http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/20/shock-poll-obama-could-lose-illinois/
President Barack Obama could lose his home state of Illinois in
November, a new poll shows.
A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist
Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49
percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts
him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should
be winning handsomely.
Cook is the most Democratic leaning county in the state. It is also
the most populous.
Those numbers do not bode well for the president.
"He has to come out of Cook County with a big lead or he's gonna have
problems downstate," explained McKeon, who said that based on the
numbers he had seen, Obama polled only in the forties in downstate
Illinois.
"It's not like his policies are very popular downstate," McKeon said.
"He's viewed as more part of Chicago than he is part of Illinois."
According to the poll, which surveyed 629 registered voters last week,
Obama's problems are not in Chicago proper, but in suburban Cook
County.
In the city of Chicago itself, he retains a 60-29 lead over Romney.
But the Republican challenger leads 45-38 in the surrounding areas.
Across the county as a whole, Romney leads 43-31 among independent
voters, a crucial voting bloc. Romney also holds a 44-38 lead among
male voters, and a 53-40 lead among white voters.
Illinois is not considered a swing state by any means; it is seen as
solidly blue, and has been for the past two election cycles. But
McKeon pointed to the 2010 gubernatorial race when Republican Bill
Brady came within a single percentage point of now-Gov. Pat Quinn
because Brady won most of the downstate counties. That is a feat
Romney could repeat this year, leaving Obama vulnerable if he cannot
expand his lead in Cook County.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/20/shock-poll-obama-could-lose-illinois/#ixzz2475BU0O2
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/20/too-good-to-check-could-obama-lose-illinois/
Look, I'm a pretty sunny optimist, but this stretches even my
credulity. A pollster in Illinois believes that Mitt Romney can win
Barack Obama's home state, thanks to a mediocre performance in Cook
County by the incumbent, and outright hostility outstate:
A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist
Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49
percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts
him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should
be winning handsomely.
Cook is the most Democratic leaning county in the state. It is also
the most populous. …
According to the poll, which surveyed 629 registered voters last week,
Obama's problems are not in Chicago proper, but in suburban Cook
County.
In the city of Chicago itself, he retains a 60-29 lead over Romney.
But the Republican challenger leads 45-38 in the surrounding areas.
Across the county as a whole, Romney leads 43-31 among independent
voters, a crucial voting bloc. Romney also holds a 44-38 lead among
male voters, and a 53-40 lead among white voters.
Who's Michael McKeon? He worked for Rudy Giuliani's team and now has
his own house, Mercury Public Affairs. The data on the poll isn't
provided by either The DC or by Mercury's website, so it's impossible
to vet this more closely. Suffice it to say that a relatively new
pollster can still produce sterling results, but we don't have much of
a track record by which to compare this poll, nor any other recent
Illinois polling.
If this poll is accurate, it would obviously be embarrassing to Obama
to have to spend a lot of money and attention on his own home state.
Republicans nearly won the gubernatorial election after the conviction
of Rod Blagojevich, and Mark Kirk won the open Senate seat in 2010,
but the state GOP still needs to do a lot of work to make themselves
competitive in the Land of Lincoln. If Obama really ended up losing
Illinois, it would almost certainly be because of a national landslide
that would make Illinois a historical footnote.
On the other hand, Democratic pollster PPP warns that Romney has taken
a slight lead in Wisconsin — and that might indicate an overall
heartland problem for Obama:
Mitt Romney ever so slightly in the lead on our Wisconsin poll.
Results out tomorrow
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 20, 2012
Out of Obama, Romney, Biden, Ryan only one Wisconsin voters have a
positive opinion of is Ryan
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 20, 2012
Last month we had Romney at 87% of GOP vote in Wisconsin, now 93%.
That is probably the true Ryan effect- party unification
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 20, 2012
We'll see more when PPP releases the results tomorrow.
Update: From a reader in Chicago via e-mail:
[A]bout a week or two ago I started to see Obama commercials running
in the Chicago area and thought to myself, what a waste of money. Why
is Obama spending money on ad buys in a state he has no chance of
losing? Hmmm.
Sometimes, campaigns run ads to stoke fundraising efforts … but still …
He's goina put ya'll BACK in chains
The stupidest sort of politics that doesn't speak in specific logical arguments using logic, but is only able to think and move to action with over-simplistic metaphors that represent a cartoon reality.
