The gentleman in question was so provoked by this thoughtless and careless display of electronics that he was compelled to reach into a bag he was carrying,  produce a sawed-off shotgun, and then proceed to collect these six cellphones at gunpoint. He is still on the loose. The presence of the shotgun in this story is a bit mystifying, admittedly, since the state of Illinois remains one of the few places in the country where concealed carry is completely illegal, and Chicago is one of if not the most anti-gun municipalities in the country. But I digress.

I learned all of this from this  story and video from ABC news.

The moral of this story, according to Chicago’s media, authorities, and apparently even its citizens themselves is that it is important to not use one’s cell phones in public and to keep all of one’s electronics hidden if you don’t want to be the cause of a crime.  One passenger in the story goes so far as to confess that she is personally guilty of sometimes using her cell phone in public. “You’ve got to stay aware,” the news anchor helpfully adds at the end of segment.

Presumably it was the sight of these telephones that caused the crime to occur, as well as people not being “sufficiently aware” of their surroundings, and that passengers who were not talking on the phone at that moment weren’t ordered to reach under their jackets or into their bags to produce them.

In other parts of America, of course, anyone trying to hold a group  of strangers at bay after being provoked to by the sight of their telephones might not be terribly comfortable with them reaching under their jackets, purses, briefcases, and bags.  But I simply assume it didn’t happen in this case because (as the Chicago media and authorities have explained to us) telephones out in the open is the real problem here.

Blaming the media for our political troubles, however, risks ignoring a deeper problem. A problem without which media bias simply wouldn’t matter. And that is the extent to which our nation’s very culture and public institutions, at their smallest levels, have succeeded in providing fertile soil for liberalism. When the MSM comes along, they are only reinforcing ideas that have already been planted. Were there more conservative voices in the media, the problem would remain because conservatism is, to a growing proportion of the population, almost a foreign language. It’s not that they DON’T hear it so much as they CAN’T.

It’s interesting to consider the trajectory of Barack Obama in this light, one that actually mirrors that of contemporary leftism. Obama started as a community organizer, agitating for various causes in the streets of Chicago. Then he got involved in the schools, trying to inject into them leftist curricula. Only later, did he begin wielding top-down rather than bottom-up power.

This, more than the media, is the challenge we face. To an increasing extent, K-12 and higher education and community action groups are out there preparing the ground for battle in ways which favor liberals. Under these circumstances, if we only fight for conservatism during elections, then we lose.

The problem here, obviously, is that conservatives cannot simply mimic the efforts of Obama and the left on all fronts because doing so violates some of our core beliefs. If you believe in individual liberty and responsibility, freedom of thought and action, you don’t start trying to brainwash school kids. Our involvement still matters though, if only to press back. Conservatives need to get more active in local PTAS, run for school boards, and look for other ways to get involved in their own communities.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is thankless, difficult, and highly unglamorous work. A movement needs foot soldiers, however, as much as it does generals. And the most important fights are NOT even elections. Elections are simply those moments when we check the score board.

I think that this is something Obama was completely right about, and which he understood very early on.

There’s yet another dimension to this, and that relates to popular culture and the arts and the ways in which they shape political attitudes. This is a real shame because some of the top contemporary creators of fiction, drama, poetry, music, and film out there are conservative but get barely any support or attention from conservatives. They’re left to contend by themselves with the liberals who dominate these fields. But that’s a very long story, so I’ll leave it for later.

David Brooks, channeling his inner child, absolutely floats way from reality in a warm and whimsical bubble of utopian fantasy wherein the most leftist individual to ever run for the presidency, much less win it, runs a centrist, non-partisan, administration with truth and justice for all.

Meanwhile, Krugman calls for Obama to role over and destroy all conservative opposition and usher in an era of iron-fisted “progressive” domination of the entire United States.

Unfortunately, one man is being a realist here, and the other is having a dizzy spell worthy of a teenage girl at the concert of her “most favoritist” pop idol.

None of this in itself is surprising, but considering the reasons why Brooks finds it necessary to behave this way are instructive. We’re going to see a LOT more of this from the conservative pundit class, imprisoned as they are in enemy territory where they’ve been pistol-whipped into making rote expressions of embarrassment for carrying (even loosely, in Brook’s case), the conservative mantle. Had John McCain won, could anyone imagine Brooks writing a column like Krugman’s? Krugman writing a column like Brook’s?

You could hardly hear any story about the election which didn’t include a grave analysis of how terribly, terribly, divided we were.

The print media followed suit. The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor, to name just two of many examples, picked up this story about how divided America was.

I found this curious in the extreme–not being able to remember any election which didn’t involve the voters being divided. But for some reason, the media was suddenly obsessed with the notion. I suspected, of course, that the most salient “division” here was between the media and their desires. Something that the reaction to the election of Barack Obama has only reinforced.

