Election Day Prediction

November 6, 2012 2 Comments

It’s finally election day. It seems like this election has gone on forever. In some ways it has, the first Republican debate was 18 months ago. Since then we’ve the GOP love everyone in our primary but Romney, our unloved candidate win the nomination and a terrific first debate performance. We’ve discussed polls, wars on women, the economy and a convenience store chain called Wawa. Now we get to go vote and put this madness behind us once and for all. That we’ll be entering a new madness beginning tomorrow, regardless of who wins, matters not today.

 Most of the national polls are near ties, even the ones with ridiculous D+11 samples such as the CNN poll released yesterday. But of course we don’t elect a President based on the popular vote, we elect him based on elections in 50 individual states. In those polls Obama is up in nearly all of the swing states. He’s up in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota. He’s even up in Virginia. The only swing states Romney has a lead in are Florida and North Carolina.

There are two ways to look at the polls. The pollsters believe that the electorate is more likely to look like 2008 than Republicans would like. Nationally the 2008 campaign was 38% Democrat and 31% Republican or D+7. The 2010 election was even at 35% for each party. Each state had its own split between Democrats and Republicans in each election. For example in 2008 Ohio was D+8 while in 2010 it was R+1. Most of the swing state polls have been closer to the 2008 electorate than the 2010 electorate. Admittedly some of the media polls have been wildly more pro-Democrat this year than the wave election of 2008. So there is some reason to question the accuracy of some of the polls.

The Republicans allegedly have their own set of polling which shows them ahead in nearly all the swing states. Presumably that polling either has a sample that is even or perhaps R+1 or R+2. In order to get there the GOP pollsters are assuming that enthusiasm will drive more Republicans to the election and that the electorate is more likely to look like 2010. There are others who think the GOP could win a tsunami election, where our voters simply aren’t getting polled and the result tonight will be surprisingly Republican.

Michael Barrone believes Romney will win 323 electoral votes. Glenn Beck agrees and thinks the nation is entering the Third Great Awakening, which would be odd considering Romney is a Mormon cultist. In order to get to 323 electoral votes for Romney you have to assume that not as many Democrats will show up to vote and more Republicans will show. The latter is likely true. Republicans hated John McCain and many didn’t vote for him including yours truly. This time around Romney may not be loved but most Republicans who refused to vote for McCain will begrudgingly vote for Romney.

But we also have to assume the Democrats don’t show up in force like they did in 2008. While there is some anecdotal evidence that they aren’t as enthused with Obama anymore, to ever question the Democrats get out the vote efforts is fatal in a campaign. Obama will get his people to the polls, there’s no question about it. The question is whether Republicans can get more of their people out and whether independents can make up the difference in the final tally.

Unfortunately for Romney and the Republicans there aren’t enough of us to beat Obama. It will be closer than 2008. Romney will win Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, all Obama states in 2008. He will pull out a win in Colorado. That brings his electoral vote count to 257. Unfortunately Romney isn’t going to win Ohio, Obama’s ground game is to strong there. Pennsylvania is a pipe dream for the Republicans, it’s a sign of desperation that Romney is campaigning there. Wisconsin will be won by Obama, though it will be much closer than 2008. Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada will all go Obama.

Obama is going to win today 281-257. The GOP rank and file will have to ask ourselves whether we should ever trust an establishment moderate with our nomination. In fact, we should ask ourselves if the GOP should even remain as a party if it can’t beat a President as bad and ineffective as Obama. I hope I’m wrong in my prediction, for the sake of the country I hope I’m wrong. But all of the polls will have to be wrong to the point of being wrong to a fault. They’re so consistent, even when we discount the wildly inaccurate D+11 polls in Ohio there’s a D+4 (which is reasonable there) showing Obama winning. We’ll now have to deal with a second Obama administration.

