Is Karl Rove (and the Bush Establishment) cutting Mitt Romney loose?

You may have seen Karl Rove's latest electoral map. It is non partisan (and maybe even a little generous with South Carolina as a toss up) and pretty accurate.



http://www.mediaite.com/online/karl-roves-electoral-map-shows-obama-with-a-solid-lead-over-romney/

Obama starts with 220 solid (double digit or much much more) and Romney with 92. Leaning Obama 64 and Romney 79.

Basically Romney has to run the table with his leans and toss ups and has to turn atleast one Obama lean..

Obama takes his solids and leans and wins. if he wins AZ, FL or VA there is virtually no way for Romney to get close with all of the rest of the leans without turning a couple of leans from Obama to Romeny.

So what is the twice divorced college drop out Machievellian political hackmeister up to?

Some at DU have speculated that he is trying to scare Republicans to start donating real money.

If that was his agenda then he wouldn't have used this map, this one makes it look like a lost cause. This is the map you use if your trying to convince people not to waste good money after bad on Romney and spend the money on Senate and Congressional states/districts.

So here is an alternate theory. The Bush/Republican establishment are leaving Romney to his own devices. Team Romney isn't hiring a bunch of traditional Republican campaign staffers but his own gang. In the meantime Rove and the rest of them use their PAC funds to help Republicans run Congressional candidates in key Republican districts and States where the President is thought to have a possible impact.

Romney goes down to a historic landslide and cannot run again in 2016.

In the meantime the Bush machine has quietly been working hard to get people elected.

Over the next 4 years Obama is saddled with fixing the deficit, fixing the entitlement funding problems and getting the economy back on track. In 2016 the Jeb Bush comes back to reunite the Republican Party and they run on a whole list of social agenda items and cutting back the size of the government and reducing taxes.

With a whole fistful of IOUs in his pocket Jeb is able to lock up Iowa, NH and S. Carolina and a grateful party is reunited behind Jeb Bush and the Bushes finally get to run the 'smart son' who makes the Republicans giddy at the possibility that Jeb's Mexican born wife will be able to undo the damage of the Republican anti-Hispanic campaign.

So is Karl Rove trying to undermine support to Romney?

Don't know but this map sure isn't going to help Romney raise money?

21,090,766 and a couple of other numbers you really need to have on the tip of your tongue.

Briefly surfacing from an extended road trip and bracing for another long one I normally don't have but a few minutes to check in with the Greatest, LBN but wanted to offer a couple of big picture numbers that are useful to remind other Democrats, persuade uncommitteds and shut down right wing talkers:

1) Four out of the last five US Presidential Elections have been won by Democrats.


Without getting into the contentious questions of 2000 and 2004 it is a simple fact that over the past 20 years the US people have voted for Democratic Nominees in all elections except 2004 which was the middle of a hot war and no American electorate has ever switched administrations in the middle of a hot war. If somebody refers to 2000 you can remind them that the election was won by a Democrat but the electoral college was won by Bush, these facts are not in dispute.

The whole meme that this is a conservative leaning country is not sustained by electoral facts.

2) The combined total of votes for Democratic nominees over Republican nominees in the last 20 years is 271,837,637 versus 250,746,871 for a difference of 21,090,766, not a small number.

So when the Republicans try and frame the discussion by stating they are going to "take back the country" or that the Democratic Party is somehow outside of the mainstream of America, simply say "21,090,766". They will ask what you are talking about and you can tell them that in the last 20 years the Democrats have 21,090,766 votes than Republicans and that there point is nonsense.

3) The polls are showing a close election. They are only if you think that 2 + 2 is closer to 22 than 4.

We have two sets of widely reported facts;

Set One;

1) Obama has a 70+ solid lead among non white (African Americans/Hispanics) which account for roughly 20% of the population.

Obama has a 20 point lead among women.

Obama has a 20 point lead among young.

Obama is slightly behind Romney in angry white males that don't fit the above categories.

If you take the first two (1. 70% of 20 is `14+)(2. 20% of the remaining 80% is 16+) then all of the relevent polls show that Obama has a 30 point advantage and Romney would have to be ahead of all white males 65-35 for the total polling to be even close.

And yet while national tracking polls all show a tight race individual state polls don't.

Set Two

Obama is showing big leads in Blue states, leads in Purple and closer than you would think in some Red States.

A sampling from Real Clear Politics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

NH Obama 51- 42 (UNH) Remember this is Romney's 'home state'

AZ Romney 42-40 (AZSt.)

OH Obama 45-38 (FOX)

NY Obama 57-35 (Marist) 60-35 (Siena 60-35)

NJ Obama 49-40 (Quinnipiac)

NC Obama 49-44 (PPP)

NM Obama 52-46 (Ras)

CO Obama 53-40 (PPP)

VA Romney 46-41 (Roanoke)

I didn't cherry pick these polls but included all of the polls from the last 2 weeks including blatant Republican pollsters like FOX and Rasmussen.

What accounts for the discrepancy between two radical sets of numbers, one from national polls and the other from combining the aggregate of states or various groups?

You could talk about how minorities, Democrats and the young are more under reported in landline national polls and local polls take greater care to be more representative.

Or you could point out that there is an entire industry of pollsters and broadcasters who have a great deal to make if the election is a close horse race. If it is basically seen as a done deal contributions to both sides will be done and that will mean as much as a billion dollars of lost advertising. Only a fraction of the polls will be done. So a close national race generates hundreds of millions of dollars in broadcast advertising and millions of dollars in additional polling revenues.

4) Finally a number with teeth in it 60-38

Intrade the political futures market where people put money up the President has been absolutely steady at 58-61 and Romney has been stuck on 38 for months.

http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/?eventId=84326

Best wishes to all DU Christians on Good Friday.

More idiotic cartoons from the Romney people

Site was first discussed here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/125125166

http://mittfitts.com/



Now this is just so stupid you have to wonder why the hell they would be wasting money on crap like this but they are.

There are so many things wrong with this but let's just look at the basics:

1) The Dow Jones Industrial was founded in 1890 and took 119 years to get to 6626 on March 2nd, 2009 roughly 6 weeks after the President was sworn in. In just three years the DJI has increased another 6586 points to close at 13252 on March 12th. The facts are that this is the greatest three year increase in capital in the history of the world, so why would the President be aligned with communists by any thinking person?

2) The phone is tied to the CCCP which ceased to exist in 1991.

3) Why Nikita Krushchev? Just seems strange to pick out THAT particular dead communist. Why wouldn't you pick out Marx, Engels, or Lenin. Nikita? Really?


4) The shoes show double possessive apostrophe's "Nikita's Krushchev's" which is like a Junior High level grammatical mistake.

Lame, uninformed, illiterate, and without anything actually funny.

Does the Romney campaign disavow this shit?

It is clearly tied to the Romney campaign and all donations to the site go to the campaign.

Only 35% of the Republican Party actually believes what Romney is saying:

Romney Camp gives a preview of "National Etch A Sketch Day"

As previously noted September 1st, 2012 will mark the first day of the Post Republican Primary campaign and we, along with the Republicans will find out exactly what the Republican Party has purchased in its nominee.

Kind of like a Surprise Party in reverse.

Here Romney surrogate Ehrlich is giving us a teaser:

After the convention Romney will begin to tell us his "real" opinions on women's issues.

Keith Olbermann is the Satchel Paige of Cable News.

On edit: Obviously I wasn't careful enough in my original OP because some thought that I meant that the analogy meant I thought that they made equal contributions to their professions. I don't think anyone who knows Satchel Paige's career could confuse it with anyone except Conkrite in its star and professional quality.

It was meant as a more humorous comparison of Paige's most famous anecdote where he tells the rest of the team to sit down while he strikes out the side. Olbermann is reminiscent of THAT anecdote.

Paige gave decades of superstar performances and may have done some of it with a rotator cup tear. For those that appreciated the humor of Paige and admire the contributions of Olbermann, even though he seems to self destruct, here is the OP with a tongue in cheek analogy of the two;





For those that don't know the great Satchel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satchel_Paige

Satchel Paige was probably the greatest human to ever play baseball.

There are many famous stories about Paige but this is the most well known:

He also pitched for a semi-pro team named the Down the Bay Boys, and he recalled that he once got into a jam in the ninth inning of a 1–0 ballgame when his teammates made three consecutive errors, loading the bases for the other team with two outs. Angry, Paige said he stomped around the mound, kicking up dirt. The fans started booing him, so he decided that “somebody was going to have to be showed up for that.” He called in his outfielders and had them sit down in the infield. With the fans and his own teammates howling, Paige struck out the final batter, winning the game.[10]

Paige was also famous for saying very funny things, like "Avoid running at all times."

Paige's contract was always in limbo and was a mess of legal arbitration.

Olbermann, like Paige, has flashes of brilliance, is a brilliant player unable to play well in a team sport, seems to have a lot of unusual contract problems, and says strange memorable things.

Olbermann is unquestionably brilliant.

Olbermann is not a good team player.

Olberman is going to sue Current TV.

Olberman, explaining his situation with Current TV:


‘You know, if you buy a $10 million chandelier, you should have a house to put it in. Just walking around with a $10 million chandelier isn't going to do anybody a lot of good, and it's not going to do any good to the chandelier.' And then it turned out we didn't have a lot to put the house on, to put the chandelier in, or a building permit, and I, I should have known that," he said, acknowledging that he believed he was akin to the chandelier.

I believe that Satchel Paige was convinced that he too was a $ 10 million chandelier in a cheap house.

Final closing ironic note: KO would be pleased as punch to be compared to Satchel Paige, would get the analogy and probably agree with it, and SP would be pleased as punch to be still remembered and used as a point of comparison thirty years after he died.

Star Rep NY Congressional Challenger Caught making out with consultant.

http://gawker.com/5897228

After losing a Congressional race by 1,995 votes two years ago, Matt Doheny went back to his home in New York's 21st District to recharge. He asked long-time girlfriend Mary to marry him (she said yes, "of course&quot and announced he would re-challenge Democratic Rep. Bill Owens in 2012.

Last week, Doheny went to the National Republican Congressional Committee's Washington "candidate school" to prepare for the campaign—and ended up in the arms of campaign consultant Monica Notzon. Matt and Monica swear they're "just friends." The pictures may tell a different story.

According to the National Journal, House GOP leaders hand-selected fifteen candidates—"the strongest GOP challengers in the country"—and brought them to D.C. for two days of campaign workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. John Boehner was among the featured speakers.

Issa faces Democratic challenger in new 49th

Source: OC Register

Republican incumbent for the 49th Congressional District, Darrell Issa, and the real estate broker challenging him for his congressional seat this election cycle share the same hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. But finding similarities between their political beliefs is another story.

Democrat Jerry Tetalman has lived in Carlsbad since 1997 and plans on running a grassroots campaign against Issa. Issa is the second richest man in Congress, with his assets totaling roughly $240 million as of 2011. Even with the new district lines the party registration is 43 percent Republican and 29 percent Democrat.

Tetalman believes he has a fighting chance despite Issa’s incumbency and monetary advantage, and the GOP voter registration advantage.

“I think if you look at the richest man in Congress you have a disconnect between the average person that is working for a living who is not an investor,” Tetalman said. “I see he is really out of touch with the average person and their needs, he doesn’t represent the interest of working class people.”


Read more: http://totalbuzz.ocregister.com/2012/03/26/issa-faces-democratic-challenger-in-new-49th/83492/

Dear Republicans, only 157 days until "Etch A Sketch Day"

On September 1st the Republican convention will be over, the delegates will be safely out of Tampa and the Romney campaign will have one big shake, shake, shake and you, like us, will find out exactly why Mitt Romney is running for President and what policies he intends to put in front of the American people, especially independents, to convince them that he really had little to do with the guy that had to spend so much time in the mud with those 'crazy Republican extremists'. He was 'running for President' for goodness sake.

A funny thing happened on this thread about trying to 'divine' "Why Mitt Romney is Running for President". It got a few recs, a few replies and over 5500 views. I am really curious how many of those views were from outside of DU regulars. Seems to have hit a nerve. In fact three people with no previous experience on DU joined just to express their opinions (strangely similar) that any discussion of Mormon/Political nexus was "Psycho-historical fantasy","conspiracy stories about minority groups" and "psychobabble".

We know that there are freepers, cave dwellers, and others from the other side of the aisle who watch what is posted here pretty closely but now we have Mormon friendly supporters of Mitt Romney who have joined in watching, and are particularly interested in trying to beat down anything that appears to discredit the political motivations of certain Mormons to advance a Presidential campaign.

To the former group of freepers, cave dwellers and other conservatives who blog and watch what happens at DU we commiserate with you. You have no clearer idea what this Republican Presidential Campaign is going to be about than we do. You have even less reason to trust the man that will lead your party in the campaign and for the next 4 years than we do. What will he do to try and attract women? What will he say about DOMA? What about Afghanistan? He doesn't seem to have any real ties with the military, do you think that he might offer a radical cut to balance the budget? When faced with an Electoral College landslide what will he do for his Game Change? Maybe he will do a big sommersalt on taxes and shake everyone up by asking for a 5% surtax on the super rich.

The only thing that is certain is that the platform that he is running on now will be a disaster. So he is going to 'Etch A Sketch' it away.

September 1st 2012, "Etch A Sketch Day" the day that we all begin to find out exactly what the Republicans think that they bought actually is. Kind of like a Christmas present exchange at the office; you know how much you paid you just have no idea what you are going to get.

I am already working on my special contribution, one that is sure to delight all of those cowering at anyone who raises questions about the Mormon/Political nexus. Going to be fun.