October Surprise

Everyone who follows the presidential campaign have expected an October Surprise that could shift support from one candidate to the other.  Dirty tricks are often used during the latter stages by the candidate that believes they are losing.  This year, that would be Barack Obama.  The news today is not good for them.  For the first time, Ohio appears to be breaking to Romney. Both campaigns have pointed to Ohio as the state that will dictate the winner.  Rasmussen now shows Romney with a 2 point lead and continuing momentum.  And it gets worse for Obama.  Gallup and Rasmussen have shown Romney leading for more than 5 consecutive days.  That addresses the statistical test of a bonafide lead in a rolling 7 day average, versus a temporary uptick.  Plus Romney has hit and maintained 50% in many polls while Obama hasn't hit 50% in any poll.  The trend is that in just over a week Romney will become president-elect Romney.

But there is still time for a dirty trick or two.  I don't think they will come from the Obama team.  They are exhausted their arsenal.  Romney is a murderer, Romney is a felon, Romney is a dunce, Romney has Romnesia, Romney is a BS'er.  They have thrown everything at Romney without success.  Their tricks don't work because most people have zero confidence in what Obama says.  Even the most ardent democrat will admit that Obama lies constantly, they will just claim it is necessary since that Romney lies too.

My concern is what the mainstream media has up their sleeve.  Over the past month, the MSM has calmed themselves by claiming that Obama was ahead and in control   That calmness is now eroding.  Panic is setting in.  They are coming to the realization that Romney may well win.  They are apoplectic.  Newsrooms across America are nowplotting how they can boost Obama into a second term.  I am guessing they will use Sandy.

Over the next few days, you will no doubt seem plenty of stories on how Obama is taking control of the government response to Sandy. They will tell how he works without sleeping to ensure the feds help anyone in need.  They will paint Obama as compassionate and caring.  You will see how his response contrasts with the perceived Bush response to Katrina.  Due to the late date, expect the MSM to paint it on thick.  They are trying to change thousands of minds in order to preserve what they believe is righteous - an Obama win.

Why the Confidence?

Almost 3 months ago I first blogged that Romney and the republicans seemed to be on the path to victory during the upcoming election.  The risk in early August was that so much could happen to change the trajectory from where I thought we were on.  As it turned out a lot did happen, but most of it benefited Romney.

What I saw then was that Romney had the trends in his favor.  He was slowly catching Obama in the early polls, and republicans seemed to be far more energized than democrats.  The polls were not showing Romney was even close, yet I was fairly confident that  he would eventually win.  What I saw then I still see. 

The polls are not a good barometer on who is ahead.  Polls are easily skewed because nobody, even the best pollster, knows who will show up to vote on election day.  We all know that most republicans vote for a republican, and democrats vote for democrats.  With that being true, it all comes down to turnout.  Which party will get more voters to vote on election day.  Each pollster can only make their best educated guess on turnout.  Back in early August, many pollsters were expecting a turnout that closely matched the turnout in 2008, when 7% more democrats voted than republicans.  There were more registered democrats than registered republicans in American, and the democrats were highly motivated to vote for Obama. This led to the 7% turnout advantage that ultimately led to Obama's victory.

The early 2012 polls continued to use a model that over sampled democrats by 7% when projecting the election.  This over sample consistently showed Obama in the lead. I didn't believe that democrats would turn out to vote at a 7% greater rate than republicans and still do not..  Republicans are far more motivated and excited to vote for Romney (or against Obama) than democrats are to vote for Obama.  A few of the polls are now factoring in the republican excitement into recent polls.  Hence, Romney is now tied or ahead of Obama in nearly every poll.

Even so, the pollsters still over sample democrats by a percentage, usually between 1%-7%.  Rasmussen seems to be the most thoughtful on the sample rate that will be most accurate in 2012.  Rasmussen believes the democrats will turn out at roughly a 3% higher rate even though his internal numbers indicate that republicans might turn out at nearly 3% higher rate.  What if republicans turn out at a higher rate?  The result would be a Romney landslide.

