Obama v. Romney

[BoSoxGal]

Clinton/Giffords 2016

[Beer Sponge]

Beer Sponge/Gob 2016!!!! I'll come from the north, you come from the south, and we'll take them in both ends!

Don't worry about the birth certificates, I know Obamas guy...

[Gob]

ROTFLMCO!!!!

[BoSoxGal]

[Lord Jim]

The race tightens:

Romney and Obama dead even in key swing states, according to new poll

With six months to go before Election Day, a new poll finds Mitt Romney in a dead heat with President Barack Obama in 12 key political battleground states.

A USA Today/Gallup poll of 12 expected swing states—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin—finds Obama leading Romney by just two points among registered voters, 47 percent to 45 percent. The results are well within the poll's plus or minus 4 percent margin of error.

That's a major difference from the same poll conducted in late March, when Obama held a 9-point lead over Romney among battleground state voters.

On the question of who would best handle the economy, Romney holds a clear lead over Obama. Sixty percent say Romney would do a "good" or "very good" job handling the economy over the next four years, compared to 52 percent for Obama, according to Gallup.

But Obama still has a key advantage over Romney when it comes to connecting with voters. Fifty-eight percent view the president as "likable," compared to only 31 percent for Romney. Asked which candidate "cares about the needs of people like you," Obama had a 10-point lead over Romney, 50 percent to 40 percent.

While the race has tightened since Romney unofficially claimed his party's nomination, there are still warning signs for the GOP ticket. The poll found that Democratic voters are more enthusiastic about the general election than Republicans—a shift from earlier this year.

According to Gallup, 55 percent of those supporting Obama say they are "extremely" or "very enthusiastic" about November's election, compared to 46 percent of voters backing Romney. That's a 9-point drop in enthusiasm among Romney supporters since January and a 5-point gain among Obama backers.

In a conference call with reporters, Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, touted the enthusiasm numbers as the "most telling" results of the poll and a "real" sign of an increasingly "fired up Democratic base."

"People are not that excited about Gov. Romney," Messina said, describing it as an "advantage" for the president's re-election efforts.

A separate poll conducted by Politico and George Washington University found Romney and Obama statistically tied among likely voters nationwide, 48 percent to 47 percent—well within the poll's 3.1 percent margin of error.

But there were warning signs for Obama: According to Politico, Romney held a 10-point lead over self-described independent voters, an important voting bloc this fall, and a 6-point advantage over voters who said they were most likely to turn out at the polls this November.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/romn ... 20093.html

I see the Obama people are trying to make something out of the "enthusiasm" gap, (I guess when you've got lemons, you make lemonade) but that is very misleading; all it reflects is the fact that we've just had our primary process, and there are a lot of folks who aren't crazy about Romney; that doesn't mean they won't show up to vote for him against Obama...(And it will tighten up anyway)

This poll is actually very bad news for Obama. What is shows is that even with Romney about as low as he's going to go, and with him positioned as far to the right as he's going to be during this campaign, and all of his negatives "baked into the cake", (out of touch, religious prejudice, hard right positions etc.) and even with a significant gender gap, and an even worse problem with Latino voters, the best Obama seems to be able to do is a dead heat....

What happens as Romney begins to soften some of his positions and some of these gaps begin to tighten?

Another problem that Obama has is that both domestically and internationally, almost anything that can happen between now and November is likely to bad for him. It's pretty clear at this point that the economy is not going to experience a drastic improvement between now and election day; in fact there are a number of indicators that just like last year and the year before, after a fairly strong first quarter, the numbers could begin to move south again....

Internationally, from Europe to the mid-east, there are a number of things that could blow up and further tank the US economy and seriously damage Obama's re-election chances (A financial meltdown in European markets, a crisis with Iran, etc.) and really nothing I can see that could happen that he would be able to point to as a "triumph"...(You can only kill Osama Bin Ladin once) the best Obama can hope for internationally is for nothing to go wrong.

What he's got to do, since he really can't drive Romney down any further, is hope that with enough cash he can sufficiently demonize him to keep him pretty much where he is right now, and squeak by to re-election....

If Romney gets even just a little stronger than he is now, Mr. Obama is going to be toast.

[dales]

If the weak economic recovery continues, Obama might be a one-termer.

[RayThom]

... pre-election "we say, they say" back-and-forth that has been happening since our system of democracy was created. Without all this blather our election process would be so dull and uneventful that even the media would decline to cover it. And without all that high priced mud to manufacture our economy would be in a terrible mess. And what would be the worst, even fewer of our scant electorate would show up to cast their vote. Ennui vs. boredom.

The candidates now have six months to sway our opinion... six L-O-N-G months. To paraphrase John Nance Garner, (these polls are) "not worth a bucket of warm piss." LJ, let's start a thread on November 7th so we can all rehash this shit. That's when we'll really be psyched. See ya' then.

Boehner/Norquist... 2016

[rubato]

Compared to countries using the repub. Methods the recovery is very good. GB is in the longest recession of all time, including the great depression.

Leaven bullshit rhetoric with a few facts.

[dgs49]

It's interesting the way they measure the enthusiasm. They are not asking "Democrats" or "Republicans," but it says they are surveying "those supporting Obama," and presumably the same for Romney. But as has been pointed out in the past, nobody who even voted in the Republican primaries is going to vote for Obama, and at least 90% of them are going to vote for Romney. It will be important to keep the Right-marginals off the ballot; somebody needs to sedate Ron Paul.

The Obama campaign is a sad statement about the Democrats' view of the American public. Vote for us if you want something from the Government, but want someone else to pay for it. Vote for us if you have no clue how bad the economy is, or how we have made it worse. It is nauseating.

[Big RR]

The republican campaign isn't much better, unless you view voting against Obama as some sort of a victory. I doubt many republicans see Romney as a desirable candidate, they just view him as "not Obama". But sadly, this is what American politics has become on both sides of the aisle, voting for the least objectionable candidate, not for someone who can (or would)) make a difference.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Shoot - I was all set to vote for Obama and now you've confused me with this anti-less-objectionable argument

[Gob]

Mitt Romney, the man likely to be the Republican candidate in this year's US presidential election, has rejected the legitimacy of same-sex marriage.

"Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman," he told graduates at Liberty University, a Christian college in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Mr Romney, a Mormon by religion, was given a standing ovation

I suppose the irony of this speech being given at "Liberty" College was lost on all present.

lib·er·ty 

noun, plural lib·er·ties.

1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
4. freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty.
5. permission granted to a sailor, especially in the navy, to go ashore.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Oh that's so bogus

Soccer. Perfect 'liberty' = no referees, no linesmen and no rules? All the kiddies can just hack away at the ball and each other free of control, interference etc etc etc. Choose for themselves when the ball's out of play? No. True liberty to play soccer is accorded by the application of rules to the game. And as for foreign rule, what the heck is UEFA then

Society. Perfect 'liberty' = no politicians, no judges, no courts, no police? I think not.

Are not all rules 'arbitrary'? (That's not rhetorical - I haven't decided yet. Depends how the word is defined and used I'd guess)

As to the last, I'm sure that "Hello sailor" often precedes (or is it follows?) taking a liberty

Meade

[rubato]

Hegel

We cannot understand the idea of liberty without the idea of boundaries.

But human freedom is not the absence of constraint, it is in choosing what the constraints will be. Our picture of freedom; an unlocked door, shackles being removed is only 1/2 of the truth, and the less important 1/2 at that.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

“Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed"

New Revised Standard Version(Jn 8:34-36)

Jesus Christ is in the business of setting men and women free from things that have them in bondage so that they can be the type of people God intends them to be. The way we are born (i.e. our naturally sinful condition) is not what God intends men and women to be.

[dgs49]

"Liberty" has nothing to do with this issue. We are free to live as we want, to make commitments to each other and adhere to them or not. The government arbitrarily assigns rights and prerogatives to people all the time based on what they do. Ever looked at the Internal Revenue Code?

A president's opinion - or a presidential candidate's opinion - on what should constitute "marriage" is nothing but a silly diversion. It is up to the States and the District of Columbia to define marriage within their respective jurisdictions. The federal position on marriage is codified in DOMA, which passed by a substantial, bipartisan majority in both houses and was signed by a Democrat president.

But the irony here is in the fact that both candidates in this election are descended from polygamists. Who are they to tell us what constitutes a marriage?

[Econoline]

"Liberty" has nothing to do with this issue.

"Irony" on the other hand...

Mitt Romney, the man likely to be the Republican candidate in this year's US presidential election, has rejected the legitimacy of same-sex marriage.

"Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman," he told graduates at Liberty University, a Christian college in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Mr Romney, a Mormon by religion, was given a standing ovation.

Mitt Romney’s great-great-grandfather was Parley Pratt, a Mormon apostle who had twelve wives. His great-grandparents were polygamous Mormons who moved to Mexico because of U.S. anti-polygamy laws. Miles Park Romney had five wives—including one taken in 1897, more than six years after the “Manifesto” supposedly announcing a ban on plural marriage in the LDS Church.(source)

As the expression goes, you do the math.

[Scooter]

"It is up to the States and the District of Columbia to define marriage within their respective jurisdictions.

The the federal government should let them do that. DOMA, of course, prevents this insofar as it denies federal recognition to marriages which some states have declared valid.

[Gob]

Oh that's so bogus

Soccer. Perfect 'liberty' = no referees, no linesmen and no rules? All the kiddies can just hack away at the ball and each other free of control, interference etc etc etc. Choose for themselves when the ball's out of play? No. True liberty to play soccer is accorded by the application of rules to the game. And as for foreign rule, what the heck is UEFA then

Society. Perfect 'liberty' = no politicians, no judges, no courts, no police? I think not.

Are not all rules 'arbitrary'? (That's not rhetorical - I haven't decided yet. Depends how the word is defined and used I'd guess)

As to the last, I'm sure that "Hello sailor" often precedes (or is it follows?) taking a liberty

Meade

Humour Meade, humour, you remember that?

[Gob]