U.S. 2012 Election

[a_majoor]

The Politico "hit piece" (which makes unsubstantiated allegations from unnamed sources) was obviously designed to derail the prospects of candidate Herman Cain. They should have watched "Star Wars" before setting out:

"You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

http://www.bizzyblog.com/2011/11/03/the-cain-scrutiny/

The Cain Scrutiny
Filed under: MSM Biz/Other Bias,MSM Biz/Other Ignorance,Taxes & Government — TBlumer @ 2:40 pm
His enemies and the media may have made him stronger.

________________

It’s difficult to know how the story of sexual harassment and possibly other allegations against Republican presidential frontrunner Herman Cain will evolve, let alone turn out. That said, potential parallels to the 1992 Democratic Party primary campaign lead me to believe that whoever is behind this has failed to learn their history, and my come to regret their ignorance.

The hit piece at Politico involving four (!) reporters appears to have been released before it was fully developed and perhaps before the online publication would have preferred to let it go. On Monday, Stephen Engelberg at the leftist investigative journalism outfit ProPublica characterized the piece as nothing more than “a first-rate tip on a story.”

If it really was a case of premature e-publication, here’s a likely reason why: Those intent on stopping Cain believe that doing so has become a now-or-never proposition. That’s because in national polling, Cain is showing genuine signs of separating himself from the rest of the GOP field.

That’s right. While everyone has been focusing on what Cain may or may not have done which offended female employees and associates over a dozen years ago at the National Restaurant Association, new polls from Fox News and Quinnipiac have hit the streets showing Cain with four and seven-point leads, respectively, over Mitt Romney. No remaining contender besides Newt Gingrich gets past single-digits in both polls. What’s more, at Zogby, which for whatever reason is not taken seriously by and is not included in the compilation at Real Clear Politics, Cain has outpolled Romney three straight times by 20 or more points while averaging just over 40%. As I’ve said before, if Zogby’s only half-right, Cain has a double-digit lead. It remains to be seen what will happen in the polls as a result of this week’s developments.

Getting to the lesson of 1992 requires an answer to only one question: What was Bill Clinton’s biggest problem in early January of that year? Answer: Almost nobody knew or cared who he was. Gennifer Flowers changed all that. Even the establishment press at the time didn’t grasp her significance.

Despite stories in the tabloids, a post-Super Bowl 60 Minutes interview with his wife Hillary at his side while he denied any and all wrongdoing to lapdog Steve Kroft in front of 50 million viewers, a day-after press conference by Flowers including taped evidence, and an intense effort by the then-nascent alternative media to promote Flowers’ side of the story, Clinton emerged stronger.

Oops, did I say “despite” those things? I meant to say “because of” those things. In mere days, Clinton went from being a virtual nobody to a big-time somebody, from just another southern governor to the second most-recognized politician in the land behind the incumbent George H.W. Bush.

The press which worked mightily to defend Clinton was utterly clueless concerning what its coverage had done to help the man who would ultimately become known as the ARIPOTUS (The Accused Rapist and Impeached President of the United States). In mid-February, on the Sunday before the New Hampshire primary, the New York Times moaned about the “weak Democratic field.” Bill Clinton was supposedly “in trouble.” No he wasn’t. He was instead mere days away from becoming the “Comeback Kid” for his second-place finish in the Granite State to virtual favorite son Paul Tsongas. From there, he proceeded to leave his primary campaign competition in the dust. Armed with promises to deliver the Democratic Party’s decades-old dream of nationalized health care along with a middle-class tax cut, and greatly assisted by Ross Perot’s third-party run, he defeated the “no new taxes” pledge-breaking Bush in the general election.

Six years later, thanks to Paula Jones’s, uh, sexual harassment lawsuit against the now-sitting president (settled for $850,000, or about 30 years’ salary), we learned that Clinton, with his wife sat at his side making fun of women “standing by their man” no matter what as she stood by her adulterous husband to preserve her personal viability, lied when he told Kroft that he had no sexual relationship with Flowers. In a 1998 deposition, he admitted that it supposedly happened only once. Sure, Bill. Eight years later, his failure to keep either of his two core campaign promises became official when he left office.

Until this week, what has been Herman Cain’s biggest problem? You guessed it: Despite the strong polls, very few people had any idea who the heck he is. Well, that problem’s solved. The vague charges raised at the Politico and the inevitable follow-ons have hit all of the Big Three establishment networks; were placed on Page 1, Column 1 at the Times; and have otherwise dominated the news cycle.

For Cain, the good news that most Americans probably now recognize his name is obviously threatened by why that’s the case. The other obvious bad news is that unlike Clinton, Cain faces an intensely hostile establishment press whose members can’t abide by the idea that a black conservative has a genuine shot at becoming the nation’s CEO. But Cain’s sensible conservative support base is intensely loyal. He has also thus far benefited from intense outrage in the right side of the blogosphere. He also appears to be picking up a great deal of sympathy convertible to potential support from relatively disengaged voters who know how sexual harassment charges have far too often been used as a money-grubbing legal weapon with no legitimate basis, and how the prospect of such charges being raised has exponentially increased paranoia in the American workplace.

His fans also believe that this time, unlike in 1992, and despite initial clumsiness, the Herminator has a couple of other things working in his favor which Bill Clinton never had 20 years ago: the truth, and an interest in communicating it. We’ll see if that is indeed the case, and if it’s enough.

 

[a_majoor]

Voter fraud:

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2011/11/01/soros-funded-meeting-of-voter-fraud-deniers-hold-election-law-conference/

Soros-Funded Meeting of Voter Fraud Deniers Hold Election Law Conference
November 1, 2011 - 4:44 pm - by J. Christian Adams
     
Last month, a collection of groups funded by George Soros held a conference on election law and the upcoming 2012 election.  PJ Media has obtained details of the event from an attendee.  Our eyes and ears are extensive.  The meeting was one long attack on voter integrity efforts in the 2012 election.  The sponsor was the Fair Elections Legal Network, a group that has received $105,000 from the Soros-funded Tides Foundation since 2007.

The speakers were Deven Anderson of the “Black Youth Vote!”; Robert “Biko” Baker of the League of Young Voters Education Fund; and Eric Marshall of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Anderson was the recipient of a fellowship from the Soros funded radical organizing outfit Center for Community Change.  The panel was moderated by Megan Donavan of the sponsor organization, the Fair Elections Legal Network.  Donovan hails from the vote fraud denying Brennan Center for Justice by way of the Center for Reproductive Rights, proving that ideology may be more important than specialization.

These types of groups exist primarily to attack any effort to combat voter fraud or ensure the integrity of elections.  As I write in my book Injustice, there is “an enormous and well-funded industry of voter fraud deniers that provides an intellectual smokescreen for this lawlessness.”

Deven Andersen, obviously a top-shelf racialist, casts all Tea Partiers and election integrity proponents as racists: “The Tea Party is a reincarnation of the White Southern Democrats.  They want to turn the clock back to 1866 and make blacks second rate citizens again,” he told the crowd.  “Conservatives don’t like people of color.  They are stuck in 1866.”  Specifically, the nut Andersen named the King Street Patriots, a voter integrity effort in Houston, Texas.

Robert Baker took the nuttiness a step further, claiming there is a “conservative war on voting” and that “young blacks are being taken out of the electoral process.”  Baker said what few are willing to say publicly in their opposition to photo voter identification:  “Why don’t young people of color have the proper ID? . . . Why can’t they just go to the DMV and get one like everyone else?  Here’s a typical scenario explaining why:  I have a few unpaid speeding tickets.  If I go to the DMV, they will call the cops and I’ll be arrested, so it’s not worth trying to get an ID so I can vote.”

Eric Marshall of the Lawyers’ Committee bemoaned the fact that regular Tea Party citizens “were winning the debate.”  He said groups like “True the Vote want to suppress the vote.”  Perhaps Marshall and Andersen will be schooled in the finer points of defamation law shortly.  Marshall said True the Vote will “prevent anyone who looks different than them from voting,” an outright lie by Marshall.  Marshall, a top-shelf voter fraud denier, claimed that no dead people are voting.  Marshall obviously never heard of Lafayette Keaton, who voted for dead people in Oregon, including his own son.  Marshall singled out the Heritage Foundation, calling them the center of lies about voter fraud.

While this meeting of nuts might sound fanciful to most Americans, it is indicative of the lengths the voter fraud deniers go to stoke up their base, and scare law enforcement officials from enforcing laws to ensure electoral integrity next year.  But now, people are paying attention to their efforts to incite lawlessness.

 

[a_majoor]

Mitt Romney's economic plan:

http://blog.american.com/2011/11/romney-just-dramatically-raised-the-stakes-vs-obama/

Romney just dramatically raised the stakes vs. Obama
By James Pethokoukis

November 6, 2011, 7:32 pm
The Day of Reckoning is here, or will be in 2013. The next president and Congress will need to make huge decisions about taxes and spending. And those actions will help determine whether America’s economic future will be one of a) renewed growth and prosperity or b) shared scarcity and managed decline. Putting it another way, will the 21st century American Way be the dynamic, entrepreneurial capitalism of Schumpeter or the static, state capitalism of Keynes?

