them. what is disturbing is that the media probably uses skewed data to make a particular race seem closer in order to keep viewers engaged in the race. this year, the race in and of itself is compelling enough (first Black presidential candidate, war hero candidate, first republican woman candidate, etc.) without the questionable numbers that are bandied about on a nightly basis.
i don't feel better about polling methods, BUT i know now that i will tend to pay LESS attention to poll results (since they are so fluid, the margin of error is probably considerable higher than advertised, and the sample may not be representative of the voting population).
~ husband ~ father ~ son ~ brother ~ mentor ~ subdivision dweller ~ northern by birth ~ southern by choice ~ raised a black baptist, now guided by the spiritual ~ raised a kennedy democrat, now politically dead center (moderate) ~ raised in a Cadillac Coupe Deville, now hooked on an SUV ~ college educated and still a student of life ~ wild college frat boy and now a settled alumnus ~ intellectual yet fun-loving geek ~ technical and leading edge ~ corporate cog ~ consultant ~ college football saturday devotee ~ and a ramblin' gamblin' helluva engineer (GO JACKETS!) ~
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