2012 Re-Election of President Barack Obama

This is quickly becoming a foregone conclusion. Every single one of the past 8 days has seen Obama's numbers go up on fivethirtyeight.com,the best polling site in the business,IMO.

This is just going to help pile on....
Poll: Obama Tops 70 Percent Support Among Latinos

Quote :

President Barack Obama's already-lofty level of support among Latino voters has reached a new high, according to the latest weekly tracking poll from Latino Decisions released Monday.

The poll shows Obama earning the support of 73 percent of Latino voters, while Romney trails with the support of only 21 percent. It's the first time Obama has exceeded 70 percent in the six weeks that Latino Decisions has conducted its tracking surveys. This week's installment also shows that more than 70 percent of Latino voters trust Obama over Romney on issues related to the economy, women, the Middle East and Latin America.

Obama has held a massive lead among Latino voters throughout this campaign, according to the PollTracker Average, although he has not yet hit the 70 percent threshold.

U.S. unemployment drops to 7.8%, as economy adds 114,000 jobs

Quote :

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to a near four-year low of 7.8 percent in September, a potential boost to President Barack Obama's re-election bid.

The Labor Department said on Friday the unemployment rate, a key focus in the race for the White House, dropped by 0.3 percentage point to its lowest point since January 2009.

A survey of households from which the jobless rate is derived showed 873,000 job gains last month, the most since June 1983. The drop in unemployment came even as Americans come back into the labor force to resume the hunt for work. The workforce had shrank in the prior two months.

Huge news that couldn't come at a better time.

[quote="Artie60438"]U.S. unemployment drops to 7.8%, as economy adds 114,000 jobs

Quote :

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to a near four-year low of 7.8 percent in September, a potential boost to President Barack Obama's re-election bid.
Huge news that couldn't come at a better time.

Meanwhile,back on Planut Wingnuttia......
Solid Jobs Report Spawns Crackpot ‘Job Truthers’ Movement

Quote :

The economy added 114,000 jobs in September and unemployment declined to 7.8 percent. Not great numbers, but paired with major upward revisions to previous monthly reports and taken in the context of a slowly recovering economy, the report was viewed as good news for America.

Unless, of course, you were hoping for bad news. And apparently quite a few of President Obama’s critics were — so much so that they suggested the Bureau of Labor Statistics was part of a vast conspiracy.

The leader of the “job truther” movement: former GE CEO Jack Welch.

“Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers,” he said on Twitter.

He had some friends in Congress too. Rep. Allen West (R-FL) tweeted “I agree with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here.” He added on Facebook that the jobs report was “Orwellian to say the least and representative of Saul Alinsky tactics from the book ‘Rules for Radicals.’”

FOX News’ Stuart Varney apparently sensed where his audience was going. Within minutes of their release he told viewers that “there is widespread mistrust of this report and these numbers.”

“How convenient the rate drops below 8% [for the] first time in 43 months, five weeks before the election,” he added later.

CNBC host Jim Carmer said he was pilloried by viewers for defending the BLS report’s integrity.

“This is very hot. You believe the number, you must be a card-carrying Communist,” he joked on the air.

Betsey Stevenson, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor under President Obama, said in a phone interview with TPM that the conspiracy theories were misguided in just about every way possible. For starters, the Bureau of Labor Statistics isn’t currently run by a political appointee. For most of Obama’s term, the commissioner was a holdover appointed by President Bush. The current acting commissioner John Gavin is a career BLS economist, not an Obama appointee.

The underlying data behind the BLS reports is also publicly released and used by analysts across the private sector and academia, meaning a conspiracy would have to survive scrutiny from trained economists of all political stripes.

Nor is there much time to cook the books at the top level if they wanted to.

“I worked for Secretary Hilda Solis and she didn’t know the job numbers until 8 a.m. on the day,” Stevenson said. “Which made my job very difficult, because I had to help her figure out what she was going to say when they were released.” The BLS releases the numbers publicly at 8:30 a.m. ET.

But conspiracy theorists are out in full force. Conn Carroll, a columnist at the Washington Examiner, noted that the Household Survey, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, was more positive than the raw jobs numbers, which come from a survey of employers, and suggested that the true conspirators were unemployed Democrats:

Quote :

Update: The conspiracy crowd may need to expand their theory to the private sector. The consensus from market analysts the day before the report was a 110,000 job gain. The private ADP survey, released earlier this week, found that US businesses added 162,000 jobs.

That gurgling you're hearing is the sound of Rombot's ridiculous talking point that Obama is weak on China being flushed down the toilet. Just in time for Monday's foreign policy debate
WTO hands Obama victory in U.S.-China steel case

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(Reuters) - The World Trade Organization barred China on Thursday from imposing duties on certain U.S. steel exports, siding with U.S. President Barack Obama in a dispute with Beijing over a type of steel made in two election battleground states.

The case involved duties imposed by China on "grain-oriented electrical steel," which is used in the cores of high-efficiency transformers, electric motors and generators. The steel is made by AK Steel Corp of Ohio and ATI Allegheny Ludlum of Pennsylvania.

Although the specialty steel case is tiny compared with other trade disputes with Beijing, the WTO ruling gave Obama a timely win as he defends himself against accusations by his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, that he is soft on China.

"Today we are again plainly stating that we will continue to take every step necessary to ensure that China plays by the rules and does not unfairly restrict exports of U.S. products," Obama administration trade representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.

China's Commerce Ministry said in a statement on its website that it will "handle this case according to WTO regulations".

Polls now moving in President Obama's direction...

Polls: Obama Job Approval (US)
Conducted by Gallup from 10/21/2012 to 10/23/2012.
1 Approve 53.0
2 Disapprove 42.0

Release information available from Gallup.
±3.0 margin of error.
1500 Adults were polled by telephone survey.
http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/polls/508820d6ebcabf307800008b

Oct. 24: In Polls, Romney's Momentum Seems to Have Stopped

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Mitt Romney clearly gained ground in the polls in the week or two after the Denver debate. However, the FiveThirtyEight forecast finds a slightly favorable trend for President Obama over the past 10 days.

If anyone had any doubts that Romney & Wingnuttia Co were trying to politicize the Libya attack this says it all

Quote :

Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
As long as there's no October surprise, the media will remain focused on Libya and no news stories will break ahead of it. Great for Romney.
Expand

Wingnut heads predicted to explode tomorrow....
Chris Christie to Host His BFF, President Obama, in New Jersey Tomorrow

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While Mitt Romney holds rallies in Florida tomorrow, President Obama will be joining his No. 1 fan, Chris Christie, for a tour of New Jersey's hurricane devastation and some quality bro time.

Polls still moving in the President's direction. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ now has the electoral college at Obama 299 Romney 239 with Obama a 77.4% chance of winning vs Romney's 26.6

In other words....Obama is more than a 3 to 1 favorite to win re-election

Mother Nature must be a Democrat.

Quote :

Poll: 78 percent approve of Obama's response to Sandy

By Daniel Strauss - 10/31/12

A majority of likely voters see President Obama's response to Hurricane Sandy in a positive light, according to a new poll.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll, which conducted interviews about the storm on Tuesday before being released on Wednesday, found 78 percent of likely voters viewed Obama's response positively, while just 8 percent viewed his response negatively. About 15 percent said they have no opinion.

Since the hurricane hit the coast over the weekend, Obama has visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency twice, as well as the Red Cross. On Wednesday Obama surveyed some of the worst damage from the hurricane in New Jersey with the state's governor, Chris Christie (R).

The poll found a smaller margin of approval to disapproval in Mitt Romney's response to the hurricane. Forty-four percent said they approved of Romney's response, while 35 percent said they did not approve of Romney's response. Twenty-one percent said they did not have an opinion on Romney's response to the hurricane. Romney and his vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), appeared at a number of storm relief events in Ohio and Wisconsin in response to the storm.

happy jack wrote:

[b]I get kinda creeped out watching you two jerk each other off.
Stop it.

All out of wingnut talking points? Care to bet on who wins Tuesday?

Artie60438 wrote:

happy jack wrote:

[b]I get kinda creeped out watching you two jerk each other off.
Stop it.

All out of wingnut talking points?

Merely creeped out, that's all.

happy jack wrote:

I get kinda creeped out watching you two jerk each other off.
Stop it.

Hmmmm...key word here is "watching."

happy jack wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

happy jack wrote:

[b]I get kinda creeped out watching you two jerk each other off.
Stop it.

All out of wingnut talking points?

Merely creeped out, that's all.

Gee and I was ready to bet my posting privileges on the outcome

Like clockwork...

Quote :

Markos Moulitsas ‏@markos
And Rasmussen begins his election-eve move to reality, now has national horserace tied 48-48.

Very cool interactive showing the outcome if various swing states are won
512 Paths to the White House Select a winner in the most competitive states below to see all the paths to victory available for either candidate.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ now reporting that President Obama has an 85.1% chance of winning. 306.9 to 231.1 in electoral college.

Yeah. Well I'm still a bit concerned about the effects of power outages on this election, especially in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Power outages still threaten the vote

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As of Saturday morning, AP was reporting that “Between 250 and 300 polling places remained without power just days before Tuesday’s election” in the Keystone State.

Pennsylvania requires that only enough emergency paper ballots to service 20 to 25% of the registered electorate be made available at each polling location. So, whether or not enough emergency paper ballots even exist at this point, should that many polling places still be lacking power by Tuesday, remains unknown. Unlike NJ’s Republican Governor, PA’s appears to be making little to no effort to ensure that voters will be able to vote, even in the event of power outages at the polls.

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At least nine precincts were still without power on Friday night in Cuyahoga County, the home of Cleveland and the largest county in the state. “Locations for more than a dozen others can’t be reached by phone,” according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.At least nine precincts were still without power on Friday night in Cuyahoga County, the home of Cleveland and the largest county in the state. “Locations for more than a dozen others can’t be reached by phone,” according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

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The availability of paper ballots is the upside. The downside is new Republican Sec. of State Jon Husted’s extraordinary and continuing attempt to make voting harder in the Buckeye State in every way possible, even on the heels of Sandy.

Among those ways: limiting Early Voting, appealing a court ruling to keep provisional ballots from being counted, even in the event when they are cast at the wrong precinct due to incorrect instructions by poll workers and, on Friday, he issued an order to county boards of elections “to reject provisional ballots when ID information on a particular part of the ballot form is incomplete, contrary to a court decision on provisional ballots a week ago and contrary to statements made by attorneys for Husted at an Oct. 24 court hearing,” the AP reported on Saturday.

Just updated: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ now reporting that President Obama has an 91.4% chance of winning. 314.4 to 223.6 in electoral college.

Popular Obama 50.9% Romney 48.2

He predicts the Senate will be Dems 52.5 Repub 47.5

Please keep this to yourself. We wouldn't want to spoil the media's down to the wire horse race scenario.

Inauguration: Obama sworn in for second term in White House ceremony

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Washington—
President Barack Obama took the official oath for his second term on Sunday at the White House in a small, private ceremony that set a more subdued tone compared to the historic start of his presidency four years ago.

Gathered with his family in the Blue Room on the White House's ceremonial main floor, Obama put his hand on a Bible and recited the 35-word oath that was read to him by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.
elebration

Obama hugged his wife Michelle and said, "Thank you," after she congratulated him at the swearing-in.

Gun Nut Extraordinaire Ted Nugent April 16,2012

The clock has officially started