After all, 46% of voters, just under half, voted not for Barack Obama but John McCain. Certainly this means that we are divided, deeply divided, very close to as divided as possible? But no! The storyline when a Republican loses is not one of division, but of unity, joy, and healing.

On the part of the media, at least, who appear to be the only Americans who really count.

The point of a campaign is to win, obviously–so Obama’s campaign was successful on that score. But brilliant? Flawless? Perfect? Please.

Obama managed to defeat McCain by 7 points after outspending him by hundreds of millions of dollars. McCain, meanwhile, captured a percentage of the vote 20% higher than George Bush’s approval rating. Considering the shroud of media-silence and naked cheerleading enjoyed by Obama, and McCain’s massive disadvantages in both money and the current political climate, McCain’s campaign was arguably the one that most surpassed expectations.

Using baseball as an analogy, here is how Obama’s campaign was perfect: the home plate umpire (the media), calls all of your pitches strikes. Even those pitches that hit the dirt, that role over home plate, that sail over the batter’s head, or knock the Cracker Jacks out of somebody’s hands sitting three rows up behind third base. Every gaffe, inconsistency, or outright falsehood perpetuated by the Obama campaign was either explained away or ignored. Meanwhile, those from McCain or Palin were magnified, attacked, and interpreted as evidence of a campaign in disarray.

The McCain campaign would have lambasted, ridiculed, and attacked had they promised to accept public financing and then managed to outspend Obama by hundreds of millions of dollars. Can anyone doubt it?

When Sarah Palin said that she’d paid for $35 for her wedding ring, multiple reporters were on the case–calling her friends, associates, and family members to “verify” this information. Meanwhile, entire years of Obama’s life were never investigated, or were actively covered up. McCain would never have gotten away with a speech like Obama’s Jeremiah Wright “race speech,” in which he said he could no longer disavow Wright than his own grandmother. Much less would he have seen such a speech praised as equal to or surpassing the Gettysburg Address. And he certainly wouldn’t survived reversing himself weeks later when he finally tossed Wright under the bus. A Republican candidate behaving like Obama did throughout the campaign would have been destroyed.

The story of the 2008 presidential campaign is one of the media providing protective cover and dragging a deeply flawed candidate over the finish line. It’s a story of creating, maintaining, and refusing to puncture a MYTH.

Obama succeeded simply because he was not PERMITTED to fail, and calling this “perfection” is simply to extend the harmful myth of Obama’s infallibility. A myth which ultimately does no favors to Obama, because building him up that high only leaves him farther to fall. It will be impossible to sustain this illusion once its accompanied by the responsibilities of power–although the media will no doubt try.

With the defeat of the McCain-Palin ticket, I fear that Palin is about to disappear off the map and be swallowed up by Alaska’s political wilderness. Some might say she could go back to Alaska, serve out her term and seek reelection as governor, and then potentially announce her candidacy for the Presidency two years from now.

I disagree. I think that she should take a page from Hillary Clinton’s book and join the Senate–a job that is basically now hers if she wants it. This will give Palin the time and opportunity to become far more familiar with the myriad issues facing the federal government (something that tripped her up during this election). It will also keep her constantly in the news as a direct and high-profile opponent of the Obama administration. Her voice in the Senate could be VERY influential, and certainly would be heard from coast to coast. Every MSM reporter, despite their bias, will want to hear what Sarah has to say about every move of a President Obama. Palin could dog Obama mercilessly at every step for the next two years.

As governor of Alaska, she risks marginalization. Having that job has already given her executive experience, and she needs to maintain and build a national profile–not just hope to reenter the scene down the road on the basis of her losing VP bid.

Here’s what I suggest.

• Ted Stevens has retained his Senate Seat, but he will almost certainly be expelled from the Senate in short order. As Alaska governor, Palin should appoint an interim placeholder Senator (for 90 days), and then run in a provisional election for Senator. Riding high in Alaska’s public opinion, she should easily win.

• Reunited with John McCain in the US Senate, Palin should in effect serve as a kind of “shadow President” (as they do in many parliamentary systems). Palin’s voice in the US Senate would INSTANTLY command a huge amount of attention. This will not only keep her profile high in national politics, it will allow us conservatives to scrutinize her closely (without the baggage of McCain), to decide if we want her as a future leader. I envision Sarah Palin all over the Sunday talk shows for the next four years, calling out Obama, doing battle with Democrats, the MSM, and communicating conservative ideals to the American public.

I am quite serous. I really believe that Palin should announce that this is what she’s going to do. If nothing else, it would inject a dose of energy and excitement into a presently disillusioned party that’s unsure what the way forward is, and who is leading the charge. It would sure be fun to watch.

I feel like I did my duty, gave it my best fight along with my Republican friends, and simply came up short… this time. I actually feel very proud right now, and very much at peace.

Here are some thoughts. Make of them what you will.

• As a member of the minority party, I can no longer be held responsible for hurricanes, infant mortality, market downturns, acne, the various foul moods of the European or Arab street, or the actions of every two-bit dictator across the globe.

