I define a "lie" as the knowing telling of an untruth with intent to deceive. Therefore, the Bush administration's position on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was not a lie because the administration actually believed that these weapons existed and their intention was not to deceive but to enlighten the public. By this definition I think that most of the media does not lie although they repeat uncritically lies crafted by others, especially the Obama administration. The capacity of the human mind to rationalize into reality that which it wants to be real is almost infinite. This indicts the media as hypocrites but not always as liars. I think many of the media are happy not to examine deeply into the internals of these polls and put them on the air while rationalizing that they are only presenting the facts as they actually are out there, which is true as far as it goes.
I do believe that the administration itself, and its campaign are engaging in "lies" and they no doubt have compatriots in the media and in the polling organizations that believe what Alinsky taught, that there is no morality in our current political system, it is so corrupt, so capitalist, that it is illegitimate and therefore no duty of truth is owed to it or to the people whom it would deceive. They will revert to the civil rights struggle or to Watergate to rationalize their deceptions in a greater more moral cause.
I do not bring up these distinctions up merely to cavil but to provide a frame of understanding of how the media and the whole liberal establishment works. If Mitt Romney wins in a landslide as this article is predicting, one would expect the liberal media to sustain an epiphany and mend its ways. After all, nothing could be clearer than arithmetic and all of the liberal media polls will have been proved to be bogus by the numbers for all to see. But we both know that nothing of the kind will occur. The media will not change its ways, it certainly will not repent, it will merely change the subject. Need we apply the same analysis to academia?
Leftists are not leftists because of logic they are leftists because of the emotional fulfillment they receive by reinforcement from the cult.
(2) Conservative websites are pessimistic places run by straight males who are deathly afraid of being mocked if they’re wrong about predicting a Republican win…but are never concerned about being called out for saying that a Republican will lose
My experience, especially here on free Republic, is entirely to the contrary.
(3)…All predictions that Minitru makes of an Obama win or a close election are based on the Tea Party having disappeared and of Americans actually liking Obama more in 2012 than they did in 2008, which is madness.
The author conflates two propositions. The question is not whether the Tea Party has disappeared, the question is whether the Tea Party retains its intensity. This also applies, if one is intellectually honest, to the second proposition, to wit, that these media predictions are predicated on the assumption that "Americans actually like (ING) Obama more in 2012 than they did in 2008, which is madness." I agree if that is the assumption it is madness. But Axelrod is not arguing that rather he is saying that there is enough of 2008 left in the electorate to push Obama over the line. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to acknowledge that that is the issue. Yes, there are some polls which credit the Democrats with a higher intensity than 5 to 7% of 2008, and that is obviously "madness." But what about those polls like Rasmussen which credit the Democrats only +2%? Rasmussen comes up with a tie or a loss for Romney in some of the swing states.
Is not that the real danger? Do we answer this ultimate question by setting up a strawman as quoted above so we can knock it down? How does that advance our understanding?
It seems to me the relevant data to this question comes to us, courtesy of Dick Morris, from Gallup with their massive polls showing a substantial lead for the Republicans over the Democrats. This is not a strawman, this is hard data and we are entitled to rely on it. But, although I am persuaded, I am not ignorant of the fact that Rasmussen has gone +2% the wrong way and I do not know why.
(4)2008 was not a “transformational election” but a massive fad that hit the country like a hurricane…and for the last four years we’ve been cleaning up the damages. Every poll, news article, or analysis of this election is flawed because it’s based on the conceit that voters choice Obama because they liked what he would do to the country…
I have written many posts on Barack Obama as the empty suit 2008, quoting an echoing the observations of Shelby Steele who described the dynamic of white guilt operating to draw votes to the "white" Negro. That could fairly be described as a "fad" election but that is not to say that the reason Romney will win this time is because we are center-right country. The demographics of the United States are rolling inexorably against us. If we win this election it will not be because America is a center-right country but because Obama clumsily overreached. The author tacitly adopts this position when he says that the 2012 election was lost for Obama on the two occasions in which the two houses of Congress passed Obama care. This is but another description of overreach.
