Bloomberg News asked Americans “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” (or in this case, since Barack Obama took office in January 2009) and found that yes, more Americans say they are.
Forty-five percent of those surveyed in a Bloomberg National Poll say they are better off than at the beginning of 2009 compared with 36 percent who say they are worse off. In March, poll respondents split almost evenly on that question after having been decidedly negative since the aftermath of the worst recession in seven decades.
“I’m just tired of the doom and gloom,” says Jim Seeley, 52, a mortgage banker in Traverse City, Michigan, and a poll respondent, in a follow-up interview. “I think it’s looking better. People just need to stay positive.”
The poll, conducted June 15-18, contains more unlikely cheer for the president, with larger numbers of respondents saying their household income is higher than a year ago. While 44 percent say they are treading water, the better off outnumbered the worse off by 28 percent to 22 percent.
So yes, it really is the economy, stupid. And it explains why the President is doing pretty well with voters despite the Village’s best efforts to manufacture a horse race. Things are better than they were in 2009 and American voters understand that. Note that Mitt Romnoid 5000 is attacking by making the argument “Well the recovery would have been even better if…” rather than that Americans are doing worse than they were in 2009.
And yet even that argument is getting roundly thumped for two reasons: One, Romney keeps pushing things that directly got us into this mess: more deregulation, more tax cuts for the wealthy, less accountability of the financial sector. Two, as Krugthulhu and Chris Hayes Now With Charts explain, everything the GOP says we need to do in addition is being done currently in Europe, in particular Ireland, and Ireland is in awful shape.
In a conversation between New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Tuesday at the Take Back the American Dream conference in Washington, D.C., they agreed that the right’s economic policies are actually running a “natural experiment” in Ireland, and it’s not working out so well.
“Running this natural experiment on austerity has given us data that allows us to make a very grounded, empirical case about the results of this,” said Twilight of the Elites author Hayes. “And I also think if Europe continues to spiral downward, and you’ve even seen the president’s re-election campaign make that argument, that we don’t want that. And if we can persuasively tell Americans that what they’re doing there is actually what [House Speaker] John Boehner and [House Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell are selling, then that’s what we’ll have as the result.”
The Nobel prize-winning economist responded, “I actually have to say, as best we understand, the Romney prescription is fire lots of public employees and have low tax rates on corporations. Well, you’re describing Ireland, which has 14 percent unemployment and 30 percent youth unemployment.”
Charts! Beard-tentacles of sanity! America is figuring out that Mitt Romney doesn’t have anything new to offer. When you say “Hey, President Obama hasn’t fixed the problem” you have to have a plan that doesn’t consist of doubling down on literally everything that created the problem in the first place under Bush, and Americans are also noticing that while the recovery is pretty much laying there like Tunch on John’s patio, it does get up and move around once in a while as opposed to being completely dead and actively in the process of being made more dead, where it would be under Romney. And while Tunch may not be the most efficient processor of Tunch-type food, you still have to feed the guy, much like our recovery. Everybody loves Tunch, too!
Oh, and PS: Bloomberg now has POTUS up by 13 points(!) as a result.
Obama leads Romney 53 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, even as the public gives him low marks on handling the economy and the deficit, and six in 10 say the nation is headed down the wrong track, according to the poll conducted June 15- 18.
The survey shows Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has yet to repair the damage done to his image during the Republican primary. Thirty-nine percent of Americans view him favorably, about the same as when he announced his presidential candidacy last June, while 48 percent see him unfavorably — a 17-percentage point jump during a nomination fight dominated by attacks ads. A majority of likely voters, 55 percent, view him as more out of touch with average Americans compared with 36 percent who say the president is more out of touch.
Taken together, the results suggest an unsettled political environment for both Obama and Romney five months from the November election, with voters choosing for now to stick with a president they say is flawed rather than backing a challenger they regard as undefined and disconnected.
In short, Etch-A-Sketch is broken, Austerity for the Austerity god! Tax Cuts for the Tax Cut throne! Ireland is the new conservative Romney utopia (behold its rancid squalor) and Tunch greater than sign dead things. Vote Obama!