• We have lost political power–for now. But unlike how it would be in much of the world, that doesn’t mean that we’ll be mounting the scaffolds tomorrow morning. We’ll wake up tomorrow, warm in our beds, surrounded by our families, and go about our daily business. Despite my feelings about these election results, I still feel enormous pride at how our nation allows for a peaceful transition of power. This is still the greatest country on earth, and we will still be there to defend her AND our ideals in the future.

• It is an honor to hold power, but it is also a deep and often troubling responsibility that doesn’t always win you friends. The majority of the American people have decided to give us a vacation from this responsibility and try something new. I respect their decision, and have to say that part of me is glad for the respite. This gives us a chance to regroup and come back stronger. more energized, and more focused in the future. If we fail to rise to that occasion we will neither achieve nor deserve reassuming power in the future. I believe that we are more than equal to the challenge.

• I do not believe that Barack Obama will be a good or even adequate president. My hunch. But for the sake of the country, I hope he succeeds. I believe that NOW (and for the next few months), he deserves good will, and I for one will give it to him. Not because of himself, but because of the office he will hold. I refuse to behave towards him as Democrats, including Barack Obama himself, behaved towards George Bush. Even if that would be effective politically, it’s not worth the cost to our hearts and minds. God forbid any of us should become like Markos Moulitsas or Keith Olbermann, blinded by hate and slobbering down our chins. There’s more to life than the intoxication of political power and the resentment of those who hold it when we do not.

• America is a great country, filled with wonderful people. There is no equal anywhere of this concentration of talented, generous, and honorable men and women. I’m very proud of our country, and I know that like you, I can only hope the best for it. When the call to service comes again, I know that you and I will be there to answer it. And that call is coming again very soon.

Tonight we bow our heads. Tomorrow we lick our wounds, and then stand up for we believe and know is worth fighting for–just as we have always done and just like we did during this election.

God Bless.

PSDA

The means by which Barack Obama has positioned himself to potentially capture the presidency have put him in a box from which there is no escape. Should he obtain his goal, the seeds of his political destruction have already been planted, and there is one and only possible outcome: disastrous failure.

Whether the disaster would be substantive (our disaster) or merely political (Obama’s electoral disaster in 2012 ) one cannot yet say, but the writing is already on the wall.

Remember that before he was able to capitalize on the current market downturn for political advantage, the reason he was able to capture his party’s nomination was that unlike his main rival, Hillary Clinton, he was vocally against the Iraq war from the outset… what’s often forgotten (although America’s enemies certainly haven’t failed to notice this) is that he was against an intervention in Iraq despite the fact that the CIA, as well as the intelligence agencies of our allies, all believed that Saddam Hussein was developing and possessed weapons of mass destruction. Whatever was learned in hindsight is a separate matter–Obama never originally maintained that there were no WMD in Iraq. Obama has clearly established that he is against the use of military force even in the face of threats to American allies and American interests.

Here’s why Obama is in a box:

1). As a result of his primary campaign (in which he captured his party’s nomination by being anti-war), Obama, like no previous US President in history, must firmly and credibly establish in the eyes of the world that he is willing to use military force to defend American interests and allies. As Joe Biden pointed out, someone, somewhere, is going to test Obama on this point. I see no reason, for example, why China should not move against Taiwan the day after an Obama inauguration. Even if Obama does not overcompensate and responds appropriately, the nature of his political support in the US will still doom him politically (see number 3).

2). Should a President Obama fail to credibly threaten the use of military force–or even give hints that he is disinclined to do so–his presidency will be a catalog of unspeakable catastrophes. All of the world’s madmen who have hitherto been checked by American power would move in concert to present a President Obama with one international crisis after another–if not simultaneous crises.

3). Should Obama actually rise to the occasion and act like a real president… should he use or credibly threaten to use military force anywhere in the world, his electoral base, elements of which are unconditionally anti-war and view American military power as the world’s great evil, will turn on him in unison. As will his European fans and those in the UN. Those who are not part of his political base will see that these threats and crises have emerged because America’s enemies pegged Obama as a weak horse, and Obama will essentially have no supporters… except, perhaps, certain members of the media and a percentage of whoever supports Obama on the mere basis of his race. This will not, however, constitute a group large enough to lift his poll numbers from the basement or deliver him a second election.

The current market downturn has resulted in a nationwide fixation on economic issues, something a President has a real if oblique influence over. But foreign policy is another matter, a constant and immediate responsibility of any United States President that cannot be evaded, talked over, or prettied up with pleasant speeches.

Barack Obama is singularly unsuited to grapple with these responsibilities because of the very nature of his rise. His destiny is to either be a failed candidate for the presidency (if enough people realize this in time) or a failed one-term president who endangers both world stability and the people of the United States.

The good news is that I now know from personal experience from interacting with neighbors and colleagues that Obama’s support is a mile wide and an inch deep. It doesn’t take much–sometimes even the lightest touch–to swing a voter to McCain and/or away from Obama.

