Alliance Alert.org

 

The Drudge Report has done a great job highlighting the innumerable and disparate election polls being touted in the media. Today, Drudge has featured a photo of Obama with a headline that reads: “Landslide Like Reagan.” It links to a Zogby poll indicating a nearly 10 point spread in the Presidential race. A short time later Drudge added a new top story: “AP Shock Poll: Obama, McCain Even . . .” And of course, Real Clear Politics and USAElectionPolls.com are treasure troves for poll lovers.

 

Rush Limbaugh has argued for several months that the Presidential race will be a dead heat and much of the polling is an effort to manipulate public opinion. His website currently features this headline: See, I Told You So: Polls are Close. Read report.

IBD Editorials.com

 

Like many others, we took it as another gaffe when Joe Biden said he expected Barack Obama to be "tested" shortly after taking office. But when he repeated it, we wondered: What's he trying to tell us?

 

Glib, voluble and unscripted, Sen. Biden is liable to say anything on a given day. That's why it pays to listen carefully to what he repeats — because it's obviously something he's thought about.

 

"Mark my words," Biden said in San Francisco last Saturday. "With the next, first six months of this administration, if we win, they're going to — we're going to face a major international challenge. Because they're going to want to test him, just like they did young John Kennedy. They're going to want to test him."

 

Then, the very next day in Seattle, he said: "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy . . . Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the metttle of this guy."

 

And just what would a "generated crisis" be? Could it be as former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Wednesday — that "leaders around the world see Obama as soft, untested and weak, and they will react accordingly?"

 

If so, Biden is right: Some aspiring latter-day Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro or Ho Chi Minh will no doubt test our new commander in chief.

 

But there's another angle to this, based on what Biden the senator knows. Read article.

 

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com

 

Lame-duck Republican President Bush’s dismal poll ratings have descended to those of Harry Truman’s when he left office. The Democratic majority in Congress will probably widen after the election. Republican nominee John McCain has not run a dynamic campaign. Gen. Colin Powell, George Bush’s former secretary of state, has now enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama.

 

The country is in two unpopular wars — amid the worst financial panic of the last 80 years. Not since prophet of change and newcomer Jimmy Carter ran against Gerald Ford (post Watergate and the lost Vietnam war) have voters been so eager for a shake-up.

 

Why then is the charismatic Barack Obama not quite yet a shoo-in? Read article.

Alexander Bolton. The Hill.com

 

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

 

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

 

Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.

 

Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.

 

In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby. Read article.

George Neumayr, Spectator.org

 

If Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid had to write the Declaration of Independence and Constitution from scratch, what would those documents say? Would they read like the current ones? No, they would read like the platform of the Democratic Party.

 

Barack Obama's America started not in 1776 but around 2006. By letting slip the comment, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country," Michelle Obama said as much.

 

The only question that remains is: If Obama wins, will the Democrats have the courage of their convictions? Will they hold a sort of ongoing constitutional convention and transform America into the liberal country of their dreams -- the America in their minds which they identify now as the source of true patriotism? Read article.

Hot Air.com

 

Allow us to put our cards on the table at the outset: We are two young conservative journalists—both in our 20s. Unlike many of our peers, we are not swept up in Obamamania and would prefer John McCain to win the election. We’ve teamed up with seasoned blogger extraordinaire, Ed Morrissey, whose careful and thoughtful pursuit of the truth—even when it benefits his political opponents—is respected across the blogosphere. In that spirit, we are not at all interested in perpetuating lies, rumors, and innuendo about Barack Obama.

 

Promoting such information does America a disservice, allows Obama’s supporters to justifiably cry “smear,” and damages our own credibility.

What follows is by no means comprehensive, but it does shed some much-needed light on a number of Obama’s positions, statements, and associations about which he has been less than honest. We’ve attempted to boil each issue down to a succinct explanation with an accompanying, brief video clip—often starring Barack Obama in his own words. Before pulling the lever for someone who hopes voters will ignore his paper-thin resume, unsavory associations, and hard-left voting record, each citizen has a duty to do his due diligence.

 

In short, we hope this “closing argument” is compelling and clear, and we encourage you to share this essay with undecided or wavering family members, friends, and co-workers. Read article.

 

Paul Eidelberg, Political Mavens.com

 

When opinion rules, as it does in democracies, it is only necessary to examine, not its truth, but the number of those who express this opinion. It is not even necessary to examine whether any individual who expresses this opinion is serious or frivolous, whether his opinion is the result of reflection or of impulse, whether it is an abiding conviction or a passing fancy. Consequently, wherever opinions rule, people are less apt to take opinions seriously.