“I would rather choose to vote for someone else, but there’s no one but Obama,” says John Sunde, a 57-year-old Verizon central office technician from Brentwood, New York, when asked which candidate would get his vote. “He hasn’t fulfilled a lot of his campaign promises, but I would vote for him anyway because Romney would be extremely destructive for this country.”
Hey, we’ll take it. No, it’s not the most compelling argument in the world. Yes, it’s still an entirely valid one.
redshirt
Gasp! You mean the private sector is…. doing fine?
mk3872
Don’t get cocky. This Bloomberg poll is clearly an outlier.
There is NO WAY that Obama has a 13-point lead over Romney like this poll is indicating.
Lurking Canadian
Actually, to me those numbers look like they are predicting an epic curb stomp in November, but what do I know.
dmsilev
If you believe that Obama is up by 13 points, I have a business proposition for you. See, there’s this finance minister in Nigeria who needs some help moving money out of the country…
sb
I’m a follower of politics, make my students follow politics, I’m a daily reader of political blogs, newspapers, etc. and I’m embarrassed to say how surprised I am that the election is only five months away.
Keith
Thanks for the positive post!
Hill Dweller
@dmsilev: I doubt it has a 13 point bias for Obama. Even if it is biased toward Obama by 6 or 7 points, it’s still a decent lead.
After a few weeks of the media trying to convince the public(and themselves) Obama had THE WORST WEEK EVER!, any lead is good.
Villago Delenda Est
While I don’t think Obama has a 13 point lead, I also think it’s not a nail biter, as the dogshit of the MSM would like to have you believe to boost their ratings.
The more people are exposed to Rmoney, the more they will actively dislike him.
lamh35
@mk3872: @dmsilev: I don’t believe that Obama is 13% above Romney, mainly because I firmly believe that white voters lie to pollster when it comes to the Obama questions. But I do believe that Obama is above Romney more than the usual polls suggest. Double digit lead, not really, but I do believe that he is polling alot higher then we are being lead to believe, mainly because most of the polls, IMHO are underrepresenting minority voters and overestimating white independents and others. In fact, the village is discounting this poll by saying they oversampled minority voters. This poll had 67% white samples and I think that is about right overall. Other polls err on the heavy side of the white vote.
Litlebritdifrnt
Twitter is telling me POTUS has exerted executive privilege over the disputed fast and furious documents. Cue screams of “dictator” from the RWNJ’s in 3, 2….
Redshift
Back when Obama was having to argue “it would have been worse,” (without the stimulus, for example), I was worried. Even though it was true, it’s a hard case to make. As soon as the economy improved to the point where Romney had to argue (falsely, of course, because it’s Romney) “it would have been better,” I’ve been a lot morecomfortable.
dmsilev
@Litlebritdifrnt: Have they starting screaming “Impeach him!” yet? If not, I give it 10 minutes max.
lamh35
@Litlebritdifrnt:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/holder-asks-white-house-to-exert-executive-privilege
there will be outrage, but this is actually the 1 executive privelege invoked by Obama admin to Ronnie Reagan’s 24 I believe I read.
Redshift
Back when Obama was having to argue “things are bad, but they would have been worse,” (without the stimulus, for example), I was worried. Even though it was true, it’s a hard case to make. As soon as the economy improved to the point where Romney had to argue (falsely, of course, because it’s Romney) “things are okay, but they would have been better,” I’ve been a lot more comfortable.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: If, by some disaster, Romney is elected he will make Dubya look like Mr. Popularity within weeks of the inauguration. Mitt’s icy disdain for the American people combined with his wife’s sneering, consume-conspicuously-while-the-little-people-go-hungry ways will only appeal to a few thousand very rich people.
Bush was genuinely loved by the wingnut base, Mitt is not.
Culture of Truth
Bloomberg news also reporting that Obama has informed Issa he will invoke executive privilege on Fast & Furious docs.
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh35:
The difference here of course is that Ronaldus Magnus was a legitimate President, and Obama is an usurper. You can tell by the D behind his name. Same status as that Clinton fellow.
Culture of Truth
Bloomberg news also reporting that Obama has informed Issa he will invoke executive privilege on Fast & Furious docs.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
Asshole Issa will scream like a banshee, I’m sure.
Boo hoo hoo, Darrel, you vile fucking felon.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Villago Delenda Est: I really wasn’t quite believing this until I picked up my car from the mechanic yesterday.
