The Media over the last few days has been decrying the so-called hatred and vitriolic comments coming from the right.  While there are certainly some instances of this, it is few and far between, and doesn’t exist among the majority of Conservatives.  In fact, the media is overblowing the comments of people at McCain / Palin rallies, and misquoting supporters, making the comments sound worse than they actually were. 

The tensions have been rising this past month, but it is not the McCain campaign or Conservative Republicans where the hatred lies.  Michelle Malkin does a great job documenting the hatred from the left, including: 

• Celebrities such as Madonna and Sarah Bernhard saying that they will “kick Sarah Palin’s ass” and that she will be gang-raped if she came to NYC. 
• An Abort Sarah Palin sign
• Numerous “Kill Bush” signs
• Numerous examples of liberals arrested for threatening actions

And much more.  The column is worth a read to see where the real hatred is.  And while there are a very small minority of those who are spewing their hatred from the Right, there are many, many examples of those who spew their hatred from the left.  Tell me again which side started the hate-filled comments?

We knew this was coming, and now it’s finally here: any criticism of Obama’s record, statements or associations is racist.  So much so that civil rights icon John Lewis compared McCain’s angry crowds and harsh rhetoric to the notorious Segregationist George Wallace!  You can’t make this stuff up! 

(It seems like slavery and the Great Depression are around every corner to Democrats.  It must be a hard life to live with a lot of self-loathing and pity.  Maybe that’s why I’m not one of them.)

Anyway, the McCain campaign was obviously upset by this and demanded Obama distance himself from Lewis.  Obama’s people did, using the occasion to attack McCain in the process.  If Obama is walking into a coronation, then why are the Libs getting so uptight about feisty crowds and “desperate” rhetoric from a challenger and his MILFy running mate who have no chance to win?  Maybe they know something we don’t about these polls or the remnants of Obama’s pocket book.

Every major poll shows Barack Obama ahead of John McCain, some more than others.  This comes as no surprise since some polls are more reliable than others.  There is no doubt McCain is behind, but there is no way he is trailing by as much as Gallup and Newsweek claims he is.  As I discussed before, Gallup’s party identification numbers have for years been too much like a roller coaster to be even close to reliable.  As for Newsweek, they are simply in the tank.

For a great analysis of Newsweek’s latest piece of crap masquerading as a scientific survey, check out the Campaign Spot.

The official legpergateislative report on troopergate tasergate was released yesterday, accusing Gov. Palin of abuse of power.  The report itself is contradictory and does not hold up logically, and does not hold up under the law.  The report by investigative attorney Steve Branchflower, is 263 pages in length (PDF) that basically can be summarized in two contradictory paragraphs.  Bill Dyer at Townhall.com has an extensive analysis of the report, but to summarize, this is nothing but a smear against Sarah Palin, filled with innuendo and conjecture.  Looking at the facts:

• Before a single witness had been called, Hollis French, the legislator in charge of the report who selected Branchflower, promised an October Surprise that would create havoc for the McCain-Palin campaign. 
• The report boils down to a guess on what Sarah Palin was thinking in the firing of Walt Monegan, even though there are relevant facts which support Palin’s claim of legitimate reasons for the firing. 
• Monegan was never fired by Palin.  He was reassigned to another post, and then he resigned. 
• Logically, how can Palin have the right to fire someone and reasons to fire him, yet still be accused of an abuse of power?  If you follow Branchflower’s argument, if Monegan had murdered someone, or broken the public trust in some way, and Sarah had fired him (which she never did), then she still would have abused power beecause she had a personal stake.  This is absurd. 
• Dyer makes a good point;  Monegan himself has stated that no one in the administration ever asked him to fire the trooper who was tasering his child and had threatened the life of the Todd Palin’s sister.  How does anyone know that the Palin’s didn’t just want him to get counseling or something?

The entire report is based on guesses, innuendos, and inferences.  There is no evidence whatsoever in this report that Sarah or Todd Palin did anything wrong, improper, unethical, or illegal.  Dyer goes on to completely deconstruct the report, showing that it is completely and utterly false, misleading, and can only therefore be political.  Additionally, he points out that the news reports are in error.  The committee did not find that Sarah Palin had abused her authority, nor did it vote to confirm the report.  Rather, it voted that it be released and put forth to the full legislative body for review. 

