Posts by Angus Robertson
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Steve Barnes,
CT "exactly, We pile the poo on Winnie and back him into a corner. Labour will stand by him and look bad by association. When the dust starts to settle we out John on the Tranz rail thingy"
Natguy: But Winnies a racebaiting, xenophobe who we kicked out for being too much of a Muldoonist conservative, Labour only need him for the moment they'll never "stand by him" for months.
Labour Party (shout from offstage): Oh yes we will! -
The Herald gets it wrong:
There is no way to downplay the fact that when Mr Key was asked the question, his first instinct appeared to be to deny the truth.
The moral highground is easily obtainable when your opponents are seen as actively endorsing lies and excuse making. Admit the mistake, accept the responsibility for making the error, show how you attempted to remedy the situation and commit to not making it again. Mea culpa and a plea for forgiveness.
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Simon,
I said "IF" the Palin story becomes the central story of this election and buries "the issues - economy, climate, Iraq - to minor importance" that McCain will win. Unless you have had your head up the proverbial for the past week you will have noted that an issue (the economy) is front page and Obama is striding ahead. If you read this I know you'll be figuring out how attribute this resurgance of Obama as a Palin thing and lag will be asserted.
Alas I do despair there is a hard core of utter stupids on the left who (along with most of the Republican party who aren't) will bring the Sarah Palin story back to prominence. This will negatively impact Obama and McCain might still win.
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Hoary old clichés about people voting for someone they'd like to have a beer with were thumpingly borne out.
Except they are not voting for Palin, they are voting for McCain. And does it really surprise anyone that a lack of experience, a short political record and lack of foreign-policy experience are key concerns for people who would support McCain over Obama.
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Russell,
But I confess, I'm puzzled about what Angus and Simon are actually arguing about.
Lies, damn lies and statistics. We disagree about the importance of Palin and how much "character" Obama has, but it has quickly descended into an argument about statistical phenomena in a petty effort to "prove" the other wrong.
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No they look at the credibility of the candidates.....how simply does this need to be explained to you? It ain't hard.
I appreciate that you think that Obama is the most credible of candidates, but your opinion of Obama's credibility is exceptional in every sense of the word. You have gone to great lengths to denigrate McCain's long record, but readily accept Obama's much less impressive one. It is only a small fraction of the left that fervently believes Obama is the most credible and the rest go along due to 'my party right or wrong'. How hard is it to get you to understand that most Americans disagree with you and that you are part of a very small bunch of Obamaphiles?
Obama is not the most "credible" candidate, stop sipping the Koskid Kool-Aid and accept this. He has diddly squat executive or foreign affairs experience. He is not a safe pair of hands. Credibility is the overwhelming deficiency in the Obama campaign compared to McCain.
(Same applies Sarah Palin, but she ain't running for President.)
What Obama does have going for him is an expectation that he will bring about change, this becomes a good thing if (and only if) we can convince enough people that something needs changing. Either we play to Obama's real world strengths or we let ourselves be deluded into thinking we can get everybody to sip from our KoolAid. Something needs changing, its the economy.
Yes, I know that Angus but it doesn't change the immovable fact that it still takes days, up to a week, for these things to filter through fully.
BS it is not an "immovable fact", the higher profile the event the smaller the lag. 11-09-01 and 20-03-03 declaration of war on Iraq were big bumps for Bush and imediately were apparent in approval ratings.
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Simon,
Yes, so what. Once again Angus, read above. You really don't get this do you? Do you really think that a story like that on the financial pages (the NYT has a circulation of 1m..USA wide) last Saturday is going to filter through to nationwide polling within a day or so...no it will take three or four days after it hits the talkback, the chat shows, the chatter zone, to kick through.
What is the issue of primary concern to the highest number of voters? What is the issue of primary concern to swing voters? What is the issue of primary concern that is so dominating in its position that it outweighs the next highest issue by a factor of typically 4 to 1?
Answer: the economy.
Yes, issues of minor importance take a while to garner a following because no-one cares about them. The economy is not a minor issue.
You seriously believe there are millions of Americans (outside of the KosKids and MILF lovers Anon) who look at their pension funds plummet and think "Palin, yeah Palin really is my biggest concern"? Wow.
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Simon,
Obama now back in the lead of three of the four major tracking polls ...
All Palin all the time = McCain 3% ahead.
Wall St crashes, Ike clean up secondary news, Palin hardly on the radar = Obama takes lead.
What this means to the loony left is the Palin story is the single most devastating weapon against the Republicans ever, we are the greatest, yay us.
Simon please take a few words of advice - forget about Sarah she is not worth the effort.
We were not talking sentiment, we were talking a polling figure [about sentiment].
Congratulations are in order, you have managed to highlight a meaningless statistical data error - twice. Approval/disapproval is an expression of sentiment, 20% approval does not express much better sentiment than 9%. My original point stands - the Pelosi/Reid congress is awfully unpopular.
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Once again Angus, polling proves a problem with you. Have you heard the much used phrase 'polling lag'.
Daily tracking polls really do track polling daily. You have cited the daily tracking polls of 13 - 15 September.
To blame the week's McCain drops on 'the economy' is either dishonest, or just plain silly. Half the polling was done before the crashes, and much of the rest on day one.
Simon, an ability to pay attention to world events is sometimes helpful.
On Saturday 13 September lead financial story was the extraordinary trading day of Wall St to mitigate debts pending a possible Lehman Bros collapse. On Sunday 14 September it became apparent that no rescue was possible and that Lehman Bros was going to fold, the expectation was built in all the press that Monday 15 September would be bad. Monday 15 September was very bad.
The effect of Wall Street on polling is still some days off.
And it will continue to be good for Obama.
She's a Democrat asset in making.
Only got seven weeks, making anything stick will take longer than that. If it isn't done by election day it is a deficit to the Democrats.
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Whether you "blame" McCain, or regard him as tainted (or for that matter, his opponent as "fresh") is just the same old infantile politics that the Republicans have been trying to make campaigns about. That's not the issue. The issue is who's better equipped to take on a problem in which the world has an interest, and that's very clearly Obama.
Of course, that all requires Americans to stop voting for the person they think they'd like to have a beer with.
...and indulge in some theorising about economics. Perhaps the Cato Institute could provide a booklet, Obama's people could provide a booklet and before you know it - they'll be 700 million booklets not being read all across America.
7 weeks out from an election is an unreasonable timeframe in which to expect an epiphany that Russell Brownian (or perhaps Craig Ranapian) economics are correct.