Yes, I've been wondering about these polls as well. I and many friends and family members have opted out of regular phone service as we all seem to have 2~4 cells per household anyway and one (or two)from the job. It's purely a cost issue... So, are these pollsters really reaching what could be considered a fair sampling of the population?

Posted at August 25, 2008 10:51 AM in response to It's Gonna Happen, And When It Does, We Need To Be Prepared

You make a good point David, but (and forgive me if this has been brought up before) McCain is the freakin' WORST excuse for a presidential candidate that I have ever, ever seen - he is pathetic. Hasn't he run for POTUS before? How could so much 'experience' run such a disorganized mess of a campaign? I cannot even imagine anyone hiring him as a cashier in your average QuickyMart. Dude! I'll take my chances on the question mark, thank you...

And how did Mr '20+ years of experience' end up dancing to his neophite rival's tune in foreign policy? It took just 8 days for Obama to make McCain's 'decades of FP experience' look just plain pathetic - 8 days! McCain's been faking the funk for years - we see it more and more everyday...Question mark, please...

And tell me: What his McCain actually done of any significance? Oh yeah, the Keating5 thingy. He and his K5 pals and his-campaign-co-chair-economic-advisor-butt-boy Phil (Enron Loophole) Grahamm collectively have screwed taxpayers, retirees, pensioners, workers, consumers and the entire state of California to the tune of how many billions and billions of dollars? Cheez n' Rice! What are you - a masochist? He's a braindead, thieving, lying f*ckup who surrounds himself with crooks - look at whose advising and running his campaign! Neocons and lobbyists! HA! I'll take my chances (again) with the question mark.

McCain promises to continue Bush's regressive tax structure and push (with Grahamm at his side) for further deregulation of the financial sector. We know that these types of policies not only don't work (for 99% of Americans) but are also destructive to the economy and our nation as a whole. We have years of direct experience that shows where these types of policies lead us...Yet still McCain continues down that track. And no one questions his patriotism??? Once again, I(say it with me)will take the question mark anyday...

And, you gotta love how McCain supports the troops. Any bill to potentially benefit them, he attempts to shoot down. His way of supporting the troops is to send them into one reckless, poorly planned, asinine, endless fight after another. He speaks of achieving an honorable victory against a nation that has never, ever lifted a finger against us! An honorable victory against a poor, nation that had nothing to do with 9/11, with little or no military that had been strangled by economic sanctions for better than a decade...Is that or is that not as morally and ethically bankrupt as you can get. Again (and as a veteran and human being with a conscience) I'll takes me chances with a question mark - or a giant chicken or a frog's ass!
McCain's not the last man standing; that shitbird's a fraud...

Posted at July 30, 2008 3:53 PM in response to Failing to rewind

What's more surreal?
McCain?
McCaign's campaign? (no man can screw himself this hard alone - this is a team effort...)
This freakin' country??? (McCain is only 6 points behind in the national polls...)

Posted at July 23, 2008 10:43 PM in response to McCain's Pushback On Timing Flub: The Surge Began Before The Surge

Probably been posted/said somewheres before, but...I'm sure this kind of thing happens in every primary contest.
It's just that, with the Internet, so many more people are able to bring their views out for everyone else to see so things can seem far bigger/worse than they really are.
Believe Gaylthacan's comment kinda sums it all up...

Posted at June 12, 2008 8:54 AM in response to Your Whiteness is Showing: An Open Letter to Certain White Women Who Are Threatening to Withold Support From Obama in November.

I've got to wonder...He's been somewhat uh...less than sharp these days. He's unfoccussed, looks awful, he's got the short-term memory of a dope-head and does not seem to even be in control of his own campaign.
I think he's a puppet at this point - got a whole bunch of lobbyists' hands up his butt controlling him. Too many in fact. That's why he's constantly flip-flopping.

Posted at June 11, 2008 9:21 AM in response to Is John McCain Going Senile?

Don't think it's going to matter - McCain (and Repubs in general) are an extremely arrogant lot. It will take them way too long to realize that Obama ain't no welter-weight even after watching him come out of obscurity and defeat one of the biggest names in politics.
Also, and I hesitate to say this, but...I'm thinking some level of dementia is starting to set in -I say that seriously and with some degree of concern.
Think about it...
- No one could be that wrong, conflicted or confused about the mood of the country, his own Senate record and his own signature policies.
- No candidate'distances' himself from the sitting President while embracing said President's policies and agenda.
- No serious candidate (in his right mind)would flip-flop with such amazing regularity during an election cycle...
- No sane, rational candidate would promise to end big-money influence in Washington, while pursing the Presidency with an entire campaign staff of...lobbyist!
All of this and they expect that no one would notice?
Something is terribly wrong.
McCain is a senile puppet...

Posted at June 4, 2008 4:26 PM in response to Will the McCain campaign wise up?

