VOTER ANALYSIS FROM THE HORSERACE BLOG

The Horserace Blog makes a pretty good case for Bush winning Florida by crunching registration and turnout numbers.

Bush looks pretty good in Minnesota too.

And Ohio.

Pennsylvania no telling.

Here is a tip on how you'll know how Dubya is doing in PA. If you see them tabulating the votes and early on Kerry has only a small-to-modest lead (maybe 4-5% max), that is a very good sign for the president. That means that Dubya is holding his own in the suburbs, counter-balancing Kerry's larger numbers in the rural areas. The rural votes, which break overwhelmingly Republican, trickle in later. This is what happened in 1994 when Santorum beat Harris Wofford. All night long Wofford held a slim lead over Santorum, and it broke Santorum's way around 1 AM or so.

Iowa favors Bush.

And for kicks look at how well Missouri mirrors the rest of the nation.

About the Polls:

So...what does this mean? Essentially, it means that the reliable polls are, roughly speaking, Time, Battleground, Gallup. All of the rest skew toward Democrats, and should be viewed with caution. A surprising number of the rest are either using questionable methods or are using unadvertised methods. This is absolutely taboo among social scientists. Methodology is the only element that the researcher can control, and thus it is critically important -- indeed it is an ethical responsibility -- for the researcher to make his/her methods avaiable.

And finally, how Kerry's slip in the black vote can't be offset anywhere else. And why Clinton's job is to secure this base.

OH BUT GUN CONTROL WORKS IN BRITAIN

The U.K. Telegraph has an excellent column today about the long-term results of disarming the British public.

BIN LADEN: The Lost Episodes

New York Post has this: (via Instapundit)

Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape — of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday — bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.

On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military's unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

A portion of the left-out footage includes a tirade aimed at President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, claiming the war in Iraq is purely over oil.

The tape also sparked some concern that an attack aimed at disrupting Tuesday's election may be planned.

BUSH IN ORLANDO

He visited Tinker Field last night the same as he did four years ago the weekend before the election. His internal polling must show a safe lead here because he didn’t bring the star firepower that he had last time. Four years ago he brought Travis Tritt to sing for a half hour followed by Bo Derek and Wayne Newton. Tonight he had a country singer I didn’t know, his brother Marvin and some local Republicans. He made some decent points on the stump last night that I was hoping (yelling at the TV) that he didn’t make in the debates. He reminded voters that Kerry opposed everything Reagan proposed although Kerry constantly invokes Reagan. He also pointed out how Edwards and Kerry were in the minority of their own party for opposing the $87 billion funding for the troops. I didn’t know that. It would have been a strong point in the debates as well. Instead, it’s wasted on the converted.

Bush comes off much better in person than he does on TV. I saw highlights of his speech today on the news and he didn’t seem as warm as he did when I was there.

Today we were on the corner of Mills and Colonial (The Vietnamese section of town) right next to the Kerry-Edwards Headquarters. The Asians were on all four corners holding up Bush signs while the Kerry supporters stood next to them less numerous and obviously weaker in math.

I spotted a few more Kerry-Edwards signs in downtown neighborhood yards, but then again, that real estate has been heavily gobbled up by investors and I bet the lion share of those Kerry people were renters. I am the only one in my neighborhood (50 houses) that has any kind of political sign up. A few weeks ago I picked up a Mel Martinez sign and just today I got my hands on a Bush sign.

It was a letdown that the Orlando Sentinel endorsed Kerry. But then The NY Daily News gave an unexpected endorsement of Bush. I don't think either of those really matters, but you'd like your hometown paper to the right of the NY Daily News.

The polls show that the popular vote is tight, but Bush is polling well in states won by Al Gore. Although Kerry will probably win New Hampshire (won by Bush in 2000) he doesn’t have any clear victory in the other Bush states. I don’t believe the Colorado polls that look good for Kerry. Pollsters missed Colorado in 2002. Bush, on the other hand, looks to win Gore states, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico. He even has a chance in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Michigan though I doubt it. I heard a pollster say the other night that Kerry cannot win this election without Ohio, although Bush could still squeak out a win if he lost both Ohio and Florida. The MSNBC favorable/unfavorable ratings show Bush much more liked than Kerry.

