Informed Speculation

…this is now.  The fundamentals of the economy are strong, said John McCain on the campaign trail, and Barack Obama responded, “Senator McCain, what economy are you talking about?”  Will he now ridicule his own economic adviser? One of President Obama’s economic advisers said Sunday that the economy is fundamentally sound, a striking reversal from [...]

I blogged below on how Obama is just not credible.  I’m sorry, but he’s not.  He has not lived up to his promises, time and time again, which makes him no different than any other politician – only he was SUPPOSED to be different. The latest letdown is his quick cave-in to pork, which as [...]

Chins up, Republicans and conservatives. The world has not ended.  Obama is clearly going to win, but we knew that already…and sometimes a little time in the wilderness is good for the soul.  Refocusing, and all that…we’ll have more later…but get used to it: President Obama… UPDATE 7:44 p.m.:  I’m watching CNN, so maybe other [...]

Not his campaign team, but his media cheerleaders: At least one broadcast network and one Web site said Monday that they could foresee signaling to viewers early Tuesday evening which candidate appeared to have won the presidency, despite the unreliability of some early exit polls in the last presidential election. A senior vice president of [...]

We’re winding down now, and although I am going to keep this blog active under the current name for a little while after Tuesday (perhaps through the inauguration), I think it’s time to face facts: Barack Obama is the next President of the United States.  Why?  Let us count down the reasons:  #10: Guts.  It [...]

I know McCain is still running a race here, and his pollster wants to make his candidate happy, but contrast this: John McCain’s campaign has seen “significant” progress in internal polling in the last week, Republican pollster Bill McInturff said Tuesday, with notable strides among rural voters and soft Democrats. McInturff, the campaign’s chief pollster, [...]

If you read conservative blogs and magazines regularly, you already know that Dean Barnett passed away today at the too-young age of 41.  A sad day…I mentioned his work often, though not of late, and read him even more than I linked to him.  RIP… Now, we stand a week away from the election that [...]

The former Democratic senator from Nebraska warms my heart for calling out the hypocrisy of the New York Times, with respect to Barack Obama and public financing: Bob Kerrey thinks The New York Times is in the tank for Obama — not that he minds. The former Democratic senator from Nebraska was here at the [...]

…in and of himself.  He’s far to the left, politically, he’s an economic ‘progressive’ (bad news, indeed). and he’s got ideas for a tax rebate plan that will pay millions of Americans who don’t even pay income tax rebates on their payroll taxes, which is a great-sounding idea until you realize he plans to do [...]

…and other polling shows Obama with leads up to double digits, but Republicans looking for any hope in a hopeless climate can cling to the new AP poll, showing Obama up by a statistically insignificant one-point among likely voters. But the GOP, under the heavy odds stacked against it in the current cycle, has turned [...]

…I did vote today, and I didn’t leave the presidential box blank.  Turnout in my polling location was not that heavy – there were far more people there for the primaries. As we head into the home stretch, there’s simply not much good cheer I can spread for Republicans (Democrats are feasting on a wide [...]

…for endorsements galore.  Many major papers now have made their presidential preferences known, and like much else in this election, the tide is turning against McCain.  One paper that I have a lot of respect for is the Washington Post.  It leans left, perhaps, but not blatantly, nor is it so partisan that it is [...]

Mickey Kaus also caught the oh-so-apt not-really-faux-pas of John McCain last night…more from the Master: 1) McCain did himself some good in this zero-sum game because in the first half of the debate he seemed sunny, yet had Obama on the defensive; 2) But not enough good; 3) Specifically, McCain failed to drive home the [...]

McCain had better hope so…just opening a thread for now, in case anyone wants to comment…more later… UPDATE 8:06 p.m.: Didn’t take long for disappointment to creep in…McCain keeps flogging the mortgage principal renegotiation and slams the market again…and Obama appeals to protectionism by slamming tax breaks for ‘companies that ship jobs overseas’ (i.e., that [...]

Sigh…there are apparently a number of conservatives, both prominent and rank-and-file, who think that Americans right now are riveted by accusations of associations with anti-American radicals in Barack Obama’s past. Maybe this is so, and I’ve slipped off into some Bizarro alternate universe – but in the world that I’m living in, people are concerned [...]

McCain is so behind in the polls right now, and the economy is such an overwhelming issue, that presidential politics is almost an afterthought a mere three weeks or so before the election…but an Alaskan legislative panel has found that Sarah Palin abused her powers as governor by relentlessly pursuing the firing of a state [...]

“Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan”. So goes the old saying, one I’m fond of quoting. Everyone now wants us to think they were prescient enough to see this calamity coming; no one wants to admit to contributing to it. Obama and McCain assure us that each saw the warning signs at [...]

…Here we go. I have no confidence whatsoever that we are going to hear anything worth hearing on the economy, but it would be a nice time for someone to step up to the plate. I’ll update throughout the night… UPDATE 8:08 p.m.: So Obama has no answer to the most immediate way to improve [...]

…it really is looking more and more like Obama is going to win this thing handily.  He is up by a statistically significant margin in every poll, and much more troubling for McCain, he has regained momentum in the crucial battleground states that will swing the election.  It might even be a massacre, looking at [...]

My thoughts on the bailout bill, now signed, sealed, and delivered with passage in the House and President Bush’s signature? Well, here’s what I think…nah, forget it.  You know what I think already, and it’s a done deal now. Let’s just mourn the passage by channelling George Harrison briefly: Have you seen the little piggies [...]