Tag Archives: paper ballots

Derision 2012! – Media & Voters & Polls, Oh My!

Yeah, no real way to get that shoehorned into the “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!” tune.  But I did my best.

Let me just get this out in the open right now.  I voted for Barak Obama in 2008.  Even looking back and knowing what I know, I still would have voted for him in 08.  Had McCain picked Romney to be his running mate instead of dead-from-the-neck-up Sarah Palin, I may have gone differently.  But of course we all know what happened.  Now regardless of what you think of the man or his policies, President Obama brings the smarts and we here at Frank’s place dig the smarts.  He is still the smartest dude running for President, but some things have transpired that have caused me to look elsewhere for a President.

One of the biggest issues for me is the constant reminder of the economy he inherited.  In 2009 I can accept the constant reminder of what President Bush left behind.  And make no mistake, the bail-outs, the tarp, the mounting deficit, these things were either done or set in motion long before President Obama was sworn in.  But after 2009, the constant harping about inheriting the worst economy since the great depression became unseemly, then it became un-leaderly(?)  At some point the President would have done well to adopt a buck stops here attitude.

Of course conservatives, republicans, and tea-partiers, (by the way those are 3 distinct groups wether you want to believe it or not),  have been rightly calling out and/or bashing the President for this constant blaming of President Bush for our current problems.  Tracy, my wife, has had to listen to me howl at the TV whenever the President speaks because he invariably will evoke some form of, “you know we inherited the worst…”, yeah, yeah we get Blamey McBlamerton.  Enough already Mr. President.  I just can’t believe he still tees up this softball for the opposition to hit out of the park, as they absolutely should.

But for as much as the opposition rightly hits the President for always blaming others for our country’s issues, they must think it’s a winning strategery (thanks P. Bush 43) because they have taken up the charge at a full gallop.  In the past 4 months since Romney was clearly going to win the nomination, conservatives, republicans, and tea-partiers have been blaming everything under the sun for why the Governor lost the election. Spoiler alert – election is not till 6 November.  In other words Romney hasn’t lost yet, but his base, the fringe, and the media outlets that support him have already started his obituary.  In this obituary they list clearly the three causes of the Governors death:

1. Left wing media bias – hard to argue, but I will take a 37.4 deg angle

2. Voter fraud – you’ll run out and buy lottery tickets when I’m done with this one

3. Election polls – you know those annoying polls that take a small sample of voters and project who’s winning or losing, you may have even been called and participated in one

Politically this may be a winning strategy, and I don’t think it is, it’s just as cowardly as the President blaming President Bush 43.  So let me take a shot at helping my conservative brethren understand why blaming these 3 entities just doesn’t hold up.

1. Left wing media bias – Ok, my good friend Tony has convinced me that this exists to a greater extent that I had originally believed.  As it turns out left wing media bias has been around for a long time.  I would argue cable news outlets and social media has amplified and sharpened the bias, but it still existed on the big three networks long before MSNBC came along.  Be that as it may, blaming them for a candidates failure makes you look weak. If this bias has existed for so long why isn’t your candidate prepared for it?  How can something you’ve known about for decades take you down?  If you can’t plan for and defeat or work around something you’ve known about forever, how can your guy, as President, deal with things he won’t know about until after they happen?

See where I’m going there.  Blaming the media makes you look weak; not just because blaming anything but yourself makes you look weak, but because blaming something that has always existed makes you look weak and incompetent, and not smart and unable to adapt.  You know, presidentialy type things.

2.  Voter Fraud – Hard to know where to start with this.  Why?  Because it almost never happens.  You have a better chance of being struck by lighting WHILE purchasing the winning power-ball ticket than you do of witnessing voter fraud, being in the polling place when voter fraud happens, or even voting in a state where voter fraud has occurred. Here’s a few links in case you want to read actual stats.

http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/

http://richardcharnin.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0

Now equally mythical is the “fact” that requiring people to have photo ID at the polling place will disenfranchise voters, specifically the urban poor and minorities, two groups who tend to vote democrat.  Pennsylvania just lost its case in the state supreme court to require photo ID of anyone wanting to vote.  PA made it free of charge, set up convenient places to get one, and in some cases would even come to the home of those unable to get out.  How those people would then vote is beyond me, but the state accommodated and somehow lost.  Here in TN we must show photo ID to vote and I’ve not heard of anyone being disenfranchised. In fact my mother-in-law just moved here and when she got her TN drivers license they registered her to vote.  That’s how easy the states make it to obtain an ID and register to vote.

