Poll: Obama 49 - Romney 46, But..

Townhall.com ^ | May 22, 2012 | Guy Benson

[Kaslin]

Celebrate good times, liberals -- President Obama has again vaulted ahead of Mitt Romney in a national poll:
 

After months of aggressive campaigning on jobs and the economy, President Obama and Mitt Romney, his likely Republican challenger, are locked in a dead heat over who could fix the problem foremost on voters’ minds, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The parity on economic issues foreshadows what probably will continue to be a tough and negative campaign. Overall, voters would be split 49 percent for Obama and 46 percent for Romney if the November election were held now. On handling the economy, they are tied at 47 percent.

Despite flare-ups over issues including contraception and same-sex marriage, more than half of all Americans cite the economy as the one concern that will decide their vote in the fall, relegating others — such as health care, taxes and the federal deficit — to single-digit status. More than eight in 10 Americans still rate the national economy negatively, but there are strains of optimism as it continues to recover from the collapse of 2008. A majority of Americans — 54 percent — say they are more hopeful than anxious about the situation over the next few years, while 58 percent are bullish about their financial prospects.

In this new survey, the president's job approval slipped back underwater (47/49), and his economic marks sank even further (42/55).  So how does Obama manage to pull ahead of Romney in the head-to-head match up in light of his eroded standing?  He gets by with a little help from his friend -- the WaPo/ABC News pollster.  Ed Morrissey blows the lid off of this survey's risible partisan sample:
 

Today’s D/R/I is 32/22/38, which means this model would only be predictive for a turnout model where only 22% of voters are Republican.  Just to remind readers, the 2008 turnout split from exit polls showed a 39/32/29 split, and that was considered a nadir for Republican turnout.  In the 2010 midterms, the split was 35/35/30.

Let's see if I understand this correctly.  WaPo/ABC News' sample handed Democrats a ten point edge (three points higher than 2008 -- a banner year for Democrats), and projected that Republicans would comprise less than a quarter of the electorate in November...and Romney is still within the margin of error?  This outcome has to be disconcerting for the Obama campaign, even as they put on a happy face over the top-line results.  It also may be time for the Washington Post and ABC News to start censoring their polling methodology again, because they're embarrassing themselves.  As I've written previously, the purpose of polling should be to accurately gauge public opinion; it should not be to manipulate the numbers to manufacture "good" news for your preferred candidate.  If the latter goal is the new standard, I'd be happy to roll out another IGB poll* showing Mitt Romney leading Obama by, let's say, 19 points among registered voters.  Useless, bias-massaging polls are fun, aren't they?  In any case, the Obama campaign's grand scheme to undermine Romney's advantage on the economy is to paint him as a "vampire capitalist" who destroyed businesses for profit.  (A top Democrat is now classily using rape imagery to demagogue Bain).  This idiotic attack strategy is been rebuffed by an expanding roster of Obama allies, the latest of whom is former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell:
 

Rendell joined the chorus of criticism of Obama’s attacks on finance, whose leaders have written checks to many members of both parties. “I think they’re very disappointing,” Rendell said of the ads attacking Bain. “I think Bain is fair game, because Romney has made it fair game. But I think how you examine it, the tone, what you say, is important as well.” As for Booker, “I admire him,” Rendell said. “People in politics should tell the truth. He could have qualified it better, he could have framed it better, but if you’re in this business, none of us like negative ads.”

Maybe some Democrats are wary of these economically-illiterate and hypocritical criticisms because they've seen the fresh numbers from Rasmussen:
 

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 44% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that Romney’s track record in business is primarily a reason to vote for him. Thirty-three percent (33%) see his business career as chiefly a reason to vote against him ... Fifty-five percent (55%) voters believe venture capital companies are better at creating jobs than government programs are.  Only 26% see government programs as better job creators. Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure. That’s essentially unchanged from January.

Obama has even lost his most devoted center-right sycophant on this issue. If you're still not convinced of O's epic Bain bust, Jennifer Rubin convincingly enumerates the persuasive evidence.  I'd posit that it might be time for Team O to go back to the drawing board, but what else do they have?  This is their gameplan.  Their entire re-election strategy is predicated on fear-mongering about Republican solutions, demonizing Mitt Romney's private sector experience, and pretending that Obama's record isn't a fetid ash heap of broken promises, economic hardship, suffocating debt, and demonstrable failure.  That last bit presents impossibly tough sledding, so more unresponsive, mindless campaign babble it is!  After all, this campaign "is going to be about" Bain Captial, come hell or high water -- so sayeth The One.  Oh goodie.

*IGB is a polling firm that exists exclusively in this author's mind.  Methodology inquiries will be ignored.  Thank you.

[galloway15]

Remember that there's another group playing at the table, and that is the NWO RiNO's, who have their own agenda to which it is most definitely in your best interest not to succumb.

