Elections 2009-2012, Part 3

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Riddick
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Post by Riddick » 09-21-2012 07:53 PM

From newsday.com -
  • Witcover: Debates may provide Mitt Romney a life preserver

    September 21, 2012
    By JULES WITCOVER, Tribune Media Services

    After all the negative advertising, campaign promises and gaffes, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney are set to have the first of their critical debates on Oct. 3 in Denver. While political scientists argue that, with a few exceptions, the personal faceoffs have not been decisive, they've become high television drama, and this year's series should be no exception.

    Romney, while running close in the national polls, has remained a question mark. Even after the string of televised Republican primary debates and an avalanche of advertising, it is still unclear to many voters what makes him tick and what specifically he intends to do about the economic challenge he will face if he wins in November.

    Obama, on the other hand, after nearly four years in the Oval Office, is pretty much an open book, although he has disappointed many of his followers by failing to break the deadlock in Congress over his own remedies for the economy.

    His repeated lament that he inherited an unholy financial mess from his Republican predecessor did not save him from taking what he termed a "shellacking" in the midterm congressional elections in 2010. And that same message seems to have little traction with the electorate this time around.

    Nevertheless, his personal popularity remains surprisingly high during an election campaign the Republicans had hoped would be a referendum on him and his tenure. So the approaching debates appear to have become more a test of Romney's credibility as a master turnaround artist in governing, as he proved to be in the business world.

    Before the GOP convention, Romney released an action agenda of more than 50 items and then boiled it down to five general working points. But he has still failed to put enough meat on the bone to entice undecided voters, or to satisfy many of the party faithful.

    So the first of the three presidential debates a week from Wednesday shapes up as more of a challenge to him to fill in the blanks -- personal and programmatical -- than for Obama, who promises only to keep on keeping on the course he's set.

    Had the debates begun a few weeks earlier, Romney might well have been in a better position to take advantage of the huge public exposure at hand. But the Republican convention apparently failed to give him much of a boost, while Obama's poll numbers crept up after the livelier Democratic show. And then came the most politically explosive campaign disclosure yet, throwing Romney sharply on the defensive.

    That was the airing of his remarks at a closed fundraiser in which he seemed to be writing off nearly half of the electorate as dependent recipients of government programs who would not be voting for him. The leaked video forced him to pivot from his economic message and spend much of the last week insisting that as president he would work to better the lot of all Americans.

    Such a pledge is one that no presidential candidate should ever have to make; in stating it, Romney has set himself up for a hammering in the debates. The assault predictably will come over his comprehension of the plight of a majority of Americans suffering through the current high unemployment and now looking to the government to extend them a helping hand.

    Efforts to cast Obama as a champion of the redistribution of wealth, a phrase right out of an old socialist handbook and an old Obama speech, may hearten doctrinaire conservative hearts. But they're not likely to combat Romney's latest self-inflicted wound.

    All along, the debates figured to be a critical opportunity for Romney to close the sale on his presidential bid. Now they may be his best life preserver as his ship tries to navigate through its roughest waters to date.

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Post by Riddick » 10-24-2012 07:54 PM



CLINT: "Obama's Second Term Would Be A Rerun Of The First"

Actor Clint Eastwood is returning to the political stage, but this time he is talking directly to the camera - and not to an empty chair.

Eastwood received much derision as well as praise for his speech at the Republican Convention this summer in Tampa where he lectured to an empty chair that was meant to represent President Obama.

Now Eastwood is the star of a new ad, called "At Stake" from the Republican super PAC American Crossroads.
...
The commercial was taped at Eastwood's home in California, according to American Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio. While Eastwood's speech was met with a lot of negative press stories, Crossroads officials think his message of how Obama has failed resonated. Crossroads President Steven Law was at the convention and thought Eastwood's words were powerful and that he connected with the crowd, Collegio said. Group officials were introduced to him, and he agreed to tape the ad.

