Sorry, I'm kind of tapped. It's going to be crap posts like this from here on out.

It's 46-43. That 46 looks pretty weak, but people keep saying "undecided voters break for the incumbent" and that's really not true.

Still, progress, and in a poll that tends to always be sort of bad for Republicans (despite what you might guess, and despite what liberals still think, because they don't bother checking their guesses).

Obama topped Romney by seven percentage points in Ohio a month ago (49-42 percent).

The president has lost ground among independents (down 10 points from September), women (down eight points) and voters under age 35 (down six points).

Half of Ohio voters are “extremely” interested in the election. Among these most interested voters, Romney is ahead by 10 percentage points (52-42 percent). In addition, by a 12-point margin, Romney supporters (65 percent) are more likely than Obama supporters (53 percent) to say it is “extremely” important their candidate win in November.

Here's something:

[W]hen asked who deserves more credit for OhioÂ’s unemployment rate being lower than the national average, nearly half of Ohio likely voters -- 45 percent -- say Republican Gov. John Kasich, while 35 percent say the president should get more credit.

One big problem for Romney is that Obama's favorable number is at 55%, while his own is at 48%. I'm starting to buy into the idea that favorability is a strong --maybe the strongest -- indicator of who'll prevail on election day.

On the other hand, via @justkarl, the breakdown of D/R/I is 42/34/20.

No wonder Obama comes out ahead.

Fox also says Romney's up three 48-45, in Florida, a state many are assuming is now in the "Leans Pretty Strongly R" column.

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (158)
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It's the DC, and they actually include a surprise face in the mix (and you gotta agree).

It's pretty funny.

I can't say I disagree with any of the picks.

Some real knuckle-magnets here.

No jury in the world would convict you.
The bailiff would buy you a drink on your way out the door.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (558)
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I blame Nate Silver.

Just to let you know that headline is what is called in the media world "Something I just completely made up." It's not even an interpretation or a rephrasing of any report-- I just made it up, to make you laugh.

But, seriously, the markets can't like Obama. And I think it's absurd that this particular source-- USAToday -- tries to blame the crash on the anniversary of the 87 crash, instead of flatline earnings in a flatline economy.

Investors took stocks down hard Friday after a string of disappointing earnings from industry stalwarts -- McDonald's, General Electric, Microsoft, Google, to name a few -- served as a reminder of the economy's struggles.

Analysts now expect S&P 500 earnings growth of 0.04%, essentially flat and the lowest growth rate since the third quarter of 2009.

Some kind of recovery we've got here. Let's check: Present day indices show almost no recovery whatsoever. Forward-looking indices show almost no anticipated recovery.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (185)
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Car guy, too, of course.

Human Events says this might help in Pennsylvania (where he grew up) and Michigan (where he worked, as CEO of Chrysler).

I hope there's an ad. Look, I hate to say such a horrible thing about our current culture, but it doesn't count if it's not on TV.

That's why half-wits like Andrea Mitchell and nerdraging estrogen junkies like Lawrence O'Donnell strut about and preen as if they're important. Because sadly, in our Spectator Culture, they kinda are.

Several days ago the Tennessean newspaper, which had endorsed Democrats since George McGovern (!!!), endorsed Romney.

Does that matter? I mean, it's Tennessee; we know we have that state locked up (and if we didn't, the election would be over anyway).

I think it does. Not directly, though. But it matters because the part says something about the whole.

We have now seen three newspapers -- the Orlando Sentinel, the NY Observer, and the Tennessean -- flip from supporting Obama to supporting Romney.

I've said this before but whenever anyone wants to talk politics with me, one of my first question to them is "What are your friends and coworkers saying?"

It's very easy to get lost in a bubble of your own making if you're only talking to like-minded people. So I like getting that occasional, very anecdotal reality check.

Anecdotal, yes. But still. It's something.

So here's the thing: Being partisans and ideologically-minded, we would naturally hold Obama's failings against him more than your typical voter.

But to what extent is the "Typical Voter" inclined to agree with us and say, "Yes, Obama's failed in his most important duties"?

That to me is the value of the Tennessean's endorsement. And the Sentinel's. And the Observer's. It tells me that even in an environment which is overwhelmingly liberal, people, when they consider this, are inclined to agree: "Yes, Obama's failed in his most important duties."

