Tag Archives: Presidential Election

September 10, 2012 · 5:41 pm

The Bounce!

Now that both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions are over – there are two things have become increasingly clear as the national tracking polls roll out day after day.

Mitt got no significant bounce out of his convention.

President Obama got a very healthy bounce. As of today – Obama’s bounce is anywhere from 5 to 7 points depending upon the poll. Now, the polls all show Obama leading Romney by anywhere from 4 to 6 points – and Gallup has the President at 52%

It’s possible that Obama’s numbers will continue to rise as the weekly tracking polls no longer include any days after the RNC and include more days during and immediately after the Democrats’ very successful convention.

But while progressives like me celebrate Obama’s bounce, there are a couple of things we liberals should begin to focus on.

1. It’s all about GOTV – Get Out The Vote.

Obama’s leads in the Gallup, Ipsos, Rasmussen and CNN polls mean nothing if Obama voters don’t – or can’t — vote. We must avoid the kind of liberal apathy that allowed the Tea Party to win so many Congressional seats in the 2010 mid-term elections – and we must overcome voter suppression efforts in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, among others.

2. The down-ballot elections are vitally important. Democrats must keep their Senate majority — and we’ve got to reduce the GOP lead in the House.

Dear home state Ohioans! Re-elect Senator Sherrod Brown!

Hopefully, we can take over the House and make John Boehner a minority leader. Wouldn’t that be a joy?

Watch those Senate races in Massachusetts, Ohio, Missouri and Virginia!

But, for the moment, you have my permission to pause a moment and enjoy The Obama Bounce.

Boing!

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Filed under Politics

Tagged as bounce, Democrats, DNC, election 2012, Gallup Poll, GOP, Obama, polls, Presidential Election, RNC, Romney, Sherrod Brown, voter suppression

September 6, 2012 · 10:49 am

Democratic Convention Day Two: The Hug Heard ‘Round the Political World…

The GOP tried desperately to demonize Bill Clinton and hound him out of office, despite the fact that the Clinton administration eliminated the national debt and presided over the largest period of peacetime economic growth in our nation’s history. The GOP/Tea Party has also tried hard to demonize President Obama.

Last night, Bill Clinton came back to haunt and taunt the GOP — and make his eloquent, folksy, clear-cut case for President Obama’s re-election. Clinton’s speech was masterful, but perhaps the biggest moment came after The Big Dawg was done speaking.

Game on, Mitt!

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Tagged as Bill Clinton, bro hug, Democratic National Convention, Mitt Romney, President Obama, Presidential Election

August 19, 2012 · 1:18 am

Election 2012: The Stakes

With the Presidential Election less than 3 months away, the airwaves (especially in the “swing states”) are jammed with campaign ads and questionable, secretly funded Super Pac attacks. Until the party conventions are over and the debates begin, media coverage of the election will continue to focus on the horserace, breathlessly trumpeting every incremental rise and fall in the polls.

Before President Obama and his GOP challenger Mitt Romney – and their ticket mates Biden and Ryan — are finally able to square off face to face over the issues, the current phase of the election season is mostly about hot air, hot buttons, gaffes and guesswork.

Sometimes I think it would be better just to turn on AM sports radio until the debates get underway. News coverage of the recent NBA blockbuster trade that sent Dwight Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers exhibited more frank and clear-eyed analysis than you’ll hear on Meet The Press or from George Stephanopoulos and his roundtable of pompous political hacks.

Everybody’s got an opinion, no matter how ill informed, and opinions trump facts. Politicians make claims and accusations — and the media debates the effect of those assertions on a gullible public rather than doing the hard work of establishing what’s true and what’s total bullshit.

Covering the Obama and Romney campaigns, the mainstream media tends to adopt a “plague on both their houses” standard of false equivalency. The GOP openly and repeatedly questions the President’s U.S. citizenship, his Christianity, and his love of country, while blowing racist dog whistles that are heard loudly by the angry white low information voters in their base.

But when Vice President Joe Biden responds to Romney and Ryan’s self-confessed intention to “unshackle” the big Wall Street Banks — and (somewhat clumsily) turns their own metaphor around by saying, “They’re going to put y’all back in chains!” – Romney has the gall to say Obama is running a campaign of hate. And few of the self-satisfied, pampered and intellectually lazy fools that pass for our political pundit class point out Romney’s blatant hypocrisy.

It’s enough to make you want to kick in your television set, tear your car radio out, and toss your newspaper in the trash unread. Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz and Lawrence O’Donnell notwithstanding.

But as frustrated as we might get with this crass, corrupt and confounding electoral process (especially in a post Citizens United world) we must not forget that there’s truly a lot at stake in this election.

There are big differences between Obama and Romney.

