NY23: SCOZZAFAVA QUITS! UPDATE: New poll shows Hoffman in dead heat with Democrat Owens

Just confirmed that Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava has quit the race. Speaking to supporters, Scozzafava broke down in tears.

UPDATE: Scozzafava, the hand-picked choice of the New York state GOP in the key 23rd District special election, reportedly will throw her support to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.

Scozzafava's withdrawal came shortly after a new Siena College poll was released this morning, showing her in third place, with Hoffman neck-and-neck with Democrat Bill Owens.

UPDATE II: Steven Foley of 73Wire Campaign Trail is also on the story. Foley's crew is over at Starbucks, while I'm poaching the lobby computer at a hotel here in Lake Placid. I am the Poacher King.

My source called this morning to confirm the story while Foley was on the phone with his source. Ali Akbar has text of Dede Scozzafava's farewell.

UPDATE III: Linked at Hot Air where Ed Morrissey comments:

Scozzafava has seen her negatives explode, while her two opponents have only become more accepted as they became more well known. She has no chance of winning this race, and her withdrawal leaves Hoffman with the Republican vote whether she endorses him or not.

My buddy Jude Seymour at the Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times also has the story:

Ms. Scozzafava told the Watertown Daily Times that Siena Research Institute poll numbers show her too far behind to catch up - and she lacks enough money to spend on advertising in the last three days to make a difference.

UPDATE IV: Also linked at Right Klik, which is aggregating the news of Scozzafava from all sources. No word yet from Tucker Carlson.

UPDATE V: Also now linked at Paco Enterprises, Underground Conservative, Jammie Wearing Fool, and million-hitter William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection. We're grateful for the link by Michelle Malkin and by Richard McEnroe at Three Beers Later who says:

NEVER believe you don't have power. NEVER let them tell you that. . . .
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, the rest of the thieving, corrupt, smug, lying Democrat Party . . . NEVER believe we aren't coming for you

Note the New York Daily News summary of the Sienna Poll:

Hoffman's voters are the most committed, with 93 percent of them saying that are either absolutely or fairly certain they won't be changing their minds on Election Day, while 84 percent of Owens' voters say the same thing about him and 73 percent of Scozzafava supporters are loyal to her.

There is something about the kind of grassroots underdog campaign that Hoffman is running that creates a resolute determination on the part of the candidate's supporters.

Speaking of resolute determination, now would be a good time to thank Nathan Cossey and all the dozens of other readers whose contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund have made possible this road trip. Please continue to hit the tip jar. Ali Akbar needs a ride to the Buffalo airport on Wednesday.

UPDATE VI: Thanks to Kim Priestap of Wizbang for noting that Eric Odom of 73Wire first reported the news of Dede's withdrawal via Twitter. The generosity of Odom, Foley and Akbar during this trip has been greatly appreciated, and certainly I don't want to glory-hog, given how often they've scooped me -- and will no doubt scoop me again. We're a news-busting posse, and it's a friendly competition.

We're a headline at Big Government and, via Memeorandum, we learn of our linkage from Doug Brady at Conservatives for Palin. Hey, does Sarah deserve credit for answering the call, or what? She's a big-game hunter, and the same skills that bag a moose can obviously be applied to RINOs. While we're handing out kudos, how about The Man Upstairs? Two weeks ago, I wrote at The American Spectator:

Hoffman's pro-life supporters have reportedly launched an e-mail campaign -- including prayer requests -- to secure the endorsement of Palin . . .

Well, those prayers were answered, weren't they? When you pray for angels, keep an eye out for those "angels unawares."

UPDATE VII: Big shout-out to Erick Erickson of Red State, who came out strong and early for Hoffman and pushed hard. The role of CPAC director Lisa De Pasquale -- who got about a dozen conservative bloggers on an Oct. 14 conference call -- must also be acknowledged. (Note to self: Make list of names for Wednesday a.m. discussion panel about NY23.)

Well, time to hit Starbucks, meet up with the crew and go get ready for the trip to Plattsburgh.

Our complete coverage of the NY23 special election

NY23: Live from Watertown, N.Y.

Actually, there's not much happening here. I'm poaching the lobby computer at the Best Western Carriage House Inn where I am not a guest. But Gina the night clerk doesn't know that. She just brought me a fresh cup of coffee. (Shame? We don't need no stinkin' shame!)

That big poll news? Just got off the phone with Pat Austin, who's blogging NY23:

Allahpundit notes the poll with the reminder that this isn't actually a Daily Kos poll - they just paid for it. The pollster, Research 2000 is reliable. In addition, he says "Remember too that the campaigns have been whispering for the past week that internal polls show a two-man race now with Scozzafava fading. Consider this confirmation."

Oh, ye of little faith! We're linked at American Power and, meanwhile, Jimmie's got the complete NY23 roundup at NTC News.

