Politics & Soccer

US and Iran - common ground

2009-04-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

Interesting intersection of soccer and politics - Iran names an Iranian-American as their national soccer coach. There's also an interview of Afshin Ghotbi conducted before he was named as Iran's coach at the NYTimes Goal blog. Ghotbi has previously coached in both Iran and the United and was an assisant for the US World Cup team in 1998 (which was so bad, maybe Ghotbi was an Iranian mole!).

Whenever US-Iranian relations start to thaw, I think a big part should be a friendly match played between US and Iran. The ideal result would be a tie.

My thoughts on the AIG bonuses

2009-03-20T12:49:00.000-05:00

The yahoos in the AIG Financial Products division who helped destroy the world's financial sector got big bonuses. Here are my thoughts on the mess:

(from here)

We're getting fewer problems by the minute

2009-02-23T17:16:00.000-05:00

My friend Flanders, who delights in the misery of others, sent me this link noting that stock indexes are down to their levels in 1997. That, of course, was the year the Notorious BIG posthumously released the single "Mo Money Mo Problems."

The stock market: creating fewer problems since September 2008!

IEDs in America?

2009-02-12T21:34:00.004-05:00

The prospect of domestic use of Improvised Explosive Devices (roadside bombs as seen in Iraq) in the United States is one of the drums that Michael Tanji keeps beating. Tanji's recent post has spurred me to post something that happened last Friday. I was doing a ride-along (where I ride shotgun with a police officer on patrol) and he said "I bet it's only a matter of time before one of us is hit by an IED. Actually I take that back, these [gentleman] are too stupid to build IEDs, they'd blow themselves up 10 times first." At Tanji's blog he posts a link to this story in which a returning vet has apparently hired out his services building IEDs for whatever criminals would like to purchase one.

One of the aspects of that story strikes me as very likely. Apparently the IED-maker was planning on selling it to criminals to blow up other criminals who owed drug money. I do think that if IEDs are used in America, the first instances will not be against police or in assassination attempts, but will be gang vs. gang violence. In counterinsurgency that would be a good thing (divide & conquer) but in law enforcement homicides are obviously a bad thing. However it means at least police will have warning before they themselves are targeted by an IED.

Also I half posted this just so the month of February doesn't go by without me making a blog post. I've been busy lately and my internet isn't working. Posting will pick up... eventually.

President Obama

2009-01-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama is now President, which is awesome. His job would be hard enough if he didn't have to clean up after one of the worst US Presidents in history. But in addition to cleaning up Bush's mess, the world is changing extremely rapidly, including in the international security realm. Michael Tanji was gracious enough to invite me to contribute to a book he edited and which is now available for purchase. So purchase away! The title is "Threats in the Age of Obama" and it's published by Nimble books. My chapter specifically looks at how a rational person can become involved in terrorism, gang violence, etc. (i.e. it's not all about "the crazy Moozlims" or "thug culture"). Click "read more" to see the book cover.

From Politics & Soccer

Best email I've got from Amazon yet

2009-01-18T12:08:00.003-05:00

Amazon sends me lots of emails that recommend various books based on other books I've bought or rated on Amazon. Here is the best one so far:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated "Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era" by Robert Buzzanco have also purchased "Snuggly Bunny (Little Scholastic)" by Jill Ackerman. For this reason, you might like to know that "Snuggly Bunny (Little Scholastic)" will be released on February 1, 2009. You can pre-order yours by following the link below.

Bail out Detroit

2008-12-04T18:21:00.001-05:00

My thinking on why Congress should bail out Detroit's big 3 auto makers:

1. The consequences of not bailing them out would be disastrous and probably more expensive than a bailout. Normally this would be a disaster that could be managed with unemployment insurance, with new companies expanding to fill the gap and hiring workers, etc. But this isn't a normal time.

2. It will function as a stimulus. Beyond the non-failure of 3 giant companies along with not losing millions of jobs obviously be a good thing, but maybe even the increase in economic security after a bailout would spur consumer spending. People delaying purchases right now because they don't know whether they'll be fired because of an industry collapse might have enough trust to spend money if a bailout comes through. If 10% of US jobs really depend on the auto industry like Michigan Governor Granholm says, then this could actually be a big impact.

3. Chapter 11 bankruptcy doesn't really seem to be an option right now. Reorganization of giant companies require giant amounts of credit. That credit is currently unavailable. So if you let GM and the rest go bankrupt, it looks like they'd just shut down and nothing would replace them.

