I’m sure this will cause some smiles in the Obama campaign:
The office of pollster Peter Hart, who helped do the survey, sends over the numbers among independents. While Romney’s positive numbers among them have been roughly stable, at just over 20 percent, here is the change among independents in the past few months:
In November, Romney was rated somewhat or very negatively by 22 percent of independents.
In December, Romney was rated somewhat or very negatively by 29 percent of independents.
And in the new poll, Romney was rated somewhat or very negatively by 42 percent of independents — 20 points higher than two months ago.
Also: In November, Romney was beating Obama 47-34 among those voters. Now the numbers are upside down: Obama is beating Romney 44-36.
We need some more GOP debates.
Baud
Wait till the voters actually get to know Romney.
BGinCHI
The more people know about
Romney,Gingrich,Santorum,Perry,Paul, Republican candidates, the more they dislike them.wrb
It gets to wearing thin
Lee
November might just end up being a bloodbath.
I really hope Obama has long enough coattails for the Dems to keep the Senate (a man can hope!).
Violet
I’m still sad Newt did so badly in the debate last night. I had hopes he might win FL and we’d get to watch the GOP establishment and Village punditocracy go absolutely apeshit.
There’s not another debate until February 22nd, if the race is even still going then.
Cricket
Who knew that independent voters were such soshalist class-warrior Alinskibots? Here I thought they were all rugged, free-thinking Tea Party Patriots™. I just won’t know how to think about this until I hear pundits from both sides bloviate.
/CNNed
Tone In DC
Gotta like the Springsteen lyric here.
Reality has a liberal bias!
What was that just now, the 20th debate? And they were looking like some Faux News reality show satire on The Daily Show titled “Assholes R Us” after the first one.
Mark S.
@Violet:
Really? I was getting used to 2-3 a week.
wasabi gasp
He made it worse.
Cat Lady
Romney should just offer to pay everyone to vote for him.
Calouste
Mitt Romney. To know him is to loathe him.
Brachiator
@Baud:
I heard someone on talk radio this morning say that Romney got a new debate coach. Next he needs to do an infomercial in the style of the old get rich hucksters. “Vote for me,” and you will get big houses, boats, and babes, and accounts in the Caymans, just like me!”
Mitt Bling.
jheartney
@Lee: November is a very long way off. It’s way too early to despair.
I really expect Obama to pull it out, though we’ll have to wad through multiple feet of muck from Citizens United-spawned attack ads.
I think the ads won’t have that much impact – look at how Romney got beat in Iowa by Man on Dog despite massively outspending him on ads. Perry had tons of ads and ended up nowhere. I think people barely notice the ads anymore.
gnomedad
The thread, she is pre-won. No fair.
Calouste
Reminds me by the way of some favorability polls last year, where the favorability for all possible Republican candidates was in the mid 30s (save for the Newt, who was in the high 20s), so that their unfavorability was basically only dependent on their name recognition.
Violet
@Mark S.:
Yep. There’s almost a month before the next debate. When they set up the Republican debates it’s clear they figured it would all be done by SC or FL at the latest, which is why there have been two debates a week and now there are none. The next scheduled one is in Arizona on February 22nd.
Newt needs the debates, and a much better performance than he had last night, to get back on the map. I don’t see why Romney would agree to an additional debate.
Suffern ACE
@Violet: Yeah. I remember him being a frequent guest on “News” shows to spout off about Libya and the “Ground Zero Mosque”. If they go after him for being “crazy” now, I’d like to know why they invited him on their shows then?
David Hunt
I think what we really need is to see Mitt’s previous tax returns. I’m fully convinced from looking at the 2010 return that he paid a bunch less in 2009. I’m think the American public looking at the returns of Romney all the other Thurston Howell III clones out there would do more for tax reform than, than…well just about anything.
Calouste
@Violet:
It’s more like there are debates in the week leading up to a primary, which makes sense, and there are no primaries for three or four weeks after Florida.
trollhattan
@Violet:
The mere thought of just Mittens and Ron Paul talking past one another in a “debate” lowers my IQ several points.