More news at Memeorandum. I'd love to stay and blog more, but Gina (an undecided voter who supported Hillary in the '08 primaries) might start getting suspicious and my buddy Ali and the Campaign Trail crew expect me in Lake Placid before dawn.

NY23: Club for Growth poll shows Hoffman (31%) now leading Democrat Owens (27%), Scozzafava third (20%)

Press release from Club for Growth:

A poll released today by the Club for Growth shows Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman surging into the lead in the special election in New York's 23rd congressional district to replace John McHugh, the former congressman who recently became Secretary of the Army.
The poll of 300 likely voters, conducted October 24-25, 2009, shows Conservative Doug Hoffman at 31.3%, Democrat Bill Owens at 27.0%, Republican Dede Scozzafava at 19.7%, and 22% undecided. The poll's margin of error is +/- 5.66%. . . .

Read the rest. The poll details are online in PDF format. This could be considered an "internal" poll, but it's the only poll released to date that fully refelects the "call the cops" meltdown by Scozzafava and the Palin endorsement. We're still waiting for the Quinnipiac numbers and the Thursday release of the next Siena poll.

UPDATE: At The American Spectator, Jim Antle writes:

Important caveats: The sample size is small, the undecided vote is large, Hoffman's lead is well within the nearly 6 percent margin of error, and the Club for Growth has endorsed Hoffman.

Of course -- grain-of-salt time. The most important thing in these numbers, however, is the indication that the liberal Republican Scozzafava has slipped into third place.

Remember that NY23 has consistently voted 2-to-1 for the conservative Republican Rep. John McHugh. So if GOP voters in the district perceive Scozzafava as a likely loser, you can expect a decisive shift toward Hoffman by Republican voters whose main concern is not to give Nancy Pelosi another Democratic vote.

If such a shift occurs, and Hoffman gets 60% of the GOP vote, that would likely put him at about 40% -- neck-and-neck with the Democrat Owens in a three-way race, with Scozzafava getting about 20%.

UPDATE II: Filling in for Allahpundit on the pessimism beat, Ed Morrissey says:

Republicans usually win this district easily, so a 4-point lead over a Democrat is still worrisome -- and this is just one poll. Twenty-two percent undecided voters will make the difference.

"Worrisome"? Not really. Hoffman has low name ID, while Scozzafava is part of the GOP leadership team in the NY Assembly. Scozzafava is especially well-known in her legislative district, but that has only about a quarter of the voters in the congressional district. Once Republican voters get the idea that (a) Hoffamn is the conservative, and (b) Scozzafava is a loser, the vote-shift toward Hoffman should be decisive.

An outcome in the range of Hoffman 45%, Owens 35%, Scozzafava 20% is easily possible. There is a TV debate this week, but you aren't likely to have enough public polling afterward to be able to project the final Election Day numbers. Hoffman's had a solid week of good news, and his staff are optimistic, but working hard and keeping their fingers crossed.

Now a Memeorandum thread. We're linked by Reaganite Republican and by Fisherville Mike, who once worked for the guy who's now managing editor of the Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times.

HOFFMANIA: CATCH IT!

Our complete coverage of the NY23 special election

NY23: New DKos poll -- Dem gains?

The topline numbers of the Research 2000 poll (Oct. 19-21) commissioned by Daily Kos:

Bill Owens (D) 35%
Dede Scozzafava (R) 30%
Doug Hoffman (Cons.) 23%

Not sure what to make of this poll, since the methodology -- screening for "likely voters," etc. -- is opaque. Research 2000 is a reputable firm, and there is no reason to suspect any particular bias. However, let me make a few quick points:

• The polling period was Monday through Wednesday, before Dick Armey came in Thursday to campaign for Hoffman, before the Sarah Palin endorsement, before the Glenn Beck radio interview, before the Neil Cavuto TV interview, etc.
• This will be a difficult race to poll. It's a stand-alone special election in an off-off-year, and very low turnout is to be expected. So it's a get-out-the-vote battle and the campaign with the most energy and enthusiasm has a built-in advantage.
• Remember that this district has routinely gone 65% or more Republican even in bad GOP years like 2006 and 2008. If Owens is at 35%, that's merely the standard Democratic vote in NY23. The big question is whether undecided Republicans break toward Scozzafava or Hoffman.
• Scozzafava has the highest negative ratings (35%) of any of the three candidates -- Owens negatives are 24% and Hoffman's are 19%. Which is to say, Scozzafava has nowhere to go but down.
• Because Research 2000 has not polled HY23 before, we can't compare numbers to identify a trend. The strong gain for Hoffamn between the first Siena poll (ending Sept. 30) and the second (Oct. 13) is the best trend indication. A third Sienna poll (conducted this coming Monday and Tuesday) will be out on Thursday. The Quinnipiac poll is also due soon.

A relative lack of name recognition is Hoffman's big hurdle, but having spent three days in the 23rd District, I can tell you that his ads are in heavy rotation on Fox News. To the extent that Republican voters are Fox News watchers, Hoffman is certain to be gaining support on that basis alone.