So which scenario do you think is more likely than the other?  I believe that republicans might turn out in higher numbers than democrats.  I believe the likelihood that democrats will turn out at a 7% greater rate is virtually impossible this year.  This is what I have based my prediction of a Romney win on.  Unskewedpolls.com is a site that shows what could happen if I am right.  They currently project Romney will win 54% of the popular votes and 359 electoral votes.  In these polarized days, that is a landslide.

November 7th, 2012

So we conservatives got what we wanted.  With the republicans holding the House and taking the Senate, president-elect Romney will have one-party rule for at least the first two years of his first term.  We turned the corner, right?  It starts getting better now, right?  We can only hope so.  I have two worries.  Call them concerns. 

The first concern is short term.  Obama was a divider.  This country is more polarized that it has ever been in modern history. Obama accomplished this by using emotion.  His followers love him, not for what he has done, but for what he said.  The rich want to stay rich at the expense of the poor and middle class.  You cannot succeed without government assistance.  If one person gets more wealth, someone else must get more poor.  He has appealed to emotion and created a bond that cannot be broken by logic.  The 47% who voted for Obama are now devastated by his loss.  They will be enraged by media reports of an election stolen by republicans.  His followers will believe their lives will get worse without Obama looking out for them.  I expect sporadic instances of violence, and possibly major riots in urban areas.  Threats of rioting and assassination are prevalent on Twitter.  This will pass relatively quick.

The second concern is longer term.  Politicians will continue to be politicians.  Just because the House and Senate are now under republican control means little.  They will still be biased toward the easy thing to do instead of the right thing to do.  They will continue to look at the next election instead of solving problems.  And their democratic peers will not make governing easy.  With a new majority, Romney will be able to get a budget debated and voted on.  But the budget will be lambasted by the left as helping the rich at the expense of the poor, young, sick, and elderly.  Romney will get at least two opportunities to nominate Supreme Court justices.  Each will be denigrated as anti-women and pro-business.  Romney will make progress toward North American energy independence.  The left will claim that he is letting big oil ruin the environment.

Success will come with difficulty.  I am optimistic that the next four years will be better than the last four.  If Romney is successful, he must be Reaganesque.  He must communicate with all Americans.  He must make his case to the people, and force the politicians to listen to their constituents.  He must grow the economy as he shrinks the federal government.  He must narrow if not eliminate the deficit.  He must do this in four years, and make significant progress in two.  If he doesn't, the republicans will lose their congressional majority in 2014 and the presidency in 2016.

Reveiw of the FInal Debate

Cher was a fifty year old alcoholic.  She was physically abused by her father who was dying of prostrate cancer.  Her alcoholism worsened when her mother died 20 years prior.  She just wanted to be loved. Cher agreed to go into a 30 day treatment and came out sober for 92 days.  She began drinking again the day after finishing treatment.  That is how Intervention went last night.

Okay, I did watch the debate also.  Boring.  Both told a few tales and dusted it up a bit, but in the end nothing changed.  Romney did a decent job at portraying himself as a competent Chief Executive.  That is all he needed to do.

Today's polls will still show Romney with a small lead.  Rasmussen has Romney up by 4%, Gallup will have him up by 5% or 6%.  What will be interesting is what the polls do over the next 2 weeks leading up to the election.  This is "go" time for pollsters.  The worst thing that could happen to them is to be the most inaccurate poll based on the results of the election.  All pollsters will tighten up their process and ensure their sample rates for republicans, democrats, independents, blacks, whites, Hispanics, old, young, rich, poor, etc. are in line with the projected turnout.  As they adjust, Romney's lead will grow.

The Final Debate

After countless republican debates, 2 prior presidential debates and a single vice-presidential debate, we are at the end.  The final debate occurs tonight.  They have been consequential.  My favorite republican candidates fell out during the republican debates.  The single vice-presidential debate proved to America what a creep Joe Biden is.  The first debate between Obama and Romney enlightened the nation that Obama's description of Romney was a falsehood (lie).  Since then, Romney has all the momentum. 

