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Politics & Money

The portrait of the undecided voter

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Shorter Buzz Bissinger:

I like Mitt Romney because of years of saying he would do the opposite, this one night, he looked into my eyes and said Buzz, forget all that I said before, and remember that I have compassion for all of you who don’t work for PBS especially millionaires like you Buzz who Obama would cast into the ocean with his “Clinton era tax rate and Millionaire/billionaire Pariah act”. This retirement age Mormon who has fundraised more than campaigned: he’s going to rejuvenate all of us. And he won’t bomb Iran because I feel it. Did Obama solve the “Afghanistan” problem? No? That’s why Romney would be better in Iran.

The longer you are undecided, I have to believe this type of political calculation is typical.

Romney up in polls after confident shaking the etch-a-sketch

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Romney’s bounce is here:

Still, as I wrote yesterday, my guess is that the forecast model is still being somewhat too conservative about accounting for the change in the environment. In a good number of the polls, Mr. Romney has not only improved his own standing but also taken voters away from Mr. Obama’s column, suggesting that he has peeled off some of Mr. Obama’s softer support in addition to gaining ground among undecided voters.

source: Oct. 6: Romney Maintains Poll Momentum – NYTimes.com.

As significant as that is, that may be all.

Sullivan is calling Obama Al Gore and he’s never seen this before. Al Gore is saying Obama wasn’t used to that high an altitude. Taibbi says they both lost. Obama is being knocked because even those his closing argument was that he would fight for the American people, he didn’t fight for his record or plan:

“The president seemed under-energized, and in particular, he didn’t really go on attack mode, and we were looking, we the faithful, who worked very hard for him four years ago, for that,” he said.

Carol Doeppers, his wife, and a former state chair for Common Cause, said she “missed [Obama’s] fire in the belly.”

“There wasn’t that fire, and Mitt had it,” she said. “We can only hope that he gets the real aggressive force behind him again. But last night was a down night.”

In the end, if one takes into account Reagan’s rebound after tanking the 1st debate against Mondalein 1984, Obama’s debate improvements in 2008 and David Axelrod’s signalling of a debate strategy change, it’s not time to panic. Decathlon, not a horse race. There’s time to adjust.

“We need the labor board to explain the numbers.” says pundit holding BLS report explaining numbers

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Every time the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a jobs report, Morning Joe’s panel takes time to specifically discuss them in the third hour of their broadcast. During this segment Joe Scarborough quite often cites BLS numbers from his time in office during the Clinton presidency and Reagan’s years in office as fact, as any sane human being should. These numbers are used as guidelines for adjusting unemployment benefits, employment programs and all types of public and private sector policy.

This thing I can’t make sense of makes no sense.

Today, when the number was released and it was 7.8% Scarborough said something felt odd about the jobs report. he literally said “these numbers don’t add up”. They literally do add up. BLS revises previous numbers every month. Mike Barnicle admits he is “totally unqualified” to give his opinion on the matter, and Joe agrees that all of them are. That’s odd being that they have been giving their opinion on the matter for about 5 years whenever the number is released. Willie Giest, says that no one on the panel is suggesting that the Obama administration corrupted the jobs report, what they are suggesting is that BLS’s report makes no sense without knowing how to make sense of it.

“We need the labor department to explain.” It’s a report, BLS explains the number in the report.

“This is an inexact science.” Yes, forecasting and estimation is inexact by definition. Which is what BLS does from a variety of data sets is inexact, but precise and a very close approximation. Then Joe insists there has to be a “better way to do this”. The better way to get employment numbers would be to require every employer to report their payroll in full to BLS every month. That’s not happening.

That’s not as bad as Jack Welch who basically accused Obama and Axelrod of sending some hipster thugs or FOI henchmen or LGBT cat burglars to strong arm the BLS report guy to juke the numbers for Obama’s benefit after the debate.

Who knew the key to Six Sigma black belt ninja gaiden enlightenment is: denial!

As if Obama couldn’t have used positive below 8% job numbers any other time between the passing of the stimulus and the Friday morning! (note: Mika’s job in all of this is to apologize for Jack Welch’s wild accusation)

After the Dow Jones Industrial Average started rising after the first few months of the Obama Administration, no one accused Chicago of heading to the Dow to juke those numbers. In fact their mental image of President Obama (Chicago Barry) had nothing to do with the rise in the Dow. These numbers based on speculation, were gospel. But only when it fell under Obama in 2009:

Dear Mr. President,

Unfortunately, it’s true. The stock market doesn’t like you.

Only one month in and investors are giving up. Another 30% haircut would put the Dow at 5000.

That’s all you need to know here. They are really shocked that in fact the Obama’s administration and the “uncertainty goblin” weren’t the end of Democracy and apple pie.

 

 

“The real Romney”

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Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:

The real Romney is the one who can communicate. He’s straight and direct and not fancy, forgivably jargony, but worried about America and sincere. That’s the Romney who showed up for the debate. Stay that guy!

Romney Deflates the President – WSJ.com.

Mitt Romney after 5 years of being the “Let Detroit go Bankrupt” advocator, proposed debt fueled $5 trillion dollar tax cutter, 47% ignorer and self deportation advocate who staged a subpar convention, botched his foreign trip, deployed an anemic ground game and kept a light campaign schedule engages in weeks of intensive debate prep that results in a stylistically solid one and one half hour debate performance where he denies any logical reading of his proposals and contradicts his previously established political positions, and now he’s the real Romney.

Dear Peggy Noonan: If you have to practice that hard to be the “real you” after five years of campaigning, it ain’t the real you.

Not a horse race, it’s a decathlon.

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Before I start: I didn’t watch the debate live last night. I was out. Not out of hand, just out of the house. Watching them before this post, I can see that Romney did well in that he defended his candidacy with vigor and Obama wasn’t crisp or succinct about his successes or his plan for a potential Obama 2nd term. His closing statement itself was under inspiring. Romney’s was as up as he was earlier in the debate. Chalk it up as an “L” for the President. But that is if you judge a debate as a singular event. It’s not. But almost everyone in punditry is judging debates (as usual) sees them as a singular earth moving event.

Debate reaction In Liberal sky is falling on too professorial Obama land (pundits, pols and politics people)

I don’t think Obama even wants this! He is so weak. This is just like him, he always caves. It’s over. Obama/Biden are doing well right now. They are running the country and campaigning. They do more campaign stops than Romney. Romney was defined by Obama’s campaign and not by his own messaging. On top of this, this sounds like a whiny analog to John Sununu’s snide Obama is “lazy” slur. Say that sh*t and realize what you are really saying. It’s not a substantive criticism or even sensical. Has Obama caved on certain things? Taken advantage of some executive powers? Been hypocritical when push came to shove on some issue? Sure. Sometimes legislated against his base? Yes. So has [insert any fucking American president here]!

Let’s just go through some disappointments from the last few Democratic presidents: FDR and Japanese Internment and Social Security Act’s exclusion of minorities? JFK/LBJ and Vietnam? LBJ literally passed civil rights and threw up his hands. Jimmy Carter’s lasting domestic success was bring open religiosity to the oval office. Bill Clinton’s far right financial reform and welfare reform.

Yea. So I agree. Drone war and Drug War really, really suck. We need to get out of Afghanistan faster (even though he promised to prosecute that war in his 2008 campaign). I don’t like the “grand bargain” including social security. I don’t like that some stupid edited tape was enough to make one of his cabinet secretaries fire a hero like Shirley Sherrod. I think Dodd-Frank could have had more financial reform or established a more independent CFPB, I think medicare for all plus optional private supplemental insurance would be the best system. I also think he has done a lot. He has passed a surprising amount of legislation of considerable heft, nominated two liberal Democratic women to the US Supreme Court and he is an affirming executive of our federal government which means FEMA actually works. The EPA actually does things. No president was a saint. It’s not the job description. Stop expecting a liberal unicorn president. They didn’t exist on the West Wing or in real life.

If you want to vote for someone else, then just say the truth: I didn’t realize what the Democratic party was, I had an a-historical view of the modern American presidency and Democratic politics, I am a socialist/green/communist whatever and go do that. But also remember, that position is the position that you should also be cool with Romney f8cking up for 4 years and then seeing if we can pick up the pieces afterwards.

In Republican Obama is Secret [insert wild archetype here] dependent on teleprompter affirmative action Land (pundits, pols and political people)

Obama doesn’t want this! He is so weak. This is just like him, he is only here because of affirmative action. These people believe Obama failed his way to the head of Harvard Law Review. Obama has never been challenged to his face by anyone to his face! Nevermind campaign 2008: the longest campaign and primary in presidential history, “you lie”, Daily Caller reporter, Bill O’Reilly, nomination blocking, the health care summit with congressional Republicans, he’s isolated (even though he has been hitting the campaign much harder than Mitt Romney).

