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Another Dull Debate or Blue Touch Paper, Lit?

The McCain team is feverishly attempting CPR on the lifeless thing that is their campaign. Will the third and last debate provide the super-defibrillator they need?

The possibilities for excitement on stage today all hinge on McCain. To what do you ‘throw the switch’ in these circumstances, in which you are 8-10 points down nationally with 3 weeks to go? Vaudeville won’t help. He’s already tried that with Sarah the ventriloquists’ dummy. Perhaps you say, “We’ve got nothing to lose, let’s go for the goolies.”  If Rove and his ilk are now running things, that is probably what McCain will attempt. Even winning the talking points in the debate is not sufficient for him.

Of course, this debate could be as dull as the “Town Hall” dirge-fest if Obama gets to run it his way. He ‘won’ the last debate by simply appearing cool. It didn’t matter a jot what he said, providing it wasn’t ‘courageous’ or even stimulating. It was all about Presidential poise. Due to that success and the Dems lead in the polls, Obama is highly unlikely to deviate from the minimalist approach now.

The danger for Obama is if McCain manages to wreck the debate with accusations, taunts and dirt, and succeeds in getting Obama down in the gutter with him. The aim would be to diminish the Presidential aura that Obama now has, and that McCain certainly does not. But this is also dangerous for McCain. If the tactic fails, and Obama stays above the fray, McCain will appear to be nothing other than the stumbling, flailing old dope he is.

McCain has already said he will be raising the Ayers ‘connection’ in the debate – ho hum – but that may only be an indicator of a full-on effort to unbalance Obama and prevent him from staying ‘in charge’ during the event.

Unless something radical is done now, the game will just slip away for McCain. The issue is whether he graciously accepts the impending crushing loss, or uses a last opportunity to tip over the card table which could, in the Rovians grotty little worldview, just possibly even things up again. One thing is certain: McCain shaking hands with a war veteran in the audience and saying ‘My friends’ 50 times won’t do the job.

My prediction is of a 70% chance of fireworks from McCain, and if so, a 95% chance of Barry holding the high ground.

626 replies on “Another Dull Debate or Blue Touch Paper, Lit?”

Nice one, jv, sets the scene perfectly to roll us into tomorrow’s debate.
Everyone please be sure to catch the last comments on Gaffy’s previous thread from Ghost, KatieLou from New York City and Blindoptimist’s reply to Kirri.
Meanwhile I’m back off to junior editor’s school. Still trying to find a way to delete my monnicker from the top of page
😕

Quick work, jv. McGimmick is on a lose-lose ride now. If he tries to play it straight, he looks like a doddery old man. If he tries to stir the pot, he will re-affirm the view that he is erratic and undisciplined. He may as well not show up. Obama will win just by being there.

and jv, it’s ggod to see you on this verandah….relief from the squabbles in the nursery at william’s….

I linked this NY times article about the latest NY Times/CBS poll at the end of the other thread, but it’s so good I’m linking it again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15poll.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of strong political attacks on Mr. Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that more voters see Mr. McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr. Obama. Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by about the same number, voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking.

Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of those determined to be probable voters said they would vote for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain.

Voters who said their opinions of Mr. Obama had changed recently were twice as likely to say they had grown more favorable as to say they had worsened. And voters who said that their views of Mr. McCain had changed were three times more likely to say that they had worsened than to say they had improved.

The top reasons cited by those who said they thought less of Mr. McCain were his recent attacks and his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.

There lots more to relish in the article.

I agree with you Enemy Combatant. McCain has to try something tonight, and Obama will handle him just fine. The latest polls from the NY Times/CBS linked above shows attacks on Obama have been a negative for McCain. It’s hard to imagine what McCain can do in this debate to lift his odds so as to put him withing striking distance of the presidency.

I posted this on the old thread, but it’s worth a mention. Wakefield asked in the previous thread last night how MoEs work in practice with pollsters (but it was after my bed time) using a hypothetical 50/48 poll result.

If your 50/48 poll had a margin of error of +/- 3%, that doesnt mean that the true result is equally likely to fall anywhere between 47 and 53 – it’s more likely to fall nearer to 50 than it is nearer to either 47 or 53 because of the way results are normally distributed (within a bell curve shape)

Roughly it means that there’s a two in three chance that the true value is between 48.5 and 51.5, and a 95% probability that the true value lies between 47 and 53.