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Hurricane Sandy Absurdly Tips Election To Obama

November 3, 2012 9 Comments

This country is lost. The government school system, which is a liberal nightmare, cannot adequately teach kids to read but it does a wonderful job of turning kids into emotionally driven nit wits. Next week Obama is going to be re-elected. That’s only half the problem. The real problem is what we’re seeing in the polls this week. Romney had a 3-4 point lead in the Rasmussen poll heading into the week. On Friday the poll was tied. What caused the change? Nothing more than Hurricane Sandy and the photo ops Obama had with crying women and a fat turncoat Governor of New Jersey. We’ve reached the point where voters switch sides on photo ops over reason.

Let’s talk about Chris Christie for a moment. This fat slob could single-handedly be responsible for Obama’s re-election. By heaping praises on Obama for doing nothing more than releasing money to New Jersey, Christie made Obama look bipartisan and reasonable. Christie didn’t have to heap praises on Obama, he could have done what he does best: Talk about himself. Instead he went out of his way to talk about how wonderful Obama is. Christie could have told Obama to stay away because his appearance would hamper relief efforts. Nanny Bloomberg did that in New York City. Instead Christie invited Obama, appeared with him and heaped praises on him. Now the polls are swinging towards Obama, Chris Christie the turncoat RINO of New Jersey is to thank.

We who follow politics are scratching our heads wondering who exactly these voters are who are swayed by nonsense like hurricane photo ops. They’re clearly people driven by emotions rather than logic. After all, Obama didn’t do much of anything. In fact, the Federal coordination of the relief effort has been downright dreadful. If Obama were a Republican the fact that FEMA still hasn’t been to Staten Island would be all over the news. But since Obama is a Democrat the media only shows him hugging a sobbing woman, we hear nothing about the people defecating in hallways of their waterless highrise slums.

People who vote based on emotional photo ops are why Barack Obama was elected in the first place. People were emotionally driven to vote for him based on his soaring, meaningless rhetoric. The country is now poised to re-elect this man based on the same emotions, this time over hurricane photo ops. Obama has offered us not a single plan for his second term. The first term has been an economic and international disaster. But he hugged a sobbing woman so why not re-elect him? It’s absolutely insane and we as a nation will get the judgment we richly deserve for re-electing this man for such flimsy, meaningless reasons.

Think I’m being over the top? Dick Morris, who has been predicting 350 electoral votes for Romney for the last two months, is sending out panic stricken emails concerning internal polling he’s doing. He’s very concerned about the Rasmussen poll and alleges that in his Pennsylvania internal poll Romney has lost 2 points in the last day. Go over to RCP, Obama has increased his lead on Friday in New Hampshire, Colorado, Michigan and Ohio. Romney pulled closer or further ahead in not a single state. Hurricane Sandy is winning this election for Obama, as absurd as that is. The left has won, we’re voting on emotion rather than logic and reason.

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More Polls Skewed Towards Democrats

November 1, 2012 1 Comment

The polls are beginning to shift towards Obama. Or are they? The RCP national average has gone from Romney up by around 1 point to a tie. This is on the back of a bunch of D+ 5 or worse polls. Even the Fox News poll, which currently shows a tie, is D+5 with the D at 42% of the poll. In 2008 only 37% of the electorate was Democrat so the Fox poll assumes even more Democrats show up. The poll also grossly underestimates the number of independents, less than 20% of the poll is independent. Romney of course leads independents in almost all the polls, so under sampling them and over sampling Democrats produces a tie or slight Obama lead.

Ohio remains the big state and the only poll showing Romney up is the Rasmussen poll. Granted, there are some Dem skewed polls out there that border on the ridiculous. Take the CBS/NY Times poll which shows Obama up 5 on a D+8 sample. Most of the other polls show Obama up 1-3 points on D+5 polling. A D+5 poll is likely more accurate than a D+8 poll as it is highly unlikely Democrats will show up to the polls at 8 points more than Republicans this time around. Even if these D+5 polls over state D’s by 1 or 2 points, they’re likely on target showing a close Obama victory. The only way Romney wins Ohio is if this is a D+2 election or less.

Speaking of the CBS/NY Times Poll, they show Obama up 1 in Florida in a D+7 model and in Virginia Obama is up 2 in a D+8 model. In all three states CBS/NY Times polled, Romney led independents by a healthy margin. Obama wins because the poll is skewed towards the Democrats. Florida has never been D+7, in 2008 it was only D+3. Virginia was D+6 in 2008, does anyone believe Democrats will come to the polls even more in 2012? Take away the Democrats padding in Virginia and Florida and Romney is up.

It’s clear that some of these media polls are being skewed to help the President. You would think that closer to the election the pollsters would want to at least have the appearance of credibility by weighting their polls closer to what the electorate will actually be. It’s one thing to predict that this election will be a repeat of 2008, it’s another thing to predict that even more Democrats will show up. 2008 was a Democrat wave election, Obama isn’t popular enough to produce a second wave. He’s going to lose several states that he won in 2008, if re-elected he’ll be the first President since Wilson to win a second term with less electoral votes.

Ohio Governor John Kasich was on Hannity last night and frankly he sounded like Romney was going to lose. He desprately tried to spin things in Romney’s direction before declaring that the race is “even closer” than the Rasmussen poll, which only shows Romney up 2. Kasich looked like someone who knew something and I suspect that something is that Romney is down in the internal polls in Ohio. It might explain why they’re trying to branch out into Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania this week. They’re trying to come up with a replacement for Ohio because they don’t think they’re going to win.

Ohio really should trouble Republicans. These polls might be weighted against us but on the other hand D+5 isn’t out of the question. It’s going to be very hard to predict the turnout on election day. Both sides suggest they’re winning the early voting battle in Ohio. Obama is clearly ahead in that department but to listen to the Romney camp it’s not by as much as 2008. Apparently early voting in Democrat counties is down, while it’s up in GOP counties. What that means for the final tally is anyone’s guess. If Ohio is D+5 Romney is toast, if it’s D+2 or less Obama is toast. I would never underestimate the ability of Democrats, alive and dead, to show up to vote in Cuyahoga County. Odds are Romney loses Ohio and loses the election.

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Election Not Shifting Towards Romney

October 27, 2012 2 Comments

A Presidential election is often decided based on the trajectory of the campaign. There is no doubt that after the first debate the trajectory favored Romney. He went from being down 3-4 points in most of the national polls before the debates to being up 1-3 points today. In the swing states he has been able to shift the polls several points. Today North Carolina and Florida appear to be solidly in his camp whereas they were even or slightly Obama before the debates. Unfortunately the race isn’t going to be decided in North Carolina and Florida.

Those of us who support Romney need to stop deluding ourselves about this election. We cannot pretend that Romney is winning, we cannot rely on the Dick Morris theory of undecided voters. In Ohio RCP shows Romney down 2.3 points. In Nevada Romney is down 2.5 points. In Wisconsin Romney is down 2.3 points. In Pennsylvania Romney is down 4.8 points. In Michigan Romney is down 4 points. Take a look at all of these states, what trend do you see in all of them? Romney isn’t up in a single poll in any of these swing states. It only gets worse for Romney, Colorado has gone from being a 1-2 point lead to tied this week.

Romney hasn’t been able to pull any closer to Obama in states like Ohio. Sure, there are a couple polls that show a tie. We can always discount some of the absurd polls that are conducted with a D+9 model. But the fact remains that even at the reputable polling outfits like Rasmussen, Romney isn’t ahead. Worse for Romney, he hasn’t gotten any closer in any of these states over the last week. The trajectory of the race isn’t shifting towards Romney, at best it’s become stagnate. A stagnate trajectory at this point is a victory for Obama.

We’re now only ten day before the election. Romney is losing at this point. We have to trust that Romney has some sort of ground game in the swing states that can remotely compare with Obama’s. We have to trust that spending $150 million on ads in swing states the next ten days will put Romney over the top. Some of these swing states, Ohio in particular, may be immune to ads at this point. These poor people have been bombarded with ads for the better part of the year. Do we really think a barrage of Romney ads is going to sway people in Ohio in the next ten days? Maybe in Wisconsin it could work since they haven’t been subjected to a year of Presidential ads but not in Ohio.

