McCain: Obama can’t make up his mind!

I’m wondering if McCain has really thought through this most recent attack ad:

There are so many things wrong with this ad.

First and foremost is the fact that McCain himself flip-flopped on whether he supported a bailout of AIG within 24 hours, saying he opposed bailing them out, and then after the government did, coming out and said that it’s something that pretty much had to be done.

Second, McCain once again brings up the dubunked “present” vote claim from Obama’s time in the Illinois state Senate, hoping to use people’s ignorance of how the Illinois Senate works against Obama.

Third, McCain hasn’t even voted on anything in the Senate since April 8th, have only voted on 38 of the Senate’s 201 roll call votes (only 19% of the votes), and have as of now missed 108 staight votes.  That’s opposed to Obama who doesn’t have a great voting percentage this year either due to the campaign, but still has voted 74 times – almost twice as many as McCain and consisting of 37% of all votes – and has only missed 32 straight votes as of now, last voting on July 9th.  Obama has voted 17 times since McCain last voted.

Fourth, this goes into McCain’s “I don’t deliberate, I decide!” schpeal, ignoring the fact that Obama might, you know, want to sit down and consider all of the factors and consequences before sprinting out and telling the closest reporter whether he thinks it’s a good idea.

Again, I ask if McCain has thought this ad through.  The answer appears to be “apparently not.”

Why are we bailing these people out?

Let me state up front that I’m not an economist nor am I an expert in any way in the mortage or credit part of the economy.  But I do know enough to understand the concept of supply and demand (and how businesses can influence it) and of incentives and disincentives.

NBC reported that bailing out people from the subprime mortage mess could cost us an additional $500 billion, pushing the total amount we’ve used to bail out companies over $1 trillion.  The Financial Times believes the number could be at least twice that in the end.

The question I have for this is: how is this anything other than letting the people who caused us to get into this problem in the first place off the hook?  What type of incentive system does it create that these companies can take high risk investments, and if they win, they get rich, and if they lose, the government will save them from themselves?  It’s akin to the government coming in and bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas, only to allow them to it again.

One of the tenante, theoretically anyway, of the Republican party has been the idea of personal responsibility, but apparently that doesn’t extend to corporations.  If you’re an individual and you screw up and go bankrupt, it’s your own damn problem.  If you’re a company who does stupid shit and you’re about to go bankrupt, you get bailed out.

How is this not taking the responsibility off of those who caused this mess, just to allow them to put us into another mess 20 or 30 years from now?

Also, where are we exactly going to get the money to pay for all of this.  They were already talking about how they might need to print more money just to do the $85 billion AIG bailout.  Are they going to “print” their way through bailing out another $500 billion to $1.5 trillion in bailouts?  Printing an additional $1 trillion could cause hyperinflation – an event currently taking place in many third world nations, notably Zimbabwe – and which occured in Germany after World War I, largely leading to the rise of Nazism and World War II.

So it ends up being a triple whammy: Not only are we getting the guiltist parties off the hook, not only are we now nationalizing all that debt so that the American people share it, but we’re also going to risk significant inflation on top of it?  Forget stashing dollars under your matress, you may want to stash Euroes under your matress.

My only hope is that these companies have to face some sort of penalty or additional regulation in exchange for us taking over their debts.  Maybe there should be some type of Corporate Probation or maybe they should be ineligible for any corporate tax deductions or credits, or something.  I just think the worst thing we can do is just be like “sure we’ll take your debt! bye!”

The main reason why I’ve heard that all this is necessary is that the alternative would be evey worse – possibly another Great Depression.

So basically, according to experts we’re either: screwed or really screwed.

This begs the question: what do we have to do so this never happens again?  Clearly one of the biggest problems with this is that banks were even allowed to hand out sub-prime mortages like they did in the first place.  This signals both a lack of regulation and a lack of enforcement of whatever regulation is currently on the books.

However, is it any surprise that all three major financial crises that have taken place in the past 100 years – The Great Depression, the Savings and Loan crisis, and now the Sub-Prime Mortage crisis – have all taken place during Republican administrations: Hover, Reagan, and Bush?  There is a trend here, and that the conservative ideology of degruglation has caused – repeatedly – severe financial crises in this nation.

It’s about time that the entire conservative economic ideology be put to rest permanently.

McCain’s new “scary people run Obama’s campaign” ad is, shockingly, misleading (at best)

McCain has a new ad out suggesting that one of Obama’s top economic advisors is a guy who committeed massive fraud and is responsible for driving Fannie Mae into the ground (and thus, Obama has no standing on the issue):

There are several problems with this ad.

1)  The ad asks “who advises him” and answers that Franklin Raines does on mortages and housing policy.  While the Washington Post article the ad cites does indeed say that Obama and Raines have had “calls”  (which admittedly was probably a dumb move if they did indeed occur – more on that later), the ad suggests that Raines is Obama’s lead adviser on the topic, something which the Washington Post article doesn’t say or suggest at all.

