A bunch of you have told me that I should stop making fun of Megan McArdle, that she’s beneath me and not worth it, but come on, this is too good not to pass along (via).
Suspect that there’s a non-zero chance that Romney’s 47% remark turns out to be quite popular with swing voters.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) September 19, 2012
maurinsky
I suppose it could be less than than zero percent popular with swing voters, which is a non-zero number.
Chris
*snort.
She thinks conservative voters are “swing voters.” That’s good.
jayjaybear
Do not eat the pink salt! We’re told that the pink salt is bad!
jlow
I think it’s more likely to be partial zero. (Tangentally- I don’t think I could ever buy a car that claims to have “partial zero emissions”.
ding dong
Megans daddy should have sent her to kumon fòr math tutoring.
MattF
This is really one of those alternate-universe things. How can any biological entity with a sensory apparatus and a non-zero percent of functioning neurons reach that conclusion?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
The Impact of the “47 Percent”
What is McCardle saying? That it won’t have much of effect or that whatever effect it does have will be small?
Hunter Gathers
McArdle will be the first to claim a Romney Debate Victory when he blows a circuit in the first 15 minutes of the first debate when he gets asked about that video. And it will be the very first question asked.
SatanicPanic
“It’s possible not everyone will hate them!” is an endorsement if I’ve ever heard one
Sad_Dem
I’d do her gig if the Kochs offered me the non-zero amount of money they pay her.
Omnes Omnibus
Pure title wine. “Calling Mr. Oswald…”
Tractarian
I laughed so hard at this I think I contracted gastritis.
You’ll have to forgive Megan, her calculator doesn’t have a zero, only a non-zero.
Mike G
Shades of Darth Cheney’s morally-bankrupt “One Percent Solution”.
The talking points have been handed down from Koch Propaganda Central, and Megan dutifully pumps it into the national discourse.
This is part of the “Romney comeback!” meme coming soon to a corporate media outlet near you.
This is no more notable than a worker at the sewage plant pulling a lever to open a spillway.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Hunter Gathers:
No, Jen Rubin will be the first.
PeakVT
There’s a non-zero chance in the mirror universe, where all swing voters are upper-class libertarians. Here, not so much.
Violet
There is a non-zero chance that McMegan is an entitled, government-money-reared, taking nitwit.
Chyron HR
Sure, people claim that they find Mitt’s rant about crushing the 47% cockroaches to be “disgusting” and “unpresidential”, but the Unskewed Opinions site says that swing voters LOVE this stuff! Suck on that, libs!
NorthLeft12
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: I’m with you Rusty. WTH is she actually trying to say?
I speak Canadian, so I am at a distinct disadvantage here.
azlib
Yes, and there is a non-zero chance I will be hit by a meteor in my living room. Why is this person employed doing what she does?
different-church-lady
At a certain point one has to assume that when a person repeatedly puts on an orange fright wig, a red nose, large bulbous shoes, and clown makeup, said person wants to be laughed at.
Jay C
I suppose that a figure of 0.00001% (which by my estimate of the size of the US electorate should come out to about 140 people in total) is “non-zero”, in which case McArdle would be correct.
However, in terms of actual relevance to the upcoming election, its net effect would probably be at about the usual level accorded Megan McArdle’s punditry: of which “zero” is a useful working metric…
shortstop
Yes, this had to be mocked vigorously — no question about it and no need to apologize.
Villago Delenda Est
Too fucking stupid to live.
Violet
Does McMegan’s calculator have a special button for non-zero? Probably.
different-church-lady
Question: what is an order of magnitude off from “less than zero?”
Whatever it is, I’m sure that’s the amount she really meant.
Chris
http://shameproject.com/profile/megan-mcardle/
Forum Transmitted Disease
I love a woman who does what she’s told, with no fucking backtalk.
Must be an extraordinary experience being one of the Koch brothers, owning actual slaves like this.
John O
More than zero!
Good news for Mitt!
What a moron.
tony in san diego
The way this woman talks! She crab walks around her point in a weird passive-aggressive way. She means to say that the 47% sound bite will resound with people who don’t hate Romney yet (and that that is a good thing), but she can’t bring herself to make a positive assertion.
