Take this post with a grain of salt. Why? Because I am discussing a single poll, and we don't want to go overboard in drawing conclusions from one data point. Credit goes to Kos for examining the internals of the post-debate Ipsos/Reuters poll, where he discovered something very interesting about how each candidate managed to improve their favorability numbers last night.
Mitt Romney went from 46-51 unfavorable before the debate to 51-49 favorable after the debate. But he gained exactly nothing from independents and almost nothing from Democrats. His favorable numbers went up because Republicans loved his aggressive approach.
Obama's overall favorable numbers remained unchanged at 56-44. His numbers with Democrats also remained unchanged at 90-10. But he flipped a 46-54 deficit with independents to a 54-46 positive rating. The post-debate sample included fewer Democrats than the pre-debate sample, which helps explain why Obama's overall rating remained constant even as he did so well with independents.
Again, this is a single poll. But if these numbers hold up in other polls, it tells us that Obama actually won the debate with people in the middle who are what we call persuadable voters. It could be that people recognized that Romney was more aggressive and therefore assume he won the debate, but they weren't personally impressed. Republicans loved the debate because Romney got to use a bunch of their crazy talking points without the usual contradiction. It made them feel good to watch someone get away with that for a change and also to see someone be rude, arrogant and condescending to the president they love to hate. There's a real benefit to this for Romney. He energized his own troops. He gave them hope. He gave them a reason to keep working. He pulled a lot of people out of their apathetic stupor. Riling up the troops is important and will deliver votes to Romney. But it comes at a cost, too.
Remember, in the famous 47% speech, Romney explained why he wasn't being more combative and condescending to the president.
"We speak with voters across the country about their perceptions. Those people I told you, the 5 to 6 or 7 percent that we have to bring onto our side, they all voted for Barack Obama four years ago. So, and by the way, when you say to them, "Do you think Barack Obama is a failure?" they overwhelmingly say no. They like him. But when you say, "Are you disappointed in his policies that haven't worked?" they say yes. And because they voted for him, they don't want to be told that they were wrong, that he's a bad guy, that he did bad things, that he's corrupt. Those people that we that have to get, they want to think they did the right thing but he just wasn't up to the task. They love the phrase, "He's in over his head."
But we, you see, you and I, we spend our day with Republicans. We spend our days with people who agree with us, and these people are people who voted for him and don't agree with us. And so the things that animate us are not the things that animate them. And the best success I have speaking with those people is, you know, the president's been a disappointment."
Romney thought he should attack the president more with sorrow than with contempt, because he recognized that most of the people he needs to win over are people who voted for the president and still want to believe in him. They don't like to see him disrespected. These Ipsos/Reuters poll numbers basically confirm Mitt's insight about that. He did really well with the people who are animated by Fox News and right-wing fantasies, but that came at the expense of the persuadable voters. It's not surprising. This is the kind of data that I expected to see while I was watching the debate unfold. I also expected a gender gap, but I haven't seen the data on that.
So, again with the caveat that this is just one poll, I don't think Obama did as badly last night as many people assume. And every women I talked to or overheard today had something negative to say about Romney's performance. Key words were: rude, bully, condescending, disrespectful, and overbearing.
The comment about Big Bird is going to have a lasting impact, too. And the fact-checkers will be putting their articles into every nook and cranny of the media universe (that is not completely controlled by the right wing). A debate is not won or lost the night it occurs. It is won in the days that come immediately after.
What happens if you are a Latino, a Mormon, own your own business in Denver, an eatery called the Rosa Linda Mexican Cafe, and you turn down the Romney Campaign's request to use your restaurant as the backdrop for a campaign stop? Well, let's find out, shall we.
The Mormon owners of a Mexican cafe in Denver say that they have gotten death threats, hate calls and fake orders after refusing to allow Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to make campaign stop at their restaurant.
“One person who called said, ‘Watch your back. We know where live and we’re going after you,’” Oscar Aguirre, the son of the owners of Rosa Linda Mexican Cafe, told KMGH New Media Producer Wayne Harrison. “We just didn’t want our business used as a campaign stop.”
Apparently some people were misinformed after a news article in a local alternative news paper incorrectly reported (gosh I wonder how that happened?) that the restaurant refused to serve Romney a meal. Either way, though, that doesn't justify the abuse these people are taking. They have the right to refuse to have their restaurant used as a campaign prop. As the son of the Mexican Cafe owner said:
He said many callers [who made harassing or threatening phone calls] believe Rosa Linda refused to serve Romney because of a story in [Westword, the local paper] that said Romney "wasn't invited" to eat at the restaurant.
"That's not true," he said. "We just didn't want our business used as a campaign stop."
Aguirre, who is Mormon and whose parents are Mormon, was contacted on Aug. 6 about a possible campaign stop by Romney. [...]
"It was presented to us that (Romney) wanted to do a political stump here. (He wanted to) talk about our small business (and) because we share our religious views with the candidate and are Latinos it would be great for him to do a campaign stop," Aguire said. "We did say 'no' because we are not Republicans, nor are we Democrats. We will welcome any sitting President of the United States. But, we did not want to be a campaign stop." [...]
"Since the Westword article came out, hate mail has been coming in from people across the country -- people sending us death threats and people calling us telling us we are racist -- that they hope we go out of business," he said.
"Last year, we fed 5,500 free meals (video below). This year, we may serve above 6,000 free meals. Please let the American public know that we are not racist or bigots. We are just a working family wanting to help our community and our country by serving those in need," he said, adding, "Please stop the hate."
Please stop the hate indeed.
Such nice friendly people, those Romney supporters are. Lovely people, especially the ones who felt the need to frighten the Aguirre family and cause harm to their small business. I wonder who was the source for the incorrect news report in Westword by the way? Or, more importantly, who found the time to disseminate a brief article posted online by small local Denver media outlet to people all across the country? I doubt people outside Denver went looking for this story since I'll bet 99.99% of them had never head of Westword before. Logic dictates they must have been told about it by someone. Just asking who that might be, is all.
In any case, I guess next time the Romney campaign makes "an offer" to any small business owner to be the beneficiary of a Romney campaign event, they better not refuse it. Otherwise, they may suffer the same fate as the Aguirre family and the Rosa Linda Mexican Cafe.
BooMan is currently surviving a train delay, and I am here at home with a teething (molars!) Finny and a keyless car...so here's an open thread.
Anyone see any interesting news stories about something other than the debate? Please post it with a link in the comments!
People are agonizing. Obama lost! Or he let Romney get away with too much! Or, here, let me tell you why Romney really lost. It's all crap, both the hyper-concern on the part of (some) Democrats or the triumphalism by (some) Republicans.
Partisans who watched the debate are not going to change their minds about who is the better candidate and for whom they will cast their vote. Maybe a few people who haven't paid attention to the election before will waver a little, but one debate does not change an election. Gore wiped the floor with Dubya in 2000 and look how that turned out. Guess who won the first presidential debate in 2004 to move into a tie in the polls with the incumbent? John Kerry. Anyone remember the Kerry administration?
How many people watched the debate last night? Fewer than you think. Maybe 50 million plus or minus a few. Maybe. How many of those already have their minds made up? Most of them. So have fun talking about last night's super important debate performances if you like. Tell me all about Big Bird getting a pink slip from Romney on twitter or Obama's body language (yeah, the media now uses body language experts to tell us how a debate is going, and has for some time). But like most people I wasn't listening to the Barack and Mitt show last night.
And if history is any guide, this debate won't change the final election results, whether you watched all ninety scintillating minutes of it or not.
Old thread was full. My preliminary take is that the president did fine. Romney got away with saying too much crap without consequence, but as I noted yesterday, the male pundits like it when someone bullies the moderator and otherwise acts aggressively, but most women and many men don't like that. I thought the president did very well for the first third of the debate when he was talking about taxes. I thought he did a good job of defending ObamaCare. Somewhere around the hour mark, he seemed to lose a little focus on one answer and he never really got back in full stride, although his closing argument was strong. I am going to take a look at the focus groups before I come to any strong conclusions about winners and losers tonight. Romney can certainly feel good that his only major gaffe was blurting out that he loves Big Bird. But if fact-checkers do their job overnight and tomorrow morning, Romney is going to get a lot of negative press coverage to go along with the stuff about how his held his own.
Update [2012-10-4 0:2:54 by BooMan]: I've seen some snap polls now that look very good for Romney. I'm not one to put my independent judgment over real-time polls, so it looks like Romney had a clear first-impression win tonight. If you want a little positive spin, a very large majority in these snap polls thought either that Obama was a more attractive candidate or that the debate didn't change their opinion at all. Romney won a strong plurality of the people who's opinions were changed, but that was still a minority. The flip side of that is that Romney helped himself relative to the president. He appears to have made a positive impression on a sizable number of people, and so he should expect to get some improvement in the polls from this.
However, the post debate debate will get underway in earnest tonight, and it will cut two ways. First, Obama's debate performance will be criticized. Second, Romney's debate performance will be scrutinized. Each candidate will take their share of hits in that process. It's our job to help in the scrutiny part of that process. Unfortunately, I will be traveling to the White House tomorrow and it will be a very light blogging day for me as a result.
One last happy thought. By doing well tonight, Romney reversed the expectations game for the next debate, which will be a town-hall format. Relating to the common folk has been a constant challenge for Romney and the town hall format will be hard for him. So there's a little bit of winning by losing element you can console yourself with.
Also, Obama got his wake-up call. So, you know, he's awake now.
You political junkies are probably just twiddling your thumbs waiting for the debate to start. So, here's a thread where you can discuss your predictions, your anxieties, or just what kinds of things are crossing your mind today. Personally, I am a little anxious just because something could always go wrong. But I really feel like Romney has over-prepared for this. He's got his list of zingers and all kinds of conflicting advice and it's probably too much pressure. He shouldn't try to do too much. Just know his facts, the points he wants to make, and leave it at that. But I get the feeling that he's been consulted to death.
Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district had about the most inauspicious beginning to his term that can possibly be imagined. He literally failed to show up for the swearing-in ceremony because he was at a fundraiser with National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas. Both of them then proceeded to cast votes and conduct other House business illegally and in violation of the Constitution. Congress actually had to nullify two of their votes. This, of course, brought great shame to the people of Bucks and Montgomery counties he was elected to represent.
Things have only improved modestly since then. I already detailed his atrocious record on women's health and trying to turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher system but there is something else I want to highlight today. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick has something in common with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. He has contempt for working families.
Hopefully, you have seen the tape of Mitt Romney secretly talking to a bunch of millionaires in Florida where he said that 47% of the people in this country are a bunch of freeloading moochers who he doesn't care about. If you haven't seen it, you can watch it here and you can read the full transcript of his speech here. This is the part that stoked the most controversy:
Romney: "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
That forty-seven percent includes our military; it includes our working poor and people living on the edge of poverty, and it includes most of our retirees. Mitt Romney doesn't think his job is to care about any of those people. And his running mate, Paul Ryan, is only slightly more generous. He only writes off 30% of the people. Rep. Ryan said the following while delivering the keynote address at the right-wing American Spectator's Robert L. Bartley Gala Dinner in November 2011.
"Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want the welfare state," Ryan said. "Before too long, we could become a society where the net majority of Americans are takers, not makers."
So, here we have the Republican presidential ticket, with both men showing open contempt and scorn for anyone in this country who isn't some kind of "maker." It's a world view that Mike Fitzpatrick shares. Just a few days ago, on September 23rd, Rep. Fitzpatrick spoke to a group in Doylestown called the The Kitchen Table Patriots. Here's part of what he had to say:
"We need to support people who have a history and know what it is like to sign the front of a paycheck, and NOT the back of a paycheck."
There are approximately 252,000 people employed in Bucks County and approximately 467,000 people employed in Montgomery County, and only a tiny percentage of them sign the fronts of their paychecks. Employers are vitally important to the community, but so are employees. A good representative does his or her best to represent all their constituents, and especially the most needy and vulnerable. Having a representative say that he doesn't support the people who sign their own paychecks is ridiculous. Especially when that representative is too busy taking checks from big donors to even attend his own swearing-in ceremony.
As I mentioned before when covering Dean's Dozen for Democracy for America, Rep. Fitzpatrick's opponent is Kathy Boockvar. The people of Pennsylvania's 8th District would be much better served by her leadership. She cares about people who sign the back of their paychecks. She cares about 100% of the people, not 53% or 70% of them. She's been a legal services attorney who worked with the poor. She's fought to protect people's voting rights. She has the correct priorities. You can give her some support by going here and showing her some love. Rep. Fitzpatrick needs to take his condescending attitude and go.
I sometimes have a hard time predicting what Republicans will do because I just don't think like them. That's why I didn't expect Romney to respond to the release of his 47% Speech with a Recovery, Not Dependency advertising campaign. It's just another way of calling a bunch of people freeloaders who can't be convinced to take care of themselves and their lives. It's a slightly less racially-charged version of Newt Gingrich's "food stamp president" rhetoric. It never seems to occur to Republicans that the worst time to attack people on food stamps is when there are a lot of people on food stamps. Actually, though, I think these ads are probably targeted mainly to right-wing audiences rather than swing-voters. I think the idea is to show that he's fighting with their preferred language and to remind them of their racial grievances so that they stay motivated. That's just a guess, though. I mean, the Republicans think they can make Obama look weak on Libya and terrorism, which is a joke considering that he helped liberate Libya and killed bin-Laden. The Republicans think a five-year old video of Obama doing nothing particularly unusual will hurt him politically. They have a lot of delusions, even at the highest levels.
In general, my advice to the candidates as they prepare for tonight's debate is to avoid getting all wound up in their consultants' data about whom they need to pander to or how they need to behave. But, if I were President Obama, I would mention that Mitt Romney is a Republican a lot because the Republican brand is as popular as dog food. Only 11% of self-described moderates have a strongly-positive view of the Republican Party. Only 11% of Reagan-Democrats have a positive view of the Republican Party. If no one likes Mitt Romney, that is three-fold true for the party he represents.
When I look at just how unpopular the Republican Party has become, and I consider how strong the party is in large swaths of the country, it is no wonder that Obama is leading in the swing-states. We're seeing this unpopularity reflected in a variety of ways. Recent polling data has shown Obama doing surprisingly well with blue-collar white women. He's surging with Latinos. Now we see that Reagan-Democrats have turned against the GOP. Self-described moderates hate the GOP. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Romney is suffering from the fact that his support is not well distributed throughout the country. His support is strong in about 20 states, but many of those states have very small populations and, collectively, they don't get him close to winning the Electoral College. That's why a three-point difference in the popular vote is misleading.
This is the reverse of the normal trend in American elections. Democrats tend to be concentrated in urban centers and their inner suburbs, which makes it hard for them to win control of the House of Representatives, for example, because they have too many districts where they win 80 or 90 percent of the vote. If you allocated House seats by the overall vote in Philly and its suburbs, the Democrats would get six seats and the Republicans none. But, right now, the split is three to three. For Romney, however, it doesn't do him much good to be rolling up big margins in Utah and Texas and Louisiana because he needs those votes in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia.
Back in the late 1980's the Republicans made a concerted effort to turn "liberal" into a bad word. It worked so well that liberals decided to call themselves progressives instead. It's time to turn "Republicans" into a bad word. Most people hate them already, so why not confirm their preexisting bias?
Brad Staats, Republican running for Congress in Tennessee, posted a picture of his gun on his Facebook page last Friday, September 28th, with this choice comment attached (gun image first, then comment):
Many people in Tennessee keep asking me about my opinion on Second Amendment rights. Apparently Tennesseans are part of that crazy crowd that Obama says “cling to their religion and guns.” Well, then I must be part of that crazy crowd. Here is something that I usually have with me. Welcome to Tennessee Mr. Obama, where we appreciate our 2nd Amendment rights and the Constitution that was wisely given to us by our founding fathers.
Of course, he walked his comment back when questioned by local reporters for The Tennessean, and said that of course he wasn't threatening the President and Commander-in-Chief. How could anyone get that idea? And plus his picture and comment was taken way out of context. He also blamed the media for reporting about his Facebook post without mentioning he was only trying to remind people about a UN treaty regarding the illicit trade in small arms which he says interferes with the 2nd amendnment rights of US citizens, doncha know.
The original Facebook post made no mention of the treaty, although Staats said during the interview that it was prompted by that pact. A United Nations news release on Sept. 7 said the international organization’s Review Conference on Illicit Small Arms Trade had renewed its “commitment to preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade” of small arms and light weapons.
I'm sure in his own reality Mr. Staats isn't telling a flat out lie. Because Republicans never do that. Just ask the Romney campaign.
I mean why would a man who insinuates President Obama and people in his administration are "traitors" (in another Facebook post that shared a link to a video on Monday -- though it appears Mr. Staats has now changed or removed that comment originally quoted by The Tennessean below) possibly suggest that he meant for anyone to think President Obama is fair game for target practice?
“Is our current administration filled with traitors? Is our president a traitor? Is Barak Hussein Obama qualified to be president? Watch this EXCELLENT video and tell me. Remember, to our knowledge, Jim Cooper has signed off on every major piece of legislation that the current administration has proposed, even after he said he would not. Thank you Mr. Cooper* ...”
Nah, he must be telling the truth.
* Congressman Jim Cooper is Staats's opponent in the 5th Congressional district in Tennessee.
He’s No. 2 on the ticket but No. 1 in their hearts.
Women born before the baby boom generation seem to have a collective crush on a handsome vice presidential candidate with piercing blue eyes and a wide smile who likes to talk about government benefits for seniors. No, not Paul Ryan.
Joe Biden’s bringing sexy back — to the Medicare-eligible set — and that could be valuable for a president who trails Republican rival Mitt Romney with women of a certain age despite having a wide advantage with their 18- to 65-year-old counterparts.
