• Barack Obama,  Larry Sabato,  Mitt Romney,  President 2012

    President 2012: Larry Sabato Lays Out the Electoral College Battle for the White House

    From Sabato’s Crystal Ball

    Larry Sabato lays out the Electoral College analysis for the race for the Presidency in 2012.

    The London Olympics isn’t the only venue for world-class sport this year. Political gold is waiting to be won in November, and the only way to grab the top U.S.A. medal is to master Electoral College math. It is both deceptively easy and maddeningly complex. A candidate has to accumulate 270 votes in a tiny universe of 538, but those 538 will be generated by 130 million votes cast in 51 separate entities. A game that looks like checkers is really multi-dimensional chess.

    Still, the deep polarization of party politics has simplified the process somewhat. Remarkably, about 40 states — and maybe more — have almost no chance of flipping from one party to the other in the 2012 Electoral College. If President Obama gets his way, the electoral map will look very close to the way it did four years ago; on the other hand, Mitt Romney needs to flip a relative handful of states to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

    Obama’s 2008 performance was close to the high-water mark for a modern Democrat: 365 electoral votes (359 under the new 2010 census apportionment). Obama did the seemingly impossible by very narrowly pulling two long-time Republican states, Indiana and North Carolina, to his column and even winning an electoral vote in Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, while narrowly losing Missouri and Montana. Those latter two states are widely believed to have moved out of his reach for 2012.

    It is a little-known Electoral College tidbit that a president reelected to a second term has always added a state to his coalition that he did not win during his first successful run. Sometimes, in the early days of the Republic, it was a state that didn’t exist during a president’s first bid. But it appears that Obama, if reelected, will break this trend. The only state John McCain won that Obama appears to have a chance of flipping is Arizona, but that is a long shot that would require a massive turnout effort by the Obama campaign among Hispanic voters.

    To compare 2012 politics to war for a moment, the current electoral map is akin to World War I’s Western Front trench warfare: Massive amounts of manpower and resources will be needed to move the frontlines even a smidgen. And the less the lines move, the better it is for Obama.

    Read all of the post, which is in line with my previous analysis. Watch the video embedded below:

    It looks to me that the battle will be waged in even fewer states – Ohio, Virginia, Nevada and Florida. Voters in those states should feel the brunt of all of the intense ad campaigns.

    In any case, here is my prediction of how the Electoral College will turn out in November: Romney 275 Vs. Obama 263:

    This map is from the interactive site, 270towin.com

  • Barack Obama,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012: State of the Race for the Presidency: April 25, 2012

    From Real Clear Politics

    With Mitt Romney locking up the Republican nomination last night, it is time to look at the general election face off between him and President Obama. The Real Clear Politics poll average has Obama up by 4.1 points.

    Now, let’s look at the Electoral College vote averages (Real Clear Politics):

    Here we have the state of the race: President Obama is up by a few points and there are a number of key battleground states which will determine who wins in November.

    Here is my prediction:

    This map is from the interactive site, 270towin.com

    Let the campaigns begin…..

  • Barack Obama,  Marco Rubio,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012,  Susana Martinez

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Arizona in Play?

    If Arizona is in play, then Mitt Romney will be a collosal Biggest Loser in November. This poll while close is probably an outlier.

    With the 2012 presidential election just over six months away, the latest statewide Merrill/Morrison Institute poll found that Arizonans are evenly divided on whom they will support in November.

    According to the poll of 488 registered voters, 42 percent said they would vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, while 40 percent said they would support President Barack Obama and 18 percent were undecided. Because the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent, if the election were held today the contest for Arizona’s 11 electoral votes would be a “toss up.”

    The poll found that the electorate is divided along party lines: 80 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Romney, 78 percent of Democrats for Obama. Although the sample of political independents is small (n=166), independents appear to be breaking slightly more for Obama (38 percent) than Romney (28 percent). However, the independent vote is still up for grabs because 34 percent of independents said they are undecided.

    “In Arizona, like the rest of the nation, political independents may determine who wins in November,” said poll director Dr. Bruce Merrill, a senior fellow at Morrison Institute for Public Policy. “The eventual outcome also may be dependent on whether former Surgeon General Richard Carmona can mount a vigorous campaign for retiring Sen. John Kyl’s seat, a campaign that would stimulate turnout in the Hispanic community. While I think if the election were held today Romney probably would win, it appears Obama can mount a competitive campaign in Arizona.”