Unfortunately, there will likely be political fallout from this dubious report.  Most average voters will only see the headline or hear the soundbite “Palin Abused Power.”  That will have short-term political impact right before an election.  I doubt that it will affect her long-term future political chances, however, as there will likely be no other legal or political fallout. 

Isn’t it interesting, however, how troopergate tasergate gets front page news, yet Obama’s ties to ACORN and voter fraud get virtually no airtime in the Drive-By Media.  It’s up to ordinary citizens like you and me to fight and spread the word about the truth of tasergate so that Palin’s good name is not smeared.

The Connecticut State Supreme Court has ruled in a 4-3 decision that Gay Marriages are now legal in the state.  Connecticut becomes the third state to allow Gay marriage, after Massachusetts and California. 

If one glances at the current landscape, not a single U.S. State Legislative Body or single ballot initiative in the country has granted the right to same sex couples.  There are some who believe that this would be a good policy.  I happen to strongly disagree.  But regardless of your arguments on the merits, the fact of the matter is that issues such as this should not be decided by seven unelected lawyers.  These judges position themselves as Philosopher-Kings, deciding what they see as right and just in the world.  What if they saw that slavery was right and just, or child pornography?  The point is, a judges role is to decide cases according to the law, not to determine the law.  Let’s have arguments, debate the merit, and then vote, either through our elected representatives, or through ballot initiatives.  We need to take back our country from the philosopher-kings.

A Federal Judge has ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (D-OH) has repeatedly violated federal election law by not validating the identifications of those registered to vote.  The judge ordered Brunner to cross-check new registrations against the State Department of Motor Vehicle Database and/or the Federal Social Security Database.  Brunner is refusing to comply and appealing the decision. 

As stated in several previous posts, Democrats are the ones primarily responsibile for Voter Fraud, and this year, it seems more rampant than ever.  There has been rampant voter registration of the homeless multiple times, as well as the effort to suppress Republican votes.  Jennifer Brunnershould be impeached and prosecuted for blatant violation of her oath of office.  Criminals like Brunner have no right to be in elected office.  In addition, every allegation of fraud in this country, by ACORN or others, should be aggressively investigated and quashed, as much as possible before election day.  We need to be sure that the elections are fair, and that the people’s voice is heard.  Voter fraud problems such as this undermine our Democratic Republic, and dilute the vote of all law-abiding citizens.

The Washington Times has a story today outlining how Obama tried to thwart our foreign policy by attempting to convince the Iraqi government to hold off on any agreement on troop presence / withdrawal until after the January elections.  The story has been rumored before, but this story has the testimony of a named source - the iraqi ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie.  The conversation took place between Obama and Iraqi foreign ministry secretary Hoshyar Zebari. 

This is the height of arrogant presumption.  For Obama to interfere in a potential foreign policy agreement, undermining the current Commander-in-Chief, is despicable.  Obama was attempting to undermine progress in Iraq for his own political purposes, potentially harming the mission in Iraq and our soldiers in the process.

At a joint town hall appearance today in Wisconsin, John McCain and Sarah Palin got a dose of the folk’s frustration, not just with the economy, but with the Republican ticket not stepping up their attacks on an obviously weak and potentially dangerous set of candidates.  One fellow got up and said the following:

“I’m mad.  I’m really mad, and what’s going to surprise you is it’s not the economy. It’s the socialists taking over our country.  [Applause with standing ovation] 

[To the crowd] “Sit down, I’m not done….

“When you have an Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined.  It’s time that YOU TWO are representing US, and WE are mad, so go get ‘em!”

[Cheers and chants of USA, USA, USA!]

Click the link to see the video.  It’s awesome!  I hope McCain-Palin get the message and McCain really comes out swinging at the last debate this coming Wednesday.

In other election news, some Dems, Libs, and the MSM have been calling Republican attacks on Obama “racist” or “coded”.  In truth those attacks are simply contrasts and important points that should have been discussed 15 months ago.  These charges should not dissuade McCain-Palin from keeping the attacks coming hard.  As it turns out I was reading Mark Steyn today and he had a great line which nails down how I feel about these latest ”racist” charges:

“…’Racist’ is now no more than the cry of a western liberal who can’t stand his illusions being disturbed.”