Which is why Mitt Romney’s economic agenda, all 59 points of it, has been mildly disappointing. Merely pointing out the myriad failures of Obamanomics maybe enough to swap out the Oval Office’s current occupant. But that tactic is insufficient to create a mandate for bold change. America’s choices must be made clear and explained to voters in 2012.

And Romneynomics seemed all about keeping the spotlight on the other guy’s shortcomings. Romney’s tax plan — eliminating investment taxes for the middle class — was recycled from 2008. And his approach to entitlement reform was maddeningly airy: “As president, Romney’s own plan will differ [from Paul Ryan’s approach to fixing Medicare], but it will share those objectives.”

But no more. Romney has made several moves of late ensuring that if he’s the nation’s 45th president, Americans will have cast an affirmative vote for something.

First, Romney said his policies would help U.S. growth accelerate to 4 percent annually. Gutsy. Recall how Tim Pawlenty was mocked mercilessly for setting a 5 percent growth target. Overall, U.S. GDP growth has averaged 3.3 percent the past 50 years. But many economists think aging America will need to settle for growth closer to 2 percent long term. Romney, however, seems to agree with consultant McKinsey that a higher retirement age and smarter immigration policy, along with smarter regulation and pro-investment tax policy, could allow the U.S. to maintain its historic growth rate, if not higher. More importantly, the target represents a rejection of the declinist mentality.

Second, Romney has basically adopted Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan — helping seniors pay for private insurance — with the twist of giving seniors the option of sticking with a government program. By embracing a pro-market, patient-centered approach, Romney has invited Team Obama to attack him for trying to “privatize” Medicare as surely as if he advocated phasing out the system entirely. Another bold call.

Third, Romney proposed capping government spending at 20 percent of GDP and cutting $500 billion from government spending during his first term. Not only does this directly strike at the liberal consensus that spending as a share of output must rise as America ages, it invites another Obama attack: the GOP nominee is proposing economy-killing austerity.

So now Romney will have to advocate and defend — if he is the nominee — not just attack and deride. And America will have a choice, not just an echo.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Konrad Yakabuski is The Globe and Mail's chief U.S. political writer, based in Washington. Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from The Globe and Mail are his views on the election which is, now, only 364 days away:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/is-obama-doomed-to-be-a-one-term-president/article2227800/

Is Obama doomed to be a one-term president?

KONRAD YAKABUSKI
Washington— Globe and Mail Update

Posted on Monday, November 7, 2011

The 2012 presidential election is 364 days away and Barack Obama is officially an underdog – at least if he faces Mitt Romney next November.

A slew of weekend polls highlight the challenge facing the 44th President. His approval rating, at 44 per cent according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Sunday, remains well below the level normally associated with re-election. By this point in their mandates, both Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan had overcome their first-term foibles and, with approval ratings of 54 per cent and 57 per cent respectively, were sailing toward re-election.

Nowhere are the President’s difficulties more glaring than in the dozen swing states that typically decide national elections. Barely one-third of men and non-Hispanic white voters in these states approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance, according to a Friday Gallup survey conducted for USA Today.

Meanwhile, statistics whiz Nate Silver, who writes the FiveThirtyEight blog at The New York Times, has handicapped the 2012 race and concluded that Mr. Obama has a 40 per cent probability of winning against Mr. Romney if the economy remains mired in slow growth – the most likely scenario envisioned by economists. The President’s odds improve to 60 per cent if growth picks up to an annual rate of four per cent, but sink to a mere 17 per cent if the economy slips.

What’s most interesting about Mr. Silver’s analysis is that, even in the likely slow growth scenario, Mr. Obama would beat any Republican other than Mr. Romney or Jon Huntsman. His odds of victory against Texas Governor Rick Perry rise to 68 per cent.

Still, the polls indicate the President’s re-election team has its work cut out for it. The ABC poll has Mr. Romney ahead of Mr. Obama among working-class white voters by 55 per cent to 37 per cent, among college-educated whites by 51 per cent to 43 per cent and among suburban voters by 51 per cent to 45 per cent. These figures do not bode well for Mr. Obama in the key Rust Belt states.

While Mr. Obama wins near unanimous support among African-Americans – 92 per cent according to the ABC poll – his support among Hispanics has slipped to 60 per cent. He won 67 per cent of the Hispanic vote in 2008 and failure to achieve that threshold could cost him victories in states such as Nevada, Colorado and Florida.

Given his lock on about a dozen solidly Democratic states, including California and New York, Mr. Obama needs to win about half of the 151 electoral votes represented by the swing states to claim victory next Nov. 6. Those states are Ohio (18 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20), Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4), Michigan (16), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (6), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5) and Nevada (6).

But: the Republicans, especially the uncompromising Tea Party Republicans and the anti-immigrant and religious right fringes, can still seize defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm not sure that the Globe's Konrad Yakabuski isn't reading too much into this but I think he's right that most American voters (as opposed to most Democrat and Republic partisans) are moderates.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail is his report on the recent votes:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/worldview-american-voters-push-back-against-republican-game-plan/article2230541/

Worldview: American voters push back against Republican game plan

KONRAD YAKABUSKI
Washington— Globe and Mail Update

Posted on Wednesday, November 9, 2011

American voters delivered a stern warning to Republicans in Tuesday’s state elections, one that should hearten moderates: If you overreach, we will punish you.

The anti-union, anti-abortion and anti-immigration agenda that Republicans have pushed since making historic gains in state elections since 2009 experienced setback after setback in ballot initiatives held in several states on Tuesday.

Democrats across the country see Tuesday’s results as a sign of a voter pushback against the Republican agenda that could benefit President Barack Obama as he seeks re-election in 2012.

The most significant blow to the GOP game plan came in Ohio where voters opted to repeal Republican Governor John Kasich’s sweeping new labour law that all but eliminates collective bargaining in the public sector.

Mr. Kasich had sold the law as part of an economic reform plan designed to balance Ohio’s budget and make the state more competitive. But voters sided with the union movement, which plowed $30-million into the referendum on the law and mobilized volunteers from across the country in a grassroots campaign.

In the end, Ohioans voted 61 per cent to 39 per cent to repeal the measure.

“They might have said it was too much, too soon,” Mr. Kasich conceded.

Unlike a similar bill in Wisconsin, the Ohio law did not exempt police officers and firefighters from the limits on collective bargaining. That mobilized two largely Republican constituencies against the Kasich measure.

Meanwhile, in Mississippi, one of the most conservative states in the country, voters rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have effectively criminalized abortion.

The so-called “personhood” amendment would have defined life “to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.” Had it passed, the measure would have made all abortions in the state illegal, banned the morning-after pill and made in-vitro fertilization a potential crime.

The growing U.S. Personhood movement www.personhoodusa.com had hoped a victory in Mississippi would build momentum for similar initiatives in other states.

In Arizona, the godfather of the state’s harsh crackdown on illegal immigrants, was on the verge of losing his job as voters in State Senate president Russell Pearce’s district appeared poised to back a recall effort to oust him.

Mr. Pearce is the chief sponsor of SB 1070, the 2010 law that requires state law enforcement authorities to verify the immigration status of people they suspect of being in the country illegally. The law has yet to fully take effect. Lower courts have ruled parts of it unconstitutional since immigration is a federal responsibility in the United States.

Still, Mr. Pearce is considered a hero among U.S. proponents of a crack down on illegal immigration and SB 1070 has sparked the passage or introduction of similar laws in several states.

Although Mr. Pearce all but conceded defeat on Tuesday night , the final results of the recall vote will not be known until early and provisional ballots are counted in coming days.

The news on Tuesday night was not all good for Mr. Obama. Voters in Ohio chose by a margin of 2-to-1 to pass an amendment to the state constitution that would frustrate implementation of the President’s health-care reforms by making it illegal to force someone to carry health insurance.

Mr. Obama’s law includes a so-called “individual mandate” that requires Americans, subject to fines, to purchase health insurance on their own if they are not covered by their employer. Low-income earners would receive federal subsidies to buy insurance.

U.S. conservatives have argued that the mandate violates individual freedom, and most Americans tend to agree with them. The Ohio amendment is a (mostly symbolic) snub to the President that suggests he, too, could be sanctioned by voters next year for over-reaching.

 

[a_majoor]

Another year of misery isn't going to help the Dems in any election contest all the way downline:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/econo-misery-and-three-econo-myths/?print=1

Econo-Misery and Three Econo-Myths
Posted By Tom Blumer On November 15, 2011 @ 12:06 am In Column,economy,Elections 2012,Politics,US News | 28 Comments

“It’s one thing to fall into a ditch. Quite another to paint and decorate the ditch and call it home.”

– Rich Karlgaard at Forbes.com, November 2 [1]

Private and government forecasters are conceding that the economy is in a funk and won’t improve much next year. The Federal Reserve’s most recent predictions [2] are that economic growth in 2012 will be 2.5% – 2.9%, and that unemployment will still be above 8.5% at year’s end.

I would add: “If we’re lucky.”

