In the West Virginia Democrat primary, Obama was challenged by a prisoner from Texas and managed a significant victory of 20 points. Democratic strategists see these results as proof that Obama is regaining the momentum of 2008. Like the reports on the economy and jobs, news that can be spun with a positive view is vital to the Obama campaign.

Obama’s latest challenger, inmate Keith Judd, put up a valiant effort from the Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for the Democrat Presidential bid. Unfortunately, Judd has been serving time since 1999 for making threats at the University of New Mexico, but despite his apparent disadvantage, he managed to control 40% of votes cast and Obama tallied less than 60% for his first major victory of the 2012 campaign.

Judd ran with a skeleton campaign group, actually it is questionable whether he had any support; he managed to get on the ballot with a $2500 filing fee, a form known as a notarized certification of announcement. State Democratic Party Executive Director Derek Scarboro said no one has filed to be a delegate for Judd, but he only needed 15% of the vote to qualify for a delegate at the national convention. Sadly, this political miscarriage only serves to prove the Elitist nature of federal politics, without funding, the little man doesn’t stand a chance against those with backers like George Soros.

Even though some West Virginians were reluctant to vote for a federal inmate incarcerated in Texas, it is obvious that Obama controls a percentage of loyalists within the Democrat Party.

Hopefully, Judd will command a greater percentage of the Democrat Party upon his release.

Couple interesting polls out to share. The first is this one from The Hill in which they asked likely voters what they believed would be a good tax rate for the rich.

Three-quarters of likely voters believe the nation’s top earners should pay lower, not higher, tax rates, according to a new poll for The Hill.

The big majority opted for a lower tax bill when asked to choose specific rates; precisely 75 percent said the right level for top earners was 30 percent or below.

The current rate for top earners is 35 percent. Only 4 percent thought it was appropriate to take 40 percent, which is approximately the level that President Obama is seeking from January 2013 onward.

The Hill Poll also found that 73 percent of likely voters believe corporations should pay a lower rate than the current 35 percent, as both the White House and Republicans push plans to lower rates.

How could that be you ask since all the other polls show people want higher taxes for the evil rich.

Well, the difference was in how they asked the question. They gave specific tax rates and they were told to pick one.

So when it came down to actual numbers most people feel a lower tax rate across the board is a good thing.

Then Gallup has a poll on ObamaCare and the mandate:

Seventy-two percent of American adults and 56 percent of self-professed Democrats say that the provision in the health-care law signed by President Barack Obama that requires individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a fine is unconstitutional, says the Gallup Poll.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear cases challenging the constitutionality of the mandate.

Among Republicans, according to the poll, 94 percent say the mandate is unconstitutional and 6 percent say it constitutional. Among Independents, 70 percent say it is unconstitutional and 21 percent say it is constitutional. In contrast to the 56 percent of Democrats who say the mandate is unconstitutional, only 37 percent say it is constitutional.

72%!

That’s a pretty damn large chunk of the populace who believe the mandate is unconstitutional.

Of course when you drill down a bit you find out that 54% of the people are willing to overlook our Constitution to get ObamaCare rolling, answering that ObamaCare is a good thing.

Unbelievable.

On a side note, The Heritage Foundation and the National Review Institute are hosting a panel today at 2:00 PM EST called “Women Speak Out: Obamacare Tramples Religious Liberty”. You can sign up to watch online, live, here. 

The panel:

The Honorable Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY)
U.S. House of Representatives

Followed by a panel discussion with

Hadley Heath
Policy Analyst, Independent Women’s Forum

Maggie Karner
Director, Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod Life and Health Ministries

Pia de Solenni
Diotima Consulting, LLC

Lori Windham
Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

Co-hosted by
Jennifer Marshall
Director, DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, The Heritage Foundation

Kate O’Beirne
President, National Review Institute

Beating Barack Obama and ending the damage he can do to this country is one of the most important tasks facing this country. Much to my chagrin, many of my fellow conservatives are all to willing to do Obama’s bidding in taking down Mitt Romney. What does that leave?

Newt Gingrich?

America hates Newt Gingrich

Unlike Mitt Romney, who occasionally beats President Obama in general election poll match ups, Newt Gingrich trails far behind President Obama in every survey. But just how bad are Gingrich’s unfavorable among the general public compared to Obama and Romney?

Not every poll releases their full results, so here are the most recent favorability results I could find for Obama, Romney, and Newt.

Fox News, 1/12-1/14:
Obama, fav/unfav, 51%/46%, +5
Romney, fav/unfav, 45%/38%, +7
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 27%/56%, -29

CBS/NYT, 1/12-1/17:
Obama, fav/unfav, 38%/45%, -7
Romney, fav/unfav, 21%/35%, -14
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 17%/49%, -32

PPP, 1/13-1/17:
Obama, app/dis, 47%/50%, -3
Romney, fav/unfav, 35%/53%, -18
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 26%/60%, -34

America does not love Romney, but boy do they hate Newt.