2) While what Raines is alledged to have done is bad, it’s unclear whether what he did lead to the downfall of the company, as the ad clearly insinuates.  The most the Washington Post story says on that is that “even today, some think he contributed to Fannie Mae’s slide.”  Can one get any more noncomittal?

3) It’s unclear whether Raines ever actually talked to Obama in the first place:

The Washington Post reported — with the kind of blind sourcing that suggests the source was Raines — that Raines had “taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.”

Raines said in the statement through the campaign, “I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters.”

Obama spokesman Bill Burton added an attack:

This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything — ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn’t be throwing stones from his seven glass houses.

22.07

22.07: That is the amount that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained over the entirely of Bush’s 8 years as president, after today’s 450 point loss.  This is the 2nd worst day of the year, second only to, well, Monday.

The Dow Jones has now lost 817.38 points in the past 3 days, or 7.2% of it’s value.

Signs that you have a disfunctional campaign

When you have to “set the record straight” in reaction to statements coming from surrogates of your own campaign.

McCain has apparently found his new shiny object

McCain has apparently found his new shiny object to wave in front of the press to distract them from anything and everything important, and that is Obama’s fundraiser in California with Barbara Streisand, and from the sound of the Today show this morning, it sounds like they did a decent job of it.

Here were some of the Very Important® points that were brought up on the today show:

1) It was so exclusive, they didn’t allow cameras in!

I actually believe that’s the phrase they used.  Of course, nevermind the fact that most fundraisers like this aren’t really public.  Remember the times when people smuggled in cameras to Bush funraisers and caught him saying some dumb shit (for him) like “Wall Street got drunk.”

There is nothing particularly notable about this point.

2) But…but…the economy!

One of the points which I think makes the least cogent sense, yet is the point that the press seemed to pick up on the most was this idea that, since the economy was bad, then people wouldn’t be fundraising with supporters.

I guess the point they were trying to make was “Obama parties with rich people while poor people crash and burn” but that seems like a pretty weak point.

First off, fundraising is nothing new, second McCain and Palin had their own big fundraiser just last week (at least the Today show was kind enough to point that much out, and 3rd, one of Palin’s primary purposes is to hit fundraiser after fundraiser to raise money for various groups.

Also, I find it odd that the press finds it so horrible that Obama fundraises with some Hollywood people, but ignores the fact that McCain has been fundraising with Bush.  Isn’t fundraising with Bush a bit more damaging?

Luckily this shiny object will only last the morning, though I wouldn’t be shocked if McCain has some sort of petty ad on the way.

Dumb Claim of the Week: McCain Can’t Use a Computer because He Can’t Use a Keyboard

This has to be about the dumbest thing ever stated on TV (ok, not really, but it’s up there): The claim that Obama’s criticizing McCain for not being able to use a computer are off base because McCain can’t use a computer because he can’t use a keyboard.

Now, I know that McCain can’t raise his hands above his head, and it’s quite possible that he can’t hold his arms in such a way where he could use a normal keyboard.  However, people with various disabilities can easily use a computer anyway.

McCain has a variety of options available to him, from custom keyboards to voice recognition.  Hell, he could just use a keyboard with one hand if he wanted to.  Sure, it’d make typing a pain, but he could still use it.  So this idea that McCain is just utterly unable to use a computer because of his Vietnam injuries is pure baloney.

Status of the Electoral College: September 16

Here is the map for September 16th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

Animated Gif of Map Changes

Numbers:

• Official count: Obama 197, McCain 186, Too Close to Call 155
• Strong states only: Obama 133, McCain 108
• Weak states only: McCain 78, Obama 64
• Count with “leaners”: Obama 273, McCain 265

• 1st Presidential Debate: 10 days (9/26)
• Vice Presidential Debate: 16 days (10/2)
• 2nd Presidential Debate: 21 days (10/7)
• 3rd Presidential Debate: 29 days (10/15)
• Election Day: 49 days (11/4)

All states with change of status:

• Delaware – Weak Obama to Strong Obama
• Georgia – Weak McCain to Strong McCain
• Minnesota – Weak Obama to Too Close To Call
• Montana – Too Close To Call to Strong McCain
• New Jersey – Strong Obama to Weak Obama
• New Mexico – Weak Obama to Too Close To Call
• New York – Strong Obama to Weak Obama
• North Carolina – Too Close To Call to Weak McCain
• North Dakota – Too Close To Call to Weak McCain
• Wisconsin – Weak Obama to Too Close To Call

All states with new polling this week:

• Alabama – new poll September 3rd-9th
• Alaska – new poll September 9th
• Colorado – new polls September 7th-9th, September 10th, & September 14th
• Delaware – new poll September 13th
• Florida – new polls September 6th-7th, September 9th-10th, & September 14th
• Georgia – new polls September 7th-9th & September 10th
• Idaho – new polls September 9th
• Iowa – new poll September 8th-10th
• Louisiana – missed poll from August 17th
• Maine – new poll September 8th-10th
• Maryland – new poll August 29th-September 5th
• Michigan – new polls September 5th-7th & September 7th-9th, & September 10th (x2)
• Minnesota – new polls September 9th-11th & September 10th-12th
• Mississippi – new poll September 8th-10th
• Missouri – new poll September 7th-9th & September 11th
• Montana – new poll September 8th
• Nevada – new polls September 10th & September 11th
• New Hampshire – new poll September 7th-9th
• New Jersey – new polls September 4th-7th, September 5th-8th, & September 9th-11th
• New Mexico – new poll September 8th
• New York – new poll September 8th-10th
• North Carolina – new polls September 5th-7th, September 6th-8th, September 6th-10th, September 8th-10th, & September 9th
• North Dakota – new poll September 8th
• Ohio – new polls September 5th-7th, September 5th-9th, September 5th-10th, September 10th, September 10th-13th, September 12th-14th, & September 14th
• Oklahoma – new polls September 5th-7th & September 11
• Oregon – new poll September 8th-9th
• Pennsylvania – new polls September 5th-7th & September 14th
• Utah – new polls September 10th & September 8th-11th
• Virginia – new polls September 7th-9th, September 12th-14th, & September 14th
• Washington – new polls September 6th-8th & September 10th
• West Virginia – new poll September 5th-8th
• Wisconsin – missed poll September 5th-7th
• Wyoming – new poll September 10th

Also, see the spreadsheet.

This Week’s Notes

This week we got to see the full effect of McCain’s convention bounce as I added polls for 33 states this week (2 were from older polls that I missed).  Every single Weak or Too Close To Call state has had at least one post-convention poll except for Indiana (!?) and South Dakota now, and given they both sit on McCain’s side of the fence, it’s not that big of a deal.

So what are the full effects of the McCain convention bounce over the past two weeks?  Obama’s Electoral College lead had gone from 70 down to 11 – Obama’s smallest lead he’s ever had (he was behind in the very first week on June 10th).

Obama has dropped from 243 Weak or Strong Electoral Votes down to 197, losing Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to the Too Close To Call category (though they all remain lean Obama states).

Meanwhile, McCain has risen from 173 to 186 Electoral Votes, gaining Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, and North Carolina, but losing Indiana to the Too Close To Call category (note: the poll dropping Indiana is post-Democratic Convention, but pre-Republican Convention).

Meanwhile, Obama’s lead in the Electoral Count with leaners, which was already steadily declining, dropped from 30 to 8, just above the smallest lead he ever had (6 EVs, on both June 10th and 17th) and now sits at 273-265 in favor of Obama.

This week we had 10 states change status, 9 in favor of McCain.

Delaware is the lone state which moved in Obama’s direction.  It had been sitting as a Weak Obama state forever due to the fact that it only had a single poll from back in February.  Now that someone decided to actually poll the place, it has moved up to Strong Obama.

One state whose move down I find rather dubious is New York’s.  Very, very few polls have shown that state to be close.  However, since my polls age over time, and the last poll taken in the state had been done nearly a month before, the new poll showing McCain within 5% carries a lot of weight.  While New York is officially Weak Obama, until we get another poll which confirms this last one (and I’ll be shocked if one does confirm it), I’m still treating it as effectively Strong Obama.

The eight other polls are either McCain shoring up Bush states (Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota) or Obama states dropping (Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Wisconsin).

All in all, one cannot deny that the past two weeks have been very good for John McCain.  Except for one item:  He’s still behind.  We’ve now had polls in a variety of states that cover the entire week following the Republican Convention and then some – a time period which one would expect McCain to peak – and yet he still can’t get enough states to defeat Obama, at least as of now.

That’s not to say Obama isn’t in a pecarious position.  The state which would swing the election, as it has been pretty much for weeks, is Colorado, where Obama holds on with a 0.9% lead.  On the other hand, McCain only currently holds Virginia by a 0.3% lead, so McCain can’t necessarily say that he is definitely going to get all the states he currently has on his side either.  McCain is also only ahead in Nevada by 1.2%, while the margin in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are all 2.3% (with New Mexico following at 2.5% and Wisconsin at 2.8%. Everyone else is effectively 4% ahead or more).

We’re likely not going to see much changes in the Electoral College before the 1st debate, since state polls tend to lack the national polls, if for no other reason than because they’re not taken as often, though that may start to change now that we’re only 49 days from the election.

All of this pretty much boils down the election to 8 battleground states: Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia, with 3 super-battlegrounds: Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia.  If Obama wins any of those three states, he comes away with at least a tie.

