Obama vs Romney

[Dos Equis]

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I like this.  Not an attack ad, short on specifics, but it's good.  I wish they could both campaign like this, but they'll both have to get in the mud.

[Soul Crusher]

Thats good all good with me

Deal

[Soul Crusher]

[ Invalid YouTube link ]

[Soul Crusher]

May Jobs Report: TKO for the Candidate of Hope?

Prepare to be uninspired as Obama takes the only course available to him: going negative.


By Michael Hirsh

 Updated: June 1, 2012 | 2:44 p.m.
June 1, 2012 | 1:58 p.m.


AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall


President Obama speaks about jobs for veterans on Friday at Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions Global Headquarters in Golden Valley, Minn.



Friday’s devastating jobs report for May should be greeted by rites of mourning at the White House—not necessarily for Barack Obama’s presidency, at least not yet, but rather for the man who once billed himself as the Candidate of Hope.

The grim longer-term message of the May numbers, which came in at a much-lower-than-expected 69,000 jobs and raised the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent, is that the positive economic trend that the Obama camp was hoping for as it swings into November is very unlikely to happen now. For the third year in a row, a spring slowdown has shattered the hopes and spiked the frustrations of the Obama White House, which is trying to manage a historically tepid recovery from the Great Recession. The report was punctuated by a big stock market drop in which the Dow gave back its gains on the year.

(RELATED: Economy Adds Just 69,000 Jobs in May)

With only several more jobs reports left before the election, pretty much all that can be hoped for is nothing worse. “It seems like the best bet, if Europe doesn’t implode, is that we’re going to remain in the status quo,” says Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and a former chief economist for the Labor Department.

While it’s too early to say, based on polls, it’s reasonable to ask whether President Obama should now be viewed once again as the underdog in this race. The president’s best chance to win now, therefore, may be to go negative in a much bigger way than he’s already done: If he is no longer the Candidate of Hope, in other words, Mitt Romney should be seen as the Candidate of Nope.

(RELATED: Economy Is Slowing; Obama Can't Help)

“The argument is that, if you take Romney at his word, he will end up supporting what House Republicans want: tax cuts for the rich and austerity for everyone else,” Holzer says. “It will look more like Europe and Britain. Obama should make the case that while the economy is tepid under him, under Romney it would probably be backsliding.”

So prepare not to be inspired: This will be a campaign of “If Worse Comes to Worst.” Could Shepard Fairey come up with a poster image for that?

Romney, not surprisingly, pounced on the new numbers, calling them a “harsh indictment” of Obama’s policies and reminding voters that the economy has now spent a record 40 months at 8-percent-plus unemployment. Sketching out an argument we will no doubt hear endlessly for the next five months—"Jobs is Job One of the president"—Romney told CNBC that Obama and his team simply misread how severe the downturn was, got fatally distracted by "Obamacare," and proved wrong in expecting unemployment to be “in the sixes” by now.

What can be done? Romney was asked. “The most significant thing we can do in the near term is to get a new president.”

(PICTURES: How Do Obama's and Obama's Records on the Workforce Compare?)

The president seems to have little choice now but to make middle-class voters, especially women, African-Americans, and Latinos, even more scared of what Romney will do to their futures than what he, Obama, has already appeared to do to them. That’s not an easy sell, but it’s one that has been made slightly easier by the GOP candidate’s embrace of right-wing proposals such as Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan—which a Congressional Budget Office study showed would effectively eliminate the entire U.S. government except for defense, Social Security, Medicare, children’s insurance, and interest payments. Romney’s jobs record as governor of Massachusetts was also not very strong.

There have already been signs of this negative approach; now it will inevitably become more pronounced. As John Heilemann wrote last Sunday in New York Magazine, even before the new jobs report, “2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear.” The tack carries some risk, because so much of Obama’s self-identification was as a “transformational” figure who touted himself as different from typical politicians. In Politico, Glenn Thrush wrote recently that the negativism in the Obama campaign, about Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital especially, was alienating independent voters and only uniting hitherto unenthusiastic Republicans around Romney.

Democratic strategist Stan Greenberg says that while Obama has no choice but to frighten voters about a Romney presidency, he also needs to do a better job of articulating his own vision for the economy—even as he drops not-so-subtle reminders of how much of his economic program, such as infrastructure investments, has been stymied by GOP opposition on Capitol Hill. “People aren’t looking for a depressed future. They still want signs of hope,” says Greenberg. “The jobs number reinforces even more that the voters want bigger changes in the economy.”

In a speech in Minnesota on Friday, the president sought to do just that, telling the audience that “Congress should have passed a bill a long time ago to put thousands of construction workers back on the job, building our roads and our bridges.” He added that “Congress has not acted on enough” of his ideas. “There is no excuse for it.”

Greenberg adds that the Obama team can try to make clear to voters that “the Great Recession was unique on scale of damage and length of recovery, and that the euro crisis has made recovery even harder.” But he says the campaign also needs to understand that because of the uniqueness of the crisis, “It needs a unique strategy.”

The May jobs report, while fairly bleak across the board, is not utterly without hope: One reason unemployment rose to 8.2 percent is that more people rejoined the workforce. In addition, lower gasoline prices and interest rates could still boost the economy—and people’s hopes—by November. But probably not enough to persuade very many people that it is Barack Obama who embodies those hopes.

 

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As if obama has been anything but negative since taking office? 

