Obama-Kitzhaber rally announced (plus the latest from 538)
Kari Chisholm
Last night, the Kitzhaber campaign and the DPO announced details of President Obama's visit to Oregon.
First and foremost, you'll be happy to hear that the main event is free and open to the public.
On October 20, President Obama and John Kitzhaber will headline a rally at the Oregon Convention Center. It's open to the public, but pre-registration is required.
Sign up for the Obama-Kitzhaber event here.
There will surely be smaller fundraising events as well, but no details are public yet. We'll keep you posted.
Also, an update: Nate Silver's latest projection at his New York Times 538 blog now has John Kitzhaber with a bare lead - for the first time since the beginning of June. Silver now projects a 49.6% to 48.9% lead for Kitzhaber. (He does also note that his projection is +/- 5%.)
Silver also now says that there's a 56% chance that Kitzhaber will win -- barely better than a coin flip, the closest race in the country, but better than the 57% chance that he gave Dudley previously. (In fact, it's the only gubernatorial race in the nation that Silver says is closer than a 70/30 bet.)
But as I wrote last week, predictions aren't destiny. There is much work ahead.
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10:35 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
An endorsement rally with a man fighting his damnedest to keep gays second-class citizens?
Awesome.
And Kitzhaber was the only guy I thought was a no-brainer to vote for this year.
11:02 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
Why don't you vote Repug? That will help the cause of gay rights.
11:56 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
Because voting for the same people who don't keep their promises will work out so much better?
That said, I am still voting for Kitzhaber. I'm just disappointed in the company he's keeping.
11:05 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
a man fighting his damnedest to keep gays second-class citizens?
OK, I don't want to get off-topic here, but what the hell are you talking about?
The administration may not be moving at light speed on DADT, but they're not "fighting their damnedest" to keep it. They're making sure it survives a) legal challenges, b) congressional pushback; and, worst case, c) a constitutional amendment.
Seriously. Perspective.
12:10 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Instead of writing a long screed here and dragging things further off topic. I'm simply going to disagree. I don't care what the motives are. It's the actions that worry me.
3:38 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Geez, are you kidding? You're defending Obama on this? He could end it TODAY with a stroke of the pen. He could decline to defend it in court, now that it has NOT survived a legal challenge. Congressional pushback means jack shiot, considering a) the House has already passed a bill killing it, and b) hello, veto pen!
When you are appealing a federal judge who has thrown it out, you are fighting your damndest to keep it in place.
5:41 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
"He could decline to defend it in court"
No, he could not. The Constitution requires the US Attorney General's office to defend laws passed by Congress, and DADT is one.
Doesn't say anything about how energetically it has to defend them, though ...
8:13 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/13/175811/33
There is some disagreement on that point.
9:17 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
What I'm seeing is a careful, methodical approach that brings the policy into line with public opinion in a way that doesn't spook the military brass. (Which, despite the fact that they can be ordered to follow the policy, do matter in terms of the politics.)
Public opinion has gone through a sea change, we're on the cusp of fixing it, let's not screw it up by high-stepping into the end zone and fumbling the ball.
11:10 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
I've always been amazed how so many people can live in their own little divorced-from-reality bubble. And this certainly includes you, Kenneth.
Of course the Justice department is appealing the gay marriage ruling: it has to. Part of it's job is to defend the acts of Congress from legal challenge. Further, you want it to do so now, because if Obama didn't appeal this ruling now, the next GOP president certainly would, and do so a lot more forcefully.
We saw this whole thing played out in reverse a few years ago, with the Bush Justice department "appealing" judicial rulings that hurt the environment. Despite the appeal they filed, they clearly did not put much effort into actually trying to win.
While the Obama administration continues to play chess, an unfortunately large percentage of his voters do nothing but play dolls.
11:53 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
1.) The Justice Department does not have to appeal. If it did, everytime they lost in court, they would be required to appeal all the way to the Supremes. The Clinton and both Bush DOJs declined to defend blatantly unconstitutional laws. Use the google.
2.) If the Justice Department or White House justifed an appeal on the basis of getting a decision for the entire nation, or could avoid directly comparing gays to pedophiles... It might be a different discussion.
