One week to go

Early Voting Result

When you consider the fact that the CorruptMedia's been talking for weeks about how Obama's crushing Romney in early voting, you would think Gallup proving that Narrative a big fat phony lie would be news. Instead, though, they bury this explosive news at the bottom of a piece headlined: “In U.S. 15% of Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots.” Sounds like a nothing story, right?

Except waaaaay at the bottom we learn this:

Thus far, early voters do not seem to be swaying the election toward either candidate.

Romney currently leads Obama 52% to 45% among voters who say they have already cast their ballots. However, that is comparable to Romney's 51% to 46% lead among all likely voters in Gallup's Oct. 22-28 tracking polling.

A sign of the times

Minnesota moves from safe Obama to leans Obama.  What’s going on? 

Who will take Ohio?

The Romney campaign is pinning its hopes on Ohio's independent voters. "The last five major statewide races in Ohio, the candidate who won independents won the race," Jennings explained. "Rob Portman, John Kasich, Sherrod Brown, Ted Strickland, Barack Obama -- they all have one thing in common. They won independents."

Pollster Rasmussen agrees. "I expect the partisan breakdown in Ohio to be fairly even, roughly the same number of Republicans as Democrats," he said in an email exchange. "If that's the case, whoever wins Independent voters wins the election."

NPR survey:  Romney up by one

By the way, it’s also interesting to note that among independents, Romneyleads by 12 points, 51 percent to Obama’s 39 percent.

The Most Vile Ad in This Election

Michael Moore and Moveon.org may think they are being funny, but they aren’t.  Having old people make outrageous threats shows you that the Democrats are desperate and unworthy of ruling this country. 

The Best Sixteen Second Ad in This Election

It’s that simple.

Politicizing a scandal

Comparing Benghazi and Plame gate we find when it comes to politicizing it we need to look at the last item on the list, the number of times the scandal was on page one of the NY Times.  Plamegate leads in that regard 90 to 0. 

The Benghazi Story Refuses to Die, And It’s Hurting the President

We still don’t know exactly what happened between the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA and the White House as Americans in Libya requested support for Ambassador Stevens and his team in their final hours, and we almost certainly won’t before the election.

But that doesn’t do the administration much good. As various departments and officials leak to save their careers and retaliate against rivals, grenades keep getting lobbed and emails and memos keep getting leaked. The result is that theattack in Benghazi isn’t fading out of the news. As the last undecided voters make up their minds, the media outlets following this story with the greatest attention keep getting enough ammunition to keep the story alive and force the rest of the media to acknowledge the story, and that doesn’t help a White House simultaneously wrestling with a close election and a massive mutant storm hurtling at the East Coast.

Benghazi:  An October surprise or simply news?

This isn’t an “October surprise” foisted on the media by opposition research; it’s news.

This story raises precisely the sort of “big issues” the media routinely claim elections should be about. For instance, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that the “basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on, without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.” If real-time video of the attack and communications with Americans on the ground begging for assistance doesn’t constitute “real-time information,” what does?

This is not to say that Fox News is alone in covering the story. But it is alone in treating it like it’s a big deal.

Panetta’s remarks remind me of the quotation, “A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”  The US Military is ready to aid Americans in distress whenever, and wherever. 

Two Americas

John Edwards was correct, there aretwo Americas.  One is represented by Lena Dunham and the other is represented by Tyrone Woods.  Which America are you part of?

Are we going to see an undertow election?

Romney's operational prowess is second to none, and getting out the vote isn't a question of strategy but operation. Even given that the state Republican parties are shouldering much of this effort, and even given all the advantages Team Obama was likely to have in that arena, if Team Romney could end up close to matching them in this respect, we could be looking at an undertow election like none we've seen before. This would reflect not so much a groundswell as a cave-in, one where independents did not shift to Romney but away from Obama, where the bottom truly drops out of the Obama effort, and the story the left focuses on for the next year is why in the world those people stayed home.

If this happens, it won't be a late night after all. 

 

Obama’s Campaign Death Rattle

As a veteran of numerous national, state and local campaigns, I can tell you that each race and each campaign has its own life cycle. The 2012 presidential contest is no exception. As polls tighten, and especially since Mitt Romney’s decisive performance in the first debate, Team Obama and the president himself are showing signs of what I term a campaign’s “death rattle.”

GOP contender Rick Santorum withdrew from this year’s Republican primary within three days of my declaration that his campaign was in the final stages of “death rattle.” The phenomenon has three distinct stages.

In Stage One Death Rattle, the candidate veers sharply off-message, seemingly desperate to change the subject.

Osama’s dead and GM’s alive—Or is he?

I guess its okay to ask if Osama bin Laden is actually dead since he’s listed as a contributor to Obama’s campaign.  Now there’s someone who doesn’t hold a grudge.  And the Obama campaign took the donation, twice actually.    

Abortion—the other side of the story

"Hearing the words from Richard Mourdock, I was actually relieved."

So says Monica Kelsey, a woman conceived in rape, speaking in a web video put out by the Indiana Right to Life PAC. The video is responding to a Democratic Senatatorial Campaign Committee advertisement for Joe Donnelly, who is running against Richard Mourdock in Indiana's U.S. Senate race. The race experienced a new twist after Mourdock suggested a child conceived in rape was still a gift from God.

"I don't think that anyone should deserve the death penalty simply for the acts of their father," says Kelsey in the video.

Richard Cohen: A President who doesn’t seem to care

One of the more melancholy moments of the presidential campaign occurred for me in a screening room. The film was Rory Kennedy’s documentary about her mother, Ethel — the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. Much of it consisted of Kennedy-family home movies, but also film of RFK in Appalachia and in Mississippi among the pitifully emaciated poor. Kennedy brimmed with shock and indignation, with sorrow and sympathy, and was determined — you could see it on his face — to do something about it. I’ve never seen that look on Barack Obama’s face.

Instead, I see a failure to embrace all sorts of people, even members of Congress and the business community. I see diffidence, a reluctance to close. I see a president for whom Afghanistan is not just a war but a metaphor for his approach to politics: He approved a surge but also an exit date. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Does Envy Explain Liberal Thinking? 

For some, especially those who are well-educated and well-spoken, a sort of irrational furor at “the system” governs their political make-up. Why don’t degrees and vocabulary always translate into big money? Why does sophisticated pontification at Starbucks earn less than mindlessly doing accounting behind a desk? We saw this tension with Michelle Obama who, prior to 2009, did not quite have enough capital to get to Aspen or Costa del Sol, and thereby, despite the huge power-couple salaries, Chicago mansion, and career titles, felt that others had far too much more than the Obamas. “Never been proud,” “downright mean country,” “raise the bar,” etc., followed, as expressions of yuppie angst. The more one gets, the more one believes he should get even more, and the angrier he gets that another — less charismatic, less well-read, less well-spoken — always seems to get more.

So do not discount the envy of the sophisticated elite. The unread coal plant manager, the crass car dealer, or the clueless mind who farms 1000 acres of almonds should not make more than the sociology professor, the kindergarten teacher, the writer, the artist, or the foundation officer. What sort of system would allow the dense and easily fooled to become better compensated (and all for what — for superfluous jet skis and snowmobiles?) than the anguished musician or tortured-soul artist, who gives so much to us and receives so much less in return? What a sick country — when someone who brings chain saws into the Sierra would make more than a UC Berkeley professor who would stop them.