Rasmussen says Santorum leads...really

Rasmussen, continuing to be irrelevant, is posting a tracking poll that shows Rick Santorum would defeat Obama in the national general election.

In a potential Election 2012 matchup, President Obama attracts 47% of the vote and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney earns 43%. These matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
Matchups for other Republican contenders are updated weekly on a rotating basis. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is at 45% while President Obama earns 44%. This is the first time Santorum has ever led the president in any poll.

Now, PPP has shown Santorum to be the Republican candidate that voters like the most in MN and OH, but that doesn't translate to voter support in those States in match-ups. And Santorum's favourables are the best of a dismal group, but they are still awful. PPP set his favourables in OH at a negative 35/48, while the supposedly "hated" Obama is at 48/48.

Rasmussen can publish results like this because it's virtually impossible for Santorum to win the nomination. While he technically won IA, that is a non-binding caucus. The IA Republican Party will decide who gets the delegates, not the voters. Santorum has a tiny two-point lead in the most recent polling for the MN Republican caucus, but that race is also non-binding. In 2008, Romney won 41% of the caucus vote in MN, with McCain at 22%. That didn't matter, because the the State Party gave all of the delegates to McCain and counted all of the Ron Paul delegates' votes as abstentions. In these non-binding caucuses, the delegates go to the candidate that the Party elders believe has the best chance of winning, not the candidate that the rank-and-file prefer. And in the NV caucus, Santorum came in fourth out of four.

Rasmussen's one-point lead for Santorum is a joke, because that's well within the margin of error. At one point, Rasmussen also had Bachmann leading Obama by two points - and we all know how that worked out.

While Rasmussen has been polling the Republican caucuses, they have yet to do any of the State polling that PPP has done multiple times in a large number of States. Rasmussen, it might seem, doesn't want to establish a baseline that might create contradictions as we approach the election. Instead, they do these "tracking polls" that shift constantly, allowing those on the Right and in the media to have supporting "evidence" for any narrative they might choose. Any candidate's partisans can find a Rasmussen tracking poll that shows their man is the one to beat Obama.

By sitting out the State polling, Rasmussen deprives wingnuts of the delusional ammunition they need to counter PPP's massive pile of data. Instead, conservatives can only point to an alleged Democratic bias in PPP's numbers and reject it out of hand.

It's really hard for Rasmussen to claim that "it's too early" to poll the States, when Rasmussen has been using a "likely voter" screen for more than two years already in their polling. Apparently, it's too early to attempt to find out who leads in which State, but it's long overdue to "know" who will vote in those elections. It's like a weather forecaster saying that they can't tell you what the temperature will be on a certain day eight months from now, but they can be very sure that it will rain.

I'm always suspicious of Rasmussen and his motives. This is the pollster who single-handedly created the myth of the "PUMA" out of whole cloth from his polling, and who pushed the narrative for months until silently abandoning it as we moved into his self-imposed "40-day window" for accuracy. Yes, it's another one of Rasmussen's convenient "things changed" moments.

Rasmussen wants to be taken seriously as a pollster far outside of his "40-day window", but in every election he basically tells us to ignore everything he said outside of that window once we are in it.

By showing Obama ahead on many of these tracking polls, Rasmussen can hedge his bets and point to results later that either support an Obama lead or support a Republican lead. And we can be sure that there will be some minor event within 40 days of the election that Rasmussen designates as his "things changed" moment, and all of his previous polling will be invalidated by this "new development".

PPP 1/26 national poll

The latest PPP national survey for DKos/SEIU is out. Let's look at the numbers for the 1/26 poll:

• Voter Enthusiasm - Democrats regain the lead on the enthusiasm gap. 58% of Democrats are "very excited" about "voting in the 2012 elections", while 54% of Republicans are. The national average is now up to 52% "very excited" (VE), which is the number for any demographic to beat, with a lowering to 77% for being at least "somewhat excited" (SE). Voters aged 65+ saw a noticeable increase from 50 to 56 VE, and a less-impressive rise from 79 to 82% SE. The West increased from 42 to 47% VE, but that's still below average. The South rose incrementally to 57% VE, but dropped to 77% SE. This is kind of good news to see the most enthusiastic Republican voters located in states that Obama doesn't need to win. Women are up to 50% VE (still slightly below average) and 78% SE (average). Voters aged 18-29 dropped to their lowest ever 63% SE, but maintain a 51% VE level.
• Generic Presidential Ballot - Among all voters, Obama pretty much breaks even at 47/46 (O +1). This is exactly what he had at in the last (1/12) poll. Interestingly, Obama prevails 46/42 against Romney in a match-up, which means that Romney is polling 4 points worse than a generic Republican. Independents break 39/44 for the Republicans on the generic, but 35/43 In favour of Obama in the match-up with Romney. Voters aged 18-29 go for Obama by 57/29 in the generic (55/24 in the match-up), which is five-point drop for the generic Republican since the last poll. Voters aged 65+ moved more Republican to an even break of 49/48 (O +1), though Obama carries the demographic by six points in a match-up with Romney. The Midwest saw slight movement toward Obama to an even break 47/46 (O +1), up four for Obama and down 3 for the generic Republican from the last poll.
• Party Favourables - The Democratic Party dropped four points with white voters from the 1/12 poll, and up four by an equal amount for the Republican Party. Whites break 39/49 in favour of Romney is a match-up, which is quite terrible for the strongest single element of the Republican base. With Independents, the Democratic party breaks 30/53, which sounds bad until you see that the Republican Party breaks 22/59 with them. It's basically an even break for the Democratic Party with the 18-29 demographic (41/43), but a tragedy for the same group with the Republican Party at 29/59. With those aged 65+, The Democratic Party breaks even at 46/46, with the Republican Party showing a negative 35/54. Obama leads by six in a Romney match-up with the 65+ demographic. This indicates that Obama is more popular than the Democratic Party with registered voters aged 65+, and that about 11% of 65+ voters will vote Republican even though they don't like the Party. Which side would get an enthusiasm advantage?

In the Obama/Romney match-up, Obama leads by 4 (46/42) with all registered voters. He also wins women voters by an 11-point margin, and moderates a 25-point margin. Hispanic voters go Obama's way by nearly 30 points, and he also wins 81% of African-Americans. Most notable, the South breaks even at 42/42 for each, with 16% undecided. Obama carries the Midwest by eight points (47/39). Romney draws 79% of self-identified Tea Party voters' vote, and loses to Obama by 23 points with those not in the Tea Party. For all of the "socialist" rhetoric, Romney wins those making $100k/yr by only nine points (40/49) against Obama, with 11% undecided. Obama wins the Northeast by 19 points, and breaks even in the South (as previously mentioned).

Gingrich does poorly against Obama in a match-up, to say the least. Obama wins 49/40 among all voters, and carries women by 18 points. Gingrich wins the exact same 79% of Tea Party voters, but loses by an even larger margin outside of that group than Romney did. Hispanics go more than 2-to-1 for Obama against Gingrich, and Gingrich barely even carries the white vote at 42/46. Obama wins every age demographic against Gingrich - except for the 45-65 group, where he merely breaks even at 45/45 each. Gingrich loses those 18-29 by nearly 40 points.

In other PPP polling, Obama breaks even with Romney in MO (45/45, 9% undecided). The Obama campaign isn't counting on winning MO, but it's a must-win state for the Republicans, who need those 10 electoral votes (EV). As in 2008, the Republican path to 270 EV is fraught with many toss-ups and they must win virtually all of them. Obama only needs to win 1 out of 4 toss-ups in key States to win.

One of those four States is OH, and another PPP poll shows Obama leading there by 7 points against Romney. With 9% undecided, this could be a close race, but it's one that Republicans absolutely have to win to deprive Obama of those 18 EV. McCain lost OH by 5 points in the last election, and Romney is doing slightly worse than that right now.

China stonewalling Bhutan on border talks

This has been a kind of one-sided negotiation. Now the Chinese are building permanent structures on Bhutanese territory, but it's just for soldiers, so don't worry.
From Kuensel Online:

Many talks, little progress

Opposition leader suggests need for the government to change its strategy
Bhutan-China Border An issue dating more than 50 years, which, despite 19 rounds of talks, yielded little in return.

This was the feeling among some Parliament members, following foreign minister in-charge Khandu Wangchuk’s update to the house on the issue of Bhutan-China border.

Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk informed the members that, with regards to the boundary to the south, the government was able to not just discuss in great detail the boundary issues with the neighbour to the south, but they had it settled. He said, however, the same could not be said about the progress vis-a-vis the boundary discussions with the neighbour to the north.
He said the boundary talks with the Chinese government began since 1984, and the country was still pushing towards reaching a decision.