Two observations put all of this into perspective:

We are still in the midst of the worst post-World War II “recovery” — and you can barely call it that — on record. As Investor’s Business Daily pointed out [3] in August, in every post-war downturn until the most recent recession, the economy’s output got back to where it was before the downturn began in three or fewer quarters. This time, we didn’t get over that hump for nine quarters. That’s three times longer than any other recovery since the Great Depression. Oh, and I almost forgot: The private sector is still smaller [4] than it was at the end of 2007.
Until Team Obama occupied the White House, the longest string of months during which the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was greater than 8.5% was 22, from January 1982 until October 1983. We’re now at 32 months and counting. If the Fed’s prediction above is correct, the streak will be at 44 on Election Day next year, doubling the previous record. Primarily because of misguided Keynesianism on steroids, millions of the long-term unemployed, in many instances despite their best efforts, are seeing their skills diminish. Because the pace of technological change is so much faster now than it was during the 1930s Depression Era, we are arguably witnessing the greatest destruction of human capital in U.S. history.
Welcome to Rich Karlgaard’s ditch — except that it’s not your normal two-sided affair. While we could with luck eventually climb out on the right side, to the left there is only a steep cliff. Additionally, any number of possible earthquakes from, say, Europe, bankrupt U.S. cities, or elsewhere could bring the whole thing crashing down at any time.

Sadly, none of this matters to President Obama, his apparatchiks, or his establishment press propagandists nearly as much as their virtually all-consuming goal of achieving his reelection. That is why you can expect any number of expectations-diminishing characterizations of the economy — de facto ditch painting and ditch decorating — to emanate from the White House and to be dutifully repeated in the media between now and November 6, 2012. What follows are just three of them.

1. It’s unrealistic to expect economic growth of 4% or more.

Gosh, the last time I heard this one was during the late 1970s, when — imagine that — a failing first-term Democrat was in the White House. “Somehow,” after emerging from the ugly recession brought on by Jimmy Carter’s high-inflation, high-interest rate disaster, economic growth under Ronald Reagan averaged 4.4% per year from 1983 to 1988. In the first six quarters after the Carter-driven recession officially ended, annualized growth averaged over 6-1/2%.

Given the amount of underutilized though increasingly skills-deficient labor and the abundant fossil-fuel resources available if only the governmental willpower existed to allow us to go get them, growth of greater than 4% is not out of the question; in fact, it’s inexcusable that we’re not achieving it right now.

But there’s another key element of economic holdback about which the government and the press remain in denial.

2. Regulations really aren’t that excessive — and besides, they don’t cause jobs losses.

This is a real craw-sticker. At least twice recently, Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press, which really ought to end the pretense and rename itself “The Administration’s Press,” has criticized candidate assertions during the Republican debates about how regulations are killing jobs. Rugaber’s most risible claim [3]:

… Labor Department data show that few companies where large layoffs occur say government regulation was the reason. Just two-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs since Obama took office have been due to government regulation, the data show.

One hardly knows where to begin. Here are just a few of many valid counterarguments:

Companies usually cite multiple reasons for layoffs and plant closures, and sometimes don’t mention regulations at all, even if they’re relevant. Take two paper company closures occurring in Hamilton, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati, during the past month. One company [5], in announcing 237 layoffs, cited “competition from Asia, rising costs of raw materials and uncertainty surrounding new federal pollution rules.” Is this one part of Chris’s 0.2%, or does it not count because the “pollution rules” weren’t mentioned first? Clearly, regs were relevant. The second company [6] is terminating 133 jobs and will “transition manufacturing” to mills in another state. The coverage of their announcement doesn’t say a word about regulations, but since the second company’s plant is similar in age to the first company’s, pollution regs were also probably relevant there. Yet it won’t count in Chris’s calculations.
Looking only at large layoffs is an obviously incomplete procedure. Small layoffs tend to happen at smaller enterprises, may affect more employees in total, and are more likely to occur due to increased regulatory costs.
There are two well-known recent examples of regulations killing jobs that don’t directly involve layoffs. The Obama administration’s regulatory slowdown of Gulf of Mexico deep-water drilling permit approvals in the wake of last year’s BP oil spill is preventing over 10,000 people [7] from getting back to work and causing some rigs to move, permanently ending related job opportunities. The Washington Examiner recently reported [8] that a lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board, which regulates union-worker matters, was “joking” in an email “that the NLRB’s suit against Boeing would kill jobs in South Carolina” — potentially about 4,000 [9] of them. Is that in your numbers, Chris?
As I noted in October [10], “laying a worker off is not the only way to ‘kill’ a job,” as Rugaber would seemingly have us believe. Regulatory burdens can and do cause companies to reduce their workforces through attrition, not replacing those who retire, deciding to manufacture new products overseas instead of domestically, and hiring temps, seasonal, or part-time workers instead of full-timers.
3. The flat economy is hurting government employees, while the private sector is doing okay.

This claim was made by Harry Reid [11] and dutifully regurgitated a short time later by Tom Raum at the AP [12] in October. Seasonally adjusted public-sector employment didn’t stop growing until May 2009, the month before the recession ended. Federal non-postal employment has increased by 130,000 since Obama took office. The private sector, while gaining over 2.7 million jobs since the beginning of 2009, is still down by over 6 million jobs from its pre-recession peak, and is at the same level it was in the spring of 2004. By comparison, state and local government employment, both of which grew too much during the past decade and stayed artificially high through the recession, are back to where they were in early 2006. There’s no reasonable doubt that the greater pain by far is still in the private sector.

The White House and Congress should be doing everything they can to get the private sector fully back on its feet. But they’re not. That’s because the administration and congressional Democrats’ aim, as evidenced in Dodd-Frank, ObamaCare, and so many other legal and regulatory matters, is to permanently make the government a bigger and ever more intrusive part of the economy and every citizen’s daily life. That, dear readers, is not a myth.

(Thumbnail image on PJM homepage by Shutterstock.com [13].)

Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/econo-misery-and-three-econo-myths/

URLs in this post:

[1] November 2: http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2011/11/02/no-ditch-for-america/?partner=rich_karlgaard_newsletter
[2] most recent predictions: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/business/economy/fed-holds-rates-and-strategy-steady.html?hp
[3] Investor’s Business Daily pointed out: http://news.investors.com/Article/583026/201108261859/The-Endless-Economic-Recovery.htm
[4] is still smaller: http://pjmedia.comGDPprivateVpublic3Q11at1011.png
[5] One company: http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20111013/BIZ01/310130123/Hamilton-s-Smart-Papers-closing
[6] The second company: http://www.piworld.com/article/year-end-closure-mohawk-papers-hamilton-oh-mill-cost-137-jobs/1#
[7] preventing over 10,000 people: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2011/10/12/ap-howler-night-regs-arent-job-killers-because-firms-who-lay-workers-alm
[8] recently reported: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/nlrb-lawyer-we-screwed-us-economy
[9] about 4,000: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63502.html
[10] I noted in October: http://www.bizzyblog.com/2011/10/12/ap-howler-of-the-night-regulations-arent-a-job-killer-because-employers-who-lay-workers-off-almost-never-cite-them/
[11] by Harry Reid: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/20/reids-comment-on-private-sector-doing-fine-puts-him-out-on-limb/
[12] by Tom Raum at the AP: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-24-US-Broken-Budgets-Shrinking-Government/id-6fa41303d1b6494b9c47bd2ae9f0da5e
[13] Shutterstock.com: http://www.shutterstock.com/

 

[a_majoor]

External events could overwhelm the "narrative":

http://blog.american.com/2011/11/europe-a-dagger-pointed-at-obamas-reelection/

Europe a dagger pointed at Obama’s reelection

By James Pethokoukis
November 16, 2011, 11:05 am
 
Even if nothing else goes wrong, President Obama will almost surely face the most challenging reelection environment for any American president since the Great Depression. Here’s Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, yesterday to Congress: “CBO expects real GDP to grow in the vicinity of 1½ percent this calendar year … and around 2½ percent next year. With modest growth in output, CBO expects employment to expand very slowly during the rest of this year and next year, leaving the unemployment rate close to 9 percent through the end of 2012.”

Elmendorf’s “This is as good as it gets” baseline forecast used to be Team Obama’s DEFCON 1 scenario. Even worse, it assumes nothing else goes particularly wrong (or right). Not that CBO doesn’t acknowledge some downside risk. Among “uncertainties” Elmendorf highlighted was “resolution of concerns that some European governments may default on their debts.”

But how uncertain really? The eurozone is falling into recession, with the region’s economy probably shrinking both this quarter and next. IHS Global Insight sees no growth at all for 2012 as a whole. This stagnation dramatically raises the odds of a messy default by Greece with financial contagion spreading to the rest of the eurozone and then America. The San Francisco Fed puts the odds of a U.S. recession at more likely than not, concluding “the fragile state of the U.S. economy would not easily withstand turbulence coming across the Atlantic. A European sovereign debt default may well sink the United States back into recession. … The odds are greater than 50 percent that we will experience a recession sometime early in 2012.”

How bad a recession? Bad enough that Barclays Capital thinks unemployment could hit 12 percent and home prices could fall another 7 percent. But whatever the impact of recession on jobs and housing, the reality that the economy would again be “back in the ditch” might be enough to guarantee Obama’s first term would be his last. While Europe’s problems aren’t Obama’s fault, voters would hold him accountable for an economy too weak to withstand overseas shocks. Perhaps, they might justifiably reason, the president should have been focusing on economic growth rather than healthcare reform in 2010, especially if the Supreme Court rules against ObamaCare smack in the middle of a new contraction.

