A bloggish smorgasboard for your political and nerdy appetite.

Mary Katharine Ham of the Weekly Standard wrote that one poll, post-”Joe the Plumber,” has McCain within a point of Obama.  (Here.)  This poll, unlike others, includes cell-phone only households.  Traditionally, pollsters have assumed that those people would lean Democrat or would mirror landline households; however, this poll seems to indicate otherwise.  This blogger’s theory: cell-only users may be more into the internet, and, in this election season in particular, the news that is available via the mainstream media is far different than what is found on the interwebs.

Speaking of the election and polling: the SF Gate has an article about the energy and excitement that Sarah Palin generates (here), and Michelle Malkin links to news articles - ignored by the larger media outlets - about record turnout at Palin rallies in Colorado (here).  Then again, it’s not a surprise that the media - a media which writes negatively about McCain roughly 75% of the time, but laudes Obama - would not want to advertise this.

As previously blogged, McCain pays his female staffers more, on the average, than his male staffers; Obama, however, pays women $0.83 for every dollar earned by men.  Obama’s defence when Palin brings this up at rallies?

The Democratic senator’s campaign said Palin was distorting a study that showed that McCain “has more women in senior, higher-paid positions - not that women are being paid less than men for the same job.” Obama has fewer senior staffers because he is a first-term senator.

Please, Senator Obama, do you need to advance the stereotype that people go to law school because they can’t do math?  When you’re talking about averages, the absolute number of data points is irrelevant (unless that number is so small as to increase the margin of error beyond the significance of the findings).  The issue is the relative distribution, not the absolute number, of men and women in those positions.

If Obama’s defence is that his senior positions are filled with men, but McCain manages gender parity (or better) among his top staffers, then that brings up another issue: why Obama hasn’t hired qualified women to fill his senior staffing roles.   As Obama has fewer senior roles to fill, he has an easier, not harder, time achieving gender parity, as he needs fewer top-notch women.

Nice try, Senator.  Now go and find some qualified women to help you in your journey to the top, which has lead you to throw Alice Palmer, Hillary Clinton, and now Sarah Palin under the bus.