In the Magical guild of the Practitioners of Horse Racery

The horse won the Derby, now can they win the triple crown? The campaign get’s covered like the triple crown of horse racing. For all season they look at candidates like horses. They look at them as political specimens, not actual politicians. So instead of scoring policies, they would rather walk down to the stables look at a horses haunches, talk to the jockey to see how the horse has been practicing, and ask a horse analyst to determine the horses’ psychologies from afar (They look Presidential. Their campaign manager says we should think everything is great. You can just feel how confident he is debating, this is where this candidate belongs) A collection of three horse races that each matter and the biggest, most important race is smack dab in the middle. After a season of horse racing, it’s The Kentucky Derby! Then Preakness! Then Bellmont staaaaaakes! Then who is the winner? Each race has a winner that is always remembered. Each race is a big deal. Only rarely does a horse win all three! And they’re off! The pomp, the circumstance, the horse shit.

McCain steamrolled the GOP primary while Obama and Hillary had a classic knock down, no corner of every state and territory unturned primary. Hillary Clinton performed well in many of the debates vs. Obama. Do you remember how Obama got Iowa? GROUND. GAME. Wearing out shoes and pressing flesh. People fretted that maybe Hawaiian Barry or Inevitable Hillary would be too tired after such a long, tough race to compete against the war horse John Sydney. Nope. There is no jockey riding candidates beyond when they would normally stop so that they win a race. The campaign follows their lead and command. They are the competitor and the raw talent. A candidate has to build his campaign to use a primary to be able to play the way they want in the later rounds of the tourney.

In the Halls of the Association of Color Analysts of the Political Football League

Did the hail mary work? Don’t know! Now let’s toss out some superlatives no one deserves: Best debate since Reagan. Worst performance since ever. See you after commercial! Romney drops back on the debate stage, he’s running the old “trickle down government” trick play…touchdown, Romney is back in the game! He ain’t Eli Manning with a 9-7 marching into opposing stadiums while leading his team to a championship. Obama is not the Patriots, killing the rest of the league and then losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl. No. The debate is not a Super Bowl. It’s not a Bowl Game.

None of these reactions or analogistic views really address a campaign’s dynamic.

The campaign is like a big, long tournament full of different events. Like the Olympic Decathlon or modern Pentathlon any “-athlon”, ok. Two Americans Ashton Eaton and Trey Hardee dominated and finished Gold and Silver in London 2012. They literally ran the 1500m race at a pace finishing 8th and 11th respectively. Why? They already had enough points to win, they just had to finish strong.

You can’t win with one event, you have to run every event to win, but then you have to . Even with a dominating first events, they still gotta get the most points and compete. It’s best 270 out of 538. These two players (Romney and Obama) will be here until the end of the contest and the final score is after someone gets to best of 270.

The primaries are the early rounds of the tourney. It establishes your ranking, qualifies you for the big decathlon. Then you have to go through every state again. What we do know, Obama is winning blue states handily and is making Romney defend red states.

The “events” are:

  • Staged political speeches: announcement speech, concession and victory speeches and speeches in front of constituency interest groups (NAACP, NALEO, AARP, AFL-CIO, CPAC, etc)
  • Conventions
  • Staged social events: candidates on the view, a late night show, giving a video cameo at a conference
  • Political Service: previous political service as another game in a set: performance in office and your ability to present/defend your record.
  • Debates political public event set: debates (primary and general) and prime time interviews.
  • Running Mate choosing your running mate
  • Policy: policy and position papers
  • Message: political messaging, advertising and marketing
  • Cool in a Crisis: response to a real political crisis in real time
  • Off the Cuff/On Camera: off the cuff comment, surreptitiously recorded or transcribed comments and the response of the candidate
  • Organization: campaign ground game and organization as another
  • Surrogacy: surrogate quality
  • Cash Money: fundraising

These events all have different strategies and different winners, but they all matter together and as someone pulls ahead, it becomes to score one big event to change that trajectory. The debates aren’t a singular event that change that paradigm. They fit into that paradigm.

They are part of a continuum. A long thread affected by what happened before and after. It’s not a thing where everything after hinges only on the debate or Romney’s demeanor. Romney was aggressive because he is behind. Far behind. Overly so I would argue. His campaign staff surely has been telling him he has to run the table. Obama wasn’t aggressive because he has to see what the guy about to lose another event is going to do as a last ditch effort. The only problem is that he eased up too much. The problem for Mitt Romney is that history usually shows it’s too late too little.

