The Final Days

Measuring Enthusiasm in the final days 

Steve Wonder concert for Obama comes up short

Legendary performer Stevie Wonder this morning expressed his love for Cleveland during a get-out-the-vote rally at Cleveland State University.

His love went largely unrequited.

Fewer than 200 people showed up towatch Wonder perform a handful of his hits at the early voting event in support of President Barack Obama.

Cleveland sees 5% of turnout for Obama’s last visit to Cleveland vs 2008

 

Last night, in the cold and with long lines, 30,000 people showed up in Ohio to see Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. That same day, Obama attracted a meager 2,800. But enthusiasm for President FailureTeleprompter can be judged by more than comparisons with Romney. In 2008, at his last stop in Cleveland, a Democrat stronghold, Obama attracted 80,000. This morning, at his last 2012 stop in that same city, Obama could only attract 4,000.

Team Obama will spin, as they have throughout the campaign, and tell their stenographers in the Corrupt Media that they've intentionally chosen smaller, more personal venues. But does anyone honestly believe that if President WaterParter could attract crowds even half as large as the ones we saw in 2008, he wouldn't? 

Besides, even if that was the case, in that exact same Cleveland venue, according to the RNC,  McCainwas able to attract a bigger crowd in 2008 than Obama did yesterday. Yes, that's correct, Obama's attracting crowds smaller than John McCain did in 2008 but the polls are telling us he's going to best or beat his D+5 2008 turnout advantage.

Wisconsin comes out for Romney

Friday morning Governor Mitt Romney held a rally at the county fairgrounds. Despite the frosty temperatures, over 1500 people who could not get in attended the “overflow rally” outside the event.

The energy was enthusiastic and upbeat for Romney supporters. Female voters spoke to me about the most important issues to them this coming Tuesday. The overwhelming response was jobs, the economy, and a better future for their children and grandchildren.

Colorado’s last Romney event:  18,000 enthusiastic supporters

This is one I was at.  We arrived 3 ½ hours before the event to long lines.  The crowd was made up of voters of all ages and we all pumped up despite the cold weather.  It was fun to talk with the people near us.  They all were “broken glass” voters, that is, they would be willing to crawl over broken glass to vote for Mitt Romney in this election.  And the enthusiasm is for Romney.  Mitt closed comparing Obama’s call for “revenge” vs his call for “love of country.”  The crowd went wild.  

In the meantime, the Obama team struggles to explain the revenge remark.  

Six Reasons to be optimistic in the final days of election 2012

Here’s one I hadn’t heard before:

The Washington Post has updated its Congressional projections, now calling for House Republicans to roughly maintain their current majority margin in the next Congress -- if not expand on it.  Ed Morrissey makes a good point: If it took an evenly-split electorate (in terms of party ID) to build the 2010 red wave that swept Republicans back into a substantial House majority, how could they possibly hold or enlarge their advantage if 2012's electorate will besignificantly more Democratic, as many pollster are assuming?

This is a very good point.  It’s like predicting a famine when other predictions show bumper crops. 

Another reason to be optimistic:  Desperate religious ad

Socialism disguised as religious faith. 

Desperate ad or simply imbecilic ad—you be the judge

A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for a vagina???? 

New York Daily News endorses…. Romney

“Four years ago, the Daily News endorsed Obama, seeing a historic figure whose intelligence, political skills and empathy with common folk positioned him to build on the small practical experience he would bring to the world’s toughest job. We valued Obama’s pledge to govern with bold pragmatism and bipartisanship. The hopes of those days went unfulfilled. . . . The regrettable truth is that Obama built a record of miscalculations and missed opportunities.”

Obama Administration admits cannibalizing likely voters

Obama’s early voting strategy is to get less likely voters to vote early, but it appears their efforts may have cannibalized likely voters in early voting. 

Gallup expects +3 Republicans in this election

This will explain a lot of things on Wednesday such as how could the polls have been so wrong?   Most of the polls have +5 to +9 Democrats. 

Minnesota moves into toss up category

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are separated by just 1 point in Minnesota, effectively making the race there a toss-up, according to polling taken for the conservative American Future Fund.

Romney takes 46 percent of the vote to Obama's 45 percent in the poll, which was conducted by the GOP firm NMB Research and shared with POLITICO. The Republican presidential nominee is up 13 points among independents, ahead of Obama 49 percent to 36 percent.

Pennsylvania is in-play also

President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney entered the final days of the presidential race tied in a state that the campaigns only recently began contesting, a Tribune-Review poll shows.

The poll showed the race for Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes locked up at 47 percent in its final week. Romney was scheduled to campaign in the Philadelphia area on Sunday, and former President Bill Clinton planned to stump for Obama on Monday. The campaigns have begun to saturate the airwaves with millions of dollars in presidential advertising.

