Thank God the weekend is here. It’s been a stressful busy week that is thankfully over. I don’t know if next week will be any better but at least we get a couple days off. Of course it’s supposed to rain today and tomorrow. Maybe we should head up into the mountains where it’ll be snow!
Yesterday started off with the boys heading off to school on time and then my cell phone ringing 10 minutes later as the oldest had forgot his recorder. I rushed back to school while the misses was cleaning up a bit against orders. We managed to make it to the grocery store around 10am and $270 later came home with a half a dozen bags of food. Prices sure have gone up as I’ve said before. We noticed that we rarely buy meat anymore but rather go for chicken (which isn’t much cheaper) and eat a lot of pasta and beans. I don’t think we’ve had red meat for at least 3 weeks.
The day wrapped up with parent teacher conferences for both boys. The first thing each teacher said was what great boys we have and how happy they are to have them in their classes. It seems the only issue either of them have is they sometimes rush too much to finish their work. Their great students who are polite and kind to others and are doing well in all areas. How nice is that for a parent to hear.
The oldest guys arm is still a bit sore and he’s a bit tentative to move it much as it’s been locked up in the cast for over 6 weeks. We’re slowly making him use it more and more and need to get him to physical therapy. Tomorrow they both have the 5K run called the Gold Rush. The misses will sit this one out if I have to tie her up!
Our friend from from Vail is having surgery today with the misses doctor. I think she goes in at 6am and will be out for 6 hours or so as she’s having quite a bit done. This means my close friend (her husband) Rik and I will have lunch as he’s just hanging out all day. Hope all goes well.
We made the oldest skip inter murals yesterday as it was the high jump and we couldn’t risk him hurting his arm. His friend Jennifer meanwhile, didn’t have such good luck, as she is now in a walking boot waiting 2 weeks for the swelling to go down to see if her foot is broken from, you guessed it, the high jump! I’ll wake him this morning at 6 as he has a 2 mile run that he wants to compete in.
After schol the youngest guys friend came over to play and his dad asked if we wanted to come over for lasagna. His wife, the misses friend, just had bunion surgery at 6 in the morning so we thought she probably didn’t want or need any company but they insisted they did. So we went around 6 for some food and the kids played while the 2 girls chatted and Mark and I watched some football. We tried watching the VP debate but it was pretty lackluster with Joe acting snarky and smirking and laughing at Ryan whenever he spoke. Pretty rude. I think the moderator was terrible as she lost control but it was nowhere as good as the presidential debate. They all say it was a draw for whatever that’s worth.
We made it home by a little after 8 and headed up to bed. I’m sure you’re all wondering about the misses headache. Thanks to all of you that called to check on her. The short report is it’s too early to tell but she does have some relief. It’ll really be weeks before we know for sure if this worked. We’ll keep you posted and are hoping for the best.
Time to run, lots to do today. Take care, God Bless and have a great weekend.
Tom says:
Harry J Enten
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 October 2012 08.38 EDT
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Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Democratic President Barack Obama debating in Denver, Colorado. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty
It’s fairly clear that Mitt Romney “won†Wednesday night’s debate against President Obama. Not only did he win a CNN insta-poll by a record breaking 67% to 25% margin, but the press is also giving him a huge win. So what does all of this mean for the race for president?
Romney gains on an increasingly vulnerable Obama, but the president still leads.
First, general election debates are not primary debates. If you took a polling chart of the 2012 Republican primary, it would look like a w’s and m’s. Candidate preferences were so flexible that Herman Cain – a man never elected to political office who would leave the campaign because of a sexual harassment charge – led the contest a year ago. The reason Cain took the lead was because he looked good in the debates. When policy differences are small, as they are in primaries, personality matters.
Personality isn’t anywhere near as important in general elections. Voters can decide on the issues because there are true substantive differences. That’s why most voters have already locked in their choice. President Obama has seemingly held a small, but consistent lead most of this election.
