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Prediction: Franken Will Win by 27 Votes
By Jon Wiener
Nate Silver, whose website FiveThirtyEight.com had the most accurate predictions for the Nov. 4 vote for president and senators, has a new prediction: Al Franken will win the Minnesota Senate recount -- by 27 votes.
Franken came in 215 votes behind incumbent Republican Norm Coleman on election day, in an election where 2.9 million votes were cast. Under Minnesota election law, a hand recount was mandatory and began last Wednesday.
Silver, a sports statistician who turned his formidable mathematical talents to evaluating political polls for the 2008 election, became a legend among political junkies when his final prediction for the Nov. 4 election accurately predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states. He forecast that Obama would beat McCain by 6.1 percentage points; Obama won by 6.8 points. Silver also correctly predicted the winner of every Senate race (except for Minnesota, which has not yet been settled).
(34) CommentsNovember 24, 2008
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Hillary's Big Ethics Problem: Bill
By Jon Wiener
What guidelines should govern Bill Clinton's future activities if Hillary becomes Secretary of State? Recent events suggest that at least two are necessary: no more favors for human rights violators in exchange for big contributions to the Clinton Foundation; and no more lying to the news media about such deals.
It's worth remembering the nearly-forgotten story we could call "Bill Clinton and the Kazakh uranium." As Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr. of the New York Times reported in January, 2008, Bill Clinton was part of a corrupt three-way deal in 2005 involving the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, whose human rights record has been criticized by many, including the Bush White House -- and Senator Hillary Clinton.
Kazakhstan has uranium--one fifth of the world's reserves. The president of Kazakhstan wanted to be named head of an international election-monitoring organization--the same one that had ruled his election fraudulent. What to do?
(27) CommentsNovember 22, 2008
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McCain's Favorite TV Show, '24,' Brings Torture Back Sunday
By Jon Wiener
John McCain's favorite TV show, 24 -- the one that glorifies torture - is returning to Fox TV this Sunday night with a two-hour special.
McCain named 24 as his favorite show on his Facebook page. The show has done more to advance the Bush White House defense of torture than anything else in the American media. According to its "ticking time bomb" scenario, the only way to stop terrorists from exploding a nuclear weapon in the heart of an American city is to torture them into revealing their fiendish plot.
During the campaign McCain was asked by a reporter which celebrity he most identified with. "It's Jack Bauer," he replied -- the Kiefer Sutherland character who does most of the torturing. "We have a lot in common." And in 2007 he talked about 24 on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: "I watch it all the time," he said. "I'm sort of a Jack Bauer kind of guy."
(41) CommentsNovember 18, 2008
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California Initiatives: Go Figure
By Jon Wiener
In California's wild world of ballot initiatives, the chickens defeated the egg factory owners, and an anti-abortion parental notification proposition was defeated.
Prop. 8, the ban on gay marriage, is winning 52-48 with 95 per cent reporting: see our separate coverage today by Richard Kim.
California's anti-abortion/parental notification initiative is losing, 52-48, with 95 percent of precincts reporting. The campaign was deeply dishonest – proponents called their proposition "Sarah's Law," supposedly in honor of a 15-year-old girl who died from an abortion gone wrong 14 years ago, an abortion where the parents were not notified. As the LA Times pointed out in an editorial, "Much of that is false. The girl's name wasn't Sarah; she lived in Texas, not California; and though she was 15, she already had a child and was in a common-law marriage, which means she wouldn't have been covered by the law Californians are being asked to consider."
(33) CommentsNovember 5, 2008
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Life After Election Day
By Jon Wiener
No more Todd, no more Track, no more Bristol.
No more Jon Stewart.
No more Colbert Report.
(20) CommentsNovember 5, 2008
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The Undecideds: What's Their Problem?
By Jon Wiener
Undecided voters--"or, as I call them, morons," Bill Maher says--remained a stubborn five or six percent of the electorate as the polls reported final results yesterday. Obama and McCain each have spent tens of millions on TV ads to persuade them, and thousands of hours of door-to-door canvassing to talk to them face to face.
What's their problem? The undecideds have been staring at the menu now for almost a year--why haven't they made up their minds?
In fact the "undecideds" include at least four different groups:
(7) CommentsNovember 4, 2008
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White Voters and Obama
By Jon Wiener
Why isn't Obama farther ahead in the polling? The objective factors that favor the Democrats this year are overwhelming: the worst economy since the Great Depression, the most unpopular incumbent president in the history of polling, and a money advantage in the campaign that is unprecedented for a Democrat. The polls all show that Obama will win – but the authoritative polling statistics website, FiveThirtyEight.com, predicts that Obama will end up with 52 per cent of the vote.
If Obama does get 52 per cent of the white vote today, that will be more than any Democrat in the last 40 years – more than Bill Clinton, who got 49.2 per cent in 1996 (when Ross Perot got 8.4 per cent) and more than Jimmy Carter, who got 50.1 per cent in 1976. But it's nowhere near LBJ's 60.1 per cent in 1964, or Ronald Reagan's 58.8 percent in 1984.
One reason why Obama isn't farther ahead may be race. The evidence here is of course problematic. When the New York Times-CBS poll in August asked white people whether they would vote for a black presidential candidate, only five per cent said "no"--impressive evidence that America has at last overcome its racist past.
(73) CommentsNovember 3, 2008
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Six Ways McCain Could Still Win
By Jon Wiener
Six ways McCain could still win:
6. Thirty million young, first-time voters oversleep, forget to go to polls on Nov. 4.
5. Sarah Palin reveals secret past as Rhodes Scholar; admits "hockey mom" thing was just a ruse -- to avoid being called an "elitist."
(69) CommentsOctober 28, 2008
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Rich Old White Men: Still the Problem
By Jon Wiener
The latest New York Times-CBS News poll identifies the demographic group with the highest level of support for John McCain: rich old white men. Coincidentally, they are also the people who control Wall Street, Congress, and the White House.
The poll defined "old" as "45 or older." Many will take issue with that definition, but those old white men supported McCain over Obama 48-42 per cent. White men under 45, in contrast, supported Obama, 50-43. And white women supported Obama, 45-42, whatever their age.
The poll also shows that rich white people are even more likely to support McCain - no surprise. Here the poll defined "rich" as earning $50,000 or more. Most will take issue with that definition, but those rich white people supported McCain 49-42. (The poll did not provide separate figures for women and men among rich old white people- probably their sample was not big enough.)
(52) CommentsOctober 27, 2008
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The Suffering of Wall Street Wives
By Jon Wiener
"Wall Street wives are finding that they must defer dreams and fancy things," the L.A. Times reported in a page one story on Saturday. One wife, who had been looking forward to her husband's retiring with "$10 to $12 million," told the Times she was "so angry" with the stock market meltdown, which was "not in her plan." The husband made $400,000 last year, "but there are no reports yet on what will happen to 2008 bonuses and options."
The same day a page one story in the New York Times reported on yard sales at foreclosed homes in working class neighborhoods in California: "three-year-old Marita Duarte's tricycle was sold by her mother, Beatriz, to a stranger for $3 - even as her daughter was riding it." The mother had lost her job as a floral designer two months ago, and now the house has been lost.
On Wall Street the average income is $365,000, according to the Times, "although top-flight managers typically make many millions more." Wall Street wives described to L.A. Times reporter Geraldine Baum "the pain of walking through malls and boutiques -how it hurts knowing they can't grab a few things for themselves that might catch their fancy."
(26) CommentsOctober 25, 2008
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