Recall how an election-year recession affected Jimmy Carter in 1980. Forecasting models suggest Obama might not do much better than Carter if a downturn occurs in 2012. The Obama political team surely has thought about this and must shudder at the possibility.

 

[57Chevy]

                            Shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

Ten reasons why Obama will be reelected in 2012
David Rothkopf  19 Nov 2011
http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/ten-reasons-why-obama-will-be-reelected-in-2012-1.933093

The electoral map says it will be close. But already Republican overreaching has pushed Ohio back towards the incumbent president
Watching Republican presidential debate on November 12 on US foreign policy, you might be forgiven if you thought it shed absolutely no light on US foreign policy. After all, by definition ... and by God's good graces ... the views expressed represented those of people who will have precious little influence over America's international course.

Only one of these people can be the Republican nominee. And, in part thanks to performances like what Americans saw on Saturday, even that individual is very likely not going to ever be president of the US. As a consequence the vapidity of Herman Cain is irrelevant. The pro-torture stance of the wing-nuts in the group is irrelevant. The ridiculous zero-based foreign aid formula suggested by Rick Perry is irrelevant. Even the pontificating of Republican non-Romney of the Month, Newt Gingrich, is irrelevant. Because these weren't foreign policy ideas or positions. They were desperate cries for attention. Sadly, also irrelevant will be thoughtful views offered by Jon Huntsman, who clearly distinguished himself as the most capable, thoughtful, experienced, and credible of the crew.

This means that the 30 minutes of the debate that CBS chose not to air will have a virtually identical impact to the 60 minutes of Obama-bashing, fear-mongering, and peacocking that actually were broadcast. It is possible that some of the views that were offered by likely nominee Mitt Romney could be consequential. This would not seem to be good for US-China relations except that there is virtually zero possibility that president Mitt Romney — who would essentially be the hand-picked candidate of the business community — would actually follow through on his anti-Beijing sabre-rattling once in office.

Further, some of his statements were essentially meaningless to begin with, — like his assertion that a vote for him was the only way to avert Iran getting the bomb, not being backed by facts or even being remotely credible given how key what happens between now and when the next president takes office will be. But more important still is that Romney isn't going to be the next president either. In all likelihood that will be US President Barack Obama.
Article continues below

Here are 10 reasons why:

1. Obama is the incumbent. That matters. And he has become increasingly confident in using the bully pulpit to his advantage, at appearing presidential. The crucial issue is going to be economics.

2. Despite Europe's economic mess, a number of other factors suggest that the US economy may begin to tick upward more during the next year. Other parts of the world are likely to be growing from the emerging markets to, in a modest way, Japan. More importantly, the likelihood that the US unemployment rate declines the better part of a point to something closer to 8 per cent is pretty good.

3. Like Reagan, Obama is liked and seen as trying hard to do the right thing. That, plus some signs of progress goes a long way with the American people.

Third party candidate

4. Furthermore, none of these candidates are a Ronald Reagan. Moreover, none of them are even a George W. Bush, which is saying something. Mitt Romney is the whitest white man in America. He will look more like the establishment than Obama in an anti-establishment year.

5. That search for alternatives could lead to a third party candidate. If it's Ron Paul it will eat into Romney's base. It is highly unlikely the left will pose a similar challenge to Obama.

As for the possibility of a centrist third party candidate, appealing as it may be, it will be less so to many if it appears that candidate can't win and will only increase the likelihood that Mitt Romney will be elected on the US Chamber of Commerce ticket.

6. While external events in the world, like the Iranian detonation of a nuclear device or a terror attack, could hurt Obama, in all likelihood, given his growing comfort with foreign-policy and the tendency of the American people to rally around the president in times of crisis, it would be a mistake to count on such a development being more likely to help the Republican candidate.

7. The reality is that while foreign policy won't be central to the election, Obama has already succeeded in doing something remarkable: Taking it off the table. He is hard to criticise given his record with Osama Bin Laden, Anwar Al Awlaqi, Muammar Gaddafi, meeting his promise in Iraq, starting to get out of Afghanistan, and restoring America's international reputation.

8. We haven't gotten to the one-on-one segment of the campaign yet. Whoever is the Republican candidate has to run against the very disciplined, intelligent, well-prepared, charismatic president. Which of those folks one saw Saturday night can hold their own versus Obama?

9. The Republican Party on the Hill, via the Tea Party and via its more extreme elements has adopted a bunch of policies that are astonishingly out of touch with the moment. They should be doing great given the economic problems. But they are not only seen as obstructionist on the Hill but they are seen as advocates of millionaires they don't want taxed and opposed to fairness in sharing the burden for the sacrifices fixing the economy will require.

10. By extension the leading voices for the Republican Party are folks like those on the stage ... and John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell.



Really? That's going to grab America in the current environment? The electoral map says it will be close. But already Republican overreaching has pushed Ohio back towards Obama. The Republican hopes are: Florida, Marco Rubio has suffered some self-inflicted wounds. Virginia gets bluer by the day. It's close ... but it's trending toward the president. For those of you who watched the debate and were disheartened there is at least all the above to suggest that none of it mattered that much anyway. As of right now the favourite to be the next president of the US has to be the current president of the US.

— Washington Post

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Bumper sticker seen:

'In 2008 you voted for Obama to prove you weren't racist. Now, in 2012 vote for anyone but Obama, to prove you're not an idiot'

 

[Rifleman62]

Obama is liked and seen as trying hard to do the right thing. That, plus some signs of progress goes a long way with the American people.

I call BS. Obama is not liked, and is only seen as trying hard to get reelected. That's all he has been doing; campaigning for reelection and spending.

There is a multitude of pools out proving Obama's job approval rate is very low. He still may win thought, after all Ontario reelected Mc Dinky.

Obama has a billion dollars for reelection. 

 

[a_majoor]

Expect to see lots more of this in 2012:

http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/24/12-charged-with-voter-fraud-in-georgia-election/

12 charged with voter fraud in Georgia election
Published: 8:47 AM 11/24/2011
By Neil Munro
Archive | Email Neil Munro

Voter Fraud --- WALB

Law enforcement officials have charged 12 people with using absentee ballots to skew an election in Georgia.

“As a result of their grand jury findings, 12 individuals were indicted in that particular matter and we will be trying that case in a court of judicial law instead of a court of public opinion,” District Attorney Joe Mulholland told the local TV station, WALB.

The charges followed a bitter November 2010 school board election in Brooks County in which the final tally was changed by an unusually large wave of absentee ballots.

During the election, 1,060 absentee votes were cast out of the 1,403 ballots mailed out to people who requested them, according to a July 2010 report by WCTV.

That’s far higher than nearby Thomas County, which had 119 absentee votes cast out of 202 requests, and Lowndes County, which had 169 absentee votes cast out of 439 requests, said WCTV’s report.

The 12 people charged are aligned with the Democratic Party.

News of the arrests followed The Daily Caller’s interview with former Alabama Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, in which he said voter identification laws are needed to counter ballot fraud in local elections.

“What I have seen in my state, in my region, is the the most aggressive practitioners of voter fraud are local machines who are tied lock, stock and barrel to the special interests in their communities — the landfills, the casino operators —and they’re cooking the [ballot] boxes on election day, they’re manufacturing absentee ballots, they’re voting [in the names of] people named Donald Duck because they want to control politics and thwart progress,” he told TheDC.

Davis’s statement — and the new indictments — counter a high volume campaign by Democratic leaders and allied advocacy groups to defeat a Republican-backed wave of state level reform bills and laws that require voters to identify themselves.

Democrats argue that the voter identification laws are intended to suppress votes by blacks and Hispanics.

Since President Barack Obama’s election, officials at the Department of Justice have downplayed complaints about ballot fraud.

Under former President George W. Bush, the department had aggressively pursued numerous cases. In 2007, for example, Ike Brown, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Noxubee County, Miss., was investigated for interfering with white voters’ access to the ballot box.

State investigations and convictions continue despite the DOJ’s current lack of interest.

In April, Lessadolla Sowers was convicted by a court in Tunica County, Miss., on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots. Sowers was a member of the local National Associated for the Advancement of Colored People’s executive committee.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/24/12-charged-with-voter-fraud-in-georgia-election/#ixzz1epuWzmz4

 

[Haletown]

This could be a very entertaining 2012 campaign . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0BQ6I4bdzGQ


"he can use a teleprompter"

Ouch!

 

[a_majoor]

The race gets uglier:

http://legalinsurrection.com/2011/11/its-been-four-weeks-since-politico-broke-the-story-of-accusations-against-herman-cain/

It’s been four weeks since Politico broke the story of accusations against Herman Cain
Posted by William A. Jacobson    Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 7:54pm

On Sunday evening, October 30, Politico broke the story that two women had complained about Herman Cain while at the National Restaurant Association.  In that first week, Politico ran several dozen stories about the accusations without telling us what the accusations were, while characterizing the accusations as sexual harassment.