Unless these state polls begin to shift next week in the same manner as the national polls we’re looking at an easy Obama victory. We can no longer hang our hat on Obama being under 50% in polls or on a history of undecided voters breaking against the incumbent. It’s easy to justify faith in a Romney victory based on those points during the summer. But we’re ten days before the election, at this point these polls really do matter. They represent votes and right now Romney doesn’t have the votes to win. What can he possibly do to change that ten days out?

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Could Michigan and Pennsylvania Matter?

October 25, 2012 2 Comments

We’re only 12 days away from the election, can you believe it!? This is the time when polls become more interesting because they represent a closer snapshot to what we’ll actually get on election day. If you look at the national polls Romney is up between 1-4 points. Of course we all know that the nationwide popular vote doesn’t matter very much. What matters is the electoral college vote, decided on by the states. There appear to be more states in play than previous thought. That doesn’t mean per se that Romney is going to win those states or even lose within 2-3 points. But the polls indicate that Obama is going to have to spend some money defending his turf, which means he has less to spend in Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada and Iowa.

It appears fairly likely that Romney is going to win 257 electoral votes. He has a lead in North Carolina and Florida while Virginia and Colorado appear to be tilting towards the Republican. That means in order to win Romney either needs to win one big swing state or a combination of two or more smaller swing states. Ohio is essentially tied right now according to Rasmussen and Suffolk. Time put out a poll yesterday showing Obama up 5 but if you look at the internals it’s a D+9 poll. In 2008 Ohio was a D+8 state, in 2010 it was a R+1 state. Conventional wisdom is that Ohio will be somewhere in the middle of 2008 and 2010. If we adjust the Time poll to D+4 the result is a tie, just like Rasmussen and Suffolk.

Here in Michigan a poll came out yesterday suggesting a tie. There are other polls here in Michigan showing Obama up, RCP has Obama up by a 4 point average. In Pennsylvania there are two polls which show Romney up 3-4 points while other polls show Obama up 3-4 points. Wisconsin has Obama up a point according to Rasmussen. What are we to make of these polls which show the race tightening in states that should be Obama’s? It will force Obama to shift money away from Ohio, a state where Romney seems to be picking up momentum. Because Obama has to defend Michigan and Pennsylvania, he’ll be less able to stop Romney’s momentum in Ohio.

Obama should be very nervous about Michigan and Pennsylvania. He and Romney have spent almost no money in those two states until very recently. Speaking for Michigan, we had almost no ads during the summer. Because of this, those who don’t pay close attention didn’t get to see Obama demonize Romney like the folks in Ohio did. As such, our first glimpse of Romney was either at his Convention or more likely at the first debate. We didn’t go into those events thinking the guy was a demon, we got to see him at his best as our introduction to him. As the debates have played out, people here in Michigan and Pennsylvania see Romney as Presidential, as someone who could do a good job as President. We didn’t have to get past the baggage of Obama’s personal attack ads because we never saw them.

This of course doesn’t mean Romney wins Michigan or Pennsylvania. These two states have built in Democrat advantages. But it does mean that independents are gravitating towards Romney, thus making this a race. In making it a race, Obama is being forced to pull resources from Ohio to defend Michigan and Pennsylvania. What should really make Democrats nervous is that if the polls showing a tie are accurate, most of the undecided vote will go against the incumbent and thus to Romney. If this happens, if these polls are accurate, Romney could take Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

But of course lets not get ahead of ourselves. There is a lot of time left in this election, an eternity. The Democrats advantage in Michigan and Pennsylvania is real and likely insurmountable for Romney. Obama can get his troops to the polls in Cleveland, that may be the difference between winning and losing. We’re still down in Wisconsin without a lot of undecided voters. We’re down by 2+ in Iowa and Nevada. This is still Obama’s race to win, make no mistake he still has a 66% chance of winning. But also make no mistake, Romney has a shot.

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The Obvious Bias Of The CBS/NY Times/Quinnipiac Poll

September 26, 2012 4 Comments

The latest Rasmussen poll shows the race tied at 46. When ‘leaners’ are included Romney is up 48-46. However if you were to listen to CBS or the NY Times you would think this race is over. That’s because the CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac polls for Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio show Obama up 9, 12 and 10 points. Let’s put it this way gang, if Obama is up 9 in Florida and 10 in Ohio, this race is over. But if we pause for a moment and try to make sense of these polls there is at least one question that comes to mind. If Obama is up 10 in Ohio, why is he campaigning there today?

Let’s take a look at the CBS/NY Times poll in a little more detail. But let’s first look at what the demographics were for the last two elections in each state. We’ll do this in the form of D/R/I (Dems/Republicans/Independents). In Florida 2008 37/34/29, 2010 36/36/29, in Ohio 2008 39/31/30, 2010 36/37/28 and in Pennsylvania 2008 44/37/18, 2010 40/37/23. What we see is that Florida was D+3 in 2008 and even in 2010, both landslide elections. So what did the CBS/NY Times poll give us, 36/27/33. Or D+9. In other words, they think in Florida the Democrats will best the GOP in turnout three times higher than in the Obama landslide of 2008. No wonder Obama is up 9 in Florida according to the poll.

It’s no better in the other states. In 2008 Ohio saw a D+8 election but in 2010 it was a R+1 election. So of course the CBS/NY Time poll weights its results at 35/26/35 or D+9. So of course Obama is up 10 according to this poll. Never mind that even in a Dem landslide in 2008 the GOP still managed to be 31% of the electorate in Ohio, somehow barely a quarter of Ohio voters will be Republicans if the CBS/NY Times poll is accurate. In Pennsylvania it’s 39/28/27 or D+11 for an Obama lead of 12 in the poll. Remember the landslide 2008 election only saw D+7 in the Keystone State, so CBS/ NY Times thinks that will increase this year.

These polls simply aren’t accurate. They have no chance to be accurate because they assume that this will be a landslide win for the Democrats. There is simply nothing indicating this will be the case. It was fairly easy to predict that 2008 was going to be a Democratic year, likewise 2010 was going to be a Republican year. You figure this election will be somewhere in the middle. Obama isn’t beloved anymore, some people will shift away from him. Yet CBS/NY Times polling seems to think the Democrats will beat their 2008 landslide, it’s absolutely ludicrous.

So what’s the goal of these obviously inaccurate polls? It’s two fold. First, the media wants to demoralize Republicans. They want to make us believe we cannot win this election so we stay home and actually lose. Second, they want the defeat of Barack Obama to be shocking so as to neuter the power of the new President. No doubt if you believe Obama is up 10 in Ohio you’ll be shocked when he loses by 1 in November. There may even be outrage, no doubt the left will accuse vote counters of impropriety. The end result is that the media will have planted a question in the minds of Americans about the legitimacy of the new President and thus his power will be diminished.

We Republicans shouldn’t get worked up over these polls. Florida and Ohio are absolutely in play for Mitt Romney. Pennsylvania likely is not. He won’t lose by 12 there but a 5 point defeat would hardly be shocking. But in Ohio and Florida, if we discount the obvious Democrat bias in these polls it makes for a very close election. In other words, Florida and Ohio are winnable for Romney. That’s perhaps why Mitt Romney is in Ohio today and so is Barack Obama.

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Let’s Talk About Polls

September 20, 2012 2 Comments

There have been any number of Republicans who have complained about the media polls which show Obama up in this election. Pew Research shows Obama up 8, NBC shows him up 5. Any number of polls have shown Obama up 5-10 over the summer. Now there’s a web site up and running called UnSkewedPolls.com which purports to unskew the polls. Not surprisingly these polls show Romney up 7.8%. This website takes the raw data from all of the media polls, which is generally available, and weights it in a way more favorable to Romney.

