October 10, 2012

David Paleologos (Suffolk U) latest VA poll shows Obama +2, announces "unwinnable for Obama"

Latest Suffolk Poll 9/27

and today



If I ever ran a company the way that these guys carry on I would have been closed on day one.

And no one bothers to click on their website to see what the guys own polls show. Oh yeah he was on Fox.

What a farce.

This isn't about cherry picking polls this is about a pattern of incompetence and willful misrepresentation that if it were a lawyer or a doctor would get you a malpractice suit. (By the way did you note that the last poll was 'likely voters' usually the most disadvantageous way to poll for Democrats?

But hey in an industry where an unemployed DeVry graduate can get to the head of the class over night why ask questions.

October 7, 2012

DU Exclusive: Gravis Marketing exposed as a fraud Part I

Gravis Marketing wants you to believe that this is Doug Kaplan



http://gravismarketing.com/?gclid=COz0t-aY77ICFUjhQgodlDcAew

Meet Doug Kaplan



http://dougkaplan.net/Political_Specialist.html

My interest was peaked when gravismarketing entered a thread with this very lame response on a thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021425136#post3

Didn't seem like a very professional response.

So I started a lengthy background check using public and private sources to track the principles behind Gravis Marketing, all of their public appearances and have come to the conclusion that Gravis Marketing is a complete fraud. Nate Silver and Real Clear Politics have all been punked.

Want to have an impact on the election or do you want to try and make some money out of it then start up a website and start issuing press releases with poll numbers. Find industry averages and publish it on a PR piece. In a poll hungry environment you will be quoted and if you do it regularly you will be put into the regular rotation. And you never have to make a single phone call.

Gravis Marketing promises to be the cheapest in the business. Well there is one way to undercut the others, save on direct expenses like a telemarketing center.

It triggered Daily Kos to ask the question who are these guys and nothing came substantial came up.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/11/1130526/-Weird-Obama-Romney-Poll-I-Need-your-Input

This is like the Sherlock's case of the dog that didn't bark. Check out the three 'officers' of the company and nothing comes up. No academic, professional or occupational hits.

They are

Doug Kaplan
Chad Miller
Bobby Hymel.

They have between 2 to 4 employees.

As a Managing Partner in one of US largest consulting companies between 1994 and 2000 I was thousands of business resumes. This is one of the thinest I have ever seen.

http://dougkaplan.net/Political_Specialist.html

So he promotes himself as a political expert and national pollster.

His public spots? One is with some small failed local Limbaugh wannabe in Florida by the name of Ed Dean. The other is on the Voice of Russia, the Russian Government's English language channel and a political show called: Carmen Russell-Sluchansky's Campaign Connection.

He is quoted there as a national US Pollster and Political analyst.

You can listen to this twerp here:

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/01/20/64250633.html

You can start to listen to him at the 5 minute mark. His comments have all of the sophistication of a poli sci major having a beer induced bull session with a bunch of his friends trying to sound like they are on the inside. Pay special attention to his rambling inarticulate explanation of why South Carolina is important.

He sounds completely uninformed for a pollster. He seems unaware the South Carolina had special importance before because of the heavy front loading of the Republican schedule with winner take all primaries that made it very difficult to be viable after SC if you didn't score in Iowa or NH. He seems unaware of the substantial rules changes that had a dramatic impact on the Republican Primary schedule and dynamics.

I could match his numbers with even better numbers and, like him, not make a single phone call.

Next there is the structure of their business model. Go to any other polling company and the political polls are just a small part of a larger business, usually in doing polling for marketing of consumer products. Face it the general elections only show up every 4 years so you can't make a lot of money there. In fact most polling companies publish polls as a loss leader so that they can attract commercial customers.

None of this exists at Gravis.

But they do have testimonials, all politically related.

There is "Cindy L" in Oregon and "Chris Young" in Rhode Island, both very satisfied and anonymous.

Mike Hardin is very happy with "Doug and the rest of the folks" at Gravis (pretty impressive for a 2-4 employee company).

Mike is also a political consultant (probably a roommate from college) but if you google Mike Hardin political consultant all you get is the Gravis referral page, and this letter to the editor in Sacramento:

Now there is some very sophisticated political analysis.

Leaving us with a single actual political candidate who endorses Gravis Marketing.

And he is a 'Democrat', Chris Benjamin.

Except it turns out that Benjamin is also a fraud:



Either Benjamin was one of these guys that takes money to run as a Democrat so that the Republican can win easily or he ran as a Democrat because he thought he might make money it doesn't really matter.

And that is Gravis Marketing's great success and only identified public client.

So Nate, Huffington Post, Real Clear Politics have all been punked.

And the right wing blogs are running around with all of these wonderful numbers, and some at DU get their chain pulled.

Doug probably hasn't made any money off of it yet but next time around the Republicans will be happy to throw some bucks his way to get some good PR numbers.

Until then Gravis remains 'non partisan' lol.

Now you know Gravis is a fraud.

I know Gravis is a fraud.

The media can pick up this work and get a story out of it.