Because I just got off the road -- drove all night to get home -- I'm kind of fazed and need to get some sleep. But I will caution people about judging this campaign and this district through the media lens. The 23rd district is very, very rural -- East Kentucky rural.

Pollsters always emphasize that a poll is a "snapshot." Opinion trends are dynamic, not static, and it's a mistake to think of a poll taken three weeks before Election Day as a prediction of the final outcome.

UPDATE: Melissa Clouthier has a new Pajamas Media column about Sarah Palin's Hoffman endorsement.

URGENT: Tea Party Conservative Doug Hoffman surges in latest NY23 poll

New poll numbers in the Nov. 3 special election:

Bill Owens (Democrat) . . . . . . . . . . 33%
Dede Scozzafava (RINO) . . . . . . . . 29%
Doug Hoffman (Conservative) . . . . 23%

This is a huge gain for Hoffman. The MSM are headlining the lead for Owens, but the more important point is Hoffman's momentum. He's gained 7 points in two weeks, while Scozzafava's lost 6. It shows how Scozzafava's support in this key three-way upstate New York congressional race has collapsed because of Hoffman's exposure of the RINO candidate's liberal voting record. The Hill reports:

Hoffman has surged in Oneida and Oswego, at the western end of the district. Hoffman takes 34 percent of the vote in one of the district's most populous areas, narrowly edging Owens by three points. Scozzafava, whose television advertising campaign has been far weaker than either Owens or Hoffman, trails with just 21 percent in those counties.

Press release from the Hoffman campaign:

"It's clear Dede Scozzafava is way too liberal for the 23rd CD. That's why she's dropping in the polls. Voters are seeing that the conservative Republican candidate, Doug Hoffman, will work to cut spending, cut taxes, and shrink the deficit and that's why he is surging in the poll. This poll was completed on Tuesday, just as our media buy was being ramped up. As more voters get to know Doug Hoffman, more voters will support Doug Hoffman. This is a race between two liberals and a conservative. Doug Hoffman is the conservative and that's why he will win."

As I reported yesterday, Hoffman says he has Scozzafava "on the run," and Red State is trying to raise more money to help push Hoffman over the top.

Hoffman is endorsed by the Club for Growth, the Susan B. Anthony List and other conservative groups. Perhaps more importantly, Hoffman's got the endorsement of the 9/12 Project, which gives him the conservative grassroots Tea Party volunteers to run a strong ground campaign, but he's got to have more campaign cash to keep running his hard-hitting TV campaign.

(Cross-posted at AmSpecBlog.)

UPDATE: Laughable MSM assertion that Republicans are "bitterly divided" over NY23 race:

The House GOP conference is bitterly divided over a centrist New York Republican’s run for the House seat vacated by Army Secretary John McHugh. . . .
Just 17 members — about 10 percent of the GOP conference — have written checks to Scozzafava’s campaign.

That's not "bitterly divided," that's a 90% rejection of Scozzafava, who isn't a "centrist," but an outright liberal, whose voting record is somewhere in the Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter range.

Via Memeorandum. More from Erick Erickson at Red State.

Harry the Loser

Philip Klein at The American Spectator blog:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is increasingly looking like one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats in the 2010 election cycle.

That's based on a new poll showing Reid losing to either of two candidates for the GOP nomination in 2010.

Reid's biggest problem? It's The Stupid Economy, Harry -- oh, yes, and the heavy burden of Obama's plummeting job-approval numbers. Urgent Headline of the Day:

OBAMA FAILS TO WIN
NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS

I'm thinking that the definitive history of this administration will eventually be published by The Onion with the title Hope Beyond Parody: Obama's Prize-Winning Campaign to Rescue the Political Satire Industry and Revive the Republican Party.

Obama Discovers Formula:Dishonesty = Disapproval

Thanks to Moe Lane* for pointing me to this nifty little chart from Rasmussen Reports:

What went wrong? How did Obama screw the pooch? Politico's Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei try (and fail) to get a straight answer out of David Axelrod, but leave it to some dude with a blog to explain everything in a single sentence:

Largely missing from the analysis, which is punctuated with a lot of 20/20 hindsight observation, is any appreciation of how Obama and his administration’s lack of candor might have affected perceptions of his trustworthiness.
-- Dan Collins

Bravo, Dan! If dishonesty were genius, the Obama administration would sweep next year's Nobel Prizes.

Oh, and even though that one sentence explains it all, Dan Collins wrote more than one sentence, so please read the whole thing.

* UPDATE: I am informed by Aaron Gardner that it was his Red State post, and not Moe's, which contained this information. Aaron Gardner is da total bomb.

Patriarchal misogyny triumphant!

