Short: The warmth of the DC snipers

This is the strange story of how the DC sniper, John Mohammed, joined a DC-area YMCA. How do you feel when the friendly new guy at the gym is also a cold-blooded killer? I hope I never find out.

Image: txstate.edu

Surprising money advantage for Obama

During the summer, the money race seemed to favor Romney, who outraised Obama in June and July. There are also the rich conservative superPACs, like Karl Rove's Crossroads. It looked like Romney would have a big advantage in money for TV ads, just as he had in the primaries. Would Romney be able to glide on all that cash straight into the White House? It was never a sure thing, but it was certainly a concern.

Now, however, Obama has opened up advantages in raising money at the same time as he's pulling ahead slightly in the polls. How did he accomplish this? This ABC article may have the best explanation: the Obama campaign spent a lot of money on TV ads in swing states during both conventions, making sure that his message was heard during those news-saturated weeks. The Romney campaign lagged in TV ad placement.

I wonder whether Romney was keeping his powder dry for a blitz in October. By that time, it may be too late. The Romney campaign and his allied superPAC can dedicate a lot of cash to ads, but the Republican National Committee, which is flush this year, and other rich superPACs may shun Romney and instead devote their resources to more promising races, like Senate seats and control of the Senate.

Perhaps TV saturation wouldn't help anyway. Repetition of the same talking points grates on undecided voters. A more empathetic narrative might work, but Romney hasn't shown that he knows how to frame one. With six weeks left, Romney's hopes depend on increasingly unlikely events--a major Obama fumble, a foreign or domestic crisis that demonstrates an unknown blindness in the Obama administration, a compelling debate performance by Romney that leaves Obama speechless.

I doubt that any of these black swan events will occur. Romney may not be toast yet, but he's in the toaster and really close to those glowing filaments.

Getting toastier

Image: thenewcivilrightsmovement.com

Romney as a terrible candidate

Lots of writers have covered this ground, but I'm compelled to trod on it too.

On the one hand it's amazing how terrible Romney is doing. After all, he successfully managed to sell himself to a reluctant Republican party. The job of selling himself to a more moderate electorate should be easier, shouldn't it? Besides, Romney is supposed to be good at this kind of salesmanship due to his background in business.

Somehow it turns out that selling yourself as a candidate is maybe harder when the audience is more diverse. Some of the positions that are taken for granted in the GOP (lower taxes are just plain good) require more explanation for the broader audience not steeped in GOP orthodoxy. Romney (unlike Perry, Palin, Bachmann, or Cain) is smart enough to know that some of those GOP orthodoxies aren't very solid, and he can't manage to enthusiastically lie about them the way other candidates might have. So he is bland, avoids specifics, and postpones the date of reckoning until after the election.

Luckily, all that hedging and feinting isn't going unnoticed. Of course Obama points Romney's dodges, but also Romney is just not that good at it. He gives himself away when he's eluding a question--I'm not sure quite what the tells are, but a lot people can see them as clearly as I do. I think perhaps his speech patterns change--the sentences are shorter and more disjoint. They just don't flow in the same way that the longer diatribes against what Obama do.

Gingrich was a speaker who could flawlessly pull off this kind of thing. He could deliver reams of analysis of Obama, or the merits of GOP policy, and they all sounded great. Unfortunately, he could do the same when he talked about space colonies, so we knew that he could make anything sound good, thereby demonstrating that he was a silver-tongued charlatan who couldn't be trusted.

In comparison, Romney is more like us--nervous when he lies or prevaricates. And that's exactly what he has to do now until Election Day. May God have mercy on his soul, but Americans shouldn't.

Grit your teeth, Mitt. Just X more days of this.

Image: blogs.e-rockford.com

Extras. Nate Silver says the Romney is trying to be the generic Republican candidate. Jon Stewart says the same thing, but with much better jokes. It turns out a generic Republican can win over Obama, but actually flesh, blood, and flawed Republicans can't. What is a real person to do? Bleach out those personal bits.

Herman Cain proclaims he'd be doing better. Many at conservative site HotAir disagree. Lots are resigned, few have buyer's remorse. Not many analyzing why the choices for GOP presidential nominee were so poor this time.

Political Lie Machine: Obama switchers 2

I called bullshit on the idea that there are a lot of Obama switchers earlier. Here's a great example of how rare they are.

Fox News wanted a young Obama supporter who is also a college graduate having trouble finding a job and therefore is now an ardent Romney supporter. Watch what happens when Fox gets punked by a supposed average representative of this demographic. Hat tip - Atlantic Wire.



Update 7/8/13. To all the French and Italians who started viewing this in the past month, please tell me--where did you hear about this post, why is it popular there, and what do you think? [Friendly comment policy, you can be anonymous, and no word puzzle at the end.]

Short: The Dilemma of Black Conservative Christians

This article was a glimpse into a different world from mine.

I don't make decisions based on religious tenets or trying to understand which moral choice God would want me to make. But that is what conservative black pastors are trying to do: determine which US presidential candidate is the better choice for a strict Christian. Hint: It's not a slam-dunk for Obama and it never was. This year the choice is especially hard--a anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage Mormon, or a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage unorthodox nominal Christian.

I'm so glad I believe in individual conscience. That is my prescription. Search your heart, analyze your values and the values, policies, and likely outcomes. Know your reasons, then vote your conscience.

... or you can do as your pastor says.

Image: aikenstandard.com

Short: The sequester quantified

I'm not a complete nerd, but I long ago decided not to be scared of numbers, so I looked at the 394-page sequester report. The report is actually pretty simple-- it lists federal agencies and how much their budgets are going to be cut, like this:

The cut levels are 2% for some special favored programs (like Medicare), 7.6%, 8.2%, and 9.4% (mostly for defense programs). Some lucky programs have no cuts, like Social Security and Medicaid. The overall savings from these cuts are just $1.2 trillion over 10 years, that is only $120 billion a year or one-tenth of our current deficit.

The cuts and the which functions would be affected were determined by the debt ceiling deal that passed over a year ago. The Congress people who passed this legislation probably know what they voted for, and could probably put together this report, but they hoped to embarrass Obama and pin the cuts on him. That's a pretty weak ploy. Personally, I'm glad the debt ceiling deal had teeth. Finally a bit of fiscal sanity.

Anyone complaining about this had better make a damned good argument against these cuts and offer a better alternative.

One additional reflection: It takes 220 pages to list all the federal agencies and bureaus, though I fear that maybe even this listing isn't all the federal bureaus. This makes me wonder if the federal government is trying to do too much. However, I didn't see obviously ludicrous agencies. Maybe ending non-ludicrous agencies is part of budget sanity too.

Last outpost of crazy: Feuding Amish

This could also be filed under Absurd Religious Follies. The horrible crime of beard-shearing occurred due to a years-old dispute about a bishop's right to order shunning.

For me, this story is pretty much from another planet because I don't believe in:

• Pronouncements from bishops.
• Shunning.
• Beard-cutting as a grievous retribution on the unholy.
• The God of all things would worry about ordering us to grow just our chin hairs to ridiculous lengths.

Image: newsnet5.com