Disenfranchisement due to photo ID is almost as rare as voter fraud.  But at the end of the day voter fraud is the dodo bird of election cycles.  Everyone’s heard of one but no one has ever seen one.

Don’t look now…

I wonder if he’s registered?

However if you prefer the myth of voter fraud I would refer you to Hannity of Fox, check you local cable provider, and The Drudge Report on the internets.

Seriously, if you hear of voter fraud in your district and your next stop is not the local Piggly Wiggly to buy a power-ball ticket, you’re an idiot.

3. That brings us to the third cause of Romney’s crushing defeat that hasn’t happened yet: election polls.  There were election polls being taken long before we really knew who the republican candidate would be. Once Romney emerged as the clear front runner the polls went into high gear.  And it was all a big waste of time.  The polls in early January are worthless.  Guess what, the polls in late October are worthless too.  The only poll that counts is the one you stand in on November 6th.

Having said that it is interesting to see how the media has handled the current polling results.  I’ll just cut to the chase, Fox News hates them and regards them all as flawed and the rest of the media thinks they are grand and believe Obama will win in a landslide. But the left wing of the media reacted as they normally do, so no surprise there.

It’s Fox’s reaction that is puzzling.  Again this is the network that has taken Obama to task for always blaming everything/everyone but himself.  I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery because the gang at Fox have been merciless in their attack on poll results.  They have gone so far as to claim it’s the poll results that are making things worse for Romney.  Obviously the polls show him behind by a few points nationally and by wide margins in several key battleground states, or states considered necessary to win to win the election.

They got so paranoid about the poll attack on Romney, some news shows on Fox criticized poll results done by a few other Fox News Shows.  That’s right.  The network that claims to be fair and balanced actually may have pulled it off.  Unknowingly of course.  There is no way O’Reilly and Hannity knew the particular poll they were slamming, showing Romney down by 10 points or more, was actually a poll done by Fox News and used by Special Report with Bret Baier.

It gets better, or worse.  Minutes after bringing on Dick Morris, Bernie Goldberg and even retired/fired NY City Detective Bo Ditle (WTF), to say polls are so unreliable and cannot be trusted, Hannity then shows poll results that have Romney in the lead and wants us to believe they are accurate and trustworthy after spending 15 minutes telling us how notoriously slanted and biased poll results are.  It’s like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight decided to form a circular firing squad.  Lets hope their aim improves.

So to wrap up, it’s the Media, Voters, & Polls that caused the Romney defeat.

I wonder if all the analysts and pundits have mentioned to Governor Romney that they know the outcome of the election next month and the cause of his demise.

Derision 2012! – A gaffe is a gaffe: except when it isn’t.

So it appears the Governor doesn’t want the Frank’s Place vote.  We here at Frank’s Place are ready to pull the lever for him, but he just called us losers.  Odd strategery Governor, very odd strategery.

Here’s the low down.  Governor Romney was at a private fundraiser last night.  Well, private except for an iPhone video that was reportedly made or discovered by the grandson of President Jimmy Carter.  More on that in a sec.  In the video Romney can be heard saying that roughly 47% of the country will most likely vote for Obama.  He expounded to say that those 47% are the people who take no responsibility for their lives, expect government to provide them food, shelter, clothing, etc…     Here is the exact quote from the Wall Street Journal:

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president, no matter what,” Mr. Romney said in the video. “All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.…These are people who pay no income tax.”

Quick tough guy side note:  Bro, I’m not a victim, I’m a retired vet with 22 years of service.  I worked for 15 years in the warehouse at Sears & Roebuck in Mays Landing NJ. Smarten up Governor.

Ok, my wounded pride not withstanding, the 47% not paying taxes Romney thinks he’s talking about is actually made up of the working poor, seniors, the filthy rich (aka Romney), and wounded veterans returning from the war.   And those people, the 47%ers, turns out they live in predominately red states – meaning the governor and the state legislature is made up of republicans.

Intriguing side note:  A popular dig at Obama made by Romney, Ryan, and most republicans is that he’s the worst president since Jimmy Carter.  They have been saying that since the primary started in August 2011.  Let that sink in – August of 2011.  How awesome would it be if Jimmy Carter’s grandson dropped the 50,000 a plate fee to go to the fundraiser just to video Romney.  Talk about a dish served cold.  Revenge with an iPhone.