NEW GALLUP POLL:

More Americans "Pro-Life” Than
"Pro-Choice" for First Time

And why? Because they hate women! Because abortion is the most important part of a woman's existence, anyone who opposes abortion is an oppressive hater. (You tell 'em, Amanda Marcotte!)

Too bad Gallup couldn't have announced this poll during National Offend A Feminist Week.

(H/T: Memeorandum.)

GOP 'brand damage' not repaired

Since I don't want to be accused of existing inside an "echo chamber," I feel obligated to link this item by Christopher Orr at TNR:

The latest New York Times poll is loaded with good news for the Obama administration and news that would be devastating for the GOP if it were ever able to penetrate the conservative-media echo chamber. . . .
Obama has a 66 percent approval rating, which is the highest this poll has recorded, while the GOP's favorability is at 31 percent, the lowest the poll has recorded in 25 years of asking the question. Arguably more remarkable still is that, asked whether Obama or the GOP Congress would be more likely to make "the right decisions about the nation's economy," respondents broke for Obama 63 percent to 20 percent. That means that even within the 31 percent rump that holds a positive view of the GOP, at least a third trust Obama's instincts on the economy equally or more.

Uh, "the GOP Congress"? Was this a "push poll"? But never mind that. What did the polls say about Bill Clinton in April 1993?

We are barely five months past the last election, the biggest Democratic victory since 1964, and Obama's been in office less than 90 days. It would be truly startling if polls showed Republican Party voter ID surging in popularity at this point. More importantly, economics is not public relations:

Don't you people understand that it doesn't matter how "popular" you and your policies are, if what you are doing is the wrong thing to do? And that it doesn't matter how clever and persuasive your arguments are, if your policies bring disaster?

As a question of electoral politics, it matters not a whit, in April 2009, whether a poll shows that people "trust Obama's instincts on the economy," if Obama's instincts are wrong, and they are. It Won't Work.

Opponents of Obamanomics ought not be worrying about polls at this point. Organize! Raise money! Identify and support promising candidates in promising districts. When the Dow is below 6,000 and unemployment is near double digits on Labor Day 2010, then we'll see what the polls say about who's been living in an "echo chamber."

Obama at 50-50

Jules Crittenden had this as a blog exclusive last night: New Zogby poll has the job approval numbers for Obama at 50 percent. See commentary by Jeff Goldstein, Pam Geller and Moe Lane.

This has got to scare Democrats to death, because the whole point of hitching their wagons to Obama's star was that Obama was popular. In fact, one might say that Plouffe, Axelroad & Company developed a formula in which "popular" was an acceptable synonym for "successful." But the gross incompetence of the Obama administration can't be solved by P.R. gimmicks. Five weeks ago, when the polls were looking good for Obama, I said:

Idiots. Economics is not public relations. Don't you people understand that it doesn't matter how "popular" you and your policies are, if what you are doing is the wrong thing to do? And that it doesn't matter how clever and persuasive your arguments are, if your policies bring disaster?

In three words: It Won't Work. Or, in more words . . .

UPDATE: Hot Air's Ed Morrissey reminds us that Rasmussen has been showing steady declines in Obama's approval numbers.

PREVIOUSLY:

• 3/23: 'Sheesh, the guy is Jimmy Carter . . .'
• 3/17: From Hope to Hopeless in 8 Weeks
• 3/13: 'Increasingly significant doubts'
• 3/4: Random freaking adults, again
• 2/15: Popularity vs. reality

P.S.: Be sure to check out MELTDOWN, Professor Thomas Wood's new bestseller about the financial crash and why Obamanomics won't work.

'Increasingly significant doubts'

(BUMPED; UPDATES BELOW) Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen in the Wall Street Journal:

It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced. . . .
Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.

Read the whole thing. And remember: It Won't Work. Did I mention that yet another Obama appointee at the Treasury Department has pulled out? Or that Americans have lost 18% of their net worth?

Liberals should just relax. Keep bashing Rush Limbaugh. Focus on important issues like gays in the military and pandering to union bosses. Don't let the vaunted Right-Wing Noise Machine deceive you. Obama still has the support of The Republicans Who Really Matter: David Brooks, Meghan McCain, Arlen Specter, David Frum, Kathleen Parker, Olympia Snowe . . . uh, I'm sure I can think of some more. Just give me a minute.

UPDATE: Carin in the comments suggests adding Andrew Sullivan to my list of The Republicans Who Really Matter, but Sully's an immigrant and I'm a xenophobic nativist, so . . .

UPDATE II: Lots of The Republicans Who Don't Really Matter are now commenting on this poll, as well as on Obama's new it's-not-really-that-bad flip-flop.

UPDATE III: Why do I always get wisenheimers in the comment fields? Thirteen28 wants me to count "Mr. The-Grassroots-Needs-Elites-Like-Me" among The Republicans Who Really Matter. Having sworn a Lenten vow, I can't punk-smack the kid again until Easter, although my Catholic friends tell me that one is released from such vows on Sunday. Since my family is Seventh-Day Adventist, that means I'll be gritting my teeth until sundown Saturday (7:17 p.m. EDT, to be exact), at which time I can offer further hearty congratulations to Ross for his recognition as a Republican Who Really Matters.

