The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Some GOOD news for Republicans
Several sources for this story, all of which are showing really positive signs for Republicans. (SO GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!)
First there is this from AJ Strata (follow ALL of the links in his post, too):
This is the season I avidly read TKS and look for the sage words from Geraghty’s source “Obiwan”, that source has insight and information us political addicts would die for. TKS has an update on what Obiwan predicted and what is happening. I for one have predicted a Steele win for over a year, so seeing that come in to reality sometimes makes me forget that the move towards Steele, like the support for Lieberman, is bucking the liberal media’s myth of a democrat, anti-iraq wave. Byron York highlights some concern from Kos on MT and his surrender on TN. More later if time permits.
Update: It seems this election will be a historic one for lots of reasons. One of which will be turn out, which means it will be a marker for future GOTV efforts. And I think the Democrats need to be worried because, like 2004, high turnout doesn’t translate into their side winning. In fact, the fallacy of the polls in 2004 was skewed turnout models which missed the surge of the GOP GOTV effort. More indications today for those interested.
Next up is the huge increase in absentee ballots in MD. My guess is a lot of people are crossing party lines to vote in Steele and Ehrlich since the MD black Dems are now in open revolt with the Dem party.
VA is also seeing immense increases in absentee ballots, sometimes double or triple the previous records. In this decidedly red state, those levels cannot be from Dems alone. And some regions seeing the highest increase (Northern VA, Norfolk) are heavy military areas. My guess is Kerry motivated the military vote (and that includes their families) like never before.
Same in Missouri. It’s happening everywhere.
Simply Google “absentee” and you will stories from every state where absentee voting is way, way up and reaching levels comparable to the 2004 elections (they seem to have already passed the 2002 midterm marks). What this does mean is all those polls we have been seeing, where Dems have been weighted because of the drop of in Rep responses are bogus. And I do mean bogus. Rassmussen and others have said they have seen a big ‘increase’ in Dem party responses. And with these massive absentee and early voting levels it is clear these were not changes in the electorate, but changes in the electorate’s participation in polls. That is why pollsters would have done better to show the two results based on heavy turn out for both sides of the partisan aisle, and one result for equal turnout.
The polls out now do not consider an equal or greater participation by Reps in the turnout models. And that is why they are getting wild results when you look across polls. This is a time where accurate measurements would be converging. They are not, so that means the measurement process is flawed.
The media is the biggest loser here. I am just stunned that any news organization is playing the Haggard or Rumsfeld stories as issues. It is a clear sign of how dumb the media thinks Americans are to let these two stories, which are not on any ballot anywhere, be part of the election debate. But they have their BDS to deal with, and they will have the destroyed reputations to live with after next Tuesday.
Anyway, the bottom line is this: The fact the absentee ballots are, at minimum, showing a surge of equal size on both sides of the aisle means the polls are garbage and seriously overestimating Democrat strength.
Addendum: Other indicators to watch. a couple of polls out showed the generic polls and the race polls are going to be wildly off because, while the generic shows huge leads for dems, when asked whether they will support their current congressman or not, it is 2-1 for the incumbents - meaning it is nearly opposite the generic question’s results. When faced with the real choice, voters aren’t moving to the Dems as much as the polls would indicate at a glance. That is why people who do not understand math (that would be you journalists out there) should not pretend to know how to interpret math results.
I don't know why, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that I think AJ is right on the money with his predictions. Strata also points out a new poll showing that upwards of 33% of voters are still undecided as of this week.
Captain Ed thinks that things are looking good in the Senate. And the biggest story in the upcoming election just may be the rise of Michael Steele in deep-blue Maryland. If Steele pulls it off, this one is going to hurt: Watch the video.
Meanwhile spokespersons of Islamst terror groups are all coming out urging Americans to vote for their Allies: the Democrats.
It's not over 'till it's over: get out and vote Republican on Tuesday. No excuses. This is a critical election and you are the difference between victory and defeat. VOTE: Even if you are not otherwise motivated, it would be worth it just to watch the MSM go down in flames--again. As Captain Picard would say: "make it so".
