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New polls are out today. You can stick a fork in Romney; he’s done. And he hasn’t even had the opportunity to screw up in a debate yet; which he undoubtedly will.
Six weeks before the election, even Rasmussen, with their notoriously Republican-biased polling, can’t get Romney over 46% in either Ohio or Florida. A new Marist poll, which is historically much more accurate, puts Obama at 50% in Ohio and 49% in Florida. Want links? OK, here’s a link:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Historically, no Republican has ever won without Ohio. Romney won’t win Ohio. The Republican Senate candidate, child-like-looking Josh Mandel, is trailing Senator Hangover(er-Sherrod Brown) by 8 points. No help there. The Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich, is lying as low as he possibly can. Convention speeches don’t count. When Romney or Ryan shows up in Ohio, Kasich is nowhere to be seen. There’s a reason for that: whatever Kasich is, he’s not stupid.
And the University of New Hampshire came out with a poll with Obama up by five in the only New England state Romney had a prayer in. Even the Wall Street Journal has Obama at 49% in Florida, with Romney several points behind. As I said before, Romney lost any chance at Florida when he picked “Let’s privatize Social Security and Medicare” Paul Ryan as his VP.
Worse for Romney, Rasmussen has him with only a 48-45 advantage in Missouri. Obama doesn’t need Missouri, but he might just get it; perhaps because of the “legitimately raped women don’t get pregnant” GOP Senate candidate. If Romney really flubs the debates, as he probably will, Missouri may turn blue on the M$M maps. Well, maybe. It IS Missouri, after all. I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter.
Here it is for those of you who keep track of these things: Ohio Barbarian says Obama will get at LEAST 288 electoral votes, probably more. He only needs 270. In fact, I think he’ll get 332(throw in Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia). Missouri and North Carolina are possible, but not necessary.
There you go. We’ll see in November if this cynic sees things as they are, instead of how they should be.
Long live the Empire!
And I’m STILL voting for Stewart Alexander.
51 Comments
We’ve been at the 332/206 map for months now. The media want to paint this as a horserace, so they broaden the criteria for a swing state until there are enough (8ish) to provide a path for Romney, but it’s mostly spin.
It’s way past time for him to catch fire if he is going to. 53 days until the election, much less than that until early voting starts. If he were on a trajectory to a victory he would be locking up about a state per week, but we see no movement.
We’re seeing 5 point spreads between RV and LV instead of a more typical 2, so intentionally or otherwise some voter suppression is being accounted for.
So it looks like another four years for the imperialist corporatist pretending to be a Democrat. Hooray?
No hooray from me. I’m a Socialist. No celebrations for the inevitable Fascist victory here.
You’re right, though, about the polling margin of error spreads. Well, since a federal judge just decreed that there can be early voting in Ohio the weekend before the election, so that black churches can bus their congregations to the polls on Sunday after church, that’s even more bad news for Romney.
Though for the life of me I can’t think of one good reason why African-Americans would want to support this tool of the masters.
I can’t believe it. The republicans have found a candidate that is John McCain, Sara Palin, John Kerry and GW Bush all rolled into one. With a dash of Nixon on the side.
Hey! They wanted to lose.
And stop insulting Nixon. I used to love to hate Tricky Dick, and it was a lot of fun, but compared to either Obama or Romney he is the way, the truth, and the life.
I think I’ll go throw up now.
Well then I hope this news causes Ds to stay home and not support their fascist, and Rs to rush to vote to support their fascist.
Obama is by far the most effective evil … to date.
If O wins, SS and Medicare will be gutted. Along with any resemblance of the meager social programs we have now.
Wars will continue forever.
Indefinite detention and drone killings will expand.
Him and Arne will continue to gut teachers.
Him and all his corporate buddies will finish putting the 99 into servitude.
Now of course Romeny, the fascist he is (him an O are the same here as well as the points listed above, no difference), will also try to do the same. But at least with Romney, there will be resistance.
With O, the Ds will clap louder and cheer him onto to gutting SS/Medicare and the 99.
OB–
I think you’re probably spot on.
Worse than that, I’m almost convinced that this entire “event” is Kabuki. Don’t know which depresses me the most.
