I was speaking to a fellow a few weeks ago about polling since he used to be in that biz. He was lamenting the inaccuracy of polling today.

He seems to think that many young people and many non-whites have only cell phones. Their opinions are not counted when polling is done because only home phones are contacted.

His fear is that the entire industry is going to die out unless some way is discovered to put the random back into it. Every day more people die and their land line is disconnected, and every day more people start cell service, so how can any poll claim to represent what the people are thinking?

Right now polls reflect what people who have land lines think and really nothing more.

I think this is a good thing as too many of our elected want to see the polls before they will make a decision. If they are unsure of the accuracy of a poll they will have to go back to doing their jobs based on what they think is good for their district.

I remember that just before the 2006 election Karl Rove was predicting a massive landslide for the Republicans. His polls, he claimed, were better than all the others put together. When the Dems were voted into everything he just refused to talk about it.

I don't know if that means anything or not. I asked a few people I know in Texas who know Rove what they thought he was up to and they just said with Rove you never really know. They had quit paying him any attention long ago.

The polls had Harry Reid down to about nothing a month or so ago, now he is way up. It will be interesting to see how accurate all these polls are after the elections, which is only the only real poll that counts.

I do know that as I drive around I see a lot of yard signs for Democrats and almost none for Republicans. I live in Oklahoma which went 68% for McCain in 2008 and I have never seen so much support for the Dems as I have lately.

But of course all that means very little. After the votes are counted we will really know where the country stands on all of this.

Regardless of what the RWNJ's claim, politically the country is about where it was 18 months ago. Give or take a few percentage points based on what direction the wind is blowing today, the country is basically split right down the middle.

Ahh... The Ford years. I remember them well.

Mortgage rates at 21%. The price of gas doubling in six months. WIN buttons. WIN stood for Whip Inflation Now. It was sort of like Nancy Reagan's Just Say NO and also worked just as well.

I can honestly say I did not vote for Ford for President. But then, no one did. Was there ever another to hold the Office of the President who never received a single vote?

I also liked the way he took an oath to the American people he would not run for the office in 1976 and then did.

Now we have to struggle along with mortgage rates at about 4.5% to 5% and inflation is zero. Gas is $2 a gallon cheaper here than it was two years ago and jobs are returning to the US from China.

So it is four months to the election. There is still time for plenty of scandles to break out between now and then.

Stay tuned!

I think I actually have a WIN button someplace.

One of the problems with electing unprincipled people to office. Not meaning "unprincipled" as a slur, but descriptive of politicians who have no core beliefs.
i.e. McCain, or any number of pols.
If they need to review the polls before taking a stand, they shouldn't be in elective office. Their JOB is to read and study pending legislation, and then show LEADERSHIP. If they are too bust to understand the Bills before them, get a real job in the private sector, and get out of " public service".

I KNOW where Barny Frank will be on most issues--I can respect that. Same for many dems. I may not agree, but if they are true to their party's principles, it is what I expect.

McCain has no "center"; no guiding philosophy that I can see, other than he wants to be " a maverick." That is insufficient for high office. Anyone who waits to see the poll numbers before saying what he/she believes, believes nothing other than the polls.

The problem with elected officials following their "party's principles" is that both parties seem to have an absurd set of "principles." I don't think I know anyone who is fully on board with either party. Personally, I consider myself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal/libertarian; so am I represented by the tolerant guys who want to redistribute wealth or the crazy religious guys who like low taxes? Should I vote for the pro-union nuts or the pro-gun wackos? Do I get on board with the guys who don't care about immigration because they don't want to lose the Hispanic vote or the guys who don't care about immigration because they don't want to lose the pro-business vote. So, am I with the guys who think I'm rich and need to be taxed more or the guys who claim to be for freedom but are anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-privacy, anti-(just about everything that isn't christan, male, and white). I think I'll just sit on the sidelines and watch the show.

Well said.

True enough,
But you know the people who represent you and you know basically where they stand. From this you can have some certainty on their future positions. That is as it should be. You may not like all the positions of your chosen candidate, but you have some idea what they will stand for on most issues.

My complaint is against pols who, say, were lifetime pro-life, and suddenly vote pro-choice with no apparent conflict. Or ones who have a history of being a fiscal conservative who over night become spend and taxers.

