Patterico's Pontifications

9/10/2012

Our Republican Candidate Is Toast

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:45 pm



Via Ace comes this depressing assessment of the presidential race:

Since Labor Day, the media have released about 20 polls on the presidential race. Three show a dead heat, one shows Romney leading by a single percentage point, and the rest show Barack Obama leading by one to 10 points. In the latest polls, Obama leads by an average of five points. It’s fashionable at this stage to caution that “anything can happen,” that Romney is “retooling,” and that the numbers can turn in Romney’s favor just as easily as they turned against him. But they can’t. The numbers are moving toward Obama because fundamental dynamics tilt the election in his favor. The only question has been how far those dynamics would carry him. . . .

Yes, in principle, Romney could win. The stock market could crash. Obama could be caught shagging an intern. Romney could electrify the country with the greatest performance in the history of presidential debates. But barring such a grossly unlikely event, there is no reason to think Romney will recover. Ultimately, reasons drive elections. . . . [L]ook closely at the trends beneath the horse-race numbers, and you’ll realize why it’s practically impossible to turn those numbers around. Obama doesn’t just have the lead. On each underlying factor, he has the upside as well.

Depressing, right? Well, maybe not so much.

See, if you click the link, you’ll see that my quotation is not quite accurate. I substituted “Romney” for “Bush” and “Obama” for “Gore.” Yes, the quote is from William Saletan, during the 2000 presidential election, explaining why Bush couldn’t possibly win.

I’m sure Saletan is out there making confident pronouncements even today. Gotta pay the bills somehow. But every so often it’s good to look at recent history for perspective.

As Ace says: “So we’re behind. We’ve been behind before.”

And how are those individual factors looking? I mentioned them before but it’s worth revisiting:

  • Unemployment: 7.8% then, 8.1% now
  • Median income: $54,983 then, $50,964 now
  • Gas prices: $1.85 per gallon then, $3.78 now
  • National debt: $10.6 trillion then, $16 trillion now

When a guy is making things worse and says he hasn’t had time to finish the job, maybe you don’t want him to finish the job.

Caption Contest: Slow Joe and the Bikers

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:21 pm



Hot Air ran a caption contest based on this photo:

I’m sure the readers here can do better.

P.S. This will hopefully motivate me to declare winners for the last caption contest.

Disability Rolls Increase Under Obama

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:35 am



Longtime reader and commenter Kevin M has a new blog, and a recent post makes an excellent point: disability claimants have soared under Obama:

President Obama likes to talk about all the jobs “created” by his administration since the recession ended in June 2009, but he clearly does not want to talk about the Disability caseload he has also created. As of April 2012, the number of added Disability claims was more than twice the number of added jobs, 4.7 million versus 2.3 million respectively. The rate has been climbing with respect to the workforce for a generation, but has accelerated recently as the workforce has declined.

Some of this is SSI Disability for (legal) workers who don’t have the required work credits to qualify tor Social Security, mostly people in the underground economy. While the amount paid by SSID isn’t much ($674), people who DO qualify for Social Security proper can get payouts exceeding $3000 per month if they have no other income or assets. These payments are for the duration of the disability, which is mostly always until Social Security proper kicks in.

Interesting. Go to Kevin’s blog for more, including source links.

Democrats on God and Israel in a Political Ad

Filed under: 2012 Election,General — Patterico @ 7:30 am



For Mitt Romney? No, for Allen West:

God forbid Romney should hit hard like this.

(See what I did there?)

Julián Castro’s Mom: Remember the Alamo and How Much It Sucks

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:17 am



Heroes of the Alamo? Nah, they’re “drunks and crooks and slaveholding imperialists”:

Julián Castro is the son of Rosie Castro, a well-known ’70s firebrand who was among the leaders of La Raza Unida, the radical movement in Texas that was dedicated to defending the civil rights of Mexican-Americans and promoting a strong “Chicano” identity. One of Castro’s first acts as mayor was to hang a 1971 La Raza Unida City Council campaign poster, featuring his mother, in his private office. But this was a gesture of filial loyalty, not of ideological solidarity.

. . . .

I met the mayor’s mother in her office at Palo Alto College, where she runs a student-services center. She was born in San Antonio in 1947 to an immigrant mother who didn’t get past fourth grade; she didn’t meet her father till she was 34. To Rosie, the Alamo is a symbol of bad times. “They used to take us there when we were schoolchildren,” she told me. “They told us how glorious that battle was. When I grew up I learned that the ‘heroes’ of the Alamo were a bunch of drunks and crooks and slaveholding imperialists who conquered land that didn’t belong to them. But as a little girl I got the message — we were losers. I can truly say that I hate that place and everything it stands for.”

Well. You can’t really blame a guy for what his mom says. But it does raise an interesting question. As the Southwest fills up with Latinos who have never taken citizenship classes, studied our history, or sworn an oath to this country, will there be a change in the traditional views of places like the Alamo?

It is, perhaps, a reminder that citizenship is not just a technicality.

H/t to Fox News and a reader who noticed the story.


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0732 secs.