“It’s been 28 years since serious discussions began,” he said. “We’ve had about 19 discussions so far, the last being held in the beginning of 2010 at Thimphu.”
Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk was responding to the question the Haa parliamentarian Ugyen Tenzin raised, on how the government was progressing in the border discussion with China.
Ugyen Tenzin said the earlier temporary tents Chinese border security pitched during winters, which they bundled up in summers, is being replaced with permanent houses being built along the borders.
“This is a major cause of concern for the people of not just Haa but of the nation,” he said, adding the other issue was of the pastureland at Bjagana being taken into their boundary.
Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk said the government was just as deeply concerned, and was constantly investigating the northern boundary issue.
Having learnt about the permanent houses being built along the borders, he informed the members that, on October 11,  2011, the Bhutanese government wrote a letter to the Chinese ambassador at Delhi about it and the subsequent concerns it generated in the Bhutanese government.
“In the letter we said the action was in violation of the Guiding Principles agreed on between the two governments in 1998,” he said, adding that an agreement on The Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity in the Bhutan-China Border Areas was also signed in 1998.
Within 11 days, on October 12, 2011, he said the Chinese government replied, saying they had conducted an investigation into the issue.
“They said,” Lyonpo informed the members, “the permanent houses were built for the border security personnel, so they would be saved the trouble of having to  pitch camps and pack them every year.”
One crucial aspect contained in the letter, he said, was that the Chinese government committed to respect and work in accordance with the agreements drawn between the two nations.
On November 15 and 16 last year the expert survey team from the two nations met to resolve differences over border land of Doklam, Charithang, Sinchulumpa and Dramana.
Despite several discussions, he said they could not reach an agreement, following which the two sides decided to continue the discussion in 2012 at Bangkok, Thailand.
Wangduephodrang Parliament representative Passang Thrinlee said the minister’s update on the Bhutan-China border contained both elements of concern and comfort.

“We hope the Chinese government will consider the plight of a small nation in relation to its boundary,” he said. “We pray they help speed up resolving the boundary issues.”
Opposition leader Tshering Tobgay said although the government had done a fair bit on its part to resolve the border dispute with China, it was time they considered changing the strategy to negotiate.
That the government has 19 rounds of peaceful discussions, drew up guiding principles, while the dialogues dragged on, and people of the two nations continuing to maintain the peace on either sides, he said, were comforting then.
“Today, that is not enough,” he said. “My earnest request to the government is to think up an alternative strategy.”
Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk welcomed any alternative strategy  members of the Parliament might have in mind, and said the agreements that existed between the two nations, at the moment, served the purpose when the issue remained unresolved.
“There were issues of roads being built along the border between the two nations in the past,” he said, adding that, when the government reminded them it was in breach of the existing agreement between the two nations, they stopped immediately. “They even settled any misunderstandings between peoples of the two nations.”
By Samten Wangchuk

More good news from Rasmussen

Rasmussen doesn't really allow links to his survey results. The link just goes to a page where the old polling results are replaced by more current data, so I can't link to the current Generic Congressional Ballot (GCB) results. You'll have to trust me, or go to Pollster.

But here is the text that I am allowed to see, since I am a non-subscriber:

Monday, January 30, 2012

For the first time in roughly two-and-a-half years, Democrats lead Republicans on the Generic Congressional Ballot, this time for the week ending Sunday, Jan. 29.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the Democrat in their district’s congressional race if the election were held today, while 40% would choose the Republican instead.

Date	Dem	GOP
01-29-12	41%	40%
01-22-12	39%	42%
01-15-12	38%	44%
01-08-12	38%	44%
12-30-11	38%	43%
12-22-11	40%	43%
12-18-11	40%	43%
12-11-11	39%	42%
12-04-11	38%	43%

Notice that, since December, Rasmussen has showed at least a three-point lead for Republicans on the GCB. There was a tie in early November, but otherwise his surveys have showed Republicans favoured to win House races. The freshman Republicans who entered the House in 2010 by riding the Tea Party are not popular.

Also, Gallup is showing the Obama / Romney match-up to be a tie.
1/27-28/12; 907 registered voters, 4% margin of error

National
2012 President
48% Obama (D), 48% Romney (R)
53% Obama (D), 41% Gingrich (R)
49% Obama (D), 46% Paul (R)
51% Obama (D), 43% Santorum (R)

A tie at this point from Gallup is actually pretty good, because a lot of pollsters are showing Obama with a lead. Voters (outside of the Republican base) aren't liking what they are seeing in the Republican primaries. This has been a bad introduction to Romney for most people. It's still early and a lot can happen, but most of the things that could go wrong are on the Republican side.

The next PPP national (DKos/SEIU) poll should be interesting.

Minnesota's 8th CD now a "tossup"

Charlie Cook changed the status of MN-8 from "Lean Republican" to "Tossup" in his latest ratings.

This means trouble for freshman Tea Party Rep. Chip Cravaack. Already in a D+3 district, and only winning election by 1% (48/47) - 4400 votes, he was not a favourite for re-election. He's accomplished nothing for his district, and spent most of his time in NH when not in DC.

Given the latest polling by PPP in MN that shows strong "buyer's remorse" over electing Republicans to the State Legislature, I don't see a strong "incumbent advantage" for Cravaack. His strong backing of Bachmann hasn't won over Independents, as the same polling shows that Bachmann is very unpopular outside of her narrow 16% "very conservative" base and gerrymandered district.

His big issue, aside from rabid anti-choice positions, was the Clean Water Act, and most particularly H.R 5088. This was the legislation introduced by Oberstar that Cravaack railed against. Cravaack can claim a small victory by tying it up in committee, but that was merely a holding action. That fight is over, and he can't claim to have done anything for the economy by voting the Party line on legislation that had no chance of passing the Senate. His votes were completely rubber-stamp in line with instructions from the Party, so it's hard to say that he's representing his constituents. A vote for Cravaack is essentially a vote for Boehner, because that's who tells Cravaack how to vote.

Meanwhile, Cook rates Democrat Tim Walz's seat as "Likely Democratic", though it's R+1. He held on to his seat against Randy Demmer, in spite of high wingnut hopes, and won by 5% in a great Republican year. Now Allen Quist and Mike Parry will battle over the chance to take on Walz in 2012. It will probably be Parry, who is the typical angry, crazy Tea Party-inspired kind of guy that the electorate is tired of. Quist is a really boring Religious Right bozo who embraced the Tea Party late in the game, and who is notable for failing to win his bid for Governor many years ago. If Quist wins, he'd be one of the few cases of the MN GOP recycling a loser, and he's probably only being considered because the MN Republican Party has been taken completely over by the evangelicals.

There hasn't been a dramatic shift to the Left in Minnesota, as much as there's been a massive and broad-based shudder of revulsion over what the Republicans have turned themselves into. And nothing right now is looking like they are backing away from their image of enraged, hateful, over-the-top, completely interchangeable nuts who all say the exact same thing.

New MN polling is bad news for the wingnuts

New polling is out by PPP on Minnesota. They last polled the State in June.

• Dayton, Generic Legislative Ballot, SSM Amendment
• Presidential race, Republican caucus 
• Bachmann, Pawlenty, Klobuchar 

Quick summary: Gov. Dayton is popular, Democrats lead by 9 on the GLB, and the SSM Amendment is close.
Gingrich leads the (non-binding) Republican caucus, and loses to Obama by 15. Romney loses to Obama by 10 points. Bachmann and Pawlenty are not popular at all, with Bachmann seeing particularly bad statewide numbers. Klobuchar is a lock for re-election.

Just how bad are Bachmann's numbers? PPP's Tom Jensen reports:

Voters hold an unfavorable opinion of Michele Bachmann by a 34-57 margin, including a 29-59 rating among Independents. 57% of Minnesota voters also say Bachmann should not run for reelection to the House of Representatives while just 37% think she should. 59% of Independents and even 20% of Republicans say Bachmann should not run for reelection.

 So it's bad, then.
Bachmann wins strong approval (85%) from those voters who consider themselves "very conservative", but they are only 16% of the electorate. Those who say they are "somewhat conservative" favour her with a less-impressive 56% support. Pretty weak for your "base". This "somewhat conservative" category holds 22% of the electorate. That's a total of 38% of the electorate with any kind of significant appeal for her. Moderates break highly unfavourably against her by more than 4-to-1. In other words, she has no appeal outside of that narrow conservative demographic.
This doesn't say anything about her chances of holding on to her House seat. The re-districting is still up in the air. Currently, Bachmann is living in the potential new district that includes St.Paul, and she has no hope of winning there. If the re-districting gives her her old district back, then her chances look good. But that district would be an isolated pocket of concentrated wingnuts that Bachmann could have trouble appealing to as time goes by.

