Friday, November 02, 2012

Barack Obama: Still The Candidate Of Change



When they were trying to impeach Bill Clinton, the leading Republican in the House - I forget his name - quoted from someone. Bill Clinton went to a bookstore - a deliberate act designed to make news - to look up the guy. It was some racist white guy from the 1600s.

My point being four years of Barack Obama is not enough to undo the damage that was done to this country. Yes, Jeb Bush, we are still blaming your brother.

Imagine if FDR had ended his presidency in 1936. You can't.

Obama Claims Mantle of ‘Change’ in 2012 Race
Voters in Colorado tonight got a glimpse of the Barack Obama of 2008, with his soaring, impassioned and relentless rhetoric that electrified a crowd in a way only rarely seen during the 2012 campaign...... On Friday he will spend the entire day at events in Ohio. ..... “I’m not going to allow this nation to be plunged into another battle over health care,” Obama insisted tonight. “I’m not going to allow politicians in Washington to make health care choices for women that they can make for themselves…” The crowd roared. ..... Obama said he is running to be a “champion” for the people who “need a champion in Washington.” ...... “We’ve come too far to grow faint-hearted! Now’s the time to keep pushing forward!” Obama exhorted the crowd which was on its feet with cheers and applause.
Jobs growth quickens, giving Obama some relief
Employers added 171,000 people to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. The government also said 84,000 more jobs were created in August and September than previously estimated. ...... Polls show Obama and Republican Mitt Romney locked in a dead heat in a race in which the nation's feeble jobs market has been front and center. ....... While the rise in the jobless rate was expected, the increase in payrolls beat even the most optimistic forecast in a Reuters poll. ........ The jobless rate, which peaked during the recession at 10 percent, remains about 3 percentage points above its pre-recession level. ...... In October, the jobless rate rose because 578,000 people entered the workforce. That helped push the participation rate, a measure of the portion of the population in the labor force, up two tenths of a point to 63.8 percent. A gauge of the proportion of working age Americans who have a job hit a three-year high at 58.8 percent. ...... Still, 23 million Americans were underemployed ...... All of the gain in payrolls was in the private sector, which added 184,000 jobs in October, the biggest increase since February. The government shed 13,000 positions. ...... Private service-providing jobs were up 163,000, with retail trade adding 36,400 jobs. Temporary help services, often a harbinger of future full-time hiring, added 13,600 jobs ...... The construction sector saw a 17,000 increase in jobs, the largest rise since January, while factories added 13,000 workers, snapping two straight months of decline. ....... the U.S. economy faces a real threat of a renewed recession next year. ....... Without action by lawmakers, taxes will rise and government spending will fall to the tune of about $600 billion. That "fiscal cliff" could easily cause the economy to contract. .......... Europe's debt crisis, which has hit factories around the world, is also weighing on the U.S. recovery.
NYC Mayor Bloomberg endorses Obama
The New York City mayor attributed the ferocity of this week's Hurricane Sandy to changes in the climate. ......... While running as a "consensus builder" four years ago, the president has "devoted little time and effort to developing and sustaining a coalition of centrists, which doomed hope for any real progress on illegal guns, immigration, tax reform, job creation and deficit reduction," Bloomberg wrote. "And rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice, he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it." ...... t immigration reform is essential to an open and dynamic democracy
Obama close to 271 electoral votes
"Without Ohio's 18 electoral votes, Romney would need last-minute victories in nearly all the remaining up-for-grabs states and manage to pick off key states now leaning Obama's way, such as Iowa or Wisconsin" ...... "Romney seems on track for 206 from 23 states ...... "Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia, with a combined 61 votes at stake, could go either way."
A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change by Mike Bloomberg
In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods -- something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable. ...... Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan -- PlaNYC -- has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group -- a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities -- local governments are taking action where national governments are not. ...... America was built on the promise of equal opportunity, not equal results. ...... he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the health-care model he signed into law in Massachusetts. ....... like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing. ..... When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. ...... One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. That difference, given the likelihood of Supreme Court vacancies, weighs heavily on my decision. ..... One recognizes marriage equality as consistent with America’s march of freedom; one does not. I want our president to be on the right side of history. ...... One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics. ..... in the end, what matters most isn’t the shape of any particular proposal; it’s the work that must be done to bring members of Congress together to achieve bipartisan solutions. ..... Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both found success while their parties were out of power in Congress -- and President Obama can, too. If he listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago
As election draws near, President Barack Obama expands lead in Michigan
Barack Obama heads into the final weekend of the campaign with a 6-percentage-point lead in Michigan over Republican rival Mitt Romney ..... "I think the auto issue ... has solidified things for Obama" ....... Michigan hasn't gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, and has mostly been considered safe territory for Obama...... officials with GM and Chrysler also took issue with any suggestion that they have not been fully committed to creating jobs in the U.S. ..... Ohio, second to Michigan in jobs linked to auto manufacturing, has had more visits from Obama and Romney and their close surrogates than any state in the last 30 days. .... The Obama campaign was soon expected to begin airing its first ad in Michigan in months ...... Half of those polled said the rescue of GM and Chrysler was a deciding factor in their support -- and of those, nearly two-thirds backed Obama. Among the slightly less than half who said it wasn't a deciding factor, Romney had a 56%-33% edge. ..... Three-quarters of Romney's supporters considered themselves enthusiastic -- about the same as the number for Obama. ...... Among independent voters, a key bloc, Obama held a 42%-31% edge -- though nearly 30% said they would vote for a third-party candidate or remained undecided. ..... Obama was effectively tied with Romney among male voters, but he more than made up for that with a 51%-41% lead among women.
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Thursday, November 01, 2012

