US 2008 Presidential Campaign Discussion Thread - Part 9

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Must say I'm rather proud of my states Representative, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. Neither of who I supported in their elections, but whatever.

Richard Shelby:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congressional leaders say they are near an agreement on a $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street, but many Republican members of Congress are still balking at the deal.

"It will not solve problems, it will create more problems, we're rushing to judgment, that we do have stress in our market, but this is not the best way, we ought to look at alternatives," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, said after emerging from a meeting at the White House with President Bush, congressional leaders and the presidential candidates.
Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said he did not believe an agreement had been reached, noting a group of leading economists have called the bailout a bad plan.
If Republican opposition to the plan persists it could prove to be a major stumbling block to final passage of the bailout package, which congressional leaders and the White House say must pass by the end of the weekend.
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Jeff Sessions:
"I'm not on board yet. I want to see this thing," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, said. "What I don't like about this -- and I'm very, very worried about it -- I think this is probably the greatest concession of legislative power in the history of the republic, almost."
Click to expand...
'Major' GOP opposition to bailout plan remains - CNN.com
 
Expect home invasions and robberies to be on the rise as more and more banks close. I think it's time to buy everything you might need and just live paycheck to paycheck now.

Gold is a good start. :wink:
 
According to one GOP lawmaker, some House Republicans are saying privately that they’d rather “let the markets crash” than sign on to a massive bailout.

“For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?” the member asked.
Click to expand...

Does anybody think they will shut down the stock exchanges at some point tomorrow? Will it come to that?
 
U2isthebest said:
Its times like these I'm glad I'm not wealthy enough to own stock.
Click to expand...

My company's stock dropped quite a bit over the last year. It's a bummer, but the options I have can sit there until the cows come home, and hopefully the price will go back up again. If not, oh well. It's not like I have enough in there to make me jump out a window if they don't go back up.
 
U2isthebest said:
Its times like these I'm glad I'm not wealthy enough to own stock.
Click to expand...

Except that in this day and age it isn't just the rich that own stocks.

You could be a relatively poor person with a company pension plan and if that plan had been investing in the wrong things, bye bye retirement money.
 
anitram said:
Except that in this day and age it isn't just the rich that own stocks.

You could be a relatively poor person with a company pension plan and if that plan had been investing in the wrong things, bye bye retirement money.
Click to expand...

That is very true. I was just speaking for myself seeing as I'm not in the position to personally invest or have a company pension investment plan either. I should have put that differently.
 
anitram said:
Except that in this day and age it isn't just the rich that own stocks.

You could be a relatively poor person with a company pension plan and if that plan had been investing in the wrong things, bye bye retirement money.
Click to expand...

One person I've gotten to know here, he and his wife retired only a few years ago, lost about $100,000 due to the crisis already. That was before last Thursday.
 
:crack:


I've got a question, and forgive my stupidity for not knowing the answer. Who exactly is working on this bailout bill? Senators & Congressmen? Are there any economists? Other financial "experts" or persons of knowledge? :reject:
 
Lila64 said:
:crack:


I've got a question, and forgive my stupidity for not knowing the answer. Who exactly is working on this bailout bill? Senators & Congressmen? Are there any economists? Other financial "experts" or persons of knowledge? :reject:
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure as I'm not really up to date to how it all works in the USA, but there are committees dealing with legislation on specialised subjects. From what I've read, the majority of work on this bailout bill is done by the Senate banking committee and the banking committee of the Congress. So it is being handled by politicians who should have some knowledge about economics and financial institutions...
 
Very interesting article about polling and methodologies used:

Ann Selzer on Youth & Minority Turnout

Ann Selzer, as you may know, is among the best pollsters in the business. In fact, we have her firm, Selzer & Co., rated as the single best pollster out of the 32 companies that we evaluated. Polling for the Des Moines Register, she nailed both the Democratic and Republican outcomes in the Iowa caucus, races that other pollsters had a great deal of trouble with.

Selzer's polls, as you also may know, have tended to have significantly better numbers for Barack Obama than most other agencies. In Indiana, for instance, Selzer has the race at Obama +3, whereas most other polling firms show John McCain with a (small) lead. In Michigan, while several polls have shown Obama with a fairly large lead, Selzer's poll for the Detroit Free Press pegs the race at Obama +13, the largest Obama lead in any current poll of the state.

Clearly this is not random variance; the Obama "house effect" is highly statistically significant. So I asked Selzer what she might be doing differently from other pollsters.

Selzer thinks that a lot of pollsters may be undercounting the youth vote, and potentially also the black vote. Young voters are becoming harder and harder to reach. They are in the habit of screening their phone calls. More problematically still, a great number of them (roughly 50 percent of voters under 30) rely principally or exclusively on cellphones, which most pollsters (including Selzer) will not call.

