It still makes me uncomfortable to write about politics in terms of ethnic, socio economic and gender based terms, but I guess that’s the reality of how campaigns are planned and executed. Having said that, maybe Obama’s recent bump in the polls from a demographic he has had trouble connecting with in the past is a signal that America, or at least parts of it, are not so easily stereotyped. From the Atlantic:

Across most of the presidential battleground states, particularly in the Midwest, President Obama’s lead rests on a surprisingly strong performance among blue-collar white women who usually tilt toward the GOP.

A National Journal analysis of recent polling results across 11 states considered battlegrounds shows that in most of them, Obama is running considerably better than he is nationally among white women without a college education. Obama’s gains with these so-called “waitress moms” are especially pronounced in Heartland battlegrounds like Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa.

The Democrats have been actively targeting this demographic, bombarding them with ads focusing on Romney’s wealth and indifference to the concerns of working Americans, so it’s probably nothing to get too excited about. But at least they feel more comfortable with a Black man in the Oval office than an aloof, rich white guy.

Isn’t that progress?

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TPM has a great little analysis of the effect Romney’s ’47%’ video has had on his Presidential campaign. In short, it’s not good:

The snap shot is that 57% of independent voters had an unfavorable view of Romney’s outburst (according to a Washington Post poll) – the exact demographic Romney stated he was trying to get at in the talk he was giving. Said Romney:

What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not.

The polling looks absolutely devastating if even vaguely accurate as Romney is basically right – his entire campaign must be built around capturing independents – and it now looks like he has lost them.

It really makes you think – if that was originally Romney’s idea to go for the center, why on earth has he run such a nasty, ultra right wing campaign for the better part of the election? It was always going to be an incredibly difficult task for Romney as he had to shore up the base that didn’t trust him, and attract the center at the same time. Given the GOP base now closely resembles something akin to fascism, doing both would have been close to impossible as Romney is now finding out.

I hate to write Romney’s obituary so early as there’s always a danger he could pull the upset, but it’s looking like a demographic catastrophe for the GOP in November. This is equally troubling for their long term prospects as a bad loss will throw the party into further chaos. It’s impossible to predict which faction of the GOP wins out in the long term because American political culture, particularly on the Right, is inherently erratic and unstable. One would think that they’d choose moderation in the face of electoral defeat, but given the direction in which they went after the banking crisis (even further to the Right) anything is possible.

Who knows, the Romney-Ryan ticket might look moderate in years to come. A pretty scary thought.

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This is the latest attack video from the Romney camp:

The video is about as vague as you can get – and that’s saying something given it’s coming from Romney. There isn’t a mention of any policy whatsoever with viewers having to guess what “we can’t afford four more years of”. Is it describing all the policies that Obama couldn’t get through because the Republicans blocked him every step of the way? Or is it describing the health care policy that Obama passed that was based on Romney’s legislation in Massachusetts? Who knows, but it’s pretty pathetic.

Romney needs to dig himself out of a very, very big hole he created for himself last week, and he’ll need to get specific about exactly what Obama has done so badly. Videos like the one above just don’t cut it given the Obama camp is relentlessly calling Romney out on highly specific things Romney has said or done.

I hate commenting on these things given how contrived they are, but seriously. At least get creative in your negative attack ads.

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Ayn Rand: Not an economist by any stretch of the imagination (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Paul Krugman makes a good point:

Ask yourself: when was the last time a Republican leader made a point of praising hard-working, ordinary families — as opposed to “job creators”? Think about what happened on Labor Day: on a day dedicated to celebrating workers, House majority leader Eric Cantor sent out a tweet praising … business owners:

“Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.”

This all makes sense in the Ayn Rand intellectual universe, where a handful of heroically greedy entrepreneurs are responsible for all that is good. And if you live in that universe, your dividing line between makers and takers isn’t drawn at the point where people make enough to pay income taxes; everyone who isn’t John Galt should be grateful for what the Galts do, and we’re all takers by asking those heroes to pay any taxes at all.

We really are seeing the outcome of a fantasy novel being taken as the foundation for the Republican economic platform, and it’s very scary. If you take the Randian philosophy seriously, it follows that the ability to make money is the only real virtue worth having in society. If that is true, then the richer you are, the better you are, and vice versa. Republicans, as we have seen with Mitt Romney, have disdain for the poor because they see them as immoral freeloaders incapable of generating lots of money for themselves. Incredibly, these same Republicans have tied this philosophy up with Christianity, which quite literally preaches the complete opposite. As Jesus himself said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”.

It really was an amazing trick pulled off by Ayn Rand to cast the wealthy as the oppressed and the poor as the oppressors, and it has managed to completely neuter labor movements in the US. Randian philosophy has immeasurably helped siphon off lower middle and working class people away from unions into bonkers organizations like the Tea Party, where members routinely demand policies directly harmful to them and their families.

Organized labor has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to capturing the public’s imagination, but if a fourth-rate, intellectually lazy book like ‘Atlas Shrugged’ can inspire an entire intellectual movement, there’s no reason why the Left can’t come up with one too. We’re seeing Randian philosophy falling flat on its face during this election, so now’s the time to replace it with something a little more sane.

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The latest ad from the Obama camp:

I hate taking these things seriously – political ads, particularly in America are incredibly obnoxious, misleading and damaging to the political process in my opinion – but this one is actually pretty honest. This isn’t to give the Obama camp credit for producing a moral video (they’ve certainly made their share of misleading nonsense), but to underscore the fact that they don’t actually need to lie in order to make Romney look bad. They simply have to replay Romney’s own words, then ask regular people to react to it. And it’s pretty damn effective.

There’s no limit to the usage the Democrats will get out of Romney’s ’47%’ speech, and the debates are going to be even worse for him. It really was a catastrophic turn in the election as it has allowed Obama to define Romney in no uncertain terms. The Republicans are still trying their best to nail Obama on an issue, but given their candidates extreme history of flip flopping, it’s hard to come up with something Romney hasn’t supported at one time.

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It’s official: Mitt Romney has decided this election is about the base, and not the center. From BuzzFeed:

Three Romney advisers told BuzzFeed the campaign’s top priority now is to rally conservative Republicans, in hopes that they’ll show up on Election Day, and drag their less politically-engaged friends with them. The earliest, ambiguous signal of this turn toward the party’s right was the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as Romney’s running mate, a top Romney aide said.

“This is going to be a base election, and we need them to come out to vote,” the aide said, explaining the pick.

Another adviser, who also discussed strategy on the condition of anonymity, described the campaign’s key targets as Republican activists: “The people who are going to talk to their neighbors, drive them to the polls on Election Day, and hold their hands on the way in to vote.”

As Sen. Lindsey Graham observed, there aren’t enough angry white people to keep the GOP in business for much longer, so this seems like a pretty foolhardy strategy. George W. Bush won the 2004 election by driving out the base, but he had some charisma and actually resonated with his core constituency. Romney however doesn’t resonate at all with the base so it seems like a pretty silly strategy to build an entire campaign around getting them out to vote. Maybe if he had focused on the center by appearing rational, he would be in this election with a fighting chance. But he didn’t and he isn’t, much to the relief of anyone with a semblance of common sense.

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The new figures from Gallup tracking poll shows Obama’s approval ratings jumping back up – a sign that his speech at the convention worked. At least for now:

Writes Andrew Sullivan on the bump:

…..a real breakthrough – especially sinc Gallup has been leaning a little GOP much of this year. more striking: that’s the highest approval rating for Obama since 2009. I’d call it the Clinton bump. Let’s see if it lasts.

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President Obama at the 2012 Democratic Convention

By Ben Cohen: I live blogged Obama’s speech last night and was left a little underwhelmed by it and couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly why. Jonathan Chait has a very insightful piece in the New York Magazine that sums up my feelings on the speech that was a bit of a let down but still did what was necessary to define the election in terms favorable to the Democrats. He writes:

The speech came, by and large, as a disappointment to political journalists and other campaign junkies. We have heard almost all of it before. The speech was probably aimed at undecided voters, who spend almost no time following politics. They received the paint-by-numbers outline of the election choice.

And I think this was pretty much exactly the strategy – a calculated play that aimed to cash in on the Obama of 2008.  But while the speech contained a lot of flowery rhetoric, it was a little less than four years ago and there were bolder definitions of the struggle most Americans face on a day to day basis and the choice they have this election – and that was a good thing. Obama basically told Americans: You are not alone, you can make a difference, and you decide how you want your government to operate. He said:

You’re the reason there’s a little girl with a heart disorder in Phoenix who’ll get the surgery she needs because an insurance company can’t limit her coverage. You did that.

You’re the reason a young man in Colorado who never thought he’d be able to afford his dream of earning a medical degree is about to get that chance. You made that possible.

You’re the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she’s ever called home; why selfless soldiers won’t be kicked out of the military because of who they are or who they love; why thousands of families have finally been able to say to the loved ones who served us so bravely: “Welcome home.”

The President rammed home this theme over and over again, highlighting the stark difference in philosophy between the Republicans and the Democrats. He basically offered a full throttled defense of the philosophy of liberalism with no apologies. And it seems to me that this is a crucial measure needed to box Romney in over the coming months. Writes Chait:

Obama poured vast swaths of American society and history into the communitarian frame – soldiers, teachers, public-spirited business owners, and so on – all in some sense emblemizing shared responsibility…..This theme appeared in Obama’s rhetoric four years ago, too. If there’s a difference between now and then, it is this: During his first campaign, Obama saw the blend of individual and communal responsibility as the obvious, shared belief of the entire country. Now he has come to see it as the belief of an embattled half of America.

Look, there’s not a huge amount of policy difference between the candidates or parties – enough to make a difference in the real world, but its not as if it’s socialism vs capitalism. It’s basically unfettered capitalism with no safety net vs slightly regulated capitalism with a bit of a safety net. There is however a serious divide when it comes to the underpinnings of their philosophies, and the Democrats clearly feel that this can make or break the election. As Bob Cesca writes:

This might not have felt like the Iowa speech from 2008, but it will be remembered as an historic one because it defined the new Democratic Party — it defined the composition of government and the significant role it can take in American life.

It was basically a beliefs speech that drew a line in the sand between Liberalism and Conservatism, and it dared Romney to up the ante over the coming months. This, I think, was an excellent strategic move because Romney has chosen to denounce literally everything Obama believes in and present himself as a stark alternative to the President’s ‘socialistic’ ways. This means Romney has to present a nastier, meaner vision for America, and the Democrats are betting on voters not buying into it. Obama laid out a vision for an inclusive America where citizens help each other and government does good rather than bad – a brighter future for a country ravaged by the excesses of corporations and banks that cannot afford to go back to its old ways.

And it seems like a good bet to me.

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A bit late posting today as I’ve been traveling, but wanted to weigh in on Bill Clinton’s speech last night at the Democratic convention. As cynical as I am about politics, there’s always a part of me that respects the all time greats – the politicians with a God given talent to connect with voters and convey their ideas with clarity and vision. Bill Clinton is one of those politicians, and last night, he put on a great, great performance. Clinton’s folksy charm literally oozed onto the audience and they lapped it up.

Clinton reeled off facts about the economy, facts about jobs, facts about healthcare, facts about the military, facts about infrastructure, facts about Republican math and facts about Democratic math, weaving a compelling narrative about the choice voters face this election. Clinton laid out the differences between the two party’s philosophies and accused the Republicans of going completely off the rails with their militancy. He presented Obama as a unifying President and the only serious candidate this election. Clinton paid homage to Obama’s consistent attempts to reach out to Republicans and slammed the Republicans for doing the opposite.

Clinton summed up the Republican argument for a Romney President as follows: “We left him a total mess, he hadn’t cleaned it up fast enough so fire him and put us back in.”

Clinton retold the history of Obama’s Presidency thus far, arguing that he faced one of the worst economic situations any President has in history and has responsibly tried to get the country back on track. While Clinton admitted that the country was far from OK, the evidence was clear that the country was in better shape now than when he first got into office.

Clinton’s defense of Obamacare was also compelling – he praised the President for passing a comprehensive health care package, detailing the enormous benefits people would gain from it, then ripped into Republicans for their promise to repeal it once in power. The former President talked about the real world effects of destroying the progress on healthcare and argued that it would have disastrous effects on the poor.

It was of course a political speech – one sided and inherently dishonest as all political speeches are, but it contained a very basic truth – that it would be madness to vote out a President who still believes in the power of government to do good and elect a business man whose sole aim would be to destroy what is left of government.

The choice to have Clinton speak so prominently was a wise decision by the Democrats. While Obama is a better speaker than Clinton, he doesn’t quite have Clinton’s ability to connect with regular people – and that is exactly what the President needs right now. The entire Democratic convention has stood in stark contrast to the Republican one. The Republicans presented a cold, soulless vision for America based on individualism and fantasy economics, while the Democrats have presented a inclusive vision for the country based on sound math and good government. “We simply cannot afford to give the reins of power to someone who will double down on trickle down,” said Clinton.

And therein lies the argument.

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More about my thoughts on the Democratic convention last night later, but this was pretty funny. From the Twitter blog:

Among tonight’s keynotes, First Lady Michelle Obama’s (@MichelleObama) primetime speech peaked at 28,003 Tweets per minute (TPM) at its conclusion — nearly double Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s (@MittRomney) 14,289 peak. One line in her speech this evening — “we’ve got so much more to do” — saw 22,004 TPM.

Poor Romney. He’s so uncharismatic and off putting that even his opponent’s wife gets a better response from the public. Lucky he has so much money.

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