Electability is the key here. None of us is going to find our ideal candidate. But Newt Gingrich is NOT going to be President. Not ever. He is not temperamentally suited to be President. Between his global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi his reference to Paul Ryan’s plans as “social engineering” shows that he shoots off his mouth without thinking and does alarmingly stupid things.

Gingrich could be a real force for a campaign but he is never going to be President. He is too polarizing. He is too widely disliked.

Supporting Gingrich is supporting Barack Obama. This isn’t about what I want. This is about reality.

Mitt Romney will beat Barack Obama and he will beat Obama for the same reasons some conservatives don’t like him. I am well aware that some of my fellow authors here find Romney less than ideal but I do believe the future of this country depends on Barack Obama being defeated in November and a Romney-Santorum ticket is just what is needed.

Obama has already taken a stab at Romney for his financial history but it is not going to gain traction and Jack Lew is the reason.

Barack Obama named Jack Lew to replace Bill Daley as chief of staff. Jack Lew was one of the investment bankers who bet that worthless CDO’s, sold to investors as financially solid vehicles, would fail. This was all done without disclosure, of course.

Lew got a $1 million dollar taxpayer funded bonus in 2009.

Obviously Barack Obama highly regards such a person as this.

And here’s a beauty of a quote from Lew:

“[I don't] personally know the extent to which deregulation drove it, but I don’t believe that deregulation was the proximate cause.”

Barack Obama’s chief of staff does NOT believe deregulation caused the financial meltdown. Save that one for discussion with liberals about deregulation. Barack Obama cannot harp on Romney’s past without inviting scrutiny of his own choices.

A Southern evangelical declared that Romney was “not Mormon enough” for social conservatives.

A leading Southern Baptist figure predicted Friday that Christian conservative leaders won’t rally around an alternative to Mitt Romney until after next week’s South Carolina primary, while warning that the former Massachusetts governor is “not Mormon enough” for most socially conservative voters.

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said during a newsmaker interview on C-SPAN that evangelical leaders hope that the Palmetto State primary Jan. 21 will whittle down the GOP presidential field and make it clear whether they should rally around Romney rivals Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry before Florida’s primary later this month.

But this reminds of George Stephanopoulos’ colossally stupid moderation of the Republican debate. The country is mired in economic doldrums, foreign tensions run high and what does Stephanopoulos ask? He presses Romney about contraceptives.

Social conservatism is not going to solve the big issues facing this country and social conservatism is not enough to win this election.

Mitt Romney is going to become the Republican Presidential nominee and he will beat Barack Obama in the election and in no small part it will be due to Barack Obama:

“It’s in many ways like the ’08 campaign when Barack Obama ran as a candidate to be an alternative to George W. Bush. That was true in his announcement speech in Springfield [in February 2007].

“This was true when Ronald Reagan ran [against Jimmy Carter in 1980]. We went back and looked back at his [Obama’s] speech. He closed it out offering an alternative to George W. Bush, much to John McCain’s frustration.

In 2012, the economy would be the “one big, dominant issue” as in 2008. “This race is about the economy and a referendum on Barack Obama.”

In terms of New Hampshire this week, however, the Romney campaign looked long and hard at what Obama did here in 2008 when he arrived in the state from Iowa with momentum from his win there and a poll lead in the Granite State. It all evaporated on voting day when Hillary Clinton won.

“We studied what Obama did wrong,” said Stevens. “A lot of people thought that Obama was going to win big. I would have bet you anything Obama was going to win big. So we went and said, ‘OK, what did Obama do wrong?’

“The best thing we could figure out was that he didn’t take questions, that he isolated himself in the bubble. I can remember being in Manchester on a Sunday. He had an event in mid-afternoon and there were people lined up. It was very moving actually. It must have been what it was like with Bobby Kennedy or something. And then he [Obama] lost.

“So we said, ‘OK we’re not going to do that. We’re going to do the exact opposite. We’re going to keep taking questions from voters’. If they sense that you’re on a glide path, that you’re not taking questions I think that’s really bad.”

Another reason that Romney will win comes from democrat flack Donna Brazile:

BRAZILE: Mitt Romney won tonight because no one touched him — and for Democrats, you know what? It was good news for us.

KARL: Why is that?

BRAZILE: Because we believe that the weakest candidate is the candidate that the Republicans are not attackin’, and that’s Mitt Romney.

KARL: Oh, come on.

Brazile is politicking. She is the canard. She knows that Romney has the best chance to beat Obama and so do most Republicans.

While the Republican presidential hopefuls continue to fight it out on the campaign trail, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is the only GOP contender that most voters view as having a chance against President Obama.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of Likely U.S. Voters think Romney is at least somewhat likely to beat the president in November.

Lawrence O’Donnell takes a more sober analysis:

“Romney is the one they don’t want. They know they can beat anybody else. Romney, they think they can beat, but it’s a harder road.”

