The Illusion of Rasmussen Polling

Kos breaks down how Rasmussen weaves in and out of polling desirable and non-desirable primaries and elections in order to frame his preferred narrative and keep his precious "most accurate pollster" grades up.

Nothing shady here at all (rolls eyes)

It's not as if Rasmussen doesn't poll primaries. In fact, it polled the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic primary two weeks ago. But again, it refused to do a pre-election poll, because doing so would no longer help set narratives, and that's all Rasmussen cares about.

Today, Rasmussen released a poll showing Dick Blumenthal suddenly in trouble in Connecticut. How convenient! And narrative setting. Too bad he couldn't poll actual elections.
And yes, by November, Rasmussen's polling will be nicely in line with the rest of the polling aggregate, as he adjusts his voter screens to match reality, not whatever GOP-heavy universe he currently lives in. By then, he'll be less worried about setting narratives, and more worried about getting races right so that he can brag about his electoral track record. That way, he uses that credibility in order to once again set bullshit narratives in the 2012 election cycle. It's quite the scam!

Because if it itsn't a scam, there's no reason he should've skipped polling the big Tuesday races.

"Dissent is called Disloyal"

Here's a great piece by John Avlon highlighting the disconnect between Washington and it's constituents i/r/t  nasty partisanship:

Ninety-three percent of Americans believe that Washington is too partisan, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll taken one month ago.

That's not a subtle message. Ninety percent of Americans rarely agree on anything—60 percent is a landslide mandate in elections. But the professional partisans and pundits in Washington have been falling over themselves arguing that bipartisanship is a fool's game as of late. They insist that Americans must get more sophisticated when it comes to the ways of Washington and embrace the town's bitter and predictable partisanship as both wise and inevitable. 

This disconnect is the reason more and more Americans believe that government is broken—addicted to division and controlled by corrupt special interests. Ideological absolutism always comes dressed up as purity and principle. Conformity is characterized as courage. Dissent is called disloyal. Partisanship is confused with patriotism.

Thursday's bipartisan health-care summit is already being dismissed by cynics as the equivalent of a show trial. But both parties had better wake up to the clear message that Americans are sending Washington: This is not a game. This is our country, and we elected you to work together—to move America not left or right, but forward.

Just this morning I had to listen to a blowhard on the local news yapping his trap about how Scott Brown is a turncoat for breaking ranks on a bill that would create an assload of jobs.  Didn't see that one coming.  

Problem is these talking heads have convinced themselves that Brown was elected to solely serve the out-of-state parties that contributed 75% of his campaign funds.  Wrong again, teabaggers.  He was elected in defiance of a worthless shrew of a woman on the left and by a large majority of centered individuals - from Massachusetts.  So, save your purity test for someone else. 

Lost in Health Insurer Hatred

Yglesias has a great write up on excuse-making by two Dems, acting to protect Sallie Mae's interests from the SAFRA bill:

When you have a substantial inefficiency, you also have a whole bunch of people whose jobs depend on that inefficiency. That’s why it’s hard to treat coal the way we should and that’s why it’s hard to treat Sallie Mae the way we should. It’s also an important reason why “Medicare for All” isn’t really the political no-brainer that people sometimes claim it is—insurance companies employ tons of people, the vast majority of whom are not cackling and evil executives.

Now at the end of the day, I don’t think policy should be made on that basis. The best path, over the long-run, to ensuring good jobs for all Americans is to have sustainable prosperity built on economic growth. And that means accomplishing our public sector tasks in efficient ways—no needless subsidies to private student lenders, no teachers who stay on the job no matter how badly they do, no unnecessary health insurance company middlemen taking a slice of all our spending, no Medicare payments for useless or harmful treatments, etc. But all of this stuff is very challenging to do in part because of special interest money but also in part simply because behind every instance of waste stands someone whose livelihood depends on the waste.

(my bold for emphasis)

Hey, I'm one of those livelihoods!   Since a private payer pays my salary -- and, to some extent, since I'm not convinced that fully-government-controlled anything is the best direction -- I stand behind those evil corporations and lobbyists who strive to prevent Single-Payer Health Care.  Conversely, my job security is also one of the big reasons why I favor the recent incarnations of the health care reform bill:   They leave the private market - and all the employees who work for them - very much intact.  

This much is lost on both fringes.

Maybe I misjudged you, Scott Brown

In his first vote as the answer to the Party of No's prayers, Scott Brown broke ranks and stopped a far-right-led filibuster on the $15B Jobs Bill.

"I came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside and to do everything in my power to help create jobs for Massachusetts families," said Brown, whose election last month gave Republicans the 41st vote that could sustain filibusters. "This Senate jobs bill is not perfect ... but I voted for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work."

Certainly a tinge of self-preservation here, since Brown of all people knows he can't just fall into lockstep with the Tea Baggers and expect a sniff at re-election in this state.

Kudos to Brown and the other GOP senators who stood up for the people over partisan politics - something Washington's been completely devoid of for the last 13 months.