One thing is sure: she has no hope outside of that district or in the State as a whole. Moderates, by more than 3-to-1, say she should not run for re-election. 22% of Minnesotans who voted for McCain in 2008 also do not want her to run again. Even worse, a majority of all age demographics say the same thing. And 59% of Independent voters don't want her to run for the House a fourth time, either.
Basically, the State of Minnesota is really tired of her.

The days when wingnuts could pretend that Bachmann is some kind of insurgent truth-teller who would "blow the minds" of the "urban liberals" are GONE. She is a punchline, not an evangelist for the conservative cause in Minnesota. She's done nothing for her district. And, from the St. Cloud Times:

Bachmann missed almost 59 percent of House roll-call votes in the third quarter of 2011, and more than 91 percent of votes in the fourth quarter.

At some point, the MN GOP will realise that she is not the best face for their cause, that she is a liability, and a very expensive candidate that sucks up donations that could be better spent elsewhere. Right now, though, the MN GOP is in the thrall of the evangelical Religious Right, and Bachmann is their poster child.

For the DFL, it is probably wiser not to contest her strongly, and focus instead on regaining the 8th CD from Cravaak, and defending Walz from a very "insider" challenge. Let Bachmann be the face of the MN GOP, and remind MN voters constantly of what the alternative to the DFL is.

As far as Pawlenty:

Q9 Would you support Tim Pawlenty for statewide
office in the future, or not?
Would support Pawlenty for statewide office .. 39%
Would not........................................................ 51%
Not sure .......................................................... 10%

That "would not" figure includes 50% of the 65+ age demographic, 15% of Republicans, 52% of women, 56% of moderates, and 52% of Independents. He only wins about 2/3 of that conservative 38% on this question, which is not strong when looking at your base. Remember, Pawlenty primarily won office by portraying himself as a moderate who down-played his evangelical beliefs. As the Tea Party rose, he transformed himself into a strong 10th Amendment advocate, a vitriolic hater of Obama, and an unquestioning pawn of the Religious Right. Look where it got him. Only 68% of "very conservative" MN voters want him to run for statewide office.

Rasmussen struggling with their narrative

Rasmussen's Presidential approval ratings are slipping away from the wingnut narrative.

In December, Rasmussen was able to regularly scrounge up around 45% "strong disapproval" for Obama. In January, though they are struggling to find 40% "strong disapproval". December began with 43% SD, and steadily moved up to a peak of 49% just before Christmas. That's also when Rasmussen chose to do their match-ups, showing Obama down six(!). This result was a glaring outlier among pollster, but it was their last chance to get some ridiculous numbers out there before moving into 2012 - when "things changed".

And a president who struggled to get 1/5 "strong approval" in December now is moving into 1/4 SA. And only a bare majority of 51% now disapprove of Obama (1/28) in Rasmussen's crazy, skewed, right-wing sampling world.

This entire "strong approval / strong disapproval" thing was implemented by Rasmussen when Obama took office. Previously, this category didn't matter to Rasmussen. But when Obama took over from Bush, it was suddenly very important how intensely people disliked Obama. It's part of his whole "Democrats don't really vote" narrative, which influences his "likely voter" screen. It's weird how, two years before an election, Rasmussen can determine who is "likely" to turn out. Even at eight months out (now), it would be considered too unreliable to employ LV screens by most pollsters. By manipulating this LV screen and his "panel" of hand-picked internet voters, he can pretty much come up with any numbers he wishes to. But he's accurate! Sure, except for 2010, and only when you get within 40 days of an election. Outside of that 40-day window, he's free to publish results that are contrary to everyone else. Once inside the 40-day window, "things change" and the wingnuts are left to despair that their hero pollster has been "taken in by the liberal media".

On 12/28/11 Rasmussen released a poll that I will hold him to: Romney defeats Obama 45/39.  +6R

On 1/4/12, Rasmussen says it's a tie: 42/42.

On 1/10/12, Rasmussen gives Obama a 3-point lead: 41/44.  +3D

Now, a 3-point lead is simply Rasmussen hedging his bets. That's within the margin of error, so he can easily shift it back to appease wingnuts. But the slow erosion of "strong disapproval", and the slow growth of the "strong approval" numbers show that Rasmussen is unwilling to go too far out on a limb for the Republicans right now. And that should make Republicans nervous.

After more than four years (including the 2008 election campaign) of constantly painting Obama as dangerous / inept / too powerful / too weak, only a bare majority actually disapproves of Obama in Rasmussen's sampling. It still hasn't dawned on the wingnuts that Obama isn't hated and that their "magic words" (socialist, Muslim, worst President, etc.) aren't working anymore. But the most right-wing national pollster in America is figuring that out, because his reputation was already damaged in 2010 and he needs to be taken seriously. Otherwise, his speaker's fees dry up.

UPDATE 1/30/12:
Rasmussen now shows Obama with a bare majority favourable: 51% approve, 47 disapprove.
The 37% "strong disapproval" is more in line with June '11.

Polling summary 1/25/12

This is a summary of some interesting recent polls. I may reference these in separate posts in the future.

National presidential polling:

CBS/NYT 1/12-17/12; 1,154 adults, 3% margin of error 1,021 registered voters, 3% margin of error

50% Obama (D), 39% Gingrich (R)

45% Obama (D), 45% Romney (R)

46% Obama (D), 42% Paul (R)

49% Obama (D), 38% Santorum (R)

Rasmussen  1/15-16/12; 1,000 likely voters, 3% margin of error

47% Obama (D), 38% Gingrich (R)

PPP 1/13-16/12; 700 registered voters, 3.7% margin of error

49% Obama (D), 42% Gingrich (R)

47% Obama (D), 42% Paul (R)

51% Obama (D), 40% Perry (R)

49% Obama (D), 44% Romney (R)

50% Obama (D), 42% Santorum (R)

Rasmussen  1/11-12/12; 1,000 likely voters, 3% margin of error

43% Obama (D), 37% Paul (R)

Other polling:

PPP (1/19) 1000 Registered Voters, MoE 3.1%, January 19, 2012 - January 22, 2012.

Republicans approve of Congressional Republicans 49/38.

Democrats approve of Congressional Democrats 62/25. 

White voters are negative on the Republicans 37/50 for the Generic Congressional Ballot (GCB).

65+ aged voters break 45/45 on the GCB.

61% of registered voters say that "Mitt Romney will say anything he has to to get elected".

44% of Republicans agree, as do 57% of Independents.

81% of registered voters think that "Making $370,000 in a year is a lot of money".

85% of white voters agree, as do 77% of Republicans and Independents.

PPP MN Republican caucus: 303 likely Republican voters, MoE 5.6%, 1/21-22

Gingrich    36%

Romney    18%

Santorum  17%

Paul          13%

Tea Party caucus voters have an unfavourable opinion of Paul: 35/48

Gingrich is the Tea Party favourite at 44% support.

43% of the Republican likely caucus voters consider themselves to be "very conservative".

32% of the Republican likely caucus voters consider themselves to be Tea Party members.

Paul is favourable in the broad category of age 18-45, breaking 44/33.

64% of the likely caucus voters are over 45.

 -------------------------
Pollster ratings from fivethirtyeight.com, based on 2010 elections: 

 

Rasmussen sees a different world

First, the composite Party ID of all pollsters:

Independent: 41.5%
Republicans: 25.8%
Democrat: 30.3%

Next, the view from Rasmussen:

Independent: 30.4%
Republicans: 35.5%
Democrat: 34.2%

Now, all pollsters except Rasmussen:

Independent: 41.4%
Republicans: 25.9%
Democrat: 30.2%

So we notice that Rasmussen sees a much more Republican country out there than other pollsters. And Rasmussen can't claim that his mysterious "likely voter" screen is making the difference, since Rasmussen's party ID figures are raw (all adults) figures. All of the figures shown for other pollsters are also an "all adult" sample.

Rasmussen is surveying a country with nearly 10% more Republicans, 10% fewer Independents, and only 4% more Democrats than other pollsters.

PPP surveys registered voters. Let's look at what their figures indicate:

Independent: 25.8%
Republicans: 35.7%
Democrat: 38.2%

All pollsters, excluding PPP, shows this:

Independent: 29.6%
Republicans: 31.2%
Democrat: 37%

This is much closer to the composite than Rasmussen was with all adults. About 4% fewer Independents for PPP, and about 4% more Republicans than the others are finding. The numbers for Democrats is about the same. So, in spite of being labeled as a "Democratic" pollster, PPP is looking at more Republicans than their peers polling registered voters.

The most current poll from GWU shows "likely" voters to break down this way:

Independent: 27%
Republicans: 34%
Democrat: 37%

In my opinion, it's still too early for any "likely voter" (LV) screen to be worthwhile. But Rasmussen's claim that his LV screen is the reason for his outlier status is not borne out by looking at another pollster that is also using an LV screen. Apparently Rasmussen just happens to consistently hit on a gold mine of unhappy Democrats in their sampling, judging by their results.

Since Rasmussen is working from a much more Republican-based sample to begin with, it's hardly surprising that they are skewed toward "unhappy Democrats" in their LV sample. We don't really know what Rasmussen means by a "nationwide" sample. My guess is that Rasmussen's "nationwide" sample includes a lot more rural areas and lot more "red" states than other pollsters.

Rasmussen's 2011 Christmas polling (12/27-12/28) showed Romney with an outlier 6 point lead for Romney over Obama (45/39). Nobody else is seeing that.

As we've seen multiple Republican candidates "flare up" with popularity, Rasmussen has always mysteriously found a 2-point edge over Obama for each person at their peak. Rasmussen said Bachmann, Cain, Perry, etc. would all beat Obama in a match-up by 2 points. Later, the numbers change as the candidate slumps. 2% is such a weasel figure: within the margin of error, and not so large that it could seem suspicious if it switched to an Obama lead.

We're at a point in the cycle where Rasmussen can publish outrageous results, and then later say that "things changed". This is what usually happens with Rasmussen polling, whether it's a national race or a Senate contest. The Republican always shows a good lead at this point, and that lead always seems to diminish or flip as we approach the actual election. Rasmussen failed to do this "reversion to the mean" in 2010, and got stuck with an 8-point Republican bias in polls close to the election. With that, pollsters are much less intimidated to publish figures contradicting Rasmussen than they used to be.

It should also be pointed out that PPP publishes the raw figures (including area codes) for all of its polling. PPP also asks each person surveyed to place themselves in one of four regions: South, Midwest, East, or West. They publish the breakdowns of the sample in every poll, so you can see if they are oversampling one region. By examining the area codes, you can see if PPP is oversampling rural areas or red districts. Both PPP and Rasmussen use automated polling and call landlines. Yet, Rasmussen sees a very conservative America where even Democrats agree that Obama is the source of all our troubles. Oddly, Rasmussen is anything but transparent about his figures.

PPP has done an immense amount of polling for free. They have established a huge amount of base-line data that will be extremely valuable going into the 2012 election. No one paid for these polls; PPP volunteered. Anyone discounting these polls due to PPP being a "Democratic" polling firm is denying themselves the facts. There is also a lot of other polling that PPP has done where it's been paid for by DailyKos/SEIU. Critics love to mix these two groups of polls together to claim a bias and taint the free polling's validity. Don't let them confuse you. Aside from that, Rasmussen makes his money from subscribers that are overwhelmingly right-wing. He also does speaking gigs where he pushes right-wing narratives, so he has a strong incentive to produce dramatically pro-Republican numbers. I'm not saying Rasmussen is dishonest. I'm saying that if you dismiss PPP based on financial bias, you would have to dismiss Rasmussen as well.

By the way, let's look at Gallup's party identification numbers.

Independent: 40%
Republicans: 27%
Democrat: 31%

These figures are an "all adults" sample, like Rasmussen. Gallup also calls cell phones in their sample and uses live interviewers (not automated polling).

There was a two-point increase in independent identification from 2010 (38%) to 2011 (40%). The increase in independent identification came at the expense of Republican identification, which dropped from 29% to 27%, while Democratic identification held steady at 31%.

Gallup also says that, if you include "leaners", that the country splits 45/45 on D/R. That leaves only 10% real "Independents" to determine the election. The scary part is that this is pretty much how things broke down in 2010. The difference is in registered voters, of course. It's ironic that the Republicans screamed about Obama "not listening" to the majority, when things were actually evenly divided among "The People".

Fading Republican base

This article in the Washington Post about the Republicans and the Hispanic vote hit a chord with me. Most particularly, this quote:

The percentage of whites in the electorate dropped from 89 percent in 1972 to 74 percent in 2008

According to exit polls from the 2008 election, McCain won 55% of the white vote. That was not enough, of course. Bush won 58% in 2004, but he also did significantly better with Hispanics and Asians. There were also more white voters in 2004 than in 2008, and it's steadily dropping. The Republican Party is 90% white, and much has been made about Obama's decline among white voters. The non-white share of the electorate was 26% in 2008.

54% of the white vote 74% is about 41% of the entire electorate. You can't win with 41%. You have to get a lot of minorities, or you have to get a much bigger share of the white vote. If Republicans can get 68% of the white vote, they win 50% of the electorate.

Whites are already voting disproportionate to their share of the population. This study (figure 5) shows that white voters were 74% of the eligible voters in 2008, yet they made up 78% of those casting ballots. This is only possible because minorities turn out in much smaller numbers relative to their share of the population. Hispanics, for example, are 9% of the eligible voters, but only 6% of the actual voters.

The latest PPP survey (12/15) has a match-up between Obama and a generic Republican candidate. White voters break 54/39 for the generic candidate. So that's about what McCain got, and people don't vote for a generic candidate; they vote for an actual person. 53% of whites think that Obama is "too liberal". Okay, that's right where the match-up breaks down.

Yet only 35% of white voters express approval of the Republican Party, compared to 52% who disapprove. And, in PPP's surveys since 1/11, white voters have a median approval of Congressional Republicans of 37%. It's currently sliding into the high 20's. Currently, 56% of white voters have an unfavorable opinion of John Boehner. Although the Democratic Party is rated unfavorably by whites 35/56, the Republican Party only breaks 35/52 in the same demographic.

So, if the Party and it's elected officials are not any more popular with white voters, why do they break Republican? It seems like coin flip from an objective perspective, but instead 20% of whites side with a Party they dislike. Normally, we would expect a depressed turnout from a demographic like that. But 2010 was a high turnout for white voters, and the narrative from the Right has always been that white voters sat out 2008 because McCain wasn't conservative enough. Remember, Romney was more conservative than McCain in the 2008 primaries; yet he's not conservative enough four years later.

On that 12/15 PPP survey, 48% of registered white voters consider themselves to be "very excited" about voting in the 2012 elections. Another 29% say they are "somewhat excited", and 23% are "not at all excited". This is the indicator of potential turnout that I am going to use. So, if you combine the "very" and "somewhat", you get a total of 77% excited, 23 not.

Compare that to 79% (55%"very") of the 18-29 age demographic. Or the 74% (48% "very") of the 65+ group. Hispanics break down at 75% (49% "very"). Independents are at 69% (41% "very") In short, it looks as if white voters are as excited (or more) about the election as anyone else is at this early date. White voters should turn out.

However, with a slowly diminishing number of voters, you need a larger percentage of them to vote each election just to tread water. 23% likely to sit out the election is maybe more than the Republicans can afford. And about the same percentage of those white voters are expected to vote Republican as they did when the Republicans lost. The more incisive issue may not be Obama's declining share of the white vote, but rather the issue that the Republicans are not seeing much benefit from it on a generic match-up. It's that 20% of white voters that vote Republican while not liking the Party nor it's elected members. They were promised big things in the 2010 election, and they aren't seeing big things. They were asked to give the Republicans a chance to fix things, and they didn't fix things.

Another usually reliable Republican demographic is the elderly. Aged 60+ voters went for McCain by 51% in 2008. Not enough, and McCain was certainly their age. On the generic Presidential ballot question, voters over the age of 65 break 44.5% for Obama (median over all 2011 polling). Currently, 48% choose the generic Republican - about as strong as the percentage when the Republicans lost. Maybe it's the unfavorable (30/55) opinion of the Republican Party keeping those numbers down. Only 49% of the age group consider Obama to be "too liberal". Certainly, that more than the 39% who consider him "about right", but this is a core demographic for the Republicans.

There just isn't a lot of room for improvement in the numbers for white voters and elderly voters. Pretty much all of the whites that think Obama is too liberal are already voting Republican (generically). It's the same with elderly voters. Sure, the number who consider Obama to be "too liberal" could rise, but they've shown remarkable stability for the 65+ age group throughout 2011. People know Obama, at least as far as forming an opinion on his degree of "liberalness".