3.) It's not just the DOMA issue. It's DADT and ENDA as well. The administration hasn't lifted a finger to help any of these along. Unless you count their contribution to DADT that led to that wonderful "compromise" that didn't pass.
4.) They not playing chess, they're just playing you.
12:23 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
You might want to consider that most cases are not ruled on Constitutional grounds and are thus not appeal to the Supreme Court. So your first point is straw man at best. The rest of your screed is bunk. It is hypocritical (to be charitable) to complain about the DADT "vote" that was filibustered in the Senate and hence failed. If they hadn't tried for cloture you would have screamed they didn't even try. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That said, DADT will get repealed, and because this administration is pushing for repeal and DOMA will be overturned as Unconstitutional by the SCOTUS, which will make it impossible for future administration to undue.
1:07 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Man, am I tired of hearing this line, "You can't blame Obama because the Republicans filibustered it in the Senate." Really? That's the best you got? Well, I'm with Kenneth on this point. Who knows what could have happened had Obama actually put the full weight of the presidency and used the bully pulpit to put pressure on Republicans (namely Snowe and Collins) to do the right thing.
I am not disappointed by what Obama does. I am disappointed by his constant half-hearted attempts and soft legislative lobs into the Senate. How about he actually develop a spine and lead this country in a clear direction, and not be afraid to inflict consequences to those who get in his way (i.e., why the hell is Lieberman still chair of the Homeland Security Committee - and don't tell me that's a Reid decision). I don't even care if he fails at this point. I'd just like to see him give something, anything, his full support and provide some indication he that he actually cares.
2:55 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
You may not care if he fails, but most people expect him to actually move the nation in the right direction. And like it or not, Senators like Lieberman have a critical say in whether that happens. So your recommendation that Obama to rant ineffectually at wavering semi-Democrats, instead of smooth talking them into cloture votes, is counterproductive at best.
If I had a dime for every time I've read some purity-troll screed based on the hackneyed thesis that screaming is the best way to change people's minds, I'd be rich man today. But in truth, there is not one thing Obama can do to keep 41 GOP senators from filibustering anything they want to.
3:49 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
He could have avoided needing 41 on a number of occassions, such as HCR. The administration whipped AGAINST items that had 50+ votes.
Obama sure didn't "rant ineffectively" at Dennis Kucinich when he travelled personally to Ohio, picked him up in AF1, and coerced him to change his health care vote. He turned a no into a yes. DeFazio was publically threatened by the President for his no vote on stimulus.
So don't give me this crap about the ineffectuality of the bully pulpit. Tell it to LBJ.
How much do you need to be lied to, before you start doubting the honesty of his motives?
6:12 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Earth to Mark Bunster, Kuccinich and DeFazio are House members. What that has to do with 41 GOP Senators and "democrats" like Lieberman and Nelson seems to escape me.
10:55 a.m.
Oct 14, '10
So you can bully House members, but not Senators. Gotcha.
2:51 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
Basically, yes.
10:56 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
Basically no! Of course senators can be bullied. Why don't you ask Sen. Jean Carnahan how she got bullied to support Bush's tax cuts and the Iraq War. And she was not alone. The pressure to support such things as the Patriot Act, authorization to go into Iraq, Medicare Part-D, tax cuts, and many more was strong from the Bush White House and they won all those fights, much with reluctant Democratic support.
People who want to say Obama can't change votes are naked apologists and have short-term memory in the extreme.
10:52 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
Steven and Mitchell - I just have to strongly disagree. You are taking the position that Obama can't change votes, but my question back to you, "How do you know?" It hasn't been tried. I want to see what happens when these Republicans in swing states actually have the heat turned up on them. What would have happened if Obama had told Lieberman, "You back off your indefensible opposition to the Medicare buy-in or you lose your senate chair." And how about we make the Republicans actually filibuster bills like the 9/11 first-responders health care bill or the campaign disclosure act? Or how about Obama come out strongly against the hypocricy of the GOP to know put holds on 1/2 of his judicial nominees when they screamed bloody murder when Dems blocked less than 10%.
Your position is that Obama can't change anything, and my position is you don't know b/c you haven't seen it tried by this president. Bush II did it and LJB did. Both with great success.
3:07 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Really.
