Seven Problems with Polling and Electing a President

I happen to be a national political junkie.  I follow elections and get all the information my brain can take in on the politics of our nation.  I am a political junkie and have always been one.  The damn polls are wrong.  Toss them out with the cat liter.  They both have the same value.  Nothing.

Polling is done by calling land lines and that in itself should be the first flare.  How many people today still go and grab the big old "Phone Book" to look up the number for the pizza house up the street.  The phone book, like the stage coach is a dying technology.  I'm pretty sure the last stage coach was state of the art but you don't see many of them on the highways today.  Speaking of highways, we live in the digital information highway.  Everyone is online and pretty much everyone owns a cell phone/computer to talk with family and friends and check out what that son of a biscuit eater thought about your cute cat pictures on facebook.

One other thing that pisses me off is the so called lock on African American voters by one certain political campaign.  Nobody owns the African American vote.  Nobody.  If you claim to be in favor of changing the lives of African American voters then you should have been campaigning on it months ago or YOUR ENTIRE POLITICAL CAREER!   One of these candidates has, the other, not so much.

I have a landline but it is connected through our internet service and the "Land Line" costs us twenty bucks a year.  Thank you Magic Jack!  It isn't listed in the phone book because I am not using a recognized carrier for "Land Line" phone service.  Even my 79 year old mother in law no longer keeps a "Land Line" for her phone service.  Her son hooked her up with his cell phone plan years ago where he can have up to five people on his service.

Try this little experiment.  Question your friends and family to find out how many people have "Land Line" phone service.  If you survey thirty people and come back with a tally of one "Land Line" then you know way to many people that are living in the digital age.  Why would you accept polling numbers based on "Land Line" polls as a true sampling of the population?  They might as well poll people using only fax machines! 

Second problem is the push poll of these "Land Line" polls.  A push poll is when you put a biased criteria in-front of the poll that skews the data.  Questions or requirements such as if you voted in the last two elections that would dump your polling data because you did not vote.  That skews the data no matter how you look at it.  Look at the details of the polls questions before you say or print that your favored candidate is way ahead in the polling.

Third problem is the younger generation that is old enough to vote is moved by what the candidates have to say.  That is a huge voting block that is not even remotely considered in the next election because not a single person under 29 has a "Land Line" phone.  Along with them is the huge block of disenfranchised voters that have not voted in twenty or thirty years that are coming out of the rotting wood pile to cast a vote because they believe in what Bernie Sanders is running on for President.

Fourth problem is a GOP and Conservative voter problem.  Many moderate Republicans do not like what their own candidates are saying or running on and are actually looking at Bernie Sanders because they will never vote for Hillary Clinton.  GOP voters are the same as Dem voters and see that health care coverage needs to go further than it has, college education is having them remortgage the house to pay for their kids education, and jobs for those highly educated kids no longer exist and they and the grand kids might end up growing up in mom and dads house.

Fifth problem is that it comes down to people no longer being able to survive in this economy.  When huge corporations post mega profits in the billions of dollars but pay employees sub standard wages then we need a living wage for America and that is fifteen bucks an hour.  We need to stop corporate welfare and penalize companies that expect the country to pick up the slack for their lack of a decent paying payroll.

Sixth problem is Veterans.  Our political leaders wave the flag but every single time a veterans benefits bill comes up the political right side of the aisle in congress always says that our nation can not afford it.  If we can not afford to pay for our wounded warriors then we have no business sending them to war in the first place.  We should change the way votes for going into any conflict demand that the veterans of that conflict get the care and help they need prepaid and not tossed out on the street.  Veterans all across America are supporting Bernie Sanders because he has fought for them for all of his political career.

Seventh problem is Citizens United.  Corporations are not people and should not be allowed to contribute even one single penny to political campaigns.  President Teddy Roosevelt said it in his time and Bernie is shouting at the rafters in our time to end Citizens United.  Our elected representatives oversee the commerce of this country and Citizens United makes a mockery of the congress for sale.  If you donate enough money then a vote in the United States Congress can and will be bought.

I urge you to actually look at what Bernie Sanders has fought for over the many years he has been in congress and you will be a "Land Line" less supporter.  You just wont be polled for your opinion because you don't count.  But your vote counts!  Feel the Bern and vote for Bernie Sanders.

Visit BernieSanders.com to get enlightened and donate.

Hugs at ya all,
Papamoka

Obama Debate Performance

I watched the presidential debate and found myself screaming at the President to fight back on all the outright lies Mitt Romney was saying.  He didn't and it pissed me off.

In hindsight it was a brilliant political move to fully expose Romney and his campaign.  Mitt could not resist opening his mouth and letting his natural ability to please the crowd and flip flop on all of his campaign promises that he has made over the last 18 months.  All that Obama had to do was take the punches on the ropes and finish the first round.  The press and the people will all get in the ring for the next two weeks and beat the crap out of Mitt Romney for flip flopping.  That is all free coverage for the Obama campaign.  He does not have to spend a dime in advertising when all over the media and the internet people will be exposing Mitt Romney and all of his lies for free.

One article I read yesterday pointed out 27 major lies that Romney spouted.  I'm sure there were many more and they will all be exposed.

Brilliant political strategy Mr. President.  Mitt took the bait and couldn't shut up.  Love it!

Papamoka

Picture courtesy of Facebook.

Loud No to Trump for President

I'm thinking that Donald Trump sounds cool as president. Then we could install slot machines at the White House and really gamble our future away. But our hair would look fabulous!

Is that really a double comb over???

Moments of Clarity and Clinton

While on a recent road trip Hillary Clinton is talking about the economy and now is the time to talk about the economy and how we all got into this horrible mess. The near future is not as positive as some people would like to think and a clear path through it is needed. With the latest reports coming in from all of the world stock exchanges, the “Maybe Recession” is a world wide concern when you are talking about the United States of America. World economics is the key to saving not only our own economy but the worlds.

One of the key factors to the U.S. economy is the middle class and the shear numbers of them with disposable income. The facts are simple and the middle class in America has been downsized and locked out of the “Bush” economy from benefits too salary increases. In that same time period the cost of living in America has gone through the roof. One large contributor to that lockout was the executive release of responsibility in corporate America. In the world of business it should be called a signing statement, similar to the thoughts of our current President and the Constitution. Downsizing and outsourcing of entire manufacturing plants out of the country not to be competitive but to ensure the yearly top executives bonuses are protected and of course adjusted for inflation.

In some circles it could be argued that NAFTA and every other acronym for free trade helped to boost the economy in America but they never really stipulated if it was South America or North of the border of America? In reality, free trade literally meant a migration of American middle class jobs out of America and that is yet just one more source of the downfall of our economy. When our government supports the rights of other nations citizens for good jobs at good wages you better look at your last days of employment because that is the first tax break for corporate America to send your job over the border. Key phrases for shutting a factory or manufacturing plant here in the states is “Stock Holder Value”. Largest benefactors to stock holder value are CEO’s and top executives with stock options.

Senator Clinton in her race for the White House spoke about where she thinks we as a nation need to be and it is hard to argue with her thoughts when you look at the numbers realistically. Over at the New York Times they have this interview with Senator Clinton…

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration.

In one of her most extensive interviews about how she would approach the economy, Mrs. Clinton laid out a view of economic policy that differed in some ways from that of her husband, Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton campaigned on his centrist views, and as president, he championed deficit reduction and trade agreements.

Reflecting what her aides said were very different conditions today, Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them.

She said that economic excesses — including executive-pay packages she characterized as often “offensive” and “wrong” and a tax code that had become “so far out of whack” in favoring the wealthy — were holding down middle-class living standards.

Interviewed between campaign appearances in Los Angeles on Thursday, she said those problems were also keeping the United States economy from growing as quickly as it could.

“If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced.”

She added: “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.” - New York Times

Senator Clinton is obviously correct in stating that the markets from housing to Wall Street’s power brokers are out of control and need government oversight more now than ever. If our nation is to survive the current recession then restraints and intervention needs to come from our government. If it does not then the Robber Barron’s of days long gone will run the economy and the nation into the ground and ride out the destruction on the billions earned prior. And you can bet your last Rockefeller shiny new dime that they will pull their investments out of the stock market long before it crashes and outsource it to safer shores.

Salaries of record for one year to think about from Too Much…

$118.9 million for Leslie Blodgett, CEO of Bare Escentuals, who cashed out over 5 million option shares in her cosmetics company for a $117.6 million personal profit.

$415.5 million for Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray Irani. To reach this total, the Times added to Irani's $52.1 million in pay, as calculated by Equilar, the $270.1 million Irani cleared from cashing out stock options and the $93.3 million he withdrew from his deferred stock plan. Irani still holds another $124 million in deferred pay.

$647 million for Apple CEO Steve Jobs

$127 million for UnitedHealth CEO William McGuire

$32.6 million for Todd Nelson, CEO of the Apollo Group, a profit-making collection of higher education institutions

$131 million for Robert Nardelli, the Home Depot CEO forced out in January

$97 million for Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis

$1.5 billion for James Simons, Renaissance Technologies

$39.1 million for Ford CEO Alan Mulally, a sum that includes an $18.5-million bonus for leaving Boeing to join Ford. Ford had six executives in the industry's top 15, despite record 2006 losses of $12.6 billion.

Some people would say that each one of these people earned their pay and in some cases I might not argue with you. In most cases though it is a race to the top of the heap and they never look back at all the folks they stepped on to get those annual salaries and mega stock options. That is not part of the horizon they are looking at when they cash out, sell out or move on to another corporate position to repeat the process all over again. Once there they never forget the politics that kept them there either with donations that max out. Atilla the Hun would have been very comfortable in corporate America but he would have owned it all.

Hillary Clinton is talking the talk and I would not be surprised if she became President that she would look at corporate politics with an evil eye but she will not hesitate to cash those campaign checks coming in till that day comes. She isn’t alone in the cashing of those check and that my friends scares me.

If your interested in seeing whom is giving political donations to whom and how much then I highly recommend NewsMeat. It’s a great search engine for political thoughts and seeing who is maxing out to their favorite candidates.

Papamoka

Posted on MichaelLinnJones.com and Bring It ON!

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Joe Biden the Real Deal

Picture courtesy of JoeBiden.com

Of all the politicians running on the Democrat side of the aisle for President I am finding that Senator Joe Biden is more and more interesting. Unlike many of the other candidates he is not running for the middle but for reality. Granted the man is known for his ability to talk a tree to death but the content of that speech before the tree finally fell over was pretty damn good.

I’m of the firm belief that all politicians are full of false promises based on what the people want to hear today. And yet I honestly do not come to that conclusion when it comes to Joe Biden. What I do find with Senator Biden is that he does not need a staff that is savvy on the topics facing our nation today because he lives it and works it every single day.

Out in Iowa they are lucky enough to get to know the candidates that dare to stop in at the local coffee shops and chat. Unlike a pre screened audience for the mega stars of the Democrats, Senator Biden shows up and just talks to the folks that are willing to listen. The more he talks the more convincing his ideas are to Iowan’s.

Over at The New York Times they have this piece on Senator Biden and his coffee shop hopping campaign for President…

A Senate Star Sparkles Less on the Stump

By MICHAEL COOPER
Published: October 9, 2007

Snip and jump to the meat of the article…

So Mr. Biden has begun engaging Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, asking at nearly every stop how they can square their recent votes to stop financing the war in Iraq — Mr. Biden voted to continue the financing — with their recent concessions that they cannot guarantee all the troops will be home by 2013.

Over the summer, when Mr. Obama called for striking at terrorist camps in Pakistan if the Pakistanis fail to do so, Mr. Biden questioned his foreign policy acumen by saying that he was describing existing policy. And Mr. Biden, who calls Mrs. Clinton a friend, said in the interview that even though he did not blame her for being a polarizing figure, it should concern voters who want to see a Democrat elected president.

“It’s really not her fault,” he said of the strong reaction toward Mrs. Clinton over the years. “But you know, and people know, there is going to be that great ‘vast right wing conspiracy’ — it’s going to mobilize. And I think people are going to start sitting there thinking, whoa, wait a minute. Do we want to go there again?”

At several stops he sharply criticized Mrs. Clinton’s recent vote to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a sponsor of terrorism. “The idea of giving the president an excuse to be able to go to war with Iran I found absolutely mindless,” he said. “I was dumbfounded when Hillary voted for it.” - New York Times

For some odd reason I do not trust the theory that you have to have one hundred million bucks in the bank to run for President of the United States. Popularity is fine but if you do not have the substance to back up your speech then what good is the popularity contest? Television advertisement is nice but actually talking to the voters one on one is becoming a lost style of campaigning for President.

I’m sure that the airwaves in Iowa and New Hampshire are being flooded with the top three from each party but you have to wonder how often the top three are actually there in the respective states? I’ve never been one to believe all that I see in a television commercial when it comes to candidates running for office. Given the past elections where Swift Boats slammed Kerry and Dan Rather slammed Bush for his service record I no longer trust the television advertisements. Post election, the Swift Boats lost their credibility and so did Dan Rather.

This race is not over and done with in Iowa and the people there see Joe Biden in small groups and most walk away with a changed perspective and vote. “Do not trust the national polls that tell you where the candidates stand, look at the polls of where the next vote is happening.” (Thank you Jay Severin of 96.9 FM Talk WTKK in Boston for that quote) Why that happens is that Senator Biden does not tell you what you want to hear, he tells you how to fix it. From Iraq, to Iran, to Afghanistan, he has a plan to end the wrongs and make it right. Bringing America back to the world table of diplomacy is a meal Joe Biden knows how to cook and it all starts with one voters decision that big money campaigns will not buy their vote.

Papamoka

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One Word! Okay Tops Two!

Picture Courtesy of the White House

Elections are coming up fast and furious and people are talking and candidates are talking sound bites. This is your chance to participate in the sound bite. Just a little fun too!

List the Candidate for President of the United States of America first that you love or dislike and just ONE word... Okay TWO at the most.... to best describe how you feel about that candidate. Pro or Con on anyone running for President is acceptable. I'm not about to tally the results but it will be a fun read for all.

Post away in the comments and have fun! Just keep it clean...

I may need some help getting this moving so please email your friends and link back here.

http://papastraighttalk.blogspot.com/

Papamoka