Probably the best choice for a VP would be someone who appeals to the social conservatives and Rick Santorum fits that need rather nicely. Such a choice would shore up Romney’s right while Romney is free to court the middle upon whom this election depends.

Santorum has taken a far more gentle approach to Romney than have his rivals. Santorum may be thinking the same thing I am thinking. Santorum’s painting Romney as “not conservative enough” could be exactly what both Romney and Santorum need.

No candidate is perfect. None of us ever gets everything we want. But this election is much more than about getting the ideal candidate. It is first and foremost about getting Barack Obama out of office and this combination can achieve that.

And Newt goes boom!

Newt Gingrich voiced enthusiasm for Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care law when it was passed five years ago, the same plan he has been denouncing over the past few months as he campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination.

“The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system,” said an April 2006 newsletter published by Gingrich’s former consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation.

The two-page “Newt Notes” analysis, found online by The Wall Street Journal even though it no longer appears on the center’s website, continued, “We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100 percent insurance coverage for all Americans.”

And it now appears, as many of us feared; it is ObamaLite’s race to lose:

…While his position in the national horse race matchup is far from decisive—at this writing the RealClearPolitics average of the national polls shows Newt Gingrich with a slight lead—Romney dominates in all of the structural categories that typically correspond with victory. He has a huge money advantage—with more than $14 million in cash on hand as of the last report mandated by the Federal Election Commission (and that does not include the financial assistance he has received from “SuperPacs” that operate freely on his behalf). This financial edge gives Romney the ability to flood the early states with television advertisements and employ plenty of professional staffers to manage his ground game. Romney also has a runaway lead in the race for endorsements by Republican officeholders; while these move few voters, they reinforce Romney’s institutional advantages, giving him greater access to well-heeled donors as well as on-the-ground campaign intelligence.

Jay Cost further writes that the “not Romney” camp isn’t as huge as many believe it to be:

That said, the conventional wisdom about Romney’s candidacy—that there is a huge “not Romney” bloc of GOP voters out there—is massively overstated. Romney’s favorable rating among prospective Republican primary voters is quite high, upwards of 60 percent, and the latest CNN poll of GOP voters shows that 80 percent of Republicans either support him now or would consider supporting him at some point; this is a larger number than that of any of his major competitors. Yet the theory about a “not Romney” bloc has some merit; what is particularly noteworthy about his numbers is that a relatively large proportion of the GOP electorate—between 40 and 50 percent—believe he will eventually be the nominee, but his actual support tends to be about half that size. So, if there is no vehement “not Romney” faction of Republicans, there is at least a group of GOP voters who are hesitant for some reason.

So is that pretty much it? Every other candidate has gone boom and any candidate that we really wanted to see…a Palin, Ryan, Christie or Jeb Bush never even stepped into the ring.

So it will be Romney

Or will it?

With 45 percent of Iowa Republican voters undecided and a roller-coaster ride about to come to a screeching stop next Tuesday with the GOP caucuses, it may be Rick Santorum’s turn to take the final ascent and surprise the political class by … doing better than expected?

Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, has been touted as the sleeper candidate by none other than 2008 Iowa caucuses winner Mike Huckabee. He has relentlessly campaigned in the state, hitting all 99 counties and moving his family out there. He has held 350 campaign events in the past year.

He has received key endorsements from well-known social conservatives in the state, and has had solid performances at each of the debates. And he’s running an old-school style campaign that Iowa voters expect in the retail-style politics of the Hawkeye State.

The man whose at the back of the polling pack — despite recent buzz giving him a late boost — is taking nothing for granted but has nothing to lose.

“My feeling is when you’re sitting last, if you can do better than that, that’s good,” he told Fox News.

Santorum said he’s got 1,000 caucus representatives in a contest with about 1,700 caucus locations. He acknowledges that means no official representative to make his case at each of the locations, but at “almost all of them, and no other campaign is going to have someone there who’s going to get up and speak on our behalf.”

Santorum, who claims organization and message will make the difference, is also banking on a divide and conquer strategy.

“There’s really three primaries going on here,” Santorum said. “Ron Paul has his own primary, the libertarian primary. And (Newt) Gingrich and (Mitt) Romney are sort of the establishment primary. And I think there are three who are vying for the conservative mantle to go up against the Gingrich-Romney duo. And I think that I’m going to be the one coming out Iowa with that mantle.

“And if we can do that, then we’re off to the races here, and conservatives around the country, just like they’re doing here in Iowa, are going to start rallying around our campaign,” he said.

Dick Morris believes he is surging:

All along, the Tea Party voters have yet to unite behind a single candidate. They still aren’t united, but in Iowa, there is evidence that Rick Santorum may be surging ahead.

In the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) telephone poll of 23,000 supporters nationally, Newt led with 31% of the vote, followed by Bachmann at 28%, Romney at 20% and Santorum with a surprising 16%.

But on the ground in Iowa, where it counts, Gingrich has gone through a gauntlet of $10 million of negative TV ads sponsored by Romney, Paul, and the others. Without funds to defend himself, he has seen his vote share drop. Ron Paul’s has risen, Bachmann’s has fallen, and Santorum has increased quickly.

There has always been a sort of mini-primary among the Tea Party followers among Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Cain, and Santorum – the candidates they find acceptable. Gingrich’s and Bachmann’s drop, Cain’s withdrawal, and Perry’s stagnation all contrast sharply with Santorum’s surge.

The former Pennsylvania Senator has been the also ran in the field, the Rodney (I get no respect) Dangerfield of the Republican primaries. But with the lack of poll numbers has come a lack of scrutiny. These days the spotlight can get too hot very quickly. Santorum, whose conservative record is as solid as they come, is benefiting from the fall of Gingrich in a way Bachmann seems unable to do.

And:

“[Santorum] is the one candidate in the race who hasn’t caught his wave yet,” says Vander Plaats, who served as Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Iowa campaign chairman and now heads the Family Leader, a coalition of socially conservative groups. “We believe he’s going to catch his wave. And we believe he’s the one candidate who can withstand the scrutiny of being on top.”

It may very well be time to visit Santorum, his record and what he stands for. Just a quick search over the past few days of newsbits led me to his thinking on the 2nd Amendment and the importance of getting solid conservative justices on the bench:

More specifically, the former Pennsylvania senator warned that reelecting President Obama next fall could weaken gun rights. He cited the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the 2008 Heller case that struck down portions of the District of Columbia’s strict gun control laws.

“If you read the dissent in Heller, no gun owner should feel comfortable this is a secure constitutional right according to this Supreme Court, and that’s why we need a good, strong Republican conservative who understands what it means to appoint and confirm solid judges and justices,” Santorum said.

I like his foreign policy:

But Santorum’s seriousness rebounds to his credit when it comes to foreign policy. The former third-ranking Republican in the Senate has spent a lot of time thinking about America’s role in the world. And during the debates, he’s been a hawk’s hawk, sparring with Ron Paul over the Iranian threat. “I think Michele Bachmann understates how dangerous Ron Paul would be,” says Santorum. “Many conservatives would fear literally for their safety if Ron Paul would get in there to work with liberal Democrats to gut the Defense Department, to pull back every forward-deployed troop all over the world.”

He’s certainly worth a second look it appears. The question is….can he go toe to toe with ObamaLite?

This news is hardly shocking:

President Obama’s slow ride down Gallup’s daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history.

Since March, Obama’s job approval rating has hovered above Carter’s, considered among the 20th century’s worst presidents, but today Obama’s punctured Carter’s dismal job approval line. On their comparison chart, Gallup put Obama’s job approval rating at 43 percent compared to Carter’s 51 percent.

…What’s more, Gallup finds that Obama’s overall job approval rating so far has averaged 49 percent. Only three former presidents have had a worse average rating at this stage: Carter, Ford, and Harry S. Truman. Only Truman won re-election in an anti-Congress campaign that Obama’s team is using as a model.

Anyone who has lived through the last 3 years with this yahoo in office knows the man is worse than Carter….and now the polls prove it.

But even that doesn’t tell the whole ugly truth. Who are the people who still give him a higher than 50% approval rating? Minorities and those making less than $2,000 grand a year.

Even better news:

Obama’s approval rating has decreased among all six partisan/ideology groups Gallup tracks on a regular basis since January, but it has dropped the most — 10 percentage points, from 40% to 30% — among pure independents. These are the roughly 14% of national adults who neither identify with one of the two major parties nor indicate a leaning. Obama’s approval rating has declined by nearly as much — eight points — among moderate/liberal Republicans, from 29% to 21%.

In recent years it has been thee Independents who have decided elections so on the surface the polls appear good for the GOP….but, I wouldn’t be too confident just yet. The field of candidates on the GOP side is anything but stellar and the Soros machine hasn’t even started yet. The Soros conglomerate will stop at nothing to ensure he gets re-elected.

RINOs Are Herd Animals

How convenient it was for Christie to keep his rather large posterior blocking the view of Republican candidates, while he played his voters and supporters for chumps with his mincing indecision on whether to finally admit he didn’t want to run for the presidency. But for what purpose, the casual observer may ask in bewilderment.

Oh, but the answer is easy and was exposed today: Christie admitted, it was an “easy decision” to endorse Romney. It was an easy decision because it was his intention all along to endorse his fellow RINO.

A candidate who teases the public while playing the coy overly cherubic nymph, who can’t make up her mind to go skinny dipping in the pool of public opinion, will hold the public’s interest much longer than the intellectually honest one who says she is absolutely not swimming in her birthday suit. Thus the indecisive nymph holds the public’s attention with promises of promiscuous and salacious behavior, while she offers glimpses of her abundant fat rolls to entice and keep the libido of the crowd at a fevered pitch.

