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:
* On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" earlier, David Axelrod said he would shave his mustache of 40 years if President Obama loses Michigan, Minnesota, or Pennsylvania.
* A new New York Times/CBS/Quinnipiac poll shows Obama with a one-point lead over Mitt Romney at the national level, 48% to 47%.
* In Ohio, NYT/CBS/Quinnipiac shows Obama ahead by five, 50% to 45%, while SurveyUSA found the president leading by three, 48% to 45%.
* In Virginia, NYT/CBS/Quinnipiac shows Obama up by two, 49% to 47%, but a Roanoke College poll found Romney up by five, 49% to 44%.
* In Florida, NYT/CBS/Quinnipiac shows Obama ahead by one, 48% to 47%.
* In Wisconsin, Public Policy Polling shows Obama with a five-point advantage, 51% to 46%.
* In Iowa, PPP found Obama leading by five, 50% to 45%.
* In Pennsylvania, a Franklin & Marshall College poll puts Obama's lead at just four points, 49% to 45%.
* In North Carolina, SurveyUSA shows Romney ahead by five, 50% to 45%.
* In Michigan, a Detroit News poll found the president's lead down to about three points, 47.7% to 45%.
* In Minnesota, SurveyUSA shows Obama ahead by seven, 50% to 43%.
* And in Massachusetts, a Suffolk poll shows Elizabeth Warren (D) leading Sen. Scott Brown (R) by seven, 53% to 46%. Brown, incidentally, had committed to one more pre-election debate, but following Hurricane Sandy, he's declining to reschedule.
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The polling is beginning to reach a consensus that Obama is going to win the 271 electorial votes he needs. I think in the next days the pundit class will credit Obama's performance in the Sandy disaster as the reason people are "switching" votes to him.
His disaster performance, by the way, has been outstanding. Even Chris Christie agrees.
If he wins, Sandy will surely be one of the primary excuses used by FOX and the sad, angry, white Americans who let FOX do their thinking for them.
I couldn't agree more this is just scare tactics so that dems don't go vote cause romney is going to win. Don't be fooled people most polls show romney leading only because most americans have cell phones and only a few have ladnline so who are they polling anyhow I haven't been asked who i'm voting for nor hundreds of my facebook friends because I have asked several times this election season and out of 800+ freinds only one was asked and they live around the country.
so i'd like someone to tell me how obama managed to get sandy to hit the coast of the atlantic states just as the campaign was winding down. there's some monkey business going on here........
<snark off>
Not only does Chris Christie agree, in the basically blue New Jersey, but so does Little Bobby McD, in purplish Virginia. Not likely to change anyone's vote, but there's a lot of head scratching among Republicans (and Dems, too).
Perhaps anti Obama fatigue has been met , agreed on , and passed .
Other than that the feverish anti colonialism that is coming out subterraneanly , from the really out there , far far left wing , white house is rilly sumpin , eh ?
Sandy didn't lose it for Willard; Willard did Willard in, and O has a better set of policies. There is no boogey man here. Willard lost me at Seamus, 6 years ago.
They can spend all the money on idiot ads they want, all of which don't equal one minute of Obama being President as he tours New Jersey with Christie today, making decisions about helping people and having that as the lead story in all the news.
Romney can run the trucks full of "donations" around to the back door to unload an recycle them all he wants. He's "whistling past the graveyard."
In addition to Fiorini and Meg Whitman on the Big Bucks Loser list, we can now add Romney.
Only once all the votes are counted -- GOTV -- make your vote count in every election - but especially in this one!
Obama is probably polling at about 100% approval in NY,NJ and DE
That's all well and good, but he was going to win those states anyway. Hopefully people in those states will persuade the blue hairs here in Florida, hurricane capital of the U.S., that Obama is the man for the job when disaster strikes and that Romney's plan for relief at the federal level is no plan at all.
Nate Silver on Charlie Rose last night emphasized the importance of looking at all polls - and that, historically, this late in any election, results don't swing as wildly as some polls currently indicate they might be. He also pointed out the benefit of consistent polling showing one candidate or the other at or above 50% - that even were the other candidate to get every single undecided vote out there, they still wouldn't get over 50% of the votes.
Looking at current developments in MA, one truly must chuckle - Brown has tried from the start to avoid debates with Warren. One can speculate he does not want his relative ignorance and lack of any factual basis for his campaign rhetoric to be too obvious to voters - but refusing to debate when Boston was not in immediate danger of Sandy and refusing to reschedule the debate when there is still plenty of time to plan another makes his reluctance to face Warren in a controlled arena obvious anyway. Guess it sucks to be him...
