In February I wrote that the conservative wave would crash this year. I even upgraded the warning to a tsunami, and told people to get the hell off the beach. So it couldn't be any more appropriate for a hurricane to be arriving in Tampa just as the Republican Party is gathering for its national convention. It's even more appropriate for said hurricane to be named Isaac, after the biblical character whose father, Abraham, has to prove his fealty to the Almighty by killing his son. The GOP is all about fealty. And sacrifice. And going to the edge of the abyss before pulling back (remember that said Almighty stops Abraham just as he's about to plunge a dagger into a bound and compliant Isaac). The story of Abraham and Isaac is just too perfect for our times, but the GOP has forgotten its lesson.
Yes, folks, this is the modern day Republican Party. It's fractious, extreme, uncompromising and biblical. It relies on the fear of change while also proposing some of the most far-reaching and radical changes this country has ever seen. It wants to deny people their equal rights, bind women to their men, sacrifice the poor so that the rich can have their tax cuts and proclaim itself libertarian while telling you what you can do in the privacy of your home and bedroom. It has questioned the legitimacy of our sitting president and has demonized anyone who doesn't agree with its policies as un-American, anti-American, and foreign.
It's not enough to say that this isn't your father's Republican Party. This isn't even Abraham's Republican Party.
With a party platform that would deny marriage equality, outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and boil health care down to a policy that essentially says lose weight (hello keynote speaker!), the Republicans will gather under a far-right banner that Mitt Romney wouldn't have draped himself in 5 years ago. The father of the nation's health care law now has to run away from it faster than Usain Bolt because the rest of the party doesn't like the idea that until 4 years ago was a Republican talking point.
His running mate, Paul Ryan, is a poster child of the new right and the man who single-handedly turned the election from being about jobs and the economy, which is where Romney needed it to be, into a tutorial on why we need social programs like Medicare, Social Security and food stamps. The Republicans will remind anyone who listens that now is not the time to raise taxes on anyone, but they seem to believe that it's high time we cut those darned benefits that feed, educate and clothe children, and keep them under dry rooves (yes, I said rooves).
I truly hope that nobody gets hurt as a result of the storm heading towards Tampa. The problem is that many people will get hurt because of the Republican agenda. It's a perfect storm of greed, intolerance and uncompromising radicalism. Forget the beach; it's time to move to the high ground, and fast.
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Sunday, August 26, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Polling on Convention Eve
It’s been a rather eventful week in the polling arena, with various
outfits (well-known and otherwise) conducting surveys and trying to get a
sense of where the electorate stands on the eve of the Republican
convention. Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate
resulted in anywhere from a 3 to 5% bump in the national polls for the
GOP, but much of that has dissipated over the course of the week. Romney is running better in many state polls, and as pollsters move to a likely voter model, the conventional wisdom says that Romney’s numbers will eventually break through the 46-47% barrier he’s currently behind.
The week began with polls that seemed to defy gravity. An FMWB Florida poll showed Romney with a 14 point lead, mostly due to the polling firm’s making some, um, interesting assumptions about who will show up to vote in Florida on election day, for example, saying that only 2% of the electorate will be under 30. FMWB then came out with a Michigan poll showing Romney up 4, which sounds responsible, but the Florida poll made many people suspicious of any result from this pollster. Two days later, another Michigan poll had the president ahead. Strange doings.
Quinnipiac/CBS/NYT then entered the fray with swing state polls showing Obama ahead in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, but the polls seem to have overstated Democrats, which should give Romney hope. He’ll need at least two out of these three states if he hopes to win in November, though my sense is that if he wins in Wisconsin, then he’s going to win a lot more Midwestern states too. The University of Cincinnati supported the Ohio findings with their own poll, but they didn’t post party ID, so it’s difficult to see if their numbers were accurate.
Missouri also garnered attention this week, but for all the wrong reasons. Polling in the post-Akin comments era was promising at first, but two new polls, Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon show Claire McCaskill with a solid lead in the race. Curiously, Rasmussen released a poll showing Obama ahead by 1 in Missouri, but subsequent PPP and Mason-Dixon polls showed Romney with leads that I believe will stand through election day.
Another swing state, Colorado, was polled by Onsight Public Affairs and showed the president with a small lead, mostly due to strength among women and Latino voters. Romney will of course contest Colorado, but my sense is that this could be the first state he abandons if September polling shows that his money would be better spent in other markets, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia.
By the end of the week, stasis had been restored. Obama claimed a smaller lead in the national polls, and was back where he started the week with the national trackers, Rasmussen +1 and in a tie according to Gallup. Still, it was a good week for Mitt Romney as his numbers slowly rose higher and his message began to gain traction. As he enters the GOP convention he can feel confident that he will gain a significant bump in the polls and emerge from Tampa with anywhere from a 5-7% lead in the polls, which would translate into a 7-10% gain. He’ll probably lose some of that lead after the Democratic convention, and we should see Romney with a small lead by the second week in September. Remember also that the latest jobs numbers will be released two days after the Democratic convention ends, and right now it doesn’t look as if those numbers will be promising for the president. This could lead to more of a bump for Romney.
The campaign is about to get underway in earnest after a summer of name-calling and side issues. Let the fun begin.
The week began with polls that seemed to defy gravity. An FMWB Florida poll showed Romney with a 14 point lead, mostly due to the polling firm’s making some, um, interesting assumptions about who will show up to vote in Florida on election day, for example, saying that only 2% of the electorate will be under 30. FMWB then came out with a Michigan poll showing Romney up 4, which sounds responsible, but the Florida poll made many people suspicious of any result from this pollster. Two days later, another Michigan poll had the president ahead. Strange doings.
Quinnipiac/CBS/NYT then entered the fray with swing state polls showing Obama ahead in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, but the polls seem to have overstated Democrats, which should give Romney hope. He’ll need at least two out of these three states if he hopes to win in November, though my sense is that if he wins in Wisconsin, then he’s going to win a lot more Midwestern states too. The University of Cincinnati supported the Ohio findings with their own poll, but they didn’t post party ID, so it’s difficult to see if their numbers were accurate.
Missouri also garnered attention this week, but for all the wrong reasons. Polling in the post-Akin comments era was promising at first, but two new polls, Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon show Claire McCaskill with a solid lead in the race. Curiously, Rasmussen released a poll showing Obama ahead by 1 in Missouri, but subsequent PPP and Mason-Dixon polls showed Romney with leads that I believe will stand through election day.
Another swing state, Colorado, was polled by Onsight Public Affairs and showed the president with a small lead, mostly due to strength among women and Latino voters. Romney will of course contest Colorado, but my sense is that this could be the first state he abandons if September polling shows that his money would be better spent in other markets, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia.
By the end of the week, stasis had been restored. Obama claimed a smaller lead in the national polls, and was back where he started the week with the national trackers, Rasmussen +1 and in a tie according to Gallup. Still, it was a good week for Mitt Romney as his numbers slowly rose higher and his message began to gain traction. As he enters the GOP convention he can feel confident that he will gain a significant bump in the polls and emerge from Tampa with anywhere from a 5-7% lead in the polls, which would translate into a 7-10% gain. He’ll probably lose some of that lead after the Democratic convention, and we should see Romney with a small lead by the second week in September. Remember also that the latest jobs numbers will be released two days after the Democratic convention ends, and right now it doesn’t look as if those numbers will be promising for the president. This could lead to more of a bump for Romney.
The campaign is about to get underway in earnest after a summer of name-calling and side issues. Let the fun begin.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
The Ryan Bounce
It's been more than a week since Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, which is enough time to determine the extent of any bounce in the polls. At this point, the answer is that Ryan has helped in part, but it remains to be seen if he provides a more lasting upward movement in Romney's numbers.
Last week, Mark Blumenthal of Huffington Post/Pollster wrote that the polls weren't showing much of a bounce, perhaps 1 or 2 percentage points towards Romney, but most of the gains were within the poll's margin of error and that President Obama had gained in some polls after the announcement. Nate Silver weighed in on the Romney bounce in the polls and the Intrade markets, and was unimpressed, but he did note that many of the trend lines in recent polls have been moving in Romney's direction. Stuart Rothenberg also wrote an interesting piece warning that party identification samples are key to deciphering polls and weighing their relative merits. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who watches and analyzes polls, but it will become even more important as pollsters move from registered voter samples to likely voter models after the party conventions.
The state polls that were released last week show better results for Romney than any perceived bounce from the Ryan announcement. The Purple Strategies polls from August 15 give Romney leads in Ohio, Florida and Virginia, and Obama the lead in Colorado. Recent polling in Virginia is showing promising news for the Romney campaign as he tries to cut into Obama's perceived strength in the Washington suburbs. From the article:
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, says the task for Romney is to put the “pieces of the puzzle” together: the Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Washington suburbs and exurbs, along with the rural regions of southwest Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and Southside. “The rural areas are still 20 percent of the vote in Virginia,” Sabato says, and the people there are conservative. The difference this year is that Republicans in these parts of the state are more motivated than they were in 2008. Maximum turnout among rural Virginians could make all the difference.
If those results stood up until November, Romney would win the presidency and the Republicans would probably take the Senate.
There were a pair of Wisconsin polls, with Romney ahead in the Rasmussen survey and Obama ahead in a CNN poll. The big difference is that Rasmussen polled likely voters and CNN found registered voters, so in this case I would say that the addition of Paul Ryan has probably affected the race. The president is ahead according to a Franklin & Marshall poll of Pennsylvania (registered voters) by 47-42%, but that margin represents a reduction from 11 points the last time F & M polled, so the Romney campaign will probably look to put more resources into that state.
The national tracking polls don't really show a sustained bounce for the GOP. Gallup now has Romney with a 2 point lead, which is up from a tie late last week, but the Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama leading by 2. That represents a 6 point swing for the president who was down by 4 as late as last Wednesday.
In the end, the polling after Romney made the Ryan announcement has been mixed with some good news on the state front for Romney and a continued national lead for Obama. The Republican Convention provides our next opportunity to gauge the race and I would say that this is Romney's biggest and best opportunity to introduce himself to the American people. If he does it well, he could see a 10 point bounce in the polls. Anything more would be gravy, but anything less would be seen as disappointing. In addition, unemployment figures will be released not long after the Democrats close their convention, and we know how both campaigns will use those numbers.
See more at:
www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
Last week, Mark Blumenthal of Huffington Post/Pollster wrote that the polls weren't showing much of a bounce, perhaps 1 or 2 percentage points towards Romney, but most of the gains were within the poll's margin of error and that President Obama had gained in some polls after the announcement. Nate Silver weighed in on the Romney bounce in the polls and the Intrade markets, and was unimpressed, but he did note that many of the trend lines in recent polls have been moving in Romney's direction. Stuart Rothenberg also wrote an interesting piece warning that party identification samples are key to deciphering polls and weighing their relative merits. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who watches and analyzes polls, but it will become even more important as pollsters move from registered voter samples to likely voter models after the party conventions.
The state polls that were released last week show better results for Romney than any perceived bounce from the Ryan announcement. The Purple Strategies polls from August 15 give Romney leads in Ohio, Florida and Virginia, and Obama the lead in Colorado. Recent polling in Virginia is showing promising news for the Romney campaign as he tries to cut into Obama's perceived strength in the Washington suburbs. From the article:
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, says the task for Romney is to put the “pieces of the puzzle” together: the Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Washington suburbs and exurbs, along with the rural regions of southwest Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and Southside. “The rural areas are still 20 percent of the vote in Virginia,” Sabato says, and the people there are conservative. The difference this year is that Republicans in these parts of the state are more motivated than they were in 2008. Maximum turnout among rural Virginians could make all the difference.
If those results stood up until November, Romney would win the presidency and the Republicans would probably take the Senate.
There were a pair of Wisconsin polls, with Romney ahead in the Rasmussen survey and Obama ahead in a CNN poll. The big difference is that Rasmussen polled likely voters and CNN found registered voters, so in this case I would say that the addition of Paul Ryan has probably affected the race. The president is ahead according to a Franklin & Marshall poll of Pennsylvania (registered voters) by 47-42%, but that margin represents a reduction from 11 points the last time F & M polled, so the Romney campaign will probably look to put more resources into that state.
The national tracking polls don't really show a sustained bounce for the GOP. Gallup now has Romney with a 2 point lead, which is up from a tie late last week, but the Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama leading by 2. That represents a 6 point swing for the president who was down by 4 as late as last Wednesday.
In the end, the polling after Romney made the Ryan announcement has been mixed with some good news on the state front for Romney and a continued national lead for Obama. The Republican Convention provides our next opportunity to gauge the race and I would say that this is Romney's biggest and best opportunity to introduce himself to the American people. If he does it well, he could see a 10 point bounce in the polls. Anything more would be gravy, but anything less would be seen as disappointing. In addition, unemployment figures will be released not long after the Democrats close their convention, and we know how both campaigns will use those numbers.
See more at:
www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
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