Brown Win In Massachusetts Throws A Lifeline To Democrats

I suspect that the Scott Brown win in the race for Massachusetts senator will throw Democrats a lifeline. Unlike statements made earlier in the week that the Senate may delay seating Brown until they can pass a health care reform bill, I think Democrats will move to swiftly seat Brown.

The reason is simple: Democrats running for re-election in 2010 want out of the bill as fast as possible. They might push a watered down bill, which, like Keith Olbermann suggested, will only "mandate child-proof medicine bottles". I doubt they will even do that, as it will continue to keep the health care issue (which is now a Democratic albatross) in people's minds.

I also predict that the "tea bagger" jokes that have been repeated countless times by Democrats on television will suddenly fall out of favor. I bet making fun of the tea party movement Isn't going to be as popular with elected Democrats as it once was. This will leave it up to democratic mouthpieces (like Olbermann) to keep it alive. Eventually, even he'll be asked to tone it down, for fear that it will only serve to stoke voter anger against Democrats.

Did Mitt Romney Have Help At The Florida Debate?

When I watched the Florida debate, Romney was asked if he would do the same thing that Ronald Regan did for social security (which was apparently, raising taxes). Right after the question was asked, I heard what appeared to someone whisper near Romney "raise taxes". I brushed it o ff as a whisper from one of the other candidates...but that does seem unlikely. Apparently everyone else heard it too, and now this story is getting a lot of press on the internet. Watch the video for yourself and see what you think. Was Romney getting help with his questions??

On another note, there's a lot of talk about how that the 'talk time' of the candidates was anything but equal. Here's the breakdown:

Total Times

Romney: 21:11, during 13 times
McCain: 16:00, during 13 times
Giuliani: 13:50, during 11 times
Huckabee: 12:11, during nine times
Paul: 6:31, during six times

So with Mitt Romney getting almost (3) times the 'face time' as Ron Paul, Romney 'won' the debate according to many analysts. Much of this was out of his control however, as the segment where candidates were allowed to ask each other questions, Romney was questioned more than once.

I Hear Whispers of The Polling Crisis

A story in the Associated Press today says that 2007 is likely to be the first year where Americans spent more money on cell phone bills than land line phones. A quote from the article:

"What we're finding is there's a huge move of people giving up their land line service altogether and using cell phones exclusively," said Allyn Hall, consumer research director for market research firm In-Stat.

Yup. I'm one of those people. I know many others. And no one with just a cell phone is being polled. As I mentioned earlier in December, telephone polling, which is pretty much the basis of all the polls you hear or read about, is seriously broken. How will it be fixed? Without a change in federal law allowing pollsters to call cell phones, it's uncertain. What is certain, there will be a shock in 2008 when the mainstream media realizes their polling tools are worthless. To be sure, the biggest gainer in this debacle will be Ron Paul. Whether or not the error is significant enough to win the presidency, I'm not willing to say. But I will say that it will be big enough to make the pollsters worry about their job security.

I can't wait until those "same 10 Ron Paul spammers (i.e. supporters)" spam the voting booths.