Posted on 08/29/2006 9:19:00 AM PDT by meandog
Our partners at the Daily Press are reporting that Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb, down by more than 10 percentage points in late July, has pulled slightly ahead of Sen. George Allen, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/Zogby Poll.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailypress.com ...
That is absolutely in the running for most moronic FR post of 2006.
The Zogby interactive poll is based on the concept that a self-selected sample of people can represent the universe of people who vote, as long as you weight the subgroups in the sample so that the resulting sample has the same demographic characteristics as the universe of people who vote.
The problem with this methodology is if intensities vary over time, so that the tendency of a person to self-select him- or herself is sometimes correlated with a point of view. This will bias self-selected polls, including those which re-weight (although the re-weighting will tend to diminish the bias).
Since it is reasonable to presume that the Democrats are, at this stage of the election cycle, more energized than the Republicans, bias can be suspected in the Zogby interactive polls.
Now, looking at the Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polls, which use random-digit dialing (which is a good methodology), and which use short interviews (which is also good), but which still have to rely on cooperation from the person called (which is problematic), it does appear the Webb has closed much of the gap between him and Allen.
The most recent Rasmussen poll shows Allen ahead by only 3 points (compared to an eleven point lead in July), and the most recent SurveyUSA poll shows Allen to be only 5 points ahead (compared to a nineteen point lead in July).
This closing of the gap may reflect nothing more than Webb's consolidation of the left/Democrat vote since the Democratic primary. That is, Webb's former, poor showing may have reflected some reluctance on the part of the supporters of his opponent in that primary to commit themselves to supporting him (Webb) in the general election.
Given Allen's past performances as a candidate, and given his substantial war chest, we would expect Allen to win easily. On the other hand, Virginia has recently been drifting in the Democrat direction, so maybe Allen cannot be expected to win as easily as in the past.
Indeed! I don't know how they do it either, considering political leadership which did not seize upon the opportunity it had during "Shock and Awe" when clearly 80 percent of the people in this country were solidly behind him. Like McClellan during the Civil War Peninsula Campaign, like the British at Gallipoli, like the Germans at the gates of Stalingrad during the early stages of Barbarossa, and most recently like the Israelis in Lebanon, somehow defeat is being snatched from the jaws of victory.
VA has not been drifting left. President Bush increased his margin here from 2000 to 2004.
I'm not a "lefty" but I do love this country and the people who defend it, and I am G-D tired of the way they have been led.
I share your frustration on the way the war is being conducted, but then again, I don't know all of the facts and circumstances involved. I prefer to use nukes and be done with it, but then again, I'm just an engineer with no facts or other strategies in front of me.
Well, you and I agree on this...I wouldn't use nukes, but I would have instituted a draft, taxed consumption to pay for the war, and invaded using the rule of thumb of two attackers for every one defender (in this case Muslim inhabitant) to overwhelm the enemy.
I'm sure that 'your' method of fighting the war on terror would be working right now correct?
It certainly would have gotten the job done, and it would have sent a strong message to those embracing terror in anachronistic countries such as Saudi (it stll has a king for God's sake) Arabia, and Islamofacist regimes such as Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somolia, Yemen, and Jordan...then perhaps more moderate Islamic countries such as Lebanon, UAE, etc. would not seek to join the growing evil empire.
If Allen has a chance to run for President he needs to win big, no, hugh.
Yup: worthless.
Uh, can you say Democratic Gov. Mark Warner and Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine?
So you would have deployed approximately 54 million troops? Impressive. I'd hate to work up the TPFDL for that one.
You're clueless.
Didn't exactly agree with Malcomb X on racial matters but gotta admit his "By Any Means Necessary" certainly got attention.
Bush increased his nationwide margin from 2000 to 2004 by 3.9 percent (from -0.5 percent to +2.4 percent). Here in Virginia, he increased his margin be less, 0.9 percent (from 7.2 percent to 8.1 percent). Thus, relative to the nation as a whole, Virginia is less conservative than it used to be.
