[Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Jeff Fink posted and Jones Beene replied BTW - although Palin was probably a positive choice for McCain, given all the demographics, it is turning out not to be anywhere near the brilliant strategy that it first seemed. He shoulda gone with Condi. The liberal media destroyed Condi way in advance to make sure she could never become a VP. IMHO, Condi destroyed herself by promoting the Two State solution. OTOH, she was just following orders. Obama is run by the Chicago political machine. There may be a few turf battles if Obama wins, Senator Obama is an empty suit. He does well when reading from a teleprompter, but listen to him speak extemporaneously some time, he shudders like Elmer Fudd. He has a Progressive (march towards feudalism) world view. IMHO, Progressive is a form of insanity. As an constitutional Originalist however, I'm way more concerned about his appointments to the Supreme Court. Hugh Hewitt has a regular feature on his show, The Smart Guys. It features three Constitutional Law professors. Erwin Chemarinski, Dean of (senior moment) Law School, he regularly argues cases for (the accursed) ACLU. He makes my blood boil, If I ever die of a burst aneurysm, it will be while listening to his arguments. He would be just the sort of legal scholar that President (G-d help us) Obama would appoint to the Supreme Court. --- Get FREE High Speed Internet from USFamily.Net! -- http://www.usfamily.net/mkt-freepromo.html ---
[Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Jed Rothwell posted; I think Palin is a lot smarter than she comes across as. She and some other modern politicians have developed the art of looking like aw-shucks, awkward, common folk. Good point. OTOH, that's how you get elected. The characterization of her as trailer trash really burns me. Sarah would fit right into our Congregation, I hope to get the chance to tell her so. You wouldn't think to look at them that the Bush family are members of America's old-money, Ivy League WASP elite -- but they are. The Bush family is descended from the Puritan founders of America, as are Sarah Palin and I. The opposite side of the coin to a G-d fearing Puritan is the most G-d awful wolves, who have engineered the world which has happened over the past century. It is funny to me that people like Jeff Fink, who despite Ivy League elites, are so fond of the Bush and McCain types. Who do you think they are? Salt of the earth proletariat? Supporting the good with the bad is an integral part of a two party system. On the one hand it has given us stability, on the other hand the Wolves in human form have used it as a vehicle to advance their agenda. OTOH, George Soros is just as much of a wolf, and just as big a believer in the Progressive Agenda. Believe me, you don't get any more blue-blood than these people. By an act of skillful legerdemain, the GOP has spent the last generation passing off such people as down-home common folk. The Republican party is composed of three blocks, the economic imperialists, the militarists, and people of faith. I believe that Sarah Heath Palin is of the latter block. I liked the GOP better in the old days when they were honest snobs The conservative wing of the GOP is a minority. The mainstream of the party, which nominated John McCain, is today's embodiment of the ideals espoused by the John Kennedy Democrats. and they thought people should respect them /because/ they were old money movers and shakers, The aforementioned imperialist power block of the GOP are the descendants of the investment banker Herbert Walker, then (1912) president of Brown Brothers, now Brown Brothers Harriman. He bankrolled Leon Trotsky's second Russian revolution. His daughter Dorthy married Prescott Bush, they named their first born son George Herbert Walker Bush. It's known as playing both sides against the middle. I prefer the proper name, Hegelian Dielectric. Their behavior makes perfect sense when viewed through the lens of Progressive instituting of a new feudalism. --- Get FREE High Speed Internet from USFamily.Net! -- http://www.usfamily.net/mkt-freepromo.html ---
[Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Jones Beene wrote: Steven You may be underestimating the level of closet racism in the USA. This is getting way off topic, but it has to do with polling and public opinion surveys, a subject that has long interested me. (My mother was an expert in this field.) The issue of closet racism skewing poll results is called the Bradley effect. (Look it up for details.) Anyway, there is evidence that the Bradley effect has been suppressed by the selection of Sarah Palin as vice president. To make a long story short, people who are biased against Obama now have an excuse to support McCain instead. They can say they are supporting a female candidate, which is as open-minded as supporting a black candidate. A study conducted in the last couple weeks, which I cannot find, indicates that the shift toward McCain triggered by the selection of Palin was mainly among closet racists plus diehard supporters of Hillary Clinton. My guess is that most people in the latter group -- the so-called PUMAs -- will come around before election day, but you never know. Closet racism in this case was measured by asking people for adjectives describing black people. Such things are difficult to measure some of these are crude