Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Open Thread: Down to the Wire

Closer than we would like but it looks like we’re going to win this thing:


Bottom line: right now the candidates are dead even in the national vote, but it’s slightly trending towards Obama, perhaps beginning after the second debate or perhaps a bit before that. To the extent we can tell, the electoral college plays a bit better for Obama than it does for Romney, meaning that in a tie election overall it’s more likely that Obama wins. It’s a very close election, and no one should believe that it’s all over by any means. But there’s no question that I’d rather be in Obama’s position than in Romney’s going into the last debate and then the final weeks.

Jonathon Bernstein – State of the race: Obama is slightly ahead Washington Post 19 Oct 12

So besides obsessing over polls, poll averages and the Undecided what’s up in the world today?


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 18 Comments

18 comments

  1. Shaun Appleby

    Lost in the homilies to McGovern’s heroically doomed campaign against Nixon in 1972 is his actual impact in shifting attitudes away from wars of national ideology and conscription; the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment was a direct confrontation of executive power by explicitly defunding the war.  While it never came close to passing it was important in consolidating reasonable and urgent opposition to the war and the circumscription of the power of Congress to declare war.  McGovern made a huge difference in reshaping American attitudes toward Viet-Nam.

  2. Shaun Appleby

    For fifteen minute YouTubes but if you’re going to watch any it might as well be this one. Yeah, I know, it’s a TEDx talk but still:

    “We grow too soon old and too late smart.”

  3. Shaun Appleby

    The New York Times, as it does, dropped a front-page bombshell; and nobody can figure out if it is a good or a bad thing in respect of the debate tomorrow.

    Puzzling.  I mean, you would think that the prospect of a negotiated settlement with a nation with which you regularly considered pre-emptive war would be a positive.  Not in our America, though.  And the Obama people understand this.  I’m guessing it was leaked so Romney couldn’t make a scandalous revelation out of it if true.

    Imagine how difficult it must be to govern this bloody country sometimes.  Sheesh.

  4. fogiv

    http://www.latimes.com/enterta…

    The big loser in all of this is coherent argument. The British have a word for Romney’s five-point plan of vagueness and obfuscation: waffling. One would think that a contender for the presidency wouldn’t be allowed to play so fast and loose with his positions. Granted, it’s not easy to take aim at a rapidly moving target, but there seems to be a general inhibition about forcefully calling out dodgy claims, as though truth itself were a function of party allegiance.

    and check out the comments.  holy rombots. [I AM FOR TO MAKE COMMENTS. AFFIRMATIVE]

  5. janicket

    But we all need a lift for our spirits, and what could be liftier than seeing a baby elephant get rescued from a shallow well?

    The video compresses a 30-minute struggle of three very brave people but includes a tear-jerking happy ending:

  7. HappyinVT

    They should mean nothing.

    🙂

    (I am about on election overload; I simply cannot believe it is this close.)

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