A Jayne, the state polls are the only important polls at this point and they show Obama winning most of the battleground states. Silver has him winning 299 electorial votes. That is probably low. I am really worried about the Senate. Akin seems to be closing on McCaskill. That is scary.
It's truly hard to tell what the "good folks" of Sho-Me-MO will do. When I lived there, I often heard it called the "buckle of the bible belt." Living away from there now, I hear other people use the same phrase about their (different) locations, so maybe the belt has more than one buckle... I keep sending strong, positive thoughts to Claire's campaign.
Amongst the maybe z you might consider , since I am still receiving
Indian heritage and anti little guy pro big insurance literature
From the polished to a shine increasingly classy
One a and a two a note dexterity belligerence is brilliance
From the speak ever so loudly and carry a grudge campaign
Still juvenile after all these years
Catch my full commitment in Esquire
The "You are so lucky to have me"
Scott Brown ...
Scott's been hanging with the kings and queens.......
Christie wants Obama to win so he doesn't have to run in a primary against an incumbent Republican (Mitt) in 2016.
True enough—but Christie is also running for re-election as Governor of New Jersey in 2013. That gives him much the same incentive as Obama has to look competent, cooperative, and successful in their respective responses to Sandy. Not to mention that Obama is currently leading in New Jersey by more than eleven points....
Performance counts and President Obama proves by his actions that we elected the right man in 2008. Romney is soap on a rope.
Please see e.j. montini's column in the Arizona Republic (Monday, Oct 29) on Senators McCain's and Kyl's responses (denials) about endorsing Senate candidate Carmona for Surgeon General under Bush and now stating that the Carmona quotes "are not credible" even though they're taken directly from the public record.
Didn't Kyl get caught in a monster lie this year?????
It wasn't meant as a factual statement!!
And now for something different.
Perhaps in may not seem pertinent, but what about the House races? You know, the people who we need to cast votes to do some of these nice things we believe in?
For example, there is drama out there. Like when the conservative Gannett paper the Desert Sun in the red district of California's Coachella Valley abandons their former support for the incumbent and endorses the Hispanic democratic challenger. They take pains to state their distance from Pelosi but fault the incumbent for the congressional logjam:
California race CA36 that RealClear designated leans republican is trending to the Dem challenger, Dr. Raul Ruiz. The latest PPP shows him 1 point ahead, and that is a steady shift from the spring when he was double digits behind. PPP leans dem, but this indicates how close this race will be in a traditionally red district. The Ruiz campaign sent out email indicating their internal polling is showing they are leading by 6.
Internal polls cited in fund raising letters are naturally accompanied by some skepticism, but the story out at the grass roots is that thoughtful local papers have examined the performance of GOP incumbents and are deciding to reverse their prior support of them.
The House races are critical, as are local races -- many of the teapots get their start in local, county, and state positions.
Good for Gannett and any/all other normal Repubs, whose party has been taken over by extremist control freaks, for refusing to buckle under to the demands of the "precious few" with the big bucks!
Good for the "Desert Sun". Sadly, the other paper in our area, the "Riverside Press Enterprise" has never endorsed or even said anything nice about any Democrat.
With regard to Scott Brown, I believe he is loathe to debate Elizabeth Warren due to the story the Boston Globe wrote recently about his advocacy at the behest of the New England Compounding Center, the pharmacy at the heart of the fungal meningitis epidemic: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/10/11/scott-brown-donates-raised-from-pharmacy-linked-meningitis-outbreak/lG1fj6SsH1ALjBUXHbfmsK/story.html
Brown said there was absolutely no connection between his signing the letter and his fund-raising from industry officials. "It's a tragedy, and for anyone to try and politicize it is just wrong," he said. "I've had hundreds and hundreds of fundraisers. There's absolutely no connection. That's the old spaghetti-on-the-wall-trick, see what sticks."
When asked whether his worrying over Elizabeth Warrens parental memoirs , which she absorbed growing up , as evidence of deceit in the Warren campaign or , heaven forbid , attempts to politicize what were the intimate family histories as deliberate deceptions either by Warren for profit , or by her parents as evidence they were isolated anti colonial far far left radicals with Islamic romances interwoven with Cherokee necklaces on beads .
Confirmation is being delayed by a volume control problem over at World Headquarters for Scott Brown sweet heart of the rodeo , ayup .
Various gambling sites in Europe show A Romney wager right now paying 9-4, intrade is paying about 3-2, I'm not exactly sure on the rules of wagering with these companies, but wouldn't Steve Wynn or Donald Trump or Sheldon Adelson all very wealthy and all in the casino business for a significant part of their livings be willing to throw many millions down for "easy" money ? Just thinking out loud...