[Soul Crusher]

Lexington

The war over class war

Economic misunderstanding, not overblown rhetoric, is the real problem with the president

 Jun 2nd 2012 | from the print edition




IT DOES not take much to be accused of waging class warfare in America. The charge was levelled last year at Mitt Romney, of all the unlikely leftist agitators, when he suggested that certain tax breaks should be available only to those who earned less than $200,000. Rick Santorum, one of Mr Romney’s rivals for the Republican nomination, though he had promised never to use the word “class”, earned a similar rebuke for pointing out that he came from humble origins, supposedly an implicit contrast with Mr Romney, whose father was a governor and cabinet secretary.
 
For those who see such comments as tantamount to storming the Bastille, Barack Obama’s recent behaviour might bring to mind St Petersburg in 1917. According to Mr Romney, he is attacking nothing less than capitalism and the free-enterprise system. An article in Forbes magazine calls Mr Obama a “socialist in the European reform-Marxism tradition” although not, to be fair, “a communist of the cold war tradition”. John McCain, whom Mr Obama defeated to win the presidency in 2008, detects “class warfare at its worst”.

 
The main evidence of Mr Obama’s proletarian sympathies is a couple of advertisements recently released by his campaign depicting Bain Capital, the private-equity firm Mr Romney founded and ran for 15 years, as a rapacious corporate raider. In one, downtrodden former employees of a steel mill in which Bain Capital invested describe the firm as a “vampire” which “sucked the life” out of the business, leaving them not only without work but without the health insurance or pensions they had been expecting. In another advertisement, a woman laid off from an office-supply factory asserts that Mr Romney “doesn’t care anything about the middle-class or the lower-class people.”
 
These ads are unfair, of course, ignoring as they do Bain Capital’s many successful investments, fudging Mr Romney’s role and leaving out many mitigating details. It might be possible to argue that Bain’s financial engineers miscalculated in some instances, extracting too much profit from firms under their control and saddling them with ultimately ruinous debts. But the Obama campaign’s hatchet men are much vaguer and more sweeping, painting a picture of Mr Romney as a callous asset-stripper—a claim for which there is little evidence. Several Democrats have criticised the ads as misleading and misguided—most notably Cory Booker, the Democratic (and black) mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who described as “nauseating” the fixation of the two campaigns with awkward moments from the candidates’ past.
 
However, Mr Obama is not the first to raise such charges: during the primaries, all Mr Romney’s Republican rivals did. One of them, Rick Perry, denounced Bain Capital’s approach as “vulture capitalism”. Nor are such gibes unusually incendiary for an American presidential campaign. Al Gore made “the people versus the powerful” one of the themes of his bid for the White House. Harry Truman had a much more virulent turn of phrase, fulminating against the “Republican gluttons of privilege” who had “stuck a pitchfork in the farmer’s back”.
 
By contrast, even as Mr Obama seeks to cast himself as the champion of the middle class and to make “fairness” the central theme of the campaign, he is careful to say that he does not want to demonise profits or success, and believes that the vast majority of people in financial services are well intentioned. He himself, he often notes, is a member of the 1%. In the speech in which he first framed the election as a choice between unfettered capitalism and a fairer, more regulated version, he still laboriously affirmed that “the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history”. His talk of raising the top tax bracket to just under 40%, and making sure that millionaires pay at least as high a rate as their secretaries, is a far cry from François Hollande, let alone Robespierre.
 
Mr Obama has even managed to choke out a few kind words about private equity, which, he says, is “a healthy part of the free market”, manned, in many cases, by “folks who do good work”. He claims he has no problem with the industry itself, but simply does not consider it a good proving ground for future presidents (unlike, say, community organising). Mr Romney’s contention that his experience in business will help him get the jobless back to work is flawed, Mr Obama’s argument runs, since private equity exists “to maximise profits, and that’s not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers”.
 
What’s fairness, anyway?
 
The disclaimers are more than a little disingenuous, since Mr Obama often does seem to suggest that financiers are greedy wreckers from whom America’s economy must be saved. But that aside, and in spite of the Republicans’ bluster, his rhetoric is hardly illegitimate or extreme. America’s middle class is struggling. Median incomes are stagnant, while the rich have been getting richer. It is easy to argue that the average Joe is not getting a fair shake—or at least not the same shake he used to. The question is whether voters care most about that, or whether they simply want to see the economy humming again, equitably or not.
 
In that case, the election will revolve not around fairness, but competence. Mr Romney is fond of saying that Mr Obama has no idea how the economy works and how jobs are created. The way the Obama campaign talks about Bain Capital suggests that his criticism is correct. Mr Obama, as noted above, likes to insinuate that there is a conflict between pursuing profits and creating jobs. In the long run, however, in a competitive economy, that is nonsense. Only profitable firms can sustain any jobs, and the more profitable they are, the more money they have to invest in new ventures with new workers. Mr Obama is guilty not of rhetorical excess but of economic muddle. That is far more worrying.
 
Economist.com/blogs/lexington

[Soul Crusher]

By Karl Rove
May 31, 2012


Why 2012 Is Not 2004
 
Unlike Bush, Obama is seen as an unusually weak chief executive.
 


President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney may be dead even in the polls, but some pundits insist the president will prevail on Election Day because 2012 is the new 2004.
 