Meanwhile, the Republicans are left with 31% of Hispanic voters in a generic match-up (12/15), which is exactly what McCain got - when he lost. Generally speaking, Independent voters are split, with only a few points (<5%) for a plurality at best.

So, what do Republicans expect will be the big "game-changer"? A bad economy? We've got that right now and the game isn't changing. Harsh criticism of Obama? Already got that. The Tea Party? They are slowly declining in numbers, enthusiasm, and purity. And the TP adherents most likely voted in 2008 anyway, so that's not a new advantage. If people were going to turn against Obama on those things, they would have already done so. We could very well be looking at the ceiling for the Republicans.

It's looking like the battle lines for 2008 in a lot of ways. The Republican field is largely already known, at least for the viable candidates. Sure, Romney isn't completely familiar to some low-information voters, but he's had substantial media exposure in the primaries. It's, for all practical purposes, daily coverage. And it's going to increase. Romney may have some room to go up, but he also has problems with the base. Consider also that, the longer the primary campaign goes on, the more negative material those low-information voters will be exposed to. His image could actually get worse instead of improving. Gingrich? He's getting pretty well-known, but the general electorate isn't liking what they see. His campaign is not in good shape right now, too. Paul is a coin flip. A lot of people don't know him, but it's hard to say how much exposure would improve things for him.

There are significant chances of internal Republican dissent, conflict, and controversy in this primary season. Usually, the Party is pretty much locked down, people speak the Party line, and it's a binary mindset of us versus them. However, in order to create the Tea Party from whole cloth, the Republicans had to not only gin up large numbers of their own to near apoplexy, but also let them speak freely. The genie can't be put back in the bottle. The Tea Party made these bozos appear important and someone who should be listened to. Now these same bozos are going to be set loose on their own Party. So far, the Party has been keeping them tame, but the cost of that could be to demoralize the bozos.

In 2008, the Party machinery effectively froze out Ron Paul from the process through a huge array of devious and mostly obvious parliamentary tricks. If they do the same thing this time, there could be bitter divisions created that would be unlikely to hurt the Obama campaign. With candidates being locked out the process in VA and TN already, it would seem that the Party organization is going to flex its muscles this time around and tell the Tea Party to play ball with them or go home. Of course, if the Tea Party knuckles under to this pressure, they will lose all of their credibility as anything other than the reliable Republican base. In that eventuality, the Tea Partyers will look back on 2010 as their Summer of Love (so to speak) and become just another group that demands lip service now and then.

The stakes are high for the Republicans. That white vote is just going to keep decreasing, that elderly vote is going to keep sliding away from people that even remember the Fifties, and that Hispanic vote is going to keep growing. By 2016, the current Republican politics won't be viable on a national level, no matter who the Party runs. They've spent four years ginning up their base that Obama is Satan Himself, and the economy is probably only to improve by 2016. If they can't win now, then this whole conservative nightmare goes down in flames. Sure, there would be States that could keep the whole "conservative Agenda" going, but it would be over nationally.

The Republicans not only have to increase the number of whites casting ballots, but also make sure that those white voters are casting ballots for them. It will do them no good to increase white turnout of Democrats, of course. Generally this is done during voter registration drives conducted in the primaries. But this is not really being done, or only sporadically. The Republicans seem to be abandoning the idea of bringing in new voters, and are instead concentrating on 100% turnout of the ones that they already have. The "low-hanging fruit" for the Republicans is long gone. To get higher turnout, the hyperbole, fear, and outrage must be kept constantly maintained, and an entire generation of Republican candidates is going on record with crazy and extreme positions and statements. And Republican voters are becoming more alienated from the general populace by constantly spewing out toxic vitriol and irrational views. Everyone outside of the Republican base has learned to quietly nod at the wingnuts they come into contact with, lest the wingnut unleash spittle-flecked fury upon them. The wingnuts mistake this as agreement, rather than recognition that no discourse is possible with them.

Bachmann collapses both nationally and at home

After reading this story on HuffPo about Bachmann's collapsing campaign, I started to wonder where she would go after it all fell apart.

It's possible that she could make it to NH, but very unlikely. She's not attracting the SuperPACs, and her small-donor base must be getting tapped out. The Tea Party has been waffling about their support for her, and evangelicals seem to be looking "someone else". That's pretty weak, when she is the head of the House Tea Party Caucus and has always been the one willing to say exactly what the most irrational Tea Party adherents want to hear. And her image has always been about as evangelical as anyone can get. I mean, Jesus told her to run for office, after all. Of course, she is also (ostensibly) "from" Iowa, and it's not as if there in no "cross-pollination" in politics between Iowa and Minnesota.

The thing is, Bachmann isn't very popular in Minnesota, either.
Here are three polls from Public Policy Polling on Minnesota voters:

• Obama in Minnesota
• Klobuchar favorability
• Dayton favorability

These polls cover far more than the shorthand titles I have given them indicate.
On the first link, Q12 is a match-up between Obama and Bachmann for President.

Q12 If the candidates for President next year were
Democrat Barack Obama and Republican
Michele Bachmann, who would you vote for?
Barack Obama................................................ 56%
Michele Bachmann ......................................... 35%
Undecided....................................................... 9%

Okay, she'd lose by twenty points in her home state. But Minnesotans still like her, right?

Q5 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion
of Michele Bachmann?
Favorable .............. 33%
Unfavorable........... 59%
Not sure ................ 8%

I guess they don't like her.
Note that the percentage that would vote for her is almost the exactly the percentage who consider her favorably. In this case, people would be voting for her, rather than against Obama. If she is the "anti-Obama" then why does she not draw a huge number of voters who may be willing to overlook their opinion of her to defeat the "reviled" Obama?

Of course, he may not be:

Q1 Do you approve or disapprove of Barack
Obama’s job performance?
Approve .......................................................... 51%
Disapprove...................................................... 44%
Not sure .......................................................... 5%

If Bachmann gets 35% of the vote, but 44% disapprove of Obama.... Then there's 9% of Minnesotans that dislike Obama, but who would still prefer him to Bachmann. Even winning them over wouldn't keep her from losing.

Let's look at the second link, where we see a match-up with the incumbent Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar and Michele Bachmann:

Q7 If the candidates for US Senate next year were
Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican
Michele Bachmann, who would you vote for?
Amy Klobuchar ............................................... 57%
Michele Bachmann ......................................... 37%
Undecided....................................................... 5%

Okay, so Bachmann would lose by 20 points in statewide office. So it's not just that Minnesotans don't consider her "Presidential material", it's also that they don't want her representing the State at all. As a Representative, Bachmann doesn't represent the entire State; only her district.

And that district is a gerrymandered R+7 . That Cook PVI rating of R+7, means that the district tends to vote 7 points more Republican than they do Democratic. Yet it took Bachmann three tries to get a majority (rather than a plurality), and even then did not hit the expected 57%. That is not a strong showing.

But that's not all. The crosstabs are revealing. Bachmann only wins 77% of those that voted for McCain in 2008. And only 66% of those Minnesota McCain voters have a favorable opinion of Bachmann.
That's the base of the Republican Party, and Bachmann isn't scoring that big with them in her home State.

On top of that, the gender gap is appalling in her "favorables". 62% of women have an unfavorable opinion her, compared to 28% favorable. Well over two-to-one. Only 32% of women would vote for Bachmann over Klobuchar, down around her base support of 37%.

The third poll shows that Minnesota is 31% Republican, and "very conservative" voters are only 15% of the registered voters. That's a small base of "very conservative" potential votes, and only half of her own Party. She wins election because these "very conservative" voters are concentrated, not because she has statewide support.

We don't know yet how the redistricting will go in Minnesota. Some say she could lose her district. Others see her as merely weakened. Remember, she only got 46.41% against Tinklenberg. 52.5% against Clark doesn't leave a lot of breathing room. Aside from that, if her campaign collapses, There can be no more pretense that she is wildly popular for "speaking the truth", nor of any hidden Tea Party cavalry that will sweep in and win the day, nor any vast evangelical army that will hold out for the purest candidate and support her to the bitter end.

Basically, the rest of the Republicans in the country don't particularly care for her, and her hard-core supporters seem willing to "settle" rather than go down with her. She's seen as a joke, within her own Party, not just in "elite media circles" and decadent urban liberals as she would like everyone to think. Although it would be nice to see her lose in NH and SC, just so her supporters can't try to resurrect a myth of her hidden staunch support in other areas of the country.