These surprise endorsements are flipping one way, and not the other.

Even if you doubt the influence of the endorsements, they are in insight into the mindset of Americans. Yes, the media are Americans too. (Technically.) And if even they, in the most Liberal Bubble atmosphere of any occupation outside of the Trial Lawyers' Bar, are flipping to Romney, I think that says something.

If liberal-leaning people are considering Romney-- even endorsing him -- then obviously most true centrists will vote for him. And obviously we will not have what we had in 2008, when the weakest conservative-leaning people actually voted for Obama. Those folks will vote Romney.

Well, maybe not David Frum or David Brooks, but at least maybe Peggy Noonan.

I mostly have conversations with like-minded people, but these endorsements are an indication of conversations between unlike-minded people I didn't participate in. I don't know exactly what their conversations were like, but I have an idea of the basic contours of it -- given that ultimately they endorsed Romney.

I know the most important aspect: They are not merely "disappointed" in Obama. I was disappointed in Prometheus, but I'm still recommending it for the amazing visuals. (Review to follow.)

No, if they were merely disappointed, they would argue we should limp along and see what else this guy can accomplish with another four-year term. Who knows. Maybe this time he'll get luckier, or something.

They're not doing that. They're arguing it's time for a change. They're saying that, based on what they've seen before, they do not want to see another four years of Obama.

They're cutting him from the roster.

There is a comforting thing here: I'm not crazy. And neither are you. We're not, in fact, just wild partisans holding Obama up to impossible standards. It is confirmed that people who actually lean Democratic, and not just lean, but are genuine Democrats have had their fill of Obama and his many failures and his even more numerous excuses, too.

He had his opportunity. He was given every chance. He had a unified all-Democratic government to rubber-stamp whatever he liked.

He failed.

And that is the conversation bubbling around America on this day, 18 days out from the election.

Posted by: Ace at 11:49 AM | Comments (279)
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AP's Intelligence writer:

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S.

I bolded that sentence because I'm having trouble understanding what is being suggested. Is the writer suggesting the report of CIA Station Chief in the very country in which the attack occurred was ignored by higher-ups?

Can anyone explain how that is possible? And if it is possible -- can anyone explain how that could possibly exonerate the higher-ups, rather than proving their unfitness for office?

I know I repeat myself a lot but allow me to repeat this:

The CIA Station Chief in Libya, where the attack occurred, immediately reported that "militants" carried out the attack.

And there is some doubt about whether or not the head of the CIA, or the DNI, or the President, was made familiar with this report?

Really?

What reports were they reading then, if they decided the CIA Station Chief in Libya wasn't worthy of a skim?

Meanwhile, McClatchy does some first-rate (and tough) reportage on the Administration's spin. It explains how "act of terror" got out there -- and how it then disappeared from the Administration's vocabulary.

In the first 48 hours after the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in Libya, senior Obama administration officials strongly alluded to a terrorist assault and repeatedly declined to link it to an anti-Muslim video that drew protests elsewhere in the region, transcripts of briefings show.

The administrationÂ’s initial accounts, however, changed dramatically in the following days, according to a review of briefing transcripts and administration statements, with a new narrative emerging Sept. 16 when U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice asserted in a series of TV appearances that the best information available indicated that the attack had spun off from a protest over the video.

What prompted that pivot remains a mystery amid a closely contested presidential election...

I think you just solved your mystery with the very next dependent clause, McClatchy.

In the early hours, the Administration seems to have told reporters that it looked like a coordinated, planned military attack. Note the word I bolded, though: Alluded. They did not state it plainly.

And then they stopped "alluding" to that possibility, and started claiming it was a "spontaneous protest" that got out of hand.

Also note the administration "repeatedly declined," in the early hours, to link it to the YouTube video. By this, I believe they mean that reporters kept asking -- hoping -- for a link, and administration sources declined to jump on that idiot belief of reporters.

I'm going to speculate here: The media, simple-minded and partisan, was determined to push a "YouTube video" narrative, which then put it in the heads of the Obama Administration that this Narrative would work. After all, the press was already almost writing the Narrative up for them.

The Administration spins that this is a "fog of war" effect, and that their story would naturally change as they got more information.