Crossroads thinks this goes beyond a stock celebrity endorsement because, as Collegio put it, "this is Clint adding his iconic weight to a message about the country that already resonates with people and which they already believe in their hearts."
...
The Eastwood spot is one of three new ones launching Wednesday as part of a $12.6 million buy in seven key swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... er-pac-ad/

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Post by BenSlain » 10-24-2012 09:43 PM

pffffftttttt....::p



If you start a thread you should at least participate in it. Don't just do it to be some form of forum queen.
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Post by Diogenes » 10-25-2012 11:27 AM

Nice and classy as always:

k/news/article-2223130/Keeping-classy-Mr-President-Obama-describes-Romney-bull****ter.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
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Post by Riddick » 10-25-2012 03:07 PM

Excerpted from
Presidential predictors puzzled by tossup states
by Matt Viser | Globe Staff October 20, 2012
  • With just over two weeks before voters head to the polls, the presidential campaigns are bearing down on the same swing states that have been the focus for the past year, but they are using different prescriptions for several battlegrounds.
    ...
    Polls come out almost hourly. National polls differ from state ones, and those conducted in the same state can show vastly different figures.

    Even those who make a living out of following the numbers warn that much of this campaign has been contradictory and belied conventional wisdom. Out of 538 Electoral College votes, prognosticators say, from 36 to 131 votes — up to 11 states — are too close to call. That makes predicting who will reach 270 electoral votes a bit of a crapshoot.

    “The honest answer is I don’t know,” Larry Sabato, a well-known political science professor at the University of Virginia who has a projection called the Crystal Ball (projection: Obama 267 electoral votes, Romney 235), said on MSNBC. “And the more I listen to the pollsters and methodologists, I don’t think they know either.”
    ...
    “Where do I think the race is? I’m a little confused actually,” said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report (projection: Obama 269, Romney 206). “I’d put a pinky on the scale of the president, maybe even a thumb.”

    Most observers consider the vast majority of states to be either safe Republican or Democrat, leaving roughly eight in play: Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
    ...
    “It’s like one of those NBA games,” said Daron Shaw, a professor at University of Texas-Austin, former George W. Bush strategist, and author of the book, “The Race to 270.” “You make a run getting within 3 or 4 points, but you expend all your energy and can’t get over the hump. That’s how I feel about Romney in Ohio right now. If it really was a 1 or 2 points, you’d see some polls that have Romney up.”

    The race quickly tightened after the first debate, with Romney gaining in states where he had been behind and moving ahead in places that had been tied. But several close observers question whether Romney has now peaked and whether his momentum will continue.
    ...
    Expect the number of toss_up states to contract, not expand, as both campaigns pinpoint their resources, analysts say.

    “Where they are is almost completely illustrative of what their battleground strategies are,” Shaw said. “There’s almost no feints or misdirection plays.’’
    ...
    In the final stretch, this election is turning out to be more like 2000 and 2004, when the result was unclear, rather than 1996 or 2008, when all but the margin seemed determined.

    “I don’t crow about bad polls, I don’t crow about good polls. I just want trends,” said Ron Kaufman, a top Romney adviser. “And the bottom line is the trends are kind of good for us. That’s all that matters at this point. There’s a long way to go.”

    “It’s been an enjoyable journey,” he added. “I think we’re having more fun right now than they are.“

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Post by Diogenes » 10-29-2012 04:41 PM

One of those laugh out loud moments:




http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/clinton ... 58105.html
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Post by Raggedyann » 11-04-2012 10:15 PM

Florida Early Voting Fiasco

WASHINGTON -- Once again, Florida and its problems at the polls are at the center of an election.

Early voting is supposed to make it easier for people to carry out their constitutional right. Tuesdays are notoriously inconvenient to take off work, so many states have given voters the option of turning out on weekends or other weekdays in the run-up to Election Day.

But in Florida this year, it has been a nightmare for voters, who have faced record wait times, long lines in the sun and a Republican governor, Rick Scott, who has refused to budge and extend early voting hours.

