Wednesday punditry.
This is good news (NY Times):
The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.
and so is this:
BP announced Wednesday that pumping heavy drilling mud into its stricken well in the Gulf of Mexico had appeared to stabilize pressure in the well.
Are you into smart phones?
On Tuesday, Research In Motion needed a miracle. It needed a fresh-faced BlackBerry and an operating system that made people say "whoa." Yet when it took the stage to unveil the BlackBerry Torch and the BlackBerry 6 operating system, one thing became clear: These were not heaven sent. This could very well mean the end for the BlackBerry.
If you've been paying attention to RIM lately, you'll know two things: 1) That it sells more smart phones than anyone else in the United States, and is second only to Nokia worldwide. And, 2) it is experiencing slowed momentum and increasing consumer indifference in the face of dazzling competition. In short, RIM's in a mid-life crisis.
Greg Sargent:
The real reason Dems are tying GOP to Bush
UPDATE, 1:45 p.m.: A Democratic aide points out that the polling memo also contains empirical evidence that if the public is persuaded that voting Republican would be a return to Bush policies, it has a dramatic impact on voter attitudes:
If Americans believe that conservatives are espousing a return to the same economic ideas as those of the former President, the dynamic of the debate turns on its head. In two separate split sample questions, we tested President Obama's economic plan against a generic conservative economic plan. When the conservative plan failed to mention President Bush, it handily out-polled the President's agenda. When President Bush was inserted in the question, the Obama agenda easily won. In one split-sample, the difference was 49-points, in the other it was 23-points.
This is particularly pronounced among independents, the memo shows. It's more proof that Bush remains a potent issue, and explains the current Dem strategy.
That's also where "just say no" fails. Accusations of "back to Bush" have not stuck, but if there's no counter-policy to tout, it'll have more of a chance to stick - especially because it's true.
EJ Dionne:
Personally, I wish there were less hypocrisy and phony moralism about the whole thing. Members will always fight for money for their constituents, and I’m weary of empty posturing about earmarks. But I don’t expect it to stop.
But if earmarks help candidates, Sarah Palin does not.
Another striking finding from the poll: 38 percent said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate she campaigned for, while only 18 percent said her support would make them more likely to vote for that candidate. President Obama had a mixed impact: 27 percent said Obama’s campaigning would make them more likely to vote for a candidate, 28 percent less likely.
GOP = Bush + Palin, with a dash of Michael Steele. Simple, really. GOP elites might want it different, but there it is.
Mark Blumenthal on Gallup's 'return to baseline':
Having devoted nearly 1,400 words to this subject already, I'll keep this short: The week-to-week variation in the chart above is mostly random noise. In fact, if any real changes in vote preferences are afoot, we can't distinguish them from the random variation built into each poll. That variation, by the way, is what the "margin of error" is all about. The results above are basically a picture of 46%, plus or minus 3%.
I write this not to criticize Gallup: Their results are bouncy in comparison to some other polls because they do not weight their results by party identification, so random variation within the predictable range is inevitable...
However, what our chart distills from all of the available public data on the generic ballot is a slight trend in the Republican direction over the last month or so.
Tom Jensen:
The big 2006 Democratic win was about voters abandoning the GOP. If Republicans have a big win in 2010 it's mostly going to be about Democrats staying home. And it's important to keep that in mind when considering the implications of the 2010 results for 2012- Barack Obama might be alright in 2012 even if his party gets pummeled this year if he get those folks back out to vote when it's him on the ballot.
