Month: July 2008

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

By Patrick Appel
David Kiley reports:

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch.

How’s That For Elitism?

By Patrick Appel
Andrew Romano scoffs at McCain crying elitism:

The McCain camp wants voters to believe that Obama’s "arrogance" befits his "celebrity" and makes him "selfish"–unlike (you guessed it) McCain, who always puts "Country First." Or so his slogan says. The only problem? It makes just as much sense to call McCain an elitist as Obama. Nevermind that the Illinois senator is a bi-racial child from a broken family raised in a modest single-parent household. Or that there are plenty of "country clubs" still unwilling to accept African-Americans as members. Or that the last "celebrity" to occupy the Oval Office was Ronald Reagan, McCain’s hero. Simply imagine the memo David Axelrod could send to reporters about the Republican nominee. "Only a celebrity of John McCain’s magnitude could star on blockbuster television shows like ’24’ and appear in big-budget motion pictures like ‘Wedding Crashers,’" it would read. "These are not campaign commercials or news interviews, but major Hollywood productions–which is no surprise, given that he’s pals with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lorne Michaels. Only celebrities like John McCain own seven homes, date Brazilian models, marry blond heiresses worth $100 million, attend Virginia’s tony "old boy" Episcopal High School, forget the last time they pumped their own gas and wear $520 black calfskin loafers by Ferragamo." Get the picture?

Educational Decline?

By Patrick Appel
Tim Kane praises soft skills:

…soft skills are the key to workforce success, not hard skills. It may be difficult to measure creativity, perseverance, and flexibility, but they not only underpin entrepreneurship, but also serve as the basis for productive teamwork. The danger I see is a school system that is increasingly managed from the top, emphasizing measurable hard skills, but too politically correct and legalistic to enforce classroom discipline, teacher excellence, or personal responsibility. Of course, competition is another cultural advantage America once had, but the very idea of competition among children is becoming a taboo.

Can You Say “Statistical Noise”?

By Patrick Appel
I get very tired of this sort of analysis:

A mere three days ago, Barack Obama sat comfortably perched atop a nine point lead in the Gallup tracking poll. Now it’s down to four. Rasmussen shows an even tighter race. In Rasmussen’s tracking numbers, Obama’s six point lead of four days ago has shrunk to two. And let’s not forget the notorious Gallup non-tracking poll which showed McCain with a four point lead. True, that one was an obvious outlier and as responsible analysts we should ignore the outliers. But the big picture is obvious – Barack Obama’s lead is a slim one.

Reality check. I stand by this post.