Good For Sarah Silverman!

Last night, Sarah Silverman -- who had campaigned for Bernie -- interrupted a bit she was doing with Al Franken, long in the tank for Hillary, a bit about party unity, about coming together. She interrupted that bit to talk directly to the booing, heckling Sanders delegates; she said, "You're being ridiculous!" And she got a great big cheer for that.

Sarah is so awesome in so many ways. She was right. Of course she was right. The awesome part is that she said it right to their faces from the Convention stage. The Sanders die-hards were being ridiculous, and they probably still are being ridiculous at this very minute, and I'm quite sure, unfortunately, that they will be very ridiculous at the Convention tonight. I wish more Democrats would speak up like Sarah, instead of continuing to do everything they can to appease Bernie's diehards in the hope that they will eventually come around -- when?

And Bernie. Yes, he endorsed Hillary again last night -- sort of -- but he began his speech by reminding his delegates that they could vote for him tonight, Tuesday night. He's endorsing Hillary but he still hasn't conceded. That's not rational. Thank God this egotistical, low-information demagogue will never be President.

Bernie is being ridiculous. The ridiculous fish which is -- is, God help us all! Not was! Is! -- his campaign stinks from the head. The irrationality, inconsistency, petulance of the diehards, all come directly from Bernie.

The great majority of the people who voted for him in the primaries are better than he is. They moved on and started supporting Hillary a long time ago. Bernie is going to insist on a roll call tonight, when the delegates officially elect the nominee for President. Ordinarily, in a situation like this, when the candidates supposedly have come together and the also-rans supposedly are behind the winner, someone in Bernie's situation would have officially dropped out and would call for nomination by acclamation. For the sake of party unity. For the sake of the best possible result in November. But Bernie isn't doing that. He's not quite irrational enough to think he still might be elected, but he's too egotistical to really get behind anybody else politically. Little wonder he was in a so-called Socialist party of one for so long.

And, of course, Bernie's ego is feeding into the irrationality of his die-hards who still think he can be elected. And a lot of those die-hards will be voting for him at the Convention tonight, and screaming about how they were robbed when Hillary wins. Bernie keeps this craziness going. He says his number-one priority is defeating Trump, but that's obvious nonsense. His number-one priority is always Bernie, Bernie, hooray for Bernie! His die-hards didn't just suddenly appear out of nowhere, heckling the rest of the world and constantly screaming that they're being cheated, for no reason, with nothing having caused them.

You think the die-hards are going to come around as long as everybody keeps acting as if they were making perfect sense? You think that if Bernie makes a speech the week before Election Day which is supposed to be a campaign speech for Hillary and other Democrats, he's going to deliver a speech which isn't almost all about himself? If so, I don't know what world you've been paying attention to.

Some talking head last night asked how long the patience of Hillary's supporters will last in the face of the infantile behavior of the die-hard Sanders supporters. Obviously, my own patience with them ran out a long time ago, right away, as soon as I saw and heard them.

Supposedly, we're more rational, more fact-based than the GOP. So let's be that way. Let's not be so accommodating to irrationality and tantrums from within our ranks. Let's tell people when they're being ridiculous.

Bernie -- you're being ridiculous! You've been ridiculous for decades!

Let's have some standards.

...and maybe 400

At ElectoralVote.com they have a Rasmussen-free electoral-vote map which shows 332 electoral votes going for Obama and 206 for Romney. But they consider only 138 of those electoral votes to be "solidly" for Romney. Six states are only pink instead of red, and a seventh, North Cackalacky Its Dangself, is only outlined in pink. Seven states where Romney's lead is less than lead-pipe-cinch certain. If Obama takes all the blue states on that map plus those seven he will have a nice round 400 electoral votes. In my opinion Missouri and and Arizona should be pink too, so make it 421.

What? All the "experts" are doing this all the time, except in the opposite direction, talking about how Romney could win if he won in all the red and pinks state plus every state that isn't dark blue. All except for Nate Silver at the New Times' 538.com. Everybody calls him a genius. But none of the other pundits seem to listen to him, let alone benefit from his good sense. Nope. It's just Nate and me, all alone in a sea of rubes.

Will 421 be enough for all of you people out there to stand up to those of your friends, families and neighbors who have embraced the bagger/birther/everything's-Obama-fault horseshit, and firmly tell them that they are stupid and that enough's enough and it's time for them to listen to the grownups and the brighter ones among the children? Would 421 give you balls enough to talk sense right out in public?

It's not enough for Obama to win. They have to really, really lose, once and for all.

350+

Is how many electoral votes Obama will take on November 6. Take that to the bank. Bet the farm.

There seem to be very few "experts" on the subject who can see that Obama is way ahead of Romney.

Okay, for one thing, is it really so hard to see that nationwide polls are completely useless in predicting an election which will be decided by electoral vote? These news stories claiming that the race is close keep pointing to nationwide polls and ignoring state-by-state polls. That kind of story defines the term "useless" about as well as anything I can think of. Not one electoral-vote projection based on current polling shows Romney ahead -- Huffington Post's Speculatron electoral-vote map is based on what Speculatron Boy has pulled out of his butt -- and some show Obama with as many as 332 electoral votes. The latter seem like the most sensible projections to me. I think there's widespread bias and/or incompetence among the "experts" who are calling this thing close.

Romney didn't get a bounce from the RNC convention. This doesn't surprise me. I know, my claim of not having anticipated a bump would have been much more impressive if I had posted it before the Republican convention. It seems to have surprised a lot of "experts," but don't expect a lot of articles and editorials with headlines like "OK, WE'RE IDIOTS!" Idiots can't admit to themselves that they're idiots. This is one of the reasons they stay idiots.

The "experts" predicted small post-convention bumps for both Romney and Obama. I'm predicting a big bump for Obama, big enough that the projection of 332 electoral votes will have to be adjusted upward. Maybe much higher.

And I predict that after Obama's big post-convention bump, the "experts" will continue to find a way to claim that this thing is close. I predict that they will predict that the bump will melt away quickly. I predict it won't.

Why are the predictions of the "experts" so far off, and why will they continue to be? I don't know. Straight-up stupidity, maybe. Maybe they don't care whether people will look at their performance as prognosticators when considering in the future to hire them.

Maybe there's some grand conspiracy here which would be easier for me to see if I were neurologically-typical. Anyway, what I'm predicting is that enough voters will be able to see the difference between a highly-intelligent centrist powerfully motivated to do the country good, and a pathological liar who chose another pathological liar as his running mate, and the difference between a campaign based on good ideas and one based on lies and irrational fear, to make this thing lopsided. Maybe more like 380 than 350.