The margins of error that all pollsters use everywhere are mostly hogwash. It’s based on a theoretical minimum margin of error that would occur were

a) were the pollsters using only pure random sampling.
b) The entire population was equally likely to be polled by a pollster at any given time.

Pollsters dont use pure random sampling and we know that B is wrong (for instance, younger people are less likely to be at home in the afternoon than little old ladies watching Matlock reruns)

But here’s the tricky bit – in theory, any additional tweaking to that sampling that a pollster uses (such as engaging in quota sampling, then weighting the results for age, gender, income, partisan ID etc etc) theoretically causes the margin of error to blow out, and blow out substantially.

Yet in practice, with good pollsters, it doesnt actually blow out at all and remains around the theoretical minimum.

This doesnt mean that theory is wrong, it just means that certain polling data manipulations utilise known human behavioral patterns to improve polling accuracy in ways that make this basic type of probability theory redundant to solving the problem at hand.

The big problem here though is that not all pollsters are good pollsters, and even the good pollsters get it wrong sometimes. Good polling that delivers high accuracy is as much of an art as it is a science.

————-
And how about those surveyusa results! :mrgreen:

G’Day Gang, ’tis the last D-Day before E-Day and it’s all GO fo’ The Kid.

KatieLou, still struggling to get the thread head sorted, the post is ALL jv’s. The NYT piece is a little ripper; almost surreal to be reading something like that at this stage of a US Preidential campaign.

Difficult to disagree with jv’s analysis.
Senator McCain (R-AZ) is stranded between the devil and the deep blue sea. Damned if he he does, damned if he doesn’t go for Obi’s throat. My sense is that JMc will go “all up” early because shock and awe is all he has, being this far behind in the polls. “When you ain’t got nothin’, you ain’t got nothin’ to lose” as the boy from Moosefart Minnesota warbled and whined some forty years ago.
The relative ease with which Obama has handled all that McCain could hurl at him so far leaves Johnny Bomb-Bomb little choice. Brookings Institution big-wig, E.J. Dionne, on Fran Kelly’s “Breakfast” just described JMc as being in “strategic gridlock”. Not a bad two word grab actually. So will JMc attempt to galvanise the base to turn out and vote in droves, or reach out to the Independents in the middle? He’s so far been incapable of doing both because choosing a figure as dumb and divisive as Palin has hamstrung, polarised and essentially rooted his prospects of doing both.

Oooh-Ahhh! Just heard that The Dow has been in a spot of bother again. That’s not good for McBombster, because so many of the people who are suffering the economic pain have correctly joined the dots that hog-tie the GOPper “maverick” to BushCo, on whose watch the debacle has occured.

All Obi has to do is deliver similar performances to the MS and OH “debates” to seal the deal with remaining undecided Indys and storm into the final couple of weeks looking like a bigger winner that he does presently.

And doesn’t everybody love a winner, especially Americans.

I doubt McCain will have much of an opportunity to “get down into the gutter”, so to speak! As I understand it, this debate is meant to be on economics! What the hell does William Ayers have to do with any of this? The economy remains Obama’s strong suit, it trumps all other things, including the usual Republican race baiting, which McCain sadly has sunk to recently!

It’s funny how every time President Mr 23% Approval Rating announces another economic rescue package, the stock market plummets! And every time Bush gets on TV, it hurts McCain even more.

CNN POLL: Obama making gains in red states.

As the two major party presidential candidates get ready to face off in person one last time, new polls in some crucial states that could decide the race for the White House suggest John McCain is having to defend himself in areas that once were reliably Republican.

A new CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation survey in Virginia released Wednesday indicates that Barack Obama holds a 10 point lead over McCain, 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. President Bush won Virginia by 9 points over Senator John Kerry in 2004 and the state hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1964.

Add in the error of the polls (yes David they are inaccurate despite what you say). LANDSLIDE.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/15/cnn-poll-obama-making-gains-in-red-states/

7% plus drop in the Dow overnight. Just about all of Monday’s record gains lost again. So much for the Wall St bounce, which now has a very deceased feline look about it. With that, McCain’s own poll stocks get hammered again.

Domestic financial issues must dominate today’s debate now, if they weren’t going to already. But what can McCain say to get some credibility on the economy? Even more chance of a feral performance from him now.

From the other thread on the great numbers for Obama from early voting, as a pessimist I am not going to get too excited about them. Early voting is basically like internet polling – it is a self-selecting distorted sample of the electorate.