It’s just too convenient that George Will, Bill Kristol, etc., etc., have long ago thrown Romney under the bus. They may be right-wing extremists, but they’re not stupid.
“O” will be able to totally eviscerate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid with the blessings of the mostly low information voters, that make up much of the Democratic Party, today. Romney, with all his wealth, could care less if he’s elected, since his opponent will gladly carry out the wishes of the one percent, of which he is one.
Unless, the Middle East destabilizes to the point, that a solid case can be made that the Obama Administration’s policies have created all the havoc there.
Blue
Oh, recommended.
“B”
Oh, I agree. The PTB love Obama, so they want him in for another 4 years. It would take something, really, really major to give Romney a snowball’s chance in a hot hell.
I don’t think that will happen.
Heh, if Romney had any charisma, he’d still be a contender, in spite of his apparent lack of political horse-sense.
Forget about us niche left voters for a second and think about the voters who will determine the outcome of the election. Voters who, by and large, will base their vote on what they see on TV.
Obama may be just as big a liar as Romney, he may be just as disinterested in solving the problems of the average citizen, but that is not what he projects. He comes across as a likeable, compentent guy, who just needs more time. He also has the ability to speak in a way that make it easy for people to hear what they want to hear.
Romney, on the other hand, is like a fish out of water when it comes to those kind of political skills. He’s the bizarro doppelgänger opposite of a Bill Clinton. People see him and they neither like him nor trust him.
This discrepancy between Romney and Obama is so great that it looks like “It’s the economy, stupid” may have lost its steam this time around.
The sooner The Collapse the better, as far as I’m concerned. I have no stocks, no bonds, no retirement, no IRA, no real property, and no credit. No skin in the corporatist game.
I don’t live in Spain, either.
I have very little to lose. Many think that makes me a loser.
They can think that all they wish. Can’t stop ‘em, anyway. But they have a lot more to lose than I do. The Collapse gives people like me a chance.
And we are legion.
Silly capitalists. Their greed gets them every time.
I don’t think Obama will pick up Virginia. Most of the people I seem to run into are tired of him. They may not be fond of Romney but they genuinely seem to dislike Obama.
I recommended the thread. However, I don’t care which of Obama or Romney wins. In fact, as far as people who are really on the left are concerned, Obama may well be the more dangerous for the nation, both in the short term and in the long run.
So, poll away, boiling frogs, poll away.
There’s no doubt about it, we are fu@ked. To what extent remains to be seen. The whole planet could be completely fu@ed. I know that its taboo to say, but there’s nothing to be done. Of course positive action that gets one out of himself is preferable to sitting around depressed. Perhaps if I became a fascist I’d enjoy myself more. If I could only (like most of our politicians) delude myself into thinking that being a fascist is in some way positive.
Rec’d
Saying that Rmoney will be better for the country than Obama because “there will at least be resistance” is absurd. Bush enjoyed across the board Republican partisan support but was unable to privatize social security. Yes, there are many partisan Democrats who will cheer Obama on if he tries to do the same thing but there will be just as many, if not more who will oppose him. That, coupled with reflexive and ubiquitous Republican opposition will prevent him doing it as effectively as the Bush plan was stopped before it got off the ground. Just what do you think Rmoney and Ryan stand for? Puppies and strong social programs?
Yeah, the avalanche of American collapse is really picking up steam now. The crowd sees the wires in the Punch and Judy show, though I wonder where they still find all those screamin’ idjits at the campaign fooferaws.
I think the CU squad is using 2012 as a fine-tuning dry run. Their cash is truly bottomless, and has a gravitational force all its own.
The despair a lot of us evince here is likely to be more widespread come 2016, with angry upwellings starting to become more and more common as food and fuel prices become an even greater shock, and more and more areas of the US are ravaged by wildly unstable weather, with aid and rescue becoming less and less effective. We’re still waiting for FEMA money a year after Tropical Storm Irene, for example.
Look for which amoral ambitious sychophantic Dem (tautology, sure) is currying favor with the PTB a la Obomba in 2004 to emerge as the standard bearer come 2016. The retread DLC types won’t hunt–too bald-facedly corrupt and boring. Dems need fresh-faced apparatchiks to continue their phony inclusive branding.
