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Winner: Robopolls. Rasmussen's final poll, showing a 46-43-8 Christie win, was pretty damn accurate. Polls using conventional human operators tended to show Corzine ahead. They were wrong.** ... If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the presitigous N.Y.Times, go with Rasmussen! ... Why this is important: Rasmussen's polls tend to show the highest level of opposition to health care reform. If they accurately predict who will turn out to vote, they may signify big potential trouble for Democrats in lower-turnout mid-term elections. The Democratic Congressional id--at least the part that represents primordial existential fear of non-reelection--is throbbing. Expect a lot more time-consuming negotiating hangups and talk about how we should avoid arbitrary deadlines when it comes to passing Obama's big reform. ... (I still think it will eventually pass, but it may take until next Spring or beyond.) ...
Loser: Health care reform (see above) ...
Loser: Obama, who tried to work his magic for Corzine and discovered it wasn't there. (I don't buy the "he invested his prestige" line. A President is still allowed to try to help in a tight race. But he was clearly not a transformative presence in this one. It was more an Olympics bid situation.)
Winner: The Incumbent Rule--which holds that late-breaking voters do not go to the incumbent. Tarnished in 2004, it's having a Nixon-like rehabilitation in New Jersey. Update: And in New York City. ...
Losers: E.J.Dionne, Walter Shapiro and others caught in the MSM negative-ads worked narrative for New Jersey (which just happened to favor the Democrat). ... Update: Negative ads were losers in Virginia too, says Byron York. ...
Winners: ACORN, SEIU, voter fraud. A close election would have put the spotlight on them, no? I guess that could still happen in NY-23. ... Corollary Loser: John Fund. A close election would have given him six months of well-paying work. ...
Losers: Dems who were planning to argue that a Corzine victory, when contrasted with Deeds' loss, shows the need to stick with "core Democratic values" (i.e. unions) ...
Loser: Card check. Virginia Republican McDonnell didn't fudge on labor's "card check" bill. He bashed it. He won. Virginia is hardly a union state, but neither are the states with Senators who are swing votes on "card check". ...
Losers: Beck, Limbaugh, New Media conservatives who thought the rebellious Reaganite vote was bigger than it turned out to be in NY-23. ... Also Dem-leaning MSM who were planning to use a rebellious Reaganite victory as demonstrating a tea-party takeover of GOP (as opposed to a botched candidate-selection process). ...
Winner: GOP, because now that the rebellious Reaganites have had some serotonin leakage, they might be a bit easier to handle. ...
Winner: Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC. Breath of sanity next to K. Olbermann ...
Perennial loser: Exit polls (see below).
P.S.: Always trust content from kausfiles!
**--Note, though, that robopollster PPP was way off on NY-23. ... 8:33 P.M.
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Lots of fuss lately about Toyota's troubles. ... I suppose there are two ways to look at it. 1) See, even Toyota's in trouble! Hah! ...2) Toyota is panicking and taking corrective action while there is still time as opposed to the Detroit/UAW traditional method of one step (or two, or three) too late. ... P.S.: I'm not saying that this too-little-too-late phenomenon is built into Wagner Act unionism. ... Oh wait. That's exactly what I'm saying. The Wagner Act sets up a clunky, rule-bound bureaucacy of tooth-pulling negotiation--especially when it comes to administering pain--that wouldn't have worked even in the WWII era of massive industrial behemoths if we'd had any competition. It certainly won't work today. ...
Of course, GM once tried to set up a subsidiary with a less clunky, less rule bound bureaucracy--with flexible shifts and profit sharing but many fewer work rules, etc.. The UAW killed it, lest all those efficiency-enhancing innovations spread to other GM factories (where they might have, you know, saved GM). That wasn't what unionism was all about, argued the UAW traditionalists. They were right. Paul Ingrassia has the grim details. [via Hit & Run via Insta]
Update: Fire Mickey Kaus helpfully documents kf's decade-long record of "fact-free-speculation" eerie prescience regarding the Plot to Kill Saturn. ...
P.P.S.: The Next GM/Chrysler Bailout (#2): Pelosi seems to be on board! [Detroit News]
Pelosi said Democrats want automakers to "thrive," and she hasn't ruled out additional support for automakers if they show that they are "viable."