Having said that, it is still very hard not to be smiling about them. 🙂

When I read in the OP about ‘Rove and his ilk’, for some reason I registered it as ‘Rove and his elk …’ 😉

While Obama might get close to 400 EVs, it will not be with that kind of map. Tennessee, Arkansas and Arizona? Uh huh.

“Rove and his elk” – I’m sure there’s a witty one liner to be had here about Sarah Palins hunting proclivities, but it sadly escaped me.

David- you remind me of Eeyaw from Winnie the Pooh!
No news is ever really good enough 😉

JV- it should be fun. Indeed- what can McCain do short of pulling out a sawnoff, and that’s not going to help him win either.
I hope Obi lets loose a bit this time, although I understand tactically why he doesn’t need to do more than breathe – but a bit of fire in the belly would be rousing at this point.

“EC you need a link from the last thread to here.”

Tell me about it, Chris.
Can’t figure how to tweak it, yet. Waiting for Mumma Cat’s assistance. Megan’s away o/s, Cat’s gone quiet, god’s away on business and Ecky ain’t no techie. These things are sent to try us, mate.

Here’s a Gotham City debate clip Amanda posted in the comments at LP. Definitely giggle-worthy.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=10&year=2008&base_name=debates_by_association

On Arkansas, I could be wrong – fivethirtyeight just posted that their model suggests that something interesting might be happening in Arkansas, and they would like to see some polling there.

From the other thread on the great numbers for Obama from early voting, as a pessimist I am not going to get too excited about them.

Gouldie, you’re not a pessimist, more like a “concerned optimist” one would have thought.
🙂

BlindOp, there’s more than the PBoC to worry about! In so many scenarios there’s friggin’ ugly shite coming down the pike, and now that the Seppos have finally realised what we’ve all known for more than 6 months (ie they are in recesssion) the great unraveling has really begun.

Did you catch Marac Faber on Lateline the other night? Dr Gloom as they call him, but he’s got a pretty bleak take on it. Here’s the transcript:

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2389900.htm

…I really like his total disdain for the political clowns who got us into this mess, and as Gordon Brown, wasn’t he the guy that sold off England’s gold reserves at the very bottom of the market? LOL

No wonder Faber thinks he’s a turkey. But Faber’s right. How can Bernanke and Co be responsible for walking us into this mess and capable of fixing it?

It looks beyond fixing to me, and it’s a long nuclear winter of falling asset prices and massive write-offs before this decades long binge on credit based on fiat currency is pared back to reality.

David G & Possum @ 19 (ilk cf elk)
Well, we can say that the Rovian approach to the debate would no doubt have McCain emulating a male elk during the rut:

“Males engage in ritualized mating behaviors during the rut, including posturing, antler wrestling and bugling, a loud series of screams which establishes dominance over other males and attracts females.” (Wiki)

That outcome is exactly what McCain needs, so as good a McCain strategy as any other on stage today would be to start with a loud series of screams and then put the head down and gallop into a spirited bout of antler wrestling with Obama. I don’t think Barry would be very good at antler wrestling.
That should take attention away from the economy over the last 3 weeks.

The entire Wall Street farce is following exactly the lines that Galbraith painted in “1929-the great crash”
The problem s that panic is not a logical thing..paraphrasing what someone quoted on another blog “humans panic in herds, but come to their senses one by one”.
Credit and trust are nearly the same. The only way to restore credit is to restore trust. A long term problem.
One way that FDR helped America’s slow ascent was by an enlarged program of public works. England and Australia lengthened their depression by curtailing public spending. Of course Hitler stimulated his economy by armaments build ups.
What an opportunity for America, and Australia to tackle the real problems we have, which IMO are pollution and Water shortage.
To tackle these we need courage & leadership, with fewer financial advisors, cost accountants and actuaries.

Interesting image. I am not quite sure that having a picture in my head of McCain in rut is assisting my sanity at this point, though.

However, it cannot be denied that Obama is a sexy individual. He might be better at the whole antler wrestling thing than you give him credit for.

Gippslander,

Spending the Future Fund might be the way to go for Australia, then. It is interesting to hear that economists are now basically saying ‘Screw inflation; screw surpluses; spend, spend, spend!’

With zero responsibility for any of the crisis, Labor could be very well placed here in Australia – although no doubt at the next election we will hear from the Liberals about how Labor took the greatest economy in the world and pulled it down into recession …

Mornin’ all.

Today’s Intrade: Barackico Magnifico 82.3 John-in-the-John 17.4

Grandad is, I suspect, seriously in need of some critical mass – and oxygen – and viagra

He’s too late even for Viagra, Ferny. Anything that raises his blood pressure may prove fatal!

