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"Liberal Denial Will Only Get Worse"
The bold is what I thought was the most interesting part of the article. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/25/liberal-denial-will-only-get-worse/
For those following the polls, the evidence of the last few weeks has been pretty obvious. Following the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney began to eat into the lead that President Obama had amassed. In the last week, he has caught and passed the president in most national polls, especially those without samples that are not overestimating the number of Democrats who will turn out to vote. The race remains very close, and the president is still ahead or tied in a number of the important swing states. Evidence that the Obama campaign thinks it is trailing is everywhere, as the president swings away at his rival as if he were the challenger not the incumbent. Even more telling is, as I wrote yesterday, the first evidence that some influential people within the president?s re-election team are starting to plant stories in the media alleging that an impending defeat isn?t their fault.
And yet despite all these signs of trouble for the president, the most popular story line for liberal pundits and analysts today seems to be an attempt to deny that Romney has momentum or to brand it a media creation. That was the conceit of a much talked about piece in the New Republic by Alec MacGillis. His thesis is that the media ? including publications and broadcast outlets that tend to favor the Democrats ? are trying to foist a misleading story line about Romney moving ahead in order to make the election a better story. Even most liberals aren?t buying that idea but other voices, including polling analysts like the New York Times Nate Silver and Mark Blumenthal at the Huffington Post, are on slightly firmer ground when they claim that their reading of the polls tells them that Romney?s momentum is over. In a race this close, one has to admit the possibility that they might turn out to be right. But these frantic denials of a Romney surge not only contradict the clear trend of the polls. They smack of the sort of desperation that is often in evidence as candidates who were once thought in a commanding position start slipping. After months of liberals telling themselves that Romney was a fake or a fraud that no one could possibly take seriously, they are having a hard time coming to grips with the possibility that he might be elected president in 10 days. If denial is the first of five stages of grief, liberal mourning about the possible end of the Obama presidency can be said to have begun.
Feeding this denial is the widespread oversampling of Democrats in
polls that still show the president leading the race. The assumption
that the turnout of the president?s supporters will match or exceed
those that lifted him to a historic victory in 2008 seems to be based
more on a leap of liberal faith than evidence, but it is statistical
tricks like that that are keeping Obama?s head above water in the polls.
Partisans always tend to believe polls that tell them what they want to
hear, but systems that weigh polls in an arbitrary manner such as
Silver?s forecast seem to be similarly positioned to keep Obama ahead
for as long as possible. (my note: Gallup models that the 2012 electorate will be R +1. Most of the polls have a D+4 or more advantage.)
Just as misleading is the fact that the heavy turnout in early voting states, like Ohio, of Obama?s supporters may be skewing likely voter formulas in the president?s favor. As Josh Jordan writes in National Review today, given the emphasis the Democrats have placed on getting their base out to vote early while Republicans count on theirs to turn out on Election Day, the president?s ability to stay ahead or tied in Ohio polls may be a statistical anomaly that won?t be corrected until the ballots are counted.
But even looking beyond the biased analyses being published by liberal sources, the refusal of many Democrats to accept the reality of the Romney surge may be rooted in something more emotional than just skewed poll numbers. Many if not most liberals share the attitude of contempt for the Republicans that were so easily discerned in the attitudes of both President Obama and Vice President Biden during the debates. Though most Americans have rejected the attempt by the president?s campaign to define Romney as a heartless plutocrat or a monster, liberals bought it hook, line and sinker. The idea that such a person could have caught and passed Obama in the space of a few short weeks seems impossible to them not so much because they think the numbers don?t support this thesis but because they just don?t want it to be so.
Rather than debunking Romney?s wave, liberal analysts who seek to deny it are merely confirming their inability to look dispassionately at what has occurred. Democrats living in liberal echo chambers need a reality check.
There will be no landslide in the presidential race this year, or even a decisive victory like the one Obama scored in 2008. It?s possible that the president can rebound in the last days of the campaign and that Romney could falter. But barring some late October surprise that would help the president (as opposed to one, like last month?s Libya fiasco, which hurt him), it?s hard to see momentum shifting back in his favor. If it doesn?t, expect liberal denial about Romney?s strength to deepen.
Re: "Liberal Denial Will Only Get Worse"
Um, isn't momentum already back in Obama's court? And I'm still having a hard time making the electoral map work for Romney without a huge Ohio surprise.
Also, the strong Democratic polling in senate races in battleground states doesn't suggest a huge wave of Romney fever. It's hard to envision a scenario where Brown carries Ohio's Senate seat by 4 or 5 points and Obama doesn't win Ohio. Florida is much more feasible to split their ticket between re-electing Nelson and giving their electoral votes to Romney, and I fully expect the Virginia Senate and Prez results to match.
Obama is in better shape than he was 2 weeks ago when things looked neck-and-neck. Barring an Huge Surprise, it's still hard to see him losing.
The leftward leaning voters are predominatly located in and nearest to, large cities, in most cases. Major cities tend to be more liberal.
I think back to a looong time ago seeing an episode of Sex and the City in which Sarah Jessica Parker's character (Carrie Bradshaw for those not familar), was saying how everything she needed and wanted was in NYC - the island and that she never needed to leave, giving very little credence to anything or anyone beyond the rivers.
These days, it seems like a weird, novel idea to the liberal talking heads that there are major parts of this nation that do not see eye-to-eye with them.
Cities are great places to always have hyped up people, attractions, night life...it's like in some ways surreal going into a city. Kind of fake. (Not saying people are fake, but that the surroundings of constant hub bub and hype, lights and glitter, are illusions...thinking the Capital in Hunger Games).
I think many people in them day in and day out don't ever see the quiet, fresh, meat and potatoes, perspective of the majority of the nation, because like Carrie Bradshaw, they won't leave the city life in reality or intellectually either.
