Elf Yourself!

Looking for an escape from the end of the semester/finals week?

Elf Yourself!

Going along with the Christmas spirit...

Spokane, Washington, public schools, in an effort to be inclusive, left out the holiday that is essentially the reason for the holiday season: Christmas. What was included? Well, Hanukkah, Human Rights Day, winter break, Eid al-Adha (the Islamic holy day), Kwanzaa, and the first day of winter. But no Christmas.

Just as a side note:

Huckabee is supposedly "booming." Well, let's look at Real Clear Politics:

Iowa: The average has Huckabee up only .2 points. Three out of five polls have Romney leading, with two out of five with Huckabee ahead.

New Hampshire: The average has Romney up by nearly 15 points. Huckabee is fourth, with one poll showing him in third and two polls showing him in fifth place. Romney leads in every poll.

Florida: Huckabee and his team are saying that he is now second in Florida. However, the average has Giuliani up just over 14 points. Huckabee is only in second according to one out of three polls, while Romney is in second in two. Giuliani leads in every poll.

2008 is becoming more and more interesting...

I've reported on the Democratic boycott of Florida and I've gotten some feedback from people (both from FL and not from FL) saying that I've been too harsh on the democratic presidential candidates and whatever else.

Well...

The Miami Herald has a story on the latest Mason Dixon Florida poll. The poll contains a lot of information but in general election match-ups...

Rudy Giuliani beats Hillary by 7 points.
Fred Thompson beats Hillary by 4 points.
Mitt Romney beats Hillary by 1 point.

Most interesting, though, is that more independents (54%, 47% and 45% respectively) selected the Republican candidate over Hillary.

Why? The Democratic boycott of Florida.

26% of independents said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who "refuses to campaign in Florida in advance of the primary in order to placate voters in Iowa and New Hampshire."

According to the Sunshine Independents Blog, more than 2 million Floridians (19% of Florida voters ) are registered as independents. So, if 2 million independents vote, then roughly 520,000 of them would vote for the Republican candidate only because of the boycott. That's a lot more than the 527 votes that won Florida, and ultimately the presidency, for George W. Bush in 2000.

In 2004 John Kerry received 54% of independent votes to Bush's 41%. In 2000, 47% of independent voters marked their ballots for Al Gore while 46% voted for Bush. As stated earlier in this post, the independents are already leaning more toward Giuliani, Romney and Thompson than Hillary although the Democrat has won the majority of independent votes in Florida in the past 2 presidential elections.

Looks like Florida will play a key role in the presidential election once again.

Oh yeah, the relatively newly elected democratic Congress is setting new records. According to Gallup: "By historical standards, the current [congressional] 20% approval rating is among the lowest Gallup has ever recorded. In fact, in the 173 times since 1974 that Gallup has asked Americans to rate the job Congress is doing, Congress' approval rating has been at or below 20% only four times."

Again, the independents play a role here as only 14% of them approve of the current Congress. That's lower than th 20% of republicans that approve.

President Bush's approval rating is at 32% with 27% of independents approving of his job performance.

You Don't Wanna Mess With the President!

Just because I'm a Republican doesn't mean I can't make fun of them!

In other news, I'm sure many of you heard about Mitt Romney's "Obama-Osama gaffe." But, have you seen this video?

Ted Kennedy confuses Obama with Osama


And another video for your viewing pleasure:

You Don't Want it From the President


And, of course, I have to report that only one Democrat running for President showed up to Florida's Democratic Convention.

Reuter's reports: "The Democratic Party's convention in Florida during the weekend was like a rock concert performed solely by warm-up bands."

"This would be the least exciting (convention) in 30 years, the least encouraging," said a noticeably deflated, long-time Democratic conventioneer Alice Long Owens of St. Augustine, Florida.

This convention didn't get nearly as many posts on the Tampa Bay Buzz Blog as Florida's Republican "Presidency IV," which was, by the way, amazing.

Oh well. I'm sure that the huge and nationally representative populations of Iowa and New Hampshire will make up for the Dems blowing off Florida. Oh wait...