During the 1948 Presidential election, pundits decided early on that Thomas Dewey was unbeatable. Polls were taken — exhaustively — experts were consulted, and all agreed that a Dewey win (by a landslide) was inevitable.
Indeed, top party officials informed Dewey that all he had to do to slide into the White House was to avoid making any “major” mistakes. Following this advice, Thomas Dewey carefully avoided controversial issues and was deliberately vague concerning his actual Presidential intentions, to the point that his speeches were nothing more than glowing descriptions of the future under a Dewey Presidency and — I quote: “non-political optimistic assertions of the obvious”.
This tactic, and the support of major media, lead Truman’s own campaign staff (as well as Mrs. Truman) to consider their efforts to be nothing more than a valiant last effort.
The Chicago Tribune printed several hundred copies bearing the banner headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman”.
Well, Old Man Murphy hates politicians and the media about as much as he hates everyone else, and Truman stunned the experts and pundits by winning that election — and sealed the thing by having a picture of himself taken while holding that infamous headline edition — see above.
I bring up this bit of obscure political trivia, because it seems as if every time I pass a TeeVee someone is talking about “President Obama” — usually tied to the words “landslide” and “inevitable”.
Most of the media seems to be wondering why McCain and Palin are still in the race, since they ought to realize that they don’t have a chance to win.
Although most aren’t as blatant as this article, it sure seems as though most experts (‘expert’ being defined by my friend Johnny Guest as: “A drip under pressure”) have pretty much made up their minds as how the American public is going to vote.
Hmm.
There is an old saying, “Don’t count your chickens until the eggs have hatched” and I do believe that it has just as much relevancy to political prognosticating as it does to any other kind.
Sure seems to me that some folks might have forgotten that.
LawDog
In principle, I agree with the “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched” thing.
However, I have to point out two big differences between Obama/McCain and Dewey/Truman.
McCain is no Truman. (Obvious, I know, but hear me out.) He’s not an incumbent, sitting President. He also has the handicap of following a deeply unpopular administration, and he is the oldest candidate ever, running against one of the youngest ever.
But yes, the media has their champion picked already. I just have the feeling that this time there won’t be a grinning McCain holding up a newspaper saying “Obama Wins By Landslide”.
Just a feeling, mind you…
I’m reminded of a High Society New Yorker who, when told of Nixons landslide win, exclaimed:
“How can that be? No one I know voted for him?!”
You can like McCain more than Obama all you like. But as long as Palin is in the mix, there is NO WAY ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH I will ever vote for that ticket. Choosing Palin was the biggest mistake of McCain’s career.
Well said.
I’ve never voted Republican in my life. But I’m going to on Nov. 4th (actually earlier, because in Oregon we have 100% vote by mail, and my ballot should be completed within a week).
This is what happens when you read too much LawDog and Ornery American. (Just joking. I’d vote for McCain even if I’d never heard of you guys, because I don’t think Obama can lead and I don’t trust his über-liberal policies.)
From Joe ex PNG:
I do hope that a come from behind McCain victory will happen.
However, I’m still going to buy high-cap mags ahead of election day.
Why? Because the prices of mags and semi-autos will go through the roof if the Sun King gets into office.
…nice to be reminded that all is not lost…
I hesitate to disagree with Marko, but I must. The voters are so labile right now that it’s way to early to call the election. I read a comment by Dick Morris the other day that in 1980, Reagan didn’t start to lead in the polls until 72 hours before the election. One of the most liberal people I know, a Texan no less, emailed me today and said that he thinks McCain is going to win. He cited the “Bradley Effect”, which few in the media are talking about.
Big Bad Wolf, that is attributed to Pauline Kael. I use that all the time when my friend from New York City tells me how “no one” will vote for McCain.
Many people (Democrats) keep saying Palin is a mistake. However, no one seems to be able to nail down exactly WHY she’s a mistake. That is, present concrete facts, not media blitz. I
I can tell you why at great length….
LawMom
Does anyone remember the stunned disbelief that followed the 1994 midterm elections? The polls did not show that little uptick in Republican support. I have to wonder if we are seeing the whole picture with this election.
Adding Gov Palin to the ticket energized me. I went from grudgingly voting for a man who had betrayed my beliefs in the past to enthusiastically voting for him in hopes that he would not make the whole term. The idea of having someone like me, even as Veep, is extremely motivating.
And that was before I had learned some of the ugly details about Barry’s years in the Chicago machine.
I really don’t think we are seeing an accurate picture of how this country feels about Obama. I think McCain will be President not because he won, but because Obama lost.
Every single time someone talks about how well Obama is doing I can only shrug and say, “Dewey defeats Truman.” You just never know.
The Bradley effect will be exactly offset by voter fraud.