BTW, am I correct in guessing that "Thirteen28" is an allusion to the Treaty of Edinburgh in 1328 A.D., whereby Edward III recognized the independence of Scotland? (Blogger Jeopardy!)

UPDATE IV: Young Dan Collins is a Republican Who Doesn't Really Matter. Splendid fellow, young Dan. Organized the big shindig for old Hawkie, you know. I'm busy blogging (no time for "research" today), but I understand one of The Republicans Who Really Really Matter is on his way to the luncheon soiree for the old Burgemeister. Frequent Commenter Smitty -- of the Alexandria Smiths, you know -- says the sharpest, most innovative heterodox thinker of his generation, Brooks Rossington Frumdreher III is supposed to file a report soon. Assuming he's not already too heavy into the gin and tonics . . .

UPDATE V: Commenter Carin at Is This Blog On? gets linked by Kate at Small Dead Animals, a Rule 2 that qualifies them both as Republicans Who Don't Really Matter.

Random freaking adults, again

Big headline at MSNBC:

Poll: Obama's rating at all-time high

And Mark Murray's story begins:

After Barack Obama's first six weeks as president, the American public's attitudes about the two political parties couldn't be more different, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds.
Despite the country's struggling economy and vocal opposition to some of his policies, President Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high. . . .
By comparison, the Republican Party — which resisted Obama's recently passed stimulus plan and has criticized the spending in his budget — finds its favorability at an all-time low. It also receives most of the blame for the current partisanship in Washington and trails the Democrats by nearly 30 percentage points on the question of which party could best lead the nation out of recession.

What Murray doesn't tell the reader until the 15th paragraph is who was polled to get these results:

While the poll — which was conducted of 1,007 adults from Feb. 26 to March 1, and which has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points — finds Obama in a strong position after his first six weeks as president, the same isn't true for Republicans.

Random adults! Not "registered voters." Certainly not "likely voters." Just random adults. Look at the poll details (PDF): No effort was expended to determine the voting habits of the respondents. There was no screen at all. Just whatever 1,007 people answered the phone and said they were 18 or old.

This is important. The pollster, Peter Hart, and the folks at NBC/WSJ who commissioned the poll are not so stupid that they don't understand the importance of the distinction between "random adults" and actual voters.

Anyone who knows anything about public opinion polling knows that non-voters are different than voters. Everything we know about the behaviors and attitudes of non-voters shows that these are people disengaged from, and ignorant of, the political process. Compared to voters, non-voters tend to have lower levels of income and education, to be less informed about politics and current events, to score lower on every measure of civic involvement.

And guess what else we know about non-voters? If they could be motivated toward engagement with the political process, they would overwhelmingly vote Democrat and support liberal economic policies. So when news organization commission random-adult polls about political questions, the results will always skew substantially leftward, giving the false impression that Democrats and liberal policies are more popular than they actually are among actual voters.

Nobody knows this more than Democratic Party political operatives, who expend massive resources to register the unregistered, and to get as many as possible of these unengaged and uninformed people to vote. If you go back and look at 2008 exit polls, you find that Obama got 73% of voters with annual incomes under $15,000, and his strongest educational cohort was high-school dropouts (63%). Yet even with a historic level of Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts in 2008, there were still many millions who could not be bothered to go to the polls on election day.

Non-voters are irrelevant to the political process. Taking a random-adult about political questions and turning it into a major news story is therefore a fundamentally dishonest action. Polling random adults is fine, if you're asking about Coke vs. Pepsi, McDonald's vs. Burger King. But to do a random-adult poll about politics -- without even endeavoring to find within the respondents a subsample of registered voters or likely voters -- is not honest journalism.

And the fact that Murray buried in the 15th paragraph the fact that the NBC/WSJ poll was of random adults tells you that he understands, and wishes to conceal, the essential bogusness of the result.

So, a socialist, a Marlboro smoker and the President of the United State walk into a bar . . .

. . . and they were all the same guy!

"Nearly one in six Tennesseans has told a joke about Barack Obama's race, and three-fourths say they've heard or read at least one, even though only 15 percent of Tennesseans say they would find such a joke funny."

But seriously, folks -- I just flew in from Nairobi and, man, are my arms tired!

BTW, yesterday was my best traffic day in the past 30 days -- 17K+ visitors, 20K+ page views. So while I'm thinking about traffic, let me do some belated Rule 2 for Rule 5 Sunday bloggers, as The Patriot Room brings you Danica Patrick bikini AND Faith Hill upskirt.

Also, if you want to hear me on PJM Radio, click here.

