From the official release:

“The Assad regime’s massacre of civilians in Haoula—many of them young children—is horrific. After nearly a year and a half of slaughter, it is far past time for the United States to begin to lead and put an end to the Assad regime. President Obama can no longer ignore calls from congressional leaders in both parties to take more assertive steps. The Annan ‘peace’ plan—which President Obama still supports—has merely granted the Assad regime more time to execute its military onslaught. The United States should work with partners to organize and arm Syrian opposition groups so they can defend themselves. The bloodshed in Haoula makes clear that our goal must be a new Syrian government, one that contributes to peace and stability in the Middle East and that truly represents the brave Syrian people.”

Rasmusen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

• Romney 45% (45)
• Obama 45% (44)

Above Numbers Are For a Rolling Three Day Average of 1,500 Likely Voters.

Heh…

Two difficult weeks for President Obama have shaken the overwhelming confidence of his campaign in Chicago and of Democratic leaders in Washington, and prompted a depressing realization: This is, at best, 2004, not 1996. At worst it’s 1992.

Democrats had taken comfort for months in the Republican Party’s seeming inability to get behind Mitt Romney, Obama’s healthy lead in the polls, and equally healthy job growth. And for a few, fleeting, moments, Democrats thought the election might just be easy. But Republican division appears to have been merely an artifact of primary politics, and Mitt Romney has proved a consistent, if unglamorous campaigner.

And this week, amid poor economic indicators and continuing voter frustration, Democrats returned to the harsh reality that this election is going to be anything but a walk in the park.

“There was this sense maybe a month or two ago that Obama was really riding high — that he had gotten his base behind him and the economy was doing better and it had this Clinton vs. Bob Dole 1996 feeling — that he was going to cruise,” said one 2008 Obama aide who does not work for this year’s campaign. “And now it feels like it’s going to be really tough — a 2004 race.”

Indeed the campaign is shaping up to be a close-combat battle for one percent of swing voters in a few hundred precincts across three or four states.
That’s not to say the Obama campaign hasn’t been preparing for a tough fight — they have — but they’ve also adopted a confident, and at times arrogant, attitude toward their opponent.

From naming their elevators after cars (Cadillac I and Cadillac II) to private conversations with reporters, the campaign has rarely taken Romney seriously, focusing their efforts on mitigating the host of electoral wildcards like the economy.

Now, nobody’s laughing.

Of course, Team Obama could have come to the truth that this will be a close election simply by heading over to Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Tracker and comparing 4th year approval ratings for Presidents which have won reelection versus those who have not.

Head on over and see for yourself. Compare the average approval, amount of time over the historical presidential approval average, and the trajectory of approval rating in Year Four of each presidency:

Just taking a look at the data, the former Obama aide quoted in the article is correct: this election is, at best, 2004 or, at worst 1992 for the President.

The Washington Post has the story:

Mitt Romney’s campaign team has been quietly laying plans for an outreach effort to President Obama’s most loyal supporters — black voters — not just to chip away at the huge Democratic margins but also as a way to reassure independent swing voters that Romney can be inclusive and tolerant in his thinking and approach.

That plan, still in its early ­stages, ran headlong into the harsh political realities on the ground in Philadelphia on Thursday, when Romney was treated to a hostile welcome on his first campaign swing through a poor black neighborhood this year.

A few dozen protesters met him with chants of “Get out, Romney, get out!”

Madaline G. Dunn, 78, who said she has lived there for 50 years, said she is “personally offended” that Romney would visit her neighborhood.

“It’s not appreciated here,” she said. “It is absolutely denigrating for him to come in here and speak his garbage.”

Romney took his campaign to the Universal Bluford Charter School in West Philadelphia aiming to highlight his education agenda but also to connect with voters who were not part of his political calculus during the primary campaign. “I come to learn, obviously, from people who are having experiences that are unique and instructive,” he said.

Despite the obvious difficulties, Romney’s outreach to black voters could reap dividends even if he is unable to significantly chip into Obama’s support. “Suburban voters will be a real battleground, and upscale white voters like to think of themselves as tolerant and they won’t vote for a candidate that is seen as exclusionary, and the Romney folks must be aware of that,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “He has to persuade suburban voters that he isn’t Rick Santorum. He could break the mold a little bit and do some campaigning in African American communities. It would get people talking, and it would be all gain and very little pain.”

I will give Romney credit for aggressively pursuing all votes. However, it will be difficult (to say the least) to make inroads in a demographic which broke 95%-5% for the President the last time around.

Full story here.

Many people would cite private business experience as Mitt Romney’s greatest strength as a candidate. Others, perhaps, would mention his prowess in defending the strengths of free market economics. My own opinion is that one of Mitt’s greatest strengths is his ability to learn from his mistakes. Or to say it another way, Romney just doesn’t make the same mistake twice.

In her latest column, Peggy Noonan broached the subject of what is, to date, considered Romney’s biggest mistake of the campaign. His thoughts on the controversy are insightful:

All great political families have myths, stories they tell themselves about how history happened. The great story about Mr. Romney’s father, George, is that one word—”brainwashed”—did in his presidential candidacy in 1968. People have hypothesized that Mitt is careful with words and statements, that he edits his thoughts too severely, because of the power of that myth.

“I don’t think my father’s comment figures into my thinking at all,” he says. It’s his own mistakes “that make me want to kick myself in the seat of my pants,” that “cause me to try and be a little more careful in what I say. . . . I’ve had a couple of those during the campaign, which have haunted me a little bit, but I’m sure before this is over will haunt me a lot.”