4. I don't see any reason why American auto makers can't be profitable again if you take away the legacy health care costs (via universal health care) and replace management (untrained monkeys with dart boards would be an increase in decision quality over the current idiots). It's obvious that labor costs themselves aren't the problem - unions are much stronger in Germany than in the US, and VW, BMW and Mercedes are doing fine.

5. There isn't much of a moral hazard problem, especially with CEOs having their pay cut to $1 a year.

6. They deserve it more than Wall St. They make stuff, which is important. Wall Street doesn't make stuff and they are thus less important. This will obviously require some explaning:

Wall Street created imaginary wealth with financial instruments too complicated for anyone to understand (that was the whole point), and when the whole thing blew up they got $700 billion to try to rebuild a fantasy land. The way I understand it, we need financial institutions for two things: lending and speculation. Lending to provide capital to businesses, and speculation to even out prices. But creating financial instruments so complicated that nobody understands what they are based on isn't speculation, because nobody knows what they are betting on. Information, key in any transaction, isn't there. Then you just get a situation where people buy these things because they think other people will buy them in the future, which creates a bubble underlied by something that nobody knows what it is.

This is the reasoning that tells me that most of what got Wall Street into trouble was useless activity in the first place. Creating super-complicated financial instruments seems like a good way to take money from silly rich people and give it to smart rich people, but it doesn't do anything to grow the economy (via lending to businesses that actually produce things) or stabilize the economy (via speculation).

On top of this, Wall Street steals all the smart people that were urgently needed in Detroit board rooms.

So if Wall Street was judged important enough for a $700 billion bailout for basically adding nothing of value to the economy, shouldn't Detroit autmakers get $701 billion for adding something to the economy (even if that something is mediocre cars)?

Ultimately I think Detroit will get a bailout, but not for any of these reasons. They'll get a bailout because the Democrats control Congress and there would be hell to pay if they didn't back up the Midwest unions. Hopefully all the necessary provisions will be attached - firing management and putting some monkeys with dart boards and typewriters in charge instead, and pushing them towards a 'green' economy.

Everyone wants a larger State Dept

2008-12-02T21:40:00.000-05:00

My thoughts on Obama's national security team:

Assuming things work out between Obama and Clinton at State and Bill Clinton wherever he is, then this looks to be a very good cabinet. And I think things will work out.

But what is even better news is that Clinton, Gen. Jones (the national security adviser), and Gates at the Pentagon all signed on to Obama's core idea of shifting resources away from the Pentagon and towards the State Dept. This is a great idea and people have been screaming about it for years. In one of the first workshops I did in grad school, the professor pointed at someone and said "imagine you are the State Dept. rep and you have to argue against all of the rest of us from DoD. OK, now in real life it'd be you against the rest of the entire graduate program." While the Pentagon's budget is over $500 billion and including the wars and future medical costs may rise over $1 trillion (and some idiots want to pin it to 4% of GDP), the State Dept had a measly $10 billion for FY 2008.

Despite almost universal agreement that the State Department is under-resourced, Pentagon budgets have continued to outpace State budgets in growth because of lots of Congressional pork. Probably the largest pork item is the United States Air Force. OK, that was an exaggeration, but stuff like the F-22 which is projected to cost at least $62 billion is equal to the State Dept budget for six years, and this is for an aircraft with no actual mission other than to defeat imaginary Chinese planes. Unfortunately for the State Department, it's budget doesn't create jobs in Congressional districts because they invest in people rather than buying stuff, so Congress doesn't throw $5 billion (half the State Dept's budget) at the State Dept in unwanted pork projects like they do the Pentagon.

Because Obama hasn't appointed any intelligence people yet, the intelligence community hasn't really been a part of this "national security team" rollout. However the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community will be the happiest of all due to the proposed enlarging of the State Deptartment. When the State Department shrinks, CIA officers overseas have to pick up the slack from there being fewer Foreign Service Officers. FSOs usually report back to Washington intelligence that is easier to collect (intelligence collecting isn't their main function), and that allows CIA officers to concentrate on targeting their collection on harder targets. But that basic embassy/elite chatter that FSOs report on is still important, and when FSO positions are cut because the State Dept budget is cut, that means CIA officers have less time to spend on harder (and more interesting) targets and have to report gossip instead.

Bottom line: Obama's national security team looks good, and the intelligence community should be very happy.

Accountability

2008-11-30T21:16:00.001-05:00

NYTimes: Top Indian Security Official Resigns as Toll Eclipses 180

Who resigned after the Sept 11 attacks?

