Outstanding Romney ad responding to Obama's attack on small businesses.

Great line in there I hadn't heard before: "President Obama attacks success, and therefore under Obama we have less success."

Updated: Promoting first comment from Golan Globus:

You know, those suggesting that Romney go on the offensive were just a bunch of ninnies.

Yup. It's as if they weren't paying attention to what Romney was doing at all.

Another Update: American Crossroads has this ad running on TV in typical battleground states Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia. Oh, and in Michigan.

Game on.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:29 AM | Comments (138)
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When you see these numbers, keep in mind that no matter Obama's policies, he's always enjoyed strong favorability from the American public. "He's a likeable guy," they said.

Until now.

Quite suddenly people aren't afraid to say they just don't like him. (The columns in order are Total, Rep, Dem, Ind.)

The overall numbers are bad for Obama, a twelve point deficit. But just look at the independents. That's catastrophically bad for Obama, a twenty-four point deficit. And he used to be so likeable.

What happened? Five things.

(1) Obama became the bad guy.
Obama has been running an astonishingly nasty campaign for the past month. The days of happy hope and change are gone. Now he's wandering around the country pushing his class warfare on half-empty auditoriums. His media mouthpieces are grunting "felon, felon" whenever they can find a microphone. His DNC is still attacking the other guy's wife.

Hope and change? Nope.

(2) Obama pandered.
Obama has a serious problem. His base, the far Left, support a whole bunch of policies that the rest of the country do not. He needs his base to help fund his reelection, but they weren't having any of that without some demonstration of his radical bonafides. So he pandered to them. He "evolved" on gay marriage just as his bundlers reported that his previous marriage stance was keeping him from bringing in the big donors. He instituted the DREAM Act by executive slight-of-hand. So he shored up his far Left. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for us), these issues appear to motivate Republicans more than anyone else---that is, they motivate opposition to Obama more than support. (Again: Total, Rep, Dem, Ind.)

(3) Nobody cares about Bain.
Obama has devoted an entire month to attacks based on the theory that voters will be turned off by Romney's association with Bain Capital. This theory is all that Obama's got left and the Democrats have been getting screechier and screechier as it goes. They started with "vulture capitalism" and ended up with "felon!" And what did it get them?

Nobody cares. At least, not enough that it matters. And not even Democrats.

(4) It's about the economy, stupid.
I know, I know. Overused. But true. (Again, columns in order are Total, Rep, Dem, Ind.)

(5) Romney is going to save the economy.
And here, Romney's noteworthy ability not to be distracted by Obama's latest flailing pays off. Romney's been focused on the economy from way back in the primaries. Voters noticed:

And there you have it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:23 AM | Comments (194)
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Happy, happy Thursday.

Each of these stories will probably end up full-blown posts today, but I'm passing them on now so you'll start your day with a smile.

First, the DNC is pulling its horse ads and expressing regret (though not an actual apology) for mocking Ann Romney's dressage horse, the one she trains with to help her MS. The DNC's horse preoccupation was petty and pointless and, in light of this decision, apparently hurting them more than it was helping. After Palin, Democrats got into the habit of attacking GOP women in politics, even when the woman in question isn't really in politics, but only married to a politician. Voters, though, they know the difference.

Second, TPM (I know) has highlights from Justice Scalia's interview last night on Piers Morgan. One thing of interest, Scalia says there's been no falling out with the Chief Justice.

Third, and most likely to put a big ol' grin on your face, the CBS News/New York Times poll of registered voters released last night is exceptionally good news for us. Sure, the top-line number is a statistical tie, Romney 47% to Obama 46%. But dig down and Obama is in deep doodoo. Among independents, Obama is deeply underwater, with only 28% saying they have a favorable impression versus 52% who say not favorable. Independents seem to slightly favor Romney, 32% to 31%. Among all voters, Obama's favorability went from a slightly bad 42%-45% in April to 36%-48%.

That's just astonishing. After a month of unanswered Obama attack ads, with the campaign uttering smear after smear, as Obama makes targeted panders on gay rights and immigration policy, Obama's favorability dropped six points!

On Monday, I wrote about the conservative voices claiming that Romney was blowing it by not "going on offense." I said they were having a crisis of confidence, that Obama's attacks were not working, and that Romney should stay the course. I'm feeling pretty good about that post now.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:59 AM | Comments (161)
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Childhood's End - The Shrinking Range of Kids

It's not your imagination - kids today really do roam their neighborhoods far less than they did even a generation or two ago.

A British study called One False Move, investigating the mobility of children, found that the average eight-year-old saw its 'home habitat' shrink to one-ninth of its size within a single generation. In 1970, 80% of British kids 7 or 8 years of age were allowed to go to school unsupervised; by 1990, this figure had dropped below 10%.

The result of this gradual shrinkage of children's habitat, is the effective end of the outdoor childhood.

And here's a map showing how much the range of one family's children in Sheffield, England has shrunk in four generations:

I've seen this in my own lifetime as well. As a kid I was lucky to have some woods just a mile or two from our house so quite often my friends and I would announce that we were going 'exploring', stuff some food and water into our backpacks, and head off into the woods with our dogs for most of the day.

We probably only got a mile or two into woods - and in retrospect given their size couldn't have gotten truly lost if we'd tried - but to us it felt like we were very, very far from home and on our own. And I won't even go into the many hours of fun we had wandering along the railroad tracks.

But my nephews (9 and 11 years old) who now live just on the other side of the very same woods have never walked into them on their own. In fact I doubt they've ever walked or biked beyond a half mile radius of their house. And it's not like they're lazy or homebodies - they're quite active and play sports year round - or in a bad neighborhood or that my sister is the over-worrying mother type.

