Compliments of ABC News’ Stephen Portnoy and Jake Tapper:
RT @stevenportnoy: HAPPENING NOW: Romney greets WW2 vets returning home to Toledo from an “Honor Flight” to DC twitter.com/stevenportnoy/…
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 27, 2012
More on the “Honor Flight” — trailer from a documentary by the brother of The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes:
For a long time now 2008 “Hope and Change” has morphed into 2012 “Slash and Burn.” The Associated Press published a press release on behalf of the Obama campaign breaking down the Battleground states targeted of the next wave of Obama attack ads. Kudos to the AP for its willingness to uncritically parrot Obama’s “small ball” attempts to drive this campaign into the gutter and keep it there through November:
President Barack Obama’s campaign is launching state-specific efforts to target elements of Paul Ryan’s austere budget proposals, expanding beyond its opposition to the Republican vice presidential candidate’s Medicare overhaul. The Democratic campaign is mobilizing its vast network of staffers and volunteers in key states to highlight Ryan’s proposals to cut funding for veterans care, clean energy and education — and link presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney directly to them. Democrats say those cuts would be just as damaging as Ryan’s proposed overhaul of Medicare, the popular federal health care program that serves tens of millions of seniors.
- Florida, Ohio and Virginia: In states with large military and veteran populations the Obama campaign plans to attack Ryan’s proposed cuts for veterans’ benefits and care, a campaign official said.
- Colorado, Ohio and Iowa: the [Obama] campaign sees opportunities to capitalize on Ryan’s proposed cuts to clean energy industries that are taking hold in those states. The Obama team will argue that cutting those investments would essentially cede new energy technologies — and the jobs that could come with them — to countries like China, the official said.
- Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia: the [Obama] campaign plans to push the impact of Ryan’s budget on education, citing estimates that it would cut 200,000 children a year from Head Start, an early education program, and reduce Pell grants for 10 million college students. The campaign launched an ad Tuesday that links Romney directly to the Ryan budget’s impact on college grants.
- The Ryan Budget: Obama’s team may launch other paid advertising on elements of Ryan’s budget soon. But for now, the campaign is focused on getting its message out in local media and directly to voters through its ample grass-roots network, which still trumps Romney’s ground game in some states.
- Medicare (Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Pennsylvania): Obama’s campaign is still eager to link Romney to Ryan’s Medicare proposals, both on the national level and in battleground states with a significant number of voters over the age of 65, including Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Pennsylvania. The president’s pollsters wrote in a campaign memo that Ryan’s Medicare proposals are a “game changer” in Florida, the battleground state with the most electoral votes up for grabs in November.
The AP then writes about a few Romney ads offering both critiques from the “independent” journalist well as reactions from the Obama campaign. No where in the article is a response from the Romney campaign to any of the Obama charges. Nicely played. Audition for press aide in the new Obama White House noted.
Unsurprisingly the Obama-reelection machine in the press goes bonkers because Republicans want voters to show an ID to vote but makes no mention that weeks ago the Obama campaign is filing lawsuits to disenfranchise military voters:
On July 17th, the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in OH to strike down part of that state’s law governing voting by members of the military. Their suit said that part of the law is “arbitrary” with “no discernible rational basis.”
Currently, Ohio allows the public to vote early in-person up until the Friday before the election. Members of the military are given three extra days to do so. While the Democrats may see this as “arbitrary” and having “no discernible rational basis,” I think it is entirely reasonable given the demands on servicemen and women’s time and their obligations to their sworn duty.
A cynic might point out that Obama has a voting deficit of 24 percentage points with this demographic but I’m sure Obama is just attempting to overturn this law out of his personal sense of fairness. The media will get to the bottom of this I’m sure. #notholdingmybreath
Haven’t done one of these in awhile so here goes:
By more than 2:1 voters prefer Romney over Obama on handling the economy
The Jewish vote in Florida is a cause for concern in the Obama camp
The Rob Portman effect in Ohio
Fracking boom in Ohio could boost Obama … that is if Obama weren’t opposed to it
Super interesting financial disclosures in US Senate races — focus on Cash on Hand portion
Romney to VFW: Defense cuts would be devastating
The high risk-high reward of a Paul Ryan Vice Presidency
The Washington Post takes a look at the military vote in this years election (video at the link):
Mitt Romney is making a visit Tuesday to Reno, Nev., where he’s expected to address the annual conference of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. His trip comes one day after President Obama addressed the same summit, and as both White House hopefuls are working to woo the military vote.