Bingo. 

Many people argue that using term “Socialist” to describe Barack Obama is no more than just projecting the label that best describes Barack Obama’s views.  But in reality, it turns out to be a fact.  Much was made last ago when Sarah Palin once spoke to the Independence Party in Alaska, a separatist party in Alaska, and that her husband Todd belonged to it at one time (except that Todd Palin is not running for anything).  Truth be told, Sarah has always been a member of the Republican party.  Well, if we can go back and look at old party affiliations, let’s look at Barack Obama’s. 

It appears that Barack Obama was a member and collaborator with the Chicago New Party, an offshoot of the Democratic Socailists of America, an organization committed to “implement Socialist Rule in the United States and was established to counteract the influence of a Democratic Party that they viewed as too moderate and too centered.”  This surfaced earlier in the summer, but was flatly denied by both the Democratic Socialists of America and the Obama campaign.  Now it appears that there was a concerted effort to remove this information from the internet and from the DSA websites.  The evidence gathered includes:

• A New Party Newsletter on candidates of the New Party running for office — Barack Obama was mentioned.
• A 1996 article from Progressive Populist magazine
• An article from the DSA Newsletter

Finding source materials in the Internet Archive, Powerline Blog and Politically Drunk on Power have documented and found supporting evidence to show Obama’s affiliation with the party that was described by the Green Party as “a fringe group” (think about that, to be called a fringe group by the Green Party.  Wow).  Again, this is yet another example of Obama’s real worldview, and what we have to look forward to if he becomes President.  McCain may not be perfect, but Obama is an avowed Socialist - in belief and in name.  Let’s see if the Drive-By Media give as much attention to this as they gave to Sarah’s now-debunked membership in the Independence Party.

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The Democrat Party has a long tradition of Voter Fraud, and this year is no exception.  Much of the current controversy has surrounded groups like ACORN, which is a “community organizing” group that has a history of supporting Voter Fraud.  ACORN is particularly interesting this year due to Obama’s long-standing connections with ACORN.  In fact, the Obama campaign this year has given ACORN approximately $832,000 to organize “voter-registration efforts”.  This has led to numerous obvious examples of Voter Fraud in several states. 

Indiana:  This year in Indianapolis, it appears that more people may vote than ever.  In fact, it has 677,401 registered voters.  The problem is, the voting age population of Indianapolis is only 644,197.  That means that there are almost 33,204 more registered voters than adults living in Indianapolis, or to put it another way, 105% of adults in Indianapolis have registered to vote.  I guess the dead really do vote.  In addition, ACORN had attempted to register approximately 1,100 proven fradulent registrations. 

Wisconson:  A potential swing-state, convicted felons are violating election law by attempting to register or actually registering to vote. 

Connecticut:  ACORN organizers have produced many fraudulent registrations, including one for a 7-year old girl (listed as 27 on the registration card). 

Missouri:  In another battleground state that is critical for McCain, the FBI is investigating yet more allegations of fraud by ACORN, including:

• Non-existent addresses
• No address at all on registrations
• Invalid Drivers License Numbers
• Invalid Social Security Numbers

Nevada:  In Nevada, ACORN had its offices raided by state police over Voter Fraud allegations. 

Voter Fraud is one of the things that Community Organizing is all about, and it is what Barack Obama played a part in while “Community Organizing’ in Chicago in the early 1990s.  It is no wonder that it seems more rampant this year than ever before.  Republicans have to be on the lookout for this fraud to ensure that the election is fair, and not stolen and handed to the most radical man to ever run for the Presidency.

I wonder why Obama would be thinking about ACORN? It becomes quite obvious at the stutter that Obama is wondering whether he just cut the funny part of a McCain campaign commercial.

Video via Hot Air

Some polls are scientifically valid.  Others are not.  At no time is that more obvious when the major polls not only show different numbers, but are also moving in different directions.  Earlier today, Salinger gave us an excellent synopsis of both today’s tracking polls and their trends.  After his post, Gallup published its tracking poll showing Obama with an 11 point lead and growing.