“They’re both in here because of exactly what you’re seeing” in this poll, said Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling & Research, which surveyed 800 likely voters Oct. 29-31. Most of the interviews occurred after Hurricane Sandy inundated Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. The poll’s error margin is 3.46 percentage points.

If they are really tied at 47, Pennsylvania should go for Romney.  The undecided will go for Romney.

Michigan: Romney and Obama tied

Who are you most likely to vote for in the Presidential election - Democratic President Barack Obama, or Republican Nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, another candidate, or are you undecided?

Republican Nominee Mitt Romney 46.86%
President Barack Obama 46.24%
Another candidate 4.94%
Undecided 1.96%

Tied this late probably means this will go to Romney.

Axelrod:  Romney is going to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota because they are in deep trouble

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama's reelection campaign, dismissed on Sunday the notion that Mitt Romney is making Pennsylvania competitive as the GOP presidential nominee heads there later in the day. 

"They understand that they're in deep trouble," Axelrod said on "Fox News Sunday." "They've tried to expand the map because they know in states like Ohio… they're behind and they're not catching up at this point."

Reminds me of when I was a kid.  I was fighting with my younger brother and had my hands around his throat.  My mother came and pulled me off him.  He looked at me and said, “It’s a good thing mom saved you.” 

Thomas Peterffly’s YouTube Ad

If you grow up in a socialist country you tend to be a very good Americans and conservative.

Who will Navy Seals vote for?

Hint, he isn’t in office now.

NAACP takes over polling station

Yesterday a group of NAACP personal came into a polling station in Houston Texas and proceeded to break election law.  They gave out free water and moved people from the back to the front of the line as they saw fit.  

Green energy: 

Wind farm noise causes “clear and significant” damage to people’s sleep and mental health, according to the first full peer-reviewed scientific study of the problem.

Closing statements

Revenge vs Love of Country

Desperation in politics has an ugly face.  Obama calls voting the best revenge.  He actually may be prophetic with that comment (ask any broken glass Republican). 

The Closing arguments

Romney’s words vs Obama’s broken promises.

When the only thing you have left is fear itself

Obama has put out an ad which imagines the horror of a Romney presidency.  The signs of desperation are on the air.

The Enthusiasm Gap

The enthusiasm edge is all GOP. 

In Cincinnati a crowd of 30,000 gather to see Romney.  AP reporter Steve Peoples tries to minimize the numbers and say there was low energy. 

Look at the rally from 360 degrees.

Meanwhile Bill Clinton finds a small crowd (1900) in Perrysburg, Ohio.  As Mary Katharine Ham said:

Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I expected far more people and more excitement for Bill Clinton. This is the rock star, in northern Ohio, 10 minutes from an auto plant, where Obama’s support for the auto industry bailout is supposed to carry the state into the blue column.

Romney garners the most newspaper endorsements

To date, twenty-eight large newspapers have decided to drop their endorsement record with President Obama and put their chips all in on Romney.  The blunt explanations for their decisions often gives way to some blistering critiques of the president, leaving the reader no doubt why these papers lost their faith over the last four years.

According to Editor & Publisher, Republican Mitt Romney is stunning the newspaper world, earning 112 endorsements from editorial boards around the country compared to the President’s 84.  Most large market newspapers like the The New York Times and The Washington Post have stuck with Obama, but have ran less than glowing assessments of his accomplishments.  So while a newspaper endorsement may not mean what it once did, these conversions could be telling of a national trend.

Barone Picks Romney

Bottom line: Romney 315, Obama 223. That sounds high for Romney. But he could drop Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still win the election. Fundamentals.

Video:  PJTV predicts the election

Find out what Stephen Green, Stephen Kruiser and Bill Whittle think.

NYTimes: Pennsylvania is in play

Over the last several days, with polls showing Mr. Obama’s edge in the state narrowing, Republicans have sprung into action and forced the Democrats to spend resources here that could have gone toward more competitive battleground states. 

Conservative super PACs dusted off old advertisements that had not been shown in weeks and shipped them to local television stations from Scranton to Pittsburgh. They ordered millions of dollars in airtime. 

And overnight the race here became the most expensive test yet of whether Republicans and their armies of cash-flush outside groups could unsettle the race at the last minute.

Ohio Union Members caught stealing Romney signs

I used to live in Perrysburg.  Lock ‘em up. 

Catholic for Obama event draws 45 people

The Obama campaign attempted to schedule a rally-like event on a Catholic university campus in the key swing state of Colorado before settling on a dialogue with a co-chair of Catholics for Obama.

“Their original intent was to have more of a rally element to it,” said Paul Alexander, director of Regis University's Institute for the Common Good, which hosted the event.