metrics at best. Palin's main appeal to appears to be toward fundamentalist Republican party regulars who would have voted Republican anyway. However, the selection was fruitful to the GOP because it motivated these people to get out and work for the ticket and vote. I was registering new voters last weekend. A white guy in his 30s who I would describe as being in the redneck demographic told me with considerable enthusiasm: I am already registered, and I am votin' for Palin! There is a great deal of concealed racism or denied racism being expressed as class distrust or envy. Plus there is real class envy because Obama is a Harvard man after all, and that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. (Bush is a Yale man and very much a member of the U.S. elite, but he takes pains to cover up his upper-class background.) By denied I mean the person himself is unaware that he is expressing racist views. Some respondents say they just can't trust Obama, for reasons they supposedly cannot put their finger on. The weirdest expression of denied racism was a woman in Atlanta who recently said: I'm not prejudiced, but I could never vote for a black man. Needless to say, you cannot always count on demographics. W. Ralph Eubanks, a librarian at the Library of Congress, recently wrote an article in the Washington Post describing the atmosphere at his alma mater Ole Miss. The upcoming Friday debate will be held there. He described an interesting encounter: . . . discussions of class in the South can obscure honest talk about race. 'It's easier to talk about class, the money you have or don't have, than to talk about race and social segregation,' Patrick Woodyard, a white senior from Hot Springs, Ark., told me. On the other hand, Curtis Wilkie, a journalism professor at Ole Miss, believes that nowadays, 'many of the divisions in Mississippi are more partisan than racial.' His comment conjured an image from one of my visits to Mississippi last spring: A white man in a muddy pickup passed me somewhat aggressively along U.S. Highway 49. But he had an Obama for President sticker in his window, right below the gun rack. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091902807.html - Jed
RE: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
-Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 11:11 AM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect Jones Beene wrote: The issue of closet racism skewing poll results is called the Bradley effect. (Look it up for details.) Anyway, there is evidence that the Bradley effect has been suppressed by the selection of Sarah Palin as vice president. To make a long story short, people who are biased against Obama now have an excuse to support McCain instead. They can say they are supporting a female candidate, which is as open-minded as supporting a black candidate. I'm a white guy who is certainly not racist. Give me Alan Keyes, J C Watts, or even Colin Powell, and I will vote for him any day over McCain. Why are we talking about racist whites when 90% of blacks are voting Obama! Palin's main appeal to appears to be toward fundamentalist Republican party regulars who would have voted Republican anyway. However, the selection was fruitful to the GOP because it motivated these people to get out and work for the ticket and vote. Palin may well be the first real person to run for VP or higher in my lifetime. She wasn't raised rich, and she didn't have her mind corrupted by an ivy league school! We need leaders in this country who are not fans of Frederich Nietzsche or Karl Marx. I was registering new voters last weekend The terrorists around the world are rooting for Obama. Doesn't that tell you something? Obama calls himself a Christian, but Qadhafi of Libya in a recent interview obviously considers him to be a Muslim in good standing. Jeff P.S. You can lay this mortgage scandal at the feet of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank Who oversaw the decisions to lend money with no down payment to people who didn't even have jobs. There ought to be indictments against these two along with Jamie Gerelick, Franklin Raines, and Daniel Mudd.
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Jeff Fink wrote: I'm a white guy who is certainly not racist. Give me Alan Keyes, J C Watts, or even Colin Powell, and I will vote for him any day over McCain. Why are we talking about racist whites when 90% of blacks are voting Obama! The issue isn't racism, per se, rather it's a question of whether some people dislike Obama because he's black, but *will* *not* *admit* *that* when they're being polled. Consequently, in an opinion poll they might SAY they'd vote for him, but then when they're all alone in the voting booth they'll vote the other way. This can skew the opinion polls to make Obama look more popular than he really is. (AFAIK nobody knows how large this effect is.) This is actually a part of a larger problem with opinion polls, which is they're not secret, and apparently not anonymous. They're done in face to face -- or voice to voice -- interviews with another human. Consequently, the people being polled may not behave the same way in during polling that they will behave when they're in private, actually voting. If you are not ashamed to say you don't like Obama then you are not part of the problem which is being addressed here, which is people who lie about their feelings toward him.