The story line goes like this: President George W. Bush had roughly the same numbers at this point in 2004 that Mr. Obama has today. Mr. Bush went on to win a narrow victory by building a massive ground game that focused on the GOP's base and by relentlessly attacking his opponent, Sen. John Kerry. Mr. Obama is executing the same strategy. What worked for Mr. Bush, the theory goes, will work for Mr. Obama.
 
The only problem is the theory is based on a false premise.
 
True, there are some similarities between 2004 and 2012. Mr. Obama's current job approval and personal favorability ratings are roughly the same as Mr. Bush's in 2004. So are the head-to-head matchups: In mid-May 2004, Mr. Bush trailed Mr. Kerry in Gallup, 46%-48%, while in the most recent Gallup tracking Mr. Obama is tied with Mr. Romney, 46%-46%.
 
But there are crucial differences between the two elections. It is a myth that 2004 was all about maximizing Republican turnout. The Bush campaign also successfully sought to win as many independents as possible and to poach elements of the Democratic coalition. In the end, Mr. Bush received 44% of the Hispanic vote, carried the largest share (24%) of the Jewish vote for any Republican since 1988, nearly erased the gender gap with 48% of the women's vote, and was supported by 11% of black voters, up from 8% in 2000.
 
If Mr. Obama makes this election mostly about energizing the Democratic base—as he clearly intends to—he will further alienate swing voters who elected him in 2008 and then turned on his policies with a vengeance in 2010.
 
A second big difference is that the 2004 election was a referendum on whether Mr. Bush was keeping America safe. Remember "security moms"—that post-9/11 voting bloc of mostly white, married women with children? In a late September 2004 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, 62% of voters approved of Mr. Bush's handling of terrorism while 36% disapproved. In the Election Day exit polls, 58% said they did not trust Mr. Kerry to handle terrorism. Mr. Bush won 84% of these security-minded voters, Mr. Kerry just 15%.
 
The 2012 election will be a referendum on Mr. Obama's performance not against terrorism, but on the economy. Only 42% in the May 20 ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy while 55% disapprove.
 
Meanwhile, the economy is seen as a strong point for Mr. Romney. When asked "Which candidate do you trust to do a better job handling the economy?" Mr. Romney polls as high or higher than Mr. Obama. It's unclear that negative attacks on Mr. Romney by Team Obama will materially change Mr. Romney's standing, especially if effectively rebutted or deflected.
 
But the most important difference between the two elections is this: In the April 2004 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 64% said they saw Mr. Bush as a strong leader; 36% said he was not. Today, just 51% see Mr. Obama as a strong leader; 48% do not.
 
Among the greatest political assets any president has is the public's perception of him as a leader. If voters see an incumbent president as strong and effective, many will vote for him even if they don't fully agree with him on some important issues.
 
But this president is perceived by many, even some in his own party, as indecisive, too willing to outsource the writing of key legislation to Congress, too eager to lead from behind, too political, too calculating, and too ready to discard frequently voiced promises. Most importantly, he appears hostage to events rather than in control of them.
 
Playing into the impression of Mr. Obama as an unusually weak chief executive is his practice of blaming the nation's challenges on everything from his predecessor to a tsunami in Japan to ATMs to the Arab Spring to airport check-in kiosks to Fox News to Super PACs to the Supreme Court. The blame game can work for maybe a year; after that, it is (rightly) seen as weak and whiny.
 
A president is strongest when he takes more responsibility and less credit. Too frequently, Mr. Obama does the opposite. The self-portrait the president has painted is of a weak liberal, buffeted by events. That will make this election more like 1980—when Ronald Reagan defeated an ineffectual Jimmy Carter—than 2004.
 
This article originally appeared on WSJ.com on Wednesday, May 30, 2012.


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[Soul Crusher]

Panicky Ed Schultz Predicts: If Romney Wins, There'll 'Never Be a Democratic President Again'
NewsBusters ^ | 5/31/2012 | Jack Coleman
Posted on June 1, 2012 5:26:05 PM EDT by kingattax

In a related development, the Republican National Committee is extending heartfelt thanks to Ed Schultz for his help with their get-out-the-vote efforts. Further confirmation that the June 5 recall election in Wisconsin has liberals more spooked than usual was provided yesterday courtesy of radio host and MSNBC flamethrower Ed Schultz.

Departing from trademark bluster, Schultz warned that victory for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker could foreshadow President Obama's defeat in the fall -- and a permanent GOP lock on the presidency

(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...

[Soul Crusher]

Allen West: Obama 'Desperate' After Jobs Numbers (video Allen West interview)
Newsmax ^ | 6/1/2012 | Paul Scicchitano and Kathleen Walter
Posted on June 1, 2012 5:47:59 PM EDT by Signalman

Florida Congressman Allen West believes that today’s dismal jobs report will back President Barack Obama into a corner and make him a “desperate person” with the election now five months away.

“When you’re a desperate person — much the same as a cat being cornered – you’re going to come out and really fight even stronger,” predicted West in an exclusive interview with Newsmax shortly after the Labor Department reported that employers had created only 69,000 jobs in May — the fewest in a year — while the unemployment rate ticked up. Together, the news fueled fears that the economy is heading in the wrong direction under Obama's stewardship.

“I think that the president’s policies are failing the American people,” explained West. “We have now hit 40 consecutive months of unemployment in the United States of America at or above 8 percent.”

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney quickly labeled the jobs numbers “devastating news for American workers and American families,” while House Speaker John Boehner said it’s clear that Americans are in a “desperate spot.”

“It is now clear to everyone that President Obama’s policies have failed to achieve their goals and that the Obama economy is crushing America’s middle class,” Romney said.

House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Tom Price of Georgia said that the jobs report reflects economic growth in America that continues to “disappoint and underperform.”

(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

What's this? Obama longs for GOP rival like McCain
 Google/AP ^ | June 2, 2012 | JULIE PACE, AP

Posted on Saturday, June 02, 2012 9:50:03 AM by Innovative

President Barack Obama seems to think that the world of politics would be better if someone like John McCain were running for the White House.

It's all a way of drawing a contrast with Obama's current GOP rival, Mitt Romney, and trying to convince crucial independent voters that the former Massachusetts governor is outside the mainstream.

But Obama's flattering memories of McCain conflict with their campaign clashes of 2008. Back then, Obama hammered his rival as "out of touch" with many of the problems facing people in the United States.

Today's platitudes also conceal the reality of Obama's current dynamic with McCain. The senator is one of the president's staunchest critics on everything from health care to foreign policy, and he's a vocal Romney supporter.

Obama's take on McCain has become a standard part of his fundraising appeal to donors. As the general election heats up, the Obama campaign is relishing more opportunities to try to turn its former foe into an asset.

When Romney didn't condemn his supporter Donald Trump for raising more questions this week about the president's citizenship, the Obama campaign dug up old video clips of McCain correcting supporters in the 2008 who said they were scared of Obama and one clip of a supporter who thought he was an "Arab."

"As the Republican nominee, John McCain stood up to the voices of extremism in his party," an Obama Internet video says. It then asks why Romney won't do the same.


(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...

[tu_holmes]

Panicky Ed Schultz Predicts: If Romney Wins, There'll 'Never Be a Democratic President Again'
NewsBusters ^ | 5/31/2012 | Jack Coleman
Posted on June 1, 2012 5:26:05 PM EDT by kingattax

In a related development, the Republican National Committee is extending heartfelt thanks to Ed Schultz for his help with their get-out-the-vote efforts. Further confirmation that the June 5 recall election in Wisconsin has liberals more spooked than usual was provided yesterday courtesy of radio host and MSNBC flamethrower Ed Schultz.

Departing from trademark bluster, Schultz warned that victory for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker could foreshadow President Obama's defeat in the fall -- and a permanent GOP lock on the presidency

(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...

This may be the dumbest statement I've ever heard.

20 years ago Bill Clinton was marching down his way to the white house and one of the most successful presidencies of the 20th century.

Seems absolutely insane to say some retarded prediction like this.

[MM2K]

This may be the dumbest statement I've ever heard.

20 years ago Bill Clinton was marching down his way to the white house and one of the most successful presidencies of the 20th century.

Seems absolutely insane to say some retarded prediction like this.

Its retarded, but I do think it could be another 12 years until another Democrat takes the White House, and 30 years before we have one like Obama.

[Soul Crusher]

Obama's Former 'Car Czar' Freaks Out About His Intrade Odds Tanking
Brett LoGiurato|Jun. 4, 2012, 9:39 AM|365|2




Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
 
We told you about Barack Obama's tanking Intrade odds over the weekend. Looks like the Obama team has noticed as well.
 
Obama surrogate Steve Rattner — the President's former head of the auto task force — was on Morning Joe today, and what was notable was his freak out about the usually steady Intrade odds plummeting on Friday and over the weekend.
 
Here's the chart Rattner showed on Morning Joe:
 

MSNBC/screenshot
 

As you can see, Obama's Intrade odds were holding steady around 58 to 59 percent until the jobs report hit on Friday. Then came that amazing, drastic plunge. Here's Rattner breaking it down:
 
"Intrade, that those of us follow and many of us like, it tends to be a good predictor of things. This has been one of the most remarkable things I've seen on Intrade. Because Intrade tends to move very, very slowly, particularly as you're a long way away from an election. And it was holding Barack Obama rock steady in this 58 to 60 percent range.
 
"And on Friday, it went down to 53 percent in the blink of an eye. That's something you don't see Intrade do very often. So Intrade is scared."
 
This morning, Obama's odds are up 0.6 percent to 53.6.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-surrogate-steve-rattner-freaks-out-about-collapsing-intrade-odds-2012-6#ixzz1wpxOhlf0

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155030/Romney-Edges-Obama-Battle-Middle-Income-Voters.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines%20-%20Politics



LOL at people thinking obama is going to win.   

[Soul Crusher]

Romney sees jump in voters who hold positive view of him
By Jonathan Easley - 06/04/12 09:30 AM ET

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/230651-romney-sees-jump-in-voters-who-hold-positive-view-of-him



Mitt Romney is viewed favorably by 48 percent of voters in a new CNN-ORC poll, a huge jump for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

 Only 42 percent of voters in the poll have a negative view of Romney, who held only a 34 percent favorability rating in CNN's poll in February. Romney still trails President Obama in favorability. Obama is at 56 percent positive and 42 negative in the CNN-ORC poll.


Still, the figures are encouraging for Romney, particularly after a report Friday found the economy added only 69,000 jobs in May. The dismal figures helped Romney double down on his arguments that Obama is ill-equipped to handle the economy.
 
Obama leads Romney 49 to 46 overall, according to the CNN-ORC poll.

