Weekend Monkey And Rob's Election Predictions

 

The election is tomorrow, so I decided to bring former 2008 Democrat presidential candidate and very accurate election handicapper Weekend Monkey to the site to hear what he has to say since he's been right much of the time. 

 Rob: Well Weekend, nice to see you again! 

 WM: Yeah, it's been awhile.

 Rob: Last time we spoke, you told me this was too close to call and you weren't taking any election bets this time.

WM: Well, that's changed...There are still lots of weird elements this time on this one... but I've got enough data to make a prediction.Simple math

Rob: OK, shoot. 

WM: Well first we need to think about the odd elements this time. A lot is going to depend on whose counting those mail in ballots. There's already been a lot of voter fraud discovered. But I think that aside from some very Blue states...

Rob: California, NY, Illinois, or maybe I should just say Chicago...

WM: Yeah. But I'd add a few more...Washington, maybe Nevada or Colorado, Minnesota's a possible. And Detroit and Philly will certainly have voter fraud. The Dems are serious...they want Trump gone, and they want to take over. 

Rob: OK, it's a given the Dems will cheat. It depends on how much and where. It's also obvious they're going to go nuts a turn their Antifa and BLM Brown Shirts loose if they lose, and the turmoil will probably go on for weeks..and another element is the possibility of unfaithful electors...they have a lotof money and some of these people might be easily bought.

WM: That's another thing I've considered. For those of you who don't know what Rob's talking about, every state in the union has 'electors' who are sworn to certain Presidential candidates, depending on who wins the state's votes. They're supposed to vote for the winning candidate in their state. If they don't they're called 'unfaithful electors.'

Rob: OK, so who wins?

WM: If this was a totally up and up election, I'd have to say Trump. Since it's not, there are several ways this could go. 

I see Trump carrying the following states - Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama with Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as probables. Maybe Minnesota.He'll also likely take West Virginia, Kentucky, Idaho, Utah, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas, and Alaska. That adds up  to 261. If Trump wins Minnesota, North Carolina or Pennsylvania, he wins. He only needs one.

Biden will almost certainly carry the West Coast. He'll likely carry New Mexico and has a shot at Colorado and Nevada, 15 more votes if he gets them. He'll take Illinois and Virginia, as well as New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. He'll also take New England, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine and Vermont and Hawaii.. That gives Biden 235 electoral votes. He also has a chance at North Carolina and  Minnesota, which would give him 10 votes from Minnesota and 15 votes from North Carolina. That would bring Biden to 260. If he takes Colorado (9 votes) and  Nevada (6 votes) it puts him over. Biden's problem is that both North Carolina and Minnesota are iffy for him, and so is Nevada. And without every state listed above, he loses.

I would say the odds are with Trump unless major shenanigans take place. Especially since the news is being spread about Biden's grifting and corruption over the years, I think he's assumed an  odd smell to a lot of the voters. And Kamala Harris isn't helping him much at all. She 's become more and more open about her far left views. And her and Bidens 'Green New Deal' is going to wreck America's energy industry and lead to outrageous tax increases as well as a lot of lost jobs, and I don't see people going for it. Plus even with the media basically campaigning for him, I think a lot of people don't trust him.  And his mouth and his past has definitely alienated a decent chunk of the black and Hispanic vote.

Rob: I think Trump could easily wind up with 30% of the Black vote. and a large chunk of the Latino vote, simply because they see that his policies have directly helped them and their communities.

So you don't see Biden getting North Carolina?

WM: Hard to tell but  I see it as an uphill climb for Biden. Biden still might win, but I think the odds are with Trump...

Rob: Well, we'll see, Monkey. Until next time. By the way, were you surprised that your old flame Elizabeth Warren didn't get on the ticket?

WM: After the way she treated me? I wouldn't care if Biden made her coffee girl and office trash picker upper.

Rob: Ah, the ups and downs of love!

 

Weekend Monkey was a Democratic candidate for president in 2008

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.

 

DOJ is Closing In on Spygate...and Biden Is In The Middle Of It

 

 

 The Department Of Justice Is closing in on Spygate, probably the worst election scandal in American history.

Basically, here's what happened. Former DNI Richard Grenell who had access to everything explains it quite well here in a great speech at the Republican National Convention. While the whole speech is a gem, the part on Spygate  starts at 5:40

As former DNI Grenell points out, Biden came up with the idea of targeting General Flynn, the incoming National security advisor  weeks before the inauguration. Declassified notes written by Peter Strzok proved that Joe Biden was the one who suggested going after General Michael Flynn using the Logan Act.

And exactly as Richard Grenell said, they came up with totally bogus 'evidence' from a dossier paid for by the DNC to get a FISA order to spy on the Trump campaign during the election itself. They also lied to judges and conducted secret surveillance on the Trump campaign beyond what FISA's rules call for. And the FBI, CIA and members of the Obama Administration were all part of this. 

U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is leading the investigation into the Obama administration’s spying on the Trump campaign has already gotten a guilty plea out of former former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to altering evidence that the FBI used to get a FISA warrant extension for another 90 days to continue spying on the Trump campaign.

The FBI even admits they acted wrongly. FBI Director Christopher Wray has agreed there was illegal surveillance on the Trump campaign.

Think about that for a moment. Here we have the lame duck administration of a Democrat president spying on the candidate of the opposing party during an election. And using the American people's national security apparatus to do it.

This has never happened before in America's history. And it's worth  asking why this happened. Who would have given the orders for this? Would high government officials and the then vice president have done this on their own? 

Doubtful. The orders for this came from someone at the top. And it's worth recalling that this is an administration whose President was willing to weaponize the IRS,  the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, ICE and other government agencies for partisan political reasons, something else unprecedented in American politics.

It gets better. In May, declassified Department of Justice (DOJ) documents showed clearly that President Obama was aware of the illegally wiretapped conversations of then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as far back as December, 2016. Joe Biden was also aware, and was present at a White House meeting where the bogus Flynn investigation was discussed. So yes, they knew.

Also, U.S. Attorney Durham is also investigating whether Obama’s former CIA Director, John Brennan, pressured the Intelligence Community into pushing the theory that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump win in 2016. That of course was bogus as well.

Actually, Putin was really hoping Hilary Clinton would win. Aside from  fact that Russian intelligence, along with Iran and the Chinese among others had already hacked into her unprotected and illegal  server and retrieved classified documents ('Come now Mrs. President. We wouldn't want to release these to the American public, now would we?') Putin had already dealt with Hillary Clinton before and knew she was easy to bend. Among other things, during her Russian 'reset', Mrs. Clinton gave the Russians full details of America's most secret anti-missile defenses, known as 'hit to kill.'

Also, Fred Fleitz,a former CIA analyst who also worked on the House Intelligence Committee accused  then-CIA Director John Brennan of suppressing the truth in a report in 2017 that alleged that  Russia backed Trump over Clinton, which contradicted a House committee report from March 2018 showing that it did not. 

As it turns out,  newly declassified intelligence of the kind former DNI Richard Grennel accused the Obama administration of classifying to hide exactly how spygate was pulled off. In this case, Flietz revealed that his sources inside the House Intelligence Committee told him “the actual drafting of the intelligence community assessment was done by three close associates of former CIA Director John Brennan who refused any evidence, even high quality evidence that suggested that Putin would have preferred dealing with the venal and self centered Clintons. This is contrary to the usual practice which makes these things a community effort of all 14 US intelligence services.

What we maybe seeing here as this gathers steam is a criminal prosecution of John Brennen for lying to congress. Of course, as a Muslim, he's allowed to lie to infidels.

Brennen has been a very interesting CIA head. As The Weekly Standard‘s Stephen Hayes reported, Brennan directed the CIA to hide most of the documents seized in the Osama bin Laden raid, because that information contradicted the Obama administration’s narrative of a “decimated” al-Qaeda, a moderate Iran, and success in fighting radical Islamist terror.

 Brennan also had the CIA force survivors of the Benghazi attack to sign non disclosure documents to silence them...at the funeral service  for the victims. 

 As I said, an interesting CIA director. Here's hoping John Durham's investigation reveals the truth.

 

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications

Two Eminent Rabbis On The Election...