In the Senate, Republicans look to pick up seats in both Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana, and maybe even South Dakota (Dashele). They will definitely lose Illinois and maybe Alaska. They should hold Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kentucky.

In short, even if Kerry were to pull out a miracle, he would still be dealing with the no-tax raising Congress that led to the economic prosperity of the 1990s.

I'LL DO ANYTHING

Jeff Jacoby quotes some constituents letters:

On Jan. 9, 1991, as the crisis over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was building to a climax, Kerry received a letter from a constituent, Walter Carter of Newton.

"Dear Senator Kerry," it began. "I urge you to support President Bush's request that Congress approve the `use of all necessary means' to get Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. To deny the president's request would encourage further aggression."

On Jan. 22, Kerry replied.

"Dear Mr. Carter," he wrote. "Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the Bush administration's additional deployment of US military forces . . . and to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On Jan. 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president immediate authority to go to war."

Nine days later, he replied again.

"Dear Mr. Carter," Kerry's second letter said. "Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush. . . . From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and . . . our military deployment in the Persian Gulf."

SUNDAY ON 60 MINUTES

Dan Rather finally unfolds the real story behind Osama Bin Laden and 9-11 . . .

Osama bin Laden has got a trunk full of documents that prove Bush got special treatment in the National Guard, but it goes deeper than that. You've heard that Bush's father is friendly with the Saudi's? What's little known is how Bush and Osama grew up together and use to fish on the banks of the Mississippi. Osama's father was a drunk who use to beat him and he'd spend a lot of time at the Bush household eating dinner. Once the pair got into High School, the popular Osama dissed Bush for a more trendy clique. After High School, Osama volunteered for Vietnam while Bush squeaked into Yale and then the National Guard.

After fighting two distinguished tours and a brief capture by the enemy, Osama got a nasty whiff of Agent Orange and was sent back to the states where he was spit on as a baby killer. It not only made him angry but violated his Kosher upbringing. Bush, who was still sore over Osama's popularity in High School, fixed it so that the young man couldn't get his G.I. Bill money for college. With no education he had a choice of being a homeless beggar or turn to a life of crime. Such is America.

Osama then went to the Middle East where Bush ruined every oil deal Osama tried to put together. Finally, when his unemployment benefits expired on September 10th 2001 he decided to blackmail Bush with the National Guard documents. Bush would have none of it. With the help of the Israeli government, Bush orchestrated an attack on the Twin Towers. The Jews called in sick, the Towers came down and Bush had his excuse to go after Bin Laden before the National Guard Documents could materialize. As an unexpected but welcome effect, Bush's popularity rose. This is where the story gets crazy.

Posing as a young Latino girl, Osama was able to filter some of the damning documents to Bill Burkett and then to Dan Rather. Osama knew if he were identified the story would be discounted as a partisan attack. He's been meaning to lay low, but he can't stand Bush's distortions against John Kerry, a man he served with. After 10 minutes of on-camera chin boogies by Rather and barely 3 minutes of Bin Laden face time, Rather states categorically that he doesn't know the full truth behind the story, but that the White House has a lot of explaining to do and so far they have remained silent. Don’t forget to get out and vote on Tuesday.

Andy Rooney ends the show going through his Kerry for President junk mail.

MORNING IN AMERICA

The Greatest Political Ad ever devised.

And speaking of Political ads, Prop 71 in California is well argued against by Mel Gibson.

THE MEDIA CULTURE AND THE POLLS

Stanley Kurtz from The Corner.

The fact that a candidate who called America’s soldiers war criminals and threw away his metals could get this close shows that something has changed for the worse. And the reason is that even cultural leaders like the owner and publisher of The New York Times were once radical antiwar activists. Recall that after his second arrest for anti-war protests, Pinch Sulzberger was asked by his father what his son called, “the dumbest question I ever heard in my life:” “If a young American soldier comes upon a young North Vietnamese soldier, which one do you want to see get shot?” The younger Sulzberger answered, “I would want to see the American get shot. It’s the other guy’s country.” The reason John Kerry and his “global test” have even a ghost of a chance in this election is because Sulzberger and the folks who thought like him are now in charge of the media–and much of the rest of our culture.

Being anti-American and running the paper of record can do a lot of damage.

