I've been hearing a lot lately from the sacred order of Eeyores. Looking at the latest round of polling, which by the way is still two weeks ahead of the very first convention, a disturbing trend of panicking in public has emerged from those supposedly level headed pundits upon who's analysis we base many of our opinions. Never mind that the samples used to construct the polling models can best be described as silly non serious attempts to sway public opinion amongst people who for some reason have been spending the last four years in fantasy land. Even people who should know better are falling prey to the effects of these ridiculous polls becoming part of the seemingly constant news cycle. Looking over the cross tabs of the various attempts to sway opinion rather than measure it, samples of D+9 seem to be the norm for predicting voter models. If you believe this distribution of voters to be representative of this year's mood of the electorate, I have some swampland on Manhattan you might be interested in, it's right next to the Brooklyn Bridge, which I am also selling. Just to add some perspective to my point, during the last 7 Presidential elections, the polling distribution of D/R/I which was reflected in the previous midterm election was replicated during the following Presidential election. That's a heck of a trend, and in 2010, that distribution was 36/35/29. So far this year, there have been exactly 2 pollsters who have followed this distribution make up on a more or less consistent basis, Zogby and Rasmussen.

Touting errant polls as though the poll itself were news worthy is something I have come to expect from the people who reside on the left side of the political divide, a place I like to call Fantasy Land. What surprises me however is that I continue to see examples of my fellow inhabitants on the right wringing their hands over these same fanciful wishes published by the pollsters who wish to use their models for the purposes of creating public opinion rather than measuring it. For years we've watched the polls predict double digit leads for Democrats, until 10 days prior to an election when magically, every race in history tightened up until suddenly a much different picture emerged. Every time, we laughed afterwards at having been duped once again by the nonsensical ramblings of models which would have been given a grade of F by the most forgiving of drunken statistics professors. Yet, here we are again, allowing ourselves to be depressed into possibly staying home on election night.

There were another two polls published prior to the Ryan pick, which predicted a far different outcome. Scott Rasmussen published a finding on Thursday which showed Romney with a 47% to 43% lead. Rasmussen released a similar poll yesterday based on an interview which concluded Friday that showed very similar results, which is a very slim Romney lead. Bear in mind that this follows weeks of Obama attacks upon Romney which have gone largely unanswered. It is that latter point which I believe has had people worried, (this of course was prior to the Ryan pick, which has had a change in the entire dynamic above, something we'll discuss as a part of this essay later.)

Romney's failure to react as many on the right would have liked had cries of, "it's 2008 all over again," being heralded from almost every forum. This is something to which I never subscribed for numerous reasons, not the least of which included the small fact that Americans have now experienced four years of the Marxist ideology that guides every decision made by the Obama Administration. Another reason of course was the underlying dynamic of why the Obama attacks have been leveled at this early date, and why those attacks so far have gone unanswered.

With the election laws in existence today, Mitt Romney has money in his war chest, that he is not allowed to touch until the conclusion of his Party's national convention at the end of this month. Barack Obama on the other hand, has not had to endure a costly primary season this year, and is free to spend what ever cash he has on hand, which used to be a considerable amount. I am asking you now to cast your memories back four years to the 2008 campaign. Barack Obama had raised an enormous amount of money, and out spent John McCain by a staggering margin. Such is the animal of politics. So confident in his arrogance, Barack Obama announced in 2011 that he planned on raising $1 Billion for this year's election. So far, his predictions have not come true, as a matter of fact, lately, the Bamster is whining like a toddler about how badly he is being beaten by Mitt Romney in the race to raise cash. As of now, and for the first time in his political career, Barack Obama will face a candidate with more money to spend than what he has. Perhaps the single greatest indicator of how bad his electoral prospects truly are, George Soros' check book has been conspicuously absent for this campaign cycle.

