“This isn’t the politically correct thing to say, but when we drove the mother out of the home into the workplace and replaced her with the television set, that was not a good thing.”
— Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), quoted by the Washington Post.
Can the Stock Market Predict the Election?
The New York Times ranks the 28 presidential terms since 1900 on the performance of the Dow Jones industrial average — the only major stock index with a history that long — during each presidential term, and on what happened in the election that followed it.
“When the Dow has risen more than 5 percent a year, the incumbent party has retained the White House in 11 elections and lost it in only three elections. When the market fell, or rose at a rate slower than 5 percent, the incumbent party has lost the White House in eight of 13 elections.”
Adelson Has Donated $54 Million This Election Cycle
Sheldon Adelson, “among those whose contributions are disclosed, is far and away the largest donor to independent political efforts in both the 2012 election and in any single election in modern history,” the Huffington Post reports.
“The casino billionaire, along with members of his family, has given $54.44 million to super PACs to help elect a variety of Republican candidates, from Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on down to a House of Representatives race in New Jersey.”
Poll Finds Americans Slightly More Racist
A new AP Poll finds racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since President Obama’s election “as a slight majority of Americans now express prejudice toward blacks whether they recognize those feelings or not.”
“In all, 51 percent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell.”
Andrew Sullivan: “Close to 80 percent of Republican voters expressed ‘explicit racism.’ Maybe that’s why they are comfortable with a candidate from a church whose theology remains based on white supremacy and that barred African-Americans from full membership as recently as 1978.”
Quote of the Day
“They’re the ideas of countries people come here to get away from.”
— Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), characterizing President Obama’s plans for a second term at a rally introducing Mitt Romney.
Three Ways the Election Might Not End
David Frum looks at the possibility of recounts, provisional ballots, and a potential electoral college tie: “Please, God, no.”
Polling Averages Show Obama Near Victory
Greg Sargent runs through the latest polling averages and finds President Obama leading in Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Iowa while Mitt Romney leads in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. The race is essentially tied in Colorado and New Hampshire.
“For the sake of argument, let’s give the tied states to Romney. Here’s the basic state of things: If you give Romney all the states where he is leading or tied in the averages — Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, New Hampshire — he is still short of 270. Meanwhile, if you give Obama just the states where he leads in the averages, he wins reelection.”
The Week looks at whether Romney’s “momentum” is actually an illusion conjured by his campaign.
The Obama Haters Book Club
John Avlon compiles a list of 89 anti-Obama books that make outrageous and false claims about the president.
“We will look back on birtherism and some of the other strange conspiracy theories that have clustered around him as, at the very least, vestigial remnants of racism. The sheer tonnage of hate and lies directed his way in the White House is stunning and it will seem somewhere between stupid, silly, and sad in the future.”
Akin Unveils New Attack Ad
With a new poll showing him just two points behind in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race, Rep. Todd Akin (R) released a blistering new ad accusing Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) of corruption.
Swing State Math Still Tough for Romney
While President Obama’s average lead in Ohio is just 2.3 points, Mitt Romney doesn’t lead in a single poll. In Nevada, Obama’s edge is 2.5 points and Romney has led in just one poll this entire year. In Wisconsin, Romney trails by just 2.3 points but hasn’t led in a single poll since August.
Harry Enten notes that “in only one in 150 of the state contests in the last three presidential elections was there an instance of a candidate winning a state where he didn’t hold the edge in at least a single poll in the closing weeks of the campaign.”
Obama Ad Compares Voting to Sex
Super PAC Stops Support of Walsh
The conservative Super PAC that had already plowed $2 million into Rep. Joe Walsh’s (R-IL) re-election race and had threatened to put in an additional $2.5 million to “bury” Tammy Duckworth (D), is now putting its money elsewhere, the Chicago Sun Times reports.
“The decision comes a week after Walsh, already a flame thrower, made national headlines by declaring that abortion was never necessary to save the life of a mother. In an atypical move, he held a news conference the next day to clarify his remarks.”
A new Chicago Tribune/WGN poll finds Duckworth leading by 10 points, 50% to 40%.
Lies Campaigns Tell Themselves
Walter Shapiro: “The dirty secret of campaign journalism for the next 11 days is that
there is no way for conscientious reporters to give readers what they
crave most of all–advance knowledge of who is going to win the election.
We have reached the point in the campaign when the polls are too close
and the dictates of spin too intense for anyone but a fool (or a TV
pundit) to offer anything more than tentative guesses about who is going
to be inaugurated on January 20.”
“When I was younger–and cockier about divining the future–I was convinced
that if you had the right sources within a campaign, you could figure
out the gist of their internal polling by their off-the-record mood and
body language. So I was privy to the buoyant mood at the upper levels of
the John Kerry campaign during the final heady week of the 2004
campaign. Sometimes in politics, though, the most potent spin comes from
the lies that campaign strategists tell themselves as they interpret
ambiguous information.”
Flashback of the Day
“Yes… I think, at this point, this is breaking down.”
— Barack Obama, in a U.S. Senate debate in 2004, on whether he favored eliminating the electoral college.
Just You
President Obama is out with a new closing ad in several key swing states this morning, including Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia.
The spot asks voters to remember when it’s “just you” in the voting booth what Mitt Romney’s policies will mean.
Akin Narrows Gap with McCaskill
A new Mason-Dixon poll in Missouri finds Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) with a narrow lead over Rep. Todd Akin (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 45% to 43%.
Akin is benefiting from McCaskill’s “seemingly intractable favorability rating, one of the few constants in a race of dizzying changes this year. The poll found that while McCaskill has a much higher favorable rating than Akin does — at 40%, to his 28% — she also has the higher unfavorable rating, at 47% to his 42%.”
Update: McCaskill reponds releasing an internal poll showing her with a huge, 52% to 39% lead. National Journal suggests one reason to believe this poll is that the DSCC is already cutting ad spending in the state.
Polls Suggest Split Between Popular and Electoral Vote
The Washington Post notes most polls at this moment suggest Mitt Romney is in the lead nationally, but surveys in the nine or so swing states are registering a narrow advantage for President Obama.
“So here’s a prospect worth contemplating: What if Romney carries the popular vote, but Obama regains the presidency by winning 270 votes or more in the electoral college?”
“That kind of split decision between the electorate and the electoral college would mark the fifth time in American history — and the second time in a dozen years — that the person who occupies the White House was not the one who got the most votes on Election Day.”
Jason Sattler: Mitt Romney is losing the election that matters.
Man Gets Romney Tatoo on His Face
An Indiana man told ABC News he auctioned off space on the side of his head, where he tattooed Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign “R” logo in a 5-by-2-inch spot for a bid of $15,000.
Said Eric Hartsburg: “I am a registered Republican and a Romney supporter. I didn’t mind getting this tattoo because it is something that I could live with and it’s something that I believe in.”