On the Repuke side? More second string Shitler Youth like Ryan, and swinish mental midgets like Cristie, with the Bush brand in the wings to be rehabbed by Rove.
I don’t see anyone anywhere beating swords into plowshares and capturing the zeitgeist that way. The MICC applecart has enshrined itself as too omnipresent to discard, though it’s literally killing the US. Cancer analogy is apt.
That’s the importance of getting out the message to vote for a third party candidate or don’t vote at all: deny both candidates the 270 needed and see what happens. Fewer votes for either will show the public’s lack of confidence. I want the world to know that U.S. citizens are not behind the leadership.
There’s no reason voters should send the message that they have faith in Obama. Lesser evilism be damned. The only message Obama will take from a victory is that he has a mandate to continue on with his agenda, which is setting the Middle East aflame, destroying the earth, and impoverishing those who are not part of the 1%.
Why is it so hard to get people off the Obama bandwagon? They aren’t doing themselves, the country, or the world any favors when they act like sheep and believe the DNC-approved “lesser evil” political marketing. Like the “public option,” it’s a meaningless marketing tool.
I agree with you about voting third party. Unfortunately, not enough people are going to do that this year to make any difference. Why? They’ve been told all their lives that there are two and only two parties that matter, that it is somehow a sin to “throw away” their votes to someone who can’t win, and because most of them follow the true national religion of marketplace worship.
Some Americans have been aware of this for a long time–where do you think the phrase “Almighty Dollar” comes from?
I disagree with you about not voting. All that does is send a message that you don’t care because you are satisfied with the situation.
“… he is the way, the truth, and the life.”
LOL. It is truly disturbing that if Nixon were in this race, he would be the liberal. Don’t forget he created the EPA and OSHA. Neither of the guys running would do that.
I agree, I think it is IMPORTANT to vote for SOME third-party candidate, stop looking like we think these guys are OK.
Not throw up….involuntary protein spill.
“I don’t live in Spain, either.”
Best line you wrote, lol!
Rec’d.
Ack! I’d forgotten to mention some commentary on Michael Lewis’s new book on OBomba. Sadly it’s puff beyond puff. He’s in a video piece at Bloomberg, too, honking on about O’s utter indifference to money. This from Emma Brockes at the Guardian has Greenwald’s piece linked.
Sadly, Lewis wrote some great books, like ‘The Big Short’, a few others…and now this pap.
Maybe you missed it, OH, but Jill Stein is already polling at 2%, six weeks before the election – that equals Nader’s TOTAL in 2000.
It’s never too late to0 for this to catch fire, and thanks for all you’re doing to help that happen.
Recommended, liked, tweeted.
Dear Ohio Barbarian, thank you for this post. But what is with the negativity? Is it just so you can say ‘see, I told you so’ after the fact? Third party voting, somebody on another thread said, is up to 2% in the polls. That may seem like nothing but it’s a heckava lot better than third parties have done in the past, and it will rise.
Not to mention, the polls are skewed anyway. Anyone who is in debt, and there are plenty, is not – I can tell you – being polled. How many folks are in debt these days? A huge number. Will they vote? Yes, I think they will. The only option for these people, who do want things to improve, is to vote third party. Not only is Romney carrion; Obama is a rotten fish.
Please be more encouraging about third party prospects. All it takes is a tick in the right box, and if there’s some problem with swimming against the stream, my goodness, salmon do that all the time.
We need to get the message out that there is an alternative to the duopoly and we need to do it here because people are looking for alternatives, and they will find us.
I am not hiding my vote. I will vote for Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala. I won’t vote for any Republican or any Democrat. Fini.
Oops, great minds think alike! :)
I meant if someone is going to vote for either Obama or Romney, don’t vote at all. I didn’t make myself clear. A vote for Romney or Obama is worse than not voting at all. A vote for either of them is telling the world that we support this government’s meddling, murder, and drones, just like the citizens of Israel who vote for Netanyahu are telling the world that they support his murderous policies.
Great point!
Spring Texan, I think it’s important, too. These guys are not okay, not by a long shot, and the fact that, as Anthony Noel pointed out, Jill Stein is polling at 2% makes us know that we have lots of good company as we’re “swimming upstream.”
