Month: November 2012

Today the Obama campaign put out a clever faux-newscast imagining what the first hundred days of a Romney administration would be like:

The Obama campaign is also pushing back on Romney’s Spanish dictator ad by featuring a testimonial from former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz (translation currently unavailable, but you’ll get the idea):

Zooming out for a moment, Obama is still out-advertising Romney:

Kantar Media’s CMAG, counting every presidential ad aired from Oct. 24 to Oct. 30, found the Obama campaign aired TWICE as many spots as Romney – 35,731 to 17,277, with estimated spending of $24 million for Obama and $11 million for Romney. … Even adding in the outside groups, the total Democratic message had 79,089 spots (Obama + outside groups), to 64,945 for Republicans

A report from the Wesleyan Media Project similarly concludes that “the Obama campaign has sponsored about 50 percent of all of the ads aired and has out-advertised the Romney campaign by a 2.6 to 1 margin in both ads aired and estimated money spent.” Alexander Burns adds:

Given Romney’s powerful fundraising over the summer, it tells you something about both his media operation (refresh your memory here) and Obama’s that the president has maintained an advantage in hard-dollar TV advertising. On the flip side, the fact that Obama has managed to stay in control of the air war means that in the event he loses, it will be somewhat harder for his party to blame it all on Citizens United, the super PACs, Charles and David Koch, etc.

Speaking of which, outside spenders spent $526 million just in October. Charlie Cook thinks Obama’s resilient swing-state polling is the direct result of his early ad approach:

In the states that have experienced the minimalist campaign, the popular-vote numbers are even or maybe up for Republican nominee Mitt Romney by a bit. For people who live there, the campaign effectively started with the first debate. Many undecided voters were pleasantly surprised by Romney, who presented himself as moderate, reasonable, intelligent, and earnest. He also came across as more of a problem-solver than the ideological robot voters had seen earlier in the campaign through their binoculars.

But for those in the battleground states, who had seen Romney’s head bashed in last summer by the Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain Capital, plant closings, layoffs, outsourcing, and income taxes—not to mention bank accounts in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Switzerland—skepticism has persisted. Much more than in the rest of the country, Romney’s scar tissue continues to get in the way of these swing-state voters fully embracing this new and improved Mitt.

Another report shows Obama winning the digital ad war as well. Meanwhile, the only new advertising from Romney today was a web ad that spins today’s jobs report:

Elsewhere, there’s another new anti-Obama ad from Rove’s Crossroads groups, this time from his dark-money GPS outfit. It will air in Minnesota as part of a $1.4 million buy:

Lastly, on the down-ticket, Obama cuts an ad for Connecticut Senate candidate Chris Murphy:

Ad War archive here.

Reflecting on the October jobs report released today, Bill McBride underscores a worrying sign:

According to the BLS, there are 5.00 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This was up from 4.84 million in September. This is generally trending down, but is still very high. Long term unemployment remains one of the key labor problems in the US. 

Catherine Rampell drills down on why:

The fact that fewer people are afflicted (even if the affliction is much worse) means they are a smaller, less visible political constituency. “There are fewer of us experiencing unemployment, but those who are are out a lot longer,” said Daniel Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas, Austin. “They then become increasingly isolated, which decreases the will to do anything because they are a less important group. If there were more people experiencing this, politicians might be more interested in doing something about it. That fact that they’re not doing something is making it worse, of course, so the problem just feeds upon itself.”

Washington's marijuana initiative is looking good:

In what is likely to be one of last polls coming out of Washington State prior to Election Day, Initiative 502 to regulate marijuana is still holding strong to the commanding lead it has developed over the past few months. Data released from King 5 and SurveyUSA has I-502 leading among likely Washington voters, 56% stated they would vote yes on the measure with only 37% planning to vote no. There are just 7% still undecided.

Assuming one or more states legalize pot next week, Jacob Sullum previews the federal response:

The DEA can raid state-legal pot shops, as it has done with medical marijuana dispensaries, but the number of potential targets will be considerably larger once the market officially expands to include recreational users.

The Justice Department can use asset forfeiture as an intimidation tactic against landlords and threaten banks that accept deposits from pot businesses with money laundering charges. The Internal Revenue Service can make life difficult for pot sellers by disallowing their business expenses (but not, thanks to a tax law wrinkle, their "cost of goods sold," which includes the cost of buying marijuana). The feds could even threaten state regulators with prosecution for handling marijuana or facilitating the trade, although that seems less likely, since it would provoke a direct confrontation with state officials. (Washington's initiative seeks to minimize this risk by assigning the task of testing marijuana for regulatory purposes to private, independent laboratories.) 

The one thing federal drug warriors cannot do, judging from their track record even when they have the full cooperation of state and local law enforcement agencies, is suppress the business entirely.

That's Romney's final pitch:

In what his campaign billed as his "closing argument," Mitt Romney warned Americans that a second term for President Obama would have apocalyptic consequences for the economy in part because his own party would force a debt ceiling disaster. "Unless we change course, we may well be looking at another recession," Romney told a crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin. Romney said that Obama "promised to be a post-partisan president, but he became the most partisan" and that his bitter relations with the House GOP could threaten the economy. 

Or as Dan Savage put it, "We are no longer a democracy. We're a hostage situation." Ezra addressed this argument earlier in the week:

While it’s true that President Romney could expect more cooperation from congressional Republicans, in the long term, a vote against Obama on these grounds is a vote for more of this kind of gridlock. Politicians do what wins them elections. If this strategy wins Republicans the election, they’ll employ it next time they face a Democratic president, too, and congressional Democrats will use it against the next Republicans. Rewarding the minority for doing everything in their power to make the majority fail sets up disastrous incentives for the political system. 

That was Frum’s core point. It is also the same as Log Cabin Republicans, who endorsed the governor a couple weeks back. Their argument?

“We don’t listen to what a candidate actually says. We try to feel where they seem to stand.”

Jamelle Bouie thinks it just might. The significance:

If President Obama wins the election, liberals will have a better shot at stopping any “grand bargain” that makes regressive cuts to Social Security and Medicare. And if Romney wins? He’ll have to negotiate with a more liberal Democratic caucus, which means, in effect, that some promises of his campaign — large cuts in spending and taxes — will have to be moderated, or go unfulfilled.

The NYC Marathon is mercifully called off.

Among the more encouraging pieces of news from the Senate races is that several women are doing much better than expected. McCaskill now looks like a safe bet, leading by 8 points in the poll of polls. Warren is ahead of Brown by 4 in Massachusetts by the same measurement. Stabenow is well ahead in Michigan. More significantly, Tammy Baldwin is neck and neck with Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin as is Heidi Heitkamp with Rick Berg in North Dakota. Our first out lesbian Senator and the first woman ever to be elected Senator from North Dakota? Not so bad. Pity the Republican women aren't doing better.