No progressive he. Classic old-school independent who would have been a classic old-school Republican 30 years ago. And, I might point out, small business owner.
Given my line of work, he must assume I’m Republican. Didn’t stop him. Wound into an epic tirade about what a non-stop lying sack of crap Romney was, alternating between mocking him and cursing him and his fellow rich. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
There’s something out there that is not showing up in the polls, especially WRT independents. I think it’s called “rage”.
I suspect Romney’s going to get his ass stomped.
RP
This poll is also evidence that Carville and others are full of it. Their claim that Obama should only talk about the next four years and shouldn’t talk at all about how things have improved under his watch isn’t supported by the facts or most voters’ perceptions. And, more importantly, the campaign can walk and chew gum at the same time — there’s no reason Obama can’t say (a) things have gotten better, and (b) things aren’t good enough, and you need to elect me and not that other guy to improve the situation.
RP
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ve noticed that the perception of Romney has improved a little recently. And, ironically, what else has happened recently? The GOP primary fight ended, and Romney hasn’t been on TV as much. Or maybe that isn’t ironic.
FlipYrWhig
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Romney is just a pompous dick, and it’s obvious to everyone. It just depends upon how much you hate Obama, and if that’s enough to make you accept Romney as the device for getting rid of him. Because Romney is one of the least likeable human beings on the planet.
JD Rhoades
The Bloomberg Poll:
The good: It uses “likely voters”
The Bad: It only uses 734 of them.
I’m not breaking out the champagne yet. But I will have a beer.
Litlebritdifrnt
@lamh35:
According to twitter (again) it was 24 for all presidents since Regan, the break down I saw was 6 for W and 14 for Clinton.
SatanicPanic
@RP:
Just put it on the shelf and the librarian for the Library of Things Democratic Strategists are Wrong About will find space for it.
redshirt
So, obviously, Issa and the Gang are going to pump this up before the election in order to generate as much heat as possible about this “most corrupt Admin”.
Can someone quickly summarize what BS issue the Repukes are pretending to be outraged about?
Hill Dweller
@RP: If the public’s perception of Willard has improved, it is due almost entirely to the media’s shameless promotion and abdication of their journalistic duties.
Willard is an awful candidate that does stupid shit on a daily basis. If he received objective coverage, the election wouldn’t be close.
RP
@SatanicPanic: Will she? (find space I mean) That’s seems overly optimistic.
Cacti
@Redshift:
Same here. Romney’s argument has become: Even though we’ve had 27-straight months of job growth, I could make it better.
Then when asked how he would do that: Ummm, I’ll decide once I’m in office.
Romney’s a great big nothingburger, running on hubris and daddy issues.
lacp
@Villago Delenda Est: Maybe that’s the purpose of invoking executive privilege – to see if Issa will wet himself in public or have some other bizarre/amusing reaction. The President does seem to have a pretty good sense of humor, after all.
slightly_peeved
@RP:
Also, there’s still a few months to November. I can’t imagine that the Obama campaign is just planning on saying the same thing every day until the election. They’ll keep with general themes – fairness is a big one they’ve been hitting for a while – but there’s no reason they can’t shift to more of a focus on the future closer to the election.
RP
@Hill Dweller: Well, that too of course. But I do get the sense that perceptions of him improve a little when he’s not around. Seeing and hearing him makes his negatives go way up because he’s such unlikeable guy. But he’s ok in the abstract to a lot of voters. It will be interesting to see how people react to him and Obama towards the end of the summer when the campaign kicks into high gear.
catclub
As to the economy and Europe: Just remember that the Europeans own goal by not having effective stimulus there a)makes the US look better and b) keeps gas prices down here.
I think, from the way people talk, that (b) is much more important than (a).
Obama is a lucky man.
lamh35
@Litlebritdifrnt: thx for the correction
So Obama is still on the lowest end of the number, but I throughly expect repub groups to scream and a I also expect some progressive groups to scream over Obama’s ONE incident of provoking privelege.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Issa’s on the tube, whining like Republicans do when they have nothing and are trying to make something out of it. I had to change the channel, I can’t stand listening to conservatives whine incessantly.
I would rather listen to a baby cry all night, three nights in a row.