However, to substantiate your point, it could equally be said that the country has been becoming more conservative relative to Virginia since 1992. I have to admit that there is some flux to words like "right" and "left," "liberal" and "conservative."
Fair enough, I appreciate that you addressed both perspectives. I think it's fair to say that there is little to no evidence that Virginia is "trending left."
No his problem came from allowing the Treason Media to provoke him into an apology for nothing. Reagan would have laughed it off. Allen screwed up earlier when he tried to pretend that Cindy Seahag was something other than a complete fraud.
I do agree that he is not even close to presidential timber and he was my early favorite. Looks like it will be Guiliani. He is immune to media provocations.
With regard to what our options were when we were making the decision to invade Iraq, to institute the draft and build up a substantially larger military would have taken ... let's see, how long is it taking to accomplish this within Iraq ... 3 to 4 years.
However, it wasn't anticipated back then that we would need a large ground force in order to reconstruct Iraq while suppressing various insurgent forces. Back then, the argument concerned how large of a force we needed for the invasion. The "old school" said 500,000, and the "new school" said 150,000.
It is only after the fact, when we wound up having to deal with the insurgency that some people are saying, you know, if we had gone the "old school" way, we would have had a large ground force in country, which could have dealt more effectively with the insurgency.
(BTW the "old school" plan anticipated 5,000 fatalities during the invasion.)
If we had a time machine and could go back and re-do what we did, here are just a few of things we would have done differently:
1. Not call off the Persian Gulf War after 100 hours.
2. Not abandon the Marsh Arabs when they rose up against Saddam Huissen, but helped them to establish a semi-autonomous region within Iraq as we did with the Kurds.
3. Not reduce our military from being able to fight and win two wars simultaneously to being able only to fight and win one war at a time.
4. Not go to the U.N. to ask for permission to invade Iraq, allowing Saddam time to prepare for our invasion by having his key people in the military and police infiltrate into the population and continue to resist us by unconventional means.
5. Not invade Iraq at all (since they no longer had WMD).
As it is, none of these options are available to us at this time. Instead, it appears that the only options are (A) win the damn thing, or (B) leave and tell them good luck and, oh, by the way, why don't you partition your country. With an increasingly capable Iraqi army, I'm thinking option (A) sounds pretty good, and thank God for those who are making this option possible.
Allen must be really a genius for converting his 20 plus point lead in to a close race, what an idiot, his repeated apologising shows that he and his political advisors simply lost the plot on that issue.
Well, don't you have to reside in Virginia first?
2. Not abandon the Marsh Arabs when they rose up against Saddam Huissen, but helped them to establish a semi-autonomous region within Iraq as we did with the Kurds.
Concur...another one of "41's" blunders!
3. Not reduce our military from being able to fight and win two wars simultaneously to being able only to fight and win one war at a time.
Agreed...DUH-bee-yew's blunder this time, egged on by Rummy and Wolfowitz who told him it could be done and Cheney cheering them on!
4. Not go to the U.N. to ask for permission to invade Iraq, allowing Saddam time to prepare for our invasion by having his key people in the military and police infiltrate into the population and continue to resist us by unconventional means.
Well, it's a good point but I suppose he had to get some sort of consensus and begin a coalition so I would give him a pass on this.
5. Not invade Iraq at all (since they no longer had WMD).
If you'll recall, he said he would NOT invade if Sadaam, sons and cohorts would all leave...but, IMHO, he would still have had resistance with what was left, and his real plan was to build a model democracy for the rest of the Middle East to emulate...
As it is, none of these options are available to us at this time. Instead, it appears that the only options are (A) win the damn thing, or (B) leave and tell them good luck and, oh, by the way, why don't you partition your country. With an increasingly capable Iraqi army, I'm thinking option (A) sounds pretty good, and thank God for those who are making this option possible.
I, too, want to win but it has become painfully obvious to me that we are letting it slip away as more and more Sunni and Shitte "militias" are gaining strength and numbers.
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