THE CURSE IS OVER

It was history when Boston came back 3-0 against the Yankees and they did it by beating the storied Mariano Rivera. So it was inevitable that they'd win the World Series too. Steinbrenner showed the folly in trying to put together an All-Star Lineup while neglecting middle relief. You can't expect Mariano Rivera to go 3 innings every time out. People like to say the Yanks buy Championships, but they never spent as much money as they did this year and to no avail. You still have to have heart to win the big game and the Yanks don't have it anymore. Gone are the Tinos and O'Neills and Brosius's. Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton allowed the Yanks to play Chad Curtis and Joe Girardi and still win. Playing Gary Sheffiled and Alex Rodriguez doesn't make up for Sturtz in a tie game.

I would have liked to have seen the curse continue and then I read this:

Boston pitcher Curt Schilling, interviewed on ABC's "Good Morning America," said, "Tell everybody to vote. And vote Bush next week."

That will take the sting out.

WAR BLOGGERS FOR KERRY

It's a a big blog disappointment to see Andrew Sullivan and Daniel Drezner jumping ship to support John Kerry. They are guys who support the war and know that only Bush would have prosecuted the thing so strongly. They both now fall under the magical spell that Kerry is going to solve all the problems that Bush didn't anticipate.

In Sullivan's case his support for Kerry is more rationalization because Bush supports the constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. You could talk Jesse Jackson out of Affirmative Action before Sullivan would be convinced that voters and not courts should decide this issue.

I don't read Drezner enough to know why he's lost his mind. A guy as smart as Drezner should know the difference between tough campaign rhetoric and the realities that Kerry will face when he takes office.

I still have doubts about Kerry. Massive, Herculean doubts. His plan to internationalize the Iraq conflict is a pipe dream. However, here's the one thing I am confident about -- a Kerry administration is likely to recognize, once the multilateral diplomacy fails, that it will actually have to come up with a viable alternative.

So Drezner is rationalizing his vote for Kerry in that Kerry will eventually decide that Bush's course was best.

Drezner should consier that a Democrat can only prosecute this war so much before he will tear his party apart. The 1-5% that Nader gets now could easily be 10-15% in the next election if Kerry were really out there killing terrorists. You cannot discount the hard core anti-war base of this party. Who doesn't remember that about 10% of Americans were against going into Afghanistan? You can probably add another 10% to that number that would refuse to go anywhere else.

Even if you give Kerry credit for believing all the things he says, he cannot remain politically viable actually doing so. His is the party of appeasement even if he personally has a chest of medals. Regardless of the campaign images we see, candidates do not lead political movements, political movements lead them. Bush 41 learned his lesson when he raised taxes in 1990 and had competition in the primaries by Pat Buchanan, and in the general election by Ross Perot.

Kerry is not being supported because he has a great vision. The people want him either because they hate Bush or are disappointed in how Iraq is turning out. Kerry is either going to disappoint those who take him at his word or the political movement that has led him. He can't please both groups and he'll have to settle for his own base.

You can hate what Bush stands for but at least you know what that is. You know his political movement actually supports his rhetoric. Kerry doesn't have that luxury. The political movement leading Kerry is opposed to Kerry's tough-guy talk. Something has to give. People who support the war on terror and vote for Kerry are voting for marketing and not realism.

UPDATE: Tim Cavanaugh has some harsher words than I do.

OBJECTIVE MEDIA

Drudge exposes the current media October Surprise before they do.

WHAT THE F--- !!!?

Mr. Wrong war at the wrong time didn't always think so.

HE WAS FOR IT BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT Mickey Kaus points out that a McLaughlin group transcript from October of '01 shows Kerry saying:

I have no doubt, I've never had any doubt -- and I've said this publicly -- about our ability to be successful in Afghanistan. We are and we will be. The larger issue, John, is what happens afterwards. How do we now turn attention ultimately to Saddam Hussein? How do we deal with the larger Muslim world? What is our foreign policy going to be to drain the swamp of terrorism on a global basis?

But wait, there's more! This transcript is actually being pushed by the Kerry campaign, as proof that he called for more troops in Afghanistan. But if you look at the section where he's supposedly calling for more troops, you'll find that it's been rather creatively trimmed by the Kerry team. The good senator was actually referring to his past calls for more "boots on the ground", but reported himself satisfied with troop levels by the time of the interview, on October 16th, 2001.

