Author: Trish

Swing State Sweepstakes: Obama Off to a Big Start in Florida

Trish
YR
Image from the 2012 Republican Convention web site. Not sure who this is, but apparently the typical young Republican is a white girl who wears voluminous country club scarves and dirndl skirts with no makeup and whose left hand floats unattached nearby

Since Tampa is the site of the Republican National Convention in August, one would think Pres. Obama would get an icy reception there. He recently found the opposite.

He drew an adoring and energetic crowd of nearly 3,000 people to Hillsborough Community College, receiving cheers of support after almost every sentence he uttered. Some people arrived at the HCC campus as early as 7:30 in the morning, camped out with folding chairs and deli sandwiches.

Obama used his first Florida 2012 campaign rally to focus on Romney’s self-portrayal as a job creator. Of course, Romney has created many, many jobs. The problem is that they are mainly in foreign countries.

In Tampa, he seized on a Washington Post article that the venture capital firm Romney used to lead, Bain Capital, invested in companies that specialized in sending jobs to low-wage countries. The president noted that he is calling for an end to tax breaks for shipping jobs and plants overseas.

“Not only does Gov. Romney disagree with this plan, today it was reported in the Washington Post that the companies his firm owned were ‘pioneers’ in the outsourcing of American jobs to places like China and India. Pioneers,” Obama said. “Tampa, we don’t need an outsourcing pioneer in the Oval Office. We need a president who will fight for American jobs and American manufacturing.”

Romney Needs Rubio in Florida

Trish

46 – 42

Results of a Quinnipiac poll in Florida showing Obama moving ahead of Romney in the swing state. Among Latinos, Obama’s lead was even wider: 49 – 39. The telephone survey was taken June 12 through 18, both before and after Obama’s announcement that he will no longer enforce deportation of a narrowly defined group of Hispanic children and young adults. One would imagine Obama’s lead has only grown since, and that Mitt Romney will have even more reason to beg Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to be his running mate.

Democrats, If You Can’t Beat ‘Em…Run Anyway

Trish
Smith
Florida State Sen. Chris Smith

States with Republican super-majorities in your state houses, take note. Florida Democrats have come up with a strategy that might not win their party any seats but will help stop the momentum that Republicans enjoy after they rig districts and gain incumbency.

As strategies go, it’s pretty simple: Run somebody.

As the deadline drew near for candidates to pay money and be listed on the ballot this month, several Republican Senate candidates were within an eyelash of taking office unopposed, without a single vote being cast. You could almost hear the champagne bottles popping.

Every one was sitting on a mountain of campaign cash in hopes of scaring off competition. But one by one, in rapid succession, each drew last-minute Democratic opposition, seemingly from out of nowhere.

By fielding candidates, Smith was able to tie the financial hands of the GOP

The rule is, if a candidate has no competition for a seat by the qualifying deadline, he or she can turn over the money they’ve raised to the state party to help candidates with competitors. This year, that would have meant an extra $2 million for the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) to spend as it sees fit to trample Democrats across the state.

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New Study: Don’t Expect to Run Into Joe Biden at Subway

Trish
beemer
Not likely.

Ever since we looked around and noticed that America is pretty much like your Thanksgiving Day table when it comes to discussing politics, researchers have been fascinated with figuring out what makes liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, tea partiers and occupyers different.

A market research firm filled out the picture a little more this week, publishing a handful of brand preferences linked to relative blueness or redness.

The results, are, in some cases, counter-intuitive. For starters, Jeep was chosen the “most desired car” among Democrats, while BMW was the favorite of Republicans. As a Democrat, I want it noted I would have voted the other way. Twice, if they let me.

As for insurance companies, progressives picked um, Progressive, while conservatives went for Allstate. One can’t help but wonder if the names of these brands had something to do with the choices.

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Bad News for Obama: Racism Could Cost Him Re-election

Trish
trumpchump
Donald Trump, who claims Pres. Obama is not the legitimate POTUS because he was not born in Hawaii, and who also questioned whether Obama belonged at Harvard where he graduated magna cum laude, is from New York and attended the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Just sayin'.

Creative research published by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz shows Obama will be in trouble in his bid for re-election in part because of his race.

Stephens-Davidowitz decided to see if there was a correlation between Google searches for the word, “nigger” and voting behavior. Yes, he looked at searches for that word.

The conditions under which people use Google — online, most likely alone, not participating in an official survey — are ideal for capturing what they are really thinking and feeling. You may have typed things into Google that you would hesitate to admit in polite company.

He examined searches conducted nationally in the years 2004 to 2007, before Obama was officially running, and long before he was the front-runner on the Democratic side. From that study, he identified the most, and least, racially charged areas of the country.

Most racially charged areas of America:

  • West Virginia
  • Western Pennsylvania
  • Eastern Ohio
  • Upstate New York
  • Southern Mississippi

The state with the highest racially charged search rate in the country was West Virginia. Other areas with high percentages included western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, upstate New York and southern Mississippi.*

Next, Stephens-Davidowitz came up with a baseline for how a generic Democratic candidate would have performed based on the vote for John Kerry in 2004 which presumably reflected the ballots of people who were likely to go Democratic, even if a not very exciting, privileged, rich Massachusetts liberal who said stupid things like, “I voted for it before I was against it” was the candidate. He also looked at how Democratic Congressional candidates did in the 2008 election.

The results were striking: The higher the racially charged search rate in an area, the worse Mr. Obama did.

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