Category: Mitt Romney

FROM OHIO: Schedule Scrambled; Obama, Romney Cancel Campaign Events

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MARION, Ohio
Looks like Hurricane Sandy has already caused major damage to my plans for the next couple of days, as both Mitt Romney and President Obama are canceling campaign events because of Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the East Coast. By the way, this storm is so large we’re getting effects as far inland as Ohio.

UPDATE: I’ll be uploading photos from last night’s rally here, but meanwhile here’s the report:

Paul Ryan stood onstage Sunday evening and told a fired-up crowd of nearly 5,000 supporters, “As Ohio goes, so goes America.”
Few would argue with the Republican vice presidential candidate. Of the 11 states rated as “toss ups” by Real Clear Politics, none is more fiercely contested than the Buckeye State, whose 18 Electoral College votes appear destined to decide this election. And the latest poll, commissioned by a consortium of Ohio’s eight largest newspapers, shows the state a dead heat, with 49 percent each for GOP challenger Mitt Romney and President Obama. Perhaps more important, the poll conducted Oct. 18-23 by University of Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research, showed Romney has gained three points — and Obama has lost two points — since September, when Obama led 51-46 in Ohio.
This net five-point shift in the Ohio newspaper poll substantially mirrors a general trend, as Romney has improved his standing in the RCP average for the state by a net 3.5 points since Sept. 30. And while Obama still leads most Ohio polls (by an average 2.1 points), “The trendline is going in our direction,” senior Romney campaign adviser Kevin Madden said Sunday night during the rally at the Marion County Fairgrounds Coliseum. . . .

Read the rest at The American Spectator.

UPDATE II: Of course, when a crisis hits, nobody answers their phones, so I’m still scrambling to get specific details from Romney’s campaign, which has yet to issue an “Updated Media Advisory” on their schedule. Probably everybody’s on conference calls right now. Meanwhile, the lobby of this hotel is full of guys who look a lot like Secret Service agents and there’s an SUV in the parking lot with Virginia tags and a Romney/Ryan bumper sticker — probably a campaign staffer. Here’s the latest poll talk from Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard:

The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent. . . .
While Obama can close the gap with a strong voter turnout effort, “reports from the field would indicate that not to be the case, and Mitt Romney may well be heading to a decisive victory,” says pollster Ed Goeas. . . .
The poll’s election model takes into account variables including voter intensity, age, and education, and voters who are certain in their vote. The race “remains very close in the surface,” Goeas said, “but the political environment and the composition of the likely electorate favor Governor Romney.”

UPDATE III: Went out to the nearest convenience store and grabbed a copy of the local newspaper, the Marion Star which — historians will note — was once published by a guy named Warren G. Harding. The front page of the paper today is dominated by two stories covering Sunday’s rally:

Romney, Ryan rouse crowd

Audience comes away
filled with enthusiasm

This is from the second story:

MARION – Energized and pumped up was how the crowd left Veterans Memorial Coliseum Sunday night after attending the “Victory In Ohio” rally for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
There are nine more days until there will be a change, Romney emphasized, encouraging people to get out and vote early or on Nov. 6 for him and his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan.
Sara Lawhon and her daughter, Erin, came over from Mount Vernon.
“I’m excited,” Sara said. “It’s fun to be in the same room with people cheering for the same thing and feeling the same way you do.”
Erin, 14, still has four more years before she will be able to vote, but she shared her mother’s excitement.
“I thought he was honest and truthful,” she said. “He went by the heart because he believes in it.”

Mount Vernon is in adjacent Knox County. Just got this via e-mail from a friend on the Romney campaign staff: “Daveport is on today, but all other events today and tomorrow are cancelled. Will update with details when we have them.”

UPDATE IV: Hot Air headline on story from Katie Pavlich at Townhall:

Obama campaign warns against politicizing
hurricane as Bill Clinton politicizes it

UPDATE V: Thanks to Finrod in the comments for the news that Rasmussen’s latest Ohio poll has Romney 50, Obama 48.

Of course, Nate Silver has raised Obama’s re-election chances to 74.6%, because . . . Objectivity!




 

PREVIOUSLY:

FINAL 2012 DEBATE: ‘FOREIGNERS’

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UPDATE 11:09 p.m. ET: Well, I’ve got to write something longer than 140 characters for the American Spectator tomorrow, so I’ll leave you with this:

A couple of hours until deadline. I need more coffee.

UPDATE 10:33 p.m. ET: Really, I don’t hate foreigners. I just hate listening to debates about foreigners.

Did Obama win this one? If you like Obama (and hate America), yeah, it was a walkover. I’m watching the MSNBC after-show, BTW.

UPDATE 10:12 p.m. ET: Forgive me for not doing more original blog content during this debate. My 19-year-old son got in a car wreck (he’s OK, and it wasn’t his fault), which meant my wife had to go to the hospital, so I had to fix my own chicken nuggets for dinner. Anyway, he’s more snark from my Twitter feed:

When I’m ambassador to Vanuatu, I’ll never have to fix my own chicken nuggets. Or blog presidential debates, for that matter.

UPDATE 9:52 p.m. ET: More snark:

We’re somewhere near the halfway mark and, unless I’m mistaken, Obama’s losing the debate with his arrogant college-professor act, lecturing Americans as if we were a bunch of idiots.

UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET: Some of my Twitter snark:

Why? Because I’m too lazy to write it twice, that’s why.

UPDATE 9:22 p.m. ET: Obama just boasted of his “steady, thoughtful leadership.” Ambassador Stevens could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE 9:18 p.m. ET: You see how hard Obama is straining to pretend that he’s an expert, and Mitt’s a clueless moron.

UPDATE 9:12 p.m. ET: Obama lays out the Howard Dean/Michael Moore/Roseanne Barr critique of Bush-era foreign policy. As if it were relevant.

UPDATE 9:10 p.m. ET: Mitt aims his words specifically at the “Muslim world” and “jihadists.” Specificity has been lacking lately, eh?

UPDATE 9:08 p.m. ET: Obama wants to “make friends around the world.” And … how’s that workin’ out for ya, buddy?

UPDATE 9:05 p.m. ET: First question: “What would you do about the crisis in Vanuatu?”

No, just kidding. It’s Libya, of course.

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .

* * * PREVIOUSLY (8:30 p.m. ET) * * *

Thank God, tonight’s debate is the last of this presidential campaign. Republicans endured 20 debates during the primary campaign, and we’re ready to stop debating and start stabbing out Chris Matthews’ eyeballs with sharp sticks voting.

So, yeah, I’ll be liveblogging, kinda, and also snarking it up on Twitter. I’m sure VodkaPundit will be drunkblogging. And our good friends at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity will have a livestream at their Watchdog.Org site.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has highlights of Bob Schieffer’s most biased debate moments. I actually kind of like Schieffer, who is a liberal, but an old-fashioned kind of liberal, as opposed to these smart-alecky Ezra Klein types. The debate starts at 9 p.m. ET, and I’ll be watching the MSNBC post-debate show, because I’m still able to resist the stab-his-eyeballs-out urge toward Chris Matthews.

Just barely, though.

UPDATE II: Here’s the thing: I hate discussions of foreign policy.

Hate it. Because foreign policy is really simple, yet the intellectuals and “experts” get paid to pretend we need their advice. This is all just expert rent-seeking, you see.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Americans and foreigners. And there are three kinds of foreigners:

  1. Enemies who want to kill us;
  2. Allies who want to help us kill our enemies; and
  3. A bunch of irrelevant people who don’t really need a “policy.”

Simple, as I say, and once you’ve got the basics of who’s who figured out, everything else is obvious. Yet there are “specialists” with advanced degrees from prestigious universities who need jobs telling us what to think, and I get so tired of hearing these know-it-alls, I want to stab out their eyeballs with sharp sticks.

VIDEO: Romney Touts Bipartisanship in Positive New Campaign Ad

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Very simple — a clip from the second debate:

This ad should scare the daylights out of Democrats: For Romney to be running a positive ad this late in the campaign is a gesture of confidence. And it is likewise a gesture of confidence for Romney to be making this kind of appeal to bipartisanship, trying to win over “soft” Democrats. The campaign is attempting to position Mitt as a uniting, centrist figure and doing so quite effectively.

It’s the kind of thing you do when you know you’re winning.

GALLUP: ROMNEY 52, OBAMA 45 — Let the Great 2012 Liberal Freak-Out Begin!

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They convinced themselves that Obama “won” Tuesday’s debate, but Romney actually gains in the first Gallup national tracking poll with post-debate reaction? Oh, boy.

UPDATE: Ace explains what happened:

 The debate was not a victory for Obama. It was a confirmation of Romney’s acceptability, plausibility, and fitness for office.

Yesterday, Sully admitted he had been “on the ledge”:

Guess what?

UPDATE II: Ed Morrissey points out that these latest numbers indicate that neither of the past two debates helped Obama among likely voters.

 




 

RECENTLY:

Military Endorsements Aren’t Decisive. That Said: WOW!

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by Smitty

In deference to #OccupyResoluteDesk, he has half a dozen military endorsements:

Name Note
Wesley Clark, four star General (Ret), former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO, 2004 presidential candidate Tool.
Richard Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy Not a proper veteran, but we can’t get to ‘half a dozen’ without some sort of shenanigans. Also, really competent, would make a good SECDEF while the country sinks, should BHO achieve re-election.
Paul Eaton, Major General (Ret) Got nothin’.
Donald J. Gutter, retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, current Dean, Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh JAGs: whattayagonnado?
Michael D. Lumpkin Wikipedia page says: Commander, Captain (O-6) select. As he was a SEAL, we’ll omit the standard mockery for hedging the yes/no question: Did you get paid?
John B. Nathman, retired U.S. Navy Admiral, co-chair of the campaign THAT Nathman.

Just to avoid looking too, let us say, Crowley-esque in my bias, I drop Mitt’s endorsements below the fold:

Continue reading Military Endorsements Aren’t Decisive. That Said: WOW! →

Romney Debates Crowley And Obama On Benghazi, Wins

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by Smitty

Benghazi was the pivotal moment in the town hall debate, in my opinion, and that of some others:

 

Via BlueGrass pundit:

What a sad, pathetic joke that Obama has to have a woman attempt to stand up for him. Romney’s five sons were no doubt writhing at the raised eyebrows at 0:20 in the clip, recalling their own sad attempts at sliding one by dad, and getting thoroughly crushed by the Brows Of Doom.

The Administration’s pathetic attempt to walk back the 12 September Rose Garden speech is thoroughly debunked here. If Obama’s claim is true, that he properly labeled Benghazi terrorism initially, then shifted ‘narratives’ to call it a spontaneous riot due to Nakoula’s handiwork, then Obama’s sordid performance would be an example of postvarication, where the truth shifts to a lie upon the retelling, instead of the truth remaining in the forefront.

However, what we have here is a creep show Administration that owes Americans straight answers, but can’t even tell itself a straight story. Maybe Petraeus could offer such. Where is that guy? Stuffed under the bus behind Clapper?

Kudos to Mitt. You could see that hours of preparation that went into this debate on display. That the topic would come up was fairly obvious. But the delivery was polished, and Obama’s body language and shout to Crowley for a lifeline were sweet, sweet tells. Romney should have ended his exchange with Crowley by saying “Thank you, Madame President.” As graphically put:
And Crowley then walked back her shilling. Fortunately, these Lefty creeps no longer retain an iron grip on matters. While viewers at the time called it a draw or gave the edge to #OccupyResoluteDesk, further analysis is going to show that, as in the previous debates this season, the Republicans are holding their own despite having two opponents.

Say whatever else you want about the debate: seeing Romney have the sack to call out Obama for lying, to his face, was pure chewing satisfaction. As with the previous debate, I may have to trundle over to the Romney campaign site for a wee donation, I’m so pleased by this. And as for Candid Candy, I hope she doesn’t spend all 30 pieces of silver in one place.

Further linkage at Instapundit, but don’t miss Michelle, violating the rules, clapping in support of falsehood. I’m not ashamed of my country, in general, but the 2008 election sure was a hiccup. And, for those wondering what the debate would have looked like if you dropped some acid before viewing:

In the second presidential debate, President Obama stood up proudly for his record, offered a positive vision, called out Romney’s lies in a calm and cool way, and, most importantly, showed some real fire in the belly.

Update: Memeorandum thread, also linked at Protein Wisdom, Daily Pundit, WyBlog, and Obi’s Sister.

‘STAKE THROUGH HIS HEART’: Your Official Town Hall Debate Thread

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UPDATE 10:50 p.m. ET: Watching MSNBC so you don’t have to:

UPDATE 10:22 p.m. ET: WHAM! Mitt just hit Obama with “Fast and Furious.”

UPDATE 10:16 p.m. ET: That was a very long back-and-forth about Libya.

UPDATE 10:11 p.m. ET: Obama gets specific question about failure in Libya, and doesn’t even begin to answer, but instead lectures about how AWESOME his policy is.

UPDATE 10:07 p.m. ET: Obama LOVES him some illegal immigrants.

UPDATE 10:03 p.m. ET: Obama loves him some illegal immigrants.

UPDATE 9:58 p.m. ET: Now for Romney, immigration question from El Votera Del Undecidia.

UPDATE 9:54 p.m. ET: Obama is now ahead 5:34 on the time-split.

UPDATE 9:51 p.m. ET: As Obama ends this answer, he is ahead 2:55 on the time-split.

UPDATE 9:46 p.m. ET: A Bush-hating woman asks Romney how he’s not like Bush. She’s an “uncommitted voter” (nudge nudge).

UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET: Some chick asks a question about the alleged “pay gap” between men and women — straight out of the bogus statistics they teach in Women’s Studies classes — and we’re supposed to believe she’s an “uncommitted voter.”

UPDATE 9:35 p.m. ET: Candy Crowley always gives Obama a chance to talk back to Mitt, but keeps cutting off Mitt — or trying to cut him off — when Mitt tries to answer.

UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: Obama slams “top-down economics.”

UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET: Now Mitt gets to talk numbers. He loves him some numbers.

UPDATE 9:21 p.m. ET: There was all kinds of fireworks now. My wife and kids thought they were getting ready to fight.

UPDATE 9:16 p.m. ET: Romney “I was in coal country and people grabbed my arm and said, ‘Please, save my job.’ ”

UPDATE 9:15 p.m. ET: Romney: “Let’s look at the president’s policies, instead of his rhetoric.”

UPDATE 9:11 p.m. ET: Obama just said Romney “doesn’t have a five-point plant, he’s got a one-point plan.” And Obama’s got 57 states! When Mitt wants to argue back, Candy cuts him off.

UPDATE 9:04 p.m. ET: “First-time voter” is college student named Jeremy who asks about jobs — straight into Mitt’s wheelhouse. This is encouraging.

UPDATE 9:02 p.m. ET: And we’re live! Candy Crowley introduces her close personal friend The President of the United States, and also, that Republican guy over there.

* * PREVIOUSLY (8:30 p.m. ET) * *

Let’s start with this: The very notion of undecided voters in New York three weeks before Election Day is implausibly absurd. So we’re probably going to see a steady barrage of lefty “gotcha” questions aimed at Mitt Romney, while Barack Obama gets questions like, “Mister President, why do these hateful racist homophobic Republicans want to steal Social Security checks from Grandma?”

Can Mitt possibly win this debate? Can Obama possibly stink it up worse than he did in the Oct. 3 debate? This seems too much to ask, so you need to pray very hard right up until the debate at Hofstra University starts at 9 p.m. Eastern, and don’t stop praying until it’s over.

Miracles sometimes happen, and this is what Ace is describing:

So there was, I think, a preference cascade potential. But that potential only became real during the debate.
If Romney had not given what could well be the most dominating debate performance in the entire modern age of politics (since TV, in 1960), it seems very possible — possibly likely — that none of this would have happened.

Read the whole thing. Events can’t be predicted, but contingencies — the “if/then” consequences of events — are predictable.

Going into the Oct. 3 debate, nobody expected such a one-sided win for Romney, but we could have predicted that if Mitt did exceed all expectations (and if Obama disastrously underperformed) then the polls would shift dramatically toward Romney.

The interesting thing? The polls were already starting to shift toward Romney before the first debate. Check the RCP national average, and you see that Obama’s lead maxed out at 4.3 points on Sept. 29, and by Oct. 3, had shrunk to 3.1 points. Why?

It’s got to be Libya: By early October, it was becoming obvious that the Obama administration’s “blame the YouTube video” excuse was false, and that the administration was trying to hide its failures in the Sept. 11 attack on the Benghazi counsulate. So Obama’s lead was already fading and his disastrous performance in the first debate exacerbated growing perceptions of his incompetence.

Romney moved ahead in the RCP average Oct. 9. Beginning with the first full three-day track by Gallup after the first debate, five polls have shown Romney ahead, three have shown Obama ahead and two have shown a tie. So while there has been a shift toward Romney, the bottom hasn’t fallen out for Obama . . . yet.

A few headlines from Memeorandum:

Romney Holds Advantage Tonight,
Regardless of Format
— Real Clear Politics

Obama feels ‘fabulous’ in advance of second debate
— Politico

Tuesday’s debate moderator confirms
plan to ask follow up questions
— The Hill

And finally, from Toby Harnden at the London Daily Mail:

The Romney campaign goes into tonight’s second presidential debate confident that the race has shifted decisively in their direction and that a below par performance by Barack Obama could doom him to defeat on November 6.
A senior adviser to Mitt Romney told MailOnline: ‘The President could drive a stake through the heart of his own campaign tonight if he’s not careful.
‘If he doesn’t give a vigorous enough defence of his last four years in office, if he tries to place blame everywhere else, if he doesn’t articulate what the next four years will look like beyond just giving away free stuff – if he fumbles all that, he drives a stake through his own heart.’

The debate starts at 9 p.m. Eastern, but Duane Lester and the Campaign Trail Report have begun their debate hangout already, so check it out, and I’ll be back to do some live-blogging, as well as the usual Twitter snarkfest.

 


The Most Important Voter in America

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A lot of people laughed at this news last week, but if only she lived in a swing state, Lindsay Lohan would be the perfect example of why Barack Obama’s on the verge of losing this election:

Lohan is a low information voter convinced that (a) employment is really important, (b) thinks that employment is not being sufficiently handled by the White House right now and (c) thinks that Mitt Romney is better equipped to handle employment.
That arguably logical sequence is all that it takes for a low-information voter to support Mitt Romney. The thing is, there are millions of voters like her. That should terrify the Obama campaign.

Matthew Cochrane feigns outrage at the characterization of Lindsay as a “low-information voter,” but contrary to what you might think, the term is not necessarily synonymous with stupid.

A “low-information voter” is simply someone who doesn’t pay a lot of attention to politics. Whereas most people who read blogs like this are political junkies, the typical “swing” voter isn’t. People who tend to vote only in presidential elections — never a primary, and rarely if ever in an off-year — aren’t stupid, they’re just busy with other things: Jobs, families, DUIs, court hearings, probation, rehab . . .

These people show up in polls as “don’t know”/”don’t care” most of the time. They’re not all into the issues, they’re not glued to the tube watching cable news 24/7, but they feel a patriotic duty to vote in presidential elections and they tend to ignore politics until a month or so before Election Day, when they say to themselves, “OK, which one of these clowns am I going to vote for?”

The basis of their decisions may seem simplistic to us political junkies, but this is just how regular Americnas think, and the simplicity of Lindsay Lohan’s logic — “Hey, the economy sucks and Mitt’s a business guy who might know how to fix this problem” — doesn’t mean she’s wrong or stupid. Sometimes things are both simple and true. Look at the latest headline from USA Today:

Swing States poll: Women push Romney into lead

It’s as simple as three words: Chicks dig Mitt.