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Thingish Things

Reality Check with Intrade

I like to check in from time to time with Dublin’s Intrade prediction market to see what bettors are thinking about U.S. elections.  Intrade (presumably) is a for-profit version of the Iowa Futures Market created some years ago by the University of Iowa to test the accuracy of political predictions when money is at stake. Those predictions have proved to be […]

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When the Fire Goes Out

  On Election Day 1989, while working ballot security in Harlem for the mayoral campaign of Republican Rudy Giuliani, I saw the most extraordinary thing.   I was in the passenger seat of a car stopped at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue as an African-American volunteer for the Democratic candidate, David Dinkins, carried an elderly black woman in […]

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Obama’s Narrative Crisis

President Obama’s re-election narrative got a lot worse today, with Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune urging him to forgo running entirely in 2012. That’s tough stuff for someone struggling to get up from off the mat. Chapman enumerates the President’s re-election challenges — the economy, the economy, and the economy — and then writes: “But there is good […]

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The Youth Vote, Part 67

I apologize for harping so much on the youth vote, but here is a new ad from the College National Republican Committee that rings irresistibly true.  It is playing on programming that appeals to the the under-30 age bracket on cable stations, including MTV and Comedy Central.  My gut says it will be explosively effective. I remember hearing messaging that rang […]

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One Jobs Plan Coming Up…

Just before President Obama left for his Martha’s Vineyard vacation  — immediately following his media-maligned mid-west bus tour — President Obama announced that he would be delivering a “jobs plan” upon his return to work in September.  The timing of the announcement clearly was orchestrated to ease the sting on the vacation news narrative, i.e.,:  Millions of […]

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The-Anyone-but-Barack Vote

Ron Paul is in a statistical tie with President Obama if the election were held today, with President Obama pulling 47% of the vote and Congressman Paul taking 45%.  In fact, Paul would probably beat the President today, as the undecideds almost all break to the challenger in a presidential contest. Michele Bachmann is  four points behind the President […]

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Sayonara!

  It’s taken almost 30 years, but, if reports are accurate, Muammar Gaddafi is about to go down — hard. The allied operation against him wasn’t pretty, but it looks like it will accomplish its mission. President Obama and Hillary Clinton deserves a great deal of credit for taking the risk on this one. So does NATO.  […]

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Not Boarding the FolksWagon

Is anyone bothered by the word “folks” as much as I am? I feel a sting every time I hear it spoken, whether by my namesake Bill O’Reilly on Fox News or by President Obama who uses it ten or eleven times in every sentence: “I know folks are frustrated out there, but listen folks, […]

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Only in America

    A Tea Party activist confronted President Obama last night in Iowa, demanding to know how he could be calling for civility when Vice President Joe Biden is calling people like him “terrorists.”  The President graciously spoke with the man one-on-one after the event.  Ain’t America great?  Really. Can you imagine what would happen to the guy in […]

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The President’s Numbers, Minus the Black Vote

  President Obama fell below the 40% approval threshold for the first time this weekend, according the latest Gallup Survey, not long after the stock market dipped below the 11,000 mark again. Mr. Obama now enjoys the support of just 39% of Americans; 54% disapprove of his performance, with the rest falling into undecided territory. President George W. Bush, […]

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