I was abruptly woken up at 6:30 this morning by Lacey the lab barking for her breakfast. Now she hasn’t done this in a while so I thought she had to go out or something, but all she wanted was some food. It must be my fault as I’m normally up much earlier.
I noticed when going out to get the paper (after feeding the dogs) that the windshields on the cars had a thin layer of ice. It’s about 22 degrees outside right now but feels great.
Yesterday the oldest and I ran down to REI to get him some new snow boots as I had a 20% off coupon. He now wears a mens 8 or 9 meaning his shoes and boots now cost the same as mine, he just has a smaller size. We finally found a good pair that cost us a bit over $100! These were about the least expensive we could find. We did buy the 9’s so he should get a few years out of them and then his brother will use them. That’s the only upside to the expense. We then headed to Old Navy hoping to find him some new pants that would fit in the waist and the length. We tried everything they had on but in order to get pants that are long enough, the waist was too huge. Looks like we’ll have to head back to the western stores. We then grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch and headed home.
Mom was on the couch trying to keep her head from hurting anymore than it already does. Thankfully we go to the doc tomorrow but then it’ll be at least a day (probably more) before anyone can get her in for treatment. Luckily the bad drug that was sent to 23 states and used in treatments like hers, was not sent to Colorado. This is good as many people are getting meningitis and some have died. Nice that you can’t count on safe medicine, food or much else these days.
I ran a couple more errands to get some shotgun shells with my buddy as he gets a military discount on cases which is a big deal. I wasn’t going to spend the $62 but his discount coupled with the sale they had going saved me about $60!
Meanwhile the misses made some lasagna for dinner which hit the spot with the cool weather outside. It rained or misted snow for most of the day so both dogs were in for the entire afternoon. Mojo has a habit of running upstairs and coming down with a stuffed animal in his mouth looking all proud. Yesterday he made the mistake of grabbing Pookie, which is the oldest guys most prized possession, that he found in Italy when he was 4 years old. Big mistake, not only was Mojo scolded, we had to wash Pookie right away to get the dog slobber off him. The oldest really doesn’t care about stuffed animals anymore EXCEPT for Pookie.
Today we’ll be watching some football and taking it easy. I do need to try to take the boys to Target for some new pants. Hopefully we’ll be able to find something. The Race for the Cure for breast cancer is this morning and there’s thousands of people running in it to support this great cause.
Friday morning a 10 year old girl was snatched while walking 3 blocks from her home on the way to school. There has been an Amber Alert ever since but no sign of her. What kind of world are we living in these days. It’s just not like it was when we were kids. We really need to get out of the city. Not that things haven’t changed everywhere but in some smaller communities in the mountains, these kind of problems are less frequent.
The youngest guy just came down to join me so time to run. I almost forgot, when I was running errands yesterday, Uncle T and Aunt B showed up with some new sweatshirts for the boys! They’re really cool and both boys love them. Thanks.
Have a great day and cheer for the Broncos over the Patriots today, we need all the help we can get.
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.