So, what happens if we get a tie?  Given the current make up of the US House, Democrats hold 27 delegations, which would give Obama the Presidency.  But what if things go sour and we lose two delegations and we drop to 25?  This is where we get into nice nightmare scenarios.

First, the 12th Amendments mandate that a candidate get an absolute majority of states, meaning 26.  If the US house votes 25 for Obama, 22 for McCain, with 3 abstentions due to ties, that won’t cut it.  Someone needs 26 states.  That means there maybe some very lucky Republicans or Democrats who may be swayed into voting into the other candidate in return for, say, a high level cabinet position or something.

But what if no one budges and we can’t get a majority in the House?  Then the Vice President acts as acting President.  The Vice President is chosen by a majority vote in the US Senate.  There is one problem: based on the current make up of the Senate, we’re looking at a 50-50 tie there, assuming Lieberman votes for Palin and not Biden.  What happens then?

The 12th Amendment says one needs an absolute majority of Senators, but it doesn’t say what happens if the Senate can’t decide on a Vice President, either by a 50-50 tie or abstentions which leaves no candidate with 51 votes.  It is quite possible that in this nightmare of nightmare scenarios, Dick Cheney could cast a tie-breaking vote for the next Vice President, and thus acting President: Sarah Palin.  If the Senate rules that the Vice President cannot cast a tie-breaking vote in a vote to elect the Vice President, then the 20th Amendment suggests that me move on in the order of succession, which means that the Speaker of the House, presumably Nancy Pelosi, would become acting President, until and unless either the House or the Senate breaks it’s deadlock.

Oh, and one more note: I’ve been creating a pollster.com-ish type website to do this.  I haven’t decided whether I’ll still post a Tuesday morning update on here or not, but that site will be constantly updated with the most recent polls so you’ll always know what the current status of the Electoral College is.  I hope to have it fully up and running by the weekend.

Historical Graph

Click for bigger version:

Obama has been in kind of a freefall in the two weeks since the Republican Convention.  He obviously needs to stop and revere that if he wants to win in November.  McCain is getting closer to, but still can’t break the 200 EV mark.

Polling Wish List

Finally, my polling wish list for this week is:

• Arizona – Weak McCain, no poll for 31 days
• Indiana – Too Close To Call, no poll for 16 days
• South Dakota (7th week) – Too Close to Call, no poll for 68 days
• Texas – Weak McCain, no poll for 25 days
• Wisconsin – Too Close To Call, no poll for 9 days

On Deck: I think I can finally get rid of the on deck circle

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

Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont

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.

• Michigan (Obama, 17 EVs, +2.3%) and Ohio (McCain, 20 EVs, +2.3%)
• Pennsylvania (Obama, 21 EVs, +2.3%) and Ohio (McCain, 20 EVs, +2.3%)
• Minnesota (Obama, 10 EVs, +3.9%) and Indiana (McCain, 11 EVs, +4%)
• New Hampshire (Obama, 4 EVs, +4.5%) and South Dakota (McCain, 3 EVs, +4.2%)
• Washington (Obama, 11 EVs, +5.8%) and Missouri (McCain, 11 EVs, +5.2%)

Electoral-vote.com Map

September 16, 2004: Bush 311 (+25), Kerry 223 (-29), 4 Tied
Changes by election day: Colorado, Iowa, Maine (tied), New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

Today: McCain 257, Obama 247, 34 Tied
Total with same EV shift as 2004: Obama 293, McCain 245 (PA goes to Obama, VA goes to McCain)

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

Cross posted at Daily Kos

The economy goes WEEEEE!

Lehman Brothers goes down, Merrill Lynch has to abandon ship, and AIG has to start…borrowing from itself (yeah, that’ll work).  All this leads to the stock market crashing by over 500 points, in the largest single day drop since September 17, 2001 – the first day of trading after September 11th.

We’re now in sight of the point where the Dow Jones was after January 19, 2001: the day before George W. Bush’s inauguration day.  That day the Dow closed at 10587.59.  We’re now within 329.92 of that mark.  Is it possible that after 8 years of Bush’s presidency, the stock market may actually close lower than when he entered office?

(By comparison, the dow jones in 1993 was in the 3000 when Clinton took office, and he left office with it 3 times as much).

Add this to the recently announced 6.1% unemployment rate, and you can understand why McCain thinks that we’re doing just fine.

McCain THIS MORNING: “Still, The Fundamentals of our Economy are Strong”

On the day that two of the nation’s largest financial banks essentially collapsed, and one of the nation’s largest insurance companies is on the brink of collapse, McCain has the audacity to continue to spout his “basically, everything is still fine!” line:

I guess McCain subscribes to the Bush theory that if you talk up the economy enough, it will eventually magically heal itself.  Of course, he also support’s Bush’s policies of deregulation which got us into this mess in the first place too.