It sometimes feels embarrassing (as if it’s a broach of some kind of decorum), to bring up politics in conversation–conservatives, who seem to have better manners in general, seem especially prone to this. But a lot of people really do have this stuff on their minds right now, and undecideds or weak Obama supporters are INCREDIBLY numerous and ripe for the picking.

I can’t overstate how potent it can be for somebody who is inundated with pro-Obama media and contact with Obama activists to come in contact with somebody they have a previous relationship with who is a McCain voter. At first they may seem surprised… but ENGAGE THEM and often you’ll see a light go off.

The media and the “community activists” are more powerful right now than they have any right to be to be because too many McCain-supporters have surrenderd the stage–they’re lurking in the shadows, wringing their hands, watching the polls and reading the blogs without actually DOING anything except HOPE that Obama will stumble and John McCain will somehow prevail.

But you know what? To borrow from the shameless one, WE are the ones we’ve been waiting for. This is entirely doable if YOU will make the phone calls–get in touch with your local McCain office and see what you can do. Or at the very least start talking to your neighbors, family members, and colleagues. Don’t wait for somebody else to do what’s in your power to do, and if you can’t start tonight, then start tomorrow.

In our current political climate, the Fairness Doctrine is an archaic, absurd, and ultimately unworkable legal concept whose death would be assured as soon as anybody actually tried to codify and put it into practice in the modern media. Even its current advocates would have to realize this once they attempted to legislate it or subject it to judicial review.

In a nutshell: there are not “two sides” to every issue. And if you open the door to allowing everybody to legally demand that their side be heard, you’ll never reach the bottom. Every minute of air time on thousands of stations will have to be scrutinized, weighed, and judged by the authorities on a permanent basis. The number of claims, lawsuits, and appeals would be infinite.

In the abstract, you might say that there “are two sides to every issue,” but this is nonsense in practice. There are infinitely more than “two sides.”

If there are “two sides,” what are they? Is the government going to start conducting polling to determine them? What is the “other side” of a documentary about the American Revolution? What is the “other side” of a story about Martin Luther King?

If you remove these questions from the market and open the door to those who would demand “equal time,” then Nazis, Communists, and everyone else will be in court waving the “Fairness Doctrine” and demanding air time.

I simply don’t see how any Congress or any President will allow this to happen. Wanting to shut down your political adversaries, as Democrats want to do, would actually lead to every nutcase, fringe group, and minority group in the country availing themselves of the new legal framework in an effort to bully their way onto the public airwaves. If nothing else, it will tie the courts up in knots.

For example, if Rush Limbaugh were to go on the radio and criticize affirmative action, there is not simply one and exactly one “other side” to this question. The KKK has their “side of the story.” The Nation of Islam has their “side of the story.” It won’t be possible to codify in law this ridiculous idea that there are “two sides” to everything, that Republicans put forth one and only side and the Democratic party has a viewpoint which constitutes the sole “other side.”

If abstract “fairness” becomes the order of the day instead of a market of ideas enabled by large numbers of people who want to hear those ideas (and the advertising dollars that come with them), then everything will break down overnight. It’s simply not possible.

Considering the unique nature of this year’s presidential election, I wonder if McCain isn’t making a massive blunder by not clearly running against quotos and race-based set-asides–especially in a place like Pennsylvania which has a large economically-depressed white population which is resisting his candidacy based on economic issues.

• Demographically, Pennsylvania is 87% white.

• Affirmative action IS an economic issue–and one which generates enormous frustration from those who do not benefit from it. Especially during hard economic times.

• There is no reason whatsoever to “triangulate” on this issue. Due to Obama’s “historic” candidacy as the first African-American candidate, McCain has already lost the white liberal and African-American vote by overwhelming numbers. Not just in Pennsylvania but around the country. Running with this issue in Pennsylvania would not hurt him in other states in ways that he hasn’t been hurt already, and presents tangible opportunities in Pennsylvania. Presumably, since the poll I cite includes all Pennsylvanians, disapproval of affirmative among the white population is significantly higher than 20%.

• The media will cry “racism.” And how is that different from what they’re already doing? Objecting to race-based quotas and set-asides is not racist in the least–it is merely adhering to Martin Luther King’s plea to judge people by their merit rather than their skin color.

• This is an issue that will make Obama squirm–he cannot equivocate about this as he does with other issues. It places him in the awkward position of having to advocate for measures which are enormously unpopular with whites but passionately defended by populations which are voting for him at rates of over 90 percent (but which don’t exist in numbers large enough to deliver him the election).

Previously, the conventional wisdom held that he would attempt to win all of the Bush 04 Eastern and Midwestern States except for Iowa, and then pick up two out of three of Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico. Conceivably, if he lost Nevada and New Mexico, he could also win Colorado + 1 electoral vote in Maine’s relatively conservative 2nd District to reach the magic number of 270.