JGabriel
@Violet:
Don’t give up hope yet. Newt still has millions of advertising dollars to spend in Florida. He might just be able to smear Romney bad enough to pull it out for himself.
“It” being the primary. Not that other thing.
.
trollhattan
Also, too, file this under “Stuff you already knew.”
http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html
BGinCHI
@trollhattan: I figured your link would go to the Dept of Redundancy Dept.
geg6
This tracks pretty much the same as my own discussions with indies around here. They prefer Obama now that they’ve seen the Klown Kar roaring through the debates.
Suffern ACE
@JGabriel: Florida isn’t winner take all. Newt could lose Florida and still be close to Mittens in delegates.
Brachiator
OT A little comedy relief
What Playing in a Dog Park Looks Like from a Dog’s Point of View (Hint: Awesome)
Cat Lady
Buddy Roemer on Bill Maher: the debates now are between a 1%er and his lobbyist. Can we protest to get Roemer included in the next debate? Ron Paul’s kooky aw shucks cranky shtick is old, and Santorum wants to be VP. We need a real gadfly.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@trollhattan:
Ahem. I did point this out several threads ago:
https://balloon-juice.com/2012/01/27/post-deatbed-conversion/#comment-3010827
Admittedly, it bears repeating. I wonder when Sully is going to discuss this, rather than the Bell Curve?
Violet
@Calouste:
Not sure I agree as there were tons of debates prior to Iowa, and not just in the week before the caucus. Plus Iowa was a non-binding caucus, which is even less important than the binding caucus coming up in Nevada (Feb 4). And there are non-binding caucuses (caucii?) coming up in Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri before the next primaries in Arizona/Michigan on Feb 28th.
Any of those could be an excuse to have a debate, but the GOP powers figured they wouldn’t need them and didn’t bother to schedule anything.
The Bearded Blogger
Come on Newt!!! hang in there!!!
I’m praying to the spaghetti monster for a Newt/Ron alliance, or Newt/Ron bomb, if you will…
KG
@Suffern ACE: I thought Florida was winner take all. That’s what I’ve been hearing for a while. The flip side is they only have 50 delagates instead of 99 because they moved up their primary.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@The Bearded Blogger: or
We’re paying to close attention to get away with snark like that.
Amir Khalid
These debates seem to hinge on the Republican candidates’ pandering to extremism and ignorance, or on their scoring petty personal points against each other. This only makes them less and less presidential to people outside the party base. So winning the debates would seem a Pyrrhic victory. Was the Republican party even thinking of any of this, or did it genuinely believe that flaunting extreme ideas and ignorance was the way to winning with the wider electorate?
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
You can wait here in the sitting room or you can sit there in the waiting room.
JGabriel
@Suffern ACE:
Right, but we still want Newt to win because Newtmentum!
.
KG
@Amir Khalid: My guess is they didn’t think the pandering and personal bullshit would be as important as they have been.
Redshift
One of the things about the poll that makes me smile is that while it’s true that polls this far out don’t tell you much about the outcome, the polling shifts in conjunction with the debates and events like the tax return release give the Obama campaign a ton of information about what will hurt Romney. You couldn’t ask for better market research than this, and they’re getting most of it for free.
Mark S.
@Violet:
Newt will challenge Mitt to 25 Lincoln Douglas debates.
Cat Lady
@Redshift:
The White House always assumed it would be Romney they’d be running against – it’s how the Republicans roll. It’s not like they’re just waking up to the fact, but I’m sure it’s gratifying for them to see how it’s game planning out in front of their eyes.
Redshift
@Amir Khalid:
It used to be they could flaunt extreme ideas to local audiences that didn’t get much news coverage and then pivot toward the center after the primaries. Now nothing can be kept local, and while they may understand it, they’re still trapped by the expectations of their wingnut base.
Just another way that video recording and the Internet have made the world a better place!
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
And yet, I’m hearing people say that they are going to vote for Romney because they want a businesman president. And from a few I get a vibe that because Romney is rich, he’s going to make them rich. This was among some people who I showed Romney’s 2010 tax return. They were like “oh wow, he made all that income and still got a refund of a million bucks! How can I do that?”
