Posted on 06/18/2012 2:39:03 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Something strange is going on in the election campaign.
Former president Bill Clinton seems to look for every opportunity to undermine the sitting president of his own party. His former political aides publish a memorandum saying the White House message strategy is failing. The morning reports have the press corps dismissing President Obama's supposedly major speech in Ohio Thursday as a windy nothing-burger.
Everyone agrees that the president has had one bad day after another, beginning more or less with Gov. Scott Walker's victory in the Wisconsin recall election, the first governor in American history to survive a recall effort. Did that Democratic recall loss throw the White House off its game? Did it prompt the Clinton people to sound Paul Revere-like alarms to the soldiers within their party's ranks that the GOP army was coming and everyone had better get out of bed and get cracking?
Here is what is strange. All this bad news comes as the Real Clear Politics average of all polls shows the president still ahead of former Gov. Mitt Romney. Usually politicians don't push the panic button when they lead in the polls.
True, the Democrats' margin has shrunk from something like seven points in late February to 1.2 percent today—a spread within the margin of error. But Mr. Obama has remained consistently ahead.
And yet….
The margin of the Walker victory surprised Democratic Party pros. They tried to cover how bad it was by blaming spending unleashed via the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. But as many have already pointed out, if Citizens United had any impact (the Wisconsin election fell under state rather than federal law after all), it was to favor the Democrats. Walker's funds came from individuals, and individuals have long had no legal restrictions on what they could give in independent expenditures. His opponent, Tom Barrett, relied heavily on union money, which Citizens United did in fact legally unleash.
So you had to give the Democrats credit in those early hours after the polls closed for finger pointing. They were ready to say anything so as not to acknowledge that, despite a campaign of unprecedented volume and ferocity, the voters had rejected them and their positions. But for getting their message out, just those days last year of closing down the entire state government with demonstrations in the capitol building were worth ten of millions dollars in advertising. Adding everything up, they went into the election with the greater resources.
But that margin. Polls had shown a much tighter race.
All of a sudden, the ghost of elections past is haunting the president and his party. In 1980, in 1994, in 2004—in other words, in big Republican years over the past three-plus decades—the GOP has polled much weaker than its final vote.
Why? Late deciders may be part of the answer, but only part.
Something more is almost surely going on. Here's my guess as to what.
Particularly in big years when the party is pulling in or turning out occasional rather than reliable party voters, part of the GOP vote is invisible to pollsters. In Wisconsin—maybe everywhere—there may be reluctance among union members to acknowledge that they will cast their ballot for candidates and the party their leadership so virulently opposes.
Then, too, people tend to see pollsters as extensions of the media. Many conservatives distrust the media, seeing it (for good reason) as adversarial to all they support. So they may not want to be candid with questioners.
Whatever the reason, the big miss by pollsters in Wisconsin raises the question: Could there be a similarly invisible Romney vote in play this year? Almost alone among major pollsters, Scott Rasmussen is showing Romney ahead now. I have heard some pollsters suggest that his 100 percent automated questioning might skew the results away from the Democrats, whose minority supporters may not want to respond to machine calls.
But maybe it goes the other way. Maybe reticent Republican voters are more confident of their anonymity and the objectivity of questions coming from a machine voice and entered responses
But whatever the technical factors at play, the invisible-to-pollsters Walker support in Wisconsin suggests that President Obama is facing the same phenomenon nationally.
And why not?
Heart-stopping increases in government spending, dangerous-to-the-national-welfare run ups in deficits and national debt, plummeting labor force participation rates (thanks to almost invisible jobs growth), trampling rule of law including transparent attempts to intimidate the Supreme Court in the Obamacare case, fumbling foreign policy justified as "lead from behind" which appears to really mean "don't lead at all," and, oh, yes, a 40 percent drop in family net worth: Looked at objectively, shouldn't this record spell disaster at the polls for the party in power?
The real question is not "Why are Democrats and their friends hitting the panic button now?" It is "Why has it taken them so long?"
or it could be that some of us hang up on the pollsters as quickly as we mute Mr. Obama but we'll show up at the polls come hell or high water.
SSHHHH! Don’t cue them in!
Mr. RomneyCARE was CHOSEN ***by the DNC, DU, MSM, and Soros***
precisely because he is a loser, has a history of
failure and antiConservatism, and is a obvious liar
and backstabber. There will be no “large” turnout ... as
the DNC and GOPe have planned.
Well, I hope you are wrong. You can spin it any way you want. But, Romney is by far a better choice than 4 more years of Obama.
Not wrong.
Perpetual loser Mr. RomneyCARE supports illegals
(like Obama), and TARP and Sharia and
RomneyCARE/Obamacare (like OBAMA).
Mr. RomneyCARE nearly ONLY appoints liberal Democrats
to judgeships and lies about everything.
HOW IS THAT BETTER THAN OBAMA? since Obama will
be impeached and Romney will be supported?
The real question is not “Why are Democrats and their friends hitting the panic button now?” It is “Why has it taken them so long?”
Why? Because they thought that no matter what they did the MSM would spin it int their favor. Now though? More and more people are getting their news and also differing opinions from the Alternative sources.
..they know they lost the independents and most conservative democrats
A “nothing burger”? From US News and World Report? Heheh.
From you lips...
Clinton undermining Obama ... He is doing something right for a change.
Here’s the clear advantage to Romney. I would rather have a first term Romney than a second term Kenyan. Freed of the need to get reelected, the Kenyan will be in a position to enact the full socialist program. Looking for a second term, Romney will be more cautious.
It’s a minor advantage but undeniable.
Romney campaigned on ending Obamacare. It’s public and he can’t go back. http://www.mittromney.com/issues/health-care I believe he would admit, if he could, that the mass healthcare legislation was wrong, but he can’t admit that now.
As for liberal democrats being nominated for judgeship in mass, just what conservative do think he could get through the nomination process in mass?
Tarp. A lot of pols were in favor of tarp. They were wrong. That happens. Some pols were truly scared at the time and went with the prevailing wind. Again wrong, but sometimes people are wrong. My boss at the time ( a very successful business man) was in favor of it. Again wrong, in my opinion. Romney came out strongly against the bailout of the auto industry. I agreed, and still do, with his position. I live in the Detroit area, and many folks here are upset with Romney for taking this position, even though he’s right. It may very well cost him this state. A position he’s right on after all.
He’s not the perfect candidate, no one is. But, unless something changes, he’s going to be the nominee and he’ll get my support and money. Obama is a disaster, and will accelerate the disaster with 4 more years. His remarks to Putin were quite telling. Romney will not be the foreign policy disaster that obama is. So in my opinion, there is a clear choice.
It’s a minor advantage but undeniable.
it is a MAJOR advantage....zer0bama is a freakin terrorist befriending radical marxist. and a no vote from a conservative is a vote for this criminal piece of slime....
No apologies....I may hold my nose...but I will vote for Mittens....
Five reasons we must vote Obamugabe out of office:
1. In his 2nd term the gloves will come off and Obama will truly become Obamugabe
2. In his 2nd term, given the opportunity, Obamugabe will appoint Eric Holder to the Supreme Court
3. In his 2nd term Obamugabe will accelerate his tear-down of the American defense establishment and effectively remove America from the world stage (a promise he’s already basically made to the Russians)
4. Obamugabe will sign a deal with the Arabs to sell Israel down the river
5. In his 2nd term, Obamugabe will take the gloves off on Global Warming and basically shut down what’s left of the US economy in order to make the very worst of the EnviroNazis happy.
I can tell you that EVERY time I’m polled for any reason I lie.
Ps. Just who do think is going to bring articles of impeachment up to remove the fist African American president of the United States? Should it happen? Yes. Will it happen? No. Better odds of me becoming the republican nominee.
Obama will be impeachedMaybe on the planet Zarcon Obama will be impeached, but here on planet Earth there are no visible signs of impeachment.
I myself am a "birther" in that I strongly believe that a) Obama was born in Kenya and b) even if not born in Kenya, he is still not a NBC and thus not eligible to be President.
But I am a realistic birther, in that I recognize that this issue is dead and will not be revived. It died on inauguration day in 2009, and will not revive while this pretender is in power.
Wrong, and becoming a troll bot. Right now, Romney is slated for a solid win. It very likely can tun into a rout and everyone will be celebrating except you Obama shadow supporters-—cause at this pint that’s what you are.
Obama will be impeached ???
On which planet?...’cause it isn’t happening on this one !
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