O Really wrote:Think about it, Colonel. What does a polling company have to gain by being intentionally or knowingly wrong?
If the polls stay close more people will watch TV. If the polls stay close more people will give money. If the polls stay close more advertising will be bought.
Obviously we will not know until after the election. Polling today has to be more difficult due to technology and the smaller number of land lines. I know in our household, all our cells and landline have caller ID. If we don't recognize the number we don't answer. I suspect we are not alone with that practice.
O Really wrote:Think about it, Colonel. What does a polling company have to gain by being intentionally or knowingly wrong?
There's a lot of money in publishing polls that are intentionally or knowingly wrong. While working for a computer store I made many tech support calls to a polling firm that did exactly that.
O Really wrote:This is a fun thread, in retrospect. Opps!
like your new avatar.
Thanks - it'll be fun for a while. Problem is, Republicans are a lot like Jason or Freddie Krueger. You have to keep fighting them over and over. But like Jason, they're not all that scary once you realize the guy in the hockey mask doesn't get any smarter. http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0002146/bio
O Really wrote:This is a fun thread, in retrospect. Opps!
like your new avatar.
The Democrats were pronounced dead after the 2002 election. The Republicans were pronounced dead after the 2008 election. The Republican brand is nowhere near as damaged now as it was in 2008.
They're not dead, but haven't hit bottom yet. The far-right, having pretended to back a moderate, won't do it again for 2016. They'll DEMAND a Santorum, Palin, Perry or Bachmann, and with Faux News / Limbaugh / Beck / etc. help they'll get it. The far-right will Take Back The Party.
I've heard the Republican Party refered to as "the party of Lincoln" a few times recently. Apparently because neither made it out of the 1860s. This will seem especially true in 2016.
But in 2020 it will again be the Democrats' turn to be inaccurately pronounced dead.
You just can't count on those evangelical coal miners in southeast Ohio. Damn.
Yep, both parties have been left for dead after they've suffered a particularly bad
election, but they always come back. This time will be no different, though it may
take a while. The names I've heard bandied about for 2016 include folks like Ryan,
Jindal, Christie, Haley, etc. The old new blood thing. You have to congratulate the
pee partiers, at least in the Senate races. They've handed the Democrats about six
or seven seats over the last two elections. Thanks.
Last edited by Bungalow Bill on Fri Nov 09, 2012 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yeah, I know the pendulum swings as times changes and adaptations are made. But it's not so much that they lost this Presidential election that I think will keep them down for a while - it's their likely refusal to make any adaptation, and the difficulty of getting any traction if they try. Read Super-S's posts in the "Chicken" thread. Is this the voice of somebody who's going to recognize the world isn't going to change to suit them? Sure, Boehner gets it, to some degree, but he couldn't control his fringes last session; he won't be able to control them this one, either. They think being anachronistic is a good thing.
What's more, sometimes parties really do die. Whigs, as one example of many. Sometimes they just live on as bottom-feeders with the Libertarians and Greens. And sometimes they die and are replaced by another party using the same name. There have been several reincarnations of "Republicans" through the years. I just think the next election or so will be fun when Sarah Palin is nominated.
Canada's Tea Party is currently running the country. America's Tea Party could do the same:
Canada in the 1990s U.S. in the 2010s
The Conservative Party destroyed its brand. The Republican Party destroyed it's brand.
The far right separated from the Conservative Party and formed the Reform Party. With Republican moderates trying to make the Republican Party less of a far-right fantasy land, the Tea Party - led by Fox News - will separate from the Republican Party and form it's own party.
The Reform Party earned a reputation for racism, but eventually got those responsible to sit down and shut up. The Tea Party earned a reputation for racism, but - already, mostly - eventually got those responsible to sit down and shut up.
With the vote on the right split, the Liberal Party won the next election. With the vote on the right split, the Democrats win in 2016.
Most of the remaining Conservatives crossed over to the Reform Party. Through Fox News support - and just by being the most extremist - the Tea Party gets all the press for the right. No-one pays attention to the Republicans. And so most of the remaining Republicans cross over to the Tea Party.
The Reform Party renamed itself the Conservative Party of Canada, got more of the extremists to shut up, and was soon running the country. The Tea Party will rename itself the Republican Party. Roger Ailes's takeover of the Republican Party will be complete. THEN he will let it become moderate, and it will win in 2020.
rstrong wrote:
The Reform Party renamed itself the Conservative Party of Canada, got more of the extremists to shut up, and was soon running the country.
Got them to shut up, banished them to the netherlands, took away their voting privileges, got most of them to grow a brain, they mellowed out, they decided to at least put party before ideology, ???
The ones we have don't seem to be able to shut up.
Bungalow Bill wrote:You just can't count on those evangelical coal miners in southeast Ohio. Damn.
Yep, both parties have been left for dead after they've suffered a particularly bad
election, but they always come back. This time will be no different, though it may
take a while. The names I've heard bandied about for 2016 include folks like Ryan,
Jindal, Christie, Haley, etc. The old new blood thing. You have to congratulate the
pee partiers, at least in the Senate races. They've handed the Democrats about six
or seven seats over the last two elections. Thanks.
Agreed, Bill.
Thanks, T'P'ers. Keep doin' what you're doin'.
The T'P'ers are already irrelevant and becoming a dying breed ... almost literally.
I think they'll be around for a while, though in a much diminished role. I certainly hope they
last long enough to give a few more Senate seats away by running kooks. It certainly wasn't
a good year for them. Mitt wasn't really their man and he tried to shift to the center in a vain
attempt to win. They didn't do very well in the Senate. I guess the House is where they still
have some power.
Forgot this one. Joe the Plummer ran for office for a U.S. House seat in Ohio and lost pretty
badly. Maybe it's time to make an honest living unclogging toilets instead of running his mouth
with his brain dead opinions.
Bungalow Bill wrote:I think they'll be around for a while, though in a much diminished role. I certainly hope they
last long enough to give a few more Senate seats away by running kooks. It certainly wasn't
a good year for them. Mitt wasn't really their man and he tried to shift to the center in a vain
attempt to win. They didn't do very well in the Senate. I guess the House is where they still
have some power.
Forgot this one. Joe the Plummer ran for office for a U.S. House seat in Ohio and lost pretty
badly. Maybe it's time to make an honest living unclogging toilets instead of running his mouth
with his brain dead opinions.
I've always enjoyed your humor and insight, Bill. Thanks!