BGinCHI
What if Newt crushes Mittens on Super Tuesday?
Romney isn’t going to do well in all those southern states, is he? Newt could win a shitload of delegates that day.
Will our resident Nate Silver please game this out.
Redshift
@Tone In DC:
25th, according to FiveThirtyEight. And only three states have voted (ignoring the fact that one doesn’t even count.)
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Brachiator: That was great!
Violet
@BGinCHI:
If Newt is pushed out of the race by then, he probably won’t win a lot of states. But the southerners don’t like or trust Mitt. I just don’t see him winning the south unless he had won SC, and everyone else had just quit.
Redshift
@BGinCHI: Newt has the Southern thing going for him, but balancing that, there’s the fact that he has no organization or surrogates to handle multiple states at the same time. We may be seeing the effects of that in Florida, which has so many widely separated population centers.
Suffern ACE
@Cat Lady: Yeah. I never got to really know Buddy. I only know what I’ve seen on TV and no one has done much digging so who knows what evil lurks therein. But it seems amazing that there would be liberals running after Paul (and I am guessing that there aren’t that many of those). I would rather they ran after Buddy.
BGinCHI
@Redshift: If Newt crushes Mitt in N FL, where the white redneck population holds sway, then I think you’re seeing what’s coming in the rest of the deep and almost-deep south. They ain’t gonna line up behind Romney. Am I the only one who thinks this? Newt won’t even need a ground game. Just super pac money and commercials that hint at richness and Mormonism.
Amir Khalid
@Redshift:
So it comes down to a candidate with no organizing ability vs. a candidate with no personality. And this November, the winner gets to face Obama, who has plenty of both.
The Bearded Blogger
@Redshift: Debates have the tenor, degree of class, periodicity and “knocked off the island” structure of a reality show…
MikeBoyScout
Who could evaluate Willard negatively?
The man made hundreds of millions of dollars shuffling financial documents around, found time to vote in both Republican and Democratic primaries, has been pro-choice and pro-life, created and then decried health care reform, and on and on.
Would seem to me he has readily agreed with everyone who has ever disagreed with him, and done so looking marvelous.
What’s not to like?
Martin
@BGinCHI:
Well, the 2008 Democratic race was neck and neck through Super Tuesday. Obama’s goal was to emerge from Super Tuesday no worse than tied. They figured they could take a lead from there out, when they could spend more time in each state and the ‘inevitability’ label had worn off. They deliberately skipped certain states in order to minimize their losses.
Their other gamble was that Hillary’s campaign was spending money at a rate expecting the race to be over on Super Tuesday – and that was true. She was pretty cash poor after Super Tuesday and that’s when Obama turned up the small donor fundraising to 11, and that’s when he started pulling out a real delegate and money lead. But up to that point, at least on delegates, it was anybody’s race.
Mittens is blowing through cash at a pretty frightful rate. It’s possible that if Newt can just hold on long enough, that he can bleed Romney dry enough that he can close that money gap some and keep that inevitability label from returning to Romney. It’s harder in the GOP because of how big money runs the game, the winner-take-all races (Dems don’t do that), and with the SuperPACS now (not sure Obama could have done what he did this cycle), and Gingrich isn’t the anti-establishment-but-still-appealing candidate like Obama was. The party liked Obama, they just didn’t think he could weather the rough seas. The GOP despises Newt, though. They’re not going to steadily bleed into his camp as Obama benefitted from. I think they’re going to fight Newt until it’s mathematically impossible not to.
So, Newt has some of the benefits that Obama did in 2008, and some disadvantages that Obama didn’t have to deal with. If Santorum bows out after Florida, Newt should be able to ride through Super Tuesday, though.
The Moar You Know
The goopers in my office are suicidal over the clusterfuck that is shaping up to be the 2012 election, and they’ve all bitterly resigned themselves to 4 more years of Obama. One of them snarled at me today: “I hope you’re happy.”
Yes. Yes I am.