Keep in mind very few polls actually show the raw data in the results. Each poll weights data based on how they believe turnout will be on election day. Thus if they sample 100 Democrats which represent 20% of the people polled but the pollster believes 30% of the electorate will be Democrat, they weight the result of those 100 Democrats up so that each of them represent more than 1 vote in the final poll. Polling companies also weight their sample down if they poll to many Democrats, for example. This is common practice and generally isn’t something to be concerned about. Unless of course you consider some of the outlandish predictions the pollsters have concerning the electorate on election day.

It’s important to look at the history of elections over the Obama years. In 2008, a landslide victory for the Democrats, the electorate was 36% Democrat, 29% Republican and 35% independent. Obama won by 7 points in an election that was D+7. In 2010 the D/R/I turnout was 35/35/30. We all know that 2010 was a landslide victory for the Republicans. It’s hard to imagine either party winning in a landslide in this election. With that in mind the D+7 of 2008 is unlikely but it would represent the ceiling for the Democrats. Likewise it’s unlikely that we’ll see a repeat of 2010 when party turnout was even. So even represents the ceiling for the GOP. Republicans tend to be more enthusiastic about voting this year, so we’re more likely to see a turnout of D+2 or D+3.

That brings us to the media polls and why they’re so outrageous. The average media poll weights the results at D+9. Some have gone as high as D+13. Others show the party split closer but under weight independents, who tend to favor Romney in nearly all the polls. The recent NBC poll for example grossly under samples independents, who only comprise 16% of the poll. They weight Dems at 42% even though in Obama’s landslide election in 2008 Democrats turned out 6 percentage points less than the poll. The results aren’t even believable because they don’t mirror what we’ll actually see in turnout on election day. It isn’t even close.

Which brings us to the UnSkewedPolls.com analysis. I’ve had a half a dozen emails telling me  how amazing this all is and how exciting it is for Romney. Unfortunately they’re doing the same thing the media sites are doing. They’re taking all of the media sites raw data, which is available online and weighting it at R+4. They’re weighting it at 33/37/29. No wonder they’re coming up with Romney up 8 points. Unfortunately our 2010 landslide victory was D+0. Only in Republican fantasy land will Republicans out poll Democrats on election day by 4 points. Just like it’s Democrat fantasy land to believe the media polls which suggest Democrats showing up in droves over and above the 2008 Obama landslide.

This election is going to be somewhere in the middle of 2008 and 2010. I say it will be D+2 or D+3, meaning it’s slightly more favorable to Republicans. If we take the unskewed polls results of Romney up 8 and we consider that they’re off by 6-7 points it suggests that Romney is up by 1 or 2 points. Until today (which I suspect will be an outlier) Rasmussen showed Romney up 1-2 points. That’s probably where we’re at right now nationally. Of course we all know it’s the state results that matter and in that Romney is down big in Ohio and Virginia, including in Rasmussen polling. We shouldn’t get worked up over the absurd national polls, the state polls should cause us a  lot of alarm.

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Obama Convention Bounce Really A Clinton Bounce

September 10, 2012 2 Comments

Obama has received a substantial convention bounce that could easily propel him to victory in November. He’s up 4 in the Rasmussen poll and 5 in the Gallup poll. Other polls show him up 2-4 points. Republicans will try to make themselves sleep better by telling ourselves that Carter was up 8 on Reagan in October and Dukakis was up 17 on Bush after the 1988 Democratic Convention. We’re fooling ourselves if we think that Romney can lead us to a landslide victory like Reagan and Bush did. The cold hard fact is that there aren’t as many independent voters who can be swayed by Romney as there were back in the 80′s.

Having said that we should recognize that historically the Democrats have received a bigger convention bounce than the Republicans. For whatever reason Democrats can get undecided voters on their side after a convention, if only for a week. The fact is, convention bounces tend to fade quickly. Romney’s did, Obama’s is likely to. Especially when you consider that only 35 million people watched his speech. That’s more than Romney’s but it’s way off where Convention ratings used to be. It’s hard to sustain a lasting Convention bounce when only a quarter of the electorate is watching.