 

It's a foregone conclusion that a majority of the secular, non-religious Jewish vote will go to Mrs. Clinton for reasons I've explored already here. So I found the reactions of two well known and highly regarded Rabbis, both with secular educations as well as religious ones to be of interest.

First here's Rabbi Dov Fischer Esq*., who has served two three-year terms on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America during the past seven years, is a professor of the law of Torts and of Civil Procedure at two major Southern California law schools and is The Rabbi of Young Israel in Orange County, California. Here's what he had to say:

I am an Orthodox rabbi. I am also an attorney and an adjunct professor of law. I clerked 20 years ago for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Boggs, one of the most brilliant minds I ever have known in any of my walks of life, soon thereafter served as chief judge of the Sixth Circuit.

Of course, I am disgusted by the stories that dominate the election campaign. I am disgusted as a law professor, an attorney, a father of daughters, and as a rabbi. Women making accusations that they have been sexually abused — Paula Corbin Jones who received an $850,000 settlement from Bill Clinton; Kathleen Willey who went to Bill Clinton in the White House, desperate for a job after her husband killed himself; Juanita Broaddrick, a Clinton volunteer who insists he raped her; the new list of women whose names I am only now learning who say that Donald Trump groped or kissed them against their will. The abused women whose reputations and lives were destroyed by Hillary Clinton, as she defended her husband’s public profile after each “bimbo eruption.” Hillary referred to victims as “looney tunes” and worse, her team including the likes of James Carville and Sidney Blumenthal characterized them as “trailer trash,” and Hillary most infamously ruined the life of 12-year-old Kathy Shelton, raped by a 41-year-old whom Hillary was required to defend. There was nothing wrong in Hillary defending—every accused criminal deserves a good defense. But Hillary destroyed the girl in the process and proceeded years later laughing about that case and regaling an interviewer with anecdotes of that tragedy.

All of it disgusts me. So I have decided that on November 8 I am not going to vote for Clinton or Trump. Instead, I am going to vote for the federal judiciary. Along the way, I also am going to vote for an authentic economic recovery that will include repatriating trillions of dollars back home, for a stronger American footprint in the world, for a border that will protect Mexico from free-flowing American weapons that feed their drug cartels and that will protect America from the influx of potential terrorists and murderous drugs that now easily can pour through our porous borders. 

I am going to vote for a process that restores civil harmony in the inner cities by restoring respect for law enforcement even as we begin to address legitimate concerns that responsible African Americans have raised about bias. I am going to vote against sanctuary cities. I am going to vote for a stronger military that, after the past eight years, we now unfortunately will need to protect from Iranian terror exports and North Korean adventurism. 

I am going to vote for an end to bullying and ceaselessly blaming and threatening Israel, our strongest and only truly reliable ally in the Middle East, the only country in that region that truly shares America’s deepest values. And I am going to vote to stem the perilous slide away from America’s traditional social core values of hard work, self-help, trust in G-d, respect for religion’s central place in our lives, and the sanctity of life.

If we do not have a robust rebound from the terrible recession of nearly a decade ago, let it not be because I voted based on some filthy talk that a candidate spoke 11 years ago. Let young Americans in our inner cities not continue to die in an endless spiral of gang violence because a tape recorded braggart childishly impressed a gullible young news journalist. And how sad it is to see men—Hillary’s male enablers like John Podesta, Rob Mook, Bill Clinton, and others no less cynical on the other side—preying on women’s legitimate and decent values by trying to sway voting blocs one way or the other based on issues other than the life-and-death concerns on today’s table.

How will we explain to our sons or grandsons who one day would be sent overseas to fight to stop an enriched Iran—nuclear-enriched, hundreds of billions enriched—when America’s continued weakness and failure to stand strong now ultimately will leave us with no choice but to fight later? Shall we tell them: “Well, you see, we did not elect the candidate who would have stood stronger because  11 years earlier he was recorded saying the most disgusting things as he bragged on a bus to an impressionable journalist?”

(more at the link)

Then, here's Rabbi Mendel Kessin, who has a PHD in psychology, practices privately and is widely regarded as one of America's most eminent Torah scholars. His bio is here:




Rav Kessin also approaches this with the insight you'd expect of a Torah Gadolim of his eminence. You vote to keep the singularly corrupt, dishonest and incompetent  leader out of the White House, not  because of a 11 year old illegally recorded and illegally released tape   with locker room talk on it followed by some conveniently timed unproven allegations.

One more thing. If you're female, have daughters, are gay or Jewish, voting for Hillary is suicidal. 

f you really care about women you will vote for Donald Trump instead of a candidate with serious ties to the Muslim Brotherhood who has pledged to bring in thousands of unvettable Muslim 'refugees' from the most misogynist, Jew hating, gay hating countries on earth.

if you want to see how that works out, just take a look at Europe, with its wave of sexual assaults,gay bashing and Jews afraid to walk the streets. Sweden, where rape used to be almost unheard of is now the rape capitol of the world, Amsterdam, once the most gay friendly city in the world now has gay bashing incidents on a regular basis. Jews have been advised by several EU governments NOT to go out wearing kippot, Jewish stars or anything else that clearly identifies them as Jews, and attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions have skyrocketed. In Germany, Do a search on the gang rapes in Cologne and elsewhere since Merkel imported a million 'refugees' into Germany. Or the Muslim sex grooming gangs in the UK who made money raping and 'turning out' young minor British girls as young as twelve for prostitution.

That's the kind of hell Hilary wants to import here, and she's said so openly. To vote for it is indeed suicidal.


*(Full disclosure...I know Rav Fischer slightly in an online sense and he's as razor sharp an individual as you'd care to meet)

Why Mitt Romney Lost The Election

In my earlier piece on yesterday's unfortunate events, I concentrated on the big picture issues, the meaning behind them and where things are likely going.

But I also promised you that I'd go into the political and strategic reasons later behind Obama's victory and Romney's defeat, and a few lessons we can learn.

I want to be very clear here. Mitt Romney, for the most part ran a disciplined and impressive campaign, and conducted himself well. However, he made several unforced errors that were blown out of proportion as they would be for any Republican, and there were a couple of big things he simply had no control over.

First, one of the big things he had no control over was what I call the media filter.From the every beginning a significant element of the media had obviously chosen sides, and until the first debate, President Obama had virtually free rein to cement a negative image of Governor Romney in his half of the electorate.

Examples? Here are a few of the more important ones:

The WAPO's fraudulent article on Romney's tenure at Bain Capital that even their own fact checker gave 4 Pinocchios to that started the whole 'Romney as heartless plutocrat' theme of the Democrat campaign.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos pulling an unrelated question about banning birth control out of thin air while he was supposedly moderating a GOP debate that was the kickoff for Sandra Fluke and the 'GOP War on Women' campaign that started a month or so later.

Candy Crowley's obvious pre-debate tip off from the Obama campaign on the 'act of terror' line that the president had obviously rehearsed and that Crowley claimed she had a transcript available for.

As a matter of fact, the president's claim that he called Benghazi an 'act if terrorism' during his Rose Garden speech was in fact false (he made a brief, general allusion to 'acts of terrorism' the next day after the Rose Garden speech, at a fund raiser in Colorado)and Crowley herself admitted she'd made a mistake, conveniently after the debate was long over.

But it was enough to knock Romney off his stride for ten minutes or so and change the entire perception of the debate. Even worse, Romney didn't respond publicly and make an issue of it publicly, using the actual transcripts. And he downplayed Benghazi afterwards, with the media happy to go along with him.

CBS did something even more egregious, cutting out footage from an interview with the president the day after the Benghazi attack where the president refused to call it a terrorist attack, and then holding that footage until the day of the election.

Had I been Governor Romney, I would have realized that the fix was going to be in after Obama's failure and cancelled the second and third debates, saying simply that I saw no further purpose to them. And I would have been hammering Benghazi from day one.Lesson to be learned? Control the media and the agenda, not the other way around.

The second big thing Governor Romney had no control over was Hurricane Sandy. Fully 42% of the voter said that Barack Obama's little photo op affected their vote because he suddenly looked 'presidential' again. especially after that oaf Chris Christie essentially endorsed him.