So which polls do we believe?  The ones that show the race tightening, or the one with Obama running away with it?  Although I’d love to believe Zogby (Obama by 2 today) and Hotline (Obama by 1 today), I cannot do so honestly given the former’s history and the latter’s bias.  Throughout this election, I’ve stood by Rasmussen (Obama up 6 today) and Battleground (Obama up 4 today) and will continue to do so.

It should be obvious by now that I’m about to discuss Gallup.  I will never put any faith in a Gallup poll (Obama up 11 today) for several reasons.  The most obvious is that  with less than a month to go, it is still a poll of registered voters rather than the more predictive “likely voter” sample.  Less obvious but equally important is that Gallup has been unable to get its party identification story straight for at least the last eight years.  That is not a good sign for a polling company in a country where party ID rarely sees a dramatic shift in a short period of time.

The end product of Gallups’ shenanigans is a poll with wild fluctuations during a campaign, followed up with trends that seem to produce the results Gallup wants, and ending with a “corrected” election day poll designed to protect its reputation for “accuracy.”  In 2004, Gallup took this to the extreme by predicting three mutually exclusive results.  Maybe Gallup covered its bases in 2004 as a result of their final poll in 2000, which was within the margin of error but incorrectly projected the popular vote winner.  Or maybe Gallup didn’t.  Whatever the reason, forgive me for not taking Gallup at face value.

I put stock in polls that sample likely voters, follow party ID samples close to historical turnout, and don’t show wild fluctuations.  Gallup’s horse race number and trend are out of step with every other poll at this time.  The valid pre-second debate polls show Obama leading and McCain slowly gaining.

If you’re interested, here are some links on polling accuracy for 2000 and  2004.

Last night, when trying to point out Obama’s voting record on a 2005 energy bill, John McCain referred to The One as “that one.”   Every line is potentially an issue in today’s hyper-charged environment!

To those of us who don’t look at every gesture at these debates under an electron microscope, it seemed harmless enough.  But it did remind me of Grandpa talking to one of his old buddies about some guy who recently irked him about something.  Or Grandpa complaining to a half-asleep Grandma about some jerk on the news.  It was very “old-man” to me, which unfortunately seems to fit McCain’s image.

In school today, one of my students said McCain was potentially being racist because of the line.  I instructed the young skull-full-of-mush that McCain is not a racist and his statement was probably only meant to be a condescending way to underscore Obama’s limited experience. 

I didn’t hear any racism in that phrase and those who were looking for some kind of racist beast to emerge out of the head of the war-hero probably heard what they wanted to hear anyway.  The mantra’s already spreading that if Obama loses, it’s because America’s racist, and riots may even ensue.  Don’t the Libs have such a high opinion of the voters!  Who’s side is using the ”fear” card now?

Yet, it was condescending, but perhaps more because Obama is used to being referred to as “The One” rather than “That One.”  To an ego as large yet fragile as Obama’s, the “that“ in question might really hurt, which probably led strategist David Axelrod to deem the phrase “odd” when asked about it later.

There is reason for optimism for McCain supporters.  The last couple of days of polling show movement towards McCain.  This is especially interesting in regards to the tracking polls, as they take a multi-day rolling sample.  As is my standard policy, I am ignoring polls that track only registered voters, such as the Gallup tracking poll (which is different from the normal Gallup poll of Likely voters that is taken occasionally).  Let’s take a look at each poll of likely voters that is listed at RealClearPolitics. 

Rasmussen Tracking:  Scott Rasmussen has Obama’s lead dropping two points today, to a +6 advantage.  He is over 50%, but it is his lowest in about 5 days.  Rasmussen was the most accurate pollster in 2004, but his methodology has changed somewhat since then, relying now on a 6-week rolling average for party identification.  Rasmussen’s poll numbers also tend to move more gradually and lag behind other polls sometimes wild swings.  A 2-point drop in one day, although small, may be significant if the trend continues over the next couple of days. 

C-Span/Reuters/Zogby Tracking:  The poll just started on Thursday evening, so trends are not easily recognizable, but the poll has Obama with only a +3 advantagen. 

