Bounce or No Bounce for Romney?
The Republican National Convention finished up on Thursday, and the Democratic National Convention begins on Tuesday. The biggest TV draw of the coming week, however, may be the Giants-Cowboys NFL season opener on Wednesday night, if the TV ratings for the GOP convention are any indication (down about 30% from 2008).
The big question coming out of the GOP convention was whether the Romney-Ryan ticket would receive a boost from the event (a “bounce” to use the currently accepted political metaphor). The answer to this question is probably yes, though it may be short-lived since the Democrats’ convention comes so close on its heels and the Democrats’ three-day meeting can be expected to help the Obama-Biden ticket in the initial polls taken after it is completed.
Nate Silver, the New York Times statistics guru, has been arguing for months that the polls this year have been remarkably stable, with the president holding onto a 1-2 point lead nationally and a similarly small lead in many of the battleground states. His model anticipates that a presidential candidate can expect a bounce from a convention based on past polling history, and his “bogie” for such a boost is 4% this year. Silver believes Romney has fallen short of that, with a 2-3 point bounce, and as a result, his model penalizes Romney for this “underperformance.”
Given the stability of the race over many months, a 4-point bounce might be a bit high as an expectation this year. In any case, Silver now gives Obama a better than 3% lead in his adjusted model and nearly a 75% likelihood of victory in November, whereas the RealClearPolitics. com average of all Obama vs. Romney national polls is dead even at the moment. Three weeks ago, before the Paul Ryan selection, Obama led the RCP poll average by 4.6%. This followed a collection of polls all released in the same week by Reuters, CNN, Fox, and IBD that had Obama ahead by at least 7%. In the last three weeks, only one poll has shown Obama ahead by over 2%, and in that survey, an NBC/Wall street Journal poll, the lead was 4%. Bounce or no bounce following the GOP convention and the Ryan selection, the race has tightened in the last three weeks.
Nate Silver has a complex model, requiring many input assumptions and weightings. It is not at all clear that Silver’s complex model produced any better results than the far more pedestrian RCP averages in the elections of 2008 and 2012. In 2010, Silver underestimated the GOP House wave for most of the year and expressed some skepticism over the chances of the GOP winning enough seats (38) to regain control of that body even in the weeks right before the election. The GOP netted 63 House seats in 2010.
Has the Romney-Ryan bounce been 2-3 points so far? That, too, is not at all clear. In the Rasmussen tracking poll, which is a three-day rolling average, Obama led by 2 or 3 points in the days before the convention. Now Romney leads by 4, suggesting a 6-7 point shift. Rasmussen is also tracking the battleground states. In these 11 states, Obama held a 4-point lead before the GOP convention, and Romney now leads by 2, again a 6-point shift. Silver believes the Rasmussen surveys have a small bias towards GOP candidates this cycle, but less than in 2010. In any case, if the surveys are 2 points too favorable to GOP candidates this cycle, that bias should show up in both the pre-convention and post-convention surveys.
The other major tracking poll, Gallup, has shown no bounce at all for Romney. Gallup had the race even before the convention and now has Obama up 1. The Gallup survey is a 7-day rolling average, so its results tend to move less abruptly than those in the Rasmussen survey. It is possible Romney may still get a small boost. In any case, the two tracking surveys have diverged on the impact of the convention. A third tracking poll by Reuters/Ipsos, begun before the convention, has moved from a 4-point Obama lead to an even race — a 4-point swing towards Romney, which is a result in the middle of the Rasmussen and Gallup results.
There have been very few polls in the swing states the last week, though those that have appeared recently have generally been more favorable to Romney than to Obama. PPP, a Democratic polling firm that has had a slight lean towards Democratic candidates this cycle, has Obama up 1 in Florida and even with Romney in North Carolina. However, a poll by Elon University and the Charlotte Observer released on Sunday has Romney up 4 in North Carolina. Last week, an EPIC poll in Michigan had Obama up 3 (he won the state by 16% in 2008), and PPP polls had Obama up 3 in Nevada (a state he won by 12% in 2008) and up 2 in Iowa (a state he won by 10% in 2008). Both states are margin-of-error states at the moment, and practically even. Michigan is a state that Nate Silver has argued is not a tossup state this cycle, but there are now several recent polls by instate pollsters that seem to suggest otherwise. The amount of time the president is spending in Iowa (4 days the last two weeks), a state with only 6 Electoral College votes, suggests that the Hawkeye State is very much in play.
