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    @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-27

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  • Dean Heller,  Shelley Berkley

    NV-Sen: Dean Heller 45% Vs. Shelley Berkley 45%

    According to the latest PPP Poll.

    After trailing by as much as 13 points earlier this year, Shelley Berkley has moved into a tie with Dean Heller in the Nevada Senate race at 45%.

    On PPP’s last poll, in late July, Heller had led 46-43. The main thing that’s happened since then is Berkley has consolidated the Democratic vote. Previously she was getting just 75% of the vote from within her own party, but that’s now up to 82%, pretty comparable to Heller’s 83% of the Republican vote. On all 3 previous PPP surveys of the race this year, all of which Heller had held the lead on, he was getting a much larger share of the GOP vote than Berkley was getting of the Democratic vote. With that gap erased, so is his lead.

    When you dig deeper into the numbers on this poll you really see the makings of a race that could be a toss up all the way through next November.  Heller’s approval rating is a 39/35 spread. Berkley’s favorability rating is a 38/35 spread. In addition to both candidates getting nearly identical shares of the vote from their parties, independents split nearly evenly as well with Heller holding a 39-37 advantage. Berkley has a 52-38 advantage with women. Heller has a 52-38 advantage with men.

    This is a race like the ones in Virginia and Montana that starts out as a toss up and seems like it probably won’t see a ton of movement over the next year- most voters have already chosen a side and the candidates will be fighting it out for a relatively small pool of persuadable voters. It seems likely that if Obama wins reelection he’ll bring the Democratic Senate candidates in these states along with him, and if he doesn’t, he’ll probably bring them down with him as well.

    Nevada will be a key battleground state in the Presidential race next year. With few media markets and inexpensive ones at that, I would hate to be a Nevada television addict beginning in the Spring. The TV ads are going to fly for Obama and Berkely.

    But, Senator and former Rep. Dean Heller is NOT Sharron Angle.

    This race, as with the Presidential vote may be close. If the economy stays moribund, Obama loses to Romney and Heller is elected.

    The entire poll is here.

  • Guns,  Polling

    Poll Watch: 26% of Americans Favor a Legal Ban on Possession of Handguns – A Record Low



    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    A record-low 26% of Americans favor a legal ban on the possession of handguns in the United States other than by police and other authorized people. When Gallup first asked Americans this question in 1959, 60% favored banning handguns. But since 1975, the majority of Americans have opposed such a measure, with opposition around 70% in recent years.

    The results are based on Gallup’s annual Crime poll, conducted Oct. 6-9. This year’s poll finds support for a variety of gun-control measures at historical lows, including the ban on handguns, which is Gallup’s longest continuing gun-control trend.

    A ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles is NOT favored as well.

    For the first time, Gallup finds greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53% to 43%. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57% for and 42% against an assault rifle ban. Congress passed such a ban in 1994, but the law expired when Congress did not act to renew it in 2004. Around the time the law expired, Americans were about evenly divided in their views.

    The chart:

    Also, support to make gun laws more strict are at 43% vs. keeping gun laws the same polls at 44%. Only 11% favor less strict gun laws.

    What are the demographics of the polling?

    All key subgroups show less support for stricter gun laws, and for a ban on handguns, than they did 20 years ago. In 1991, 68% of Americans favored stricter gun laws and 43% favored a ban on handguns. Those percentages are 43% and 26%, respectively, today.

    Relatively few key subgroups favor stricter gun-control laws today, whereas in 1991, all did. Since then, Democrats’ views have shown less change, with a 10-point decline in the percentage favoring stricter laws. Republicans show a much larger decline of 35 points. In addition to Democrats, majorities of Eastern residents and those without guns in their household still favor stricter gun laws.

    The chart:

    And, the demographics for Americans who favor a ban on handguns.

    So, what does this all mean?

    Americans have shifted to a more pro-gun view on gun laws, particularly in recent years, with record-low support for a ban on handguns, an assault rifle ban, and stricter gun laws in general. This is the case even as high-profile incidents of gun violence continue in the United States, such as the January shootings at a meeting for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.

    The reasons for the shift do not appear related to reactions to the crime situation, as Gallup’s Crime poll shows no major shifts in the trends in Americans’ perceptions of crime, fear of crime, or reports of being victimized by crime in recent years. Nor does it appear to be tied to an increase in gun ownership, which has been around 40% since 2000, though it is a slightly higher 45% in this year’s update. The 2011 updates on these trends will appear on Gallup.com in the coming days.