In an ABC News-Washington Post poll released last week, Romney was still slightly underwater in favorability. But that poll also showed Romney making gains in favorability — it was the first time he topped 40 percent favorability in this campaign cycle in the ABC poll.

The CBS-ORC poll of 1,009 American adults was conducted between May 29 and May 31 and has a 3.5 percent margin of error.



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The trend here is what is important.   
 

[240 is Back]

33, I thought you said all year intrade doesn't matter shit.


now you're a disciple, huh? 

[Soul Crusher]

GOP attacks celebrity support for Obama

By David Nakamura, Monday, June 4, 6:42 PM

President Obama dined last month with 150 guests at George Clooney’s California cottage. He exchanged quips in January with Spike Lee in the director’s New York City townhouse.

Last fall, Obama entertained megastar Lady Gaga, who was seated in the front row of a Silicon Valley fundraiser in six-inch heels and a towering blond bouffant.

Obama’s popularity with Hollywood glitterati is again on display as his campaign mobilizes its vast fundraising apparatus to amass cash in a campaign that is shaping up to be the most expensive in U.S. history.

If Obama was the candidate of cool in 2008, when celebrities such as musician Will.I.Am produced viral campaign videos , he has even more aggressively employed star power to open pocketbooks, build buzz and, perhaps most notably, deploy celebrities to target specific constituencies.

Yet Obama’s glamorous elbow-rubbing carries significant risks as he struggles to convince voters that he is focused single-mindedly on their economic concerns. And it is triggering attacks from his Republican rivals, who contend that the president is more interested in hobnobbing with Hollywood to help his campaign than he is in helping ordinary Americans.

On Monday, the Republican National Committee released a Web video called “Meanwhile,” which flashes unemployment numbers for various groups — women, Latinos, African Americans, youth — under clips from an Obama campaign video from last Friday of Vogue Editor Anna Wintour talking about hanging out with “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker and first lady Michelle Obama. The bustling sounds of New York City streets give way to crickets chirping at the end of the RNC version, along with the tag line: “Obama’s focused on keeping his job. But what about yours?”

Although Obama faced similar accusations in 2008, the charges are potentially more dangerous this time given that he is a sitting president responsible for managing the economy, rather than being just one of 100 senators. Yet the Obama campaign sees Hollywood as a powerful and necessary ally, able to both raise large amounts of money and also speak directly to important subgroups of voters who identify with the famous. On Monday, as his celebrity ties became an issue, Obama hosted rock star Jon Bon Jovi on Air Force One on the way to fundraisers in New York.

The fundraiser with Wintour and Parker, for example, is part of an effort to appeal to women; the reelection team next week is offering supporters a chance to win a raffle (entry fee $3) to attend the New York City event. In a fundraising e-mail to supporters Monday, Michelle Obama called Parker “a loving mom, an incredibly hard worker, and a great role model” and added: “She’s one of those people you can’t help but admire.”

The RNC response video mocked the timing of the Obama video’s release. The video “highlights how out of touch President Obama and his campaign are after releasing a glitzy fundraising video featuring Vogue chief Anna Wintour the same day as a dismal jobs report,” RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said, referring to a Labor Department report that showed the economy added just 69,000 jobs in May.

The Obama campaign struck back quickly, pointing out that Romney appeared last week with developer Donald Trump, host of the television show “The Apprentice.” Trump’s controversial comments questioning Obama’s birth place overshadowed the event.

“It’s kind of humorous that they would take that tack,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior campaign adviser, said Monday. “When Mr. Trump went off the deep end again, [Romney] did not rebuke him because he said he needed to get 50.1 percent of the vote.”

Furthermore, Axelrod added, Romney has sought fundraising help other famous names, including musicians Kid Rock and Ted Nugent.

“I don’t think they have a whole lot of standing on this issue,” Axelrod said.

Still, Romney’s drawing power among Hollywood’s elite pales in comparison to Obama’s. At a Beverly Hills fundraiser last week, Romney’s biggest-name guests were former “Happy Days” star Scott Baio and actor Jon Voight, who is also Angelina Jolie’s father.

Obama has drawn support from Hollywood’s biggest names and biggest bundlers, including moviemaking titans Jeffrey Katz enberg and Steven Spielberg. The fundraiser last week at Clooney’s house — for which the campaign also held a raffle for ordinary supporters — included actors Tobey Maguire, Jack Black and Salma Hayek and singer Barbra Streisand. The campaign walked away with a whopping $15 million, its largest single-event total, including the raffle and $40,000-per-plate tickets for 150 guests.

In many cases, the Obama campaign has used celebrities to target specific constituencies. Eva Longoria, a campaign bundler who is a constant presence at Obama events, is popular among Hispanic women. Last month, Obama was introduced at a New York event by openly gay singer Ricky Martin, just days after the president expressed support for same-sex marriage.

Martin told the crowd that he admires “the courage he showed last week in affirming his belief in marriage equality. That is the kind of courage we expect from our president and that is why we support him.”

The attacks on Obama’s fascination with celebrities are not new. In 2008, Republican rival John McCain endorsed a video called “Celebrity” that mocked Obama’s popularity and included images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

“He’s the biggest celebrity in the world. But is he ready to lead?” the ad intoned.

That ad did little to damp Obama’s appeal, especially among young voters. John Weaver, a Republican strategist who had called the McCain video “childish,” said Monday that the RNC attack also would have little effect on voters.

