Real Monsters At The Voting Booth

Over the last day or two, increasingly positive and legitimately confirmed poll numbers have been rolling in from virtually every legitimate pollster and poll aggregator about all kinds of political contests across America. We even noted it yesterday. While we emotionally embrace this numerical reflection of what we're seeing in our various locations around the country, the fact is, our staff has been feeling a bit like actors in a horror movie - waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the ugly monster rears its head again.

That monster, in case you've forgotten, was the disastrous election of 2000, in the very county where we now have our South Florida location. After the Supreme Court stopped the ballot counting in Florida, and declared George W. Bush the winner, ballots were still recounted. As the Federal Election Commission's final tally has proven for years now, Al Gore actually won the most votes of most Americans in the 2000 election.

That miscarriage of justice lead to some of the worst economic, military, and social disasters in our nation's history. It also gave those on the right, from the Karl Rove school of politics, a warped kind of encouragement. Because they got away with it in 2000, the right-wing extremists now seem to believe that anything is acceptable, in the service of winning - up to and including gaming the spirit of American elections, if not election laws.

Sadly, a similar kind of Rovian monster is exactly the one right wing extremists are attempting to revive in the voting booth again this year, through tactics like voter suppression and voter intimidation.

Even though multiple studies have proven voter impersonation and associated fraud is virtually non-existent, forces from the extreme political right have continued to desperately push voter ID laws to prevent voter impersonation. While many voter ID laws have already been struck down this year, a major battle in Pennsylvania - a very important battleground state - is continuing today. The fact is, voter ID laws only really serve to suppress the votes of minority, urban, and young voters, along with a specific subset of older voters. From college students to snowbirds, thanks to the efforts of heavily biased right-wing partisans, millions of legitimately registered and legal American citizens may not be able to vote this fall - which election law experts say may put any final election tally in jeopardy this year.

It gets worse.

Some governors, like Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott, have attempted mass voter purges, trying to push thousands of legitimate voters off the voter rolls. Like the voter ID laws, these voter purges have fallen significantly more on groups like minorities, college students, and snowbirds - all groups that tend to vote heavily Democratic. Even today, Gov. Scott is once again attempting to pursue yet another voter purge, 40 days away from the election, while he and the state of Florida are being investigated for fraudulent actions on this matter by the Justice Department.

Finally, there is the ugliest anti-voting tactic, voter intimidation. An extremist right-wing group called 'True The Vote' has been training millions of Americans in the tactics of voter intimidation and voter challenges, for use on voting day. Once again, these same monsters are targeting areas that are occupied primarily by minorities and college kids.

The goal for all these tactics is simple. If the Republican Party can't win the election with better candidates, they will try to steal it - just as they did in 2000.

Until the votes have all been counted, the voting results are in - and the counting machines have been proven not to be rigged - we simply do not trust that those on the extreme political right will not attempt to do everything they can, up to and including stealing the election from the American people.

This monster ain't over by a long shot, folks.

Epistemic Closure And The Big Hunt

We'd be willing to bet all the money in our wallets right right now, against all the money in your wallet right now, that there isn't a single one of our readers in the United States that's avoided all political advertising so far this campaign season.

The effects of almost totally unregulated campaign funds, as well as multiple media bubbles that have become more closed around themselves than ever before, have created a political environment where discovering a truly undecided voter is about as likely as hunting for a dodo bird, or a successful snipe hunt.

For all the talk of convincing voters, the fact of the matter is, we're less than six weeks from election day - and every reliable poll, including those with "House leans" to the right or the left - has Mitt Romney trailing President Obama. In a growing number of Senate and House races, the tale of the polls reads the same to everyone - the decisions of most people have already been made, and they're generally not in favor of the Republican in the race. Even white working class voters in the Midwest and NASCAR fans now prefer Obama over Romney by still growing measurements.

With all these signs pointing in the same direction, the latest campaign target of Mitt Romney and the Republicans hasn't become a specific voting block, or a policy of President Obama's. It's become the polls themselves.

Many on the right, including a growing chorus of voices from within the Romney campaign, are simply in denial. They claim the polls have been horribly skewed to the left, and that the samples pollsters are recording aren't an accurate reflection of those who will vote in just over 40 days.

