President Obama is experiencing his highest job approval since November 2009. This, according to a new poll conducted by Gallop Daily Tracking.
Month: October 2012
Mitt Romney won the debate last night because he projected a presidential attitude, seemed to be more interested, and actually strung together answers in clear sentences. Barack Obama was clearly unprepared and stories about his lack of focus on the debates turned out to be true. The right-wing media is ecstatic. The left is crestfallen. The narrative has changed.
But it doesn’t mean that the election is over, anymore than Romney’s September swoon meant that it was over. This debate allowed Mitt to crawl out of the hole he dug himself with his 47% comments (there, I’ve mentioned it even if the president didn’t) and the overall lack of coherent message on the campaign trail. It’s probable that his debate performance changes his attitude and his crowd count, but let’s think this through a little more specifically.
Romney is still peddling the same Medicare voucher plan, the same tax cuts for the wealthy, the same dangerous foreign policy and the same noxious policies regarding women as he was yesterday afternoon. He’s still the same uninspiring politician he’s been for his entire career, though he will have a more jaunty step for the next week. The policies he proposed last night will not all of a sudden become more popular as Obama advertising will make sure, and Mitt is still against the auto bailout, which means he’ll still likely lose Ohio.
Mitt did himself a great favor in the debate and he was helped by an equal and opposite reaction from the president who did all he could to present a tired, ticked-off image on a day when he could have solidified his advantage and made the other two presidential debates superfluous. Friday’s jobs numbers could be the second half of a one-two punch that should have only been one punch. The press will make more of this because, after all, they need eyes on their websites and dollars in their pockets.
We now have a race, but my sense is that it will just be a closer version of the race we had on Wednesday afternoon. Obama still has the lead and he’ll likely keep it in the swing states that are critical to his reelection. Let the national polls show a Romney bump (and they will). My focus will be on Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. If Wisconsin suddenly turns, then it’s bad news, but I don’t think that will happen. There are two more debates, and if my reading of history is keen, as it sometimes is, Obama can turn himself into the comeback kid who wipes the floor with the rich guy next time they meet.
Yes, the narrative has changed, but the song remains the same.
And really, isn’t it about time you followed me? Go towww.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
I’m going to continue doing what I set out to do with this blog – be honest.
Last night’s debate was horrendous. As I write this post now, (and it’s not going to be a long post), I still cannot figure out what was on the President’s mind. This is the man who has been the leader of the free world for the last 4 years. He has met with, and had meetings with other world leaders. He has walked the walk and talked the talk in his commitment to capture and or kill terrorists. This president has dealt with an economy that was on the brink of collapse and because his leadership, he has stabilized this country and we are now on the right track to getting things back to where things should be.
Mr. Obama has faced pressures before and has always found ways to deal with and handle those situations. What happened last night in the debate left me believing that Mr. Obama came to this debate expecting that his title – Mr. President – would be enough.
It wasn’t.
Or maybe the Obama reelection team bought into the pre-debate hype by the media that Romney would be armed with zingers, and they advised the president to stay ‘presidential,’ and stick only with facts. Yes, in the ideal world with a Republican candidate who is grounded in reality, staying presidential would be okay. But Mitt Romney is not grounded in reality. He has decided to run a campaign based on lies and deceit, a fact that was evident from the very first ad his campaign produced where they intentionally misrepresented a quote the president was making.
Faced with such a wishy-washy flip-flopping candidate who changes his position and panders to every single group, it was imperative that Mr. Obama came on stage prepared to show the stark differences between his policies and those of Mr. Romney. It was imperative that he stopped Romney in his tracks when Romney opened his mouth and lied about the $716 billion of waste taken out of Medicare. The president needed to let the American public know each time Romney told a lie. He needed to drive the debate, be aggressive in defending his policies over the last 4 years and in pointing out that Romney’s policies amounts to a trust, wait and see con game. The president of the United States needed to be strong. He had to be assertive.
But instead I sat in my living room like millions of Americans nationwide and watched a dejected man on stage. I watched Mr. Obama – the man who holds the most powerful position in the free world – hang his head, refusing to look Mr. Romney in the face. And I watched in amazement as Mr. Romney directed the flow of the debate, lying at every turn, going unchallenged.
