Contributors

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

A Debate about Debates

This being debate season, you'd think all the candidates would be fired up about attending debates where they can clearly voice the differences between themselves and their opponents. But across the country, from South Carolina, to Minnesota, to Colorado, Republicans are refusing to participate in debates sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

Some of them are skipping the debates because they're incumbents and are afraid that a debate will only serve to boost their opponents' visibility. But many Republicans have branded LWV as a "liberal" organization and insist the League cannot hold a fair debate.

This is like saying that no male judge can give a woman a fair hearing in divorce court.
 
But Republican ire has also been raised against AARP, for the same reason they're angry with LWV: their opposition to the nationwide Republican push for voter ID laws. These laws will overwhelmingly disenfranchise voters who don't drive, including low-income Americans, renters, urbanites, the elderly, and the young.

LWV has long fought for ballot access, which should be a completely non-partisan issue. Its stand on this issue has not changed. What has changed is that Republicans now see voter ID laws as a way for their party to win despite their flagging demographics (as stated by the Pennsylvania legislator who said that voter ID would allow Romney to win Pennsylvania).

In Minnesota Republicans couldn't get a voter ID law past a Democratic governor, so they passed a constitutional amendment that will be on the ballot this November. Earlier this month a debate on the issue was held between a former governor and a former secretary of state. They're both Republicans, which makes it pretty clear this is not really a partisan issue.

Yet Republicans call LWV and AARP "partisan" for opposing the ballot question, which is not a person and does not belong to a party and is by definition not partisan. But because they drafted the amendment for partisan purposes, they believe that any opposition to it must also be partisan.

Their partisanship is so ingrained that they cannot conceive for a moment that someone could oppose the amendment on the quite rational grounds that you should not embed technical details of election procedures in the constitution of a state. When technology gives us a better and cheaper solution for identifying voters than photo IDs, which are ridiculously easy to forge, we'll have to amend the constitution again!

What's ironic about Republican castigation of LWV is that at the same time Rand Paul Libertarians are citing LWV for the integrity of their debates. The League used to sponsor the presidential debates, but withdrew when they refused to "perpetrate a fraud" in the final Bush-Dukakis debate in 1988. The League also stood up to Jimmy Carter when he insisted that John Anderson (third-party candidate) be excluded from the 1980 debates, which were then held with only Reagan and Anderson.


The issue isn't that AARP and LWV have become partisan, it's that the Republican Party is attempting to win elections by enacting laws that prevent their opponents from voting. It is not partisan to oppose partisan manipulation of the franchise.

With Friends Like These...

The subject of the Keystone Pipeline came up in last night's debate and Mitt Romney fell back on that very false talking point that the president has "blocked it." This has been shown time and again to not be true.

But Governor Romney might want to be careful about how vigorously he champions the pipeline. He might seriously tick off a very large group of heavily armed people who don't take kindly to foreigners ordering them around: Texans.

As the company pursues construction of a controversial 1,179-mile-long cross-country pipeline meant to bring Canadian tar sands oil to South Texas refineries, it's finding opposition in the unlikeliest of places: oil-friendly Texas, a state that has more pipelines snaking through the ground than any other. 

In the minds of some landowners approached by TransCanada for land, the company has broken an unspoken code. 

"This is a foreign company," Crawford said. "Most people believe that as this product gets to the Houston area and is refined, it's probably then going to be shipped outside the United States. So if this product is not going to wind up as gasoline or diesel fuel in your vehicles or mine then what kind of energy independence is that creating for us?"

Hmm...who else has been saying that for quite some time now?

TransCanada's pipeline, some landowners say, is more worrisome than those built by other companies because of the tar sands oil the company wants to transport. They point to an 800,000-gallon spill of mostly tar sands oil in Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010. It took Enbridge, the company that owns that pipeline, 17 hours to detect the rupture, and the cleanup is still incomplete. 

Ah, those landowners in Texas are just a bunch of fucking tree hugger hippie communists...fuckers...what right do they have?

Nearly half the steel TransCanada is using is not American-made and the company won't promise to use local workers exclusively; it can't guarantee the oil will remain in the United States. It has snatched land. Possibly most egregious: They've behaved like arrogant foreigners, unworthy of operating in Texas. 

Oh, there's that, of course.

I seem to recall a few people on here expressing unqualified support for the Keystone Pipeline and accusing those who didn't of being traitors. So, this story from AP begs the question...are Texas landowners anti-American because they won't let a Canadian company drill for oil on their land?

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Thoughts on the Debate

For those of you wondering what happened to Barack Obama in the first debate need not wonder after tonight. He's back and in massively full force!!

The president did a fantastic job tonight touting his accomplishments and explaining what a second term would mean for the country. He called out Governor Romney for his blatant lies and complete policy about faces in a most excellent way. In fact, I think he spent some of his debate prep watching the videos below. For all you undecided voters out there, there's no need to listen to anyone else but Mitt Romney himself.





I wonder how long it will take (less than a second) for a "Voices in My Head" mouth foam...:)

Anyway, this calling out clearly rattled Romney and, unfortunately for Republicans, this brought out the old Mitt...repeating the same question over and over again ("Have you looked at your pension? Have you looked at your pension?")in a similar way to how he tried to bet Rick Perry $10,000...talking about binders with qualified women (?)...looking the perfect combination of hyper and flustered when told he was wrong about something (the president's post Libya comments)...among many other awkward moments that make it pretty clear that the president won the debate tonight.

On a personal note, I was shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED, to hear the president actually have the guts to say what I have been wanting someone in government to say in the last decade:

Some of those jobs aren't coming back.

Praise the Lord! Someone who is FINALLY honest about globalization. And he followed it up with a very thoughtful and intelligent comment about education and retraining workers. So what does all this mean for the race? I think it will stop the momentum that Governor Romney had and re-energize the Democrats which is really great because they are less enthusiastic about voting than the Republicans.

More importantly, I think it cements the electoral firewall the president has set up in Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa which still makes this a very tough race for Romney to win. But it's still going to be closer than it looked before the first debate which makes it all the more exciting!

Polls For Tuesday, October 16th

Here are the polls for today. The obvious one that jumps out right away is the Gallup poll which shows Mitt Romney up 4 points nationally.

But does it matter? The swing state polls haven't really moved that much and with Ohio still polling 2-3 points  that puts the president at 255 so all he needs is Wisconsin and Iowa which have been consistently in the president's column for the entire campaign. A good debate tonight (regardless of what Mitt Romney does) will help cement this lead.

The other poll to take note of is the one in my home state where Bachmann is leading Jim Graves by 9 points. The race seemed much tighter than this in recent polls.

General Election: Romney vs. ObamaGallup TrackingRomney 50, Obama 46Romney +4
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen TrackingRomney 49, Obama 47Romney +2
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaIBD/TIPP TrackingRomney 46, Obama 47Obama +1
New Hampshire: Romney vs. ObamaSuffolk/7NewsObama 47, Romney 47Tie
Pennsylvania: Romney vs. ObamaQuinnipiacObama 50, Romney 46Obama +4
Colorado: Romney vs. ObamaWeAskAmericaRomney 48, Obama 47Romney +1
Iowa: Romney vs. ObamaWeAskAmericaObama 49, Romney 46Obama +3
New Jersey: Romney vs. ObamaQuinnipiacObama 51, Romney 43Obama +8
Indiana: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen ReportsRomney 54, Obama 41Romney +13
Washington: Romney vs. ObamaSurveyUSAObama 54, Romney 40Obama +14
Massachusetts: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen ReportsObama 57, Romney 42Obama +15
Montana Senate - Rehberg vs. TesterRasmussen ReportsRehberg 48, Tester 48Tie
Pennsylvania Senate - Smith vs. CaseyQuinnipiacCasey 48, Smith 45Casey +3
New Jersey Senate - Kyrillos vs. MenendezQuinnipiacMenendez 55, Kyrillos 37Menendez +18
Washington Governor - McKenna vs. InsleeSurveyUSAInslee 47, McKenna 44Inslee +3
Washington Governor - McKenna vs. InsleeRasmussen ReportsInslee 47, McKenna 45Inslee +2
New Hampshire Governor - Lamontagne vs. HassanSuffolk/7News*Lamontagne 38, Hassan 41Hassan +3
North Carolina Governor - McCrory vs. DaltonRasmussen ReportsMcCrory 52, Dalton 38McCrory +14
North Carolina Governor - McCrory vs. DaltonPPP (D)*McCrory 47, Dalton 37McCrory +10
Minnesota 6th District - Bachmann vs. GravesKSTP/SurveyUSABachmann 50, Graves 41Bachmann +9
President Obama Job ApprovalGallupApprove 49, Disapprove 45Approve +4
President Obama Job ApprovalRasmussen ReportsApprove 48, Disapprove 51Disapprove +3
Obama: Favorable/UnfavorableUSA Today/GallupFavorable 51, Unfavorable 48Favorable +3
Romney: Favorable/UnfavorableUSA Today/GallupFavorable 52, Unfavorable 44Favorable +8

Tonight

The second presidential debate is tonight at Hofstra University and it's very clear that the race has changed since the last debate. If you would have told me before the last debate that the president's chances of re-election went from  347-191 to 281-235 (with Colorado and Virginia being pure tossups), I would have said you were nuts.

But that's what one poor debate performance and a completely new and improved Mitt Romney does for a presidential race. The president has a tough task ahead of him tonight. He has to obviously be more upbeat than he was in the last debate and he also has to challenge Romney on his many about faces on the key issues. Yet he has to do it without seeming belligerent because this is a Town Hall style debate with undecided voters in the audience who would likely frown upon heavy partisan bickering. A tough task, indeed.

What I would do tonight if I were the president is point to his list of accomplishments in office and use them to challenge Romney. The president could say, "Mr Romney says that he is a job creator...well, he's sharing the stage with one right now. I've created 5 million jobs in my four years in office and that was after the greatest economic contraction since the great depression. The stock market is seeing new highs, housing is coming back, and consumer confidence is getting higher everyday. We've cut the deficit by 200 billion. We're on the right track, despite the policies of the past that Governor Romney wants to return us to." This is the way he has to frame it. He can't be the attack dog that the Democrats want him to be.

Another thing he could say to erase the last debate is to say something like, "I was shocked at the last debate to see that Governor Romney has come to my way of thinking on issues like health care and taxes. I'm glad he wants to save social programs and keep most of my health care plan like pre-existing conditions and children being able to be insured by their parents until they are 26. I think it's great that he thinks taxes don't need to be cut for the wealthy. But he still hasn't said how he is going to pay for all of this."

The president can nail Romney on specifics without going negative. He could simply say, "I stand for the wealthy paying more of their fair share of taxes. I want to keep tax cuts permanent for the middle class. I'm looking forward to implementing the rest of my health care plan. Who are you, Governor Romney and what do you stand for?"

This point really has to be driven home because it's enormously aggravating that Romney is now suddenly a moderate who supports helping the middle class. More irritating is the sound of crickets I hear from the Right who now have made it abundantly clear that they just want Barack Obama to lose and it's not because they think his policies are wrong for the country. It's because they KNOW they are starting to be effective (which Romney will, of course, take credit for if he wins) and that would hasten the end (already inevitable, demographically speaking) of their party as they know it. It matters not if Mitt Romney does these things...just as long as it's not Barack Obama.

Honestly, I don't think Mitt Romney can do these things. I think he's a nice guy and he is exactly like all the dads of the kids I with whom I went to school (private school, grades 7-12) but he's not presidential material. The fact that people are now of the mind that he "looks like a president on the TeeVee" is really disappointing to me. I thought we had moved past all that.

I guess I'm very pessimistic about the race at this point. Perhaps it's because there was such a comfortable lead by the president that has now been needlessly squandered and we are left with an honest to goodness nail biter that sadly isn't based on substance. More frustrating is the fact that the Democrats are likely to pick up 12 seats in the House and hold the Senate, possibly even gaining a seat or two, given the fact that the GOP candidates are so awful this year and the Democratic candidates are so good.

281 does win it, however, and so perhaps I'm being overly paranoid. With Ohio holding the way it is (even after the president sucked in the last debate), that means that Romney is going to have to run the table on the rest of the states. Even Frank Luntz says that the president is likely going to win simply because of electoral math.

So, the president could really help himself tonight and I'm hoping that he will!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Polls For Monday October 15

General Election: Romney vs. ObamaGallup TrackingRomney 49, Obama 47Romney +2
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen TrackingRomney 49, Obama 48Romney +1
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaIBD/TIPP TrackingRomney 47, Obama 47Tie
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaPolitico/GWU/BattlegroundRomney 48, Obama 49Obama +1
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaABC News/Wash PostRomney 46, Obama 49Obama +3
Pennsylvania: Romney vs. ObamaMorning CallObama 49, Romney 45Obama +4
Iowa: Romney vs. ObamaARGObama 48, Romney 48Tie
Virginia: Romney vs. ObamaARGObama 47, Romney 48Romney +1
Colorado: Romney vs. ObamaGravis MarketingRomney 46, Obama 48Obama +2
Florida: Romney vs. ObamaGravis MarketingRomney 49, Obama 48Romney +1
Pennsylvania: Romney vs. ObamaPPP (D)Obama 51, Romney 44Obama +7
North Carolina: Romney vs. ObamaPPP (D)Romney 49, Obama 47Romney +2
Missouri: Romney vs. ObamaWenzel Strategies (R)Romney 55, Obama 41Romney +14
Virginia Senate - Allen vs. KaineRasmussen ReportsKaine 48, Allen 47Kaine +1
Indiana Senate - Mourdock vs. DonnellyRasmussen ReportsMourdock 47, Donnelly 42Mourdock +5
Florida Senate - Mack vs. NelsonRasmussen ReportsNelson 46, Mack 45Nelson +1
Pennsylvania Senate - Smith vs. CaseyMorning CallCasey 41, Smith 39Casey +2
Pennsylvania Senate - Smith vs. CaseyPPP (D)Casey 50, Smith 39Casey +11
New Mexico Senate - Wilson vs. HeinrichAlbuquerque Journal*Heinrich 48, Wilson 39Heinrich +9
Michigan Senate - Hoekstra vs. StabenowRasmussen ReportsStabenow 51, Hoekstra 39Stabenow +12
Virginia 2nd District - Rigell vs. HirschbielVirginian-Pilot/CNURigell 44, Hirschbiel 32Rigell +12
Generic Congressional VotePolitico/GWU/BattlegroundDemocrats 46, Republicans 44Democrats +2
Generic Congressional VoteRasmussen ReportsDemocrats 43, Republicans 42Democrats +1
President Obama Job ApprovalGallupApprove 48, Disapprove 47Approve +1
President Obama Job ApprovalRasmussen ReportsApprove 49, Disapprove 50Disapprove +1
Obama and Democrats' Health Care PlanRasmussen Reports*For/Favor 42, Against/Oppose 52Against/Oppose +10
President Obama Job ApprovalABC News/Wash PostApprove 50, Disapprove 48Approve +2
President Obama Job ApprovalPolitico/GWU/BattlegroundApprove 50, Disapprove 48Approve +2
Direction of CountryABC News/Wash PostRight Direction 42, Wrong Track 56Wrong Track +14
Direction of CountryPolitico/GWU/BattlegroundRight Direction 40, Wrong Track 53Wrong Track +13
Obama: Favorable/UnfavorablePolitico/GWU/BattlegroundFavorable 53, Unfavorable 45Favorable +8
Romney: Favorable/UnfavorablePolitico/GWU/BattlegroundFavorable 51, Unfavorable 44Favorable +7

No Longer the Majority

A study from the Pew Research Center found that, for the first time in history, Protestants are no longer the majority in the United States: only 48% of Americans belong to a Protestant church. Since 2007 the percentage of Americans who belong to Christian churches has declined from 78% to 73%. The number of religiously unaffiliated Americans (the "Nones") has increased from 15.3% to 19.6%.

Most of the decline in church membership has been in white Protestant sects (evangelical and mainline), which have fallen from 39% to 34%. Historically black Protestant church membership is unchanged. Membership in the Catholic church is also unchanged, in large part due to immigration from Latin America.

According to the study, a major factor in the growth of the religiously unaffiliated is generational replacement: that is, old folks are dying off. Among younger Millennials, 34% are religiously unaffiliated, as compared to 9% of those born between 1928-1945 and 5% of those born between 1913-1927.

Now, not all unaffiliated people are atheists and agnostics (though those numbers have increased by half, to 5.7%). Most nones still believe in God, and most of them (74%) were brought up in a religious tradition. But the number of people who admit they have doubted the existence of God has almost doubled, to 18%, since 1987. In addition, the number of people who believe that the Bible should be taken literally has declined to 31% from 38% circa 1980.

Not surprisingly, based on their age cohort, more than 70% of the nones favor same-sex marriage and believe that abortion should be legal. They don't, however, all harbor identical views on the size of government, so they're not necessarily all in the same political boat.

Yet this downward trend in religious affiliation is happening at the same time the religious right and the Republican Party are doubling down on their opposition to science and reason. Just last week Georgia Rep. Paul Broun called the theory of evolution and the Big Bang theory "lies straight from the pit of hell." Broun, who sits on the House Science and Technology committee, thinks that the Earth is only 9,000 years old. Even if you don't believe in the Big Bang or evolution, biblical archaeology tied to straightforward observations of alluvial, volcanic and glacial deposition tell us that the earth has to have existed for far longer than 9,000 years.

But perhaps the biggest reason that young people are becoming unaffiliated is that major institutional religions are drowning in hypocrisy. The Catholic Church has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements for child sex abuse, yet continues to pretend there's not a serious structural problem with an all-male celibate priesthood (they basically couldn't get rid of those bad priests because they had no one to replace them). There's an endless string of Protestant pastors who've had affairs with all manner of women and men and have multimillion dollar media empires built on the backs of old ladies who send in the last pennies from their social security checks

The Republican Party has hitched its wagon to hotbutton social and race issues (cast in the guise of "illegal immigration") pushed by southern white Protestants. Unless they reform their agenda soon, Republicans are about to fall into a demographic chasm so deep that no amount of gerrymandering and manipulation of voting laws will be able to win elections for them.

How Much Longer?

It's things like this that sadly make me realize just how much of a challenge we have with education in this country. How much longer will paranoia, hatred and anger rule the day and make people this irrational?

 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Polls For Sunday, October 14, 2012

General Election: Romney vs. ObamaGallup TrackingRomney 49, Obama 47Romney +2
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen TrackingRomney 49, Obama 47Romney +2
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaIBD/TIPP TrackingRomney 46, Obama 47Obama +1
Florida: Romney vs. ObamaPPP (D)Romney 49, Obama 48Romney +1
New Mexico: Romney vs. ObamaAlbuquerque Journal*Obama 49, Romney 39Obama +10
Georgia: Romney vs. ObamaAtlanta Journal-ConstitutionRomney 51, Obama 43Romney +8
Florida Senate - Mack vs. NelsonPPP (D)Nelson 45, Mack 37Nelson +8
New Hampshire Governor - Lamontagne vs. HassanRasmussen ReportsLamontagne 46, Hassan 48Hassan +2
President Obama Job ApprovalGallupApprove 48, Disapprove 47Approve +1
President Obama Job ApprovalRasmussen ReportsApprove 48, Disapprove 51Disapprove +3

More Great Economic News

The last few days have seen more good economic news that, in some ways, makes the drop in unemployment part of a larger and rosier picture.

American consumers are feeling more upbeat than they have at any time since the fall of 2007, according to an unexpectedly strong reading of consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan and Thomson Reuters, released Friday. The report suggests that the holiday shopping season could turn out stronger than previously forecast. The widely followed index jumped to 83.1 in October — nearly a 5-point gain from the previous month and the highest since September 2007. Measures of both components of the index — people's assessment of their current financial conditions and future expectations — went up over the month. Sentiment improved for families making more than $75,000, as well as those making less.

All of this good news for the president as he heads into the last three weeks of the campaign. Of course, there is that issue of the debt and the deficit but there is some good news on that front as well.Total indebtedness including that of federal and state governments and consumers has fallen to 3.29 times gross domestic product, the least since 2006, from a peak of 3.59 four years ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Private- sector borrowing is down by $4 trillion to $40.2 trillion.

And the federal deficit, while still topping 1 trillion dollars, is down over 200 billion dollars, falling from 1.3 trillion to 1.1 trillion dollars.The government's revenue rose as more people got jobs and received income. Corporations also contributed more tax revenue than in 2011. This is because of the modest economic growth that has been occurring over the last few months. Government spending fell 1.7 percent to $3.5 trillion. The decline reflected, in part, less defense spending as U.S. military involvement in Iraq was winding down.

We are heading in the right direction, folks, and, considering where we were 4 years ago, I'd say that's very good news!

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Polls For Saturday, October 13th

General Election: Romney vs. ObamaGallup TrackingRomney 49, Obama 47Romney +2
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen TrackingRomney 49, Obama 48Romney +1
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaIBD/TIPP TrackingRomney 46, Obama 46Tie
Arizona: Romney vs. ObamaBehavior Research Center*Romney 42, Obama 44Obama +2
Arizona Senate - Flake vs. CarmonaBehavior Research CenterFlake 40, Carmona 44Carmona +4
President Obama Job ApprovalGallupApprove 48, Disapprove 46Approve +2
President Obama Job ApprovalRasmussen ReportsApprove 50, Disapprove 49Approve +1

Arizona...WTF? Could that state surprise in the election?

They Are Going To Have To Change

For all of the drama queen in Andrew Sullivan, he really nailed it the other day in regards to the current political landscape.

Obama's record is immensely impressive as I argued at some length here. He inherited an economy in free-fall; he put a bottom on it and over 4 million private sector jobs have been created since and the unemployment rate is actually lower than when he took office. It would be much lower if Republican governors had not been slashing government payrolls. He ended the war in Iraq; he has brought the Iranian economy to its knees; he decimated al Qaeda and found and killed Osama bin Laden; he enacted universal healthcare - an historic change that eluded even that political master, Bill Clinton. 

What he didn't imagine and what I didn't imagine (and that Peter doesn't mention) is that the party that drove this country into the biggest fiscal, moral, diplomatic and military ditch since the 1970s would immediately turn around and, instead of constructively attempting to help in the worst recession since the 1930s, opted for total obstructionism and party before country. I think the GOP recognized the profound threat Obama represented, the magnitude of their failure, and have done all they could to stop him getting the second term he always needed to fulfill his promise and check them for a generation. They have failed, by and large. Which is why, of course, I felt so crushed after last week's debate. Obama allowed them to reset the narrative with lies that were left hanging as if unrebuttable. I've beaten him up enough. We all screw up. What matters is acknowledging the fuck-up and remembering to buck up. It's not any single failure that defines you, however great. It's how you respond.

I didn't think that the Republican Party would behave the way they have either. They don't want to do what's best for this country because they don't want to be proved wrong.

This is the threat that the Right faces and they know that even the president somehow manages to lose this election, the writing is on the wall, demographically speaking. As Senator Lindsey Graham recently said, "The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.."

In short, they are going to have to change.

A Perfect Illustration



 I don't think I've seen such a perfect illustration of the contrast in this year's election.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Polls For Friday, October 12th

Today's polls show a very sizable lead for Romney in Florida. Unlike my colleagues on the right, I'm not going to say that these polls are stupid and fat. Of course, these polls are accurate to them and the others (the ones that showed Obama ahead there recently) are not:)

And I still don't get the president's approval rating. Could it be that they approve of the job he is doing but think Romney could do better? If so, what specifically can Romney do better? Where are his details?

General Election: Romney vs. ObamaGallup TrackingRomney 49, Obama 47Romney +2
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaIBD/TIPP TrackingRomney 46, Obama 46Tie
General Election: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen TrackingRomney 48, Obama 47Romney +1
Virginia: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen ReportsObama 47, Romney 49Romney +2
New Hampshire: Romney vs. ObamaARGObama 46, Romney 50Romney +4
Colorado: Romney vs. ObamaDenver Post/SurveyUSARomney 48, Obama 47Romney +1
Florida: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen ReportsRomney 51, Obama 47Romney +4
Florida: Romney vs. ObamaARGRomney 49, Obama 46Romney +3
Michigan: Romney vs. ObamaRasmussen ReportsObama 52, Romney 45Obama +7
Ohio Senate - Mandel vs. BrownRasmussen ReportsBrown 47, Mandel 46Brown +1
Florida Senate - Mack vs. NelsonTBT/Herald/Mason-DixonNelson 47, Mack 42Nelson +5
Wisconsin Senate - Thompson vs. BaldwinRasmussen ReportsBaldwin 51, Thompson 47Baldwin +4
Pennsylvania Senate - Smith vs. CaseyPhiladelphia InquirerCasey 48, Smith 38Casey +10
New Jersey Senate - Kyrillos vs. MenendezPhiladelphia InquirerMenendez 49, Kyrillos 35Menendez +14
New Hampshire Governor - Lamontagne vs. HassanARGLamontagne 46, Hassan 40Lamontagne +6
President Obama Job ApprovalGallupApprove 50, Disapprove 44Approve +6
President Obama Job ApprovalRasmussen ReportsApprove 50, Disapprove 49Approve +1