Even if by some political miracle she stayed in past Super Tuesday, that would be ultimately worse. She would have lost then. Losing is the ultimate sin for Republicans, but more so for Minnesota Republicans. The last time the MNGOP gave a loser a second chance was Boschwitz against Wellstone part II. They won't make that mistake again.

The basis of Bachmann's "popularity" in her district, in cultural terms, is like a thumb in the eye to the metro area. Bachmann was supposed to "blow the minds" of all the urban liberals with "the truth", and leave the Twin Cities sheepishly admitting that they had been wrong all along by voting Democratic - even worse, for a Muslim. A lot Bachmann's support comes from "white flight" urban refugees, and anyone who dumps all over the "urban hellhole" they fled from and the mindset that maintains it, is all right in their book.

The collapse of Bachmann's campaign creates doubt in the minds of her district supporters, who are far more accustomed to certainty in thought. She's suddenly not the gorgeous girl that everyone wants to dance with. Instead, she's ended up serving punch and watching the coats. Could it be that those decadent urban libs are laughing at us, instead of being terrified by our awesome heroine Michele? Did we really vote for, and donate so much of our money to, a punchline? Uh-oh.

So what is her other option? To drop out and endorse someone else, throwing her fickle evangelical "supporters" and hesitant Tea Party "masses" over to a winner.

The question, then, is where does she throw that (largely insubstantial and possibly fictional) support? Romney's probably out of the question, but it could help to prop up his "evangelical cred" to have Bachmann's endorsement. It would symbolically sever her from the Tea Party, however. If it didn't, it would de-fang the Tea Party by showing them to be just another Republican constituency that "goes along to get along" and falls in line on command from the "Party elite".

If not Romney, how about Perry? The two constituencies overlap somewhat, but Perry isn't doing considerably better than Bachmann on the national scale. She might be a useful tool for the Perry campaign in the early States, but not so much in the Super Tuesday sweep. And Bachmann's proclivity for saying "interesting" things wouldn't lend gravitas to a candidate that already looks like a lightweight.

Santorum is sinking as badly as Bachmann, and Gingrich doesn't seem like Bachmann's cup of tea. So maybe Ron Paul. She could bolster Paul's evangelical cred and push that Tea Party line forward. On a symbolic level, it could counter the co-option of the Tea Party narrative.

Nationally, Bachmann is doing only marginally better than Paul in the latest polling.
Paul loses 46/41 with 13 undecided when matched up with Obama. Bachmann loses 50/41 with 10 undecided. It's not just about Iowa, after all. Perry also breaks 50/40 with 10 undecided. Seeing a pattern there?

However:

Q11 If the candidates for President next year were
Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt
Romney, who would you vote for?
Barack Obama................................................ 45%
Mitt Romney.................................................... 47%
Undecided....................................................... 8%

So Romney can peel off an extra 6 or 7% that the other candidates can't. And that margin of victory is within the margin of error (3.7%) for the poll. That's not a compelling case for "electability" over Bachmann, Paul, or Perry but it's better than nothing.

What those match-ups show is that Bachmann, Paul, and Perry all are drawing from pretty much the same well as far as the general Electorate goes. Among strictly Republican primary voters, Bachmann draws 39% of Perry supporters as a second choice, and only 12% of Paul supporters. Among those that self-identify as Tea Party supporters, Bachmann has 58% favorables, compared to only 29% for Paul and 53% for Perry. And 59% of those Tea Party supporters say they "might end up supporting someone else".

While nationally (primary voters only), Bachmann gets 53% "favorable" from the "very conservative" bloc, Paul only gets only 27%. Both are about evenly matched for the "somewhat conservative" bloc. So it looks as if Bachmann might give Paul a boost from the most conservative segment of the Party, as well as the Tea Party, with minimal redundant support. PPP doesn't break down the evangelical vote in these polls, unfortunately. Bachmann also has a comparably attractive 42/36 favorable breakdown among female primary voters, when looking at Paul's dismal 28/53 numbers. So Paul could maybe get some more female supporters if Bachmann latched on to his campaign.

Unfortunately, Bachmann is the "kiss of death" to Paul's much touted "youth vote" in the primaries. Bachmann is despised, 24/57 unfavorable in the 18-29 age group. Paul pretty much breaks even at 43/38 with that age group on his own. With seniors, it's almost the reverse.
Senior primary voters (65+) hate Paul (25/58), while Bachmann breaks even (41/41). Senior primary voters essentially split between Gingrich and Romney, so Bachmann would be a solid contribution there with her 5%. Bachmann's weak 10% support with the youth vote is not much of a prize for any campaign.

Still, Paul's support is cult-like in its devotion to him. A Bachmann endorsement would hardly scare off support, and would probably bring in Tea Party and "very conservative" voters. Both of these demographics are relatively immune to fallout from Bachmann's "interesting" remarks.

Dare we even dream that Paul goes with Bachmann as his running mate? Paul's campaign has a strong chance of "going the distance", while not necessarily winning the nomination. The same Party apparatus that froze him out of the process in 2008 is still in power, but he has the bare minimum of money and support to make it to Convention....though he will die there.

This would raise the stakes considerably for Bachmann. If she becomes the next Palin and goes down to rejection by her Party, that's a lot worse than dropping out early and being credited with a pat on the head for being a "team player".

She certainly couldn't bring much support in Minnesota in terms of crossover votes in the primary, and her shine with Minnesota Republicans is faded. Only 26% of MN Republicans think she should run for President in the first place, and a relatively few (43%, considering it's her own Party) think she should run for the Senate. Even worse, only 10% of her home State's Republicans think she should run for the House. And 46% of the State's Independent voters think she should run for no office at all. Likewise, 48% of the white Minnesota voters say she should not run for any office. Among all age groups, she ranges from 44-49% saying the same thing.

51% of Minnesota women voters say Michele should not seek any office (including her House seat). Only 10% of the State's "very conservative" voters think she should run for the House. Instead, 44% of the "very conservative" bloc think she should run for the Senate - though she'd lose to Klobuchar by twenty points, as indicated earlier. Delusional? You bet.

2012 could spell the end of Bachmann as an elected official.

Play It Again, Sam

You may or not know this, but I play bass in a band. It's fun, but it's not fun talking to people about it. The first question always is, "What kind of music do you play?". People ask this as if it were relevant or simple. I answer with one word: "Rock". It explains nothing and satisfies no one. If I say, "original free improvisational rock with a four-piece combo", of course, I get a blank look.

There are only two reasons that 90% of people ask the question.
First, it is simply to be polite and feign an interest. The second is that they want some kind of pigeon-hole to put your art into so that they can make invalid comparisons or less-than-astute assessments of commercial success.

Basically, what we do is make up songs on the spot. It's pretty hard to make it work, and even harder to sound "polished". You don't get "points" for being creative - only for being easily relatable to another established group. If you say, "We play Aerosmith covers", then the person knows exactly what you are talking about and they now have something convenient with which to compare your music against.

Playing covers is, however, mostly a dead-end for any band. Sure, you can get gigs in crappy bars for $100-200 a night (which you then divide between four people), and you can do that for a decade or so until you work your way up to $500-600 a night gigs. You probably will get caught not paying royalties to the original artist long before that, however. The other reason it is a dead-end is because it's artistically empty: you are judged by how much you sound exactly like the original artist, not by how well you do interpreting the original song or how well your ability stacks up against the original group.

People like covers not because they are really, really great songs, but because they are familiar. They remind them of some other time, or other experiences, hopefully pleasant. They also give the listener some frame of reference to compare against, so that they can tell if the band is "good" or "bad".

It's also a losing game because the original song is recorded in a studio with multiple "takes" and multiple tracks. "Multiple tracks", for those who don't know, means that you record your guitar or whatever, and then you go back and play more on top of that. So, unless you happen to have an extra musician for every track on hand, you will never sound exactly like the original song - which means you are "bad".

It's a situation in which you can never win. You can never be "better" than the original song; you can only make a Xerox copy of it - at best - and come out equal.

Your original song will never remind anyone of other times or other experiences, because it is new. No one will be able to compare your original song with another version, because it is new. The best you can hope for is that the brainless consumer can link that song in their minds to a song that they already know - e.g. "It sounds kinda like that Bon Jovi song".

What brings this up is that we had a guest at the jam last night. After listening to three or four songs, this guy had an incredible insight: why not play songs that he has heard before?

Yeah, we never thought of that. Wow.

