Does Carly Fiorina care what Republicans think at all? The very day after rejecting the option of taking day trips or making video addresses to Republicans gathered for the state party convention in Indian Wells, Carly Fiorina has begun making day trips to raise money. While this is a natural step for somebody who refuses to reach into her own deep pockets to fund her campaign, this does represent yet another stumble for a campaign that can’t seem to go a day without making a mistake.
It’s no wonder that polls show her running against Barbara Boxer no better than Chuck DeVore, despite Fiorina’s wide reputation of being a pro-abortion “social moderate.” One would think that a candidate who, in the public eye, neutralizes Boxer’s key issue of abortion would do better in the polling, but Fiorina’s failure to achieve anything in the polls is a testament to her failure to campaign effectively and to reach out to the Republican base. Republicans would be critical to her fight against the united front of the Democrat party, the unions, and the press. If she can’t get us on her side, she can’t win.
So why, then, does she snub us and instead turn to the deep pockets? Does she intend to run as a Schwarzenegger-ite “post-partisan?” Does she even have a plan for victory? Even Meg Whitman showed up to Indian Wells, made good speeches, and earned respect even from supporters of other candidates. She put pressure on her opponents, and Steve Poizner did not impress when he replied.
Senator Boxer will have to make a mistake if a Republican is going to beat her in 2010. I doubt Carly Fiorina is capable of applying the pressure to Boxer it will take to make that happen.
Nate Silver once was a respected mathematical analyst. His baseball-related work, such as that at Baseball Prospectus and on PECOTA, showed that he has the ability to make solid, reasoned arguments using mathematical tools.
But now, he’s flushed his own reputation into the toilet with his campaign against Strategic Vision. The pretend math, and lack of serious analysis and justification, in his series of posts against the company is so bad, I expect him any day now to start ranting about how he hasn’t seen a given poll, but he still thinks that Obama has the consistency to pull it out just like the Reds used to. Nate Silver has become the Joe Morgan of politics.
The plain truth is, much like a Joe Morgan broadcast, the Nate Silver articles leave one knowing nothing he didn’t know to begin with. Take the original piece. Here, Silver’s analysis boils down to this:
- Manufacture two sets of data using a methodology with no justification given. Why strip out everything but Democrats and Republicans? Either the polls are doctored or they aren’t.
- Make pretty pictures.
- Eyeball the pictures.
- Scream that they aren’t consistent enough, not like his old Reds teams, so they must be FRAUDS!
He attempts to provide a thin veneer of justification for his work by citing Benford’s Law. However that’s completely ridiculous, as Benford’s Law applies to a) early digits of numbers in data sets spanning b) many orders of magnitude c) smoothly. Silver’s work covers a) last digits of numbers in data sets spanning b) a range of about 30-60 c) bunched together around 50 because polls are more likely to be taken in close races. Even mentioning Benford’s Law in this context by most people would show a fundamental lack of understanding, much like Joe Morgan and other analysts when they use Wins to praise pitchers and RBIs to praise batters.
However Nate Silver knows better. He’s not the Joe Morgan of politics. He’s more like Joe’s old teammate Pete Rose here. Rose was great as a player, and a fraud as a manager, while Silver was great as a baseball analyst and has now become a fraud as a political analyst.
Compound that Benford’s Law deception with the use of a picture of a correlated data set. He asserts out of thin air that the distribution of last digits should be uniform. How is this the case? We all know that close races are polled more often than blowouts, and Silver in particular should, since he spent the whole last Presidential election watching some states come in more frequently than others. All it would take for Strategic Vision to get a distribution like he shows, is to have a bunch of polls that show something like, oh, R 48 D 49 Other 1 Undecided 2. But we don’t see that because, guess what, Silver stripped out the Others and Undecideds!
He hasn’t backed down since that original article, either. The willful mathematical incompetence continues in a followup article, in which he exhibits the same mathematical ham-handedness:
- Asserts a distribution of last digits without justification
- Invokes Benford’s Law in a way only a mathematical illiterate could
- Heavily relies on charts and not established statistical tests to draw conclusions about data sets.
In another followup, Silver attempts to refute a specific poll by… making up his own simulated poll results. And apparently distance from Atlanta, GA has a proven correlation with fraud, or something. Perhaps Coca Cola makes you better at math?
