# 39 I'm not the only one....

Greetings good folk.  All along, I've maintained that Obama was going to win (and win big).  Now I'm passing along an article by David Rothschild that downplays the significance of national polls this year, in favor of specific state polls.  And, yes, it is possible that Romney might win the popular vote and lose the electoral college vote. Here's Rothschild's article, complete:
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One would think that Gallup, Pew, Rasmussen, every sufficiently wealthy news organization and anyone else interested in conducting a poll would be familiar with the basics of the American electoral system. Why they all insist on continuing to waste precious ink on national polls, then, is completely mystifying.

Gallup's latest poll of registered voters reports that former Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are tied nationally, 48 to 48 percent. Gallup's latest poll of likely voters, based on a complex set of assumptions about voter turnout, has Romney leading Obama by 5 percentage points, 51 to 46.

These figures are based on a national sample, so they theoretically include voters from Ohio, Florida and Virginia. They also include voters from Wyoming, California, Alabama, Delaware and about 40 other states whose voters could not possibly be any less relevant to the outcome on Nov. 6.

At this stage in the election, like any sufficiently close election, the fate of the candidates rests with fewer than a half-dozen states. The continuing snapshots of national polls are useful for pollsters and academics, who are interested in things like expected vote share or the probability of victory in the national popular vote. Most stakeholders care only about the likelihood of victory in the Electoral College, and a national poll is not very useful at this point.

This is why most prognosticators consider Obama to have a far higher chance of victory than the national polls would suggest. The Signal has Obama at a 65 percent chance of victory, while Nate Silver gives him a 75 percent chance against Romney. A small, demented chorus of observers has recently dinged Silver for this conclusion, citing various gut feelings to the contrary.

[[Odds of Victory]]
Sources: Betfair, Intrade, IEM, HuffPost's Pollster and RealClearPolitics


Any way you slice it, Obama is leading in states that account for well over 270 electoral votes. As we've said a million times before, Obama needs only Ohio, Florida or Virginia to prevent Romney from reaching 270 electoral votes in most scenarios. Romney needs all three.

Romney maintains a slight lead in aggregations of many polls. HuffPost's Pollster listed six new polls on Monday, and Obama led in only one. Romney led in three of these, and two were are tied. Pollster, which has a very transparent method of aggregation, combines all recent polls and has Romney up 47.4 to 47.2. RealClearPolitics, which aggregates polls with a completely opaque method, has Romney up 47.6 to 46.7.

If you are a poll junkie and you need your latest fix, I suggest following the latest polls in Florida, Virginia and Ohio. If you are still obsessing over national polls, I suggest you brush up on the Constitution. Just in case, here's a link. It's free.

David Rothschild has a Ph.D. in applied economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

# 38 The Halloween Effect of Electronic Voting Machines

Greetings Good Folk -- Halloween could arrive six days later in several states, if electronic voting machines malfunction (accidentally or with intentional help from scurrilous individuals) and create a horror of a mess in the tallying of presidential votes and other races. We could end up with a 2000-style hanging chads, but without the chads or the paper ballots from which to hang.  In fact, we could end up with no chance to recount  in some precincts. This is precisely the kind of problem that could change the outcome of the national election.  I've included below part of an article, from Mark Clayton of The Christian Science Monitor:
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Touch-screen electronic voting machines in at least four states pose a risk to the integrity of the 2012 presidential election, according to a Monitor analysis.

In four key battleground states – Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Colorado – glitches in e-voting machines could produce incorrect or incomplete tallies that would be difficult to detect and all but impossible to correct because the machines have no paper record for officials to go back and check.

While many state officials laud the accuracy of e-voting machines, mechanical and software failures are not a new problem. What makes the risk more serious this year is that polls project a close election, and e-voting problems in any of the four states in question could affect who wins the presidency.

"No matter how unlikely it seems now, there's a chance that this election will be so close that it could be flipped by a single voting machine problem in a single place in any one of those states," says Edward Felten, a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey who has analyzed e-voting machine weaknesses. "To avoid that, it's key to have a record of what the voter saw – and that means having a paper ballot or other paper record."