First there is this from AJ Strata (follow ALL of the links in his post, too):
This is the season I avidly read TKS and look for the sage words from Geraghty’s source “Obiwan”, that source has insight and information us political addicts would die for. TKS has an update on what Obiwan predicted and what is happening. I for one have predicted a Steele win for over a year, so seeing that come in to reality sometimes makes me forget that the move towards Steele, like the support for Lieberman, is bucking the liberal media’s myth of a democrat, anti-iraq wave. Byron York highlights some concern from Kos on MT and his surrender on TN. More later if time permits.
Update: It seems this election will be a historic one for lots of reasons. One of which will be turn out, which means it will be a marker for future GOTV efforts. And I think the Democrats need to be worried because, like 2004, high turnout doesn’t translate into their side winning. In fact, the fallacy of the polls in 2004 was skewed turnout models which missed the surge of the GOP GOTV effort. More indications today for those interested.
Next up is the huge increase in absentee ballots in MD. My guess is a lot of people are crossing party lines to vote in Steele and Ehrlich since the MD black Dems are now in open revolt with the Dem party.
VA is also seeing immense increases in absentee ballots, sometimes double or triple the previous records. In this decidedly red state, those levels cannot be from Dems alone. And some regions seeing the highest increase (Northern VA, Norfolk) are heavy military areas. My guess is Kerry motivated the military vote (and that includes their families) like never before.
Same in Missouri. It’s happening everywhere.
Simply Google “absentee” and you will stories from every state where absentee voting is way, way up and reaching levels comparable to the 2004 elections (they seem to have already passed the 2002 midterm marks). What this does mean is all those polls we have been seeing, where Dems have been weighted because of the drop of in Rep responses are bogus. And I do mean bogus. Rassmussen and others have said they have seen a big ‘increase’ in Dem party responses. And with these massive absentee and early voting levels it is clear these were not changes in the electorate, but changes in the electorate’s participation in polls. That is why pollsters would have done better to show the two results based on heavy turn out for both sides of the partisan aisle, and one result for equal turnout.
The polls out now do not consider an equal or greater participation by Reps in the turnout models. And that is why they are getting wild results when you look across polls. This is a time where accurate measurements would be converging. They are not, so that means the measurement process is flawed.
The media is the biggest loser here. I am just stunned that any news organization is playing the Haggard or Rumsfeld stories as issues. It is a clear sign of how dumb the media thinks Americans are to let these two stories, which are not on any ballot anywhere, be part of the election debate. But they have their BDS to deal with, and they will have the destroyed reputations to live with after next Tuesday.
Anyway, the bottom line is this: The fact the absentee ballots are, at minimum, showing a surge of equal size on both sides of the aisle means the polls are garbage and seriously overestimating Democrat strength.
Addendum: Other indicators to watch. a couple of polls out showed the generic polls and the race polls are going to be wildly off because, while the generic shows huge leads for dems, when asked whether they will support their current congressman or not, it is 2-1 for the incumbents - meaning it is nearly opposite the generic question’s results. When faced with the real choice, voters aren’t moving to the Dems as much as the polls would indicate at a glance. That is why people who do not understand math (that would be you journalists out there) should not pretend to know how to interpret math results.
I don't know why, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that I think AJ is right on the money with his predictions. Strata also points out a new poll showing that upwards of 33% of voters are still undecided as of this week.
Captain Ed thinks that things are looking good in the Senate. And the biggest story in the upcoming election just may be the rise of Michael Steele in deep-blue Maryland. If Steele pulls it off, this one is going to hurt: Watch the video.
Meanwhile spokespersons of Islamst terror groups are all coming out urging Americans to vote for their Allies: the Democrats.
It's not over 'till it's over: get out and vote Republican on Tuesday. No excuses. This is a critical election and you are the difference between victory and defeat. VOTE: Even if you are not otherwise motivated, it would be worth it just to watch the MSM go down in flames--again. As Captain Picard would say: "make it so".