BGinCHI
@Martin: Thanks Martin, that makes good sense. And I agree with what you’re saying. I suppose the super pac money is a big difference with 2008. Newt could use a few donors to make a big impact. This gives him a disproportionate influence: few donors and voters, but a close race with the front-runner. But that encapsulates the GOP in 2012 pretty well anyway.
Maude
@Amir Khalid:
And Obama is an adult, plus he’s sane.
The Moar You Know
@MikeBoyScout: From where I’m sitting, nothing. The fucker can’t even say “hello” without it sounding like a lie. There’s also something about him that makes me search for my wallet every time I see the bastard on video. Even his positives are negatives for the people who are supposedly in his party. He’s my dream GOP candidate come true.
KG
@BGinCHI: Here’s the list of Super Tuesday states:
Alaska
Georgia
Idaho
Massachusetts
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Vermont
Virginia
Newt isn’t on the ballot in Virginia (though it wouldn’t surprise me if the Not-Romney vote went to Paul as a protest vote). For reasons that aren’t clear, Newt can’t win all the delegates in Tennessee, either.
Figure Newt wins Georgia as a favored son. Romney is going to win Massachusetts and probably Vermont. That leaves Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Tennessee as the states in play. I’m not sure how the religion issue plays in those states, or the tax-dodging corporate raider angle plays.
But my gut tells me that the key date is going to be February 28, when Arizona and Michigan vote. If Romney can’t hold Michigan, he’s likely toast. I’m also very curious to see what happens in Arizona, the latest polling (as in the last two days) has it a dead heat in the desert.
Then again, the way the states break down, and the obvious deficiencies of all the candidates, I can see this thing going a long way past Super Tuesday… and if it makes it to California, I may need the help of the commentariat to determine how to vote.
El Cid
Unfortunately I thought Romney last night sounded better and more convincing than I’ve heard him at any point before. Maybe he’s found his businessman-patrician persona niche.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@The Moar You Know:
Maybe you should distribute a few fliers offering them retirement homes in a tax-free, low-government paradise with abundant guns and no liberals?
Somalia welcomes our new friends!
Benjamin Franklin
@El Cid:
In which case this roller-coaster, seeming to accelerate with time, has a good chance of jumping off the tracks, and killing a few hapless bystanders.
Just like Final Destiny.
The Moar You Know
@El Cid: I was wondering when someone would bring this up. He made Gingrich give him all his lunch money and then beat his ass for lulz anyway. One more “debate” like that for Newton and he will never see double digits again.
Benjamin Franklin
Via Digby;
Elizabeth Warren on Romney.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/elizabeth-warren-mitt-romney
amk
sooooo, any news on how that birther ‘hearing’ in GA is going ?
TooManyJens
@Benjamin Franklin: God damn, I need a cigarette after that.
El Cid
@The Moar You Know:
@Benjamin Franklin:
I should add, though, that I’m not a long-term or particularly attentive Romney-watcher. Maybe that’s his norm outside the recent clown car crash derby.
OzoneR
This only means its time for the media to go some Mitt fellating.
Brachiator
@Martin:
If Romney wins Florida, Newt is done. Finished. Kaput.
Florida is winner take all, so Newt’s consolation for a second place finish is little more than ashes. The next month’s races are caucuses, which gives less opportunity for Newt’s grandstanding. And there are no debates.
Everybody makes a big deal about Super Pac money, and this is reasonable. However, the other side of this is the fact that Newt is disorganized, and has little in the way of people on the ground. The money, the ads, and the debate appearances hides the fact that Newt just is not really ready for prime time with respect to a campaign organization.
If Mitt starts to pull ahead, look for Newt to make claims about how he was just helping to keep Romney focused on conservative principles.
Word on the street is that Mitt has a new debate coach. Romney knows how to use his money to great effect. Ah, yes,
Value of a debate coach? Priceless.
Groucho48
Have no fear, people. Newt isn’t in it to win it. He’s in it to make a buck, get lots of egoboo, fly around in chartered jets and get an opportunity to rant at will in front of lots of people. Heck, who WOULDN’T love to do that?
As long as the money is coming in, Newt will slice a bit off the top and use the rest of it to be Newt.
What we all need to be doing is writing all the media and political groups demanding more debates in the next few weeks. Why is the media trying to silence the plucky pleurodelinae?
Roger Moore
@Martin:
It’s worth pointing out that he didn’t do that randomly, either. His team understood the rules very well, and chose which states to ignore and which ones to concentrate on based on their different rules for handing out delegates. He tended to concentrate on states that gave out extra delegates to the top finisher and ignored states that were strictly proportional, so he was able to keep up in delegates even though he didn’t keep up in absolute votes.
Jay C
@Amir Khalid:
While I’m not sure exactly who is manipulating the actual levers of power in the GOP nowadays, it’s likely that the way the actual campaign has developed to this point in time must be giving them a severe case of The Willies. It’s a given that the average GOP “base” voter lives (on a political level) in an epistemically-closed Fox News Universe of extremism and ignorance served up to them as the “normal” POV; but I think the 2012 primary Klown Kar has shaken the Republican power-structure, whoever they may be. Their main candidates have spent months pandering to what can only be described as the fringe, and they have the prospect of the eventual nominee having to go into the fall’s “serious” campaign: 1) having alienated one segment of the GOP core electorate or another; 2) having to either embrace unpopular and/or extremist policies or openly disavow them; 3) campaign against Barack Obama in full-bore Candidate Mode and 4) provide an attractive alternative to #3.
It’s a tall order, and even the dreadful Republican-normative biases of the media may not be able to pull it out for them this year: myself, I think the main action is going to be in House and Senate races: different dynamics are in play vs. the national stage…
trollhattan
In which one is jettisoned by Gingrich and earns hate mail for the pleasure. No, not a wife. This time.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canadian-climate-scientist-finds-fame-hate-mail-in-us/article2297802/
Calouste
@Cat Lady:
I just realized that the implication of “it’s your turn now” approach of the Republicans is that Frothy will be their candidate in 2016. Which in itself will pretty much ensure an establishment coup in favor of Bush III.
trollhattan
@Calouste:
I can’t believe it’s so (but, “Oh please, oh please…” surely applies here). Frothy was never an “establishment” candidate and if he hadn’t peaked when everybody else was tanking he’d already be a footnote. I also think the party machers understand how profoundly stupid the man is.
Ah’m bettin’ they go back to the tried-and-true Southern governor candidate strategy next round.
dmsilev
@Calouste: That’s an excellent point. Of the remaining NotRomneys, and ignoring the fact that they’re all completely nuts in their own special ways, Newt and Ron are too old to be plausible next-in-lines (they’ll be 73 and 80 respectively in 2016). That leaves Frothy, or perhaps Rick Perry.
Heh.
chopper
@Benjamin Franklin:
it sounds like she says ‘rich fucks’ instead of ‘rich folks’. which is awesome.
Davis X. Machina
@The Moar You Know
Check back with them in six months.
McCain wasn’t really trusted by his own party’s most enthusiastic supporters, given his RHINO-ish deviance in years past. He ran an awful campaign (green-screen, campaign ‘suspension’, anyone?), during a financial meltdown unparalleled in my lifetime, and during an unpopular war. His VP pick was a disaster.
He still got 60 million popular votes. 70 million won it.
Romney won’t do any worse. The economy’s on his side. He’s no worse a campaigner than McCain, and if his debate turnaround is anything to go by, he’s prepared to do what it takes to improve. It’s hard to see how he could even make a worse VP pick. And in a post-Citizens United world, he’ll have enough money.
Obama’s novelty factor has worn off, an annualized 5% GDP spike doesn’t seem in the cards, the people who think they’re his base hate him, and understand the media. (The people who are his base, don’t — but they’re invisible to the media.) And every morning he still wakes up a black man.