During the subsequent three weeks, the name of one of the accusers in the Politico story, Karen Kraushaar, was released, but she has refused to release details of the accusations she made, despite initially indicating she would do so, and it turns out this was not her only employment complaint.  Another accuser with a dubious background, Sharon Bialek, came forward, but she was not part of the original Politico story and her supposed corroboration also was suspect.

While the media regularly referred to 4 or 5 accusers, we only knew the names of two of them and only knew the accusations of one of them.

But back to Politico.

After hundreds of articles at Politico, what do we know about the specific accusations against Herman Cain which gave rise to Politico’s original reporting:  Nothing.

After hundreds of articles at Politico, what do we know about the specific evidence against Herman Cain which gave rise to Politico’s original reporting:  Nothing.

Truly incredible.

 

[cupper]

The race gets uglier:

http://legalinsurrection.com/2011/11/its-been-four-weeks-since-politico-broke-the-story-of-accusations-against-herman-cain/

Quote
It’s been four weeks since Politico broke the story of accusations against Herman Cain
Posted by William A. Jacobson    Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 7:54pm

On Sunday evening, October 30, Politico broke the story that two women had complained about Herman Cain while at the National Restaurant Association.  In that first week, Politico ran several dozen stories about the accusations without telling us what the accusations were, while characterizing the accusations as sexual harassment.

During the subsequent three weeks, the name of one of the accusers in the Politico story, Karen Kraushaar, was released, but she has refused to release details of the accusations she made, despite initially indicating she would do so, and it turns out this was not her only employment complaint.  Another accuser with a dubious background, Sharon Bialek, came forward, but she was not part of the original Politico story and her supposed corroboration also was suspect.

While the media regularly referred to 4 or 5 accusers, we only knew the names of two of them and only knew the accusations of one of them.

But back to Politico.

After hundreds of articles at Politico, what do we know about the specific accusations against Herman Cain which gave rise to Politico’s original reporting:  Nothing.

After hundreds of articles at Politico, what do we know about the specific evidence against Herman Cain which gave rise to Politico’s original reporting:  Nothing.

Truly incredible.

Meanwhile, in other news:

Ginger White accuses Herman Cain of long affair

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ginger-white-accuses-herman-cain-of-long-affair/2011/11/28/gIQA6H6T6N_story.html?hpid=z1

An Atlanta woman said Monday that she engaged in an extended consensual affair with Herman Cain that began after a business meeting in the 1990s, continued as he flew her from city to city for dates and ended eight months ago — as Cain launched his presidential campaign.

It looks like he finally found someone who was accepting of his advances. ;D

 

[a_majoor]

This is interesting. While the TEA Party movement os working from the bottom up, a very prominent Republican insider suddenly moves on the party from the top down:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/haley-barbour-at-american-crossroads-seismic-gop-fundraising-shift/?singlepage=true

Haley Barbour at American Crossroads: Seismic GOP Fundraising Shift?
Mega-fundraiser Barbour looks to be bypassing the RNC for 2012.

Posted By Myra Adams On November 28, 2011 @ 9:58 am In Uncategorized | 19 Comments

On November 7, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour appeared in this video [1] for the 1600 Fund — an American Crossroads [2] initiative with the publicly stated goal of raising $240 million to help take the White House and the Senate and to keep the House in the 2012 election. Per Politico:

    You might infer that this is what Barbour’s presidential campaign would have looked/sounded like.

That analysis is likely true: in the video, Governor Barbour succinctly hit all the Republican talking points as to why Obama’s presidency has failed the nation.

But does Barbour as pitchman [3] for American Crossroads (often referred to as a “Super PAC”) represent something further, even possibly a historical moment for the Republican Party? Yes, says a Republican political strategist (name withheld by request) with clients who are well-known elected officials. Governor Barbour aligning himself as a fundraiser with American Crossroads, and NOT the Republican Party, signals a seismic shift that will drain money and power away from the GOP, ultimately resulting in a weaker national party. Haley Barbour’s internal influence, past and present, within the Republican Party cannot be overstated. And his decision to be the first sitting elected official to join American Crossroads is a “wow” moment.

Currently, Haley Barbour is serving his second term as governor of Mississippi. He took office in 2004, and will be term-limited out in January 2012. But having served with distinction as governor of Mississippi — including following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the state in 2005 — is only a small part of the political lens through which one should view Haley Barbour’s career and the stature he holds within the Republican Party. In 2010, Politico [4] dubbed him “the most powerful Republican in politics.” Newsweek [5] described Barbour as “an insider’s insider who has been involved in every presidential election since 1968.”

Barbour has held two official titles within the Republican Party. He was chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) from January 1993 until January 1997, and he was chairman of the Republican Governors Association (RGA) from June 2009 until just after the 2010 midterm elections.  Governor Barbour in fact “rescued” the RGA when he assumed the reins from South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford — Sanford had been forced to resign due to an embarrassing adulterous affair.

In 2009 and 2010, while RNC Chairman Michael Steele was struggling with fundraising and public relations issues, Governor Haley Barbour raised a record $115 million during the 2010 election cycle. He diverted donors away from the RNC.

Barbour’s widely acclaimed success as RGA chairman [6] — he helped elect a total of 11 governors out of 12 races — led to greater speculation about a presidential run in 2012. Media speculation had begun in January of 2010 when Newsweek practically endorsed him as a presidential hopeful, calling Governor Barbour the “Anti-Obama” and “Mr. Fix It.”

Earlier this year Barbour did indeed make a run for the White House, but he did not get far past the starting gate. The media hammered him on his Southern roots, and he was hurt by the current anti-Washington environment — Barbour could not escape his past as “one of Washington’s all-time mega-lobbyists.” The latter is a reference to the lobbying firm he founded back in 1991 — Barbour, Griffith and Rogers was referred to by Fortune magazine as “the most powerful lobbying firm in America after the 2001 inauguration of George W. Bush.”

Barbour’s choice of American Crossroads to be his perch for the 2012 election cycle sends an electrical charge to any Republican holding a sizable wallet: American Crossroads is where the real action is going to be, not the RNC.

Perhaps only one other Republican occupies as high a throne internally as Haley Barbour: Karl Rove. Recall that Rove was one of the founders [7] of American Crossroads. Crossroads GPS formed in May 2010 after the landmark Citizens United case that transformed political fundraising and spending. This decision opened the floodgates, allowing unlimited corporate, union, and individual spending in elections.

So now, united under one roof are Karl Rove and Haley Barbour, the two undisputed kings of Republican fundraising and campaign strategy, with a 2012 fundraising goal of $240 million.

With this level of funding, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS will act and react to counter President Barack Obama, perhaps impacting the outcome of the presidential election even more than the official campaign of the eventual Republican presidential nominee.

This impact has already begun. In October 2011, when President Obama campaigned in Colorado [8], Virginia, and North Carolina [9], American Crossroads “welcomed” his visits with this television ad [10].

Rove, Barbour, and other top leaders of American Crossroads — including former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, former RNC Co-Chair Jo Ann Davidson, and political director Carl Forti (Romney’s 2008 deputy campaign manager/political director) — will be able to run more television ads, target specific candidates, and exert more influence earlier and more often than the RNC.

The Republican Party right now looks to be a weakened structure, fractured between the tea party wing and the establishment. Yet American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS are lean, tested, and ready to flex their muscles in 2012, as they did so well in 2010: when the organizations were only seven months old, they raised a combined $71 million.

Today, Haley Barbour and Karl Rove are not in control of the Republican Party, which still has the unique ability to nominate candidates. But who needs a party? They now have the ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in support of or against a candidate, to buy media time, and to interject their message wherever they like.

If the “Republican establishment” — accused of shoving Mitt Romney down the throats of the tea party/conservative base — had a face, it would be Barbour. Yet at this point, Haley Barbour has not endorsed Mitt Romney. In fact, Barbour recently said on Face the Nation that Romney is “not a true frontrunner [11].”

No one knows exactly how this power-player politics will play itself out. But by joining American Crossroads, Haley Barbour brings the hefty wallets of the “establishment” along with him and away from the GOP.

This is a major trend worth noting and watching in 2012.

Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/haley-barbour-at-american-crossroads-seismic-gop-fundraising-shift/

URLs in this post:

[1] this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtL25-hrBZY

[2] American Crossroads: http://www.americancrossroads.org/

[3] pitchman: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/180511-barbour-to-join-american-crossroads

[4] Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41236.html

[5] Newsweek: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/01/01/the-anti-obama.html

[6] success as RGA chairman: http://www.npr.org/2010/11/08/131158449/gop-s-sweet-wins-in-governors-races-may-pay-off

[7] was one of the founders: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=6B062BE2-18FE-70B2-A8B3681BB340CE93

[8] Colorado: http://www.americancrossroads.org/2011/10/american-crossroads-launches-tv-ad-to-counter-obama%E2%80%99s-colorado-visit/

[9] Virginia, and North Carolina: http://www.americancrossroads.org/2011/10/american-crossroads-uses-tv-ad-to-counter-obama-bus-tour-in-virginia-north-carolina/

[10] this television ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjymRN--Ytk

[11] not a true frontrunner: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57323804/barbour-romney-not-a-true-frontrunner/?tag=stack

 

[a_majoor]

The Dems platform:

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/284284/what-do-democrats-ireallyi-stand-today

What Do Democrats Really Stand For Today?
November 29, 2011 7:07 A.M.
By Jim Geraghty   

The Tuesday edition of the Morning Jolt features more on Barney Frank’s surprise retirement, some explosive news out of Iran, and this discussion in the shift in the thinking of the Democratic Party:

    Democrats to White Working-Class Voters: Drop Dead

    Over in the New York Times, Thomas Edsall says that Obama can lose the white working-class vote and be okay in 2012: “For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class. All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.”