Cacti
@RP:
His default mode is rich prick, and he hasn’t figured out how to hide it even after 6 years of running for POTUS.
schrodinger's cat
Hey I clicked because I saw Tunch’s name in the title, eagerly hoping for a Tunch pic. Alas there was no Tunchster to be found. Also too, as far as I can see there is no way Tunch is related to anything else in this post.
Thou shalt not take Tunch’s name in vain.
SatanicPanic
@RP: Should be room once the Mark Penn/Pat Cadell wing opens up in the fall.
dr. bloor
No one should give a rat’s ass about national polls. The swing states are all that count.
SatanicPanic
@lamh35:
I can’t wait for Glenn Greenwald’s take
schrodinger's cat
Romney sucks as a politician, remember how long it took him to win the nomination when his opponents were either too weak or too crazy. Obama is a much stronger opponent it is not going to be easy for Mitt, no matter how much the beltway media tries to convince us otherwise.
Cacti
Has there been any polling of Hispanic voters since the POTUS announcement on the DREAM-ers?
I’m curious if Willard will be able to hold on to even his mid-20’s share of that vote.
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
Followed by our blog host’s front paging of it.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: You did not read carefully. Tunch related description of the economy as not quite dead, not quite immobile. Gigantic.
beltane
@RP: When Romney is out of the public eye he becomes the fairly popular “generic Republican”. When he is in the public eye, however, he reverts to being the thoroughly repellent rich-boy asshole he really is.
DCLaw1
Ditto to everyone saying Mitt does worse the more he is in the spotlight, and lately he has not been, whereas the economy (most centrally the poor May unemployment report) has been front and center. That dynamic, with neither of the candidates being all that prominent, focuses voters’ minds on the more general theme of the weakness of the economy, which inevitably hurts the incumbent.
I think early June will represent Obama’s low-water mark, barring the collapse of the Euro or some other significant economic shock. Obama’s numbers could very well go lower at isolated points in the campaign (especially immediately after the GOP convention) but I think he will mostly stay a notch or two above Romney. Then we have the two conventions, a week apart, GOP first, followed by the Dems. This duo of conventions will solidify the thematic narrative of the campaign and make the election much more about the candidates and their visions. Advantage: Obama.
I will be keeping an eye on GDP growth and the unemployment rate. I think June will be marginally better than May was, July a bit better than that. It will be a slog, but I don’t think we will have another outright ugly data set like we saw in early June. Could be wrong, of course.
cmorenc
@FlipYrWhig:
Um…Richard Nixon was a quantum leap less likeable and had a far more robotically stiff, chilly personality than even the Mittster, who at least manages to resemble a cheerful-faced robot.
bemused
I’d like to see how Issa would handle testifying at a hearing getting bullied outrageously like Holder is. I think he’d cry as he did when he got the shaft for a CA governorship run.
kth
I can understand, somewhat, why families pinched by inflation in the 1970s would vote Republican. But it makes no sense for an unemployed person to vote Republican, because Republicans believe that unemployed people are lazy, have no marketable skills, or both (that’s why they invariably oppose extensions to unemployment benefits).
Most people who have jobs are doing alright, despite Romney’s ongoing attempt to persuade them otherwise. And Republicans have literally nothing to say to people who don’t have jobs.
schrodinger's cat
@cmorenc: True but he was much smarter than the Mittbot and was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Mino
From Buzzfeed: We admit it, and so do other bloggers and editors: Nobody seems to want to read stories about Mitt Romney. For the candidate, a blessing or a curse?
For Mittens, he gets better with absence.
jwb
@lamh35: Those polled have no real reason to lie on the question of who they are planning to vote for. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to say you are voting for the other guy On the other hand I also don’t believe the lead is 13. But I have felt that Obama has held a decent lead for awhile, which is one reason I believe the political coverage has been so peculiar the past few weeks.
Culture of Truth
True but if Europe was actually recovering that would be better for our economy.