 

Hence they will be less likely to develop the habit of critical thinking or of making logical and moral distinctions. Feelings or the emotions will thus tend to supplant logic. People will then become more susceptible to propaganda, whose target is the emotions. It is in this light that we are to understand Senator Barack Obama’s use of such slogans as CHANGE and YES WE CAN.

 

Since democracies, more than other regimes, are ruled by opinion, and since politicians modulate opinions with emotion, democracies are inherently prone to semantic subversion. The adepts of semantic subversion use the media of democracy to concentrate public attention on emotionally appealing and simplistic solutions to complex problems. Read article.

 

Michael Barone, Online WSJ.com

 

Can we trust the polls this year? That's a question many people have been asking as we approach the end of this long, long presidential campaign. As a recovering pollster and continuing poll consumer, my answer is yes -- with qualifications.

 

To start with, political polling is inherently imperfect. Academic pollsters say that to get a really random sample, you should go back to a designated respondent in a specific household time and again until you get a response. But political pollsters who must report results overnight have to take the respondents they can reach. So they weight the results of respondents in different groups to get a sample that approximates the whole population they're sampling.

 

Another problem is the increasing number of cell phone-only households. Gallup and Pew have polled such households, and found their candidate preferences aren't much different from those with landlines; and some pollsters have included cell-phone numbers in their samples. A third problem is that an increasing number of Americans refuse to be polled. We can't know for sure if they're different in some pertinent respects from those who are willing to answer questions.

 

Professional pollsters are seriously concerned about these issues. But this year especially, many who ask if we can trust the polls are usually concerned about something else: Can we trust the poll when one of the presidential candidates is black? Read article.

 

Byron York, NRO.com

 

 

Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above. Palin, the governor of Alaska, has faced more criticism than any vice-presidential candidate since 1988, when Democrats and the press tore into Dan Quayle. In fact, Palin may have it even worse than Quayle, since she’s taking flak not only from Democrats and the press but from some conservative opinion leaders as well.

 

After John McCain unexpectedly chose Palin as his running mate, reporters raced to Alaska to look into her family life, including her teenage daughter’s pregnancy; into her per diem expense requests; into her controversial firing of the state’s public-safety commissioner; into her husband’s role as informal adviser; into the gifts she received; and into much more. Those investigations have yielded hundreds of stories. But Palin’s time in the governor’s office hasn’t been all, or even mostly, family drama and minor controversy. She was also, lest we forget, the state’s chief executive. So, what did she do every day? How deeply involved was she in the workings of government? What were her priorities? Read article.

 

Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO.com

 

Speaking to a group of young Catholics in New York at a “Theology on Tap” event almost one month before Election Day, I had a harsh awakening as jarring as a shot of Wild Turkey 101. Weeks before going to the polling booth, Americans do not know Barack Obama.

 

In a packed bar, I was discussing the contentious question of whether a Catholic can support Obama for president. I highlighted the priority that defending innocent human lives takes in these considerations, according to the Church. I then went through Obama’s radical record on abortion. The jolt came after I finished speaking, when one by one, people told me they had no idea Obama was so radical.

 

They were shocked. And so was I.

 

We’ve been understandably focused on the economy lately, so much so that it’s as if there are no other issues. But there are. And in the time we have left, voters must consider them.

 

Though for Catholics, in the end, it’s up to the individual, through prayer, to decide upon political matters, my conclusion is that it would be a very tough thing for a follower of the pope to back the senator — impossible, actually. Obama has stood on the floor of the Illinois statehouse and argued that a baby born alive due to a botched abortion should not have the same rights as a child carried to term. That, in and of itself — his opposition to Illinois’s Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which sought to mandate safeguards for such unwanted children — is a heavy obstacle to overcome for those Obama fans concerned about the future and dignity of human life. He defended infanticide. That alone would be enough to keep me from voting for him. But, as it happens, it’s not the only ethical affront the Obama campaign has committed, and far from the only offense to human rights that the Democratic presidential candidate supports. Read article.

 

Richard A. Epstein, Forbes.com

 

It should come as no surprise that the traditionally liberal Hyde Park community is a veritable hotbed of support for Obama. So my manifest reluctance on his candidacy raises more than a single eyebrow: Loyalty for the home team counts.

 

The odd point is how his many learned and thoughtful supporters couch their endorsement. Almost without exception, they praise the man, not the program. Their claim is that Obama has proved himself to be a consummate politician who understands that the first principle of holding high office is to get reelected. His natural moderation in tone and demeanor, therefore, translate into getting advisers who know their substantive areas, and listening to them before making any rash moves. The dominant trope is that he will be a pragmatic president who will move in small increments toward the center, not in bold steps toward the left.