Alas, she is but a tease, the pachyderm nymph can dance only so long and must walk off stage before boredom begins to set in and the crowd loses interest, but wait the roly-poly nymph has a final offer of advice for those who enjoy being teased and tempted. The nymph stands to announce an endorsement for Romney!

Well dog my cats, who could have seen that one coming. A RINO throwing his considerable weight behind another RINO, what an original concept.

An old political parable says, “Politics makes for strange bedfellows.” I will try to keep from imagining that one, but it is not hard to imagine the AGW, amnesty, and Socialized Healthcare boys throwing themselves in together in showers and on large mattresses. Like in your most vivid imagination, it is not the act itself, but the manner in which it was done; that is what is found to be the most offensive.

Christie had the nerve to say it was “completely intellectually dishonest” to compare Romneycare to Obamacare; actually, it was completely intellectually dishonest for him to lead his supporters along about the possibility of a run, when his intent was too hold the public’s attention for as long as possible, so that Christy’s endorsement of Romney would have the greatest bang for the buck. Like most plans hatched by a literate devious mind that has an inflated opinion of its effectiveness, these well laid plans often reach up and take a bite from the posterior of the perpetrator.

No, Chris Christie, you accomplished nothing with your coyness, except perhaps injury to your own reputation as being a fickle and indecisive politician. You managed only to steal attention from the honest efforts of the real candidates, who are willing to stand in front of the nation and debate the issues and expose their philosophies. These candidates have the courage of their convictions and they are honest in their desire to run for the presidency. You on the other hand have displayed a duplicitous personality and a lack of ethics, along with a healthy measure of this intellectual dishonesty you so disingenuously mentioned. While I have an aversion to the thought of voting for a RINO, I will say that our leading candidates seem to all have ethics, a welcome change from the present administration. It is the lack of ethics that will defeat Obama and I doubt that your dubious endorsement will have a measurable effect on Romney’s poll numbers or on the election; especially, since it is precisely this dishonest approach to politics that has Americans so upset with politicians and particularly, the Obama Administration.

It’s still a year out from the election, but Rasmussen’s most recent poll makes one start to wonder. It shows President Obama at 46% of the vote against GOP frontrunner Rick Perry’s 39%. That was a flip from the previous week’s Obama 41% vs. Perry’s 44%.

The Perry part of that poll is not really of consequence. President Obama tends to perform about the same against various other challengers and against the “generic” Republican candidate. The ebb and flow of a weekly news cycle has an impact on the fringes, but not so much on the core. And that core is the thing that one has to wonder.

It appears that about 40% of the country makes up a core of blue… people who are wedded to their leftist philosophy as if it were a religion… they believe it will succeed despite all evidence to the contrary. From the economic malaise it has inflicted on the United States to the economic meltdown that is playing itself out in Europe to the wholesale abandonment of the leftist policies by governments from Beijing to Delhi to Hanoi. Despite the complete lack of a single demonstrable example of a sustained success of the Marxist / Keynesian / Alinsky philosophy, they still believe and it appears that virtually nothing anyone in the red corner can say can change their minds.

Today the aspirations embodied by their messiah are no longer just theoretical solutions and aspirational promises. This is not 2008 when the press could blame all of America’s woes on a reviled Bush White House. It’s not 2008 when Barack Obama could tell stories about how he plans on putting America back to work by rebuilding our infrastructure and creating green jobs. It’s not 2008 where Barack Obama could promise to make America respected again in the eyes of the world by closing Guantanamo and ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s not 2008 where Barack Obama could rail against George Bush’s “years of unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility.” On the contrary, in the summer of 2011 President Obama finds himself in the middle of a perfect storm of failure, yet it seems to have no effect on his followers.

The most recent issue is of course Solyndra. The solar panel company that was the poster child for the green jobs that were the key to fulfilling his campaign pledge to future generations that (his election) “was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” In 2009 the Administration gave the company $535 million in loan guarantees and in March of 2010 the President toured the company, declaring “the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith.” Today the company sits bankrupt and taxpayers are out half a billion dollars. What’s worse for President Obama’s green jobs agenda is the fact that apparently each of those touted green jobs costs $5 million…

On the jobs front the President has just gone back to Congress and requested that they give him an additional $500 billion for a second stimulus program… because his previous $1 Trillion stimulus plan worked so well. The President suggested that his stimulus program (circa 2009) would bring unemployment down to 7.1% by August of 2011. In reality, his stimulus program did pass yet unemployment stands at 9.1% today. Fully two million more Americans are unemployed today than were promised by the President.

