The poor little girl who was snatched by some predator a week ago was less than 6 miles or so from us. Well last night, about 3 miles from us, they say someone tried to abduct a 13 year old boy. He told the kid to get in the car and when the kid started to back away, the suspect got out of the car trying to grab the kid! Are you kidding me? What do we have to do, literally watch our kids 24/7, even in the front yard. Enough is enough. The mom snapped a picture of the suspects car with her cell phone but he hasn’t been found yet. Wait a minute, the news just said the suspect from the car in the picture has just turned himself in to police! Let’s hope it’s the same guy from both instances. Even if it is, there’s still just a lot of messed up people in the World these day. What has happened to us as a society? You just cannot trust anyone anymore, no matter how nice they appear to be, it’s sad, really sad.
Last night we had some friends over for dinner along with their kids which was fun. The misses did too much, again, and I’m sure she’ll be paying for it today. Earlier in the day the oldest and I ran some errands to get him some new jeans, pick up some food at the store, (pasta was $1 a box instead of the normal $2.59, we bought 20 boxes!) and some other staples we need around the house. I tried to get him a haircut but he didn’t want to even get jeans so I gave him his choice, haircut or jeans and you know what he chose.
Whoops the news just said the guy who turned himself in (with the car in the photo the mom took) was just looking for his girlfriend so this isn’t the predator everyone is looking for, the bad guy is still out there.
This morning the kids have the Gold Rush which is a 5K run. I absolutely will not let the misses even walk it so it looks like I’ll be going with the youngest. The oldest will hopefully have a group of friends he’ll run with but he doesn’t want to wait for his younger brother as he’s trying to get as good as time as possible. I decided I just cannot let the youngest run alone as you never know. The predator, for all we know, could have signed up to run in the race (a kids race) and might be running right along side our children, waiting to grab one and veer off the trail. It is 3.2 miles along a creek in a wooded area. Once again, I may be overreacting but I don’t trust anyone anymore and am not taking any chances. I’ve always been cautious, some might even say too much so, but I’ve seen a lot of things in my life many people have not and I’ve seen first hand just how messed up some people are, so I’m running the 5K. It’s really sad that as a parent you even have to think about your kids safety in a school race.
The oldest and I are going to organize the basement today. We’re also going to get the yard ready for winter and the coming snow. This means wrapping the faucets and picking up flower pots and other assorted things that can be put away until Spring.
Hard to believe tomorrow is October 15th. That means 75 days until Christmas, wow how time flies. On top of all this, some in the intelligence community say Israel might attack Iran in a matter of days, that’s all we need. What the heck is the World coming to. Oh well, you need to focus on the good things in life like family and the simple pleasures. Do not take anything for granted. We’re trying to make sure we embrace each and every day and enjoy it to the fullest. Hope you do too!
Take care and God Bless.
Tom says:
Harry J Enten
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 October 2012 08.38 EDT
Jump to comments (72)
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.