Kos/SIEU: Romney ties it up

[MorningInAmerica]

Another way to look at those crosstabs is to consider that Romney is only leading Obama by a 12 point margin among whites, while John McCain beat obama with whites by 13 points in a year that shattered all Democratic demographic turnout records. I personally believe 2012 will be closer, and that Romney is likely to win whites by 15+ points.

Having said that, we're still just talking about a poll taken 3.5 months before the actual election.

[Vosem]

Certainly even Daily Kos admits Romney's numbers have been moving up in recent weeks: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/24/1113254/-Daily-Kos-SEIU-State-of-the-Nation-poll-Romney-moves-into-tie-with-Obama

However, I'm hesitant to say the Bain attacks aren't working; Obama's treading water in Ohio (at ~ +3), which seems to suggest they're at least stopping any decline there. Romney basically can't win without Ohio, so Obama is still winning. Still, the reasons for this trend are not going away anytime soon, and once Romney starts spending at greater than parity with Obama (soon) things are going to start looking a lot worse for the President than they are now. Obama is swimming upstream, against the current; it's only swept him back just a little at this point but he can't keep doing it forever.

[pepper11]

Further confirmation the Bain attacks did nothing but hurt Obama's personable likability. Thank you Bill Burton.

[MorningInAmerica]

Obama is swimming upstream, against the current; it's only swept him back just a little at this point but he can't keep doing it forever.

Agreed. No matter how much Obama may stand to gain from some of these attacks, there will always be job report on the first Friday of every month to knock him back down. And all indications are that those reports will not be looking good from now until election day. http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/19/news/economy/obama-election/index.htm

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[pepper11]

It seems like yesterday when Obama split Axelrod's attack ad CD in half and threw it in the garbage, saying it's a campaign of Hope and Change.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Obama is swimming upstream, against the current; it's only swept him back just a little at this point but he can't keep doing it forever.

Agreed. No matter how much Obama may stand to gain from some of these attacks, there will always be job report on the first Friday of every month to knock him back down. And all indications are that those reports will not be looking good from now until election day. http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/19/news/economy/obama-election/index.htm

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't think anyone except the media even cares about the monthly reports, quite frankly.

[MorningInAmerica]

I don't think anyone except the media even cares about the monthly reports, quite frankly.

That may be the case for Obama-bots. But those voters without their heads up a particular candidates ass are paying attention to the economy, and concerned about it.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

That may be the case for Obama-bots. But those voters without their heads up a particular candidates ass are paying attention to the economy, and concerned about it.

People care what happens to themselves. People who lost their job in 2001 aren't going to suddenly flip to the GOP now.

[MaxQue]

I don't think anyone except the media even cares about the monthly reports, quite frankly.

That may be the case for Obama-bots. But those voters without their heads up a particular candidates ass are paying attention to the economy, and concerned about it.

People don't care about economy. They care if them and their family have a job.
And I doubt than more than 2% of the Americans are able to say the unemployment rate is asked.

[MorningInAmerica]

I don't think anyone except the media even cares about the monthly reports, quite frankly.

That may be the case for Obama-bots. But those voters without their heads up a particular candidates ass are paying attention to the economy, and concerned about it.

People don't care about economy. They care if them and their family have a job.
And I doubt than more than 2% of the Americans are able to say the unemployment rate is asked.

Really? http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p5 Read pg 5 and 6. 85% of the electorate in 2008 said they were "worried" about the economy, 50% of which were
"very worried." 81% were worried the economy could "hurt their family." Also, 63% identified the economy as the MOST important issue, with Iraq in second at 10%. But you're right:

People don't care about the economy.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

People care about the economy affecting them personally. I think people stopped caring about statistics when they realized the media was using statistics to lie.

[stegosaurus]

People care about the economy affecting them personally. I think people stopped caring about statistics when they realized the media was using statistics to lie.

You're half right. People only care about the economy as far as it effects them. Unfortunately, most people only have a rudimentary knowledge of the economy; they lack knowledge of how it affects them personally and how to judge whether or not it's doing poorly. That's why they depend on media narratives and ideologues to drive their opinions. Ask a layman "What's wrong with the economy?" As in, "What metric do you use to decide that the economy is bad?", and 99% of them will be unable to give you an intelligible answer beyond 2 or 3 words buzzwords: "unemployment", "high taxes", "debt" etc. People use easy things to form opinions, like statistics and "expert" analysis.

>1% of the American voting populace is a "political junkie" in the way that the people here and on other political websites are. We would all do good to remember that when analyzing things like current voter attitude on particular issues - we have to assume 90% of people are tragically misinformed and easily misguided to the wrong conclusions on complex issues. Politics would looks a great deal different if this weren't a safe assumption to make.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

89%?

This poll is junk.

I thought PPP was the gold standard for Democrats these days. So they're losing their flare?

They definitely just released an incredibly off-the-wall poll.

[DrScholl]

Romney, still stuck at the floor. Even if Obama dropped by 2%, Romney stayed at 46%.

[MaxQue]

I don't think anyone except the media even cares about the monthly reports, quite frankly.

That may be the case for Obama-bots. But those voters without their heads up a particular candidates ass are paying attention to the economy, and concerned about it.

People don't care about economy. They care if them and their family have a job.
And I doubt than more than 2% of the Americans are able to say the unemployment rate is asked.

Really? http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p5 Read pg 5 and 6. 85% of the electorate in 2008 said they were "worried" about the economy, 50% of which were
"very worried." 81% were worried the economy could "hurt their family." Also, 63% identified the economy as the MOST important issue, with Iraq in second at 10%. But you're right:

People don't care about the economy.

They are worried about their job, about their money, not about the economy per se, but about its consequences on their lives, not about numbers.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

The crosstabs seem off; Romney is getting 17% of blacks and LEADING with Native Americans.

That evens out with obama getting 40% of whites, which is of course far higher than reality.

Gore managed 43%, Kerry 41% and Obama pulled 43% in 2008. Why would you expect Obama to do worse than 40% this time around? If the narrative is "horse race", then 40% of whites is probably the floor for Obama.

Maybe because of the undecideds.
Even factoring that in, though, Obama's worst possible polling should be around 36-38%, hardly "far lower" than 40.

[Joe Biden is your president. Deal with it.]

Nationwide polls are useless.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Romney, still stuck at the floor. Even if Obama dropped by 2%, Romney stayed at 46%.

I disagree with that quite a bit actually. Romney used to be seen as something of a moderate. I think his consistent economic message could help rehape that image a bit. He was seen as a sensible dude.

I was watching some old clips from David Letterman the other night and came across an interview Romney did with him in 2010. For a guy who's been decried as a robot, Romney look disciplined, personable, normal, and incredibly smart.

Romney needs a new media strategy. He's gotta take on as many easy interviews as he can. He can make himself look like a solid candidate if he'd only introduce himself to people.

[freepcrusher]

It's certainly not the floor. Mondale and Dukakis performed worse than that with whites.

Obama isn't Mondale or Dukakis.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

As if "the white community" thinks the Republicans are so great.

The GOP's dictatorial demeanor has alienated Americans of every color.

Better said that Mondale and Dukakis were fortunate to not be Barack Obama. Alternatively, of course, you could look at the 2010 elections which showed unprecedented white flight from the Democratic party.

for some reason I keep thinking you are steve sailer.

Anyways, it is hard to see Obama drop too much among a certain level with whites because they tend to have a safety net - that is gays, seculars, jews etc.