Minor blogging milestone

Just collected my second check from Google Adsense. I got my first check back in November, as I recall. So it took eight months to get the first, and only another three months to get the second.

A small check, obviously -- not that giant check they give to Powerball jackpot winners -- but it is actual income from mere blogging. This gives me a thin pretext of legitimacy when I tell my wife that blogging constitutes "work."

Also, my "this is work" argument got a boost from certain readers/tip-jar hitters who haven't asked to be acknowledged for their contributions to the pre-CPAC fund-raising drive. It's a subject of debate whether I still owe Little Miss Attila more martinis. I did indeed give her a $20 for lunch Friday.

Plus, I introduced Attila and Melissa Clouthier to a young protege, Josiah Ryan of CNSNews.com, whom I suspect by merely flashing his crooked grin helped them get in touch with their inner cougars. And that's gotta be worth something, right?

L-R: Melissa Clouthier, Josiah Ryan, Little Miss Attila.

Canadian advice to ignore

(BUMPED; UPDATE BELOW) David Frum advises:

In every poll I’ve seen, hefty majorities approve of President Obama’s economic performance. Approval numbers for congressional Republicans remain dismal.
If we’re to make progress in 2010, we have to look serious. This week we looked not only irrelevant, but clueless and silly.

Again with the "we" -- as if he and John Boehner and Tom Coburn are sitting around plotting Republican strategy. But the real problem with Frum's argument is something I pointed out Sunday: Opinion-poll numbers in February 2009 don't mean zip if what you are "popular" for is passing a neo-Keynesian stimulus that won't work.

Ross Douthat echoes Frum, pining to see Republicans "articulating an actual alternative to Obamanomics." But why should they propose an "alternative" that can't possibly be voted into action given the current overwhelming majority? At this point, Boehner should just tell Ron Paul to keep denouncing central planning and Keynesianism, and let the main GOP message on economics be one of repeated warning: The Obama/Pelosi/Reid plan is leading the U.S. economy into a fiscal trap.

Trying to "win" news cycles in February 2009 is not what the Republican Party needs to be worried about. Let's see what the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the inflation rate and the unemployment rate are on Labor Day 2010 before deciding who looks "serious" and who looks "silly."

More blog reactions at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Kathy Shaidle once again reminds us that not all Canadians are evil. And hey, a dead-cat bounce in congressional approval ratings! Wonder what that means?


UPDATE II: Linked at Conservative Grapevine.

Popularity vs. reality

Ben Smith in the Politico:

Obama's approval rating remains well above 60 percent in tracking polls. A range of state pollsters said they'd seen no diminution in the president's sky-high approval ratings, and no improvement in congressional Republicans' dismal numbers. And that's before the stimulus creates billions of dollars in spending on popular programs, which could, at least temporarily, further boost Obama’s popularity.
"It's eerie -- I read the news from the Beltway, and there's this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me," said Ann Seltzer, the authoritative Iowa pollster who works throughout the Midwest.

Prompting Jonathan Singer to exult:

Perhaps more than ever, there is a real divide between what the chattering class inside the Beltway is saying and what the people of this country are saying. . . . [T]he establishment media focuses on the less meaningful back and forth while at the same time overlooking the larger picture being grasped by the public -- that is that President Obama is succeeding, in terms of both moving forward his policy agenda and bringing two-thirds of the country along with him in his effort.

Idiots. Economics is not public relations. Don't you people understand that it doesn't matter how "popular" you and your policies are, if what you are doing is the wrong thing to do? And that it doesn't matter how clever and persuasive your arguments are, if your policies bring disaster?

Think back to late 2002/early 2003, when Bush was soaring in popularity and even Democrats like Hillary Clinton were publicly insisting that military action against Iraq was an urgent national necessity. As even David Frum now admits, however popular Bush and his policy were, it was still a bad policy. And the result of bad policy . . . well, here we are, eh?

Idiots. And here's another one -- Daniel Gross playing armchair economic psychologist:

Psychology plays a big role in all sorts of economic decisions. And at times like these, when people are gripped with fear, it plays an even larger role.

Gross seems to assume that the public's economic mood is so divorced from economic reality that all we need is an injection of economic self-esteem and -- no matter what the underlying reality -- this "all must have prizes" approach will assure recovery.

Well, I'm sorry, sir: It Won't Work. Economics doesn't operate that way. People can't spend money they don't have -- unless they can borrow it, and they can't borrow it when they're already overleveraged and the financial industry is collapsing.

So, you say, "We'll rescue the financial industry with TARP." Fine. What's the price-tag and where will you get that money? Oh, you'll borrow that, too. Fine. Go talk to some people who know a bit about the bond market, and see how they think the global investor class -- U.S. debt is a commodity traded globally -- will react to the prospect of still more deficit spending piled on top of all the deficit spending for the $152 billion "stimulus" in May, $350 billion for TARP I, and now $789 billion for more "stimulus." Another $350 billion for TARP II? Oh, they're going to love that.

