Romney vs. Obama

[PassedOut]

from the atlantic

 

...

 

She refuses to call Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Wisconsin.

From the Atlantic article:

 

It's probably safe to conclude that Democrats are winning the early vote in Ohio.

 

Update: Early Voting Swamping GOP

 

WPTV in Palm Beach obtained an e-mail from a distressed Palm Beach County Republican who fretted that Democrats were “cleaning our clock.”

 

The e-mail said the early voting might drag down the GOP ticket in Palm Beach County.

 

The e-mail in part states:

 

The early and absentee turnout is starting to look more troubling.

 

As of yesterday, Republicans made up only 22% of early voters and 30% of returned absentee votes.

 

This is closer to (and worse than) 2008 where we saw 19% EV and 38% of the absentees. 2010 (our blowout year) was 33% of EV and 45% of AB.

 

Conclusion: The Democrat turnout machine in the county has been very effective and they are cleaning our clock. Even if Romney wins the state (likely based on polls), the turnout deficit in PBC will affect our local races.

Seek and ye shall find...

Edited November 2, 2012 by PassedOut

[luke warm]

Seek and ye shall find...

like you, i'm only really interested in states that romney was projected to lose but which are now, suddenly, in plan

[mike777]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158399/2012-electorate-looks-like-2008.aspx

 

Ya as I said earlier I think the Republicans are using this poll, see the bottom part, to claim that most of the final 4-6% will go republican and that the state polls are biased expecting a repeat of 2008 rather than 2004.

 

For some reason I cannot cut and paste that portion.

[PassedOut]

Looks like the voter fraud investigation in Florida and Virginia is now expanding: Virginia voter fraud case expands to focus on GOP firm

 

The investigation into the arrest of a man on charges of dumping voter registration forms last month in Harrisonburg, Va., has widened, with state officials probing whether a company tied to top Republican leaders had engaged in voter registration fraud in the key battleground state, according to two persons close to the case.

 

A former employee of Strategic Allied Consulting, a contractor for the Republican Party of Virginia, had been scheduled to appear last Tuesday before a grand jury after he was charged with tossing completed registration forms into a recycling bin. But state prosecutors canceled Colin Small’s grand jury testimony to gather more information, with their focus expanding to the firm that had employed Small, which is led by longtime GOP operative Nathan Sproul.

Maybe the republicans are right that there is a lot of voter fraud that hasn't been noticed. I guess both parties have their legal teams ready to fight...

[awm]

Something to keep in mind is that Republican governors have made it substantially harder to vote early in several states, including Florida and Ohio. I'd expect this to reduce the total number of early votes cast, and the Democratic early vote advantage. However, some (but not all) of the people who don't vote early will vote on election day... so the Republican advantage from this will not be as large as the ground they make up in the early voter margin.

 

I'm wondering what the odds are that the election will be effectively decided by my usual bedtime around 11 pm Pacific Time. Ohio polls close at 4:30 pm (Pacific) and 6.5 hours is plenty of time to call it unless we have a recount type scenario. And it certainly seems likely that Ohio decides the race!

[kenberg]

I often yearn for the simpler days of old. When I was in college I took a variety of jobs, some long term, some short term. One very short term job was on an election day. My job was to drive to various polling places, pick up boxes of ballots, and haul them off to where they would be counted. I was 19, I am sure I was not vetted in any way, I don't recall signing anything, they just gave me the boxes, I hauled them somewhere, they paid me some money. In cash. This would be 1958 so it wasn't a presidential election, but still it was an election.

 

Also, the thought of early voting favoring one candidate or the other drives me a bit up the wall. I have voted in every presidential election, every gubernatorial election, every senate election, etc beginning in 1960. I vote on the first Tuesday in November. Playing f2f bridge on Thursday afternoon a lady at the table remarked she was going to go vote after the game. Ok. I have no idea who she voted for. I have no idea if early voters are Dems or Reps. I know political operatives have to worry about such things. I am very pleased that I do not have to do so.

