Etch-a-Sketch Romney's Etch-a-Sketch is back in action! http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/16/465050/shaking-the-etch-a-sketch-after-promising-to-veto-it-romney-says-he-wants-a-dream-act/ I can't wait for the Democrat ads attacking him for his endless flip-flopping...:grin:
This is going to be a real problem for Mr Romney Tell us more about Romney’s ‘private’ views In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece on Thursday, the veteran conservative journalist Fred Barnes offered Mitt Romney some advice for improving his campaign, including the sensible (and one might also say humane) suggestion that on immigration, the presumptive nominee “would be wise to move away from his harsh position in the primaries.” Then Barnes included this fascinating sentence:“According to a Romney adviser, his private view of immigration isn’t as anti-immigrant as he often sounded.” What exactly does that mean? Does it mean Romney said things that he doesn’t really believe? What are we supposed to make of a candidate who takes certain public positions to court one group of voters — and then tries to reassure an entirely different group of voters by leaking the fact that he doesn’t really believe what he said to win votes from the first group? How many other “private” positions does Romney hold that we don’t know about? This is an important question because I think the Romney campaign will be engaged in a series of two-steps between now and Election Day. On the one hand, he needs to keep reassuring conservatives that he is really with them on a whole series of issues. But the whole premise that he was the most “electable” Republican rested on the unstated — was this “private,” too? — premise that he was the most “moderate” candidate in the field and could thus appeal beyond the conservative hard core. Romney wants the GOP base to think he’s a staunch conservative and swing voters to believe he’s a closet moderate. That’s why I suspect we’ll hear more hints about Romney’s “private” views on a lot of other matters. Romney is not the first candidate to try to be all things to all people. But he has a special problem because he has taken a great many contradictory public positions over the years, depending upon whether he was trying to appeal to a general-election electorate in Massachusetts or a Republican primary electorate nationwide. Keep an eye out for more hints about Romney’s “private” views. At some point, he will have to reconcile what he says with what his aides hint at. And he will have to do this publicly.
Although this is interesting to read, at the end of the day it matters little to the overall election. As a former presidential candidate once said, "It's the economy stupid." If the economy is doing better in the fall, Obama probably has a landslide. If the economy continues to falter (especially in swing states), Romney has a chance assuming he doesn't have a major gaffe between now and then.
Romney needs to choose an unquestioned conversative that will placate the "base" so he can veer back towards the center for the next 6 months. He has to appeal to swing voters or he's dead in the water. For him, the balancing act will be more difficult than normal because he's such an obvious chameleon.
Even bigger than Mitt's Etch-A-Sketch dilemma is this taxes thing, which I think is going to become a much bigger headache for Mitt Romney unless he releases them in a hurry AND there is nothing embarrassing in there. The Obama campaign is already starting to press on it. The question is - "why won't Romney release returns before 2010? Why is he delaying filing his 2011 taxes? Why does he have accounts in Grand Cayman? Why does he have accounts in Switzerland?" They are two major plausible reasons for having offshore accounts in these countries: either tax avoidance or to hide embarrassing and possibly illegal business activity. Theories are already being bandied about why he's hiding his tax info and information about his offshore accounts: Perhaps he held shares or otherwise did business with oil firms that traded with Iran. Perhaps he used some questionable tactics to avoid paying taxes. Perhaps he's simply trying to hide how much money he made after forcing companies into bankruptcy at Bain capital. Perhaps there is outright tax evasion involved. Perhaps Seamus ate the tax returns. Perhaps all of the above.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153902/Romney-Obama-Tight-Race-Gallup-Daily-Tracking-Begins.aspx Gallup has Romney ahead 47-45 among registered voters Obama is the first incumbent since Gerald Ford to be behind in April in the Gallup poll. One thing that's annoying is alot of these polls bury their party ID breakdown (or conceal it entirely). Depending on how that is set, you can get just about any result you want.
Lesser of the two evils time! Can't say I am that excited, but less evil is still better than equally evil.
On the same day, CNN poll...Obama up by 9 points. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...r-gap-and-likeability-keep-obama-over-romney/
I realize it's part of the media beast, but I really get annoyed by the countless polling that goes on prior to the election. Who cares what a sample population thinks before candidates have even been pitted head-to-head and 4 months before the elction? All the numbers can be twisted and turned in any which way. The candidate who is ahead says this proves that people support what I'm saying while the candidate who is behind says the polls are meaningless...and then 2 weeks later, they switch places with slightly different poll results. I'm fine with pitting the positions of the presumptive nominees and trying to debate who should be president, but the endless polls are meaningless. I just wish we could let the process play out somewhat instead of trying to predict what will happen 4 months from now when any number of unforeseen events will occur between now and then and change the whole dynamic. End of rant.
Lots of people care, that's why you see political parties trying to skew samples to make it look like they are way ahead. If a candidate's supporters think their candidate stands no chance then they are less likely to donate money or vote.
Al Gore won the popular vote....GWB won the presidency. You say Romney up in a poll.......If he doesn't win the right states.....doesn't matter.
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probably. Romney has a record of success (Massachusetts, Olympics, Bain & Company, Bain Capital). Obama has a record of failure (economy, healthcare, deficit, unemployment, etc...) . Should be easy make these arguments.
Nope Obama approval on the economy, deficit, gas prices are all under water. His healthcare bill is under water