Assuming Romney wins Missouri, North Carolina, and Indiana — three states where he now has the lead — his Electoral College total would be 206. If Romney can win Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, he would be at 266. Iowa then puts him over the top. If Michigan is in play, as it seems to be, then Romney has a shot at 317 Electoral College votes, all the Bush states from 2004 except New Mexico, plus New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
In the RCP averages, Obama now holds the following leads in the tossup states: Ohio 1.4%, Virginia 0.6%, Nevada 3.3%, Wisconsin 1.4%, Michigan 1.2%, New Hampshire 3.5%, Florida 1.0%, Iowa 0.2%, and Colorado 1.6%. The states in which Romney leads plus those in which he trails by less than 2% total 307 Electoral College votes. Exclude Michigan, and the total is 291. Many of the battleground states have had no polls taken since the GOP convention, and Romney’s numbers may improve from levels in those averages.
Of course, there will likely be a bounce-back for Obama this week in Charlotte. Given voters’ much greater familiarity with Obama than Romney, it is possible, however, that viewership will be down even more for the Democratic convention this year than for the GOP convention and the positive buzz for the president will be diminished, despite the best efforts of Obama’s many media worshipers. This race has been close for months, and there is no evidence yet of a breakout by either candidate. The debates may offer the last chance for that.
Something else that needs to be kept in mind, is that we’ve just gone through a long holiday weekends. Weekend polling historically benefits democrats ever so slightly, and holiday weekends benefit them triply. Many families, mostly middle to upper class individuals with children, simply leave town for holiday weekends. It’s difficult for pollsters to compensate for that, assuming they even try to begin with.
Basically, given how few polls we’ve seen since the convention, its very possible that in some of them the weekend is masking the effect of the bounce. This is especially true of Gallop, since they use a 7 day rolling average, and still mostly reflect pre-convention polling.
One thing is clear, and that is Romney’s bounce, whatever it may or may not be, is significantly less than McCains, which, I believe was 5 or 6 points. Couple that with his terrible performance with female, latino, and African American voters, and it is hard to see how the math adds up for Romney. White males, Romney’s strongest group aren’t much better than what McCain had and Obama isn’t doing much worse, so that appears to be a wash. Moreover, women make up 53% of the electorate, so it is smart for the Democrats to be targeting female voters simply because there are more of them (and stupid for the GOP to be turning them off).
Another thing that goes unmentioned is the energy among Christian evangelicals in supporting Romney. This is crucial as they are the base of the GOP. No journalist will touch this topic but it is there. A lot of them will not support Romney because of the Mormon factor. They will not cast a vote for a man who belongs to a church that believes Joseph Smith can save you better than Jesus Christ. Not to mention the fact that Mormons reject the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Birth. These are serious irreconcilable doctrinal differences. Asking Christian evangelicals to vote for Romney is tantamount to asking them to vote for the first non-Christian president.
The option is to re-elect the destoyer of much of the USofA. One who in his youth as Barry Soetoro was listed as and attended a Muslim school and who as an adult in the Chicago area attended Rev. Wright’s church that promotes Christ as a communistic revolutionary.
Well, if you read the bible just as it is one can’t escape the conclusion that the message of Jesus comports with socialism better than capitalism. This, of course, is why Ayn Rand was not a Christian. Just so you know, I’m not religious and not personally invested in the validity of the story of Jesus either way. I just view him as a nice guy who cared about people.
Cynical thinks women love Obama – better get up to date Cynical:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/dems-convene-obamas-popularity-women-falls/story?id=17153287
“This of course” is baloney. Socialism -competes- for the province of Christianity and must dismiss it to succeed.
First off, the evidence we’ve seen so far suggests that Romney’s faith is NOT playing a significant factor. The fact that you would walk in here and try to make this a doctrinal discussion about Mitt Romney’s faith speaks volume about your own pitifull lack of character.
Shame on you, and shame on unabashed promotion of intolerance and ignorance.
Second, it’s apparent that you either do not know how to read polls correctly, or are just making crap up to suit you.
