Month: November 2010

Vince Mancini explains:

As much as someone getting hit in the groin in real life is instant, automatic comedic gold, I’ve long maintained that having someone get hit in the nuts during a movie trailer is all the proof you need that that movie is going to suck those same balls. It’s sort of like when a band has an album, and the first single has both the same name as the album and is the first song, you know that’s the only good song on that album (I call it the “Are You Gonna Go My Way” effect). Anyway, our video editor, Oliver, has put together a compilation of movies with groin trauma in the trailer and their resulting RottenTomatoes ratings (we know those are far from scientific, but they’re still fun).

Further evidence: Jackass 3D, of all movies, didn't stoop that low in its trailer and it received a respectable 62%. It was one of the best nights out I've had in a long time.

Doug Mataconis eyes the partisan split:

The top scoring shows on each list are no surprise, of course. That Glenn Beck is hugely popular among Republicans and Keith Olberman is similarly popular among Democrats but not vice versa. What’s more surprising, really, is that there’s no correlation at all among the Top 15 shows in either list.

Brian Bolduc reports that Olympia Snowe is getting a Tea Party challenger. Chait presents Snowe's options:

Things can change in two years, but the way the Republican Party is currently operating, primary challenges like this are nearly impossible to defeat. Christine O-Donnell won, and she was pretty obviously a totally underqualified borderline nutcase. Maine looks like a prime pick-up opportunity for Democrats in 2012. If I'm Snowe, I'm figuring my best chance to retain the seat is not to try to lurch to the right — which hasn't worked for anybody; these activists have long memories — but to make a plan to hold the seat as an independent or Democrat. The chances of surviving that way are way higher than the chances of making it through a Republican primary.

A reader writes:

You don't make a cameo on Sarah Palin's Alaska, do you? From the NYT review:

'At one point a bear seems on the verge of charging the boat, a danger that Ms. Palin says “keeps you on your heels.” '

"I can't remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president. Certainly, in statements on one specific issue or another — building in Jerusalem, or somesuch — lawmakers have taken the sides of other nations. But to have-a-face to face and say, in general, we will take your side against the White House — that sounds to me extraordinary," – Ron Kampeas on Eric Cantor's siding with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu against the policies of the president of the United States.

Gallup finds record unfavorables for Palin:

At the close of an eventful midterm election season that focused heavily on the Tea Party message and candidates, Americans remain broadly divided in their reactions to the Tea Party movement, while the majority now hold a negative image of Palin, one of the movement's most visible proponents. In the process, Palin maintained her already-positive image with Republicans while losing ground with independents and remaining widely unpopular with Democrats. The national Tea Party movement itself is also relatively polarizing, with about equal percentages of Americans calling themselves supporters and opponents.

PPP has more bad news for the former governor. She performs terribly with female voters:

A trend we have been noticing in our early Obama/GOP matchups at the national level is that Palin consistently performs worse with all female voters against Obama than both Mike Huckabee — the strongest with women nationally — and Mitt Romney, and not much better than Newt Gingrich. Because of this, Huckabee and Romney almost always do best overall against Obama. 

A telling comparison.

The trend is sweeping Britain.

Douthat is still hoping that none of the current GOP frontrunners win the 2012 nomination:

What if any of them could get to 25 or 30 percent, but none of them could get to 35 or 40? Or to put it another way: If Chris Christie and “Not Sure” can outpoll Romney and Palin at this stage, doesn’t that suggest that there’s a substantial market for somebody who isn’t considered a front-runner just yet?

Jonathan Bernstein agrees. Joyner isn't biting:

The Republicans have  nominated an early frontrunner every quadrennial in the primary era: McCain, Bush, Bush, Dole, Bush, Bush, Reagan, Reagan, Ford, Nixon, Nixon, Goldwater, Nixon, Eisenhower, Eisenhower.  Unlike the Democrats, who parcel out votes proportionally (moreso since 1984 than previously) the GOP has a winner-take-all system.  This makes it extremely hard for someone who isn’t an early favorite to gain steam over a long race. If you don’t win at least one primary in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina, you’re toast.

It's hers to lose.