The U.S. National Elections For President, The Senate And The House Of Representatives.

Hey, rjb...nice to see you posting and hope this means you're feeling much better.

A boatload of men in N. VA? And in uniform, too!! What's that old saying again? Women love a man in uniform!

I guess from that that women have a vote in Virginia.

Maybe the GOP can scrub the voter roles of anyone with a feminine sounding name next election.

I think they should give women two votes and take the vote away from men and pass a law that no man over the age of 12 can hold elected or appointed office. The world would probebly be a better place.

Good afternoon. I heard from Irishk noting that she has access to lots of polls but is reluctant to post them due to (a) "poll fatigue" and (b) cluttering up "my" thread. I hope that no one else feels that it is my thread; that was never my intent. In the beginning I expressed the hope that we would remain somewhat on topic. And posts about polls are better then no posts as we head into the pre-convention doldrums.
This has not been a good week for Obama. It started with the bad jobs numbers on Friday followed by the recall election results in WI. In mid-week we had Bill Clinton suggesting that it might be okay to extend the expiring Bush tax cuts. And today Obama said the private economy is doing just fine.
All of this could be fatal to Obama's chances if they happened in Sept or Oct but (much to the dismay of the pontificating political pundits) mean little to the public in early June.

And yet, his poll numbers have not begun to slide in any meaningful way. There has been some tightening in swing states, but he's still in roughly the same position he was in a month ago. Still leading the tracking polls and still has approval numbers in the high 40's.

The GOP has been crowing this week about winning Michigan, based on a single poll taken there - this is a ridiculous proposition. Their chances of winning that state are extremely slim.

Cycloptichorn

I'm sure they can win Michigan if they promise to close down Government Motors.

I'm also starting to become increasingly of the belief that Obama is well poised to win FL, for no other reason than the fact that their current governor (Lex Luthor) is downright despised - his approval ratings are the GOP rump (31%), and that's it.

Makes a big difference when the local group has so turned off voters, it harms the entire brand. It makes campaigning in the state tough for Romney - does he appear with Scott, or not?

Doesn't help Romney that the FL voting registration supervisors in the whole state have basically told Scott to **** off over his attempt to purge about 500k voters (almost exclusively minorities) from the rolls before the election.

Cycloptichorn

Omg you're right LOL!

Especially the version from Smallville -



The guy truly is a scumbag, the fact that he got elected is the saddest possible testament to how much the Dems let things get out of hand in 2010.

Cycloptichorn

On Tuesday in AZ there will be a special election to replace Gabrielle Giffords (D), who survived a shooting a year or so ago but ended up resigning from the House.
Jesse Kelly (R) lost to Giffords in 2010 by about 2%. He faces Ron Barber (D) who was an aide to Giffords. He was wounded in the attack.
The 8th District is split evenly between Repubs and Dems - with an edge, perhaps, to a Repub.
Barber and Kelly, given the circumstances, have run civil campaigns. Party PAC's have been less so, spending some $2.2M in mostly attack ads.
The winner should not measure for new drapes. He will be facing reelection in November. Due to redistricting, the successful candidate will be in the 2nd District, which is slightly more Democrat leaning.

Good afternoon.
Sean Trende of RCP took on the political issue of President Obama new immigration policy. Was it, as some Republicans argue, pandering to Hispanic voters?
He notes that there only 7 states where Hispanic voters made up a significant share of all voters:
AZ (where 16% of the voters were Hispanic)
CA (18%)
CO (13%)
FL (14%)
NV (15%)
NM (41%)
TX (20%)
Only 3 of the 7 are considered "tossup" states - CO, FL, NV. And FL, because of its large Cuban-American population, is perhaps atypical. CO and NV together make up only 15 electoral votes.
He goes on to argue that Hispanics are hardly monolithic in voting and even among Hispanics there are other issues that may trump this one come Nov.
Trende concludes that Obama's action is largely a wash.
I think he misses a point by looking solely at Hispanics. Bloomberg News is out with a poll of Likely Voters who were asked their opinion about the immigration policy Obama set out:
Overall, voters were in favor of it 64% to 30%;
Democrats - 86% approve
Republicans - 44% approve
Independents - 66% approve

Romney, who thus far has (to my ears) failed to take a position addresses the Latino Election Officials conference on Thursday.

President Obama just finished his speech to the NALEO - the Latin American organization that Gov Romney spoke to yesterday.
Obama's speech was short on rhetoric to fire up the audience; there was nothing in it to get standing ovations.
He seemed instead to defend himself against the charge of inaction in 3+ years.
There is a "small faction" within the Republican party who have cowed moderate Republicans into inaction, he said/
He noted that Romney, months ago, said he would veto anything like the Dream act. "That's what he said."
I think that Obama's speech was less about firing up Latinos and more about driving a wedge in the Republican party. Romney is in a tough spot.

Tap, Tap, Tap...
The Supreme Court could rule on the healthcare legislation next week ... or not.
Wednesday or Friday. I'm betting on Friday (6/29).
A Pew Poll out in the last day or so finds 44% of us hope that all of the bill gets thrown out while 39% are in favor of upholding it. 40% could live with it if the individual mandate is taken out.

The Supreme Court today issued three rulings including one on Arizona's immigration law (1070). The vote was 5-3.
Both the Dems and Repubs seem to be declaring victory.
How do you read it?

So, the Supreme Court has ruled, largely upholding Obamacare. The decision was 5-4 with Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, voting with the majority, and writing the opinion.
There are several threads on A2k about the decision.
The most controversial part of the case had to do with the individual mandate under the commerce clause. Roberts threaded his way around that by calling it a "tax."
The politics will inevitably become become paramount.
Nationally, Obama has a 3% lead. We will see how that changes is the next week or so.

Hard to see this as anything but a giant boost for Obama and his chances this Fall.

Cycloptichorn

Romney, in his first comments, said of today's opinion:
"I will repeal it."
Then, perhaps realizing that he alone can't do that, added:
"If we want to replace Obamacare, we have to replace Obama."

I doubt that. Right now, health care's not as big an issue as the economy, and it won't be a big issue in the fall. This will be a bigger boost to Democratic candidates in 2016, after the law has taken full effect. At that point, GOP candidates will have to explain to voters why they opposed or still oppose what will most likely be a popular (or at least uncontroversial) program.

Disagree. This destroys Romney's biggest talking point against Obamacare - he's been running around calling it 'unconstitutional' in every single speech he gives. And he's specifically said that the difference between this and the health plan he supported was that mandates are constitutional on a state level, but not a national one.

It's now going to be extremely difficult for him to differentiate himself from Obama on this issue, which is a big failure for him.

And it's a boost for Obama. If the mandate were struck down, there would be chaos as we struggled to figure out the results. If the whole ACA were struck down, Obama would have been pilloried for 'wasting time' on an unconstitutional law. By both the left and the right.

Additionally, it's a gigantic morale killer on the right-wing, who were running around guaranteeing everyone (mostly themselves) that the SC would overturn this ruling, and save them a lot of work. The RW blogs today are totally despondent.

There's no other way to look at this but the best possible outcome for Obama and his re-election chances. I think that our nation full of low-information voters are going to, in large part, see this as a vindication of what Obama did.

Cycloptichorn