I keep coming back to the unversity’s withholding of Michelle Obama’s thesis. Something just ain’t right with the Obamas,
and I am totally apalled by the American peoples’ apparent willingness to be led by a man who refuses to salute the flag of the country he wants to run, and who has a rabidly anti-white wife.
This is a melting-pot country. For a person who wants to lead it to have overt prejudices scares me shitless. It also gets my old Scotch Presbyterian bad going strong.
I am not a fan of McCain or of Palin, but I don’t feel like they would quite happily stick a knife in my turned back just because I’m mostly white and probably Christian.
LawMom
So here’s a question:
You must have undecided voters there, too. What are you telling them to persuade them to vote for McCain? (Positives about McCain, not negatives about Obama.) And, are you being successful?
Swing Stater
Why Palin is a bad choice according to me:
She advocates shooting Wolves from the air. She is anti-pagan. She has abused her power as governor more than once. She refuses to answer any question directly, which pisses me off. She is against gay marriage. She is pretty much anti-feminist.
Yeah, I am a liberal democrat who reads a conservative republican’s blog (I’m assuming conservative republican since LawDog likes McCain). But Palin believes the opposite of just about everything I hold dear, so NO, I will NEVER be for Palin.
For those that might be interested, the Roper poll (and others) which predicted Dewey’s victory was conducted by telephone.
In 1948, the group that voted Truman in was less likely to be included in a telephone poll because telephones were new and expensive.
The people most likely to have telephones tended to be considerably more wealthy than the people who didn’t (and there were fewer of them), hence the bias, hence the erroneous prediction.
We won’t know who’s successful in matters of persuasion until the votes are in.
Hard and fast PROOF, not media tweakings is what might persuade me, and I see precious little of that.
I don’t advocate shooting wolves from the air-or at all for that matter; however, neither do I advocate a candidate who has wanted to eradicate his white blood and whose wife seethes with hatred for a large portion of the population of the country he wants to rule simply because of their color. Nor will I vote for a candidate who refuses to salute the American flag for fear “it might be offensive.” That’s OUR FLAG; it represents the people of America; does he not care that this stance might be offensive to US? This attitude of fawning compromise has cost us dearly all over the world.
As to Palin’s refusal “to answer any question directly” I would count the refusal to release Obama’s birth certificate and the withdrawal from public access of his wife’s thesis in that category.
As to being anti-pagan, Palin is married to a registered member of First Nations. Although her husband is Christian, his heritage is considered pagan by the ill-informed. So how pagan do you want her to be? Sitting on the White House steps going boom-tiddy-boom over a pile of chicken guts?
Various forms of ‘marriage,’ are in the realm of personal action and opinion. In other words, it’s no one else’s business. Palin is entitled to her opinion. These days, marriage tends to be the ultimate in hypocrisy and I personally don’t see any use for marriage at all.
Anti-feminist. Oh, that’s such a great phrase. Back in the bad old days if a woman wore a bra she was anti-feminist. If she allowed a man to open a door for her, both she and the man were anti-feminist. Crap.
I have said, and often, that my vote will be cast against Obama, not for McCain. It’s a sad state of affairs when neither candidate has presidential qualities. However, I do not think McCain or his wife, Palin or her husband are blatantly dangerous to me or my country. I do think Obama and his wife are; Biden and his frau are cyphers.
as pointed out in this article http://www.zombietime.com/lefts_big_blunder/ it’s all a carefully orchestrated strategy in the meta-campaign.
a paragraph from the article:
“Obama’s supporters and his official campaign have taken great advantage of this felicitous informational landscape — first, that the meta-campaign trumps reality, and second, that the media is cooperative and complicit. For example, after presidential debates, the leading left-wing blogs always coordinate massive online opinion-poll-stuffing campaigns. After the Palin-Biden vice-presidential debate, the overwhelming consensus on conservative and centrist blogs was that Palin had won handily, and that Biden spoke mostly in a soporific monotone while spewing a continuous stream of easily debunked falsehoods. And yet readers of DailyKos, the Huffington Post, Democratic Underground and dozens of other top left-wing blogs swarmed en masse to vote (often repeatedly) in mainstream online polls about the debate, so that afterward, CNN (among many others) could run headlines that said “57% Think Biden Won Debate,” basing their conclusion on the results of the online polls. And once enough of these articles get published, then they themselves become “proof” of the debate’s supposed outcome, and before long (often just a matter of hours) it becomes a “fact” no longer up for discussion that Biden won the debate. This fact is then referenced by pundits, and slips into supposedly neutral news stories.”
Bob Durtschi
Re: Mama Gaea
Since wolves are not a game species, how they are shot is kind of irrelevant. If they are being shot for control purposes, anything goes. At least poisoned meat isn’t being used like it once was. That was a disaster.