The new strategy, however, is different. It still relies on holding onto Ohio and Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina (states which are all within in the margin of error in most polls). But with Colorado, New Mexico, and even the former GOP stalwart of Virginia showing serious problems, McCain appears to taking a bold new strategy: waging an all out war for Pennsylvania.

Based on what I’m seeing in Virginia, where the current McCain effort seems perfunctory at best, his campaign seems to be preparing for the eventuality of Virginia turning blue. And perhaps even working under that assumption.

This Virginia problem, I realize, is fairly bewildering to my GOP friends outside of the state–after all, this is a state that Bush won by 8 points in 2004. Unfortunately, however, despite whatever legitimate gripes are raised about the accuracy of current polling, the changes in Virginia over the past four years are very real. You can see them with your own two eyes.

In pastures and on farmland where’d you’d have seen giant Bush/Cheney signs four years ago, there are now vast housing developments populated with government workers who commute to DC. Furthermore, our African-American population is much greater than the national average, and we have many, many, universities which are not only hotbeds of liberal politics but from which the Democrats are drawing armies of activists who spend their weekends marching up and down the streets, knocking on doors, etc.

Does Virginia have a large military population? Is the majority of the state conservative? Yes and yes. But these demographics are fairly static–they certainly haven’t exploded out of all proportion in the way the North Virginia suburbs have recently.

While I believe that the state of Virginia is probably undergoing an extremely rapid transition from a reliably red state to at least a light blue one, the transformation is not yet complete during this election cycle. So while I’m disappointed to see that we’re possibly conceding the state, I don’t believe McCain’s strategy of attempting to swap Pennsylvania (with its 21 EV) for Virginia (and its 13 EV) is an unreasonable gamble.

Despite what current polling might say in Pennsylvania, the demographics of the state are arguably much for favorable than those in Virginia. It seems far more likely that we could see significant movement towards McCain there, as a result of these demographics, than in the state of Virginia.

Pennsylvania has an older, and more stable, more blue-collar population. It has about half as many African-Americans as Virginia, and by some estimates, it’s over 50% Roman Catholic.

It’s still, I must say, an uphill battle. It’s been twenty years since Pennsylvania voted for a Republican presidential candidate, but a concentration of campaign resources there, strategic use of Governor Palin who shares a strong cultural connection with a large percentage of its residents, together with Obama’s “clinging to guns and religion” gaffe and Murtha’s branding them as racists and rednecks, could all make a difference. There’s a real opportunity there at least that should be pursued.

According to what I believe to be the current McCain victory scenario, this is how election night could look (focusing on the battleground states). It would be nerve-racking to say the least.

• 7 EST. Polls close in Virginia and New Hampshire. Both states are called for Obama sometime thereafter. Democrats pop their champaign corks, believing that seals the deal.

• 7:30 EST. Polls close in WV, NC, OH. Sometime thereafter, all three states are called for McCain. “Whatever,” the Democrats say, and open more bottles.

• 8:00 EST. Polls close in the Florida Panhandle, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. Sometime within the next hour–shocker! Florida, Missouri, and Pennsylvania have all gone for McCain. Shock and horror spreads through the Democratic ranks. They’re all drunk now. So am I.

• 9:00 EST. Polls close in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. All five states are called for Obama. Democrats renew their celebrations. Republicans groan.

• 10:00 EST. Nevada and Iowa polls close, with Iowa immediately being called for Obama. All eyes turn to Nevada as the results start coming in. The networks hesitate for a very long time before calling the state. Everyone in the country is drunk. Nevada is called for McCain, pushing him to 273 electoral votes.

• Midnight: Governors around the country call out the National Guard.

At the same time, I can’t help but think McCain could be hugely ahead right now and coasting into office if it weren’t for some of HIS OWN naivete.

McCain-Feingold: Remember how McCain railed against the undue influence of money on elections, how he deemed it a “corrupting influence” on elections?

So how is that working out? While it is now illegal for many of us to contribute additional funds to McCain’s campaign and bring him closer to parity with Obama, Obama is raking in the dollars and spending them on ads filled with lying distortions. No corruption of the political process there! And no corruption either in how the media amplifies Obama’s talking points, launches false attacks against not only McCain but his followers… and all of it goes unanswered. Unanswered, largely, because McCain took a leading role in creating exactly this situation.

Is this what it means to get “corruption” out of politics? Prevent yourself from having the ability to answer the lies?

I believe absolutely in the freedom of the press. But because that freedom allows the media to spend unlimited dollars attacking candidates they dislike and promoting candidates and causes they favor, the SAME freedom must be extended to ALL Americans. That McCain has to have this demonstrated to him the hard way is a real shame. Whether McCain assumes the presidency or returns to the Senate, I hope that he will see fit to lead an effort to restore First Amendment rights to all Americans.

Further, anybody who takes their cues on how to vote from polling is also a lost cause–they’d have already gone to Obama based on things like the CBS/NYT and Newsweek polls, as well as the media-saturated belief that Obama has already won the race.