Referees suck everywhere

2008-11-30T13:30:00.000-05:00

The quality (or lack thereof) of MLS referees is always a hot topic and frequently leads to amusing column or blog titles (like this one). But after watching the Chelsea/Arsenal game today I'm reminded that referees suck everywhere, not just in MLS.

After calling Chelsea forward Solomon Kalou wrongly offsides twice in the first half, the same linesman allows Robin Van Persie's first goal to stand after he was clearly a couple yards offsides on the goal. The referee, Mike Riley, bizarrely points to Chelsea defender Jose Bosingwa, who was yards ahead of Van Persie, as somehow playing Van Persie on. The match commentators speculated that perhaps a Chelsea defender had deflected the ball, as there would be no other possible reason to allow the goal to stand (if the ball came off a Chelsea player, Van Persie couldn't be offsides). However all the replays showed obviously that there was no deflection. The wrong call totally changed the momentum of the game, and Chelsea lost, 2-1 (Chelsea had been winning 1-0, Arsenal's goal came out of nowhere). So refs in England can be awful too.

They can also be awful in Germany, where they fixed games in exchange for being paid off by the Croatian mafia. They can also be awful in Italy, where Juventus appoints which refs referee their games. They can be awful in Spain, where they are apparently fooled by every player that falls down as if shot. They're every bad in sports other than soccer, like the NBA or any NFL game involving a Manning brother (just the personal opinion of this Patriots fan).

So lets cut MLS referees a bit of slack. Nobody's perfect, and in fact the refereeing situation could be a lot worse.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

2008-11-28T21:30:00.001-05:00

Go see this movie. It is the best movie I've seen in recent memory, certainly the best this year. Ruth and I just saw it in an absolutely packed theater.

When the credits started rolling, there was complete silence.

By popular demand:

2008-11-28T11:49:00.001-05:00

More pictures and a video of our cat, Oomi.

Oomi's tail wags like a dog's.

From Oomi

And she enjoys her fort.

From Oomi

What I do

2008-11-25T17:00:00.000-05:00

My place of employment, the Monroe Crime Analysis Center, had our public rollout last week. Here are news articles from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and local TV (watch the video here). Here's the official press release from New York State's Department of Criminal Justice Services (which gave us lots of money).

Austrian hostages freed

2008-11-11T19:43:00.001-05:00

Months ago, two Austrian tourists were kidnapped by AQIM in Algeria (probably in Tunisia but whatever). They were freed on Oct 31. I didn't put anything on my blog because I was hoping for some actual news reports in the media other than a one-line sentence saying they had been freed, but I am disappointed. So, no info that I've seen on where they were held, what the kidnappers got in return, or anything like that. And disappointingly to me, no information on what role if any local Tuareg factions played in the negotiations that led to their release. Oh well.

Here are my previous two pieces on the Austrian hostages: AQIM/GSPC kidnaps two in Tunisia, and Update on Austrian hostages of AQIM.

Deflation on the way?

2008-11-11T17:01:00.001-05:00

The conventional wisdom is that, with the recession, the US will experience some inflation. Flanders, the resident financial guru on this blog, thinks the opposite. Here is a potential scenario for deflation, via Flanders, with some input from myself:

a) Deleveraging (selling assets to raise cash) by financial institutions means that they need lots of cash now-now-now and so dollars (because investors want to be paid in dollars rather than Euros or pounds) are more valuable.
b) A global recession means that raw materials are going down in price. So if you are a business needing raw materials, why buy now? Hoard your money for a bit and raw materials will be cheaper in the future. This could create a cycle of reduced demand creating an even steeper slide in price for raw materials, increasing the incentives to hoard money and buy later, decreasing demand further, etc. etc.

So overall, demand (from financial institutions) for the dollar is going up, while supply is going down because of hoarding. When demand goes up and supply goes down, price goes up. Therefore dollars will increase in value.

Since I don't really understand this stuff, comments are welcome.

The problem with private intelligence

2008-11-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

What's wrong with Stratfor in a nutshell:

"First, Washington had no intention of actually carrying out airstrikes against Iran."

a) You can never make definitive statements about intentions, because they are unknowable! Especially when 99% of everything regarding possible US military action against Iran remains classified. This is basic intelligence analysis 101. Stratfor is selling false certainty.

b) Washington never intends on doing anything because Washington is not a thing! Stratfor insists on looking at everything through hardcore realists lenses. It's more likely that some PEOPLE in Washington wanted to bomb Iran, and other PEOPLE didn't, and the people who didn't want to bomb were able to outmaneuver their bureaucratic opponents. But individuals don't usually feature in many Stratfor analyses - it is all about indivisible countries that have clear-cut interests.