On the single most important issue of the day, jobs, President Obama has demonstrated not only that he is out of ideas, but that he wants to double down on the same bad ideas didn’t work in the past… and he wants to pay for the whole thing by raising taxes by $1.5 trillion. Unfortunately for him, things don’t look any better anywhere else. Domestically, inflation is on the rise, the economy is on life support and federal deficits are larger than at any time in history. Internationally, America’s leadership is once again so strong that the Palestinians are heading to the UN to ask for recognition despite US opposition, the Arab spring threatens to put Islamists in charge across the region, Europe is crumbling and Asian allies wonder about America’s commitment to the region as Taiwan is left twisting in the wind by the administration’s decision not to sell the island nation 66 new F-16 fighter jets for fear of offending the Chinese. Politically, the President’s leftist policies have so pummeled the citizens of New York that last week the GOP captured a house seat that had been held by the Democrats since 1923.

While the nirvana that was to be ushered in by Hope and Change has not materialized, it’s not because the administration has demurred from putting its policies in place. On the contrary, they’ve done so in most cases either by legislation or executive action. Despite all of this failure, a solid 40% of the electorate still supports President Obama and the discredited policies of the left. One wonders how is it possible that seeing all of this they could still believe? Then again, maybe it’s not so difficult to understand. A sign of a religion after all, is believing in something despite all empirical data that suggest it might not be true, or perhaps more accurately, the lack of empirical data that suggest it is true. The difference between a religion and the leftist policies of President Obama is that the former typically promises nirvana in the afterlife while the latter is supposed to be focused on this one. Nothing can prove Heaven doesn’t exist and therefore believers continue to believe. It’s called faith. History on the other hand, from FDR right up to Barack Obama, demonstrates clearly that the socialist, redistributive policies of the left simply do not work. Yet, the believers still believe, and vote accordingly. That fits Einstein’s definition of insanity. In this case it might just be called stupidity.

The political campaign season is upon us (Did Obama ever leave it?), and we are currently being inundated with polls about all kinds of subjects, such as debt ceiling compromise, or preidental approval polls, or who won the Republican debate, so being an informed citizen and knowing how to validly interpret poll results is imperative. With the MSM bias when reporting poll results, this guide is even more important. Being knowledgeable will have you screaming at your TV and/or newspaper.

First, this is NOT meant to be an introduction to statistics; far from it. This is nothing more than some famous and humorous quotes and an explanation of how politicians and the MSM (can) misuse statistics.

Second, let me establish my bona fides, definition 4. I have a Ph.D. in statistics from the Florida State University. I have also done quite a bit of consulting on (among other things) marketing projects, so I have taken samples and formulated questions to ask. The companies with which I consulted are doing well, so I must have done something correct!

Third, take a moment to look at these two very short, excellent articles about polls by Rosslyn Smith: Poll Games: when the goal is not to inform but to persuade, and Poll Games: why one should always follow the link to the poll itself, concentrating on the crosstabs while ignoring the media spin. These articles explain why this post is important.

Fourth, before y’all all go glassy eyed, the subject of “statistics” has NOTHING to do with mathematics. It is quite unfortunate that statistics has been lumped in with mathematics. The reason for the “lumping” (IMHO) is that (1) almost all early statisticians were mathematicians, and (2) before the advent of widely available computers, the mathematical formulas used were nothing more than short-cuts to make statistical calculations easier.

We have all seen the quote from Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of Great Britain under Queen Victoria: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Benjamin Disraeli, British politician (1804 – 1881), and and some other attributions.

Here are some more humorous (?) quotes about statistics and statisticians:

• Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions. Evan Esar (1899 – 1995)
• Statistician: A man who believes figures don’t lie, but admits that under analysis some of them won’t stand up either. Evan Esar
• Statistics can be made to prove anything – even the truth. Author Unknown
• There are two kinds of statistics: the kind you look up and the kind you make up. Rex Stout

Just Remember, This Is A Quick (and dirty) Guide

First, NOTHING is ever proven with statistics. All statistics can ever do is provide additional information to backup a decision and/or judgment.

“Statistics are no substitute for judgment”: Henry Clay.

Statistics may be defined as “a body of methods for making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty.”: W.A. Wallis, famous statistician

When you hear on a TV commercial that something is “clinically proven” to work, that statement is referring to a sample that exhibits characteristics that, when viewed by a reasonable person (whatever that is), that person would interpret the results as “proof.” (see “significance level” and hypothesis testing below)

Second, there is a difference between a parameter (the unknown in which we are interested that is from an entire population) and a statistic (calculated from a sample or subset of a population). Populations are usually too large to observe all members, so a sample (a subset) of the population is taken, a statistic is calculated from the sample that estimates the unknown population parameter, and, based on the calculated statistic, a decision is made.    So Ernie Banks had it wrong when he said, “Awards mean a lot, but they don’t say it all. The people in baseball mean more to me than statistics”.    What are called “statistics” in baseball are actually “parameters.” Think about it: in baseball EVERY at-bat (a parameter, not a statistic) is included.   This link, slides 2 through 4, explain the difference between parameters and statistics.