    Perhaps the trends are a reflection of the American public’s acceptance of guns. In 2008, Gallup found widespread agreement with the idea that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of Americans to own guns. Americans may also be moving toward more libertarian views in some areas, one example of which is greater support for legalizing marijuana use. Diminished support for gun-control laws may also be tied to the lack of major gun-control legislation efforts in Congress in recent years.

  • Paul Ryan,  Pinboard Links,  Polling,  Rick Perry,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: October 26, 2011

    Flap’s links for October 23rd through October 26th:

    • How Rick Perry’s Tax Plan Would Affect You– Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, today released some details on his flat tax proposal. The plan would give Americans the option of determining their taxes based on an alternate system that has one tax rate and fewer deductions.We asked the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, to help calculate how Mr. Perry’s proposal might affect different kinds of American families. Roberton Williams, a senior fellow there, kindly crunched some numbers using what’s known about the new proposal.

      The chart below shows a few different types of families — single, married with children, head of household with children, and retired — and what kind of tax liabilities they would face under current law and under Mr. Perry’s alternative system:

    • Pizza Magnate Leads GOP Presidential Pack In Ohio, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Romney Stalled As Perry Vanishes– Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain has jumped to the front of the line among GOP presidential contenders with 28 percent support among Ohio Republicans. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is second with 23 percent, while Texas Gov. Rick Perry is almost at the bottom of the pile with 4 percent.Cain leads a three-man race with 40 percent, followed by Romney at 33 percent and Perry at 10 percent.

      President Barack Obama’s job approval rating and re-elect numbers remain underwater among Ohio voters, who disapprove 51 – 43 percent and say 49 – 44 percent the president does not deserve a second term, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

      Despite his negative scores, the president leads potential Republican challengers:

      47 – 39 percent over Cain;
      45 – 41 percent over Romney;
      47 – 36 percent over Perry.

     

     

    By Paul Ryan
    October 26, 2011 — The Heritage Foundation
    Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

    Thank you so much, Ed, for that kind introduction.

    We’re here today to explore the American Idea, and I can’t think of a better venue for this topic. The mission of the Heritage Foundation is to promote the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

    These are the principles that define the American Idea. And this mission has never been timelier, because these principles are very much under threat from policies here in Washington.

    The American Idea belongs to all of us – inherited from our nation’s Founders, preserved by the countless sacrifices of our veterans, and advanced by visionary leaders, past and present.

    What makes America exceptional — what gives life to the American Idea — is our dedication to the self-evident truth that we are all created equal, giving us equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that means opportunity.

    The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.”

    This commitment to liberty and equality is something we take for granted during times of prosperity, when a growing economic pie gives all Americans the opportunity to pursue their dreams, to provide brighter futures for their kids, or maybe just to meet their families’ needs.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • t.co / Twitter – RT @RasmussenPoll: Obama: Strongly Approve: 18%… Strongly Disapprove 40%… Approval Index: -22… Total Approval: 44%… …

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • SF ballot measures: will courts revisit pensions? – One of two competing pension measures on the San Francisco ballot next month is said by opponents to be an illegal assault on the “vested rights” of public employees, a cost-cutting plan certain to be overturned by the courts.

     

    The measure does not raise the issue that the Little Hoover Commission and others say urgently needs a new look by the courts: whether the pensions of current workers not yet earned by time on the job can be cut.

    But Measure D by Jeff Adachi, the city public defender, does raise the annual payments employees must make toward their pensions without bargaining or providing an offsetting benefit.

    “As written, D raises contribution rates on current employees, but fails to include offsetting reductions in good economic times when the city’s costs are reduced,” said a ballot pamphlet rebuttal written by Mayor Ed Lee and others. “D is not only unfair, legal experts say it’s unlawful and will be invalidated by the courts, leaving taxpayers with zero savings.”

    In a ballot pamphlet reply, Adachi urges voters not to let the opponents “scare” them: “Last year, a San Francisco Superior Court ruled that the city could change the contribution rates of its employees in order to protect the fiscal integrity of the system, which is what Prop D does.”

    Whether voter approval of Measure D on Nov. 8 would result in a court ruling making a significant statewide change in case law is not clear.

    Many legal experts, but not all, believe that a series of past court rulings mean that pensions promised state and local government employees on the date of hire cannot be cut without providing other benefits of equal value.