RE: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Jeff Fink wrote: I'm a white guy who is certainly not racist. I did not say you were. I was talking about other people. Why should you protest? Ahh . . . Perhaps that means you ARE a closet racist . . . (In the modern age people who protest they are NOT X are automatically suspected of being X, and vice versa. Fill in the blank! For example, Obama and I frequently say we are favor of nuclear power, so naturally we are both accused of being against it. Ditto free market capitalism, immigration control, education reform and anything else that other people would prefer we oppose, but -- inconveniently for them -- we support.) Give me Alan Keyes, J C Watts, or even Colin Powell, and I will vote for him any day over McCain. That would make you a conservative, not a closet racist. That is a completely different matter. A closet racist would be someone who opposes Obama, but who would support a candidate similar to Obama -- with the same views and personality -- if the candidate were white. And as Stephen A. Lawrence pointed out, the Bradley effect is about people who lie to pollsters to be politically correct. Why are we talking about racist whites when 90% of blacks are voting Obama! That is another form of racism, called identity politics. That's not closet racism. For one thing, it is overt -- out in the open. Palin's main appeal to appears to be toward fundamentalist Republican party regulars who would have voted Republican anyway. However, the selection was fruitful to the GOP because it motivated these people to get out and work for the ticket and vote. Palin may well be the first real person to run for VP or higher in my lifetime. You sound motivated! You just demonstrated my point. She wasn't raised rich, and she didn't have her mind corrupted by an ivy league school! We need leaders in this country who are not fans of Frederich Nietzsche or Karl Marx. I would point out that President Bush and most important people on Wall Street graduated from Ivy League schools. Until this week they were not in favor of socialism. Not for the poor, anyway. The terrorists around the world are rooting for Obama. I doubt that. Doesn't that tell you something? It tells me that you have an over-active imagination. Obama calls himself a Christian, but Qadhafi of Libya in a recent interview obviously considers him to be a Muslim in good standing. Obama is the only one who can say what Obama's religion is. It makes no difference what other people say or think. A religion is all in one's mind. It is purely a matter of opinion, and the only person who can possibly know Obama's opinion is the man himself. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Consequently, in an opinion poll they might SAY they'd vote for him, but then when they're all alone in the voting booth they'll vote the other way. This can skew the opinion polls to make Obama look more popular than he really is. Exactly right. That's the Bradley effect. (AFAIK nobody knows how large this effect is.) Well, it is possible to make crude estimates of it. These estimates show that it has probably diminished since the Palin nomination, probably for the reasons I described. This is actually a part of a larger problem with opinion polls, which is they're not secret, and apparently not anonymous. Some of them are. The answers come out quite differently depending on whether they are anonymous or not. You have to compare results from different methodologies to determine the extent of the bias, and you have to compare results to actual voting (or purchasing, or whatever you are polling for) where data from some other source is available. That way you resolve which method is more accurate in which situation. I think most polling place exit polls are anonymous, although they usually ask you to check off a box for your sex, age and race. (It is anonymous because they do not look at the paper you fill in. They aren't supposed to, anyway.) Until this year, polling place exit polls were extremely reliable but there is so much advanced voting in many different states this year that the accuracy of exit polls will decline. The choice of the interviewer can also have a profound effect on the responses, depending on whether its political content or not. For example if you ask a black man to interview black people you are likely to get very different set of answers than if have a white woman asking the questions. This is true even when the interview was conducted over the phone, because most people can tell the race of the person they are talking to. This was discovered in the 1940s by white and black statisticians (including my mother) in carefully controlled tests. Even in an exit poll, some people are inclined to lie or misrepresent their vote, out of spite or confusion or because they forgot who they voted for. However, as my mother used to say, we know they lie and we take that into account. They calibrate for it. It is hard to fool a public opinion researcher. They were always well aware of the Bradley effect, even before it had that name, but that raises the question as to whether they should try to fiddle with the statistics to eliminate it. Some do, and some don't. That is one of the many reasons election polls vary all over the place, by as much as 10%. My mother also said that in response to polls and census forms, people tend to say whatever pops into their head. Here is an example of her writing in J. American Association for Public Opinion Research. You can see that for some inexplicable reason she sounded a lot like me: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2747532 - Jed
RE: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Meant: My guess is that Jeff Fink shares family values and has a similar background with Palin. Or if not, the GOP is trying hard to make him THINK she does. Voice input glitch? By the way, the newest version of Naturally Speaking voice input is astounding. Sorry if I am talking too much about public opinion. It is a fascinating subject, especially in an election year. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
