Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

http://i.imgur.com/V2rFT.png

otm

money matters a lot in certain elections, just not really in presidential elections, and not in the way that people tend to think it does ie lobbyist buys yr congressman's vote vs lobbyist has a job because of that money and donates to his friend and gives him some useful briefings on energy policy

ya i mean i generally agree that fundraising disparities dont matter as much as people think but of course thats all sort of vague

recently read something re the corrupting effect of campaign donations arguing that it was more of a gift economy type situation rather than straight up quid pro quo that i thought rang p true

yup

and w/ political ads / yard signs etc the fact that there are diminishing marginal returns to that kinda spending doesn't mean that every campaign hits the diminishing marginal returns. but presidential elections def do. if that weren't the case there would be a lot more than a billion dollars being spent on this. that's chump change.

i still believe <conspiracytheory> romney is planning to steal a bunch of the money in the chaos of his landslide loss </conspiracytheory>

well, this is essentially his modus operandi

That's probably true even if he wins.

romney will be hired by his erstwhile super pac

Saw a new one this morning re health care and how a Canadian woman saved her life by coming to the US for treatment, rather than waiting for a months later and she would be dead calendared appointment in the Canuck version of Obamacare!

Link? In ~2009 there was a woman who did the rounds with a story of headaches and blurred vision that she blamed on a brain tumor. Turned out she had a Rathke's cleft cyst, probably an incidental finding. Her case was properly triaged to low priority. She paid out of pocket to go to Mayo for (unnecessary) surgery then sued the provincial govt for the expense. Is this the same story?

Those job numbers

Pretty sad that the only thing that seems to reduce the unemployment numbers is unemployed people simply giving up the search for work. That's why I'm not so confident the economy will improve anytime soon. Employment is key. Though of course, we have a long way to go to catch up to Spain, who is at, what, 25% unemployment or something?

deep

deep?

If you want to criticize something I said, dude - which you often seem to do - then just do it.

in re this excellent conspiracy theory about Romney absconding with campaign funds, a question. If I run for office & I'm collecting donations and instead of just housing them in a savings/checking account, I put the bulk of the money in high-yield 7-day bonds, can I pocket the profit I turn on the bonds - am I only required to spend the amount donated on the campaign? Can I, somewhat more easily, just put the donations in the highest-yielding interest account I can find and keep the interest?

I don't think the FCC allows you to pocket or profit from it. You can save it indefinitely, or donate it, or roll it into another campaign, but you can't keep it.

NO MORE SUNDAY MORNING NETWORK ROUNDTABLES FOR YOU:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/ann-coulter-sandra-fluke-democratic-national-convention_n_1859677.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

x-post

Saw a new one this morning re health care and how a Canadian woman saved her life by coming to the US for treatment, rather than waiting for a months later and she would be dead calendared appointment in the Canuck version of Obamacare!
...
Link?

I saw it on tv in Virginia. Not sure if it was a Karl Rove super-pac one or a Romney one. I saw another Romney tv ad on welfare where they list the right-wing Heritage Foundation on the screen in small type as the authoritative source for the statement that Obama is gutting welfare work requirements.

Ridiculous.

What exactly is the Clinton=rapist line I keep seeing about? Is it just that Monica Lewinsky must've been coerced sex?

I think the rapist allegation was in response to another woman's charges.

x-post-Coulter will probably get on more Sunday roundtables with tweets like that.

josh i think if you thought abt it for like two seconds youd see that increased employment isnt like some discrete prerequisite for improving the economy, its actually you know a big part of the over all process, and somewhat of a lagging indicator, so saying that i dont think the economy will improve unless we get this employment thing figured out has aspects of truism and nonsense

also yr denial cyclical nature of the economy upthread isnt the most insightful reading

That would be an awesome point if it was what he said,

it is what he said

That's why I'm not so confident the economy will improve anytime soon. Employment is key.

Just saw the jobs numbers--disappointing. I thought after hearing yesterday that there were 200,000 private-sector jobs created, the report would be good. Probably the conventions are yesterday's news already.

IE he is using employment as an indicator of the economy.

ive said this before but while important i do think people overrate the importance of any single job report

what josh said is like saying im not sure the economy will improve any time soon, the economy is key

It's okay to admit you misread him.

or its like saying, i dont think the economy will improve any time soon, because the economy is bad now

It's okay to admit you misread him.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, September 7, 2012 10:58 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or you or josh are welcome to expound on yr economic theory of job numbers as a leading indicator of economic recovery years into the future

xp no no I get it, it'd be a neat loop.

IE he is using employment as an indicator of the economy.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, September 7, 2012 10:54 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he is using job numbers as an indicator of THE FUTURE of the economy, eagerly await your apology *sniff*

He needs to take the curl of the jobs vector to predict future economy, yeah.

http://i.imgur.com/RQShC.png

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/chart-the-racial-makeup-of-obama-romney-presidential-coalitions.php

What exactly is the Clinton=rapist line I keep seeing about? Is it just that Monica Lewinsky must've been coerced sex?

No- Juanita Broaderick, most prominently among others.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/images/clinton_banner.gif

i love finding remnants of old sites lying around!

holy crap!

he had meat in his cheeks!

So did she!

ha

http://health.malaxi.com/irritable_bowel_syndrome/images/groan.jpg

http://www.playahata.com/images/celebpics/jayleno1.gif

that's funnier with images off!

eh unemployment is also considered a coincident indicator in some metrics. furthermore as change in employment figures may contribute to consumer expectations, which are a leading indicator, i sorta expect a contribution to positive outlook in a period of declining unemployment or full employment if wages are rising, too. im no economist but i dont think unemployment is irrelevant to economic outlook. xpost

its part of the economy, its not predictive of long term economic performance, or of itself for that matter

wondering how down-ticket races specifically will be affected by what will (probably) be a pretty decent turnout for Obama. obviously it won't be like 2008, but i assume the sea change in 2010 had a lot to do with large parts of Obama's coalition not showing up like they did 2 years before. (i guess?)

After a week of trying to figure out what his address would be about, Eastwood had only figured out by Thursday morning, the day of the speech, what the issue outline of the speech would be. It was then right before his appearance, when he was backstage and about to go on, that the inspiration hit.

“There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down,” Eastwood said. “When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.”

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/eastwood-when-i-saw-the-stool-sitting-there-it-gave-me-the-idea.php

whoa

wow^^^

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/romney-defends-not-mentioning-war-troops-in-convention

^^i am soooo excited for the debates.