Romney Takes Lead in Battleground Tracking Poll
For the first time since May, Mitt Romney has taken the lead in a Politico Battleground Tracking poll of 10 competitive states.
The surge toward a November victory continues post-debate:
Via Politico:
Mitt Romney has taken a narrow national lead, tightened the gender gap and expanded his edge over President Barack Obama on who would best grow the economy.
A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll of 1,000 likely voters — taken from Sunday through Thursday of last week — shows Romney ahead of Obama by 2 percentage points, 49 percentage to 47 percent. That represents a 3-point swing in the GOP nominee’s direction from a week ago but is still within the margin of error. Obama led 49 percent to 48 percent the week before.
Romney has not led in the poll since the beginning of May.
Across the 10 states identified by POLITICO as competitive, Romney leads 50 percent to 48 percent.
Ed Morrisey at Hot Air reports that while the numbers are more realistic than some other polling samples, they still likely do not capture the enthusiasm gap in favor of Republicans.
Let’s take a look inside the numbers. The D/R/I for this poll is 35/31/33 for a D+4, a not-insupportable number that probably still understates Republican enthusiasm and turnout. Republicans comprised 32% of the electorate in 2008 and 35% of the electorate in 2010, so they’re unlikely to have a worse relative turnout this time than either of the past two elections. However, the non-white percentage in the sample (22%) looks a little thin compared to 2008 (26%), but close to 2010′s 23%. That’s something to keep in mind, as I suspect that the 2012 turnout will be somewhere between the two, and the undersample here may balance out the undersample of Republicans.
Two keys suggest Romney’s doing better than his toplines. First, he’s winning the gender gap. Romney gets a +10 among men, while Obama gets a +8 among women, for a +2 advantage for Romney. In 2008, Obama had a +14 gender gap advantage over John McCain. Obama wins single women, but is getting clobbered among married women, 42/55. Romney’s also leading among women without children overall, 50/46, suggesting that women who already know how to access birth control aren’t terribly concerned about it as an election issue.
The second key is age demographics. Obama has a 30-point lead among voters 34 years and younger, but that’s his only win. He and Romney tie among 35-44YOs at 48 each, but Romney has double digit leads among 45-64YOs (54/44) and seniors (58/38). Those last two demographics are the most likely to vote in the election.
This is yet another poll series showing Romney trending toward victory, and I suspect that the momentum is greater than the toplines suggest…
Another Lie: Obama Administration to Negotiate Extended Stay For US Troops in Afghanistan
“We are leaving. We are leaving in 2014. Period.” – Joe Biden at the Vice-Presidential debate.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
Via the Foreign Policy Blog:
Despite statements by Vice President Joe Biden, the State Department is about to begin formal negotiations over the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, a top State Department official said Tuesday.
Last week, U.S. and Afghan negotiators met in Kabul to talk about the Bilateral Security Agreement that will govern the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, when President Barack Obama said the combat mission in Afghanistan will end and the U.S. will complete the transition of the entire country to Afghan government control.
Also last week, Biden told Americans during his Oct. 11 debate with Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan that U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan by 2014.
“We are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process, we’re going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion,” Biden said. “We’ve been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now all we’re doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security. It’s their responsibility, not America’s.”
Marc Grossman, the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, explained today that’s not the whole story.
Grossman said Tuesday that the point of the upcoming negotiations is to agree on an extension of the U.S. troop presence well past 2014, for the purposes of conducting counterterrorism operations and training and advising the Afghan security forces.
Video: Hillary Clinton Falls on the Sword for Obama Administration
Remember when President Obama was criticizing Mitt Romney about his responsibilities at Bain Capital, even invoking Harry Truman’s ‘the buck stops here’ campaign?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, here’s what I know, we were just talking about responsibility and as president of the United States, it’s pretty clear to me that I’m responsible for folks who are working in the federal government and you know, Harry Truman said the buck stops with you.
Now, my understanding is that Mr. Romney attested to the SEC, multiple times, that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital and I think most Americans figure if you are the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what that company does.
Ultimately Mr. Romney, I think, is going to have to answer those questions, because if he aspires to being president one of the things you learn is, you are ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations, but again that’s probably a question that he’s going to have to answer and I think that’s a legitimate part of the campaign.
The buck stops with the President? He is ultimately responsible for the conduct of his operations?
Apparently that mantra doesn’t hold true when it comes to your administration’s conduct in dealing with the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.
Today we found out the buck doesn’t actually stop with the President, but rather it stops with Hillary Clinton.
Falling on the sword for the administration during a tough re-election bid, Clinton today told a CNN reporter “I take responsibility” for security ahead of the attacks.
“This was a purely political move to give Obama breathing room tomorrow night. That’s it.”
If the State Department had solely been responsible for the lack of security leading up to the attacks, the White House would not have consistently covered up this attack with the fabricated ‘spontaneous protest’ story.
With the economy being blamed on Bush consistently over the last four years, and now these terror attacks being blamed on Hillary, one has to wonder can anything that happens under this regime be considered Obama’s fault?
New Video Rips Biden for ‘Laughing at the Issues’
Talk about a rapid response…
Via the GOP:
New RNC Ad: Vice President Biden is laughing… are you? At the 2012 Vice Presidential debate, Vice President Biden spent 90 minutes laughing and rolling his eyes to try and distract from his inability to defend the last four years and provide a vision for the next four.
Hilarious – First Debate as Interpreted By Bad Lip Readers
The debate was entertaining enough for the Mitt Romney beat down, but what happens when you turn the volume down and really bad lip readers interpret what is being said? Glad you asked…
(h/t All-American Blogger)
Bill Maher on Obama: ‘Looked Like He Took My Million and Spent It All on Weed’
Obama supporter Bill Maher has been ripping into the President of late with his post-debate analysis. Earlier this week he whined that the President “looks like he DOES need a teleprompter’.
Last night, he took another shot at Obama’s debate performance.
Via Mediaite:
Bill Maher admitted he was not happy with how President Obama did during his first big debate this week. He told his audience that Obama undeniably “sucked” during the debate, and surmised that the million dollars he gave to the campaign was probably spent on weed.
Maher surmised that because Wednesday was Obama’s anniversary, “he apparently had the sex first and was completely spent” for the debate. He contrasted Romney looking “charged up” with Obama looking like Michael Jackson on diprivan. Maher admitted that Obama “sucked” during the debate, and made a joke referencing the money he gave to the pro-Obama Super PAC.
“He looked tired. He had trouble getting his answers out. It looked like he took my million and spent it all on weed.”
Maher also observed that “Obama looked so dead, Romney tried to baptize him.”
Hey, aren’t drug references regarding the President considered racist?
Choom gang not available for comment…
Reuters Poll: Romney Gains Four Points Since Debate
Weren’t the liberals in the media trying to convince us that the race was over just a week ago?
President Barack Obama’s lead over challenger Mitt Romney has narrowed to just two percentage points since the Republican’s strong performance in their first debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.
In more bad news for Obama, one in five voters said the Democrat’s performance in the contest in Denver on Wednesday made them feel more negative about him and almost a third said they felt more positive about his Republican challenger…
Obama had led Romney by 6 percentage points in the poll released on Wednesday and the edge narrowed to five points – a 48-43 percent lead for Obama – in polling up to Thursday. That was the first including a day of interviews after the meeting in Denver…
More than 9 out of 10 registered voters – 91 percent – said they had seen, heard or read something about the debate, and 54 percent said they thought Romney had done a better job.
Allahpundit at Hot Air also unveils this brutal ad. Not a word is uttered, and yet it speaks volumes about the need to put the Obama experiment behind us as a nation.
Watch…
Video – What Was the Most Used Phrase by Obama at the Debate? Uh…
Let me think for a minute … uh …
um …
uh …
Hold on, it’ll come to me.
MSNBC Contributor Frets – ‘The President Had No Teleprompter’
Even this morning, MSNBC contributors were in panic mode over the President’s performance in last night’s debate.
On Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle indicated that he thinks Obama’s wretched performance was due to the lack of a teleprompter.
Here’s a partial transcript:
BARNICLE: We all know that the presidency is a bubble, that existed in that bubble. We also know anecdotally from your reporting and other reporting that we read continually that there’s very little interaction between this president and members of the senate or members of the house. There’s very little personal interaction. There’s no phone calls back and forth. We don’t know really what happens when he has conversations about the legislation pending and stuff like that. But we do know from last night when Mitt Romney says I don’t know what you’re talking about, we do know the look that registered on President Obama’s face was, you know, who are you to be saying that to another …
… as long as we’re talking about this, and Jon Meacham is right, that no one has spoken to him like this for the last four years. There’s another element that perhaps should be under discussion. the President had no teleprompter last night. He speaks almost all the time off of a teleprompter. Forced now to stand on his feet after four years in the bubble, getting pushed back a little. He didn’t do too well. He didn’t do too well.
Live Coverage of the Republican Debate
If you’re tired of the same ol’ establishment media coverage of the Republican debates, we’re offering a live stream of coverage provided by All Patriots Media, sponsored by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity. The debate coverage will be hosted by Tony Katz and Stephen Kruiser.
Mental Recession 