"People are getting out to vote. That's what's very good," said Scott.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/0 ... ref=canada

Yes, very good for the GOP that people have to wait in line for hours on end. This is democracy? Wonder how many people will give up and go home? Unbelievable that this is allowed to go on.
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Post by Diogenes » 11-04-2012 10:28 PM

RA we have been voting on Tuesdays for years and years and years.

Now all of a sudden it's too hard, too difficult to go early, go after work, go during lunch, take time off from work - I mean good grief have we become so pathetic and helpless that we can't even figure this out?

Hey if it's that tough - how about this - vote absentee - 40% of folks do.

Standing in long lines in the sun, they act like their being waterboarded. Thank God we aren't asking them to land on the beaches of Normandy.
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Post by Raggedyann » 11-04-2012 10:30 PM

(CNN) -- Two days before the election, tensions are running high and poll numbers are being crunched every few hours. Nowhere is this truer than in Ohio -- the pathway to victory. So there was a collective gasp Friday when a last-minute directive from Ohio's secretary of state, a Republican, threatened to invalidate a number of provisional ballots.

When the fate of the nation could hinge on a handful of votes, arcane state rules and local politicians' motives take on a new urgency.

Earlier last week the Obama campaign complained to Wisconsin's attorney general about what it said was "willful misrepresentation" by the Romney campaign in the materials used to train Election Day poll watchers. At issue was whether people in Wisconsin with felony convictions could vote. (They can, once they complete their sentences, but the Romney documents had said they can't.) Given that this fact can be Googled in less than 10 seconds, one must conclude the Romney campaign was either grossly ignorant of election law or intentionally deceiving volunteers in an effort to swing the vote.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/04/opinion/h ... hpt=hp_bn7
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Post by Raggedyann » 11-04-2012 10:36 PM

Diogenes wrote: I mean good grief have we become so pathetic and helpless that we can't even figure this out?

Yes, this is the question.

If they can't accommodate voters then they need to improve the system wouldn't you say? A basic right shouldn't have to be an endurance test.
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Post by Diogenes » 11-05-2012 01:01 PM

Raggedyann wrote: Yes, this is the question.

If they can't accommodate voters then they need to improve the system wouldn't you say? A basic right shouldn't have to be an endurance test.


RA - do we know why the lines are 6 hours long?

I remember prior to voting absentee waiting in line about an hour possibly - what is the issue with it taking 6 hours to vote.

I really would like to know that.

I guess the obvious answer is turnout but I don't recall hearing about this in 2008?

I believe it has been about static that around 50% or less of US citizens vote in total.

Imagine if they all showed up.:(
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Post by Diogenes » 11-06-2012 12:38 PM

I feel so much better - the NEW Black Panther party is steadfast with their billy clubs at PA polling places - I wonder how folks would feel if the KKK showed up to keep order as well?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuTQqm1C99g
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Post by SquidInk » 11-06-2012 01:48 PM

What happened to Paul Ryan? Is that clown still on the ticket, or did he slip into his big floppy shoes and peddle away in his teenie little car?

Maybe the parasites clobbered him inside of some auto plant up in the rust belt. Damn parasites.
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Post by SquidInk » 11-06-2012 01:55 PM

Wait a tic... I found him.

[yt]ikOUNSvaVI0#![/yt]

I was partially correct... he has apparently been spending some time glad handing the parasites. Good on him. With a super duper hyper focused man like Ryan on the ticket, Romney/Ryan can't lose.
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Post by SquidInk » 11-06-2012 02:11 PM

Diogenes wrote: RA - do we know why the lines are 6 hours long?

[...]

Imagine if they all showed up.:(
This has been addressed by prominent figures in the recent past:
Paul M. Weyrich (October 7, 1942 – December 18, 2008)was an American conservative political activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the New Right. He co-founded the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and the Free Congress Foundation, another conservative think tank.



"We are different from previous generations of conservatives... We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country." – Soloma, John. Ominous Politics: The New Conservative Labyrinth (1984), Hill and Wang Publ., New York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich
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