Framing The Narrative

I'm wondering exactly what type of "judge" Andrew Napolitano was prior to being hired by Fox"News". But let's get right to the heart of this..........



Yeah, Glenn Beck, "great explainer of history". It's a shame that people actually buy into that idea.

Anyway.

Beck and Napolitano are eagerly framing the new narrative that there will be riots in the streets and that liberal/progressives will be targeting conservatives with violence should Republicans make gains in November. Beck specifically is making these accusations in direct correlation with minorities while trying to insist that the case against the New Black Panther party isn't about racism. It's a typical example of conservative fearmongering and double-speak.

Another aspect of this is that conservatives like Beck are setting the scene for what will happen after the midterm elections in order to further the notion that liberals/progressives are out to destroy the country. What Beck is doing is so transparent and predictable that it's almost pointless to talk about it. He's prepping the mouth agape conservatives that look to him as some solar messiah to believe that no matter what happens in November, liberals/progressives are going to act in violent concert against America and all that it stands for. That is, what Beck thinks it stands for.

There is a moment in this clip where Beck talks about the "lame duck" session on Congress and what legislation may be passed or not. This has just recently become a conservative talking point, that there shouldn't be anything done by Congress immediately following a midterm election. What kind of point of view is that? Should car companies not do anything to improve their line of vehicles put out into the market the previous year simply because the new model year line is about to be released? It's a very revealing look into not only the laziness of conservative ideology, but how they are more than willing to create a storyline that is designed to do nothing more than inflame, frighten, and smear.

Eating Their Own

Earlier in the week, I posted about the Tea Bagger/Reid challenger candidate John Scott Ashjian's tax problems and how there would likely be some serious spin on this later.

Turns out I was right. And it's fairly unique in it's presentation.

Some [Republicans] are accusing Jon Scott Ashjian, a new Tea Party candidate running for U.S. Senate, of being a fake. The allegation? He was put in the race by agents of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to siphon votes from the GOP.

"No doubt about it", says Danny Tarkanian, one of the many Republican senate candidates hoping to challenge Reid in November. "Nobody in the Tea Party knows who he is. He didn't know any of the principles of the Tea Party," Tarkanian tells CNN. He even accuses "Harry Reid's staff, campaign, whatever" of picking Ashjian because he's Armenian, as is Tarkanian. He explains, "They know the Armenians are very close they'll vote for each other."

And while conservatives have long used the "plant" meme within the context of townhall debates and speeches that show that Democrats are a little more in touch with the realities of America than their liberal/progressive counterparts, I don't think I've ever seen this kind of defense used against a candidate.

But there's a little more intrigue to this than one might get at first blush.

Sue Lowden, the Republican front-runner in the Senate primary according to recent polls, is the former Nevada Republican Party chair and seems to be the Republicans' best hope of unseating Harry Reid in November. Or at least she did, until Ashjian got into the race. Lowden says she's been very active with Tea Party groups in Nevada. "I am a Tea Party voter, absolutely." Which is why she tells us she finds it "a little strange" that Ashjian is emerging now. "I don't know who this person is. He's never been involved with anything that I'm aware of in this state." She doesn't know if he's a spoiler. "We'll find out for sure," she promises, adding "I've never seen him at one of our tea parties, by the way."

Its clear why Lowden and Tarkanian would be concerned. A recent poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal indicates Lowden and Tarkanian each beating Reid in one-on-one hypothetical general election matchups. But add a Tea Party candidate on the ballot and that siphons off enough conservative votes to give Reid a narrow victory. According to the survey Reid would grab 36 percent of the vote, the Republican candidate 32 percent and the Tea Party candidate 18 percent in a possible three way showdown.

Are the Tea Baggers more afraid of splitting the GOP vote or Ashjian's tax problems coming to light? Is it both? I'm leaning on the later. And the only way that these people can reconcile this within the context of socio-political debate is to accuse him of being a Democrat, a spy, if you will.

I'm not entirely sure if they actually believe it themselves. After all, if a Tea Bagger shouts loudly enough that Obama is going to ban bass fishing or that churches are being taken over by pinko, commie, progressive, Nazis, it won't take long until the entire collective actually believes it.

Taking Over Their Own House

But I thought that Palin said to "chose" a party, not take one over.



The Reagan worship aside, Palin and Hannity don't seem to realize that Tea Bagger candidates haven't done so well. Doug Hoffman lost and Debra Medina is a "Truther". Christie and McDonnell don't align themselves with the Tea Baggers. Scott Brown was a complete wash - given his activities since taking Ted Kennedy's old seat. So, who are these people going to run?