 

About fraud. I can see how it might occur in the manner described above. Someone trashes registration forms, depriving someone of the opportunity to vote. It is less easy to see how to commit fraud by having people go to the polls pretending to be someone else. A person could do that I suppose, but why would he? It seems rather dangerous. A person who is not registered because he was too lazy to do so suddenly gets so inspired to vote that he is willing to risk imprisonment to do so? Or an illegal alien, Mexican or Martian or whatever, normally someone keeping a low profile, decides to take the risk? Or someone wanders through the streets soliciting unregistered voters to commit fraud for a price? Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper, and more effective to use the money to get out the vote of the many registered voters who don't bother to come to the polls? And, with modern access to affiliation information, you would have a far better estimate of what the person will actually do inside the booth.

 

I try hard not to be one of those old farts always grumbling about change, but there are times that I find the modern world very unfriendly. Just too much stuff to get worked up over. Still, I guess I will be making a New Year's resolution to learn how to tweet. Can't just dwell in the past.

[ArtK78]

Nate Silver's most recent analysis (around midnight last night) has Obama's chances of winning up to 83.7% with a projected electoral vote total of 305.3. While the numbers didn't change much from yesterday, the fact that they stayed essentially the same and there is one less day remaining to election day improves Obama's chances of winning.

[cherdano]

I'm wondering what the odds are that the election will be effectively decided by my usual bedtime around 11 pm Pacific Time. Ohio polls close at 4:30 pm (Pacific) and 6.5 hours is plenty of time to call it unless we have a recount type scenario. And it certainly seems likely that Ohio decides the race!

 

Your first out is Virginia (closing 7pm Eastern). If Obama wins Virginia, Romney would need some very surprising wins (Ohio is not enough), and those suprises would be even more unlikely if polls in Virginia haven't been too far off.

[y66]

The Simple Case for Saying That Obama Is Favored by Nate Silver

 

You may have heard some pushback about our contention that Barack Obama is the favorite (certainly not a lock) to win on Tuesday. I haven’t come across too many analyses suggesting that Mitt Romney is the favorite. But plenty of people say the race is a “tossup.”

 

What I find confounding is that the argument we’re making is exceedingly simple: Obama is ahead in Ohio.

Latest employment data for Ohio

 

http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_LASST39000003_2002_2012_all_period_M09_data_employment.gif

[PassedOut]

After all the hoopla of the past couple of months, the president's chances look even better now than when this thread began: For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased

 

My argument, rather, is this: we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him. Almost all of the chance that Mr. Romney has in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, about 16 percent to win the Electoral College, reflects this possibility.

 

Yes, of course: most of the arguments that the polls are necessarily biased against Mr. Romney reflect little more than wishful thinking.

 

Nevertheless, these arguments are potentially more intellectually coherent than the ones that propose that the race is “too close to call.” It isn’t. If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.

 

But the state polls may not be right. They could be biased. Based on the historical reliability of polls, we put the chance that they will be biased enough to elect Mr. Romney at 16 percent.

We'll know soon!

[y66]

After all the hoopla of the past couple of months, the president's chances look even better now than when this thread began: For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased

 

 

We'll know soon!

 

I dreamed that Larry Sabato from my alma mater summarized the latest swing state poll numbers on Face The Nation and Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal weighed in with "Of course, there's a 16 percent chance that those numbers are wrong".

[y66]

A few minutes ago, 2 of the cutest 40 somethings in my neighborhood stopped by and asked if my wife had voted yet. This was pretty funny because she has been getting flack from family members for waiting until the last minute to vote before she heads out of town later today. There was a 2 hour wait at the court house so she went to an alternate site a few miles away in the Republican part of the county and voted. Even there, the wait was 30 minutes.

 

Nate Silver is projecting a 1.2 percent winning margin for Obama in Virginia. It will be extremely cool if that # holds up.

[PassedOut]

Nate Silver is projecting a 1.2 percent winning margin for Obama in Virginia. It will be extremely cool if that # holds up.