“They’re trying to influence opinion leaders and journalists,” Weaver said. “But no voter cares about this issue, and it will not shape the opinion of any voters. What matters is whether the employment situation will improve.”

Yet for the Obama campaign, the need to recapture the enthusiasm of 2008 has grown more urgent with the economy still struggling. Heather Smith, president of the youth-oriented Rock the Vote, said there are 25 million unregistered voters under 30 years old, a far higher number than at the same time four years ago.

“All our polling shows an increased level of frustration with the pace of change, with the control of money and corporate interests in our political process,” she said, citing the Occupy Wall Street and tea party movements as offshoots of that frustration.

“The question for the president will be not whether he uses celebrity spokespeople, but how he uses them and what kind of message they convey,” Smith added. “People are worse off than they were four years ago. So it’s not just a straight to camera ‘go vote’ campaign. They need to leverage celebrities to actually talk about the issues.”

Obama’s celebrity surrogates have begun to help in that regard, a la Martin’s comments on same-sex marriage. But in many cases, the praise has been more effusive the other direction.

“We raised a lot of money because everybody loves George,” Obama told supporters at the Clooney event.

“They like me,” the president said. “They love him.”


Staff writers Amy Gardner and Nia-Malika Henderson contributed to this report.

[Soul Crusher]

Defecting From Obama
By Jack Kelly
www.realclearpolitics.co m


President Barack Obama is racing down the trail blazed by Sen. George McGovern, who in 1972 was buried by the largest popular vote landslide in American history. (President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 won a slightly higher percentage of the popular vote than Richard Nixon did in 1972, but LBJ's margin over Sen. Barry Goldwater was smaller.) Sen. McGovern was too far to the left, swing voters thought, and not very competent -- an image reinforced by the shambles his supporters made of the Democratic national convention.
 
Swing voters are forming a similar opinion about President Obama, who sometimes seems as if he's deliberately trying to dismantle the coalition that elected him in 2008.

• Mr. Obama won the Jewish vote by an astounding 52 percentage points. But -- thanks chiefly to his policies toward Israel and Iran -- he's lost more support among Jews (16 percentage points) than among any other ethnic group, according to a Pew survey in February.
 
• Mr. Obama won the Catholic vote 54 percent to 45 percent. Four years earlier, Sen. John Kerry got only 47 percent of Catholic votes -- and he's Catholic.
 
The president's share of the Catholic vote is sure to shrink, thanks to the administration's plans to force Catholic institutions to offer birth control and abortion-inducing drugs in their health insurance policies and to Mr. Obama's embrace of gay marriage. Pennsylvania Democratic state committeewoman Jo Ann Nardelli cited her concerns about gay marriage when she announced May 23 that she has turned Republican.
 
Not just Catholics are upset. In Mississippi last week, seven local elected officials cited the president's gay marriage stance as the reason they are switching from the Democratic Party to the GOP.
 
• People in upscale suburbs -- which have been trending Democratic since 1992 -- tend to be more liberal on social issues. Mr. Obama won half the votes of voters with household incomes of more than $100,000. But these people haven't liked Mr. Obama's economic policies or his class warfare rhetoric. They voted Republican, 58 percent to 40 percent, in 2010.
 
Moderate Democrats don't like the class warfare rhetoric either. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who is black and an Obama surrogate, described as "nauseating" the president's attack ads on Bain Capital, Mitt Romney's old firm. Mr. Obama's rhetoric was criticized also by former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, and by former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., who is black and was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee in 2006.
 
Blue-collar workers whose jobs are threatened by Obama administration regulatory policies are not assuaged by anti-business rhetoric.
 
• In 2008, Mr. Obama's pledge to be a racial healer won him many votes. That pledge -- like most of his others -- remains unfulfilled. Former Rep. Artur Davis, who is black and was the Democratic candidate for governor of Alabama in 2010, revealed Tuesday that he may run for office in his new home state of Virginia as a Republican in part because the president has "lapsed into a bloc-by-bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured."
 
• Mr. Obama lost among veterans to war hero John McCain by just 10 percentage points in 2008. This year, vets prefer Mitt Romney by 24 points, according to a fresh Gallup poll.
 
Heaping self-inflicted wound upon self-inflicted wound, the president has lost enthusiasm for his candidacy among environmentalists and gay marriage advocates by clumsily embracing their causes. The Democratic National Convention, to be held in Charlotte, N.C., this year, may become the biggest fiasco since the rowdy McGovern convention in Miami Beach.
 
Though Americans in 1972 emphatically rejected Sen. McGovern, they didn't reject the Democratic Party. The GOP gained a paltry 12 seats in the House, leaving Democrats with a post-election majority of 242-192. Democrats gained two seats in the Senate.
 
But if President Obama goes down this year, he'll drag lots of Democrats in Congress with him. They're identified too closely with his failed policies to avoid sharing blame. Fifty-six percent of Americans disapprove of the job House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is doing, according to a poll by a Democratic pollster May 10. The same firm found a week later that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is under water, too, with an 18 percent approval rating.
 
Though few other Democrats suffered when Sen. McGovern tanked, the election produced much bitterness and recrimination within the party. Come November, those may seem to Democrats the salad days.


Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio.

[Dos Equis]

And to think believe actually believe this garbage.   

[Dos Equis]

Trouble.

Zogby: Obama Facing 'Serious Crack' in His Youth Base
Wednesday, 06 Jun 2012
By Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter

Respected pollster John Zogby tells Newsmax that the younger voters who massively supported Barack Obama in 2008 could now be a “serious crack” in his base going into the November election.