But just imagine if Governor Romney, instead of waiting for Chris Christie's invitation had simply gone to the hurricane victims with relief supplies for his own photo op and his own camera men. Were they going to turn him down? True, Christie wouldn't have been along for the ride, but given his attitude, I see that as a plus. Lesson? Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Third, Governor Romney was far too gentle when it came to exposing how President Obama, the so-called 'middle class warrior' was actually crushing the middle class with higher taxes and prices on energy, food and goods. Governor Romney never adequately articulated that for President Obama to pay for his socialist nirvana, to fund ObamaCare, the student loan boondoggle, the green energy scams, the entire agenda, he was going to have to punitively tax not just 'the rich' but the middle class.

In fact, the governor's oppo research staff was either ridiculously inept or Governor Romney refused to take advantage of what they gave him to paint Obama in entirely different colors.

Instead of shying away from the president's chest thumping about 'saving the auto industry', Romney should have nailed him on the $80 billion it cost to gift GM to the president union political allies that the taxpayer will never see again.

Instead of allowing the president to get away with lying about how he 'funded' Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, he should have revealed that the president actually wanted to cut it to the bone, and that it was congress that revolted and insisted on funding it.

He could have asked the president why he fought so hard to deny medical care to infants that survive an abortion.He could have even made a campaign ad out of it, featuring the president's own voice.

And those are just a few of many,many examples. Lesson learned? There's a fine line between appearing presidential and allowing your opponent to get away with murder. Find their weaknesses and don't shy away from exploiting them.

Fourth, the governor dropped the ball totally on a large group of Latino voters. Governor Romney got most of the Cuban vote and some of the Caribbean Latino vote, but he failed when it came to most Mexicans and central Americans. And it was totally unnecessary.

Here's a clue.Some of these people are grifters, a few are leftist ideologues, but the vast majority are hardworking, socially conservative religious people who came here for the same reason most other immigrants did - economic opportunity and the chance to raise their children in a free society with upward mobility.And very pro-military and national defense, by the way. We have lots of Hispanic veterans and more Hispanic Medal of Honor winners than any other group.

In other words, a natural conservative constituency. In fact, after a generation or so, a lot of them start drifting that direction anyway.

If I were Mitt Romney, instead of talking about people 'self-deporting' I'd have been on Telemundo and Univision talkng about the issues that matter to them. Explaining why ObamaCare was going to lead to rationing and less availability. Touting school choice and vouchers, a hot button issue for Latinos with children now stuck in the dysfunctional public schools. Talking about the good paying blue collar jobs and lower gas prices that would result from my energy program.Explaining how Obama's HHS mandate attacks their religious freedom, and revealing the president's position on infanticide for newborns who survive abortions. I'd speak to them about how lower taxes equal prosperity and economic freedom an dhow Obama's policies limit it.

And I would have made a promise most of them already know Barack Obama failed to keep. I would have promised to work with congress on a bill to address immigration reform as a priority during my first term.

Most of the Latinos concerned about the issue of migration come at it from the standpoint of family members and friends from the old country who are here illegally or want to be here. I'd refuse to commit to details so as not to make promises I couldn't keep, but I'd mention things like guarantors to allow pending but legal status, increased opportunities to earn citizenship in the military or other forms of national service, use of E-verify, even a realistic and fair points system to allow clear guidelines.

And I'd be doing rallies in their neighborhoods, with Latino Republicnas.

Had Romney done that, sincerely and humanely, I have no doubt he would have taken a chunk of the Hispanic vote. According to the exit polls, they were ten percent of the electorate.

Lesson learned? Don't be afraid to talk to anyone honestly about the issues that concern them. Find the areas you agree on and build on that consensus. Because you might have more in common with them than you think.

Mitt Romney would have been a superb president for this country. His defeat was unfortunate, to say the least, but as education it's priceless.

A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

The election is over, and President Barack Hussein Obama has won re-election.

There are some political, strategic reasons why I and so many others got this so wrong, but rather than go into details and analyze them here, I'd prefer to deal with the big picture issues. They're far more important.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan represented the old, traditional culture of America, that built the country and preserved our Republic these 236 years. They represented an opportunity to retrace our steps and return to the traditions of that democratic republic.

They were, essentially, decent and patriotic men who were rejected by just over half of the electorate in favor of someone with a demonstrated record of failure who concentrated on exacerbating the divisions in the country in order to retain power. The ironic joke is that Barack Obama has managed indeed to retain that power, but in a manner that so alienated half the country that he will be unable to govern effectively by mandate, or indeed in any other way.

What that really means will be a lot clearer, even to those celebrating the president's re-election tonight in about two years or so. The proof of that is that according to all the exit polls, the number one concern of the vast majority of voters was the economy, most of them said it was getting worse, not better and fully seventy-seven percent of voters called the economy not so good or poor.

Yet half of them voted against an experienced business man with a history of success in meeting difficult challenges and turning around failing enterprises in favor of someone whose only offer was more of the same.Essentially, half of America voted for the status quo.

That course is unsustainable, and raising taxes on 'the rich' this president successfully demonized to enough of the country to win tonight will simply grease the skids.

That's fairly similar to what happened to George W. Bush in 2004. People were afraid to change horses in midstream, especially for someone as eminently unlikeable as John Kerry. So they gave the incumbent a chance to follow through on his policies and perform. Remember 'I have political capital and I intend to spend it'?

The only difference is that President Bush had an actual mandate, and control of congress for two years of his second term. President Obama doesn't even have that much,(a few thousand votes in some of the strategic battleground states would have changed things entirely) and he's conducted himself in such a way that his fall from grace will be even more precipitous than President Bush's was.

The economy is not going to get better.

President Obama and the people around him still have the exact same attitude towards oil, coal and gas and skyrocketing energy prices are going to become the new normal.That will add up not only to higher prices at the pump but increased prices for food and goods.

In two years, about the time of the next midterms, we will almost certainly be facing stagflation and the harsh reality of the fiscal debacle this president created will be readily apparent even to many of the True Believers. As ObamaCare kicks in, Americans will be stunned at the taxes they incur and the bureaucracy they're going have to cope with. People used to being able to get care on demand are going to be shocked at how long they need to wait for a procedure, and they'll have to cope with a major shortage of doctors as fewer and fewer physicians will either go elsewhere or simply do something else because they won't be able to accept what ObamaCare offers them for their services without going bankrupt. Seniors will discover to their horror that everything they were told about rationed care is absolutely true.

The disillusionment will be fierce.

And on top of all that, the major scandals that began during the first Obama Administration will almost certainly burst into flame midway into the second. Benghazi, the Green energy scandals and Fast and Furious aren't going to go away, Darrel Issa is still going to be chairman of the oversight committee with subpoena power and the GOP dominated House is not going to be in a conciliatory mood.

The House may even put their collective foot down and refuse to raise the debt ceiling without quid pro quo cuts in spending the president will be unwilling to give them, and will almost certainly fight the president's continued hollowing out of our military tooth and nail. And in spite of tonight's disappointing showing, there are still enough Republicans in the Senate to filibuster., even if they need to be leaned on to do so.So we may even see gridlock similar to what's occurring today.

These things will all come to a head midway through this president's second term and it won't be pretty. Remember you heard it here first.

For now, what's apparent that whether they realize it or not, half of America apparently voted to emulate European socialism when the evidence of how well that's working is right before their eyes. They will experience exactly what they voted for now now to to the point where it sickens them, and they will either pull the reins and change or change will come to them as a natural consequence, because that's how it works. Ask the Greeks or the Spaniards.

It will be a harsher lesson than it needed to be, but perhaps a better one because of it.

For the rest of us, the ones on the other side of the divide, the question we must ask ourselves is different. We need to ask ourselves, what did tonight teach us about our half of the country? About the other half? And how can we use that knowledge to our benefit? Focus. This is a chance for new strategies and a brand new start, and it is eminently doable because no matter what, Obama and the Democrats are going to own what happens in the next four years.

And by the way, opting out is not an option. There are no bolt holes, not really. Flee history and politics and they have a horrible way of catching up with you in spite of your best efforts. Choices you refuse to make get made for you.