     

     

     

    • Poll: In North Carolina, Obama Beats Cain by 80 With Black Voters – Oh, he’s losing overall, and I’m not trying to hide that with the headline, but the racial crosstab is what really jumps out to me from the new Civitas poll in North Carolina. Civitas polled 600 voters, of whom 126 were black. That’s a decent-sizes sample. Obama easily crushes Cain with those voters, carrying blacks 86 percent to 6 percent. (Only 8 black voters in this sample said they’d vote for Cain.) John McCain only got 5 percent of the black vote here in 2008 — Cain barely improves on it!
      What explains this? When I was writing this piece about Cain and Tea Partiers, I spent some time on black news sites, seeing what was being written about the surprise Republican frontrunner. It was overwhelmingly negative. If you were to get all of your info on Cain from black news sites, you’d mostly learn that the guy didn’t participate in the Civil Rights movement, wasn’t immediately offended by Rick Perry’s “Niggerhead” rock, and wanted the Secret Service to call him “cornbread.” Just yesterday, Toure spat out a remarkable amount of bile in a piece explaining why, as a black voter, he despises Cain.
      Cain is a clown. You see it in the way he constantly mollifies white audiences with self-effacing, racialized comedy that borders on minstrelsy (referring to himself as “black-walnut ice cream” or suggesting that the Secret Service call him “Cornbread”)… Cain is what I long imagined the first Black President would be like: a Republican who many Blacks find unctuous.
      Toure could have continued on with the central liberal complaint about black conservatives — that they are used to appeal to guilty-feeling whites, not to do anything for blacks.

     

     

    • Will Steve Jobs’ final vendetta haunt Google? – The depths of Jobs’ antipathy toward Google leaps out of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Apple’s co-founder. The book goes on sale Monday, less than three weeks after Jobs’ long battle with pancreatic cancer culminated in his Oct. 5 death. The Associated Press obtained a copy Thursday.
      The biography drips with Jobs’ vitriol as he discusses his belief that Google stole from Apple’s iPhone to build many of the features in Google’s Android software for rival phones.
      It’s clear that the perceived theft represented an unforgiveable act of betrayal to Jobs, who had been a mentor to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and had welcomed Google’s CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, to be on Apple’s board.
      Jobs retaliated with a profane manifesto during a 2010 conversation with his chosen biographer. Isaacson wrote that he never saw Jobs angrier in any of their conversations, which covered a wide variety of emotional topics during a two-year period.
      After equating Android to “grand theft” of the iPhone, Jobs lobbed a series of grenades that may blow a hole in Google’s image as an innovative company on a crusade to make the world a better place.
      “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs told Isaacson. “I’m going to destroy Android because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty.”
      Jobs then used a crude word for defecation to describe Android and other products outside of search.
      Android now represents one of the chief threats to the iPhone. Although iPhones had a head start and still draw huge lines when new models go on sale, Android devices sold twice as well in the second quarter. According to Gartner, Android’s market share grew 2 1/2 times to 43 percent, compared with 17 percent a year earlier. The iPhone’s grew as well, but by a smaller margin — to 18 percent, from 14 percent.
      Both Google and Apple declined comment to The Associated Press when asked about Jobs’ remarks.
      Jobs’ attack is troubling for Google on several levels.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • Barbara Boxer

    California Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening Senator Barbara Boxer

    California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer answering a question during election 2010

    Is California Senator Barbara Boxer worth going to jail? 

    Probably NOT, but this moron could not control his temper and off he goes.

    A San Rafael man accused of threatening to kill U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer pleaded guilty as charged Monday, a county prosecutor said.

    Kevin Joseph O’Connell, 47, admitted to charges of criminal threats and threatening a public official, said Deputy District Attorney Aicha Mievis.

    O’Connell accepted an offer from Judge Terrence Boren to plead guilty if the charges were reduced to misdemeanors, Mievis said.

    O’Connell faces up to a year in jail when he is sentenced Nov. 9.

    O’Connell was arrested in July after leaving a threatening voice mail at the senator’s office in San Francisco. San Rafael police said O’Connell was upset over supposed harassment by public safety officers and tensions with his neighbor, not about Boxer’s politics.

    “It was a cry for help,” said O’Connell’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Bonnie Marmor.

    O’Connell could have faced up to three years in prison if convicted of the felony charges. He remains in custody at the Marin County Jail.

    Remember folks, you can disagree with the POLS. But, stick to the issues or you will end up like this guy – in JAIL.

  • Laura Richardson

    California Rep Laura Richardson to Face Full House Ethics Investigation

    Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro and Rep. Laura Richardson

    Apparently a full-scale House ethics investigation is moving forward.

    The House Ethics Committee is moving toward a full-scale investigation of Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.), who has been under scrutiny for months over allegations that her staff engaged in banned political activities while on government time, according to several sources close to the matter.