After the debate, Al Sharpton from MSNBC was heard taking a more optimistic view of the President’s performance. Sharpton said that the way the president allowed Romney to dominate the debate was masterful, because the positions Romney adopted last night “are not positions he preached in his campaign.” These new positions Sharpton concluded, will be more ammunition for fact-checkers and Democrats who will now be able to once again, point out the fact that Romney is a flip flopper… a liar… a spineless little man who panders to every group to get elected.
“We have his previous positions on tape!” Sharpton said.
Well I hope Sharpton is right, but I don’t know if I could sit through another lack luster performance by the president.
Will I vote for Mr. Obama in November? Of course I will. I’m not crazy! I agree with the policies he’s put in place so far and I believe Mr. Romney was serious when he said he’s not concerned about the very poor then degraded 47% of Americans as lazy moochers who rely on the government for food and shelter. Yes, Mr. Obama still gets my vote, but I want him to fight in these debates like his reelection depends on it, because it does!
It’s Debate night in America, as President Obama takes to the stage with the Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Over the last few weeks, Romney has been constantly putting his foot in his mouth on a number of issues – the biggest and most dangerous to date being his statement about 47% of Americans, calling half of America lazy and moochers.
The President on the other hand came out of the Democratic Convention with a visible bounce, due to the sheer organization of the convention and the speeches including that of the First Lady Michelle Obama and especially Former President Bill Clinton.
And now here we are, October 3rd. Mr. Romney gets the opportunity to face the President on stage and either continue the lies he’s told in his campaign, or shake off the Republican voters by doing something he’s good at – pandering to the biggest audience.
Without further ado, we present the entire debate…
Categories
Polling and the Debate
The pace of polling has slowed down since last week, but the overall trend is still towards Barack Obama in the swing states. His national numbers are somewhat closer, but Gallup (RV poll) still has him up six and Rasmussen has him leading by one, which is down two points from Monday. New Quinnipiac and CNN polls have Obama ahead by four and three, respectively, and the Washington Times has him up nine.
There has been a great deal of debate in the polling world, that has spilled over into the general population, about poll methodologies and whether the national polling firms are oversampling Democrats to arrive at their numbers. My view is that the polling firms are seeing a shift in the number of people who are identifying themselves as Democrats and are adjusting their findings based on that shift and the overall demographics of the polls they’re taking. It would be counterproductive to say that a pollster such as NBC/WSJ is cooking the numbers because NBC is part of the equation. By that measure, the Washington Times should have Romney ahead since they are a conservative publication, but they have a D-37 R-34 I-29 split while showing Obama with a 50-41% lead. Is the Washington Times in the tank for the president? Scott Rasmussen? The Wall Street Journal (whose pollster was aligned with the Bush Administration)? I would think not. I can certainly understand why some would question a sample that has a D+9 spread, but I would be loathe to assign a diabolical plot to such a poll.
The other clue about the accuracy of the released polls is how the campaigns are acting. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are not smiling easily or walking with the swagger of frontrunners. They are fighting hard for the swing states they need to win and are assiduously making their case for election. President Obama is likewise running thousands of ads in Colorado, Ohio and Florida and fighting for every vote. Neither side is ahead by a substantial margin at this point. The polls will change, but it would be irresponsible to say that they’re accurate only if the candidate you support is leading.
Where does that leave us with the first debate directly ahead? Can debates change people’s minds? Yes, they can. But they seldom do. With Mitt Romney behind in the swing state polls, he needs to have a solid performance against a president who is not as effective a debater as many people think. Romney’s had more recent experience because of the GOP primary debates while Obama has been making speeches, which he’s good at, but he can become wordy and pedantic with some of his answers. In the end, Romney has to convey a narrative that leads voters to believe that the country needs a change in leadership. Obama will need to more forcefully defend his policies and remind voters of the state of the country when he took office. Will likeability also play a role? You bet. And we all have to be on gaffe watch duty in case it provides a turning point.
Enjoy the show.
Register your comments at www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
Ahmadinejad is finally admitting that the steep decline in his country’s currency is due to the sanctions imposed by President Obama and other supporting nations. The Iranian president calls the sanctions “psychological pressures.”