Unfortunately, in the meantime this is going to be a hard rain indeed that falls.How hard depends on us and how we embrace what could actually be a gift of fortune, depending on what we make of it.

Societies either embrace real change or they decay and decline. Decay and decline is a possibility, but in our case, rather than simply declining, we are a lot more likely to do what the Romans did in a similar situation. They decided this democracy stuff was too much trouble and dangerous to their physical security and survival. So they abandoned their republic and their traditional liberties altogether to become empire.

We have a chance to embrace real change, freed of a great deal of baggage if that is how we decide to make use of it.

A hard rain doesn't just storm and thunder. It washes away the old detritus. It cleanses.


-Selah-

A Message To The Tribe, From David Mamet...And Me

An excellent piece, by noted Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony- and Oscar-nominated playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film directo David Mamet. Surprisingly, this was printed in the very Left tilted Los Angeles Jewish Journal.

I'm reproducing it here in its entirety because its an excellent read that's very uncharacteristic of the paper (I still can't believe it got in), because they give links to a number of 'answer' screeds about the piece that defy description and because I don't feel like giving them traffic. Emphasis mine:

To those Jews planning to vote for Obama:

Are you prepared to explain to your children not the principles upon which your vote is cast, but its probable effects upon them?

Irrespective of your endorsement of liberal sentiments, of fairness and “more equal distribution,” will you explain to your children that top-down economic policies will increasingly limit their ability to find challenging and well-paid work, and that the diminution in employment and income will decrease their opportunity to marry and raise children?

Will you explain (as you have observed) that a large part of their incomes will be used to fund programs that they may find immoral, wasteful and/or indeed absurd? And that the bulk of their taxes go to no programs at all, but merely service the debt you entailed on them?

Will you tell your children that a liberal government will increasingly marginalize, dismiss and weaken the support for and the safety of the Jewish state?

Will you tell them that, in a state-run economy, hard work may still be applauded, but that it will no longer be rewarded?

Will you explain that whatever their personal beliefs, tax-funded institutions will require them to imbibe and repeat the slogans of the left, and that, should they differ, they cannot have a career in education, medicine or television unless they keep their mouths shut?

Will you explain to them that it is impossible to make a budget, and that the basic arithmetic we all use at the kitchen table is not practiced at the federal and state level, and to suggest that it should be is “selfishness?”

Most importantly, will you teach them never to question the pronouncements of those in power, for to do so is to risk ostracism?

Are you prepared to sit your children down and talk them through your vote on the future you are choosing for them?

Please remember that we have the secret ballot and, should you, on reflection, vote in secret for a candidate you would not endorse in public, you will not be alone.

Inwardly, in their heart of hearts, many Jews who would never dare voice it publicly understand that Barack Obama is no friend of Israel or Jews...he has far too many intimate associations with rabid Israel bashers and anti-semites, and his actions speak a lot louder than his words.

There is a deep seated core of Israel hatred alive and well in the Democrat party. All that's necessary to see that is to take a good look at the differences between the 2008 Democrat platform and the original 2012 one. written with the full knowledge and collaboration of this president and his campaign. That was something even a pro-Israel democrat like Chuck Schumer couldn't quite swallow.

And remember what happened at the Democrat convention when President Obama saw that the platform didn't poll well and belatedly tried to defuse the issue by ramming through some changes?


Nor is this hypocrisy limited to Barack Obama when he's not running for election.



I know there are Jews who for their own reasons simply can't vote for a Republican no matter how philosemitic or pro-Israel that candidate is.

My own parents, rabid FDR Democrats, faced that dilemma in 1972 and 1980. They weren't going to vote for Nixon or Reagan, but as passionate lovers of Israel they weren't going to vote for McGovern and especially not for Jimmy Carter.

So they simply voted for the down ticket candidates and didn't cast a vote for president that year.

If you simply can't vote for Mitt Romney no matter what, fine. Just don't vote to put someone like Barack Obama back in the White House.

You owe Israel and the Jewish people that much. And after you come out of the voting booth, you can always tell your friends anything you like.

A Must Read From Hugh Hewitt

Here's a slice of Hugh Hewitt's latest:


That's a shot from "Mittstock" in PA yesterday.  Not many of the pundits predicted a campaign close in Ben Franklin land.

My Washington Examiner column reviews the two stories that Manhattan-Beltway media elites are not eager to cover:  Mitt Romney's momentum and the continuing misery brought about by Sandy.
When the revenge, er, voting gets underway tonight in Dixville Notch it will be time for the MSM to drop any shyness about its boosterism and try to begin to push voters in a particular direction by calling states early for the president or late for Mitt Romney.  If Romney wins Florida and Virginia handily, for example, do you expect any of the nets to rush the call forward?  If Romney is leading significantly in Pennsylvania, will the "decision desk" folk hang back, and back, and back.
By contrast, if there is any way to get PA up on the president's board, don't expect the distant memory of Florida to hold back the embedded Obamaians.

Once the voting is over and we have a new president, then the full fledged media coveage of Sandy will begin again, just in time to see the new storm layer on the misery.  It will be more difficult to rally the country given the near "all clear" signal that has gone out in the four days.  The $23 million pulled in from the concert may have to do.  The sort of stories that ought to have dominated CNN for days will turn up with increasing frequency, but the message has gone out from the Obama-obliging anchors that "things are slowly getting back to normal," and it is very difficult to get the American attention engaged again once it has turned away.

It has been a very odd 72 hours of campaign coverage, with a faltering, sputtering Obama campaign defended by media forces led by the brave Nate Silver, almost single handedly turning back doom and gloom, and hurling fresh rounds of deadlocked polling at every attempt by the Romney forces to smile at each other.  As this media battle waxed and waned, prodicers would throw on a quick Sandy package, but nothing so dispiriting as to suggest the president shouldn't be campaigning.  Bizarre.  Another chapter in the collapse of American media.

As for the collapse of the Obama re-elect campaign, the crowds got very, very small, and Joe Biden got even more erratic.  Mitt Romney finished 1 in the Rasmussen tracking, with the president at 48%, the best sign of a very weak incumbent, and the Times ran a profile of a confident Romney, a hedge against their hopes and dreams fading Tuesday night. Don't let your lefty friends look at the internals from the CNN poll or they may not talk for the rest of the day.  (Hint: The independents are rushing to Romney.)

There isn't much to do but speculate, and I will do so with the usual suspects for an extra two hours today, joined in studio by Townhall's Guy P. Benson and Lileks as well as HotAir's Ed Morrissey as we warm up the band for tomorrow night's go-until-its-over marathon.
 
It all feels very, very good to me, like 1980 did, but it was much easier to stay optimistic in 1980 because the disinformation flow was so much more muted. The advantage of 2012 is that no MSM sneak attack like an early and wrong call of Florida will have anything like the same impact.

The rest up at the link.

Final Election Predictions, Featuring Weekend Monkey

Well this is where the pedal hits the metal as they say.It's time for me to make my final election predictions, along with the able assistance of Joshua Pundit's political guru, ace handicapper and former Democrat presidential candidate Weekend Monkey.

RM: Hello Monkey, and thanks for joining us.

WM: Your pleasure, I'm sure Rob. Howdy Doody, primates!

RM: @##!#. Always the inflated ego...

WM: Hee hee hee! Lemme tell ya, I'm feeling good about tomorrow!

RM: Let me guess. I know you've been campaigning for Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts...I take it you favor her chances tomorrow.

WM: Oh, you betcha Rob. And that translates into a lot of shekels for yours truly in election action, plus a high level staff position in DC when she gets in.

RM: I should have known. Anyway,  you want to do the Senate first or the presidential race?

WM: Let's start at the top and work down.

RM: OK, fire away.

WM: It's really too close to call, but I see it leaning towards President Obama narrowly winning a second term..probably after some controversy among the primates:








It's really pretty simple. I see Romney the Robot narrowly getting frozen out of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And I mean narrowly. If even one state changes, it could go the other way. Let's call it 5-3 Obama.