You are living in a fantasy world if you think that the magical powers of the bully pulpit will somehow change votes of GOP Senators or faux Democrats like Nelson or Lieberman, etc.
3:41 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
that's funny, it sure worked during the Iraq supplemental vote of 2009.
1:25 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Okay. One more time. The Clinton and both Bush DOJs declined to defend blatantly unconstitutional laws.
For a more recent example at the state level, I'd like to refer you to the Prop 8 suit down in CA, where the state's response to the court agreed that the law was (federally) unconstitutional.
As far as the cloture vote that Reid apparently sabotaged goes, I didn't mean to refer to it. I was referring to the White House's participation in the creation of the DADT compromise language. This would be the language that turned repeal into permission for DoD to change the rules if they thought it'd maybe, almost be okay to.
3:19 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
There is no obligation on the State AG to defend a state ballot measure in Federal court. So your argument is apples to kumquats.
3:20 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
BTW, when you say "I was referring to the White House's participation in the creation of the DADT compromise language." are you actually trying to lay blame for Clinton's compromise that created DADT on the current administration, which has been pushing for repeal of DADT?
2:32 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
Hopefully someone will correct me on this if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that DADT was actually a compromise by the Clinton administration that circumvented the actual law passed in Congress regarding this issue. That law is actually worse than DADT. So, by shooting down DADT, the judge in this case may have actually exposed gays and lesbians in the military to more severe punishment than they already are.
2:53 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
That's correct. Which is why the ban on non-heterosexuals serving needs to be repealed by Congress, and why trying to jam the vote through before the DoD report could clear the path for repeal was bad politics. A bad move done for the right reasons mind you, but still a bad move.
12:49 p.m.
Oct 15, '10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/14/AR2010101407137.html
Wow! The DOJ apparently DOESN'T have to appeal when they lose. Hmmmm.
10:46 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
So, I "registered" for this event online. But how do I know if in fact I can get in? I am assuming that more people will want to attend than can be accommodated. I don't want to show up and then find out I can't get in. Information anyone?
11:03 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
RL -- Yeah, you have to register to get in, but registering doesn't guarantee entry. As the site says, "show up early."
I haven't heard any details, but there will surely be fundraising events that will be smaller and ticketed. I'll keep ya posted.
11:01 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
Looks like the day after the president will be in Seattle to campaign for Patti Murray.
11:01 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
Oh, and full disclosure: My firm built John Kitzhaber's campaign website. I speak only for myself.
11:10 a.m.
Oct 13, '10
Why the obsession with Nate Silver? Take a note: Nate Silver is not God.
12:15 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Because Nate Silver is the best polling analyst in the nation.
3:50 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
I'll wait until after the election to make that assessment. The polls seem to be getting less and less accurate. And there may be a reason: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2010/10/pew_cellphone_bias_may_be_bigg.html
11:22 a.m.
Oct 14, '10
Go back and look at Silver's record in 2008. You won't have to wait to make an assessment on his approach.
That being said, we all have to wait for the actual results.
2:29 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
I'm a fan of Nate and I think his methods are revolutionizing political polling, but you point out an important caveat in this: he has one year of success under his belt. And that was for a Presidential election, not congressional elections (I'm not sure if he even crunched numbers for Congress in 2008). So I think it is premature to see him as some kind of profit of the polls.
Besides, Nate assiduously avoids making predictions. His analysis is entirely about snapshots and nothing more.
2:55 p.m.
Oct 14, '10
Well, he is getting paid now by the Times, so he is a profit of the polls to some extent for now. As to him being a prophet of the polls, point taken. ;)
You going to make it to Thrister's this evening?
3:44 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
To comment on topic: this really isn't true:
"Silver also now says that there's a 56% chance that Kitzhaber will win "
You are committing the common fallacy that polls are predictive events rather than snapshots in time. What Silver clearly says is IF THE ELECTION WERE TODAY, Kitz would have a 56% chance of winning...TODAY. The election, as I'm sure you heard, is not today. So he does not have a 56% chance of winning. Currently, he is slightly favored IF TRENDS HOLD.
And while Nate does his best, garbage in/garbage out. Rasmussen has dominated polling this cycle, putting out waves of polls. Take WA-SEN: I was told Elway was an outlier yesterday, because "5 of 6 polls had her behind." You know how many of those six were not Rasmussen or Fox? One.