So what will tonight bring?  After all, tonight's topic is foreign policy.  Obama must have drooled when the agenda was set months ago.  He would be the only person on stage with a foreign policy.  Osama was dead, we had not been attacked by Al Qaeda, and Muslims now loved America.  He must have thought he would dominate tonight's debate.  But then came 9/11/2012.  The Muslims didn't love us so much.  And despite repeated attempts to blame a stupid video and hide the truth, much has now come to light.  And none of it is favorable to Obama.  So what will happen tonight?  Nothing.  Why?  Several reasons. 

Because there aren't that many undecided voters left.  You would need to live under a rock for the past couple of years to not have decided at this point. 

And there is a football game on.  And the Chicago Bears are playing.  More than half of Obama's base will be watching ESPN. 

And viewers to the second debate dropped radically.  Same will happen tonight.

So Obama can repeat his first debate performance and it will have no impact.  Or he could affirm his membership to the Communist Socialist party without worrying whether it would cost him the election.  He could mutter "There is no God but Allah" (or read from his ring), without anyone noticing.  It might be a good time for him to come clean on his college transcripts and birth certificate also.  Nobody will notice.

I think I will watch Intervention.

Creating a Monster

It was 1975.  Large production Hollywood movies were just becoming highly anticipated events.  The movie Jaws was one of the first.  It played exclusively at the downtown Midland theater in Kansas City for nearly a year.  There wasn't a cable TV movie channel.  There wasn't pay-per-view or a local Blockbuster.  It was a difficult time filled with such hardships.   Big movies played at the same theater until people stopped coming.  The Midland is where I first saw Jaws. 

The villain was a shark.  The movie was half over before you ever saw the shark.  That is how the director built suspense, fear and dread.  Early scenes would show a swimmer splashing about from the surface and from the shark's perspective.  Then the swimmer would react surprised as the unseen monster bit their leg.  They would be pulled underwater briefly, only to reappear with a look of sheer terror.  Then they would go under for good.  It was masterful.  That movie scared me as much as any movie ever had, or has since. 

It is exactly what the democrats tried to do to Mitt Romney.  Even before the republican convention was over, the attacks began.  Romney is a rich dude who doesn't pay taxes.  Romney is a rich dude who doesn't care about the middle class.  Romney may be a felon.  Romney killed a guy's wife.  Romney moves jobs overseas.  Romney is at war against women.  And on and on.

The democrats should have learned from the movie Jaws.  You can build fear and terror, as they did by telling such lies repeated by a willing press.  What they didn't see coming were the debates.  At the first debate, Romney looked competent.  Romney looked caring.  Romney looked intelligent.  Romney did not look like a monster.  Obama looked bad.  Obama looked disinterested and clueless.  Obama looked more like the villain for many people. 

The undecided decided.  They were looking for an alternative to Obama and they found it.  Romney didn't appear to be a bad guy.  After all, he has a wife and 5 sons.  They all seem pretty normal.  That fact alone left many wondering why the democrats would attempt to destroy him.  Maybe the uniter was really a divider?  It all began to unravel for the democrats .  Undecided voters quickly moved to Romney and the polls (still skewed to high democrat sampling) suddenly reversed.  Romney moved to the front.  Romney's lesser performance in the second debate only continued the movement. 

Now there seems to be two possibilities.  A dirty trick or a global event could reverse the current trend and help Obama win - but here, Obama isn't in control.  Or Romney could win in a landslide.  I'm betting on the latter.

Reviewing Debate #3

Debate #3 brought a feistier Obama, however this description is relative.  A less feisty Obama would have been an unconscious Obama.  My observations of last night's third debate was that Romney was virtually unchanged from the first debate - cool, collected, articulate and presidential.  Obama was augmentative and interrupted often even though he received more time than Romney.  Obama would not answer the questions that were asked of him.  Was his energy department's role to keep energy costs low? How much did he cut drilling rights on federal land?  Did he call Benghazi a terrorist attack the day after?  Obama was asked these and other questions but refused to answer.

While both sides claim victory, the truth was more neutral.   Both scored a few points.  Both botched a few answers.  I call it a draw - all that Romney needed.  I switched to MSNBC briefly just to see their reaction.  Chris Matthews was calling it an overwhelming Obama victory.  I had the sense that he had written his statement earlier in the day.  FOX was more balanced.  Some called it a narrow Obama victory, others believed Romney won. 