In their minds, the cities have it all and have it all figured out, why do they need anything else?
This is why the denial is so evident.
P.S. Hope I didn't offend anyone. Not my intention and I have traveled/do travel avidly and have also been a city dweller myself. Just a collection of observations from my travels.
ML's description of living in the big city is the outsiders view of living in the big city.
There are plenty of liberals who don't live in, and possibly have never lived in, the big city.
ML, what? So there is rampant denial among those living in big cities?
I could do something similar and say that people who live in small towns are fearful of change and ignorant.
But I won't.
Fez,
tl;dr? My first line stated:
"The leftward leaning voters are predominatly located in and nearest to, large cities, in most cases. Major cities tend to be more liberal."
See the italicized text, no definitives. Also, look at voting maps from the decades worht of elections, most cities tend to be blue and fan out to red further and further from a city's center.
Your words: "There are plenty of liberals who don't live in, and possibly have never lived in, the big city." True. That's why my language was not finite. "Predominately, in most cases, tend to be."
Your words, "An outsider's view of living in a big city"...no, I have heard on many, many occasions from city dwellers that they feel no need to leave as the city provides everything they need - why go out of it? For recreation? For food? For ideas?
Anyway, when you live in a place and you don't leave it - you become like minded with everyone around you. Group think. You can also say the same for conservatives who have never ever ever left small town America. In this instance we're discussing AB's OP of liberal denial.
So people who live in medium sized cities are the best?
Yes, you did use qualifiers, but your overall statement was that liberals think the way they do because they refuse to leave the city. That's just plain not true.
And your example of big city life was from SATC.
I could say that Dallas was an accurate description of selfish Texans.
I could say that Northern Exposure was an accurate description of quirky Alaskans.
I could say that The Dukes of Hazzard was an accurate description of Southerners.
None of which would be true because, you know, fictional TV show.
Well, to be fair, that is a pretty accurate description of Dallas.
ETA: I am kidding, but I do hate Dallas.
I guess I would fit the stereotype well.
<-- has lived in Los Angeles, Boston, NYC, and Nashville.
Liberals are in denial according to this article.
I'd like to know if any of the liberals here have any doubt about Obama winning.
I don't think he has it in the bag.
Liberals aren't sheep without an independent thought in their brains.
Of course Obama might lose.
The poll results that AB posts periodically aren't set in stone. Polls are ok for looking at general trends, but they are not the end-all be-all. They are not the final result.
I would feel the same way if every single one said that Obama was leading against Romney.
It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings, as it were.
But she's fictional; you can't cite her.
Do you know where that saying comes from, ML?
It's not a fictional character.
ETA:
The imagery of Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and its last part, G?tterd?mmerung, is typically the one used in depictions accompanying reference to the phrase. The "fat lady" is the valkyrie Br?nnhilde, who is traditionally presented as a very buxom lady with horned helmet, spear and round shield (although Br?nnhilde actually wears a winged helmet[citation needed]). Her aria lasts almost twenty minutes and leads directly to the end of the opera, though the character Hagen has one final line, "Zur?ck vom Ring!", to sing after Br?nnhilde's death, and there is also a substantial orchestral finale.[3] As G?tterd?mmerung is about the end of the world (or at least the world of the Norse gods), in a very significant way "it is [all] over when the fat lady sings."
Oops, guess you're too smart for me. I thought she was the painting in Hogwart's that sings...darn. Thought I had you.
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Fat_Lady
But, your buxom lady is still a fictional character who has the final say.
Yes, an opera singer is exactly the same as Carrie from SATC.
Totally.
Why is rural Iowa so liberal then? No big cities here. Big meat and potatoes community. The staunch conservatives I meet are in the insurance industry. Anyone else I talk to in this rinky-dink town and around my state tends to be more liberal.
Anecdotal evidence FTW.
I'm having a hard time formulating a response to a post that hinges on a character from SATC and a city from the Hunger Games. So yes, all us liberals are urbanites that are out of touch with reality while all the conservatives are salt of the earth country folk that keep this country running. No, nothing to find offensive there.
Anecdotally I've experienced the complete opposite of what you are stating. I live in one of the bluest cities out there, and almost every person I've met has traveled EXTENSIVELY, lived in numerous states (and internationally) and has been exposed to a variety of different beliefs and cultures. Yet I grew up in a fairly conservative area where most of the people have lived their whole lives within a 30 square mile radius and most vacations consisted of going to one of two destinations.
LOL, yeah, I'm with you here Carla...
I'm a liberal living in a small (red) city in one of the reddest states in the country who grew up in a (red) suburb in a swing state... guess it was my time at college in communist northern Virginia* that screwed me and my liberal delusions. *sigh*
Also, I question the math that most liberals are in big cities- I'm guessing the numbers don't support that and what ML is actually referencing is that most liberal majorities are the big city counties/districts. But that's just a guess, I don't think I've ever seen numbers on that.
And yeah, the electoral map&math are not decisive by any means. Latest I've seen is that the popular numbers still slightly favor Romney but the swing states aren't swinging to him enough to give him an electoral advantage.
I mean, uh... what do you mean Obama might not win?!? *stomps feet and pouts*
*John McCain's brother actually did make a reference to NoVa as 'Communist Country' in 2008. Chuckles.
I've heard the same thing from people who live in the country and from people who live in small towns. What point are you trying to make? If it's that liberal city dwellers who don't think they need the outside world are deluded, then by extension so are conservative small town dwellers.
And how many times in her acceptance speech did we hear Sarah Palin say "We have strong values here in the small towns"? So she's every bit as divisive and small minded as Carrie Bradshaw - except, you know, one is a real person.