Don't Kerry's people know about the internet yet?

WHO WILL THIS GUY NOT PANDER TO?

I thought I saw it all and today John Kerry shows up in a coal miner's outfit. He was shooting birds over the weekend. He's simply for a stronger America. Bush will take away old people's Social Security and conscript the young. I guess it doesn't matter how phoney or desperate Kerry may be when you hate Bush.

Just think what the Democrats could have done with a serious candidate. I heard Joe Biden on Russert over the weekend and that guy just sounds like he's really plugged into world affairs. His critcisms of the Bush Administration sound reasoned and thoughful rather than opportunistic. Some say he's flaky and that might have come out in a domestic policy debate, but he would have commanded real respect in the foriegn policy square off and that's the only real issue in this election.

Kerry has substituted tough talk for seriousness. He's going to kill the terrorists! To kill terrorists you have to have a strong offensive policy and he doesn't have one. In this whole campaign have you heard just one plan of Kerry's in which he engages in some sort of offensive manuever against the bad guys? Democrats didn't even kill the terrorists that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. His supporters know that it's just all talk. Half of them would vote for Nader if they took him at his word.

Kerry's plan is hoping that Bush killed enough bad guys in Afghanistan and Iraq that he won't have to do anything himself. If an attack does come then it will be Bush's fault for stirring up the hornet's nest in Iraq. If no attack comes it will be due to his serious approach to the problem. All bases are covered.

In short, Kerry is going to kill terrorists like O.J. is going to find the real killers.

STOLEN HONOR

I haven't seen it myself yet, but you can watch it here for free.

The friend who saw it last night and sent me this link said that the production values were weak and it's knocks you over the head with it's points, but the men being interviewed have some heart wrenching things to say.

EARLY VOTING

Although I’m against early voting as a general principle, I decided that if I perish before the election that I can cancel out the vote of some octogenarian socialist that doesn’t make it either. I owe Bush at least that. Down here in Florida we can vote at selected public libraries and to my surprise the cue was ten people long during my entire hunt for DVDs and books.

The early vote kept me from the hour-long lines that I endured during the 1992 and 2000 elections, but I came away feeling cheated that I couldn’t come home and watch the returns which has become a habit with me every four years. I like watching returns better than the Olympics.

Bush was in Daytona two Saturday’s ago but I couldn’t get tickets despite my efforts. We’ve seen all kinds of campaigning around here lately. Cheney and wife were in Lakeland. Pataki, Barbour and Jeb did a tour at the Executive Airport. Sean Hannity and pals are coming to Orlando on Saturday to push the Bush vote. Being a swing state keeps you in the excitement.

DO WE NEED A DRAFT?

Charlie Rangel wrote a bill and couldn't even bring himself to support it. MTV is trying to scare youngsters about the possibility. John Kerry's campaign has been trying to use draft scares get into office. I remember the immature me in college during the first Gulf War somewhat worried that I would get called up for duty. Having people shoot at you is no fun thought, but my libertarian personality was just as worried to have some Louis Gossett Sergeant yelling at me during training like in the Richard Gere movie. Sure Gere became the better person as a result of the Gossett ass-kicking, but I would have rather been the sleeping-to-noon guy, a job I was excelling at. I was living in soft America and wasn't ready to leave it.

They didn’t need me it turned out and they don’t need today’s soft Americans either. The military is staffed with professionals who choose to make it a career, career training or a means to a free college education. This has been used to claim that poor people are forced to join the military to get the benefits that other Americans get from their parents. Why can’t it be a positive that poorer people have a way to do it for themselves? My dad was drafted into the Army and he and my mother got nothing out of it but two years of living at the poverty level. Reagan’s pay raises in the 1980s made the military a middle class career or at least a decent internship.