Debt
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| One Hundred Dollars $100 - Most counterfeited money denomination in the world. Keeps the world moving. |
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| Ten Thousand Dollars $10,000 - Enough for a great vacation or to buy a used car. Approximately one year of work for the average human on earth. |
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| One Million Dollars $1,000,000 - Not as big of a pile as you thought, huh? Still this is 92 years of work for the average human on earth. |
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| One Hundred Million Dollars $100,000,000 - Plenty to go around for everyone. Fits nicely on an ISO / Military standard sized pallet. The couch is worth $46.7 million. Made out of crispy $100 bills. |
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| One Billion Dollars $1,000,000,000 - You will need some help when robbing the bank. Interesting fact: $1 million dollars weights 10kg exactly. You are looking at 10 tons of money on those pallets. |
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| One Trillion Dollars Comparison of $1,000,000,000,000 dollars to a standard sized American Football field. Say hello to the Boeing 747-400 transcontinental airliner that's hiding in the back. This was until recently the biggest passenger plane in the world. You can see the White House with both wings to the right. "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." - Thomas Jefferson |
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| One Trillion Dollars $1,000,000,000,000 The 2011 US federal deficit was $1.412 Trillion - 41% more than you see here. If you spent $1 million a day since Jesus was born, you would have not spent $1 trillion by now... but ~$700 billion- same amount the banks got during bailout. |
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| $16.394 Trillion - 2012 US Debt Ceiling The US debt ceiling limit D-Day is estimated for September 14, 2012. US Debt has now surpassed the size of US economy in 2011-- rated @ $15,064 Trillion. Statue of Liberty seems rather worried as United States national debt is soon to pass 20% of the entire world's combined economy (GDP / Gross Domestic Product). “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” - Thomas Jefferson |
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| Trillion Dollars $122,100,000,000,000. - US unfunded liabilities by Dec 31, 2012. Abovet you can see the pillar of cold hard $100 bills that dwarfs the WTC & Empire State Building - both at one point world's tallest buildings. If you look carefully you can see the Statue of Liberty. The 122.1 Trillion dollar super-skyscraper wall is the amount of money the U.S. Government knows it does not have to fully fund the Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, Social Security, Military and civil servant pensions. It is the money USA knows it will not have to pay all its bills. If you live in USA this is also your personal credit card bill; you are responsible along with everyone else to pay this back. The citizens of USA created the U.S. Government to serve them, this is what the U.S. Government has done while serving The People. The unfunded liability is calculated on current tax and funding inputs, and future demographic shifts in US Population. Note: On the above 122.1T image the size of the bases of the money stacks are $10 billion, and 400 stories @ $4 trillion "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." - Thomas Jefferson Everyone needs to see this. Source: Federal Reserve & www.USdebtclock.org - visit it to see the debt in real time and get a better grasp of this amazing number. |
Obama Meme
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| Government can fix health care. Just look at Medicare and Medicaid. Okay, they're broke, but look at social security. Okay, its Broke, but look at the US. Post Office. Okay, its broke, but look at Amtrak. Okey, its broke, but look at Fannie Mae and Freedia Mac. Okeay, they're broke, but look at my Budget. Okay, its $1.6 Trillion in the Red, but... |
Richard Landes: Romney Is Right on Culture and the Wealth of Nations
From here.
A 2002 United Nations report written by Arab intellectuals acknowledges the problems the Republican candidate pointed out.
By RICHARD LANDES
Mitt Romney caused a firestorm last week in Jerusalem by commenting on the cultural dimensions of Israeli economic growth. Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat, correctly seeing an implied criticism of Palestinian culture, called Mr. Romney a "racist" and complained that Palestinian economic woes are really caused by the Israeli occupation. Analysts said Mr. Erekat's reaction was a sign that Mr. Romney has disqualified himself as a broker for peace. The episode reveals as much about the dynamics of the Middle East conflict as about presidential politics.
In making his brief case, Mr. Romney cited two books: "Guns, Germs and Steel," by geographer Jared Diamond, and "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations," by economist David Landes (my father). As in other fields of social "science," economists argue about whether development derives from cultural advantages or from natural ones such as resistance to disease and access to primary resources. Prof. Diamond, whose book focuses on societies' natural advantages, last week wrote an op-ed in the New York Times emphasizing both culture and nature and trying to draw Prof. Landes in with him.
