BREAKING NEWS FROM WISCONSIN: The Democratic National Committee is refusing requests to fund the massive get out the vote effort planned in Wisconsin to recall Scott Walker.1
Wisconsin is ground zero for Democrats this summer—and there are only three weeks before Election Day—which is why this breaking news just doesn’t make sense. Scott Walker and his right-wing allies have spent millions, and they’ll spend millions more in the next few weeks. But Walker’s poll numbers won’t budge and if the Wisconsin Democrats can run the massive field program they have planned, we can win this. Obama for America organizers are hard at work in the state, but the DNC’s lack of support has left a huge hole in the get out the vote budget. So MoveOn members need to step up. Can you help recall Walker?
Chip in $5 to the Wisconsin Democrats on ActBlue to beat Scott Walker.Wisconsin citizens, with the support of activists from all around the country, have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. They’ve inspired all of us, and put fear into the hearts of other governors who wanted to attack the 99%. But if Walker survives the recall, we’ll have wasted a year of effort.
With only a few weeks left, the DNC is feeling the heat and says they may provide more help, but we can’t wait for them. We have to do it ourselves.Can you chip in $5 today via ActBlue to make sure that Scott Walker is finally recalled from office?
Thanks for all you do.
What’s your favorite part? Beginning with the news that the DNC is refusing to pay for get-out-the-vote efforts, the befuddled lament that “this breaking news just doesn’t make sense” — almost as if the DNC thinks it would be throwing its money away or something! — or the declaration that “Walker’s poll numbers won’t budge”? (Hint: When Walker is ahead, it’s not good news for MoveOn’s target demographic that they won’t budge.)
“If Walker survives the recall, we’ll have wasted a year of effort.” If Walker keeps his current lead on Election Day, we should remind them of that when they start talking about “moral victories” and “sending a message.”
Politico finds it important that a man who appeared in Mitt Romney’s video was convicted of “assault on a peace officer” in 2005. Their research indicates the man served his sentence.
He appears to be a carpenter, working on staircase repair at a hotel; he refers to an anecdote of writing his daughter’s name underneath a stair that appeared in the Des Moines Register.
So… why is this important?
The Register wrote about the ad, and did not mention the man as some local troublemaker or ne’er-do-well.
I suppose an argument could be made that the man’s run-ins with the law contribute to his long-term unemployment and under-employment. But the man’s need for a job, and ability to support himself and pay his child support, is real. Iowa’s unemployment is a relatively low 5.2 percent, but that still adds up to 86,978 Iowans looking for work. It’s unlikely that the other 86,977 currently unemployed are all struggling to find work because of criminal records.
The bigger issues is [Politico reporter Maggie] Haberman appears to have taken it upon herself to do background checks on people appearing in Romney videos. There are no links or sources in her piece so it’s either original reporting or she’s just running opposition research dumps for the Obama campaign.
I wonder if Haberman has done background searches on everyone who appears in an Obama ad. If not, why not?
The rules are clear, if the media isn’t going to do this stuff conservatives will have to. No more playing a gentleman’s game when the other side is playing for keeps. Everyone who appears in a Team Obama ad better be prepared.
If you live in a swing state, expect to see a lot of this ad in the coming month, as Crossroads GPS is going to spend $25 million to air it in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
That’s a lot of broken glass.
The new spot will start airing Thursday, May 17 and run through May 31 in an $8 million initial buy.
The chances of California being in play in the presidential election are close to nil – but if I wanted to ensure GOP turnout was as high as possible in all of the down-ticket races, I would want something like a referendum on a giant, giant tax hike.
Gov. Jerry Brown is pleading with Californians to raise their taxes as part of his solution for solving the state’s budget deficit, but it’s uncertain whether voters will be in an accepting mood come November.
Polls show voters want more money for schools but don’t want to tax themselves to pay for it. They continue to be pessimistic about the economy in a state with one of the highest jobless rates in the nation. And they distrust the Legislature, which oversees the budget.
Brown is facing a tough environment after announcing over the weekend that the state’s deficit had risen to $15.7 billion, much larger than he said a few months ago, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Pomona.
“When the governor says devastating things are going to happen, people will say, ‘Look, you said the shortfall was going to be a lot smaller than it was. You were wrong then; why should we believe you now?’” Pitney said. “The governor is facing a trust deficit as well as a fiscal deficit.”
…Brown said the size of the tax is fair given that California’s economy is nearly $2 trillion and the measure would mostly impact the wealthy. When he released his $91 billion revised spending plan Monday, he did so with a plea, asking voters to “please increase taxes temporarily.”
Under Brown’s tax plan, California would temporarily raise the state’s sales tax by a quarter-cent to 7.5 percent for four years and increase the income tax for seven years on individuals who make more than $250,000 and joint filers who make more than $500,000.
The article notes the last seven tax increase proposals have been turned down, including a “temporary” sales and vehicle tax extension in May 2009 by a margin of nearly two-thirds, and that a recent poll indicated that 65 percent of likely California voters support taxing the rich, but a 52 percent oppose raising the state sales and 57 percent oppose raising personal income taxes.
As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with Socialism… as well as California’s model… (perhaps I repeat myself) is that at some point, you run out of other people’s money.
Obama nails Kardashian quiz, tongue-tied by ‘50 Shades…’ question
You might think that Barack Obama’s crazy presidential schedule makes it difficult for him to stay on top of popular culture. You’d be half-right. Quizzed on ABC’s “The View” on Monday, Obama slam-dunked a question about Kim Kardashian but got whipped by a query seemingly about the erotic novel “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Over at Entertainment Weekly, television critic Ken Tucker thinks it’s time for President Obama to stop doing the entertainment shows:
At a moment when a New York Times poll says that most people think Obama’s “evolving” position on gay marriage was “mostly for political reasons,” going on places like The View just adds to the idea that many public statements are mere media calculations. Had Obama made his gay-marriage announcement on The View, that jaded public belief might have been increased. If you’re going to spend time on TV, Mr. President — and Mr. Romney — do us all a favor and skip Whoopi and The Daily Show and Jay and Dave and the Jimmys and all the celebrity news anchors on the networks. Just speak to us directly, or engage in debates that are real debates which will allow for considered thought and direct questioning of your opponent’s positions.
What does it say when Entertainment Weekly says it’s time for the president to put aside the fluff interviews on comedy and chat shows and focus on serious issues and take hard questions?
This ad from the AmericanFutureFund hitting President Obama for his ties to disgraced former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, already has more than 214,000 views on YouTube in just two days.
James Giddens, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of MF Global Inc, told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday that his team’s analysis of how the money went missing “is substantially concluded.” …
Giddens, for his part, has said he may file civil claims against MF Global executives alleging breach of fiduciary duties and violations of federal law governing commodities trading. A person familiar with the trustee’s probe said Jon Corzine, a former U.S. senator and Democratic governor from New Jersey who was CEO of MF Global when it collapsed, is among those against whom Giddens is considering action.
So far, most of MF Global’s thousands of former customers have recovered about 70% of their money, while those that traded on foreign exchanges are missing nearly all of it.
“Crimes have been committed here without a doubt,” said James Koutoulas, an attorney and trader who has been advocating on behalf of MF Global customers. “We think there are enough facts out here to start arresting people and start filing charges.”
A top fundraiser for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign expressed disappointment that he is taking money from the private equity industry while simultaneously attacking them to tarnish Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.
Don Peebles, a Miami real estate executive who has raised more than $100,000 for the president’s campaign this cycle, told BuzzFeed “I think it’s difficult to attack or demonize an industry and then take money from it.”
“I think it’s inconsistent,” he added. “I wonder why the leaders of that industry are supporting him.” Peebles, who is sometimes described as the largest-scale African-American real estate developer in the country, told BuzzFeed that he was wary of the ads by the Obama campaign and the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA which have attacked Bain Capital. “Any type of attack and vilification of a particular industry is not okay to begin with,” he said.
Mr. Peebles is a successful man, and it’s a free country, so he can give to any candidate he likes, but… sir, if Obama’s methods bother you so much… why are you writing big checks to him?
Peebles isn’t the only person asking this question; Anderson Cooper asked Tuesday night, “President Obama is critical of Romney’s private equity background, so is it okay he’s taking private equity money for his campaign?”
Zip at Weasel Zippers watches Jay Carney struggle to explain how Obama’s donors are the good private equity firm managers, including a former Bain executive, but Romney and his ilk are the bad ones, and sighs, “I almost (key word being almost) feel bad for Carney, he’s being put in an unwinnable situation by the Obama campaign attacking and embracing private equity on the same day.”
On Monday night Mr. Obama spoke at a fund-raiser at the Manhattan home of Tony James, the president of the private-equity giant, the Blackstone Group. Attendees, many from the private-equity world, paid $35,800 a head for the privilege of dining with the President who purports to loathe Wall Street when he isn’t asking its greedy denizens to redistribute their wealth to his campaign. Mr. James donated the legal maximum of $35,800 to the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee in November 2011.
This is the same private-equity business the Obama campaign is now smearing as morally repugnant when undertaken by Mitt Romney. On Monday Team Obama rolled out a two-minute television ad focusing on a steel company that was bought and eventually shuttered by Bain Capital, the private-equity firm that Mr. Romney founded.
What all of this demonstrates is that all the demonization of private equity firms doesn’t really mean anything; it’s just a handy cudgel to a president who needs everything he can get to persuade the electorate to look past his disappointing record. But the idea that “the actions of my foes are egregious, the same actions of my allies are not worth mentioning” is pretty standard-issue in politics today, isn’t it?
In case you missed it from this morning, President Obama refused to give himself a grade for his work on the economy during his interview on The View.
In December 2009, President Obama Gave Himself A “Good Solid B Plus” For His Work During His First Eleven Months In Office. “US President Barack Obama, in remarks aired late Sunday, awarded himself a B plus for his first 11 months in office, stressing in an interview with talk show queen Oprah Winfrey that there was still much to be done. ‘A good solid B plus,’ Obama said during an hour-long, intimate soft-focus ABC network Christmas at the White House special, when Winfrey asked what grade he would give himself.” (“Obama Gives Himself B+ For First Months In Office,”AFP, 12/14/09)
But today, President Obama refused to give an answer altogether.
· This Morning On “The View,” President Obama Refused To Give Himself A Letter Grade For His Work On The Economy.
HASSELBECK: “Mr. President, I believe it was with Matt Lauer in 2009, you sat down, you were talking about the economy and you said in three years I’ll be held accountable. If I don’t have this done, quote, in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition. Admittedly so in our first segment, you said that Americans are still feeling the hurt of the economy. So how do you grade yourself, honestly, in terms of how you’ve done in terms of economics?
OBAMA: “You know, I won’t give us a letter grade. I think it’s still incomplete.” (ABC News’ “The View,” 5/15/12)
Ah. A downgrade, it seems. Well, we’ve seen plenty of those during Obama’s presidency.
I do think this is significant in that if Obama thought he could make a credible, plausible, persuasive case that he deserves an “A,” he would have done so. He could even have said, “I’ve accomplished some of the reforms I wanted, but not all, so I’ll give myself a B.”
… Obama can’t really argue for anything more than a “C” at best, and then the headline would be, “Obama Gives Himself a ‘C’ on the Economy.” If Obama had given any letter grade, really, either an unrealistically good grade or a realistically disappionting grade, he would have provided the Romney campaign with days worth of fodder. The only question was whether the message would be “out of touch, rosy-colored glasses, ignoring the 23 million Americans suffering” or “even Obama admits that his economic policies have failed.”
So the president dodges.
He should have just said, “Present.”
Of course, this is precisely the sort of question the president should expect in questioning from now until November.
It’s entirely possible that the New York Times poll out this morning is an outlier, that subsequent polls will show the traditional gender gap returning, and so on. Don’t break out the party hats when you see a poll result you like, and don’t order the hemlock when you see a poll result you don’t like.