My theory on Obama’s convention bounce is that it’s really a Clinton bounce. We cannot discount how much people like Bill Clinton and how much they wish Clinton were in office rather than Bush or Obama. Is there any doubt that if he were allowed to run in 2000 that Clinton would have won? Obama’s poll numbers started shooting up after the Clinton speech, which was far better than Obama’s. If Obama’s convention bounce is really an Obama bounce, then the bounce will fade away very quickly. After all, Obama is not Clinton and he can’t trot out Clinton in his stead at campaign events.

Romney is doing what he can to eliminate Obama’s convention bounce. He is apparently ‘carpet bombing’ swing states with ads. That’s a good start for him. One mistake he made last week was not holding any major rallies and thus he was completely out of the spotlight. Surprisingly Obama and Clinton hardly mentioned Romney’s name, neither did most of the other Dem speakers. The Democrats planned to have Biden crash Tampa during the GOP Convention, our guys should have been in Charlotte last week. Instead, as usual, the Republicans don’t know how to take the fight to the Democrats and Romney and Ryan were neither seen nor heard from all week. A huge blunder in today’s instant information society.

After the GOP Convention I thought maybe Romney had a 50% chance of winning. Now, I don’t even think he’s at 40%. At best Romney has a 33% chance of beating Obama. It isn’t so much the convention bounce as much as it’s Romney’s strategy. He clearly doesn’t get it and if doesn’t get it, he isn’t going to win. Beyond that, if the public isn’t scared off by a party with an extreme, up front abortion agenda such as the Democrats or a party that boos God then we have to ask ourselves whether we’re lost as a country. The answer of course is yes, we’ve been lost for decades. Romney isn’t going to save us, he’s not an authentic conservative and he isn’t a Christian. How can we expect to beat an authentic liberal with an inauthentic conservative? What was the GOP thinking? Even if we accept Obama’s bounce is due to Clinton, what pathway is there for a Romney victory if all it takes for Obama is a Clinton speech?

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Obama: Romney An Extremist, I’ll Compromise During 2nd Term

August 27, 2012 4 Comments

President Obama should seriously consider not speaking in public between now and the election. Why? Because every time he says something in public it’s ridiculous and it makes him look like a blithering idiot. His latest example took place during an interview with the AP when he said Mitt Romney was an extremist. That’s right, moderate Massachusetts Mitt is an extremist in Obama’s mind. The problem here is that the Democrats really believe that people who are pro-life are extreme, they really believe that people who believe in slightly lower taxes are extreme. It makes one wonder who the real extremists are.

But of course calling Mitt Romney an extremist isn’t even the kicker in Obama’s interview. He actually said that he would compromise with Republicans during his second term. Obama is a President who called Republicans “the enemy” in 2010. His campaign accused Romney of killing a former employee’s wife when she had cancer. He has spent four years refusing to speak with Republican Congressional leaders, in fact he spent the first two years announcing that he won so he didn’t even have to listen to Republicans. Now he’s calling our moderate candidate for President an extremist. But we’re supposed to believe that Obama is going to compromise with Congressional Republicans during his second term. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you if you believe Obama.

You can see why Obama shouldn’t speak in public anymore. No one other than the most extreme liberal Democrats believe Mitt Romney is an extremist. He’s a johnny come lately to the conservative movement. The idea of not raising taxes during a recession recovery is hardly shocking or extreme. His position on abortion isn’t in line with the GOP platform, he’s to the left of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan on the matter. Surely his opposition to homosexual marriage isn’t extreme, after all Obama took the same position until May of this year. Opposing Obamacare surely can’t be extreme, after all over half the country continues to oppose it. Of course would it surprise anyone to discover that Obama thinks half the country is extreme?

