Day: April 16, 2012

Third Poll in a Row Finds Romney Ahead of Obama

Jon Ponder

Dan Amira at New York Magazine:

One poll showing Mitt Romney leading President Obama could be a fluke. [1] Two polls? [2] A bit less likely to be a fluke. But three polls in a row, especially when one of them is a Gallup survey of 2,265 registered voters, probably deserves some attention. [3] Yes, even as InTrade shows Obama with a 61 percent chance of winning in November, and even as conservative pundits like George Will talk about a second Obama term as if it’s a foregone conclusion, the reality is that Mitt Romney has beaten Obama in the three national polls taken since Rick Santorum dropped out, and is therefore, at least for the moment, winning the (extremely nascent) general election.

  1. Fox News: Romney 46 percent/Obama 44 percent
  2. GOP-leaning Rasmussen: Romney 47 percent/Obama 44 percent
  3. Gallup: Romney 47 percent/Obama 45 percent

Owner of Hollywood Trade Magazine ‘Variety’ Exits Right-Wing Push Group ALEC

Jon Ponder

Now ten companies have left:

Reed Elsevier — a personal information provider (of services such as Lexis-Nexis) — and American Traffic Solutions — a provider of traffic technology solutions — have become the 9th and 10th companies to drop ALEC.

Reed Elsevier stated that the campaign to highlight ALEC’s promotion of measures that disempower and disenfranchise minorities played a role in its decision. “We made the decision after considering the broad range of criticism being leveled at ALEC,” said a Reed Elsevier spokesman.

American Traffic Solutions spokesman Charles Territo said his group’s decision not to renew its membership with ALEC “was based on how best to allocate our resources.”

To recap, here is the list of companies that have dropped ALEC so far:

[…]

Ronald Reagan Supported What His Party Now Calls Class Warfare on the Rich

Jon Ponder

Pres. Ronald Reagan, June 6, 1985:

We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying ten percent of his salary, and that’s crazy. […] Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver or less?

Think Progress, Oct. 3, 2011:

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Kucinich — ‘Principled’ or ‘Narcissist?’

Buck Banks

Dennis Kucinich has to decide what his legacy is going to be. Will he be remembered as a principled member of Congress or the narcissist who lost two Congressional races in two states the same year?

— Washington state Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz, “who has repeatedly discouraged the idea” of a congressional bid by former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), according to The Seattle Times.