So we picked a song and ran through the chords in about thirty seconds. We then played it, and it sounded rough and raw - probably how the original band sounded the first time that they played it. Yet, to our guest moron, somehow it was supposed to sound exactly, note-for-note, identical to the original artist. He even mentioned that the guitarist didn't sound 'right', because the original guitarist used an effect pedal that we didn't have. So now we are supposed to not only duplicate the original artist note-for-note, but duplicate all of their equipment, too. That's how you would know that we are "good", after all.

I've dealt with this idiotic attitude all of my life as a musician. You can play a fantastic pattern at blinding speed and with impeccable precision, but the average moron will just shrug at that and "helpfully" suggest, "Play that song by Bryan Adams!". Yeah. I'll play that song on the bass. Sure. I'll make it sound exactly like a guitar, a keyboard, and a second guitar all in one. I spend my days memorising every note of every hit song in case somebody asks me to play it, too. Why would I write my own music when there are so many popular songs out there that I can copy? No matter what I play or how well I play it, I will never be "good" unless I can play that one song ...and the next one after that, too.

Painters figured this all out over a century ago. As a a painter, you are "good" if you produce something that is exactly like a photograph. Okay, so you spend two weeks and a hundred hours working on a painting that looks exactly like a photograph. You ask $500 for the painting ($5 an hour!), and the "customer" just laughs because they can get the photograph itself for free.
But they will say that you are "really good", though. Hooray!

For the musician, the proposition is even dumber. You memorise two dozen Aerosmith songs, you get to buy all of the equipment that Aerosmith has given to them as an endorsement, and you turn yourself into the equivalent of a player piano. Not good enough, because you don't look like Aerosmith. Your vocalist doesn't even sound exactly like Steve Tyler, much less be able to pass as his clone. You lose, loser! You impress no one! We yawn at you! We want Aerosmith, only with no cover charge if don't mind. Why would I pay a lot of money to hear an exact duplicate of Aerosmith when I have the CD at home, right?

Even more infuriating is this mindless belief that a song gets on the radio because it is really, really good - and that if your band can only play something really good, then you'll get on the radio, too! A song gets airplay because the music label pushes it and bribes the stations to play it, dumbass. It could be a recording of one guy vomiting while another plays a kazoo with his ass, and it would get on the air - if a record label put up the cash. And the average music consumer would love it, because they are supposed to. It's on the radio, isn't it?

What the run-of-the-mill "helpful" moron does not know is that you don't get to be a "successful" band (i.e. making a good living doing nothing but playing music) by going down the moron road. That path leads to the being a "tribute" band that gets a gig every four months in scattered states and in dingy clubs. And the "helpful" moron is unlikely to even show up to see you, because it's too far to drive, or the venue is dingy, or a TV show is on that night, or they don't want to actually pay money to see a band.

You get to be successful band by playing original music and developing a 'following' of people who appreciate what you do and actually show up for gigs when you get one. If your band can draw 30 paying customers to a bar, and if they actually spend money on food or drinks, then you just made the venue manager some money that they wouldn't have made without you there. You'll get called back. You'll get noticed by a booking agency, and you'll get steady gigs. You'll get good reviews and more people will check you out. Maybe you'll get an record deal with an independent label, which won't make you money but will allow you to get free studio time.

The question is, why does the average "helpful" moron have this standard when it comes to music that they don't apply anywhere else?

If a plumber shows up to un-clog your toilet, do you judge his ability based on how much his plumber's snake resembles one used by a "more-successful" plumber? When you take your car to a mechanic, do you judge their ability based on how much they resemble Mr. Goodwrench? Even more to the point, would you suggest to a mechanic that they try to more closely emulate Mr. Goodwrench's appearance in order to convince customers that they are a good mechanic? Would you propose that the mechanic replace your alternator for free so that you can decide if maybe they are "good enough" to change your oil? Would you be stupid enough to tell the mechanic that he should change his garage to look exactly like a Jiffy Lube so that people will know that he's "good"? Would you try to find out if the mechanic had ever fixed Bon Jovi's car? When they put the new alternator in, would you ask them to take it out and put it in again, just so you can find out if they do it exactly the same as the first time?

No. And the reason people apply this kind of warped reasoning to music is because they know nothing about it. They don't know if a musician is doing a good job or just faking it. They don't understand the structure of a song, or the principles of musical arrangement, or even what a chord is. They don't know what an overdub is, or compression. They don't understand why a live performance can't be the same as a studio recording. They don't even really care how much talent or skill you might have. If you can't exactly mimic a familiar-but-less-skilled musician, then you are worthless.

Last is the ridiculous standard of musical "success". How much money do you make watching TV? Well, you must not be doing it very well, then. How many people show up to watch you fish? Oh, so you're a lousy fisherman, I guess. Nobody pays you to jog? You must not be doing it right. Try jogging in the same outfit that some rich person wears, and then you'll automatically make as much money as they have.

Burger King makes way, way more money than a gourmet chef toiling away in a tiny restaurant. Does that mean that Burger King has the highest quality of food, or the most charming décor, or the finest service?

Take the average top-ten pop hit. It's got music played a sequencer (a computer programmed to play notes in a certain order to a certain rhythm), and a vocalist whose voice is corrected by Auto-Tune. They probably didn't even write the song themselves, but paid someone else for it. An engineer takes their work and hones it down into something highly-polished. None of it has anything to do with talent or musicianship. Yet, to the average "helpful" moron, this is the apex of musical skill and all that someone like me can do is try to copy it.

People play music, or make any kind of art, because they like it and because it does something for their soul. A very, very tiny percentage of those who engage in artistic endeavours make enough money to earn a decent living, and those people are more of a marketing success than any kind of stellar talent.

What's the deal with retired people?

Tonight I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription while on my way someplace else. It should have been quick. It wasn't.

When I got near the counter, there were six people ahead of me. All were visibly annoyed. I saw why: an elderly man was taking a very long time.

The guy was mostly deaf, which meant that he was answering questions that no one had asked him, and he was answering them at length. They were also questions that no pharmacist would ever be asking a customer. The pharmacist was yelling, trying to be polite, while the retired guy just sat there grinning and babbling. His prescription was on the counter. We all were waiting for him to pay for it, a captive audience. He was told that he needed to pay $27.94, but he had other ideas and other unasked questions to answer.

So we all found out that his sister had been there earlier in the day, and had picked up three prescriptions. We also learned that she had been feeling poorly for about a week, maybe six days, but the guy couldn't be sure. And we stood there as this grinning fool tried to figure out exactly how many days his sister had been sick, by way of reciting virtually everything that had happened to him in the past six days.

"That'll be $27.94," the pharmacist once again stated, pointing at the figure on the receipt.
The idiot instead held forth on his theories of the cause of his sister's ailment.

None of this had any bearing on the elderly guy's prescription whatsoever. We were all waiting for this man to pay his $27.94 and let us conclude our 90-second transactions. Some scowled, some rolled their eyes, others audibly sighed.

"$27.94", the pharmacist said for the third time.

The grinning fool just blinked. "I've got Blue Cross", he said.
The pharmacist explained that there was a co-pay of $27.94 that was his responsibility.

The elderly man shook his head, turned to the rest of us, and announced apropos of nothing, "I worked at Wal-Mart for fifteen years".
Unsurprisingly, nobody was intrigued by this revelation.
In some mysterious way, elderly people perceive a lack of interest as an invitation for greater exposition. We all got to hear about every damn job this fool ever did at Wal-Mart, and the jobs he wasn't considered for. We were subjected to his story of how he got his nephew a job there - a good kid, in case anyone was wondering. Wasn't much good at cutting keys, though.

I'm not at all sure how someone gets the idea that a pharmacist needs to know your detailed employment history before you can pay for a prescription, much less how they imagine that people waiting in line would need to know these things. Or how your nephew stacked up against other employees.

"$27.94", the pharmacist said for a fourth time, waving his hand to distract the babbler's attention from the contents of a woman's cart, lest it become the next topic of his rambling and pointless speech.

"The doctor said this would fix me right up," he said, pointing to one of the bags of his yet-unpaid-for prescription.

"I'm sure it will", the pharmacist said.

"That's what he said!", as if someone was arguing with his statement. "Fix me right up!".
We then were privileged to hear his detailed description of his primary care physician, and his evaluation of the physician's skills. The babbling fool then announced that he had walked to the pharmacy, and he detailed his exercise regimen. And more babble about irrelevant stuff, including the condition of sidewalks.

Three minutes after this last grinning expose into details of his life that nobody cared about, he paid his $27.94 and shuffled away. He had wasted ten minutes of seven peoples' time with inane babble, and he behaved as if he was doing us all a great service.

