On both sides, in numerous forums, I’ve seen people – with mind numbing regularity – talk about how they’ve seen “X” signs in their neighborhoods and that’s so many more than they saw in 2004/2000 etc. It’s an anecdote, and an even worse measure for campaign strength than the already shaky measure of how many show up for a rally.
Just end it.
Here in Maryland, you can go out to the Eastern Shore and see a ton of McCain signs. In 2004, there were a ton of Bush signs. Kerry won here, Obama will win here.
Not indicative of anything.
The important quote (not mine) is:
“The plural of anecdote is NOT ‘data’”
Around my house the kids from the nearby Baptist College steal all the democratic presidential yard signs so its kind of pointless to have one.
midderpidge,
Would it be legal to boobytrap the signs one one’s own property, or do Democrats’ signs constitute an attractive nuisance to Baptist college students?
Anecdotes about Yard Signs and Bumper stickers: irrelevant noise
Anecdotes about things that may or may not have been shouted out by a sole person (if even that) at a rally featuring 25,000 people: Incontrovertible Proof that EVERY CONSERVATIVE IN THE HISTORY OF TIME IS A DIRTY, FILTHY RACIST HATEMONGER!!!!!!
And PS:
No one again can EVER complain that McCain is the one that’s running the classless campaign. This isn’t some random supporter. This is the guy Obama plans to tap as his Secretary of State. The 5th in line of Succession!
Well, the police do nothing when they are caught. The remaining option is to call the college and ask for them to be disciplined (expelled) which might be a little extreme. But in 2004 they stole hundreds of signs. What to do.
I see that SF, like other Republicans, is in constant denial about what the articles about the yelling out at the rallies were focused on: the fact that Palin and McCain weren’t responding and saying, “No.” When McCain finally DID respond, to the woman who said she didn’t trust Obama because he was an “Arab,” he got positive media coverage despite the crowd that booed when he said that Obama was a decent man. The story isn’t about random dude; who cares about him? The story is about the candidate’s response to random dude.
As for the Kerry comment:
1) Please cite where Obama has said that he plans to tap Kerry as Sec. of State. This sounds utterly bizarre and implausible; Kerry voted for war in Iraq and doesn’t have such fantastic foreign policy credentials that he would make sense as a pick (particularly with folks like Bill Richardson, former Sec. Energy and Amb. to the UN, up for grabs). If the answer is, “Well, it has been *speculated* among conservatives that Obama will pick Kerry,” I think I’ll rely on my sources instead of yours, because yours sound like idiots.
2) Wow, Kerry making a wordplay that references McCain’s age is equivalent to calling Obama a terrorist? Or as the commenters here constantly do, a socialist? Or as a chain email that even my mother (a foreign-born non-Christian) received, an Arab/ Muslim who has sworn his loyalty to Muslims over Americans?
I guess we should take Al Qaeda off the terrorist list and put them on the “David Letter Top 10 List,” now that the same thing a late night comedian might say is the same as calling someone a terrorist.
#1: Cited.
Wow, SF, a mindlessly speculative Post puff piece based on what anonymous “advisers” would spill. Solid stuff, that.
Can’t agree with you more, O. Was out in Northern Idaho over the summer. . . we saw at least 40 Obama signs while there. Not a single McCain sign. Still pretty sure McCain will win upwards to 60% of the vote in Idaho.
Put your poutrage back in the box, Farris. It was a joke. Kinda like the one about why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly.
“1) Please cite where Obama has said that he plans to tap Kerry as Sec. of State.”
From SaveFarris’ link: “Several advisers to Obama also said the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), could be on the shortlist to become secretary of state.”
The initial request was for a citation where Obama said he plans to pick Kerry, not where advisers said that Kerry could be on the short list.
If my best friend says that Italian food is on the short list of my favorite cuisines, and I could be at an Italian restaurant tonight, that by no means is proof that I said I would be at one.
The URL for the Kerry pick is an informed guess, but definitely not the proof Ferris seems to think it is.
“Incontrovertible Proof that EVERY CONSERVATIVE IN THE HISTORY OF TIME IS A DIRTY, FILTHY RACIST HATEMONGER!!!!!!”
You are such a fucking liar. And this is further backed up by your Kerry claim. You took the level of evidence you had, and made a claim that was not supported. Unless you are so stupid you can’t comprehend what you read (which is a possibility) then you are a liar.
On a side note, yard signs are arguably the least effective expenditure of time and money for campaigns.
Here in Maryland, you can go out to the Eastern Shore and see a ton of McCain signs. In 2004, there were a ton of Bush signs. Kerry won here, Obama will win here.
Not indicative of anything.
Maybe indicative of support in a particular region of the state, but the larger point is certainly true. Every state in the union is purple enough to find pockets of support for either candidate within its borders.
One of the reasons that I favor a straight popular vote over the electoral college. If you live in a heavily tilted state you may as well vote for Fonzie for all the good it will do you.
C.S.Strowbridge rocks.
That said I ordered multiple Obama yard signs as I know republican freaks will steal them (the asshats probably don’t even recycle them) as well as other Obama gear several weeks ago and it hasn’t arrived. My gut is the demand is far outstripping supply and they are in catch up mode. ($150 million anyone) If they based demand on 2004 clearly they underestimated and do not have the supply to keep up. I don’t have an expectation that yard signs will suddenly pop up across the country but at this time in 2004 I was showing Kerry signs.
I’m not worried about sign counts but if it makes anyone feel better the three homes in my neighborhood that had Bush/Cheney signs in 2004 (same occupants) are blank right now. Most of the Kerry homes are Obama right now (except mine as I’m waiting for gear…).
