Robert Stacy McCain reports on the latest post-debate polls, but urges us to be cautious about believing them now, just because they are in our favor.
He writes: (links removed)
Nevertheless, for several months, I had been saying that I thought the outcome of the election would hinge on the debates, and the one-sided ass-whupping Romney put on Obama may have triggered a decisive shift that the polls are already beginning to detect.
If you check the Real Clear Politics national average, you see that Sept. 26/Oct. 1, Obama held a lead of four or more points after having been tied with Romney just a month earlier. According to Gallup’s tracking poll, Obama had led by 6 points most of the way from Sept. 19/Oct. 2. Both of these key indicators now show a trend toward Romney, who has closed the gap to 3 points in Gallup and 1.6 points in the RCP, which is mirrored in recent state-by-state results for Florida, Ohio, Colorado andWisconsin.
However, to emphasize again, polls are a lagging indicator. What is important in studying election polls is to follow the trendline, and we don’t yet have enough results from different firms to be able to say (on Oct. 7) that Romney’s looking like a definite winner for Nov. 6.
And McCain also links to this story about one of the bluest counties in the United States: (links removed)
You’d have to reckon that our president’s handlers thought that he would be safe visiting Cleveland, Ohio, a place that helped him win Ohio four years ago. Cuyahoga County yields the majority of Democratic votes from our state. But there’s trouble for Team Obama there today, in a dearth of Democrat registrations.
Here was how Mr. Obama was greeted at a local market:
An Ohio market vendor told President Barack Obama on Friday that his business has been going “terrible” since the president’s arrival, according to media reports.
Obama was greeting different vendors at Cleveland’s West Side Market when he came upon the proprietor of Rolston Poultry.
According to the White House pool report, Obama asked the man how business was going.
“Terrible since you got here,” he replied.
[…]That small business owner summed up the sentiments of many Ohioans, reflected in the new Rasmussen poll, also cited in the PJ Media piece on Obama’s Buckeye state woes.
So, there’s a problem with registering Dems in Cuyahoga County? That’s according to analysis by Clinton Cooper of Election Insights, who has been involved in local and regional government and politics for the last 10 years, including at The Ohio State University and in a policy advisory role for several government agencies and consulting firms in Ohio. Mr. Cooper claims that his data shows that the changes in voter registration in Cuyahoga County have made it extremely difficult for Obama to win Ohio.
This article is currently the most popular one on Investors Business Daily.
Excerpt:
In making his case for re-election in the face of historically high unemployment and sluggish growth, President Obama has a simple and straightforward argument.
Things were terrible when I arrived, he says, thanks to Bush-era policies of tax cuts and deregulation. We stopped the decline, but the ditch was so deep that it will take time to get out. Still, we are making progress, even if it isn’t as fast as everyone would like.
So the last thing we want to do is return to the failed Bush policies that, he says, drove us into the ditch.
That argument appears to be working. More people continue to blame Bush than Obama for the current poor state of affairs, and some surveys show that consumer confidence has recently increased.
But each part of Obama’s argument is based on claims that are not accurate…
The article lists 5 claims made by Obama, and assesses each claim against the evidence.
Here are the 5 claims:
Bush tax cuts and deregulation caused the recession.
I stopped a second Great Depression.
My policies are working.
A slow recovery was inevitable.
Nobody could have done any better.
And here’s the critique of point number one: (links removed)
At a campaign rally, Obama said Romney is “just churning out the same ideas that we saw in the decade before I took office . . . the same tax cuts and deregulation agenda that helped get us into this mess in the first place.”
It’s a standard Obama talking point. But it’s not true. Bush’s tax cuts did not cause the last recession.
In fact, once they were fully in effect in 2003, they sparked stronger growth — generating more than 8 million new jobs over the next four years, and GDP growth averaging close to 3%.
Those tax cuts didn’t explode the deficit, either, as Obama frequently claims. Deficits steadily declined after 2003, until the recession hit.
Nor was Bush a deregulator. Conservative Heritage Foundation’s regulation expert James Gattuso concluded, after reviewing Bush’s record, that “regulation grew substantially during the Bush years.”
Even the Washington Post’s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, gave Obama’s claim three out of four “Pinocchios,” saying “it is time for the Obama campaign to retire this talking point, no matter how much it seems to resonate with voters.”
What did cause the economic crisis? The housing bubble. And that, in turn, was the result of a determined federal effort to boost homeownership by, among other things, pressuring banks to lower lending standards.
Now I know that some people (like Jerry) who get their policy news from the Comedy Channel think that the Bush tax cuts made the deficits explode, but of course, deficits were shrinking until the two spendthrifts Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid got hold of the purse strings after taking the House and Senate in 2007.
Look:
Barack Obama: Budget Deficits – last GOP budget was 2007
Similarly, Obama clowns on the Comedy Channel and MSNBC also think that the Bush tax cuts made revenues go down.
Ooops:
Did the Bush tax cuts make revenues decrease? No!
You can tune into MSNBC and the Comedy Channel on any given night and see the clowns there claiming that Bush’s $160 billion deficit in 2007 is actually higher than the $450 billion deficit in 2004, after the 2.2 trillion of tax cuts were passed.
Read the whole thing, it will help you to be persuasive when discussing Obama’s rhetoric. People aren’t saying that Romney won the debate because he had “zingers”. People are saying that Romney won the debate because he had facts and evidence.
My prescription for voters in this election is more economics, and cut back on the Comedy Channel. Democrats must all buy Thomas Sowell’s “Basic Economics” and read that all the way through. I know that graphs aren’t as entertaining as Rachel Madclown, but we all must make an effort for the sake of the prosperity of our children, and our children’s children.
GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney tonight charged that President Barack Obama’s jobs plan is a failure, with millions out of work and looking for help.
“My plan is to put people back to work in America,” Romney said tonight at the first of three presidential debates scheduled for the 2012 presidential election season.
“Look at the history of the past four years. We have 23 million people unemployed. Keeping with the status quo is not going to work for the American people.”
Obama returned to his oft-repeated theme of blaming George W. Bush, asserting the taxation approach Romney was proposing was nothing more than a return to the “trickle-down” economy of the Republican plan.
Obama began the debate by reciting familiar campaign themes, suggesting once again that his administration inherited from Bush one of the worst economies in the history of the United States.
But Romney struck a theme of energy independence and advancing small business as keys to getting the U.S. economy growing again. He accused Obama of proposing “trickle-down government,” represented by more government regulation and more taxation.
Romney disputed Obama’s assertion he was locked into a tax cut, charging that under the Obama administration the middle class has been pressed by reduced income, diminished job opportunities and increased food and energy costs.
From the first moments of the debate, Romney looked Obama directly in the eye, took exception to president’s assertions about Romney’s policies, and gave more precise answers.
Obama pressed that Romney’s economic plan called for $5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in military budget increases, a program Obama asserted would demand tax increases on middle-income earners.
“Look, I’ve got five boys and I’m used to somebody saying something that’s not true and hoping that by repeating it I’m going to believe it,” Romney countered, asserting that everything Obama said about his tax program was inaccurate.
Obama insisted Romney’s tax-reduction plan of necessity would either increase the deficit or demand tax increases for the middle class, charging that under Romney’s definition Donald Trump would be a small business.
Objecting to Jim Lehrer’s interruption that the first segment was exceeding the 15-minute limit, Romney charged that Obama would increase taxes on small businesses at the cost of 700,000 jobs.
As the discussion advanced to the nation’s deficit, Obama reiterated his statement that he inherited a massive deficit, and appeared on the defensive.
“You have been president for four years, you said you would cut the deficit in half and you have run $1 trillion in deficits each of the four years,” Romney attacked. “That does not get the job done.”
Romney pointed out that when the economy was growing as slowly as it is now, more slowly than when Obama took office, this is no time to increase taxes.
“You never balance the budget by increasing taxes,” Romney insisted. “I don’t want to go down the path of Spain.”
And:
Romney said “ignoring the 10th Amendment is not the way to have a vibrant economy.”
Romney said the key to education is great teachers, and he raised a reference to the U.S. Constitution regarding citizen rights.
“I interpret our founding documents as providing a responsibility for religious freedom – to pursue happiness by taking care of the less fortunate – but massive government involvement limits freedom – the path we are taking is not working with 23 million Americans unemployed and 50 million on food stamps.”
Obama said the responsibility of the federal government was important in improving the educational system in America.
“Budgets reflect choices. If we cut taxes to benefit people like Gov. Romney and me, it makes a difference,” Obama. He again demanded specifics of the GOP plans.
“When it comes to making college affordable, whether it be two years or four years, we cut out the middleman and eliminated banks from making a profit in student loans. Gov. Romney believes in education but he tells kids to borrow from their parents to go to college.”
Romney responded, “Mr. President, you are entitled to your own airplane and your own house – but not to your own facts.”
Romney said Obama put $90 billion into green jobs, but half of the recipients went bankrupt and others were owned by contributors to your campaign, and questioned the number of teachers that would have hired.
Romney proposed grading schools to know which were succeeding and which were failing.
“Massachusetts schools are ranked No. 1 in education because I care for education for all our children,” Romney said.
It was so bad that even gay activist and radical leftist Andrew Sullivan called it for Romney: (H/T Hot Air)
Look: you know how much I love the guy, and you know how much of a high information viewer I am, and I can see the logic of some of Obama’s meandering, weak, professorial arguments. But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look…
The person with authority on that stage was Romney – offered it by one of the lamest moderators ever, and seized with relish. This was Romney the salesman. And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It’s beyond depressing. But it’s true.
Call it the curse of incumbency. Like many of his predecessors, President Obama fell victim Wednesday night to high expectations, a short fuse, and a hungry challenger.
If Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney didn’t win the first of three presidential debates outright, he more than covered the spread. He was personable, funny, and relentlessly on the attack against a heavily favored Obama.
The president looked peeved and flat as he carried a conversation, for the first time in four years, with somebody telling him he’s wrong.
This debate was a blowout – and that’s just the reaction of the left.
Left-wing reactions on Twitter
Bill Maher: (HBO)
Bill Maher says Romney defeated Obama
Peter Beinart (The New Republic)
Peter Beinart says Romney defeated Obama
Piers Morgan: (CNN)
Piers Morgan says Romney defeated Obama
And CHRIS MATTHEWS too:
Something else ran down his leg tonight, and it wasn’t a tingle, it was a tinkle.
Romney leading by 4 points in swing states
The latest poll of swings states from the left-wing Politico shows Romney leading Obama by 4 points, even with a 2 point oversampling of Democrats.
This week, Politico released its latest Battleground pollof the presidential race. Despite coming from the left-wing news site, the poll is one of my favorites. Its put together by respected pollsters from both parties, makes available its full cross-tabs and uses a very modest and reasonable turnout model for its sample. Including leaners, the sample in the poll is D+2. Nationally, Obama leads by 2-3 points, but, in the critical swing states, Romney now has the edge.
Each candidate leads in states considered “safe” for their party. In safe GOP states, Romney leads by 8. In safe Democrat states, Obama leads by a massive 22 points. But, in the more numerous and more important “toss up” states, Romney leads by 4, hitting the critical 50% threshold.
In the slightly different category of “battleground” states identified by Politico, Romney leads by 2, 49-47. Romney’s lead over Obama is powered primarily by his edge with independents. Romney leads Obama by 4 among the important swing voters. By 11 points, these voters think Romney would do better on the economy than Obama, 51-40.
Romney also has a big edge with middle class families, who prefer him over Obama by 15 points, 56-41.
My prediction for this election remains Romney 52, Obama 47.
WINTERY KNIGHT 