Pollsters can attempt to work around this problem by weighting the young voters they are able to reach more heavily; indeed, it is imperative that they make at least some attempt at weighting if they want to produce accurate results. But Selzer says she knows of at least one prominent polling firm -- she would not mention them by name -- which is not weighting by age groups at all.

Moreover, many of the pollsters that do weight by age group may be doing so -- to her mind -- in the wrong way. Specifically, they tend to use the 2004 election as a benchmark, when 17 percent were aged 18-29. Selzer uses census bureau data as her benchmark instead; among American adults aged 18 and up, about 22 percent age 18-29. This might not seem like a large difference, but given Obama's strong performance among young voters, it makes a difference of about 1.5 points in the net Obama-McCain margin.

Mind you, Selzer is not necessarily assuming that 22 percent of the electorate will be under-30 voters. She is using that as her starting point, and then using her likely voter screen to refine her turnout estimate. For instance, suppose that 60% of voters aged 18-29 pass her likely voter screen, as do 70% of voters aged 30 and up. In this case, the algebra would dictate that 19.5% of her likely voter electorate would be age 18-29:

... Percentage of % Passing Likely
Group Population Voter Screen
=================================================
Age 18-29 22% (A) 60% (B)
Age 30+ 78% (C) 70% (D)
=================================================

... Percentage of
Group Electorate Equation
=================================================
Age 18-29 19.5% (A*B)/((A*B)+(C*D))
Age 30+ 80.5% (C*D)/((A*B)+(C*D))

There is nothing particularly difficult about this algebra. But that may not be preventing some pollsters from getting it wrong. They may fix the youth voter figure at 17%, regardless of what their turnout model says (and ignoring the fact that youth voter turnout increased by 52% as a share of the Democratic primary electorate). Worse yet, they may start with the 17% and then apply their likely voter model, which has the effect of double-counting young voters' lower propensity to turn out. Or they may simply not stratify their sample by age at all, which creates even worse problems.

A parallel problem could very well be in effect among groups like African-Americans and Latinos. And Selzer told me that pollsters are having another, very peculiar problem with the black vote. Specifically, many respondents, but especially (she believes) black voters, are refusing to disclose their race to interviewers. This wreaks havoc with turnout models, and particularly poorly-designed turnout models.

Selzer is taking a big gamble on this election, as her results have tended to stand out from those of other pollsters. But she is meticulous in how she does her polling, and Selzer's polls have not had any particular partisan lean in previous election cycles. Don't be surprised if her gamble pays off again.
Click to expand...

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: Ann Selzer on Youth & Minority Turnout
 
well, it seems McCain will debate tonight.

the teevee consensus is that this was just another stunt designed to take the attention away from his falling poll numbers, away from the Rick Davis scandal, and away from the slow motion Palin trainwreck.

country first, bitches.
 
Hope this is okay to post here... You can watch the video here
Chris Rock: It's simple, vote for the guy with one house - CNN.com

(transcript below)

Chris Rock: It's simple, vote for the guy with one house
(CNN) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain is just holding on like a boxer before he gets knocked out, comedian Chris Rock says.


Comedian Chris Rock told Larry King he's proud of Barack Obama's character.

Rock, an avid supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, spoke with CNN's Larry King on Thursday. He said Obama is more grounded with your average American -- not somebody like McCain with "12 houses."

"The other guy [McCain] can lose five houses," Rock said.

"I'll go with the guy with one house. The guy with one house is scared about losing his house."

King began the interview by asking Rock about Thursday's economic bailout talks when Obama and McCain went to the White House for discussions with the nation's top leaders.

KING: Obama and McCain at opposite ends of the table. What do you make of it?

ROCK: What do I make of it? If this was a boxing match, McCain would be holding.

KING: Holding on?

ROCK: Yes. It's like he got hit really hard in the stomach like, 'OK. I can't let him go. He's going to knock me out.' So that's what appears to be going on right now. Just a hold.

KING: Has the financial crisis affected you?

ROCK: Larry, I drove a cab over here tonight. When it's over, I'm going to try to pick up some more fares. I'm losing everything, Larry.

KING: Really downtrodden?

ROCK: Yes, it's real bad.

KING: Have HBO paid you already?

ROCK: They have paid me, but the money is worthless now. Haven't you heard? Your money's worth nothing.

KING: You must be ... proud that at this stage in our history a black man is running for president on a major ticket.

ROCK: Um, you know what? I'm proud Barack Obama's running for president. You know? If it was Flavor Flav, would I be proud? No. I don't support Barack Obama because he's black.

KING: I said just as a proud feeling. That's normal.

ROCK: There's a proud feeling because of the character of the man. You know, I was -- I supported John Kerry and, you know -- and what's my man? Al Gore.

KING: Al Gore.

