Lipstick Edition

With so many nutjobs involved in the McCain campaign these days, you just never know what you're going to wake up to these days. This morning? It's lipstick.

It seems after Obama made a remark about McCain's "change" slogan being like "putting lipstick on a pig," McCain's camp immediately presumed he was referring to Sarah Palin, since she's the only one on a major party ticket who wears lipstick (Are you quite certain about that?) and they got their knickers in a twist (whoops--is that going to offend John, who is obviously the only one who would wear "knickers"?). Well, Barack was just quoting Johnny Mac himself, who said the exact same thing about Hillary's healthcare plan. To quote our local news team, who couldn't keep a straight face reporting on this pseudo-story, "You know what they say about putting lipstick on a pig--it just annoys the pig."

Sorry for using that scary Sarah Palin photo again, (one which Eric says disturbs him) but it was the only appropriate one I had.

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"Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?"

--Robert Orben (US magician and comedy writer, b. 1927)

ANYway, I've gotten a lot of messages from people feeling depressed about all this polling stuff, but I have to intervene here with some comments. First of all, I was called about a month ago to participate in the CBS new poll and several things struck me about polls in general. I offer them below because it's made me all the more wary of taking the "hard numbers" too seriously.

1. When they called me, they called on my home phone (land line) at around 6 pm. Pollsters generally use land lines, but when most Americans, especially the young, have switched to cell phones, I have to ask what demographic they're really capturing? I have to wonder too, who they catch at 6 pm, when many workers are till commuting home.
   
   
2. Before we began the poll, the caller asked me several demographic questions including party registration, age, gender, head of household and ethnic background. She then said something along the lines of "Well this is good, you're the right one for the poll."
   
   Pollsters SELECT whom they wish to poll based on demographics. Hardly anyone talks about the methodology of that selection process these days, although it's been pointed out as a problem as far back as 1980. More recently, HuffPo's Seth Colter Walls pointed out: "This week's mainstream coverage of the presidential horse-race has been dominated by a series of polls showing the McCain-Palin ticket with its first stable lead over Obama and Biden. Gallup's tracking poll, USA Today and CBS News all show the Republicans with some kind of lead over the Democratic ticket. But, interestingly, all three polls were also conducted using a higher sampling of Republican voters than in July, raising a question of methodology. In a year in which Democrats have a lead of 11 million registered voters over Republicans, and have been adding to that advantage through a robust field operation, are pollsters over-sampling Republicans?"
   
   
3. The whole process took a good 40 minutes and included some of those ridiculous questions along the lines of "is Candidate Name someone you would like to be friends with?" The lengthy and repetitious questioning made me wonder if we weren't in the middle of constructing a fantasy film. It's worth revisiting the Wall Street Journal's early August article "When Voters Lie," for some insights.
   

So, while I love to delve into polls-- and I jump from site to site checking and cross-checking them--I do think they need to be taken with a serious dollop of salt.

Furthermore, Wonkette points out that, even with the "dismal" poll numbers, if Obama holds in all the states that Kerry won in 2004 (which I think is totally likely) and then takes Iowa (which seems pretty clear now), New Mexico (also a distinct possibility), and, say, Colorado (Hey, they had the convention there) Obama wins. You can pick other scenarios too. All Kerry states plus Ohio. All Kerry states plus New Mexico and Virginia. Go ahead, try it, using the Washington Post's "Choose your own scenario" applet.

And since we brought up Virginia, apparently the county registrar is trying to keep college students from registering to vote in Virginia, a possible swing state, by telling them if they register in Virginia, they may lose their tax status as a dependent and possible scholarhip money.. "In a year in which historic youth voter turnout is anticipated, and the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been propelled by college students' support, this case in the battleground state of Virginia is "not an isolated incident," said Sujatha Jahagirdar, program director for the Student Public Interest Research Group's nonpartisan New Voters Project."

But back to economic policy...

What about Trade policy? (drawn mainly from candidate's own websites)

• Obama:
• wants a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support American jobs.
  
• will pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.
• will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to amend NAFTA so that it works for American workers.
• would update the existing system of Trade Adjustment Assistance by extending it to service industries, creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain, and providing retraining assistance for workers in sectors of the economy vulnerable to dislocation before they lose their jobs.
• end tax deductions for companies that move operations overseas.
• Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 with Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to reward companies that create jobs for American workers. The legislation would provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America if it has ever been in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.
• More position statements have been compiled (with citations) on the site On The Issues
  
• McCain:
• believes that globalization is an opportunity for American workers today and in the future.
• Ninety-five percent of the world's customers lie outside our borders and we need to be at the table when the rules for access to those markets are written.
  
• Believes U.S. should engage in multilateral, regional and bilateral efforts to reduce barriers to trade, level the global playing field and build effective enforcement of global trading rules.
• According to On the Issues Mcain also:
  
• Supports NAFTA, including broadening NAFTA to include other countries in the western hemisphere.
• Supports GATT and the WTO.
• Opposes imposing tariffs on products imported from nations that maintain restrictive trade barriers on American products.
• A nation's human rights record should not affect its "most favored nation" trading status with the US.
• Supports granting the President "fast-track" authority.

Remember, whenever you start feeling down and weary, you can try the Helene solution and donate $5 to Obama's campaign.