Of interest were the focus groups on both FOX and MSNBC.  Both claimed to have gathered undecided likely voters.  FOX added that each person had voted for Obama in 2008.  Surprisingly, both focus groups indicated they were swayed by Romney, and both groups did so by a substantial margin.  So give the debate to Obama.  It appears that remaining undecided voters are looking for a reason to not vote for Obama.  That means that Romney wins.

Debate #3

Since Romney made Obama look bad in their first debate, the tide has turned.  Remember way back, say 3 weeks ago?  The mainstream media was all but calling the election over.  Obama had won.  His lead nationally and in certain swing states was insurmountable.  The Left was giddy.  Four more years!  Barry must have been listening to MSNBC and felt he didn't need to show up to the first debate.  Romney steamrolled him with facts while Obama watch his podium and took the beating. Now the skewed polls are saying the race is close.  Romney is still the underdog, but "the race has tightened".

I call BS.

The democratic oversampling of the "tightened" polls continues.  If they say the race is neck and neck, the truth is Romney is ahead - handily.  Second proof point.  Do you hear anyone saying that Romney MUST win Tuesday's debate?  Nope.  In fact, we hear the opposite.  MSNBC's Chuck Todd, citing private polling information acknowledges that structural changes in the electorate have occurred and that Obama MUST win.  Translation: Obama is behind and falling behinder.  He needs to win big.  He needs a win of the same magnitude as Romney's win in debate #1.

Ain't gonna happen for several reasons.  First, a win of that magnitude has happened exactly once - two weeks ago.  Never before has a presidential debate been so one sided.  The likelihood that it would happen again - in consecutive debates - is nearly impossible.  Second, Romney knows what Obama will bring.  Bain Capital, 47%, 15% tax rate, blah, blah, blah.  Heard it all before.  They are all straw men.  Romney will be well prepared to address each.

On the other hand, Romney will have plenty of ammunition.  Obama countered nothing Romney threw at him 2 weeks ago, and will hear it all again.  Plus Romney can recount the troubling amateurism of the Obama administration's foreign policy response in Cairo and Benghazi.  

I see debate #2 ending as a draw or another Romney win.  Either way, Obama is finished.

Reviewing Debate #2

If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet.

Proverbs 29:9

Debate #2

Tonight is the first and only vice-presidential debate.  After Obama's catatonia last week, the democrats have more to lose tonight, than win.  Their expectations of Joe Biden are huge.  They hope his performance will change the dramatic move in recent polls that now show Romney ahead nationally, and in many swing states.  Romney's lead may be even larger due to the democratic over-sampling that continues and will up until the last couple weeks of the campaign.

Joe might be a bulldog and will definitely be more aggressive than Obama was, but does he have a chance?  Not really.  The reason is the Obama-Biden ticket has this huge problem they did not have in 2008. They have a record they really can't run on.  Sure, Biden will bloviate on how the economy is turning based on an unemployment rate that has dropped below 8% for the first time during Obama's administration.  But that will be in Ryan's wheelhouse.  Ryan is at his best when making the complex simple.  I am positive he will destroy the unemployment report that nobody really believes with a couple of sentences.

And then there is always Joe's propensity to say something stupid, like when he asked the paralyzed veteran to stand up and take a bow.  Or when he characterized the campaign as being about a three letter word, J - O - B - S.  Or when he said the middle class has been buried the past 4 years.  Biden isn't smart enough to outwit Ryan.  Ryan may not win as convincingly as Romney did, but a trouncing of that magnitude has never happened before and may never again.  But in the end, Ryan will be perceived as the winner based on the poor record of his opponent.  Biden is taking a knife to a gunfight.  He doesn't have the weapons needed to win.

Reveiwing Debate #1

As I am watching the first Presidential debate last night, my mind tried to find the correct analogy.  Sports analogies were dominate.  Was I watching a string of touchdowns or home runs?  Was it a knockout?  Did Romney blow the doors off of Obama?  Then the perfect analogy hit me.  It wasn’t a sports analogy, but rather a business analogy that I have seen dozens of times.  Last night, I saw seasoned executive matching wits with a new manager.  