If the sample (subset) is randomly drawn (by random, statisticians mean that every member of the population being studied [referred to as the population of interest] has an equal chance of being included in the sample), then a statistic calculated from the sample can be useful for making a decision. Notice that a statistic is never correct, hence the “margin of error” (see below).

When a sample is taken (drawn) from a population, an error occurs – never is the sample an exact subset of the population from which it is taken. So any statistic calculated, by definition, is also in error. Again, hence the “margin of error.”

The larger the sample, the less likely that it will vary from the population from which it is taken. So pollsters like to take “large” samples. Large samples reduce the “margin of error.” But (and there is always a “but”) the larger the sample, the more it costs. So pollsters try to strike a balance between accuracy and cost. That balance is usually expressed in the “margin of error.” Reducing the “margin of error” means increasing costs (and vice versa).

Of course, the “margin of error” cannot be meaningfully reduced, regardless of sample size, if the sample is taken from a non-representative population. That is why you should read carefully about the population being studied. For example, there is a difference between a population of “voters” and a population of “likely voters.”

Third, there are four levels of measurement. Measurement Scales and Permissible (valid) statistics are explained. ANY statistic calculated from inappropriately measured data cannot validly be interpreted and are therefore meaningless, especially when trying to make a decision.

Fourth, statistics NEVER shows causality. Causality is a management interpretation.    “The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning,” says Stephen Jay Gould, in The Mismeasure of Man.

Margin of Error or Confidence Interval

Technically, there IS a difference between a margin of error and a confidence interval (so, please, all you statisticians out there, don’t write to me – we are basing our decision on only one sample), but for our purposes here we can consider them to be equivalent.

You often hear politicians, their campaign managers, and media types say, “Polls show the race within the ‘margin of error’.” You can interpret it that way if you want, but that is an incorrect interpretation of the margin of error, what is properly known as a “confidence interval.” This link explains what a confidence interval is, and how it is properly interpreted. So the next time you hear that the race is “within the margin of error,” disregard it as wishful thinking. Sample results are what they are. The “margin of error” simply gives you a “feel” for what error could have been committed.

For example, say (for illustrative purposes only) that a poll result is reported as “the citizens are in favor of this initiative, 60% to 40%.” The margin of error is ± 3%, with a confidence level of 95%. What this means is that the pollster is (at least) 95% confident that he/she is correct when he/she states that the true population parameter (unknown) of citizens favoring the initiative is between 57% (60% – 3%) and 63% (60% + 3%). Notice that the sample size does not have to be reported. Notice, also, that the population being studied is assumed to be representative of citizens who will vote on the initiative in question.

We have not gotten into how the question was phrased, nor how it was asked. That is another subject in and of itself.

Confidence and Significance Level

You often hear someone specify the “confidence level” or “significance level” at 95% or 99%. They are NOT the same thing! Hopefully, this link will explain the difference.

The confidence level refers only to a confidence interval, and refers only to the probability (usually expressed as a percentage) that the calculated confidence interval embraces the (unknown) population parameter.

The significance level refers only to hypothesis testing. A hypothesis is nothing more than a statement or belief held by a manager. That statement is either correct or incorrect. The “significance level” states, unambiguously (usually as a percentage), how “confident” you are when saying that the hypothesis is incorrect. There is a lot more to this, but we can ignore it for now.

From this explanation I hope you can see how confusion has arisen. BTW, there is nothing sacred about a 90% or 95% or 99% confidence level or significance level. Those “levels” were chosen for convenience.

Why bother with all of this?

If you are a politician (or any kind of manager, political or otherwise, or just a political junkie) you (are paid to) make decisions. Just guessing won’t do. You had better have some (valid) analysis to back yourself up. You never know when you may encounter someone like me.

Ultimately, the onus is upon you, the information consumer, to make a decision. So being forewarned is to be forearmed.

”Statistics is the grammar of science.” Karl Pearson, famous statistician.

FWIW, here is a great statistics glossary.

But that’s just my opinion.

Obama has a conundrum that is becoming more complex as the election approaches; he must campaign for reelection, but on what? Defending his bailout of the auto industry is likely to lose support rather than gain support. He can’t point to improvements in the economy, because those are dubious at best. His signature accomplishment, Obama Care, the health care that no one wants, has the majority of Americans hoping for appeal. He can cite the stimulus, one of the biggest scams in the history of the world, but if you weren’t in line for some of the millions that were passed out to Obama cronies, you might be upset over paying for it over the next five decades. It is hard to keep a straight face and boast of the food stamp program reaching out to nearly 50 million citizens. Most Americans are not impressed with our loss of sovereignty and the fact that our borders are open. Obama running as a Peacenik and then engaging in four new wars is even disconcerting to the most deluded Socialist ideologues. Unfortunately, arrogance and Narcissism are not really regarded as positive attributes and few Americans are interested in Obama’s golf game; consequently, Obama is left with almost nothing to run on as a positive accomplishment, he has the loyalty of his propaganda bureaus of the state directed media and these can be used to attack his opponent and the contributions of wealthy Democrats and George Soros will be waiting for his campaign of character assassination.