And there are big differences between the Democrats and Republicans.

When I was a small child, I asked my father what was the difference between Democrats and Republicans. My father, born in 1927 and raised in New Orleans, was a child of the Depression and a product of Huey Long’s populism and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. “Republicans,” my father told me, “are for the rich man. Democrats are for the working man.” And as corrupt and pro-corporate as some Democrats may be (Max Baucus, I’m talking to you) – my dad’s dictum still rings true.

Any working person who votes for a Republican is voting against his or her own economic interest.

That’s not something you’ll hear from Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

So, now that I’ve made it clear where I stand in this election – here are ten reasons why you should vote a straight Democratic ticket on Election Day.

1. When President Obama wins re-election, he’ll need majorities in the House and Senate in order to get anything done that moves this country forward.

2. Romney loves trickle-down economics. Problem is, as we’ve seen for the past three decades starting with Reagan, nothing trickles down but misery for working people.

3. President Obama believes in tax fairness. He’s campaigning on the idea that the investor class and those with inherited wealth should pay the same tax rates as working men and women. Romney won’t release his tax returns because, clearly, he’s on the other side of this issue.

4. Romney says he’ll put an end to Planned Parenthood (as though he could) and Paul Ryan is a big fan of personhood for fertilized eggs. Unlike a lot of GOP hacks who simply give lip service to ending women’s reproductive rights in America – these guys just might try to do it.

5. Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is going to be 80 years old in March of next year. Stephen Breyer is 74. Do you want Romney to replace them?

6. Picture two more years with John Boehner as Speaker of the House.

7. Imagine Yertle the Turtle, AKA Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader.

8. Romney thinks that saber rattling against Iran and Russia is a strong foreign policy. Which should come as no surprise since his advisors include nasty neoconservative nut jobs like Frank Gaffney and soulless fascist operatives like Dan Senor.

9. The Republicans give aid and comfort to climate change skeptics and won’t do anything to promote clean, renewable energy sources until their Big Oil masters have pumped every ounce of planet-killing poison out of the ground and burned it up.

10. Republican governors and state legislatures appear to have three main items on their agendas:

— Make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote.

— Vilify and break the unions.

— Restrict contraception and reproductive rights.

There are lots of other reasons to vote for Democrats and oppose Republicans – but these ten are more than enough.

I’m voting to re-elect President Obama – and I’m voting to put Democrats in the House and Senate in Sacramento and in Washington D.C.

Now, can we get those debates underway soon?

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Filed under Politics

Tagged as Biden, Citizens United, climate change, debates, Ed Shultz, Lawrence O'Donnell, Obama, Presidential Election, Rachel Maddow, Romney, Ryan, tax fairness

April 20, 2012 · 9:39 pm

West Virginia Joe is a Loser…

That’s it. I’ve had it.

Some politicians (even Democrats) are gutless idiots.

Screw you, Joe Manchin, so-called Democratic U.S. Senator of the great state of West Virginia!

I understand, Joe, that you’re on the fence about whether to support President Obama or Mitt Romney???

Do you really think Mitt Romney gives a damn about the hard working, blue-collar working class people in your poor, impoverished state?

Or are you just too damn weak to stand up to the fossil fuel companies who work your constituents to death while raping our environment?

Or the NRA.

Try educating your voters, Joe. Tell them the truth that they might be too ignorant, uneducated, bigoted and/or afraid to hear: the Republicans don’t give a damn about them.

How many millionaires live in West Virginia, Joe?

How many coal miners make a million dollars a year? Do you understand that all your coal-mining constituents pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than multi-millionaire Mitt Romney does?

You suck, Joe Manchin. Get off the fence. Get real. Or retire.

We progressive Democrats would rather have a true believer Republican in the Senate than a weak-kneed, ineffective, frightened loser like you.

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Filed under History, Politics

Tagged as coal mining, Joe Manchin, mining, Obama, president, Presidential Election, Romney, Senator Manchin, West Virginia

January 9, 2012 · 11:39 pm

Fantasy Politics & The Election of 2012

The Iowa Caucuses are over and the New Hampshire Primary is upon us. The Presidential election of 2012 is already well underway. Given that President Obama is unlikely to encounter any serious primary challenge on his open road to the Democratic Party’s nomination in Charlotte, North Carolina in the first week of September – the media focus has been squarely on the Republican contenders vying for the chance to deny Barak Obama re-election on the first Tuesday in November.

Of course, it’s a long, long time until November 6, 2012. We’ll know the winner of the Super Bowl, the NBA Championship, and the World Series before Election Day. And we’ll know the winner of American Idol, The Biggest Loser, Survivor, and who gets the guy on The Bachelor long before we know if any of the GOP field was able to take down Obama. A lot can happen between now and then. But looking at the Republican contenders arrayed against Obama (and each other) it’s hard not to feel the odds are in favor of the World’s Most Famous Former Community Organizer.