Her essay writing is just as nail-scratching.
Villago Delenda Est
@azlib:
Because the Koch Brothers are paying handsomely to rent whatever venue she’s soiling with her cretinous stupid.
Joseph Nobles
I@different-church-lady: I was going to say no clown-shaming, but this website would dry up and die – myself along with it.
Corey
I dunno, I seriously think she’s right. Have you ever met a “swing voter”? They’re mostly animated by hatreds of other people and racial animus, and “47%” gives them the opportunity to hate on all the “lazy” people they know as well as the Welfare Queens.
Steeplejack
Those crucial swing voters still have questions.
Violet
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
She’s no wildcat let out of her cage. She knows her place.
Corey
My “swing voter” family thinks Mitt is right on, for instance (these are the same people who complain about “urban youths” sagging their pants and their friend of a cousin of a friend who “lives off disability” and drives a BMW)
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR:
McArglebargle is quite the duckspeaker, is she not?
Violet
Saved by Zero
DPS
As long as people keep hiring her and lending her credibility, she’s worth mocking.
Tonybrown74
I’m with you, Doug.
If they are going to give me material, I am going to make the dress.
PaulW
Ah, yes, Ms. McArdle, this 47 percent statement was really popular with swing voters. So much so that OBAMA is getting more swing voters with each passing day since this story broke.
BTW, non-zero is a double negative. Churchill would not approve.
penpen
@Corey: Ah yes, I know of these swing voters. One election they vote for the compassionate conservative. The next they swing to voting for the tough on terror candidate. The next they swing to voting for the maverick. Finally they swing to voting for full on teabaggers.
Cargo
If someone is animated by racial animus and hatred of the ‘lazy’, and goes off about welfare / disability cheats and “”urban” “youths”” they’re not swing voters, they’re wingnuts. They were already voting for Rmoney.
Joel
Us west coasters come on board with like 5 posts already up for the day.
Anyways, this is from mistermix’s Sam Wang linkage:
My favorite thing from Wang, yet.
Hill Dweller
OT: Benen, in a blog post otherwise ridiculing Willard, points out Dubya has a 46% approval rating in a new Bloomberg poll.
How does Dubya, who had what was easily one of the five worst presidencies in history, have a 46% approval rating?
eric
Equally true: there is a non-zero chance that unemployment goes to 6% by the election, but it is such an insignificant percentage that rounding would put it at 0%. Same is true for McMuffin’s observation
LanceThruster
Non-zero electorate, is non-zero plussed.
Corey
@penpen: Like I said, have you ever met a “swing voter”? They’re politically ignorant, typically have no serious principles, and are easily swayed by appeals that make them sound like ubermenschen. Do you think any white “swing voter” hears Mitt’s 47% comments and identifies themselves as part of that group? No one’s going to consult their tax returns then say, wow, he was talking about me. No, they hear “47%” and think “black people” (people are wildly inaccurate about what percentage of the population minorities make up).
Maude
Popular and Romney do not belong in the same sentence.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Violet: One of my all time favorite songs by one of the best bands ever. And so appropriate!
Violet
@Hill Dweller:
Because he looks good compared to Romney.
Rafer Janders
@Corey:
In a word, they vote Republican.
Hill Dweller
@Corey: I’ve run into people like that. The thing that always seems to work is pointing out who is in the 47%, and explaining that they still pay lots of other taxes. If that fails, ask them if they think military personnel in a combat zone are victims.
different-church-lady
@Hill Dweller: 46% approval rating among conservatives is what I read.
I’ll be right back with confirmation of that after I once again prove that Google has some kind of grudge against me…
LD50
If the swing voters love Mitt’s 47% speech so much, why isn’t Mitt storming around Ohio and Florida repeating it at top volume, promising people he’ll take away their food, shelter and medical care?
Yes, yes, I know, Megan will spend the first month or two after the election saying that would have fixed everything.
Citizen_X
There’s a non-zero chance that Angelina Jolie will walk up to me today, hand me a $20 million check, and declare her undying love. But I’m not betting on that happening, either.
different-church-lady
@Citizen_X:
I’m pretty sure your math is off on that.
