Polling as Data or Propaganda?

The Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Courier-Journal and TV stations WKYT (Lexington) and WHAS (Louisville) have combined their efforts for polling purposes this year, having the polling outfit SurveyUSA (called the Bluegrass Poll) conduct a number of polls regarding the Senate race between republican incumbent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Kentucky State Secretary Alison Grimes, the media's choice. There have been a flurry of polls lately, SurveyUSA's results markedly different from highly acclaimed national polling organizations like the Rasmussen Reports and CBS/New York Times pollsters. A Bluegrass Poll in February showed Grimes ahead.

Another Bluegrass Poll was conducted in late August showing that the media's own poll had McConnell ahead by four points, triggering a Mellman Poll hired by Grimes in early September that showed Grimes was ahead by two points. During that same period, the nationally highly regarded Rasmussen polling had McConnell ahead by five points. Another poll was conducted by Mellman in September, with Grimes beating McConnell one or two points. During a late September poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS (both McConnell haters), McConnell was ahead by six points.

On 20 October, the results of yet another “Bluegrass Poll” were noted in the media with McConnell ahead but by only one point. On 17 October, Rasmussen reported its results, which had McConnell ahead 52%-44%. The inordinate disparity in the polls is obvious. During polling from January through June this year, Gallup discovered citizens leaning republican as opposed to democrat 45%-39%.

Six years ago, McConnell defeated Bruce Lunsford to keep his seat. A look at that race in 2008 is instructive. On 21 October that year, Rasmussen had McConnell ahead 50%-43%, while SurveyUSA (Bluegrass Poll gang?) on 20 October called the race even, 48%-48%. That's a huge differential, well beyond believability.

On 29 October just before the 2008 election, Rasmussen had McConnell ahead by 51%-44% but, strangely, SurveyUSA (Bluegrass Poll?) also had McConnell ahead by an even greater face-saving margin, 53%-45%, indicating an eight-point swing in just nine days, a total departure from reality and reason to wonder how something that unbelievable could happen unless Lunsford maybe robbed a bank. He didn't. McConnell won the election by 53%-47%. Obvious question: Were the Bluegrass and Mellman Polls real, imagined or just plain media propaganda?

Flash forward to 2014. The latest Bluegrass Poll, 31 October, showed McConnell ahead by 48%-43% with a huge margin of error of 4.1 points (only 597 likely voters polled), meaning that McConnell's lead could be 50%-41%. Just 11 days before, the Bluegrass Poll had a differential of only a point. The CBS/New York Times on 26 October—during that period—showed McConnell ahead by 45%-39%. Was the Bluegrass Poll attempting to somehow save face? Were the Mellman Polls rigged?

Should the voter believe the nationally acclaimed polls or polls ginned up by local candidates and institutions having their own agendas? The media instigators of the “Bluegrass Poll” have a long history of McConnell-bashing and have been fervent in their opposition to him, even though he's been a Senate leader for many years and likely will become Majority Leader if republicans win back the Senate.

Using “fixed” polls, besides being dishonest and condescending, may actually help get out the republican vote on the chance that some republicans actually believe them. CNN reported on 21 June that newspapers, TV news outlets and Internet news outlets enjoyed ratings-approvals determined by Gallop at 22%, 18%, and 19% of the population, respectively, for an average of 20%. So, who's gullible—the people or the media?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Local Polling...Political Propaganda

The Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Courier-Journal and TV stations WKYT (Lexington) and WHAS (Louisville) have combined their efforts for polling purposes this year, having the polling outfit SurveyUSA conduct a number of polls regarding the Senate race between republican incumbent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Kentucky State Secretary Alison Grimes. There have been a flurry of polls lately, SurveyUSA's results markedly different from highly acclaimed national polling organizations like the Rasmussen Reports and CBS/New York Times pollsters.