Tabbi reads DU and he may have got interest in the KB Toys from one of my articles so this would be a fun story for him, how many other pollsters are punking the media.

I have done most of the work already so some journalist can take all of the credit, just give a mention to DU.

Now Doug Kaplan is going to scream like a stuck pig.

Well all a good investigating reporter has to do is ask to see his W-2s for all the people making the calls and all of the phone bills for all of the calls. Check back on every poll he made and ask to see the telephone bills for all of the calls, I know my bill lists every call I made. Or do you think that they all used the same Vonage line, lol.

Gravis Marketing is a fraud.

Doug Kaplan is a fraud.

And until all of their records have been published and checked that's how they should be noted.

Just another notch for DU fettering out right wing bull shit.

(if someone could take the time to send this to real clear politics, nate silver and post it at Daily Kos, I would appreciate it. I have to move today. On to Tucson.)

October 4, 2012

Losing a debate is not the same as persuading someone on a policy.

It is difficult for me to be objective about the debate because my distaste for Romney is so strong and visceral that I cannot watch him for more than a few seconds without my blood pressure rising and my testerone pump starting to flood my body with angry little hormones.

I find that after 30 seconds of Mitch watching I am compelled to rise out of my chair and start shadow boxing. This is the kind of telltale indicators that tips you off that you might not be objective about what you are watching.

My distaste for Romney is in part related as a reaction to the corruption of the Republican Party and even capitalism that makes me so angry. You see I followed his dad in '68 and rooted for him to take out Nixon. How different the world would have been. Iit is assholes like Romney who have corrupted capitalism even further making it even more callous, reckless and devastating than it need be.

Then there is his whole phony persona that he has spent a lifetime trying to engineer to get people to embrace him and project his religion as wholesome.

He nauseates me and as a prophylaxis to my health I have taken the very sensible antidote by simply muting him off. I wait until after he has been distilled and analyzed and can take him in short clips.

I also don't trust DU to have an objective view of the debates because you are all political junkies. So I texted about 6 Democratic friends who I trust (and aren't as obsessed as we are) and generally they thought that Romney gave a good 'performance' but that the President also made his points about the policy. They also didn't think that Romney's 'performance' advanced any of his theories.

There is one point that I think DU has lost perspective on and that is even if you thought that Romney handily won the debate it is unlikely to have a dramatic impact on the outcome of the election. Intrade went from the astronomical 70% level to the extremely high 65% level. What states flipped from Obama to Romney last night. Possibly North Carolina, possibly none.

It will be seen as a very clever performance by a person that people still don't trust. And if that wasn't enough there is that wonderful little secret Romney telling them over and over again that he doesn't care about the 47% he isn't going to worry about.

I do strongly disagree with some at DU who wish that the President had brought that up. I hope that it never comes up in a debate because it gives Romney the chance to address it and get ahead of it. Today it lingers as a wonderful little antidote to any independent that thinks that they might like Romney.

Having a good performance at a debate is not the same as persuading someone on a policy. People didn't buy the Romney policies, such as they are known before the debate and they are not going to buy it after the debate. People that basically didn't like the guy still don't like the guy. His negatives didn't go down last night.

And for a lot of people who, like me truly hate the idea of a President Romney, they got a lot more focused.

September 30, 2012

Is the idea of vast Rep Super Pacs war chest a myth? Obama @ friends outspend Romney.

So what happened to all of those hundred million dollar Koch brother checks?


Was it all a myth, a bluff? If so it may have motivated Democrats to give more and given Republican fat cats reason to sit on their wallets. About a month ago I predicted that the official Romney campaign would face cash flow problems and a couple of weeks later media reports started reporting that the Romney campaign had borrowed $ 20 million]and was spending considerably less than the Obama campaign.

Now a careful look at media buys is showing a curious result.

Where are those huge Super Pac media purchases by right wing billionaires?

Last week total media buys for all campaign and super Pacs topped $55 million but of that the Obama campaign spent 40% of the total. The two largest Super Pacs involved in buying media last week? Number one was Omaha billionaire Ricketts who just started buying spots with more than $ 8 million and number two was the Obama Super Pac which spent $ 3.4 million.

So where are all of the tens of millions of the Koch brothers. Were they idle boasts? If so they may have crippled the Romney campaign because as I predicted (which was met with almost universal skepticism) the Romney campaign seems to have fallen way way behind the Obama campaign in media buys, in fact buying $ 170 million less.

If Romney has a less than great debate performance he could see his donor base quietly pack up their check books while the billionaires find other objectives for their political play money.

And then there is this;

When the Romney campaign ran short of money the borrowed against unused deposits of primary contributions.

They have already started paying that money back.

While other candidates will borrow to go into the hole it is generally understood that they don't have the resources to cover that debt and they have to spend time after the campaign to raise money to pay it off. With Romney's vast personal wealth he knows that once the election is over no one is going to donate one penny to him. He will have to write personal checks for every cent. My guess is that after the campaign is done the Romney campaign will have no debt.