Zogby says his most recent polls show Obama essentially tied with Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Analyzing the presidential race among several demographic groups, he says in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV: “Obama right now in his favor is doing very well among Latinos and is likely to do very well among Latino voters. They not only were critical to him in 2008, but we’re expecting two million more Latino voters in 2012. It’s not likely that Republicans are going to do well with Latino voters under any circumstances.

“Number two, he had 95 percent of the African-American vote in 2008. He will get that again.

“The creative class, 35 million strong who work in the world of ideas and who helped tilt a lot of formerly red states blue, they are turned off by issues like contraception and some of the elements of social conservatism that came out during the Republican debates.

“The fly in the ointment for Barack Obama is young people, 18 to 29 years old. He won massively among that group. This is a completely different group this time around. [There has been] three and a half, almost four years of recession for this group, a lot of hopeless. Watch a battleground play out in the fall, not between Romney and Obama on college campuses but between Obama and Gary Johnson, the libertarian, who I think speaks to a lot of frustration of young people.

“Johnson could be a threat to Obama’s campaign.

“The young vote represents a serious crack” in Obama’s base. “He really needs to put all those four groups back together, and young people are that one group.

“He got 67 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds in 2008. I have him polling around 45, 46 percent of that group. It’s going to be very hard for him to win. Every young person that does not turn out to vote for Obama or votes for Gary Johnson is a problem for Obama.”

Asked what will be the deciding factor in the presidential election, Zogby responds: “The economy of course is extremely important. The price of gasoline is by most accounts off the table. If it shoots back up it’s troubling.

“The real issue is going to be anxiety over the economy, not just where the numbers are but what people feel the numbers might be — a European crisis, an emerging market crisis, something globally that could have an impact on us.

“At the same time a real issue is going to be moderates versus social conservatives. A real problem Mitt Romney has is that 16 percent of evangelical Christians are undecided, and a third of those undecided evangelicals tell us they will never vote for a Mormon.

“I don’t know what never means, but at least for now that’s troublesome.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/zogby-obama-youth-base/2012/06/06/id/441409

[Soul Crusher]

Karl Rove's grand slam (Leftist crying in his Schlitz beer over fundraising)
The Hill ^ | May 31, 2012 | Brent Budowsky
Posted on June 6, 2012 10:03:17 PM EDT by 2ndDivisionVet

It is far too early to predict the election returns for November. Forecasts today are subject to dramatic change based on events yet to happen, but:

If the election were held today I now believe Mitt Romney and the Republicans would win it because more of their voters would be motivated to vote and more of their large donors are motivated to donate. Romney would win the White House with a narrow victory. Democrats would gain House seats but fall short of regaining control. Even if Senate Democrats retain nominal control they would not be able to pass significant legislation without the permission of ever-filibustering Republicans. At least one of the liberal Supreme Court justices is likely to leave before the end of the next president's term, and if that president is Romney, the right could control the court for a generation.

I believe these outcomes would be a disaster for America. I will do what I can to oppose them in columns and in a 5,000-word e-book I am writing that will put the consequences of the election in brutally stark terms that I hope will energize supporters of the president and Democrats. But I believe today that the most likely outcome is a Romney victory, and warn the president and all Democrats of the grave consequences of the current enthusiasm gap among large donors and grassroots voters.

Which brings me to Karl Rove, who has inspired the wealthy donors of the ideological right, the Republican Party and many of the most corrupted and powerful special interests who will donate between $1 billion and $1.5 billion before the carnage of this campaign is fully done.

The inability of Democrats to play in the same league as Karl Rove financially is a humiliating debacle that might be unprecedented, measured by comparing wealthy donors of one party to wealthy donors of the other, in the history of presidential politics. This parallels an enthusiasm gap of voters that creates what I believe is the current Republican edge in the election.

The president and Democrats seem befuddled by how to react to the Citizens United decision, while Karl Rove understands with crystal clarity. Rove mobilizes his army, rallies his wealthy, organizes his venture and puts his money in the bank.

The large donors of the right and Republicans give a damn far more than the large donors of the left and Democrats.

The armies of the right and Republicans have generals with the clarity, vision and will to win of Karl Rove while the armies of the left and Democrats do not.

The will to win of the large donors of the right is powerful and seemingly unlimited while Warren Buffett, the wealthiest Democrat in the land, does comparatively modest fundraisers and sings folks songs at his annual meeting, while many other wealthy Democrats give modest donations compared to the right and gratuitously opine about why they will not do more.

The issue following the Citizens United decision was a no-brainer from the beginning. It is not hard to explain simultaneously attacking the Citizens United decision, and all it represents about the corruptions of our politics, and supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement, while also calling on the wealthiest Democrats to meet the challenge from Rove and his donors on the right by giving equally massive (and equally affordable for wealthy Democrats) donations to Priorities USA, Majority PAC, House Majority PAC and other independent and party groups.

So far the president and Democrats have done neither. Their treatment of Occupy Wall Street ranged from ambivalent to shabby. Their attacks against Citizens United were impotent and timid. Their inability to effectively compete against Rove is pathetic and inexcusable.

Democrats today are neither winning the issue nor raising the money. This is the triumph of Rove's grand slam and the tragedy of the anemic Democratic response that is a failure of their not having the will to fight for principles they believe in, or the will to win the war that Rove and Republicans are waging.