Final Push



Dick Morris: Romney will win in a 'landslide'
Analysis: Why Both Romney and Obama Campaigns Say They're Winning
Axelrod characterized the momentum the Romney campaign has been projecting as "faux-mentum" and said there was a "growing recognition on the other side that Ohio is fading away." ..... Even so, both sides can agree on this: Ohio is where this race will be won or lost. And, because the race is likely to be so close, the loser will be able to argue that difference between the ultimate result and their own polling was within the margin of error.
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Romney Can Have North Carolina

English: Cartogram of the 2008 Electoral Vote ...
English: Cartogram of the 2008 Electoral Vote for US President, with each square representing one electoral vote. Nebraska, being one of two states that are not winner-take-all, for the first time had its votes split, with NE-2 voting for Obama and the rest of the state for McCain. Cartogram-2008_Electoral_Vote-es.svg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But the rest of the swing states are leaning Obama.

What State Polls Suggest About the National Popular Vote
pretty much every method for evaluating the election based on state polls seems to hint at a very slight popular vote lead for Mr. Obama, along with an Electoral College one...... Obama leads nationally by 1.9 percentage points — by no means a safe advantage, but still a better result for him than what the national polls suggest. ...... Obama would lead by two percentage points in the consensus forecast weighing the states by their 2004 turnout. ...... Or we can weigh the states by their turnout in 2010, a very good Republican year. But that doesn’t help, either: instead, Mr. Obama leads by 2.1 percentage points based on this method. ..... Obama’s lead in the Electoral College is modest, but also quite consistent across the different methods. The states in which every site has Mr. Obama leading make up 271 electoral votes — one more than the president needs to clinch victory. The states in which everyone has Mr. Romney ahead represent 206 electoral votes. ..... In recent elections — since state polling data became more robust — it’s the state polls that have done a bit better. This was especially so in 1996, when national polls implied a double-digit victory for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole (and Ross Perot) but state polls were more in line with the single-digit victory that he actually achieved. In 2000, state polls provided an accurate portrayal of a too-close-to-call race, while national polls missed high on George W. Bush vs. Al Gore. ...... the historical evidence weighs in slightly more heavily on behalf of the state polls, in my view, when they seem to contradict the national ones. If the state polls are right, than Mr. Obama is not just the favorite in the Electoral College but probably also in the popular vote. ..... Obama made gains in the FiveThirtyEight forecast on Tuesday, with his chances of winning the Electoral College increasing to 77.4 percent. ...... A fair amount of this boils down to Ohio, where three polls released on Tuesday gave Mr. Obama leads by margins ranging from three to five percentage points. ..... the poll by Quinnipiac University for The New York Times and CBS News, which had Mr. Obama five points ahead in Ohio ..... Mr. Obama had a somewhat above-average day in national polls on Tuesday, which had him up in the race by about one percentage point on average. Part of this is because the Gallup poll, which has shown very poor results for Mr. Obama, did not publish results on account of Hurricane Sandy. .......... the poll from Google Consumer Surveys. (Yes, Google has begin to conduct surveys online.) That poll had Mr. Obama ahead by four percentage points ...... The Google survey could be an indication that the effects of the hurricane will play somewhat to Mr. Obama’s political advantage.
In Swing States, a Predictable Election?
the polling in most swing states now looks very similar to the way it did for much of the late spring and summer. ....... our projected leader in all 50 states is the same as it was at our launch of the forecast in June. ..... In June, Mr. Obama was projected to a 3-point lead in Nevada, a 2.3-point lead in Iowa, a 1.3-point lead in Virginia, a 1.1-point lead in Ohio and a 1-point lead in Colorado. The forecast in those states has moved just four-tenths of a point since then, on average; the largest shift has been in Ohio, where Mr. Obama’s polling has been reasonably resilient and he now has a 2.2-point edge. ...... New York is one exception; polls there have shown an especially large lead for Mr. Obama ..... Of the remaining gains that Mr. Romney has made in national polls, much of it may have come from his improved performance in deeply red states; that is where our state-by-state forecasts show his numbers improving the most. ....... this race has been fairly stable relative to most presidential elections. ...... the results we’re now seeing are quite consistent with what the economic fundamentals might dictate: a very tight race, narrowly favoring Mr. Obama. ..... our forecast in every state on Nov. 6 will be the same as it was on June 7. Colorado, Virginia and Florida, being the closest states in the forecast now ..... a mild recovery for Mr. Obama over the past week or so in the polls. ..... Obama’s predicted probability of winning the Electoral College has improved as a result (to 74.6 percent as of Sunday).
In Polls, Romney’s Momentum Seems to Have Stopped
On average, Mr. Obama gained about one point between the eight polls. ..... This is the closest that we’ve come in a week or so to one candidate clearly having “won” the day in the tracking polls — and it was Mr. Obama. ..... Our “now-cast” also finds a slightly favorable trend for Mr. Obama over the course of the past 10 days or so. Mr. Romney’s position peaked in the “now-cast” on Friday, Oct. 12, at which point it estimated a virtual tie in the popular vote (Mr. Obama was the projected “winner” by 0.3 percentage points). As of Wednesday, however, Mr. Obama was 1.4 percentage points ahead in the “now-cast,” meaning that he may have regained about 1 percentage point of the 4 points or so that he lost after Denver. ....... Since the Denver debate, Mr. Obama has held the lead in 16 Ohio polls against 6 for Mr. Romney. In Nevada, Mr. Obama has had the lead in 11 polls, to Mr. Romney’s 1. Mr. Obama has led in all polls of Wisconsin since the Denver debate, and he has had five poll leads in Iowa to one for Mr. Romney.
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