Buena Suerte

Jesus For President?

As would-be Republican party Presidential nominees fall over each other to out-Christian their rivals (never mind Nazi-Communist Obama), American TV host Bill Maher speculates on a last minute entry to the race by the Big Man Himself...

Independents 2012: Don't Bet Your House

2012

• Unaligned N.H. vote a test for Mitt Romney - Independents could change the momentum in GOP (By Sarah Schweitzer, Boston Globe) Undeclared voters - who are commonly called independents, and who account for more than 40 percent of New Hampshire’s registered voters - don’t appear poised to derail Romney’s longtime lead over his rivals in New Hampshire. With 39 percent of the overall vote in the UNH Survey Center/Boston Globe poll released Sunday, he had a comfortable margin, and significant support among the independents. Among those independents who have declared their allegiance, 32 percent say they back Romney. 
• Youth vote won't return for Obama in 2012, report says (By Perry Bacon Jr., the Grio) In a report on Wednesday, Curtis Gans, director of the Washington-based Center for the American Electorate, predicted voter turnout overall (as a percentage of the eligible voting population) would be lower than in 2008 or 2004. He argued those two elections fired up voters, particularly Democrats, in a way neither party will in 2012.
• New Iowa Poll May Understate Paul’s Support (By NATE SILVER, NY Times/ FiveThirtyEight) The recent Public Policy Polling survey, for instance, estimated that 24 percent of Iowa caucus participants are currently registered as independents or Democrats and will re-register as Republicans at the caucuses. This month’s Washington Post/ABC News poll put the fraction at 18 percent. There is room to debate what the right number is but it will certainly not be zero, as the CNN poll assumes.
• Democrats Lag in Voter Registration (By LAURA MECKLER, Wall Street Journal) Today, far fewer people are registering, and the enormous Democratic advantage among new voters in North Carolina has vanished, according to new data from Catalist, a group with Democratic ties that studies voter rolls. That illustrates a broader challenge for the president's party. Democrats still hold an overall registration advantage in many states, but Obama campaign officials and other Democrats say it is important to bring new Obama voters onto the rolls—both to replenish voters who drop off and offset possible losses among independent voters, who have been skeptical of Mr. Obama's job performance.

Occupy Wall Street Hits a Stride

OCCUPY WALL STREET

• Tent Pressure (Gotham Gazette/ Wonkster) It is getting cold out there and the protesters at Occupy Wall Street are starting to notice. So, Bill Lipton of the Working Families Party sent out an e-mail to supporters this morning asking them to put pressure on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to allow tents  in Zuccotti Park.
• Occupational Therapy (By Lisa Fabrizio, American Spectator) However supportive he may be of their aims, Barack Obama and his messiah-like campaign of light did much to erase the memory of the left's propensity to participate in angry demonstrations against the American Way of Life and so attracted many independent voters to his side. But riding to the rescue like so many socialist cavalrymen come the largely unoccupied occupiers of Zuccotti Park, just in time to remind America what a nation where 99 percent of its population consisted of slackers and malcontents would look like. And if the Obama Administration makes the critical mistake of hitching their wagon to this group of losers, he will soon join their ranks.
• Poll: Election 2012 Shaping Up To Pit Doom Against Gloom (by Frank James, NPR) Seniors, who gave Romney an advantage in August, have begun to desert the Republican front-runner, who is now losing these voters by a 3-point margin. More dramatically, Romney was winning 52 percent of independent voters in August; he is now at 45 percent with this key bloc. His biggest drop has come among independent women—who swung for Romney by a 22-point margin in August. Obama is now winning independent women by 2 points.
• Occupy Politics (Democracy Corps, Carville-Greenberg) The biggest shift against the Republicans has come from independents, who are increasingly turned off by what they see and hear out of Washington.  According to exit polls, Republicans won independents last November by a 19-point margin.  Their advantage had narrowed to 17 points in August.  Strikingly, Republicans are now winning independents by just 7 points. Seniors have also pulled back from these Republicans in big numbers.  In last November’s exit polls, Republicans won seniors by a 21-point margin.  This advantage has completely disappeared, with the vote among seniors now basically even (45-46.)