The trouble with that claim is that all the subsequent information proved that the initial reports of a planned, coordinated, professional military attack were in fact correct, but Obama's story began shifting the other way, towards a false story which no information at all supported.

And McClatchy does note this:

But the administration’s statements offer an ironic twist on the “fog-of-war” phenomenon: They apparently were more accurate on the day after the attacks than they were when Rice made her TV appearances four days later. Administration officials so far have provided no detailed explanation for the change.

I want to quote more from this. It details Jay Carney's first coordinated push of the lie, culminating in Rice's national broadcast (on five different news shows) of the lie.

You should probably just read the whole thing. At the very least, click on them, to let them know there is interest in this story.

I will quote the conclusion, as it's important:

In the next week, as the Republican-led political storm over the administration’s shifting accounts grew, the office of the nation’s top intelligence official announced that as a result of new information, it had determined that the consulate had been hit by a "deliberate and organized attack," and that it was responsible for the narrative that the assault began “spontaneously."

Yet the statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence failed to clear up how the administration came up with its assertion that the attack was launched during a protest against the video. Issued by a spokesman and not Director of National Intelligence James Clapper himself, the statement made no reference to a protest or the video.

Below, a very strong American Crossroads ad, "Act of Terror." Alas, this is a complicated timeline and the "ad" is 1:30 long, so I don't think it'll be on TV.

So it's up to people to email it around.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (304)
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Tough.

The American media is all over this, and by "American media," I mean the British conservative media. The American media forgot about Absolute Moral Authority the day Obama was elected (no Cindy Sheehan on TV shows anymore, see?).

Plus, "Not Optimal" at Instapundit.

If one wanted to be edgier, one could put the NOT OPTIMAL tag on photos of the Benghazi consulate burning to the ground.

Here's One: Not Optimal, via @darrenodaly.

I Know... this is politicizing it, but Obama already did with his two weeks of obfuscation, spin, and lies.

Romney could/should ask Pat Smith to cut a commercial in which she says that the only way she'll find out what happened to her son is when the man denying her the information is voted out of office.

Absolute.

Moral.

Authority.

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (339)
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Did I tell you bitchez Romney would gain 1-2 points?

I did.

Rasmussen says that the first track of all post-debate polls will show a "slight" tick towards Romney.

These updates are based upon nightly polling and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, roughly one-third of the interviews for todayÂ’s update were completed before Tuesday nightÂ’s presidential debate. In the two nights of polling conducted since the debate, Romney has a slight advantage. Tomorrow morning (Saturday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the second debate.

Rasmussen currently has them tied at 48-48.

PPP Polling, a liberal-leaning firm (Kos hired them to do his poll, for example), just tweeted...

Mitt Romney leads our new New Hampshire poll 49-48. Obama had led by 6-8 pts in our polling before the first debate

Romney has a 52/45 advantage over Obama in New Hampshire on the economy

NH voters think Obama won debate by 8 pts, still support Romney by 1. Democrats need to accept debate this week was not a big game changer

As I said, it was confirmatory. Romney won on all the biggest issues of the campaign. When people say "Obama won," they are talking about debate performance, which is a sort of sophisticated way to look at things, but apparently people are more sophisticated than the chattering classes (and I include myself here) give them credit for.

That said, PPP -- which I remind you has a Democratic slant, and is a robopoller -- has Obama up nationally with a 1 point lead, 48-47.

Meanwhile, in Gallup, Romney loses one point. So it's back to 51-45. Back to a six point lead. Romney still over 50%; Obama still mired in a losing 45%.

PPP.. also has Romney with a miniscule lead in Iowa:

Romney leads Obama 49-48 in Iowa as well, although Obama does have a 66/32 early vote lead there

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 AM | Comments (287)
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Video below. Watch it, if you haven't seen this national embarrassment yet.

Remember, he's part of the NBC News division. But he's indulging in Jerry Springer/Morton Downey Jr./Geraldo Rivera talk-show antics. Those guys used to get into brawls, or trash talk like they wanted to brawl, a lot.

NBC News. Now doing this kind of low-rent syndicated talk show crap. NBC News.

Now, about Lawrence O'Donnell. I goofed on this sad old clown last night, noting his completely fake "Tough Boston Kid" accent, which sounded like he got it from a Broadway musical. (And, on that front, the Broadway musical "Miss Saigon" is where all of his Vietnam-era battle experience comes from. The song before the second-act intermission is seared into his memory.)

