Who reports? Who decides? And who is undecided?

"They deserve to lose."

So says Thomas Sowell about the unexplained Republican failure (so far) to present the facts.

His piece is titled "Do facts matter?" and he's talking about these facts:

Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years-- including the present year-- denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.

It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today's financial crisis.

Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago.

Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush administration "right-wing ideology" of "de-regulation" that set the stage for the financial crisis. Do facts matter?

Now, here is where I confess to a serious disadvantage -- one grounded in a major disconnect between mainstream media reality and blog reality. All of the above facts have been discussed in post after post at this blog, and in post after post at countless other blogs. So many times that I feel like a redundant bore repeating them. I repeat, for the umpteenth time, I hate being repetitive! How many times do I have to say that I cannot stand having to repeat myself? It is unoriginal and crass. Once I write about something, unless I have something new to say, repeating it feels like a degrading and meaningless chore.

I say "meaningless" because I think readers of this blog already know what they think one way or another, and they are not going to be persuaded in the least by my repeating anything I have said. I suspect that most readers already know who they're voting for. But maybe I shouldn't be making such assumptions.

Hmm....

This is as good a time as any for a reader poll. Not to find out who people are voting for, but simply to determine how many undecideds read this blog.

So, if you could kindly take just a second and let me know how many of you are undecided, I'd appreciate it.

Have you firmly decided on a candidate for president?
Yes, I know who I'm voting for and I won't change my mind.
No. I'm either undecided or I might change my mind.
  
pollcode.com free polls

I tried to create as broad a category as possible for the undecideds, so I am including people who might change their mind. I realize that this poll is not scientific, but it might at least give me some idea how many readers here are likely to be moved one way or the other by opinions, arguments, or facts.

Sowell argues that facts only matter if people know about them, and that many people just plain don't.

Facts don't matter much politically if they are not reported.

The media alone are not alone in keeping the facts from the public. Republicans, for reasons unknown, don't seem to know what it is to counter-attack. They deserve to lose.

But the country does not deserve to be put in the hands of a glib and cocky know-it-all, who has accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the advancement of his own career with rhetoric, and who has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America.

He's got that right, because in the larger picture, it should not matter whether the Republicans deserve to lose. In that respect I think I'm both selfish and unselfish. Selfish because I think I will personally lose more freedom, and unselfish because I truly believe in my heart that if Obama wins, the country loses.

I don't want to bias the above poll, but I don't think it will surprise any readers to hear that I'm not undecided.

What I'm undecided about is whether that matters to anyone.

posted by Eric on 10.04.08 at 10:48 AM





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Comments

McCain had one last chance to get my vote. He lost that chance by voting for the giveaway to Wall Street. I will be writing in Charles Jay for President, since even the Libertarian Party blew it this year. If McCain had stood up for the rest of us against this nonsense, he would have gotten my vote, no matter how much I object to many of his policies.

As far as Sowell's commentary -- yes, it was policies pushed for decades by liberal Democrats that led to the pile of lousy mortgages at the heart of the financial crisis. But it took a special kind of insanity, and this one is not the fault of liberal Democrats, to leverage and repackage those mortgages to the point that a smallish dip in valuations crashed major financial institutions.

Fritz   ·  October 4, 2008 01:39 PM

We conservatives (who tried to teach the Republican party a lesson in 2006, but apparently failed) never understand why the party won't publicize the outright dishonesty of the Democrats. It's just so frustrating to see issue after issue ignored. McCain has been in the "collegial" senate too long. It's why a Senator should NEVER be elected, they just don't get what leadership is. Our best hope is that Sarah continues to shine and comes back strong in 2012. She can do that if she gets on the trail for congressional replacements in 2010 and leads the party back to a majority in one or the other (or both) houses of congress. I do not expect the country to have a good two years with a Democrat congress (just witness the feckless and vicious nature of their running it the last two years), and the naive disaster that a 0bama presidency will foist upon us.

Webrider   ·  October 4, 2008 03:31 PM

Fritz, I understand your point of view and I think it's not quite fair to decide on any particular vote in the Senate for either candidate.

The deciding issue for me is who is going to do the least harm (or prevent the most harm) to the country. McCain wins hands down on that one.


Donna B.   ·  October 4, 2008 06:32 PM

"Sowell argues that facts only matter if people know about them, and that many people just plain don't." - Eric

Sowell is mistaken. Facts only matter to people who care about facts, and those just don't form the majority of humans over the last several decades.

Howdy Eric. Long time. ;)

Ironbear   ·  October 7, 2008 01:01 PM

Thanks for the input.

Hey Ironbear! Thanks for stopping by!

:)

Eric Scheie   ·  October 7, 2008 03:03 PM

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