The media outlets commissioned a SurveyUSA poll (called the “Bluegrass Poll”) in February that showed Grimes ahead but not by much. They commissioned another “Bluegrass Poll” in late August but discovered to their horror that their own poll showed McConnell ahead by four points, at which point a Mellman Poll was hired by Grimes in early September that showed Grimes was ahead by two points. During that same period, the nationally highly regarded Rasmussen polling had McConnell ahead by five points.

Another poll was conducted by Mellman in September, with Grimes beating McConnell one or two points maybe because of one of her ads, as if anyone pays attention to those million-dollar sinkholes. During a late September poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS (both McConnell haters), McConnell was ahead by six points, perhaps pulling away.

At this point, desperation apparently set in at the Lexington and Louisville media-outlets-for-Grimes, so another “Blue Grass” poll was conducted by the same outfit as before, SurveyUSA, and, predictably, Grimes came out ahead by two points, despite the highly respected national polls showing the opposite. The highly respected national polling agencies have the advantage of being entirely objective, whereas local polling is purely subjective, reflecting agendas and not facts.

On 20 October, the results of yet another “Bluegrass Poll” were noted in the media with McConnell ahead but by only a point. On 17 October, Rasmussen reported its results, which had McConnell ahead 52%-44%...an eight-point bulge over the weekend? Of course not! The inordinate disparity in the polls is obvious. During polling from January through June this year, Gallup discovered citizens leaning republican as opposed to democrat 45%-39%. This margin, validating Rasmussen and covering a six-month period, has probably widened greatly.

Six years ago, McConnell defeated Bruce Lunsford to keep his seat. A look at that race in 2008 is instructive. On 21 October that year, Rasmussen had McConnell ahead 50%-43%, while SurveyUSA (Bluegrass Poll gang?) on 20 October called the race even, 48%-48%. That's a huge differential, well beyond believability.

On 29 October just before the 2008 election, Rasmussen had McConnell ahead by 51%-44% but, strangely, SurveyUSA also had McConnell ahead by an even greater face-saving margin, 53%-45%, indicating an eight-point swing in just nine days, a total departure from reality and reason to wonder how something that unbelievable could happen unless Lunsford maybe robbed a bank. He didn't. McConnell won the election by 53%-47%, vindicating Rasmussen but perhaps indicating skulduggery vis-a-vis SurveyUSA.

So...what's a citizen to do? Should the voter believe the nationally acclaimed polls or polls ginned up by local candidates and institutions having their own agendas? The media instigators of the “Bluegrass Poll” have a long history of McConnell-bashing and have been fervent in their opposition to him, even though he's been a Senate leader for many years and likely will become Majority Leader if republicans win back the Senate.

Grimes, apparently dissatisfied with disappointing “Bluegrass Poll” numbers, simply hired her own polling outfit, but what good is polling if it appears to be tainted and entirely bogus, as in this case? Her efforts seem to reek of desperation, but trying to fool the public, whether by polls or anything else, is not the way to go. That's an insult to Kentuckians, an elitist attitude remarking Kentuckians as so dumb they can't see through this subterfuge.

Using “fixed” polls, besides being dishonest and condescending, actually helps get out the republican vote on the chance that some repubs actually believe them. So, who's being gullible, the media perhaps? The next polls, if carried out, will be INTERESTING!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Basketball Bacchanalia

Lexington Herald-Leader sportswriter Jerry Tipton (18 October) was underwhelmed (lacked the pizzazz of yesteryears) by this year's annual Midnight Madness event the night before. The effort, like the ones preceding it each year, trivialized the sport and sorta made monkeys out of those who perpetrated and attended it. Assuming the final okay for this coronation of campus royalty came from Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart, one wonders if he needs to step up to the next level of maturity.

The affair cost $300,000, roughly equivalent to a year's tuition and fees for 31 actual students. The basketball players are predominantly part of the minor leagues for the NBA and expect to be gone after one year of non-study unless they aren't judged high draft-picks as freshmen, in which case they stay for a second year of non-study. Their career as UK players, as often noted by Coach Calipari, is a one-shot stab at greatness, thus not an academic endeavor.