Mostly it's because they have far less free-time to wander around than I did, there's already a lot of fun stuff to do at each others houses and there is constant low grade pressure from *all* the parents to not stray too far. So I doubt that they'll ever walk into the woods just a mile and half away. And that's a shame.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:00 PM | Comments (577)
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47-46, advantage Romney.

Only 4% are undecided. Romney leads men by 8, and Obama leads women by 5. (Based on this I think Romney's lead is actually like 1.5%, for all that's worth.)

Republicans are more enthusiastic than Democrats when it comes to voting in this election, though just one in three registered voters overall are more enthusiastic than they were in the past. Roughly half of Republicans say they are more enthusiastic compared to past elections - up from 36 percent in March - while just 27 percent of Democrats say they same.

As usual, Romney has an 8 point lead on the economy.

Mr. Obama's overall approval rating stands at 44 percent, with 46 percent disapproving. His approval rating on the economy is just 39 percent - 55 percent disapprove - and his approval rating on foreign policy is 41 percent. His approval rating on the economy has dropped five points since April.

Here's a shocker, for real. You know how they're always saying Obama is sooo personally popular?

Nope.

Both candidates are viewed net-unfavorably (this is the personal favorable figure); Obama's 36% favorable and 48% unfavorable; Romney's 32% favorable and 36% unfavorable.

Seems like Romney is the clear winner there.

Seven in ten Americans say the economy is in bad shape. While 24 percent say it is getting better - down from 33 percent in April - 30 percent say it is getting worse. That marks the highest percentage who say the economy is getting worse since December.

Meanwhile, PPP finds that Obama's advantage in blue New Mexico has shrunk to 5%, with Obama slipping under the 50% threshold.

Skew: CAC says the NYT/CBS poll is D+6, which is not outrageous, but it is high. 2010 was all-even, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 03:34 PM | Comments (295)
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The balls on this guy.

Via @adamsbaldwin.

Posted by: Ace at 02:25 PM | Comments (90)
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Well, actually, they're trying to make it a law that presidential candidates must release 10 years of tax returns, but the college transcripts thing is just an amendment away.

I don't believe this would even be constitutional, because the courts have interpreted the Constitution's qualifications for the presidency -- age 35, natural born citizen -- as the only qualifications; that is, the Constitution's list of qualifications is presumed intentionally complete and no further qualifications will be permitted.

If Congress presumes to demand that a candidate do x or y, what is the penalty for noncompliance? You can't say "Well then you can't run for President" because, again, the Constitution's qualifications cannot be added to legislatively.

But sure, I'd like to see Obama's transcripts. And unlike Mike Flynn, I am curious about his actual grades.

But if it makes it easier to get the grades if I say "I'm just interested in what courses he took," okay, I'm just interested in what courses he took.

Flynn makes a good point: They say Romney's business experience is the central justification for his election, and ergo, the public has the right to have all of his financial records exposed.

Well, ditto for Obama and his supposedly-outstanding academic record.

Let's see the grades, Genius.

Posted by: Ace at 01:59 PM | Comments (147)
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Via @iowahawkblog and @slublog, feast your eyes on this box office take, which is slightly lower than Obama's last job creation numbers.

Prediction: There will not be an Obama Effect 2.

Ancillary prediction: There will also not be an Obama Term 2.

Oddly, there are no reviews for it on RottenTomatoes, which I take to be a gesture of charity by liberal reviewers who will speak no evil of anything Obama-related.

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (189)
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In case you didn't see it, a commenter (sorry, forget who or what thread) linked Romney's rebuttal to You Didn't Build That (which, just like "Doin' Fine," will soon become I Didn't Say That).

It's good.

If you watch his exact words, he winks as he speaks a carefully-chosen string of words to describe Obama, each word's first letter spelling out "SCOAMF." *

* This isn't a "true" statement so much as what I like to call a "dream-lie," something I do a lot. "Dream-lying." It's fun, and it don't cost you nothin'.

UPDATE! As I said above -- You Didn't Build That will soon become I Didn't Say That.

And

here

we

go!

Sounds pretty bad — and it is, if you leave out the sentences directly before and after, which make it crystal clear Obama wasn’t talking about building businesses at all. The “that” in “you didn’t build that” referred to roads, bridges, infrastructure, education, emergency services and law and order — all services that protect and enable business owners along the way toward creating a successful operation.

Conn Carrol (the writer who linked that quote) calls this "the most substantive argument of 2012," because, of course, this is what the election is really about, and has always been about. Obama's just never been honest enough to say so before.

But this election is about socialism versus capitalism, and Obama's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" mindset must be discussed.

Romney had a quote from yesterday:

You understand, of course, whatÂ’s going on. What he is saying is his justification for raising taxes higher and higher, because government needs more. Â… You heard that story by the way, he is trying to take work out of welfare requirement. It is changing the nature of America, changing the nature of what the Democrats have fought for, and Republicans have fought for. In the past, people of both parties understood that encouraging achievement, encouraging success, encouraging people to lift themselves as high as they can, encouraging entrepreneurs, celebrating success instead of attacking it and denigrating, makes America strong. ThatÂ’s the right course for this country. His course is extraordinarily foreign.

Bang on. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (192)
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A bomb detonated on a bus, killing Israeli tourists.

The Israeli premier noted that Wednesday's attack followed similar attacks or attempted attacks in India, Georgia, Thailand and Kenya and Cyprus in recent months. He said that once again, "all signs point to Iran," though he did not offer any evidence to back up the claim.

"This is an Iranian terror attack that is spreading across the world," Netanyahu said. "Israel will react strongly to Iran's terror."

I am really starting to think no one's ever going to take military action against Iran, not Israel and certainly not Barack Hussein Obama.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (77)
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