The Obama Coalition Collapsing Before Their Eyes - Let's Help It Along!

[Selene]

He is not only leaving Obama, he is leaving the Democratic Party!

Artur Genestre Davis (born October 9, 1967) is a former Democratic Party member of the United States House of Representatives for Alabama's 7th congressional district, serving from 2003 to 2011. Davis was a candidate for Alabama's Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, 2010, but lost the Democratic primary to Ron Sparks. In December 2011, he left the Democratic party to become an independent, and he confirmed in May 2012 that he was considering running for Congress as a Republican^[1]. In 2012 he became a visiting fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Davis

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http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-artur-davis-former-prominent-obama-backer-leaves-democratic-party-20120530,0,269770.story

Davis, who represented Alabama’s seventh congressional district from 2003 to 2011, was notably the first member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse then-Sen. Obama’s 2008 presidential bid. And it was Davis who seconded the official nomination of Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

But “wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities,” he said.

“On the specifics, I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again,” he said. “I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured: frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance of a united country.”

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And there's more...

[Selene]

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Prominent Pennsylvania Democrat Leaves Party Over Same Sex Marriage Endorsement

Some have speculated that Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage might cost him some votes among blue collar Democrats but when that blue collar Democrat is a Democratic state committeewoman, well, it might be more serious than we thought. Jo Ann Nardelli, a Pennsylvania state committeewoman and founding president of the Blair County Federation of Democratic Women, has switched her political affiliation to the GOP citing Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage as the final straw. Worse yet she called a press conference to announce her defection and to denounce her party.

“As the Democratic Party has taken the stand for same-sex marriage, then I must make a stand on my faith that marriage is between a man and a woman. God’s principles for life never change. His guidelines, given in Scripture, produce fruitful lives when you follow them.”

Nardelli's switch was supported by her husband, Mike, who said he, too, has turned in his Democrat registration card. It's probably nothing for team Obama to worry about.

<a href="http://teapartyatperrysburg.blogspot.com/2012/05/prominent-pennsylvania-democrat-leaves.html">http://teapartyatperrysburg.blogspot.com/2012/05/prominent-pennsylvania-democrat-leaves.html

[Selene]

If this poll by Marquette University Law School is reflective of what I believe is a massive shift in the prime voters of the United States, I expect we are approaching a landslide reversal of O'bama in November.

The results in Q5 and Q6 are intriguingly conflicting.

Q8 is troubling at this time and I have no comparison points to judge whether Romney's positives are trending up or down.

Q18 and Q19 are stunning and reflect a final judgment that has been made about public sector unions.

Q21 illustrate how important the prime voter being polled is, in order to accurately predict election day outcomes.

Q23 is important if it is trending away from the President which I firmly believe it is. Remember this is a "blue" state.

Q28 and Q29 is definitive. The prime voter has decided and this is the issue that will determine the election in November.

=========================

Q33 is one of the most bizarre questions I have seen asked in a poll. The result, in this state is promising for the 2nd amendment.

Q41 is solidly 60-38 for Walker with a queasy feeling about how he accomplished the reforming of the system.

Very interesting poll...

https://law.marquette.edu/poll/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MLSP6_Toplines.pdf

[Selene]

There's more...

TX:

The Texas Tribune: Rep. J.M. Lozano Confirms Plans to Switch to GOP:

State House Rep. J.M. Lozano, D-Kingsville, will announce this week that he will join the Republican Party. He said that his decision is based, in part, on the new makeup of his district, whose constituents he said are in line with Republican values.

“It’s been a long weekend,” said Lozano, who was first elected in 2010. “Basically, I was sad to lose the counties I did, but at the same time it was very fortunate to pick up Jim Wells, San Patricio and Bee counties.

“I had a conservative voting record this session, which was pro-life, pro-oil and gas development, and pro-small-business. And I am a small-business owner,” he said. “Those values and these voters are in line with the Republican Party.”

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NC:

Libertarian Republican: North Carolina Mayor switches from Democrat to Republican:

First fall-out from recent NC Democrat Gay Sex Scandal?

From Eric Dondero:

The North Carolina Democrat Party has been in the news the last couple weeks for a growing scandal involving the former Democrat Party Executive Director and the State Chair.

E.D. Jay Palmry was accused of sexual harassment of a junior employee, a male Hispanic communications director. Graphic details were released two days ago, including Palmry simulating oral sex to the employee and grabbing his crotch, while making suggestive remarks. Democrat Governor Bev Purdue has since called for State Chair David Parker to resign, citing the scandal as a great distraction to NC Dem efforts to progress on a variety of issues.

Now, the Mayor of Kings Mountain, NC has announced that he and his wife have switched parties to the GOP. Rick Murphrey told the Shelby Star, that he has been a registered Democrat since his 18th birthday.

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MS:

Clarion Ledger: 7 local elected officials switch to GOP:

A sheriff in central Mississippi said Wednesday he’s switching from Democrat to Republican because of President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage.

***

State Republican Party chairman Joe Nosef announced during the news conference that Waggoner and Newton County Sheriff Jackie Knight are among seven local officials switching to the GOP. The others were a Justice Court judge and a constable from Jones County and the coroner, a supervisor and a Justice Court judge from Leake County.

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AL:

Tuscaloosa News: Ala. Rep. Alan Harper switches to Republican Party

TUSCALOOSA | State Rep. Alan Harper of Aliceville is switching to the Republican Party.

Harper, who was selected Monday night to be Northport’s economic development director, has been a Democrat throughout his time in the Legislature. He was first elected to represent District 61 in the House in 2006 and was re-elected in 2010.

“This is a decision that has taken many months of deliberation and thought,” Harper said. “In the end, I made the decision because it is best for District 61. I was elected to serve my district to the best of my ability and this decision reflects that.”

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Georgia Tipsheet: Three Democratic DA’s file for reelection under GOP banner:

Ballot qualifying has produced at least three party defections for Georgia Democrats.

Democratic District Attorneys Cathy Helms, Bob Lavender and Paul Bowden have all filed for reelection as Republicans, according to

qualifying reports

from the Secretary of State’s office.

UPDATE

: Today’s bloodletting continues for rural Peach State Democrats. A host of local officials have jumped parties in Franklin, Hart and Stephens counties, boosting today’s defection rate to at least 10.

=======================================

At GA Political Review, a pundit asks, Is Georgia’s Democratic Party Dying?

From the election of James M. Smith in 1872 until the failed re-election campaign of Roy Barnes in 2002, Georgia had a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion (three mansions, in fact). Democrats controlled both houses of the General Assembly from 1891 to 2003, and the state swung for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate consistently from 1868 until 1960. During this time, Democratic primaries generally decided who ultimately won elections, as the Democratic nominees rarely if ever faced quality challengers from another party.