In the news write-up, the Post provides an interesting anecdote:
President Obama headed to Nevada on Monday to announce new efforts to help service members transition out of the military, resuming a three-day swing up the West Coast … Obama will also visit San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and Seattle for a mixture of public and private campaign events … In Reno, Obama will address the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a group that his opponent, Republican Mitt Romney, will speak to the following day before heading to Europe and attending the London Olympics. Both candidates are heavily targeting service members, veterans and their families, significant populations in several critical swing states, including Virginia and Colorado.
While fundraising swings through California and New York are common despite the respective states’ lack of competitiveness, I find it curious that Obama is going to Oregon and Washington — two states no one seriously considers competitive but Obama feels the need to swing through to sew up support. Maybe those recent polls showing high single digit leads in Oregon and Washington are telling a far more precarious story than the lack of media coverage would have you believe.
Back in late May, we blogged about the veteran gap for Obama. George W. Bush heavily courted this vote and only achieved an 16-point gap in 2004 against decorated Vietnam veteran John Kerry. National hero and decorated Vietnam POW John McCain achieved only a 10-point gap in 2008 versus Obama. The Gallup survey showed a 24-point gap. Over the weekend, Rasmussen Reports released a survey of veterans mirroring the Gallup results from almost two months ago:
| Veterans For President | Percent |
|---|---|
| Barack Obama | 35 |
| Mitt Romney | 59 |
| Undecided/Other | 7 |
Most military veterans don’t like the job President Obama is doing and prefer Mitt Romney in November’s election. New Rasmussen Reports polling finds that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters who have served in the military favor the Republican challenger, while 35% support the president. Five percent (5%) of these voters like some other candidate in the race, but only two percent (2%) are undecided. The national telephone survey of 574 Voters who have served in the military was conducted by Rasmussen Reports from July 9-15, 2012. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4 percentage points.
In a Gallup poll showing the Presidential Race a dead heat (46-46 with a margin of error +/- 1%), The Hill reports on Mitt Romney meaningfully outpacing Barack Obama 58 – 34 among veterans — a whopping 24 point advantage.
The presumptive GOP nominee receives support from 58 percent of all veteran registered voters surveyed to Obama’s 34 percent. Among non-veterans though, Obama holds a four point edge, with 48 percent to Romney’s 44.
The breakdown of the veteran vote also mirrors the gender gap seen among all voters and male voters are seen giving Romney a solid block of support. Romney has the backing of 60 percent of male veterans to Obama’s 32. Among female veterans Obama holds a five-point edge, with 47 percent to 42. [Note: Men make up 89% of veterans]
The important takeaway is the shift in sentiment within the demographic group (veterans) from the 2008 results. Despite Obama campaign rhetoric to the contrary, where the President really won the 2008 contest was in his ability to co-opt groups of malleable 2004 GOP voters — typically the white middle class. Claims of expanding the democratic base through voter registration of Hispanics (or similar) is routinely debunked but that does not stop them from peddling such nonsense.
What we see in this poll is a reversion of Veterans voting preference away from Obama and back to the GOP. In 2004 George Bush carried the veteran vote by 16 points while in 2008 Obama was able to shrink that deficit to 10 points. Today’s 24 point advantage speaks volumes to the disaffected former Obama supporter “coming home” to the GOP. Although the poll expresses an inability to fully explain the stark split between veteran and non-veteran support for Romney, a nugget at the bottom of ABC 2008 recap provides the likely reason:
-A last nugget: Veteran voters were 20 points more apt than non-vets to be gun owners.