I remember a particular liberal girl in college complaining that we spend too much on defense and it was easy with headlines of $500 toilet seats, but the largest single expenditure in the military is for salaries. She’d rather have seen the money spent to cure age-old societal ills. By cutting defense you either cut the pay of people serving to give money to people who don’t serve, or you decrease the number of people. We chose the latter in the 1990s and it has resulted in a current war of reservists and guardsmen. I did a story on a manager at work that spent 10 months in Kuwait during the current war. He’s been in the reserves for 18 years having been deployed for the first Gulf War, Bosnia before this one. He’s got four kids and good job and was hoping to transfer to an outfit in Georgia where he could spend the rest of his service training others. Instead, he was called back to duty in September. He’s a supplies guy and hasn’t been put into the line of fire, but he does get tired of being called up so many times. But he also told me that his military service made him grow up and he’s become a better man for it, much like Gere in the movie.

While a draft would have made me grow up quicker and would probably do the same to today’s kids, it’s inefficient. The Army spent who knows how many thousands sending Dad to basic and MP training and would have spent even more had he took their offer to go to Officer Candidate School. Despite the expensive training, the Army only got two years service out of Dad before he was gone. After two years of living near poverty in a foreign country there was very little reason for him to consider re-enlisting. So the government first had to force him at the point of a gun to join and then they lost him about the time he was becoming most valuable.

It’s Democrats that want a draft or the fear of one. The fear might be enough to put John Kerry in the White House, but an actual draft helps them even more. The suspension of college deferments during the Vietnam draft led to the anti-war movement. When Nixon ended the draft in the early 1970s the anti-war rallies dwindled to a few socialists and hippies and the occasional political opportunist like John Kerry. A new draft would make it impossible to fight any kind of offensive war because no President could take such a political chance. Look at how easy it would have been for Bush to coast to re-election this time by ignoring Iraq and patting himself on the back for our actions in Afghanistan. Taking the offensive has given him a political fight. Had his actions resulted in a draft, he wouldn’t stand a chance in this race.

A new draft would all but ensure that future wars will be fought strictly on the defensive. No Republican neo-con would want that. They’d rather have the best force that money can buy. The more we spend on the military the less likely we’ll ever have a draft which would suit most people just fine. The Democrats are the only ones who benefit from the draft and the only ones likely to impose one in the future. They’d love to have their hands tied because of negative public opinion associated with sending random 18 year olds into battle.

WHY FLU VACCINE SHORTAGE?

From the Weekly Standard. . .

In 1967 there were 26 companies making vaccines in the United States. Today there are only four that make any type of vaccine and none making flu vaccine. Wyeth was the last to fall, dropping flu shots after 2002. For recently emerging illnesses such as Lyme disease, there is no commercial vaccine, even though one has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

All this is the result of a legal concept called "liability without fault" that emerged from the hothouse atmosphere of the law schools in the 1960s and became the law of the land. Under the old "negligence" regime, you had to prove a product manufacturer had done something wrong in order to hold it liable for damages. Under liability without fault, on the other hand, the manufacturer can be held responsible for harm from its products, whether blameworthy or not. Add to that the jackpot awards that come from pain-and-suffering and punitive damages, and you have a legal climate that no manufacturer wants to risk.

In theory, prices might have been jacked up enough to make vaccine production profitable even with the lawsuit risk, but federal intervention made vaccines a low-margin business. Before 1993, manufacturers sold vaccines to doctors, doctors prescribed them to patients, and there was some markup. Then Congress adopted the Vaccine for Children Act, which made the government a monopsony buyer. The feds now purchase over half of all vaccines at a low fixed price and distribute them to doctors. This has essentially finished off the private market.

SWINE FLU EXAMPLE

WHEN AN UNUSUAL EPIDEMIC occurred at Fort Dix, N.J., in 1976, for example, the federal government decided to vaccinate the whole country against the new "swine flu." To the astonishment of Congress, the insurance companies refused to participate. Senator Ted Kennedy charged "cupidity" and "lack of social obligation." The Congressional Budget Office predicted that with 45 million Americans inoculated, there would be 4,500 injury claims and 90 damage awards, totaling $2 million. Congress decided to provide the insurance.

As Peter Huber recounts in his book Liability, the CBO's first estimate proved uncannily accurate. A total of 4,169 damage claims were filed. However, not 90 but more than 700 suits were successful and the total bill to Congress came to over $100 million, 50 times what the CBO had predicted. The insurance companies knew their business well.