The problem with the denials from the right is that unlike legitimate poll aggregators - such as Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com or Real Clear Politics - and virtually every legitimate pollster, the whiners on the right have no scientific data to back up their claims. That distain for science is not uncommon these days on the political right - but it doesn't change the facts that all the polls are reporting.

As Nate pointed out this week, even in heavily "red" states - states where it's almost mathematically impossible for President Obama to win - the polls are marking a noticeable shift to the left. Further, as Steve Benen notes, pollsters and poll aggregators have no reason to put out flawed results. In fact, they'd hurt their own business if they did so.

Those facts haven't changed the level of denial from those on the right.

Their wild goose chase for some vague substance to support their paranoid theory has actually led to a new website, run by conservative partisans. The site is taking the polling data from other pollsters and "reweighting" that data, until - surprise, surprise - Mitt Romney wins most of the polls he was losing in before this creative math kicked in.

When you hear political pundits use the phrase "Epistemic Closure", this kind of insane denial is what they're talking about. The right wing has not only created their own media on cable TV, radio, and the internet, but they've closed their collective minds to any facts that don't agree with what they want to hear.

The facts do say there are an incredibly small number of undecided voters out there. The chances of certain very biased political groups being able to accurately target just those people though, are slim to none.

The undecided voters could be right behind the campaign wonks, clear as day - but we doubt those partisans with closed minds will find them before Election Day.

Dropping The Ball

There are seemingly few things that political partisans in the U.S. can agree on in America right now, especially when it comes to making or applying rules and regulations. The NFL referee lockout, however, is a possible exception.

Whether you're Democratic or Republican - or even if you don't even like pro football - the NFL referee lockout seems to be getting a unanimous thumbs down from fans, teams, coaches and businesses alike - especially after last night's horrible game, decided not by the actions of players but by the officials on the field. Virtually everyone connected with NFL football has said this lockout is hurting people on all sides.

We understand both the labor issues with the referee lockout and the problems from the fan perspective. We've even come up with some less-than-orthodox solutions to the problem - though we highly doubt NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will be listening to us.

The primary cause of the dispute is - no surprise - the greed of the NFL owners and their desire to offload their pension responsibilities to the referees. As bad as the calls are, the worst effects of this dispute aren't the horrible calls or the angry fans. The biggest problem this labor dispute is causing is a tendency by every player and coach on both sides of the ball to get used to manipulating the very rules of the game.

It's the kind of warped interaction that Mitt Romney and the I.R.S. not only recognize - they may have even perfected it.

In case you missed it, Mr. Romney and his campaign finally released his complete 2011 tax returns last Friday, after being hounded by voters, the media, and even other politicians.

If you just take a quick glance at the summary of what's in Mitt's 2011 tax returns, you likely won't find anything unusual for someone as rich as Mr. Romney. His effective tax rate - the amount he paid after all his deductions were taken into account - was 14.1 percent. The Romney's donated over four million dollars to charity in 2011 - nearly thirty percent of their income - for which they claimed a deduction of $2.25 million.

The problem with Mitt's taxes comes in when you add to those multi-million dollar numbers two statements he made in the last three months.

The first statement came in July, in an interview with journalist David Muir, when Romney stated, "I don’t pay more [taxes] than are legally due, and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due, I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president." The second statement came in August, due to prodding from Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, when Mitt Romney claimed that he'd paid at least 13% income taxes in each of the last ten years.

Now, these two statements normally wouldn't add up to a problem - except, of course, when you follow the unbending laws of mathematics and add those statements to Romney's 2011 tax return. Because unlike the substitute refs in the NFL, we can see Mr. Romney's infraction clearly from hundreds of miles away.

In order for Mitt Romney to have paid a tax rate of 14.1% in 2011, and for his statement in August to be true that he'd never paid less than 13% income taxes in each of the last ten years, Mr. Romney has to have paid more taxes than were legally due in 2011.

Which means, by his own standards, Mitt isn't qualified to be president.

If this were an NFL game, even the replacement refs would likely call a penalty on Mr. Romney for a foul that flagrant. We hope voters do the same thing this fall at the polls.