The big draw this year was a rapper (more accurately, “gangsta-rapper”) called Drake. According to Tipton, the big disappointment was that Drake didn't rap. Strangely, Rap is usually described as music. It's actually a recitation set to an accompaniment of percussion instruments, mostly drums, that might resemble a dance with grunts, groans and screams in deepest Africa engaged in just before some sort of tribal bloodletting or par-boiling a missionary.

Drake couldn't do his act in the Madness venue, even though the young people there were familiar with his lyrics/performances and were misled into believing he would regurgitate his thing. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been the main-liner. A look at some of his stuff is instructive for sound, fury and “poetry.” Drake's buzz-words are fuckin', nigga, bitch and shit. His masterpiece called “The Catch Up” features two “fuckin' niggas” caught up in a—you guessed it—gun-fight...something not unusual in Lexington these days?

In his classic called “The Motto,” he raps about the fuckin' man, the bitch, the real nigga and shit. This is his phrase in Motto: “almost drowned in her pussy so I swam to her butt.” Another: “I tongue-kiss her other tongue.” Get it? In his classic tune “Light Up,” he uses the term “mother-fucker.” This usage is as sacred to gangsta-rap as Christ's mother Mary is to Christianity. Here's a line: “Wait until the sun goes down and we gon' make this bitch light up.” His conclusion: “fuck niggas, bitches, too, all I got is money, this'll do.”

Contextually, one has to remember that the women's basketball team and women cheerleaders are part of Midnight Madness. In Drake's parlance the “ho” is mentioned, rap-term for whore, and these UK women were exposed to Drake, who sees them not as human beings but objects to use, abuse, discard. Was Drake's background even cursorily examined by Barnhart, Calipari, and—oh yes—Matthew Mitchell, the women's coach?

Mitchell added to the denigration of women by cavorting and aping somebody called Bruno Mars. I don't know what he performed but in Mars' classic “When I Was Your Man,” the singer lamented longingly about the fact that his shack-up partner (ho) is gone. In Mars' number “Locked Out of Heaven” (another masterpiece?), is this line: “Your sex takes me to paradise.” Hopefully, Mitchell didn't writhe that one.

Mars collaborated on this artistry called “Bubble Butt.” His line was one of the mildest: “Turn around, stick it out, show the world you got...”. From Mars' “Like Tonight,” this gem: “You've got your lips along my body And I'm not gonna stop you...”. What was Matthew thinking? He wasn't, obviously!

Yeah...Midnight Madness this year was Basketball Bacchanalia since it mainlined orgy as normal and should have been doubly offensive to the men's and women's teams since about the only players who spend many minutes in at least a men's game are African-American. Drake is black and Mars is Puerto Rican/filipino. The lurid background for this stuff (men sex/rape-crazy and women as chattel) insulted all the players. Spectators who think this was worth their time got what they deserved—TRIPE—in the presence of campus royalty, of course.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Obama, Pentagon & Climate

Participating in a conference call in Washington are President Obama, Defense Department Secretary Hagel, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dempsey, and climate expert Al Gore, hereinafter referenced as O, H, D, and G, respectively.