 

But is it all true?

 

The short answer is that nobody knows. Virtually everyone who knows him recognizes that he plays his cards close to the vest, so that you can make your case to him without knowing whether it has registered. At this point, my fear is that the change in office will not lead to a change in his liberal voting record, as reinforced by a hyperactive Democratic platform. My great fear is that a landslide victory will give him solid majorities in both Houses of Congress, so that no stalling tactics by Republicans can slow down his legislative victory procession. At that point his innate pragmatism will line up with his strong left-of-center beliefs on issues that have thus far been muted during the campaign. Read article.

Scott Gottlieb, WSJ.com

 

Pfizer recently said it's exiting the development of drugs for common conditions like heart disease. This is part of a shift underway in the pharmaceutical industry to give up on routine medical problems in favor of discovering "specialty" drugs for rare diseases and unmet medical needs like cancer.

 

The shift is driven in part by the industry's critics in Washington, who have long maligned drug companies for targeting too many routine medical problems with drugs that were "merely" tweaks on existing medicines. Now these same detractors, led by House Democrats, are proposing controls on access to and eventually pricing of the specialty drugs as well.

 

Mr. Obama's policies on drug access and his party's plans to control pricing will distort the financial incentives that inspire innovations. This will shortchange the contributions innovations provide. Read article.

 

Rasmussen Reports.com

 

John Kerry the next secretary of State?

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon?

 

Al Gore as Energy secretary?

 

These names and others are in the air as media speculation runs wild on the bipartisan “star” Cabinet Barack Obama has in mind if elected president. But some of these names might cost Obama votes in the key states he needs on Election Day, so Cabinet announcements will come after the votes are cast.

 

Fifty-three percent (53%) of U.S. voters say presidential candidates should announce at least some of their Cabinet choices before an election to help voters make a more informed decision.

 

Republicans and unaffiliated voters like the idea of Cabinet announcements before the election slightly more than Democrats. So do men voters compared to women. Can John McCain lure Mayor Michael Bloomberg away from New York City to head the Treasury Department? Or Rudy Giuliani to be attorney general or secretary of Homeland Security? Read article.

Alliance Alert.org

 

The Drudge Report has done a great job highlighting the innumerable and disparate election polls being touted in the media. Today, Drudge has featured a photo of Obama with a headline that reads: “Landslide Like Reagan.” It links to a Zogby poll indicating a nearly 10 point spread in the Presidential race. A short time later Drudge added a new top story: “AP Shock Poll: Obama, McCain Even . . .” And of course, Real Clear Politics and USAElectionPolls.com are treasure troves for poll lovers.

 

Rush Limbaugh has argued for several months that the Presidential race will be a dead heat and much of the polling is an effort to manipulate public opinion. His website currently features this headline: See, I Told You So: Polls are Close. Read report.

IBD Editorials.com

 

Like many others, we took it as another gaffe when Joe Biden said he expected Barack Obama to be "tested" shortly after taking office. But when he repeated it, we wondered: What's he trying to tell us?

 

Glib, voluble and unscripted, Sen. Biden is liable to say anything on a given day. That's why it pays to listen carefully to what he repeats — because it's obviously something he's thought about.

 

"Mark my words," Biden said in San Francisco last Saturday. "With the next, first six months of this administration, if we win, they're going to — we're going to face a major international challenge. Because they're going to want to test him, just like they did young John Kennedy. They're going to want to test him."

 

Then, the very next day in Seattle, he said: "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy . . . Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the metttle of this guy."

 

And just what would a "generated crisis" be? Could it be as former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Wednesday — that "leaders around the world see Obama as soft, untested and weak, and they will react accordingly?"

 

If so, Biden is right: Some aspiring latter-day Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro or Ho Chi Minh will no doubt test our new commander in chief.

 

But there's another angle to this, based on what Biden the senator knows. Read article.

 

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com

 

Lame-duck Republican President Bush’s dismal poll ratings have descended to those of Harry Truman’s when he left office. The Democratic majority in Congress will probably widen after the election. Republican nominee John McCain has not run a dynamic campaign. Gen. Colin Powell, George Bush’s former secretary of state, has now enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama.

 

The country is in two unpopular wars — amid the worst financial panic of the last 80 years. Not since prophet of change and newcomer Jimmy Carter ran against Gerald Ford (post Watergate and the lost Vietnam war) have voters been so eager for a shake-up.

 

Why then is the charismatic Barack Obama not quite yet a shoo-in? Read article.

Alexander Bolton. The Hill.com

 

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.

 

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

 

Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.

 

Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.

 

In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby. Read article.

George Neumayr, Spectator.org

 

If Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid had to write the Declaration of Independence and Constitution from scratch, what would those documents say? Would they read like the current ones? No, they would read like the platform of the Democratic Party.

 

Barack Obama's America started not in 1776 but around 2006. By letting slip the comment, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country," Michelle Obama said as much.

 

The only question that remains is: If Obama wins, will the Democrats have the courage of their convictions? Will they hold a sort of ongoing constitutional convention and transform America into the liberal country of their dreams -- the America in their minds which they identify now as the source of true patriotism? Read article.

Hot Air.com

 

Allow us to put our cards on the table at the outset: We are two young conservative journalists—both in our 20s. Unlike many of our peers, we are not swept up in Obamamania and would prefer John McCain to win the election. We’ve teamed up with seasoned blogger extraordinaire, Ed Morrissey, whose careful and thoughtful pursuit of the truth—even when it benefits his political opponents—is respected across the blogosphere. In that spirit, we are not at all interested in perpetuating lies, rumors, and innuendo about Barack Obama.

 

Promoting such information does America a disservice, allows Obama’s supporters to justifiably cry “smear,” and damages our own credibility.

What follows is by no means comprehensive, but it does shed some much-needed light on a number of Obama’s positions, statements, and associations about which he has been less than honest. We’ve attempted to boil each issue down to a succinct explanation with an accompanying, brief video clip—often starring Barack Obama in his own words. Before pulling the lever for someone who hopes voters will ignore his paper-thin resume, unsavory associations, and hard-left voting record, each citizen has a duty to do his due diligence.

 

In short, we hope this “closing argument” is compelling and clear, and we encourage you to share this essay with undecided or wavering family members, friends, and co-workers. Read article.

 

Paul Eidelberg, Political Mavens.com

 

When opinion rules, as it does in democracies, it is only necessary to examine, not its truth, but the number of those who express this opinion. It is not even necessary to examine whether any individual who expresses this opinion is serious or frivolous, whether his opinion is the result of reflection or of impulse, whether it is an abiding conviction or a passing fancy. Consequently, wherever opinions rule, people are less apt to take opinions seriously.

 

Hence they will be less likely to develop the habit of critical thinking or of making logical and moral distinctions. Feelings or the emotions will thus tend to supplant logic. People will then become more susceptible to propaganda, whose target is the emotions. It is in this light that we are to understand Senator Barack Obama’s use of such slogans as CHANGE and YES WE CAN.

 

Since democracies, more than other regimes, are ruled by opinion, and since politicians modulate opinions with emotion, democracies are inherently prone to semantic subversion. The adepts of semantic subversion use the media of democracy to concentrate public attention on emotionally appealing and simplistic solutions to complex problems. Read article.

 

Michael Barone, Online WSJ.com

 

Can we trust the polls this year? That's a question many people have been asking as we approach the end of this long, long presidential campaign. As a recovering pollster and continuing poll consumer, my answer is yes -- with qualifications.

 

To start with, political polling is inherently imperfect. Academic pollsters say that to get a really random sample, you should go back to a designated respondent in a specific household time and again until you get a response. But political pollsters who must report results overnight have to take the respondents they can reach. So they weight the results of respondents in different groups to get a sample that approximates the whole population they're sampling.

 

Another problem is the increasing number of cell phone-only households. Gallup and Pew have polled such households, and found their candidate preferences aren't much different from those with landlines; and some pollsters have included cell-phone numbers in their samples. A third problem is that an increasing number of Americans refuse to be polled. We can't know for sure if they're different in some pertinent respects from those who are willing to answer questions.

 

Professional pollsters are seriously concerned about these issues. But this year especially, many who ask if we can trust the polls are usually concerned about something else: Can we trust the poll when one of the presidential candidates is black? Read article.

 

Byron York, NRO.com

 

 

Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above. Palin, the governor of Alaska, has faced more criticism than any vice-presidential candidate since 1988, when Democrats and the press tore into Dan Quayle. In fact, Palin may have it even worse than Quayle, since she’s taking flak not only from Democrats and the press but from some conservative opinion leaders as well.

