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The Ref's Averages

36 Days Until the Iowa Caucuses

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Why the Ref's Poll Averages Are Superior

The Ref's Averages
REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION
The Ref's Average
Giuliani Leads by 12.6%
Giuliani 27.6
Thompson 15.0
McCain 12.6
Romney 13.0
Huckabee 9.6
See All Polls
DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION
The Ref's Average
Clinton Leads by 21.6%
Clinton 43.4
Obama 21.8
Edwards 12.8
See All Polls
HEAD TO HEAD MATCHUPS
In Order of Most Likely
Clinton 45.3
Giuliani 43.3
Clinton 47.3
Thompson 41.3
Clinton 44.7
McCain 45.0
Clinton 48.0
Romney 39.3
Clinton 42.0
Huckabee 42.5
See All Polls
STATE PRIMARY LEADERS
New Hampshire
Romney +16.4
Clinton +13.7
Iowa
Romney +4.4
Clinton +2.0
South Carolina
Romney +3.3
Clinton +8.7
Michigan
Romney +5.5
Clinton +24.0 No Delegates (Dem)
Florida
Giuliani +17.5
Clinton +31.0

The Ref's Calls

CNN's chosen questions at the Democratic YouTube debate were basically sympathetic to the Democratic view on issues. They did not mock the fundamental beliefs of a large portion of Democrats and certainly were not asked by supporters of Republicans. The same cannot be said for the Republican YouTube debate. So far four of the questioners have been discovered to be open supporters of Democratic candidates. Why would those who support a Democrat want to ask a Republican a question unless it is to make them look bad? CNN could have produced an informative and entertaining debate without giving Democrats a prominent role in a Republican debate, but they chose not to. One must wonder why a network is so willing to abandon even the appearance of objectivity. It was unnecessary and rough.  

Huckabee has targeted Romney for the past few weeks. Interestingly this came at a time when Giuliani has been doing the same. It is widely known that Romney's strategy relies on winning Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan. If he loses any of the three his strategy is undermined. Huckabee seems to attack Romney with particularly severe ferocity. At the same time Huckabee reserves only timid criticism, if any, for Giuliani. Huckabee has a strong argument for being selected as a VP nominee for a northeastern moderate like Giuliani. He would potentially bring Arkansas which Republicans may have difficulty winning with Hillary on the ticket. The fact that he is a Baptist minister also helps with Evangelicals who Giuliani may have difficulty swaying to vote for him. It seems Giuliani and Huckabee have teamed up, if not formally certainly informally. They share a mutual target in Romney. If Huckabee can win Iowa it splinters the anti-Giuliani vote. Huckabee's job, therefore, is to block for Giuliani. The aggressive nature of his blocking deserves a holding call. 

At this stage in the game Obama needs an onside kick and a hail mary just to tie the game and get to overtime. His performance in the CNN debate left much to be desired and amounted to a sack for a substantial loss of yards. Obama's management over the last several days, however, of Bob Novak's amorphous warning that the Clinton machine is coming in for the fatal blow demonstrated some political skill. Had Obama not called Hillary out on the behind the scenes suggestion that much in Obama's record can harm him, and then reminded the media that he has some history with marijuana and cocaine, that already disclosed information might have taken on a new life. Obama cannot do much at this point but put his head down and fight for every yard, but his management of the backstage attempt to shut off all oxygen to his campaign might have ended this race before Obama has the chance to throw the hail mary in Iowa. As it stands Obama is gaining in Iowa, and is even ahead in one survey, and has preserved his chance at a major upset.

Congressional Democrats have made clear their intention to push forward with their attempts to end the war. See the article Democrats Say They Won’t Back Down on War. It seems that Democrats and their allies in the press have invested so much in a Bush defeat in Iraq that they will continue to harshly oppose the war regardless of the progress made in the country. They never believed in the war effort and seemingly oppose the notion of building a more democratic government so strongly that no facts can exist in their minds to counter their original assumptions about the governing possibilities in Iraq. At this point Democrats should not abandon their opposition but temper it long enough to find out if this progress will last. When one blasts the war effort in Iraq despite the facts it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the individual simply does not care about the facts, but only about narrow political self-interest. Just let it play out for a while and quit interfering.

The constant mentioning of Mitt Romney's Mormon faith demonstrates the hypocrisy of so much of the liberal establishment press. Simply put, constantly mentioning Romney's faith diminishes his public policy positions to secondary status behind his faith, an important component of his identity.  This type of political "analysis" elevates identity politics to ultimate status and is analogous to reading only the headlines. One has a difficult time imagining that some substantial portion of the reason behind mentioning Romney's faith is a desire to hurt his chances at winning the nomination.  The political media continues to try to make the news, rather than simply reporting it, to a greater degree than most other parts of the media.  The problem is not that they mention his faith, but that they barely mention his name without mentioning it.  They are obsessed with Mitt Romney's faith.

Darwin in 1854

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Salon.com's Gordy Slack seems to believe that Evolution proves that no God exists and that our origins were completely without design or direction in any way. Apparently Mr. Slack has missed the fact that Evolution contains enormous gaps that render the theory useless for determining the actual origin of life. Mr. Slack's article dismisses Intelligent Design as nothing more than religious emotionalism hiding in the veil of science.  In essence Slack suggests that Intelligent Design is religion and no matter how scientific it may seem don't believe it.  Instead accept that the theory of Evolution has proven that God does not exist although science has done nothing whatsoever to demonstrate this.  The article dismisses the fact that Intelligent Design is actual science with a great deal of circumstantial evidence to support it.  Sound familiar?  He also seems to ignore the fact that many accept both Evolution and Intelligent Design. All too often those opposed to Intelligent Design simply reject any notion of God no matter how unemotional and rationality based that notion is. Read the article, The evolution of creationism.

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Latest Political News

CNN favors torture . . . tortured explanations that is.  CNN says only the questions matter, not the questioner

CLINTON CAMPAIGN STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER GIVEN OPPORTUNITY TO ASK QUESTION AT CNN REPUBLICAN DEBATE

Anderson Cooper: Whoops, didn't mean it

Republican Rivals Clash

Giuliani: Used taxpayer dollars for security on trysts?  Illegal?  Doubtful.  Improper??? 

    In effort to drag left wing back to Hillary, Bill contradicts himself

Obama helped ex-boss get $1 mil. from charity

Ahmadinejad declares Annapolis a failure, says Israel doomed. 

Huckabee a Lib-Con?

 Hillary wants Colin Powell

Democratic Race Gets Hot

Hillary worked for radical left wing law firm that represented "Communists, draft resisters, and . . . Black Panthers"

Dow Rebounds After Abu Dhabi Investment Authority backs America's largest bank

       Major Milestone?

                Stephen King: Waterboard Jenna Bush, Have Her Decide If It's Torture

Giuliani slams Bush: I will be a better Bush.  Says problem not actions, but words. 

Romney and Giuliani Brawl  - Huckabee attacks Romney too

          Oprah to campaign for Obama - Obama rips Hillary's "experience" as President's spouse

Thompson and Giuliani Battle

Thompson Attacks Fox News

                                  "We don't do God," according to communications chief

Battle for Conservative Label

                                        Lott to Resign - Hastert submits official resignation

Photo Attributions:

Header - President of Iran @ Columbia University.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 2 - September 24, 2007 at 15:09 - Author: Daniella Zalcman from New York City, USA. Website http://dan.iella.net/ - This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.  Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Center Column - Bill CLinton http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/14409740/in/set-72157594360767224/ - Source: []http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/ dbking] at Flickr - May 2004 - This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License  Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Center Column -Bill and Hillary Clinton - This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.

Center Column - Stephen King, American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Taken at the 2007 New York Comicon.  February 24, 2007.  Author: "Pinguino."  See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinguino/409180680/.  Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Center Column -Bill Clinton - This image is a work of an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

Center Column - George W. Bush - This image is a work of an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

Center Column - On Jan. 26-27, 2007 at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, SEIU local union leaders individually questioned eight Democratic presidential hopefuls—Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM), and former Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-IA) —about where they stand on the issues that matter most to SEIU members: affordable health care, good jobs, and retirement security.  January 26, 2007 at 13:32.  SEIU Walk a Day in My Shoes 2008, edit by Matthias.kötter.  Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Header -Oprah Winfrey at her 50th birthday party at Hotel Bel Air.  Flickr. Taken 2004.  Author: Alan Light.  This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Header - Cropped image of Newt Gingrich with Trent Lott at the 2004 Republican National Convention.  Taken August 2004.  Author: Kyle Cassidy.  Own work, attribution required (Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY 2.5).  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

Center  Column - Tony Blair talking to Labour party members at the Central Sussex College in Crawley, England.  Image found at Image:Blair 2005.jpg.  Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skuds/53069137/.  Photographer: Andrew Skudder.  Original uploader: User: Gustav VH at 01:30, 25 June 2007.  Cropped by en:User:SqueakBox and uploaded to en.wikipedia at 17:53, June 27, 2007 under the file name en:Image:Blair1 2005.jpg.  This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License (cc-by-sa-2.0). In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it under this or a similar cc-by-sa license.

Center Column - Hillary Clinton - This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright.

Huckabee a Conservative Liberal (Center Column) - Former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, at a speaking engagement in Southern California.  Self-Made.  October 2007 - The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.

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