This will be an exceedingly close election
Fearguth
“We need some more GOP debates.” That’s what Dave Weigel is saying, too, but for the wrong reasons.
dlnelson
@BGinCHI: Newt will have to get a food tester, the establishment will not go down easily.
dogwood
@trollhattan:
The only Southerner governor the Republicans have run in my lifetime, and I’m 58, is George W. Republicans don’t seem to put Southerners on their ticket very often, as either president or vp. Democrats are the ones who have been overly obsessed with the Southern thing and the need to have a southerner in one of the spots. Republicans just do the Southern strategy.
Cat Lady
@dmsilev:
Which means that frothy Rih and moron Rick will have to be challenged from the right, because by then teatard historical revisionism will have determined that the losing 2012 candidates were soshulists and impure. Not enough popcorn in the world for that.
dogwood
@Davis X. Machina:
I’m not sure this point is relevant. Of course Republicans will rally around Romney. The difference between Romney and McCain is that non-Republicans really liked McCain. He went into the general with a lot of good will from the broader public. I don’t see the non-Republican electorate reacting to Romney in the same way.
Davis X. Machina
@dogwood: Swapping one block for the other.
dogwood
@Davis X. Machina:
Sorry, I’m too dense to get what you mean.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Cat Lady:
No shit, my vote is for sale Mitt! Give me a cool million and I’ll be sure to remember to pull the lever for you this fall!
Channeling Jon Lovitz’s Tommy Flanagan: Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Anya
@TooManyJens: President Obama’s attorney sent a letter to Georgia’s Secretary of State, basically saying, “you wingnut asshole, do your job, and quit embarrassing your state.” Here’s the letter. And here’s the reply from Georgia’s wingnut Secretary of State.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Brachiator: Well, the last time we had an “MBA President” – George W Bush – things didn’t work out too well, did it?
The Democratic message machine must go on the offensive by saying over and over again, “the economy might not be fully recovered right now, BUT, do you want to go back to the same people who broke it in the first place? If so, vote Republican”.
Mike in NC
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Sadly, that message resonates with many low information voters. But on the other hand, every time Mitt Romney runs his mouth his negatives go up a fraction of a percentage point.
Mnemosyne
@dogwood:
Yep. McCain was the mavericky maverick who was above all of those silly partisan politics. That wasn’t the reality, but it certainly was his image pre-2008, so he had a lot of support from independents. Romney, not so much.
Anya
@Anya: this was meant as a reply to @amk:
flukebucket
@KG:
I have been told that Arizona is the South Carolina of the West so I am just going to cede it to Newt right now. And Georgia goes without saying.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: Good fucking god.
Tom Fitz
@41
“And yet, I’m hearing people say that they are going to vote for Romney because they want a businesman president. And from a few I get a vibe that because Romney is rich, he’s going to make them rich. This was among some people who I showed Romney’s 2010 tax return. They were like “oh wow, he made all that income and still got a refund of a million bucks! How can I do that?” ”
Increase your witholding.
dww44
@dmsilev: If the GOP loses next November, thenext-in-lines will not be anyone currently vying for a spot on the ticket. Think Jeb Bush or Mario Rubio or Chris Christie. Someone who stayed out of the fray this time around.
fuckwit
True, Obama was widely quoted making jokes about running against Romney in 2012, years ago, like when HCA passed.
I remember the quote almost exactly. He was joking with staffers (RAAAAHHMM among them), and said “Now I HAVE to run for re-election. Otherwise, Mitt Romney will be sitting here in 4 years taking credit for all the work we’ve done.”
colby
@dogwood:
It’s a disaster for either party when they pick the most cliched part of their base to be their standard bearer- Republicans lose with shit-kicking good ol’ sons of the south*, Democrats lose with wealthy, wonky New England Brahmins. Republicans just realize it a bit more.
(*-Bush being an exception…well, sort of. He didn’t win, he was raised in Connecticut, all the other things we’ve already said before about the man).
The problem is, it’s hard to see who the major figures in the party will be in 2016 outside of the south. All those midwest governors are going to be lucky to win re-election. The party is solid enough in the west, but mountain states they hold are too parochial for them to translate to the national level. There’s not really anyone in the northeast. So, hard to see who else they pick.