Asked for an example, he mentions “I like to be able to fire people.” He meant, he says, those, such as health-insurance companies, that provide inadequate services. “I have to think not only about what I say in a full sentence but what I say in a phrase.” In the current media environment, “you will be taken out of context, you’ll be clipped, and you’ll be battered with things you said.” He says it is interesting that “the media always says, ‘Gosh, we just want you to be spontaneous,’ but at the same time if you say anything in the wrong order, you’re gonna be sorry!”

Romney’s discipline and attention to detail are evident here. This episode resulted in him grasping the potentially devastating effects just one slip-of -the-tongue and taking steps to ensure it never happens again. I am sure that this is just one of many reasons why Team Obama has come to the realization that “The One’s” re-election is not a forgone conclusion.

Full story here.

Gallup Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

• Obama 47% (47)
• Romney 45% (46)

Each seven-day rolling average is based on telephone interviews with approximately 3,050 registered voters; Margin of error is ±2 percentage points.

Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

• Romney 45%
• Obama 44%

Above Numbers Are For a Rolling Three Day Average of 1,500 Likely Voters. 

Most in the media today rely on polls for their analyses of upcoming elections. This has been commonplace for many years, and lacking other “objective” tools, it is understandable that, under the pressure of needing to say something about an election contest, they make as much use of them, particularly so far in advance of actual voting, as they do.

The problem with this is the deteriorating reliability of most polling.

Some of this is the responsibility of the pollsters themselves who feel they are required to “adjust” or “tweak” raw polling data to draw legitimate conclusions. It is in this “fine print” of polling where most polls fall woefully short. What are these adjustments? They include categorizing (such as “registered voters” and “likely voters.”) They also include a subjective (and often prejudicial) decision of how many Democrats, Republicans and independent or non-affiliated voters (or how many men and women) to count. Sometimes, certain pollsters (perhaps especially those who are working for a particular candidate, political party or cause) also make “intuitive” adjustments based on nothing more than predetermined attitudes and outcomes. In particular, there are polls being published in some media which sample an unjustifiable imbalance between respondents of various political affiliations.

There are also increasingly factors affecting the reliability of polling which are beyond the control of pollsters. Skepticism about polling has led many voters either to refuse to be polled or to deliberately deceive the pollsters. The rise of many interest groups who feel pollsters are not reliable has increased the decline of participation in polls. When pollsters who are gathering their data from random samples, the accuracy model of their polls is really based on  receiving a response from the initial voter queried. As pollster increasingly need to go back to a second, third or more pool of voters, the accuracy of the poll is statistically decreased, sometimes considerably.

Pollsters vehemently defend the use of smaller samples, especially on statewide and national polls, as reasonably accurate. But with the factors mentioned previously increasing rapidly, smaller polls are often incredibly flawed, If you read or hear that a poll has an accuracy of plus-or-minus 3, 4 or 5%, you should be very skeptical. Most polls with samples under 1000, and with subjective “adjusting”, really have an accuracy much less, sometimes as much as 10% or 15%.

Most pollsters will acknowledge that their polls are  inexact and “only a snapshot in time,” but the actual use of polls, especially by many journalists, is much more than that when they make pronouncements about who is going to win or lose (or who is “safe” or not) far in advance of an actual election. The best journalists (and there are many) always make it transparent how provisional most polls are, and how easily their numbers could change.

Those pollsters who deliberately manipulate their polls to a predetermined outcome can and do hide their distortions behind the fact that there is no objective way to prove they are wrong, other than by the results of an election itself. One benefit of the plethora of polls today is that any poll which is an “outlier” becomes easily suspect.

Polls taken just before an election, that is, two or three days before the actual voting, thus tend to be more accurate. This is obviously because, whatever “tweaking” a pollster has previously done in a race must now minimized so that the final polls resemble the actual voting. A notorious Minneapolis Star Tribune poll, taken just before the election of statewide races in 1978, was so far off it was a national embarrassment to the newspaper. Only later did the pollsters revealed they had “doctored” their results. Polling is a business, and these kind of experiences soon put irresponsible pollsters out of business.

The bottom line is that polling is a legitimate and necessary tool in analyzing voter sentiment, but that the assumptions of a poll, often disguised or buried, are vital to the accuracy of any poll. Polls taken too far in advance of an election are more a curiosity than anything that should be take seriously. Journalists who employ them too much instead of using demographic trends, economic conditions, recent voter history, carefully vetted biographies and developing circumstances. etc., are simply being lazy.

A lot of polling has taken place in the 2012 election so far, at the state, congressional and presidential levels. Much of it, especially the polling taken early in a particular contest, has been off the mark. The volatility of the electorate in the U.S. these days means that dramatic last-minute changes in voter behavior take place. The recent nomination of a GOP senate candidate in Nebraska, someone who had trailed two much better-known opponents until the final days of the primary campaign, is not an isolated phenomenon in current and recent campaign cycles. This, in a variety of races and political levels, is occurring with notable frequency.

I particularly call attention to the polls of individual senate races across the country, and of the presidential race, It seems to me that the outcomes predicted by many of these polls are, for a variety of reasons (many of which I have mentioned), misleading. As the summer passes, and the autumn campaign begins in earnest, this will become increasingly clear.

________________________________________________________________

-Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman.  All rights reserved. Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site. 

Ever so slowly, the conventional wisdom is changing:

Not much in the just-released NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conflicts with the story line that we’re going to see a lot of close races this fall. Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican poll-taker Bill McInturff found that 48 percent of the 1,000 American adults interviewed (including a subsample of cell-phone users) approve of the job that President Obama has done. This percentage is 2 points short of the 50 percent approval rating that would signal he is a favorite for reelection. A rating below 46 percent suggests that a president is toast. Obama is right in the middle—in the 47 percent to 49 percent zone—suggesting an equal chance of winning or losing.

~snip~

Only 33 percent of Americans who responded to the survey felt that the country is headed in the right direction—unchanged from the March and April surveys. Fifty-eight percent thought the country was off on the wrong track—the same as March and a point lower than April. These numbers are pretty consistent with the downbeat results that this question has elicited for the past four years.

The soberness of the American spirit is evident when Hart and McInturff asked, “All in all, thinking about where the United States is today, do you feel we are experiencing the kind of tough times that the country faces from time to time, or is this the start of longer-term decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world?” Forty five percent picked the temporarily-experiencing-a-tough-time response; 48 percent endorsed the start of a long-term decline.

Cook concludes (regarding recent polling) that, “very little…pushes toward a strong conclusion in favor of either Obama or Romney. More evidence that a tight race is in the offing.”

Be sure to read full story here.

In case you missed it:

Gallup Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

• Obama 47%
• Romney 46%

Each seven-day rolling average is based on telephone interviews with approximately 3,050 registered voters; Margin of error is ±2 percentage points.

From the Washington Examiner:

Public policy question of the next decade: Is it okay to steal?

Follow-up question: Would it be okay to steal a significant amount of money from a generation of people, or a smaller amount from multiple generations, to avoid a national fiscal collapse?

Final follow-up questions: Are these questions academic due to simple mathematical reality?

As 2012 wears on and Congress worries about November, the mathematics of these questions as they relate to our national debt are increasingly hard to ignore. Unfortunately, as I described earlier today at Right Wing News, the politically possible solution to fixing the major drivers of our debt – Social Security and Medicare – consist of one word: stealing. In fact, they consist of lots of stealing from one or more generations of Americans.

Last July, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf explained things well in a post on the CBO blog:

Thus…limiting federal spending to 18 percent of GDP would require a cut in spending relative to CBO’s baseline projections for 2021 of roughly one-quarter…[I]f Social Security and the major health programs faced no cuts, then defense and other non-interest spending would need to be cut by about 60 percent. Alternatively, if defense and other non-interest spending faced no cuts, then outlays for Social Security and the major health programs would need to be cut by about 40 percent…

The budgetary imbalance could also be addressed by boosting revenues above historical levels relative to GDP—but it would take a substantial increase to bring revenues in line with projected spending under current law. For example, under current law, the expiration of the tax cuts enacted since 2001, the growing reach of the alternative minimum tax, the tax provisions of the recent health care legislation, and the way in which the tax system interacts with economic growth would result in revenues in 2021 reaching about 21 percent of GDP—about one-sixth above their historical average. But even then…debt would be rising slowly relative to GDP. Thus, with older Americans receiving the benefits projected under current law, fiscal policy is not on a sustainable path even with: (a) tax revenues rising above their historical average share of GDP; and (b) the rest of the government apart from programs focused on older Americans playing a much smaller role relative to the size of the economy than during the past several decades.

In other words, Elmendorf is saying that in order to get our debt under control in the next decade we would have to significantly raise taxes or drastically cut federal spending. And yet even this wouldn’t be enough to keep our debt under wraps in the long run, as the budgetary impacts of Social Security, Medicare and interest payments would truly begin to take over the federal budget around that time. To quote Michael Linden of the liberal Center for American Progress last year:

It’s true in the long run…the major drivers of the federal deficit are an aging population, which means higher costs for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and also rising health care costs generally…we are going to have to have some really serious conversations about how to get those things under control.

So what can be done? In short, we as a nation need to accept that stealing is going to dominate the major public policy debate of the next two decades: reforming entitlement spending so our nation does not fall off the proverbial fiscal cliff. Or in other words, to quote my friend William Beach of The Heritage Foundation, “You can’t balance the federal budget and stay inside today’s policy lines. Rethink the lines, however, and you’ll be amazed how quickly we could move toward fiscal sanity. It’s all a matter of those tricky lines.”

What is outside of those lines? Necessary reforms such as the following (note: these are opinions I hold, not necessarily those of Beach, whose quote I stole from his Facebook page):

• Aggressively focus on eliminating fraud, waste, abuse and duplicity in the federal government. I believe up to twenty percent of the federal budget is likely lost every year to simple mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.
• Rethinking how our military is run, both from a mission standpoint (get out of Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible, to start) and from a structural standpoint (starting with reforming the contracting system currently in place, especially non-compete contracts).
• Eliminate a federal bureaucracy or three, starting with the Department of Education, the Transportation Security Administration, Head Start and DARE. All of these agencies cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars yet have not actually accomplished their respective goals.
• Raise the Social Security and Medicare retirement ages to 69 or 70 by 2030 and begin means-testing the programs. Is this stealing from current seniors and those nearing retirement? Yes. Is this necessary, considering that Congress has not told the truth about the sustainability of the programs for decades, and the American people been willfully ignorant? Yes.

Personally, I would prefer to phase out both Social Security and Medicare over a 23-year or so period, with reforms slowly phased in so retirees are less dependent on them, but I recognize this is politically impossible unless the programs simply implode. Which they are on the path to doing.

• Phase out all federal tax loopholes and either enact a low-rate flat income or – preferably – eliminate all federal income taxes and enact a national sales tax.
• Phase out all federal subsidies.
• Allow greater cultivation of our domestic energy resources and allow the construction of more nuclear power plants.