    At Red State, Moe Lane marvels at the Democrats’ shift in philosophy:

    Whether you agreed with the New Deal program or not, you could always actually define it in terms that were internally self-consistent. Broadly speaking, it was a broad agreement among various groups that America’s most pressing problems could be managed and ameliorated on a broad scale through ‘expert’ and judicious government intervention; and that such intervention dampened the uncertainty and anxiety that might otherwise cause societal panics and economic dislocations. Again: you don’t have to agree with that (I don’t) to recognize that it existed as a coherent policy.

    But now that has gone by the wayside, to be replaced with a system that… apparently plans to trade support for permanent government dependency programs for minorities, in exchange for legislating the fringe progressive morality of affluent urbanites. Aside from the utter lack of an unifying intellectual or moral framework to such an arrangement, it’s unclear exactly who benefits less from it; while it’s certainly not in minority voters’ long, medium, or short-term interests to become a permanent underclass, it’s not exactly clear that minority voters are even particularly ready to vote for a progressive social policy (as an examination of recent reversals in same-sex marriage movement in California and Maryland will readily attest). But then, that is not really the goal, is it? The goal is to re-elect President Obama – which is something that poor African-American and rich liberal voters both wish to do – and if that is accomplished, then anything else is extra. Which is just as well, because nobody really expects Obama to have much in the way of coat-tails this go-round.

    Ah, but look, today’s Democratic party isn’t really about addressing economic opportunity or even dealing with America’s most pressing problems – for starters, many Democrats are not persuaded in the slightest that the annual deficit, accumulating debt, and ticking time bomb of entitlements are pressing problems at all. If Democrats really expected that electing Obama would solve problems, they would be angrier with him than we are. No, for most Democrats, their political party is about a cultural identity. That identity is heavily based on not being one of those people, i.e., Republicans or conservatives.

    As far as I can tell, there are three inviolate principles in the modern Democratic Party:

        Any form of consensual sexual behavior is to be accepted if not celebrated; with that central belief comes the policy abortion on demand for any woman at any age free from parental consent for minors; free contraceptives in schools, gay marriage, and the insistence that Bill Clinton’s lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky didn’t count because it was about sex. Complaining about explicit sexual content in pop culture reaching an audience that isn’t ready for it – i.e., Tipper Gore in the 1980s – is the sign of the square and the prude. As no less an expert political philosopher than Meghan McCain told us, “the GOP doesn’t understand sex” and has “an unhealthy attitude about sex and desire.” (Republicans are supposedly repressed and sexless, even though they generally have more children.)

        America is a deeply racist country, even though you have to look far and wide to find anyone who openly expresses the belief that one race is superior to others. Everybody recoils when Imus says something snide and obnoxious about the Rutgers womens’ basketball team. Racism is never found in the central tenet of Affirmative Action, that minorities must be judged by a lower standard, or in the until-recently all-white lineup of MSNBC or the claims that Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain are Uncle Toms or in the career of Robert Byrd. The fundamental belief of the Democratic Party is that racism remains a serious problem in America today and that the problem is found entirely in the GOP.

        Credentials are to be respected, and any scoffing or skepticism at, say, the Ivy Leagues is a sign of anti-intellectualism, ignorance, jealousy and insecurity. Those who go there are indeed the best and the brightest, and undergraduate and graduate degrees from those schools are key indicators of one’s intelligence, good judgment, and overall character. The success of dropouts like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg are strange anomalies, and no serious reevaluation of the higher education system is needed. As Rush Limbaugh observed, Bill Clinton said he wanted a cabinet that “looked like America” and declared he had achieved it after assembling a group that was almost entirely Ivy League-educated lawyers.

    Everything else is negotiable. For a while, it appeared that Democrats were organizing themselves around the principle that almost every dispute with every other nation and group can be resolved through “tough, smart diplomacy,” but now President Obama has started killing foreigners left and right and not too many Democrats complain at all. Obama even used a drone to kill an American citizen, Anwar al-Alwaki, with nary a peep. Don’t get me wrong, Alwaki had it coming, but this is precisely the sort of don’t-bother-me-with-legal-details-I’m-fighting-a-war philosophy that Democrats spent seven years denouncing.

    You think the Democratic Party cares about wealth? Come on. In their minds, George Soros spending his money to help out his political views is noble, but the Koch Brothers are evil incarnate. Higher taxes are good, but no one will complain if Tim Geithner or Charlie Rangel cut corners on paying them. One might be tempted to argue that the righteousness of unions represent an inviolate principle to Democrats, but in New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trimming here and there and living to tell the tale.

    No, the party really is about identity politics now; us vs. them. And everybody knows which side they’re on.

    The Jammie-Wearing Fool: “Barack Obama 2008: Hope, change and bringing people together. Barack Obama 2012: Screw those stupid white people. Could you imagine the firestorm if Republicans explicitly stated they’re abandoning any effort at winning over  minority voters?”
[.quote]

 

[a_majoor]

A thoughtful look at the election (but with the added bonus of Zombies!). Wzowct to see these arguments trotted out for the next yeat...

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/11/29/six-dead-ideas-walking-in-michael-medveds-romney-zombie-wall-street-journal-oped/?print=1

Six Dead Ideas Walking in Michael Medved’s Romney Zombie Wall Street Journal Op/Ed

Posted By Dave Swindle On November 29, 2011 @ 12:14 pm In Politics | 12 Comments

During the holiday weekend The Wife and I finished the first season of AMC’s Walking Dead on Netflix streaming. So it seemed appropriate to augment this week’s article with five more recommendations of underrated walking dead media. As we finish up the remaining Thanksgiving bounty let us be grateful we do not live in a world overrun with hordes of mindless zombies. Now back to discussing the GOP primary, its overrated candidates, and their true believers — all of which in no way resemble the apocalyptic scenarios of our entertainments…

One of the truisms of our political culture today is that “centrist” establishment Republicans are less “ideologically-driven” than “hard right” Tea Partiers. (All these terms are in quotations because none of them actually means anything empirical.) According to this view, “moderate” conservatives are the adults who care more about governing reasonably. We “extreme” Tea Partiers who advocate for the New Deal welfare state’s disassembly do so out of blind-eyed zeal, not a rational analysis of the price America pays as FDR’s economic chickens finally return home to roost.

The irony, though, is that those who most rely on the “Left,” “Right,” and “Center” lens to interpret the political landscape are actually the ones who claim to be above ideological purity: the “pragmatic,” “reasonable,” “grown-up” so-called RINOs who now sneer at those who doubt the electability of their White Knight Mitt Romney.

This column in The Wall Street Journal by talk radio host Michael Medved is a perfect example. Medved’s Zombie-like devotion to Right/Left/Center thinking yields a column filled from beginning to end with lifeless arguments responding to made-up opponents. (And they get worse as the column goes on.)

Medved is not a stupid man at all and he remains a gifted defender of free societies. But Ideology — the political word’s theology — kills brain activity and makes automatons of otherwise thoughtful human beings. Instead of thinking about a question for ourselves we just go with the “common sense notion” of our peer group, regardless of whether the political culture still sustains it. This is why Dennis Prager — who comes before Medved on KRLA here in Los Angeles — insists on the importance of thinking a second time. Howard Bloom promotes the same injunction in his book The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism as his second rule of science: look at everything under your nose as though you’re looking at it for the first time. Bloom’s first rule is “the truth at any price, even the price of your life” and right from the beginning of Medved’s column he ignores this ground zero of rational thought. We start with the sixth most-zombie-like idea in the column:

6. You can name an opponent, cite a specific piece, and then rebut arguments it does not make.

    In headlining a typical blog post, Erick Erickson of RedState.com laments: “Mitt Romney as the Nominee: Conservatism Dies and Barack Obama Wins.”

    Such projections of doom portray Mr. Romney as the dreary second coming of John McCain—a hapless moderate foisted on the disillusioned rank and file by the GOP’s country-club establishment, with no real chance to rally the conservative base or draw clear distinctions with Barack Obama.

    This analysis, endlessly recycled on the right, relies on groundless assumptions about recent political history.  Three myths in particular demand rebuttal…

Read Erickson’s bold piece right here. Then note the three “myths” that Medved dedicates his article to rebutting. I’ll summarize them now and reveal their shortcomings in a moment:

A) John McCain lost in 2008 because he was a RINO who did not inspire conservatives to get out and vote.

B) RINO Republican elites “forced” McCain on good conservatives who did not want him.

C) Conservatism is a winning political message that cannot be beaten. Ever. Anywhere.

