2012 Presidential Election
November 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Some scoff at the idea that Mitt Romney might carry Minnesota, but actions speak louder than words. Both Bill Clinton and Paul Ryan campaigned in Minnesota today. This morning, I put out a call to Power Line readers who attended the Ryan event to send me photos and accounts of the rally. The results were overwhelming; I can post only a tiny fraction of the photos we got, but thanks
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November 4, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and maybe Michigan have turned out to be among the very most important states in this year’s presidential election. These states have several things in common, one of which is a large Catholic population. Catholics represent approximately 18 percent of the population in Ohio, 29.5 percent in Wisconsin, 28.5 in Pennsylvania, and 22 percent in Michigan. A Columbus Dispatch poll gives Romney a 55 to 44 lead
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November 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Mitt Romney’s latest ad–maybe the last of the campaign–is a one-minute video called “A Bigger, Better America.” I am not sure whether it is playing on television as well as the internet; I hope so. It is beautifully done and highly effective, the kind of soaring, positive ad that Barack Obama, with his failed administration and mean, petty campaign, can’t even pretend to match:
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November 4, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Mitt Romney’s team arranged a beautiful moment of Reaganesque stagecraft yesterday in Englewood, Colorado. If you’ve heard Romney’s stump speech, you know he has incorporated a story about an American flag that was rescued from the Challenger disaster. Romney’s anecdote derives from his involvement with the Boy Scouts. NBC’s Garrett Haake picks up the story from there: “Retelling the tale of a Boy Scout group’s flag — thought lost in
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November 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker
I am not going to make it to the Paul Ryan rally in Bloomington today, but if any of our readers are there–and I am sure some will be–please send your photos to john.hinderaker@gmail.com, along with your comments on the event, and I will do a post on it later in the day. Thanks!
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November 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker
This morning there are a number of fresh polls that seem to suggest Mitt Romney has succeeded in expanding the electoral map. Via Drudge, we see that a new poll puts Romney slightly ahead in Michigan. But beware: this poll is from Foster McCollum White Baydoun, the same outfit that has shown the race essentially tied in prior surveys. That doesn’t mean they are wrong, it just means that today’s
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November 4, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Michael Barone has predicted that Mitt Romney will carry Iowa. The polls, however, tend to favor President Obama. NBC/WSJ/Marist shows President Obama up by 6 percentage points — 50 to 44 percent; Gravis Marketing shows Obama up 4 points — 49 to 45 percent; WeAskAmerica shows Obama up 1.5 points — 48.8 to 47.3 percent; while Rasmussen shows Mitt Romney up 1 point — 49 to 48 percent. At the
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November 3, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Although Michael Barone predicts that Mitt Romney will be elected pretty handily, he gives President Obama the edge in Nevada: Democratic early-voting turnout is down from 2008 in Las Vegas’ Clark County, 70 percent of the state. But the casino unions’ turnout machine on Election Day re-elected an unpopular Harry Reid in 2010, and I think they’ll get enough Latinos and Filipinos out this time. Obama [to win the State].
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November 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker
What is most striking about the last days of this year’s presidential campaign is that Barack Obama has gone petty, urging his supporters to vote out of “revenge,” while Mitt Romney has gone large, offering a vision of a bigger and better America. Byron York captures the mood at Romney’s huge rally in West Chester Ohio last night: “Romney closes big: ‘Love of country’ vs. ‘Revenge.’” Obama’s “revenge” remark was
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November 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The good old days when Democrats could be counted on to shoot themselves in the foot–so to speak–by coming out for gun control are sadly gone. As a result, the once-feared National Rifle Association has been relatively dormant on the political scene in recent years. But late in Obama’s term, he incautiously said a few things that can reasonably be interpreted as anti-gun. So the NRA has swung into action
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November 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker
I wrote here about the sensational Romney-Ryan rally at Red Rocks, the amphitheater outside Denver. The Romney campaign has now made a web ad out of the event, titled “Red Rocks.” I learned about the video because one of my 16-year-old daughter’s friends tweeted it. I have no idea how the youth vote will break this year, but there is nothing in Barack Obama’s tawdry campaign, or in the diminished
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November 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker
One of Barack Obama’s problems is that he is not a very accomplished public speaker. When he veers away from his teleprompter, which you pretty much have to do on the stump, his instincts are poor and he tends to get into trouble. That happened yesterday when Obama said to a crowd that had just booed Mitt Romney, “No, no, no — don’t boo, vote. Vote. Voting is the best
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November 3, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Today’s Wall Street Journal contains “closing argument” statements by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. President Obama mentions Afghanistan once in part of a sentence that talks about “ending” – not winning – “the wars.” Romney says nothing about Afghanistan. A friend writes: Think about this for a second: America has been at war in Afghanistan for 11 years; Americans are currently fighting and dying there; and neither candidate for president
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November 3, 2012 — Steven Hayward
So Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he “can’t work with Romney.” This ham-fisted campaigning has to rank as an all time low for Dingy Harry. Has there ever been a worse guttersnipe in a Senate leadership position before? Which got me to thinking: what would Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken have made of Harry Reid? Mencken didn’t like politicians as a class, and they always brought out his most acid
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November 3, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I have no idea whether any quantitative analyst has attempted to correlate the frequency of late-night comic jokes and incumbent re-election rates, but if Jay Leno is any indicator, Obama in in trouble. Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters has been tracking Leno’s barbs aimed at Obama, such as: “Hurricane Sandy has already created more jobs than Obama has.“ Or, the day after Hallloween: “Last night, I answer the door, there’s a
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November 2, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Intensity, which translates into enthusiasm and therefore turnout, is an important factor in elections. One of President Obama’s fundamental problems is that, while his approval/disapproval ratings have hovered around 50/50 throughout his term, the intensity of those who disapprove of his performance has consistently been greater. We have noted this many times by referring to Scott Rasmussen’s Approval Index, which compares strong approval with strong disapproval. An incumbent who is
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November 2, 2012 — Steven Hayward
But is there really anything scarier than Obama or Biden without a teleprompter? Probably not, but here’s some worthy candidates.
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