Following this long reign, the Democratic Party began slipping – slowly at first, but eventually snowballing. Now it is easy to forget that the Republican stronghold of Georgia was not long ago considered a Democratic base. Despite this, President Barack Obama’s campaign is determined to

make Georgia a battleground state

in hopes of winning Georgia’s first Democratic victory in a presidential election since 1992.

Are the odds stacked against a Democratic resurgence in the state in 2012? Does the Republican Party have as strong a hold on the state of Georgia as the Democrats once had? Most importantly, is the Democratic Party of Georgia dying?

For more on the sad state of affairs for Dems in Georgia, see GaPundit: Georgia Politics, Campaigns, Elections, for May 31, 2012.

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Now there is an example of the reverse trend here in NY City where:

"City Councilman in Queens, NY switching to Democrat, last January:

Peter Koo

, one of only five Republicans on the 51-member City Council, is set to announce early next week that he will switch parties to become a Democrat, according to people briefed on the decision.

It’s not happening on a large scale in the Republican party like it is in the Democrat party.

No doubt the Blue Dogs who are leaving the party feel more like the party left them. In a way, they’re right. The Democrat Party has been morphing into the Democrat Socialists of America for many years, now. Under Obama, the transformation appears to be complete."

=====================================================================================================

As I have pointed out in prior posts, this clear trend is mostly a result of the devastating losses suffered by the Democratic Party in the wave election of 2010 which was primarily instigated by the emergence of the Tea Party.

Despite the fervent wishes and drumbeat of the "State" Main Stream Media that the Tea Party is dead, almost all of the primaries that have been held in 2012 have clearly demonstrated that the Tea Party and it's unique structure is not only not dead, but a rising tidal wave of revulsion with the obscene degeneration of the two major parties corrupt ineptitude and their complete blindness to the Sword of Debt Damocles that is descending on the heads of our generation and our children's generation.

Adam

[Selene]

Well he even lost Maureen Dowd...

June 2, 2012

Dreaming of a Superhero

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

ON Friday night, the nation’s capital was under a tornado watch. And that was the best thing that happened to the White House all week.

As the president was being slapped by Mitt Romney for being too weak on national security, he was being rapped by a Times editorial for being too aggressive on national security.

A Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane revealed that the liberal law professor who campaigned against torture and the Iraq war now personally makes the final decisions on the “kill list,” targets for drone strikes. “A unilateral campaign of death is untenable,” the editorial asserted.

On Thursday, Bill Clinton once more telegraphed that he considers Obama a lightweight who should not have bested his wife. Bluntly contradicting the Obama campaign theme that Romney is a heartless corporate raider, Clinton told CNN that the Republican’s record at Bain was “sterling.”

Covering a humorous W. at the unveiling of his portrait, the White House press actually seemed nostalgic for the president who bollixed up Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina and the economy — a sure sign that the Obama magic is flagging.

On Friday, an ugly job market report led to the stock market’s worst day of the year. As the recovery flat-lined, the president conceded to a crowd at a Honeywell factory in Golden Valley, Minn., that “our economy is still facing some serious headwinds” and getting sucked further into Europe’s sinkhole. In depressing imagery for the start of the summer campaign, cable channels carried the red Dow arrow pointing down while Obama spoke; the Dow wiped out all of its 2012 gains.

The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading “I Meow for Michelle” for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen.

Once glowing, his press is now burning. “To a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear,” John Heilemann wrote in New York magazine, noting that because Obama feels he can’t run on his record, his campaign will resort to nuking Romney.

In his new book, “A Nation of Wusses,” the Democrat Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, wonders how “the best communicator in campaign history” lost his touch.

The legendary speaker who drew campaign crowds in the tens of thousands and inspired a dispirited nation ended up nonchalantly delegating to a pork-happy Congress, disdaining the bully pulpit, neglecting to do any L.B.J.-style grunt work with Congress and the American public, and ceding control of his narrative.

As president, Obama has never felt the need to explain or sell his signature pieces of legislation — the stimulus and health care bills — or stanch the flow of false information from the other side.

“The administration lost the communications war with disastrous consequences that played out on Election Day 2010,” Rendell writes, and Obama never got credit for the two pieces of legislation where he reached for greatness.

The president had lofty dreams of playing the great convener and conciliator. But at a fund-raiser in Minneapolis, he admitted he’s just another combatant in a capital full of Hatfields and McCoys. No compromises, just nihilism.

If he wins the election, “the fever may break,” he said. “My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn’t make much sense because I’m not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again.”

In his new biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” David Maraniss writes that a roommate of the young Obama compared him to Walker Percy’s protagonist in “The Moviegoer”: an observer of his life, one step removed.

Obama’s boss at his community organizing job in Chicago, Jerry Kellman, observed: “He was not unwilling to take risks, but was just this strange combination of someone who would have to weigh everything to death, and then take a dramatic risk at the end. He was reluctant to do confrontation, to push the other side because it might blow up — and it might. But one thing Alinsky did understand was that within reason, once something blows up, to a certain degree it doesn’t hurt, it helps.”

Maraniss’s book depicts Obama on an intense odyssey of self-discovery, moving toward defining himself less as a half-white man with white girlfriends than as a black man who wanted to be part of a black community.

His New York girlfriend, Genevieve Cook, told Maraniss that Obama confessed to her that “he felt like an impostor. Because he was so white. There was hardly a black bone in his body.” When she predicted that his future might be with a black woman — “That lithe, bubbly, strong black lady is waiting somewhere!” she wrote in her journal — he told her “he doubted there were any black women he would feel truly comfortable with. I would tell him, ‘No, she is out there.’ ”

He wanted to get out of the corporate world he found so distasteful — he described himself as “a spy behind enemy lines” — and reimagine himself as a politician.

On CNBC on Friday, Romney complained that Obama has “been more focused on his perspective of his historic legislative achievements than he has been focused on getting people back to work.”

A president focused on historic achievements? Imagine that. But in his lame way, Romney got at Obama’s problem: The Moviegoer prefers to float above, at a reserve, in grandiose mists.

As Maraniss recounts, Obama said he liked reading Hemingway because of Papa’s “integrity of grasping for those times, those visions, that are ones of true magnificence and profundity.”

Cook told Maraniss that she thought Obama’s desire to “play out a superhero life” was “a very strong archetype in his personality.”

But superheroes and mythic figures must boldly lead. Obama’s caution — ingrained from a life of being deserted by his father and sometimes his mother, and of being, as he wrote to another girlfriend, “caught without a class, a structure, or tradition to support me” — has restrained him at times.

In some ways, he’s still finding himself, too absorbed to see what’s not working. But the White House is a very hard place to go on a vision quest, especially with a storm brewing.

[Selene]

And even the far left has flipped...