Violet
@Corey:
I agree in general about your statement, that poorly informed white voters will generally think of non-whites as the moochers. However, Mitt’s 47% statement is so broad that it’s affecting people in a different way. People think of minorities as a smaller percentage of the population than 47%, because that’s damn near close to half and that’s far too scary for scared white people to contemplate (even if it’s true or going to be true). Therefore, when Mitt says 47% is kind of has to be including some white people.
If Mitt had said 30% or less, I think the comment would have worked for him, as egregious as it is. But he went too high with 47%. At that level people start looking around and thinking, “Wait…is he talking about me or my family?”
bobbo
She puts the “closure” in “epistemic closure.”
Greg
@Hill Dweller:
I approve of almost everything that Dubya has done in the last four years. I.e. acted embarrassed, and gone the fuck away…
LD50
@Hill Dweller: Since the election is imminent, everyone who’s decided to vote for Romney feels obliged to say they approve of Bush 2.
It’s for the same reason that 15% said that Romney deserved the credit for the Bin Laden kill.
Corey
@Cargo: These people voted Obama in 2008, and Clinton in 1992 and 1996.
They are absolutely “swing voters”.
shortstop
@Joel: I enjoy his cranky-old-geezer-in-a-young-man’s-body routine.
different-church-lady
@Hill Dweller: @different-church-lady: Nope, I got it wrong: 46% among general population. [shakes head]
LD50
@Corey: ah, but if they’re that easily swayed by a one-off speech from last May, they’ll be just as easily swayed by a couple dozen other breezes that will blow through in the next 5 weeks. No net gain.
beltane
@Hill Dweller: Bush exudes warmth, wit, and charisma compared to Mitt Romney. Maybe Romney’s whole campaign was not intended to elect him president but to rehabilitate the Bush name so Jeb could run in 2016.
Scott de B.
“I suspect there is a non-zero chance” is a good candidate for a meme.
I suspect there is a non-zero chance that Kristen Bell will be waiting for me naked in my bedroom when I get home from work.
Comrade Jake
McMegan’s twitter feed really is something to behold. Most political writers comment daily on politics in their feed. Megan, meanwhile, talks about lost dogs and brussel sprouts. I’m not kidding.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Hill Dweller: Nostalgia. I must admit that Bush was a far better campaigner, seems human instead of android, seems to be far less of an asshole, and had a hell of a lot more on the ball WRT governance than Romney has turned out to.
Dennis SGMM
It is a source of pride for me that technology has advanced to the point where a moon-faced cow like McArdle can instantaneously make a fool of herself with 144 characters or less.
reflectionephemeral
@Omnes Omnibus: I gather that’s “pure title win”? Agreed. Everything she says means less than zero.
different-church-lady
@Comrade Jake:
Think about it for a second: it’s McArdle, and you’re saying this like it’s a bad thing.
beltane
@Comrade Jake: Given her skill set, lost dogs and brussels sprouts are more appropriate topics for McMegan to discuss than are politics and economics.
penpen
@Corey: Oh I hear you. I’m just curious how people that talk like that would ever find themselves swinging to the Democratic side. I guess maybe they could feel good voting for Dems after welfare reform.
PaulW
Swing voters = those who dance to 1940s big band music.
Nemo_N
Also too, running against Bain is disgusting and too political, everyone will hate Obama for it.
Corey
@penpen: Because swing voters have no consistent principles, and vote on “gut” and “common sense”. Right now “common sense” says lazy welfare queens are getting high off the hog from Massa Obama’s largesse while the white man toils unappreciated. In 2008 “common sense” said “folks are hurting, and we should give someone else a chance”.
I can’t find it, but at some point in 2004 Chris Hayes wrote a long piece about canvassing swing voters in Ohio, where he really does a good job of explaining this dynamic. Swing voters have no consistent principles, don’t know what issues are “political” and which aren’t (many seemed to accept the outcomes of a policy process to be as inevitable as, say, the weather), and are very easily swayed by emotional appeals.
