Craig Crawford's Trail Mix

A heartly welcome to IAgirlinDC, our latest "Trail Watcher" in Iowa:

IAgirlinDC on HRC's New Year's Eve party:
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2008/01/keep-the-change.html#comment-9280

MLSan Diego: I am a Vietnam veteran and I hate to see US military lives lost , and so many wounded and burned horribly because of this war, fought on false premises, really, downright fabrications and plain lies.

I realize no candidates in serious contention have any plan to end the war, like...in a couple months after being sworn in.

I don't support Obama, because he's 2-faced. Against the war, then votes EVERY time to fund it. This disgusts me.

I posted on this last month...after Congress finally pulled the plug on Vietnam, and stopped funding , NO ONE , on either side of the aisle, lamented the fact that the war was over, nor seriously proposed resuming massive funding.

With all the numbers crunching, no one has been talking much about how Congress, restored to slim majority of Democratic power, has not even tried to pull out all the stops in ending the war..many of us feel betrayed.
I realize the numbers are not there to stop Bush, but cloture and other tactics were never even considered.

Old McCain, getting in his shots. Just what we need...8 more years of rampant war for a stupid , trumped, up cause based on lies and deceit.

If the war is on the back burner, doesn't that mean we want to forget it and end it? Who wants a damn maniac like McCain pulling the strings?

Dexter,

Thank you for your service.

The lack of moral leadership on the war from from Pelosi and Reid is truly heartbreaking.

" McCain falls in and out of favor more often than paisley neckties "

Great line, Craig.

Dex -- I have real concerns about how to get out of there "instantly" without leaving one of the most rabidly anti-American Islamic states in history. We've destroyed this country and as near as I can see we're in a complete lose/lose situation. But I think Bush knows that and is hoping the next administration makes some sort of misstep and the whole Mid East explodes. This entire surge "success" is so bogus I can't believe anyone is buying it.

By destroying Carter's efforts, the Repubs ensured the Reagan years....homelessness, deregulation, destruction of the unions.....to my mind, Bush and his pals are willing to gamble with the future as long as somehow they can blame Democrats and keep them out of office.

Bear

He didn't

http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/iraq/

Mike,

I couldn't agree with you more about your assessment of Pelosi and Reid.

He seems more out of it mentally than Claiborne Pell or Strom Thurmond in their final Senate terms and she seems more preoccupied with her push up bra doing yeoman's work under her Hillary suits.

It's much easier to see your country destroyed by greedy f#$@s who have the balls to rob us blind than to see it ruined by cowards more concerned with preserving the power they refuse to use on behalf of us...

Hey Jamie,

Thanks for the link. I will have to give him serious consideration now...

btw Craig,

With regards to paisley ties, as long as they are the large paisley patterns, they are always a viable option...never wear one of those ties that have the small paisleys...they look very dollar storish...

Bear, that's a lousy set of choices, isn't it?

What bothers me is that none of the candidates have actually said what they will do about the mercenaries (i.e. Blackwater) that cost the taxpayer twice as much as the regular service members.

The only real reason that the surge is working is that they have separated the various factions either by area of the country or by district with walls in Baghdad. We can only hope that this will allow the tensions to die down enough to get something resembling a government established.

There will still be no guarantee that the country will be allied with U.S. interests.

Edwards Unveils Plan To End The Current System Of Outsourcing Security Missions To Private Contactors

http://www.johnedwards.com/news/press-releases/20071003-contractors/

This is off topic, but I have a media question for Craig, or anyone else who may have some insight. I just saw Jeanne Moos on CNN do a piece on how on-camera reporters and the folks behind the camera try to say warm, which ain't easy this time of year in Iowa. My question is: why don't they report from indoors? Why the need to stand outside?

DND,

I am guessing it may have something to do with Wag the Dog...you have to be outdoors to prove you are there...

They just announced on C-Span that Kucinich has asked his Iowa supporters (can't be many since he shares people with Ron Paul), to support Obama as their second choice. He had that deal with Edwards last time when Kucinich had more supporters, but Edwards screwed him in several precincts. I wonder why he didn't just tell them to caucus for Ron Paul?

'Cause Ron Paul has a blimp and not a flying saucer.

