Today's installment of campaign-related news items that won't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* The Obama campaign released this morning its third ad featuring Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks, and to my ear, this one's the most devastating. I don't yet have a list of states where it's airing, but readers in Ohio and Virginia confirm having seen it this morning. [Update: it's running in seven states: Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire.]
* Romney said he's unconcerned about the polls because the race is still at an "early state." Early voting begins in much of the country this week.
* In Iowa, considered one of the eight or nine 2012 battlegrounds, Public Policy Polling shows President Obama leading Romney by seven, 51% to 44%.
* A Pew Research Center report released yesterday shows Obama's support among Roman Catholic voters growing, and he now leads Romney, 54% to 39%. The anti-contraception message doesn't seem to be working for the former governor.
* In Connecticut's increasingly-interesting U.S. Senate race, PPP shows Rep. Chris Murphy (D) up by six over former wrestling executive Linda McMahon (R), 48% to 42%.
* Depending on which poll you believe, Sen. Bob Casey's (D) re-election bid in Pennsylvania is either becoming more competitive or less. It's worth noting, however, that if the NRSC thought Tea Party Republican Tom Smith had a credible shot, it'd start buying ad time. That hasn't happened yet.
* Obama gets some backup: "A Democratic 'super PAC' is joining forces with a labor group to begin a $1.25 million radio ad campaign on Thursday that starts with a direct attack on Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch millionaire who has insulted nearly half of the country."
* Now that Todd Akin can't drop out, American Bridge is opening its oppo files and presenting voluminous evidence of the Missouri Republican's extremism.
* And it may well be little more than a strategic ploy, but the Obama campaign is apparently making noises about a possible investment in Arizona, which is generally seen as state Romney should win easily.
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Now that one stings!
Mitt Rmoney just got schooled! Mitt Rmoney just lost the race. Mit Rmoney; Under new pwnership..
Run this ad every day to election day and you just might convince a crazy or two to also vote for Barack Obama!
Agreed, Trollop. Run it on an endless loop.
Romneys polls in iowa tanked after his 47% flub , it was 50 50 here for the last year till that , he has always run as a fake liberal here , now he is showing tv ads that claim he wants to some how stop wall streets china trade policies , the same ones him and his pals are making billions on , I really do not see to many swing voters falling for that , and you know the gop are dumping tons of money into the ads , too little , too late , too pathetic
The most remarkable, and devastating, aspect of the latest Obama commercial using the 47% quote is that after the required intro (I approve this message), there's no commentary and no argument. Just Romney, in his own words: "I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility for their lives."
Inscribe that on his epitaph, politically speaking.
Great ad!
Is this a false ad too, MItt?
No, it isn't. Romney built that.
Romney is his own worst enemy. Romney will loose.
Actually, Romney has already lost.
and lose as well.
The Arizona rumor is encouraging. It means the Obama campaign is beginning to think about widening the playing field. Maybe they will give those of us living in "red states" a reason to vote and that will help down ballot candidates.
Yes, I was living in red state GA in 2008 and this year in red state TN. At first I thought anyone from Boston couldn't be all bad, but I was wrong. I will vote for Obama again this year, although I know he will win without my vote.
I had the unfortunate experience of listening to part of Mittwit's speech today (got banned from the living room for yelling "Liar!" too many times) and if that's the best this moron can do, he's "in a heap a trouble" as they say.
I've been confused about this for a while. I'm sure someone here can clear this up. Margin of error in polls supposedly means that 95% of the time, the results will fall within a certain percentage range. For these polls, is that margin of error applied to the difference between the two candidates, or is it applied to each separately? For example, assume that Obama leads Romney in a poll by 48% to 43% with a 3% margin of error. Does that mean:
95% of the time, Obama's lead will be between 2% and 8% or
95% of the time, Obama will poll between 45% and 51%, while Romney will poll at 40% to 46%?
The first shows Obama's lead outside the margin of error, while the second shows the his lead within the margin of error. Any political scientists out there that know the answer to this?
Where did you hear this?
I saw this on Wikipedia. It indicates that the confidence interval is typically 95%.
I'm not a political scientist, so I couldn't tell you.
I'm just not sure how whoever came up with it, came to that 95% number.
Seems arbitrary. But, again, I'm not an expert.
I believe your making it more complex then it has to be...As far as I've ever heard the margin of error is a straight up variable...expressed as plus or minus percentage...Thus President is polling at 46% plus or minus 3%...so he's actually polling at 43 to 49%...so his opponent would be polling at 43 to 37%....and they meet in the middle...
The 3% margin of error is applied to both sides as in your second example. There is a 95% confidence level that Obama will end up somewhere between 45-51% and Romney would end up 40-46%.
No there is a statistical margin of error so it takes a wide gap to really declare a state is going one way or the other. Also consider, Romney is losing badly but the media still needs to feed on it and talk about it so they are going to make it sound like more of a race than it probably is at this point.
95% is a statistical term. It is a "confidence Interval"
So here it means that the poll takers are statistically 95% confident that the sample population is a statistically good representation of the population as a whole.
You also have to look at the polls sampling base. If they contact 500 people by telephone landine at 4 pm, the demographic of the responders will be different than a personal survey at a movie theatre at a mall at 3pm on Saturday.
Telephone polls are easiest, but they tend to skew towards old people. How the questions are framed is another tricky part. As Mark Twain said: "there are 3 types of lies; Lies, Damn lies and Statistics."
Strategic ploy. Maybe Team Obama is trying to scare Romney donors. Try to convince them that this thing is over. At some point they're going to decide that they're wasting money on a terrible candidate.
Actually, Mitt is doing that all by himself.......
What do you mean, "Team Obama is trying to scare Romney Donors?" All Obama said was he approved this ad. ALL of the other rhetoric in the ad is Romeny talking. If anyone scares Romney's donors, it's Romney. BTW, yeah, Romney has lost. Now I'm just getting nauseated listening to the uncontrollable whimpering, sniveling, crying, sobbing, bellyaching, whining, moaning, thumb-sucking, lip-quivering, butt-puckering, complaining sore loser rich kid...
Arizona really needs some help, I hope that rumor is accurate. This place is *scary*.
Yes, it really *is* scary. I'd love to see a big push in this state from the Obama campaign, as it would likely have a very positive impact on the down-ticket Dem races, and I would dearly love to see more blue representation in Washington from this state. We nearly went purple in 2008, so a good push could tip the scales this time. With more and more transplants moving here from more enlightened areas of the country, I have some hope for Arizona. (Note, I said "some." It's still scary...)
OUCH! I think Mitt is under the impression that only landed gentry. AKA wealthy white land owners, are going to be allowed to vote this time.
Hey Mitt....this ad??? You Built That!!!!
Yeah. NitMitt built President Obama's campaign. Thanks NitMitt!
Why I think this works (besides the Romney's audio w/ no other dialogue) is it shows pictures of the 47%. From what I've seen after the comments, those in the 47% don't consider themselves in the 47% - most (even Romney) talk about Government assistance - as if 47% of the American public is on welfare !!!! By showing the photos, it should (hopefully) start a conversation, or make some realize where Romney stands.
In regards to the Casey(D)/Smith(R) race in PA. I live here and have only seen Smith ads on tv...nothing for Casey. I thought it interesting that I haven't seen any Casey ads with just over a month left to the election??
Same thing here. I've just now been seeing Casey ads over the past few days. I've also been getting Smith stuff in the mail. Not sure why Casey has been waiting for so long. And the ads are not of a very good quality either.
How many people under 50 watch TV, much less TV ads?
And Romney's insinuation is that the ONLY people who support President Obama are those on welfare, who don't pay taxes etc. I personally don't know any Obama supporters who fall into those categories, and we all are proud to support his re-election not for anything he will give us but for what he has managed to do in the face of unprecedented "anti-American" obstruction.
I absolutely think that Obama should spend some money down here in AZ! I live here and truly truly believe that this is an election that could certainly at the very least swing this state purple.
This is all very good news, but with all the efforts Republicans are making to fix the election with voter supression laws etc., we have to be even more viligant in getting out the vote. And don't forget, the real change will only come when we put the Republicans out of the State Houses and Governors mansions. This is where the biggest threat to voters rights is taking place.
Loose lips sink ships...Mitt's ship is listing badly and is taking on lots of water...rock the vote dems...Obama/Biden 2012!!!!!!
As of 8:00 a.m. this morning, CST, I was the first person to register in my county seat in the battleground state of Iowa for the Obama/Biden ticket. What is neat is that I was not the only one to vote this morning. There were several seniors coming in behind me and I will hedge a bet they were not going to vote for Romney/Ryan. I received an email last night from our district's Democratic chair person that several people were meeting together at 7:00 a.m. at a local business and were driving over together to vote this morning for President Obama.
Hi Cher , Cedar Rapids here , we vote early here also , no lines or hassles , watching the gop in other states try and limit early voting has been disgusting , the local news said mail in voting is up 40% !!! Like Washington state , imo , soon a majority of people are just going to mail it in , which will change everything , you can bet the jim crow gop will be trying to limit that next
What an awesome ad and NOTHING but the indisputable truth. I am sure that there are plenty of repucks in Romney's 47%ers. How do they feel about what Robme thinks of them and they are still willing to vote for him? Unbelievable. There is no way I would vote for Robme after seeing this ad and it SHOULD awaken some of these die-hard republicans. Run this ad daily...everyday...until there is no one left that has not seen it. It is necessary to force some sense into folks that just haven't gotten it yet. And to add injury to insult, Robme is now showing an ad where is is so supportive of the 47%ers. What a liar, flipflopper....and lots of other choice words. I can not stand that man.
Me too!
Offshore Willy is counting on us Democrats getting overconfident and complacent, and not voting. Vote, vote ,vote Offshore Willy and Ryanocchio into oblivion!!
Advertising creation is done for President Obama. There are no ads that the Obama Campaign can create that could even come close to the Ass Nozzle NitMitt telling the American people that he doesn't give a rats ass about them or their families. Now just spend money on buying airtime so we hear it over and over and over...
Seriously I knew Romney would eventually lose this way, all Obama has to do is let him talk and hang himself. I have to admit though that 47% comment was a nuclear weapon on the Romney campaign, and its his own fault.
I do have to wonder why donors would spend money on a candidate that is saying that he isn't going to bother trying to get the votes of 47% of the country. That isn't leaving himself much room and the investors had to know that some of those 47% were in the republican realm, like the elderly and veterans.
My husband and myself are one of the 47%. He's on disablity and I am under employed. This ad hits to the heart of Mitt's problem. He doesn't know the people who he supposedly wants to help. Obama has my vote again. And it was good to see a Native in the ad. We vote.
I just love how this ad does not need to add one ADDITIONAL word. Romney's comments and his attitude speak for itself. I've heard this attitude from wealthy colleagues many times, but many hard working Americans have never heard what someone like Romney "really" thinks about them. Now they know. And it's beyond offensive.
Those of us in the older demographic remember the first Bush (Bush Senior) ads using the Willie Horton example (Gov. Michael Dukakis was blamed for a repeat criminal). It was unfortunate but it was effective, devastatingly so. Now another Massachusetts governor can reap what was sown by a fellow republican: the party that wrote the book on negative campaigning. While this Obama ad could hardly be said to be "negative," since the script comes directly from the republican candidate himself, it should go down in the history of political campaigns as a golden moment when the truth is exposed to the light of day. Romney continues to try running from this but he can't hide from it. In the end, it boils down to the content of one's character. In Mr. Romney, there is little that most Americans can admire.
The best part of the ad is the photo of two elderly veterans that comes up just as Mitt Romney says, "They believe they are entitled." Yep, they do, and they are. I hope the Obama campaign keeps hitting on that point because caring for veterans is the one social contract everyone agrees on (in theory ... not so much in practice).