Negativity? No, just the way it is…this year. Read my last line in the original post. I’m proudly voting for a candidate with whom I agree. I prefer Stewart Alexander to Jill Stein for a number of reasons, but I will not denigrate those who are voting for the Green this year. Hell, I voted for Nader in 1996 and 2000.
If leftist third party candidates get 2 to 3% of the popular vote this year, and even 1 to 2% in a few “battleground” states, I’ll be delighted at a positive development.
It is not my intention at all to denigrate third party options. We have to start somewhere.
Rec’d, of course.
Let’s be careful with that. This was registered voters, not likely voters. Also, I remember seeing that Nader was polling close to 4% this close to the election in 2000. Voter turnout for 3rd parties is absolutely abysmal so before we get to excited, we have to make sure that 2% a) makes it to the voting booth, and b) don’t get cold feet and pull at LOTE on us at the last minute.
Jill Stein has my vote for sure. I want her to be carried to victory by defections from Obama and Romney and non-voters showing up to the polls. If that doesn’t happen, I hope that Obama wins so that the Dems won’t be able to avoid blame for their failures by hiding behind the GOP.
Exactomundo.
I also believe that Obama is the more effective evil. I also believe that if Romney were president, Democrats, unions, and so-called progressive organizations would put a lot more effort into resisting him, unlike the free pass they have bestowed upon Obama.
Not that it really matters to me. I ain’t voting Dem or Repub. I’m one of those third-party “Naderites” who is supposedly going to unleash some weird analog of the Third Reich upon us all.
I’ve got news for ‘em. That “Fourth Reich” is already here and it continues to gather steam and grow while lesser-evilism enthralls the land.
Certainly I would be happy to see Romney lose and not get to name anyone to the Supreme Court in the next four years… but the election is still a long way off… two weeks is an eternity in politics.
The Greens will pick up some votes, as will the Libertarians and the Constitution Party. Overall, third parties will do well this cycle.
If Obama has a heafty lead when voting starts it will free some Republicans to vote their conscience. Evangelicals will vote for Goode (or someone else if CP is not on their ballot) rather than a Mormon. Young Libertarians (they aren’t Republicans) will bolt and either vote Obama to spite Romney or will vote Johnson. If they are convinced it is close (which the media will make every effort to convey) they may hold their nose and vote Romney.
Stein will pull a couple of percent.
Johnson is polling 7% in NM and MT. One of the very few polls that included him here in CO was 4%. Conventional wisdom holds those numbers will fall apart by election day. I assert that this cycle, particularly if Obama has a substantial lead, those numbers will not only hold up but grow.
Yes, timesthree, I think you’re right. A lot of people vote on the basis of “likeability,” and Romney doesn’t have it. To use the sales metaphor, Romney hasn’t “closed the sale,” and Obama,I think, remains more or less a likeable and plausible figure to the masses.
I have been thinking about trying to get the Working Families Party going in California and it might be a good idea to try to take it nationwide.
Working Families Party – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Families_Party
Even if it does not have its own candidates it can bargain for supporting the individuals that most represent their views and vote as a block. It may have more bargaining power than individuals who have almost no bargaining power to bring politicians to their point of view, and it is more difficult to refuse large blocks of votes. People would still do their own thing, but there is more power.
From what I’ve heard most people tend to make up their minds several months ahead of time; this shift might be the relatively few remaining people who hadn’t and needed something, like the conventions, to solidify their choice.
Jill stein would have a chance if she had money behind her.
Many voters didn’t know who Obama was at the time he got the nomination in 2008, and the PR machine got going.
I agree, and I hope you’re right. Barack has problems that do not show on the polls. His colleagues don’t even like him.
x4!
So far it seems to be a case of Romney actively losing, as opposed to Obama actively winning. Am I missing something? (PS I am just a layperson here, observing)In other words, Mr. Romney will be able to state with confidence: ‘You didn’t win. I lost.’
Obama has had this won all along (270+ electoral votes) and has been hovering around the upper 40s in most categories in most polls most of the time. Is that “actively winning”, or “passively winning”, or what?
Romney, or any other Republican candidate, had to come in and take away existing support for Obama. He has failed to do so. Is that “actively losing” or “passively losing”?