>>If a candidate is sitting at 30% and the next week is at 31% and the margin of error is 3%, this does not indicate an up-tick.

dnd -- Technically, only if you're surveying the same people (longitudinal sample). If you're pulling a different sample from one period to the next, you're taking a series of snapshots, not making a movie. One shouldn't try to compare one survey with another, though the media (as well as some of my colleagues) make those kinds of comparisons all the time.

Zogby, et al. tries to split the difference by using rolling averages across days. Reporting the results in this manner allows you to have some of the same people in more than one day's results (a quasi-longitudinal sample).

It's not perfect, but trying to recruit a representative sample of 600 people who are willing to let you call them and ask the same question every day (you made up your mind yet?/you changed your mind yet?) would be practically insane.

Only 11 more months and I can, for another four years, put away my soapbox on political polling and the talking heads who report the results (with my apologies in advance to our right-honourable friend Mr. Crawford)...

Spike,
Good point. But if you choose the same 600 people, aren't you opening yourself up to systematic error? And I think there would be some problem with random error as the sample would no longer be independent and identically distributed.

Mark Penn, Clinton's pollster and arguably one of the best in the business, responds to the Des Moines Register's Poll results:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/blog/view/?id=19621

Spike,
"One shouldn't try to compare one survey with another,"

If the questions are the same, and the sample size is the same, isn't this a good way to get a handle on systematic error?

>>But if you choose the same 600 people, aren't you opening yourself up to systematic error?

No. As long as the sample was of sufficient size, randomly selected and no one dropped out, the sample would be identical from day-to-day, and the random error would remain exactly the same. Systematic error would be accounted for through the Central Limit Thereom (if a sample has been randomly selected and is of sufficient size, the distribution will be normal).

For example, using a sample size of 375 people, which translates into a 95% confidence level, with a 5% confidence interval...

"If we drew 100 random samples from this population, in 95 of those samples, the results we found from these 375 people would be +/- 5% of the results we would have obtained if we had surveyed the entire population.

If we surveyed these sample people every day, the sample size wouldn't change, therefore, the confidence level and interval would also remain constant. Because the sample is random, and thus normally distributed, there should be no systematic error.

DND,

As a poli sci major, I can say with a clear conviction that statistics was the worst class I took at the University of Rhode Island. I can't begin to explain how much that class just sucked...if I had to take that class again for and I was paid a million dollars, I would still say no...

I assume most journalists fall somewhere in that neighborhood as well, though I doubt they would pass up the money...lol

Bear -- "if I had to take that class again for and I was paid a million dollars, I would still say no..."

That's too bad. I teach market research and statistics, and the hardest thing about teaching those classes isn't the toughness of material, it's making the material revelant and understandable so people can enjoy it and actually use it....

The beauty of statistics is that you can get the data to say anything you want it to (:>)...

Hi all.. Happy New Year

I just wanted to tell you something about polls that happened here in a national election. Our newspapers are owned by huge conglomerates that own way too many media outlets, and the big newspapers and TV networks sponsor the polls. One year, 2000 I think it was, one of our more conservative media giants published a poll very close to the election, with predictably right-leaning findings. According to this poll, the governing party was going to lose. Imagine everyone's surprise when the Prime Minister and the Liberals won a third mandate!?! For months, this polling firm (and the sponsoring media co.) were ridiculed about the results. Turned out, Canadians, as is our habit, decided that they'd had enough of polls, wanted to have their privacy back, and fully 2/3 of those called had lied intentionally. Polls here havent been trusted since. It's a bit like those silly "drug surveys" we used to fill out when we were in high school. Lied through our teeth. -- Do you do drugs? -- Oh sure, heroin before breakfast!

patsi:
TY 4 your thoughtful comments re: leaving Iraq.

I can't bear the thought of John McCain becoming prez and keeping a strong and stronger presence in Iraq for 4 or 8 more years.
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All talk of possible veeps has evaporated...who cares?, with races like this on the front burner.
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It's just nasty-cold...snowing like crazy, windy, ...I can't stand any more hot tea tonight...time for a little all-grain natural hot cereal from Trader Joe's.

Good Morning, fellow Trail-Watchers! The temperature is currently 0 F here in Des Moines with a -15 F. wind chill. The only thing that's missing is about a foot of new snow (though we have about 4" on the ground)...Perfect caucus weather!!!!