Here's a striking chart suggesting why Bailout #2 might be needed sooner rather than later. ...Toyota is down 19%. But GM is down 45%. ... [via TTAC]
Update: Big Money's Matthew DeBord argues that "signs are actually good" for Detroit's Big Three because "[a]ll are seeing their market share increase," He's apparently referring to this chart, which shows GM's share rising (from about 18.8 percent in July to 19.46 in August to 20.87 in September) while Ford and Chrysler are essentially flat, Unfortunately, many more people bought cars in the cash-for-clunkers months of July and August, when GM's share was down. It doesn't do much good to have impressive market share in September if the market is puny. When you add up all the good and bad months in 2009 to date, in fact, GM's share has fallen from 22.3 in 2008 to 19.6 in 2009. Chrysler's down from 11 to 9.2, Meanwhile, Ford rose from 14.2 to 15.2 (and in the most recent three months is up at 16.4). Honda has gained a tiny bit and Toyota's share is flat. None of that convinces me that "signs" are "good" for GM and Chrysler. (It is suprising that Toyota hasn't capitalized on their distress, which may explain this.) ...12:21 P.M.
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A big 10-pt jump in relative support of health care reform in Rasmussen's latest poll, which either says something about public opinion or something about Rasmussen. Either way, it's good for Obama, since Rasmussen has been the most pessimistic of the health care pollsters.** ... Maybe everyone is calming down as familiar, boring Senate moderates take center stage. ... P.S.: But the Rasmussen progress is hardly enough to pacify the throbbing Congressional id--health care reform still loses by a 50-46 margin. ...
**--Update: Until this grim new FOX poll.. ...12:20 P.M.
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Always trust content ... : kf readers are not surprised Gourmet magazine is dead.. They're surprised that Bon Appetit isn't. ... 12:19 P.M.
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Congress' ego says the time to finish the health bill is now. Congress' id still says "We don't want to get killed in 2010." When the ego says 'yes,' politicians do dramatic things like cancel the Senate's scheduled Columbus Day recess. When id says 'no,' they slow down anyway. They oppose "arbitrary deadlines." They say things like, "We will vote on this when it is ready.”
It looks like the id is winning. From The Hill:
Senior Obama lieutenants, including Vice President Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, have all said recently they think Congress can get a bill to the president before the end of the Thanksgiving break.
The comments suggest the White House is trying to light a fire under congressional negotiators, but it doesn’t appear to be working. [E.A.]
The way to change the Congressional id's inclination--to "light a fire"--was for Obama's speech to move the polls dramatically in the direction of public support, especially among likely voters (e.g., seniors). It didn't--at least it didn't enough. ... 12:08 P.M.
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How defensive is Marc Ambinder about the Atlantic's pretentious, journalistically compromising** "First Draft of History" event? Yes, "[t]he company is making money off of this," he admits right off the bat. They are livestreaming it, to their credit, and you can listen to the "vital conversations" at the link above. ... It's going on right now! ... ... P.S.: Right now, Eric Cantor is saying nothing he hasn't said 100 times before and Chuck Todd is treading water. Not vital! I think I have to do some laundry. ... Update: Here are Thursday's breakout headlines! "Blackstone's Pete Peterson worried about the deficit." ...
**--Atlantic is "making money" by staging a conference at which the presence of powerful officials like Larry Summers, David Axelrod, and John McCain, plus businessmen like Citigroup's Vikram Pandit, creates an aura of prestige (and access) sufficient to attract sponsorship from companies like Boeing and Allstate and ExxonMobil. So are they really going to write something that pisses off Summers, Axelrod, McCain or Pandit so much that they don't come to the conference, or don't come to future conferences? At the very least they've engineered an obvious, gratuitous disincentive. ... Never mind pissing off Boeing and Allstate and ExxonMobil. ...
Remember, this conference obviously did not spring up to fill the need for more Washington conferences. It sprang up to fill the need for the Atlantic to finally start making some money. ... 12:29 P.M.