True KR. Best to leave John in the John then….
…..cos I’ve a feeling The Kid’s gonna give him the shits today.

Hillary has been campaigning for Obama in Arkansas recently – I’d doubt they’d send her down there if it was a complete lost cause.
I’d love to see some polling from Arizona. I’ve read rumours elsewhere that McCain’s lead is shrinking in his home state.

It’s now a standard joke:

“We’re not in the business of reinventing ourselves from debate to debate,” Mr. Axelrod said. “That’s not what Obama is going to do. He’s been very consistent for 20 months. He’ll be very consistent tonight.”

As for their Republican rival, he added: “McCain 7.0? That may happen.”

(NYTimes)

Poor old Macca, more updates than a Windows operating system.

One thing that he would have appreciated, but will be remain unspoken by Barry in the debate, is the great opportunity that the financial conflagration provides to him if he becomes POTUS.
The more unmanageable things are, the more strong management is required and applauded. Real legislative and regulatory reform to the way US politics and business is conducted will be easier in this climate than it would during a period of stability. The vested interests have diminished authority, and the commander-in chief’s powers are enhanced.
Current financial events also demand changes in the US’s relationship with the world – both financially and politically, what with the crippling costs of recent adventurism and the need to look inward to fix the system.
Essentially it gives the Kid cover to achieve his programme of change more completely and faster, so it’s not all doom.

The resources boom is cactus too (BHP, Rio, Woodside all in the doghouse), and with it the expansion in this economy, the whole external account picture and the AUD. Everything has its local dimension.

As for panic, Gippslander, I don’t think we’ve really hit that stage yet. The selling has been orderly so far. Wait till the market sees some later numbers on GDP, the labor market and housing. Then we might see real panic amok.

26 JV-
if Obi is wearing antlers you can just about guarantee that Palin will take a pop at him 😈

hahaha…who says Marc Faber, Dr Gloom, isn’t a funny guy? Well try this comment about Bush’s recent $600 cheque ‘economic stimulus’ from June:

“The federal government is sending each of us a $US600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs.

“If we buy a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

“The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I’ve been doing my part.”

Jen @ 40 – lol Jen. Maybe not Sarah, but I reckon there would be quite a few nutcases across the US planning something involving violent death right now. Most plans won’t be carried out, because being a nutcase usually includes a deficit in planning skills, but let’s hope they all keep taking their chemical lobotomy pills.

Late mornin to all. one hour to go.
I do not think that McStupid will go the boot this time as BO has more or less between the lines invited him to Look me in the eyes and say what you have been saying.
McStupid has too many skeletons in his closet that are slowly being released from their closets as each day goes by and i think he will try and make out he actually knows something about the economy.
He has not got the gonads to go there
I am quite sure that listening to BO he has a very subtle way of stringing together nice words that would belittle McStupid without appearing to descend into the gutter with him.

Slightly different from the old adage,
Never kick a man when he is laying down,
Lay down beside him and kick him!

Spot on JV!

15 David Gould Those early polls are the opposite to what George Bush had in 00 and 04, but better again for Obama.

There’s a massive tidal wave coming David but you’re facing the wrong way to see it. Turn around. 😈

Chris B at 46,

And Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and only won by 2.5 in 2004 …
The lesson that I draw from that is that early voting is in no way representative of the final result.

As to tidal waves, I can see the tidal wave. However, I do not think that it is as large as you believe.

DG @ 48 – I agree

I think Obama has it sealed but I’m certainly not convinced its going to be a landslide. It may well be, but I’m not entirely convinced. It should be but well, like here in Oz, I just don’t have much faith in the general public

Anyone know if the debate is on the radio? I have to drive for an hour and a half shortly.

Spammy and David- I’m with you. Just popped my head over the fence -(i’m sucha nosy neighbour) and there is no doubt that Pastorsauce Gate, Rezko andn now The Acorn Scandal are about to go full force with the Merkin people realising just what a snake-eyed oily salesman That One really is. They’ve just been saving till now .
😉

I’m with you Chris, Bomb-Bomb will be swept away with the GOP hierarchy, neoconsevatism, unfettered speculative free-marketeerism, and the zealots behind the Project for s New American Century.

Spammy and Gouldie, you get that with tsunamis; sometimes you don’t realise they are upon you till the moment one becomes swept away.