Paper verification of votes has proved to be a vital backstop to ensure that voting-machine software is not corrupt and that programming errors did not affect the accuracy of electronic vote tallies. Voting machines have at times "lost" thousands of votes or even "flipped" votes from one candidate to another, and total breakdowns are not unheard of.

For example:

• In 2006, some 18,000 votes were electronically "lost" by e-vote systems in a single Florida congressional race with no paper backup or ballots available to review.
• In May 2011, voters in Pennsylvania’s Venango County complained that paperless electronic touch-screen machines were "flipping their choices from one party to another," according to a report by Verified Voting, a nonprofit group in Carlsbad, Calif., that tracks voting machine use nationwide. After an inconclusive audit of election results, the county simply decided to use paper ballots counted by optical scanners in future elections.
• In March, an e-voting system in Florida’s Palm Beach County experienced a "synchronization” problem in a municipal election. The election software attributed votes to the wrong contest and the wrong candidates won. Thankfully, paper ballots existed. After a court-ordered recount, results were changed and two losing candidates were declared winners.

More than 1,800 voting machine problems were reported to election protection hotlines during the 2008 general election, according to Verified Voting. Such election failures mattered far less in 2008 because Barack Obama won by a landslide. But this year, the loser might be likely to demand a recount if the winning margin is small. In states that still use Direct Recording Equipment (DRE) – touch-screen voting equipment that lacks any paper verification – that could be a problem.

"Without a paper trail there's no opportunity to check, so then you just have to rely on faith that the software is functioning properly and capturing votes properly," says Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting. "Maybe the machine is working OK right now. But if there is a bug or glitch, there's nothing to go back to."

After the controversy over "hanging chads" in Florida in the 2000 election, touch-screen e-voting machines proliferated nationwide as the Help America Vote Act of 2002 helped states pay for new equipment. Most states have since replaced e-systems that lack paper verification with paper ballots counted by optical scanners. While scanners can also fail, the paper ballots are there to be recounted.

But 17 states still use paperless DREs, according to Verified Voting. Among those, four are expected to see election results close enough to potentially demand a recount.

"Most of the country has gone to some sort of paper-based optical or electronic system," says Peter Lichtenheld, vice president of operations for Austin-based Hart InterCivic, one of four major voting machine companies in the US. "In counties that have decided to stay with older direct response equipment [DREs], they've put in people and procedures to make them more secure."

For example, most states now run preelection software tests on the machines to verify that they are counting correctly. The machines are "sealed" against tampering and, increasingly, they are monitored by surveillance cameras even in off-use periods. Memory cards in the machines should retain votes, even in a power failure, but have not always done so.

To critics, however, reliance on electronic methods alone as a backup means that the machines are, in essence, checking themselves. Only a paper document checked by the voter ensures that the vote was recorded correctly and is immune to system failures or even cyberattack.

• In Pennsylvania, 50 of 68 counties have paperless equipment as their standard voting system, Verified Voting data show. Those machines serve some 7 million of about 8.5 million registered voters statewide.
• In Virginia, 127 of 135 counties use paperless DREs, accounting for 3.7 million of the state’s 5 million registered voters, according to Verified Voting.
• Colorado is shifting to mail-in paper ballots, but the transition isn't complete. Jefferson County, the state’s fourth most populous, is using paperless DREs as well as mailed ballots. So, many of its 320,000-plus "active" registered voters will vote on the machines – more than enough to tip a tight race, says Ms. Smith of Verified Voting.
• In Florida, all counties are required by law to have paper backups for their voting machines by 2014. Even so, a small but potentially significant number of disabled voters statewide still will use paperless touch-screen machines this year. Although only a few thousand votes may be cast on those "accessibility" machines, it could still be enough to throw the race if the state's vote tally were to end up as close as it was in the 2000 presidential election, when George W. Bush controversially won by 537 votes.

State officials stand by the machines.
"These DREs have been one of the more reliable pieces of equipment we've had," says Donald Palmer, secretary of Virginia's Board of Elections, the state's most senior election official. "We haven't had any major problems with them."

In fact, Colorado’s Jefferson County recently had to conduct a recount in a congressional race, in which votes cast on paperless DREs were included. Significantly, both candidates accepted the result although there was no paper to confirm that the machines had recorded the votes correctly.

"We think we have the right processes in place to make sure everyone is able to vote and that their votes count," says Andrew Cole, a spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of State's office.

Still, Princeton’s Professor Felten has put all four states on his top 10 states “at risk” of an e-voting meltdown. Among the factors going into the the list is the effectiveness of a state’s vote-audit laws.

California, for example, is lauded because its post-election audits draw statistical comparison between paper totals and voting machine tallies to ensure the machines are accurate. In contrast, Virginia has no post-election audit and limited provisions for a recount in state law in case machine vote-count problems are detected. Similarly, Florida state laws are such that a recount may not be permitted even if a machine is known to have malfunctioned.

"Florida's post-election audit law is absolutely atrocious and does not afford the voters any certainty that their votes have been accurately counted," says Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Florida’s Leon County. "Because our laws only allow erroneous totals to be corrected on the basis of fraud, a machine could break down, but if there's no fraud, our laws would still not allow us to correct those erroneous totals."

The small number of voters who will use paperless DREs in the state limit the chances of an e-voting meltdown there, he acknowledges. But it is a concern. He notes that the blatant mistake made by e-voting machines in Palm Beach might have never been corrected had that been a statewide election, since there was no obvious fraud. "State law doesn't require it," he says.

"I'm hopeful," he adds, "that we can get through to 2014 without an election disaster like 2000 and finally get rid of all these [paperless] machines once and for all."

# 37 Rasmussen and RPW, Part Deux (see Post # 36)

RPW’s Projections as of October 25, 2012:

Obama 

Strong                         242                 

Leaning                         33

TOTAL                                     275

Romney 

Strong                                     180

Leaning                         11

TOTAL                                     191

Too Close to Call                      72

                                                ------

Total                                       538

·        Alaska - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 83,299 or 13.3 percent to 710,231 in 2010. 

·        Alabama – 9, unchanged.  I couldn’t get the state’s population change; apparently no one in Alabama can count to numbers in double figures.  omy—did I just write that out loud?

·        Arizona - 11, an increase of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 1,261,385 or 24.6 percent to 6,392,017 in 2010.

·        Arkansas - 6, unchanged. The state's population increased by 242,518 or 9.1 percent to 2,915,918 in 2010.

·        California - 55, unchanged. The state's population increased by 3,382,308 or 10 percent to 37,253,956 in 2010.

·        Colorado - 9, unchanged. The state's population increased by 727,935 or 16.9 percent to 5,029,196 in 2010.

·        Connecticut - 7, unchanged. The state's population increased by 168,532 or 4.9 percent to 3,574,097 in 2010.

·        Delaware - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 114,334 or 14.6 percent to 897,934 in 2010.

·        District of Columbia - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 29,664 or 5.2 percent to 601,723 in 2010.

·        Florida - 29, an increase of 2 electoral votes. The state's population increased by 2,818,932 or 17.6 percent to 18,801,310 in 2010.

·        Georgia - 16, an increase of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 1,501,200 or 18.3 percent to 9,687,653 in 2010.

·        Hawaii - 4, unchanged. The state's population increased by 148,764 or 12.3 percent to 1,360,301 in 2010.

·        Idaho - 4, unchanged. The state's population increased by 273,629 or 21.1 percent to 1,567,582 in 2010.

·        Illinois - 20, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 411,339 or 3.3 percent to 12,830,632 in 2010.

·        Indiana - 11, unchanged. The state's population increased by 403,317 or 6.6. percent to 6,483,802 in 2010.

·        Iowa - 6, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 120,031 or 4.1 percent to 3,046,355 in 2010.

·        Kansas - 6, unchanged. The state's population increased by 164,700 or 6.1 percent to 2,853,118 in 2010.

·        Kentucky - 8, unchanged. The state's population increased by 297,598 or 7.4 percent to 4,339,367 in 2011.

·        Louisiana - 8, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 64,396 or 1.4 percent to 4,533,372 in 2010.

·        Maine - 4, unchanged. The state's population increased by 53,438 or 4.2 percent to 1,328,361 in 2010.

·        Maryland - 10, unchanged. The state's population increased by 477,066 or 9 percent to 5,773,552 in 2010.

·        Massachusetts - 11, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 198,532 or 3.1 percent to 6,547,629 in 2010.

·        Michigan - 16, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population fell by 54,804 or 0.6 percent to 9,883,640 in 2010.

·        Minnesota - 10, unchanged. The state's population increased by 384,446 or 7.8 percent to 5,303,925 in 2010.

·        Mississippi - 6, unchanged. The state's population increased by 122,639 or 4.3 percent to 2,967,297 in 2010.

·        Missouri - 10, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 393,716 or 7 percent to 5,988,927 in 2010.

·        Montana - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 87,220 or 9.7 percent to 989,415 in 2010.

·        Nebraska - 5, unchanged. The state's population increased by 115,078 or 6.7 percent to 1,826,341 in 2010.

·        Nevada - 6, an increase of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 702,294 or 35.1 percent to 2,700,551 in 2010.

·        New Hampshire - 4, unchanged. The state's population increased by 80,684 6.5 percent to 1,316,470 in 2010.

·        New Jersey - 14, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 377,544 or 4.5 percent to 8,791,894 in 2010.

·        New Mexico - 5, unchanged. The state's population increased by 240,133 or 13.2 percent to 2,059,179 in 2010.

·        New York - 29, a decrease of 2 electoral votes. The state's population increased by 401,645 or 2.1 percent to 19,378,102 in 2010.

·        North Carolina - 15, unchanged. The state's population increased by 1,486,170 or 18.5 percent to 9,535,483 in 2010.

·        North Dakota - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 30,391 or 4.7 percent to 672,591 in 2010.

·        Ohio - 18, a decrease of 2 electoral votes. The state's population increased by 183,364 or 1.6 percent to 11,536,504 in 2010.

·        Oklahoma - 7, unchanged. The state's population increased by 300,697 or 8.7 percent to 3,751,351 in 2010.

·        Oregon - 7, unchanged. The state's population increased by 409,675 or 12 percent to 3,831,074 in 2010.

·        Pennsylvania - 20, a decrease of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 421,325 or 3.4 percent to 12,702,379 in 2010.

·        Rhode Island - 4, unchanged. The state's population increased by 4,248 or 0.4 percent to 1,052,567 in 2010.

·        South Carolina - 9, an increase of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 613,352 or 15.3 percent to 4,625,364 in 2010.

·        South Dakota - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 59,336 or 7.9 percent to 814,180 in 2010.

·        Tennessee - 11, unchanged. The state's population increased by 656,822 or 11.5 percent to 6,346,105 in 2010.

·        Texas - 38, an increase of 4 electoral votes. The state's population increased by 4,293,741 or 20.6 percent to 25,145,561 in 2010.

·        Utah - 6, an increase of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 530,716 or 23.8 percent to 2,763,885 in 2010.

·        Vermont - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 16,914 or 2.8 percent to 625,741 in 2010.

·        Virginia - 13, unchanged. The state's population increased by 922,509 or 13 percent to 8,001,024 in 2010.

·        Washington - 12, an increase of 1 electoral vote. The state's population increased by 830,419 or 14.1 percent to 6,724,540 in 2010.

·        West Virginia - 5, unchanged. The state's population increased by 44,650 or 2.5 percent to 1,852,994 in 2010.

·        Wisconsin - 10, unchanged. The state's population increased by 323,311 or 6 percent to 5,686,986 in 2010.

·        Wyoming - 3, unchanged. The state's population increased by 69,844 or 14.1 percent to 563,626 in 2010.

# 36 First of Two Parts: Rasmussen and RPW

This will be a longer post than usual, but it’s my first “Personal Poll Post,” and I want to set up my initial poll numbers.

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Greetings Good People – I am sharing the Rasmussen Electoral Projections, one of the country’s most conservative polls, and with which I have a major disagreement.  The Rasmussen electoral map itself wouldn’t transfer, so I’ll use my thousand words instead of the picture and try to work it out for future posts.   Here’s the Rasmussen Electoral College summary:

Rasmussen Reports--Electoral College Breakdown:

Safe Romney      167        Safe Obama        172

Likely Romney      21       Likely Obama        28

Leans Romney     47        Leans Obama       37

                              Toss-up       66

Electoral College

Obama: 237 - Romney: 235 - Toss-up: 66

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My electoral college totals, while only slightly different numerically, are vastly different in their significance: BEFORE the battleground states, I have Obama (solid and Leaning) with more than the required 270.  And he has a decent chance to take some of the 72 “Too Close to Call” votes.

 Please note that I include Ohio not as a “Too Close to Call” state but as “Leaning” toward Obama, and its 18 electoral votes are part of the 275 I project for Obama at this time.  If I’m wrong, then Obama would not have the 270 votes yet. However, unless there is real fraud in the machines in Ohio (not a small possibility, unfortunately), I cannot see Ohio going for Romney.

Note too that I am not including the possibility that Maine and Nebraska might award a vote to the candidate who wins a particular electoral district but not the rest of the state; if that happens (Maine might award one electoral vote to Romney, and/or Nebraska might award one electoral vote to Obama), my projections indicate that it won't affect the outcome.

Other points of interest: as a result of the 2010 Census, Texas has gained 4 electoral votes; New York and Ohio have each lost 2; Iowa, New Jersey and Pennsylsvania have lost 1 each.  Overall, 2008 Red states have netted more than a dozen additional electoral votes.  Despite that fact, I still have Obama currently with enough “safe” electoral votes to win.

Turnabout’s fair play: it is possible, in a reverse of the 2000 election that Romney might win the popular vote, but lose the electoral vote.  The Red states might just turn out more Romney voters proportionately than the Blue states turn out Obama supporters.  But I still cannot believe that women – any women – will vote for the Republicans, but apparently some will.  Same goes for seniors.  A recent poll showed that Romney is winning strongly among “white males without a college degree.”  Apparently, Bubba lives.

# 35 A Romney-Manufactured Self-Problem

!It's the Economy, Stupid" may be the most famous quotation with the word "economy" in it, and the economy is often at the core of an election campaign.  So it seems to be this year.  However, Nobel Prize-winning Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman, thinks the situation this campaign is more complicated. 

As Krugman indicates in the following selection from his column today, Romney's take on the economy is a problem.

I find it amazing that the Romney campaign is having so much difficulty gaining traction with its message, but for awhile at least seemed to be gaining traction with some segments of voters.  That seems to be turning around, as Romney has pulled most of his campaigners from Iowa and is facing high single-digit deficits in Ohio polling. North Carolina numbers also seem to be drifting back to Obama.

To me, Krugman's comments provide a sensible reason for the developing shift away from Romney.  Not that the electorate thinks in as complex a way as Krugman does, so much as that voters may be sensing that, with so many other things "wrong" in what Romney has been saying, they may be starting to feel a distrust of anything he says.

Here's Krugman's take on Romney's economic plan:
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I’ve been delving a bit into what the Romney campaign and its economist fellow-travelers have been saying, and I think I have figured out the true economic doctrine Romney and his inner circle have in mind. It is, needless to say, not what the campaign has claimed.

The official line has been that the five-point program will create scads of jobs. This has a couple of problems. First, the program is vacuous — for the most part it’s a statement of desired outcomes, not policies. Second, as Glenn Kessler points out, the studies claimed as justification for the 12-million jobs number actually don’t say at all what the campaign asserts.

...[One study in particular is] an analysis of an economy that is assumed to be continually at full employment. The “job gains” the paper estimates are supply-side, not demand-side — they represent an increase in the number of people who want to work, not an increase in the number of jobs available. If you like, [the study] is claiming (implausibly) that there would be a big jump in the labor force participation rate.

And this, of course, has nothing to do with the problems of an economy where people who want to work can’t find jobs.

So the Romney campaign is lying about the rationale for its boasts about jobs.

But what’s the real story?

The answer is actually pretty clear: CONFIDENCE. The Romney notion is that we’d be having a rip-roaring recovery right now, except that Job Creators feel that Obama is looking at them funny. And so all Romney has to do is show up, and happy times will be here again.

No, seriously: in Boca Raton Romney declared that simply by being elected he could start a boom, “without actually doing anything”.