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Fire Up the Id! Now this is exciting: Over at OMB, Peter Orszag will be posting his "daily step count" as part of the OMB Pedometer Challenge! ... Finally they've figured out a way to make health care reform seem fun and appealing , as opposed to, say, a doomed, moralistic Carter-like attempt to get Americans to change their lifestyles in order to cut costs. ... [Thanks to alert reader J.] 1:10 P.M.
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kf in August, E.J. today.
kf Tuesday, Page Six today (Doris Kearns Goodwin style!) ... 2:17 P.M.
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Van, Bus Collide: Always trust content from kausfiles, give or take 24 hours! ...P.S.: He signed a Truther petition. Bye. ... P.S.: Where's the New York Times? Noah SIlverman notes:
Readers of the print edition will never have heard of the presidential appointee so controversial the President had to dump him. Is this a milestone in the decline of the NYT?
I've been waiting for the day when a prominent pol resigns and for print MSM readers it appears to be out-of-the-blue, though everyone on the Web knows the whole story. But for WaPo's Franke-Ruta and Kornblut, this would be that case. ... In any case, more evidence that you can't find out what's going on by reading the Times. ... Backfill: Andy Levy. ...
Update: It seems this may be just another installment of the NYT's running feature, "You Know That Guy You've Never Heard About? Well, He's Gone." ...[Tks to reader C.W.] ... Tom Maguire:
Folks living in the Times bubble are possibly becoming accustomed to these moments of whiplash - the Times' first coverage of the Eason Jordan resignation at CNN also came with his resignation.
It's sort of like in Spinal Tap, when the drummer spontaneously explodes. ... [via Insta]
More: People are crediting Gateway Pundit with the scoop, though GP seems to credit another blog. [Correction: GP thanks a commenter for the tip.] Either way, GP a) did the MSM's work for it and b) is not Glenn Beck. ... 10:19 P.M.
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Jonathan Cohn's "defense" of Obama's emphasis on Orszagistic curve-bending--against what he perceives as the looming Blame Orszag CW--isn't really a defense at all. Cohn assumes it was a big mistake, and basically argues "who knew"?
Obama surely has made mistakes, among them focusing so heavily on how reform would reduce the cost of medicine. Had he spent more time reminding voters that reform would provide them with the security they now lack--security from financial ruin and medical catastrophe, the type private insurance too rarely provides--he probably would have been better off.
But I'm not so sure this was obvious a few months ago, when Obama kicked off his campaign for health reform. ... [E.A.]
Oh, yeah? ... Backfill: Dick Morris saw the GOP's opening. ...
P.S.: Cohn even takes as mitigating evidence the proliferation of puffers on Orszag himself:
I seem to remember quite a few writers and television commentators gushing over how Obama and his advisors aggressive approach to the cost problem. Remember, these were the days when Washington feted Budget Director Peter Orszag as a celebrity and turned “bend the curve” into a bumper sticker.
And if Obama had a Budget Director who'd said, "Security First, We'll Bend the Curve Later," the press wouldn't have sucked up to him too? ...
P.P.S.--Orgy of Recrimination, Please! Before we get to the unconvincing contrarian pieces defending (or explaining) Obama's mistake, let's have a decent CW interval in which we bash him for it, OK? Otherwise he might make it again. It's a "teachable moment"! ...
Least poll-tested argument: Cohn combats the idea that it doesn't matter so much if we spend more of our GDP and our budget on health care:
But the money spent on medicine is money not spent elsewhere--it's government dollars that didn't go into schools or public housing;
"Public housing"! Now there's a government expenditure with a good track record. By all means, let's spend less money treating sickness and disease and more money on the beloved public housing program. ... Suggested bumper sticker: "Less Healing, More HUD!" ... I mean, how could these guys be losing the debate? ...
Update--Orszag's Won Time Magazine! Cohn's very civil response. He defends the substance of "curve-bending," not the (disastrous) politics. ... Michael Grunwald, in a Time piece that reads like it was written in May, is still making the Orszagist case. "[R]eform won't be worth selling if it doesn't include real cost restraints ..." he announces. Why? Why does everything have to be done at once--the Comprehensivist Fallacy? We can give security now and try to bend the curve over the long run, as Uwe Reinhardt recommends. ... 2:35 A.M
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