I have a retired neighbour who buttonholes me as I'm leaving for work frequently. Even though I say that I'm ten minutes late for work, he'll just nod and launch into another tedious story of someone that I don't know and the minute trials and victories of their life. He's retired; time means nothing to him. Today, a friend of a friend of his bought a lawnmower. This is apparently supposed to be deeply important to me, though I don't have a lawn.

"Gotta go," I said, moving toward my car.
"Suuure. You should see this lawnmower!," he said, as if I had just asked for more details on the amazing lawnmower - which he then divulged at length.

Now, I am not some kind of anti-social jerk. If I have time, I'll willingly sit and pretend to be mesmerised by the mundane details of almost anyone's life. I'm an excellent listener.
But courtesy does not allow someone to demand your time whenever they please, and it kind of compels the person engaging you to at least make some kind of feeble pretence that the topic is in some way of interest to you.

I understand that a lot of retired people don't have anyone to talk to, and that is both sad and pathetic. Some will wring their hands and bemoan the loss of simpler times when people would sit around and babble about anything that crossed their mind. Maybe in those simpler times your boss didn't care if you were fifteen minutes late for work because you just had to sit and listen to someone tell you about an amazing lawnmower. I doubt it, though.

Where in the social contract does it say that someone can demand ten minutes from seven total strangers (eight, if you include the pharmacist) with absolutely no consideration of their schedules? Who are these people to decide that your time is less valuable, or that your lives will be enriched by hearing about their sister's illness, their work history, and their opinion of their physician? What mysterious clause in the social contract releases the babbler from any relevance or brevity in conversation?

Note to you retired people: You are not making the world a kinder, gentler place. You are selfishly imposing yourself on others. You are undermining the rules of conversation by completely ignoring the other person with inane babble that absolutely no one else could find interesting. You are making people less willing to talk to you, because you are inconsiderate.
Yeah, it sucks that you're lonely. It's sad that these tedious recitations of disconnected facts are what compose your life. I get it. But really, nobody cares about any of the inane blather you are "sharing". And you don't care that other people have places to go and things to do, either. So drop the pretence that you are upholding some kind of societal benefit or lost rules of etiquette.
I certainly didn't set aside an extra ten minutes to hear a stranger talk about his mundane life, and the people waiting for me didn't, either. How awful of us.

Also, here's a tip: get a goddamn hearing aid if you want to talk to people. The guy in the pharmacy had Blue Cross, as we all learned. He could get a hearing aid and have it paid for. Don't force people to yell. We don't find your hearing loss to be charming or endearing. If you aren't willing to listen to the people you are talking to, then you aren't meeting your obligation in a conversation. But you aren't really interested in a conversation anyway, are you? You just want an audience and some attention. In simpler times, people like you were called "boors".

Medical marijuana moves through committee in MN

Medical marijuana bills are moving through the State House and Senate.
The usual stupidity is coming from the Right, of course. Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, had this illuminating remark:

“This bill would allow marijuana dispensaries to set up shop across the state, in homes and storefronts on main streets and neighborhoods and apartment buildings. Why? The only reason I can see is that it is to legitimize, frankly, the broader acceptance of marijuana in the community’s eyes.”

Why, Mr. Prichard? Why would anyone set up dispensaries for marijuana if the bill passed? Perhaps, and I'm just throwing this out there, so that people who have prescriptions for medical marijuana could get those prescriptions filled.

You see, Mr. Prichard, there are operations known as "pharmacies" that "set up shop across the state", even in "storefronts on main streets and neighborhoods", in order to allow people with prescriptions to obtain their authorised medication. Insidious, isn't it?

Yes, virtually every neighbourhood has these outrageous operations (known commonly as "pharmacies") that contain inventories of powerful stimulants, barbiturates, pain-killers, and other narcotics - and they brazenly sell these highly-addictive and readily-abused substances to anyone with the cash and a prescription.

The only reason, as surely a man of Prichard's keen insight can plainly see, for these "pharmacies" is to legitimise the broader acceptance of narcotics in the community's eyes.

The arguments by these loons like Prichard begin and end with "it's illegal".
Yes, and that's why the State is considering legislation to make it legal. Duh.
I guess it's only acceptable to try to legalise things that are already legal.

Let's be clear here. The proposed legislation is not a bill to legalise marijuana and make it available to everyone. It is a bill to allow those with a prescription to be able to fill it. It's no more insidious than allowing someone with a prescription for codeine to be able to fill it.

Does allowing someone to buy codeine with a prescription "legalise" codeine? No, it doesn't. Does it say to the community, "Hey, go ahead and abuse opiates all you want. No problems. No dangers. See, we even sell it out in the open, so it must be great stuff."?
Not really. No, it doesn't. It's illegal to buy, sell, or even possess codeine without a prescription. And there's that word again: prescription. The word that keeps vanishing in the Right's conversation of the issue.

So, yes, if medical marijuana does get approved, there will, in fact, be "dispensaries" to provide those with a prescription to purchase it. Perhaps these nefarious "dispensaries" will even be included in the so-called "pharmacies" that dispense Oxycontin legally. Shocking to consider, but true.

So the major reason for opposing doctors' issuance of medical marijuana prescriptions seems to be that someone could actually fill their prescription. Did anyone at the hearing laugh out loud at Mr. Prichard? If not, they should have.

But the crazy testimony doesn't end with Prichard:

James Stinziani, who said he was part of the “LaRouche operation,” said that the push for medical marijuana was simply a conspiracy drawn up by billionaire George Soros. “What is happening here — if anybody is familiar with George Soros — he is pretty much supporting and funding the major drug operations in the United States.” He accused medical marijuana supporters of being in league with Soros.

Yup. A doctor who may prescribe medical marijuana for their terminally-ill patient is really only trying to push Soros' murky agenda. It's so clear that I won't even attempt to deny it.

It's far better to have terminally-ill patients obtain their marijuana from black-market sources, where the quality is dubious and uncontrolled. At least then we have a shot at putting cancer patients in jail where they belong. And recreational users of marijuana will obviously stop buying it if terminally-ill people can't get a prescription for medical marijuana, because then they will just know that marijuana is Not A Good Thing. Prescriptions mean abuse, but not for narcotics. Marijuana is some kind of special case where prescription sales equate with non-prescription abuse, because we don't have a problem with people abusing prescription medications, right?

It's like saying the State shouldn't issue car titles because people steal cars, and it sends the message that car theft is somehow okay. All of those auto dealerships are pumping more cars out there on the streets every day, just inviting people to steal them. I'll wager George Soros is making millions in auto loans every year, besides. Let's tackle car theft at the source: the cars themselves and the people who profit from them.

The idiocy of tax cuts

Having just done my taxes, I thought I would look at the "stimulus" effect of the proposed Republican tax cuts. It isn't much.

I paid $5840 in federal taxes for 2008. That's just with-holding, not including my refund.
So bear in mind that the "stimulus" I will calculate here will actually be less.
The with-holding works out to $112.30 per week. Let's say the Republicans won me a 10% cut, which is far more than they are proposing.

This would put a whopping $11 (and change) in my pocket each week. Wow. All of my problems are solved, right?

Of course, the real figure once my refund is included is $9.50 each week. Now consider that most of the Republican plans would afford me about a 5% cut in federal taxes, and we see that this wonderful conservative solution would pump the staggering sum of $4.75 into my pocket each week. That isn't even gas for my scooter or a six-pack of cheap beer where I live.

Republicans love to conflate all taxes into the discussion, but the federal government can only cut my federal taxes. They love to combine FICA, Medicare, state and local taxes, and property taxes when they talk about the huge windfall their tax cuts would mean to an ordinary person. The reality is, however, that federal tax cuts produce a "trickle-down" effect of increased taxes down the line. Less federal aid to states means higher state taxes or reduced aid to cities. In my state, with a loony Republican governor, it means the latter. This means cuts in aid to cities, which means my property taxes go up. There goes my $4.75 a week.

Of course, we have already had eight years of tax cuts, which has brought us to this glorious situation. The wealthy have flatly refused to hold up their end of the bargain. They don't invest in job creation; they off-shore jobs instead. They don't invest in small businesses; they buy them out to reduce competition and lay off the workers. They don't invest in capital improvements (updated equipment and machinery, expanded facilities) or worker training; they instead squeeze out a few more pennies from what they have already. They cut workforces, impose hiring freezes and pay cuts on staff, and increase the workloads of those already employed.

In short, it doesn't work.

The wealthy are essentially on strike for a better deal, and the entire economy is being held hostage. What they want is basically a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the wealthy.