“We just felt we couldn’t do a rally, but we felt a healthy dialogue among Catholics was important.”

About 45 people attended the Oct. 25 dialogue and small group discussion with Catholics for Obama national co-chair Nicholas P. Cafardi, a law professor and dean emeritus of Duquesne University School of Law.

Obama:  Just vote for MEEEEE!!!

“I’ve said I will work with anybody of any party to move this country forward,” President Obama told a crowd of 2,800 this morning in Hilliard, Ohio. “If you want to break the gridlock in Congress, you’ll vote for leaders who feel the same way whether they’re Democrat, Republican or independent.”

All Jacket and no bombers

Back in Benghazi, the president who looks so cool in a bomber jacket declined to answer his beleaguered diplomats’ calls for help – even though he had aircraft and Special Forces in the region. Too bad. He’s all jacket and no bombers. This, too, is an example of America’s uniquely profligate impotence. When something goes screwy at a ramshackle consulate halfway round the globe, very few governments have the technological capacity to watch it unfold in real time. Even fewer have deployable military assets only a couple of hours away. What is the point of unmanned drones, of military bases around the planet, of elite Special Forces trained to the peak of perfection if the president and the vast bloated federal bureaucracy cannot rouse themselves to action? What is the point of outspending Russia, Britain, France, China, Germany and every middle-rank military power combined if, when it matters, America cannot urge into the air one plane with a couple of dozen commandoes? In Iraq, al-Qaida is running training camps in the western desert. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are all but certain to return most of the country to its pre-9/11 glories. But in Washington the head of the world’s biggest “counterterrorism” bureaucracy briefs the president on flood damage and downed trees.

I don’t know whether Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can fix things, but I do know that Barack Obama and Joe Biden won’t even try – and that therefore a vote for Obama is a vote for the certainty of national collapse. Look at Lower Manhattan in the dark, and try to imagine what America might look like after the rest of the planet decides it no longer needs the dollar as global reserve currency. For four years, we have had a president who can spend everything but build nothing. Nothing but debt, dependency, and decay. As I said at the beginning, in different ways the response to Hurricane Sandy and Benghazi exemplify the fundamental unseriousness of the superpower at twilight. Whether or not to get serious is the choice facing the electorate Tuesday.

But let him keep the bomber jacket.

What’s the difference between Sandy and Katrina

"We'regoing to die! We're going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!" Donna Solli told visiting officials. "You don't understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It's been three days!"

The difference is you actually read about the suffering in Katrina. 

Media coverage:  Is it biased?  Is the Pope Catholic?

It turns out MSNBC is more biased thanFox News is. 

Sandy’s aftermath:  How many voters will skip voting for Obama?

Talk about ham handed, Mayor Bloomberg finally cancels the marathon.  I don’t think his endorsement of Barack Obama will cause a bunch of people in the cold and in the dark to rush out to vote for Obama.  Probably just the opposite. 

The forgiving Obama voter

Yet they'll forgive this president for blasting a smoking $4,500 hole in their household income, and presiding over the doubling of gas prices while throwing useless billions at his green energy fantasy -- no problem.  The Obama voters don't seem to mind that he's got another $1.9 trillion planned in new taxes which will cripple their livelihoods and the larger economy.  They laugh off a national debt of $6 trillion in less than four years -- who cares that debt will drag their kids and grandkids future down into the hole of punishing taxes and depleted incomes to pay it back?  Give the president a second chance?  Heck yes!

Obama’s record on jobs

"Simply put, the President's policies have not produced jobs. During his time in office, 14.7 million people were added to the food stamp rolls. Over that same time, only 194,000 jobs were created -- thus 76 people went on food stamps for every one that found a job. This is a product of low growth. Post-recession economic growth in 2010 was 2.4%, and dropped in 2011 to 1.8%. This year it has dropped again to 1.77%. Few, if any, net jobs will be created with growth of less than 2%."

Benghazi?  What Benghazi?

As the BigThree's evening newscasts ignored the latest in the controversy over the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya for 7 straight days, their morning shows aren't doing much better. On Friday, ABC's Good Morning America and CBS This Morning together devoted less than two minutes of air time - 1 minute, 50 seconds - to the ambush that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American military veterans.

Benghazi—the plot thickens

Fox News has learned that US military intelligence was reporting as early as 7pm Eastern -- less than four hours after the attack began -- that Ansar al Sharia carried out the attack.  The intelligence was relayed to the military with no caveats, according to a source familiar with the intelligence.  Further, two State Department cables show that Stevens' team warned Washington...US intelligence officials confirm to Fox that in fact there were reports from the ground in Benghazi three hours before the attack on the consulate that a Libyan militia was gathering weapons and gathering steam.

The MSM only has to ignore this for another three days.