J.D. Hayworth is an unofficially Tea Bagger candidate, and has the support of people like Orly Taitz, since Hayworth threw his hat into the "Birther" ring with a unique take on why Obama should produce his birth certificate. And with conservatives turning their backs on McCain ( again, as they really didn't support him once he won the party nomination. They were just pissed that they voted for him so they wouldn't have to either not vote or vote for Obama ) Hayworth has a good chance of getting a seat in the Senate. That is, unless McCain can just win on legacy or Hayworth does something monumentally stupid.

And that's the point, the fringe nature of the Tea Bagger cult doesn't really lend itself to fixing or improving the aspects of the country that they claim are in such a state of disarray. So Palin's assertion that the Tea Baggers should somehow "take over" the GOP is a statement that sounds good, sound viable, but is ultimately just that - a statement that sounds good and will boost morale within your base.

The reality of this is that the Tea Baggers know they have nowhere to go unless they can create the illusion that they have the ability to rebrand the GOP or toss out everyone already there. They can't form a "third party", as they will split the GOP vote and Democrats will gain more ground and be in power longer. And there's a good chance of that already. Maybe not so much in this first mid-term election, but the Dems have at least a small chance to maintain a majority in both houses.

Massachusetts Myth

The continued meme that Scott Brown’s election was a referendum on the Obama agenda – that it had moved too far to the left - has been grossly overstated. One has but to look at the relevant date from a Washington Post/Harvard University poll that shows a plurality of Massachusetts voters approve of their own, universal, care.

Nate Silver takes this on:

Make no mistake: a lot of voters in Massachusetts were speaking their minds about health care. The evidence is much stronger that this was a vote about health care than the Obama agenda in general; in fact, special election voters in Massachusetts approved of Barack Obama 61-37**.

Still, it's important to keep in mind exactly what those voters were saying about health care, as the message was rather mixed. And Democrats can take some comfort in the fact that, several years after a near-universal health care program in Massachusetts was implemented, it is overwhelmingly popular with that state's voters.

What the voters that swept Brown into office didn’t agree with were the buzz-words that overly stimulate our consumerist, sound-bite, culture

In an open-ended question among voters who said that health care was a key determinant in their vote, 19 percent of all voters and 30 percent of Scott Brown voters cited a procedural reason, such as "dealmaking", "closed doors", "lack of transparency", "partisanship", "moving too fast", etc.

These are words used by all news outlets within multiple platforms, but it is Fox”News” that is hyping these sound-bites to the full, negative, potential against the Obama administration.

And while some will say, myself included, that our elected officials are sent to Washington to ensure that our states benefit from legislation, those that oppose the special deals given to Louisiana and Nebraska are rightfully concerned. But are they concerned over the fact that their elected officials didn’t step up as Nelson and Landreau did? This may or may not be a factor, but my own first blush assessment.

In the end, conservatives shouldn’t put all their chips on Brown, as he isn’t exactly the man that they are making him out to be. Not only that, but the voters in Massachusetts are being vastly misrepresented in this storyline.

How Brown Really Won

The idea is being floated by some within the progressive/liberal blogging realm, and it's starting to make a lot more sense. And this has little to do with Coakley and more to do with Obama's agenda.

No, it's not that it was wrong, it's that it wasn't enough and got derailed sometime over the summer.

Follow me to the way-back machine........

1 - The Economic Stimulus, you know that nearly $800 billion dollars that hasn't been fully spent yet and of which Republicans have been shouting "IT FAILED" since the day after Obama signed off on it, wasn't big enough. Many economists have stated as such and they are in the position to know more than Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, or Michelle Malkin - the trio where far too many conservatives get their economic advise.

2 - Over the summer, healthcare reform got almost completely derailed by Max Baccus and conservatives took the opportunity to use this to their advantage. This was the time during the onslaught of the "death panel" and Democrats started to invest all their time in confronting specious claims by people like Sarah Palin.

And that's when it all went downhill. The economy was forced to play second fiddle to healthcare reform. And, for all intent and purposes, Republican obstructionism worked. They shifted the focus of the Democratic party and it worked to their advantage. Then came Scott Brown.

Here's where the conservative storyline could easily have changed, because it didn't have to be Scott Brown, it could have been any conservative that had the ability to deliver a line like "it's the people's seat". Brown had a slight advantage as being a State Senator, but that would have likely been a negotiable point. After all Sarah Palin was campaigning to be a hairs breath away from the President, and look at what she had to bring to the table.

So for conservatives to claim that it was their platform, their ideological perspective, and a real "man of the people" that cause the loss for Coakley, that's pretty disingenuous. This loss is purely a matter of political malpractice and a loss of true focus from Obama and the Democrats in both houses of Congress.

But one thing Brown and his supporters should know - we are fully aware of this mistake and this win doesn't mean that the elections in November are going to reflect what happened in Massachusetts.

Partisan Polling Practices

There's definitely a close relationship with Scott Rasmussen and the entirety of the GOP. The love is showcased on a daily basis ( quite literally ) on Fox"News" and HotAir. But why do they consistently cite this pollster and not others?