John Kerry did very well in 2004, but they didn’t change the trajectory of the debate. Already defined as a flip flopper (by Rove) and defamed (by Swift Boat Vets PAC) he was just further arguing the flop. When Mitt Romney says: I’m going to cut funding for PBS and Big Bird and Jim Lehrer and everything PBS will both be fired, what does someone who works on a PBS show think? What does the auto or factory worker in OH or MI think about Romney after hearing him be so excited about cutting funding for Sesame Street and PBS programming? I don’t think that makes them think that Romney is excited about helping the middle class. I think they think about Romney cutting jobs. Ohio is key to Republican Presidential candidates and the current polls show Romney as a guy who people believe doesn’t worry about the working or middle class. “Let Detroit Bankrupt”, “I like to fire people”, pioneer of outsourcing, the 47%. In addition, there can be deductions for saying contradictory things in the debate. In ads, campaigning and subsequent debates, Romney has to defend some of these claims in front of 58m people. I would bet Obama will have a more pointed prepared strategy.

Scarborough and friends are on my TV now saying Obama lost every debate in primary 08 to Dodd, Biden and Clinton and yet he was still president in January 2009.

Strategic Allied Consulting? yes but both sides!

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Anyone screaming “voter fraud” from the Republican party should have their petitions for candidacy reviewed. These witch hunts are borne out of some sort of guilt

“Strategic has a zero-tolerance policy for breaking the law,” said Fred Petti, a company attorney. “Accordingly, once we learned of the irregularities in Palm Beach County, we were able to trace all questionable cards to one individual and immediately terminated our working relationship with the individual in question.”

The company did not identify the individual.

[…]

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher’s staff noticed signatures that looked alike and incomplete forms submitted on Sept. 5 by Strategic Allied Consulting. Bucher met with prosecutors on Monday to request an investigation.

source: GOP fires consulting firm after 108 questionable voter registrations in Palm Beach County – The Washington Post.

Yes….but ACORN! The Both Sides Goblin will be possessing the brains of your favorite news pundit. Yes, the Both Sides Goblin awakens every time a Republican is accused of something they ginned up during a witch hunt to absolve them of fault because the Both Sides Goblin asserts the law of false equivalence and that means “even-steven” two wrongs make it right even if one wrong is eating a grape in the grocery store line and the other is grand theft auto.

Romney’s demands to Univision

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A weird behind the scenes from Romney’s appearance on Univision’s presidential campaign forums:

But the enthusiasm gap may have been an optical illusion formed by a series of last-minute demands by the Romney campaign, according to Maria Elena Salinas, one of the Univision anchors who moderated the forums.

Salinas told BuzzFeed that tickets for each forum were divided between the network, the respective campaigns, and the University of Miami (which hosted the events) — and she said both campaigns initially agreed to keep the audience comprised mostly of students, in keeping with the events’ education theme.

But after exhausting the few conservative groups on campus, the Romney camp realized there weren’t enough sympathetic students to fill the stands on their night — so they told the network and university that if they weren’t given an exemption to the students-only rule, they might have to “reschedule.”

The organizers relented. One Democrat with ties to the Obama campaign noted that Rudy Fernandez, the university official charged with coordinating the forums, is a member of Romney’s Hispanic steering committee. Fernandez did not respond to BuzzFeed’s questions about whether he gave preferential treatment to Romney’s campaign.

In any case, Romney’s team was allowed to bus in rowdy activists from around southern Florida in order to fill the extra seats at their town hall.

Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, stuck to the original parameters and allowed a large chunk of the tickets to be distributed to interested students on campus. The result was a quiet, well-behaved crowd — and a lot of no-shows. Minutes before Obama’s forum was to begin, producers began frantically directing university staff and volunteers to sit in the empty seats.

Salinas said both candidates ultimately had partisan crowds at their forums, but that Romney’s non-student activists ignored instructions to hold their applause.

“We were a little bit thrown because it was supposed to be a TV show, it wasn’t a rally,” Salinas said of the outspoken Romney supporters. “It was a little bit of disrespect for us.”

That wouldn’t be the last demand from the campaign: Romney himself almost pulled the plug on the whole thing minutes before the broadcast, Salinas said.

While introducing Romney at the top of the broadcast, Salinas’s co-anchor, Jorge Ramos, noted that the Republican candidate had agreed to give the network 35 minutes, and that Obama had agreed to a full hour the next night. Ramos then invited the audience to welcome Romney to the stage — but the candidate didn’t materialize.

“It was a very awkward moment, believe me,” Salinas said.

Apparently, Romney took issue with the anchors beginning the broadcast that way, said Salinas, and he refused to go on stage until they re-taped the introduction. (One Republican present at the taping said Romney “threw a tantrum.”)

source: How Romney Packed The Univision Forum.

Not very presidential.