"If being a ‘pragmatist’ or a ‘realist’ means choosing only amongst evils, count us OUT. Obama betrayed the American voters who expected he would not gut the US Constitution. Both parties are the same. And, in a world of infinite possibilities we choose not between the lesser of two evils. In fact, those of us who are not into denial and work at the human rights front lines prefer to face the Republican snake head-on then the confused and gutless Democrat chameleon whining about being a progressive when they are NOT.” — Ezili Danto, human rights lawyer at the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network

"There’s a cancer in the presidency called Barack Obama. We have a psychopathic megalomaniac occupying the White house who could be compared to Nero, Caligula, Stalin, or Pol Pot in his disdain for human life. He and his coven of other like minded DC psychopaths and sociopaths are on a murdering spree and like a third world dictator Obama can have someone and their family (including you) executed or blasted to smithereens with a thumbs up or down.

This is sickening to me. They are so blase about murdering that they refer to the hit list photos as “baseball cards”. Killing is a game or a sport to them. There is a “cancer on the Presidency” and that cancer has metastasized throughout Washington DC. It was there before Obama arrived but he brought a whole new and virulent strain with him. Every time there is a shameful incident or embarrassing event perpetrated by “a few bad apples” we hear from the DC psychopaths that “That is not who we are”. They are incorrect. It is who they are in DC.

It is not who we the real everyday thinking feeling Americans are. I certainly am not one of the people to be included in their cumulative we.” — Alexander Cockburn, writing for his on line publication Counterpunch. Alexander is also a columnist at The Nation, though I have a hard time believing this missive will make it passed Katrina Vanden Heuvel. Alex is a firebrand. I’ve written for him once or twice, and he was kind enough to comment on my reporting about the Iraq War for The Boston Globe in 2003 in his Beat the Devil column. This sounds like Alex being Alex, alright. Gotta love his fire."

A Code Pinker commented in an e-mail that:

"Why should the public believe what the Obama administration says about the people being assassinated by drones? Especially since, as we learn in the New York Times, the administration came up with a semantic solution to keep the civilian death toll to a minimum: simply count all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants. The rationale, reminiscent of George Zimmerman’s justification for shooting Trayvon Martin, is that “people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.” Talk about profiling! At least when George Bush threw suspected militants into Guantanamo their lives were spared.” — Medea Benjamin, CodePINK

"I’m not a blue dog democrat. I’m a hard hat Democrat from Massachusetts; like the guys who climb telephone poles after hurricanes that vote for Kennedy. That’s where I cast my lot.

I voted for Obama through the U.S. Consulate in São Paulo. Obama was different. He was inspiring. I watched the votes unfold on two laptops — one on CNN, one on MSNBC with emails from my American friends flooding in every minute. My Blackberry was on my lap, blowing up with texts – can you believe North Carolina? It never happens!

Obama’s winning was like a moon landing. You noticed it more when you’re overseas. America did it again, Brazilians told me. The world can elect women presidents. It’s happened before. But what advanced economy has ever elected a black man? None. Not Europe. Not Latin America. Not Australia. Not even close. They’re not even on the ballot. Only in America. What a country."

[Selene]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Just one week old, June already is proving a cruel month for President Barack Obama and the Democrats - and it could get a lot worse.

The political blows from Tuesday's bitter loss in Wisconsin's gubernatorial recall and from last week's abysmal unemployment numbers, bad as they were, could multiply before the month is out.

The Supreme Court will pass judgment shortly on the president's signature legislative achievement - the 2010 law overhauling the nation's health care system - and also will decide on his administration's challenge to Arizona's tough immigration law. If Chief Justice John Roberts and the court strike down all or part of the health care law, it could demoralize Democrats who invested more than a year - and quite a few political careers - to secure the bill's passage.

And in Arizona, aside from the big immigration case, the Democrats are fighting to hold onto the House seat of Gabrielle Giffords, who resigned in January to focus on recovering from her gunshot wound. In next Tuesday's special election, former Giffords aide Ron Barber is locked in a close race with Republican Jesse Kelly, who lost to her in 2010 by just 4,156 votes.

Facing an election-year summer fraught with political peril, the Democrats are struggling to revive supporters' spirits and counteract developments that could energize Republicans and solidify public opinion that the country is on the wrong track and in need of new leadership.

In a video pep talk to supporters this week, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina acknowledged the challenge. "We need to stay focused, work hard and ignore the ups and downs," he said.

Even before the votes were counted in Republican Gov. Scott Walker's win over Democrat Tom Barrett Tuesday night, there was hand-wringing and second-guessing among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

- The jobs numbers have them worried that they'll be running on a weak economy, with the White House - and them - getting the blame.

- Wisconsin's implications for the general election and for organized labor in general have some asking why Obama didn't get more involved than an 11th-hour tweet.

- The looming Supreme Court decision on the health care law has some Democrats insisting the White House and the party did a terrible job selling the overhaul to the American people.

In Wisconsin, millions of dollars spent on Walker's behalf trumped labor's get-out-the-vote effort in a swing state that suddenly moves up on the battleground list in the presidential race. Republicans also have set their sights on the seat of retiring Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl in a race that probably will pit Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin against the winner of the Aug. 14 GOP primary. Tommy Thompson, a former governor who was secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush, faces former Rep. Mark Neumann, state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald and millionaire hedge fund manager Eric Hovde.

Eager to see a broad upside for the recall result, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said voters in Wisconsin "recognize we just can't keep going down the same path that we're on. It ends up in calamity. ... I'm convinced that the American people recognize, or they will by the time the election comes, that we've got a very stark choice, two very different paths."

There's no shortage of Democratic advice on how Obama should frame the message for voters in the next five months.

Hours before Walker's win, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., said Obama should have gone to Wisconsin to help Barrett.

"I don't understand what he stood to lose in Wisconsin. I can't make that make sense," Hastings said in an interview. He wondered if Obama had been overly worried about alienating the "3 or 4 percent Republicans that may have voted for him the last time," and added, "Nobody, nobody knows what so-called independents are going to do." In 2008, Obama won the state, 56-42 percent.

Labor is a core Democratic constituency, and Hastings fears that Walker's win will provide cover for efforts to undermine collective bargaining rights for unions.

On Wednesday, House Republicans emerging from their weekly closed-door meeting said the mood was clearly upbeat after the Wisconsin win and the task ahead will be keeping high political expectations in check.

Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, cast the message in economic terms and oft-repeated GOP arguments.

"The American people have had it with big government, high taxes and a regulatory system that knows no bounds, and they want elected officials to take control of the situation so the American job creators can go back to doing what they do best, creating jobs," Boehner told reporters.

The economy trumps all issues, and the worse-than-expected 69,000 jobs created in May and an uptick in the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent worry Democrats.

"That's a bad number so there's concern," said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. "We can defend the Obama record. We've created jobs. The legacy of the Bush collapse is real. But what affects the mood, traditionally it's been the economy as perceived by voters about six months out. .... All of us are obviously hoping for better job numbers."

