Friday "Conservatives are scared" Funnies

Or maybe that's not fear but teeth-grinding rage. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference ...

Name Joe the Plumber's C&W band

I'll start ...

American Substandard
Sam the Scam and the A-Holes
Country Joe and the Flush
Plunging Political Tool
The Ball Cocks
The Flush Puppies
Cracked Pipes
Turdseeker
Fifteen Minutes
10,000 Flushes
Drunk on Drano
Portable John
The Hate Caulk Express
Sons of the Sewer
Country First After Me
Orville Wurzelbacher's GOPcorn

Inspired here.

I left you "crack", "leak", and any variety of other fecal and bathroom euphemisms. Have at it.

Why Texas politics is so screwed up

Not because Tom DeLay is still foaming at the mouth on your teevee. No, his rabies is in its terminal stages; he was once part of the problem, but no longer. Texas politics is a clusterf*ck because AT&T sponsors Tom Craddick's debates, and because nearly a fourth of all Texans in a recent survey think Obama is a Muslim.

First, Mistah Speakah and his lickspittle Leslie Ward, AT&T v-p/lobbyist:

Ward was one of three panelists moderating Sunday’s debate between Speaker Tom Craddick and Democratic challenger Bill Dingus. The other two were local radio hosts—you know, journalists. What was Ward doing there? The debate was hosted by TV station KMID, and “sponsored” by AT&T. While it’s not unusual for corporations to underwrite debates, that doesn’t normally buy their lobbyist a seat at the table.

But there was Ward, asking Craddick and Dingus questions such as: “In the Legislature a lot of emphasis is placed on seniority and rank. Does having the Speaker come from Midland make a difference?” Rough translation: Mr. Speaker, how did you become so awesome and why is your opponent beating his wife? Texas Monthly pundit Paul Burka called the seniority question “obviously a softball pitched so that Craddick can knock it out of the park.”

What a sick sad joke Tom Craddick is, not just on the people of his Midland district but on the entire state of Texas. Thankfully and once again, his Republican colleagues will try to dislodge him from the Texas House dais in January 2009:

Promising a three-term limit on House Speakers and a return to traditional rules on seniority in the House, Rep. Jim Keffer (R-Eastland) said this evening that he would work to consolidate support behind his efforts to become the next Speaker starting on Election Night.

In something of a shocker of a press statement, Keffer said that after touring the state over the past year, he’s now “100 percent sure a new Speaker for the Texas House of Representatives will be chosen for next session.”

I could go on and on about the offense to human decency that is AT&T. This blog post is going out on their tubes. I pay them a lot of money every month for a landline, DSL service, and my cellulalr lines. In return they spy on me, they give tote bags to Democratic national convention delegates, they purchase Congressional Democrats for the purpose of passing legislation granting them retroactive immunity for their wiretapping ... that's an abridged list of the corporation's atrocities. But I digress.

Regarding the state of Texas politics, you know what's even worse? This:

A University of Texas poll to be released today shows Republican presidential candidate John McCain and GOP Sen. John Cornyn leading by comfortable margins in Texas, as expected. But the statewide survey of 550 registered voters has one very surprising finding: 23 percent of Texans are convinced that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a Muslim. ...

The Obama-is-a-Muslim confusion is caused by fallacious Internet rumors and radio talk-show gossip. McCain went so far at one of his town hall meetings to grab a microphone from a woman who claimed that Obama was an Arab.

The Texas numbers are unusual because most national polls show that just 5 to 10 percent of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim — less than half the number of Texans who buy into the debunked theories.

And just read the comments of some of the believers at the link.

Sometimes you can't be anything but embarrassed for your neighbors. About one out of every four random Houstonians -- people in the restaurant where I'm dining, in the cars next to me at the stoplight, at the supermarket or drugstore where I shop -- believe Obama is a Muslim.

No wonder they're so terrified about next Tuesday.

I just don't feel sorry for this level of stupidity any more, though. Fuck 'em. They can spend the next eight years with a raging case of Obama Derangement Syndrome, and we can all call it even.

EV 10/30: Doesn't look all that close

More than ten Florida polls conducted since 10/26 show Obama with an aggregate lead of three points (48-45%), so we make it blue today. Similarly, five polls since 10/27 give McCain a three point advantage in Goergia, so it's red again. The ones that are still too close to call:

-- Missouri, where six polls since 10/26 have Obama leading by one (48-47), and North Carolina, where eight polls since 10/26 give Obama two-point lead (49-47). Indiana is also tight as a tick, where six polls since 10/28 have Obama one point ahead (47-46). Last-minute-deciding voters on Election Day will be the difference in each of these states.

--Montana and North Dakota are each in a dead heat on the basis of a single poll of each state that is aged a week or two. They're probably not that close, but stranger things have happened, so we'll leave them as is.

-- As for what you're hearing on your teevee about "swing states" and "battleground states" like Ohio and Pennsylvania ... forget them. Obama has them both locked down, with six- and twelve-point leads in multiple (as in more than 10) recent polls since 10/27. Arizona isn't all that close either despite what you may be hearing; McCain has an aggregate six-point lead, 50-44 in four recent polls.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

But hey, I'm just PDid the Blogger who wants a book deal. Don't pay attention to me; look at what Nate Silver says:

Number one, John McCain is NOT closing Obama's margin as quickly as he needs to (if indeed he is closing it at all). This appears to be a 6- or 7- point race right now ... that's where we have it, that's where RCP has it, that where Pollster.com has it. In order to beat Barack Obama, John McCain will need to gain at least one point per day between now and the election. Our model does think that McCain has pared about a point off Obama's margin -- but it has taken him a week to do so. Now, McCain needs to gain six more points in six more days. And he needs to do so with no real ground game, no real advertsing budget, and no one particularly strong message. Not easy.

Number two, John McCain is NOT gaining ground in the states that matter the most. The top tier of states in this election are Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania. There is lots of lots of polling in these states, particularly in Virgnia and Pennsylvania, and it's all coming up in roughly the same range, showing Obama leads in the high single digits (in VA and CO) or the low double digits (in PA). The second tier of states is probably Ohio, Florida and Nevada. McCain seems to be getting a bit stronger in Florida; Obama seems to be getting a bit stronger in Ohio and Nevada. McCain does seem to have halted Obama's progress in some of the third-tier states, particularly Missouri and North Carolina. On the other hand, some other third-tier states, like New Mexico and particularly New Hampshire (where Obama is getting some insane numbers lately), now appear to be off the table.

My feeling is that John McCain still needs some sort of external contingency to win the presidency. Even if some of the more conservative turnout models are correct AND even if he were to win large majorities of the undecided vote, he is probably a little bit too far behind to catch up. Rather, McCain will need to find some way to eat into some fraction of Obama's decided vote, and because most of Obama's support is quite hard (e.g. enthusiastic), that will not be easy to do."