Politics is full of soft language that hides harsh truths, but given the fiscal reality America faces I think conservatives ought to stand up and say what’s really going on: the most important spending reforms of our generation are those needed to prevent the collapse of Social Security and Medicare, and the most politically plausible of those reforms consist of stealing from at least one generation of Americans. Politically harsh and risky? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

In a Washington Post opinion piece, Marc Thiessen picks apart President Barack Obama’s own private equity record and the tremendous cost incurred by the American taxpayers as a result of his poor investment decisions. Hopefully, these will be coming to a Romney campaign ad in short order.

• Raser Technologies. In 2010, the Obama administration gave Raser a $33 million taxpayer-funded grant to build a power plant in Beaver Creek, Utah. According to the Wall Street Journal, after burning through our tax dollars, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. The plant now has fewer than 10 employees, and Raser owes $1.5 million in back taxes.

• ECOtality. The Obama administration gave ECOtality $126.2 million in taxpayer money in 2009 for, among other things, the installation of 14,000 electric car chargers in five states. Obama even hosted the company’s president, Don Karner, in the first lady’s box during the 2010 State of the Union address as an example of a stimulus success story. According to ECOtality’s own SEC filings, the company has since incurred more than $45 million in losses and has told the federal government, “We may not achieve or sustain profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future.”

Worse, according to CBS News the company is “under investigation for insider trading,” and Karner has been subpoenaed “for any and all documentation surrounding the public announcement of the first Department of Energy grant to the company.”

• Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP). The Obama administration gave NGP a $98.5 million taxpayer loan guarantee in 2010.The New York Times reported last October that the company is in “financial turmoil” and that “[a]fter a series of technical missteps that are draining Nevada Geothermal’s cash reserves, its own auditor concluded in a filing released last week that there was ‘significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.’?”

• First Solar. The Obama administration provided First Solar with more than $3 billion in loan guarantees for power plants in Arizona and California. According to aBloomberg Businessweek report last week, the company “fell to a record low in Nasdaq Stock Market trading May 4 after reporting $401 million in restructuring costs tied to firing 30 percent of its workforce.”

• Abound Solar, Inc. The Obama administration gave Abound Solar a $400 million loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories. According to Forbes, in February the company halted production and laid off 180 employees.

• Beacon Power. The Obama administration gave Beacon — a green-energy storage company — a $43 million loan guarantee.According to CBS News, at the time of the loan, “Standard and Poor’s had confidentially given the project a dismal outlook of ‘CCC-plus.’ ” In the fall of 2011, Beacon received a delisting notice from Nasdaq and filed for bankruptcy.

Be sure to check out the full article here.

Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

• Romney 45%
• Obama 44%

Above Numbers Are For a Rolling Three Day Average of 1,500 Likely Voters. 

PPP (D) Maryland 2012 Presidential Poll

• Barack Obama 58%
• Mitt Romney 35%
• Not sure 6%

Among Independents

• Barack Obama 46%
• Mitt Romney 43%
• Not sure 11%

Among Moderates

• Barack Obama 64%
• Mitt Romney 28%
• Not sure 8%

Among Men

• Barack Obama 52%
• Mitt Romney 40%
• Not sure 8%

Among Women

• Barack Obama 64%
• Mitt Romney 31%
• Not sure 5%

Among Whites

• Mitt Romney 47%
• Barack Obama 46%
• Not sure 7%

Among Blacks

• Barack Obama 90%
• Mitt Romney 8%
• Not sure 2%

Generally speaking, do you think marriages between same-sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same legal rights as traditional marriages in areas such as inheritance and hospital visits?

• They should be recognized 52%
• They should not 39%
• Not sure 9%

The state legislature recently approved a law allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry in Maryland, and there is likely to be a statewide referendum in the November election on whether to keep the law. If the election were held today, do you think you would vote for or vote against the law allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry?

• Would vote for the law and feel strongly 46%
• Would vote for the law but don’t feel strongly 11%
• Would vote against the law but don’t feel strongly 1%
• Would vote against the law and feel strongly 36%
• Not sure 6%

Survey of 852 likely voters was conducted May 14-21, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 3.4 percentage points. Party registration: 58% Democrat; 26% Republican; 13% Something else; 3% Not sure. Party ID: 46% Democrat; 22% Republican; 30% Independent; 2% Not sure. Political ideology: 43% Moderate; 27% Conservative; 26% Liberal; 3% Not sure. Race: 67% White; 25% Black; 8% Other.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal

PPP (D) Texas 2012 GOP Senate Primary Poll

• David Dewhurst 46% (38%) {36%} [41%]
• Ted Cruz 29% (26%) {18%} [12%]
• Tom Leppert 15% (8%) {7%} [6%]
• Craig James 3% (7%) {4%}
• One of the other candidates 2% (4%)
• Undecided 5% (18%)

Very Conservative

• David Dewhurst 41% (35%) {39%} [45%]
• Ted Cruz 36% (32%) {22%} [14%]
• Tom Leppert 11% (5%) {6%} [3%]
• Craig James 3% (4%) {4%}
• One of the other candidates 3% (3%)
• Undecided 6% (21%)

Somewhat Conservative

• David Dewhurst 53% (45%) {38%} [38%]
• Ted Cruz 24% (23%) {14%} [10%]
• Tom Leppert 19% (7%) {7%} [9%]
• Craig James 1% (6%) {3%}
• One of the other candidates 1% (2%)
• Undecided 1% (17%)

If there was a runoff election for Senate between Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst, who would you vote for?

• David Dewhurst 59%
• Ted Cruz 34%
• Not sure 7%

If there was a runoff election for Senate between Tom Leppert and David Dewhurst, who would you vote for?

• David Dewhurst 58%
• Tom Leppert 31%
• Not sure 12%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• David Dewhurst 61% (47%) {41%} [42%] / 25% (22%) {19%} [16%] {+36%}
• Tom Leppert 36% (20%) {20%} [13%] / 19% (15%) {16%} [13%] {+17%}
• Ted Cruz 38% (31%) {15%} [8%] / 32% (17%) {14%} [14%] {+6%}
• Craig James 14% (14%) {11%} / 32% (21%) {19%} {-18%}

Do you consider yourself to be a member of the Tea Party?

• Yes 41% (34%) {36%}
• No 45% (48%) {53%}

Tea Party Members 

• David Dewhurst 39% (35%) {39%}
  
• Ted Cruz 38% (35%) {23%}
  
• Tom Leppert 14% (5%) {4%}
• Craig James 3% (5%) {4%}
• One of the other candidates 2% (3%)
• Undecided 4% (18%)

Non-Tea Party GOP Primary Voters

• David Dewhurst 53% (41%) {34%}
• Ted Cruz 23% (20%) {14%}
• Tom Leppert 18% (11%) {8%}
• Craig James 1% (8%) {5%}
• One of the other candidates 2% (4%)
• Undecided 3% (15%)

Are you an Evangelical Christian, or not?

• Are an Evangelical 61%
• Are not 39%

Survey of 482 likely Republican primary voters was conducted May 22-23, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Political ideology: 55% (47%) {41%} [38%] Very conservative; 28% (33%) {34%} [41%] Somewhat conservative; 8% (12%) {18%} [14%] Moderate; 1% (6%) {5%} [4%] Somewhat liberal; 1% (2%) {2%} [3%] Very liberal. Results from the poll conducted April 19-22, 2012 are in parentheses.  Results from the poll conducted January 12-15, 2012 are in curly brackets.  Results from the poll conducted September 15-18, 2011 are in square brackets.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal

PPP (D) Hawaii 2012 Senate Poll

• Mazie Hirono (D) 50% [48%] (52%)
• Linda Lingle (R) 41% [42%] (40%)

Among Independents

• Linda Lingle (R) 44% [53%] (47%)
  
• Mazie Hirono (D) 37% [27%] (37%)

Among Moderates

• Mazie Hirono (D) 49% [45%] (53%)
• Linda Lingle (R) 37% [38%] (36%)

Among Men

• Linda Lingle (R) 46% [50%] (42%)
  
• Mazie Hirono (D) 46% [38%] (51%)

Among Women

• Mazie Hirono (D) 53% [56%] (52%)
• Linda Lingle (R) 37% [36%] (37%)

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Mazie Hirono 46% [46%] (50%) / 37% [38%] (33%) {+9%}
• Linda Lingle 44% [46%] (41%) / 46% [43%] (51%) {-2%}

Survey of 600 Hawaii voters was conducted May 16-17, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Party ID: 47% [49%] (47%) Democrat; 23% [24%] (22%) Republican; 30% [27%] (31%) Independent/Other. Political ideology: 36% [31%] Moderate; 19% [22%] Somewhat liberal; 18% [22%] Somewhat conservative; 15% [14%] Very liberal; 11% [10%] Very conservative.  Results from the poll conducted October 13-16, 2011 are in square brackets.  Results from the poll conducted March 24-27, 2011 are in parentheses.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal

Once again, all data courtesy The Argo Journal:

PPIC California 2012 Presidential Poll

• Barack Obama 50%
• Mitt Romney 39%
• Someone else 3%
• Don’t know 8%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Barack Obama 52% / 45% {+7%}
• Mitt Romney 40% / 52% {-12%}

Survey of 894 likely voters was conducted May 14-20, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 4.2 percentage points.

InsiderAdvantage Georgia 2012 Presidential Poll

• Mitt Romney 52.3%
• Barack Obama 39.9%
• Undecided 7.8%

Survey of 438 likely voters was conducted May 22, 2012.

Civitas (R) North Carolina 2012 Presidential Poll

• Mitt Romney 47% [46%] (48%) {50%}
• Barack Obama 45% [48%] (39%) {39%}

Survey of 600 likely voters was conducted May 19-20, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted February, 2012 are in square brackets.  Results from the poll conducted January 9-11, 2012 are in parentheses. Results from the poll conducted September 22-25, 2011 are in parentheses.Civitas (R) North Carolina 2012 Presidential Poll

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal

Here is a recap of all of the U.S. Senate polls which have been released in the past 24 hours. All data courtesy of The Argo Journal:

Rasmussen Pennsylvania 2012 Senate Poll

• Bob Casey (D) 48%
• Tom Smith (R) 41%
• Some other candidate 3%
• Undecided 7%

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted May 21, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points.

NBC News/Marist Virginia 2012 Senate Poll

• Tim Kaine (D) 49%
• George Allen (R) 43%
• Undecided 9%

Survey of 1,076 registered voters was conducted May 17-20, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.  Party registration: 31% Democrat; 29% Republican; 39% Independent.  Ideology: 38% Moderate; 30% Conservative; 17% Liberal; 10% Very conservative; 5% Very liberal.

NBC News/Marist Ohio 2012 Senate Poll

• Sherrod Brown (D) 51%
• Josh Mandel (R) 37%
• Undecided 12%

Survey of 1,103 registered voters was conducted May 17-20, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.  Party registration: 37% Democrat; 28% Republican; 34% Independent.  Ideology: 36% Moderate; 31% Conservative; 17% Liberal; 13% Very conservative; 4% Very liberal.

NBC News/Marist Florida 2012 Senate Poll

• Bill Nelson (D) 46% 
  
• Connie Mack (R) 42%
• Undecided 12% 

Survey of 1,078 registered voters was conducted May 17-20, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 3.0 percentage points. Party registration: 43% Democrat; 35% Republican; 21% Independent.  Ideology: 34% Moderate; 29% Conservative; 19% Liberal; 12% Very conservative; 6% Very liberal. 

Quinnipiac Florida 2012 Senate Poll

• Connie Mack (R) 42% {36%} [40%] (40%)
• Bill Nelson (D) 41% {44%} [41%] (42%)

Among Men

• Connie Mack (R) 47% {41%} [46%] (47%) 
  
• Bill Nelson (D) 39% {41%} [40%] (38%) 
  

Among Women

• Bill Nelson (D) 43% {46%} [42%] (45%)
• Connie Mack (R) 37% {32%} [36%] (34%)

Survey of 1,722 registered voters was conducted May 15-21, 2012. The margin of error is +/- 2.4 percentage points.  Party ID breakdown: 34%{29%} [32%] (30%) Republican; 31% {33%} [29%] (33%) Democrat; 29% {33%} [32%] (31%) Independent; 6% {5%} [8%] (6%) Other. Results from the poll conducted March 20-26, 2012 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted January 4-8, 2012 are in square brackets.  Results from the poll conducted October 31 – November 7, 2011 are in parentheses.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal

St. Norbert College/WPR Wisconsin 2012 Presidential Poll

• Barack Obama 49%
• Mitt Romney 43%

Please tell me whether you strongly approve, approve, disapprove, or strongly disapprove with the way Barack Obama is doing his job as president.

• Strongly approve 16%
• Approve 38%
• Disapprove 18%
• Strongly disapprove 27%

Survey of 406 likely voters was conducted May 17-22, 2012.  The margin of error is +/- 5 percentage points.

–Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal

In the discussions of the ongoing Veepstakes, one prominent GOP has been missing for the most part, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. I find that curious.

Yes, he’s only a half-termer, but what a half a term! He’s sliced state spending. He stood up to the entrenched unions and won. The unions fought back, forcing a recall election. Now all polls show him comfortably leading with less than two weeks to go. If he were to win, it will be a major blow to union prestige. His, on the other hand, would rise astronomically nation-wide.

So my question is why isn’t he getting more attention as a possible running mate for Mitt Romney?

That’s an honest question. I must confess I know little about the man other than he has enough will-power to stand up to the unions at their worst.

What do I not know about him? What are his skeletons? What are his weaknesses? Is he lacking in executive experience? Is the only knock against him that he’s just another boring white guy?

Would anyone care to enlighten me?

Gallup Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

• Obama 47%
• Romney 46%

Each seven-day rolling average is based on telephone interviews with approximately 3,050 registered voters; Margin of error is ±2 percentage points.

In a letter to House Speaker Boehner sent yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for the following:

Without further delay, the Majority Leadership should schedule a vote on extension of the middle-income tax cuts, as early as next week, to increase certainty for millions of American taxpayers and for the economy.  We should not delay passing this legislation that will help afford all Americans the opportunity to reach their goals and realize the promise of the American Dream.

We must ask the very wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.  Democrats believe that tax cuts for those earning over a million dollars a year should expire and that we should use the resulting revenues to pay down the deficit.

There are a myriad of ways for conservatives to respond to this letter (it goes on for much longer than what I posted above), but here are three:

1. In 2010 House Democrats – then the Majority Party – pushed voting on the Bush tax cuts until after the November elections for political strategy reasons. Tell me again why Pelosi has any moral authority on timeliness of tax policy extensions.

2. As noted at the liberal blog Fire Dog Lake yesterday, Pelosi has changed the goalposts on what is “middle-class.” It used to be those making less than $250,000 annually. Now it’s someone who makes less than $1 million.

3. The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) static analyses of the Bush tax policies said extension of the policies for those making over $250,000 would “cost” the federal government somewhere around $700 to $800 billion over ten years. While I don’t know how much “deficit reduction” would come from raising the marginal rates for millionaires, it can’t be much – in 2008 Fact Check found 1 in 50 taxpayers made $250,000 or more, but recent IRS data shows only 1 in 1,000 taxpayers makes one million dollars or more per year.

To put #3 another way, the Politico article summarizing the aforementioned IRS data notes millionaires made a combined $726.9 billion in 2009. Taking every single dollar from millionaires, never mind merely a few percentage points on the top income bracket of their annual income, would cut last year’s deficit by a bit more than half. Raising taxes by a small fraction of that amount for the explicit goal of paying down the deficit is therefore a laughable concept, especially when by Democratic logic (and CBO analysis) taxes extending the Bush policies for non-millionaires would “cost” over $300 billion per year.

I can only guess as to what Pelosi’s goal was in releasing this letter (if Fire Dog Lake is already hammering her, this means she may not be able to get support for the idea from her left flank for higher taxes, never mind centrists and conservatives in her party), but I have to think it was to put media pressure on Boehner to raise taxes on higher earners. Given her willingness to shift the goalposts on who is “wealthy” and who is “middle-class,” however, I say Boehner ought to stick to his press secretary’s one-line response: “Speaker Boehner has already announced that the House will act to stop the tax hike on every American taxpayer.”

-This was originally posted at the Hot Air Green Room.

The polls are coming in hot and heavy – here are four more for the recall election that will take place eleven days from now in Wisconsin:

We Ask America Recall Election Survey

• Walker (R) – 54%
• Barrett (D) – 42%

Survey of 1,409 likely voters was conducted May 23 and has a margin of error of ±2.61%.

Reason-Rupe Recall Election Survey

• Walker (R) – 50%
• Barrett (D) – 42%

Survey of 609 likely voters was conducted May 14-18 and has a margin of error of ±4%.

St. Norbert College/Wisconsin Public Radio Recall Election Survey

• Walker (R) – 50%
• Barrett (D) – 45%

Survey of 406 adults was conducted May 17-22 and has a margin of error of ±5%.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (D) Recall Election Survey

• Walker (R) – 50%
• Barrett (D) – 47%

Barrett campaign internal poll was conducted May 17-19. No additional information was provided.

A ton of polls have been released this morning, so we’re just compiling them into one post for your reading and commenting enjoyment.

NBC News/Marist Florida General Election Survey

• Obama – 48%
• Romney – 44%
• Undecided – 7%

Survey of 1,078 registered voters was conducted May 17-20 and has a margin of error of ±3%.

NBC News/Marist Ohio General Election Survey

• Obama – 48%
• Romney – 42%
• Undecided – 8%

Survey of 1,103 registered voters was conducted May 17-20 and has a margin of error of ±3%.

NBC News/Marist Virginia General Election Survey

• Obama – 48%
• Romney – 44%
• Undecided – 7%

Survey of 1,076 registered voters was conducted May 17-20 and has a margin of error of ±3%.

Reason-Rupe Wisconsin General Election Survey

• Obama – 46%
• Romney – 36%
• Johnson – 6%
• Undecided – 10%

Survey of 609 likely voters was conducted May 14-18 and has a margin of error of ±4%.

Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

• Obama 45%
• Romney 44%

Above Numbers Are For a Rolling Three Day Average of 1,500 Likely Voters.

Compare and contrast what’s happening with the Obama Campaign and what’s happening with the Romney Campaign.

First up, Team Obama:

President Obama was in Denver this afternoon for a fundraiser. But the event does not appear to have been quite the success the campaign was hoping for.

According to today’s White House pooler, the New York Times‘s Peter Baker, “The crowd was obviously supportive and glad to see him, though the room at times felt a little flat and Potus seemed a little tired after a long day that’s not even close to being over.” (The president has two more fundraisers tonight in Los Angeles.)

Moreover, the campaign announced that the president “[would] headline a reception for 700 at the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center. General admission tickets started at $500 apiece, though a selected number of Gen44 and Grassroots tickets were available for $250.”

The campaign now says, according to the pooler, that only 550 people showed up.

…

That’s a 21% no-show rate. Add that to the memory of all those empty seats at his campaign kick-off events and the video of the bored spectators?

Now check out how Team Romney has been doing:

He gave a well-received speech on Education at the US Chamber of Commerce today. This followed a three-day fundraising swing through the New York area that netted $15 million.

Back to Team Obama:

Some influential Democrats on and off Capitol Hill are refusing to give President Obama political cover for his attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.

Despite pushback from more than a half-dozen Democrats, the Obama campaign on Tuesday defended how it has scrutinized Romney’s business background.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a widely respected member of Congress, stopped short of criticizing the president, but made it clear that the campaign should pivot.

“It’s done,” she said. “Go on to other things now.”

…

And Team Romney:

Top Republicans, long privately skeptical about their presidential prospects, are coming around to a surprising new view — that Mitt Romney may well win the White House this November.

…

Republican officials have been genuinely impressed with the former Massachusetts governor and his campaign of late.

“Romney has kept the focus on the economy and jobs,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a longtime party strategist. “He hasn’t made any mistakes since securing the nomination. And he has been willing to take the high ground on things like the proposed Rev. Wright attacks. Romney looks like an adult.”

One team seems tired, listless.. The other seems energized. One is having trouble reaching fundraising goals. The other is raking in more money than ever before. One team is seeing public rifts in their party over campaign strategy. The other is seeing their strategy win kudos from their party’s various factions. One team seems to have difficulty doing anything right. The other can’t seem to do anything wrong. One team’s party is starting to realize that they may lose this thing. The other team’s party is starting to realize that they may win this thing.

We still have more than five months to go before the election, That is an eternity in Politics, but unless Team Obama can turn things around, they are going to be on the outside looking in come next January.

My grandfather Morris Masiroff emigrated from Czarist Russia when he was a young musician more than 100 years ago. He had been drafted into the Russian army, and served for a time as the conductor of one of the Czar’s military bands, but after a series of violent pogroms, he, like so many of his co-religionists, fled Russian and sailed to the United States, settling briefly in New York City. He became a street peddler. My grandmother, whom he had known back in Russia, where she lived in a neighboring village, emigrated separately with her four sisters to New York a few years before. There she was reunited with my grandfather and they married. Soon after that, they moved to Erie. PA (for reasons I do not know, or if I once did, I have forgotten). It was precisely the turn of the century, and my grandfather, a clarinetist and a composer by profession, opened a small furniture store, expanded from his selling goods on the street. (This story was repeated, in assorted forms, in hundreds of cities and towns, and more than many hundred thousand times over the next few decades.)

For a musical artist, my grandfather (whom I do not remember; I was two when he died) obviously had some business skills as well in a very volatile and risky period of American capitalism, and he managed not only to survive, but to grow his business over the years until it occupied the floors of two five-storey buildings on opposite sides of upper State Street, Erie’s main downtown thoroughfare. He made it through a financial panic in 1907, a World War from 1917-18 and then the stock market crash in 1929. His business went on, however, and he put his money in as safe a place as you seemingly could in those days, The Second National Bank of Erie. By 1933, however, the Depression was worsening, and many banks were teetering. “Runs” on many banks were common (where panicky depositors lined up to withdraw their savings). When there was a run on the Second National Bank, thinking this was America and not Russia, my grandfather did not get in line to try to withdraw his money. In a short time, the bank ran out of funds to pay depositors, and it closed its doors forever. All his money was lost There was no bank insurance and no recourse. Not all the banks closed, and not all the deposits were lost, but in February and March, 1933, the nation came close to the collapse of its entire banking system. On March 4, 1933, a new president of the United States was inaugurated, and one of the first things he did was close all the banks in America for a few days, “a bank holiday,” he called it, and through his inaugural speech and aggressive action in his first hours and days in office, restored enough public confidence to re-open the banks without further panic.

Today, there is in the United States a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that guarantees, as a form of insurance, all deposits under $100,000 in U.S. banks (this limit has been expanded to $250,000 per account until the end of 2013). When banks have failed since 1934, no depositors have lost any money (shareholders in the banks, however, presumably did). Of course, this guarantee is not quite as
absolutely certain as some might think. It assumes that the guarantor, the U.S. government and treasury have enough money (“full faith and credit”) to back up the losses. The recent bailouts of major U.S. banks, following the mortgage banking crisis, were not bailouts of depositors in those banks. They were bailouts of the shareholders and the creditors of those banks.

I have told the story of my grandfather because, with the increasing reports of panic in Europe, and runs on some of its banks, as the European Union faces a continuing economic crisis, I think it may be useful to remember a time when panic and bank runs were very real and very devastating in the U.S.

I don’t know how he did it, but my grandfather somehow survived the loss of all his money in the Second National Bank of Erie. I think I remember hearing he took on a partner in the business who invested some cash.  It was a difficult time to be in the furniture business, or any retail business. Few persons had any money to buy things. My grandfather’s furniture business was not an upscale one. It sold furniture to blue collar and working poor families in Erie, and often on credit that was not paid for an extended period of time. His willingness to
extend credit beyond normal limits created a very special loyalty for thousands of his Erie customers, most of whom did ultimately pay their bills during those difficult Depression days. After it was over, and World War II’ was over, most of them, now earning good money in the post-War period, came back again and again to buy their furniture. from Masiroff’s. When I was a teen-ager and worked in the family business (first as a janitor, but later as a salesman), I heard numerous stories from customers who told me how Masiroff’s helped them through bad times, and now they would buy their furniture and appliances at no other store. Younger customers would tell me time and again how their parents and grandparents insisted they buy their furniture only at Masiroff’s.

(By the 1970′s, however, family furniture stores, and many other family businesses, were replaced by chain stores and discount stores if they did not adapt. My uncle, my grandfather’s only surviving son, managed the store for the family, but he did not adapt. The business was liquidated at pennies on the dollar.)

In Germany and France today, the governments are in a position to stabilize their banking systems, even in the present period where most of the nation states of the European Union have a common currency, the euro. Great Britain, wisely it now seems, did not accept the euro, even though it joined the EU. Smaller European nations, however, are in deep trouble. There is now an expectation that Greece will
withdraw from the euro, and reinstate its former currency, the drachma. Anticipating this, many Greeks are beginning to withdraw their euro deposits from Greek banks, and depositing them in banks in Germany, Switzerland and France. They have assumed that, at the moment Greece withdraws from the euro, their accounts will automatically become drachmas that will quickly lose their value in
relationship to the euro of the rest of Europe. This scenario could then be repeated in Spain, Italy, Portugal and other smaller EU countries. These countries and their treasuries might not have the reserves to back up their local banks. Like my grandfather, the citizens of these countries could be wiped out financially, and this could lead rather quickly to a virtual collapse of most of the European economy.

This is, of course, the worst case outcome. Europe still has a very large economy, and Germany, most of Scandinavia, France and Great Britain still have very significant financial resources. The worldwide Depression of the 1920′s and 30″s was preceded by the collapse of a speculative “bubble,” but the true impact of disaster occurred because of the disappearance of credit in the money supply. In Europe, especially in Weimar Germany (a brief republic), extraordinary inflation, accompanied by massive unemployment, wiped out the post-war economies. In Russia, a decadent absolutist monarchy was also briefly replaced by a liberal regime, but the Russian economy had, at that time, little heavy industry, few entrepreneurs, no available investment capital, much actual starvation,  and no past experience with democracy. It was thus easy prey to an insurgent and predatory communist takeover.

2012 is not 1932, but the basic conditions of human life remain unaltered. In a healthy democratic capitalist society, bad times are transformed into good times again. A healthy society not only provides for its poorest members, it provides opportunity for all its members to succeed and thrive.  Only a very few centenarian Americans alive today remember well those scary times in 1932-33 when the U.S. banking system teetered on the edge of collapse, and real revolution was in the air. What would have happened if Franklin Roosevelt had
not brought calm and then confidence back to the banking  and free market system? The answer is that a political and economic system we now take for granted might have collapsed into anarchy, and who knows what after that.

The worst case is what did happen in parts of Europe then, and the cost was hundreds of millions of lives, unspeakable violence and human depravity.

Many more persons now live in Europe, and their standard of living, even in the poorest of countries, is many levels above the poverty and despair that existed only 80 years ago. When I read about runs on the banks in Europe, however, I think about how unsympathetic and impersonal history can be when political and economic leaders behave badly.

I’m just saying.

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-Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman.  All rights reserved. Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site.