Welch said if the public perception is of an economy getting better, as it was until May, "then it's much more favorable to the election being a choice between Obama and Romney. My view, Obama wins that easily. If it becomes just a referendum on Obama, i.e., the economy, then we're playing more defense than we want to."

The next batch of jobs numbers comes out July 6.

The upcoming Supreme Court decision on health care is a painful reminder to Democrats that Americans favor some elements of the massive law aimed at extending medical insurance to more than 30 million Americans but the far-reaching overhaul has never gained broad approval.

"I'm amazed at the high negatives," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. "Republicans have done a good job demonizing the bill, and evidently we haven't done a good enough job explaining it or people haven't paid enough attention because it's a complicated piece of legislation."

Democrats point to the more popular provisions - the law's banning denial of coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26 and reducing Americans' Medicare prescription drug costs by closing the "donut hole."

The main issue for the court is the constitutionality of the individual insurance requirement. Opponents argue that Congress lacked the authority under the Constitution to force Americans to buy insurance.

If the court strikes down the law, many of the more popular elements are gone, said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. Asked if Americans are aware of that, he said, "Probably not, but they will be."

Former Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., said the administration and the party's congressional leaders should have focused on a pared-back but bipartisan health care bill with the more popular elements.

"That would have been a game-changer," said Taylor, who lost in the Republican wave in 2010. "Just leave it simple like that, something you could explain to the public. But they missed that opportunity."

Obama's ambitious approach on health care turned the summer of 2009 into a cacophony of angry town hall meetings in which voters confronted lawmakers. In the summer of 2010, Obama struggled with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Last summer, the president was mired in negotiations with Congress over increasing the nation's borrowing authority that pushed the country to the brink of default and provided fodder to critics who argued that Obama was weak.

Former Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, said Obama and Democrats need to put the economic outlook in context - gone are the recession days of losing 700,000 jobs per month and a nation on the verge of a second Great Depression. The country is moving forward, he said.

He was reminded of something former President Bill Clinton once said: "Sometimes the problem with Democrats is that we don't know the difference between an issue and a message." Edwards said Democrats can't just debate the issue, they need to debate the broad message.

[Selene]

Today's E-mail from the O'bama campaign...

==============================================================

For the first time in this campaign, we got beat in fundraising.

The Romney campaign and the Republican Party raised more than $76 million last month, compared to our $60 million.

We knew this moment would come when Romney secured the nomination.

What happens next is up to you.

Help close the gap right now -- make a donation of $3 or more.

I want to be clear: We'll always have more people pitching in.

We know that only 15 percent of Romney's May totals came from people giving less than $250, compared to 98 percent in that category for us.

We don't have the special-interest and high-dollar donor advantage that Romney has. Barack Obama has you, and we are bound and determined to fight back on behalf of a country where everyone gets a fair shot and a fair shake.

From the beginning we've built this campaign together, from the bottom up. More people giving a little bit is the only way to compete with a few people giving a lot.

So let's fight like hell and win this thing:

https://donate.barackobama.com/May-Numbers

More coming soon,

Messina

Jim Messina

Campaign Manager

Obama for America

P.S. -- Together, our team raised more than $60 million in May -- even more impressive when you hear that the average donation was about $55.

[Selene]

WOW!!!! I am shocked...he really was and is a Socialist...

Here is the scrubbed page from the New Party’s website.

See the paragraph Illinois: Line 3

[Selene]

The poll, released this morning to the Free Press and four TV stations, shows Romney leading Obama 46%-45%, a reversal from the last EPIC poll in April which showed Obama ahead 47%-43%.

http://www.freep.com...opularity-slips

[Brant Gaede]

Are there any ten states Obama could carry that'd give him the election?

--Brant

[Selene]

Are there any ten states Obama could carry that'd give him the election?

--Brant

What a great question.

The answer is no.

Arizona 11

California 55

Florida 29

Illinois 20

Massachusetts 11

Michigan 16

New Jersey 14

New York 29

North Carolina 15

Ohio 18

Pennsylvania 20

Texas 38

Virginia 13

Washington 12

These Fourteen would give him 301. Take the top ten numerically would give him 252.

[Selene]

If the election were held today, which it is not, I have President Incompetino taking nineteen [19] states for a total electoral vote of 227 and Romney at 311.

[Selene]

Slip sliding away...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (CBSDC/AP) — They are trying to be hopeful, but the Democratic Party’s most passionate voters are struggling to hide their frustration with President Barack Obama.

Republicans attack the president as a big-government liberal. Many liberals meeting Thursday at Netroots Nation — it describes the annual convention as “a giant family reunion for the left” — argue instead that Obama hasn’t fought hard enough for progressive priorities on taxes, health care and the economy.

Even more problematic for the president: With the election just five months away, some are threatening not to donate money or time or even vote in November for the man who overwhelmingly ignited their passions and captured their imaginations four years ago.

“I want to be happy with him,” said Democrat Kristine Vaughan, a 45-year-old school psychologist from Canton, Ohio. “But I am finding that he has succumbed to the corporate influence as much as everyone else. I think he has so much potential to break out of that, but overall he has been a disappointment.”

RELATED: DC GOV. DOGGED BY CORRUPTION SCANDAL

Vaughan isn’t sure whether she’ll vote for Obama a second time and probably won’t donate money as she did during his first campaign. She refuses to support Republican challenger Mitt Romney, but is considering writing in another candidate in protest.

The sentiment is not unique among the 2,700 people gathered on the first day of this three-day convention. More than a dozen liberals interviewed here indicated some level of frustration with the president, despite widespread praise for his recent decision to support gay marriage and ongoing push to scale back military action in the Middle East.

Most plan on voting for Obama and their gripes are not unlike what the White House has heard for much of the president’s term. But these left-leaning backers’ varying levels of enthusiasm could spell trouble for a president whose 2008 victory was fueled by a massive network of grass-roots volunteers and small-dollar donors. Polls show the president locked in a tight race that’s likely to be decided in several swing states where he scored narrow victories four years ago. Places like Ohio, Florida and Virginia are expected to be especially competitive, and Obama will need liberal supporters to both work on his behalf and turn out in droves on Election Day.

“He’s done a good job, but he could have done a lot better,” said Ed Tracey, 55, of Lebanon, N.H., who heads his local chapter of the group, Drinking Liberally.

Tracey was one of Obama’s many small-dollar donors four years ago, but his dissatisfaction has affected his generosity: “I decided that unless I thought he really needed it, I wouldn’t contribute,” he said.

The President recently said he planned to “fight like hell” to raise more money than Romney.

Despite the criticism, polling suggests Republicans may face a larger enthusiasm gap than Democrats.