Now, the obvious riposte here is that we know why we have a weak recovery, and it’s not Obama’s evil eye — it’s the normal hangover from a severe financial crisis, which could only have been averted by much stronger fiscal and monetary stimulus.

But that’s not a story the Romney people want to hear.
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# 34 Romney's Under-Three-Hour Marathon-in-a-Binder

I've included part of an article by David S. Bernstein at the end of this post.  I've already posted this section on my facebook page, but I need to make a serious comment about it.  In this article, Bernstein points ot that Mitt Romney did not exactly tell the truth during the second Presidential Debate.  Romney did NOT take the initiative by telling his staff to compile a list of qualified women who could be part of his administrative staff. 

That list had already been compiled by a non-partisan group that had already planned to provide the list to whoever would be elected Governor of Massachusetts.  Romney DID indeed appoint a significant number of qualified women to his staff once he had such a list. And for that he should be applauded.

But my question--OUR question--needs to be: "Why did he feel compelled to exaggerate what he did," much in the same manner that we have to ask, "Why did Paul Ryan feel compelled to exaggerate the time in which he (Ryan) had run a marathon?"

Neither is a life-and-death issue.  Yet. But if the Romney-Ryan ticket gets elected, at what point does the public need to ask, "Is their report of actions (allegedly) taken by Iran, or Russia, or North Korea, or... completely factual, and does their report indicate that Iran/Russia/North Korea is threatening our security?" Or, is their report an exaggeration of the truth?  We had a similar problem with the Gulf of Tonkin nearly fifty years ago, and the exaggeration by the LBJ administration enabled us--caused us--to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia. And, more recently, we had the same problem with the GWBush administration's claims of WMDs in Iraq.

We need to be able to trust our leaders on all matters, and especially on matters of national security. In so many things that the Romney-Ryan ticket has said, we haven't gotten the truth.  We have gotten an exaggeration of the truth, so much so that some folk have labeled it lies.

I don't care about semantics right here.  I do care that (a) both R&R have trouble remembering the truth, and so exaggerate to make themselves look better; or (b) they do remember the truth, but exaggerate anyway to make themselves look better; or (c) are congenitally incapable of telling the unadulterated truth.  In any case, even in these small matters not of national security, I can't trust them.  And I can't support such people to become our leaders when matters of national security may be at stake. 

Here's the first part of David S. Bernstein's article, "Talking Politics,"on the "Disorientation 2012" blog about Romney's claim that he initiated the search for qualified women to be in his gubernatorial administration:
----- ----- -----

Not a true story.

What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I've checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I've just presented it is correct -- and that Romney's claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.

# 33 Is the American Electorate as Stupid as the Romney Camp Believes?

The Reuters/Ipsos poll just published on October 10 (maybe Oct 11 East coast time) gives Romney a slight lead overall in the presidential race.  That doesn't mean anything, and is probably not even accurate.  What's that, you say?  Am I being "Republican" by ignoring information that I don't agree with?  Do I think that only polls showing Obama to be ahead are the only polls to be listened to?  Am I going to continue ending my sentences with prepositions? 

No.  There are actually two major problems I have with tonight's poll results showing Romney slightly ahead: (1) Voter Suppression Laws [VSL] and (2) the claim that Romney's performance in the first debate has propelled him into the lead.

(1) This one is not quick but it is dirty. If the VSL work, Romney might just carry some battleground states that otherwise he might not.  Right now, Florida and Iowa are showing that new registrations have changed from four years ago: new Republican registrations are about the same, but new Democratic registrations are WAY lower than four years ago.  Rachel Maddow discussed this on Tuesday night, and seems to attribute the Democratic reduction to new laws in those two states. 

Two points of note:

(a) if those are the only two states where voter suppression laws are allowed to stand, Obama can still win, and easily.  If other states are also allowed to keep new voter suppression laws, then the race could turn.  Ohio, for example, is running 4 to 6 points in favor of Obama.  If enough of those folk find themselves disqualified as voters, Romney might carry the state. Remember, however, that most of the states that have passed or are trying to pass voter suppression laws are already red states, particularly in the deep south.  Those laws would have no effect on those states' presidential election results.

(b) I'm not convinced that new voter registration is quite so important.  If the folk in battleground states who registered to vote four years ago, in order to vote for Obama, can still vote this year (and aren't disqualified by the new VSL), and still vote for Obama, then Obama can still win those states.  The key polls will be those that deal with registered voters who do actually plan to vote.  Those polls become more important as we approach within a week of the election.

 (2) The view that Romney's forcefulness in carrying the first debate has swayed voters depends very much on the American electorate being really stupid.  Romney shifted his positions on so many issues that I'm surprised his head didn't spin around and that he didn't spew green vomit on camera. 

What in the blazing saddles does Mitt Romney stand for? and how can anyone support him when he keeps changing his point of view?  He gives one position to one audience (in a newspaper or TV interview for example, or a speech in one state) and a contradictory position to another, different, audience. But much of the press is reporting on both--and is making it clear that Romney is pandering to specific audiences by changing his positions on several issues. 

The press has covered pretty well his inconsistencies on abortion, his mathematical absurdities on the budget, and his contradictory policy statements.  If a significant number of voters ignore the facts that the media (and the Obama camp) are emphasizing, then, sadly yes, the American electorate IS as stupid as the Romney camp believes.  The facts on the issues are available.  Romney and his surrogates ignore them. 

For these actions, to me Mitt Romney lacks integrity. I have always maintained that, if you don't have integrity, you don't have anything.  To me, Mitt Romney has nothing. 

# 32 Mitch McConnell: "Our Number 1 Priority is to Make Barack Obama a One-Term President." RPW: "Obama is still going to win big."

Mitch McConnell, minority leader of the Senate said that in 2009, shortly after Barack Obama became president.  Yet, Obama actually tried, time after time, to work with the Republicans in both houses, mostly unsuccessfully.  During these past four years, the Republicans in the Senate have filibustered, or threatened to filibuster, nearly every piece of legislation that would have improved job opportunities for working Americans.  (see the elephant blocking traffic in the picture below; thank you Denise for posting it)

Caption: "The Democrats only had a filibuster-proof majority for 24, repeat - 24, Congressional working days. Please let the myth die."

 

Now, during this election campaign, the Republicans are blaming Obama for high unemployment (despite the last nine months of unemployment declines), and for all the other ills that do or are perceived to haunt the country. 

McConnell's announcement was a horrible admission.  In addition to the fact that the Senate Republicans put his game plan into action by often blocking Senate action, it also led to Republicans opposing legislation that they had initially proposed!  And it sent--at the time--the wrong message to the country: rather than indicating that the GOP's primary priority was to help fix what was wrong with the country, they emphasized that they would try to create more havoc in the economy, and anywhere else they could, as long as they were able to blame Obama.

The Democrats have absolutely blown this part of the re-election campaign.  Mitch McConnell's statement should have been a feature of continuing Democrat campaign ads from the very beginning.  The voting public may indeed have a short memory: the Democrats should have kept McConnell's charge to his troops in the forefront of their publicity, so that the electorate would not forget Republicans' motives.

Oh, and one other point (thank you Denise and Laurel), this one about taxes:

 

 

I've included this now because I'm not planning on addressing this part of Romney's platform.  He frankly hasn't given enough specific information to conclude much more than the possible consequences. 

 

Obama is still going to win big.  You heard it here first.  If I'm wrong, you don't remember where you heard it.  Seriously, even the post-debate blip is beginning to recede.  It will continue to do so.  Enjoy, 'nighty-night, and don't let the poll bugs bite.'  /RPW 

 

 

 

 

# 31 The Polls Are All Over the Freaking Place

Either the American public is a lot dumber now than four years ago, or the Pew poll is way offbase.  How can Romney and Obama be tied with female voters, after ALL that Romney and Ryan have said about women's rights (or, in their case, women's non-rights), and after the various gaffes by Romney's Stepford wife-with-balls.  I mean, ya gotta have kahones to make the crazy comments she has made, and still show your face in public. Even Romney admitted that too much exposure will make her wear thin with the electorate.

