by Benjamin J. Kirby
I just downloaded the PollTracker app on my iPhone, and I already I love it. Please. If you have an iPhone, and you care even a little bit about politics, go get this app. Note: I am not a paid spokesperson for Josh Marshall or Talking Points Memo.
What I really wanted to talk about was this:
Exciting, right?
Yes, people are slowly starting to make up their mind, at least in race for president, and it's not going Mitt Romney's way. Hey, no one loves the look of those little red and blue lines more than I do.
But the GOP says their bloc is more enthusiastic -- and furthermore, they say there's no way those polls can possibly be right!
In a strange way, I kind of agree with them.
Remember: polls aren't a prediction of what folks will do -- they're a snapshot in time. More than that, they provide an accurate retrospective, a good look back at what people where thinking when. What was going on around May of 2011? What was the American electorate collectively thinking (as much as we collectively think about anything)? Whatever it was, that's where the Obama Campaign wants them to be again (Obama's numbers were up over Romney's by around 6 or 7 points).
You could ask a similar question about January of this year, too. That's what the Romney folks are hoping for, because it's where he was effectively tied with Obama. May of this year wouldn't be too bad a target for them, either.
Will November look like May of this year? Or May of last year?
November of last year had Obama's numbers up by 2, by the way.
# # # #
Of course, it can never just be the one thing. I was all ready with my polling post, and then I saw this headlined at TPM: Romney To Obama: Please Stop Attacking My Business Record, Taxes.
Seriously? Is this a joke?
“Our campaign would be — helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon — business or family or taxes or things of that nature,” Romney said, according to excerpts of an upcoming interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd released Friday.
Romney said he would prefer the campaigns “only talk about issues,” and claimed that “our ads haven’t gone after the president personally. … We haven’t dredged up the old stuff that people talked about last time around. We haven’t gone after the personal things.”
Really? Really?
So the Obama Campaign shouldn't talk about... Mitt Romney's business, even though the man is running a campaign based on his business experience.
I guess I'll find the interview, but that sounds awfully whiny, don't you think? Look, this is a presidential campaign. I'm terribly sorry if Mittens didn't want to bother releasing his tax returns, or talk about his questionable time at Bain Capital, which outsourced jobs in order to reap a profit, but this is the big leagues.
Hey, the Republicans say they have the momentum, they say their side is fired up. Maybe. I wonder how long they'll stay fired up when the guy leading the party and the top of the ticket is looking for an easy out.
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