TheDC Morning: Will Hurricane Sandy hurt … Obama?

Jamie Weinstein Senior Writer
Font Size:

Like to laugh? Like to be informed? Then sign up for TheDC Morning email here.

1.) Will Hurricane Sandy hurt … Obama?  — TheDC’s Mickey Kaus makes the counterintuitive case:

“Americans have lots of distractions. Sandy’s a big new one. Not everyone is civic-minded. Inevitably, some marginally attached voters will simply not go to the polls because they’ve been caught up in the Sandy drama and (partly as a result) haven’t been caught up in the presidential drama, no? Since a higher turnout generally benefits Obama, won’t that help Romney (at least a bit–but it’s a close race)?”

Very interesting, Mr. Kaus. Very interesting.

2.) Self-hating NYTimes-ers — Some of the New York Times’ most prominent personalities have some nasty words about their paper’s political coverage. TheDC’s Gregg Re reports:

“New York Times columnist Paul Krugman agreed with fellow New York Times blogger Nate Silver earlier this weekend that the paper both men work for is ‘stupid’ and ‘lazy,’ adding that its purpose must surely be to ‘entertain.’ The surprising statements came in separate blog posts from Krugman and Silver. ‘Quite simply, many of the ‘analysis’ articles being published in these final days leave readers worse informed than they were before reading,’ Krugman bellowed on Saturday, in a blog post titled, ‘Reporting That Makes You Look Stupid.’ …  Silver, whose ‘FiveThirtyEight’ election blog currently predicts a nearly 85 percent chance of an Obama win on Election Day, concurred. ‘You should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public,’ Silver wrote, if you propose that ‘the leader in the race is ‘too close to call.'”

When Krugman disapproves, the Times must being doing things right. As they say, when you lose Paul Krugman, you gain the rest of America.

3.) Going rogue — When being a Republican is an albatross in your state, some candidates will do whatever they have to do to win — including throwing their presidential nominee under the bus.  TheDC’s Alexis Levinson:

“Republican Linda McMahon is encouraging Connecticut residents to vote for President Barack Obama, as long as they also vote for her. The McMahon campaign is leaving door-hangers at the houses of Connecticut voters portraying the Republican Senate candidate and the Democratic president as a pair who ‘will fight for us.’ ‘Vote Barack Obama for President and vote Linda McMahon for Senate,’ say the door-hangers, which were first reported by Talking Points Memo. The text is accompanied by a picture of Obama and a picture of McMahon.”

4.) TheDC predicts — Everyone else is doing it, so why not us? The Daily Caller introduces:

“With all due apologies to Nate Silver, predicting the outcome of a presidential election is always something of a fool’s errand. Regardless of whether you’re a statistician, a campaign strategist, a revered pundit or just some lowly political reporter, your chances of precisely picking the final outcome is dependent on too many last-minute variables to be considered anything more than a somewhat-informed guess. But if the smartest minds in the business — your Michael Barones, George Wills and, yes, Nate Silvers — can have a little fun every four years with their predictions, why can’t we? Caveats aside, here’s how some of The Daily Caller’s best and brightest see Tuesday’s election working out. And if you think you’ve a better guess, please leave it in the comments below for your shot at bragging rights.”

Check out our predictions. 

5.) “The Lizard King” quote of the day — From “The Lizard King: The Shocking Inside Account of Obama’s True Intergalactic Ambitions By An Anonymous White House Staffer,” edited and introduced by Daily Caller writers Jamie Weinstein and Will Rahn:

“I put the slide in a locked wooden drawer under my desk and prepared to leave. I was halfway out of the building before I decided to go back and take another look on the old projector we kept in a back office. Magnified up on the screen, it was quickly apparent what my ‘friend’ had wanted me to find. She was much younger, maybe still in her teens, but it was clear that the woman standing just to Dohrn’s left was Valerie Jarrett. The image I found on the Internet—the one I had seen before—had been edited to remove her. Her face was circled in red marker ink, and a name was written beside it: mary jane evans. It was the first of nearly a dozen aliases Jarrett used and that I would find that night using a security clearance they never should have given me.”

It is unquestionably the funniest book of the year — and your TheDC Morning facilitator isn’t just saying that because he co-wrote it. BUY … IT … NOW.

6.) Poll of the Day: Romney up in Michigan? — Baydoun/Foster poll of likely Michigan voters: Mitt Romney 47%, President Obama 46%. Obama is up in the RealClearPolitics polling average of Michigan by 3.8%.

VIDEO: Ike to Obama — 60 years of campaign ads

Follow Jamie on Twitter

Jamie Weinstein