Month: February 2008

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Super Tuesday – Weekend Polling

I apologize for the brevity of my diary; however, I think the results speak for themselves. Zogby has some pretty surprising results in his latest polls, which are to be released tomorrow.

Both parties have staged tight, seesawing battles for the nominations for November’s presidential election. Clinton, the New York senator, and Obama split the first four Democratic contests — Obama won Iowa and South Carolina, while Clinton won New Hampshire and Nevada.

In California, the poll found Obama led Clinton by 45 percent to 41 percent, with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points. Clinton held statistically insignificant 1-point leads on Obama in New Jersey and Missouri, well within the margin of error of 3.4 percentage points in both surveys.

It would be an extraordinary feat to see Obama come within 1 point of Hillary in New Jersey, considering that it’s her backyard. Hillary also had a huge lead in Missouri just over a week ago, but now it seems that it has evaporated into thin air.

Furthermore, Obama appears to be consolidating his lead in Georgia.

Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, has a comfortable 20-point lead in Georgia fueled by a more than 3-to-1 advantage over Clinton among black voters.

From the polling results, we can ascertain that this race is precipitously shifting in favor of Obama.


Update: Many people are criticizing Zogby and some of their criticisms may be fair. however, the Field Poll will be coming out tomorrow and it will also show that the race in California is a dead heat, thus corroborating the results of Zogby’s poll that shows a dramatic shift towards Obama.

Taken from Daily Kos.

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Super Bowl Prediction

Well here it is… Super Bowl Weekend. It’s also time for a game preview between the hometown New York football Giants and the team everyone loves to hate – the New England Patriots.


New York Giants vs. New England Patriots (6:30 PM – FOX)

It has been nearly two weeks since the Conference Championships but here we finally are. New York Giants against the New England Patriots, certainly not the match up most people expected at the start of the playoffs.

Everyone always likes a feel good story and this year’s Giants are just that. They have won about a million straight games on the road, having defeated the Cowboys and Packers in back to back weeks, their quarterback has finally come into a zone, the team has all the confidence in the world… but let us not forget who they are going up against. The Patriots are in pursuit of a perfect 19-0 season, they are not going to let that slip away to a team with just momentum on their side.

Breakdown:

Head Coach:
Tom Coughlin has done wonders getting his team to finally believe in each other after the miserable start but he is always a visibly angry coach. Bill Belichick is truly a genius at his position and no one comes close to him. Maybe if they had one week to prepare… maybe… I would have given the Giants the nod especially with the way they played week 17. Edge: Patriots.

Offense:
The Patriots have put together the greatest offensive season the NFL has ever seen. Tom Brady threw for 50 touchdown passes, Randy Moss caught 23 of them and I have not even started talking about Wes Welker or Laurence Maroney or Kevin Faulk or Dante Stallworth. As good as Eli Manning is playing, the Patriots just have too many weapons compared to the Giants. Edge: Patriots.

Defense:
This is the place where the Giants can provide the difference. Even though I would probably give the two teams a push here with the Giants D-Line and the Pats’ Secondary. I think if Osi or Strahan some how find a way to do something no team really has all year – rush Tom Brady or apply constant pressure, they can create turnovers and keep the game close. Edge: Giants.

Special Teams:
Giants’ fans hold their breath everytime Lawrence Tynes comes on to kick. That is enough reason to give the Patriots the edge but if Domenik Hixon can give the Gaints good field position, it can prove to be the difference. Edge: Patriots.

This is not going to be a rout as many people are expecting the Patriots to put on the Giants. Give the Giants some credit. It is too hard for a team that is not talented to make it to the Super Bowl by fluke. They have the ability to win it but they lack the experience and possibly a true superstar. Randy Moss has been completely ineffective for the Patriots in the playoffs and they still have won their games rather comfortably. The Giants have had everything clicking and they have pulled off two heart-wrenching victories. This playoff season was the time for Eli Manning to step out of his brother’s shadow and has the chance to not only become the 2nd quarterback to win a Super Bowl after going 0-2 in his first two playoff games (Peyton Manning) but he can also lead the first team to a championship after they had a losing record at home (3-5).

Giants keep it close but Patriots find yet another way to win their 19th game and complete the great season in NFL history. 35-28 Patriots.

P.S. How funny would it be if the game came down to a game winning kick and Stephen Gostkowski pushes it wide with Adam Vinatieri sitting at home watching the game.

EDIT: Early results on an ESPN.com poll asking viewers what they would rather see. The Patriots go 19-0 or would you rather see the Giants upset the Patriots. Too bad this is not like the Presidential Elections, New York Giants are carrying about 40-45 states… enough to translate to about 57% of the total votes.

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Congress: Hard At Work?

So early this morning my best friend from Ireland sent me this article reporting that Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee from Pennsylvania, wants to call National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell in for hearings regarding why the confiscated video tapes which allegedly implicated the New England Patriots in the SpyGate scandal were destroyed and never made public.

Immediately after reading the story, my initial response was “Congress really needs to find better things to do.” With the economy failing and the dollar dropping, there being no end of the war in sight and the rest of the world cannot stand for anything American… one would think Congress really has more pressing matters to sort through than the Steroids in Baseball and now SpyGate in Football. Yes those are troubling issues plaguing the sports world but let the commissioners and owners and players clean that up and certainly if the fans really care this much about cleaning up their sport, they should stop attending… but we know that is not happening so just the sports clean it up themselves. Baseball was a little late but they eventually did it, and yea Patriots probably cheated with SpyGate but adding asterisk to their season does not prove anything. You can have all the information in the world but you still need to have coaches and players on the field who can execute plays game in, game out. No amount of cheating and make up for that.

Congress… just go back to work on more pressing issues and get these American fans some jobs or try fixing the economy or how about improving the situation in Iraq or the way Americans are viewed around the world? Baseball and Football are really third-class issues when compared to those.