Month: September 2012

It was a slow day for ads, with only one TV ad released from either campaign: a Spanish-language spot from the Romney people. It features Puerto Rico's Republican Governor Louis Fortuño (ad buy size/scope unknown):

Cameron Joseph translates:

"In this election, you will play an important role," Fortuño says in Spanish. "These last few years have been very difficult for our families. With Mitt Romney, things will get better — creating millions of good jobs and giving our children more opportunities. I know that our community will make the right decision. It's not about 'yes we can,' it's about 'how we can.' We need to revive the American dream. With Mitt Romney we'll achieve it."

As part of the run up to the first debate, the Obama campaign uses Romney against himself in a new web video:

A GOP pollster in Pennsylvania said he thought the Bain attacks had been effective against Romney there, while Romney said today he thinks he can still win it – though doesn't have any ads up in the state. The Romney camp is also micro-targeting mailers in Virginia over Lyme Disease. In down-ticket news, this new attack ad from Congressman Allen West (R-FL) against Patrick Murphy is as brutal as they come:

It's worth noting that Murphy was 19 when he was arrested. The pro-Dem outside group House Majority PAC returns fire as part of a $1.5 million buy in the district:

Then there is Scott Brown, who's not backing off Elizabeth Warren's heritage-gate, this time going with a people-on-the-street approach to cast doubt on her honesty:

Lastly, Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) deploys the talking taxidermy for his latest ad:

Ad War archive here.

Noam Scheiber believes so:

Back in late August, Obama led Romney on the question of who would handle Medicare better by 8 points in Florida and 10 points in Ohio; now he’s up 15 in Florida and 16 in Ohio. And the problems are especially acute among senior citizens, a group Obama has traditionally struggled with. A month ago, Obama was down 13 points in Florida among people 65 and older; today he’s up 4. On the specific question of Medicare, Obama was down 4 points among Florida seniors in August; today he’s up 5 points. …

The numbers for Ohio are similar: In August, Obama was down 8 among seniors in the state; today he’s up 1. A month ago Obama was down 6 points among Ohio seniors on the Medicare issue; today he’s up 6. The turnaround here is simply breathtaking. 

Waldman wouldn't bet on it:

When Kennedy and Nixon had their debates, it was little exaggeration to say that nearly the whole country stopped and watched. The three debates got Nielsen ratings of around 60, meaning that the debates were on in 60 percent of all homes that owned televisions. The third debate's rating of 61 was higher than any since, though the one debate in 1980 between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan came close.

Since then, however, viewership has declined significantly. The nadir was reached in 2000, when the final debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore got a rating of only 25.9. Viewership rebounded somewhat in 2008, but the highest-rated debate that year—the second—got a rating of only 38.8. For comparison, the most watched broadcast of the year—the Super Bowl—gets ratings in the mid-50s. So while the 1960 debates got Super Bowl-type ratings, debates in recent years have gotten ratings about 20 points lower. That means that though today's population is almost twice what it was in 1960, the total number of people watching isn't much higher than it was then.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney talks to journalists about his phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah on board his campaign plane on September 28, 2012. With 39 days to go for the election and polls showing an narrowing path to victory for the Republican nominee, Romney warned a second Obama term would be subsumed by economic malaise as he tried to draw the battle away from his own perceived missteps and back to the president's economic record. By Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images. Update from a reader:

I couldn't help but notice that Romney is sporting a tie with a lucky horseshoe and a four leaf clover. At this point, it seems he needs all the luck he can get!

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania state judges will issue a verdict on the GOP's voter ID law. The Economist notes that a "final irony looms":

Perhaps half of all those without identity cards were not likely to vote anyway, says Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College, a pollster and political sage. Among the rest of the population, the idea that Republicans are trying to suppress black and low-income votes has energised the Democratic base like "rocket fuel", to quote the chairman of the state Democrats, Jim Burn. In short, the voter ID law could end up being a net positive for the Democrats.

Doug Mataconis thinks the judge won't uphold the PA law.

Megan Garber interviews Randall Munroe, the man behind XKCD:

[L]ast year, I did a chart of money and all these different amounts of money and all the different amounts of money in the world and how they compare to each other. It was about a month and a half of sixteen-hour days of research. I had easily ten times as many academic journal articles and sources on that one comic than on anything I did in the course of my physics degree. And the comic was so large, it wound up being a huge, sprawling grid. It was sort of disorganized — I was going for this "Where's Waldo?" feel, where you could look through it, and find all this different stuff here and there. We printed up a version that was normal poster size, 24 x 36 inches, and then we got a billboard printer to make a double size version that was like six feet high, just so you could read all the little text.

That was a fun one. I don't really know about the "what is and what isn't a comic?" debate, but it's quite a stretch to call that a comic.

Contra Weigel, Sam Wang continues to argue that the Democrats can win control of the House. Why redistricting doesn't ensure a GOP victory:

You can pack a lot of your opponents into a few districts, but if your own districts are only 55% for your own party, a 10-point swing can knock you out of office. And the swing from 2010 to 2012 is currently about 9 points. Another answer is that redistricting is sometimes done to protect specific incumbents – which results in packing one’s own party members into a district. On average, the whole thing could well be a wash.

Charlie Cook remains skeptical:

In the House, we have not yet seen any signs of deterioration for the GOP majority. Even if Democrats were to win every seat currently rated solid Democratic, likely Democratic, or lean Democratic, as well as every toss-up, they would still come up short of a majority. The canaries in the coal mine are GOP seats currently rated as lean Republican or likely Republican. Cook Political Report House Editor David Wasserman points out that with Democrats likely to lose perhaps 10 of their own seats, they would have to gross 35 seats to hit the 25 net seats necessary to win a majority. That’s a very tall order.

The sane Israelis (and there are, mercifully many in the IDF and Mossad) have leaked an internal memo arguing that sanctions are working and tougher ones could work even more. This puts Bibi's speech yesterday in a different light, doesn't it? Matt Duss:

If Iran is indeed governed by apocalyptic crazies, as [Netanyahu] claims, why would the more stringent sanctions or threats that Netanyahu favors be expected to dissuade the undeterrable from their course? As a former Israeli intelligence official critical of Netanyahu’s approach put it to me this summer, “You can’t say, ‘More sanctions are good, but ineffective.’ It’s a contradiction.”

But no one is talking about the settlements, are they? Or the steady on-the-ground building of Greater Israel. So the incoherence, the bluffing, the hysteria, and the reverse-bluffing on Iran have their uses.

I want to reiterate, in case anyone doubts it, that of course I don't want Tehran to get a nuke. I'm open to even more stringent sanctions. I see the best strategy being of using our strengths – technology, alliances – to bring the Tehran regime down the way we did the Soviets. Not by bombing them. But by out-lasting them. Because our political system, like Israel's, is better for human beings. And history has proved it and will prove it again. I just believe a pre-emptive strike on the basis of alleged nuclear capacity would be catastrophic for world peace, for Israel's legitimacy and for the campaign against Jihadism. And it over-rates the Iran regime's power, competence and stability.

I worry about apocalyptic scenarios with religious figures. Goldblog recently mocked me for it. But in the years since, I really have come to believe, on further study and thought, that the rhetoric is often accompanied by strategic caution, and that those clinging to power the way these thugs have tend not to be suicidally inclined. And while many quotes are indeed inflammatory, I do not believe the desire to eliminate Israel is about nuking it. When the Supreme Leader of a theocracy formally announces such a thing would be a sin, then I think we have to take that rhetoric seriously as well.

Painting the town blue: