Crossposted from Flopping Aces

VOTE! Your life, your future and your country depend on it!

Don’t let yourself be swayed by defeatist opinion polls, or exit polls which leak Tuesday afternoon!

McCAIN CAMPAIGN MEMO: READING THE EXIT POLLS
BILL McINTURFF, INTERNAL POLLSTER
Mon Nov 03 2008 16:53:14 ET

As we have seen in previous election cycles, the exit poll results do leak early and that ends up influencing the coverage of the race before even the first state polls close at 6:00 PM Eastern.

However, we want to remind the campaign that the media’s own post-election study of the exit polls in 2004 showed that the exit polls overstate the Democratic candidate’s support. Therefore, we would discourage a rush to judgment based on the exit polls and wait until there has been a representative sampling of actual tabulated results from a variety of counties and precincts in a state.

Here are the key points to keep in mind when the exit poll data starts being leaked:

1. Historically, exit polls have tended to overstate the Democratic vote.

2. The exit polls are likely to overstate the Obama vote because Obama voters are more likely to participate in the exit poll.

3. The exit polls have tended to skew most Democratic in years where there is high turnout and high vote interest like in 1992 and 2004.

4. It is not just the national exit poll that skews Democratic, but each of the state exit polls also suffers from the same Democratic leanings.

5. The results of the exit polls are also influenced by the demographics of the voters who conduct the exit polls.

After the 2004 election, the National Election Pool completed a study investigating why the exit polls that year showed John Kerry over performing 5.5 net points better than the actual results showed him to have done. Their conclusion was that the primary reason the exit polls was that Kerry voters and Democrats were more likely to participate in the exit polls.
…
Conclusions

Based on the previous exit poll results, we should expect once again that Tuesday’s exit poll data could overstate the Obama vote and under represent the McCain vote.

It is important that the campaign make sure the media realizes this, so that when the exit polls do leak, people do not overreact to the early exit poll data. Rather than looking at the exit polls, we should wait until we start seeing actual election results from key precincts and counties to gauge who won the election.

Read the entire memo at the Drudge Report.

And:

Obama & His Coal

Yesterday Palin took it to Obama for his coal statement:

And the MSM tries to dismiss it with headlines like this one from CNN:

Palin knocks Obama over months-old coal comments

“Months old?” So what?

The SF Chronicle had the video of the interview up on the website but they conveniently neglected to include the quote in the article they wrote after the interview. THAT is the reason why Sarah is asking why the quote is just now making headlines. If the MSM had done its job and wrote about it, believe me….it would of caused a stir last January.

I have a feeling that if McCain had said his policies would bankrupt an entire industry while hurting blue collar workers in many states with skyrocketing utility bills it would be front page news.

But with the one, it’s ignored.

On another note, check out this ad Obama put out in May:

Obama: “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.”

Coal worker: “Barack originates from Chicago. But he came to southern Illinois and he seen the devastation and the loss of the jobs in the coal industry. Washington, DC is not listening to us. Barack understands.”

Graphic: “The Obama Record: $200 million for clean coal.”

Announcer: “In Illinois and in the USA Barack Obama helped lead the fight for clean coal. To protect our environment and to save good paying American jobs.”

Coal worker: “He’s figured it out. It takes trust in each other to get the job done.”

Yeah, trust Obama….he would never speak out both sides of his mouth right?

Finally, some reaction to the statement from the coal industry itself:

The senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association called Obama’s comments “unbelievable.”

“His comments are unfortunate,” Chris Hamilton said Sunday, “and really reflect a very uninformed voice and perspective to coal specifically and energy generally.”

Hamilton noted other times Obama and vice presidential candidate Joe Biden have made seemingly anti-coal statements.

“In Ohio recently, when Joe Biden said ‘not here’ about building coal-fired power plants — this is exactly what will happen,” Hamilton said. “Financing won’t be directed here. It will all go aboard for plants elsewhere in the world. The United Sates is importing more coal today from Indonesia, South Africa and Colombia than we ever have.

If we’re going to create a situation where coal-fired power plants are at that much of a disadvantage, there will be new ones built. But as Biden said, just not here.”

And…
Obama Supporter Issues On Air Demand: “I want m***f*** Joe the Plumber DEAD!”
Is this the kind of “change” Obama promises? Death to political opponents?

Charles Karel Bouley, an Obama supporter who writes at the Huffington Post and is a morning host on San Francisco’s KGO radio made the threat during a newscast on November 2, 2008. Audio here.

In a Huffington Post column dated October 13, Bouley pulled every fear card he could muster claiming that it was McCain and Palin who endangered democracy with their rhetoric:

“Yes, I’m afraid that John McCain and Sarah Palin through their hateful, spiteful and untrue rhetoric are, no matter how inadvertent, trying to get Barack Obama out of the race, literally, as in, taken out.”

And yet, even after the claim that someone at a McCain rally shouted “kill him” was proven false this Bouley character demands the death of Joe the Plumber. Joe, whose only “crime” was to ask Obama a tough question.

Joe has been investigated by teams of reporters, his private information in government files was perused by Obama supporters directing state agencies. He has been smeared, tarred and feathered. All because he asked a question.

And now this.

If you think this example of hate is an isolated incident, consider what happened today on a school bus in Ohio where a young girl and her family were threatened with violence if the parent’s didn’t vote for Obama. The children who made those threats obviously got the idea from somewhere. It’s abundantly clear that the hate in this campaign is being directed from the top down and goes back even further than DNC Chairman Howard Dean’s statement that he “hates Republicans and everything they stand for.”

Question for you history buffs: when was the last time political opponents were demonized; their activities criminalized and their families threatened with physical violence?

Finally:

The dangers when a nation votes on “wallet security” instead of “national security”

The “polls” have spoken. Iraq and the global war against the jihad movements is but a blip on the electorate radar screen. From WaPo:

In the end, Iraq all but disappeared as an issue in the presidential election -
- to the benefit of Barack Obama.

AS THE COUNTRY votes in an election dominated by economic issues, it is worth pointing out the problem that did not, after all, overshadow the presidential race: the war in Iraq. According to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, just 9 percent of likely voters said Iraq was the most important issue in their choice for president, compared with 51 percent who cited the economy. That’s a dramatic change from the 2006 mid-term election, in which Iraq ranked first among voters’ concerns, with 27 percent in a Pew poll citing it as the biggest issue. Even in 2004, more than 20 percent picked it.

The reason for that shift was encapsulated in a story The Post and other news organizations reported without fanfare over the weekend. In October, 13 American soldiers died in Iraq, a total that tied with August for the lowest monthly toll of the war. The number of Iraqis killed was almost certainly also the lowest in more than five years — 288, by the count of the Web site iCasualties.org. In October 2006, 106 American troops and at least 1,539 Iraqis died. Simply put, the situation in Iraq has been transformed in the past two years, and voters recognize it. While 63 percent said in a November 2006 poll reported in Newsweek that the United States was “losing ground” in Iraq, 53 percent said in a New York Times-CBS poll last week that the war was going “somewhat well” or “very well.”

It’s interesting that in a world that has blamed Dubya for everything from hurricanes and the ineptness of Mayors and Governors to their next door neighbor’s flatulance, they can’t find it in their mentalities to “blame Bush” for the disappearance of Iraq and the conflicts in the Middle East as an election issue as well.

Obama’s entire campaign has banked on linking McCain to Bush failures. Iraq and the standing of the US in the int’l community’s eyes? All the fault of Bush. Yet this –”failed policies of the last 8 years” has not produced another int’l crisis under Dubya’s watch. The US has not been hit with another terrorist assault on our soil under Dubya’s watch… but not for lack of desire or attempts.

The economic crisis? Again Obama and supporters proclaim it’s “a direct result of the Bush administration’s trickle-down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four”. This, despite the realities of the perfect storm of housing and lending events that lead to our vunerability today.

A series of events that the DNC has worked overtime to distance themselves from their own involvement.

*And* a POTUS wannabe who, himself, has played an (un?) intentional villainous part by acting as an attorney for perceived “redlining”, and involving himself in ACORN – a quintessential lobbying organization that best represents the “gimme for free, please” mentality that sweeps America today.

So America, buoyed by Obama’s promises of financial relief in the “middle class” America’s household, is voting for “wallet security”. “National security” is but a vague memory, manifested in our worst nightmares seven years ago. A nightmare that, whenever pictured as a reminder, is labeled a “foul” in strategy.

This brings us to Obama’s visions for America. And oddly enough, his domestic visions are intrinsically linked to his foreign policy visions.

By now we’re all familiar with Obama’s plans for Pakistan with his infamous – and heretofore never reversed policy towards Pakistan – that consists mostly of a not-so-slightly veiled threat to go after Bin Laden with, or without Pakistan’s approval if the US had “actionable intelligence”.

This, of course, has been twisted many ways in the wake of Obama’s tongue trip. Some say this is Bush’s current policy. And yes… it is, to a form. Even as the far left The Nation basically says, showing your military hand at “tacit approval” by the Pakistan leadership is really dumb…

The Times reports today that President Bush gave an order in July allowing US Special Forces “to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.” They’ll notify the Pakistani government, but won’t ask permission.

Somewhat buried in the story is the report that “the Pakistani government had privately assented to the general concept of limited ground assaults by Special Operations forces against significant militant targets, but that it did not approve each mission.” In other words, according to the Times, the Pakistani goverment is winking at the idea.

There could hardly be a worse strategy. It risks inflaming Pakistani public opinion against the United States and boost the religious parties. It will make the new Pakistani government look like pawns or puppets of the United States, which won’t exactly make them popular among Pakistanis. And, of course, it won’t be successful in eliminating Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Historians of the Vietnam war might compare the strategy to President Nixon’s ill-fated decision to expand the war across the border into Cambodia in search of alleged Viet Cong “santuaries.” That didn’t work out well.

Some say he has pledged to attack Pakistan…. which, in effect, he actually has. For if we don’t have the “tacit approval” of the Pakistan leadership – which has changed from the more friendly Musharraf in most cases to the more politically correct “democratic supporter” Zardari in the past year – any action inside Pakistan is essentially an act of war.

An example of an Obama foreign policy failing can be had when Zardari visited the US for a UN meeting, and Obama merely made a phone call, while McCain and Palin were there to personally meet and greet with a US ally in the global war on the jihad movement.

There is something distinctively disconcerting about a potential POTUS who is willing to meet with Iran and Venezula leadership, but avoids shaking the hand of our allies.

And today, a new POTUS faces new challenges with Pakistan… integral to the Afghanistan fight that Obama likes to highlight as his “superior” foreign policy and understated war escalation.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told the head of the U.S. Central Command, General David Petraeus, and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher that attacks on his country by American drone aircraft are “counterproductive” and must stop.

“The focus should be more on enhanced coordination and intelligence-sharing,” Zardari told the U.S. officials today when they met at his residence during a visit to Pakistan, according to a Pakistani government statement. The cross-border raids from Afghanistan have killed Pakistanis and destroyed property, “creating a credibility gap” as members of the public pressure their leaders to explain the U.S. actions, Zardari said.

U.S. forces based in Afghanistan have stepped up attacks on militants, and have been given permission by President George W. Bush to pursue Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in neighboring Pakistan. A missile from a remotely piloted U.S. aircraft killed 27 people in Kari Kot in Pakistan’s South Waziristan district on Oct. 31, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said.

What would a President Obama do? Clearly the Pakistanis do not support US drone action. Also just as clear is their latest round of “cuppa tea” diplomacy with the Taliban will fail… just as it’s done for years before.

What is most fearful is that US voters don’t care what a President Obama would do. This is only 9% or so of their “issues” in pulling the lever tomorrow. They don’t care that Obama and the DNC want to cut the military defense budget by 25%. They just plain don’t care that Obama’s tax, welfare, energy and spending plan will more than overwhelm that “95% cut to all Americans” promise.

Worse yet, they either don’t understand… or worse, just plain don’t care… that Obama’s vision of a a welfare “social and economic justice” America will affect our nation’s safety via national defense.