There are some conservative television commentators (and bloggers) who seem to want to declare that Obama “won” the debate because McCain offered no “knock-out blow,” in their opinion, and that a tie or even a slight McCain win is tantamount to a McCain loss because it “doesn’t change the dynamics of the race.”

You have to remember, however, that these commentators are people whose job it is to monitor every single nuance of the race and be thoroughly schooled on each candidate’s positions and personal histories. These are individuals who have set an impossibly high bar to set for a debate if they’re waiting for anything that–to their ears–changes everything in 90 minutes.

For the millions of Americans who watched the debate, however, I believe McCain did something very important which he has not done before: and that was to plant a seed of doubt about Obama’s honesty, track-record, and intentions to spend money like a drunken sailor.

These are seeds of doubt, and lines of attack, that can be nurtured and developed over the coming three weeks. McCain is behind, but according to most polls, not by an insurmountable margin. There were, for example, undoubtedly a good many voters who were hearing for the first time tonight that Obama launched his political career in Ayer’s living room and gave $80,000+ dollars to ACORN. But even more important than that, McCain made his strongest and most sustained case to date about Obama’s desire to raise taxes and throw money at every problem. Game changers? No. A foundation? Yes.

Remember that all it takes for a five percent swing is for one person out of FORTY to change their preference from one candidate to the other.

Let’s consider, also, these post debate polls of “independent voters.” In three debates now, Obama has “won” in these polls by MASSIVE margins that are completely out of whack with how independents are actually breaking to each candidate according to ANY of the more scientific polls.

And the Luntz groups? Please. These violate absolutely every single acceptable standard for sampling in the book, and that’s before you even begin to consider the corruption of your results that will occur when you stick a microphone in the face of your test sample and have them describe their views on national television. I don’t know if the Bradly Effect is real at all, but being miked-up for prime-time is exactly how you’d create the perfect conditions for magnifying if not creating exactly that phenomenon. Remember also that Luntz said a couple weeks ago that the polls were going to swing to McCain based on the VP debate–while the opposite actually occurred (though not because of the VP debate, which had no effect, but because of the tanking stock market).

McCain hit Obama on ACORN, AYERS, and made his strongest pro-growth, anti-spending case to date. A knock-out blow? No. But it’s shifting the conversation to areas where we haven’t been before to any significant extent. There are still three weeks to go, and the race is still surprisingly close enough that even a slight shift in the prevailing winds could make an enormous difference.

McCain did what he needed to tonight–not for media pundits, perhaps, but that’s not where this will be won or lost. So let’s hope that he, Palin, the campaign, and yes–YOU and ME–can keep the ball rolling.

Biden actually demanded answers of Samuel Alito about Alito’s associations with “the Concerned Alumni of Princeton,” something most would agree is an association several degrees less serious than associations with terrorist bombers, America-hating pastors, and organizations involved in wide-scale voter fraud.

Based on Biden’s own record of casting aspersions based upon the previous associations of his political foes (however loose those associations may have been) the blow-hard from Delaware is exhibiting RANK hypocrisy in maintaining that it’s somehow out of bounds to ask similar questions of a potential President of the United States. Apparently Biden believes that McCain will “regret for the rest of his life” actions Biden himself has taken against his own political foes.

From the US Senate Judiciary Committee Alito Confirmation Hearings:

BIDEN: And all I want to ask you is: Were you aware of the other things that this outfit was talking about? Were you aware of this controversy going on in…

ALITO: Senator, I don’t believe that I was.

ALITO: And when it was mentioned that Senator Bradley had withdrawn from the magazine, that didn’t ring any bells for me. I did not recall anything like that.

BIDEN: Well, it was a pretty outrageous group.

Does Biden not believe that the terrorist Weather Underground was a “pretty outrageous group?” Does he not believe we should wonder what Obama was aware of and when? Does he believe that we should simply accept at face value Obama’s claims that he was not aware of Ayer’s activities? Acorn’s activities? Reverend Wright’s activities? Why one standard for Samuel Alito and another for Barack Obama?

Why is is it okay to grill a potential Supreme Court Justice on what he knew about a friggin’ ALUMNI MAGAZINE but off limits and beyond the bounds to ask a presidential candidate about his associations with terrorist bombers, hate-spewing pastors, and perpetrators of voting fraud?

At the very least, based on Biden’s own record, he should not be the one to complain when the questions are even asked. Unlike Alito, Obama has never even attempted to clear the air about these matters. Apparently he’s afraid to, or he wouldn’t be sending his surrogates to savage anyone who even dares to ask the questions.

Reading their internals will give you a headache because while they provide party breakdowns for their total sample of 1072 adults, and an announcement of Obama’s 14 point among likely voters, their sample of “likely voters” is considerably smaller–699. And it includes no breakdown by party.