How can one intelligently vote for any candidate who has a history of being unpredictable in their positions?

I agree that elected officials should be consistent at a high (philosophical) level, but it is understandable that they will change their position on some individual issues. A fiscal conservative might decide that one specific tax is justified and vote for it, etc. I do think McCain was one of those guys who could adjust his position on individual issues (before he completely lost his mind during the last campaign). I understand that single-issue voters will have a nutty when that happens to their issue, but that's how a representative democracy is supposed to work.

Polls ebb and flow, just ask Reagan, he was in about the same shape Obama is in at the same point in his term. When the fear pushers on the right are finally rejected by the public, it will change. Given their unrelenting, and unprecedented assault of Hitler posters and crazed conspiracy theories from it's massive media machine, it amazes me Obama is doing as well as he is.

Mortgage rates never hit 21% under Ford. Or Carter Or ever. They peaked out at about 17% around 1980. I got a 14% mortgage in 1980 to buy my first home.

The Prime rate briefly hit 20%............ in about 1980, iirc.

Andrew Johnson was the only US president, technically, to never receive a citizen vote to be president. He succeeded Lincoln in 1865 and did not run in 1868. I can honestly say I voted for Ford in 1976.;) So did 39 million others. Problem was, for Ford, Carter swept the south & got 41 million votes. Still, a close election.

OPECE embargo in 1973 and inflation coming out along after the Johnson & Nixon years had more to do with the spike in gas prices in 1973-74 and much greater increases later in 1976-1982 than anything Ford did.

Ford was a caretaker, not a policy setter. He wasn't in office long enough to do much damage. I have no great love for Ford. I think he was kind of a harmless dolt, and probably good for the period after Nam & Nixon and at the time I supported his pardon of Nixon.
Final comment of Ford. I think it's rediculous the next carrier to be commissioned into the Navy will be the USS Gerald R. Ford. The only name more silly is the present USS John Stennis. That's a real lulu!:rolleyes:

I'm not convinced this means anything. Wait until the midterms or the next presidential. But if the Republicanos don't have a viable candidate, the president will be re-elected by default.

That's the interesting thing about each party. The in-fighting causes them to lose the opportunity to present a united front and get a national candidate elected.
I have seen it in 1956, 1968, 1972, 1988, 2004.

Mortgage rates never hit 21% under Ford. Or Carter. Or ever. They peaked out at about 17% around 1980. I got a 14% mortgage in 1980 to buy my first home.

The Prime rate briefly hit 20%............ in about 1980, iirc.

Andrew Johnson was the only US president, technically, to never receive a citizen vote to be president. He succeeded Lincoln in 1865 and did not run in 1868. I can honestly say I voted for Ford in 1976.;) So did 39 million others. Problem was, for Ford, Carter swept the south & got 41 million votes. Still, a close election.

The OPEC embargo in 1973 and inflation coming along after the Johnson & Nixon years had more to do with the spike in gas prices in 1973-74 and much greater increases later in 1976-1982 than anything Ford did.

Ford was a caretaker, not a policy setter. He wasn't in office long enough to do much damage. I have no great love for Ford. I think he was kind of a harmless dolt, and probably good for the period after Nam & Nixon and at the time I supported his pardon of Nixon.
Final comment of Ford. I think it's rediculous the next carrier to be commissioned into the Navy will be the USS Gerald R. Ford. The only name more silly is the present USS John Stennis. That's a real lulu!:rolleyes:


With 4 months to go to the election, it's about Jobs baby, or the lack of them.
Scandals? Nah. This article makes some sense, imo, in describing the Dem's dilemma at the moment. One element, the loss of independent support, is a lost cause I believe. The other, rallying the base, is, I suppose, possible. Enough turnout to keep the House in Dem control? Stay tuned!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/11/AR2010071103039.html

I voted for Ford, for two reasons:

1. The Mayaguez incident. He had stones, and wasn't afraid to use them.
2. He is the original author of Executive Order 12958, which destroyed the FBI's ability to do a lot of unauthorized surveillance on people that were "enemies " of the FBI or Hoover, without due porocess. With one EO he undid the FBI's secret police structure and that of the Nixon White House. He really PO'd the FBI and started to neuter them when it was needed after the 1960s.