| Morning Jolt – October 25, 2012 By Jim Geraghty Here's your Thursday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! Jim Surprise: Independents, Likely Voters Loved Monday Night's Stay-Puft Marshmallow Romney! After Monday night's debate, I was among those who thought that Mitt Romney's performance was simultaneously likely to be effective and not what I wanted to see — too focus-grouped, too safe, often hesitant to really tear into the president's record and almost dovish. But who am I to argue with a closing sales pitch to those few remaining undecided voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa? Apparently, Team Romney knew what they were doing: President Obama scored a modest win in the third presidential debate, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, but it's Republican Mitt Romney who moved the needle among likely voters — including independents — with his debate performances. Overall, the contest remains unchanged from Tuesday, with 49 percent of likely voters nationally backing Romney, and 48 percent supporting Obama. But as was the case after the first and second debates, more voters say they have better, not worse, opinions of the former Massachusetts governor when assessing the three debates. Most say the president's debate performances did not change their views of him, a continuing challenge for an incumbent stuck with an approval rating in dangerous territory: 50 percent of likely voters approve of how he's handling the job, 49 percent disapprove. Looking at handling the economy as a broad issue, Romney's lead among independents has swelled to 56 to 39 percent in the new poll, an advantage that helps him to a sizable, 12-point lead over Obama when it comes to their voting preferences. Obama won independent and other voters by eight percentage points in 2008. B. Daniel Blatt notices the math: "A 12-point advantage among independents yields only a one-point overall advantage. Hmmm. . . . the poll only gave Democrats a four-point advantage (34-30)." Meanwhile, Bob Krumm looks at the national polls and concludes that most pollsters have wildly high estimations of how many respondents are "likely voters" — from about 70 percent for Rasmussen, to about 80 percent for the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, to about 85 percent for the ABC News/Washington Post poll and Gallup, to an unfathomable 93 percent of the IBD/TIPP poll. Historically, the percentage of registered voters who actually cast ballots is in the high 60s, low 70s; the percentage of the voting age population who casts ballots is usually in the 50s. It hit 62 percent in 2008. He concludes: "From this small sample it appears that Rasmussen is not the outlier it is often accused of being. Instead, other polling organizations in the current RCP Average employ a likely voter screen that removes only 7% to 14% of registered voters from the sample pool, when we know that about 30% of likely voters are not going to show up to vote." This Is a Dumb Way of Measuring Voter Attitudes . . . Period. Hey, remember when it was offensive to talk about women voters as if they were nothing more than their, er, "lady parts"? (This was before the Obama campaign website offered, and then removed, an illustration declaring, "Vote like your lady parts depend on it." I missed the part of the GOP platform that called for national mandatory hermaphrodism.) CNN demonstrates that just about any social scientist can get headlines during election season if their research's conclusions are likely to generate web traffic: New research suggests that hormones may influence female voting choices differently, depending on whether a woman is single or in a committed relationship. Please continue reading with caution. Although the study will be published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science, several political scientists who read the study have expressed skepticism about its conclusions. The researchers found that during the fertile time of the month, when levels of the hormone estrogen are high, single women appeared more likely to vote for Obama and committed women appeared more likely to vote for Romney, by a margin of at least 20%, Durante said. This seems to be the driver behind the researchers' overall observation that single women were inclined toward Obama and committed women leaned toward Romney. Here's how Durante explains this: When women are ovulating, they "feel sexier," and therefore lean more toward liberal attitudes on abortion and marriage equality. Married women have the same hormones firing, but tend to take the opposite viewpoint on these issues, she says. "I think they're overcompensating for the increase of the hormones motivating them to have sex with other men," she said. It's a way of convincing themselves that they're not the type to give in to such sexual urges, she said. That's Kristina Durante of the University of Texas, San Antonio, lest you think some lunk-headed man came up with the notion that voting for Romney was a sign of repressed sexual urges. Ace at the Ace of Spades offers a supremely skeptical post, and I'll quote