But Israel (which neither book examined) and the Arab world (which only the Landes book examined) illustrate the primacy of culture as both necessary and sufficient for economic development. Israel, a country with no natural resources, an economic backwater even in the Ottoman Empire, rose to the top of the developed world in a century on culture alone. The Arab nations, on the other hand, illustrate the necessity of a certain kind of culture: Even those with vast petrodollars still have among the least productive economies in the world.
Americans tend to assume that everyone shares their cultural attitudes—that everyone strives to get to "yes," to positive-sum, win-win, voluntary relations; that everyone holds productive work in high respect and prizes the principles of fairness embodied in the meritocratic principle of "equality before the law"; that everyone encourages criticism, treasures intellectual capital, promotes risk-taking, prizes transparency and fosters innovation. With institutions built on such values—with a culture dedicated to making, not taking, money—a society can make use of whatever primary products a land offers.
But there are cultures whose favored mode is not voluntary but coerced and zero-sum relations, where the principle of "rule or be ruled" dominates political and economic life. The elites in such cultures hold hard work in contempt, and they distrust intellectual openness and uncontrolled innovation as subversive. They emphasize rote learning and unquestioning respect for those in authority.Protection rackets rather than law enforcement assure the public order and bleed the economy. Public criticism brings sharp retaliation. Powerful actors acquire wealth by taking, rather than making.
Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat.
Few cultures on the planet better illustrate the latter traits than the Arab world, a fact outlined in painful detail by a 2002 United Nations report written by Arab intellectuals. As "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" points out, Arab culture intensifies these problems with its attitude of hyper-jealousy and misogyny toward women, which turns out entitled sons and cloistered daughters.
Even the huge influx of petrodollars did not change the basic contours of Arab economies: Rather than fueling economic development that benefited all, it bloated corrupt and opaque elites. Oil-rich countries like Libya and Iraq have social structures akin to those of oil-bereft Egypt and Syria. Change may occur, but it is hindered by an authoritarian culture that fears it. Such societies impoverish the masses, while elites thrive on their debasement.
Strikingly, Palestinian culture compares favorably with that of other Arabs. Palestinians have higher education, a strong work ethic and successful entrepreneurs. Much of that comes from their close association with the Zionists, who (unlike Western imperialists) settled the land without conquest, by dint of making everyone more prosperous.
From the late 19th century, Arab populations grew and prospered where Jews settled (Tel Aviv, Hebron, Jerusalem) and remained stagnant and poor where they didn't (Gaza, Nablus, Nazareth). Many Arabs found the presence of Jews a great advantage. Thus the Palestinian diaspora is among the best-educated and most competent in the Arab world—and under Israeli rule (the notorious "occupation") the West Bank was one of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world in the 1980s.
Other Palestinians, however, found Jewish economic leadership an unbearable blow to their pride. Said one to the British Peel Commission in 1936: "You say we are better off: you say my house has been enriched by the strangers who have entered it. But it is my house, and I did not invite the strangers in, or ask them to enrich it, and I do not care how poor it is if I am only master of it."
Sooner rule in hell than share in heaven. These actors have dominated Palestinian political culture, and terrorized Israeli and Palestinian alike, for generations.
In calling Mr. Romney's remarks "racist" and blaming Palestinian economic difficulties on Israel's "occupation," Mr. Erekat illustrated one of David Landes's major points:Blaming others for one's own failures prolongs failure. Even though his own government daily chooses a culture of death, not life, Mr. Erekat wants to blame Israel for Palestine's woes; no admission here that he and his colleagues might have some role in the suffering of their own people.
So when Westerners denounce Mr. Romney for his "gaffe," they actually do a great disservice to the Palestinians. Palestinian entrepreneurs and administrators—the ones who wept when Yasser Arafat rejected Israel's peace offer at Camp David in 2000—know well the costs to their people's well-being engendered by their political leaders.
Had Western observers criticized Mr. Erekat for his silly and dishonest response, they might have strengthened those Palestinians who could lead their people to the promised land of independence and prosperity. Instead, they threw the real progressives, the ones who could put an end to the occupation by good faith negotiations, under the bus.
Mr. Landes, a medieval historian at Boston University, is author of "Heaven on Earth" (Oxford University Press, 2011). He blogs at theaugeanstables.com.
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