None of these strawman arguments appear in Erickson’s article. And this sets the pattern for the piece: it’s really just Medved misrepresenting Tea Partiers instead of engaging us as his intellectual and moral equal.

Is anyone surprised that throughout his op/ed Medved doesn’t quote his opponents’ actual arguments?

I’m not. One need only listen to Medved’s radio show to understand why he doesn’t respect Erickson enough to respond fairly. Medved’s style of argumentation in his column is related to why he’s the only KRLA talk radio host that provokes me to change the station. Glenn Beck from 6-9, Dennis Prager from 9-12, Medved from 12-3, Hugh Hewitt from 3-6, Mike Gallagher from 6-8, and then Dennis Miller from 8-11. Why do I avoid Medved if I’m driving around town when he’s on? It has nothing to do with ideology (some of my dearest friends have similar views and so did I a few years ago) and everything to do with temperament. When listening to Beck, Prager, Hewitt, Gallagher, and Miller, I don’t feel as though I’m being talked down to by a teacher who disdains his students. Each of them acknowledges their mental limits and seems genuinely eager to learn from others whether it’s a random housewife calling in or a Ph.D. promoting a book. But not Medved. When I listen to his show he seems more interested in forcing his opinion on others rather than joining his guests and listeners as we try to discover the truth together. And that manifests in his column too: He does not even have enough interest in others’ ideas to rebut them.

Next: Let the burning of the straw men commence. Help yourself to a torch.


Resident Evil: Extinction is a surprisingly entertaining action picture — and much better than the two previous films in the series, both of which should be skipped. I haven’t seen the fourth and fifth films but it wouldn’t surprise me if both suck. They probably just got lucky with this one.

5. Tea Partiers are expected to invest their time, money, and emotions in fatally-flawed campaigns.

    “Many analysts cited by the New York Times, Washington Times and other prominent media sources continue to blame the Republican defeat in 2008 on the millions of conservative true believers who allegedly stayed home rather than vote for the notorious ‘RINO’ (Republican In Name Only) John McCain.”

Medved makes this argument as an artful refutation of a claim no one of consequence makes: if Romney is elected then it won’t be with Tea Partiers’ votes. This is another variation of the establishment Republicans’ condescending caricature of the apocalyptic Tea Party simpleton. Perhaps Medved thinks that Glenn Beck listeners won’t vote for Romney because we’re prepared to sit out the Obamalypse in bunkers with our dehydrated food, gold, and dog-eared back issues of Soldier of Fortune.

Actually Medved is clever to do this because it avoids the serious issue: many conservatives will be less enthusiastic to give their money, time, and emotions to Mitt Romney. They’ll certainly vote for him in the general election, but Team Mitt is likely to have a rougher time transforming Tea Partiers into meaningful Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) operations and fund-raisers.

Is that because conservatives don’t want Romney to beat Obama? No, it’s because (for reasons I’ll explain) they don’t expect victory. But who knows, maybe we’ll just get lucky with this one.

Next: Why would a talk radio conservative misrepresent Rush Limbaugh’s words? (Rhetorical question…)

With 28 Days Later Danny Boyle revitalized the undead genre by transforming creepy dimwits into a horrific Zombie Charge Assault. A new fever pitch of Undead Terror achieved, a whole new sub-genre emerged in the years since the film’s release.

4. Having a candidate with the “correct” ideology is the most important factor in winning elections.

    2) According to another prevailing myth, frequently promoted on talk radio and in right-wing blogs, Republican elites disregarded the obvious public preference for more unequivocally conservative candidates and forced the nomination of the unpopular , Washington-tainted insider, John Mr. McCain, who proceeded to run a disastrous campaign that dragged down the GOP at every level.

Let’s put aside the fact that this is another strawman argument attributed to no one. Who claims that there was some ideal conservative candidate in 2008 and a RINOs-at-the-grassy-knoll conspiracy of sabotage? Remind yourself of the 2008 possibilities and suddenly it makes sense why Medved couldn’t be bothered to find someone of consequence who sincerely makes this argument.

A thought experiment: how would the 2008 election have turned out differently if Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Romney, or Mike Huckabee had won the primary? One might have defeated Obama’s magical Hopenchange? Or would they have run the same generic, uninspiring Republican campaign as Team McCain and been just as bowled over by the dream of the first black president?

In 2003 when I was just beginning to float in activist circles and write about politics for the college newspaper, my early efforts inspired a political science professor to send a rebuking email. He lambasted me for not knowing anything and dragged me into the political science department where I took a few courses the next semester before adding the major to my already declared English/creative writing concentration. Studying campaigns and voter behavior with the mentality of a political scientist instead of an activist adjusted my analyses of electoral politics toward a less sexy conclusion: elections (all levels from local to President) are not won or lost based on what a candidate says, who he is, or which ideological topping he’s drizzled in this year. Elections are won on practical politics. Presidential elections come down to winning a handful of swing states. When it’s close, what actually matters is which side has the stronger GOTV operation in place. Who has the more effective campaign infrastructure? Who has done a better job expanding and mobilizing their base? Who will succeed at the challenge of relocating flesh-and-blood bodies from warm couches to voting booths on a cold, Autumnal election day?

Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain — hell, it’d be harder, but even Jon Huntsman or Michele Bachmann — could defeat Obama in 2012 with a competent campaign. It matters less whether the GOP nominates the right person and more on if conservatives wage the right political war.

2012 is not a contest of Democrats vs Republicans, Left vs Right, Obama vs Romney. These are just abstractions which sit on top of the real money and infrastructure responsible for installing the current President in the Oval Office and fighting to keep him there: the Soros-ACORN-SEIU-Community Organizing-Stealth Socialist network. It doesn’t matter who the nominee is. Each will have to endure the same Zombie Charge New Media Assault from George Soros-funded activist organizations and their comrades in labor unions, Alinskyite shake-down groups, and their sympathizers in the Old Media. And no one has yet articulated how Romney will survive running this gauntlet better than anyone else.

Reminder: these stealth Marxists have known about the importance of this stuff for decades. Voter manipulation lies at the heart of the stealth socialist program. Remember “motor voter”? And what’s this lead article this week at PJM by Hans A. Von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams on voter fraud?

Next: An argument conservatives should be embarrassed to read on the WSJ’s editorial page…

Zombies Ate My Neighbors was an inventive Super Nintendo game which satirized campy science fiction and horror films. You collected oddball weapons like squirt guns and six packs of pop which you could use to fight zombies, evil clowns, martians, and giant babies. It was a goofy, pleasant 16-bit memory from my childhood, and far different from the ultra-violence of zombie games today which inspired the Resident Evil films.

end part 1

 

[a_majoor]

Part 2

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/11/29/six-dead-ideas-walking-in-michael-medveds-romney-zombie-wall-street-journal-oped/?print=1

3. The ideological landscape of presidential elections from decades ago is meaningful in 2011.

    3) Rush Limbaugh’s favorite slogan, “Conservatism wins every time,” is more a statement of wishful thinking than an accurate summary of electoral experience. It’s true that Ronald Reagan’s inspiring, comprehensive conservatism brought two sweeping victories (in 1980 and ’84). But the same supremely gifted candidate lost two prior runs for the presidency (in 1968 and 1976) to two charismatically challenged, moderate rivals, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

This paragraph needs to be stated for what it is: condescending and insulting. And one almost has to wonder if Medved is being rude to Tea Partiers intentionally. “Conservatism wins every time” does not mean that the candidate wins every time. It means that conservative values clearly articulated will inspire the electorate and crush the Democrats’s reheated class warfare. Medved know this is what the slogan means. How could he not? He guest-hosted Limbaugh’s show dozens of times. Surely he knows the ins and outs of his friend’s views far better than me. So why would he misrepresent one of his mentor’s words? Could he not have found some other way to segue into his next apples-to-oranges electoral comparison?

That Ronald Reagan achieved the presidential nomination in 1980 instead of 1968 or 1976 says nothing about the electability of proudly conservative candidates in 2011 and everything about all the other historical factors impacting the GOP presidential contests at the time. What other variables changed over the course of 12 years in the political culture? How did Reagan grow into a more compelling candidate during those years? Medved is too smart to be unable to see this.

    Barry Goldwater electrified Republicans with his delineation of “The Conscience of a Conservative,” but he lost 44 states to the unspeakable Lyndon Johnson in 1964. More recently, tea party-affiliated candidates won several high-profile primary victories in 2010 and went on to ignominious defeats in easily winnable Senate races in Delaware, Nevada, Colorado and Alaska.

It’s surreal to see writing like this on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. According to Medved, Goldwater’s defeat to Johnson in 1964 during the modern conservative movement’s primordial era says something meaningful about the viability of conservative candidates in the political culture of 2011.

I know how the “reasonable” conservatives hate it when we barbarian Tea Partiers do this, but let me remind Mr. Medved what the President’s ideological mentors were doing during this period:

The times change. Children’s zombie games evolve from cartoony entertainments to R-rated butcher fests. And the radicals learn to switch from the honesty of “communist” and “weatherman” to the deceitful “community organizer” and “pragmatic problem solver.” But somehow I’m the “extremist” for using “Marxist” instead of “liberal.”