General Stuck
Ha ha. Issa just now declared nobody can stop him from sniffing his own turds, in spite of Obama’s obviously black presidenting, and will forge ahead to vote for a contempt by the sekret Black Panther guy, masquerading with Attorney Generalling for the Kenyan Usurper in the Oval Office. And will continue the witch hunt for the coming
circuselection, that voters are sure to love with unemployment at 8.2.In other news, of the snake eating its tail. House wingnuts are fixing to double down on the Hispanic hunting for removal, plan to sue, vote, and wank away any possibility of any chance to getting something like more than 3 percent of the Latino vote for Romney. Romney doesn’t stand a chance with these idiot lemmings in the congress, marching in unison, being pied pipered by Barack Obama, to march their stupid asses over the nearest electoral cliff.
They are dong their level best to give dems and Obama a landslide win in November.
Every focus group, or other word from average voters out there that could be truly swing voters, are expressing the brain washed meme of both sides are bad and the same. But they will vote for somebody. And all else being equal, that will most likely be the devil they know, and like, over the one they don’t for either of those things.
13percent lead? not likely, but not absurd to something slightly less, given the unrelenting devotion of the House republicans, and some senators, to slavishly cater solely to the tea party, and their every whim.
Good time to go galt
different-church-lady
The way I’m seeing it is the best Obama’s campaign has to work with “We’ve made things slightly better” and the best Romney’s campaign has is “Things aren’t getting better fast enough.”
Neither one of those hands is particularly strong.
Of course, anyone who was paying attention back in, say, 2006 knew that should the shit hit the fan it was going to take a long, long time to mop up the mess. But back in 2006 everyone was far too busy selling houses to each other to pay attention. Thus, Romney is bound to find some rubes for his pitch that we ought to be back to 5% unemployment already.
Cacti
@cmorenc:
Nixon had more political accumen in his pinky finger than Willard has in his entire robotic corpse.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@bemused: As a voter in his district, one of the most satisfying moments of my life was watching the state and national GOP shiv that car-stealing fucker in the back and let him bleed out in public with no help while simultaneously thanking him for his invaluable public service.
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.
DCLaw1
@cmorenc: Nixon was a unique case, in that Johnson, despite being the incumbent, withdrew from the running. Nixon also benefited from not having to be Mr. Charming, instead focusing on bringing “law and order” in a tumultuous era.
Kane
With the GOP primary complete, many were anticipating that now would be the time when Romney would attempt to etch-a-sketch his way towards the middle. But even with the nomination wrapped up, Romney appears unwilling or unable to do that.
bemused
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
I would have loved to have seen him in tears in front of the press but I don’t think there was video of that, was there?
Bullies are the biggest crybabies on the planet when they are in the hot seat.
jnfr
Mr. Jnfr and I were saying last night how very much we’re looking forward to the Obama-Romney debates in the fall.
DCLaw1
I don’t mean to blow sunshine, but with 2012 shaping up to be somewhat like 2004, keep in mind that Kerry actually led Bush for most of the weeks before the GOP convention. Then Bush opened a pretty significant and consistent lead.
As Charlie Cook recently wrote, Bush was able to do this by framing the election not as a referendum on the unpopular Iraq War, but a question of who can best protect Americans and wake the “War on Terror.” Similarly (again, Cook), Obama will attempt to pull this away from being a referendum on the economy, toward a question of who will most look out for the average American’s interests in a time of uncertainty.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/chart3way.html
StringonaStick
@Cacti:
And the need to glorify his church; never forget that. Being authoritarians to the core, Mormons crave social acceptance of their church and all it stands for.
Cacti
@DCLaw1:
And in that respect, Nixon also benefitted from his association with the Eisenhower years. A time when everything was perceived as having been happy and prosperous when looking through the rose-colored lenses of nostalgia.
beltane
@DCLaw1: Richard Nixon was also adept at tapping into “anti-elite” class resentment in ways Willard couldn’t even understand. I also don’t think there was anything robotic about Nixon’s stiffness. Being a socially awkward man at war with a world he felt was out to get him is not the same as being a robotic pretty boy.
If anything, Nixon’s strength as a politician derived from his seething rage at being the victim of the Mitt Romney’s of the world.
lacp
@Kane: The wingnuts caught on that he was getting ready to ditch them; they’re not going to let him off the hook. I think he’s screwed, but will provide some great entertainment value.
And future generations will be able to look back in pride at what a great country this is, where even a cyborg can seek the highest office in the land.