If the world's investor class believes that your Keynesian pump-priming will work, they'll be happy to buy up all those Treasury notes, just like they'll be happy to buy stock in U.S.-based corporations. Do you think those people are stupid, sir?

Hell, no. They'll be putting in more "sell" orders on Monday, and at least one analyst expects the Dow Jones Industrial Average to sink to 6,000 soon. As bad as the stock market is, God help us if the bond market goes wobbly. (And they're starting to sound a bit skittish to me.) And never mind that, at some point, the debt holders will expect repayment. Seriously, we could be on the brink of Weimar America.

What none of you "progressives" seem able to get through your thick skulls is that this recession -- the massive losses in the Dow, the massive losses of home values in the collapse of the "bubble" -- represents a loss of capital. The American economy doesn't need psychological confidence, or a few dribs and drabs of pork-barrel programs and tiny "tax credits" to favored constituencies. It needs fat chunks of cash -- investment capital. And the disastrous policies being enacted will only serve to drive capital out of the U.S. economy.

If you start walking in the wrong direction, every step you take leads you farther from where you're supposed to be. U.S. economic policy has been going in the wrong direction, and every additional step in this direction only compounds the damage. Poll numbers and public relations cannot trump the forces of the market. The law of supply and demand cannot be repealed.

You idiots can talk about poll numbers until you're blue in the face and try to blame Bush for everything bad that happens, but like it or not, you own this one, and it's going to be a millstone around your necks.

UPDATE: The fiscal trap of Hope.

Random freaking adults!

Matthew Yglesias does a happy dance over a Gallup poll showing higher public approval for Democrats than Republicans on handling the "stimulus."

Yglesias is exactly right that what the poll shows is, "People hate Republicans." That is to say, Bush-inflicted "brand damage" causes people to give negative answers to any poll question involving the word "Republican." There are two big problems with this poll as a guide to what policy Republicans (or anyone else) should support:

• Rational ignorance -- One of the most interesting polls of the past year was the one showing that 41% of CNN viewers didn't even realize Democrats had taken control of Congress. What voters knew was that Bush was a Republican and they hated him, and therefore an overwhelming majority was eager to vote against Republicans. These voters -- independent "swing" voters being a particularly ill-informed segment of the electorate -- were operating on the principle that Ilya Somin dubbed "rational ignorance." Given the vastness of their ignorance, it is likely that many of them (a) still don't realize that Democrats hold the whip hand in Congress, and (b) don't have a clue in hell what's in the stimulus or what the GOP position is.
• "Random adults" -- Gallup says, "Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,018 national adults, aged 18 and older." Not likely voters, not even registered voters, merely random adults. As everyone who knows anything about polling knows, non-voters always skew left of the actual electorate, especially on economic issues. Why? Because non-voters tend to have very low levels of income and education. The whole point of the massive Democratic get-out-the-vote drives every election year is to counteract the extremely low level of political involvement by the poor and ignorant, who would vote Democrat, if only they weren't too stupid and lazy to vote. (Obama got 63% of the vote among high-school dropouts, his best performance among any educational demographic. ) So polls that don't screen out non-voters will always show that feeble-minded welfare parasites want more welfare giveaways, and the parasites are at least smart enough to know that Democrats are the Welfare Giveaway Party.

Let Yglesias do his happy dance, and ignore those stupid "random adult" polls. Nothing Republicans do will gain them many votes among the parasite/deadbeat constituency, and certainly the GOP has nothing to gain by supporting a "stimulus" that won't work.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Nate Silver:

There are a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion.
John Ziegler is a shining example of such a conservative. During my interview with him, Ziegler made absolutely no effort to persuade me about the veracity of any of his viewpoints. He simply asserted them -- and then became frustrated, paranoid, or vulgar when I rebutted them.

What got Silver on this hobby horse was Ziegler's assertion that Barack Obama "launched his career" at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. But the factual record is unambiguous:

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. . . .
"I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress," said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. "[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor." Obama and Palmer "were both there," he said.

Neither Ayers nor Palmer has denied this, and there are multiple other connections -- including Ayers' choice of Obama to lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge -- that identify Ayers as an early and influential supporter of Obama. These are not "viewpoints," but facts.

Silver seems to expect Ziegler to engage in a "what 'is' is" type of parsing, or else to cite sources as in a bibliography, about the phrase "launched his career" in describing the Obama-Ayers connection. This is a clever method of obfuscation -- interrogating the premises of the syllogism so as to prevent a discussion of the conclusion -- and when Ziegler quite naturally objects, his objection is cited by Silver as evidence of Ziegler's unreasonableness.

Silver does not wish to discuss the potential significance of the Obama-Ayers relationship, and therefore engages in semantics over the meaning of the phrase "launched his career" in order to prevent that discussion. Of course, the actual subject in dispute was whether a Zogby poll about the beliefs of Obama supporters was legitimate opinion research or a "push poll," as Silver asserted. But the term "push poll" -- a campaign tactic of disseminating negative information through a bogus telephone survey -- can hardly be applied to a survey conducted after the election.