Knock on wood! I'm not up for a return to the Bush years so soon.

:)

[PassedOut]

Closing statements:

 

Mitt Romney: My vision for America

 

President Barack Obama: My vision for America

 

Nothing left to do but vote, for those of us who haven't.

[PassedOut]

Deleted duplicate post.

[luke warm]

Knock on wood! I'm not up for a return to the Bush years so soon. :)

what makes obama's policies fiscally conservative, in your view? and, again in your view, are those policies more or less fiscally conservative then romney's?

[PassedOut]

what makes obama's policies fiscally conservative, in your view? and, again in your view, are those policies more or less fiscally conservative then romney's?

It's relative. Obama has (slightly) reduced the annual deficit that he inherited from Bush and has held spending increases below that of every president since Eisenhower. Romney promises a 20% tax cut and huge increases in military spending. There's plenty more, but all in the same vein.

[awm]

what makes obama's policies fiscally conservative, in your view? and, again in your view, are those policies more or less fiscally conservative then romney's?

 

Obama's budget is fairly specific and while it may have too-large deficits for a true fiscal hawk, at least his numbers add up and the deficits are shrinking. Further, he has shown a willingness to negotiate on entitlement spending (which his party opposes cutting). He has done a great job cutting waste and abuse from the budget (such as the subsidy to big banks to "manage" government-guaranteed student loans, and overpayments to medicare providers).

 

Romney makes a lot of grand promises about balancing the budget, but he refuses to give any specifics on significant programs he would cut (in fact he has promised to leave medicare unchanged for a decade) or tax deductions he would eliminate. In fact he has proposed massive cuts in tax rates and increases in spending on the military and entitlements (the latter by undoing Obama's medicare provider overpayment elimination), and while he claims that he will reduce the deficit it's simply not believable. The only way his promises could possibly add up is by making extremely aggressive and unrealistic assumptions about economic growth; the same "trickle-down" growth we were promised by prior Republican administrations (and which never materialized). In addition, he has shown no willingness to confront his own party on revenues (which they oppose increasing), and in fact has pledged not to accept a package that was 10:1 cuts to revenue.

 

There probably isn't a true "fiscal conservative" in the race, but Obama at least has arithmetic on his side.

[kenberg]

Adam's views are a pretty accurate summary of why I will be voting for Obama. I find both candidates very difficult to believe. In one of the debates Romney "made it clear" that no one over the age of 55 has to worry a bit about his plans for entitlement reform. Really? Really? We have to get this stuff under control and I really don't t think that the under 55s will take kindly to having it all fall on them. If someone said "Hey, we gotta do this and I'm the guy to take a fair and practical approach to spreading the pain in a reasonable manner and solving the problem. Here is what I propose" he would get my vote. I don't hear either one of them saying such a thing. Obama should have been very beatable this time. I would hope that Republicans really give some honest, and probably painful, thought to why it has not worked out that way.

[luke warm]

It's relative.

 

Obama's budget ...

passed out has said many times that he is a fiscal conservative... i simply asked what policies obama has incorporated or will incorporate that a fiscal conservative such as him might like... neither of you answered that question... as for adam's "his deficits are shrinking" read the cbo's projection into the next decade... it's a trillion a year for the foreseeable future, under obama

[PassedOut]

passed out has said many times that he is a fiscal conservative...

To be accurate, I've said that my views are conservative and that -- as a part of those views -- I believe in fiscal responsibility.

 

Romney has campaigned on tax cuts and spending increases, which are the same irresponsible fiscal policies that brought us the current fiscal mess. They are the same irresponsible policies that created the mess that Bill Clinton had to clean up in the 1990s. In practice, Obama has been much more responsible fiscally than was his predecessor (and more responsible than the two presidents before Bill Clinton).