Obama’s goal is to make Romney look like an extremist rich monster who isn’t worthy of the White House. The fact though is that Obama’s attempts haven’t worked. Romney is only a point behind Obama in the Real Clear Politics average, he started August four points behind. Nobody in their right mind thinks Romney is an extremist, which makes those who say such things look like complete idiots. Which of course Obama looks right now making such accusations of Romney. Obama looks even more foolish in suggesting he’ll compromise with Republicans. Why should anyone believe him, he’s so far refused to compromise. We have a major tax increase coming on January 1st and Obama has made no effort to compromise with the GOP. But of course, he’ll compromise all over the place beginning January 20th. Who believes this nonsense?

Romney ought to have a field day with the litany of ridiculous comments coming out Obama and Biden’s mouths over the past few weeks. He needs to highlight all of this nonsense in his acceptance speech or allow Ryan to take it on point by point. The Obama campaign has been on a downward spiral ever since he declared ‘you didn’t build that.’ He says that but Romney’s the extremist. What planet are these people living on? The same planet that believes Obama is going to suddenly become the compromiser in chief during his second term I suspect.

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Obama Poll Numbers Down; Surrogates Play Race Card

July 25, 2012 4 Comments

Obama’s poll numbers have remained steady over the past few months. But while the percentage of people leaning towards voting for him has remained stable, underlying poll numbers have not.  A New York Times poll showed those who have a favorable opinion of Obama down to only 36%. That’s down from 42% in that poll in April and down from favorable opinions that have trended around 10 points above his approval ratings throughout most of Obama’s term. These numbers aren’t unique to the NY Times poll, most polls have shown that the public no longer has a particularly favorable opinion of Obama personally.

Politics plays a role in this of course. The economy is stagnant and Obama increasingly doesn’t have any plans that aren’t retreads of plans that already failed. The “you didn’t build that” line has likely hurt him. If we were playing political strategist, perhaps having Anna Wintour in ads for fundraisers should be ended and maybe the First Lady ought to make a few more appearances. Getting the President back on the teleprompter might be a good idea plus a series of positive ads should be created to take an edge off all the negative Bain ads. Something has to change though because the President cannot win with favorability ratings dropping.

The problem will come when these things don’t work. Obama is in trouble because the economy stinks, it’s just that simple. One of his truth team surrogates, Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas has taken to blaming the public for Obama’s electoral problems. Lucas had this to say about the Romney campaign:

Mitt Romney, he’s speaking to … a segment of the population who does not like to see people other than a white man in the White House or in any other elective position.Let’s be real clear about it — Mitt Romney is speaking to a group of people out there who don’t like folks like President Barack Obama in any elective or leadership position. We know what’s going on here. And some people may be afraid to say it, but I’m not. … He’s speaking to that fringe out there who do not want to see anybody but a white person in a leadership position.

If Obama cannot win on his own, it appears his team is willing to play the race card. There are just a few problems with playing the race card. We can begin with the fact that Obama is already the President and he didn’t get there on the votes of minorities alone. The majority of his votes came from white people. He sold his 2008 election as an oppertunity to “make history” by electing a black man President. White people went along with that and elected him. From there, the idea that Romney, at best a moderate Republican, is trying to appeal to racists is just absurd.

The assumption Lucas has to make in order to make such a statement is that all Republicans are racists, which is simply absurd. Most of us would have gladly voted for Herman Cain had he won the nomination and nearly all of us love Justice Clarence Thomas. The issue for us isn’t their skin color but their ideas. Republican opposition to Obama has never been about his race, it’s been about his ideas and policies. I have news for Louise Lucas, Obama could be 100% white and he would have the same opposition making the same arguments against him. But that’s never occurred to people like Lucas because she’s just following the typical leftist narrative about race in this country.

It is interesting, if not surprising, that Obama surrogates are already trying to play the race card. They must be very nervous about his chances for re-election, otherwise they would save this nonsense for the last two weeks or not say it at all if he looks like he’ll win. Obama and his supporters should be nervous. The economy is a mess, unemployment is still 8.2%, economic growth is at a snail’s pace, over $5 trillion in new debt has been created during Obama’s term and Obamacare remains incredibly unpopular. That Obama is black isn’t why people oppose him, it’s because his liberal policies have not worked and have made our nation weaker.

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