Nate Silver once had a reputation. Even if his political commentary was left-leaning, his math could be trusted. Not anymore. He has shredded that solid reputation to become a political mercenary, attacking a firm’s integrity for partisan political reasons. I’m sure he won’t even notice that Republicans and independents no longer have any reason to trust him, with all the rabid cheering he’ll get from the radical left. But deep down, I wonder if he felt it when he shed that last bit of integrity to get page views.
Is Strategic Vision making up poll results? I have no idea, but that’s just it: Nate Silver’s rabid crusade won’t tell me that. Actual, mathematically-sound analysis would have to be done to draw any conclusions about that. Silver has done none, because Silver is only interested in scoring political points for the Democrats, rather than using math to ferret out truth.
I am in danger of becoming a broken record on the issue of Net Neutrality in this space, but as aggressively as the Democrats are pushing the issue, it is a danger we all will have to live with. Once again, I will summarize the issue with a minimum of technological impediments to understanding:
Net Neutrality started out as a broad-based movement on the Internet. It wasn’t a left-wing thing at all, but rather was something most of us could support, because it was merely a movement to ensure (usually government franchise-backed) ISP firms could not abuse their monopoly or oligopoly power to coerce their customers to use other services by the firm, such as phone service in the case of AT&T or television service in the case of Comcast. I believe this is a reasonable request. It doesn’t prevent investors in Internet technology from profiting, but rather merely prevents them from abusing government-granted market power to benefit other businesses.
However on Monday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski went beyond that when he outlined his six principles of Net Neutrality in a speech to the Brookings Institution. What he proposes is an intrusive, never-ending government hand in the growth and management of the Internet, one that is clearly aimed at the Socialist goal of “single-payer Internet,” run with the same agile reactiveness as the DMV or the TSA.
He starts off innocently enough when he speaks of “non-discrimination,” and in fact says the right things about an important problem:
The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination — stating that broadband provider cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications. This means they cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, or pick winners by favoring some content or applications over others in the connection to subscribers’ homes. Nor can they disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider.
This is all true. If Genachowski stopped here, I would not oppose him. I don’t agree that the FCC must act in this space; rather I believe the answer to this problem lies at the state level. Ending or reworking franchise monopolies and duopolies on phone and cable television would go further in fixing the problem government created, than creating more new government.
The FCC Chairman does not stop there, though. He goes on to speak of how government needs to play an active role in monitoring all network maintenance activities and configurations of ISPs and their infrastructure, in the name of “transparency:”
We cannot afford to rely on happenstance for consumers, businesses, and policymakers to learn about changes to the basic functioning of the Internet. Greater transparency will give consumers the confidence of knowing that they’re getting the service they’ve paid for, enable innovators to make their offerings work effectively over the Internet, and allow policymakers to ensure that broadband providers are preserving the Internet as a level playing field. It will also help facilitate discussion among all the participants in the Internet ecosystem, which can reduce the need for government involvement in network management disagreements.
In this fairly harmless-sounding paragraph lies much danger. For one of the aims of the socialist perversion of Net Neutrality is to prohibit ISPs from offering different “tiers” of service, giving customers who pay more money a higher priority over other customers. Should Genachowski get his way, regulators would be positioned to prohibit that, just as the far left internet users want. You see, people who download lots of things off of YouTube and the Pirate Bay, as well as firms like Google who seek to make money off of services like YouTube, would benefit if ISPs are required to offer all customers an “all you can eat” plan. Such plans effectively force casual, low-intensity users to subsidize the constant downloaders. Great for some, terrible for others, and totally inappropriate for government to mandate.
Further, Genachowski attacks the fundamental right of property owners to control their property when he says this. He openly acknowledges that he wants the FCC to have an active role in resolving “network management disagreements,” in which outsiders can complain to the FCC about a private computer network’s configuration. Presumably the FCC would then grant itself the power to compel holders of networks to change such configurations on demand. Why else demand transparency if not to start making changes?
The Internet is not a single network. It is a network of networks, all of which talk to each other through standardized protocols. When I send this post to RedState, for example, it will travel over five different networks: Mine, Verizon, Alter.net, Level 3, and ThePlanet. This is not an ecosystem. This is a neighborhood, with property lines that are clearly drawn.
Genachowski is showing himself to be a tool of the radical left when he attempts to use the Net Neutrality banner to conquer the whole Internet, or at least the US-based parts of it, and put them under total government control. He must be stopped.