In late May, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 93 percent of Obama voters said they are enthusiastic about voting for him, including 51 percent who were very enthusiastic. For Romney supporters, 75 percent were enthusiastic, and just 26 percent were very enthusiastic.

Still, a closer look at the Democratic base shows an evolution of enthusiasm — or lack thereof — over the past four years.

The widespread belief in Obama’s message of hope and change turned to frustration as the president yielded to Republican pressure by devoting a significant portion of the 2009 stimulus package to tax cuts. Liberals were further irked when he abandoned the so-called “public option” in his health care overhaul, didn’t go after big banks more aggressively in his financial overhaul bill and supported the extension of Bush-era tax cuts.

Now, many say Obama is not fighting hard enough for tax increases on the wealthy to help close the federal deficit.

“I look forward to him fighting much harder,” said Shad Hasan, executive director of Democracy for America, a group founded by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

But, like many liberals here, Hasan offered a mixed review of the president. He said Obama’s decision to support gay marriage was “a huge accomplishment for progressives.” He also was hopeful that Obama might shift further to the left should he win a second term.

“There’s also a strain of thought among progressives that he’s waiting until after the election to come out and be more boldly progressive,” Hasan said. “I don’t know which way that’s going to go, but I know that either way, we get a much better deal than if Mitt Romney is elected.”

Indeed, instead of hope and change, Democrats are trying to rally around their dislike for Romney, a man whom many are still getting to know.

Massachusetts-based liberal radio host Jeff Santos held the first stop of “the Real Romney tour” at the conference. The event was designed to highlight perceived weaknesses in the former Massachusetts governor’s job-creation record and private-sector experience at Bain Capital, the Boston-based private equity firm he co-founded.

“He has no soul,” Santos said of Romney.

Romney’s association with reality television host Donald Trump drew some of the most heated criticism, especially given Romney’s unwillingness to condemn Trump’s repeated questioning of Obama’s birthplace.

“If Mitt Romney can’t stand up to a birther who’s putting out racist conspiracy theories, how can he lead on other issues?” asked Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, a liberal group that promotes African-American political influence.

Robinson said some blacks now have less enthusiasm for Obama.

“President Obama hasn’t done everything we wanted. But we know what Romney would do,” he said. “Mitt Romney has said things like he doesn’t really care about the very poor. And for a community that is facing unemployment levels the black community is facing, we may not be going to the polls with hope, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be turning out.”

[Selene]

First President Incompetano lost the smart slut, Maureen Dowd and now he even lost the dumb slut ...O'bama girl...Amber Lee Ettinger!!!!

"... widely known as “Obama Girl” during the 2008 presidential campaign, told The Daily Caller she is “not as excited as I was the last time, that’s for sure.”

The model-actress became a nationally known celebrity after starring in the viral YouTube video “Crush on Obama.”

“Barack Obama was definitely the first ‘Internet President,’” she said, describing her experiences during the last cycle as “quite a roller coaster ride.”

This time, however, Ettinger won’t say if she still supports Obama.

“At this point I’m keeping that to myself,” she told TheDC. “If I’m not making videos, I’m not sure it’s anyone’s business who I’m voting for this time around.”

“I think in the next few months it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens,” Ettinger said. ”I’d like to get out there and see what the young voters think about both candidates… I might need to break out my flip cam and take a road trip.”

Outside of the realm of politics, the one-time “Obama girl” is ”going back to school full time, acting and developing [her] jewelry line.”

Combating rumors that she didn’t vote in the 2008 election, Ettinger told TheDC that she did indeed vote, in Pennsylvania.

[Brant Gaede]

Are there any ten states Obama could carry that'd give him the election?

--Brant

What a great question.

The answer is no.

Arizona 11

California 55

Florida 29

Illinois 20

Massachusetts 11

Michigan 16

New Jersey 14

New York 29

North Carolina 15

Ohio 18

Pennsylvania 20

Texas 38

Virginia 13

Washington 12

These Fourteen would give him 301. Take the top ten numerically would give him 252.

If Kelly beats Barber in the soon-election to fill Gifford's vacated seat Obama will not carry Arizona. There is maybe only one more liberal Congressional seat in Arizona than this plus carry over Gifford's sympathy for Barber. Tucson has always been Democratic territory with such as the Udalls, Stewart and Morris, using the area as their political base, while Goldwater was centered in the more populous Phoenix. (Stewart wrote the Intro for my grandfather's last book, Adventures In Conservation, with Franklin D. Roosevelt.)

--Brant

[Selene]

Tuesday, Jun 12, 2012 07:29 AM EDT

Gabby’s seat up for grabs

Arizona votes today to fill Gabrielle Gifford's seat in the House. Is the race as important as pundits claim?

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Ron Barber and Gabrielle Giffords (Credit: AP/Matt York)

Another week, another special election imbued with tremendous national importance. This one in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, where Democrats are hoping to salve the wound of their bitter loss in Wisconsin’s recall election with a win, and Republicans are looking for a one-two punch to claim momentum heading into November.

But in some ways, it’s history repeating itself. The special, triggered when former Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords resigned her seat in January to focus on her recovery from her 2011 shooting, pits her former close aide, Ron Barber, against her 2010 opponent, Jesse Kelly.

That earlier race was decided by just 3,500 votes out of more than 273,000 cast, and today’s race is expected to be close as well.

There’s been little reliable polling in the district for most of the race, though a PPP out yesterday no doubt caused some Democrats to swoon in the desert heat when it showed Barber up 12 points over Kelly. Even better, it showed that 57 percent of voters said they’ve already cast ballots (Arizona has generous absentee voting rules) and of those voters, Barber enjoys a 21 point advantage. Voters planning to vote today are evenly split at 46 to 45. However, the PPP appears to have over-sampled Democrats. The survey had 6 percent more Democrats than Republicans in a district where the GOP has a big voter registration advantage and the district leans red.

While not quite as hyped as last week’s contest, cable news will almost certainly be dominated today by speculation about what today’s tea leaves mean for President Obama and Mitt Romney in the fall. But how much does this contest really tell us about the presidential race, or even other House and Senate races?

“Not much,” cautions Barbara Norrander of the University of Arizona’s School of Government & Public Policy. “It’s one out of 435 congressional districts,” she noted dryly to Salon, sounding a bit exasperated after fielding numerous calls from reporters all day.

Who remembers Democrat Kathy Hochul’s May 2011[I do!] special victory in upstate New York, which was billed as a national harbinger? Both parties rushed to the nationalize that race, dumping $6 million in it, but no one today seems to think that Obama is well on his way to victory in November thanks to Hochul’s win.

Today’s race has also been nationalized, with at least $3 million spent. “It seems like we’ve been inundated,” Norrander said.