Mitt is financially unable to respond in the preferred manner until the first week of September. Knowing that he has an advantage early, and will be faced with a massive disadvantage later, Barack Obama has attempted to go for the knock out hay maker punch during the summer. He has blanketed the airwaves of the identified battle ground states with attacks, most of them disgustingly dishonest, on Mitt Romney. Taking a page out of George W. Bush's 2000 primary campaign when he spent the entirety of his war chest prior to the Super Tuesday contests, (a move which proved successful, as he essentially won the nomination on that day's results,) Barack Obama's plan was to build an insurmountable lead before the contest actually started. Far from achieving that, all he actually succeeded at was to give the pundits some semblance of suspense to guarantee their jobs of giving flawed analysis for a living, albeit for only a few more months.

The Ryan Pick

Please enjoy Politifact's lie of the year award winning advertisement from 2011.

Much of this essay so far was written prior to Saturday's announcement of Mitt Romney's choice for his Vice Presidential Running Mate. Both sides of course are claiming that they are happy with the pick, and if you watched the video above, you know why the Democrats are happy. Those who support Republican candidates more often than not are happy because Paul Ryan represents that unapologetic fiscal conservative that we are always promised, but seldom actually see. There is no one, in either party, who understands financial matters to the degree that Paul Ryan does. On budgetary concerns, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have just been reduced to being the elementary aged school children who usually end up eating paste during that tortuous half hour of art class we all endured twice a week.

The reason that I am happy is that this pick instantly transformed this election from the usual 60 days of pandering to what ever group candidates were speaking to at the moment to being the ideological debate we, as a nation have avoided since 1988. In 2008, Barack Obama had many in the nation believing that he would be a tax reforming hawk, and many woke up surprised to find that he in fact would ultimately govern as someone to the left of Vladimir Lenin. John McCain felt that it would be a good idea to campaign as a Republican who would support Cap and Trade and measures to limit Executive Compensation, among other Democrat Party talking points. George W. Bush invented, "Compassionate Conservatism," which meant the Republican foreign agenda combined with Lyndon Johnson's domestic economic policy. Al Gore and John Kerry both ran during the general elections of those years on platforms that could have been mistaken at times for Goldwater economic beliefs.

This will not happen this year, at least not until Barack Obama awakens one morning in October to learn just exactly how unpopular his class warfare rhetoric actually is. Many believe that this pick was Romney's answer to the Obama attacks, made from a feeling of needing to do something to change the game. I disagree, and not just because Romney and his team let it slip that they came to this conclusion a full two weeks ago. I believe that Mitt Romney made the decision to highlight the stark ideological differences between the two candidates prominently, right from the beginning of his campaign. His rhetoric, right from the Iowa primary on, could have been mistaken as any of the lectures ever delivered by Milton Friedman. The reason he never fully received the credit for such has always had more to do with his past statements and actions. He has promised right from the beginning that we are seeing a wiser and more conservative Mitt Romney, and for now, I choose to believe him.

Ronald Reagan was at one time President of an AFL-CIO member union. He was a registered Democrat, and changed his political views to govern as the most purely conservative President since Calvin Coolidge. Suggesting that as others gain wisdom and experience, they would not be able to achieve the same evolution in beliefs and application of those beliefs is narrow minded. Romney cited as his reasons for picking Ryan a few things. Ryan's strength as a fiscal conservative advocate, his eloquence in presenting budgetary issues, his ability to step in and do the top job from day one, his similarity to Romney on most of the key issues, and his ability to be delegated many of the managerial duties of governance in a Romney Administration were the revelations made by Mitt Romney when asked about his decision. In short, this was a pick made from a position of strength and not of weakness.

I have one final thought to share with you. There are many who believe that there is some arbitrary distinction between a referendum and choice election, as if the American people are not indeed smart enough to distinguish between those issues for themselves. The difference being that Barack Obama's unbelievably poor stewardship of our nation's business being the locus of the referendum election, and the choice election being about the differences between our disparate ideologies. I suppose that there is a difference, but the thought that only one of these issues can be addressed during the campaign grossly underestimates the intelligence of my fellow citizens. It is true, at least in my very humble opinion that Barack Obama has been at best amateurish in how he has executed his duties as our President. it is also true that I believe my ideology, at least in terms of what is best for our country, is superior to the choice offered by the liberals. I am capable of separating those issues when presented by either candidate, and can see nothing wrong with Team Romney pressing the buttons on both fronts.

Cross Posted From Musings of a Mad Conservative.