Private intelligence shops like Stratfor obviously exist and apparently do quite well. But I think the market for private intelligence will always be extremely distorted. For markets to work properly, consumers need good information about the product they're buying. But the nature of intelligence is that good information doesn't exist on whatever the intelligence product is about. So you can only judge intelligence based on logic, examining the sources yourself, and track record. But track records are hard to get in the intelligence world because they are jealously guarded.

So I think what ends up being the best business strategy for a private intelligence firm is to play on your potential customers' pre-existing beliefs on how the world works. A small amount of this is maybe desirable so that the intelligence actually makes sense to the consumer by fitting in their paradigm, but I think the Stratfor stuff goes way beyond that. Stratfor sees their potential customers as "private individuals, global corporations, and divisions of the US and foreign governments." But if you look in their emails, all the testimonials about how great they are come from American businessmen or retired American military folks (who will have credibility with American businessmen) so I think it's accurate to say that US business executives are their target clientele. And I guess Stratfor's brand of unitary rational actor, realist, grand geopolitical drama analysis matches this clientele or else they wouldn't be as successful.

The same problem exists in government when competing intelligence shops open up, whether its Team B in the 1970s providing an "alternate" analysis that conveniently was exactly what the bosses wanted to hear, or Doug Feith doing the same thing with his Office of Special Plans. In government it could be even worse because multiple shops will be competing for a single consumer (the gov't), or at least a much smaller number of consumers. The problem is that people have no way of knowing which product is better until it is too late, and so you run the risk of creating competition to kiss ass rather than provide objectivity. This seems pretty obvious - it's why a lot of people think the head of the CIA and now the DNI should serve set terms instead of at the pleasure of the President - but even in spite of this a lot of people push the idea of private intelligence.

MLS playoffs, round 1

2008-11-09T21:08:00.001-05:00

As noted earlier, the Revs lost. This wasn't very surprising given the injury situation. The other matchups were Columbus vs. Kansas City, Chivas USA vs Real Salt Lake, and New York Red Bulls vs. Houston Dynamo.

Columbus was favored against KC and won easily, no surprise there. Chivas USA had the higher seed against Salt Lake but Salt Lake had been on a roll at the end of the season and so I wasn't surprised to see them beat a Chivas USA side that had a couple injury problems of its own. The shocker was today, the New York Red Bulls knocking out the Houston Dynamo by winning 3-0 away. New York's only away win this season came in week 7, beating a bad LA Galaxy team 2-1. There was a magical force field protecting New York's goal, and that plus Dane Richards having the game of his life put New York through to the Western Conference championship where I'm sure Real Salt Lake will beat them. I expect the MLS Cup final to be Columbus vs. Real Salt Lake. Columbus will be favored but I wouldn't be surprised to see Salt Lake win the whole thing.

You can see video highlights of all the games at MLS's website.

Revs season is over

2008-11-06T23:14:00.001-05:00

The New England Revolution lost 3-0 to the Chicago Fire and were knocked out of the playoffs.

The game started out with the Fire getting a lot of shots, including one that Parkhurst cleared off the line. Then New England started getting in to it, getting some of their own attacking players going. Right at that moment, the Fire's John Thorrington came in late and from behind on Jeff Larentowicz, who had been our best player, and broke his ankle. He walked off the field anyway because he's hardcore, but then went to the hospital. We then lost the midfield, gave up a goal just before halftime, and lost the game. In exchange for taking out Larentowicz, Thorrington got a yellow card and got the Fire into the next round of the playoffs. Larentowicz himself was ejected for a far less serious foul against the Fire in the second game of the season, (view the highlights here if you don't believe me).

Basically I felt good about the game until Larentowicz was hacked down by Thorrington. We were holding our own, and we went from competing in the midfield to relying on a gimp (Shalrie's knee) and a slow galumphing rookie (Pat Phelan). In the beginning of the season I thought that our combination of speedy youth and experience would be a good mix, but that doesn't work if all your experience is sent to the hospital (or in Shalrie's case, should have been sent to the hospital). I think if you take any team in the world and subtract their star forward (Twellman), their 2nd forward (Cristman), their star attacking midfielder (Ralston), their most dangerous winger (Khano Smith, deservedly suspended), and then injure both their central midfielders, that team will be in trouble. I'm not really disappointed in the players or the coaches at all for mistakes or lack of effort, I just feel cheated by Lady Luck.