**O: The Peruvian president...can't think of his name right off, some Latino-sounding thing...just said in that meeting with you in that Chilean SPA, Chuck, that if we didn't change the climate soon nothing will be left – Right?
**H: Right...nothing left, right, left, right...
**O: That was 50 years ago, Chuck, when Kerry said we killed 200,000 Vietnamese a year...remember?
**H: O yeah, I was there...sorry about that...the drill goes through my head once in a while.
**D: Now, about this problem with ISIS, Mr. President, I...
**O: Okay, gotcha there, General, but we need to get on this climate thing...I mean if a guy can be elected president of Peru he's bound to be onto something, so we need to pay attention before he turns the OAS against us for not caring if...
**G: You got that right, Mr. President. The average height of the Andes is just 13,000 feet so you can see what an increase in ocean-depth might do.
**O: Right, Al...I doubt if there's a golf course anywhere near those mountains, which explains, Chuck and Martin, why I invited Al to this meeting. I promised change when I came to Washington and climate-change is part of that and, as you know, Al has a Nobel...
**G: You're too modest, Barry, everyone knows you have that climate Nobel, too, and didn't even have to share it like I did with that IPCC bunch of cutthroats throwing the whole scheme away with their stupid emails admitting to cooking the books.
**O: Yeah...ruined that speech I – or somebody had written one for me...been five years now – had at Copenhagen, all teleprompted and ready. I was all set to apologize to the whole world because we had three times too many cars in this country and...
**H: Let me just mention, Mr. President...about those soldiers we just sent to Liberia...or was it Sierra Leone...well, anyway, some of their folks are complaining about them coming home all infected with that ebola and...
**O: Chuck, if there's one thing I learned in community-organizing it was to establish priorities and stick with them. Now, this meeting's about important things like climate-change so we'll worry about some jayvee infection later. Ebola's been around for years in one form or another.
**D: While we're stopped here sorta, Mr. president, Ms. Rice just announced that Turkey's on board with their airfield but Erdogan has the same as called her a liar, so we need...
**O: That'll do, Martin, I don't ever want that word used in connection with Susan even if she did misspeak on those talk-shows. Just because Fox News made an issue of it doesn't mean...
**H: (nodding up from a doze) Did somebody say Fox News? That reminds me that their guy over there is givin' us hell for not...
**O: Gentlemen, back to the subject! Al, what do you foresee in the near future?
**H: Yeah, all the experts have been agreeing that no global warming has happened in the last 17 years but I took your word, Al, and had a hundred thousand fatigues made in the thinnest cotton around and I got soldiers freezing half-to-death on a short three-mile march.
**G: It's hard to be out front anymore. The Brits won't let my film be shown in schools until the teacher says it's political and not scientific. Everybody knows we're killing the earth, just like that Peruvian guy said...all these typhoons and hailstorms and...
**O: I've done my part with your idea, Al – cap-and-trade...break up these coal-burners, bankrupt 'em...can't get my Senate to go along...my House – bless Pelosi – went along without reading a word of that bill but the Senate...MY Senate has it...
**G: I know the feeling, Barry, but just do what everybody expects...get out that old executive-order pen and kill those climate-killers.
**H: Okay, that's settled...the old executive order thing, the courts and the Congress be damned! Now, are we gonna send the Airborne to...
**O: I will NOT be sidetracked, Chuck. You came awfully close to insubordination there. I need tangible plans for changing the climate and I expect you and Martin to have them on my desk by tomorrow. Valerie Jarrett doesn't like you military types to start with and Michele didn't change her mind about you when she became proud of the U.S. back in 2008, so don't push the envelope...plus...tell your guys to quit saluting me every time I turn around. I'm tired of all the hassle with bothering to return them since Fox News and John McCain watch my every move.
**D: What kind of climate do you have in mind, Mr. President? Hot, cold, medium, rainy, snowy...
**O: Look! I set the policy...you carry it out. Figure it out. Al here will help you, won't you, Al? Al? AL? AL?
**G: A little to the left, honey...now rub around my fifth vertebra in that monster muscle...that's so...z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Poll-Fixing(?) & the Debate

The shenanigans connected to polls regarding elections are well-known, although some pollsters are far more accurate than others. The polls to arouse suspicion are those commissioned by the candidates themselves and are likely to be local in nature. Polls conducted by seasoned professionals on a national scale can be expected to be objective even when they deal with local issues. With no axes to grind or campaigning to do, they can be trusted.

The Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Courier-Journal and TV stations WKYT (Lexington) and WHAS (Louisville) have combined this year for polling purposes vis-a-vis the Senate race between Senator McConnell and Kentucky State Secretary Alison Lundergan Grimes, hiring the SurveyUSA outfit, which announced in February that Grimes was ahead by a few points, at least as interpreted by Herald-Leader writer Sam Youngman.

Another SurveyUSA poll was done in August after a presumed stellar performance by Grimes at the Fancy Farm election “stump-day.” The poll showed McConnell ahead by 4 points, about a six-point swing, when it was undoubtedly designed to bury McConnell. Grimes quickly hired the Mellman group to do a poll in September that showed her ahead by two points, or another six-point change.

To sew things up, the Media biggies hired another poll by Survey USA that showed Grimes—yep—ahead by two points, election saved. During that same period, the nationally highly regarded Rasmussen polling had McConnell ahead by five points. During a late September poll conducted by the New York Times/CBS (both McConnell haters), McConnell was ahead by six points, perhaps pulling away.

Get ready for the October polls leading into the election. A look at 2008 is instructive, when McConnell defeated Bruce Lunsford to keep his seat. On 21 October, Rasmussen had McConnell ahead 50%-43%, while Survey USA on 20 October called the race even, 48%-48%. That's a huge differential, well beyond any margin of error.

On 29 October just before the 2008 election, Rasmussen had McConnell ahead by 51%-44% but, strangely, SurveyUSA also had McConnell ahead by an even greater face-saving margin, 53%-45%, indicating an eight-point swing even farther from reality. McConnell won the election by 53%-47%. So, what happened in just ten days? Ever heard of cooking the books? These stats are from Real Clear Politics.

As of May 2012, 55.27% of registered voters in Kentucky were democrats; 37.67% were republicans, and others comprised 7.07%. It will be interesting to see the next polling stats leading right up to the election. The New York Times/CBS folks already have McConnell ahead by six points, while Rasmussen has it by five. Wonder if SurveyUSA will come up with un-cooked books as in 2008, an attack of truth.

The Grimes-McConnell “debate” took place on Kentucky Educational Television on the evening of 13 October. I watched the predictable first 20 Minutes, then checked in occasionally while doing other things and watched the final minutes. Actually, it was not a debate. Few of these candidate-billed debates are actual debates, mostly just rehashing campaign bits and pieces and a bit of mudslinging. This one was better than most and was moderated (KET's Bill Goodman) better than most.

Grimes' main theme (besides character-assassination) seemed to be that McConnell had been a senator too long (30 years) and was therefore “out of touch” with Kentuckians. This was an insult to folks who've been in a job for up to 40 years and think they do their work well. But Grimes is 30-something, so give her a pass. Women candidates make it a point these days to voice their motherhood as a proof of superior qualities (or grand-motherhood, like Pelosi) so Grimes (childless) felt compelled to say she hoped to have children.

McConnell mostly stuck to facts, using well-documented stats, and made it a point to mention that he would likely be majority leader if the republicans take the Senate and therefore will set the agenda for legislation, a definite plus for both country and state. He probably overplayed the coal-question (loss of 7,000 well-paid jobs due to Obama's promise to kill coal) but had the answer when Grimes claimed support of the UMW when he mentioned that the current AFL-CIO president was formerly UMWA president—thus a guaranteed 100% vote for democrats in every craft.

There are polls and debates, with ambiguities probably their easiest-identified features.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Educational Flimflam

To see the utter lunacy connected with educational political correctness these days, one has only to notice the 12-step effort by a Nebraska school-district to force the students into believing that either there is no such thing as gender or, assuming there is, that everyone is of the same gender. This is one of the steps in the process: “Look for examples in the media that reinforce gender stereotypes or binary models of gender (it won’t be hard; they’re everywhere!). When with others, call it out and interrogate it.”

Okay...as is the case predictably with documents from departments of education, which seem most often to be dreamed up by people who either can't think or can't write, or both, this makes about as much sense as 5+4=3, which is also okay in politically correct postmodern math education. Exactly what is a gender stereotype? The experts didn't define it, so if it exists it's what anyone says it is.