JUNK SCIENCE

Adding to the problem are the predictable panics about vaccines that spread among parents and are abetted by trial lawyers. In 1974, a British researcher published a paper claiming that the vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough) had caused seizures in 36 children, leading to 22 cases of epilepsy or mental retardation. Subsequent studies proved the claim to be false, but in the meantime Japan canceled inoculations, resulting in 113 preventable whooping cough deaths. In the United States, 800 pertussis vaccine lawsuits asking $21 million in damages were filed over the next decade. The cost of a vaccination went from 21 cents to $11.

Every American drug company dropped pertussis vaccine except Lederle Laboratories. In 1980, Lederle lost a liability suit for the paralysis of a three-month-old infant--even though there was almost no evidence implicating the vaccine. Lederle's damages were $1.1 million, more than half its gross revenues from sale of the vaccine for that entire year.

THE RESULTS

All this has made the flu an epidemic waiting to happen. Each year flu viruses circle the globe, moving into Asia in the spring and summer and back to North America in the winter. Surface proteins change along the way so that the previous year's vaccine doesn't work against the following year's variation.

Each year in February, the Centers for Disease Control meets with the vaccine-makers--all two of them--and decides which strain of the virus to anticipate for next year. Then they both make the same vaccine. Last year the committee bet on the Panama strain, but a rogue "Fujian" strain suddenly emerged as a surprise invader. A mini-epidemic resulted and 93 children died, only two of them properly vaccinated.

With several companies competing in the field, as was once the case, somebody would have been more likely to produce a dark horse vaccine. If that rogue strain emerged, the dissenting company would hit the jackpot, and there would be ample supplies of an effective vaccine, at least for those most at risk. In the "planned economy" of the CDC, however, there is no back-up for an unexpected turn of events. This year there isn't even a front line.

The market is greedy and heartless and all the rest, but it somehow saves lives in a way trial lawyers and government regulations do not.

WHERE DO I VOTE, AGAIN?

Court rules in Ohio.

A federal appeals court ruled Saturday that provisional ballots Ohio voters cast outside their own precincts should not be counted, throwing out a lower-court decision that said such ballots are valid as long as they are cast in the correct county.

The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supports an order issued by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Democrats contend the Republican official's rules are too restrictive and allege they are intended to suppress the vote.

READ: Democrats fear that they have a disproportionate amount of stupid voters.

SINCLAIR IS STOPPED

But the WSJ says that the liberal media should be worried that the methods used to stop them will someday be used against them.

What's astonishing here is that this legal-political double team has gone on with barely a whimper of protest from the rest of the media. In fact, it is being celebrated as a defeat for all of those right-wing scoundrels who support President Bush. We understand that most of the press corps is liberal and desperately wants Mr. Kerry to win. Editors and producers may let that distort their coverage, but they usually aren't so blinded by partisanship that they can't see their own self-interest.

Now that this trial lawyer-government precedent has been set, who's to stop it if it next turns, as eventually it will, on the New York Times, or CBS? One of the most important protections that a free press has is independent corporate ownership, but what if the Nixon Administration had unleashed its lawyer friends and government pension funds on the Times Company when it was publishing the Pentagon Papers, or the Washington Post when it was digging into Watergate? If the standard now is that stirring controversy is a fraud against shareholders because it may cost ad revenue, a lot more media owners than Sinclair are going to become political targets.

THE CANDIDATE'S IQ

Steve Sailer writes a really interesting in-depth piece on IQ comparisons of the two candidates based on SAT scores and the tests each man took in Officer's school.

On this tenth anniversary of the publication of the much-denounced The Bell Curve, it's amusing to reflect on one of the enduring ironies of American political life. Liberals tend to believe two things about IQ:

First, that IQ is a meaningless, utterly discredited concept.

Second, that liberals are better than conservatives because they have much higher IQs.

Thus back in May, hundreds of liberal websites, and even the prestigious Economist magazine, fell for a hoax claiming to show that states that voted for Al Gore in 2000 have higher average IQs—by as much as an incredible 28 points—than states that voted for George W. Bush.

(In reality, no such data exist. But, for what it's worth, Bush and Gore voters were identical in educational level, and the states they won were almost dead even in 8th grade achievement test scores.)

This is just the teaser. The body of the article examines the data.