    Romney appears to have the Tea Party support. Among the 39 percent of the electorate who said they support what the Tea Party stands for, 75 percent said they would vote for Romney.

    But the poll also found that younger voters disproportionately support Obama while older voters support Romney. No “gender gap” was found among Arizona voters, however, as 40 percent of both men and women said they would vote for Obama.

    Remember Arizona has not sent its Electoral College votes to a Democrat since Harry Truman in 1948.

    But, if anything this poll may make more of a case for Romney to add an Hispanic to the ticket – like Senator Marco Rubio od Florida or Governor Susan Martinez of New Mexico.

  • Mitt Romney,  President 2012,  Rudy Giuliani

    Video: Rudy Giuliani Finally Endorses Mitt Romney on Eve of New York Primary Election

    A little late in the game since Mitt Romney has already locked up the Republican Presidential nomination with Rick Santorum’s suspending his campaign. Newt Gingrich will NOT be able to beat Romney in delegates to the GOP Convention.

    Here is the video:

    You might be wondering why Rudy, the former New York City Mayor has waited so long? This is an easy one – Rudy doesn’t like Mitt much – especially since the 2008 campaign when Romney pushed personal details to the press about Giuliani’s wives and family.

    Ed over at Hot Air has transcribed the quotes:

    When you have one of these things, it leaves animosity, no doubt about it.  The only time it didn’t happen was with John McCain, because John was an old friend, and we sort of palled around a lot when we campaigned against each other, told a lot of jokes. Usually, ones I can’t repeat.  I love John.  I almost didn’t run because John was running, so it was easy for me — I just got out and supported him.  I see that [toughness] as a virtue.  I don’t think the Democrats have any idea what they’re running against.  I mean, Mitt Romney is a tough, tough campaigner, and his campaign organization is really tough.

    I agree with Rudy about Mitt Romney being a tough campaigner. Mitt has not spend the last 5-6 years of his life not to give Obama a race he will remember.

    But, I, also, understand Rudy’s hope for another GOP Presidential nominee. And, Rudy won’t be waiting for a call from Mitt for any cabinet position either.

    Rudy did what a good GOP party man does – but he doesn’t have to like it.

  • Barack Obama,  Mitt Romney,  President 2012

    Update: Obama’s Father Has a Polygamist Past: Montana Democrat Governor Brian Schweitzer Calls Out Mitt Romney’s Mormon “Polygamy” Past

    +++++Scroll down for Update +++++

    Montana Governor, Democrat, Brian Schweitzer

    Does the Obama campaign REALLY want to go there?

    The Daily Beast contacted the office of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer today to talk about whether his state would be in play in the 2012 presidential election. About a half hour later, the governor called back, and he had a lot to say. He didnt think that Montana would be a swing state, but the Democrat did say that Mitt Romney could have issues nationally because his father was born on a polygamy commune in Mexico.

    While discussing swing states, Schweitzer said Romney would have a tall order to position Hispanics to vote for him, and I replied that was mildly ironic since Mitt’s father was born in Mexico, giving the clan a nominal claim to being Hispanic. Schweitzer replied that it is kinda ironic given that his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy. Women, he said, are not great fans of polygamy, 86 percent were not great fans of polygamy. I am not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle, but his father was born into [a] polygamy commune in Mexico.

    Romney’s father, George – who served as governor of Michigan and was a member of the Nixon cabinet and also a presidential candidate – was born in Mexico in 1907 to a family of American Mormons who fled to Mexico when the United States government cracked down on the practice of polygamy. George Romney’s parents were in a monogamous marriage, but Mexico was the last bastion for the practice of plural marriage in the Church of Latter Day Saints. (The church has since expressly prohibited the practice.)

    See anything wrong here?

    Perhaps I will have to make it more clear: The Obama campaign is using a surrogate to portray at Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion as something weird.

    OK. But, remember about what they say about people who live in “glass houses?”

    But, I mean, Obama and HIS past? Really?

    In his three years as U.S. president, Barack Obama has been dogged by claims he is not patriotic enough.

