Tag: Campaign 2012

Obama Has 5 Point Lead in in First Post-Debate Poll

Jon Ponder

Pres. Obama lost a little ground to Mitt Romney after their first debate but still has a 5 percentage point lead. According to the Reuters/Ipsos survey released today, the president leads Mitt Romney 48 to 43 percent.

However, the poll shows a 2 percentage point drop in support for the president since the last survey was taken.

The most positive news for Romney was that for the first time since he began running for the presidency, 51 percent of voters said they viewed him favorably. This compares with 56 percent who said they had a favorable view of Pres. Obama.

Unemployment Drops to 7.8% – Lowest Since Bush Era Economic Crash

Pensito Editors

7.8%

Unemployment rate for September 2012, the lowest rate since the economy crashed at the end of the Bush administration. According to Atlantic Wire, “In addition, the Bureau of Labor Statistics made big revisions to data from previous months, showing huge increases in the number of jobs being created over the last three months. Total employment from the “household survey” also showed an increase of 873,000 jobs last month, the biggest one-month jump since June of 1983.”

Sununu’s Racist Dogwhistle Rhetoric Translated: Mitt Romney Surrogate Says Pres. Obama Is Shiftless and Stupid

Jon Ponder

art-sununu-will-rogers-buttonPat Buchanan, the Republican establishment’s most stalwart neo-Confederate, was fired by MSNBC after years of making veiled racist remarks on the network most liberals watch, so Mitt Romney sent his campaign co-chair John Sununu, the disgraced White House chief of staff in the Bush I administration, onto the network’s air yesterday to to hurl coded racist epithets at Pres. Obama.

In an interview with Andrea Mitchell, Sununu, speaking on Mitt Romney’s behalf, described the president as “lazy,” a pervasive racist stereotype that has its origins in America’s slave-holding past. When Mitchell offered Sununu a chance to walk back the accusation, Sununu doubled down. “Yes,” Sununu said. “He didn’t want to prepare for this debate. He’s lazy and disengaged.”

Later, on Fox News, his party’s official politibureau channel, Sununu insulted the president with another pervasive racist stereotype — that he is unintelligent. On Fox, Sununu predicted that the president will not be able to improve his debate performances because, “When you’re not that bright you can’t get better prepared.” The Fox News host let Sununu’s insult stand, of course.

[…]

Hey, Fox and Drudge: Here’s Video of Mitt Romney Attempting a Southern Accent From March – Not Five Years Ago

Jon Ponder

The right-wing-o-sphere is ablaze over a five-year-old non-secret video being promoted by Fox News et al as a devastating “October surprise” bombshell that shows then-Sen. Obama addressing a historically black college in Virginia in what is actually a fairly passable Southern accent.

And yes, affecting an accent that is not one’s own in an attempt to appeal to a particular audience is pandering — but it’s also something almost all politicians do. See for example the video above from March — seven months ago — in which Jon Stewart skewers Mitt Romney for attempting to use Southernisms to appeal to white voters in the Deep South during the Republican primaries.

Republicans Cease Voter Registration Drives in Swing States Six Weeks Before Election Due To Charges of Massive, Widespread Fraud

Jon Ponder

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The fake ACORN voter registration scandal was cooked up by the Breitbart wing of the GOP. Now that the Republican Party has a real voter registration scandal on their hands, we know what to expect from Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly et al: Crickets.

Details from Bloomberg:

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Romney Down by 28 Points in State Where He Was Governor

Jon Ponder

screenshot-mass-romney-down-28-pts

Sure, Massachusetts is a blue state, and the last time it voted for a Republican candidate for president was in the 1984 Reagan 49-state landslide, but Mitt Romney was Massachusetts’ governor not so very long, and the fact that he is down [PDF] by 28 percentage points — 60 percent for the president and 32 percent for Romney — in the latest statewide poll is yet more evidence that the more voters get to know Mitt Romney, the less they like him.

Romney’s Unfavorable Rating at Record High: 49%

Jon Ponder

Red line = unfavorable; black line = favorable
Red line = unfavorable; black line = favorable
Andrew Sullivan:

On the eve of the debates, Romney hits an all-time high of personal unfavorables since January. The red line is his unfavorable number, the black his favorable … Since the campaign started, Mitt Romney has never been disliked by more Americans – 49.4 percent, to be precise – than now. The personal dislike of him is unprecedented in recent presidential history.

Those debates had better be dynamite, hadn’t they?

The more voters get to know him, the less they like Mitt Romney, and yet polls show that millions of Americans — mostly older white people — despise Pres. Obama so much that they are willing to vote for someone they already know they can’t stand in order to oust the president.

Romney could well win in November, but if he does, he will have the briefest honeymoon with voters ever. It could be over by Inauguration Day. Afterwards, he’ll be chasing George W. Bush’s record as the most unpopular president in the history of presidential polling.

WashPost/ABC Poll: Obama 49%, Romney 47% – Wake the F*ck Up, This Ain’t Over

Jon Ponder

art-uncle-samThe new Washington Post/ABC News poll should be a wake-up call for complacent liberals — I’m talking to you, young voters!

On the eve of their first presidential debate, President Obama leads or is at parity with Mitt Romney on virtually every major issue and attribute in what remains a competitive general election, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll…

Nationally, the race is unmoved from early September, with 49 percent of likely voters saying they would vote for Obama if the election were held today and 47 percent saying they would vote for Romney. Among all registered voters, Obama is up by a slim five percentage points, nearly identical to his margin in a poll two weeks ago.

Remember 2010! If you don’t vote, the Romney-Ryan tea party team will win.

Yes, you.

Andrew Sullivan Suggests That If Obama Wins a Second Term, He Could Become ‘The Democrats’ Ronald Reagan’

Jon Ponder

screenshot-newsweek-obama-2nd-termAndrew Sullivan writing in Newsweek:

At this point in 2004, one recalls, George W. Bush was about to see a near eight-point lead shrivel to a one-state nail-biter by Election Day. But one thing that has so far, in my view, been underestimated is the potential impact of a solid Obama win, and perhaps a Democratic retention of the Senate and some progress in the House. This is now a perfectly plausible outcome. It would also be a transformational moment in modern American politics.

If Obama wins, to put it bluntly, he will become the Democrats’ Reagan. The narrative writes itself. He will emerge as an iconic figure who struggled through a recession and a terrorized world, reshaping the economy within it, passing universal health care, strafing the ranks of al -Qaeda, presiding over a civil-rights revolution, and then enjoying the fruits of the recovery. To be sure, the Obama recovery isn’t likely to have the same oomph as the one associated with Reagan—who benefited from a once-in-a-century cut of top income tax rates (from 70 percent to, at first, 50 percent, and then to 28 percent) as well as a huge jump in defense spending at a time when the national debt was much, much less of a burden. But Obama’s potential for Reagan status (maybe minus the airport-naming) is real. Yes, Bill Clinton won two terms and is a brilliant pol bar none, as he showed in Charlotte in the best speech of both conventions. But the crisis Obama faced on his first day—like the one Reagan faced—was far deeper than anything Clinton confronted, and the future upside therefore is much greater. And unlike Clinton’s constant triangulating improvisation, Obama has been playing a long, strategic game from the very start—a long game that will only truly pay off if he gets eight full years to see it through. That game is not only changing America. It may also bring his opposition, the GOP, back to the center, just as Reagan indelibly moved the Democrats away from the far left