Having said all that, the argument from the Obama campaign is that the entire poll is erroneous, and that its results indicate nothing.
Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, drew the short straw this morning and had to argue that the poll’s finding that 67 percent think Obama announced his personal support of gay marriage for “political reasons” and only 24 percent think he did it because “he thinks it’s right” cannot be trusted.
If you want to argue that the divide is a bit closer, fine, but… here’s Cutter:
Chuck Todd: “This is such a resounding number, it’s within any margin of error you want to create… That’s a lot of people saying he did this for politics.”
Cutter: “We can’t put the methodology of that poll aside, because the methodology was significantly biased–”
Todd: “You think this is so flawed, that this number–”
Cutter: “This is a biased sample.”
Todd: “This three to one margin is somehow going to shrink down the other way?”
Cutter: “I don’t want to go through methodology on your show. I think your readers – I think your viewers would be pretty bored by it.”
Todd: “They’re junkies. They like this stuff.”
Cutter: “They sampled a biased sample, so they re-biased the same sample. I think that the results of that poll are probably pretty flawed.”
The argument is that because the Times went back to 562 of the 852 registered voter respondents they reached in April, it somehow doesn’t accurately represent the views of the electorate the way the preceding poll did. It’s possible that the 562 lean further to the right than the preceding sample. But because the Times provides the partisan breakdown of both samples, we know that the sample is essentially the same in partisan composition. It shifted from 26 percent Republican, 34 percent Democrat, and 33 percent Independent (D+8) to 27 percent Republican, 35 percent Democrat, and 34 percent Independent (D+8).
The sample of 562 is a bit smaller than one would like to see in a national poll, but it’s not wildly smaller than other national polls, and as the Times writes, “In theory, in 19 cases out of 20, results based on such samples of all adults will differ by no more than 4 percentage points in either direction from what would have been obtained by seeking to interview all American adults.”
The Times doesn’t break down its newer, smaller sample by race or age, so some might argue that the sample has too few African-Americans or young people. But for what it’s worth, the Times says they’ve taken that into account already: “Overall results have been weighted to adjust for variation in the sample relating to geographic area, sex, race, Hispanic origin, age, education, marital status and number of adults in the household. Respondents in the landline sample were also weighted to take into account the number of telephone lines at their residence. This poll also included weights based on respondents’ party identification and their presidential vote preference from the earlier survey.”
In other words, like all polls, this one could be out of whack… but there’s nothing obviously wrong with the sample.
On MSNBC, Chuck Todd just asked Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, if the DNC – controlled by Obama, remember – would be sending financial assistance to Tom Barrett, Wisconsin Democrats, and other folks hoping to unseat Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in next month’s recall.
“I have no idea,” she said repeatedly. She emphasized that the campaign would be trying to mobilize volunteers and other non-financial means of helping Democrats in that state.
Two observations:
1) There is no way that the deputy campaign manager of the Obama campaign does not know whether a national organization with $24 million in the bank will allocate $500,000 to unseat a Republican governor in a swing state five months before Election Day.
This morning the Romney campaign releases a new four-minute video showcasing struggling Iowans, declaring, “Millions of Americans are struggling under the Obama economy. Here are a few of their stories. … Hope and change has not been kind to millions of Americans, but they still believe in this great country, and deserve a leader who believes in them: Mitt Romney.”
Between Obama’s steel ad and all of the struggling-economy-themed commercials to come, at least pianists who specialize in slow, melancholy background music can look forward to a prosperous 2012.
USA Today comes out with a poll this morning as well, showing good news for both sides.
Good news for Obama: “A 58 percent majority predict the economy will be good a year from now… More than a third report they are better off than they were a year ago.”
Good news for Romney: “An overwhelming 71 percent rate economic conditions as poor.. four in 10 who say they’re worse off than a year ago.”
Good news for Obama: “Those surveyed predict by 56%-36% that the president will win in November over Republican Mitt Romney. That’s a bigger edge than Obama had at this point four years ago; then, by 52%-41%, Americans said he would defeat Republican John McCain.”
