I'll be watching you! /sarc/
Posted on 05/15/2012 9:49:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The latest CBS News/New York Times poll shows President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in a dead heat in the race for the White House.
Given that Obama has had a relatively good week and Romney something of a bad one, this poll is a real shocker. Asked for whom they would vote were the election held today, 46 percent of the nearly 600 registered voters surveyed said Romney while 43 percent said Obama. Given that the error margin is plus or minus four points, it looks like the race is all tied up.
Actually, Romney may be in better shape than the poll suggests. The same survey conducted in April showed each man with 46 percent of the vote while the polls from March and February showed the president ahead.
What is particularly interesting is this is a poll of registered voters, meaning it's a survey representing the entire universe of those who may cast ballots in the upcoming election. Thanks to things like "motor voter," there are far more Democrats in the pool of registered voters than Republicans and, unlike surveys of so-called "likely voters," many of them may not bother to vote. It is not too much of an inference, therefore, to think that Obama may be losing the country—and that's because he has failed to get a handle on the nation's economic troubles.
Unemployment is down from where it had been under Obama, to 8.1 percent, but that's not because the economy is creating jobs. It's because, as this simple analysis shows, large numbers of people have simply stopped looking for work. "In April," wrote Tyler Durden on Zerohedge.com, "the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000," which he says is the highest number ever recorded. The labor force participation rate, meaning the people who are working or looking for work, is now at 64.3 percent, a 30-year low.
With numbers like that, with Obama having wiped out 30 years of job creation under presidents of both parties, is it any surprise that 62 percent of respondents in the CBS News/New York Times poll "cited the economy as the most important issue in the presidential election"?
"Concern over the budget deficit ranked a distant second at 11 percent, followed by health care at 9 percent. Seven percent picked same-sex marriage, 4 percent cited foreign policy and 2 percent chose immigration," according to an analysis of the numbers conducted by CBS.
The response of the White House and Obama's campaign to the numbers has been to attack the way the survey was conducted—which is really their only choice since they can't dispute what the numbers say. The president's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutler, told NBC's Chuck Todd, "We can't put the methodology of that poll aside, because the methodology was significantly biased." When pressed, Cutler called the sample "biased."
Maybe so, but that doesn't get around the fact that 67 percent of respondents—remember these are registered voters, not likely voters—rated the condition of the national economy as either "fairly bad" or "very bad." And 63 percent said they thought things would stay the same or get worse.
Equally disturbing for the White House, and perhaps the reason why the Obama campaign, its political allies, and its friends in the media have suddenly unleashed the attack squad against the former governor, is that this same poll found Romney leading among independents, among men and among women, 46 percent to 44 percent for the president—still within the margin of error but an indication that any bounce the Democrats might have gotten over accusations the GOP was engaged in a "war on women" has dissipated.
Team Obama needs a new strategy. It doesn't take a college degree to figure out that just about the only thing left is to try and make Romney radioactive, which means a nasty and negative summer is in the offing. It will be interesting to see if the same journalists and Washington "deep thinkers" who call out the Republicans every time they say something uncomplimentary will be as hard on the Democrats as they "go nuclear" on Romney.
Hey, come and play!
“...even the MSM’s worst, sucking up to him...”
You know, now they are like the dreadful strangling lovesick teenage girl.
I think Newsweek really hurt him with that cover. I mean, he comes out for gay marriage, so now he’s gay? A gay saint?
That’s not the posture Obama was looking to strike, not by a mile, I mean the man is a nincompoop, but nobody but the MSM could be that stupid.
Positive Mittmentum is actually negative Barackmentum.
I’ll probably vote Ron Paul to protest in the primary this week but I wont vote for him in the General.
Well the western hemisphere economy looks pretty ***ty.
Asia too
I dont think Obama wants to win.
He’s done his damage and laid the bombs.
He’s happy to skip down the road and let an R take the blast in 2014
I agree. and they’re going to do everything they can to make 2013 and on as ugly and disasterous as they possibly can.
That's cool, just move the UN to kenya and be done with it.
Vote Blobama.
I like your thinking!
Romney needs to just sit back for now and let Biden and Obama hang themselves, which they are doing a very good job of right now.
IMHO we have several options, none of which are golden.
We defy this SOB, elect a teaparty Senate and congress and deny him 2 more SCOTUS picks.
Yeah it stinks, but here we are.
My Barber/My Garbage Man can beat Obama in 2012.
People will be voting AGAINST Obama, not necessarily for Romney or any other GOP nominee. People are not stupid. Their college educated kids can’t find jobs, someone close to them has lost her/his job, grocery bills have rocketed up, gas to run their cars has rocketed up, Obamacare has stolen $500 Billion from their Medicare and their health insurance premiums have rocketed up, their house is worth 30 to 40% less, and their bank CD’s are earning 1% or less.
Obama loses by 50+ EV’s.
I have to be a little cautious. I don’t think they contact cell phones and that’s what most of the younger folks use exclusively. (that’s all I have, a cheap $30 Net 10 phone)
Yes they do. They randomly dial numbers within the area codes so as to contact cell phones, if I remember correctly.
Huh?? Actually, it was about the opposite: First Gay President vs. Liberty U. Speech.
I'll be watching you! /sarc/
Thanx, I didn’t know that. I got two such calls when I had a landline but hung up on them. I’ve not been called yet on my cell to find out who I’m voting for. If they call me then I’ll just press the red “end” button.
Voting for Newt or possibly Paul (even though I hate him) in the primary.
Voting Virgil Goode in the general.
I’m still praying for a war on the floor in Tampa.
FWIW, I left the GOP over Romney after a lifetime of active participation at local, state, and national levels (even being a delegate). Acutally, the GOP left me by pushing dog vomit like Romney.
“Maybe, just maybe, Romney won’t be that bad.”
OK, here is my best take on Romney and I think it holds water.
Romney fixes things. This is what he has done for most of his working life. Bain Capital was about taking broken companies and fixing them if they could be fixed or dismantling them if they were beyond salvaging. He fixed the Olympics in Salt Lake City and maybe people don’t remember what a mess that was, there was all sorts of corruption and self dealing that had been going on for ages but when a bunch of Mormons got involved it all came out.
Either somebody had an attack of conscience, the Mormons weren’t really corrupt enough to pull it off, or who knows the MSM seized on it as a way of making right wingers look bad. But it was a shambles and he got it straightened out.
Esp. his Bain work may come in usefully. Esp. if he really does “enjoy firing” people who do a bad job.
Our Federal government is broken. Our “social security” programs are headed toward insolvency.
Now, unlike many other freepers I haven’t had my act together for my whole life. Social Security IS my retirement plan. 15% of my lifetime earnings have gone into it, not against my will really, but as was required by law.
I really feel like I’ve done the best I can. I’d like the “system” to be there for me.
I’d like our broken systems to get fixed.
Mitt Romney fixes things. Can he fix the mess we are in now? I don’t know. Will he try? I think he will honestly try, esp. if he goes in with a mandate to do so.
So, maybe that’s what the next 6 months has to be about, getting him a mandate to go all Bain Capital on DC’s asses.
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