Here’s a clue by four for you, Obama is losing the white vote, and he’s losing it badly. Romney is doing much better among white voters than McCain did, additionally, Romney is doing better among women than McCain did, AND better among Latino’s than McCain did, even the African American vote shows some signs of Obama erosion. Simply put, Obama will probably win the demographics he won in 2008, but he’ll win them by far too small a margin to offset the demographics Romney is taking big time.
You can keep on denying this, but poll after poll confirms what demographics each candidate is winning and losing, and we have a fair idea which demographics end up being the deciding factor in elections.
So keep on telling yourself your guy is gonna win, you’re going to need all the denial you can get.
I am honestly sitting here laughing at this poster called Cynical Wonder. I am convinced he/she is one of Obama’s imaginary characters.
Let me start with the issue of women first: did it ever occur to you Cynical that women are tired of the Obama Aministration exploiting us for policical gain? In my circle of friends and communication with women, I know of none who plan to vote for Barack Hussein Obama. Us ladies are also victims of Obama’s economy and yes, most of us do want jobs. Obama cannot deliver.
As for thinking Obama has the latino vote sewed up, I have twelve latino family members whom are going to do the exact opposite. Do you recall the red carpet that was laid out for Romney when he visited Puerto Rico? This is a group of latinos that the media is ignoring. Let me put it this way, latino’s heavily populate the catholic religion and Obama has heavily attacked this religion. There will be a backlash at the voting booth.
Cynical, let’s talk about the military vote. Obama has lost this group of voters also. Our Navy Seals have little respect for this president and I have no doubt that our Marines do not like being referred to as “corpsemen” either. When I visited the military installation at Buzzards Bay, MA this summer, I could not find one voice in support of BHO.
You also speak of the black vote Cynical. Well black people aren’t feeling your Obama love here in Detroit where every 6th house is abandoned in many neighborhoods and over half the street lights have been turned out. Democrats have destroyed this city and Obama has increased the pain. Do you think black people are so stupid that they want more of the same?
As for Romney’s religion, you are so wrong Cynical. People said Kennedy would not be elected either for being a Catholic. Romney’s religion will take a back seat to all the other issues.
Who was it that once said “it’s about the economy, stupid?”
Wait a minute, some of them already have : OBAMA
To Cynical Wonder- Your credibility just crashed! I am an 82 year old Mormon woman and found your so called resume of my faith purely fictional. Big # one error; Joseph Smith is not a Savior. Jesus Christ is our Savior, or did you not get the memo that the full and official name is,” The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints” #two error; We are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son,and the Holy Ghost. #3 error; we DO indeed believe in the Virgin Birth, hence Christ is the true son of God the Father. You probably don’t know a lot about which you speak, but to further respond to the Godhead, or Holy Trinity claim, we believe they are three separate personages, not the Three in One concept. Go to LDS,org for accurate information.
This race is over! There has been no bounce for Mittens.
Herr Hussein Obama’s campaign strategy is inadequate to maintain him in a serious action such as Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will put to him. He has corruption in the coop, hate on the hoof, taqiyya on the tongue and bats in the belfry — that’s his campaign strategy. He can probably maintain himself in the type of fighting Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will give him in Mexifornia and a few states on the North East front. After that it will make no difference how many thousands of dead he has voting for him early and often, and if Americans want America and the Presidency back, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will give it to them. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will make Obama howl.
THE POLLS HAVE BEEN AND REMAIN SKEWED AND FRAUDULENT:
Here’s the truth: No – “too close to call”; “neck and neck”; “toss up”; “anybody’s race”; “down the middle”; etc.
The purpose of such LIES is to allow VOTE FRAUD to flourish; encourage DEM enthusiasm; disappoint Conservatives!
R & R: Have captured the majority’s hearts.
Have won the “money race” by tens of millions” of dollars.
Get crowds wherever they go.
Are cheered and mobbed by their ENTHUSIASTIC SUPPORTERS
Have specific, real-world PLANS which we want.
Take on the HARD problems:
• new budget plans;
• support SMALL BUSINESSES
• avoid government waste/pork/fraud;
• support Medicare;
• repeal Obamacare;
• respect and lift up our military;
• adopt a CONSTITUTIONAL uniform system of naturalization;
• rejection of racism and class warfare;
• support EXCEPTIONALISM;
• deem FAMILIES critical
• rejection of CORRUPT MEDIA
IN NOVEMBER:
• R&R WILL WIN BIG
• WE WILL CAPTURE THE SENATE
• WE WILL EXPAND LEAD IN HOUSE
• GET COUNTRY WORKING AGAIN
• HAVE A FUTURE
VISUALIZE VICTORY: Make supportive comments; “talk to your friends”; plan to drive people to vote; contribute what you can; send e-mails of encouragement; PRAY; and VOTE IN NOVEMBER.