ROCK: But this guy seems to be a little bit more. He seems to have watched other peoples' mistakes and, you know, seems to have a little bit more going on.

KING: From a comedic stand point, who is funnier, McCain or Obama? Seriously. Is Obama not -- it's hard to be funny about Obama?

ROCK: No, no. It's weird. People ask me that all the time. ... McCain jokes are just easy jokes, like I don't want a president with a bucket list. That's like a McCain joke. Those jokes are easy. It's like you basically, you know, you know, take the dust off your Reagan jokes and tell them again. You know?

But Obama, oh, this is a whole new set of jokes. I got to find a whole new move to the basket here. So I kind of hope he wins.

KING: Didn't you introduce Obama at a rally?

ROCK: I introduced Obama at the Apollo Theater not too long ago. I think Obama would be great. I mean, just look the big thing right now is the economy. And people are going broke. And here: The choice isn't Republican or Democrat. The choice is you got a guy that's worth $150 million with 12 houses against a guy who's worth a million dollars with one house.

KING: Well --

ROCK: The guy with one house really cares about losing a house, because he is homeless. The other guy can lose five houses and still got a bunch of houses. Does this make any sense? Am I the only one that sees this?

KING: It's unique way of ...

ROCK: I'm just saying, John McCain could lose half his houses.

KING: You got a point.

ROCK: And sleep well.

KING: You and Bill Clinton were on Letterman on Tuesday. You had some problems with the tone of his endorsement of Barack Obama. ... Do you think Bill is hesitant about Barack Obama?

ROCK: You know what? You know, he did a great speech in Denver. And Hillary's been on the campaign trail. Just at that moment, if you watched what happened on David Letterman, it appeared he was holding back. And when you tell a joke and everybody laughs, it is not because they disagree with what you're saying. So --

KING: They get it?

ROCK: Yes, they get it. The whole audience was in on it. But, you know, hey, the guy's in a weird position there. His wife ran for the thing and she didn't win.

KING: The next night, on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart asked Clinton about the Letterman appearance and Clinton suggested that Obama supporters who questioned commitment are missing the point.

ROCK: It was great. It was great. And you're right, [Obama] does need to get some of the votes that went to Hillary and all that. I don't understand any Democrat that voted for Hillary that doesn't support Obama. Because their views are pretty similar. You know what I mean? ...

I understand people supporting Mr. McCain. But a Democrat that's going to just be mad is -- there's something kind of really messed up about that.

KING: Have you always done political humor?

ROCK: You know --

KING: When you started, did you do politics?

ROCK: I'm interested in the world. Jon Stewart does political humor. Bill Maher does political humor. I talk about stuff the way guys would talk about it at the barber shop. I don't belong on any panel on this show. You know what I mean? I don't deserve to be near Roland Martin and Anderson Cooper and all these guys. I try to talk about politics in a way a guy that works at UPS would understand.

KING: You did a lot of Brooklyn stuff.

ROCK: I do all sorts of stuff, Larry. All sorts of stuff. You know, I hope Obama wins just because, you know, the country needs it. The country needs a change. We kind of seen what this whole McCain thing is. And I'll go with the guy with one house. The guy with one house is scared about losing his house.


KING: I never thought of it that way.

ROCK: It is that simple.
Click to expand...
 
Lila64 said:
:crack:


I've got a question, and forgive my stupidity for not knowing the answer. Who exactly is working on this bailout bill? Senators & Congressmen? Are there any economists? Other financial "experts" or persons of knowledge? :reject:
Click to expand...

This might be different, but normally a bill gets drafted in either one of the House Senate subcommittees. Then it goes further to the standing committee, gets discussed further, and handed to the House/Senate floor. The next stage is that the other part of Congress gets the bill to review it. So here it would then go from the Senate to the House. They take their look on it, discuss it, make changes or proposals and then negotiations with the Senate begin at the conference committee. After a compromise is reached the bill again gets handed to the floors who finally decide on that bill and then hand it to the President. He signs it into law or vetoes it (hopefully Bush hasn't developed some kind of veto reflex, as that would make things complicated).

If this also directly applies to the bailout plan, or if that is another process, I don't know.
 
Does anyone know what time the presidential debate's airing, eastern, pacific, or any time? I want to find out so I can watch it live here in the UK but I can't find out anywhere what time it's on.

I think it'll make for pretty important viewing, could it possibly make or break McCain's campaign? I doubt very much the former.
 
I believe it's 9 pm eastern time so it should be 2 am for you.
 
anitram said:
Yes.

The McCain people are apparently blaming the Wall Street Journal for mistakenly posting it early?
Click to expand...

But this is the Internet. Remember that photo from Fox News that had a headline on the bottom ticker that read: "Osama Bin Laden—Obama/Biden: Coincidence?"

That turned out to be a forgery and others here thought it was real.
 
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