Next: Speaking as someone who considered himself a “centrist” in the 2008 election and for a few years after…

Zombieland (a comedy with Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Woody Harrelson) was a pleasant watch in theatres, though I still left disappointed, hoping it would be at Superbad-level funny (multiple laugh-out-loud sequences instead of just an assortment of soft chuckles.) But now I’m kind of wanting to see it again. When watching a film for the first time it’s easy to miss noticing when characters are especially likable. That’s because we’re usually not looking for them and have been trained by Hollywood not to expect them anymore. Thinking a second time pays off with movies as well as politics. Some of my favorite films today are ones that I hated the first go around.

2. Self-identified independents and centrists have firm political convictions.

    “In short, the electoral experience of the last 50 years does nothing to undermine the common-sense notion that most political battles are won by seizing and holding the ideological center.”

Does the “ideological center” of the political culture change over time? Is the “center” of 2012 different than that of 2008, 2004, 2000, and 1996? If it is then that means that “seizing and holding” the “ideological center” can not be done in the same fashion every cycle.

It is absurd for conservatives to talk about how people allegedly voted for president in the ’60s, ’70s, even ’80s and ’90s as though it has much relevance on the political culture today. The country’s always changing. We might as well be putting the race in the context of Millard Fillmore and Zachary Taylor’s political strategies. It has about as much relevance as trying to compare 2012′s contest to the dynamics of every other presidential election in our lives.

More importantly, though: does one “seize the center” by running a wishy-washy, “center-right” candidate to compete against what the media claims is a center-left president? Or does one “seize the center” by inspiring some in the “center” to embrace conservatism?

We run a charismatic candidate who articulates conservatism well and we can convert enough fence-sitters to win. The whole point of a voter being a “centrist” or a “moderate” is that they don’t have many firm views and don’t know much. Queen Ann refers to them as the “idiot voters.” This does not mean such people are stupid — just that they have not taken the time yet to think about political philosophy. (Perhaps this actually makes them smarter than we political junkies.)

Finally: Let he who is without ideology cast the first vote…

And the most underrated walking dead film ever is in my personal Top 10 Of All Time, The Last Temptation of Christ. Here’s the scene where Willem Dafoe as Jesus defends Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene from a mob wanting to stone her for sleeping with Roman soldiers on the Sabbath:


1. Most voters are ideologues.

    The notion that ideologically pure conservative candidates can win by disregarding centrists and magically producing previously undiscovered legions of true-believer voters remains a fantasy. It is not a strategy. At the moment, it is easy to imagine Mitt Romney appealing to many citizens who would never consider Rick Perry or Herman Cain. It is much harder (if not impossible) to describe the sort of voter—Republican, Democrat or independent—who would refuse to support Mr. Romney (over Barack Obama!) but would somehow eagerly back Messrs. Perry, Cain or Gingrich, let alone Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum or Ron Paul.

My emphasis added to highlight the most wrongheaded argument in the whole piece. How can a man like Medved, who worked on political campaigns for more than a decade before I was born, genuinely think that there is such little diversity of thought in the American electorate? Does he really believe that voters are so simpleminded and so easily categorized in “Left,” “Right,” and “Center” buckets?

An obvious question: Are all general election voters ideologues? And by “ideologue” I don’t mean it as the slur it’s most often used as but rather “someone who thinks about politics primarily in ideological terms.” This might be news to some (especially those cloistered within the bosom of the beltway) but there are vast numbers of voters in this country who don’t think about “liberal,” “leftist,” “conservative,” or “tea party” on a daily basis. They know little about these political theologies, and cast their ballots based on other factors, some thoughtful and legitimate, others frivolous or stupid. Do you know how many people vote for President just because they like someone as a person but know next to nothing about his policies? Tell me, if this was a high school popularity contest who would win more votes, Romney or Obama? And mind you that you’re answering the question BEFORE the Soros Slime Machine has gone to work on Romney.

*******

The first season of Walking Dead was about as good as television gets. The day after April and I finished it I instant messaged conservative New Media’s TV guru Ben Shapiro, to express my satisfaction and see what he thought. Ben agreed that the first season was strong but said how disappointed he’d been in the second, saying it had grown too talky and was akin to “The View” with Zombies. Now he more appreciate the show as silly camp rather than a serious horror-thriller. Ben and I often have very different cinematic tastes and like to argue about it (he’s a traditionalist raised on classic Hollywood, I’m more avant garde and worked for years at an arthouse movie theatre) but he’s probably right.

A lot can change in just one season for a TV show. One year you’re on track to be the next President of the United States, the next you’ve jumped the shark.

This isn’t said enough: in 2008 Romney was regarded as the conservative alternative to the “centrist” McCain. Now four years later he‘s the “moderate” and non-traditional campaigns once regarded as dead and buried are serious challengers to the inevitability of the Romney coronation. These developments fly in the face of the “common sense notions” Medved insists all rational people should accept.

How did that happen?

The same way that in Spring 2009 I was a conservative-leaning “centrist” and Obama’s policies and behavior changed my mind toward the Tea Party — just as I’m sure many people reading have grown and evolved over the past few years’ political experiences. So why can’t we just continue nurturing more introspection within our fellow citizens about the failed policies of the Obama administration, and have the courage to run a candidate who genuinely represents our values?

Update: Thomas Sowell’s column this week also takes issue with Medved’s column and makes similar arguments. This makes sense. I’ve read a half dozen of Sowell’s books this year.

 

[a_majoor]

Now where the real game is played; the electoral college:

Wargaming the Electoral College [UPDATED]
December 5, 2011 - 8:45 am - by Stephen Green
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Team Obama is writing off the Keystone State? That’s the heads-up I got this morning from Glenn Reynolds. Here is what you need to know:

    The Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe on Third Avenue is one of those places where politicians who want to be president stop to look decidedly un-presidential.

    Al Gore visited; so did John Kerry. President Barack Obama opted instead for ice cream at the Windmill, 8 miles up the road.

    “It is where you take them to make candidates look authentic,” explained a Democrat strategist who routinely works on presidential campaigns in the Keystone State.

    After orchestrating three statewide presidential wins, he is sitting out this cycle. He doesn’t see Obama winning Pennsylvania in 2012.

We’ll get back to that Salena Zito story shortly, because there are some election clues in there too good to pass up. But first, let’s look at the revised EC map, if indeed Pennsylvania is going red.

[Image Courtesy of 270toWin. I love those guys.]

The only change from August’s starting pistol map, is the addition of PA to the Republican column — but what an addition it makes. 226 is just 44 votes shy of victory. That gives the GOP candidate 134 different ways to cobble together the votes. I won’t bore you with that much detail, so instead, let’s go back to Zito:

    The latest survey from liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling showed 59 percent of white Pennsylvania voters disapprove of Obama’s job performance, a rate usually found among Southern voters.

States with Southern voting patterns vote R for President.

    Sean Trende, a RealClearPolitics numbers analyst, said that while the president could write off Pennsylvania and win, it would be difficult. “The key would be holding the Bush states he won in the Mountain West — Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, plus Virginia and North Carolina.”

    That path gives him 280 electoral votes and assumes he will lose Indiana and Ohio, which he almost certainly will if he loses Pennsylvania.

Now, I’ve already assumed that Indiana and North Carolina are goners for President Obama. But what happens to the map when we color Ohio red? That bumps the Republican total to 244, meaning that if Obama also loses Florida, it’s over. He can keep all his other big gains from 2008 — and still lose the election.

A couple weeks ago, we looked at Obama’s two possible paths to reelection. National Journal put it this way:

    The president’s advisers are stuck between pursuing two distinctly different strategies and two very different kinds of voters, each of which is crucial to his reelection. The first is an “Ohio strategy,” which means adopting an aggressively populist message to win back blue-collar voters in Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The second is a “Virginia strategy,” which would emphasize a more centrist message aimed at upscale white-collar professionals and college-educated suburbanites.

I thought the answer was obvious — pursue the Ohio strategy. Over in the West Wing, however, they feel differently, having effectively decided to abandon the white working-class vote. That vote, by the way, in large part determines elections in states like PA, OH, IN. And it’s hard to win without it in places like MI, WI, MN, IA, too.

But let us suppose this strategy gives the President Florida and Virginia both, although I think Florida is a longshot. That still gives the GOP nominee the win, if he can pick off MI and MN, or MI and WI or any of 30 other combinations, most of which involve the very voters Obama has decided to give up.

For the Democrats, it might all come down to Florida. Again.

It didn’t have to be that way, if only they’d listened.

UPDATES

More and more, I get on-the-ground reports telling me Florida is going red this year, that the magic of Hopenchange is well and truly lost. Well, let’s take a look at that, too.

If we assume — and not too rashly — that Ohio turns Red before Florida and Florida turns red before Pennsylvania and that PA is going red…

…well, then Team Obama must absolutely hold on to VA and NC to even have a chance, trailing 214-258.

The problem for Obama is, NC turns Red before Florida does.

This is a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up strategy they’re pursuing.

 

[cupper]

I can never really wrap my head around how they figured that the electoral college is a better system than popular vote.

Much the same way that a majority of Americans can't wrap their minds around the fact that they don't actually vote for the President and Vice President.