The march towards 10,000

Since the march towards 11,000 was so successful, it’s now time to start the march towards 10,000.

Piling on

It took a day longer than I expected, but finally a major liberal blog found a reason to pile on Harold Ford, Jr. for his interview with the Today Show yesterday.

I personally thought it was a very good interview.  He probably could have hit McCain more, and we probably didn’t need the bit about how “there might be something there” with the flip-flopping on campaign finanance (which he immediately minimized by pointing out several more important issues), but again, overall good.

Though I find it odd that the item they found to criticize Ford on was him saying that Obama is running to be President of the United States and not “President of any liberal group.”  I mean yeah, and he’s wrong about that how?

McCain Lies about Katrina Oil spills

Earlier today it was just a McCain’s spokesman who lied about it.  Now, it is McCain himself who is lying about it:

Well, I guess he’s not lying if you think that 595 oil spills, spilling 9 million gallons of oil both into the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, and onshore in Louisiana, and the destruction of over a 100 oil rigs is considered “not having many difficulties,” but I have a feeling that someone will be hard pressed to argue that for an oil spill that was almost as large as the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

I know how to win wars

Or so says McCain.

I have a question though: Exactly what experience is McCain using to claim that he can win wars.  It’s one thing to be a troop fighting in a war.  It’s quite another to be someone who can come up with both a strategy and tactics to win a way.

As I’ve noted before, there is a difference between strategy and tactics.  Obama in his speech recognized that, while there are tactical successes that the surge has provided, the surge has yet to result in a strategic success, namely allowing the Iraqi’s to get their political act together.  It is the larger picture – the picture of strategy – which is ultimately important.  It is nice to win battles and achieve tactical victories, but without a strategic victory, the whole thing is moot.  You can win 1000 battles, and still lose the war.

This is why McCain cannot use his support for the surge to claim that he “knows how to win wars.”  Yes, he may have shown that, in this one specific instance, he supported a policy which granted a limited tactical victory, but it shows nothing about whether he can come up with a good strategy.  One can be great at commanding an army in battle, but be terrible at managing a war (and vice versa).

Similarly, he can’t really use his military experience or his POW experience to argue for it either.  Again, being a soldier doesn’t mean you know jack about managing a war, and being a POW has absolutely nothing to do with the question.  Yes, it makes him a hero, but it doesn’t mean he knows how to formulate military strategy.

So I ask again – exactly what experience is McCain using to say that he can “win wars” and is thus, somehow, intrinsically more qualified to be commander-in-chief than Obama is?

McCain Spokesperson lies about Katrina Oil spills

McCain Spokesperson:

We withstood Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and didn’t spill a drop [of oil].

Really?

Status of the Electoral College: July 15

Here is the map for July 15th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

Numbers:

• Official count: Obama 264, McCain 151, Too Close to Call 123
• Strong states only: Obama 189, McCain 73
• Weak states only: McCain 78, Obama 75
• Count with “leaners”: Obama 309, McCain 226, Tied 3

• Weeks until the Democratic Convention: 6 weeks
• Weeks until the Republican Convention: 7 weeks
• Weeks until Election Day: 16 weeks

All states with change of status (many of these are due to the change in methodology this week):

• Arizona (from Strong McCain to Weak McCain)
• Arkansas (from Weak McCain to Strong McCain)
• Iowa (from Too Close to Call to Weak Obama)
• Montana (from Weak Obama to Too Close To Call)
• New Jersey (from Strong Obama to Weak Obama)
• New Mexico (from Too Close to Call to Weak Obama)
• North Dakota (from Weak McCain to Too Close To Call)
• South Dakota (from Strong McCain to Too Close To Call)

All states with new polling this week:

• Colorado – new poll for July 10th
• Illinois – new poll for July 8th
• Iowa – new poll for July 10th
• Louisiana – new poll for July 9th
• Michigan – new poll for July 10th
• Minnesota – new poll for July 10th
• Missouri – new polls for July 2nd-5th, July 7th, and July 7th-10th
• New Jersey – new poll for July 7th
• North Dakota – new poll for July 8th
• South Dakota – new poll for July 9th
• Washington – new poll for July 9th
• Wisconsin – new poll for July 8th

Also, see the spreadsheet.

This Week’s Notes

Just to note if you didn’t see it yesterday, I changed my methodology this week.  To read how, see here.

On the polling front, we had two significant polls this week from North and South Dakota.  On the heels of the poll showing Obama with a 5% lead in Montana last week, we get polls this week showing Obama and McCain tied in North Dakota and with McCain with only a 4% lead in South Dakota.  Both of those polls put those states in the Too Close To Call category.

Other polls which changed the status of states this week include a new Rasmussen poll showing New Jersey’s lead down to 5%, bumping that state from Strong Obama to Weak Obama.  Also, another Rasmussen poll showed Obama with a 10% lead in Iowa, moving that state from Too Close To Call to Weak Obama.

Other than that, we saw polls reaffirming a small Obama lead in Colorado, though not enough to push the state into his count, a new poll reaffirming Louisiana as a Strong McCain state, polls showing Obama holding strong leads in Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as three new polls in Missouri showing mixed results.

States that changed status due to the methodology change include Arizona, dropping from Strong McCain to Weak McCain, Arkansas, which rises from Weak McCain to Strong McCain, Montana, which moves from Weak Obama to Too Close To Call, and New Mexico, which moves from Too Close To Call to Weak Obama.  I should note that Iowa also moved from Too Close To Call to Weak Obama even before the new poll, but the new poll would have moved Iowa to Weak Obama even without the change in methodology.