I am so struck by how each candidates' supporters view the contest and the media slant/angle etc.
I, as an Obama supporter, saw the MSM piling on him while Clinton twisted the knife.
I saw Clinton literally mock him and his speeches on several occasions ('...and the skies will open up...blah, blah, blah'; 'just words - empty words'; etc...)She called him naive and an empty suit; she rode the Rev. Wright train; the Bill Ayers train; the Farrakhan-passing-a-note-to-Hamas train; the 'slumlord' train; the-whites-won't-vote-for-him train; she (and her husband)belittled him in favor of McCain (who, along with her, has passed some magical mark in the CIC test and both are people who actually LOVE America); she ran a poor campaign; she slung mud; she tried to change the rules of the game after she saw she was losing; she told MI and FL voters that Obama is trying to disenfranchise them; she's lied - a lot; she's played the victim throughout this campaign (even though she was heavily favored to win the nomination from day-1) while telling Obama that if he 'can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen'. She and the moderators of the last debate all tag-teamed him...Nothing in all of the other debates even came close to that spectacle -nothing!
And now she's lying thru her teeth about winning the popular vote.
Face it...thru her and her campaign's vitriol, lies and bumbling, she's made herself fodder for a press corp that loves nothing more than to nail a Dem nominee's pelt to the wall anyway.
Did Clinton get shabby treatment as a candidate? Yes, of course, she's the first female to get this far, a Clinton and a Dem nominee - and her campaign's kung-fu sucked! What, exactly, did she expect?
Yes, she got some really piss-poor treatment by the press. But,how bad could it have been when the wingnuts left her alone?
Did Obama get some shabby treatment by the press? Yes, of course! He's black and running for President. He's been painted as an ultr-liberal Marxist (by another Senator!), a Black radical / Muslim-Manchurian candidate and the poster child for affirmative action.
The Rev. Wright/Ayers b.s played for at least a month non-stop...He's had to fend off Clinton and her supporters (both elected officials and ordinary people), the Repub attack machine, wingnuts, racists, his own pastor, McCain's campaign and the sitting President - all at the same time!
And he's come out smelling like a rose.
And he's done all of that without ever impugning Clinton's character, questioning her patriotism, saying anything about her associations (did he mention Norman Hsu? - nope!)or showing her anything but grace and respect.
He won the nomination fair and square - by the rules as laid out by the DNC that all of the campaigns agreed to - including her's.
Admire her strength? Sure! We all do. But strength without wisdom (or at least a good strategy) is kinda pointless...

Posted at June 3, 2008 4:36 PM in response to Sen. Clinton - you have suprised me and I salute you.

As an Obama supporter I don't give a damn...This is internet trash; it's meaningless. That it would even be worth commenting on gives me pause.
Folks! It's the internet! Exactly what are we expecting?
How could this guy (or any other jerk-off out there in cyberspace)who no one even knows affect your opinions about anything?
Let's put things in perpsective...there are a lot of people (millions-upon-millions-upon-millions)who have access to the 'net. And a lot of those people hold views that are...um...a bit further off the beaten path...you know?
When all is said and done, we just learned of a guy - that holds these views.
Goes for about 90-something-percent of everything out here...

Posted at May 31, 2008 10:59 PM in response to Obamabots Are Filth

Noticed the use of 'we' vs. 'I' as well. Thanks for bringing it out into the open.
As far as health care policy (and all policy/initiatives mentioned on the campaign trail) goes, I think we should take it all with a grain of salt. Things change when a candidate gets into office. No matter what s/he WANTS to do, the reality is always a bit different. With hundreds of House and Senate members with various agendas, special interest groups, States' interests, etc, to accomodate,there's no way either candidate would get carte blanche to do whatever they want even with a large Dem majority in the Houses.(Dems are not like Repubs and do not march in lockstep.)
So...just keep that in mind when we discuss policy - it's a wish list. Mostly a President can only set the tone of the administration and national dialog. It's up to a whole host of others to actually agree on and get some meaningful legislation passed.
With that in mind, I support Obama. His approach seems to be to get everyone to agree on something and move forward. I have no illusion as to what Obama will accomplish for me personally (I am sooo far left of center:)and do understand that he's not the most progressive candidate this cycle either - not by a long shot. But, I do trust him to break the DC gridlock and get things moving in a common sense direction. Maybe not as progressive as I'd like to see, but, I'm willing to give up some of my lefty-ness for just plain old common sense.
Clinton on the other hand, doesn't seem to be that big on compromise. That leads to stand-off, showdowns and gridlock. No matter how good her ideas are, they're meaningless if she can't get them turned into law.

Posted at May 29, 2008 8:21 AM in response to Campaign Dichotomy: "I am" vs. "We are"

Pardon me if it's been said before but...
All nominees entered into this contest under the same rules, under the same nominating system.
If any of the nominees thought the system was dumb or gave some unfair advantage to any of the other candidates, they've had plenty of time to express those views and push to change the process welll before the primaries. Given the weight the Clintons are able to throw around in Dem circles, HRC, could have easily pushed for a rule change PRIOR to this contest. She didn't. No one else did.
They all understood (or should understand) how the nominating process works. If not, they have no business running for the nomination nor should they hold office.
Blaming the system in any way for Clinton's losing (or any of the other candidates dropping out for that matter) is disingenuous to say the least. It suggest that the rules were tailor made for someone other than the loser and I don't think that's true since the rules were in place before Obama even came on to the national scene.
The rules can only favor a certain strategy. The candidates can use whatever strategy they want. Obama's team picked a winning strategy and the Clinton team was too arrogant and complacent to bother with picking a strategy at all.
They got caught with their pants down.
It was a chess match and HRC was playing checkers...

Posted at May 27, 2008 12:32 PM in response to A Sane Discussion Of Hillary And The Popular Vote