I will add that I was driving behind a big pickup that had the Bush/Cheney 2004 sticker right next to an Obama/Biden sticker. Some folks are moving to common sense.
Lots of bad news on the right wing blogs.
Andy Martin filed suit in the Supreme Court in Hawaii asking them to open Obama’s secret birth records. Martin has a press conference in NY on Friday to announce the findings.
Friday is the day Obama is scheduled to be with his Grandmother in Hawaii.
Plus, the DNC has ignored Philip Berg’s lawsuit challenging Obama’s eligibility to be President.
LLL:
I think you meant ‘comedy’ rather than ‘bad news’.
Lawsuits are not comedy.
The lawsuits state that Obama should release the “long form” version of his birth certificate, which is sealed. He is refusing to allow the Dept of Health in Hawaii to do so.
The certificate you see on Obama’s website is not an original, but rather, a copy ordered by mail.
Again, this could be nothing, but the judge will decide whether or not to release the long forms that are in the vault. It’s going to be a crazy week.
Signs are only important during a close election. I am starting to think this might not be as close as I thought. Zogby was on C-span giving the updates about the Obama surge after the Powell endorsement.
In upstate NY, once a Republican stronghold, Obama’s doing well by the signs and it’ll be close here. Now in the Adirondacks, Speculator is a very rednecky place with snowmachining as a passion, Not one Obama sign there but other parts of Adks I saw quite a few which is unusual for upstate. Many McCain signs are just put in the right of way irrespective of the homeowner’s nearby. Those are cheats, not to be counted. Most Obama signs are in people’s yards where the owner risks his neighbor’s rage of gunnuttery. So seeing a good number of Obama signs in NRA territory is pretty ominous for McCain imo.
I’m just surprised that Farris as a conservative read more than three sentences without having to go into confession for conservative sinning.
Kerry’s sense of humor is a bit wanting. Agreed. You had to try to lose against Bush in ‘04. I guess the windsurfing while ignoring the swiftboaters worked.
I don’t think President Obama can spare any Dem. senators. He needs them to bloc the filabusters.
Lawsuits are not comedy.
They are when Andy Martin, conservative anti-Semite, files them.
datadave,
Kerry’s getting tabbed as SoS wouldn’t affect the balance of the Senate because Deval Patrick, a Democratic, would name Kerry’s replacement. The only place it would be an issue is if Obama picked someone like Evan Bayh or Byron Dorgan for Cabinet posts.
PG’s accusation was that Kerry as SoS was a right-wing fantasy. While the WaPo item doesn’t come directly from The Messiah’s lips, it definitly reads as the sort of trial ballon that campaign heads float from time to time.
One of the reasons that I favor a straight popular vote over the electoral college. If you live in a heavily tilted state you may as well vote for Fonzie for all the good it will do you.
Word.
Can anyone explain to me what purpose the electoral college stills serves and why it shouldn’t just be junked?
Save Farris: This is the guy Obama plans to tap as his Secretary of State.
SaveFarris: While the WaPo item doesn’t come directly from The Messiah’s lips, it definitly reads as the sort of trial ballon that campaign heads float from time to time.
The sound you hear is Farris’s whiplash.
Can anyone explain to me what purpose the electoral college stills serves and why it shouldn’t just be junked?
It’s just really freakin’ hard to junk. There’s been an amendment on average, what, once every 20 years or so (not including the initial ten)?
Can anyone explain to me what purpose the electoral college stills serves and why it shouldn’t just be junked?
Easy. Look at what happened in 2000. The difference in vote totals between Chimpy and Gore the Magnificent was 0.0002%. An election that close meant EVERY vote meant something and each individual chad was judged with a tense nation watching. But all the nuttiness was constrained within a single state.
Now imagine if the election had been that close on a nationwide level. Instead of hyper-scrutinizing 2.5 million ballots, now we’re hyper-scrutinizing 100 Million. Every single ballot and every single machine at every single precint.
Bedlam. Chaos. Cats and Dogs living together. Mass Hysteria!
Plus, there’s the whole “If it was a straight popular vote, the smallest town a candidate would ever visit would be St. Louis” argument.
That’s really close to a claim that democracy doesn’t work.
Can anyone explain to me what purpose the electoral college stills serves and why it shouldn’t just be junked?
Anyone other than SaveFarris who apparently thinks a) Democracy is too hard and b) only big cities are “real America” and should count.
EVERY CONSERVATIVE IN THE HISTORY OF TIME IS A DIRTY, FILTHY RACIST HATEMONGER!!!!!!
Kinda hard to argue against this when they state that an entire group of Americans aren’t human in their platform…
Zython: when they state that an entire group of Americans aren’t human in their platform…
Which section is that in? I’ve scanned (admittedly, not read word for word) thru the obvious sections of their platform and didn’t find that.
Can you provide a reference?
Try here
The 2nd, 3rd, and 5th items in particular.
Zython: Try here. The 2nd, 3rd, and 5th items in particular.
OK. Thanks. Two things, tho.
First, that’s their 2004 platform. It’s not so long ago and not that much different from their current (2008) platform. It’s a minor point, but when talking about what they state probably best to look at their most recent statement. If we could go back to what they said in 2004, then why not go back to 2000, or 1980, or 1864?
Second, and far more relevant, where in there do “they state that an entire group of Americans aren’t human”?
Answer: They don’t. So please don’t say they do, and then provide a link showing they don’t as if that supports your claim.