Given the new methodology, it’s difficult to compare to past week’s results, but the pro-Obama polling trend seems to continue as  Obama is now within 6 electoral votes of getting the 270 he needs – and that’s not even including Too Close To Call states that lean his way.  Obama now holds a 113 Electoral Vote margin on McCain in Weak and Strong states.

However, McCain actually gains in the count with leaners due to Indiana moving from lean Obama to lean McCain after the methodology switch, moving the count with leaners to 309 for Obama to 226 for McCain with 3 tied.

Once again we see the continued trend of Blue states becoming bluer (with the exception of New Jersey) and red states becoming less red (with the exception of Louisiana) with Iowa moving to Weak Obama with or without the methodology change and with North and South Dakota both moving to Too Close To Call.

Obama has fewer “lean” states and Electoral Votes in play, with 4 states and 45 Electoral Votes vs. McCain’s 7 states and 75 Electoral Votes.  The two candidates are about equal in the number of “weak” Electoral Votes, with Obama holding 7 states and 75 Electoral Votes in that category while McCain has 6 states and 78 Electoral Votes.  It is still the “strong” states where Obama is running McCain off the map, leading 189 Electoral Votes to 73.  McCain is now down to only 11 strong states and only 1 state,  Utah, where he leads by more than 20%.

Historical Graph

I’m temporarily stopping the historical graph since it isn’t really fair to compare this week to past weeks. In a couple weeks I’ll put it back when we have a few weeks of the new methodology under our belt.

Polling Wish List

Finally, my polling wish list for this week is:

• Delaware (2nd week) – Weak Obama, no poll for 138 days
• Alaska – Too Close To Call, no polls for 29 days
• Idaho – Strong McCain, no poll for 138 days
• Nevada – Too Close To Call, no poll for 27 days
• Ohio – Too Close To Call, no poll for 23 days

On Deck: Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, West Virginia.

States which haven’t had a new poll in over a month:

DC, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming.

Sister states

These are states for each candidate where the margin in those states are within 1% of each other and are within 3 total electoral votes or 33% of electoral votes of the smaller state of each other.

• Virginia (Obama, 13 EVs, +1.1%) and Indiana (McCain, 11 EVs, +0.8%)
• Colorado (Obama, 9 EVs, +3.9%) and Missouri (McCain, 11 EVs, +4.3%)
• Montana (Obama, 3 EVs, +4.8%) and South Dakota (McCain, 3 EVs, +4.2%)
• Ohio (Obama, 20 EVs, +4.5%) and North Carolina (McCain, 15 EVs, +4.1%)
• Michigan (Obama, 17 EVs, +6.6%) and Georgia (McCain, 15 EVs, +6.1%)
• Iowa (Obama, 7 EV,s +8.8%) and South Carolina (McCain, 8 EVs, +8.9%)
• Iowa (Obama, 7 EVs, +8.8%) and West Virginia (McCain, 5 EVs, +8.1%)
• Delaware (Obama, 3 EVs, +9%) and West Virginia (McCain, 5 EVs, +8.1%)
• New Hampshire (Obama, 4 EVs, +10.1%) and Arkansas (McCain, 6 EVs, +10.7%)
• Wisconsin (Obama, 10 EVs, 10.3%) and Arizona (McCain, 10 EVs, +9.4%)
• Minnesota (Obama, 10 EVs, +15.2%) and Oklahoma (McCain, 7 EVs, +14.8%)
• Minnesota (Obama, 10 EVs, +15.2%) and Tennessee (McCain, 11 EVs, +15.2%)

Electoral-vote.com Map

July 15, 2004: Kerry 322 (+70), Bush 205 (-81), Tied 11 (+11)
Changes by election day: Florida, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee (tied)

Today: Obama 320, McCain 204, Tied 14
Total with same EV shift as 2004: McCain 288, Obama 250 (all 14 tied go to McCain)

To see the current status, go to the Status of the Electoral College page.

Does supply determine oil prices or not?

Pro-oil forces here in the US seem to be tying themselves in knots and going around in circles trying to justify their positions on off-shore drilling and further market regulation.

First, for a little while we’ve seen a push by Congress to further regulate oil speculators.  However, pro-oil forces claim that speculation isn’t the problem, and that (lack of) supply and demand is the reason for high oil prices.

Their solution?  More offshore drilling!  However, opponents of off-shore drilling then point out the obvious: off-shore drilling won’t bring any new oil onto the market in 5 or even 10 years, and even then won’t impact gas prices all that much.  The time and money we spend on drilling offshore could be better used to research alternative energy sources.

So what are pro-oil forces to do about this? Argue that by merely announcing that we intend to drill, we can lower the price of oil in the futures market, of course!  See, we don’t even need to drill for oil to lower prices, as long as we can show that we’re gonna put more oil on the market 10 years from now.

But by arguing this, aren’t Bush and company basically admitting that the price of oil isn’t caused by supply, but instead by speculators after all?  And if it’s caused by speculators, isn’t trying to regulate them the more efficient and perhaps more effective way to try to lower oil prices in the first place?

And if prices really are caused by supply instead, then how can just announcing that we’re opening off-shore drilling lower oil prices when no new oil is hitting the market in 5 to 10 years?

I guess speculation can never increase oil prices, but it sure can lower them.  Funny how that works.