Granted, it’s a swing-district and a key pick-up opportunity for Democrats, who need 25 seats to take back the house Majority. But no matter who wins today, they’ll have to do it all over again in a few months. The winner will merely serve out Giffords’ term, but then have to run again in November, when redistricting will kick in and make the district more Democratic. Barber, who was also injured in the shooting, but stepped up to fill his former boss’ seat, is following a long line of staffers who have done the same, such as Paul Kirk, who temporarily filled the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat and Ted Kaufman, who took Joe Biden’s Delaware seat. But unlike those two, Barber has said he will run again in November, reportedly under intense pressure from the national party.

[Makes it seem quite Monarchical in succession does it not?] <<<My comment not in the article.

As with Wisconsin, the race will likely be decided by local factors, despite the GOP’s attempt to make it a referendum on Obama. The biggest force in the district is still Giffords, who remains hugely popular. She’s kept her profile low since the shooting, but is campaigning for Barber. And his connection to her, more than anything else, may give him the win. But whether that success can repeat itself in November, or in any other House race, Senate race, or presidential race, remains to be seen.

========================

Very interesting...

[Selene]

The charts are in the link at the bottom...

June 12, 2012

Obama's White Base Shows Cracks Compared With 2008 Support down five points since 2008 among all voters, but more among key 2008 white supporters by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup Daily tracking indicates Barack Obama is receiving less support in the 2012 presidential election from some of the white subgroups that gave him the strongest support in 2008. These include non-Hispanic white registered voters who are 18 to 29 years old, female post grads, and the nonreligious, among others.

Obama won the 2008 election comfortably over John McCain, but the 2012 election contest with Mitt Romney is shaping up to be more competitive, with the two statistically tied since Gallup started Daily tracking on the race in April. These findings partly explain why.

For this analysis, Gallup has compared Obama's current support among registered voters, based on Gallup Daily tracking from May 21-June 10 with 7,343 registered voters, to his support among registered voters in Gallup's last month of interviewing in the 2008 pre-election poll, from Oct. 1-Nov. 2, comprising 30,623 registered voters.

Obama Down Five Percentage Points Among All Voters

The 46% of registered voters supporting Obama today is five percentage points below the 51% supporting him in final weeks of the 2008 election campaign. Similarly, whites' support for Obama is six points lower than it was in October/November 2008 (38% vs. 44%), and blacks' is down four points (87% vs. 91%). At the same time, Hispanics' support, at 67%, is essentially unchanged.

Whites make up about three-quarters of all U.S. registered voters, and are therefore the most important racial or ethnic group in any election, at least mathematically. Even if Obama were to regain his 2008 level of support among blacks and improve his support somewhat among Hispanics, he could still lose if his support among whites slips any further. By the same token, even a slight increase in whites' support could secure his re-election.

Vote for Barack Obama in Presidential Trial Heats, 2008 vs. 2012, Registered Voters

The following sections look at key U.S. registered voter groups: age, gender/educational status, gender/marital status, and religiosity. Because the political views of U.S. blacks, Hispanics, and other racial or ethnic minorities are largely monolithic, the analysis of these demographic trends is based solely on non-Hispanic whites.

Young Voters Remain Most Supportive, but to a Lesser Degree

Whites' support for Obama in 2008 differed significantly by age, with young voters the most supportive and seniors the least supportive. That basic pattern continues today, although Obama's support has dropped more among young voters than among seniors, thus narrowing the overall generation gap.

Currently, 43% of white 18- to 29-year-olds say they plan to vote for Obama in the election, down nine points from the 52% backing him in 2008. By contrast, Obama has lost five points among whites aged 30 to 49 and six points each among the two older age groups.

Vote for Barack Obama in Presidential Trial Heats -- by Age Among Non-Hispanic Whites, 2008 vs. 2012

Obama Support Slips Among White Post-grads of Both Genders

Obama still enjoys higher support from white women than white men, as he did in 2008; however, his support from both groups has declined. Now, 34% of white men and 41% of white women support him, while the plurality or majority of both groups support Romney.

Beyond the overall gender breaks, support for Obama was particularly high among white men and women with postgraduate levels of education in 2008, and remains so today. But support for Obama in 2012 is down among all four gender/education groups, and is down the most -- by nine points -- among postgraduate women, followed by non-postgraduate men (eight points).

Vote for Barack Obama in Presidential Trial Heats -- by Gender and Gender/Education Among Non-Hispanic Whites, 2008 vs. 2012

Non-married white men and women were more supportive of Obama in the 2008 election than their married counterparts, and that also holds today. However, support for Obama among the non-married has declined more sharply than that of white married voters, with the decline particularly sharp among non-married men.

Vote for Barack Obama in Presidential Trial Heats -- by Gender/Marital Status Among Non-Hispanic Whites, 2008 vs. 2012

Obama Loses Support Among Low-Income Whites

There was a modest income skew in Obama's support among whites in 2008, but that has largely disappeared in the recent 2012 data, given the larger-than-average declines in support seen for him among low-income whites.

Obama's support is down nine points among those earning less than $24,000 as well as among those earning $24,000 to $59,999 per year. At the same time, his support among higher-income Americans is down only three points.

Vote for Barack Obama in Presidential Trial Heats -- by Household Income Among Non-Hispanic Whites, 2008 vs. 2012

Nonreligious and Non-Christian Support for Obama Down

Religious identity and religiosity continue to be significant predictors of support for Obama, with nonreligious Americans (61%) and adherents of non-Christian faiths (60%) being the most supportive. These are followed by non-active Catholics (that is, those who seldom or never attend church), then non-active Protestants, and then active/churchgoing Catholics. Active/churchgoing Protestants (24%) are by far the least supportive of Obama.

Although support for Obama is down at least slightly among all major religious groupings since 2008, the greatest declines are seen among the two strongest groups of Obama supporters -- the nonreligious and those identifying with a non-Christian religion. The latter finding is consistent with a Gallup report published last week showing Obama's electoral support among Jewish voters down by 10 points over the same period.

Vote for Barack Obama in Presidential Trial Heats -- by Religious Preference/Attendance Among Non-Hispanic Whites, 2008 vs. 2012

Bottom Line

U.S. voters are roughly tied in their preferences for Obama vs. Romney for president, in contrast to Obama's nine-point lead over McCain among registered voters in October/November 2008. This is reflected in declines in support for Obama among most voter subgroups, and particularly among white subgroups. Although these declines are generally not dramatic, they are enough to make the 2012 race at this point more competitive than the 2008 election.

Obama's support is down about equally among whites and blacks, while it is unchanged among Hispanics. Additionally, Obama has generally lost more support from the white subgroups that were most supportive of him in 2008 -- young adults, postgraduate women, non-married women, residents of low-income households, non-Christians, and nonreligious adults -- than from the white subgroups that were less supportive. Obama has also lost a greater-than-average amount of support among non-married men and non-postgraduate men.