Ohio is gonna be the poop storm, with a lotta weirdness in Cuyoga and Mahoning Counties that could leave us hanging on the branch for a long time, but in the end it's gonna come down to Ohio. If that goes Obama's way, he wins.Otherwise, Romney the Robot gets in.

RM: So you don't see Romney taking either Pennsylvania or Wisconsin?

WM: Y'know, anything's possible, But if I gotta make a call, I say Obama takes it overall. Especially Ohio, because a lot of the primates have jobs still, unemployment's relatively low, you got the unions and the Cleavland Machine. And they're all organized because of Governor Kasich trying to pull a Scott Walker on the public employee unions and getting his pee pee slapped.

RM: Speaking of governors, what did you think  of Chris Christie cozying up to Obama and dissing Romney, essentially telling him he wasn't welcome in Jersey to tour the storm areas?

WM: Ah hee hee hee! I got a real laugh outta that! Look, it's simple. Lardass is ticked off because he didn't run, he's looking at 2016 and the only way that opens up for him is if Romney the Robot loses. Simple as that.

RM: Makes sense. I never liked him anyway. The House?

WM: I say it stays ReThug, with maybe 3-5 seats changing hands.

RM: The Senate?

WM: Hee hee!  Worst case,  my Democrats will probably lose Virginia, North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana.  They'll make pickups in Massachusetts and Maine, where the indy guy King will caucus with us Donkeys.Maybe another pickup in Indiana, depending on turnout.And we'll keep Florida.Probably Missouri too.

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  are wild cards. If they go Democrat like I think they will,  we get those too. They might end up splitting, one apiece.

The ReThugs make pickups in Virginia, North Dakota, Montana and Nebraska. They'll keep Arizona and Nevada, maybe Indiana.They lose Massachusetts and Maine. They might get either Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, depending.

Bottom line? Including two indies, my Democrats end up with 49 seats maybe 50-51 if we get Indiana and either Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. The ReThugs end up with 49, 48 if they lose Indiana.To get control of the senate, they'd have to hang on to Indiana somehow and get both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, or maybe Missouri which I don't see happening at all.

RM: You predicted a divided Senate before.

WM: Yup. It could shake out that way. OK, whaddya got?

RM: I see Romney winning.

WM: Cheez, what a surprise!

RM: Hey now...

WM: Alright, alright.

RM: Here's how I see it, but just like with your map, mine is subject to some changes..it really is a  pretty close race to predict.




With the economy the way it is, and the other issues of Obama's presidency, I see Romney taking Virginia, Florida, Colorado and North Carolina pretty decisively. I also think he's going to take two  of the Big Four in the Midwest, most likely Ohio and Wisconsin, although the last polls I saw that meant anything show Pennsylvania and Michigan tied up. I think there's a very good chance that Ohio and Pennsylvania might switch columns, with Romney taking the Keystone State and Obama getting Ohio by a narrow margin because of the factors you mentioned.Especially with Obama's EPA already salivating publicly at crippling coal for good.

WM: You see Romney taking Iowa and New Hampshire?

RM: Yeah, but with this scenario if he loses them both he still wins.

WM: Yeah, I can see that.You better hope he takes Colorado then,,,,

RM: I think he will. For what it's worth I agree with you  Monkey, it's going to come down to the Big Four in the Midwest.Obama has to take both Pennsylvania and Ohio to win.

WM: You see the Elephants keeping the House?

RM: Of course, Monkey. With a  maximum loss of 3-5 seats. Which means that even if you're right and Obama does get re-elected, Darrel Issa still has subpoena powers and Obama might wish he lost tomorrow in a couple of years.

WM: Ouchie! You got a point there!

RM: Here's how I see the Senate. OK, the Dems  lose Virginia, North Dakota, Montana and Nebraska. I personally think there's an excellent chance of one or two more GOP  pickups in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Maybe Florida if Romney wins decisively enough. I think Tammy Baldwin's lunatic fringe lefty ideas don't play well in the Badger State anywhere outside Madison and Dane County, and there's also the Catholic vote to consider in both PA and Wisconsin. And with Paul Ryan on the ticket, Scott Walker surviving the recall and  Wisconsin  being RNC head Preibus' home state, I think it's looking pretty good for Romney and for Tommy Thompson.The GOP hangs on to Arizona and Nevada.

The Republicans probably lose Massachusetts and definitely lose Maine. And probably one of either Missouri or Indiana, although I think Mourdock has a shot at surviving in Indiana. So that puts us at between 49 and 52 seats for the GOP, depending on what happens in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri and Indiana.

I pretty much see the  Democrats' scenario the same way you do, including the two indies. I'd like to think the people of Massachusetts  have more brains than to put someone like Elizabeth Warren in the Senate -

WM: HEY!

RM: Nothing personal Monkey.

WM: Besides, it is Massachusetts....

RM: You got that right. Anyway, I also see a split senate as a real possibility. So there it is...

WM: I gotta tell you something Rob...you know that video of that little primate crying and saying she was tired of Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney? I feel the same way. I wanna get this thing over with.

RM: Me too Monkey. I think a lot of people feel that way. Two years for a political campaign is just to damned long, and I'll be relieved when it's over and done with. You ever think of running for something again?

WM: You know me Rob. I'm a political animal and I see my opportunities and take 'em. Hee hee!

RM: Spoken like a Democrat, Monkey. Thanks for swinging by.

WM: See ya later Rob. Smell Ya later, Primates.



Weekend Monkey was a Democratic candidate for president in 2008 and is JoshuaPundit's political Guru. He can be reached at wendmonkey@yahoo.com

Election Predictions Roundup

A number of interesting points of view here, worthy of a round up.

Let's start with Jay Cost, who predicts a Romney win:

When I started making election predictions eight years ago, I had a very different perspective than I do today. I knew relatively little about the history of presidential elections or the geography of American politics. I had a good background in political science and statistics. So, unsurprisingly in retrospect, I focused on drawing confidence intervals from poll averages.

Since then, I have learned substantially more history, soured somewhat on political science as an academic discipline, and have become much more skeptical of public opinion polls. Both political science and the political polls too often imply a scientific precision that I no longer think actually exists in American politics. I have slowly learned that politics is a lot more art than science than I once believed.

Accordingly, what follows is a prediction based on my interpretation of the lay of the land. I know others see it differently--and they could very well be right, and I could be wrong.

I think Mitt Romney is likely to win next Tuesday.

For two reasons:

(1) Romney leads among voters on trust to get the economy going again.

(2) Romney leads among independents.

Cost sees the economy as the issue this year, and with the expected Dem turnout and Romney's edge among independents ad being decisive. Full disclosure...I've known Jay since his old Horserace Blog days and his track record is a pretty good one.

Michael Barone, probably the dean of American political writers sees the key to the election in Romney's rise in support in affluent suburbs:

..polling shows Romney ahead in Colorado, which Obama carried by 9 points last time, and the race closing in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, which Obama carried by 14, 10 and 16 points, respectively.

That tends to validate my alternative scenario that Mitt Romney would fare much better in affluent suburbs than Republican nominees since 1992, running more like George Bush did in 1988. The only way Pennsylvania and Michigan can be close is if Obama's support in affluent Philadelphia and Detroit suburbs has melted away.

This also helps explain why Romney still narrowly trails in Ohio polls. Affluent suburban counties cast about one-quarter of the votes in Pennsylvania and Michigan but only one-eighth in Ohio.

A pro-Romney affluent swing is confirmed by the internals of some national polls. The 2008 exit poll showed Obama narrowly carrying voters with incomes over $75,000. Post-debate Pew Research and Battleground polls have shown affluent suburbanite Romney carrying them by statistically significant margins.

In particular, college-educated women seem to have swung toward Romney since Oct. 3. He surely had them in mind in the foreign policy debate when he kept emphasizing his hopes for peace and pledged no more wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.

My other alternative scenario was based on the 1980 election, when vast numbers of voters switched from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan after their single debate one week before the election. In that debate, the challenger showed he had presidential stature and the incumbent president seemed petulant and small-minded.

We saw an even more vivid contrast between challenger and incumbent in the Oct. 3 debate. In the next two debates, Obama was definitely more focused and aggressive. But Romney held his own, and post-Oct. 16 polling showed him improving his standing even though many debate watchers thought Obama won on points.

