Politics

I keep seeing headlines of polls that have Obama up five or up seven over Romney and how Romney is in trouble. Gallop has Obama and Romney even. I think that's more accurate. Dick Morris has a good explanation of why polls favor Obama:

"All of the polling out there uses some variant of the 2008 election turnout as its model for weighting respondents and this overstates the Democratic vote by a huge margin."

That'll do it.

"Almost all of the published polls show Obama getting less than 50% of the vote and less than 50% job approval. A majority of the voters either support Romney or are undecided in almost every poll.
But the fact is that the undecided vote always goes against the incumbent. In 1980 (the last time an incumbent Democrat was beaten), for example, the Gallup Poll of October 27th had Carter ahead by 45-39. Their survey on November 2nd showed Reagan catching up and leading by three points. In the actual voting, the Republican won by nine. The undecided vote broke sharply — and unanimously — for the challenger.
An undecided voter has really decided not to back the incumbent. He just won’t focus on the race until later in the game.
So, when the published poll shows Obama ahead by, say, 48-45, he’s really probably losing by 52-48!"

I agree with that too. Anybody who hasn't decided to vote for the incumbent by now will either not vote or vote against him.

Federal judge rules there's no right to secret ballots. Why was this a surprise?

The coming unrest will produce a strongman. Whoever gets elected, he will be the strongman. As I've said for a while now, I think we've been electing presidents who have what it takes to be the strongman for some time. These people have no empathy. The unrest will bring the strongman out of him, whoever wins.