Stereotype is defined as “something conforming to a fixed or general pattern.” So one should look for examples in the media that reinforce gender conforming to a fixed or general pattern. Would an NFL linebacker, whose agreed-by-everybody's job description (fixed and general pattern) is to give a concussion to the opposing quarterback, qualify? If so, it should be called out and interrogated but only if in the presence of others. However, an “it” can't be interrogated because only people can be interrogated, unless the politically correct folks think a cardboard box is intelligent enough to hold a conversation.

If, however, the linebacker should be the object of interrogation, what would be the questions he should answer? Does he feel he is male or female? No, that won't do because it implies more than one gender, a politically incorrect taboo, and might even invite a chop to the molars. Would he rather shower with his teammates or the cheerleaders, recognizing that there's no such thing as gender? No, that won't do because the linebacker might laugh so hard he would herniate himself and go on the disabled list, though that has the advantage of giving complete attention while on the bench to the cheerleaders instead of watching a boring game in which he is not part of the on-field mayhem.

Would a Miss America contestant be a proper person to be called out and interrogated? She can't be asked if she considers herself neither male nor female, though she might come up with transgender, which seems to be the most popular form of gender/non-gender these days. Perhaps that's the answer the education folks are aiming at, to wit, that everyone is in the process of becoming one gender or another; however, that won't do because the ugly matter of gender-difference rears its evil head. If everyone got caught in the middle of making that determination, what kind of sex, if any, would be in order, and what label would be put on that condition, since it can't be called gender, which is nonexistent to the education folks? We're getting there...be patient.

Binary is defined as “compounded or consisting of or marked by two things or parts.” So, the suggestion becomes “Look for examples in the media that reinforce...compounded or consisting of or marked by two things or parts models of gender.” This is educationese at its most mysterious. It actually calls for a model of gender consisting of two things or parts. So, gender has now been split into two parts instead of gender being eradicated altogether (no such things as boys and girls). It's easy to see where this is going.

Gender is here to stay, notwithstanding the efforts of sophisticated intellectuals in the Nebraska education system to eliminate it. In their effort, they have actually established two male-genders and two female-genders, the original genders being split by their own definition/admonition to get rid of gender. Binary is what binary is. The fact of the matter, of course, is that the intellectuals are so intelligent that they can't write the English language so anything makes sense. No one can figure out this linguistic flimflam to get rid of gender-identification but can identify what's been the objective all along, to wit, UNISEX. This means the same school-toilets for everyone. Hurray...and don't leave the lid up! Egad!

Is it any wonder the U.S. lags behind other nations in overall education?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Dueling Polls

As predictable as night following day (or vice versa) in any election cycle is the dueling-polls syndrome. This is nowhere better seen than in Kentucky vis-a-vis the McConnell-Grimes senatorial race. The fear of Mitch McConnell by the Kentucky liberal establishment—at least as manipulated by the Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Courier-Journal and TV stations WKYT (Lexington) and WHAS (Louisville)—was seen in their partnership-for-polling-purposes- for-early-propagandizing in this election year.

These entities had something called the “Bluegrass Poll” ginned up by an outfit called SurveyUSA that virtually elected democrat Alison Grimes over McConnell in November even though the primary, in which both had competition, wasn't until May. SurveyUSA interviewed 1,200 adults with home phones and cell phones between January 30 and February 4, of whom 1,082 were registered to vote in the state with 404 being registered republicans, but with Primary questions asked only of them. Other questions were asked of all registered voters.

Why no Primary questions of democrats? Answer: these media activists eliminated the other three democrat candidates...the fix was in. Some 118 respondents were not even registered? Twice as many democrats as republicans were polled, the reason being obvious to even a fifth-grader. Kentucky votes republican in national elections even though democrats outnumber republicans in the state by 52%. The media (at least the newspapers) combining for this poll were/are arch-enemies of Mitch McConnell but haven't gotten him defeated since 1984.