So it may be that the original prediction of Romney's cash flow problems may have been under stated. It may be that not only will the official campaign have cash flow problems but that the Super Pac money will turn out to be tens of millions less than advertised.

September 28, 2012

Don't look now but they are pouring the cement for Jeb 2016 already

The sniping has already begun but it is rather obvious that on Nov 7th two things are going to happen in the Republican Party;

1) Mitt Romney will become known as the man who gave the election to the President aka the most hated man in the party (which with equally disdainful feelings of the Democrats and the Independents for different reasons) will make him the most hated man in America.

In order to try and undermine the President's second term they will completely take apart the man who ran against him. The meme will be "of course Obama won, look at the idiot that ran against him'.

2) There will be serious talk about structural Republican demographic problems, especially among Hispanics. From the Republican point of view the Hispanics are the most church going anti abortion ethnic group in America, that and the fact that they are the fastest growing means that the only way forward is that they must capture the Hispanic vote to win.

There is only one Republican candidate who has legitimate Hispanic credentials, Jeb Bush. Jeb is married to a wealthy Mexican national and is fluent in Spanish. His views will be portrayed as 'moderate'.

So expect to see;

1) More Romney sniping, cascading into 'he's an idiot' among punsters. You might even see cable anchors look into the camera and cover their face and mutter "sweet Jesus" after watching Romney on the stump.

2) More Romney financial cash flow problems. Now this requires some discipline because people mix up the huge funds of the Presidential campaign and those of the SuperPacs. The SuperPacs can buy ads but for most campaign activities they cannot. In the swing states of Ohio and Florida the Obama campaign has run 10,000 more ads than Romney. (I am also beginning to think that these hundred million dollar Koch checks maybe more myth than reality - in which case they had probably let a lot of Republicans think that they didn't need to contribute anything).

The truth is that the Bush/traditional Republican hierarchy never opened up their pocket books for Romney.

3) Strange polling. What kind of strange polling? Polling in the middle of a Presidential campaign that would suggest that the Bush Brand is not doing that badly, especially compared to Romney:

You really have to admire the quality of the Bush machine. Even when they are this obvious most Republicans have no idea what is happening. By December 1st they will be marching in step behind a new movement, "Only Jeb can save us now".

Karl Rove may be a POS but he can run an effective Republican operation.

September 23, 2012

A picture 148 years in the making.

Babyloniansister posted this thread about Janiya Penny's meeting of the President captured in one of the most arresting pictures every taken at the White House.




We don't know what circumstances led to Janiya getting listed on the 'Make-a-Wish' list but we know there is a mountain of heartbreak weighing on the family of every child who is on that list.

In the picture you will see that Janiya is overcome by joy at meeting the President.

You can see the joy of the parents.

The President is completely in the moment and after greeting Janiya has turned to connect with her parents, who undoubtedly have been through their own personal torment in accompanying Janiya through her challenges.

If that was all in the picture it would be a candidate for the shortlist for iconic White House pictures.

But glance up wards and view the picture with the melancholy view of President Lincoln witnessing the event.

That additional framing gives an added almost surrealistic level to the painting. It shows the completed circle that goes from a compassionate leader who pays the greatest sacrifice to illustrating how progressive policies can transform real people's lives.

And the wise compassion of one leader becomes the foundation for the wise compassion of another.

And in her innocence Janiya becomes not only our sister but shows us how politics does in fact impact real people.

And we all share in her joy.

And grateful to those who have sacrificed before us so that we can share the moment with her.

September 19, 2012

As a family that suffers from MS, Romneys get benefit of tens of millions of tax payer research $

Romney is definitely in the 47% of the country that are 'takers'.

Their family benefits from tens of millions of US dollars that have gone into decades of research on neuro related diseases in general and MS in particular.

Had a neighbor who suffered tremendously from MS and died young and I don't wish it on anyone.

But I am completely baffled at what kind of morally bankrupt person with a basic education of how society works could see how people suffer with MS and not become more empathetic with their plight.

The National Institute for Health invests in advancing the research and treatment of MS does that make your wife Ann Romney a Taker?

September 13, 2012

Prediction: Romney campaign will face cash flow problems

Not the Super Pacs (although they may not be getting any more either) but the official Romney campaign.

First thing is Romney has a very small base of contributors and the highest percentage of maxed out contributors.

Second thing is that with debacle after debacle event only the most diehard contributors will stay, most will go to Senate campaigns.

Third Romney never really engendered diehard contributors but more fair weather friends, and the sky is very cloudy.

September 12, 2012

Finally got who Reince Priebus reminded me of, Deck Shifflet.

One of Danny Devito's scummy characters.

Could have been Owen from Throw Mamma from the train

or

washed up actor Martin Weir in Get Shorty

but today

Priebus is playing the ambulance chasing attorney Deck Shifflet in the Rainmaker.

You remember the shiftless, scummy attorney who spends his time handing out business cards to neighborhood kids while Matt Damon is meeting with the dying client.

September 9, 2012

Romney campaign: The President is clearly ahead: Ohio, Swing states and General Campaign