In the past few days Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost more than half its value against the U.S. dollar. It has prompted fears that the economy is on the verge of collapse, crippled by sanctions which means Iran has lost markets where it can export oil. The price of goods has also risen, as many have to be imported.
The U.S. and its allies have imposed the punishing measures in attempts to force Iranian concessions over its nuclear programme, which the West says is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Tehran insists it is for peaceful purposes.
h/t The Daily Mail
If there are more uninsured, then more people will use the emergency rooms as their primary care, then more Americans with insurance will be asked to pay more on their policies to cover these emergency room visits by the uninsured, then insurance companies will make more profit from the increase in premiums, then Romney’s plan to put more money in the pockets of the rich will be complete.
The analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based health care research foundation, found that under Romney’s health care plan, the uninsured population would soar to 72 million by 2022 — 12 million higher than if nothing had been done at all.
By contrast, if President Barack Obama’s health care law is fully implemented — including complete state participation in the now voluntary Medicaid expansion — the number of uninsured people would drop from 47.9 million in 2011 to about 27.1 million people in 2022, the report estimated.
The Commonwealth Fund produces studies that often cast the national health care law in a favorable light, and spotlight the shortcomings of the American health care system compared to other countries.
Stephen Colbert is angry… well… maybe…! Apparently there are some “liberal hacks” at Fox News who thought they could ask the Republican vice presidential candidate questions in an interview. The nerve!
Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice-president, had a contentious interview with Chris Wallace over the 20 percent across-the-board tax cut he and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney have proposed.
Colbert brushed off a study Wallace cited saying the plan would cost the U.S. $5 trillion over 10 years.
“True, not true, who cares?” Colbert said. “It’s over 10 years. Romney and Ryan will only be in office for eight of those. Let President [Michele] Bachmann worry about it in 2020. That’s what hindsight is for.”
Colbert was also unimpressed by Wallace’s refusal to accept Ryan’s explanation that the cuts were “revenue-neutral” and praised Ryan for saying it would “take too long” to explain the figures behind the proposal.
“Great answer,” Colbert said. “Why is it a great answer? It would take me too long to explain, but trust me, it was a great answer.”
Mitt Romney is running a breakneck speed trying to distance himself from the healthcare law he signed into effect as governor in Massachusetts. Why is he running? Because Massachusetts healthcare is a very successful program that laid the foundation for President Obama’s Affordable Health Care, also called ObamaCare. He’s also running away because, among other things, RomneyCare contains the dreaded mandate that Republicans suddenly despise.
Some may think it is purely politics that Democrats would praise RomneyCare as the foundation for ObamaCare. After all, the more Democrats could tie Romney to ObamaCare, the more explaining Romney would have to do. But thanks to BuzzFeed and this newly uncovered video, it seems that Democrats are genuinely appreciative of RomneyCare… at least one Democrat name Barack Obama.
In 2006, then Senator Barack Obama lauded praise on Romney’s healthcare law, saying that his fellow Democrats should take a page from RomneyCare;
“Everybody has to buy in and then the government helps out those who can’t afford it. Those kinds of bold initiatives, I think, the Democrats have to put forward. If, in fact, we can credibly claim that we can run the country and not simply criticize from the sidelines.”
Retired Ohio businessman Wayne Butterfass says he’s voted Republican all his life, but can’t believe what he’s seeing this year in the Republican Party.
“Obama was handed an economy on the skids, after eight years of Bush,” Butterfass said in an email. “All he ever did was think about war. I’m afraid Romney will do the same, especially the trickle-down theory.
“I don’t know why any woman or gay would ever vote for Romney. All you have to do is look at the Republican platform. I’ve never seen such HATE this year in the Republican Party, national or state.”
As Sarah Jones notes at PoliticusUSA, “Wayne Butterfass is not alone is his disgust with his former party. According to Stan Greenberg, the Republican Party has lost 5 points in voter identification over the past month. He writes, ‘Contempt for the Republicans is pushing Democrats into the lead, not only in the presidential race but across Senate and likely many House races as well’.”
h/t Alan