Good news for Romney: “Since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Romney’s favorable-unfavorable rating has jumped to 50%-41%, his best ever and in the same neighborhood as Obama’s 52%-46% standing. The former Massachusetts governor gets stronger ratings than the president when it comes to handling the economy, the issue likely to drive the campaign. In the poll, 55% say the economy would get better over the next four years if Romney was elected, compared with 46% who say it would improve if Obama was re-elected. Twenty-seven percent say the economy would get worse in a Romney first term, compared with 37% who say that of an Obama second term.”
This seems big: “For the first time during this campaign cycle, the GOP has an advantage in congressional elections. By 50%-44%, those surveyed say they’re likely to vote for the Republican congressional candidate. The two parties were tied in the USA TODAY Poll in February, and Democrats had a 7-point advantage last August.”
In the Tuesday edition of the Morning Jolt, Romney adopts an Obama fundraising tactic, the latest tea leaves in the Wisconsin recall, and then this eye-opening poll result:
Mitt Romney, With a Small Lead Among… Women?!?
Good morning, Mr. President!
I’ll let CBS News offer the latest bit of evidence that Shamus-gate, Bully-gate, Closed-Steel-Factory-gate, and The Chronicles of Julia have not yet proven to be the game changes that David Axelrod hoped:
Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a slight edge over President Obama in the race for the White House in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.
According to the survey, conducted May 11-13, 46 percent of registered voters say they would vote for Romney, while 43 percent say they would opt for Mr. Obama. Romney’s slight advantage remains within the poll’s margin of error, which is plus or minus four percentage points.
Last month, a CBS News/New York Times poll showed Mr. Obama and Romney locked in a dead heat, with both earning 46 percent support among registered voters. Polls conducted in February and March showed Mr. Obama with an advantage over Romney, while a January poll showed Romney edging out Mr. Obama 47 percent to 45 percent. Another January poll showed the two tied.
So here’s the weird part:
Most Americans (67 percent) believe the economy is in bad shape, but respondents expressed the most optimism on that issue since January 2008 – months before the economic crisis was in full swing. Thirty-two percent of Americans said the economy was in good shape, and 36 percent said they thought it was getting better. Twenty-four percent of Americans said they thought the economy was getting worse, and 39 percent said they thought it was staying the same.
Fifty percent of Americans said they approve of Mr. Obama’s performance as president, while 48 percent disapproved. Except for the month following the death of Osama bin Laden, when Mr. Obama’s approval rating ticked up to 57 percent, this matches highest his approval rating Mr. Obama has enjoyed in two years.
Romney now leads the president among independents, while Mr. Obama has an advantage among moderates. Independents opted for Romney 43 percent to Mr. Obama’s 36 percent, whereas moderates supported Mr. Obama 50 percent to Romney’s 39 percent.
But once again, the gender gap is key. Among men, Romney leads 45 percent to 42 percent, and among women… hey, wait a minute! Romney is at 46 percent, Obama is at 44 percent!
Tim Miller, formerly with Jon Huntsman, now with the RNC, notices, “When a campaign is publicly litigating the crosstabs/methodology of a poll showing them losing that’s a good sign things aren’t going well.”
The Romney campaign is a little incredulous that the latest attack from the Obama campaign is that companies under Bain Capital’s management added too much debt.
I mean… when you’ve added more than $5.05 trillion in debt in less than four years… you really can’t throw stones about somebody else spending too much money.
So in the short time since this morning when the Obama campaign attacked Mitt Romney’s business record, the President has added more debt to our national debt than he accuses GS Industries of having two years after Mitt Romney left Bain. Note: $500M is .01% of Obama’s new debt since taking office; Obama has been in office 1210 days; .01% of his time in office is .12 days, or slightly less than 3 hours.
The Debt That Barack Obama Attributes To GS Industries, At A Time When Romney Was No Longer At Bain, Would Pay For Less Than 3 Hours Of The New Debt Of Obama’s Presidency.
From January 20, 2009 To May 10, 2012, The National Debt (Total Public Debt Outstanding) Increased$5,047,812,128,345.47.(Department Of The Treasury, www.treasurydirect.gov, Accessed 5/14/12)
The Obama Campaign Asserts That In 2001, “With More Than $500 Million In Debt, GS Industries File[d] For Bankruptcy[.]” (Obama For America’s Romney Economics Website, www.romneyeconomics.com, Accessed 5/14/12)
Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie just completed a conference call organized by the Romney campaign, arguing that the crony capitalism we’ve seen under Obama is a much greater threat to prosperity and the well-being of American workers than any private equity firms.
“In the private sector, they made decisions based on profit and loss and what’s going to create jobs and what’s going to work,” Gillespie said. “When you have this level of government involvement in our economy, Solyndra and the decisions on the auto layoffs, and you don’t have that transparency, you don’t know if there’s political influence – who gets a health care waiver and who doesn’t – they still don’t say how they make those decisions… That is a clear contrast, this crony capitalism that is rampant in this administration. It’s a real problem…”
The DNC has $24.4 million cash-on-hand as of late April.
The unnamed Wisconsin Democrat quoted in the above report says, “we’re even in the polls, this is a winnable race.” The polling doesn’t quite bear that out; one poll had Barrett ahead in February.
After refining the dataset created by Verify the Recall, a Wisconsin man began running it against other public records and discovered 571 tax delinquents signed Recall petitions.His findings? The total in back taxes owed by petitioners is more than $17 million. The list of individuals can be found through the website, www.putwisconsinfirst.com
How can Medvedev transmit that Obama will be “more flexible” after the election when the president is already doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding with Congress? Washington Postcolumnist Jackson Diehl on the “Magnitsky bill” — a piece of legislation, authored by Democrats, that aims to restore human rights to the center of U.S.-Russian relations.
This sanction strikes at the heart of the web of corruption around Putin. Moscow’s bureaucratic mafiosi rely heavily on foreign bank accounts; they vacation in France, send their children to U.S. colleges and take refuge in London when they fall from Putin’s favor. The fear and loathing provoked in Moscow by the bill is encapsulated by item No. 3 on Putin’s new priority list: “Work actively on preventing unilateral extraterritorial sanctions by the U.S. against Russian legal entities and individuals.”
Incredibly, Obama has sided with Putin against Congress. His lobbyists have tried repeatedly to block the bill . . .
Hey, remember when everybody laughed at President Bush for claiming he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul?
A naïve president is, indeed, quite troubling for our national security. But what do you call a president who goes into office knowing precisely what kind of leader Vladmir Putin is . . . and who is, to use the headline of Diehl’s column, “still sweet on Putin”?
One out of five families owes more on credit cards, medical bills, student loans and other unsecured debt than they have in savings, according to a new University of Michigan report. And the number of families surveyed at the end of 2011 that have no savings at all increased to 23.4%, compared with 18.5% in 2009.
“The people who were down and out, without much money, in the recession have ended up staying there or even worse,” says Frank Stafford, professor of economics at University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and co-author of the report.
…Now, 10% of families owe more than $30,000 in unsecured debt, up from 8.5% in 2009. “I talk all the time to people who are still just hanging on by their fingernails,” Cunningham says.
Forward!
I suppose this explains why Obama’s approval rating on handling the national debt isn’t in single digits; some Americans relate to having a debt problem they can’t seem to control or mitigate.
The new Obama ad hits Mitt Romney for the closure of GST Steel after its purchase by Bain Capital, Romney’s former financial firm.
Romney’s departure from Bain: 1999.
GST Bankruptcy Filing and layoffs: 2001. (Dan Margolies, “Shutdown Is End Of An Era,” The Kansas City Star, 2/8/01)
The Washington Post’s Fact-Checker, discussing earlier Obama attacks that used the same technique – blaming Romney for decisions his old firm made after he left:
Notice a problem with the last two examples? The outsourcing occurred in 2000 and 2001. Romney left Bain in early 1999.
We’ve gone over this problem with the Obama campaign before, awarding three Pinocchios to a January memo the team released blaming Romney for job losses and bad deals that took place after the former executive had stopped working for Bain.