Dennis SGMM
@PaulW:
Also those who are too busy watching reality shows to pay attention to anything else.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady:
Hey, it could happen!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Greg: I’ll say this, and never thought I would as the man destroyed American democracy. I don’t think that was his specific intent, but it WAS the intent of those he chose to surround himself with, and he seemed OK with the results. For that, he cannot and should not be forgiven by the nation.
That being said, the way his party has treated him is unconscionable. He did everything they wanted. That it all blew up and fell down is not, strictly speaking, his fault, but the fault of the voters who put him in office expecting and wanting him to do things that would destroy democracy and the fabric of the nation. The people who voted for him got exactly what they wanted.
He got, in return, nothing but scorn and banishment for his efforts. Seems a pretty cruel way to treat somebody who gave you everything you asked for.
I do not think that GOP Republican aspirants have thought through some of the very negative consequences that winning the presidency could have on their post-presidential lives and legacies.
The GOP. Party of ingratitude.
Publius39
She has to be high as hell to say something that tone-deaf and idiotic.
Eric U.
Pennsylvania used to have a grossly unfair tax based on your job title. Some people that made a lot of money paid nothing because their job title wasn’t on the list. The local government zeroed out the tax because they couldn’t get rid of it — that was a state function. The local school board sued, asserting that zero wasn’t a number.
jibeaux
You know, there are people all over this country doing actual useful work unrelated to politics, economics, or math, who could, in their spare, unpaid time, generate better analysis and commentary than that. It is a much bigger non-zero number of people, too.
Bob2
@beltane:
Pretty sure her cooking segments and statements about food and food technology have discredited her on brussels sprouts by this point.
See: blenderella, how to make poisonous countertops, how to make cheese on rice, how she used to be vegetarian but did it wrong, hilariously wrong video cooking segments, etc.
Also pretty sure she couldn’t find a lost dog.
Chyron HR
@Corey:
If they heard it from Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum, sure. But one of the things that makes Mitt such a great candidate (to run against) is that he makes you absolutely believe that he holds poor/working class white people in contempt, too.
AA+ Bonds
I wish she’d die
Michael
Sam Wang, Nate Silver, the RAND American Life panel, and a massive year-long study of undecided voter behavior ALL disagree with Corey’s assessment.
But, we should realky worry because…anecdotes and an article he read in 2004. I, for one, am concerned.
Paul in KY
How about .02%. That’s a ‘non zero’ number.
She really went out on a limb there.
I think you must be getting to her, Doug.
El Cid
Swing voters may see a non-zero reaction positively to the “47%” comments, but what about flappers? Toddie voters? Charleston voters?
Sentient Puddle
As far as appropriate musical choices go, I would have gone with Elvis Costello.
Anoniminous
But is that a non-negative zero or a non-positive zero?
Computer architects need to know.
scav
That “suspect” bit just makes me think of Colbert’s from the gut based reasoning. And how old is that and still ticking over? O help this is funny.
Tone in DC
@Dennis SGMM:
LULz.
How about a columnist at The Atlantic that actually has functioning neurons? Just sayin’.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@AA+ Bonds: That outcome is assured, my friend. Be patient.
LD50
I suspect Megan is also pretending that “swing voter” = “independent voter”, which has been proven to be nonsense. Polls this year have shown that most “independents” now are Republicans who don’t want to be called Republicans.
Sort of an old white people’s answer to ‘Libertarian’.
rumpole
Uh, I never said stop making fun of her.
Legalize
I’m in the camp that believes that McMegan needs to be vigorously mocked whenever appropriate, i.e. always. This thing clearly satisfies that standard.
Betsy
@Bob2: oh please, linky please
Comrade Jake
How the heck she has 10k+ followers is beyond me. I’d think after the thirtieth post on slow-cooker goulash most people would elect to unfollow.
Cargo
“swing voter” = Republican but embarrassed about it
“independent” = Republican but embarrassed about it
“voted for Clinton, Rs ever since” = Republican but embarrassed about it
“hate politics” = Republican but embarrassed about it
“socially liberal, fiscally conservative” = Republican but embarrassed about it
“b-b-but the deficit” = Republican but embarrassed about it
“I hate both parties” = Republican but embarrassed about it
1badbaba3
Perhaps she is Oswald’s sister. At any rate, brainy women like her give me serious wood. I’m sure DougJ can relate.
