Gallup has new numbers out on the country's approval of gay marriage -- 50% say gay marriage should be valid, 54% say gay relations are moral, and 63% say gay relations should be legal.
Of course, we've seen time and time again at the voting booth that the people who are against gay marriage turn out to vote against it at much larger numbers than the mostly silent majority of people who support it. This is what makes President Obama's public approval of gay marriage an interesting political point -- more of the country supports gay marriage than opposes it, and the number of people who approve is rising. But what people approve of isn't what matters, it's what the people who VOTE approve of that matters. Does Obama's gay marriage stand rally far right conservatives to turn out for Romney with more passion than they otherwise would have? Or does Obama's stand push the majority that do support gay marriage to further view the Republican party as an old-fashioned one on the wrong side of history? It's the economy that will dominate this election, but social issues have shown time and time again in America that they matter, and the gay marriage issue will lead to a very clear line in the sand being drawn.
Obama's move could force many of those who support gay marriage and gay rights but may be losing patience with Obama's economic record to vote their conscience on a civil rights issue where they may otherwise have voted strictly on economic issues. This applies in particular to independents who mostly approve of gay marriage but also mostly disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy. That'll have to happen if he hopes to have the move be a net positive because it has definitely united the far right.
If you're a football fan, you're probably familiar with the Minnesota Vikings and their desire to build a new stadium. Most observers and interested parties, including Governor Mark Dayton, seemed to think the Vikings would relocate without one. As a Wisconsin resident, the idea of an NFC North division without the Vikings and the two guaranteed wins they mean for the Packers is something I'd prefer not to contemplate. By all means, if they want a new stadium, they should go ahead and build one.
Mind you, they don't want to build one with their own money. They want to gouge the taxpayers of Minnesota and Minneapolis for more than half of the nearly-$1 billion cost. This week, Minnesota lawmakers debated exactly how much of the tab their constituents will be forced to pick up. For some reason, the idea that the Vikings should finance a new stadium on their own was not given serious consideration. It's become standard operating procedure in this country for professional sports teams' stadiums/arenas to be publicly subsidized, even though it's the grossest form of corporate welfare imaginable.
In an interview with ABC News on May 9, President Obama explained that his personal evolution on the subject of marriage equality is over -- he supports it. The timing is interesting, given North Carolina's passage yesterday of a constitutional amendment banning not only same-sex marriage but civil unions and domestic partnerships. Vice President Joe Biden made headlines Sunday morning on Meet the Press when he spoke out in favor of marriage equality, followed the next morning by Education Secretary Arne Duncan doing the same on Morning Joe. My opinion: no accidents here. This was a strategic rollout designed to culminate with the president finally speaking out after the controversy and political pressure crested. The tactical side of the administration's timing is interesting, as President Obama's statement comes on the heels of Mitt Romney throwing his openly gay foreign policy advisor under the bus, bowing to right-wing pressure groups. With the North Carolina loss already on the books, there wasn't much to lose, and plenty to gain from socially liberal independents.
Watch President Obama's statement and share your thoughts:
Florida and Ohio remain toss-ups, and likely will until election day, but Obama has comfortable leads in key states like Nevada and Virginia. It's hard to imagine a scenario where Obama wins those states and loses the election.
Meanwhile, today's jobs numbers were well below expectations with 115,000 jobs added in April. The expectation was for around 165,000 jobs added. Economic data, and more importantly, economic perception, is the most important variable in this election. Obama has several major political advantages over Romney, the main one being a huge edge in likability, but if people begin to perceive that the economy is again starting to worsen, it will create an atmosphere in which it'll be difficult for him to win. The economy is the main area where Romney is considered credible and strong, and poor economic news will add fuel to that fire. The good news for Obama is nobody is going to remember the April jobs number when October and November hit, but they will remember the trend. These numbers, and this recovery, will need to strengthen in the lead-up to voting day or it will leave everything else a moot point.
All it takes is one appearance on Jimmy Fallon's show last week and everyone is talking about how cool President Obama is. Even Mitt Romney is encouraging this talk by putting out an ad mocking Obama for being too cool. None of this is particularly novel – the cool-Democrat-versus-lame-Republican meme has existed as long as television.
But how is it that the guy who has continued all of the (exceptionally uncool) policies of George W. Bush keeps getting treated like anything other than the craven, disingenuous, establishment politician he obviously is? If you judge him solely by his actions (which is how all politicians must be judged) Barack Obama isn't even as cool as Pat Robertson.
We have gotten a few new state polls from key states in the last two days. As I have been saying, polls of swing states are by far the most important metric right now in determining where the Obama/Romney race is. National numbers, while they do capture trends, are essentially worthless since Obama and Romney will almost always be within the 5% margin of error. Plus the popular vote doesn't determine who wins. Even John McCain kept the popular vote fairly close in 2008, but got blown out in the electoral college.
These are pretty bad numbers for Romney. There is pretty much no scenario where Romney loses Nevada and Virginia and still wins the election. And North Carolina would only go to Obama in a blowout, as it did in 2008, so the fact that he is up there is a pretty telling sign of where things stand.
By now the entire nation is aware of the dustup that came when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen said that Ann Romney has "never worked a day in her life". In the aftermath, we saw disingenuous Republicans suddenly becoming advocates for stay-at-home-moms, and Democrats were equally disingenuous in their attempts to excuse the remark as not having meant that housework and raising children isn't real work. Now whatever your stance on the issue, if you're over the age of 35 there's a decent chance that your own mother was a housewife, as they were called when I was a kid. There has long been a debate about the value of the work done by housewives. I recall a classic All In The Family episode where Edith traps Archie by getting him to say her work is worth one dollar a day, then pointing out how much he would owe for 30 years of service. My own mom stayed at home while my father had a career as a cop, so I'm well versed in the art of biting one's tongue whenever it's suggested that being a housewife is equal to going to work.
As far as I'm concerned, the only way Rosen could possibly utter her infamous words is if she perceives raising children as not being real work. Some have argued that she was referring to Mitt repeatedly using his wife as a guidepost as if she's an everywoman, but again, my mind goes back to those tongue biting moments of childhood. My mom is a great person, and as an adult I show her my gratitude every chance I get. Still, I reflect back on having cereal or toast for breakfast every day, hours of my sisters and I being at school, how unusually well behaved we were, and it gets hard not to picture Peg Bundy eating Bon Bons and watching Oprah while Al went to a soul-crushing job. From my point of view, when I heard what Rosen said, I was inclined to think "she's sort of right, but she said something any man would be shredded for".
Just take a moment to think about the state of divorce in America. If a star athlete or famous musician has a trophy wife and she divorces him (we're assuming no cheating or other malicious behavior here), she's likely going to walk away with a fortune. After taking Paul McCartney for $48.6 million, Heather Mills declared "It was worth the hard work.". They have one child together, and part of the divorce settlement was specifically to provide for a nanny. We have a legal system that attempts on a daily basis to decide the monetary worth of things people would still have to do even if they weren't married to anyone, and no consensus on the basis for such determinations. For me, the key element is that we're debating tasks that are not part of a paid job, but part of daily life.
The presumption has been that Romney, being a North Eastern Republican, would be able to get New Hampshire back in place after Obama won it easily in 2008. Remains to be seen if he will be able to get it closer. Arizona wasn't that close in 2008 due to it being McCain's home state, and it has traditionally been a solid red state, but with demographic changes and the growing Hispanic population in the state, it looks to be in play this year. How much the Obama campaign allocates in resources to the state will say a lot about what their internal polls say.
It's important to note though how meaningless national polls will be in this election. In this hyper-partisan age, most of the country is already decided leaving a very small 8-10% group of undecided voters that determine who wins the popular vote. That all but ensures a race that will be within 5%, which is the margin of error in most polls. Also ignore composite battleground state polls, they are also meaningless.
The numbers to watch are the individual battleground state polls, with the key states being Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and New Hampshire. We haven't gotten too many updated state polls since Santorum exited the race, but we do have new numbers from Florida:
With less than seven months to go until the 2012 Presidential Election, President Obama and Mitt Romney look to be in a close battle, according to various polls out this week showing differing results:
The popular vote, as it has been for the last three Presidential elections, looks to be close. The big question, of course, is how the key swing states play out. Most polls show Obama doing very well in key states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nevada, etc. Romney looks to be in position to get North Carolina and Indiana back into the Republican column, but he will need to win Florida or Ohio, and probably Virginia, to win the electoral college.
It should be interesting to see how the tracking polls begin to move as the race gets more defined as Obama vs. Romney and as people begin to follow the election at a higher level. Just like in 2008, Presidential elections have little to do with policy and everything to do with gaffes, personality, coming off as Presidential, relating to the middle class, and who creates "SNL" moments. We live in a society saturated in instant viral web videos. We saw how that played in 2008 once Sarah Palin's long series of gaffes began -- SNL, YouTube, Letterman, Leno, etc. defined her, John McCain, and the entire Republican party off of it. Most people don't watch the news. The stories that penetrate the mainstream media -- outlets such as SNL, Leno, and Letterman -- and how they portray things, is often how "average" people who don't watch CNN or Fox News digest their election information.
Usually Republicans counter what is a mainstream media tilt to the Democratic candidate with huge turnout operations from Christian groups, but it remains to be seen if Mitt Romney, a Mormon, will be able to generate that enthusiasm among the religious right like George W. Bush did. McCain was unable to do this, and with Palin sinking him on the SNL/Leno/Letterman sphere, he quickly fell behind and was unable to catch up. Romney will need that religious right because if the primaries are any indication, he is a gift to comedians because of how stiff/unnatural he is in the spotlight.
Rick Santorum wrapped up his campaign today, clearing the path for Mitt Romney to claim the GOP nomination and face President Obama in the general election.
The primary battle ending will be a boost to Romney as he won't be attacked by people in his own party now (well, not as much anyway) and should get a bit of a boost as the party unites. That being said, he is currently behind. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Obama up, 48.5% to 43.2%, so he has a lot of work to do.
It will be interesting to see the strategy Romney takes against Obama, a lot of which will hinge on how the economy performs in the coming months.
ABC/Washington Post has some new general election poll numbers out today showing Obama still leading Romney, 51% to 44%. As I've outlined many times before, Romney has certain qualities that are going to make it difficult for him -- mainly a perceived lack of authenticity, lack of personality, and the perception that he is so wealthy that he is out of touch with average people.
That being said, last week's disappointing jobs number has been followed up this week with more mostly bad economic news -- reminders that the economy is far from healed. Romney's chances are directly tied to the weakness in the American economy -- the worse the recovery is, the better shot he'll have. That creates a slippery slope where he has to point out the problems in the American recovery without appearing like he is rooting for it.
Over the last week the media has splashed sensational headlines about what will happen if the mandate within Obamacare for individuals to have private health insurance is struck down as unconstitutional. They have very dramatically called the argument made for it "possibly the worst argument in the history of the Supreme Court", and made it sound like the partial if not total dismantling of the law is imminent. The suggestion that the mandate will be struck down is as ridiculous as the claims that America would default on its debt last year.
There are two reasons why this non-story has been so overblown. The first reason is of course ratings. This is the most high profile piece of legislation in years, so the idea that it could be reversed makes for some juicy headlines that command the public's attention. It's great fodder for pundits and whips up strong emotions.
The second and more cynical reason for all the buzz is to reshape how this issue is perceived. Mandated private insurance is actually a concept hatched by Republicans, and found its way into Romneycare. Barack Obama never saw a Republican idea he didn't want to co-opt, so it became a part of his "signature legislative achievement" (a more dubious distinction is hard to come by). This presents a potential P.R. problem, especially in an election year. If mandatory private profits enforced by the federal government for an industry of its choosing as dictated to it by lobbyists are upheld, that's one more huge step to the right despite an alleged Democrat in the White House. Such a glaring conflict could lead to blue voters staying home in November and Obama's second term being in peril. That would be a terrible setback for Wall Street, which has benefited greatly from having their continued rule branded as bipartisanship. What to do? If only the narrative could be changed so that mandatory private profits are seen as a win for the left. The solution is to keep associating Obama's name with the measure and speak as if he and Democrats would be devastated if the mandate is overturned. When it is inevitably upheld, it will be depicted as a win for progressives, which will be used both to portray Obama as effective to his base (ha!) and to argue for some other far right policy later. You don't steadily march right for thirty years and counting by accident.
Why am I so certain the mandate will be upheld? A simple glance at the current SCOTUS makes it obvious. This Court's "conservative" majority loves anything that hands power to corporations. In that sense they are not conservative at all, but I'll stick with that term for the sake of discussion. This Court found that eminent domain can be extended to include seizing property for economic reasons rather than public use, opening the door to a company potentially using government to force you to sell to them with little more than a pitch that it would create jobs. The ruling in Citizens United basically empowered corporations to flood political campaigns with so much money that the outcome would be all but certain. We could have the tired old argument that advertisements don't work and each of us is far too smart to be influenced by them, but the numbers don't lie. The fact is money usually wins elections for those who spend the most. We could argue that people should think for themselves and not be influenced by campaign spending, but that's an article unto itself.
The latest batch of polling data continues to show that the long primary battle is hurting Mitt Romney's favorables while the improving U.S. economy is bolstering President Obama's.
* CNN has Obama up 54% to 43% over Romney.
* Quinnipac has Obama with a big lead in Florida over Romney, 49% to 42%.
* Quinnipac has Obama in Ohio over Romney, 47% to 41%.
* Rasmussen has Obama up in Ohio over Romney, 48% to 40%.
* Quinnipac has Obama up in Pennsylvania over Romney, 45% to 42%.
Of course, it's early and state poll numbers do fluctuate a lot throughout the election. The more important numbers are favorable/unfavorable numbers which are much more difficult to change once a candidate is universally known, as Obama and Romney are. Here, the news is really bad for Romney.
ABC/Washington Post has Obama's favorable/unfavorable at 53%/43% or +10, while Romney is at 34%/50% or -16. It is virtually impossible for someone to win when their unfavorable is around 50%, as Romney's is. He has a lot of work to do to repair some of the damage that has been done here. The issue for him is that the things people dislike about him -- primarily his personality and how he made his money -- are things that he can't really change right now. Obama's main issues -- the poor economy -- has changed in the past few months and for the better, which has improved his numbers. Likability was never an issue for him.
As we have seen Romney do in the primary battle where he faces similar obstacles (polls consistently show that Republicans like Santorum a lot more than Romney, they just think Romney is more electable), Romney is likely going to have to go very negative against Obama in an attempt to drag Obama's favorables down.
[Note: Story Time with E is taking a break for a few weeks. We plan to resume normal programming in May. Cheers.]
As you may be aware, there's a War On Women™ going on in these here United States, perpetrated as usual by the Republican party. A few weeks ago they had a good laugh while their leader Rush Limbaugh insulted that nice Fluke lady, which was all part of their plan to make it illegal for women to use birth control (or something). And now they're trying to stop the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which, if it should expire, will mean that violence against women will be completely legal.
For our story this week, let's have a look at what VAWA is supposed to do, what it actually does, and why we don't need it. And we promise we won't make any sophomoric sexist jokes unless they're really funny.
By now, most politically aware people have heard the inept gaffe that gave rise to the title of this article. Mitt Romney's chief political strategist, Eric Fehrnstrom, was asked during a CNN interview if Romney would have trouble reaching moderate voters during the general election campaign, given he has staked out so many far-right positions during the GOP primary battle. Fehrnstrom replied with a metaphor that became infamous overnight: "You hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again."
Poor Fehrnstrom, who delivered his response with an anticipatory smirk suggesting he was "winning!", was immediately pilloried all across the cable news and political blogospheres of every political ideology. The best talking point the Romney campaign could come up with for damage control the next day was the candidate's (and his wife's) insistence that Fehrnstrom was merely referring to the "organizational retooling" required when transitioning from primary to general election campaign. With PR wizardry like this, Romney hardly needs David Axelrod's campaign minions as enemies.
The transparent ineptitude of Romney's spin only further reinforced the fact that Fehrnstrom had inadvertently confirmed every conservative's worst fear -- that Romney's plan to win the Republican nomination is no more and no less cynical than to shamelessly pander to the right-wing, particularly the Tea Party, to secure the nomination, and then simply pretend during the general election that he never said (or meant) any of it. Conservatives have always correctly feared that Romney was a chameleon-like fraud; Fehrnstrom merely confirmed, in a devastating political Freudian slip, the truth about his boss.
The gaffe by Fehrnstrom (a former ad agency troglodyte who was plucked from a fried chicken ad campaign to run communications for Romney's 2002 gubernatorial election) is merely the latest in a string of inept, unforced errors by the campaign; Fehrnstrom's is notable because it's usually Romney himself who manages to insert foot in mouth at the most inopportune times.
There's a common phrase that folks use when a trial results in a dismissal they don't agree with – "got off on a technicality." A lot of people apparently think there's a good chance that criminal defendants who are guilty may be acquitted due to some sleazy lawyering. Given the fact that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, it's obviously not true that dangerous individuals are often set free based on technicalities, but I suppose no one would elect politicians if they told us how safe we all are.
Given the power that police and prosecutors have, combined with the general disposition of Americans to be tough on crime, I would suggest that it's much more likely for individuals to be convicted on technicalities. For example, last week one Dharun Ravi was convicted of hate crimes related to using a webcam to observe his gay college roommate making out with another man. Considering the evidence that Mr. Ravi harbored anti-gay animus is pretty thin, one can make a strong case that he was convicted on a technicality. And that's what I'm going to try and do. Well, I bet I can make an above average case, anyway…
Mitt Romney crushed Rick Santorum in Illinois tonight, taking a big step towards inevitability. Romney has had a bad habit of floundering when he had the chance to land knockout punches, but he finally hit one tonight. At this point, it's becoming pretty clear that Santorum can pull off wins in smaller states, but when faced with Romney's financial advantage in larger, more expensive states with more diverse populations, he tends to do poorly.
It doesn't really matter anymore if Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul drop out, as they are getting such little support that it wouldn't make a difference either way. The question now is will Santorum stay aggressive and continue to attack the eventual Republican nominee the way he has and continue to do things that will hurt Romney in the general election like link Romneycare and Obamacare, or will he scale it back. Santorum will probably win in Louisiana on Saturday but that won't make much of a difference as it's a Saturday primary in a relatively small state meaning it will get little media attention. Don't be surprised to see Romney begin to gain on Santorum in Pennsylvania as well once he floods the state with money -- we saw the same pattern in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, three midwest states where Santorum was doing well until Romney begin to spend in full.
Santorum will probably continue to make the argument that Romney won't reach the 1144 delegates needed to secure the nomination, but with Gingrich and Paul doing so poorly, Romney's delegate share is increasing, meaning it will be very unlikely that he will finish below 1144.
In other words -- Romney will be the nominee, he basically made that inevitable tonight. All that's left to see now is how Santorum (and to a lesser extent Gingrich) decide to end this -- with personal attacks that could hurt Romney or in a way that gives Romney legitimacy as the nominee and solidifies the Republican party.
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