Posted on 09/25/2012 6:09:51 PM PDT by Red Steel
VANDALIA, OH – For the Romney campaign, Tuesday brought yet more bad news from the Buckeye state: a new Washington Post poll showed the Republican presidential nominee trailing President Barack Obama by eight points in this critical battleground state, with 52 percent of Ohio voters in favor of giving the incumbent another four years.
Before Mitt Romney's plane touched down at the Dayton airport today, two top aides were dispatched to the press cabin to put out possible fires the numbers might have sparked.
"The public polls are what the public polls are," Romney Political Director Rich Beeson told reporters. "I kind of hope the Obama campaign is basing their campaign on what the public polls say. We don’t. We have confidence in our data and our metrics."
What the Romney team’s data indicated about Ohio, Beeson wouldn't say. He argued that Romney was inside the margin of error here “by any stretch,” and dismissed the much-hyped Obama ground game in Ohio as activity confused with progress.
"I will put our operation up against anybody’s. But at the end of the day, Ohio is going to come down to the wire and we’ll be in it down to the wire and I’m confident that we will win,” Beeson said.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Romney's Ohio chairman Rob Portman projected similar confidence that Romney would carry his home state, despite the mounting poll data showing him slipping further behind President Obama. He told NBC News that the Romney campaign was taking a page out of then-candidate Obama's book by attempting to run a more regional campaign inside the state.
"I do think there is a strategy, which the Obama administration is very good at, which is to you know, target particular groups of people and particular regions and you know, the Romney campaign is doing it as well," Portman said.
Portman, a freshman senator, then ticked off the various demographics and localities and how they're being targeted by the Romney campaign: running advertisements accusing the president of a war on coal in the east; talking fracking in communities near the Marcellus and Utica shale formations; and focusing on trade and China in heavy manufacturing areas like the Mahoning Valley, Northeast Ohio and here in Dayton.
"I think that's one way we're going to win Ohio, by addressing the issues region by region," Portman said. "There isn't just one Ohio. It’s not monolithic."
Moments earlier, Romney had done exactly what Portman suggested; running as much against China's trade practices as the incumbent president, and vowing to fight back to preserve jobs.
"This cannot be allowed," Romney said of alleged Chinese trade abuses. "We cannot compete with people who don't play fair and I won't let that go on, I will stop it in its tracks."
In addition to his role as Romney's Ohio campaign chairman, Portman also serves as Romney's debate sparring partner, a role at which he is so good, Romney claims, the GOP nominee sometimes wants "to kick him out of the room."
Asked how debate preparations were going, Portman shrewdly looked to lower expectations for Romney, and raise them for Obama, ahead of the first showdown on Oct. 3rd.
"When you think about it, [Romney] hasn't had a real debate in 10 years," Portman said, claiming the 20-plus GOP debates Romney participated in during the primaries were not one-on-one, and were more like candidate forums than true debates.
He also heaped praise on Obama's debating skills: "Barack Obama is going to be formidable. I think it'll be a good debate, but I certainly would not underestimate what Barack Obama brings to it: a lot of experience in these kinds of debates and obviously a lot of knowledge and background on the federal issues."
No internal polls here. I challenge you to look at the absentee #s, where Rs are dramatically doing better than 08. For ex, in Franklin Co, which Zero won by 21 points, the Rs have a 5,500 advantage and it’s grown week by week. These are public statistics and don’t require any mysterious formulas.
“Once the meltdown occurred, the voters saw McCain as a mumbling, bumbling old man who couldn’t string 3 coherent sentences together and knew nothing about the economy.”
That is my point; until then much fewer people would have risked a socialist with a Muslim name (Obama was trailing consistently up until the meltdown). The same forces that drove desperate people to elect the unqualified unknown, now that things have gotten even worse, should suffice to depose him.
Sorry, I've been on my last roller coaster with these B.S. polls. You people want to lose sleep over them, you go right ahead. I'm not buying any of these polls.
And surprisingly, the McCain endorsement of Obama didn’t help him like he must have thought it would.
Thanks Red Steel. G’night all.
>In addition to his role as Romney’s Ohio campaign chairman, Portman also serves as Romney’s debate sparring partner, a role at which he is so good, Romney claims, the GOP nominee sometimes wants “to kick him out of the room.”<
If Romney is relying on Portman, he’s going to lose Ohio. Portman is nothing but a milquetoast, Bush2 flunky, RINO.
Sorry but I never heard the McCain campaign in 2008 talking about internal polls showing them winning... In fact I remember McCain himself saying that their polls are showing them 4 to 6 points behind...
What are you buying?
Sorry, but what I remember and am seeing today, which was my entire point, is not how many points ahead or behind whoever is or was, but the worship here of the myth of internal and super secret (of course) polls as being more truthful and accurate than the polls of public organizations, as well as more favorable to our side’s loser candidates.
Do you really believe that the media polls in this elections are accurate?...
Not at all. I believe that no polls are accurate.
I think another way to gauge whether Rs will carry Ohio is look at the cluster of counties (Williams, Defiance, Paulding, Henry, Fulton) in the northwestern part of the state, just west of Toledo. Bush swept that region with over 60 percent of the vote in each county, but McCain took a plunge and finished mostly in the mid 50s, plus he lost nearby Wood County that Bush carried. Actually, that might be the part of the state where GOP erosion was the most dramatic. If it came back our way, that would be a good sign.
This morning Romney and Jack Nicklaus are campaigning at my childrens highschool in Westerville, Oh.
I see a NYT/CBS poll on Fox that has O-52 and R-44 in OH! There is no longer any doubt in my mind these polls are being used as a propaganda tool. There is simply NO WAY O is above 50% and 8 points ahead of R in the Buckeye State.
Eventually these polling firms will need to save face. I suspect an incredible surge by Romney in the last weeks....after early voting has ended.
Bump
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvEOdIaw0fPNdHVOZnFENDdDYVFTRi1UMlgxQ0F4OVE#gid=0
(I think this is the same one http://tinyurl.com/bvfsb7u) (I'm html challenged)
Based on this, it would appear Romney is back up to Bush levels, and perhaps slightly above in a couple of cases.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvEOdIaw0fPNdHVOZnFENDdDYVFTRi1UMlgxQ0F4OVE#gid=0
(I think this is the same one http://tinyurl.com/bvfsb7u) (I'm html challenged)
Based on this, it would appear Romney is back up to Bush levels, and perhaps slightly above in a couple of cases.
Forgive the double post.
All this is predicated on three assumptions: Rs vote R; Ds vote D; and Indies at least split 50/50.
If suddenly we start seeing all sorts of data that Indies are going for Obama, even by a few points, then in fact all the drive-by polls will look more accurate. On the other hand, if Romney (as he has in some polls) has a 5-15% Indie lead, I don't see how as of now any of these OH polls are accurate.
Is anyone seeing consistent polling with Zero up among Indies?
Again, refer to the spreadsheet above and help the guy out with numbers if you can by e-amiling him data at rockets.stats@gmail.com.
The Gravis poll yesterday confirmed once more Romney was doing very well with indies.
Then there you go. Unfathomable why these idiot pollsters can’t look at the R/D splits. Have you looked at this spreadsheet? Galactic Overlord-In-Chief suggested we look at Defiance, Fulton, Henry, Paulding, Williams, Wood counties, where Bush hit 60% in 04, and where McCain had a 5% dropoff in 08. These are all back to 04 numbers, some above, although some of the numbers are small.
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