There was no Republican candidate running that had a better chance than Romney. Romney had a shot by being Massachusetts Romney after the primary and peeling off some moderate Republican Obama voters, but he had to keep proving himself to be “severly conservative” to hold the base together.
Obama is a very good campaigner, his organization is top-notch, and his positions are (sad to say) right about at the sweet spot in American politics today. A generic Republican candidate can’t phone it in and expect to win. Demographics have eroded the Republican base to the point that they can only really win by running an Obama clone, but their base won’t allow it.
Romney is a particularly poor campaigner and his organization is staffed by half-wits. Without a compliant media and unlimited soft money he wouldn’t get anywhere. By continuing to pander to his base he is putting a low 40s ceiling on his support.
Absolutely! Third party candidates for the most part have done a good job of recognizing it is the democratic-republican Uniparty that is the real opponent. By not picking on each other we are making a good basis for future cooperation. In Georgia and Tennessee the Green Party and Constitution Party jointly sued in federal court for more ballot access. On November 7, 2012 if all the third party presidential candidates together get 2% I will happily declare victory and move on.
Having multiple parties is the rule in most democratic republics. The republicans and more recently the NDP in Canada show this is possible.
Good points. I am not a political analyst by any stretch of the imagination, so I should have limited the comment to basic observations about the campaign of late and nothing more. You say it best:
I agree.
“Demographics have eroded the Republican base to the point that they can only really win by running an Obama clone, but their base won’t allow it.”
I disagree with that a bit. If you look at Swarzenneger and Rick Snyder (Michigan), Republicans can win. In both of those cases, they had their own wealth and were able to largely bypass the Rep. party apparatus, though. Snyder is quite a bit different from his predecessor Jennifer Granholm. Snyder’s policies are a lot different from Granholm’s, very different.
But I agree with whoever wrote that his pick of Ryan was a mistake. Absolutely. I think there was a whiff of desperation in it, sort of like McCain’s pick of Palin, or Mondale’s pick of Geraldine Ferraro in ’84. I agree, though, that he would have a much better chance if he could have basically run as himself, a normal center-right traditional business-friendly conservative.
I should have qualified that as regarding Presidential races. Republicans are, and most likely will remain, competitive in races for local and regional offices. Some areas (like Vermont) are mostly out of reach, but the electoral college map is increasingly stacked against them.
“Certainly I would be happy to see Romney lose and not get to name anyone to the Supreme Court in the next four years… but the election is still a long way off… two weeks is an eternity in politics.”
1. Like Obama’s corporatist appointees have been so great? Oh, they differ on some social issues. Social issues are no longer important to people like me. Surely there are some Spaniards who feel the same way.
2. The election is not that far off. And two weeks is not an eternity in this election. If you lived here, you would probably know that because you’re not stupid.
3. Obama will destroy Romney in the debates, where Romney will come across as the spoiled rich buffoon with no charisma that he is. He already looks “unpresidential.” The debates will just magnify that problem. He’ll probably sink even lower in the polls afterwards.
I swear, this almost makes me want to vote for Romney out of spite. Just because I so badly want to see Obama humiliated. (Well, to be honest, I want to see him coughing up blood and begging me to stop kicking him, but that’s not going to happen.)
But Romney isn’t going to win, and he’s certainly not going to win California, so all that would do is dilute what little message my vote means, as one more in the Romney column would be read as one more “anti-Muslim” or “anti-spending” vote. So, I’ll stick to voting for the candidate I actually like, I guess. (Alexander.)
And that walking piece of shit will have another four years to destroy America, American ideals, and American lives. And then he’ll “pass the torch” to another pre-selected Goldman Sachs-owned acolyte…Andrew Cuomo, come on down? We haven’t had a Catholic president since Kennedy, after all…let’s all be inclusive together! Kumbaya, oh lord, Kumbaya…
(Yes, Margaret, we would be better off under Romney. We were better off under Bush, after all…)
I was careful. Likely voters.
http://www.jzanalytics.com/DATA/Crosstabs_US_Voters_091112.pdf
Alexander is taking up endorsement of the Unified Platform Tuesday. Pressure him at natsec_at_socialistparty-usa(dot)org
That reply was meant for OH @ 28.