Lots of movement today on the Intrade.com Iowa Presidential Futures Market....

http://www.central.edu/publicdocs/01%2D01%2D08FuturesMarketGraphs.pdf

We started the morning with what now looks like a panic sell-off of Romney positions. Romney lost 60% of his market value at one point, but has since recovered most of his value, with room for continued upward movement in the near future. That's good news for Romney, as the early morning sell-off moved him below Huckabee today.

Huckabee's position is fairly stable, and technical indicators suggest his support should remain fairly flat tomorrow. Unless something drastic happens tomorrow, the market is setting up for a photo-finish between Romney and Huckabee on Thursday.

On the Democratic side, Obama's position increased slowly throughout the day, but indications are that his position may move slightly downward on Wednesday.

Clinton's position moved down relative to Obama on Tuesday. However, technical indicators suggest her position should move upward on Wednesday. Unfortunately (or fortunately -- depending on which camp you're in), it may not be enough to catch Obama.

The most interesting change happened in Edwards' support on Tuesday. Despite poll data to the contrary, Edwards' position moved sharply downward on Tuesday. The market data suggests Edwards' support may have bottomed; however, technical indicators are mixed for a rapid upward spike that would be necessary for him to catch Obama and take the lead between now and Thursday night.

No vanilla here...but , ya know...I love barley in beef soup...it's wonderful.

Barley in hot cereal is going to be an acquired taste, and I refuse to keep dumping on more syrup to kill the plainness.
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patsi, it's so nice to see someone else who clearly recalls the Reagan years for what they truly were. It was so obvious to me , as a UAW local officer, what a truly anti-people president Reagan was.
He tried to cripple the unions at every turn.

Solidarity Day, September 18, 1981...The Mall, Washington , D.C.

Many hundreds of union members rode AMTRAK and buses to D.C. ...we were all boycotting the airlines.

I stood in solidarity with PATCO members...hundreds were there...who had just recently been fired by Reagan...that drumbeat is still in my head, I think of it frequently...they had a drummer with them, ...simply
[ 1,2,3 drumbeats,
1,2.3
1,2,3.
,,,,,,PATCO ]

( they repeated this for the longest time)

No, we don't need no steenkin' Regan clone back at 1600!!

Spike...it's amazing...30 point daily swings? Edwards dead one day , back on top the next, dead again, but expected to recover? How many lives does one cat have?
Anyway, thanks for keeping us informed and entertained...and now I finally think I have a rudimentary understanding about caucusing.
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..saw Ron Paul a bit on TV, with Glen Beck...Paul wants young people to be able to secede from Social Security , and wants to stop all funding of the Department of Education..says it's a waste.
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Tiptoe:
I dumped the ashtrays and threw out the stale bagels and croissants...swept the kitchen here and shredded and dumped the trash.
Maybe you can mop up the mess Spike and I have tracked into the Crawfordslist rooms , from the snow on our feet.
Where IS that janitor, Ms. Tiptoe?

Americans sick of NH-IA...

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/721754,early010108.article

Good morning youngsters. Snow on the ground in NE Georgia (not much though). Back to reality and work for me.

Hope all are well and I wouldnt be too shocked to see McCain not only get nominated but win the WH.

Take care
-Aging Hipster

Harbor.....remember I told you of my friend's autistic child in Denver? His dad put a video on you tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELJGjZFY0eY

Randy Newman, "A Few Words in Defense of our Country" :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OldToIF5ZGs&eurl=http://www.crooksandliars.com/

Good Morning All,

I have a cold....I hate to work with a cold.

John McCain was admired by all including me, until he he started shedding his own long held values for the promise of the "Presidency.

I would have voted for McCain. He was just right of Center for years. He relfected quite a bit of my morals and character. BUT.....he sold out.

Forgive yes. Forget No.

Well said.

Cute kid, sturg! Thanks for posting that video. Also, looks as though young Collin has some great skills if he put that traffic light together, on top of savant skills with the calendar.

I too was an admirer of McCain, but he became like every other politician and tried to become all things to all people including the hard right that has been out to get him since he ran in 2000. Plus McCain's support of the Iraq War is nauseating. He's been a great disappointment. I just can't support him