What we may be seeing, as we drink from the firehose of multiple poll results pouring in, is a slow-motion 1980.

Karl Rove, whatever one my think of him understands retail politics. He makes his 51-48, at least 279 electoral votes prediction for a Romney win, and his analysis of Ohio is particularly interesting:

Adrian Gray, who oversaw the Bush 2004 voter-contact operation and is now a policy analyst for a New York investment firm, makes the point that as of Tuesday, 530,813 Ohio Democrats had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot. That's down 181,275 from four years ago. But 448,357 Ohio Republicans had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot, up 75,858 from the last presidential election.

That 257,133-vote swing almost wipes out Mr. Obama's 2008 Ohio victory margin of 262,224. Since most observers expect Republicans to win Election Day turnout, these early vote numbers point toward a Romney victory in Ohio. They are also evidence that Scott Jennings, my former White House colleague and now Romney Ohio campaign director, was accurate when he told me that the Buckeye GOP effort is larger than the massive Bush 2004 get-out-the-vote operation.

Democrats explain away those numbers by saying that they are turning out new young Ohio voters. But I asked Kelly Nallen, the American Crossroads data maven, about this. She points out that there are 12,612 GOP "millennials" (voters aged 18-29) who've voted early compared with 9,501 Democratic millennials.

Are Democrats bringing out episodic voters who might not otherwise turn out? Not according to Ms. Nallen. She says that about 90% of each party's early voters so far had also voted in three of the past four Ohio elections. Democrats also suggest they are bringing Obama-leaning independents to polls. But since Mr. Romney has led among independents in nine of the 13 Ohio polls conducted since the first debate, the likelihood is that the GOP is doing as good a job in turning out their independent supporters as Democrats are in turning out theirs.

He also deconstructs a recent poll:

Desperate Democrats are now hanging their hopes on a new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll showing the president with a five-point Ohio lead. But that survey gives Democrats a +8 advantage in turnout, the same advantage Democrats had in 2008. That assumption is, to put it gently, absurd.

CNN shows the president up by 3% in Ohio, inside the margin of error, but again the turnout assumption relies on 2008 and the mechanics reveal a +6 oversampling of Democrats.


Rasmussen sees Ohio dead even.In fact, he sees the entire election as too close to call.

I also note that President Obama drew a measly 2,800 crowd in his last Ohio appearance..while Mitt Romney's draw in his was around 25,000.

Jim Geraghty notes that the president is spending his last campaign weekend in Wisconsin, while Mitt Romney is campaigning in Pennsylvania, which tells you the candidate's internal polls are telling them something. Or as Geraghty puts it:

Obama is in big trouble in Wisconsin. He is spending his last weekend in a state that last went Republican in the 1984 Reagan landslide.

Team Romney is going hard after Pennsylvania because both internal and public polling show significant movement toward Romney in recent days. Yesterday, Rep. Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio drew large and enthusiastic crowds in Pennsylvania. On Sunday, Romney will hold a campaign rally in the Philadelphia suburbs. Who would have thought that Obama would spend the last days of the campaign defending a solidly blue state, while Romney makes a play for another one?

We'll see whose right in just a few days.

A Romney Landslide?

Dick Morris has a column out today predicting a landslide victory for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with well over 300 electoral votes.

Is he right?

Predictably, the angry left is all over this. Apparently President Clinton getting kinky with a 19-year-old intern was OK, while Dick Morris' escapades with a professional..not so much. But they seem to have forgotten that Dick Morris used to make his living as President Clinton's personal pollster. He does know politics.

So how accurate is he?

Reasonable voters saw that the voice of hope and optimism and positivism was Romney while the president was only a nitpicking, quarrelsome, negative figure. The contrast does not work in Obama’s favor.

His erosion began shortly after the conventions when Indiana (10 votes) and North Carolina (15) moved to Romney (in addition to the 179 votes that states that McCain carried cast this year).

Then, in October, Obama lost the Southern swing states of Florida (29) and Virginia (13). He also lost Colorado (10)*, bringing his total to 255 votes.

And now, he faces the erosion of the northern swing states: Ohio (18), New Hampshire (4) and Iowa (6). Only in the union-anchored state of Nevada (9) does Obama still cling to a lead.

In the next few days, the battle will move to Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (15), Wisconsin (10) and Minnesota (16). Ahead in Pennsylvania, tied in Michigan and Wisconsin, and slightly behind in Minnesota, these new swing states look to be the battleground.

Or will the Romney momentum grow and wash into formerly safe Democratic territory in New Jersey and Oregon?

Once everyone discovers that the emperor has no clothes (or that Obama has no argument after the negative ads stopped working), the vote shift could be of historic proportions.

*(Yes, I know, Colorado only has 9 electoral votes. Complain to Morris)

As I've written before, I think Mitt Romney has probably won North Carolina and Florida pretty handily, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him take Virginia, especially after Obama dissed the Navy and shipbuilding in the last debate. That would bring him up to 248 electoral votes, 257 if you include Colorado, another state where Romney is running ahead.

All Romeny would need to win if he takes Virginia and Colorado is one of the following: Ohio (18 electoral votes), Pennsylvania, (20 electoral votes) or Michigan (16 electoral votes), all of which are in play at the moment.Or he'd have to take Wisconsin( 10 electoral votes) and one of the following: New Hampshire (4 EVs), Iowa, or Nevada (6 electoral votes each).

On the other hand, if it goes down this way the only one of the big four President Obama could afford to lose and still win would be Wisconsin.

And if Romney does take Wisconsin and either Iowa or New Hampshire, both states where he's also ahead in the polls, it's over.

I personally see that as a more likely scenario, with Romney perhaps topping 300 if he happens to win either Ohio, Pennsylvania or Michigan.

I went into a few details in the earlier linked article on why each of these states are either problematical or likely pickups by Romney. As always, turnout is going to be the key.

I see a decent victory for Mitt Romney, not a landslide. And I'll narrow things down for you with a final prediction before the election.

Hang On, Abigail, The Election's Almost Over

I think Abigail speaks for a lot of us. We want this thing over and done with. Actually, NPR actually apologized after someone (mom, probably) let them know that one of their reports made the little girl cry.

Don't worry sweetie. G-d willing, not just the election but 'bronco bamma' will be over soon too and NPR will have to start paying its own way instead of adding to the $180,000 worth of debt you were saddled with that you had nothing to say about.

Gallup: Romney Leads In Early Voters 52-45

Remember all the Obama Media tooting about how the president was leading among early voters?

Ummm, no.

Gallup says that around 15% of all likely voters have already cast their ballots, and out of those voters, guess what? Mitt Romney is leading 52% to 45%, a full 7 points.

Or to quote Gallup, 'that is comparable to Romney's 51% to 46% lead among all likely voters in Gallup's Oct. 22-28 tracking polling.'

That is a 22 point drop from where President Obama stood at this point in the election back in 2008.

It's also worth recalling that Gallup's 2008 survey of early voters interviewed only 1,010 registered voters. Yesterday's early voter poll interviewed a huge survey of over 3,300, which makes the 2012 poll a lot more accurate.

Reactions To Sandy Point Out A Key Difference Between Romney And Obama

 

Hurricane Sandy points out yet another key difference between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney.

With the huge storm coming in, both candidates have suspended campaign events for the next few days.But that's where the similarity ends.

Unlike his reaction to the Benghazi debacle, President Obama has said he's canceled campaign appearances and is going to 'monitor the situation'.

Mitt Romney? He's not 'monitoring' anything. He's filled his campaign bus up with emergency supplies and having them delivered to storm relief centers for those in the path of the hurricane.And knowing his past performance in these kinds of circumstances, I'm sure it's more than one bus.

Barack Obama 'monitors' things, waits and calculates what's to his political advantage before doing anything. He's a talker, always concerned with saying what's right..for his political agenda.

Mitt Romney sees what's needed and makes it happen. He's a doer, more concerned with doing what's right.

A small thing, but it reveals a lot.

I know which  kind of neighbor I'd rather have living next door to me if I needed help. And what kind of man I'd rather have in the White House.