BTW - although Palin was probably a positive choice for McCain, given all the demographics, it is turning out not to be anywhere near the brilliant strategy that it first seemed. He shoulda gone with Condi. I have a distinguished older friend who has never voted for a Democrat, and will not this time either, but he dropped his support for McCain BECAUSE of Palin. Using his words, not mine, this can be called the trailer-trash effect. And it will end up diminishing her net positive effect among that small segment of the wealthiest voters, but this type of GOP voter will merely abstain from voting for President, and not switch sides. As Terry mentioned, Biden is turning out to be a terrible choice too, perhaps even more so than Palin - but in that case, Obama is less likely to die of natural causes in the near term, so the effect of a poor choice of VP is less problematic for the Dem-wits. Biden is consistently ranked as the least-wealthy member of the Senate, and at least that indicates that he is not milking the Lobbies and PACs as are most of the others - nor is he spending half of the previous full-year's earnings on a tanning bed, instead of all those kids. Others might opine that it reflects more on a general lack of business acumen than honesty. Jones
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Jones Beene wrote: . . . although Palin was probably a positive choice for McCain, given all the demographics, it is turning out not to be anywhere near the brilliant strategy that it first seemed. He shoulda gone with Condi. I have a distinguished older friend who has never voted for a Democrat, and will not this time either, but he dropped his support for McCain BECAUSE of Palin. Well, no political strategy is perfect. No matter who McCain chose, he was bound to alienate someone. I think, all in all, it was an effective choice. I suppose it brought him more support than it lost. (But you can never be sure of such hypothetical assertions. You can't run history over again!) He needed the enthusiastic support of the religious right-wing GOP, and he got it in spades. It is easier to second-guess a political campaign than it is to run one. I think Palin is a lot smarter than she comes across as. She and some other modern politicians have developed the art of looking like aw-shucks, awkward, common folk. You wouldn't think to look at them that the Bush family are members of America's old-money, Ivy League WASP elite -- but they are. It is funny to me that people like Jeff Fink, who despite Ivy League elites, are so fond of the Bush and McCain types. Who do you think they are? Salt of the earth proletariat? Believe me, you don't get any more blue-blood than these people. By an act of skillful legerdemain, the GOP has spent the last generation passing off such people as down-home common folk. I liked the GOP better in the old days when they were honest snobs and they thought people should respect them *because* they were old money movers and shakers, not despite the fact. Elite people used to take pride in their class. They expected to be put in charge of corporations and Wall Street and be elected Senators because they were Ivy League snoots. Obama is something of a throwback in that respect. I cannot image anyone in 1960 or 1940 arguing that the man is too well educated! It is a strange world, and this political season is the strangest since 1968 -- which was a dreadful year, by the way. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
_ From: Jones Beene [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 7:19 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect BTW - although Palin was probably a positive choice for McCain, given all the demographics, it is turning out not to be anywhere near the brilliant strategy that it first seemed. He shoulda gone with Condi. The liberal media destroyed Condi way in advance to make sure she could never become a VP. In contrast, Palin has only been a target of the press for a few weeks. Do you realize that Palin has more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined? In her brief career she has gone after corrupt politicians and won amazing victories. Who else has ever done anything like that? You can bet that some of the Washington insiders are scared. Obama is run by the Chicago political machine. There may be a few turf battles if Obama wins, but beyond that in Washington, it will be business as usual or worse. Jeff
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
Please Jeff, spare us the political propaganda. We get a belly full of this from the candidates. The point you make is trivial and irrelevant to the problem. The press is doing the job they are paid to do. They provide information that we use to make a rational decision if we are intelligent. On the other hand, if you intend to vote for a ticket no matter what is known just because it is Republican, then the press is not useful to you. In addition, any argument that I or anyone else can make will not change your mind. Therefore, a discussion of your point is a waste of time. Ed On Sep 24, 2008, at 8:34 PM, Jeff Fink wrote: From: Jones Beene [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 7:19 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect BTW - although Palin was probably a positive choice for McCain, given all the demographics, it is turning out not to be anywhere near the brilliant strategy that it first seemed. He shoulda gone with Condi. The liberal media destroyed Condi way in advance to make sure she could never become a VP. In contrast, Palin has only been a target of the press for a few weeks. Do you realize that Palin has more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined? In her brief career she has gone after corrupt politicians and won amazing victories. Who else has ever done anything like that? You can bet that some of the Washington insiders are scared. Obama is run by the Chicago political machine. There may be a few turf battles if Obama wins, but beyond that in Washington, it will be business as usual or worse. Jeff
Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC Palin probably reduced the Bradley effect
In reply to Jeff Fink's message of Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:19:42 -0400: Hi, [snip] The terrorists around the world are rooting for Obama. Doesn't that tell you something? Obama calls himself a Christian, but Qadhafi of Libya in a recent interview obviously considers him to be a Muslim in good standing. [snip] ...then if he gets elected, perhaps they will feel less inclined to bomb US targets. ;) Regards, Robin van Spaandonk [EMAIL PROTECTED]
