No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for April 28th, 2011

The 3 G’s

If you started grade school around or before, the time that I did, or, if you are a student of history, you are familiar with the 3 R’s.  Readin’, Ritin’ and Rithmetic.  The 3 R’s were the core, the foundation of a public education.  Nearly everything we were taught in grade school was, or was tied to the 3 R’s. 

When I went to school, if you wanted to know if a teacher was a good or poor teacher it was simple process.  If a parent looked at their child and their child knew the 3 R’s, the teacher was good.  If the parent’s child didn’t know the 3 R’s, the teacher wasn’t good.  It wasn’t a very complicated process of evaluation, nuance didn’t play a role.  Parents knew who was responsible for the 3 R’s and they knew if their child was accomplished in them.

GallupObama approval hits 5 month low
New Hampshire Obama approval rating below “break even” point
PennsylvaniaObama approval rating at all time low

Renewed combativeness (some would say snippiness), a new spokesperson and even dropping drone bombs in Libya have not helped President Obama’s approval ratings.  In fact, regardless of what he attempts to use to distract his audience, nothing seems to change the trend of his approval polls.

President Obama talks and behaves as if all those who disagree with him and his policies were included in what he calls “the far right fringe.”  In his mind, “the fringe,” is made up of all the people who doubted that he satisfied the Constitutional requirement for being a natural born citizen.  In other words, President Obama believes, or at least communicates, that all those who disagree with him are “birthers.”  I have no doubt that at whatever fundraiser he is attending this evening, he is perplexed by the fact that his approval rating continues to drop even though he has released his birth certificate.

As it was with the link of the 3 R’s with the approval of teachers throughout my education, there is an alphabetical link to explain the falling approval rating for President Obama; the 3 G’s.

Gas, Groceries and GDP are the only items you need to watch to determine whether President Obama’s approval ratings are moving up or down.

Gas and Groceries are fairly obvious.  The average price of gas is now $1.02 more than it was a year ago.  More importantly, those who follow the prices are suggesting that the price may well go over $4.50 before peaking.  At the current price, a family with two cars averaging 15,000 miles a year each, is paying over $125/month more for gas than a year ago.  If it peaks at $4.50/gallon, the average increase will be over $200 per month.

Grocery costs are getting nasty.  Just this week the USDA announced that US food inflation will run 4 to 5.5 times the rate it did just last year. With those averages, and some items like Beef (up 12.2% in a year), Pork (up 11.2% in a year) and Citrus fruits (up 8.5% in a year) running far higher than the average, it’s not hard to see how a family of four will face food cost increases of over $100 per month.

If you don’t think everyday food and gas costs are catching up with the average consumer, guess again. Today, Walmart, the largest food retailer in the US, said that they are seeing spending patterns that suggest that many of their customers are expending their budgets before getting to the end of the month.

Wal-Mart’s core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

“We’re seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure,” Duke said at an event in New York. “There’s no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.” Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Lately, they’re “running out of money” at a faster clip, he said.

“Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year,” Duke said. “This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.

So, core costs are increasing but how does GDP impact Obama’s approval ratings?

There is a strong correlation between GDP and real wage growth. GDP has slowed to an annual rate of 1.8%. At the same time, inflation is running at 3.8%. This means that the real incomes are likely not keeping up with the rate of inflation.

Everyday costs are going up but incomes aren’t. That’s a recipe for a very unhappy employee base let alone electorate.

Keep an eye on the 3 G’s. As the 3 G’s get worse, so will Obama’s approval ratings. If they improve, so will the ratings. I believe the relationship between the 3 G’s and Obama’s approval is so strong that I would wager the following: If the 3 G’s do not improve from where they are today, and I don’t think they will, Obama will lose his reelection bid.

As a country, we’re failing the 3 G’s.  I don’t think it’s difficult for most people to figure out who’s in charge of the class.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Recount – Day 2 (and some recall news)

There actually is a dearth of stories from Wisconsin media today on the recount in the Supreme Court race. A quick scan of various state media sites turned up only stories filed about yesterday’s start to the recount, and those were almost completely without exception general “the recount has started slowly but surely” pieces.

That is not to say that there wasn’t any news today. The first bit of news came when the Government Accountability Board took down the running-total spreadsheet this morning, with very little explanation and a promise to have a revised one up by noon. Noon came and went without an update, but a fuller explanation came just after 5 pm – they made some data entry errors yesterday.