Why is this? Considering the volume of data they serve up (polling data on numerous issues) it’s hard to understand why such an important data point, and one upon which their central conclusion rests, is completely left out of their report. Certainly they must have HAD this information. So why not include it?

It is interesting, however, to read this: “Every registered voter is included in the likely voter model.”

This is a MAJOR red flag, since polling traditionally separates likely voters from registered voters. In fact, the term “likely voter” has no meaning in the business of polling unless this is done.

It appears then, that the CBS/NYT poll has simply decided to call “likely voters” what everybody else would call “registered voters.” On the Real Clear Politics site, then, you see “LV” beside a number which all the other polling outfits would call “RV.” And simply because CBS/NYT has decided to use their own definitions of words.

Now, a 699 voter sample of registered voters (which is what CBS/NYT poll actually offers, despite their obscuring of the fact) simply does not carry the weight of a sample like Rasmussen’s which includes 3000 LV.

But it gets worse. While there’s no way to determine the breakdown in party ID of CBS/NYT’s registered voters, the party breakdown of their 1072 adults from which this 699 is drawn shows some very suspect numbers.

• 371 Democrats
• 295 Republicans
• 306 Independents

That an 8% Democratic advantage in party ID is more than twice what it was as recently as 2006 (when it was 37% Democrat, 34% Republican, and 26% Independent), and that this Democratic party ID advantage is higher than what ANY other polling outfit currently posits, is only part of the problem. No other polling outfit that I’m aware of maintains that Independents outnumber Republicans. Whether this is corrected for in their RV breakdown, we have no way of knowing because they’ve conveniently withheld those numbers.

This suggests that we’re looking at a clear situation of garbage in and garbage out.

I’ve said before that should we enter November with the preponderance of poll numbers showing McCain 2-4 behind (close to or within most polls’ margins of error) then we could be in for an interesting election night as we wait to see which of many variables trumps the others at the last minute. Obama’s extensive ground game and influx of new voters? The GOP’s battle-tested 72 hour GOTV apparatus? The Bradley Effect? A final breaking of undecideds one way or the other based on whether they want to go with the new and unknown or the familiar face?

Quite remarkably, it appears that with three weeks to go, McCain may have crept within striking distance of making this a reality.

• Today’s Gallup poll, for instance, which has shown McCain as many as 11 points behind in recent days, now has him 7 points behind among registered voters, but only 4 among likely voters using their traditional model for determining who those voters are.

• According to Drudge, tomorrow’s Rasmussen poll will show McCain down by 5, after showing him down 8 a week ago.

• Also according to Drudge, Zogby will show McCain down tomorrow by 4.

Since this is happening in multiple polls–a slight trend toward McCain after what must be considered the absolute worst week possible for his campaign–I’d venture to say that there is at least a fair to good chance that things are about to get interesting. Shave just a couple more points off those numbers and we’re looking at a whole new ball game.

The next debate is important, obviously. At the very least it should no longer now be considered just a formality on the way to Obama’s coronation.

There’s also the question of what the economy is going to do, especially as its reflected in the daily numbers coming out of Wall Street. If the DOW continues to lose hundreds of points a day for the next three weeks, then forget it–McCain is finished, which is just as well because Obama will be inheriting a toxic economy. If things stabilize, however, and economic news begins to slide off the front page just a little, we shouldn’t be surprised at all at a renewed focus on other issues which may benefit John McCain. At least by a couple now all-important points in the polls.

Additionally, as I understand it, the McCain campaign has been literally sitting on horde of cash that it intends to use aggressively in the final days of the campaign. Obama has been outspending McCain 3-1 or 4-1 in the battleground states, but is reported to have slightly less than a 2-1 advantage in cash on hand. This raises the possibility of McCain actually outspending Obama in key places, which has not done before, in the last days of the campaign.

Is it still a daunting up-hill battle? Sure, but things don’t look as bad as they did even a week ago, and there are still three weeks to go.

I know it’s been posted before, but the this video right here contains the single most comical and revealing example of a candidate descending into total, bumbling incoherence during the election season. I just love how–in typical Obama fashion–he starts looking around for someone else to blame once he finds himself in a bad spot.

Had Governor Palin EVER had a moment as bad as this one, we’d never hear the end of it. And that’s before we even consider:

• Obama’s claim that his father served in WWII.

• The fact that he’s repeatedly misidentified the cities he’s giving speeches in while on the stump.

• His claim to have visited 57 states.

• That he called for more speakers of Arabic in Afghanistan.

• That he called Matt Lauer “Tim” three times in an interview.

• That he called for the UN Security Council to address Russia’s invasion of Georgia (though Russia holds a veto on the Security Council)

• That he claimed to have “won” the Michigan primary in an interview with David Gregory although he wasn’t even on the ballot.

• That he claimed in another interview that “Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s.”

• That he said “If I talked to Iran, I’m going to tell them, ‘You should develop a nuclear weapon. It’s going to set off an arms race in the Middle East.’”