Cacti
@StringonaStick:
I have no doubt that Romney sees himself as the fulfillment of the White Horse Prophecy. I imagine multiple Mormon Apostles have told him as much.
wrb
Depends on where you are I guess. Here, here it is bad and getting worse. Recently:
The county is contemplating bankruptcy. They’ve laid off the planning staff & are down to on
sheriffs deputy covering thousands of square miles.
The credit union was taken over by the feds, who are aggressively foreclosing on local businesses and homeowners, along with closing branches and laying people.
There are pages of foreclosure notices in every paper.
Maybe 1/4th of the non-chain storefronts have gone vacant, a new one nearly every week.
The hospital has gone from a $5m profit to a $2m loss and is contemplating cutting the number of beds in half to 25 and limiting stays to 3 days which allow them to lay off a bunch of people and qualify for some limited rural hospital designation that would improve their Medicare receipts somehow.
The next hospital is 2 1/2- 3 hours away.
There are hungry dirty homeless people gathered at the entrance to every grocery store parking lot.
Obama doesn’t stand a chance in these parts.
redshirt
@wrb: And yet the Plutocrat does. Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Having said that, Ireland used a very Direct Foreign Investment and trade-driven model for growth. Thanks to Angela Merkel and her fear of people having to use wheelbarrows of euros to buy lederhosen, the prospect of export-led growth is pretty dismal. But the argument against Ireland as a model before the crash (it’s a tiny country highly dependent on trade) would apply after the crash.
However, even if Ireland’s exports pick up, the damage to their housing and construction sector is going to take a long time to recover. They had a decade of ridiculous run-ups in the price of real estate, and it’s gonna take a long time for that to unwind unless the ECB decides to print euros and crank up inflation.
dr. bloor
@jnfr: I’m not. Obama’s going to put on a performance that would make Lincoln envious while Mittless reprises Steve Martin’s portrayal of Rupert in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and the Village Idiots will inevitably conclude that the edge goes to Romney. Book it.
Culture of Truth
@DCLaw1: True, but back then Bush was an incumbent able to shit the conversation away from how crappy things were to how terrifyingly crappy things could be if the elitist flip-flopper got in the White House
Seanly
This reminds me that my wife & I need to register to vote. Moved to a new state 10 months ago & bought a house just a month ago. It’s Idaho which will be big time for Romney, but hopefully we can get some D’s in office down ticket.
I should also give $$$ to Obama. Maybe I could win dinner with him & make the case for pushing hard for more infrastructure funding. I like my new job & worry about losing it if we don’t get a new transportation funding bill soon…
Hill Dweller
@wrb: Those rocket scientists don’t understand that the federal government giving the states money to close their revenue gap would go a long way to solving or, at the very least, staving off the disastrous spiral. Instead, they’ll vote for Republicans, who are almost entirely responsible for their circumstances.
D. Mason
I live in a deep red part of the country and work with a handful of wingnuts. In a recent poll of 5 wingnuts I work with 3 couldn’t tell me who the Republican nominee is. Excitement for the GOP is looooow in my little slice of the Earth.
Chris
@kth:
I love how they manage to do this and simultaneously blame Obama for the economy. I mean, if the unemployed are all a bunch of lazy fucks, clearly the unemployment rate isn’t really a problem and it’s not Obama’s fault, so you should stop blaming it on him. On the other hand, if unemployment is his fault, then clearly the unemployed aren’t lazy, they’re just victims of Obammunist tyranny and you should probably lay off their backs.
mclaren
Despite the corrosive cynicism by so many of the front pagers here, the American people aren’t stupid. Sadistic and ignorant and consumed with hatred for joy and the human body, sure…but not dumb.
That’s why Obama will pull it out this November and get re-elected. No matter how many lies the Voice of the Dread Abomination (my new name for Mitt Romney) tells on highly-paid TV and radio spots, the blunt fact remains that Romney is offering Bush 43 Part Deux policies. And the voters damn well know that Bush 43 policies are what got us into this economic mess.
It’s as though a competing doctor poked his head in the ICU and shouted at the patient, “You’re not recovering fast enough, how about a nice injection of ebola virus?”
Not gonna fly.