Lawrence O'Donnell announced that while Tagg Romney might be a privileged child of the suburbs, a talk of fisticuffs never would have been permitted in the "paht of Bahston" he grew up in.

Suggesting he was a real scrapper from Southie.

In fact, per Wikipedia, he was the son of a lawyer. He attended what appears to be a very tony Catholic all-boys school. St. Sebastian's is a Hobbesian pit where young boys quickly learn that they must either fight or die:

The School features a rigorous academic program focusing on the liberal arts and offers Spanish and Classics courses. Writing is emphasized with numerous courses in the English curriculum, with Freshmen (9th grade) students taking a special class to hone their skills. Public speaking is also emphasized, with each student required to deliver an annual speech during his class's weekly chapel meetings.

The student:teacher ratio at St. Sebastian's is 7:1, and 60% of the faculty hold graduate degrees. The average class size is 11. The school offers 20 classes at the Advanced Placement level. Students are all assigned a faculty advisor and at the end of every academic quarter, awards for honors students are presented before the school community.

Classics? That means Lawrence O'Donnell's youth was eked on thin gruel of Latin conjugations.

And... the average class size is 11? That's not a class, that's an arena football squad. Including the punter/kicker.

Charles Dickens just emailed me to say, "Oliver Twist had it easy."

Which paht of Bahston is St. Sebastian's in? It's in Needham, Massachusetts., which is another way of saying it's not a paht of Boston at all. What it is is a tony, tree-filled suburb of Boston. Sort of a distant suburb, actually. The kind of hellhole where some of the cars are three or more years old, and where you find shady businesses with sketchy names like "The Olive Garden, "Dress Barn," and "Anthropology."

It's such a tough place that people sometimes call it "The Brookline of the Outer Bedroom Communities."

The sort of place where a kid growing up only has two options-- Harvard, or a lesser New England private college. Fortunately, Lawrence O'Donnell avoided the hell of a lesser New England private college and got into Harvard. (In an age where it wasn't actually as difficult to get into as it is today, mind you.)

So, that's the "paht of Boston" where Lawrence O'Donnell learned how to scrap. And also, he learned from watching Robert Conrad on TV.

And this sad, aging poltroon is on NBC News challenging people to fights. Well, not people. He's challenging Camera A to a fight, actually. Camera A weighs in at 450 pounds, but then, Lawrence has the better footwork and reach. Since it's just a camera and therefore inanimate.

Lawrence, it's hard to feel physically threatened by a 61 year old wearing make-up and Spanx.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (312)
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First, what we already knew.

In order to not quote too much, I'm cutting most of the parts where Claire McCaskill denies everything. So, just to put it on the record: She denies all allegations.

Businesses affiliated with the husband of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill have received almost $40 million in federal subsidies for low-income housing developments during her first five years in office, but McCaskill's campaign said Tuesday that none of that money made it into the family's personal bank accounts.

...

The AP reviewed five years' worth of federal personal financial disclosure statements filed by McCaskill, which list more than 300 "affordable housing" businesses in which her husband, Joseph Shepard, had at least a partial ownership during the time she has been in office. At least one-third of those businesses also appear to be listed as recipients of federal payments in an online government database that tracks spending.

...

According to McCaskill's financial reports, Shepard earned an income of between about $400,000 and $2.6 million from those businesses in the years in which they received government payments.

..

McCaskill said "just a fraction of that income dealt with subsidized housing" and that her husband had only "a passive, minor investment role in" in many of the projects.

...

"She has to vote for or against appropriation bills - that's what the citizens of Missouri hire her to do," said George Connor, head of the political science department at Missouri State University. But he added: "It seems to me that she has influence over federal policy that has directly benefited her husband."

"There certainly is a legitimate perception of a conflict of interest, but that's not the same thing as saying there is one," Connor said.

...

McCaskill ranks as one of the wealthiest members in Congress, largely because of her husband's business success, which was already well-established when she married Shepard in 2002. Her political opponents have long sought to make an issue of their finances.

Now comes fresh allegations. Her husband's long-time CFO is a man named Craig Woods. Shephard and Woods had a falling out -- McCaskill calls him a "disgruntled former employee," which seems accurate enough -- and now Craig Woods is talking to Republican operatives. McCaskill says he's a felon; which seems true enough, but then again, he worked as her husband for 19 years.