6:47 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
You forgot the CNN poll today which has Murray up by 8 pts.
9:22 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
"You are committing the common fallacy that polls are predictive events rather than snapshots in time. What Silver clearly says is IF THE ELECTION WERE TODAY, Kitz would have a 56% chance of winning...TODAY."
Sorry, Mark. You're wrong.
When I click on the link, and actually READ what Silver wrote, it says, quite plainly:
"Based on polling and demographic data, this is the prediction of how the state will vote on election day."
Setting aside the fact that voters will be voting in Oregon in two days, you're confusing Silver's race predictions with polling numbers.
You're right that polling numbers are snapshots of the outcome if the election were today. But Silver's predictions are his attempt to produce betting odds on the actual outcome.
Ron Wyden, for example, is at a 99.3% chance of re-election according to Silver. He is not, of course, at 99.3% in the polls.
And as for GIGO, you're right -- but that's also something that Silver is building in by weighting polls according to their historical accuracy. I'm not saying his methodology is infallible -- he is certainly a human, and events on the ground can alter the outcome of a race. (Which is why the number shifted after Dudley's disastrous debate performance.)
Nice try, though.
11:49 a.m.
Oct 14, '10
While the to-date polling is adjusted for historical accuracy, national factors and demographic makeup, whatever you cite from NYT's page (it's not clear Silver actually wrote the note you cite, but fine), it's still just a simulated run of 10,000 elections based on what we know today. The result is not so much "what will happen on Election Day" as it is simply how many times out of 10,000 a given candidate comes out ahead. That's not the same thing, quite, as saying there's a 56% chance he'll win. It's saying 56% of the time these numbers were put into a hopper, Kitzhaber came out ahead. The problem is that you don't run an election 10,000 times, you only run it once--and that one time is NOT going to be based only on events through today.
To be fair to you, the language used at 538 certainly supports you defining it as an election forecast for Election Day. What I'm saying is that the only truly applicable data used in those calculations, are based on what we know as of today, and the projection is ASSUMING LITTLE TO NO CHANGE IN THE KNOWN DATA SO FAR. That's why Silver continues to adjust the models; more data have superceded the old. The forecasting part of the process (Step 5) relies to strong extent on the layout of undecideds and how they will break. But since the undecideds come from current polling, once again the forecast relies so heavily on to-date info, that the only honest way to characterize the projection is as what would happen today. If Chris Dudley takes off his clothes and dives into Keller Fountain (assuming it's still flowing today!), those undecided might change...and there goes the forecast. Further, only look to 2004 Prez race to remember how trustworthy breaking patterns of undecideds have become.
So my beef is probably more with 538's characterization--when everything is keyed off what's happening today, and you acknowledge the potential for a shifting projection, what you're left with is essentially the same thing as you have with the polling itself: what we know if the Election were to happen today.
Once you have known data (like votes already cast, in early voting or say during a runoff), THEN you can start making empirical projections that go beyond what's currently known. But when you're basing it all on hypothetical votes, your reliance on the most recent hypothetical enslaves you to the conditions that produced that hypothetical. If it changes (and we know it will to at least some extent), your projections aren't useful anymore.
5:01 p.m.
Oct 13, '10
Regardless of methodology, Rasmussen has been doing most of the polling that I've seen, with Riley out there somewhere. This is the first Rasmussen poll that has put Kitz out fron by a nose. I find it encoouraging given my understandy of Rasmussen polling flaws.
As for Nate Silver, he doesn't predict, he offers odds based on a lot of number crunching, and he's already on record noting the confusion this time around and has offered some ideas about the why of it all. He the real dispassionate deal as far as I'm concerned.
9:41 a.m.
Oct 14, '10
As I told a certain nameless Republican blogger this morning (who speculated the latest Rasmussen might be an outlier), Dudley was already trending down and Kitzhaber was trending up, even before the debate. The same Republican blogger says, given how past elections have worked in Oregon, Duds needs to be up by 6 points on election day in order to win. IF that is true, barring some terrible misstep by Kitzhaber, I just can't see that happening.
I feel like anything I say regarding a poll at this point needs to be followed by: GOTV! GOTV! GOTV!!!