On to next year.

Edit: Larentowicz's ankle is not broken, only sprained.

Thoughts on the election

2008-11-05T18:17:00.002-05:00

Obama won! A few observations on the election:

A lot of people are saying "Look, now this really shows that any child can grow up to be President!" Well, no. At the same time as the U.S. elected a black man as President, a bunch of states voted for anti-gay laws. And plenty of ignorant people were still under the impression that Obama is a Muslim and that that's a bad thing. And Senator (soon to be former Senator) Dole in North Carolina attacked her challenger Kay Fagan by calling her an atheist - Hagan responded by calling it "slander". There was no Colin Powell moment in that race where someone asked "why do you care if Fagan is an atheist?" So yes, a black man won the presidency, showing we've progressed, but you probably still can't win the Presidency if you are openly atheist, openly gay, Muslim or Arab (see a poll from 2007).

A lot of people like Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan are saying this was a transformational election, that the Democrats are building a new coalition just like Reagan in 1980 and FDR in 1932. Well, no. The data shows that, compared to 2004, the Democrats just got a a plus 3% handicap in pretty much every state other than states who had their own officials runing (Arizona, Alaska, Massachusetts, Hawaii), and Appalachia and Southern states (hmm).

Stratfor highlights that, even though Obama won in an electoral landslide, the popular vote was relatively close. One reason for that is going to be Obama losing a lot of areas in the South and Appalachia by much more than Kerry did 4 years ago as you can see on this map. The obvious explanation is racist voters voting against a black person in those areas. However you can see that almost no counties in North Carolina and Virginia swung in McCain's direction compared to 2004, however just across the state lines, counties right next to them voted much more heavily in favor of McCain than in 2004. And Obama targeted North Carolina and especially Virginia, and didn't really target West Virginia and Tennessee. So I think beyond racism, there is the lesson that if you target voters even in the sticks in Appalachia, they will vote for you in greater numbers than otherwise (vindicating Howard Dean's 50 state strategy).

Basically, I don't think too much has changed in terms of electoral politics. This election didn't show that we all united, it just showed that a mere 3% more of us reject Republican rule after one of the worst presidencies in history and instead will vote for a black guy if he promises to cut taxes and seems like a generally likeable fellow.

Bunch of Imams and Priests fight each other

2008-11-04T19:47:00.001-05:00

...on the soccer field! To benefit charity! Check out this article from RFE/RL:

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- An unusual charity soccer game was recently played in the northeastern Bosnian city of Tuzla.

The match pitted a team of Catholic priests against a squad of Muslim imams and was played under the slogan "For Children's Smiles."

All proceeds from ticket sales and sponsorship were donated to the city's home for underprivileged children and to an association for children with special needs.

The game was hardly a classic, but it attracted a sizable crowd and a festive atmosphere reigned in the city's Tusanj stadium. The final score was the least important part of the occasion...

If the name Tuzla rings a bell, it may be from the Democratic primary campaign. Hillary Clinton bizarrely claimed to have come under sniper fire when she landed there which of course was false.

Now on to today's election results!

Campaigning in Pennsylvania

2008-11-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday my wife and I went down to Erie, Pennsylvania, along with her parents and 3 other friends, and we campaigned for Obama.

We were given lists of Obama supporters and went door to door reminding them to vote, telling them where their polling places were, what they needed to bring, etc. Between my wife and I, we knocked on a couple hundred doors, and talked to dozens of people. We only got two McCain supporters (both hers) and one racist (mine).* I talked to one old lady who was angry that the person that called her from the Obama campaign was a black girl, so she hung up on her. Then she got even more angry when she mistakenly got a letter in the mail saying "thanks for your $150 pledge". She said it made her not want to vote, but I talked her down from the ledge (hopefully).

My wife's parents did run in to some McCain campaigners, but nothing interesting happened.

The Rochester paper had an article today about some other supporters who also went down to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Of course, as Yglesias notes, the only reason we had to go down to Pennsylvania to find people who's Presidential votes mattered is because of our screwy electoral system.

My thought as we were driving back was, after all this talk about change, what will his brand be in 2012? My guess is something like "steadiness," or "I am not a total airhead like my challenger." If Palin runs in 2012, would we have a sequel to Larry Flynt's Nailin Paylin?

*Apparently plenty of racists are supporting Obama for President over McCain.