She seems to be claiming neither she or her husband knew he was a felon, saying Woods lied about his past:

“Craig Woods is a twice-convicted felon and a disgruntled former employee who lied repeatedly to Claire’s husband about his criminal past of fraud and embezzlement,” McCaskill spokeswoman Caitlin Legacki said in an email to TheDC in response to the allegations.

I don't know if McCaskill is committing herself to the claim that her husband knew nothing of Woods' shady background, or just implying the hell out of it, without committing herself to that. From what is quoted, I do not see a firm statement that "My husband was never aware of Woods' background until recently, and when he did discover it, he terminated his association with Woods."

It seems like that's what's being implied without actually being said.

So personally I'd like some clarification on that-- is that what is being claimed? Whenever there's a scandal, we see people wanting to be taken as denying more than they actually are denying.

Let's be clear here: What exactly is being denied, exactly? Any knowledge of his background? Some knowledge?

Woods is now alleging:

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskillÂ’s husband used the U.S. Senate Dining Room to cut business deals selling tax credits tied to stimulus money, a whistle-blowing executive inside his company alleged on an audio recording exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller.

“The thing that irritated me about this was he [McCaskill’s husband Joseph Shepard] entertained these outside investors in the Senate Dining Room,” the whistle-blower said. “That’s where he closed the deal.”

I'm not clear on how the credits were "sold;" if I understand the dealings (and I'm not sure I do; read the article yourself, and don't trust my guess here) Shephard took the credits he got for one subsidized-housing project (which, the whistleblower said, were enough to cover his full costs, so he didn't have to borrow "a dime") and packaged them with non-subsidized housing and sold the combined lot to Baltimore investors. In that way, I guess, the credits were "sold," though I'm not sure if there's anything shady about packaging them in that way.

However that part shakes out, though, there is still the matter of Claire McCaskill voting on "stimulus" items and various other housing-related subsidies that clearly wind up benefiting her husband -- and herself -- at some point in the chain of causality.

I assume, for example, that McCaskill's husband -- a very rich man -- is not building these houses pro bono like Jimmy Carter, and gets money for them. The very fact he's packaging subsidized housing (with federal tax credits) with non-subsidized housing to make the deal more advantageous tax-wise suggests this is not an altruistic endeavor.

So it seems he's profiting. Which is not a problem of itself... except for the small business of his wife voting for the federal tax credits he then scoops up and puts in his pocket.

Then there's the allegation that he's cutting these deals in the Senate Dining Hall. If true, that again is him trading on privileges granted to his wife for use for the citizens of Missouri generally for his own benefit. Access to the Senate -- demonstrated by a nice meal in its dining hall -- is nice selling point in a deal.

Especially if that deal is highly dependent on federal largesse. Kind of nice to remind your business partners that you've got a pretty nice inside track into federal subsidies and tax credits.

Now, McCaskill is denying these allegations. But there's something about her previous denials that sits wrong--

McCaskill said "just a fraction of that income dealt with subsidized housing" and that her husband had only "a passive, minor investment role in" in many of the projects.

Based on the allegations about packaging subsidized projects with non-subsidized ones and selling the project to investors, this does not sound "passive" or "minor." It sounds active and major -- at least in the bundling/getting a cut phase.

Posted by: Ace at 07:31 AM | Comments (191)
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Alternate title: CIA to Obama: Hey Barry, you know what's "not optimal"? Your sorry ass.

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S.

I love them hemming and hawing about "how far up the chain did this go?". That's just the AP covering for their boyfriend.

Remember how people (rightly) complained about the CIA pretty much openly engaging in war against George W. Bush (think the ridiculous 2007 NIE on Iran's nuclear program)? Everyone talked about how the CIA was actually a hotbed of liberals. That may or may not be true but it's clear their political allegiance is first and foremost to their agency.

I'm not getting into kooky, "the spies are staging a take over" stuff but there is a much broader problem here with the CIA that needs to be straightened out. But that's a long term thing. In the near term, it's another line Mitt gets to use at the foreign policy "debate" on Monday (if the "moderator" shuts up long enough to let him).

Posted by: DrewM at 06:16 AM | Comments (239)
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