The declines in support among Obama's core white supporters may be especially troubling for him if his campaign strategy is, as many have speculated, to repeat his strong 2008 performance among women, the working class, and young voters, as well as minorities. On the one hand, these findings suggest his campaign may need to do more to mobilize those voters. On the other hand, the decline among his core 2008 white supporters could make these the easiest groups of voters for him to win back -- something the Democratic Convention this summer and Obama's fall campaigning will no doubt strive to do.

Track every angle of the presidential race on Gallup.com's Election 2012 page.

Sign up to get Election 2012 news stories from Gallup as soon as they are published.

Survey Methods

The 2012 results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking May 21-June 10, 2012, with a random sample of 7,343 registered voters, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of registered voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage points.

The 2012 results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking Oct. 1-Nov. 2, 2008, with a random sample of 30,623 registered voters, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of registered voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 land-line respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Land-line telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Land-line respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/land-line only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted land-line number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

The 2012 questions reported here were asked of a random half-sample of respondents for 21 nights on the Gallup Daily tracking survey.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155156/Obama-White-Base-Shows-Cracks-Compared-2008.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email& utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics%20-%20USA

[Selene]

OH NO! Even racist Spike Lee is worried...

The filmmaker wants to 'rekindle the enthusiasm' for Obama | AP

Spike Lee is predicting a tough road to reelection for President Obama.

“This thing is not a lock,” the filmmaker told GQ in a recent interview. “It is not a lock that President Obama is getting a second term and people have to really rekindle the enthusiasm that we had the first time.”

Lee, who hosted a fundraiser for the president in January, said that he “just had a meeting with somebody high up in the Obama campaign” to discuss the race.

“I can't say to all the people that are unhappy with him that they're racist people,” Lee said of Obama’s critics. “People ain't got jobs, people are hurting.

So I don't care what color you are, if people are out of work, it's tough. And then when you're the first African American president, that's not helping either.”

Still, Lee doesn’t sound too worried about Obama’s Republican rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“Once we get to the debates my man is going to tear him up!” he said. “It's going to be obvious who should lead this country for the next four years once they go head to head, toe to toe, elbow to elbow, butt to butt. And I don't think Mr. Romney can hang with him.”

[Selene]

Drip Drip Drip ----hemorrhaging in North Carolina...

President Barack Obama is rapidly losing support among African-American voters in North Carolina, a new poll out today from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows.

The poll finds that Mitt Romney would get 20 percent of the African-American vote if the election were held today, compared with 76 percent for Obama. Overall, Romney has a 48 percent to 46 percent lead on Obama in the crucial swing state.

Obama received 95 percent of the support from African-Americans in North Carolina in the 2008 election, compared with just 5 percent for Republican nominee John McCain.

Public Policy Polling

In PPP's May poll, Obama received 87 percent of the African-American vote to Romney's 11 percent.

All of Obama's numbers with African-Americans are sliding. His approval rating is down from 86 percent to 77 percent. Romney's favorability, meanwhile, has doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent.

Jim Williams, a polling analyst at PPP, said it could be "statistical noise" that comes with a small sample (only about 200 African-Americans were surveyed). But he said it was not something the agency has "ever seen before."

"Seventy-something percent is obviously low," Williams told Business Insider. "It's not something we've ever seen before. It's definitely something we're going to monitor."

Williams added the obvious: If the results keep turning up like this, it would be "very bad news for him."

The decline in African-American support for Obama follows the general trend of voters in North Carolina. A month ago, Obama led Romney by a point. Two months ago, Obama led by 5 points. Romney has also swung the important Independent vote to his side — turning a 13-point deficit in April into a one-point lead in June.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-african-american-vote-black-north-carolina-2012-6#ixzz1xcWROTEc

[Selene]

Two new and disturbing polls[disturbing to who? It is left as a mystery to the pro-O'bama press!] just out suggest that the road to reelection is getting tougher for President Obama.

In the most significant, Gallup found that union member support for the president is weaker than it was on Election Day. While Obama took 67 of the union vote, according to 2008 election night polling by Peter Hart for the AFL-CIO, Gallup discovered that just 58 percent of union members back the president now. Some 35 percent support Mitt Romney, 5 percent more than Sen. John McCain won in 2008.

Gallup said the union vote is a significant block for Obama, though, “their impact on the presidential race will be limited by their size -- just about 12% of employed voters are union members.”

Rasmussen Reports, found that a majority of likely American voters -- 60 percent -- believe that it is at least somewhat likely that the next president will be a Republican, including 34% who see this scenario as very likely. Among Democrats, 35 percent of likely voters also said Obama would be followed by a Republican.

Rasmussen said that when Obama first took office, just 44 percent thought a Republican would replace him.

[Selene]

If Kelly beats Barber in the soon-election to fill Gifford's vacated seat Obama will not carry Arizona. There is maybe only one more liberal Congressional seat in Arizona than this plus carry over Gifford's sympathy for Barber. Tucson has always been Democratic territory with such as the Udalls, Stewart and Morris, using the area as their political base, while Goldwater was centered in the more populous Phoenix. (Stewart wrote the Intro for my grandfather's last book, Adventures In Conservation, with Franklin D. Roosevelt.)

--Brant

PHOENIX (AP) — Democrat Ron Barber has won a special House election in southern Arizona to finish the term of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Giffords resigned a year after she was shot in the head while meeting with constituents at a Tucson shopping center.

Barber defeated Republican Jesse Kelly, a former Marine who narrowly lost a House race to Giffords in 2010.

The 66-year-old Barber was seriously injured in the same rampage in which Giffords was shot. Six others were killed.

Holding onto the seat has been a priority for Democrats as they seek to regain control of the House in November.

Republicans tried to make the race a referendum on President Barack Obama, a strategy they'll continue to follow in other swing districts in this fall's congressional elections.

Read more: http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Democrats-hold-on-to-Arizona-congressional-seat-3626447.php#ixzz1xeA3r92m

[Selene]

Oh NO!!!!

Now even the world is turning on President Incompetano!!!!

World cools towards Barack Obama - survey

Confidence in Barack Obama is still high in Europe but has dropped in China and Japan

International approval of US President Barack Obama's foreign policy has dropped sharply during his term in office, a Pew Research survey suggests.

Among the 21 countries surveyed, the largest drop in approval - from 57% to 27% - was seen in China, the Global Attitudes Project reveals.

Most respondents in almost all countries opposed US drone strikes.

Despite these numbers, confidence in Mr Obama remains high among US allies, especially in Europe.

"I think where you see the real disappointment is when you deal with specific policies," said Richard Wike, associate director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

He added that the survey showed big gaps between expectation levels and action over Mr Obama's policies on climate change and treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Economic power

According to Mr Wike, confidence in Mr Obama and approval of his international policies has trended downward during the course of his presidency, but has not dropped sharply in a single year.

