More and more ground troops are flowing into Pennsylvania and outside groups are pitching in to flip the state red. Regular readers of this blog know I don’t delve into the social side of politics much, if ever, but Obama’s HHS mandate infringing on religious liberty was a fairly offensive act. Quite honestly I didn’t believe the critics when I first heard what they claimed Obama was doing. The tactical side of my brain said he can’t be that dumb or arrogant to pick such an outrageous fight with the Catholic Church and other religious institutions. Boy was I wrong. And his culture wars convention and campaign ads have doubled down on his lies of what he is trying to do as well as the complaints of his opposition. His campaign may think they needed to stoke the fires of his base but I sense he will disaffect more fence-sitters than he will inspire on his own side which can be the difference in some tight states.
According to Politico’s Morning score:
Convinced Pennsylvania is winnable for Romney, the conservative Catholic Association is digging into reserve funds and launching an effort to contact 584,000 Catholic voters ID’d in Pennsylvania as undecided or soft Obama/soft Romney. They have phone numbers for all of them and email addresses for about half. They will be phoned four times and emailed at least six times between now and next Tuesday. The theme for all avenues of communication in the Keystone State: ‘Obama has gone too far. Even Mother Teresa’s charity fails his religious test.’ Here’s the postcard that’s going out:
Here is an excerpted version of the back so you can (hopefully) read the text:
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Updated schedule appearances:
Obama
Tue/23rd: Florida, Ohio
Wed/24th: Iowa, Colorado, Nevada
Thur/25th: Florida, Virginia, Ohio
Fri/26th: —
Sat/27th: New Hampshire
Sun/28th: —
Mon/29th: Florida, Ohio
Tue/30th: Wisconsin
Wed/31st:
Thur/1st: Nevada, Colorado, Ohio
Fri/2nd: Ohio, Ohio
Romney
Tue/23rd: Nevada, Colorado
Wed/24th: Nevada, Iowa
Thur/25th: Ohio, Ohio, Ohio
Fri/26th: Iowa, Ohio
Sat/27th: Florida
Sun/28th: Ohio, Ohio, Ohio
Mon/29th: Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin
Tue/30th: Ohio, Ohio, Iowa
Wed/31st: Florida
Thur/1st:
Fri/2nd: Ohio
Sat/3rd: Colorado
Obama still nothing scheduled on Wed. Most likely, he will be heading for a photo op at some disaster. Likely in Pennsylvania. Lets all hope the storm is another nothing but hype. He’s only going to a total of 8 states, which we have known would be the battlegrounds.
Romney canceled his New Hampshire visit. He did, like was thought, schedule Florida on the 31st. Perhaps New Hampshire comes on the 1st? Virginia too. His events were cancelled there so he could go that on the 1st. Ohio events compose over half of Romneys to date since the last debate.
God bless the Catholics.
I believe that someone from the Catholic Association appeared last night on Bill Cunningham’s program (= the successor to Matt Drudge’s radio program). Very good segment. Bill Cunningham is a faithful Catholic and castigated Obama’s policies.
This idea looks like ti could be really effective.
It is hard to imagine that anyone who calls themselves a catholic could vote for Obama.
As we all know, church-goers are more likely to vote Republican. The Catholics who vote for Obama are largely those who seldom or very irregularly attend services.
Ohio President: Romney 50 Obama 48, just released.
This comes from Rasmussen by the way
Firebird,
I just checked Rasmussen’s website and did not see the Ohio poll. Are you a subscriber?
http://www.examiner.com/article/rasmussen-polls-romney-leads-president-obama-50-to-47-percent
Sorry. Please disregard. Picked up wrong story/link.
I’m not seeing the Rasmussen Ohio results either. The linked article is about Romney’s national lead.
About time!I’m glad its Rasussen too, so the Democrats can yell about it, lol.
Excellent. Just the news I wanted to start a new week. Thanks!
I think that it’ll be this week where we see Romney begin to open up in some of the battlegrounds like Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and Iowa.
National and state polls will begin to converge over the course of the week. This idea that you can be at 46% nationally but 50%+ in purple states is ridiculous.
The examiner links to the national poll, not Ohio. What worries me is that Rasmussen has been showing a shrinking lead for Mitt. On Saturday it was 50:46, on Sunday 50:47, and this morning 49:47. Not a good trend. Let’s see what the Gallup says.
I wouldn’t worry about it unless Gallup sees the same thing, and both tighten further over the course of the week. One x factor in all of this is Hurricane Sandy….that’s going to take coverage away from the campaigns, and it’s possible Obama might benefit a little simply by being in charge (however nominal that leadership actually is).
Plus today’s Ras tracking poll would have the three worst days for Republicans (i.e. fri, sat, sun). Let’s see where it is on Wednesday.
Republicans usually go down on weekends because they have more to do than answer polls. I’ve often noticed a downward trend on the weekend tracking, and Rasmussen’s three day rotation will magnify this versus Gallup’s seven day.
That is true. I read somewhere that for whatever reasons self identified or rebublican leaning voters are undersampeld on weekends.
I heard that too even in prior elections but I would assume that Rasmussen is smart enough to account for that. He does weigh by party id.
This excerpt from today’s Rasmussen daily presidential tracking report caught my eye…
“Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters still favor repeal of the president’s health care law. That matches the support for repeal found the week after the law was passed in March 2010. It is truly remarkable how stable public opinion has remained on this issue. Eighty percent (80%) of voters believe repeal of the health care law is likely if Romney is elected and Republicans take control of Congress.”
Could/Should be a significant contributor to RR victory. He has done a better job touting Obamacare repeal recently but should have hit it harder earlier in my humble opinion.
I see the Ohio poll now;
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/ohio/election_2012_ohio_president
I was making calls at a GOPHQ and four of the eight in that little room were Catholic. There were folks from both more “orthodox” and more “liberal” parishes. Fifty percent of that little room and that’s in North Carolina.
WOW! I can’t wait to see how 538 and RCP handle this news. Especially Silver since he’s been exposing himself as a PBO shill lately. Krugman and Matthews will probably go ballistic as well. This is great news!
Lately? Silver could not be more in the tank if we wrote for the NYT. Wait….
Instead of giving it a weight like 1 for a neutral poll, or 1.3 for a Marist or PPP poll, Silver will weight the new Rasmussen Ohio poll at negative eleventy billion; this will allow him to claim Obama’s chances of winning Ohio as going up, not down.
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