To offset the deficit created by not having a positive message, he has already resorted to the tried and true methods described by Marx and Engels and refined by Alinsky, that is class struggle or class warfare.

Unwilling to enact austerity measures, our president is desperately searching the teleprompters for the message that will redeem him and his legacy from history’s condemnation of his failures. Grasping at straws with the panic of a drowning man, Obama once again resorts to the Community Agitating tactics that heave defined his limited experience and accomplishments. Class warfare, the revolutionary technique of struggle defined by Marx and Engels, creates the animosity needed to break down the cultural aspects of a society so that class struggle or the Socialist Revolution can gain traction.

Obama is faced with the real possibility of austerity measures to reduce the budget or defaulting on our loans because congress wont raise the debt ceiling that Obama refused to raise in the past. Irony is always hardest on those who have no vision of the future.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

Manifesto of the Communist Party

1848

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — bourgeoisie and proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

Thus he manipulates the public, to resist his policy and direction pits starving kids against those who fly private jets around the world; ironically, many of his supporters make up a large percentage of those who fly private jets around the world and Obama is the one who flies the ultimate flying jet, but the image is meant to give those with limited cerebral capacities an image to concentrate on, an image to blame, and an image to hate. Thus he deflects blame for the economy and his dismal performance and directs it towards a somewhat fictional entity that will allow the “mob mentality” of the witless and unthinking to have a common enemy and scapegoat.

In a press conference on June 29, 2011, President Obama outlined his strategy for defeating the Republicans on the debt issue and his strategy for the upcoming election. This is to be a war of classes or Marx’s eternal class struggle. He and his followers against those who hate children, medical research, newborn puppies, and grandmother’s apple pie. The poor who struggle to survive and feed their children against those who fly in corporate jets and never need to sacrifice. It is the Noble Poor against them, the mean spirited and uncaring rich.

He wants to put the Republicans on the defensive, when he has no other means of explanation or attack. If the Republicans rise to the sucker bait, they may look bad with Obama using a well practiced strategy from the Communist Alynsky’s play book, but it will accomplish precious little in convincing Republicans that he has finally resolved the country’s economic woes and is well on the way to reviving the nearly bankrupt economy.

In a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, Obama uses the logic of the Chicago street thug to identify with his followers by referring to the congress and it’s recent vacations.

“I’ve been doing Afghanistan, bin Laden and the Greek crisis. You stay here. Let’s get it done.”

It was so daring and resourceful of Obama to fly into Afghanistan and assassinate Osama in-between golf games.

The president maintains that Democrats have compromised their principles by agreeing to billions worth of budget cuts that will hurt the Democrat voters. Yet Republicans are refusing to yield by not agreeing to eliminate tax breaks for owners of rich oil companies and corporate jets. Thus if Republicans get their way, there will be a one-sided or unbalanced deal that will the raise the debt ceiling but will force the government to make devastating cuts that aren’t necessary.

“If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships,” Obama said. “[It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I’ve said to Republican leaders, ‘You go talk to your constituents and ask them, “Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”

Even Obama might be without clean socks!

Although President Obama made the tax on corporate jets the primary issue of his news conference, the tax involves less than one-tenth of one percent of his target for reducing the federal deficit. The change in the provision would put $3 billion in the treasury over a decade; Democrats want companies to write off the cost over seven years, instead of five years. Airplanes used for commercial flight or charter, are already written off in seven years.

Obama mentioned the depreciation on corporate jets six times in his press conference as a means to vilify Republicans for wanting to include tax increases and insisting on spending cuts in the measure which must be passed by August 2, the date that the Treasury is projecting that the US will no longer be able to service its debt.

“It would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that the tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done,”

Obama’s pleading is laughable except for its dramatic appeal to the masses. The $3 billion proposal represents 0.075 % of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that Obama is supposedly seeking through spending cuts and tax increases.

Hoping to win public support and force Republicans to give in to his plans, Obama is gambling with the country’s Economic future to continue to advance his version of a Marxist Utopia. It’s a gamble that has a ticking clock and time is running out on his Marxist Ideology and the U.S. as well. Republicans are demanding steep budget cuts and no tax increases to keep the TEA Party loyalists in check, for their own political futures are not insured: Obama is trying to save face and keep some semblance of the Socialist agenda on tap while trying to demonstrate a sense of reaching for a bipartisan solution, a situation that is humorous after his dismissal of Republican input before the 2010 election.

Obama:

“The question now is, are we going to step up and get this done?”

Mr President giving press conferences and channeling Marx isn’t going to resolve this issue any sooner.