McCain Claims He Invented Cell Phones!

Not only that, he says he personally invented Wi-Fi too.

T-minus Seven weeks

This is the first week that the 538 map shows McCain clearly winning. We’re not gonna cherry-pick polls or say that Obama’s better off than McCain right now. Obviously we wish we were on the +270 side right now, but our mood is still pretty calm and confident.

After all, there’s still a lot of time and a lot of events before the election is settled. And it looks to us that McCain is squandering his post-convention peak by immediately going to a strategy of outrageously blatant, ‘up is down’ lying.

This was the week of Lipstick on a Pig, the Bridge to Nowhere, sex-ed for kids, and so on and so on and so on.

In a development that bodes well for Obama, the media actually seems to be turning against McCain and is honestly, actually making some efforts to call JM on his strategy of crazy, relentless bullshit.

This Obama ad is the exact ad I’ve wanted to see all week. Hit em’ with the truth, man. Hit em with the truth and they’ll think it’s hell.

creepy thought

If McCain wins, there could be a significant fraction of his voters who start literally praying for him to die, so that they can get the President they really want.

McCain the Fighter

terrific video:

The Evolution Hoax Exposed

Somehow Joe obtained a copy of The Evolution Hoax Exposed: (Former Title: Why Colleges Breed Communists). According to THE PUBLISHERS in the note before the book, "It is a subject the implications of which are, for some, obscured by the rodomontade of certain scientists."

Utterly mystified, we ran this sentence through Google Translator, first English to German, then German to French, then French back to English. It came back more coherent: "It is an issue whose consequences are for some, masked by some scientists rodomontade."

And that's not even why I started writing this post. We have no idea where this book originated. Joe claims it came from Chase, who got it from his grandma (?). We do know that A.N. Field wrote it around 1941, and our edition is from 1971. The important thing is, one faithful reader, who also highlighted numerous entire paragraphs, wrote margin notes such as "says it all!" and "typical" and apparently quit reading after chapter five, also found time to pen this Post-It:

If man evolved from apes - why do apes still exist?
-Why isn't there a specimen of the crossover being (transitional form) (someone in between like the gays?)(who don't know what or who they are)!! Ha
species may loose hair - get hair loose fins get fins etc - But never - changes species o

Thought provoking.

T-minus Eight weeks

Well apparently the Republicans had a pretty successful convention, because currently McCain is enjoying a strong poll bounce, taking about a 3-point lead in several polls (a ten point swing from Obama's peak). I'm surprised at the strength of the bounce, because I only counted three successful moments in that convention- Rudy's feisty attacks, Sarah Palin competently reading a teleprompter in front of a screamingly supportive crowd, and McCain's nice guy routine. But I guess America really really liked it.

Anyway, 538's model is kinda slow to adjust to swings in the polls- and that slowness/stability is what they go for, anyway- so this week's snapshot is not too different from last week's.

The general pattern of the past few weeks- the red and blue states are getting darker, and the swing states are getting extra swingy. Next week, once we're completely past the convention phase and we can look at this race clearly, I'll offer some more specific analysis about each candidate's victory map.

7 Obama Advantages

The experts aren't quite sure what to make of the polling insanity caused by all the weirdness of the past two weeks, what with the popular incompetent secessionist pit bulls, the pansy hurricanes, and the first good speech by John Kerry since the Vietnam era. But whatever the result, I think it's worth taking a look at a few factors that should work in Obama's favor (many of which I am summarizing from 538). None of these is likely to be game-changing, but together they could help out in a close race.

1. Cell-phone users are underrepresented in the polls. Since pollsters get their information from phone calls, and they don't really have a way to call cell phones, people who don't have land lines are left out of the polls. These people tend to be younger, which means they're more likely to vote Obama.
   
2. Young voters may be underrepresented in the polls. Some pollsters try to weight responses by historical voter turn-outs. Since old people go around voting on everything, and young people are busy setting themselves on fire with their iPods, the youths typically get weighted pretty poorly. But Obama is not only the best candidate in several decades, he's also the coolest, so a larger-than-expected youth vote could give him a little extra boost.
3. The Presidential debates are still coming. Obama has way better stage presence than McCain. He's more charming, he's better looking, he appears healthy instead of in rigor mortis, and he's a far better speaker. And that stuff pales in comparison to the superiority of his grasp on policy. While McCain rambles on about nonexistent borders in a country he wants to occupy for 100 years, Obama knows what the fuck he's talking about. (Here's a good example). Anything could happen, but the best case scenario for the Republicans is basically staying afloat, whereas the Dems have potential for a crushing victory.
4. The VP debates are still coming. You never know when Biden will do something stupid, like calling Palin a dumb broad or something, but this guy owned Rudy Giuliani, one of the creepiest people in America. Palin is an inexperienced wad of corruption whose only substantive national appearance so far involved reading a speech written before she was even chosen. Anything could happen, and Republican damage control (widespread lying) is formidable, but I wouldn't be surprised if she looks like the incompetent local politician she is.
   
5. Enthusiasm gap. The Palin pick may degrade this a little, assuming none of her many, many scandals errupts into a big deal, but generally Dems are way more enthusiastic than GORBs this year. Anecdotal evidence from some folks I know suggests that quite a few conservatives are just too discouraged to vote.
6. Ground Game Gap. Obama has way more people on the ground than McCain. This kind of thing can make a bigger difference as the election draws nearer, since it enables you to focus your resources more efficiently.
7. Death. While new eighteenth birthdays swell Obama's ranks every day, McCain supporters are quietly dying in their sleep, mercifully avoiding the irony of voting for policies that would ruin their fading lives.

Even if the polling comes out tied or with a slight McCain advantage (and by the time the convention bounces wear off, it may show a slight Obama lead anyway), I think the good guys still have reason to be optimistic.