Scorched America

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD WEEK

Laughing ObamaEllen Carmichael is a former communications director for Herman Cain’s presidential campaign and a propagandist in the truest sense of the word. Reading her Twitter stream is no different than reading press releases from the Republican National Committee, or in this case, literally repeating verbatim, press releases from the Romney Campaign that look like they were written by a stupid and vindictive child.

If there is one place to see the opposite of reality, this is it.

This Tweet came from this embarrassing press release published on September 7th, carrying the title “PRESIDENT OBAMA’S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD WEEK”.

I sincerely hope that the Romney campaign isn’t paying money to have these written.

The media, pundit class, and focus group consensus is that the Republican National Convention was mostly boring, lacking diversity and excitement, and occasionally bizarre and amateurish. The opposite was said of the Democratic convention, where the floor audience was as excited in the early hours of the first night as was seen on the floor of the RNC on its third.

Whereas the RNC’s rising star was Chris Christie, who was criticized for not mentioning his party’s candidate well into his speech and even contradicting messaging by Ann Romney who had spoken just before him — she also didn’t mention her husband until well into her speech — there were no such amateur errors at the DNC. Christie may appeal to the GOP base, but that’s not what Mitt Romney needs. The DNC’s keynote speaker, Julian Castro, appeals to Hispanics. A Demographic that Democrats already have and are expanding with, that Republicans desperately need and are losing this year compared to 2008.

With Texas widely expected to become majority Hispanic sometime in the next few decades and Hispanics already overtaking African Americans as the largest minority, this is the demographic that will make the GOP irrelevant at a national level if things don’t change. And things didn’t change at the RNC. Democrats continue to listen to and promote the wants and needs of all Americans, which includes Hispanics, and Hispanics continue to reward that faithful public service by voting for Democrats almost as loyally as African Americans.

That’s quite a feat when I’ve heard that most Hispanic immigrants and families tend to be evangelical Christians, which should be easy pickings for Republicans.

Everyone, even Republicans (non-delusional variety that also thought Clint Eastwood hit a homerun aside) understood that Bill Clinton probably gave the best speech of his life, which is really saying something. Clinton left office as the most popular president in the modern era and remains very well liked by most Americans.

Republicans relegated their previous two-term standard bearer to a video montage.

If anything, the only downside to the entire DNC was Clinton’s speech overshadowing Obama’s.

But Obama still delivered, and heading into the conventions with a lead in national polling (with averages, dating back to 2011) and a lead in the projected electoral map virtually everywhere this year, he didn’t really have to do much more than avoid disappointing expectations. And he did that. An average speech trumps a poor one, just ask Eastwood.

The DNC soundly beat the RNC in television ratings. President Obama’s speech was seen by 35.7 million people, about 5.5 million more than saw Mitt Romney’s speech. Democrats’ top thee speakers were seen by a combined 82.5 million people, while the GOP drew 72.5 for its top card. The DNC’s average ratings for 2012 were actually up over 2008, while the RNC’s were down.

Then there was the jobs report and the polls to come after. The jobs report was awful, but what about the polls?

Here is Obama’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week (oldest to newest):

Gallup tracking: Obama +5
Rasmussen tracking: Obama +5
IBD/CSM/TIPP: Obama +2
CNN/Opinion Research: Obama +6
ABC News/Washington Post: Obama +1

Mitt Romney hasn’t lead in a national poll since the previous ABC News/WaPo poll from August 22-25, when he lead by a single point. Romney got no bump from the RNC, while Obama, despite a poor jobs report which most of these poll include, got a bump that seems to be in the 4-7 point range.

Here are current electoral projections:

Real Clear Politics: Obama 221, Romney 191
Nate Silver: Obama 318, Romney 219 (Obama 80.7% chance to win)
CNN: Obama 237, Romney 191
Pollster: Obama 247, Romney 191
Talking Points Memo: Obama 256, Romney 206

Nate Silver’s models (better than anywhere else) have Obama up to 80.7% to win the election.

If that’s supposed to be Obama’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week, then the GOP should be shitting its pants at the prospect of Obama merely having a good week.

Exit mobile version