The Clintons fired pretty much the entire White House staff when they arrived in order to create more patronage positions. Nobody ever said they couldn’t do it. That’s the nature of executive authority. When Gov. Palin terminates an employee for not following her budgetary initiatives (which happens every day in the private sector), suddenly it is an abuse of power. No, it is not.
If you want to see some artful dodging when it comes to answering questions, try Barry’s debate performances. Each question is somehow redirected to talking about how 95% of Americans will get a tax cut; which is funny because slightly more than 50% of Americans actually pay income taxes.
Barry is also against gay marriage. It’s an issue that most Democrats oppose, for that matter. I can honestly say that some of my best friends are both gay and pagan. I personally would like to see them receive the same recognition as their hetero friends. Separate but equal is not legal, we’ve already established that. (To Anon: Pagans don’t sit around piles of entrails. Pagan ceremonies, in the Wiccan/Gaelic sense, usually involve contemplative ritual, outdoors air, and fragrant woodsmoke.)
If being a feminist is defined as gleefully dismembering or burning babies to death and denying any semblance of a healthy balance between work and family life, then she is certainly anti-feminist. If feminism is defined as a woman having the same choices and opportunities as a man, then she is a great example for my daughters of how a motivated and talented woman can scale the heights of success just like a motivated and talented man can.
tbeck-obviously you were never a Druid in another life.
LM.
“tbeck-obviously you were never a Druid in another life.
LM.”
You won’t find convicts and POWs being burned alive in wicker effigies at pagan ceremonies these days. I’m not even Wiccan, but I have some friends who are and I’ve attended a few services.
Now it’s time to go slaughter an ox and hang a thrall…
Your record is stuck. And you have taken a slightly sarcastic comment and blown it up out of all proportion. Where on earth did you find any reference whatsoever to Wicca in anonymous’ comment?
As a matter of fact, Wicca is NOT the only pagan religion these days, or even in the distant past.
As to being burned alive in wicker cages, you certainly need to talk to a few people who were imprisoned by the Viet Cong (I imagine John McCain could tell you something of that).
Then there’s the Asian practise of spreadeagling a prisoner of war flat on his back over sproutlets of bamboo and watering the sprouts to encourage them to grow up through his body.
Ethnologically, the word ‘pagan’ although highly inaccurate, covers many non-Christian entities, in some instances including American Indian religions, Druidism, Buddhism, Islam, Satanism, Wicca, various African beliefs, ad infinitum. And yes, many of them do sacrifice animals even to this day. There are still instances, although illegal and not admitted by various governments, of human sacrifice in some of these religions.
As to convicts, what would you call tying a convicted thief to a post on a schoolground, assembling the children for the ‘lesson’ and then shooting him repeatedly until he was finally dead? Dog and his brother witnessed one of those.
Given the chance, we are all savages.
LawMom-PhD Ethnology.
I defer to Colin Powell. Finally, someone with the exact right view on the entire matter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efv3Vr8T9MA
Colin Powell is, sadly, influenced by color, not fact. Where is Obama’s birth certificate?
“Colin Powell is, sadly, influenced by color, not fact. Where is Obama’s birth certificate?”
omg. I can’t believe you actually said that. It’s people like you that make me really sad for the state of this country.
Right on LawDog…Fantastic comparison…lets hope history repeats itself.
And right back at you mama gaea. Until now, I would have gladly voted for Colin Powell as President. But you didn’t answer my question: where is Obama’s birth certificate?
Right here, asshat. Yeah, I went there. People like you piss me off. Saying shit without actually knowing anything.
http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate?source=source=sem-pm-fts-bc-search-us&gclid=CP2StfzewZYCFQ89awod7SiezQ
Your intelligence shows in your reduction to name-calling-which some people might assume takes the place of informed knowledge.
Where is Obama’s birth certificate?
You did not check the link I posted which means I will no longer continue this discussion with you.
Hooray! Had I known that’s what would do it, I’d have done-or not done-it sooner.
Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out.
Anyone who is aware of the government-mandated forms of birth certificates would know the one posted on Obama’s site is not authentic.
LawMom
Now why would I want to leave such a free-thinking open-minded group?
Birth Certicate information:
From Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp
From PolitiFact.com:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/
From the LA Times, which btw, also states the fact that McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. “Same rule would apply as for McCain. Obama’s mother was an American. So is her son.”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/06/obama-birth.html
From FactCheck.org:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
“FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as “supporting documents” to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.”
To all of you who believe spoon-fed lies instead of searching out the truth, I’ve done the researching for you. And also, before you continue objecting, Snopes and FactChecker live by their reputations of only reporting irrefutable facts. How much more proof do you need? I suppose you could always go to Obama’s office and demand to see the birth certificate yourself. But that would require some intiative, wouldn’t it?