So, if a poll finds President Obama ahead, it’s some left wing conspiracy and the “purpose of such LIES is to allow VOTE FRAUD to flourish”?
The polls where sampling data has been released show that Democrats are over sampled in comparison to Republicans (eg D+5, D+9 and in one case D+19)
Is that likely to be the case in the election turnout? Of course not
Sounds like someone is not taking their meds!!!! It’s all about the stats. Check out http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
I submit there is no empirical evidence to suggest Nate Silver is anything but a Democratic hack who lucked out in 2006 and called the Democratic wave before others did. Nothing before or since distinguishes him from anyone else in the business.
Most of the polls, and virtually all of the polls sponsored in whole or part by legacy media, have used a sample electorate of at least D+7, mirroring 2008 which is the record high Democratic advantage since it has been measured.
This ignores the R+1 turnout in 2010, the increased Republican identification this year, and the acknowledged “enthusiasm gap” between the parties.
But in polls in recent weeks and months, Obama tops out at 46% even where he is “ahead.” The reality is that he is a known quantity and undecideds are not likely to break his way late. His highest vote total is probably about 47%.
James Carville has conducted polling in swing states sampling only the independent voting block. Obama is polling -15 to -18 with independents in some swing states. This is not close folks!
Yeah, the numbers don’t add up. I think Barry Rubin’s right. This is going to be a rout, despite what the polls are saying. The donkeys have simply gone over the cliff. They’re not even pretending to be centrist any more. They throw Israel under the bus, tell us that this time the economy will respond to greendoggles, and think that what everybody wants to talk about is tax-funded contraception.
Never go to the donkey show. The one in Tijuana is bad enough, but the one in Charlotte is going to be an orgy that makes the one in Tijuana look like church.
We never answer the phone at home when we don’t recognize the number and it was especially obvious the polls and politicians were calling over and over before the Missouri primaries last month. Do many people actually respond to the pollsters or are there a group that will always answer their phones and therefore answer the poll questions resulting in somewhat of a repetitive response so the polls are almost tied?
JC – Good observation, and BTW, I do the same thing.
Nate Silver says that Rasmussen has a Republican bias, and it does, but only because it restricts its universe to likely voters who tend to be more Republican than all registered voters or all adults. Of course, I would expect Rasmussen therefore to be more accurate than Nate Silver.
Also, based on Rasmussen, I think Romney did get a bounce from the convention, but only enough to restore him to where he was before the Akin controversy.
The lack of a significant bounce for RR 2012 probably has more to do with the lack of a message which speaks to the small sliver of “undecideds” and vulnerable Dems. Visualizing victory is good, but articulating a message that has appeal to broadest scope of voters – ala Reagan – is critical. RR must spend every penny between now and election day on that compelling vision and both must ace their debate performances for the ticket to have a chance.
The GOP convention had two goals: 1) Make R&R look good, and 2) make the donkeys look bad. The success of 1 is questionable, but 2 was more successful. Negatives for Obama in particular and donkeys in general are measurably up. The pollsters are busy ignoring this.
True, true. RR achieved the second objective – sort of – but not the first. That should now be the focus.
If Dick Morris is correct about undecided voters breaking for the challenger, then I am more interested in what clear picture, if any, emerges from polling after the Democratic Convention.
RCP’s poll average has Romney and 0bama tied at 46.4 in national polling. Assuming that is accurate, and Morris’ argument that undecided voters favor the challenger is correct, Romney wins easily if things stay that way.
If polls show little or no bounce for Barry and Co. after their convention, then I won’t worry about whether Romney and Ryan had a bounce.
I should note, as I always do, that I consider this election to be a very near thing, and by no means settled. Beating Teh Won and his allies in the MSM will be no easy task, and we should not get over-confident. A lot can happen in the next sixty days, and the GOP needs to be ready for it. For instance, expect Soetoro to de-criminalize marijuana at the federal level and issue some sort of amnesty for student loan payments between now and Novemeber as a way to get out the slacker and youth votes. [I actually support getting the federal government out of enforcing marijuana laws, but such a move by 0bama would in no way change my opposition to him.]
With the loss of control of the House, Obama was defeated in 2010, just as Bush was defeated in 2006. According to Jay Cost the swing voters who will decide the election like the president personally, but disagree with his policies. I can see that – even as a Republican I can say I like him better, way better, than his policies. The conundrum is that he is still clearly polling well when the electorate decided 2 years ago to block him decisively. The Democrats may or may not lose the senate, but they are not going to regain the house any time soon. I think that when the 10% of the electorate that is not committed gets engaged they may well break for the challenger simply because they see that it is foolish to reelect someone you have already put the stoppers on. Perhaps Romney is just very unappealing and he will gain the support of independents slowly as he did Republicans over their long primary season. Still I sometimes feel there may be something skewing these polls. Could it be people not wanting to say they oppose Obama out of concern they will be seen as racist? Not being truthful with pollers or avoiding them altogether like a couple of commenters here have suggested? Maybe. I also wonder how are all those Hillary voters from 2008 in Appalachia who are died in the wool Democrats who would neither vote for a Black man nor a Republican. (I know a person from that demographic who said just that in 2008.) Some of them will vote Republican this time – like those West Virginia coal miners who expressed their displeasure in the Democratic primary earlier this year. I’ll say this as a Republican. The convention shored up my vote because Romney convinced me he was actually taking the economic crisis seriously. First by the choice of Ryan and second by having Christie deliver the keynote as the governor of a Democratic state who has made great progress with budgets and pensions while working with a Democratic legislature. That’s the right direction from my point of view. It is still very unclear if he can close the deal with independents and then actually perform if elected.
Obama borrows 44 cents of every dollar he spends. What else matters.?
OK – I’ll say this just as a reminder to those who’ve forgotten – Zero has had a lot of help – from democrats – and from republicans to get us to this point with the economy and the deficit. This culture of tax and spend has to end but it isn’t just one party doing the taxing and spending. Many republicans are just as culpable as Zero and the democrats. How many republicans stood up to oppose Bush with his huge Medicare prescription drug handout? Not many – and the drug companies were the main beneficiary. Proof that payoff works! Its corruption pure and simple but it works!
Don’t get me wrong – I’m as opposed to Zero as anyone on these pages – but lets recognize what the problem is – who got us here – and who’s most likely to get us out of this mess. Will Romney/Ryan do that? I hope we get the chance to find out because I know what the split in the road holds for us if we reelect Zero.
A new poll from The Hill (out this morning) has fifty two percent of likely voters saying Obama does NOT deserve to be reelected. This may or may not be a bounce for Romney, but he may benefit from the ‘anyone but Obama’ vote.
Curious that The Hill didn’t do a head-to-head in its poll (or did it do that, and it’s not releasing the results?). [These are not my original thoughts. I read them elsewhere.]
The real poll will be on November 6th and not those fake polls from NBC, CBS, Pew, Quinnipiac, and even FoxNews, who have oversampled Democrats 7-10%. If you look at the internals it is easy to see. So if you think those lines were long at Chic-fil-lay appreciation day, with conservative Americans showing their support, wait for November 6th 2012, the day they kick Obama and all his socialist czars out of office. They’re going to have to extend the hours for voting because they’ll be coming in droves to finally put a nail into the coffin of the worst president in the history of America!
Nate Silver has a job with the NYT. By definition that means he’s not an expert about much of anything. He’s an Obamabot.
“Given voters’ much greater familiarity with Obama than Romney…”
That would seemed to be Zero’s Achilles heel, wouldn’t it?
Polls are ok as far as it goes – does anyone besides me remember the polls leading up to the recall election in Wisconsin earlier this year? If those polls were accurate (and it is now known they weren’t) Walker would be out of office and looking for gainful employment – he’s still there holding down the job.
Are pollsters are being lied to by the American public? We’ll know for sure in 2 short but interesting months. My guess is they are being lied to – dedicated democrats just can’t vocalize their displeasure with Zero – not yet anyway. But they will!
Can you hear them?
I can can hear them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gROO7xSTxfY
RNC or WWE?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBGv6Q5qbgk&feature=player_embedded#!
DEWEY WINS!!! That actor, Reagan, impersonating a politician doesn’t stand a chance! I’ve never believed in polls and never will. Polls are nothing more than predicting the odds just as in a horse race. Sure they might come close but if they were always right there wouldn’t be any point on betting against them.
Myself, I’ll watch the candidates, see what they have to say and what they have done in the past. I’ll put my faith in most Americans doing the same and support the candidate of my choice. If my choice was between Obama and a real donkey our next president would do a lot of braying and heehawing but at least it wouldn’t need a teleprompter and straw polls to tell it what to say.
Two things to remember: 1] Nate Silver works for the New York Times, and he and the others who pundit on politics there are gushingly and unabashed liberal. They will do everything they can to drag President Incompetent over the finish line ahead of Romney. Lying for Obama is part of their makeup. 2] Silver’s averages come from polls that are heavily weighted to favor Democrats in their samplings. Most of this country doesn’t bother to read the stories to the end to find out how many more Democrats are sampled than Republicans in these polls that are conducted to shape opinion, not reflect it. Instead, they just read it or hear the talking heads on the Obama-loving networks spewing the b.s. about him and how great he and Biden are and how the Republicans hate women, etc.
You know the polls are wrong. You can just feel it. They do not seem to reflect what your neighbors are expressing, nor what economic factors dictate. You see the turnouts for things like Chick Fil-A, and lack of opposing turnout from the Left. When you look at the crosstabs, you get a different picture from what the pollsters conclude.
So, I just apply a bit of Kentucky windage. I move the polls right a few points. I get Romney up by a couple points. More importantly, I have him sitting at just under 50%. He’ll cross it on election day, unless something dramatic happens to boost Obama.
Electorally, I have Romney with a floor of 282 and a max of 337. Most likely seems to be 292. Yeah, sounds about right.
The best cure for the uncertainty and anxiety that drives us to follow polls is to (1) donate to the Romney/Ryan campaign until it hurts, (2) volunteer for the campaign in any and all ways possible, and(3) get creative and find ways to motivate others to get active and involved. Take control and stop worrying about the pollsters. We can shape how this story ends. So let’s do it!
This is 1980 all over again. Ronald Reagan was always losing to Jimmy Carter in the polls right up until the debates. It was after the debates that Carter started losing ground in the polls and we all know how the final election turned out. I think the few undecideds out there are waiting to see Romney in the debates and once they see that he looks like a sane and reasonable guy, Obama will lose in a landslide. Something tells me this election will not even be close. It will go one way or the other after the debates.
The problem for Romney, aside from the fact that he hasn’t discussed his governing program, is that many of the swing state economies are in pretty good shape. These include Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Iowa, among others.
Nate Silver is an apologist for the left, hiding behind a bunch of assumptions for his “models” that are frankly ridiculous. By the way, didn’t he completely miss the wave of 2010? That being said, I think most of the models this year are under representing R by 2-3%. Put that into the stat model and you have Romney up by 3-4%. Also, in an era of 24/7 news and the internet, to even think that convention “bounce” means anything shows how behind the times you are. There is a very interesting piece over at the NYT site (I forgot where I found it) that states that the political press, with their focus on the “horse race” aspects of this election, are completely missing the real, very sophisticated data mining and statistical analysis that is going on in each campaign. Just about everything that comes out of the mouth of each candidate (or a surrogate) is aimed at a very small, specific portion of the population in a very specific area of the country. The message that is uttered is then restested on that segment to see the effect. The press is being totally used on this, and not even realizing it (like the total airhead fools 99% of them are)–they are generally all tools without even realizing it, and it is really humorous to watch. Finally, when it gets to fundamentals, Ryan put it best: we faced a financial crisis. Instead of addressing it with complete focus, Obama chose to pursue Obamacare with a Democratic House and Senate. Therefore, our crisis is worse than it should be and everyone is worse off than 4 years ago because of this decision. Nothing anyone says can spin those fundamentals. That is the question of this election that everyone should wonder about: why did he pursue Obamacare then and not try to fight harder to increase job through policies to stimulate the economy when his party controlled all branches of the government? There are only two answers from him, and neither of them good: (1) Obama cares more about himself and his historic legacy that the welfare of the average person; or (2) he was so clueless about economic policy, never having had a job in the private sector, that he thought the stimulus bill would cure everything. How to the Dems even come close to countering those arguments?
Hey Adam, you are posting, so you obviously are on the internet. Why don’t you click on this link instead of parroting a Democratic talking point? The entire Romney governing plan is spelled out in a 160 page pdf. Would you like me to download it and send you the pdf? http://www.mittromney.com/sites/default/files/shared/BelieveInAmerica-PlanForJobsAndEconomicGrowth-Full.pdf. It is pretty sad when people can’t take the 10 seconds to plug “Romney plan” into Google and get this–maybe it says a bit about their bias. Disagree with the plan if you like, and offer a cogent alternative argument, but please don’t say that there is no plan. That just makes you look like a tool.
Did you say 160 pages? How about 5 paragraphs? I’m a conservative Republican and I have no idea who Romney really is or what he would do as President. Romney is like that really ambitious kid in high school who runs for class president because it’s a resume builder and he wants to go to Stanford. He could care less about the high school or its students.
Maybe one reason Mitt didn’t get a bounce was that he told the chosen senate candidate of the state of Missouri to get out of town by sundown. That might have seemed just a tiny bit authoritarian to those conservatives who live under the same ‘big tent’. Those same conservatives may share the sentiments that Cynical Wonder pointed out, eh? Does he want to win or would he just like a seat at the ‘big government table’? If he loses, the GOP establishment are through. So they struggle ruthlessly against…conservatives? This is what I would call a “snake eyes, the house wins” election. The Republican ship is taking on water and listing to the left. I’m leaving the top spot blank.
Gallifet: And when you leave that top spot blank, you really have voted for Obama. Mitt’s not the perfect candidate you want, but he’s the only person standing between a chance to turn this country’s economy around via capitalism and the finalization of the goals and objectives of a Marxist. It’s your choice.
It really amuses me whenever someone uses “marxist” for Obama.
Besides being about as accurate as a rifle with a 90 degree bend in the barrel, it charcterizes a certain mindset – that of, “anything to the left of Joe McCarthy is a socialist”.
Jimbo, you do realize that Obama is getting a lot of flack, and reduced support, from the left because he’s not liberal enough, don’t you? I think, if you actually met any socialists, you’d have a heart attack.
I guess he didn’t learn anything from Frank Marshall Davis in Hawaii, and other Communists in Chicago. Maybe he’s more stupid than I thought.
If it’s guilt by association you want, I wonder how many of Mitt’s associates subscribe to Joseph Smith’s ‘White Horse Prophecy’? Joseph Smith Jr and Mitt’s father ran for POTUS. Mitt has given millions to the church, he calls it charity. How much political leg work do you think he has gotten for his donations? Those donations would be on his tax returns, eh? That knife cuts both ways jimbo. If I ask these questions does it make me a Marxist? If Joseph Smith Jr prophesied that a Mormon would save America when it was ‘hanging by a thread’, where would that leave us if He won? Should we ask? Or is there only one true way to redemption, yours and the GOP establishments? There are more things under heaven and earth jimbo, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Actually jimbo, I live in California, a winner take all state for the electoral votes. No matter how I vote, California’s electoral votes will go
to the Dems. That is why I would leave the top empty. Not so simple, eh? You would be better off making an argument for apportionment of the electoral votes, that is, if final popular vote is 50/50, electoral votes would be split 50/50. You’d better get started on that reform movement, it’s your choice. Still think I’d be voting for Obama? I am not a Marxist, you are something of a political Calvinist.
August 30, 2012 Featuring Justin Logan Ron Paul and American Exceptionalism at the RNC
http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/ron-paul-american-exceptionalism-rnc
Respectfully, you folks are worrying to much- and looking in the wrong place! A savvy political guy told me you get a bounce on these things when a lot of folks haven’t made up their collective minds.
We’ve -the vast majority of “US” have made up our minds, possibly several weeks ago or more likely months ago. The polling game except for Rasmussen is a joke-
Remember a few years back too famous quotes that the MSM & punditocracy always love to point too-
“ReadMy Lips No New Taxes!”
“Its the Economy Stupid!”
OK YOU CAN NOW ADD TO THOSE “YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT!”
There is your election. Nothing like insulting 4/5ths of the country.
what a jackass!
Check “6″ its too late for Barack to check his!
cheers
What you talking about **Cynical Wonder** if you weren´t religious, you wouldn´t bring Jesus up when it clearly has nothing to do with this article and situation. If it wasn´t for Osama, us Americans would be in a lot of danger and that is for sure.