What To Expect In Tonight's Debate

First of all, expect Bob Schieffer to 'moderate' even more in Obama's direction than Candy Crowley did.The above clip should give you a pretty good idea what we're dealing with, and Michelle Malkin has a few more example of how biased and partisan this shill is.

Mitt Romney will end up with all the tough followups and will be interrupted frequently whenever he starts to make traction. Expect President Obama to end up with significantly more speaking time.

However, Romney may very well make a couple of good hits on Obama's foreign policy record. There's certainly plenty of targets.

Bob Schieffer will try to lure Romney into a soundbite that the Obama media can magnify into a gaffe or talking point. Do not be surprised if the president is fairly smooth tonight, as the questions will likely have been leaked to the White House in advance to allow him to rehearse some answers. Expect a lot of variations on 'I got bin-Laden'.

With all that, barring a major gaffe by either candidate, I'd be surprised if this particular debate had much impact. Barack Obama needs a knockout, to mak e Mitt Romney appear unpresidential and I doubt he's going to get it.

Americans are primarily concerned about the economy, the president's abysmal mismanagement of it is pretty well known, and in the end that's what the election will come down to..that, and turnout.

Obama Campaign Busted For Accepting Foreign Donation$

The New York Post has the story:

The Obama re-election campaign has accepted at least one foreign donation in violation of the law — and does nothing to check on the provenance of millions of dollars in other contributions, a watchdog group alleges.

Chris Walker, a British citizen who lives outside London, told The Post he was able to make two $5 donations to President Obama’s campaign this month through its Web site while a similar attempt to give Mitt Romney cash was rejected. It is illegal to knowingly solicit or accept money from foreign citizens.

Walker said he used his actual street address in England but entered Arkansas as his state with the Schenectady, NY, ZIP code of 12345.

“When I did Romney’s, the payment got rejected on the grounds that the address on the card did not match the address that I entered,” he said. “Romney’s Web site wanted the code from the back of card. Barack Obama’s didn’t.”

By the way, taking contributions from non-U.S. citizens is against federal law.

The actual numbers are quite instructive. In September, the Obama campaign took in more than $2 million from donors who provided no ZIP code or incomplete ZIP codes, according to data posted on the Federal Election Commission Web site.

Romney's numbers? $2,450 from donors without ZIP codes and $2,500 from those with incomplete ZIP codes.

Walker also says he began receiving multiple e-mails asking him to donate an additional $188. That would have put him just under the $200 threshold above which FEC requires campaigns have to identify the donor.

Just for the record, I had exactly the same experience.

My $5 donation sent from 'Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza City, Gaza' went right through, was processed and was billed to my account.

I also receive e-mails asking me to donate another $190...again, just under the $200 reporting limit.These people know exactly what they're doing.

By the way Haniyeh is the leader of Hamas in Gaza, officially listed as a terrorist group by our State Department. No problem for President Obama!

The reason for the laxity regarding ZIP codes and 3 and 4 digit security codes (CVV) is a no brainer. A lot of foreign cards don't have them, so requiring them would limit foreign donations, if, let's say, you weren't too choosy about the law and wanted to accept them.

Not only that, but the address verification system used on VISA, MasterCard and American Express cards is the default position in the software involved. Someone would have to deliberately disable it in order for this type of fraud to go through.

The piece also reiterates the information about Obama.com, owned by a prominent Obama bundler named Robert Roche who lives in China, has extremely close connections with the Chinese government, and received a prominent seat at a state dinner in honor of the Chinese President.

Is the FEC going to do anything about this 1 days before a national election? Probably not. But one would hope they'd investigate this thoroughly and prosecute. The Obama Campaign did exactly the same thing in 2008 and got away with it, so apparently they figured it was just fine to pull it again.

Iran has agreed to Nuclear Talks..What, Again?

According to the New York Times, the U.S. and Iran "have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations."

Iranian officials have insisted that the talks wait until after the presidential election, a senior administration official said, telling their American counterparts that they want to know which American president they would be negotiating with.

News of the agreement — a result of intense, secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials that date almost to the beginning of President Obama’s term — comes at a critical moment in the presidential contest, just two weeks before Election Day and a day before the final debate, which is to focus on national security and foreign policy.

Just a coincidence this gets leaked right before the coming presidential debate that focuses on foreign policy no? Rest assured that President Obama will mention it as proof 'my policies on Iran are working.' Nicely timed,isn't it?

Interestingly enough, the AP has a story quoting National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor saying that there is no agreement for any talks.

And of course, the unnamed officials who leaked this conveniently said that they weren't sure Iran's Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Khamenei had signed off on any one on one talks. Which means that after the election, this 'scoop' can be dismissed by simply saying that the Ayatollah Khamenei was unwilling to proceed.

Let's sort through this mess.It's nice because it's meaningless no matter how you look at it.

Obviously, if Pravda-on-the-Hudson simply came up with something just to help a favored candidate ( and it would not be the first time they've done so) than it can be dismissed as what it is, a campaign contribution in kind. If the president mentions it, all Mitt Romney has to do is replay Vietor's own words back at him.Along with repeating that out of the 25 nations who import significant amounts of Iranian oil, 20 of them have received waivers on observing the sanctions courtesy of our State Department.

If someone in the Iranian regime actually made such an overture it's meaningless unless Khamenei signs off on it.

And even if Iran's Supreme Leader okayed the approach,let's look at Iran's history in these matters.

The west has been engaged in talks with Iran over its illegal nuclear program for seven or eight years now. In every case, it's simply been a ploy to get the nuclear football closer to the goal post. They have lied, cheated and obfuscated in every instance to buy time to continue to develop their nuclear weapons program.

It is also worth considering that to the Ayatollahs, no agreement Iran makes with non-believers is valid according to Islam.

The Muslim concepts of Kitman and Taqiyya, lying to non-believers to advance Islam are sanctioned in the Qur'an by Qur'an 1:10, 9:3 - "...Allah and His Messenger are free from liability to the idolaters ..." (remember, to most Muslims Christians are considered polytheists and idolators), 3:54, 66.2 and a host of others.

And of course, by this famous quote attributed to Mohammed in the Hadiths "war is deception."

I would love nothing better than for the Iranians to decide that nuclear weapons are no longer a priority and what they really want is better relations with the west, so that peace prevails. I'd also like for some unknown distant relation to pass on to their eternal reward and leave me a couple of million dollars. The two events have about an equal probability.

It's important to remember that the Iranians already signed one agreement with the west - the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty - and broke it with impunity. There's no real way to monitor compliance with any future agreements they make as long as the present regime is in power.

And in any case, Iran is a dying nation, demographically and economically. And obtaining nuclear weapons and using them to blackmail the neighboring GCC countries or as a military tool to take over the primarily Shi'ite regions of, say, Bahrain or the eastern, oil bearing provinces of Saudi Arabia is the only way the regime can survive.

They will not give up their nuclear weapons program voluntarily. And unlike this New York Times piece, that's a simple fact that isn't meaningless.

Romney Up On Gallup 52-45 - Outside Margin Of Error

Mitt Romney's momentum continues to accelerate.

The latest Gallup shows him up over president Obama 52-45% - outside the margin of error.Apparently I was right about likely voters not being fooled by the debate spin.

Two very different commentators note the significance of this. Karl Rove notes that no presidential candidate in history has ever lost if he was above 50% in mid-October, and FOX's resident lefty loon Bob Beckel said "if the numbers are accurate" -- that there's no way an incumbent can push a challenger back below 50%, once he's above it.

Mitt Romney is also ahead, for the first time, in the electoral count - and they haven't even given him Florida or Colorado yet, where's he's clearly ahead.

The Romney campaign also reportedly feels comfortable enough about North Carolina that they're decreasing staff and ad buys there to concentrate on Michigan and Pennsylvania.

It's Not Paranoia If..

(H/t Hugh Hewitt)

U Of CO Study That Correctly Predicted The Last 8 Elections Updates, Still Says Romney Will Win

You might recall a piece I wrote back in August about a University of Colorado study that has correctly predicted the winner of the last 8 elections. Unlike most such studies, the model used by political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver stresses economic data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, including both state and national unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors.