Comrade Javamanphil
@NorthLeft12: Whatever you want it to. She’s a master of weasel words and ambiguity so she can always deride her critics for not interpreting her correctly. Nice gig, if you can get it.
Just One More Canuck
@Villago Delenda Est: reminds me of the line from Ruthless People: “This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.”
Shawn in ShowMe
McMegan may be fan of Romney but I doubt Romney is a fan of hers. For one, she’s not the right height.
Aldorossi
You guys must be way smarter then I am, because I’ve read that a non-zero number of times and I cannot for the life of me figure out what the frag she’s trying to say.
AA+ Bonds
I fully wish to disambiguate my views from those of most of her other critics when I state my serious desire that she would roll her misbegotten carcass under a bus
hueyplong
Megan should teach us a lesson by making sure each one of her columns between now and November 6 is about the winning message shared in the 47% video.
Each column should include a link to the actual video so as best to claim all the advantages of the non-zero chance that swing voters will be charmed thereby and virtually compelled to cast a proud vote for Mitt.
But only if Megan has the courage of her convictions, and isn’t some kind of weak-kneed RINO for whom Ayn Rand would have shown nothing but contempt.
kindness
Megan…..oh my…. We could point and laugh but then there’s Jen Rubin and the whole Fox victims unit and it goes on and on. And these are the ‘reasonable’ crazies as was pointed out earlier.
If Buckley was alive today what would he say? I mean, I know he was the secret (openly secret) racist of the thinking conservatives but you’d have to think the intellect of those on his side doing the lifting would cause him to comment. What would he have said?
wasabi gasp
Huh…wut?
SRW1
OMG, she has figured out the scientific notation button on her calculator and has discovered that there must be something to the right of those five zeros!
Amusing Alias
I am surprised that there is not more discussion today about John Sununu’s remark’s yesterday. He said, “Look, an administration as a whole is responsible for what happens on its watch, unless he wants to tell us that the buck doesn’t stop there.”
He is making Bush responsible for 9/11 and Reagan responsible for the 241 American deaths in the Marine barracks attack in Lebanon in 1983.
This is something I’ve never even heard implied by a Republican, but Sununu went there. Wow!
different-church-lady
@El Cid:
Hang on, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a slide rule around here somewhere…
Drew
Memify it!
“Suspect there’s a non-zero chance that Paul Ryan will single-handedly cure cancer, defeat Iran, run a sub-2 hour marathon, and erase the deficit before the election.”
different-church-lady
@Cargo: Republican = Republican but embarrassed about it
different-church-lady
@SRW1:
When she sees “E4” come up on the display, she probably thinks it’s the margin of error.
Randy P
Intellectually I know that the first “Annie” on Broadway was ANDREA McArdle. But every time I hear Megan’s name, my brain starts playing “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow” which I loathe, and then I lose all focus on whatever the person was quoting from her.
So what were you saying? Oh yes. Perhaps she is merely a highly trained mathematician and she is making a rigorous mathematical statement. It is also true that there is a non-zero probability that all the air molecules in the room will be on the left half and you’ll suffocate. You can calculate it and it isn’t zero. That doesn’t mean you should worry about it.
Jebediah
@Scott de B.:
I don’t normally check my bedroom first thing when I get home, but from now on I will.
LD50
@Cargo: how you can forget this is beyond me:
Libertarian = Republican but embarrassed about it
Hungry Joe
You mean “swing voters” doesn’t refer to those couples in “The Ice Storm”? Now I have to re-think everything …
James E. Powell
@Hill Dweller:
How does Dubya, who had what was easily one of the five worst presidencies in history, have a 46% approval rating?
Because the people who supported him will never admit that they were morons for doing so.
LanceThruster
@James E. Powell:
It even bugs me that St. Ronnie, who did a lot of damage to the country long term as well as in the short run, still gets to bask in the glow of the gauze covered lens of history that he’s viewed in.
It’s bad enough he gets capital ships named after him, and airports, and such, let alone that demented loons still talk about carving his face on Rushmore.