Enough of the intrigue.  Lets make a quick stop at hypocritical-ville while were here.  The party of no government, the party that thinks what Romney said last night, is also the party that wants government to intervene in marriage, pregnancy, rape, religion, what language we should speak, and union strike busting.  So I think we can all agree the “less government party” mantra is the biggest load of bullshit ever sold to, and then bought by, a group of people. More accurately, it’s less government for the things I don’t like and more government for the things I do want.  That won’t fit on a bumper sticker but it’s at least more honest. And you know what, saying that out loud would not deter me from voting for a republican candidate if I thought they were able to fix things.

But let’s get to the real issue – the media and the orgasms they were having after watching that tape.  This story will go on for three days at least.  You’ll see headlines about a gaffe, about the race being over, about Romney making a huge mistake.  None of those will be true by the way.  The liberal media will ring this out like a soaked dish rag for as long as possible.  The conservative media will trumpet it for a news cycle, maybe 12hrs, then bring up the bibles and guns “gaffe” the president made when he was running in 08, and then they’ll drop it.

The only comparison between the two episodes that’s apt is the fact neither statement was a gaffe.  It wasn’t a mistake by either man.  The President said the “clinging to guns and bibles” line at a private fundraiser as well.  So there is one other comparable fact. But it wasn’t a gaffe.  The President actually believed that at the time and probably still does.  I guarantee the Governor believes what he said last night.  So what separates the two issues.

The first is the coverage. The bibles and guns comment was really the only thing Obama said that ever got any analysis from the press.  And that analysis didn’t last long.  Romney will get his chops busted over this for weeks and as I said it will dominate every minute of every news show not on FOX for at least three days.

The second but more obscure issue is the following comments each man-made.  Obama was saying how he would need to go out there and change the minds of the people who cling to their guns and bibles.  He was detailing how he would try to turn diehards because he would have to be president to everybody.  Romney was explaining why he was giving up on those people because they would never be convinced to vote for him.  The funny thing is Romney is right for the most part.  The diehard Obama supporters will never be convinced to vote for Romney and won’t support him in anything he does as president even if it would help the country. It’s the same treatment Obama is getting from the conservative diehards now.  Saying it out loud is just seems like bad form because it sounds like, and it will be spun like, Romney doesn’t care about half of the country, while Obama was painted as trying to convert the country to his way of thinking. One statement is a positive thought, the other, negative.

The third issue – Obama made his comments with almost 6 months to go until the election, prior to his convention.  Time does heal all wounds, as it did in his case.  Obama did win the election convincingly.  Romney has less than 60 days to put out this fire and refocus on why people aren’t back to work even though wall street has clearly rebounded. It’s a message that should stop Obama’s second term bid in its tracks.  But for some reason Romney can’t seem to stay on that message.

The issue now facing Romney – can he withstand the amount of media whoring coming his way and get back to talking about things that matter.  At the end of the day the fact that he called me a victim and a loser makes no difference in the real hierarchy of what’s important.  I can take it.  He’s just a soft handed, rich boy, jerk off anyway.  But he may be the next great president.  Don’t think so?  Go read The Election of 1800.  Thats’ the battle between Jefferson and John Adams.   They said the most hurtful and heinous things about each other and their families, wives, kids, pets, the poor, uneducated, people who do manual labor, etc..  and both of those men are considered founding fathers and great presidents.  Either one of those guys would have made these two current cream puffs pee their pants during a campaign or debate.

Romney’s only issue now – can he get the all important Frank’s Place endorsement bump.

The fact that Romney couldn’t be more wrong is really beside the point.

Derision 2012! No Recall in Wisconsin and I ain’t talkin bout cheese

In case you haven’t been glued to the state of Wisconsin politics for the last 9 months, Frank’s Place has been and is here to fill you in.  In the “He Who Smelt it Delt It” recall election of 2012, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker held off his challengers and won the recall election.

This all started when Governor Scott Walker restructured the bargaining contract with government unions in Wisconsin.  That caused a little 1960’s reenactment of the sit-in; a form of civil disobedience.  Angry Wisconsinites?, Wisconsiners?, whoever, staged a little protest in the state capitol and several democratic state senators fled to Minnesota to keep the state legislature from voting on the government union reforms proposed by Gov Walker.  Cause you know, Minnesota is where everyone flees to when they can’t stand the heat of Wisconsin or they fail to uphold their oath of office.  Looking at you Farve.  In case you were wondering, Walker is a tea party republican and the state legislature is, save those cowardly democrats who ran, is mostly conservative.