    Ethics Committee staffers have been digging into the claims against Richardson since last year as part of a “preliminary inquiry” by the panel, and they have been interviewing current and former Richardson aides. The investigators are looking into allegations that Richardson and some of her most senior staffers pressured other aides to work on her reelection campaign or be fired, according to these sources and news reports. Staffers on the congressional payroll are banned from working on political campaigns during official time, and no House resources can be used for campaign-related activities, according to House rules and federal statute.

    If the Ethics Committee were to create an special investigative subcommittee to oversee the Richardson case, it would dramatically raise the legal and political stakes for the three-term California Democrat.

    Richardson’s campaign committee is already hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, including more than $125,000 owed to three law firms, and she faces a potential three-way Democratic primary fight against Rep. Janice Hahn and California Assemblyman Isadore Hall in a newly redrawn congressional district.

    Rep. Laura Richardson is probably already TOAST for re-election. Newly elected Rep. Janice Hahn will likely beat her in the newly drawn Congressional District – unless these CD’s are thrown out by a federal court.

    Richardson has been in continual ethics trouble since she was elected in a special election in 2007.

    A Sacramento home that Richardson bought that year went into foreclosure in 2008, the third home on which Richardson has missed mortgage payments. The bank that held the Sacramento mortgage, Washington Mutual, then sold the home to a real estate investor.But Washington Mutual later took the home back and returned it to Richardson and modified her mortgage. Following a lawsuit, Washington Mutual reached a settlement with the investor who had purchased the home.

    The Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee both investigated the incident. The Ethics Committee ruled in July 2010 that Richardson “did not knowingly violate” any ethics rules in the case.

    In November 2010, just four months after the mortgage controversy was resolved, the Los Angeles Wave, a community newspaper, reported that Ethics Committee staffers were looking into allegations that Richardson had forced her official staff to work for her reelection campaign while on official time or lose their jobs, a potential ethical and statutory violation.

  • Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Another Good Week for Herman Cain But Watch Out for Newt

    According to the latest PPP Poll.

    PPP’s newest polls find him with a double digit lead in Wisconsin, and running only a point behind Mitt Romney in Nevada.  This now makes 4 weeks in a row where Cain’s been on the top of our polls- in 9 surveys we’ve conducted over that period of time he’s held the lead in 8 with this Nevada poll serving as the only exception.

    In Wisconsin Cain’s at 30% to 18% for Romney, 12% each for Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, 8% for Ron Paul, 5% for Michele Bachmann, 2% for Rick Santorum, and 1% each for Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson.

    In Nevada Romney’s at 29% to 28% for Cain, 15% for Gingrich, 7% for Paul, 6% for Perry, 3% for Bachmann, 2% for Santorum and Huntsman, and 0% for Johnson.

    Cain’s numbers continue to represent a huge amount of momentum. He’s gained 21 points from late July in Nevada, when he was at 7%. And he’s gained 23 points from mid-August in Wisconsin where he was also at 7%. It’s the Tea Party that continues to drive Cain’s support. He’s up 37-19 on Romney with those voters in Nevada with Gingrich in second at 20%. And in Wisconsin he gets 37% with them as well with Gingrich at 17%, Perry at 12%, and Romney all the way back in a tie for 4th with Ron Paul at 8%.

    One thing that does remain a problem for Cain is that his voters are not strongly committed- only 41% in Nevada say that they’ll definitely vote for him, compared to 59% of Romney’s supporters who say they’re all in.  And in Wisconsin just 29% of his voters say they’re firmly in his camp compared to 34% for Romney. Cain’s support is broad at this point- but it’s not deep.

    But, who is lurking in third place and ahead of Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann?

    Newt Gingrich.

    Besides Cain the other candidate in the race who continues to quietly have some momentum is Newt Gingrich. He finishes a solo third in Nevada and ties for third in Wisconsin but beyond that the shift in his favorability numbers over the last 5 months tells quite a story.  In May Gingrich was at a -21 spread (28/49) with Wisconsin Republicans. Now he’s at +12 (50/38) representing a 33 point improvement over that period of time. His 12% support in Wisconsin is up from 6% in August and his 15% in Nevada is up from 6% in July.

    Remember the ad war will be between Perry and Romney since they have all of the campaign cash. If Perry is successful in taking Romney down, it could very well be Newt Gingrich who emerges.

    Herman Cain will doing well with some in the GOP, does not possess the campaign organization or money to wage a long term war for the nomination against Romney or Perry or even Gingrch for that matter.

    The poll are here.