    Last year he even had to publish his birth certificate to silence doubters who suggested he was not born an American.

    Now it emerges that similar fears were expressed about his father, who was categorised with others as ‘anti-American and anti-white’ when he moved to the United States in 1959.

    Mr Obama Snr had grown up in Kenya under British rule and aroused the fears of both colonial officers and American officials when he won a chance to study in Hawaii. The officials felt Kenyan students were ‘academically inferior’ with a ‘bad reputation’ for turning anti-American.

    A memo from a British diplomat in Washington to Whitehall – released today by the National Archives in West London – sets out their concerns about the young Kenyans.

    Dated September 1, 1959, it says: ‘I have discussed with the State Department. They are as disturbed about these developments as we are. They point out that Kenya students have a bad reputation over here for falling into the wrong hands and for becoming both anti-American and anti-white.’

    In one of the Foreign Office files, the future president’s father appears on a list of Kenyan students as ‘OBAMA, Barack H’ – they shared the same name.

    At the age of 23, he enrolled at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu to study economics with classmates including Ann Dunham, a 17-year-old white American from Kansas. The couple had a short marriage that led to the birth in 1961 of the future president, Barack Obama II.

    Mr Obama Snr was among 100 or so Kenyan students brought to America by the African American Students Foundation.

    U.S. and British officials were deeply suspicious of this outfit, observing that the AASF – though backed by singer Harry Belafonte and actor Sidney Poitier – had links to a Kenyan nationalist leader.

    I would suggest that the Governor of Montana owes Mitt Romney an apology for his injudicious comments and call upon President Obama to disavow these surrogate tactics based on one’s religion and family history.

    Mr. President, I expect better from you.

    President Obama as a young boy with his Kenyan father.

    Update:

    As Gateway Pundit points out so well: President Obama’s father’s Luo Tribe has a long history of polygamy.

    On Thursday Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer decided to go after Romney’s family history regarding polygamy stating Hispanics would not approve of such a history.  So it is only fair to point out that President Obama’s family has a history of polygamy and bigamy as well.  Yet the majority of Hispanics voted for President Obama in 2008.

    The Washington Post reported:

    “The line of polygamists in Obama’s family can be traced back generations in western Kenya, where it was an accepted practice within the Luo (pronounced LOO-oh) tribe.” His great-grandfather, Obama Opiyo, had five wives, including two who were sisters. His grandfather, Hussein Onyango, had at least four wives, one of whom, Akumu, gave birth to the president’s father, Barack Obama” before fleeing her abusive husband. Obama Sr. was already married when he left Kenya to study at the University of Hawaii, where he married again. His American wife-to-be, Stanley Ann Dunham, was not yet 18 and unaware of his marital situation when she became pregnant with his namesake son in 1961.

    The Obama family:

    In this Obama Family photo are: (bottom row, from left) half-sister Auma, her mother Kezia Obama, Obama’s step-grandmother Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama and unknown; (top row, from left) unknown, Barack Obama, half-brother Abongo (Roy) Obama, and three unknowns.

    I am still waiting for the apology from the Montana Governor and the statement from the White House that a Presidential candidate’s religion and family are off-limits.

    How long must it take?

  • Barack Obama,  Brian Schweitzer,  Mitt Romney,  President 2012

    Montana Democrat Governor Brian Schweitzer Calls Out Mitt Romney’s Mormon “Polygamy” Past

    Montana Governor, Democrat, Brian Schweitzer

    Does the Obama campaign REALLY want to go there?

    The Daily Beast contacted the office of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer today to talk about whether his state would be in play in the 2012 presidential election. About a half hour later, the governor called back, and he had a lot to say. He didn’t think that Montana would be a swing state, but the Democrat did say that Mitt Romney could have issues nationally because his father was “born on a polygamy commune in Mexico.”

    While discussing swing states, Schweitzer said Romney would have a “tall order to position Hispanics to vote for him,” and I replied that was mildly ironic since Mitt’s father was born in Mexico, giving the clan a nominal claim to being Hispanic. Schweitzer replied that it is “kinda ironic given that his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy.” Women, he said, are “not great fans of polygamy, 86 percent were not great fans of polygamy. I am not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle, but his father was born into [a] polygamy commune in Mexico.”