Nate Silver over at 538.com has discussed, at length, how Rasmussen polls and how this could potentially show bias. Not simply due to the way the poll is conducted ( it's an IVR - robocall setup that has a lower completion rate than traditional 1-on-1 interview polling ) but in how the persons are chosen for the sample.

One reason why Rasmussen is so favored by conservatives is largely due to his contribution to Bush's 2000 election. Secondly, the style of questions used by Rasmussen tend to reflect conservative positions on various causes. But are his results as solid as many claim?

From the special Senate election coming up in 8 days to the popularity of healthcare reform, Scott Rasmussen taps into how conservative media ( like Fox"News" ) frames a particular debate and then translates that into polling data for Fox to use to further their standpoint.

But one thing that Rasmussen, Fox, and conservatives to rely exclusively on them for information don't realize is that polls are literal snapshots in time that only show how people feel at that precise moment in time. Polls do not and never have shown how a person is going to act.

Smiling While They're Getting Screwed

In a recent poll from Republican favorite Rassmusen, results showed that the teabaggers could really cause of problems with more "rational" members of the GOP.

Running under the Tea Party brand may be better in congressional races than being a Republican.

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

And while the "non-affiliated" data appears to show that the teabaggers have a greater chance of gaining seats during the upcoming election, there is one piece of important data that Rassmusen has conveniently left out - that third-party candidates rarely ( if ever ) have a chance in national elections.

With all the hype that people like Sarah Palin, Doug Hoffman, Michelle Bachaman, and Glenn Beck get, the reality is that their neo-conservative brand of idiocy is accepted by a minority in America. It's a lot of special-effects and sound-bites that work well to get ratings, but it's hardly the combination of intellectual honesty, experience, and policy know-how that will be effective in a position of leadership.

But if the teabaggers want to try to push one of their rising stars as even a Congressional candidate, we're likely to see the GOP fracture even more and the Democrats historic losses during a mid-term election will be even smaller than predicted.

Shorter Conservative Pundits: Re: NY-23 / Hoffman

As suggested by Dutch from The Sunshine Empire, this scene from the classic The Princess Bride shows the exact way in which conservatives are attempting to rationalize their strategy in supporting Hoffman in NY-23 race that they ultimately lost and are now attempting to claim some sort of bizaro-world victory.



If Progressives are Westly and Conservatives are Vizzini, then who would Princess Buttercup be?

And Up Is Down

I was waiting for someone within the fringe conservative movement to completely invert reality in reference to NY-23.

Erick Erickson @ REDSTATE claims that Hoffman's loss is actually a big win for conservatives. No, really.

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.

Actually, he's got this wrong.

Hoffman only succeeded in getting as many votes as he did due to receiving votes that Scozzafava would have gotten. Certainly he would have gotten the twitchy-wingnut-teabagger vote ( or would he? ) because he sucked up to the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. And while Erickson could be only marginally correct in his assumption as to how victorious conservatives were in their assualt on Scozzafava, she was more Democrat that modern Republican anyway. So the more centrist/liberal voters were defaulted to Owens.

I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the establishment backed GOP candidate.

That just doesn't make sense to me. It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Erickson is essentially claiming that the GOP losing a 100+ year Congressional seat to Democrats is precisely what they were going for. And the kicker within that statement is that he knew all along that Hoffman couldn't win, he was just willing to be an obstructionist. He was willing to do this even if his party were going to lose.

And make no mistake, despite the Beltway spin, we know for certain based on statements from the local Republican parties, that they chose Scozzafava based on advice from the Washington crowd.

And how does Erickson "know" this? Did he have someone steal another Roladex?

So we have demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted. The GOP spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. Were we to combine Scozzafava and Hoffman’s votes, Hoffman would have won.

It seems that Erickson has issues with somenoe within the GOP quitting. Perhaps he's forgotten what his girl Sarah did over the summer. And to rationalize your poorly constructed thesis by tossing out the "what if" card is equally as pathetic, as there is no way that all of Scozzafava's supporters would have voted for a character like Hoffman.

Secondly, and just as importantly, there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable.

Third parties lack funding and ability for a host of reasons. Conservatives are going to have to work from within the GOP. The GOP had better pay attention.

So Hoffman was just a pawn in the conservative's game, wasn't he? You see, Erickson realizes that people like Hoffman won't, can't, and never will win, but they are going to continue to cut of their own noses just to spite those within the GOP that they take issue with. There is no clearer picture of a fracturing Republican party than what was just stated her.

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

What does that even mean, "operating within the GOP"? Does it mean that the candidate there is a blend of Hoffman and Scozzafava? Does it really mean anything, as Erickson and his mouth-agape zombies will rail against anything if it means that they will have to have common ground with Democrats. They did a great job of mucking up NY-23, so I say let them have a crack at Florida, it would be a win for us.

