Deber, That she is able to impress others who are in the same choir is not that impressive It’s not how you win elections. A politician wins an election by impressing poeple who are not in their camp already. 

Lizzie,

I have  spoken with a whole lot of Republicans as a public opinion poll employee who said the same thing years ago. I will never be convinced that Democrats won the election with Clinton. Bush Sr was too well known for too long and Clinton was too much of an unknown person. I spoke to a lot of people who were pro-choice Republicans. I knew people who were Republicans long enough that they had been party members when "separation of church and state" were important values to them. I respect an American who is more interested in our country being put first, instead of party first. There are still Repubicans who are moderate but they sure get called a lot of RINO tags and they have to dodge a lot of cliche demands for them to stick to a narrow point of view. I may be a Democrat but I respect the work of Everett Dirkson, Dwight Eisenhower and Barry Goldwater. They were free thinking Americans. We need more of that. Eisenhower predicted this mess called the "industrial military comples" with warnings about wars for profit. Too bad Cheney and Bush didn’t pay attention to this General who know what he was taking about. The GOP needs to get back to being who they used to be. We all need two good parties. It keeps us all headed in the right direction.

Mary,

You state this as if all conservatives are of one mindset. I have watched "Now" with Bill Moyers on PBS for years. He has had conservatives who represented the Reagan, Nixon and even the previous Bush administrations who were highly vocal with their disagreement with these "neo-cons" that we had with the "Dubya" group. I heard an interviewer ask Ron Paul if he was a George W conservative and he said…"NO! I am a conservative. HE is a Neo-Con". Let us not forget that John Dean, Counsel to  Nixon, wrote a book entitled "Worse than Watergate" and another called "Broken Government". The problem we had recently and in 06 was that REPUBLICANS chose to not endorse people who did not represent them. I was doing poll work when George Bush Sr ran against Clinton. I will never forget a "Strong Republican" who told me that the party he had voted for many times had left him out of their party policies". He voted for Clinton. Now, they backtrack and insist that they are supposed to be telling  Americans about their mission not asking Americans what they want out of leadership. I take it that unlike the first Republican President, the newer guys don’t CARE if Government of the people by the people DOES perish from the earth. It’s about talking points and party policy not "We the People" with them. That is not about conservativeism. It’s about a more extreme tiny group trying to make the rest of us fit their beliefs.

MQC,

Honest scientific polls are not trolling for the subjects they cover. They sell organizations on doing studies but they don’t say…."Hey, let’s see what Limbaugh’s Q numbers are". The network might but not the scientists. These are not cheap to set up with an authentic cross sampling of the population. You don’t just do ten or a hundred surveys either. You generally would expect about a thousand in all of the states based on Census Bureau demographics. The fun thing about polls, if they are done right is the fact that they are not as obvious as you might think. If Gallup wrote it this was not commissioned by either party. It could be a CNN poll to see what Americans think of him. Who knows? I don’t.

I worked in this field for a long time. If it was OK to give the name of the client , it would be given and generally only revealed after the complete sampling is done at the end of the study, to prevent bias. With Gallup, you see a lot of CNN reports , Time-Newsweek and States, Associations and University organizations, who are trying to get the best representations of unbiased opinions. It’s called a double blind study. The respondent doesn’t know who commissioned it and the client doesn’t get the names of the respondents. That this is not found in this articla is telling. This is scientific research not selling an agenda. The Organization is associated with Princeton University. They do not associate with biased off balanced studies.

The type of "polls" written with anticipated answers based on intent are called "Slam Polls". Those are done by marketing people who represent political parties,candidates, Special Interest groups and others who parse their questions to get predictable answers. I participated in the study done a long time ago where my employer did a mirror study to one done by another reputable company, who did a very poorly worded study. They "disproved" a historically proven event. Our writers wrote one that removed the biased questions. When the respondents were not led by heavily weighted questions a completely different set of statistics resulted from this. All polls are not created equal and all polls are not intended to get the truth. Some of them are basically target marketing.

MK,

If this is case, why is it that the next day after one of the GOP "standard bearers" makes a comment that brings out the anger in this bully, you see the offending party run to the network to clarify. Why else would Eric Cantor feel the need to correct himself about the "listening" party for the GOP led town hall? Why did he come out to quote almost verbatum what his "boss" told him to say? Do you really think that the Democrats invited him to that big Republican pow wow where he was fawned over with chants of "Rush, Rush, Rush"?

If the GOP is not scared of making him unhappy why don’t they speak out when he does things like accusing Michael J Fox of faking his Parkinson’s symptoms? Why didn’t they demand a retraction when he called some of the same US troops they proport to support when he called them "fake troops"? Why didn’t they get angry about his being found out to be a drug eating hypocrit who demanded long sentences for others who self medicate but whinning that HE was due mercy? If he is just another "dime a dozen" radio personalities, why don’t they speak out when he is hateful and when he by association makes them look like mean spirited? 

Kelly,

Oh and I suppose the "over the back" photos were an example of her striking a "Christian pose"? I can only imagine what you would have said if this young "pop tart" had chosen to support gay rights. <BG> 

Yeah, I think that straight people have done quite a bit to destroy the insitution that they alone have been able to participate in. Marriage isn’t about the sexual preference. It’s about a person of the legal age of consent having the ability to live up to their vows and being able to respect and love their marriage partner. I took those vows nearly 16 years ago and still have a hyphenated name for a reason. This Vanna White wanna be should just retire the crown and pumps.  She is SO past her 15 seconds of fame.

Some people remember when John Kerry, a Vietnam vet was insulted as being "un-patriotic" while George "Dubya" Bush, a man whose notorious choice to not complete his "contract" with the Texas Guard was ignored.So much for contracts. I didn’t hear the GOP scream about contracts with the auto workers had their salaries cut in half and the AIG VPs got huge bonuses.

It’s interesting to note that the man who got Bush his genetic "go to the head of the line" favor, for his Dad, a then Congress member, was none other than Ben Barnes, the Democratic Lt Governor who was IMPEACHED by a Democratic majority State Congresional vote and who was a part of the land speculation that destroyed Gibralter Savings duing the S&L scandal as a business partner to the late Former Governor John Connally who had become a Republican at the time.

Ah……Texas politics. You gotta love it Miss Instant Tea. My Sunday School teacher belonged the "Dirty Thirty". The Democrats have been known to clean house in Texas when it was required. Suffice it to say, your Texas pedigree is lost on me. I qualify to be a member of the Daughters of the Texas Republic. God bless Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards and Molly Ivans. REAL Texas women who had style and intelligence. 

Kelly, 

Let us not be satisfied with the delusions that all military people are just mindless lemmings who inherantly are Repulican.regardless of who their candidate de jour happens to be.  General Colin Powell spoke very elloquently about his reasons for supporting President Obama. He waited until he had the chance to fully explore the qualificatins of both candidates. If he had the judgement required to lead the troops and serve as former Attorney General he should be trusted to know what is important to perform the duties of leading the troops now. I  would remind you that he was selected to hold high roles in two Republican Administrations.  It should also be noted that President Obama’s military advisor during the campaign was Brigadeer  General Merrill "Tony" McPeak. McPeak served the US Air Force with distinction for many years. Contrary to the myth long held, the military takes an oath to defend and support the Constitution of the United States. They do not swear loyalty to either party. I question your stats. Military members are not allowed to campaign in uniform. They can only work on campaigns wearing civilian clothes. Their ballots are secret as well. There are Democrats as well who wear the uniform. They just don’t wear their party affiliation on their uniforms along with their medals and ribbons.