Chyron HR
@wrb:
And what are “these parts”? Because the cold political calculus is that there are about 40 states where the economy and unemployement are completely irrelevant. South Carolina ain’t going blue and California ain’t going red, period.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@beltane: They are assuredly not comparable in every way. Nixon was motivated by a hatred of virtually everyone and everything that I’ve never seen in any other American leader. I don’t want to see a guy that angry in charge of this country again.
Kane
@dr. bloor: This. To this day, there are some who continue to claim that Palin rocked Biden in the debate. This despite the fact that she didn’t answer the questions.
NCSteve
Bah! This election is close! Close, I say! Close, close, close and getting closer! Tight as a tick! A cliff-hanging nail-biter! The President is in trouble and Romney’s on his game! Any poll that says otherwise can’t be true, even if it was conducted by one of the best pollsters in the business. And anyway, Rasmussen and Gallup, so there!
Close! Because if it’s not close, we’ve got nothing to talk about for the next four months. And anyway, Greg Sargent posts something every single day proving it’ll be a miracle if Obama wins and he’s a liberal, so it must be true! And liberals already hate Obama because of his policy of indiscriminately and deliberately attacking wedding parties with drones and they didn’t get a public option!
It must be close. Has to be.
Cacti
@NCSteve:
And Romney’s going to do it with sub-McCain level support from Hispanic and women voters, because Obama is a Kenyan Islamo-Marxist, argle bargle, and shut up! That’s why!
Culture of Truth
No, it’s Obama fault they are lazy because he has softened them with handouts.
The Left hurts the poor by not cutting off welfare – c’mon, this is Wingnut 101
wrb
@Chyron HR:
This state will go blue in the presidential. The county used to be blue but will go red.
Barring some big improvement in the economy, down-ticket races races look like they will will shift toward red.
Chris
@Kane:
That’s the beauty of it! She refused to play the liberal media’s game! An evil liberal will tell you it’s because she doesn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground and has not even the slightest interest in learning the difference, but that’s why they’re evil liberals.
JGabriel
@lamh35:
There wasn’t any evidence of a Bradley Effect in 2008, and I don’t there is one now — at least with respect to Obama.
I think there might be a Bradley Effect on polls about gay marriage.
Anyway, I suspect the Bloomberg poll has an exaggerated split between Obama and Rmoney, but probably because of question order or, possibly, because it’s a natural statistical outlier. That does happen sometimes. A Bradley Effect is possible, but it seems less likely than the other two explanations — only because, again, there’s no real history of it with respect to Obama.
.
cckids
@RP:
Yes. I’ve always thought that Carville takes WAY too much credit for his “its the economy, stupid” campaign. Yes, having a focus helped, but does he truly think that is the main reason that a great campaigner/politician like Clinton beat the dull George the First? Listening to Carville try to give advice to the Obama campaign is like hearing your grandpa tell you how he worked his way through college in the 40’s or something; maybe interesting, not really relevant today.
Davis X. Machina
@NCSteve:
NC Steve is right. I hope Bloomberg’s an outlier. I for one can’t imagine a greater disaster than an emboldened Obama, re-elected with a greater majority. It would delay the necessary national reversion to the McKinley era.
Painful, yes. As painful as being slapped in the face, or being thrown under the bus? I don’t think so. It would be a small price to pay to end the pretensions of our soi-disant ‘center-left’ ‘liberal’ Democrats. The real, progressive left — and I don’t think that they’ll be called ‘Democrats’ any more — that rises from the ashes will be a glorious thing indeed.
Oh, sure, there will be casualties, but come on, eyes on the prize, people.
DCLaw1
@Culture of Truth: “from how crappy things were to how terrifyingly crappy things could be if the elitist flip-flopper got in the White House.”
Were you intentionally depicting the obvious parallel tactic?
Culture of Truth
@DCLaw1: Moi ?
jl
Thank you Zandar for blowing the lid off the Cole/Kthug plot, which makes the Mayan Apocalypse look like an ice cream social.
Cole has one ginormous cat, Kthug has TWO ginormous cats. They are both miserable lefty bloggers. Coincidence? I think not.
Deep waters, indeed. I hope Zandar can keep up his courage and continue to reveal the depths of the monstrous scheme!