The track record on this study,published in the journal of the highly respected American Political Science Association is pretty impressive. They've gotten every election right since 1980, including two years when independent candidates ran in 1980 and 1992.

Back in August, Professors Bickers and Berry predicted a victory for Mitt Romney. They gave themselves wiggle room because the data they used then was taken five months in advance of the election, and they promised to to update it with more current economic data in September.

Well their update is out:

An update to an election forecasting model announced by two University of Colorado professors in August continues to project that Mitt Romney will win the 2012 presidential election.

According to their updated analysis, Romney is projected to receive 330 of the total 538 Electoral College votes. President Barack Obama is expected to receive 208 votes -- down five votes from their initial prediction -- and short of the 270 needed to win.

The new forecast by political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver is based on more recent economic data than their original Aug. 22 prediction. The model itself did not change.

“We continue to show that the economic conditions favor Romney even though many polls show the president in the lead,” Bickers said. “Other published models point to the same result, but they looked at the national popular vote, while we stress state-level economic data.”

While many election forecast models are based on the popular vote, the model developed by Bickers and Berry is based on the Electoral College and is the only one of its type to include more than one state-level measure of economic conditions. They included economic data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.{...}

The Bickers and Berry model includes both state and national unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors. The new analysis includes unemployment rates from August rather than May, and changes in per capita income from the end of June rather than March. It is the last update they will release before the election.

Of the 13 battleground states identified in the model, the only one to change in the update was New Mexico -- now seen as a narrow victory for Romney. The model foresees Romney carrying New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Obama is predicted to win Michigan and Nevada.

In Colorado, which Obama won in 2008, the model predicts that Romney will receive 53.3 percent of the vote to Obama’s 46.7 percent, with only the two major parties considered.

Like last time, the professors make a point of stating that that states very close to a 50-50 split may fall in what they term 'an unexpected direction.' But they still predict a solid Romney win.

My take? While I love the results shown, I think they're a bit optimistic.For instance, I see Mitt Romney winning either Ohio or Pennsylvania, but not both, and Barack Obama winning Minnesota. And I'm not sure about Wisconsin. That still gives Mitt Romney a win with 285 electoral votes even if Obama takes Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, New Mexico, and Wisconsin.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Obama losing a couple of those states, especially Nevada, where unemployment is out of control.

Personally, I see Romney winning the popular vote and getting something in the low 300's electorally,(I'll be making in depth predictions closer to the election) but this study, given its track record is definitely good news.

Round Two - Decision, Romney

Well , the second debate is history. If I were scoring this round as a prize fight, I'd call it 10-7 Romney, even though President Obama was a bit more animated this time.

While each side is going to claim victory, in fact this was a classic example of ObamaFail. To check Romney's momentum, the president needed to take out Mitt Romney, and he simply failed to do so, even with moderator Candy Crowley's active assistance and a number of questions that were very likely plants.

On the other hand, what Mitt Romney needed to do was build on his knockout performance last time out, score some decent shots on Obama and appear confident,poised and presidential. He succeeded.

Candy Crowley was slightly better than Marsha Raddatz, but only slightly, which is to say that her bias was readily apparent. That's apparently the new normal for 'moderators' now. She actually bailed the president out of two important issues he obviously didn't want to discuss much, Libya and Fast and Furious. She allowed the president to get away with not answering at least two questions directly without challenging him (why he didn't push immigration reform during his first two years when he had a Democrat majority in congress, and what he wanted voters to know about him that was different than how he'd been portrayed).

Even worse, she aided and abetted the president in an outright lie.

President Obama said that he appeared in the Rose Garden the day after the attack and called the killing a terror attack. When Romney argued that it was not true, moderator Candy Crowley stepped in pipe up than yes, the president did say that.

Except he didn't.

Within seconds, ABC Reporter Jake Tapper tweeted a link to the actual transcript of President Obama's remarks and nowhere did he refer to what happened in Benghazi in that fashion.

He referred to it as 'an outrageous attack' and 'senseless violence' along with the expected remarks about how ' the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others', a reference to the original nonsense about how this was all about some video, but nothing there about a terrorist attack.

To quote a pungent old Yiddish saying, 'Ein liegt an die andere schwören' or 'One lies and the other swears to it.'

Even Mike Allen from the left leaning Politico caught this one.

Candy Crowley herself admitted that Governor Romney was 'mostly right' - after the debate,

The good part, of course, is that this little bit of bias by Crowley is going to lead to a lot more discussion about Libya...not something I imagine the president wanted.

Crowley also did her best to allow the president to go overtime while cutting Romney off. The president ended up with over 4 minutes more speaking time than Mitt Romney, a difference of 9%.

President Obama's actual performance was more animated than last time (I doubt it could be less) but he was laboring, like an actor trying to remember a script he hadn't memorized. I expected a few new tricks after all that expensive debate prep in a five star resort at the taxpayer's expense. It didn't happen.

President Obama stuck to the same tired talking points - class warfare, blame Bush. eat 'the rich'. In short, hey, better the devil you know this scary Mormon Republican guy! He also finally threw the 47% line in at the end of his closing statement, when Romney was unable to respond.

Among his more spectacular gaffes was insisting that gas prices were so much lower when he took office as opposed to today because we were in a recession back then! What does he call today, good times?

Another was this gem, in response to one of the questions that was likely planted, one on gun control: "Weapons designed for soldiers in war do not belong on our streets."

Obviously, they belong on Mexico's streets according to this president, but when Romney segued nicely into a mention of Fast and Furious, Crowley cut him off.

Romney kept punching at Obama's failed record on the economy, and the president frankly didn't have much of a defense besides the class warfare drum and a few obvious falsehoods. Particularly poignant was Romney's response to a young college student who was worried about whether he was actually going to have a job when he graduated. The president responded with the usual platitudes. Romney explained to him how growing the economy was going to result in a better future for everyone and ended by asking him when he was going to graduate. When the young man responded 2014, Mitt Romney looked at him, smiled and said 'when I'm president, you come see me and I'll see you have a job.'

And you know what? I bet he would.And even more, I think the young student, who maintained eye contact with Romney for an instant believes it too.

Romney also scored heavily on energy, on the Keystone pipeline, on trade, and on his understanding of how to build an economy and how government can facilitate job growth. And his close was particularly good:

In the nature of a campaign, it seems that some campaigns are focused on attacking a person rather than prescribing their own future and the things they’d like to do. In the course of that, I think the president’s campaign has tried to characterize me as — as someone who’s very different than who I am.

I care about 100 percent of the American people. I want 100 percent of the American people to have a bright and prosperous future. I care about our kids. I understand what it takes to make a bright and prosperous future for America again. I spent my life in the private sector, not in government. I’m a guy who wants to help with the experience I have, the American people.

My — my passion probably flows from the fact that I believe in God. And I believe we’re all children of the same God. I believe we have a responsibility to care for one another. I — I served as a missionary for my church. I served as a pastor in my congregation for about 10 years. I’ve sat across the table from people who were out of work and worked with them to try and find new work or to help them through tough times.

I went to the Olympics when they were in trouble to try and get them on track. And as governor of my state, I was able to get 100 percent of my people insured, all my kids, about 98 percent of the adults. I was able also to get our schools ranked number one in the nation, so 100 percent of our kids would have a bright opportunity for a future.

I understand that I can get this country on track again. We don’t have to settle for what we’re going through. We don’t have to settle for gasoline at four bucks. We don’t have to settle for unemployment at a chronically high level. We don’t have to settle for 47 million people on food stamps. We don’t have to settle for 50 percent of kids coming out of college not able to get work. We don’t have to settle for 23 million people struggling to find a good job.

If I become president, I’ll get America working again. I will get us on track to a balanced budget. The president hasn’t. I will. I’ll make sure we can reform Medicare and Social Security to preserve them for coming generations. The president said he would. He didn’t.


President Obama's essential problem was that he tried, and he had help, but he didn't really lay a glove on Mitt Romney tonight. The left will love it that he was more aggressive, petulant and animated, and they'll write it up as a draw or even an Obama win.

It will be to those who are convinced and motivated Obama voters. But to the undecideds, independents and people with soft support for this president, it was anything but that.