Recently I and others have questioned Carly Fiorina’s commitment to the race to defeat Barbara Boxer in 2010. She won’t fund her own race with her deep pockets, which was supposed to be a key reason to nominate her. She also won’t show up to the California Republican Party meeting in Indian Wells this month (starting today, in fact)*. Her candidacy so far has been characterized as “amateurish”.
Fiorina now says cancer treatment is the reason for her evasiveness so far. And while nobody wishes she would skimp on her cancer treatment, or hope for anything less than a full recovery for her, I join Pejman Yousefzadeh in being skeptical of this explanation.
I am skeptical for two reasons. The first is the reason Pejman gives: if Ms. Fiorina is capable of virtually attending an anti-cancer summit via video feed, surely she could at least do the same for her limping Senate campaign? She has strong leadership support for her campaign, and surely could have gotten this accomodation had she put in the effort.
Secondly, I have been sent a recent itinerary of hers. If she could join former President Clinton in Milan, Italy for a business conference, surely she could make at least one day trip to Indian Wells to address the Republicans who are to give blood, sweat, tears, and money to get her elected over an entrenched incumbent Senator? I hear Southwest Airlines has many flights from the Bay Area down here running all day long.
I hesitate to write this, because I naturally am gunshy over her cancer. Mark Kilmer taught me more about cancer than I ever wanted to know, unfortunately. It is possible to be strong, unflinching, and productive while enduring cancer treatment, and a relapse can be swift and brutal. I wish her a full and complete recovery.
But at the same time, Ms. Fiorina cannot expect to win this race that way. She may get some of us in the primary to pull our punches due to the way we feel for her in this troubling time, but the unions, the press, and the Democrats will not. If she is going to be able to win this election, she must be confident enough in her health to give her all, and she must show us now that she is capable of doing it.
Because if she can’t win the general, I echo Pejman and wish that she would sit this one out, give her cancer treatment her all, and return another year. In the meantime she could take up writing or radio, engaging Republicans and selling herself to the base as well as the party leadership. Perhaps in time she could challenge Senator Feinstein, or maybe even try for a House seat.
But this does not appear to be Carly Fiorina’s year.
* I would attend but I am a) sick, b) usually must get around on foot, and c) am 60 miles of desert terrain away. Trips like that require special reasons and arrangements, and are just out of the question when battling a cold and after the closed primary amendment was withdrawn.
There are two candidates who have a chance to win the Republican nomination for Senate in June 2010. One is Chuck DeVore. One of our Fighting Four candidates this primary season, he announced last November his candidacy to defeat Senator Barbara Boxer. Term-limited from his state Assembly seat, he’s committed to victory.
The other is Carly Fiorina. A political novice, never having run for office before, she doesn’t even know if she’s running for this office yet. In big, black letters her own, brand-new website asks “Coming Soon?” It’s no wonder she won’t even fund her own campaign. Why spend that money when she might not even run?
Chuck DeVore is on Facebook. Chuck DeVore is on Twitter, and he’s active on both. Carly Fiorina’s webpage has placeholder, non-functional links to both services. She may, or may not, show up to engage Republicans, and will do so only when it’s convenient for her.
We have two choices in June, but only one candidate is there for us and committed to fighting Barbara Boxer, the dumbest member of the US Senate. The clear choice is Chuck DeVore. I hope we can give to him and good conservatives like him to help him fight for us and win.
When we allow government to grow large, and especially large and unionized, the effects on our society are greater than just the weight of the government yoke on the backs of the American people. There are other, hidden effects to consider when such concentrations of left-wing power are brought together.
That is a lesson all Americans can take from the latest from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, CalPERS. Consider what will be ahead for CalPERS if Muriel Strand, a candidate for the CalPERS Board of Administration, gets her way:
I believe retirees’ real economic needs – clean air and water, healthy food, and warmth – are more important that strictly financial benefits, which could conceivably fall short of what’s needed even with the COLA.
That’s right; she’s ready, willing, and able to sacrifice the people she’s charged with looking out for, by sacrificing their retirements in order to push her radical left-wing political agenda. There’s no guarantee she’ll win, but her words are already in line with long-standing CalPERS trends.
Said the Wall Street Journal last March:
Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt recently spelled out a few policy principles for sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), the most important of which was this: “Invest commercially, not politically.” Mr. Kimmitt’s concern is that “governments could conceivably employ large pools of capital in noncommercially driven ways that are politically sensitive.”