But just as we should inform ourselves about how the media and academia rationalize the grotesqueries of the Democrat party, we should also inform ourselves about the demographic tsunami which is about to engulf the Republican Party. If the Republicans cannot check immigration from cultures which do not share our language, our acceptance of the free market, our belief in the rule of law, our relative absence of cynicism toward democratic government, there will be no hope of saving the Republic in years to come. If the Republicans cannot reform the education process to check the process of indoctrination being done to our kids by the National Education Association and by the Marxist in our universities (do not forget community colleges), there is no hope of saving the Republic from the left in years to come.
Barak Obama was not so much an aberration in his election of 2008 but in his governance. The scary thing is that the electorate was not only vulnerable to the siren of an empty suit but actively sought it out and spurned any contrary opinion. There is very little in the election of 2008 upon which to congratulate the citizens of America, to the contrary, it exposed an appalling cupidity and shallowness. It is validated the effectiveness of the rationalizations.
It is utter folly to regard the election 2008 as an aberration, it is all too much an expression of who we really are.
For the record, I believe the author is right, we will win Ohio and Wisconsin for the reasons he states and because our ground game in both places should be first-class. Clearly our ground game in Wisconsin is a proven winner.
I am more skeptical about Pennsylvania not so much because of the history of Pennsylvania leaving us at the altar but because the polls are not well known. I suspect the Susquehanna is more to be relied upon than the national polls, but I am not sure.
I stay with my original conception of the race. Romney wins New Hampshire and that means Obama is on the defensive everywhere. Obama must then sweep the board winning all of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and one of Iowa or Nevada. That means that Obama is almost sure to lose one of these states and I think he is certainly going to lose Ohio and Wisconsin. When we have tight polls in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota one begins to think they reveal a trend if not a wave. I want to believe this because this is what I predicted some months ago, a break toward Romney at the end similar to the Reagan victory. But since I want this, I am suspicious of my own judgment.
I repeat my observation that this election is sui generis because of the overreach of Obama and does not tell us that America is a center-right country.
Although I agree with the author's observation that Republican tickets are unlikely to be split against Republican Senatorial candidates, I think the author nevertheless is too optimistic by perhaps three or four in his count of 10. I think we have a very good chance Missouri because of the ticket splitting argument. I think we are in trouble and New Mexico because there will be no reason to split, as the author says. Pennsylvania depends on the top of the ticket as does Ohio. Scott Brown should win in Massachusetts because he is running against a mountebank but since when do leftists (especially in Massachusetts) care whether their candidates are frauds? Just as Senator Menendez of New Jersey. I think Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin can win on his own and on his record. George Allen has, I believe, the edge in Virginia and I do not see Virginia going for Obama so George Allen benefits from the wave.
* The Ministry of Truth completely lied to the American people and didn’t care about the damage it would do to its reputation. They went all-in and broadcasted from an alternate, fictional universe in this race. What happens to them next?
Of course the media cares about its reputation and to the degree that it is in knowingly risking its reputation, it regards itself as rendering a patriotic service. " What happens to them next?" Nothing, they go on exactly as before. And before they succeeded in selling a mountebank to the electorate in 2008 who ran on no principled platform. It was demagoguery of the uplifting sort as opposed to the negative demagoguery of this campaign. He ran not against his opponent but against the record of the preceding president. It is instructive to understand why he could succeed by doing that. In the last four years of his presidency, George Bush abdicated the bully pulpit to the media. Represented metaphorically by Hurricane Katrina, George Bush became the focus of all evil as he simply declined to fight his corner. The media lynched George Bush and he submitted to it so long as he could pursue his policy in Iraq and hold the line on increased taxes. By the time Barack Obama intruded himself fully formed out of nothing onto the consciousness of the electorate, it was a matter of common consensus the George Bush and failed, just look at Katrina.
After Romney takes office, we can expect much the same treatment from the media. The difference must be an aggressive fight back campaign conducted by the Romney administration. Romney has demonstrated that he can be an extremely effective counterpuncher. But recall, there was a time this summer when he seemed to be playing rope-a-dope. If he does that after he takes office it could be fatal. The growth in George Romney since the beginning of the campaign in the primaries through the debates with Obama and culminating with his performance recently on the stump, is stunning. By all outward appearances this man has the stuff from which presidents are made. This assessment is an imponderable but one that cannot be dismissed from our calculations about Tuesday's results.
A few prayers for the Republic and for Romney would not be out of order. I believe they will be repeated as prayers of thanksgiving on Wednesday.