Cluttered Mind
@beltane: That’s exactly it. Nixon may have had a sour personality but he had something powerful going for him. He had the ability to connect with bitter white voters who felt like they were being screwed by the reforms of the previous few years, and they believed (and rightfully so) that Nixon would fight for them tooth and nail. Nixon came off as a bitter man full of resentment and that’s why his southern strategy worked so well. There were a lot of bitter men full of resentment in the south at that time, and in Nixon they saw a guy who was ready to do whatever he could to strike back at the people who they thought were their enemies. The fact that Nixon was an asshole was a feature, not a bug to those people.
Romney, on the other hand, is utterly incapable of making anyone believe that he cares about anyone other than the super rich. He’ll never be able to connect to people the way Nixon could. He won’t get a pass for being an asshole either, because if there’s anything most Americans hate, it’s a rich asshole with a massive sense of entitlement, and that’s Willard all over.
different-church-lady
@Davis X. Machina:
I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed…
chopper
asking people if they’re better off now than they were 4 years ago (or back in 1/09) is like asking your average titanic survivor ‘are you better off now than when the boat was halfway in the drink’. you’re likely to get a funny look.
OzoneR
@mk3872:
No, he definitely isn’t, but the crosstabs say the polling group was the same as the 2008 electorate, meaning Obama still wins if the electorate is more Republican than it was in 2008, and wins big if its the same.
Turgidson
@cmorenc:
There was something humanizing about the kind of insufferable dick Dick Nixon was, though. And he knew it and exploited it (ie silent majority). He was a symbol for all the people who thought they’d been picked on by elitists/hippies/blah people/do-gooder libruls, etc. And there was something to it. Nixon did have to scrap and claw for his place at the table, and that crafty lying SOB clawed his way all the way to the fucking presidency.
Romney can’t make that connection. He hasn’t gotten his fingernails dirty, so to speak, his whole goddamn life.
schrodinger's cat
Obama has a 13 pt lead over Romney and nobody believes the poll, that is wise but on the other hand why does every doom and gloom story about Obama get credence? On the front pg and in the comments, all day yesterday it was oh noes, we is doomed, hide under the bed or go to Brazil or Canada or wherever.
All I am saying is that there is no need to wallow in negativity all the time, it is not healthy and neither is it a true reflection of reality.
/end rant.
Misterpuff
This is great news for Willard Mitt Romney.
JenJen
The entire Morning Joe Zoo Crew had a sad as they were reading through this Bloomberg poll earlier today. The poll does seem like one helluvan outlier, but it was pretty hilarious listening to Scarborough, especially, try to dig into the crosstabs and tell us that not enough whites were sampled.
This is the same Joe who insisted during the primaries that all his GOP buddies tell him privately that no way is Romney getting elected, but who swiftly changed his tune to ROMNEY FOREVER the moment he essentially won the nomination.
Brachiator
@kth:
Unemployed people might vote for Romney because he is promising them jobs. Pretty simple.
What? This is not even remotely true. And if the Democrats try to run on something so easily refutable, they will end up losing in a landslide.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@JenJen:
OMG! Voter Fraud is so rampant, it’s affecting the early poll data!
WhyKnot241
Tunch analogy – sweet!
Patricia Kayden
@NCSteve: Hilarious! At least I hope you were joking.
I hope Obama wins, but unlike McInsane/Pailing (who weren’t going to win unless Americans totally lost their collective minds), Romneybot 2.0 actually has a good chance of winning. If the economy slips and unemployment goes up, Americans may just decide to take a chance on the boring White guy.
jefft452
@cmorenc: “Um…Richard Nixon was a quantum leap less likeable and had a far more robotically stiff, chilly personality than even the Mittster, who at least manages to resemble a cheerful-faced robot”
How many times did Nixon mock the quality of the cookies given to him by one of his supporters?
jefft452
@wrb: “…here it is bad and getting worse. …The county is contemplating bankruptcy. They’ve laid off … aggressively foreclosing on local businesses … foreclosure notices … storefronts have gone vacant … gone from a $5m profit to a $2m loss … homeless people gathered …”
“Obama doesn’t stand a chance in these parts”
Which is cause and which is effect?
Mnemosyne
@wrb:
And yet I’m sure the state and county Republicans who got you guys into that mess will be re-elected easily.