Anyone interested in evidence of such behavior needn’t look beyond America’s borders. If California were a national economy, it would be the eighth largest in the world. And its Public Employees’ Retirement System, Calpers, with $259 billion in assets, would rank fifth among the world’s SWFs. Combine it with the $169 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System (Calstrs), and California runs the second largest SWF in the world, just behind the United Arab Emirates.
….Developing-country investment restrictions based on political factors and labor practices began in earnest in 2002 under the direction of then-state treasurer and Calpers board member Phil Angelides. These quickly put 14 of 27 such countries examined by Calpers off limits. When the Philippines was proposed for exclusion in 2004, its stock market and currency plunged. Spurred into action by the Philippine ambassador and heeding a call from Sacramento priests, six busloads of Filipino-Americans besieged a Calpers investment meeting, forcing officials into an embarrassing volte face. Mr. Angelides nonetheless called for Calpers to increase “positive pressure” on foreign governments. “It would be a mistake to walk away from an activist policy,” he said.
….The fund touts “good corporate governance.” But the actual investments it trumpets typically relate to labor and environmental practices, not shareholder concerns.
Emphasis added. CalPERS attempts to use its market power to dictate to private corporations at home and around the world. Its union-driven membership attempts to get in on the ownership side of union disputes, tilting the playing field for publicly-listed coprorations against the other shareholders. Further, they also use that power to dictate a radical “green” agenda to the corporations they influence.
They buy in bad faith. This is merely one illustration of the dangers of having too many government employees. It’s about more than just the direct effects of burdensome taxation and legislation. We create institutions with reach far beyond what we imagined.
I took this yesterday. So clear, so blue the sky behind March Mountain. And so hot yesterday. It looks nice when you’re not out in it!
I took this today. Jones Blue Bubblegum inside my Uranium Oxide glass, lit by a UV penlight.
California’s race for the Senate is easy for people all across the country to care about, but we’re also going to elect a new Governor next year. Term limited or not, Governor Schwarzenegger has burned his bridges with most of the party and likely will never seek elective office again.
So it’s an open seat, and an open field for both parties this time around. Let’s start with the Democrats. It’s less depressing that way.
The Democrats
The Democrats have only held the Governor’s chair for five of the last twenty eight years. Before Gray Davis of the Recall won it, the previous Democrat to win was none other than Attorney General Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown . He is capping off his political comeback after losing for Senate and President (twice). In 1998 he became Mayor of Oakland (serving two terms), In 2006 he became Attorney General of California, and after one term of that he’s taking another stab at the Big Chair. Having served two terms he’s still not term-limited because he took and left office long before term limits.
Moonbeam would be a disaster for the state, of course. He’s the wrong man for the wrong time. He’s the one who began us down the path of economic ruin with his "environmental" policies which seek to drive out of state as much commerce (and as many jobs) as possible. He’s a tax hiker who will add punitive taxation to businesses he feels are inappropriate under his "green" and red policies, as though we could afford to be picky in a recession.
Brown also picks hard-left judges who are soft on crime. He was the one who appointed Rose Bird to the California Supreme Court, who was so out of step with even California that she was voted off in a historic defeat for a California Judge. As Attorney General he has pledged to uphold the death penalty, because he at least respects the rule of law and has a duty as AG, but as Governor he will have no such obligation. Expect vicious murderers to get reprieves should Brown win.
The other declared Democrat is San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom . Think Moonbeam, only worse. His biggest failing is that he is a radical with no respect for the rule of law. He got nationwide attention when he unilaterally declared a new definition of marriage in San Francisco, and "married" a bunch of homosexual couples. He was shot down by the California Supreme Court of course, as was he when San Francisco’s sweeping gun ban was overturned as an overstepping of city power. Imagine what he’d do as Governor, with no respect for the law or the Constitution, as he worked his far-left agenda.
As a conservative Republican I think our best chances lie with a Newsom upset in the primary, but I’d hate for him even to get that close. For what it’s worth, the two most recent polls show Brown to be in good shape. An August Research 2000/Daily Kos poll of likely voters put Brown ahead of Newsom 29/20, barely within the 5% MOE. In the general the poll shows Brown trouncing all Republican comers, while Newsom trails one Republican and is within a point of the other two. As an aside, that same poll shows Boxer crushing Fiorina by 21 and DeVore by 24, putting both possible Senate Repubicans well within the 4% MOE of each other (Yes, the poll has a 5% MOE for primaries and 4% for the general).