On the other hand, we had to realize that the polls are fluid, and the first debate was a disaster for Obama--not from the point of view of the reality of what each candidate said, but from the appearance of what each candidate said. Obama's comments were more factually accurate; Romney's were...who knows what they were: he contradicted seveal of the positions he had taken previously, and he repeated "information" that had already been disproved by non-partisan sources; tell the same lie over and over, and people will start to believe it.

And, yet again on the other hand (yes, yes, this is our third hand), other polls have different results, including an indication that Obama has recovered from the initial dip after the first debate.

I'm not taking the Pew Poll very seriously, though I admit that probably some voters were swayed by Romney's smoothness (he writes here, not having seen the debate but trusting the near-unanimous reports about it).  I really wish James Carville was working with David Axelrod et al: Carville has a way of turning a phrase that makes his points strongly: "drag a hunnerd dollar bill through a trailer court, and who knows what you'll turn up."  Nasty, but Memorable.

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[The Pew Poll, by Tom Kludt, TPM]

In the first national poll to be conducted entirely after the opening presidential debate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney now leads President Barack Obama by 4 points.

The poll, conducted by Pew Research Center from Thursday through Sunday and released on Monday, shows Romney leading Obama among likely voters nationwide, 49 percent to 45 percent. That's a stark contrast from Pew's mid-September poll after both parties' conventions, which showed Obama up 8 points among likely voters.

The dramatic 12-point swing in Pew's poll from Obama to Romney is perhaps the strongest piece of evidence to date that the president has paid a political price for his listless performance in the Denver debate. But the complete suite of post-debate surveys from national pollsters is only beginning to emerge, and the early indications are of a less dramatic shift than Pew is showing.

Republican-leaning Rasmussen found Romney leading by 2 points in its Saturday release, which was based on findings from the tracking period of Oct. 3-5.  But in Rasmussen Monday's poll, conducted entirely after the debate and partially following the release of Friday's encouraging jobs report, the two candidates were tied again. Gallup reported on Monday that Obama and Romney were tied in the three days immediately following the debate, after Obama led by 5 in the three days prior.  But on Monday, Gallup's tracking -- which is based on a 7-day rolling average -- Obama again led by 5.

The PollTracker Average now shows Romney overtaking Obama to claim a nearly 3-point lead after the president led for the better portion of the last month....

A separate poll released by Gallup on Monday showed that a whopping 72 percent of debate watchers declared Romney the winner, while only 20 percent said the same of Obama -- the largest margin of victory in the history of Gallup's post-debate polling.

Pew's poll also suggests that voters have given Romney a second look following his stellar debate performance. The two candidates now run even on the question of who is the stronger leader, a category that Obama won by 13 points in Pew's September poll. Voters still view the president as the more honest and truthful candidate by a margin of 44 percent to 39 percent, but the president had a 14 point advantage on the same question a month ago. And Obama's 18-point lead with women shown in Pew's previous poll is also gone, with the two candidates now tied among female voters.

In another blow to the Obama campaign, whose central message has been to move the country forward and away from the old ideas put forth by Republicans, voters identify Romney as the candidate with new ideas, 47 percent to 40 percent. Moreover, Romney's favorability rating spiked 5 points to 50 percent in Monday's poll. Obama's favorability rating, long his most resilient attribute as a candidate, fell from 55 percent last month to 49 percent.

On a host of policy issues -- the budget deficit, the job situation, taxes, Medicare, health care and foreign policy -- Romney has either expanded his edge from last month, overtaken the president or narrowed Obama's edge.

Take Medicare, for example. The president was widely viewed as the better candidate to handle the nation's health care system for senior citizens in September, 51 percent to 38 percent; today, the president's advantage is only 3 points, 46 percent to 43 percent. Obama's previous 15-point edge on foreign policy is now only a 4-point advantage. On taxes, Obama's 6-point lead from last month has turned into a 4-point advantage for Romney. And a majority of voters have doubts about Obama's ability to take on the paramount issue of the 2012 campaign: 54 percent said the president does not know how to turn around the economy, while 44 percent said he does....

Pew conducted its poll Oct. 4-7 using live phone interviews with 1,201 registered voters and 1,112 likely voters nationwide. The margin of error is 3.3 percentage points for registered voters and 3.4 percentage points for likely voters.