Once order was restored and those spineless democratic state senators returned to fulfill their oath and do their job, the reforms were passed.  That sparked a small grassroots movement to have the governor recalled.  Now a recall is normally used when misdeeds or corruption or provable crimes are committed by an elected official or an administration.  I can’t think of a time in our history where it was used because one political ideology just didn’t like the ideology of the opposition.  Not sure I’m fond of the precedent they set, but what do I know.  Gray Davis, former governor of California, was the last to be recalled.  He truly drove California into a ditch from which they have yet to recover.  Ineptness and lack of control over his administration led to Davis’ recall.  Plus they are still arresting some low level members of his administration.  That allowed Arnold the Governator to win the California Governor’s seat.

The grass roots movement in Wisconsin started gaining some momentum and managed to get enough signatures to trigger a recall.  That recall election occurred tonight.  It pitted Walker, the current governor, against Democrat Tom Barrett, the guy who lost to Walker in 2010.  Walker was twice as nice.  He smoked Barrett again.  Rebecca Kleefisch, the Lt. Governor, also a republican retained her seat as well.  Besides the Governor and Lt Governor, 4 state republican senators were also recalled.  It appears it will be a six pack for the GOP as they should win all six recall elections.

So, you know, well done Wisconsin democrats, well done.  It may be helpful next time if you’re going to bitch and moan about something, you remember to man up at the moment of truth.  As President Bartlett said on Twitter tonight, “way to take a slam dunk and turn it into an air-ball.”  Yes, the president from the show West Wing is on twitter, as is most of the cast.

I’m not a fan of Scott Walker.  He’s a conniving used car salesman.  However, Wisconsinites seem to like his union reform.  A key indication of that – once union dues became voluntary, unions across the state were reporting heavy losses to membership.  Some unions shut down completely.  Now we’re talking state government unions, not private unions.  Big difference.  The governor has no control over private unions.   At least not yet.  This victory tonight might signal other republican governors that state unions are now fair game and it’s time to strike while the iron is hot.  Could private unions be far behind if this becomes a trend?  It would be interesting to know how many of those who dropped out of the union when they we able, actually voted for Walker.

From the “egg on their face”  department I give you the network and cable news outlets.  They were using exit polling data that suggested this race would be close.  As the polls closed they all claimed the race was too close to call based on the exit polling showing each candidate with 50% of the vote.  Actual results started coming in and what do you know, a funny thing happened on the way to the teleprompter.  The results were no where near what the exit polling claimed.  Walker and his LT Governor crushed their respective opponents.  Which brings us to the  “what does this all mean” department.

Tonight’s election means a few things to me.  First, the death of the tea party has been greatly exaggerated.  They quietly kicked some serious hind parts in Wisconsin tonight.  I don’t agree with anything they have to say but you have to respect the effort and the outcome.

Second, Obama is smarter than I thought.  He’s going to get blamed by Wisconsin Dems for not coming to the cheesehead state once during this whole process.  Guess who was smarter.  Had the President campaigned actively for Barrett, who wasn’t even the union’s first choice to run against Walker, and the guy still lost by this much, it would have been a disaster.  This stink-bomb would have soiled the President for months, causing him headaches possibly up to the convention in September.  Now this story is a non-issue in a month maybe two.  It will not cause ripples in November.  The President’s campaigning for Tom Barrett would have not mattered one bit, so large was the margin of victory.

Third, exit polling (asking people how they voted after they come out and then projecting a percentage based on their answers) will come under some serious scrutiny during the Presidential Election in November.  It’s likely you’ll see the networks shy away from using exit polling too much.

Lastly, anyone saying this will mean anything in November is crazy.  It’s the first week of June, can you imagine the crisis; political, financial, natural, and man-made, that will occur between now and the first week of November?

My mantra during the GOP primary was delegate count, not voter count, wins primaries.  My mantra for the Presidential Election is this.  Anything that happens before the National Conventions for both parties later this summer will be meaningless to the actual election.  Now if either the President or the Governor were to be arrested, caught with a hooker,  died, etc… then all bets are off.  But for the most part, this election tonight will not cause neither Romney nor Obama to gain or lose votes.

By the way, those same exit polls that had the recall election at 50-50, had the President whacking Romney by some 15% points if the Presidential election were held today .  Guess what the Romney camp will be saying about the accuracy of those number tomorrow.   And they’ll be right.

God, I love this game.