I’ll cut them just a bit of slack; this is the first election where either the GAB or its predecessor State Elections Board has reported any election results other than the official and certified numbers. However, this is also not the first time this election they had to pull back reported unofficial numbers; while the counties were reporting their canvassed totals, GAB pulled back numbers reported for two different counties for unspecified reasons, then put up revised numbers before the last county reported just before the deadline. In those two cases, a total of six reported votes were affected.

As of 6:05 pm, they released an updated spreadsheet, with 52 reporting units “reviewed by G.A.B. staff”. Consequently, I have updated my tracking spreadsheet with the numbers from (and only from) those 52 reporting units. I almost don’t want to report the change from such a small number of the 3,602 reporting units, mostly because there are a significant number of counties that have reported results from reporting units to the GAB but have not had numbers entered into GAB’s spreadsheet, but Prosser did gain a net 10 votes on his pre-recount 7,316-vote lead.

The other item comes out of Waukesha County, from a friend who was at the recount, Kyle Maichle (note; the vote totals Kyle mentions were not included above):

Day 2 of the recount in Waukesha County resulted in all of the wards in the Town of Brookfield and the Town of Delafield fully counted. Waukesha County Spokeswoman Ellen Nowak, told me that there is no change on Prosser’s lead in Waukesha County. The only thing has had change was the votes that Prosser gained yesterday in the Town of Brookfield.

After recount activity resumed after the lunch break, there was a very contentious moment when ballot bags for the Town of Delafield were about to be opened. A Kloppenburg campaign attorney challenged one of the bags due to no inspector statement written on the bag. After both campaigns huddled with the presiding judge to go over the ballot bag issue, the Clerk for the Town of Delafield was asked to testify to campaign representatives and the canvassers to determine if the ballots should be allowed. The Board of Canvassers unanimously rejected the Kloppenburg Campaign’s challenge and allowed the ballots to be counted.

There were two other ballot issues today involving the Town of Brookfield. In wards 9 and 10, one ballot was never assigned a voter number and canvassers had to examine if the ballot was valid. In wards 5 and 7, a hand recount of Prosser absentee ballots were ordered after one of their attorneys successfully challenged the canvassing board on grounds that two folded absentee ballots issued on election day were put in the wrong pile.

Do note the “unanimously” above. That means Ramona Kitzinger, the Democrat on the canvassing board, voted to reject Kloppenburg’s challenge of the bag of ballots in question. Side question – what is the over/under on Kitzinger recanting that decision in the same vein of her recantation of her declaration the canvas was on the up-and-up?

Meanwhile, Wisconsin political news was dominated by the recalls (first 2 items courtesy the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the third courtesy WisPolitics):

  • The Democrats turned in recall petitions against the 6th of their targeted 8 Senate Repbulicans, Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay). There’s going to be more elections than I anticipated, but I still am not moving off my early prediction of a 2-2 split of flips or a 3-2 Republican advantage.
  • The local-based group that fell just short of enough signatures to force a recall of Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona) said that it will not consolidate its efforts with those of the Utah-based American Patriot Recall Coalition.
  • The GAB has gone to court to seek an extension of the 31-day signature review period of the recall petitions against Sens. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) and Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) so that the first 8 recall elections (or at least primaries; if more than one Democrat, one Republican or one Constitution Party candidate files to run, the first election would be a partisan primary with the general recall election 4 weeks later) could all be held on the same day, July 12. In response, the Democrat Party of Wisconsin wants to force at least three separate recall election dates – one for Kapanke and Hopper, one for Sens. Jim Holperin (D-Conover), Bob Wirch (D-Burlington), Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay), Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) and Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), and a third for Cowles.

Revisions/extensions (7:42 am 4/29/2011) – For those of you who think Kloppenburg will go quietly into the good night once the recount affirms Prosser’s win, WisPolitics has a dose of cold water for you – Kloppenburg campaign says ‘anomalies’ warrant more review. Therefore, I’ve once again dusted off a classic category I had hoped was permanently retired.

R&E part 2 (10:55 am 4/29/2011) – WISC-TV’s Jessica Arp is live-tweeting the court proceedings in the “recall election consolidation” case. Running through the by-the-book timeline (31 days after the petitions are received to review, GAB needs to determine whether the petitions are sufficient for filing, then 6 weeks plus the days to the following Tuesday if the 6 weeks doesn’t end on a Tuesday before the election), the recall election of Cowles would also be on July 12, which would, if GAB is successful, put all 9 recall elections (or primaries as the case may be) on the same day.

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