Wed Oct 15:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/bensargent;_ylt=AjHGXnsGIJtgQnNJMgnpSrHV.i8C

Gee….. there’s a ton of tension in the air at Hofstra U. The C-span feed is excellent.

This is a type of Closet skeleton that i was referring to in 44
The add made by the BO campaign about the keating five was referring to only a small portion of the 4 hours of raw footage shot about the subject. Keeping the powder dry. He may never have to use it but Mcstupid can rest assured he will have it ready.

My personal bottom line on this is that John McCain is one of the most corrupt senators the United States has ever had. And he got away with it. And now, he wants to be President of the United States………………………
If you paid attention to the Keating Economics video created by the Obama campaign, Bill Black was the star of that video, narrating the story of how Charles Keating robbed the US taxpayer of $3.4 billion, as noted above. However, during the seminar last Sunday, it was disclosed that over four hours of raw footage was shot, and only a few minutes was actually used by the Obama campaign. Frankly, I think the Obama campaign pulled its punches, or else it is saving a lot of good stuff contained within the extra footage for a follow-up video sometime down the road……………….However, what was not in the Keating Economics video was the story Bill Black told about the direct profits Cindy McCain and her family made from Keating real estate developments.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cindy-McCain-s-Keating-Pro-by-Mr-Moderate-081014-556.html

Gawd The Kid sounds presidential. McCain’s body language is timid – like he’s already surrendered

Never overestimate the general publics ability to act sensibly. They often fail this test but only from my POV

Because we see the obviousness of the change to OB and getting rid of the Repug’s doesn’t mean they share the same priority’s. For a huge number of people, the things that we think are dumb shit are actually some of their most basic, lifelong held values!. It’s naive to think their going to change that. “Well heck!, sure me house is gone, me kid got killed in Iraq and the 401 disappeared down then shitter… but all my life I’ve been a bit worried about the n!@@ers and since 9/11 – muslims

Not to mention Democrates!

That kind of thinking is very very hard to shift

“We will run a truthful campaign”. McCain

“Obama has spend more money of negative ads than anyone else in history” – McCain

McCain brought up Ayers, Acorn hoping the moderator wouldn’t allow a reply. Hipocritical prick.

Obama was allowed to reply

OMFG!!!!
McCain has brouhght up Ayers, Acorn, etc etc. just after Obama talked about the need not to smaer.
He looks completely tragic: he’s not even making sense!!

Moderator: “Why would the country be better off with your running mate as President than your opponent’s?”

Corker of a question. Obama replying first

So much for McCain fighting a campaign with civility!
Surely there are some decent Republicans out there who won’t cop this shit?

There is nothing here for McCain. While he has had some high levels on the worm, so has Obama. (not that the worm means anything). This is a win for Obama whatever happens from here, even if McCain is deemed to draw with him or even beat him. Not good enough for McCain. Kicking his arse indeed …

McCain is sitting up and grinning a rictus-like smile like a bloody smarmy schoolboy waiting for the teacher to pat him on the head.

But Americans are hurting and angry…especially Joe the Plumber.
Poor old Joe 6-pak is so passe.

69 Ferny Grover He’s right on that one because with the massive amounts of money he can’t help it. What he didn’t say was that he spends 3 times that amount on positive ads.

I must say today’s moderator is the worst one yet, he’s doing his best to help McCain out!
Give me Jim Lehrer any day over this tool from CBS!

If there is any jump in the polls from this, we should see it flow through by Sunday/Monday our time.

“Here’s your fine, Joe – ZERO” Obama

Ha! “Zero???” comes the surprised response from Grandad.

Methinks he set himself up

Haha! Grandad sticks with his script – “Joe, you’ll be paying a fine”.

Does he know what day it is??

McCain looks desperate to get out his talking points. It makes him look flustered and, at times, he spruiks forth on issues that are irrelevant to the question.

Obama looks more measured, relaxed and specific in his answers. He also comes across as more honest.

McCain creeps the hell out of me, I can’t even bear to look at the man, let alone listen to the crap coming out of his mouth!

Yep Ecky – McCain was appealing to the religious wingnuts on that one – which is inconsistent with what he has said in the past. The McCain of a year ago would have agreed with Obama.

Okay, apart from the usual “go Obama” feel. How is it going (truthfully people)

ps: I’m not watching it, making 20kg’s spaghetti bolognese (middle class guilt and all that)

20 kgs??? Is this your lunch Spammy??
Must be hungry.

The Kid is flooring him. It will be called a draw by the commentariat – but the punters will give it to Obama

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