 

After John McCain unexpectedly chose Palin as his running mate, reporters raced to Alaska to look into her family life, including her teenage daughter’s pregnancy; into her per diem expense requests; into her controversial firing of the state’s public-safety commissioner; into her husband’s role as informal adviser; into the gifts she received; and into much more. Those investigations have yielded hundreds of stories. But Palin’s time in the governor’s office hasn’t been all, or even mostly, family drama and minor controversy. She was also, lest we forget, the state’s chief executive. So, what did she do every day? How deeply involved was she in the workings of government? What were her priorities? Read article.

 

Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO.com

 

Speaking to a group of young Catholics in New York at a “Theology on Tap” event almost one month before Election Day, I had a harsh awakening as jarring as a shot of Wild Turkey 101. Weeks before going to the polling booth, Americans do not know Barack Obama.

 

In a packed bar, I was discussing the contentious question of whether a Catholic can support Obama for president. I highlighted the priority that defending innocent human lives takes in these considerations, according to the Church. I then went through Obama’s radical record on abortion. The jolt came after I finished speaking, when one by one, people told me they had no idea Obama was so radical.

 

They were shocked. And so was I.

 

We’ve been understandably focused on the economy lately, so much so that it’s as if there are no other issues. But there are. And in the time we have left, voters must consider them.

 

Though for Catholics, in the end, it’s up to the individual, through prayer, to decide upon political matters, my conclusion is that it would be a very tough thing for a follower of the pope to back the senator — impossible, actually. Obama has stood on the floor of the Illinois statehouse and argued that a baby born alive due to a botched abortion should not have the same rights as a child carried to term. That, in and of itself — his opposition to Illinois’s Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which sought to mandate safeguards for such unwanted children — is a heavy obstacle to overcome for those Obama fans concerned about the future and dignity of human life. He defended infanticide. That alone would be enough to keep me from voting for him. But, as it happens, it’s not the only ethical affront the Obama campaign has committed, and far from the only offense to human rights that the Democratic presidential candidate supports. Read article.

 

Richard A. Epstein, Forbes.com

 

It should come as no surprise that the traditionally liberal Hyde Park community is a veritable hotbed of support for Obama. So my manifest reluctance on his candidacy raises more than a single eyebrow: Loyalty for the home team counts.

 

The odd point is how his many learned and thoughtful supporters couch their endorsement. Almost without exception, they praise the man, not the program. Their claim is that Obama has proved himself to be a consummate politician who understands that the first principle of holding high office is to get reelected. His natural moderation in tone and demeanor, therefore, translate into getting advisers who know their substantive areas, and listening to them before making any rash moves. The dominant trope is that he will be a pragmatic president who will move in small increments toward the center, not in bold steps toward the left.

 

But is it all true?

 

The short answer is that nobody knows. Virtually everyone who knows him recognizes that he plays his cards close to the vest, so that you can make your case to him without knowing whether it has registered. At this point, my fear is that the change in office will not lead to a change in his liberal voting record, as reinforced by a hyperactive Democratic platform. My great fear is that a landslide victory will give him solid majorities in both Houses of Congress, so that no stalling tactics by Republicans can slow down his legislative victory procession. At that point his innate pragmatism will line up with his strong left-of-center beliefs on issues that have thus far been muted during the campaign. Read article.

Scott Gottlieb, WSJ.com

 

Pfizer recently said it's exiting the development of drugs for common conditions like heart disease. This is part of a shift underway in the pharmaceutical industry to give up on routine medical problems in favor of discovering "specialty" drugs for rare diseases and unmet medical needs like cancer.

 

The shift is driven in part by the industry's critics in Washington, who have long maligned drug companies for targeting too many routine medical problems with drugs that were "merely" tweaks on existing medicines. Now these same detractors, led by House Democrats, are proposing controls on access to and eventually pricing of the specialty drugs as well.

 

Mr. Obama's policies on drug access and his party's plans to control pricing will distort the financial incentives that inspire innovations. This will shortchange the contributions innovations provide. Read article.

 

Rasmussen Reports.com

 

John Kerry the next secretary of State?

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon?

 

Al Gore as Energy secretary?

 

These names and others are in the air as media speculation runs wild on the bipartisan “star” Cabinet Barack Obama has in mind if elected president. But some of these names might cost Obama votes in the key states he needs on Election Day, so Cabinet announcements will come after the votes are cast.

 

Fifty-three percent (53%) of U.S. voters say presidential candidates should announce at least some of their Cabinet choices before an election to help voters make a more informed decision.

 

Republicans and unaffiliated voters like the idea of Cabinet announcements before the election slightly more than Democrats. So do men voters compared to women. Can John McCain lure Mayor Michael Bloomberg away from New York City to head the Treasury Department? Or Rudy Giuliani to be attorney general or secretary of Homeland Security? Read article.

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