We discovered that Romney’s name appeared on Bain SEC filings between 1999 and 2002. But a 2002 statement the former executive filed with the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission said he was a “passive, limited partner [with] no management capacity” in the Bain entities in which he held ownership.
We also learned that the creditors who sued some of Bain’s companies and executives over dividend payments around the time in question did not name Romney in their lawsuit. Plaintiffs generally try to list as many people as possible as defendants to encourage settlement, so it’s highly unlikely that Romney had any involvement with Bain’s businesses during this period.
These facts essentially exonerate Romney from allegations that he was responsible for any outsourcing, bad deals and layoffs that occurred with Bain’s companies in the early 2000s.
The Post gave Obama “Three Pinocchios” for the attack. The efforts of “fact-checking” blogs, web-sites, etc., seem rather Sisyphean when they call out a candidate for making a blatantly misleading or false statement… and those candidates just keep on making the same statements.
UPDATE: Take a listen to the background music in this ad: lots of harps and chimes. Discussions of “vampires, sucking the life out of us.” We know Obama loves to go after Romney on “outsourcing jobs to China.”
Considering how the ad is blatantly aimed at blue-collar industrial workers, who worry about cheap foreign labor stealing their jobs, is there some not-so-subtle race-baiting going on in it?
As mentioned below, this is “Debt and Deficit Week” for the Romney campaign. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of fish in a barrel.
This morning, the Republican National Committee takes batting practice on President Obama’s big promises, bigger disappointments, and biggest deficits.
It is a bit maddening how the debt comes and goes as a resonant issue… but it just grows, bigger and bigger.
As of May 10, the debt is $15.67 trillion. The day President Obama took office, it was $10.62 trillion. So Obama has now run up roughly $5.05 trillion in debt in less than four years. For comparison, the national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush.
Remember, on the campaign trail, Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt over Bush’s eight years was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.”
And of course, while discussing his budget plan in 2008, Obama “I am cutting more than I am spending.”
But perhaps the best illustration of spending under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama comes from PoliticalMath.com:
The Obama campaign has decided that this week’s Bright Shiny ObjectTM will be the folks laid off while Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital.
Because President Obama has never laid anyone off… oh, wait:
President Obama’s auto task force pressed General Motors and Chrysler to close scores of dealerships without adequately considering the jobs that would be lost or having a firm idea of the cost savings that would be achieved, an audit of the process has concluded.
The report by Neil M. Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program of the Treasury Department, said both car makers needed to shut down some underperforming dealerships. But it questioned whether the cuts should have been made so quickly, particularly during a recession. The report, released on Sunday, estimated that tens of thousands of jobs were lost as a result.
“It is not at all clear that the greatly accelerated pace of the dealership closings during one of the most severe economic downturns in our nation’s history was either necessary for the sake of the companies’ economic survival or prudent for the sake of the nation’s economic recovery,” the report said.
About a year ago, G.M. informed more than 2,000 dealers that some or all of their franchise agreements would not be renewed in October 2010. Chrysler eliminated 789 dealers, or about a quarter of its network, with less than a month’s notice.
Both carmakers voluntarily rescinded some terminations — 666 at G.M. and 50 at Chrysler — which, the report said, “suggests, at the very least, that the number and speed of the terminations was not necessarily critical to the manufacturers’ viability.”
I’m sure Obama fans will insist, “but the layoffs under our guy are completely different!” They’ll insist that in order to preserve the entire institution during a time when its continued operation was jeopardized, it was necessary to lay off certain branches and employees… which is, of course, precisely what Bain Capital was doing, or at least what the management of Bain Capital believed it was doing.
The line between heartless, cruel sacrifices of hardworking Americans to corporate greed and necessary sacrifices to ensure continued viability of a company in a competitive market is often in the eye of the beholder.
The first Morning Jolt of the week examines Newsweek telling Time, “We’ll see your crazy cover and raise you,”; how much stock to put in Romney’s surge in Rasmussen, and of course…
The Dueling Messages of This Week
Just a heads-up: The Romney message this week is, paraphrased, “The debt is too [darn] high.” The Obama message is, “Mitt Romney fired people.” We will see who wins.