The analogy fits perfectly.  Romney is an executive with over twenty years of experience.  Obama is a community organizer thrust into the presidency without the needed executive experience.  He is tackling the job as a manager, not an executive.  This became apparent when he repeatedly asked for details on Romney’s plans.  That is how a manager operates.  Romney was completely correct when he pointed out the job of a president is to lay out his principals, gain consensus by working with both parties in congress, and make the case with the American people. That is how an executive gets things done.  An inexperienced manager will dictate how something must be done, and push it through based solely on the strength of their own will power - sort of how Obamacare was passed through the congress.  

Romney did a great job of making all the key points, and doing so without blatant ridicule of Obama’s performance over the past few years.  By the end of the debate, I was pretty confident that Romney won it handily.  But knowing that I can be biased, I decided to watch a couple of NBC channels to see how their bias was reported.  I first tuned to NBC.  Wow, they were agreeing with my judgment!  As hard as it must have been for their news department to report, Romney had done well, in fact, much better than Obama.  For the ultimate test, I then tuned to MSNBC with Racheal Maddow, Chris Matthews, and a few more from the looney left.  Same story.  Romney wins.  The only detectible difference was the sense of rage I noticed.  Chris Matthews was angry.  He spewed venom on Obama for his lackluster performance.  I guess the thrill was gone from Mr. Tingle’s leg.

It really isn’t hard to understand why Obama did so poorly.  He wasn’t prepared for the job, and since taking it the press has not challenged him.  Obama doesn’t do press conferences, preferring soft news interviews with friendly hosts.  When you are never stretched, you get lazy.  Romney directly challenged Obama for the first time in 4 years.  Obama crumbled.

I suspect that Obama will come out swinging in the next debate, but also confident that it will hardly matter.  Obama is out of his depth.  He is no match for Romney's experience.  The next debates will end much like the first. Romney wins.  His election is almost certain.

Debate #1

Tonight is the first of three debates between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.  The mainstream press has it completely wrong.  To win, they believe Romney must increase his likability and avoid gaffs.  What they are really saying is that Romney shouldn’t attack Obama on his record.  They are trying to steal Romney’s inherent advantage.

Mitt has the advantage in these contests.  All he needs to do is stick to facts, call out Obama on his lies, and draw Obama off script.  Teleprompters are off, so Obama will ad lib to his disadvantage.  Here are the Romney touchdown plays I hope to see:

• Point out that Obama claimed that if the first stimulus was passed, unemployment would not go over 8%.  We have seen unemployment greater than 8% for 40 consecutive months.
• Tell America that family income has dropped by 8% and that gas prices have doubled since Obama took office.  This make it hard to say that anyone, black, brown or white, is better off than before.
• Obama will blame others for his lack of success.  Romney should point out that Obama has been president for nearly four years, he wanted the job, had a democratically controlled congress for two years, is not the first president forced to work with a divided congress, and George Bush is not running this year.
• Call out Obama on his promise to halve the deficit in his first four years.  Obama called George Bush unpatriotic for running up $4 trillion in new debt during his 8 years, while Obama has run up $6 trillion in just four years.
• Obama promised to change the tone in Washington and pledged a return to unity and bi-partisanship, but has been nothing but uncompromising and divisive.
• Noted economists now believe we are not in economic recovery, but headed for a new recession.
• Tax Armageddon on January 1 will surely return the economy to recession, and is mostly due to Obama’s pigheadedness over raising taxes on the “rich”.
• Obama’s plan to increase taxes on those earning more that $250,000 a year would fund the government for 11 minutes.

The coupe de grace could be if Obama dares to repeat his fabricated lie about Romney wanting to raise middle class taxes by $2,000 per year.  Romney should calmly ask Obama to point out where in his plan that fact would be found.  He should do so in such a manner that requires Obama’s allies (the press) to follow up.  He could say “Mr. President, I would be satisfied if any undecided voter made their choice based on whether your statement is true or completely fabricated.  If you are lying to them about this, they should be curious about what else are you lying about.”