Zogby was asked to determine what percentage of Obama supporters were familiar with certain memes of the campaign, to get an idea of how well-informed these voters were. Silver is angered that the results lent support to Ziegler's hilarious video:

Silver's anger over the portrayal of Obama supporters as ignorant informs his rage against Ziegler, and Silver's attack on talk radio as a medium is nothing but scapegoating. What fuels Silver's rage is his guilty knowledge that Obama ran a campaign brilliantly calculated to appeal to "low-information voters," and that this success would not have been possible without the willing cooperation of the mainstream media. Silver fears that, at some point in the future, the media will be compelled to start telling the truth about Obama, and that Obama's subsequent political failure will endanger the "progressive" project.

In a free society, any political effort founded in deception is ultimately doomed to failure. If progressives like Silver have learned nothing else from the Bush administration, they ought to have learned that.

Dept. of Wishful Thinking

Ed Morrissey offers this Electoral College map as his GOP razor-thin miracle victory scenario:

God bless ya, Ed, but that's just plain crazy. You've got Maverick winning Pennsylvania (RCP average Obama +7.6) while losing Virginia (RCP average Obama +4.3). You've got McCain a winner in Nevada (RCP average Obama +6.2) but losing Colorado (RCP average Obama +5.5). OK, maybe the polls are wrong, but why would they be so much more wrong in Nevada and Pennsylvania than in Colorado and Virginia?

Personally, I'd say it's a lead-pipe cinch that Obama wins three out of four of those states. There is a slight chance for McCain in Virginia, but I emphasize "slight." Pennsylvania? Gimme a break. Bush couldn't beat the charisma-challenged John Kerry in Pennsylvania four years ago, and Rick Santorum got an 18-point drubbing in '06. McCain hasn't led Obama in a Pennsylvania poll since April, and Obama's been outspending McCain 2-to-1 in advertising there.

If there is some undetected, inexplicable, last-minute shift that gives Pennsylvania to McCain, then he'll win Virginia, too. And monkeys will fly out of my butt.

A McCain victory this year wouldn't be just one miracle, it would require six miracles in different states. You're not merely hoping that one or two polls are slightly off, but hoping that all the polls are off by 5, 6, 7 points.

Well, don't worry. You can hope all you want, but you're not going to be hoping for long. By 10 p.m., the blue tsunami will have crashed ashore, and you can stop living in political fairy-tale land with the magical leprechaun Sean Hannity.

UPDATE: Oh, this is classic. For weeks, Karl Rove has been on Fox News spinning miracle-comeback scenarios but, when push comes to shove and his credibility as a prognosticator is at stake, his final Electoral College map says Obama 338, McCain 200. Rove's got Maverick losing Virginia and Pennsylvania, Colorado and Nevada, Florida and Ohio.

Given that Rove has an inside line with all the GOP operatives, he'd know about any secret internal polls showing a surprise upset, so the fact that his final bets are toward the high side for Obama means that the Republican insiders aren't expecting a miracle.

Gallup: Obama 55%, McCain 44%

I'm thinking the popular vote margin will be less than that, but what's the difference? If it's 53%-47% . . . so what? You realize that any majority would make Barack Obama the first Democratic presidential candidate to get a majority of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976?

Note to GOP: Bald guys don't win elections.

UPDATE: Bill the Pundit blows what tiny tatters of credibility he had remaining:

What if the polls, for various reasons, are overstating Obama’s support by a couple points? And what if the late deciders break overwhelmingly against Obama, as they did in the Democratic primaries? McCain could then thread the Electoral College needle.
McCain would have to win every state where he now leads or is effectively even in the polls (including North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri). He’d have to take Florida and Ohio, where he’s about four points down but where operatives on the ground give him a pretty good shot. That gets him to 247 of the 270 votes needed.
McCain’s path to victory is then to snatch Pennsylvania (which gets him to 268), and win either Virginia, Colorado, Nevada or New Mexico (states where he trails by about four to seven points) — or New Hampshire, where he’s 10 points behind but twice won dramatic primary victories.
As for Pennsylvania, two recent polls have McCain closing to within four points. Pennsylvania is the state whose small-town residents were famously patronized by Obama as “bitter.” One of Pennsylvania’s Democratic congressmen, John Murtha, recently accused many of his western Pennsylvania constituents of being racist.
Perhaps Pennsylvanians will want to send a little message to the Democratic Party. And that could tip the election to McCain.
It’s an inside straight. But I’ve seen gamblers draw them.

This isn't an "inside straight," Kristol, it's fucking lunacy -- a pipe dream, the hallucinatory vision of a True Believer. It will not happen. And it is utter cruelty for you to foster such false hope.