Cat in a hat box

2008-11-02T19:12:00.000-05:00

Oomi likes boxes:

So I made her a fort:

From Oomi

Friday cat blogging

2008-10-23T19:41:00.000-05:00

Close enough to Friday anyway. Chronicling the growth of Oomi: small, medium, and chubby.

From Oomi

Taxes and healthcare

2008-10-22T06:36:00.000-05:00

I posted a rundown of the candidates' tax and health care policies over at my sister's blog, Current Conductor. Check it out here.

Don't hate on me (or ACORN)

2008-10-19T14:31:00.001-05:00

In his paper The Political Economy of Hatred, Ed Glaeser looks at anti-Americanism in the Middle East, anti-Semitism in Europe, and anti-Black hatred in the American South and concludes that hatred is "particularly likely to spread against groups that are politicaly relevant and socially isolated." The social isolation of the object of hatred increases the costs for the in-group to debunk myths, and the political relevance of the group increases the incentives for politicians to target the out-group with hate-creating propaganda.

I think this is a useful model through which to look at McCain's propaganda regarding ACORN, the group he says is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." This propaganda has resulted in death threats against ACORN employees and vandalism of ACORN offices.

Glaeser's basic theory is that political entrepreneurs who are pro-wealth-redistribution will spread hate-creating stories about rich minorities, while anti-redistribution will spread hate-creaing stories about poor minorities. However it doesn't just have to apply to minorities classified by economics. ACORN and other community organizers are minorities, in that 99% of Americans are not ACORN volunteers or employees, and most don't know ACORN volunteers or employees either.

ACORN, the out-group, is politically relevant both because of their connections to Obama and the Obama campaign, but also because they registered 1.3 million new voters this year.

ACORN is also socially isolated from the target group of McCain's propaganda, not only because there are so few ACORN members in the country, but also because they tend to operate in larger cities, and the target of this propaganda is conservative/GOP voters in suburbs and rural communities (the in-group).

Glaeser's model has four steps:

1) Politicians decide whether or not to broadcast a hate-creating message. My guess is that this occured prior to the GOP national convention, when Giuliani and Palin both devoted chunks of their speeches to ridiculling community organizers. But it could also have happened whenever the campaign realized that they have no shot at winning based on issues, due to the financial/economic situation.

2) In-group members receive the message about the harmfulness of the out-group, and decide whether or not to investigate the truth of this message, and decide whether or not to take action against the out-group. False messages can succeed if in-group members have no incentive to figure out whether the messages are true or not, or if the barriers to finding out the truth are very high. Incentives would be personal, commercial, or other relationships with members of the out-group, which also lower the barriers to the truth. Since ACORN is both socially isolated and not well known by most voters outside of thecurrent voter registration story, incentives are low and barriers are high. While the truth is obviously perfectly available through online news sources, McCain's demographic probably distrusts "liberal media" like ABC (and it doesn't help that CNN bought McCain's propaganda hook, line and sinker).

3) Each group votes for their preferred candidate, and the winner's policies are implemented.

4) The losing group may be harmed by the winning group (the whole point of the propaganda). Here, the ACORN propaganda fits into McCain's larger desperation strategy of associating with people that are "different" from McCain's voters. i.e., if Obama and ACORN steal the election, something bad and vaguely associated with terrorism, socialism, high taxes and black people will happen (all examples are from the central McCain campaign, not the even more explicitly racist state and local GOP figures).

A few ending notes. First, it's important to recognize the transparently cynical nature of McCain's propaganda campaign against ACORN. This link has a video of McCain congratulating ACORN as "what makes America special" due to their efforts to get immigrants registered to vote.

Second, while McCain rails about "voter fraud" and implies that ACORN is engaged in some conspiracy to steal the election, there is a significant difference between voter fraud and voter REGISTRATION fraud (it's one thing to register Mickey Mouse, it's another thing to try to vote as Mickey Mouse), and the real victim of this voter registration fraud is ACORN itself for being tricked into paying for bogus registrations, which is why they were the ones that reported it to the Feds in the first place. ACORN is legally required in several states to turn in all registration forms, whether they think they are fradulent or not, so as to get around the possibility of organizations throwing out registrations of one party or another. They also noted forms they thought might be fradulent.

Finally, it's important to note that the GOP has a history of crying wolf over voter fraud. The US Attorneys scandal of a couple years ago was partially about Rove firing US Attorneys who were unwilling to prosecute bogus voter fraud cases.