For today the president and Democrats must urgently rally their voters, workers and donors with a new-found sense of urgency and mission. Stay tuned next week for a grand chessboard move I will propose for the president. Karl Rove has hit a grand slam in the fifth inning. It is time for Democrats to swing for the fences.

*******

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander, then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv

[Soul Crusher]

Poll: Barack Obama in dead heat with Mitt Romney in Michigan as popularity slips

11:33 AM, June 7, 2012  | 
Comments


By Dawson Bell

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau





President Barack Obama’s popularity in Michigan has slipped in recent months, leaving him in a dead heat with Republican challenger Mitt Romney, according to a new poll of state voters by EPIC-MRA of Lansing.

The poll, released this morning to the Free Press and four TV stations, shows Romney leading Obama 46%-45%, a reversal from the last EPIC poll in April which showed Obama ahead 47%-43%.

Obama’s personal and job approval numbers also have slipped, with 46% of Michiganders saying they have a favorable opinion of the president, and 41% approving of the job he’s doing.
 
EPIC co-founder John Cavanagh said the softening in support for Obama is likely related to a robust TV advertising campaign by pro-Romney PACs which have been critical of his handling of the economy. Perhaps most troubling for the Democratic president is a decline in support from independent voters, Cavanagh said.
 
The EPIC results are in sharp contrast to a poll by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling late last month which showed Obama leading Romney in Michigan 53%-39%, prompting PPP Director Tom Jensen to suggest the president “won’t have to worry too much about holding Michigan for Democrats” in the fall.
 
Romney, however, also remains unpopular with many voters (43%), compared to 41% who view him favorably.
 
EPIC asked poll respondents as well how their views might be affected by Obama’s recent announcement of support for same-sex marriage, and Romney’s opposition to the federal government bailouts of the auto industry. Same sex marriage prompted 12% to say they would be more likely to vote for Obama, while 34% said they would be less likely. Romney’s position on federal aid to GM and Chrysler made 18% of voters more likely to support him, and 39% less likely.
 
Asked what their presidential preference would be in light of those positions, the head-to-head results flipped, with Obama ahead 46%-45%.
 
Both are well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The telephone survey of 600 likely voters was conducted June 2-5.
 
Contact Dawson Bell: 517-372-8661 or dbell@freepress.com

[Soul Crusher]

Purple Poll: Romney Leads in OH and FL (O leads CO and VA)
 Purple Strategies ^ | Purple Strategies

Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2012 3:42:00 PM by tellw

CO: Obama: 48% Romney: 46% Not sure: 5%

VA: Obama: 49% Romney: 46% Not sure: 5%

OH: Obama: 45% Romney: 48% Not sure: 8%

FL: Obama: 45% Romney: 49% Not sure: 6%

The PurplePoll is fielded and analyzed by Purple Insights, the research division of Purple Strategies, the bipartisan public affairs firm.

Fielded 5/31-6/5, using automated telephone interviews and RDD sample. Total weighted N size=2000 likely voters, margin of error +/-2.2. Each regional and state-level sample has margins of error of +/-4.0. Sample size for OH, FL, VA and CO is 600.


(Excerpt) Read more at purplestrategies.com ...

[MCWAY]

Purple Poll: Romney Leads in OH and FL (O leads CO and VA)
 Purple Strategies ^ | Purple Strategies

Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2012 3:42:00 PM by tellw

CO: Obama: 48% Romney: 46% Not sure: 5%

VA: Obama: 49% Romney: 46% Not sure: 5%

OH: Obama: 45% Romney: 48% Not sure: 8%

FL: Obama: 45% Romney: 49% Not sure: 6%

The PurplePoll is fielded and analyzed by Purple Insights, the research division of Purple Strategies, the bipartisan public affairs firm.

Fielded 5/31-6/5, using automated telephone interviews and RDD sample. Total weighted N size=2000 likely voters, margin of error +/-2.2. Each regional and state-level sample has margins of error of +/-4.0. Sample size for OH, FL, VA and CO is 600.


(Excerpt) Read more at purplestrategies.com ...

That's not good at ALL, especially when you factor in the Morris rule, regarding nearly all of "Not sure" or undecided going against the incumbent.

[Option D]

Purple Poll: Romney Leads in OH and FL (O leads CO and VA)
 Purple Strategies ^ | Purple Strategies

Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2012 3:42:00 PM by tellw

CO: Obama: 48% Romney: 46% Not sure: 5%

VA: Obama: 49% Romney: 46% Not sure: 5%

OH: Obama: 45% Romney: 48% Not sure: 8%

FL: Obama: 45% Romney: 49% Not sure: 6%

The PurplePoll is fielded and analyzed by Purple Insights, the research division of Purple Strategies, the bipartisan public affairs firm.

Fielded 5/31-6/5, using automated telephone interviews and RDD sample. Total weighted N size=2000 likely voters, margin of error +/-2.2. Each regional and state-level sample has margins of error of +/-4.0. Sample size for OH, FL, VA and CO is 600.


(Excerpt) Read more at purplestrategies.com ...

So let me guess... the polls in CO and VA are false.. but Florida and Ohio are spot on correct?

[Soul Crusher]

So let me guess... the polls in CO and VA are false.. but Florida and Ohio are spot on correct?

I think VA is going to be harder tha colorado due to all the govt worker parasites in Northern VA.