Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« Tom Coburn: The Era of Big Government Republicanism Is Over | Main | Now In Power, Democrats Show Newfound Seriousness On The Global War On Terror »
November 08, 2006

Winners/Losers

ALF runs them down.

Here are some of mine:

LOSER: The polls
BIGGER LOSER: The exit polls
BIGGEST LOSER: Conservative bloggers
THE ULTIMATE LOSER: "Republican turnout"

The telephone polls were, at the end, ballpark accurate, but seem to have been wildly inaccurate previously. The exit polls were off by four, five, or six points in just about every election, always in favor of the Democrats.

Still, a persistent gap in the polls is never good. Even losing by 5% is still, you know, losing.

I'll call conservative bloggers losers on this for fighting the polls. Although I do so half-heartedly. Not to, you know, out myself as a liar, but while I thought we'd hold the Senate, I was pretty damn sure we'd lose the House. Readers like "someone" thought I shouldn't be doing that; a chat with another blogger about this convinced me it was time for "game faces, man. Game faces."

I guess I did sort of say that holding the House was a longshot, but I tried to keep hope alive. Going into a game thinking you're going to lose means you will, definitely, lose.

But I'll say that many conservative bloggers were losers on this.

I didn't really buy that Republican turnout would save us, if we were truly behind by any nontrivial amount. For one thing, anything that works will be copied; we surprised the Democrats with our turnout operation in 2004, but by now, they certainly know how we did it and certainly emulated the strategy.

LOSER: Bush
WINNER: Rahm Emmanuel
BIGGER WINNERS: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney

I hope not all conservatives turn too nastily on Bush, which was, quite frankly, my instinct last night. Much of the reason conservatives have liked him these past two years is the same reason Democrats loved Clinton -- because he was a winner. Well, he's not a winner anymore, but that wasn't the only reason we initially supported him. He's managed a few good things along the way.

But still, the "Trust Bush, He's Got The Magic" thing is dead, isn't it?

Rahm Emmanuel was brilliant in recruiting attractive outsider candidates for the House who could pose plausibly as moderates.

We're now in the position, I think, that the left was. The left was willing to accept someone posing as a moderate as candidate for president in 1992 because they were hungry for a win. The nutroots embraced candidates who expressed (fake) support for programs they hated -- military tribunals, coerced interrogations, etc. -- because they were so hungry to win. They didn't care what the new Democratic majority might look like, they just wanted one.

At this moment I'm seriously reevaluating McCain. Look, I just don't want to lose. But overnight he's gone from someone I would only support extremely reluctantly to someone I will oppose in the primaries but support much less reluctantly should he win.

My first choices are Giuliani and Romney, of course.

McCain has played the politics of this beautifully, one has to admit. On Iraq, he's criticized Bush just enough to say he's not part of the stalemate strategy but supported the basics of it enough to credibly say he's part of the Victory Bloc. It's kind of cocksuckerish, but it's smart politics.


LOSER: Ned Lamont
WINNER: Joe Lieberman
BIGGER WINNER: Kos

Harry Reid kissed his ring last night. Everyone may know Kos is an idiot, but for now, he's an idiot that can channel insane anger into electoral triumph.

I wonder if at some point the GOP will take this blogger/interactive politics thing more seriously. I don't think Kos was really terribly critical to the Democrats' win, but surely it didn't hurt.

LOSER: The non-terrorist people of Iraq
WINNER: The terrorists
ULTIMATE WINNER: The Iranian nuclear forces

Pretty self-explanatory.

The country has voted for isolationism and retreat, as they've done before, at the precise moment they cannot afford to do so.

I hope the penalty for this mistake will not be as enormous as it was in the 1930's and then, of course, on 7 December 1941.


Another loser...

This is going to be controversial, but it's what I think. The Republican-evangelical partnership took a big hit last night. Evangelicals are much more in play than we'd thought.

It's just politics, but one doesn't take unpopular positions on behalf of a group that, in the end, choses not to support you. I'm not talking right and wrong (though of course I am a "libertarian" according to some), I'm talking simple math.

In previous cycles, the evangelicals produced enough votes to justify taking some unpopular policy stances -- like on stem cells. Those positions were net electoral winners, or, at worst, net electoral losers by just a smidgen.

But the exit polls, and raw votes from red, religious areas, indicate that a lot of evangelicals voted Democrat. That's their right, but simple political math dictates that if support from a group is half-hearted, a party is going to be much more half-hearted about pursuing their support.


If a policy alienates a certain number of social moderates who otherwise might vote GOP, and yet only attracts the smaller value Y of social conservatives who champion it, it's hard to justify such a policy in terms of pure political math.

The partnership is hardly destroyed, but I think it has been dented up pretty nicely.


digg this
posted by Ace at 03:17 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "I think it was grump928 who made an outstanding po ..."

Don Black: "is everyone over on the main page, slapping f5 lik ..."

JackStraw: ">>The long-shredded pretense to impartiality is su ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "Wakandyass it is! ..."

Don Black: "NYR 0 COL 0 end 1st p 🏒 ..."

Alberta Oil Peon: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Puddleglum at work: "[i]173 167 I’ve often speculated that the re ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Ciampino - Bloody 'experts' again ...: "158 For being the alleged "birthplace of civilizat ..."

sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades [/b][/u][/i][/s]: "got to have a spread of alternatives, amirite? ..."

Bulgaroctonus : "167 I’ve often speculated that the reason th ..."

Hairyback Guy: "Anita Bryant > All Other Female Crooners ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64