Obama’s Garage Sale Speech
So I’m going to go out on a limb and say this event didn’t go quite as the Obama campaign planned:
As leader of the free world President Obama will be used to making speeches to millions of people around the globe.
So he might have felt the occasion was a little beneath him yesterday when he stopped off in Reno, Nevada, to deliver an address outside a couple’s garage.
In what could be a disastrous photo opportunity for the President’s campaign, Mr Obama spoke to a handful of people in the crucial swing state.
The president’s 15 minute address outside the home of Paul and Val Keller on Friday afternoon, drew a small audience of neighbours and supporters – though even his hosts said they were not sure if they would vote for him in the coming election.
This looks like a scene from HBO’s Veep.
“You want me to ‘mingle with the crowd’? Mingle? This crowd couldn’t fill a [farshunkin] canoe.”
“I’M GOING to overanalyze this a little more,” declares Ace at the Ace of Spades.I think Obama and his team are working to try to connect him with “real Americans.” Ok, here’s a couple. A retired electrician and his wife, a simple, nice home in a small neighborhood. Out in front of the garage with a nice looking flag hanging over it. I have one of those myself. It looks nice. It’s just, sheesh. Who’s going to see this as “connecting with ordinary Americans?” And is that even a good objective. He looks “small”, and looking small doesn’t really help him right now. He’s got all the advantages of an incumbent president. Power. Bully pulpit. Air Force One. The lapdog media. So standing behind a teensy podium, with a Presidential Seal smaller than the headlights on that Jeep behind him, it just seems to diminish him. I don’t think he can connect with Americans. He can connect with George Clooney, and Hollywood, and $15 million dollar bigshot lefty donors. But Paul and Val Keller?”
Moe Lane is starting to find mocking the president a little too easy.
Oh, isn’t this the cutest thing ever?
Obama’s got his little podium, and he’s got his little microphone, and, hey, Obama even has his Junior PotUS Presidential Seal to talk behind as he speaks to everybody on the whole block! Such a big boy, now. And he’ll probably be such a good President…
…once he grows up, of course.
PS: I am insulted that Team Obama made this one so easy for me. If those fools can’t bring their A-game, then they should just quit now and go home.
But Doug Powers gives Obama a little credit for his little appearance: “Notice something? No teleprompters. The Prez was working without a net last week. Gutsy Call!™ And I can’t believe somebody didn’t think to put a Volt in the garage before the cameras rolled.”
When discussing swing states and potential swing states, I sometimes joke with people that once a year or so, there’s a poll that shows the Republicans looking surprisingly good in Oregon, and then the Democratic lead reappears as Election Day approaches.
Looking back, that poll appears to usually come from Survey USA.
In 2004, Survey USA had President Bush ahead of John Kerry by a single point on September 21. Mason-Dixon had Kerry ahead by a single point on October 18.
On Election Day, Kerry won, 51 percent to 47 percent.
In 2008, Survey USA had Barack Obama ahead of John McCain by three percentage points on August 4.
On Election Day, Obama won, 57 percent to 41 percent.
Oregon’s teasing poll appears to have arrived early this year: “In a November match-up between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for President of the United States, Obama today edges Romney, 47 percent to 43 percent.”
This isn’t necessarily a flaw in the polling of SurveyUSA; Oregon may be one of those states where they voters are never all that satisfied with the options before them, and thus a Democratic candidate can sporadically find himself in the mid-40s… but it’s still a heavily Democratic state, and most of those voters “come home” to their traditional party.
Having said that, there’s some indication that Oregon is significantly less Democratic than it was last time Obama was on the ballot, according to Gallup. In 2009, their samples found 51 percent of Oregon voters identifying themselves as “Democrat.” By 2011, that was 44.3 percent. Meanwhile, Republicans jumped from 34.8 percent to 40.3 percent.
“Sometimes I forget” will appear in a lot of ads this year. The RNC unveils this video:
Interesting that Obama makes that comment in a section of his remarks where he’s essentially rebuking the voters for not appreciating the difficulty of the task before him.
