Posted by: andy at 08:11 AM | Comments (203)
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I have now heard through multiple sources that excitement amongst the party leadership has rebounded regarding Pennsylvania.

Everybody who reads AOS knows my thoughts on the state.

Here is a cold splash from me: the excitement seems to stem from the wrong region.

Western Pennsylvania has been drifting rightward for decades. The Metro Pitt region went for Dukakis by hundreds of thousands of votes. That margin shrank to a pitiful 29k in 2008 for Obama. And therein lies the problem: we are going to win the region for the first time since 1972, but we already almost did in a year where the President stomped McCain statewide by 10. This is the area the GOP is excited about, but unfortunately it is the wrong region in terms of changing the statewide winner.
Winning Metropolitan Pittsburgh despite Allegheny County is a win for the long-term, but the battle for the Keystone comes down to four counties in the southeast: Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester. This is the 800lb gorilla in the room: the leftward shift of this region over the last two decades has done more to hurt Republican chances in the state than any vote bomb eminating from Philadelphia proper. Had we not lost this region, PA would be redder today than at anytime since WW2 (thanks to the Republicanization of western Pennsylvania). Team Romney needs to tackle the challenge of convincing these moderate suburban ex-Republicans he is right for the job. If he flips Bucks and Chester and holds Obama down significantly in the other two, the state is almost certainly his, Philly be damned.

It is a big job, but as I've stressed, now is not the time for timid campaigning.
Accept the real challenge, and Go Big.

Posted by: CAC at 04:47 AM | Comments (412)
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Happy Wednesday.

Late start for me today, so I didn't have a chance to look at the news yet. Maybe Vic'll have something.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (329)
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Coming Around to Mitt

Here Andrew Ferguson, never a fan of Mitt, points out that Romney is one of the few politicians that you end up liking more the more you find out about him:

Almost every personal detail about Romney I found endearing. But my slowly softening opinion went instantly to goo when The Real Romney unfolded an account of his endless kindnesses-unbidden, unsung, and utterly gratuitous. "It seems that everyone who has known him has a tale of his altruism," the authors write. I was struck by the story of a Mormon family called (unfortunately) Nixon. In the 1990s a car wreck rendered two of their boys quadriplegics. Drained financially from extraordinary expenses, Mr. Nixon got a call from Romney, whom he barely knew, asking if he could stop by on Christmas Eve. When the day came, all the Romneys arrived bearing presents, including a VCR and a new sound system the Romney boys set up. Later Romney told Nixon that he could take care of the children's college tuition, which in the end proved unnecessary. "I knew how busy he was," Nixon told the authors. "He was actually teaching his boys, saying, 'This is what we do. We do this as a family.' "

...To this touching kindness and fatherly wisdom, The Real Romney adds other traits that will continue to grate-he's a know-it-all and likely to remain so, and his relationship to political principle has always been tenuous. Which makes him a, uh, politician. But now I suspect he's also something else, a creature rarely found in the highest reaches of American politics: a good guy.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:19 PM | Comments (613)
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Okay that last hour finished strong, with Arthur Davis and Nikki Haley.

Hopefully it now builds further.

Posted by: Ace at 06:03 PM | Comments (1077)
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Well, the first hour was... dysriveting.

I've never watched a convention before. Not really. But I'm wondering if they didn't succumb to the media's concern-trolling and take out most of the barbs about Obama. FOR THE VICTIMS OF ISAAC.

Making it kind of boring.

Anyway, Scott Walker's up.

Posted by: Ace at 04:58 PM | Comments (1027)
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It's on CSPAN, and also CSPAN online.

It's a crapshoot on the cable stations. They really want to sell Isaac. Even Fox. They've got Sheppy down there to report live on any baby-cannibalism that might take place in the Superdome.

Posted by: Ace at 04:00 PM | Comments (737)
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At the peak of his popularity, Obama had a impressive map in November 2008.

His map BEFORE Romney unloads the monetary mothership?
Not so much, per the latest polling averages: more...

Posted by: CAC at 03:28 PM | Comments (141)
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Finally, a breath of honesty and authenticity!

So here are the real snippets:

“Mitt's dad never graduated from college. Instead, he became a carpenter.

“He worked hard, and he became the head of a car company, and then the governor of Michigan.

“When Mitt and I met and fell in love, we were determined not to let anything stand in the way of our life together. …

“I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a ‘storybook marriage.’ Well, in the storybooks I read, there were never long, long, rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. And those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called MS or Breast Cancer.

“A storybook marriage? No, not at all. What Mitt Romney and I have is a real marriage. …

“At every turn in his life, this man I met at a high school dance, has helped lift up others. He did it with the Olympics, when many wanted to give up. …

“This is the man America needs.

“This is the man who will wake up every day with the determination to solve the problems that others say can't be solved, to fix what others say is beyond repair. This is the man who will work harder than anyone so that we can work a little less hard."

You had me at "work a little less hard."

“I can't tell you what will happen over the next four years. But I can only stand here tonight, as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, an American, and make you this solemn commitment:

“This man will not fail.

“This man will not let us down.

“This man will lift up America!”

Then she's going to discuss Obama's birth certificate for twenty minutes.

"Note the chromatic aberrations here, and also, here."

Posted by: Ace at 02:53 PM | Comments (333)
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Let's just get this on the record so everyone notes it.

While the media continues insisting that Republicans cancel their convention, or at least greatly neuter their "tone" as regards Barack Hussein Obama's many failures, due to the as-of-yet hypothetical Victims of Isaac, they don't mind that the guy who actually oversees FEMA and commands the Army Corps of Engineers is out politicking.

What do Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Ann Romney, Ron Paul, and Scott Walker have in common?

None of these men has any position, formal or informal, in FEMA's command structure.

What else do they have in common? They are all victims of a media campaign to "moderate their tone" in a political convention.

Meanwhile, the guy who actually does have a formal role in the management of federal emergency relief is permitted to politick in peace, without any suggestion from the media that he ought to "moderate his tone."

Will the hypothetical Victims of Isaac be harmed by his partisan campaigning? Apparently not. Apparently they'll find succor and strength in his soaring, healing new catchphrase, "RomneyDoesn'tCare."

Chris Wallace says the media should stop with this partisan "nonsense" (only the "nonsense" is his word), and I agree.

Posted by: Ace at 02:25 PM | Comments (155)
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