 

No candidate is perfect, nor should we expect that. However, between the two major candidates, Obama is campaigning as the more fiscally responsible, and during his first term succeeded in reducing the Bush deficit while battling tough economic times. Obama will continue to chip away at the deficit; Romney would push it higher and higher. It's not a close decision.

 

Obama has righted the economic ship and the US has clear sailing ahead. (And he's not about to take us into another stupid, stupid, expensive, stupid war.)

 

Addendum:

 

To be more explicit, when you increase spending and reduce revenue (Romney), you increase the deficit; therefore you are irresponsible fiscally. When you reduce spending and increase revenue (Obama), you reduce the deficit and thus are more responsible fiscally.

Edited November 4, 2012 by PassedOut

[nigel_k]

Obama has righted the economic ship and the US has clear sailing ahead.

Don't forget that he also cured cancer, achieved world peace, and will complete a procedure to reverse aging in his second term.

[y66]

Many 2008 Conservative Obama Backers, or ObamaCons, Will Stay True by John Avlon Sep 4, 2012

 

Mitt Romney has failed to win over many of the prominent Republicans and conservatives who publicly backed Barack Obama in 2008. Charles Fried, Douglas Kmiec, and others tell John Avlon why they’re sticking with the president.

http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/09/04/many-2008-conservative-obama-backers-or-obamacons-will-stay-true/_jcr_content/body/inlineimage.img.503.jpg/1346748338596.cached.jpg

Conservative Obama supporters Charles Fried, left, and Douglas Kmiec, right. (From left: Michael Reynolds, EPA / Landov; Charlie Riedel / AP Photo; Alex Wong / Getty Images)

 

“Having abandoned John McCain—a decent and independent-minded man—when he picked Sarah Palin, I most certainly could not support Governor Romney, who has been pandering to the extreme wing of my party from the start of his campaign for the nomination,” Fried wrote in an email. “Napoleon said that the man who will say anything will do anything.”

Wick Allison, former publisher of National Review under William F. Buckley and current publisher of The American Conservative, also reaffirms his Obama decision, albeit in anguished lukewarm tones. “I will probably vote for Obama, unless I have a Gary Johnson–inspiration in the voting booth. (My vote in Texas is wasted anyway.),” Allison wrote in an email. “Romney is the opposite of conservative, with a plan that is fiscally reckless and a foreign policy that is unnecessarily militant. Obama has done about the best that could have been done, considering the united GOP opposition in Congress. My questions about Obamacare and my disappointment that we are not already out of Afghanistan are not enough to make me embrace a candidacy that even George W. Bush would have been repelled by—and, having had time to reflect on his own record, perhaps is.”

One of the most contentious ObamaCon arguments was offered by Douglas Kmiec, also a veteran of Reagan’s Office of Legal Counsel and a law professor at conservative Pepperdine University. Kmiec, who served as ambassador to Malta during the first two years of the Obama administration, tried to square his Obama endorsement with his devout Catholic beliefs and remains an unrepentant ObamaCon, even as Catholic leaders have proclaimed the president’s “war on religion.”

 

“I am strongly in the president’s camp, even as his opposition has been doing its darnedest to overstate a few concerns about the usual subjects,” Kmiec wrote in an email. “Having served in Europe for the president, I know the very positive effect he has had on international relationships. His patience, discernment, and intelligence are much admired. Domestically, the president was handed the worst possible economic hand, and largely, though of course not perfectly, he has met the economic challenge … This is supposed to be Mr. Romney’s area of strength, but so far, his ideas are either indecipherable or a rather lame trickle-down do-over.”

Right on brother cons.

[kenberg]

Don't forget that he also cured cancer, achieved world peace, and will complete a procedure to reverse aging in his second term.

 

Campaign slogan: Are you younger now than you were four years ago?

[cherdano]

To be more explicit, when you increase spending and reduce revenue (Romney), you increase the deficit; therefore you are irresponsible fiscally. When you reduce spending and increase revenue (Obama), you reduce the deficit and thus are more responsible fiscally.

 

That's what you think. There are at least 5 studies saying otherwise.