Still feeling good after Fancy Farm, the media propagandists commissioned another “Bluegrass Poll” in late August but discovered to their horror that their own poll showed McConnell ahead by four points, at which point the media honchos and Grimes experienced desperation, hence a Mellman Poll hired by Grimes in early September that showed Grimes was ahead by two points—VOILA!—campaign saved, a six-point reversal in just two weeks. Kentucky minds are so changeable. During that same period, the nationally highly regarded Rasmussen polling had McConnell ahead by five points.

So...another poll was conducted by Mellman in September, with Grimes—you guessed it—beating McConnell one or two points maybe because of one of her ads, as if anyone pays attention to those million-dollar sinkholes. During a late September poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS (both McConnell haters), McConnell was ahead by six points, perhaps pulling away.

At this point, desperation set in at the Lexington and Louisville media-outlets-for-McConnell, so—you guessed it—another “Blue Grass” poll was conducted by the same outfit as before, SurveyUSA and—hold tight—Grimes came out ahead by two points, despite the highly respected national polls showing the opposite. This made for front-page banner headlines on 06 October in the Lexington Herald-Leader and rejoicing in TV-world, no doubt.

So, from 28 August until 06 October (about five weeks), Kentuckians, according to the polls (or at least the Bluegrass Poll), those fickle Kentuckians have changed their minds about two or three times, after changing their minds once between February and August. If that's not actually the case, one wonders how the Bluegrass and Mellman polls have been structured, since they differ wildly from the most reputable outfits in the nation, especially since they were hired by both the media-propagandists and Grimes herself, with all that Hollywood money.

Grimes will carry Louisville, Lexington and maybe the northern towns across from Cincinnati. Democrats tend to carry the heavily-populated areas where welfare reigns supreme. Republicans carry the counties between the coastal states but must face the huge differential in electoral votes occasioned by the populations of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and the like in national elections. Beyond the Bluegrass triangle referenced by Louisville, Lexington and Covington, Grimes is likely already toast. Folks don't change their minds that often, and it's a cinch that 90% of minds are already made up.

Grimes' albatross is Obama, and she's tried to neutralize that by calling herself a “Clinton Democrat.” That won't work, not least because Bill Clinton's reputation is in shreds and Hillary's compulsion to lie (think Benghazi) is a killer. When she said, “What difference does it make now,” she said it all. In addition, Kentuckians just hate being jerked around by such things as obviously bogus polling.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Kerry & Under-the-Bus Gang

It's mid-afternoon in a room over the Anything Goes Bar on a busy street in South Chicago. In attendance are university professors William Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and State Secretary John Kerry, hereinafter referenced as A, D, W and K, respectively, though perhaps not respectfully.