Besides China, the largest declines in foreign policy approval by 2012 included long-term ally Japan and neighbor Mexico.

Among five European countries surveyed both in 2009 and 2012, approval of Mr Obama's international policies dropped from 78% to 63%. In five Muslim countries surveyed in both years, the approval rate dropped from 34% to 15%. Russia also joined the countries with double-digit declines, from 40% of respondents approving US international policies to 22%, an 18% decrease.

While Mr Obama generally has higher approval ratings than President George W Bush did at the end of his second term, their approval ratings are now matched in Pakistan and Mr Obama's remain only slightly better in Lebanon.

Among the countries surveyed there was widespread opposition to US drone strikes. At least 50% of respondents in 17 countries disapproved of such strikes, with the largest percentages in the Middle East, Mexico and Greece.

In recent weeks, Mr Obama has become more closely associated with the US drone programme, with a New York Times report noting he personally approves each strike, and that the US keeps a "kill list" of potential strikes against militants.

In addition to changes in sentiment towards Mr Obama and his policies, the survey records a shift in the way economic power is perceived.

Majorities in Germany, Britain, France and Spain now regard China as the world's leading economic power, not the US. In the UK, this percentage has doubled since 2008.

Mr Wike told the BBC the US had seen a downward trend in its perceived economic power since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, despite Mr Obama receiving "reasonably good marks on global economic issues".

However, American "soft power" gets higher marks, especially among young respondents.

The American way of doing business is popular in the Middle East, with more than 50% in Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt saying they like this part of US image.

Majorities or pluralities in 18 of 20 countries admire US science and technology, according to the survey. American ideas about democracy are more popular among respondents under 30 in several countries, including Tunisia and China.

[Brant Gaede]

If Kelly beats Barber in the soon-election to fill Gifford's vacated seat Obama will not carry Arizona. There is maybe only one more liberal Congressional seat in Arizona than this plus carry over Gifford's sympathy for Barber. Tucson has always been Democratic territory with such as the Udalls, Stewart and Morris, using the area as their political base, while Goldwater was centered in the more populous Phoenix. (Stewart wrote the Intro for my grandfather's last book, Adventures In Conservation, with Franklin D. Roosevelt.)

--Brant

PHOENIX (AP) — Democrat Ron Barber has won a special House election in southern Arizona to finish the term of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Giffords resigned a year after she was shot in the head while meeting with constituents at a Tucson shopping center.

Barber defeated Republican Jesse Kelly, a former Marine who narrowly lost a House race to Giffords in 2010.

The 66-year-old Barber was seriously injured in the same rampage in which Giffords was shot. Six others were killed.

Holding onto the seat has been a priority for Democrats as they seek to regain control of the House in November.

Republicans tried to make the race a referendum on President Barack Obama, a strategy they'll continue to follow in other swing districts in this fall's congressional elections.

Read more: http://www.newstimes...p#ixzz1xeA3r92m

Turned out I live just outside this district so I couldn't vote. Most of Tucson is in it, though. Barber ran very effective pro-Social Security and Medicare ads which Kelly did little to counter. Then there was the Giffords' sympathy vote which Barber got. I do think Kelly softening his message up did nothing to help him garner votes. Anyway, I don't see how Obama will carry this state in November. He didn't in 2008.

--Brant

Barber will have little to do in Congress as a member of the minority party except constituent services, and I expect he'll be re-elected in four months

[Selene]

The utter stupidity of the headline is that it has nothing to do with American Muslim Voters!!!!

Who the hell cares about non citizen Muslims in other countries and whether they approve of President Incompetano or not!!!!

12:01 AM 06/14/2012A Pew Research survey released on Wednesday showed that President Barack Obama’s popularity has reached record lows among Muslims.

The same day, the president’s re-election campaign charged that presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s foreign policy experts will reduce the nation’s popularity in the Muslim-majority countries.

“Romney has rejected the counsel of mainstream foreign policy experts and surrounded himself with the same people who weakened America’s standing in the world over the last decade,” Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner said in a statement.

Kanner’s remark signals a revival of the campaign theme used in 2008 to attack Sen. John McCain, who supported George W. Bush’s Iraq War policy.

The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes survey found the approval of Obama’s policies in Muslim-majority countries plummeted from an average 34 percent to 15 percent. In Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was killed, approval is the lowest — coming in at 7 percent. Muslim attitudes toward America and confidence in Obama also decreased.

More than 26,000 people from 21 countries took part in the survey, taken between March 17 and April 20.

Worldwide approval of Obama has also declined significantly, especially with regards to foreign policy, and overall confidence in Obama and attitudes toward America have declined modestly.

Obama focused much of his early foreign policy on improving what he called America’s global standing, saying in 2008 that he wanted “to go before the world community and say ‘America is back,’” and “send a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says: You matter to us, your future is our future, and our moment is now.”

When selecting Vice President Joe Biden, Obama said he wanted to put an end to failed foreign policy and “renew America’s security and standing in the world.”

But the Pew numbers show that even in Europe, approval of Obama’s policies decreased from 78 percent in 2009 to 63 percent in 2012. European confidence in Obama decreased from 86 to 80 percent, and favorable attitudes toward America decreased from 67 to 60 percent.

Pew’s survey marks a significant turning point from surveys conducted at the end of Obama’s first year. A 2010 Gallup poll found that global approval of the United States’ global leadership increased from 34 percent in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009.

The survey also found more than half the people in 17 of 20 countries disapprove of the use of drone strikes to target extremist leaders and groups, and clear majorities in Britain, Germany, France and Spain say China is the world’s economic leader.

In 2008, before the worldwide financial crisis, 45 percent said the U.S. economy led the world, and only 22 percent said China. Today, only 36 percent say the U.S., and 42 percent believe China’s economy is leading.

Obama for America has thus far remained silent about the recent Pew survey, focusing their attention instead on Romney’s foreign policy.

“Romney and his advisers have repeatedly criticized our allies on the campaign trail — calling Europe a ‘second-tier nation,’ criticizing the British prime minister for political purposes, and labeling Russia our ‘number one geopolitical foe’ — all while failing to lay out a coherent foreign policy agenda and instead embracing the radical views of John Bolton,” Kanner said. “America can’t afford Mitt Romney as commander in chief.”

Bolton, a former ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, believes Obama has tried too hard to distinguish his foreign policy from Bush’s.

“When your strategy consists largely of saying, ‘I’m not that guy,’ it’s no wonder it comes out confused and incoherent and incompetent, which is a pretty good description of the Obama foreign policy,” Bolton said on Fox in April.

Bolton signed onto Romney’s foreign policy team in January.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/14/poll-finds-obamas-approval-among-muslims-reaches-new-lows/#ixzz1xobPsT5D

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/14/poll-finds-obamas-approval-among-muslims-reaches-new-lows/#ixzz1xob9G85m