The other poll, by J. Moore Methods, shows likely Democrat primary voters preferring Brown to Newsom 46-26, a total rout.
The Republicans
Why do I call those Democrats less depressing than the Republicans? Consider our frontrunner, political novice Meg Whitman.
On record as loving the left-wing radical and former Green Jobs Commissar Van Jones, Whitman is already pushing a “green jobs” agenda of her own.
And the best part: She is unequivocally, unabashedly, unapologetically “pro-choice.” Zoom a head to 6:40 of this video to hear her say it to the applause of her supporters.
About the only good thing I can say about her is that she supported Proposition 8.
Next up is former US Representative Tom Campbell. Before his campaign for governor he came out strongly on two issues. First, he vociferously opposed Proposition 8 to restore marriage in California, making the absurd and insulting comparison with ‘race’ discrimination. Did you know you’re on the side of hateful bigots if you favor marriage? Tom Campbell thinks so.
As if I needed to go on, the other proposal Campbell made lately was an 18 cent gas tax hike . The Democrats won’t cut spending, so Campbell wants to raise taxes to fund that spending spree. Of course, he did this when gas prices were unnaturally low, but anyone could see that gas would rise back well above two dollars a gallon here, and now in fact it’s back over three. But if Tom Campbell had his way, we’d all be paying the price of even more expensive gas used to ship everything sold in all our stores in California.
While he’s against us on marriage, Campbell is hiding on the issue of abortion. He supports wishy-washy measures like parental notification laws, but I’m having a very hard time finding a firm position he’s taken on the core of the issue. His website is absolutely silent on the issue, which I think says it all.
Lastly we have Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. I do not hide the fact that I’m partial to Poizner in this race, but it is only in a sighing, by-default sort of way that I prefer him to win the primary. Because he joins Whitman and Campbell as being to the extreme left on social issues. I don’t know why we can’t have a single candidate who’s with us on abortion and marriage, but we don’t. Poizner was with us on Proposition 8, but is “pro-choice”, expecting to sell the base on himself by taking the John Kerry route of setting himself up as personally opposing abortion.
Poizner however is right on the issues of taxation and small government. He favors a part-time legislature, lowering tax rates to spur growth in the state and raise revenue, and plans to fight the pro-spending unions in the state by appealing to the members, bypassing the corrupt, socialist fatcats in charge of those unions. He also opposes a “carbon tax.”
Plus in Poizner over Whitman we have a proven politican who has shown he knows how to win a statewide general election in this state. Whitman is a complete unknown. She may turn out to be a political goofball and self-destruct like a Creigh Deeds, especially when she’s going to be up against the full brunt of the California Democrat-Union alliance, a high-pressure way for a total beginner to make her start running for elective office. Poizner has proven he can make it to election day without a total meltdown.
So, as I said up top, the choices are pretty depressing. The California Republican Party has apparently run out of conservatives willing to fight the tough fight and take a stand for values, character, and principle in this state. Instead we have the left fringe looking to drive a stake in the heart of the conservative base, dictating to us what’s really important, and capitulate to the Democrats on anything possible in order to notch up some meaningless electoral victories.
I will vote for the Republican next November, but none of these people could entice more than that from me, like a Chuck DeVore or a Tom McClintock could.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have regular Cokes in the house. We only had the flavorless fizzy stuff called Diet Coke that my mother drank. As a result I loved eating out because I could get the good stuff.
Carl’s Jr was the best of the bunch, too, because they were a pioneer in the serve-yourself free refill fountain. That was great. In fact it was so great I continued eating there as often as possible through high school and beyond.
Now, though, it just doesn’t feel right getting lemonade at their fountain. I have to though because I’m avoiding caffeine. So while I’m still happy with Carl’s burgers, it’s just not the same.
As an aside, for a while I’d stopped getting their combos entirely because I hate their new fries. Apparently I’m not the only one, because they now have a display up prominently offering substitutions for other items. It worked, too: I got a combo when I didn’t plan on it, because I could pay a little extra and get the crisscut fries.
If only they had caffeine free coke in the fountain.
Ever since I got my iMac, I’ve had a 19″ LCD display sitting unused. I’ve dreamed of picking up a USB Display Adapter of some sort to make use of it.
The good news: I found one. The bad news: The Kensington Dual Monitor Adapter costs $120.
I don’t need a third display that much. So, I wait. And dream.