The Morning After

While on Twitter last night, watching election results pour in for the 4 races that the media at large were hellbent on covering like Obama actually going to be threatened by them, it was quite interesting to attempt conversation with conservatives.

Regardless of what you said about Christie's win, Corzine's loss, or VA going right back where it was a few short years ago, you were guilty of perpetrating the most egregious spin imaginable.

But there's something that these conservatives aren't willing to recognize.

Living in one of Reddest states in all of the nation ( Kentucky ) I think I have a fairly good perspective on what went down in Virginia last night. While the elecorate in VA went for Obama last year, something that hasn't happened for a Democratic candidate since the 60s, it's not suprising that the state now has a Republican governor. It's a matter of history. Kentucky, at least in my lifetime, has never gone for a Democratic presidential candidate - save Bill Clinton in the 90s, yet we have a Democratic Governor for several years. You see the parallels now? Just because your state leadership shifts away from the previous presidential election results has absolutley no bearing on whom your state will vote for in 2012.

As far as Jersy is concerned, Christie had this one in the bag from the start, as Corzine's polling was floating between 29% and 30% for some time. The only reason that conservatives were focusing on this issue with drooling intensity was that Obama had taken such an active roll in trying to ensure Corzine remain governor of that state. It was a move that I wouldn't have made, and it does put Obama in a position to be roundly ridiculed by the Right - which they have done.

So what of th infamous NY-23 results?

while some conservatives are actually attempting to create Hoffman's loss in NY-23 as a victory for the tea-bagger set, it's actually just as embarassing ( if not more than ) Obama actively fighting for Corzine. From Sarah Palin to Glenn Beck to virtually every program on Fox"News" and all corners of the conservative blogging community, Hoffman was seen as some bright and shining figure that would vindicate the fringe conservative movement and prove that third party candidate can win.

This was most certainly not the case.

The reality of NY-23s results are largely seen by people that make strict party-line votes each and every time there is an election, regardless who is on the ticket. There are Republicans that would vote for Satan, should he be on the ballot, simply so they wouldn't have to vote for a Democrat. But was there something else in play last night in New York? Were people really voting for Hoffman, or were they voting because of his endorsements? Had he actually won, what do conservaties think they would have gotten that Michelle Bachman, Steve King, and Joe Wilson can't do - dispense nothing but white noise and say no to everything.

The true historical significance that has come out of NY-23 is that a Democrat holds a seat that was warmed by Republican ass for over 100 years. So all the money, all the coverage, all the hype largely for nothing.

A main talking point amongst conservatives and even some moderate Republicans was that these three elections were to be a referendum on Obama. And while exiting polling, which can be seen as a rather unreliable metric in most instances, show that Obama was hardly the deciding factor in how people voted, yesterdays off-year elections resulted just as history would have predicted they would have. The only difference, the only game-chaninging result, was that the tea-baggers lost - again.

Some Thoughts For Your Morning

- And the teabaggers are set to beseige DC once again. Over the last 48 hours, Michelle Bachman has rallied her ill-informed, mouth-agape, masses into another twitching later over healthcare reform. It makes one wonder how exactly these people are able to just pack-up and run to Washington each and every time Congress has a sit-down. It has been postulated that some, perhaps many, are unemployed and that their blathering fist-pumping is somewhat hypocritical as they are using public unemployment benefits. But moreover, it's a fair assumption that some are also drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits, another example of the Socialist structure that they claim to rage against. It would be an interesting set of polling data that someone really needs to examine.

- While conservatives continue their diefication of Ayn Rand, one has to wonder why these people would rally behind a person that was a avowed athiest. And not only that, but these same people that wave copies of Atlas Shrugged in the air everytime Glenn Beck cries on television have no real sense of the "going Galt" meme that they threaten to perpetrate. The very idea behind it means that society will faulter if they simply quit their jobs, quit using the skills that they have cultivated over their lives. The question is this - what do any of these reactionary conservatives truly have to offer this country? Will America really be reduced to a Dark Ages landscape if Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrissey, Mary Katherine Ham, and Glenn Beck just disappear?

- Are conservatives really going to gain anything by winning the three elections they have continually ranted about with drooling anticipation? And while some are preparing for both the worst and the best by placing themselves outside the equation and "spinning the spin that hasn't even been spun" once the last vote is cast today, the bottom line is that today isn't a referendum on Obama, it's the continued manifestation of the GOP's identity crisis. I'm looking for Hoffman to lose and the conservative movement to make him into some martyr for the teabaggers.

The Greatest Election Year Ad Ever

I've been trying to find the Republican "response" ad to this since I found out about this yesterday afternoon. Many of us know that the Republican party ( primarily your hard-line conservatives and neo-cons ) is the party of 'against' and not for. With that in mind, this video is more powerful and more honest than just about anything they could possibly come up with.