the semi-clean portion: It looks like single women become diehard liberal partisans when they're fertile, and women in committed relationships become more . . . well, Republican. I have no idea if this is true. I suppose there might be some biochemical mechanism that causes women to think more about their future when ovulating. Maybe there's a biochemical impulse to start thinking about future security. If so, I imagine that would mean single, liberal-leaning women might start thinking about Daddy Government, and married women might start thinking about pro-family policies. But supposin' don't make it true, and "studies" are, by and large, a non-scientific enterprise chiefly occupied with extracting money from taxpayers to produce junk women's-health pop "science" for slick-covered magazines like Cosmo, and, once upon a time, Newsweek. Now, you know my position on the "War on Women": I'm still looking for a place to declare my surrender. But if you really did believe in some sort of cultural war on women, the notion that a society awash in the lowest-common-denominator entertainment has cultivated a pervasive way of judging women by a different and tougher standard — not the most outlandish theory in the world, from where I sit — then wouldn't so-called scientific research suggesting that women's voting patterns are reflections of their hormonal shifts be pretty good example of this? And while CNN offers quite a few caveats and disclaimers about the research in the article, wouldn't too-credulous news coverage be an accomplice of sorts in this war? They may have realized that themselves: The post has been removed: "After further review it was determined that some elements of the story did not meet the editorial standards of CNN." Kat Stoeffel of New York magazine: "Female voters! Kindly tell Nate Silver the date of your last period and your relationship status so he can figure out once and for all who's gonna win this thing November 6." Expect Lots of Awkward Silences at the Moran Family Thanksgiving This Year This infamous guy didn't have a spelling error in his protest sign; he just had a lot of foresight: 
Surprisingly good news; the phrase "a video secretly recorded by Project Veritas, the organization headed by James O'Keefe" is not enough to keep a scandal out of the Washington Post. The son of 11-term Rep. James P. Moran Jr. resigned from his father's campaign Wednesday hours after an undercover video showed him discussing possible voter fraud with an activist posing as a campaign worker. In the video, dated Oct. 8 and posted by conservative activist James O'Keefe, Patrick Moran does not explicitly advocate or condone the worker's suggestion to cast ballots on behalf of 100 voters he says are unlikely to show up Nov. 6. Moran, who appears not to know that he is being recorded, attempts to discourage the worker from carrying out the scheme, saying he should instead join get-out-the-vote efforts. But Moran, a campaign field director, also offers guidance on how to possibly skirt Virginia's new voter identification laws. He also doesn't tell the worker not to proceed with his plan. Neither James Moran (D-Va.) nor his 23-year-old son returned repeated messages seeking comment. Moran's campaign issued a statement, calling it "an error in judgment." "Patrick is well liked and was a well-respected member of the campaign team," Moran's the statement says. "The campaign has accepted Patrick's resignation, effective immediately." James Moran was first elected to the House in 1990. The veteran's district includes Arlington County, Alexandria, Falls Church and portions of Fairfax County. State Democratic Party Chairman Brian Moran, his brother, called the incident "a mistake." What really gets the younger Moran was his suggestion that a forged utility bill would suffice as a form of ID for the impersonated voters. By the way, here's the entirety of the Washington Post editorial board's endorsement of Moran this year: Mr. Moran, a Democrat who has long represented the heavily Democratic 8th District, has embarrassed himself, and his constituents, with ill-considered comments in the past. But he is conscientious and constituent-oriented, and his opposition in this election, as in past contests, is weak. "He's the embarrassment to northern Virginia who has earned our trust!" Come on, Post editors. Moran's Republican opponent is Patrick Murray. Give him a shot. Worst case scenario, he doesn't work out, we can vote him out in 2014. You've already conceded that the guy who's in there is an embarrassment to himself and his constituents. If you continue to endorse him, and refuse to even mention the name of the major alternative . . . well, then you're just embarrassing yourselves. ADDENDA: Erick Erickson: "Judging by twitter, Joe Buck is coming off as a real jerk in the Presidential debate tonight." To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com Save 75% . . . Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for print-edition information. Click here for digital-edition information. National Review, Inc. | 
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