**W: Welcome, Secretary Kerry, to the Union to Negate Demeaning of Erudite Realists, Theologians and Honest Educators Basic to the United States.
**K: Uh…the what?
**W: You mean you don’t know what the…in fact, I figured you’re here to join, now that you right soon might be rode out of that Washington nuthouse, no matter whatever happens in that pit of vipers. You ain't got Assad assassinated yet.
**A: Maybe you’ve heard of it by its acronym, John, Under the Bus. It’s made up of the people who’ve been…
**W: kicked off the team because they stood up for…
**D: Oh…don’t be so whiny, Rev. Just because Barry had to disown you after that awful performance at the National Press Club…after all, you got your reparations in the 1960s and…
**W: We ain’t got no reparations yet Bernardine, and I’ll thank you again to call me Doctor, not Rev.
**A: What brings you to this exclusive club, John? By the way, we aren’t the only members. I guess you remember Tom Daschle, for instance, and Richardson and Lerner and Petraeus and...
**D: I bet Barry needs someone sorta...you know...outta sight...get it...oh ha ha ha...Manson rides again.
**A: Stop it Bernardine! (turns to Kerry) Ever since those be-headings over there and the one in Oklahoma the other day, she's been on a tear...caught a mouse last night and cut off its head with the scissors...gory. I stopped her from sticking a fork in the cat this morning.
**D: Reminds me of the old days...bombs away...whee...
**A: Yeah blowin' in the wind...blowin' up everything...the old underground...those were the days...
**W: Knock it off, Bill. You can sing them Vietnam folk songs on your own time.
**A: Oh...sorry about that...we do get carried away once in a while. Teaching in the universities is s-o-o-o boring these days, even though they espouse our causes, mainly soak the rich...get 'em on their knees...make love not war, or is that make war now...whatever. So, what's up, John, the prez in a bind or something?
**K: Oh no...he's not ever in a bind...he's Teflon. The newsies—except for that evil Fox bunch—give him a pass on everything. What he needs is...uh...just a sec (whips out his ipod)...oh yeah, that's today...or was it yesterday...or did I say...don't raise your voice, I remember. The president is getting a lot of flak over the ISIS thing, not that he considers it serious, of course...just some Muslims having a fight. Whoa, strike that...never mention that I said Muslim. A bunch of gang-bangers are taking over Iraq and Syria and...
**W: Gang-bangers!!!! Oh...hoo hah...ha ha ha...gang-bangers! That's what we have right outside this door here. That ISIS bunch is driving tanks and taking over whole...
**K: Okay, okay! There IS a slight problem and the president believes his closest advisers—besides Valerie Jarrett, of course, and CBS—need to think over this problem and come up with a solution since he's never going to put troops over there again. That's my mission here.
**D: Simple...simple...simple! Just drop the big one over there and...oh...hoo hah ha ha ha...instant incineration, another Hiroshima...I'm talking about Israel, of course...wipe out all those kites and all those peaceful Muslims will cut off hands, stone some folks, party all night and pray five times a...
**A: Stop it, Bernardine! We have a real problem here and Barry's up the well-known creek.
**W: Yeah...I tried to tell him the chickens would come home to roost when he bombed those helpless Libyans back to the Stone Age, like they came back after Nagasaki back in the day. You know what I say...
**D: Everybody knows what you'd say, Rev, God damn America...right? Well...maybe Allah is damning God...oh hoo hah, damning God...
**K: And some nutcase just walked into the White House the other day and...
**D: Oh wow...with some of that fertilizer stuff he could have pulled off...hey, surely not an inside job...I never trusted that Jarrett woman...or even Michelle...she'd already gone on her own little helicopter flight that day—right—and left the door wide open, the floozy.
**A: You might tell Barry to borrow a few trillion from China and hire an army from Siberia or Burma, or whatever it's called now...those guys will...naw, it's too hot for them in the Middle east now, temps in the 100s.
**K: Actually, the president was wondering, Bill, if you could figure a way to terrorize the fat Saudi king and the other countries bordering Syria—about 1.3 million troops altogether—to just go in and smash ISIS and save their own oil...er...that is, skin. They got all kinds of jet-fighters and missiles, the whole nine yards.
**A: Not to put too fine a point it, John, I don't like the word terrorize...I'm not a terrorist. I'm a freedom fighter...
**D: That's right...bombs away...it's blowin' in the wind...stick a grenade in Abdullah's Gatorade...oh...hoo...hahahaha. Freedom fighters in the marketplace!
**A: That's enough, Bernardine. Timeout for you! (turns to Kerry) I'm serious about the army and Barry might be right about the gang-bangers. Tell him to get his community organizers in place, then organize Chicago's murderous jailbirds and jail-bait and that oughtta be enough to scare Baghdadi and his gang back into Libya where they might starve, and good riddance.
**K: Hey, you might have something there, and the president could organize in no time with his experience...have it all done by noon and then off for 18 holes. Thanks, guys...gotta go.
**W: By the way, John, did you ever find those medals you threw...
**K: A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H!!!!!!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark