Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

The Morning Flap: October 16, 2012

Drudge Screencap of Obama and cut out model

These are my links for October 15th through October 16th:

  • Poll: Romney, narrows gap with women, leads Obama in the swing states– Mitt Romney leads President Obama by four percentage points among likely voters in the nation’s top battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, and he has growing enthusiasm among women to thank.As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds female voters much more engaged in the election and increasingly concerned about the deficit and debt issues that favor Romney. The Republican nominee has pulled within one point of the president among women who are likely voters, 48%-49%, and leads by 8 points among men.The battle for women, which was apparent in the speakers spotlighted at both political conventions this summer, is likely to help define messages the candidates deliver at the presidential debate Tuesday night and in the TV ads they air during the final 21 days of the campaign. As a group, women tend to start paying attention to election contests later and remain more open to persuasion by the candidates and their ads.

    That makes women, especially blue-collar “waitress moms” whose families have been hard-hit by the nation’s economic woes, the quintessential swing voters in 2012’s close race.

    “In every poll, we’ve seen a major surge among women in favorability for Romney” since his strong performance in the first debate, veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says. “Women went into the debate actively disliking Romney, and they came out thinking he might understand their lives and might be able to get something done for them.”

    While Lake believes Obama retains an edge among women voters, the changed views of Romney could be “a precursor to movement” to the Republican candidate, she says. “It opens them up to take a second look, and that’s the danger for Obama.”

  • THE NAYS HAVE IT: When Public Sector Unions Win in California – This November, California voters must decide two policy questions of great concern to public-sector unions. One is a tax hike to stave off further cuts to state spending (there are two versions on the ballot with a chance of passing). The other is a “paycheck protection” measure that would ban the practice of unions’ deducting money from member paychecks to spend on political activism. Public-sector union members stand to benefit from the tax increase, and they are campaigning heavily for one version, Proposition 30, which is being promoted by Governor Jerry Brown. Conversely, the unions stand to lose money and power if paycheck protection passes, and they are working hard to defeat it.
  • Unions dominate California ballot propositions– Unions representing public workers in California have remarkable success achieving their desired outcomes for California ballot propositions—call it success by defeat. In some instances unions have outspent adversaries in California’s initiative process 8 to 1. This may come as no shock for those of us who live in the Golden State especially considering the well-entrenched power of unions here, but the rate of success unions have had in the initiative process is not only surprising, but staggering.Reviewing more than 30 years of data, a new study conducted by Daniel DiSalvo for the Manhattan Institute found that since 1980, public employee unions have been successful in defeating 75 percent of the ballot initiatives they opposed and have won in 50 percent of the initiatives they supported. That means unions possess an uncanny record when it comes to playing defense, “using initiative campaigns to block proposals that threaten their interests.” And when on offense they get what they want half of the time, a record that would make any special interest group in the country envious.The Manhattan Institute study release is well timed as public employee unions in California have invested heavily in the passage of Prop 30, Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative that would increase the state’s sales tax and also the state income tax for some earners. Conversely, unions are actively opposing Prop 32, which would stop unions and corporations from making direct contributions to legislators and change the way they would collect money for political spending.
  • Romney Holds Advantage Tonight, Regardless of Format– The first thing to know about a “town-hall-style” presidential debate is that it bears as much resemblance to an actual campaign town-hall event as a marble statue does to its animated subject.Real town halls are usually unscripted and unpredictable and often raucous events. Town-hall debates are orderly, with the questions from the audience screened — selected to represent questions the moderator would ask if they were doing the questioning. Moderators are likely to reframe some questions and ask their own follow-ups in the language of Sunday morning talk shows. The candidates’ answers are subject to short time limits. The venue is disconcertingly quiet, as the audience is instructed to be unresponsive, with none of the cheers, boos, laughs and groans that are the soundtrack of real town halls.
  • As Swing State Races Narrow, Debate Looms Large– The election cycle has reached the stage where there is such a torrent of polls released each day that the flipping leads could give many poll watchers whiplash. And Tuesday night’s presidential debate at Hofstra University could make the race even more volatile.On Monday morning, the RealClearPolitics Average of national polls found President Obama and Mitt Romney tied at 47.3 percent apiece; by the afternoon, Romney had ticked up a tenth of a point. And that’s after Romney had wrested the lead from Obama last Tuesday for the first time in more than a year.But the real movement has been in the battleground states. RCP currently counts 11 such battlegrounds (amounting to 146 electoral votes) as true tossups; Obama leads the electoral vote count in the other states, 201-191.

    Those numbers are significant because at this point in the 2008 election, candidate Barack Obama was leading John McCain in every single one of those battlegrounds, including conservative-leaning North Carolina. In many of them, he was ahead by double digits, whereas his biggest battleground-state lead now is just 4.8 percentage points, according to the RCP Average — and that is in the usually reliable Democratic state of Pennsylvania.

  • Our Awful Economy, In One Chart – Michelle Obama says we are “in the midst of a huge recovery.” That claim is laughable to anyone who has lived through the last four years; this simple chart from the Senate Budget Committee highlights one of the central failings of Obamanomics: people are leaving the labor force faster than they are entering it. Since Obama became president ten times as many people have been added to the roster of those not in the labor force, than have been added to the labor force:

Labor Force Employment chart