I still get the dreamy stares from Reich Wing Kool-Aid drinkers when they explain, “He made us feel good about America again.”
R-tards.
John PM
What the f*ck does that statement even mean? Seriously, I read it four times and I don’t know what she is trying to say…
Chuck Butcher
I think what the 47% remark has done is to freeze a portion of leaning voters. Undecideds, like Independents, are pretty much emabarrassed to admit a Party affilliation even though they lean toward one or the other. Undecideds are not the same group as the “Won’t Vote” crowd who figure it doesn’t matter – they’re the “I Should Vote” but they don’t want to be “One Of Those.” Despite inattention they do absorb some info and lean but they just don’t want to admit it.
I don’t think the 47% thing was a nuke to r-Money, I think it was a final freeze point to a dropping temperature. The ones who won’t admit where they want to go still need to either not be further alienated or given a gentle push to seal the deal. I know it is a lot of fun to “Undecided = Emabarrassed GOPer” but if it were true there wouldn’t have been any Dem Prez or many Sen or House members.
There are some damn good reasons why the percentage of Undecideds is so small this election – a lot of freezing has been done for more reasons than space allows. I won’t bet anything I care about, but if Obama doesn’t step on a landmine I’d call the current Undecideds an even split at election or slightly r-Money. (challenger/under-dog)
PeakVT
@John PM: She’s trying to say, in a pseudo-intellectual glibertarian sort of way, that the 47% tape isn’t as bad as Dems think it is. That’s different from the message that she’s sending (again), which is: I’m a utterly shameless hack.
low-tech cyclist
I knew McMegan wasn’t the brightest tool in the shed, but this opens up whole new dimensions of dumb that I hadn’t previously attributed to her.
Downpuppy
@Comrade Jake: Her followers are bloggers looking for stuff to mock. DougJ, Tom Levenson, Susan of Texas, me – and a few hundred Juce Box mafioso.
elftx
I had a hard time learning negative numbers too.
Jamey
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: I have never seen the two together, so I will need actual proof that they’re not the same person.
opie jeanne
I dropped a comment on one of her essays yesterday and then never went back to see what everyone else said.
It was a reference to a strange little study that pretended that Social Security was responsible for the dropping birth rate throughout the latter half of the 20th Century. I pointed out that the dropping birth rate had a lot to do with improved infant mortality rates and with not having to have 10 children so that at least 8 could survive to support you in your old age, and did we really want to go back to that time.
Spaghetti Lee
For what it’s worth, I’ve met a lot of “don’t care about politics/don’t have a party” people who would likely be Democrats if they did give a damn. People who are really on the far right don’t bother hiding it, because they assume everybody thinks like them and generally have less shame than the average person. Maybe I’m just weird, but I know very, very few people who conform to the “Say I’m independent but I’m really a hardcore Republican” model. I think they’re concentrated in a few Manhattan and DC-area zip codes.
My Big Theory about politics is that the percentage of people in the country as a whole who actually believe and are willing to fight for the far right is smaller than anyone thinks. If we could mobilize and use all the energy from the large majority (I’m thinking 70-75% of the country here) people who are on the other side, the far right would be blown out of the water. The problem is, a lot of those people not only don’t care about politics, but have a mental block on making themselves care. I would argue that doesn’t make them bad people, just not educated.
Bruce S
McArdle falls into that weird zone of “someone stupid people think a smart person sounds like.”
Bruce S
@Spaghetti Lee:
Festering resentment – most often steeped in aggressive ignorance – is a helluva drug. Seems to be the Viagra for Right-Wing activism. We Libs don’t have anything quite like it…
Unsympathetic
“turns out?”
In McArgleBargle Land, the video hasn’t yet had an effect on anyone’s thought? Seriously?
As the great Ron Burgundy once said, “I’m not even mad: That’s amazing.”
Bruce S
@Spaghetti Lee:
Festering resentment – most often steeped in aggressive ignorance – is a helluva drug. Seems to be the Vi@gra for Right-Wing activism. We Libs don’t have anything quite like it…
Bruce S
@opie jeanne:
Also, shift from “farm families” to agribusiness.
danielx
Is this a variation of a Zen riddle?