We cannot expect that this or any one debate will turn an Obama edge into a large Romney lead. Romney is down by about 3 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average. Only 5% of the electorate is truly undecided. Most of these undecided voters weren’t watching the debate and probably won’t make their choice until election day.
Second, history tells us that debates probably matter under certain circumstances. Thomas Holbrook crunched the numbers since 1988 and found that the margin between the two leading candidates changed by an average of about 4 percentage points between before the first and after the last debate. The margin between Romney and Obama was less than that heading into Wednesday night’s debate.
Now, it’s awfully difficult to figure out whether it’s a debate that is moving polling data or some other event(s) over the course of the debates season. Obama, for instance, gained ground over John McCain in 2008 partly because of the debates, but more because of a financial crisis from which we still haven’t fully recovered.
Candidates seem to gain when they were already gaining before the debate or when they are underperforming the “fundamentalsâ€. Bush picked up steam in the 1988 debates – ,continuing his rise pre-debates. Bob Dole was vastly underperforming the fundamentals in 1996: he should have been showing behind, but not by 20 points. So, it was not a huge surprise that his polling numbers improved after the debates.
That’s why I think Mitt Romney will make up some ground. Though the 5% of undecided voters may be unreachable, there’s another 5% of “soft†support. Many of these had been leaning towards Obama or saying they were “undecided†since the conventions: Obama’s one-time 1.5-point edge among likely voters doubled or even close to tripled at times during the last few weeks. Those voters are likely to come home to Romney. If they don’t, they likely never will.
Romney’s also underperforming Jacob Montgomery et al’s ensemble forecast from all the fundamental models. These models take into everything from the economy to incumbency to primary season performance. The ensemble has Romney losing, but only by 0.6 percentage points.
Another plus for Romney is that he looked to have been picking up a little steam before the debates began. Obama’s lead in the Real Clear average has shrunk from a lead close to 4.5 points back down to 3.
Third, underlying voter sentiment may not change, but enthusiasm probably will and that could change polls. You can go on Twitter and see dejection among many Democrats. Many likely voter models rely upon some level of voter interest or enthusiasm in the election. During the 2000 campaign, Gallup’s likely voter model went absolutely bonkers because of enthusiasm differences. One day, Republican enthusiasm was up because of the debates and the next, Democratic excitement went through the roof.
The registered voter numbers, however, didn’t move anywhere near as much. With Republicans potentially gaining back the enthusiasm edge they held earlier in the cycle, don’t be surprised if an already ridiculously wide likely/registered voter gap actually expands.
Fourth, and most importantly, any president whose approval rating is less than his disapproval rating remains vulnerable. This, folks, is a key point and remains tied to point four. If you read Real Clear Politics, you’ll notice that many polls that ask about the president’s approval are among adults or registered voters. Those polls are fine when enthusiasm ratings between Democrats and Republicans are near equal. They are not an accurate representation of the electorate if Republicans make a surprisingly large share of the voters come November.
I would not be surprised if a likely voter model average at this point had Obama’s approval rating below his disapproval, given the large likely voter/registered voter gap. That’s a problem for Obama because no president has won re-election with an approval rating below 50% among the voting (a smaller group than adult) electorate.
The question, then, is whether or not Romney can yank up his favorable rating above his unfavorable. If he can’t, Obama’s going to win. You don’t trade in the bad steak that doesn’t make you ill for a bad steak that may give you food poisoning. If Romney can present himself as a viable alternative, then a lot of us might be surprised by the final result.
At this point, however, my belief is that we’ll return somewhere close to where we were before the conventions: a small Obama lead of about 1.5 points. There just aren’t that many minds that Romney can change at this point. Democrats can also take heart that Republican excitement eventually rebounded a few weeks following President Bush’s 2004 debate debacle.
Still, my confidence in an Obama victory is at least somewhat shaken right now. Obama’s lead is probably not big enough for him to play the super-cautious game he did on Wednesday.