    Romney’s father, George—who served as governor of Michigan and was a member of the Nixon cabinet and also a presidential candidate—was born in Mexico in 1907 to a family of American Mormons who fled to Mexico when the United States government cracked down on the practice of polygamy. George Romney’s parents were in a monogamous marriage, but Mexico was the last bastion for the practice of plural marriage in the Church of Latter Day Saints. (The church has since expressly prohibited the practice.)

    See anything wrong here?

    Perhaps I will have to make it more clear: The Obama campaign is using a surrogate to portray at Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion as something weird.

    OK. But, remember about what they say about people who live in “glass houses?”

    But, I mean, Obama and HIS past? Really?

    In his three years as U.S. president, Barack Obama has been dogged by claims he is not patriotic enough.

    Last year he even had to publish his birth certificate to silence doubters who suggested he was not born an American.

    Now it emerges that similar fears were expressed about his father, who was categorised with others as ‘anti-American and anti-white’ when he moved to the United States in 1959.

    Mr Obama Snr had grown up in Kenya under British rule and aroused the fears of both colonial officers and American officials when he won a chance to study in Hawaii. The officials felt Kenyan students were ‘academically inferior’ with a ‘bad reputation’ for turning anti-American.

    A memo from a British diplomat in Washington to Whitehall – released today by the National Archives in West London – sets out their concerns about the young Kenyans.

    Dated September 1, 1959, it says: ‘I have discussed with the State Department. They are as disturbed about these developments as we are. They point out that Kenya students have a bad reputation over here for falling into the wrong hands and for becoming both anti-American and anti-white.’

    In one of the Foreign Office files, the future president’s father appears on a list of Kenyan students as ‘OBAMA, Barack H’ – they shared the same name.

    At the age of 23, he enrolled at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu to study economics with classmates including Ann Dunham, a 17-year-old white American from Kansas. The couple had a short marriage that led to the birth in 1961 of the future president, Barack Obama II.

    Mr Obama Snr was among 100 or so Kenyan students brought to America by the African American Students Foundation.

    U.S. and British officials were deeply suspicious of this outfit, observing that the AASF – though backed by singer Harry Belafonte and actor Sidney Poitier – had links to a Kenyan nationalist leader.

    I would suggest that the Governor of Montana owes Mitt Romney an apology for his injudicious comments and call upon President Obama to disavow these surrogate tactics based on one’s religion and family history.

    Mr. President, I expect better from you.

    President Obama as a young boy with his Kenyan father.

  • Chris Christie,  Larry Sabato,  Mitt Romney,  President 2012

    Video: President 2012: Who Will Be Mitt Romney’s Vice President?

    Larry Sabato’s Crystall Ball: Romney’s Perfect Vice President

    You can watch Sobato’s video above or read his prognostications here.

    But, I would be very surprised if Romney does not choose New Jersey Governor Chris Christie or Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio. Mitt would actually have a chance to win with either of these two articulate and LEFT battle hardened POLS.

    One other I would mention would be Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

    Forget the rest, as a team with Romney would make it more difficult for the GOP to win.

    And, guess what?

    Chris Christie has expressed some interest.

    New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) told ABC News he’s “not looking to become vice president” but left the door open to a conversation about it with Mitt Romney.

    Said Christie: “But I also think it is extraordinarily arrogant for you to say you won’t even listen to the nominee of your party — especially for me. It’s someone who I’ve been supporting since last October vigorously around the country — that I wouldn’t take a call from Mitt Romney.”

  • Barack Obama,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Romney 48% Vs. Obama 43%

    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    These are the results when registered voters are asked: “Suppose the presidential election were held today. If Barack Obama were the Democratic Party’s candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney were the Republican Party’s candidate, who would you vote for Barack Obama, the Democrat or Mitt Romney, the Republican?” Those who are undecided are further asked if they lean more toward Obama or Romney and their leanings are incorporated into the results.

    However, the latest Pew national poll has President Obama leading, but his lead has narrowed from the previous month.

    But, what really matters is a few key battleground states and in one, President Obama is winning – Florida.

    The polls are likely to fluctuate now as each national campaign ramps up their advertising programs.