• That he claimed that his parents got together because of “what happened in Selma”–four years after he was born.

• That he said on Memorial Day “”On this Memorial as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience here today.”

The list stretches out to the horizon, but somehow, they get absolutely no attention whatsoever. If McCain or Palin were guilty of making even a fraction of similar gaffes, missteps, and outright absurd statements, they would be ridiculed endlessly. And in fact, in Palin’s case, she is ridiculed endlessly for far, far less.

• In Ohio, they show an Obama lead 6-9 points greater than does any other poll.

• In Florida, they show an Obama lead of 5-9 points greater than does any other poll.

• In Pennsylvania, they show an Obama lead of 6-14 points greater than does any other poll.

These Quinnipiac polls show, at the very least, a 5 percent differential from ANY and ALL polls done during similar time-frames, and this differential is always to Obama’s advantage.

Note also, that in most cases, if one were to subtract the margin of error from each of Quinnipiac’s numbers, and add the stated margin of errors of the other polls, Quinnipiac would still usually be showing numbers that are either moderately or wildly at variance with all other polling. And again, always to the advantage of Barack Obama.

How is this even possible?

It goes without saying that either Quinnipiac is right or everybody else is wrong. In either case, it means that at least some people are doing questionable polling out there (not everyone can be right within their margins of error with these results) and that there must be some factor or factors being brought into play in polling that ought to be isolated and considered for what it might teach us about polling in general.

In investigating Quinnipiac’s methodology, one thing that jumped out at me immediately was their use of Quinnipiac student interviewers to conduct the polls.

Weighting by party ID, as all polls do, is always something to account for–but why would Quinnipiac be weighting differently in three separate states from all other organizations?

What stands out to me above all else–in regard to Quinnipiac’s differences with other polling organizations–is that their results are based on telephone conversations between voters and 18-22 year olds. The very same demographic, as virtually everyone has come to know, which supports Barack Obama over John McCain by overwhelming margins. This theory I am putting forth assumes that significant numbers of interviewees can identify–over the phone–the age of their interviewers. And that they will respond accordingly.

The so-called “Bradley Effect,” which is not, as is sometimes suggested, so much about racism as the phenomenon of interviewees attempting to conform to the assumed biases of their interviewers, begins to look like a very plausible explanation in the case of Quinnipiac. Again, since the use of those belonging to a very specific and narrow demographic group to conduct interviews is the most obvious way in which Quinnipiac differs from all other polling outfits.

Many pollsters (like Rasmussen) attempt to avoid the potential for this kind of statistical bias through the use of robo-calling, in which interviewees don’t interact with live human beings.

Why lie to a machine?

But to broaden the argument beyond Quinnipiac: if those polled are ever willing to lie (and I believe that the odd results put forth by the Quinnipiac polls plausibly suggest this to be the case) that means that the so-called “Bradley Effect” is real, and under the right conditions it will manifest itself in polling.

So where does this potential for lying stop and where does it end? Does robo-calling eliminate this potential form of statistical bias completely or merely diminish it? To answer that question, we’d have to know just strong the social pressures to identify oneself as an Obama voter are, and how far into the closet some percentage of McCain voters have gone. The cynical response, I suppose, is to say that perhaps they’re so deep in the closet that they’ll pull the lever for Obama on election day!

I have no doubt, for the record, that McCain is behind–in some important places significantly. But is polling really telling the whole story?

I believe that we can take for granted that the candidacy of Obama, the first African-American candidate to head a national presidential ticket, is a unique phenomenon that’s injected any number of factors into the political scene that might skew traditional polling. Some of these factors could benefit Obama. Perhaps some intending to vote Obama lie–because they live among McCain supporters–by claiming they’ll vote for McCain. And more likely than that, perhaps the pollsters have failed to account for a massive and unprecedented surge of first-time voters.

In any event, there is some solid evidence from this current presidential election cycle that suggests that even robo-calling can result in a significant pro-Obama bias.

Here’s an exellent example. Rasmussen predicted, in his final poll in the race, that Barack Obama would defeat Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire by 7% points.

The level of political activity in New Hampshire at the time was extremely high–like it is now in the entire country. New Hampshire is a state which is something like 96% white. The historical nature of Obama’s historical candidacy was trumpeted from the mountaintops. Polled Independents claimed they’d be voting for Obama by a 2-1 margin. Though presumably the Bradley Effect would be a less salient factor in a Democratic primary than in a general election, Barack Obama went on to lose by 2.6% to Hillary Clinton. The robo-calling was off by 9.6%. Currently, as a point of reference, Rasmussen says that McCain is down 10 points in New Hampshire to Barack Obama.

I’m sure that they are getting liberal questions at a rate of 100-1, considering that it’s myspace.com and that the left tends to spam such things. But although Tom Brokaw will be the one to make the final selections, I don’t think it’s a bad idea for conservatives to toss a few into the mix themselves.

The site you need to go to is here.