Hotline/FD Tracking:  I know very little about this poll or it’s methodology.  It has the party identification at +5 Democrat, and is a tracking poll of likely voters that has seemed to favor Obama over the course of the campaign.  Today, however, it has McCain within one point, up from a 2-point spread yesterday, and a 6-point spread on Monday. 

GW/Battleground Tracking:  Historically, one of the better polls.  This is a bi-partisan poll, and has a good track record over time.  It now shows a +4 advantage for Obama, after being a +7-point advantage yesterday. 

While movement in any single poll one way or the other can be attributed to many things (statistical noise, bad sampling, etc.), movement in all polls of likely voters most likely indicate a trend.  It remains to be seen in the days ahead if this trend is maintained or grows, but it appears recent events have moved things slightly back in McCain’s direction.  Consider that in the last 5 days:

• Sarah Palin creamed Joe Biden in the Vice Presidential Debate
• Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Tony Rezko have been brought to the forefront of the news cycle
• McCain attacked Democrats for the Fannie/Freddy Mess

Again, only the days ahead will tell the true story, but for those of us (including myself) who are a bit dispirited by last night’s debate, this does show that the race is far from over, and America may begin to have second thoughts on Obama, despite what the Drive-By Media claims.

I’ve been thinking about much of what happened last night, and the state of the election, as well as reading others reactions.  Some random thoughts of mine, or other points of interest that I have read since the debate. 

• This was by far one of the most boring, pointless debates I have watched.  The town hall format was terrible, and the questions just a rehash of Debate #1.  The point of the Town Hall format is to avoid the filtering of the media and allow normal Americans to ask the questions.  In the past, the moderator has not known the questions in advance, and it has gotten us some great questions on abortion, immigration, and other issues that do not normally get asked by the Drive-by Media. 
• The problem with this election, as I’ve said previously, is that McCain is running as a moderate, albeit a center-right moderate, and Obama debates as a center-left candidate.  Obama talks conservative on many issues, and did again last night, while McCain only once made the connection that Government is not the solution to all of our problems. 
• For all his good talk on cutting spending, McCain then goes on to propose $300 billion to help people who took out mortgages they can’t pay back by having the government buy out their mortgages and renegotiate the terms.  So much for home values for everyone else.  This is what infuriates Conservatives about McCain. 
• The consensus around the blogosphere during the debate was that it would be more interesting to re-watch the Sarah Palin / Joe Biden debate from last Friday than to continue watching the town hall.  Much more interesting than that, however, would have been an Obama-Palin debate.  I would love to see her take him down!
• I suspect that post-debate snap polls are a load of crap.  I don’t have any empirical evidence to back this up, although I think it would be worth analyzing the methodology. 
• Hotair and others have suggested that McCain won on points.  I tend to agree because McCain wipes the floor with Obama whenever foreign policy comes up.  The problem is that both in the first debate and this one, foreign policy came up at the end of the debate, when most people have stopped watching. 
• How much do these debates really matter anyways? 
• After the debate, an ad ran featuring former Sen. George McGovern, who attacked a policy that Obama supports.  The policy takes away the privacy in union leadership votes among union members.  You know that the world has turned upside-down when George McGovern is to the right of Barack Obama on an issue.  
• There’s a school of thought that the town hall debate format was not conducive to McCain going aggressive on Obama.  I’m not sure I disagree.  There is still one more debate. 
• The country as a whole is not served by the current debate formats.  As Mark Steyn notes at the Corner:

The Campaign for Real Debates.  That’s a lobby group I can get behind. Mark Levin’s point that McCain “doesn’t flat-out lie the way Obama does” is a way of acknowledging that the stilted artificial formats of these debates principally benefits the Democrat. Most electoralseasons the Democrat candidate has to pass himself off as something other than what his record would suggest — tough on foreign policy issues, deeply personally passionately personally anguished on abortion, etc. These stilted non-debates assist the Dem in getting away with it. Mixing it up, direct challenges between candidates, etc would not only make for better viewing but diminish this season’s Democratic northern liberal from passing himself off as a moderate centrist champing at the bit to “kill” bin Laden and “destroy” al-Qaeda.

• I’m not ready to give up.  The impact of the recent attacks by Sarah Palin and McCain over Ayers and the Economic Crisis are still not known.  If they keep pounding that drumbeat, we can still win.