Posts by Bob Munro
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I’m loving Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. Who knew you could romance polling?
Five Thirty Eight is headed for the open road. We may have built a reputation for the numbers, but don’t be fooled: there is poetry in our souls. We are in the middle of an epic election, and for the final eight weeks we’ll be bringing you not only an intense daily polling menu, but also the story of the battleground states’ ground game.
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NYT has excerpts from the Palin interview with ABC.
In Gov. Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated interview with ABC News, she said she “didn’t blink” when Senator John McCain asked her to be his running mate.
Charles Gibson, the interviewer, asked her if she didn’t hesitate and question whether she was experienced enough.
“I didn’t hesitate, no,” she said.
He asked if that didn’t that take some hubris.
“I answered him yes,” Ms. Palin said, “because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”
So no problems with self-doubt then.
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Here's a good one.
Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."
Deference: "a courteous expression (by word or deed) of esteem or regard".
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Post RNC bounce or whatever, Gallup has McPalin 3 points ahead today
Will it last...maybe not but it's a big jump from 5 points down a week ago.
Fivethirtyeight analyses the RNC bounce.
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Audio of Fisk in Christchurch. Not certain but this may be Matthew's Friday afternoon one?
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Oh - and I don't know if it was mentioned at your session but Fisk said that no U.S. paper takes his column. Whenever they have tried advertisers have pressured his removal.
It's a funny old world.
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Sorry to hear the public sessions swamped the student one. I was at the Saturday morning one, the first one originallly booked. I believe they had three public sessions in all. must have been 500+ at each session. Pity they didn't anticipate and book a bigger venue.
As you say - so much wit and sagacity - of the genuine kind.
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Kroon bellowed
Apparently not.
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Fisk was urbane, reasonably cheerful and of course gimlet-eyed and realistic about there being a solution as westerners would understand it to any particular Middle-East 'problem'.
I remember years ago reading a biography of the great Manchester Guardian foreign correspondent James Cameron who followed a similar beat for many years and emerged depressed and virtually suicidal till he was saved in his latter years by the love of a good woman. Fisk somehow seems to have managed to stay at the coalface long after lesser lights have given it away. Why though he feels the need to fly 30 hours to bless us with his wisdom I’ve no idea, but it felt a privilege to be there.
Except the questions from the floor. It didn’t take long before we were listening to local burgher’s world views and wasting the precious hour with Fisk. Organisers of his other talks take note.
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Its obviously about the career rather than doing your duty to those who elected you the last time.
That's true if the two short quotes were the beginning and end of the issue. But the article itself is two pages long and attempts to explain the various nuances to the use of the 'present' vote in the Illinios State legislature and how that might differ from other state legislatures. You can take a black/white, right/wrong position on anything if you filter out enough of the available data.
In the grand issues of our time this seems to me pretty small beans. I went to the Robert Fisk talk in Christchurch yesterday. Listening to someone who can put the present Iraq war in the same context as the British 1917 one, and make analogies between Churchill setting up a committee in 1941 to work on the problems of governing a post- war Germany with Rumsfeld’s absence of an occupation plan - well it doesn’t make you very optimistic about the methods Americans use to select their leaders.
At least, said Fisk, McCain knows what war is, unlike Bush and Blair who got there impressions from 'Saving Private Ryan'.