Much has been written (on the Right and Left) about the lackluster GOP hopefuls and the lack of party popularity enjoyed by the “inevitable” frontrunner Mitt Romney. You’d have to be living in a cave (which Osama bin Laden evidently wasn’t) not to have heard about how Mitt’s Mormonism, flip-flopping, and career as a multi-millionaire corporate raider make him a poor fit with this era’s angry, populist, anti Wall Street, Tea Party GOP electorate.

This schism between Main Street Republican voters and Wall Street has rank political opportunists like Newt Gingrich attacking Romney for his role as a profit-worshipping venture capitalist.

Strange days, indeed.

Each month (and sometimes each week) brings a new “anyone but Mitt” candidate surging into contention. As if to prove there’s no limit to the GOP’s anti-Romney anxiety, we’ve been treated to the entertaining rise and unsurprising fall of the scandalous blowhard Herman Cain, cute but crazy Michelle Bachmann, and rejected Republican re-treads like Newt Gingrich and Rick “Please don’t Google me” Santorum.

Trying to temper my disdain for these apparently preposterous Republican Presidential candidates, I remind myself that, back in 1980, we all thought Ronnie “Raygun” Reagan was an unelectable right wing nut job. Progressives cannot afford to gloat or get comfortable. However, if the GOP has any chance of winning the White House, the U.S. economy must go into free fall. But with the Dow Jones Average above 12,000 and unemployment falling steadily, the Republicans are forced into rooting for America to fail in order to win an election. Not a good bet.

So, in order to make the Presidential Election of 2012 interesting, I suggest participating in a game that keeps even lackluster NFL, NBA and MLB seasons interesting: a fantasy league.

Introducing FANTASY POLITICS…

FANTASY POLITICS

In fantasy politics, you are the campaign manager of your own team of two Republican Presidential candidates. You need to know how the daily news cycle, the primaries and caucuses affect the two candidates on your roster and how to minimize their gaffes, maximize their endorsements, and collect delegates through the long primary season on the road to the GOP nomination. Here’s how the candidates on your roster are impacted by the rules of fantasy politics.

FANTASY SCORING

Fantasy points are generated from the action on the campaign trail. When a GOP candidate on your team avoids a dangerously quotable gaffe during a debate, earns a newspaper endorsement, or wins a state primary, your fantasy team earns points for the week. The sum of your two candidates’ points combine to compete against the total for your opponent’s team for the week.

Sample Scoring:

Newspaper Endorsement +1

John McCain Endorsement -1

Debate Victory +1

Debate Gaffe -1

Positive News Story +1

Embarrassing YouTube Moment -1

Primary Delegates (1 point per delegate)

Really Good Concession Speech Upon Withdrawal (10 bonus points)

CANDIDATE ELIGIBILITY

Campaign managers can choose any two GOP candidates in the field as of Tuesday, January 10^th, the day of the New Hampshire Primary. I’d say the Virginia Primary – but, of course, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry failed to qualify for the ballot in Virginia – and our fantasy game would simply not be as much fun without them.

Candidates who are still in the race on Super Tuesday, March 6, 2012, earn 100 bonus points, in addition to any delegates they pick up that night in the collection of primaries and caucuses in Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. If neither of your candidates made it to Super Tuesday, you’re out of luck. And out of your misery.

DROP AND SWAP

On the day after Super Tuesday, campaign managers will have 24 hours to “drop and swap” candidates. This may not be fair – but it’s politically expedient: a chance for the rats to escape the sinking ships. However, if a candidate you dropped after Super Tuesday manages to make it to the Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida in late August with even a handful of delegates – you will be deducted one point for every delegate who votes in the Convention to nominate the candidate you dropped.

INJURY DESIGNATIONS

Sorry, unlike in the football, basketball, and baseball fantasy leagues, all of your GOP candidates must play hurt. Politics is not a game for sissies. There is no disabled list. If there was, a mentally disabled candidate like Rick “Frothy” Santorum, or an emotionally disabled candidate like Mitt “I like being able to fire people” Romney would not be on the roster. Instead, they’re leading GOP contenders. Suit up, shut up, and get up for the game.

SCORING CORRECTIONS

Occasionally the official elections returns from a particular state may be recounted and changed to accurately reflect what happened at the ballot box. In such circumstances, campaign managers may block a recount by making an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. (See “Bush v. Gore”)

THE WINNER

The winning campaign manager is the political genius that managed to back the two GOP candidates who got the furthest down the road on the way to winning their party’s nomination – and earned the right to lose to President Obama by a landslide on Election Day, Tuesday, November 6, 2012.