In their imagined world, the United States would be a deferential society again (like the one the pioneers who settled the West left behind), where people like you are expected to know their place, scuff toes in dirt when spoken to, remove your hat when spoken to, and be openly pleased when these people, driving by in their Maybach Zeppelins, amuse themselves by throwing nickels to your kids so they can watch your little urchins scramble in the street filth for them.

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Ok, I'll bite, give me some names and examples of what you say.

[myself6]

Really?

We have no idea how he is going to behave?

Isnt there something about knowing them by the fruits of their labor? Im here to tell you that the fruit Romney has bore has been exclusively socialist in nature.

Well.. Im sure some of those folks are just like me and even if we can beat the democrat socialist with our republican socialist, were smart enough to know that having a republican socialist as pres is FAR more damaging than having a democrat socialist as pres.

By all means... Elect REAL limited government conservatives to both houses of congress. Primary and replace the Ahole progressives that infest the GOP. But DO NOT vote to elect a Socialist POS like romney as president.

We may have a choice of two socialists this election cycle. One will have the support of both parties in congress when pushing his socialist agenda and the other will only have the support of one party. Do you know which is which?

Everyone like to think of themselves as being the “good guy” SuziQ... Even if their not. Even if their making a terrible mistake... Naive, is probably the most kind interpretation of what you folks are.

Im uninterested in drawing undecideds to “our side” if our side is now socialist. In fact, im more interested in making the stupid SOB’s that pushed this socialist POS romney to the forefront pay for their idiocy.

[myself6]

Really?

We have no idea how he is going to behave?

Isnt there something about knowing them by the fruits of their labor? Im here to tell you that the fruit Romney has bore has been exclusively socialist in nature.

Well.. Im sure some of those folks are just like me and even if we can beat the democrat socialist with our republican socialist, were smart enough to know that having a republican socialist as pres is FAR more damaging than having a democrat socialist as pres.

By all means... Elect REAL limited government conservatives to both houses of congress. Primary and replace the Ahole progressives that infest the GOP. But DO NOT vote to elect a Socialist POS like romney as president.

We may have a choice of two socialists this election cycle. One will have the support of both parties in congress when pushing his socialist agenda and the other will only have the support of one party. Do you know which is which?

Everyone like to think of themselves as being the “good guy” SuziQ... Even if their not. Even if their making a terrible mistake... Naive, is probably the most kind interpretation of what you folks are.

Im uninterested in drawing undecideds to “our side” if our side is now socialist. In fact, im more interested in making the stupid SOB’s that pushed this socialist POS romney to the forefront pay for their idiocy.

[lentulusgracchus]

Okay, here's one -- the entire Bush family, Laura I think excepted.

George H.W. Bush looking at his watch during the debate with Slick was the clue that here was a man with better things to do than sit for an interview with the Peepul, for a job he already had by right and by breeding.

The one real hardcore belief the senior Bushes have is that People Like Us (PLU) are a true *standard*, a benchmark of social excellence, that is all the rest of us need to know about them. Andover, Yale, business, government -- what, you need more? References?! What do you mean, references?! We don' need no steenking references!!

George Herbert Walker Bush convening a mini-U.N. to decide how things should be in the Persian Gulf -- that's an example. Some day, some other little U.N. will want to decide how things are on the U.S. border.

Anent which last, see George Herbert Walker Bush starting something called NAFTA, and something else called SPP -- and something else called NASCO. And conjuring up, in back rooms of the Congress, without telling the People (as in, Little People -- Sen. Ryan of Kansas actually lied to his voters about this), a giant new transportation infrastructure that would be built and maintained privately, for private purposes, by private wealth -- people like King Juan Carlos of Spain (yeah, as in, His Most Catholic Majesty, Juan Carlos I Borbon y Borbon, King of Spain), on the territory of the United States pro bono total strangers, that would divide the nation in two, originating in the Mexican Pacific seaports and spreading out into the upper Midwest and Ontario.

I have links, if you really care.

Here's one, served cold:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/bohemian_grove.html

Mind you, Bohemian Club is only where these people play .... the Business Roundtable and the CFR/Trilateral Commission are where they work.

Here's another one, also posted cold: the people who put it up were very interested in Rick Perry's fronting for NASCO/SPP and their big toll-road project, but (warning!) the site's been hacked now, it won't even post to my box:

http://www.texastollparty.com/action_tellYourReps2.php

Stuff like that. North American Union, Law of the Sea Treaty, International Criminal Court. As in, New World Order (quoting GHWB again).

So there's an example.

Guy's political friends in the RNC and overseas are rebuilding your country right out from under you, and you get all toasty with a FReeper about it?

[galloway15]

Thanks for the detailed reply. FYI I am very unhappy about the direction in which the country is headed and I can appreciate it because I grew up in the 1950’s and have experienced first hand the change.

Sometimes it comes down to the lessor of two evils.