So, the two competing urban legends: all college students love Barack Obama, and Vandy is conservative (competing urban legend: “Vandy is more liberal than you think it is.”). Last week, I administered a political opinion poll for the Vanderbilt Hustler and InsideVandy.com that sent a survey to 590 randomly selected undergraduate students, 241 of whom responded. Here are the full results, but below’s a decent representation of what the data tells us:
43% self-identify as Republicans; 35% as Democrats; and 22% as independents which seems contrary to accepted perception of college students in general
55% support Barack Obama (including about 17% of Republicans, and about 70% of independents); 38% support McCain; 5% are undecided. Compare that to UPenn, where 81% of the undergraduates support Obama.
55% say they will vote by absentee ballot
Sarah Palin is viewed “Very Unfavorably” by 45% of students (the other candidates all have a plurality of votes around 30-35% as “Favorable”).
A little more conservative than people argue? Perhaps. It would be interesting to have comparative data for how the political affiliations have changed over the past fifteen years as the school has risen in rankings. Also, it would have been awesome to have been doing this all fall to get read on how the campus was trending on the election. Blast!
ETA: I’ve always perceived the campus to be largely moderate with some leaning towards center-right; at the same time, 55% support for Obama is totally not surprising — even just given the t-shirts and buttons on campus this year. Neither political side has much to get worked up about at Vandy, basically.
Moments following the terrifying Obama logo in motion that concluded tonight’s look deep into the heartland of people who voted for Hillary Clinton, Mike and I headed off to the Torch office per usual to deride Barack Obama.
To the surprise of no one, the level of discourse in the comments on YouTube has been at its usual magnificent peak. It would have been so much better if they had just done the song.
A few additional thoughts on the spot:
Gallup says only about 4% of voters are truly undecided at this point, so the ad tonight functioned more as reinforcement, with shades of a GOTV. In that capacity, the rate of return here can’t be all that bad; Obama had the money to do something like this, and considering the high production values and message clearly tailored to middle class voters in the Rust Belt, the ad was successful in conveying several of Obama’s specific policy goals while maintaining positivity free from attacking McCain. We’ll know tomorrow how many people actually viewed it, but in the meantime, Obama succeeded in that pursuit Read more »
Bob Kerrey calls himself a hypocrite in today’s New York Post on public financing:
ON the question of public funding of presidential campaigns, we Democrats who strongly support Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy and who previously supported limits on campaign spending and who haven’t objected to Obama’s opting out of the presidential funding system face an awkward fact: Either we are hypocrites, or we were wrong to support such limitations in the first place.
He settles on hypocrite. But then is all, “Hey, maybe, restrictions on political financing…aren’t good?” Which, yes, welcome to being a Republican with John McCain as your candidate. There’s nothing wrong with Obama buying the road block — just pretending like we got here because of his virtuous campaign. Campbell Brown, of the network who has denied the Obama Variety Hour, would like to remind you just why Obama denied public financing:
So Obama could form his own 527 machine! But how could anyone have known he was being insincere about his intentions what with this spellbinding beacon of sincerity:
Mickey Mouse can both give money, on credit, from multiple addresses, to the Obama campaign and vote for Barack Obama (as Mickey Miller probably), but whither the day he tries to attend a party for Barack Obama without producing a form of ID. With hat tips to Michelle Malkin and Ace of Spades, here’s the information for the rave (which is now on WAIT LIST status):
Now, clearly, this is for security, and with all the crazies in the world, it’s for the best. But isn’t voting the most important thing in the history of the written word, as every spoken word, hand-jiving, t-shirt wearing, white backdrop, smarmy, two-minutes-too long, B-list celebrity Rock the Vote / MoveOn.org ad tells you? Surely, the security and integrity of an American electoral system that will probably produce a victorious Barack Obama is just as important as the security of just one party, right? God, no. And shame on you for even thinking it might be.
Katherine Miller is a junior at Vanderbilt University. She blogs daily at Right-Wing Vitriol.
So, the Great Saks Fifth Avenue Slaughter of 2008 has been my come to Jesus moment with Sarah Palin. Yeah, I’ve gone all the way around back to loving her again. It’s like she’s the Washington Redskins, nobody’s allowed to say anything bad about her except me, and then it’s only because I want her to do well. Place me aboard Marc Ambinder’s 2012 Sarah Palin game plan. Nevertheless, the Ballad of the Epic Pencil Skirt has dominated the news cycle while Obama’s in Hawaii.
Via Captain Ed, Campbell Brown identifies and spits on the double standard Althouse tackled last night:
Politico reported this morning that stylists defended the $150,000 — adding that Michelle Obama’s campaign outfits routinely cost $2000. E.M. Zanotti, the American Princess, if you will, echoes Brown’s comments, but has something to add about that double standard (as well as a quality detailing of what labels the RNC probably went with, which I agree with, though I don’t think I’ve seen Palin in St. John):
“We’re brutal. If Sarah Palin walked out of her motorcade dressed in an ill-fitting shantung pant-suit with a too-short jacket and a pair of Payless heels, we’d have eaten her alive. And I’m nice to her, and here I am admitting to you, my loyal audience of five, that I, personally, would have taken her, brutally, to task for her choice of campaign finery. And I’m not even close to Perez Hilton. [...]
“But . . . do real Americans, the folksy kind, spend 70 grand at Saks, especially during a recession? Or perhaps the RNC was just doing their part to prop up the sagging retail sales for this quarter?
The point is not that the RNC may have bought the Palin family clothes (speaking of, some of that $75,000 in St. Paul may also have gone to clothing the Jimmy and Jack McCain for the day), the point is that the RNC felt like they needed to buy them clothes because whatever the Palin family had bought at the Alaskan Macy’s on their $200,000 combined salaries for themselves and their five children wasn’t cutting it on the national stage.
This is a bit like that time Michelle Obama took a ton of flack for her $600 earring comment — totally stupid. Of course, she’s going to spend $600 on earrings, she’s married to a senator who’s running for president. People want Jackie Onassis, not Rosalynn Carter.
The non-stop Joe the Plumber hoo ha has gone viral, with people at McCain and Palin rallies holding up signs identifying themselves as Rose the Teacher, Hal the Cop, Ed the Dairyman, etc. American Princess puts forth a possible theory about it:
“On the other hand, for something to go so viral that people market it on their own is like the Holy Grail of social media based marketing theory. Has the GOP unintentionally hit Dark Knight status?”
She admits that it probably has not, but the omnipresence of the Joe the Plumber and the rise of Sarah Palin may inspire a grassroots movement driven by social media, particularly in the (likely) wilderness period for the future of the Republican Party and conservative movement over the next four years. The Dark Knight analogy holds some clout, basically. In the short term, we’re looking at the “I’m Joe the Plumber” contest (Kleinheider has a Nashvillian entry), which, okay, the contest is sort of bush league, but the following exchange via National Review is not:
“Are you going to check my license, too?†he asked me. “Are you going to check my immigration status? I’m ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my green card, I have my passport — “
I was a little surprised. Did Munoz really bring his papers with him to a McCain rally? I asked.
Courtesy Mary Katharine Ham, a charming and delightful entry from the marvelous Jon Stewart story, on stage Friday night at Northeastern University [Language Warning]:
Palin’s reaction to this would either be totally classy or involve an incredible ass kicking and either way, I would pay to bear witness. Stewart illustrates exactly why his satire can become a bit cruel and harsh — he takes himself a little too seriously, and has the luxury of waving off any serious thing he says by pleading the Comedy Central line. Like that time when Lynne Cheney sort of owned him because he kept asking questions on Iraq and gay marriage like he was Peter Jennings — oh, but ha ha ha ha, the whole show’s a joke!
The truth hurts, evidently, but McCain senior adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer (who Mike and I literally yell whenever she’s on tv for her sheer stupidity and dumb haircut) shared the true divide between the counties of Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William and the rest of the state:
With a few sketchy reports about a very possible breach between McCain and Palin over how and how hard to attack Obama, Palin unleashed a flawlessly executed attack of a speech on abortion yesterday in Johnstown, PA. McCain seems totally incapable of putting together a functional, free market governing philosophy that differs fundamentally from Obama’s, and, given that the economy will dominate the national discourse for a long time, that renders him basically nonexistent as a candidate. He has to attack personally. Over at Hot Air, Allah Pundit referred to it as “one of the most red-meat social con speeches you’ll ever read.” While the campaign flails about (although the ACORN ad is an improvement), Palin has taken a sturdy, fundamental approach with four steps: Relate, Attack, Contextualize, Inspire (seasoned with blue-collar Dem political hat tips). Here’s the speech:
