Some rotten cynical operators will try to make an election about big questions instead about small things.

Obama told me so. 2008 version.

Barack Obama's re-election campaign kept up pressure against Republican rival Mitt Romney on two fronts Friday, launching a new ad defending the president's record on Medicare while challenging Romney to release at least five years of tax returns.

The TV advertisement, accusing Romney and running mate Paul Ryan of undermining the health care program critical to millions of seniors, came as Romney continued raise money in non-battleground states. That remains a top priority, even with the election less than 12 weeks away and Obama making extended visits to toss-up states such as Iowa and Ohio.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said the president's camp would seek no further disclosures if Romney would release five years of his individual tax returns. The Romney campaign, which often says there will be no end to Democrats' demands for tax records, rejected the offer.

"It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Gov. Romney's tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters," said Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades.

By the way, that article goes on to complain that Romney is fundraising too much, even though (as they annoyedly note) he has more money in the bank from fundraising than Obama.

Aw. They're pretty steamed that Romney wants to win, aren't they? The media are very put out that Romney doesn't intend to let them, the media, win the messaging war.

Those wondering why Romney was in South Carolina yesterday -- he was there to fundraise, as well as campaign.

O Snap! Obama offers Romney a "deal" on taxes (release five years' worth and we promise, pinky swear we won't dog you for more).

They respond:

It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney's tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending," Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades wrote in a response to Obama counterpart Jim Messina.

...

Replied Rhoades to Messina: "If Governor Romney's tax returns are the core message of your campaign, there will be ample time for President Obama to discuss them over the next 81 days."

Posted by: Ace at 08:16 AM | Comments (200)
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Oh, right. Romney's good at the ground game.

Forgot about that.

In five battleground states the for which the Globe was able to analyze registration data, Democratic registration increased by 39,580 voters, while Republican registration increased by 145,085.

The Democrats contend that they did such a great job of signing up Democrats in 2008 that there aren't many unregistered ones to sign up. Okay, maybe. But at least we're cutting into that.

Now there's also de-registering from a party.

Are Obama's voters happy with their current registration?

The Globe cited a study released earlier this week by Third Way, a left-leaning think tank, that showed Democratic registration down 800,000 people in eight battleground states and Republican registration down by 80,000 in those same states. Independent registration, on the other hand, has grown by nearly half a million voters in those states.

We lost 80,000; they lost 800,000. The swell of independents almost certainly came from Democratic ranks.

Does that surprise you, Mitt Romney?

Even Mitt Romney's surprised.

JeffB. dropped a pudding-level prediction in the comments:

All those massive fundraising numbers you've read about? None of that can be spent by the Romney campaign until after the Convention, after he has been formally nominated. So he's had to run on the fumes of his primary warchest, and rely on the SuperPACs to pick up the slack.

From September onward, though? It's going to be the world's biggest hurricane of pro-Romney advertising, created and directed explicitly by his campaign to set the tone. All that money is going to explode into a blitz of TV, radio, internet advertising, and (most importantly) ON-THE-GROUND ORGANIZING.

I can't emphasize this last enough. *That* was the major advantage Obama had in 2008. He got his people to the polls. Folks, I have seen, up close with my very eyes, the swing-state turnout operation that Mitt Romney is assembling (openly) in Virginia and (quietly, on the down-low) in Pennsylvania. They will blow you away when they start cranking into action. Shit's gonna run like the metal exoskeleton of the Terminator: a thousand moving parts, all in sync, well-oiled.

What about that, Mitt Romney?

Mitt Romney says "aaaayyy."

Add this to the whiteboard?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:27 AM | Comments (265)
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Is Joe Biden just a great Vice-President? Or is he the Greatest Vice-President Ever!?

A new ad from American Crossroads tries to answer that question ... more...

Posted by: andy at 05:03 AM | Comments (390)
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Happy Friday.

Lead plaintiff in the Pennsylvania Voter ID case went and got herself a Voter ID yesterday. Needless to say, her lawyers are a bit pissed off, since that's likely going to frustrate their appeal.

The unfortunately-named "Troublemaker Fest" is apparently not a joke. Christine O'Donnell will headline a debate and film festival near the Republican National Convention with the purpose of "empowering" young people to vote against Obama.

That's all I got. Have a great weekend, ya'll.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (350)
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Tonight's ONT is weak but this time I have a medical-type excuse - apparently I'm now joining the Kool Kids Kidney Stonerz Klub.

Not to worry - I've been a member before and have lots of fluids and narcotics available. Although to be fair that's true of pretty much every other Thursday night too.

The Science of Cute

Or why you can't not look at this picture and go 'Ahhhh...'.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:40 PM | Comments (794)
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No toss-ups, states allocated to Solid, Likely, Lean, and Weak.
The darker the state, the more it favors.
Romney/Ryan...
(warning, big map again) more...

Posted by: CAC at 05:24 PM | Comments (269)
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Racist.

Wilder appeared on FoxNews today, to blast Biden's "chains" remark.

via @@SonnyBunch and @rdbrewer4.

More: Wilder tweeted this this afternoon:

We are not African Americans – we are all Americans.

Via @darthwyatt

False Alarm? Apparently some are claiming he was in town to attend an education summit and just went to the wrong hotel.

I don't know, obviously.

Pushback: What I'm hearing is "You trust a goofy story from Buzzfeed?"

I.e., the "wrong hotel" story is wrong.

Posted by: Ace at 04:55 PM | Comments (223)
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One I already mentioned -- Wisconsin. The other two are Florida and Pennsylvania.

In Florida...

Also, according to the poll 48 percent say they fear Obama's health care law more than Ryan's Medicare proposal, while 41 percent say the opposite.

In Pennsylvania, it's 44-38 Obama, but when you add in leaners, it's 47-42 Obama. The Atlantic calls that a "caveat," whereas I'd call it an intensification (of the notion that Romney/Ryan are competitive there).

It's too early to do that "give 3/4ths of all undecided voters to the challenger," still (that rule applies in the last two weeks of the campaign). But... even with leaners, only 47% would vote for the incumbent.

Allah has good post on the Whiteboard Advantage. This gets at an idea I pitched a while ago -- Romney should record 3 one hour seminars on basic economics and policy. The point isn't so much that people watch them, so much as they hear Romney is competent enough, and willing to discuss the issues enough, to record 3 hours of economics lessons.

The whiteboard is better. Same idea though: Look. I'm good with these abstract concepts and want to explain them to you. Virginia Postrel is reminded of Ross Perot's televised seminars on the debt. It's not just that people agree with you when they hear your argument. It's that they also appreciate being treated like a grownup and having some arcane points spelled out for them.

I don't want to steal Allah's post but he's on this wavelength:

Pulling out the white board does two things for him. One: It engages voters on policy on a level that rhetoric canÂ’t. ItÂ’s essentially a visual cue for seriousness. If RomneyÂ’s committed to winning the Medicare debate, he needs to convince voters that the war of words with Obama isnÂ’t election fingerpointing as usual but a real argument over hugely consequential policy differences. The better he is at conveying that, the more the public will resist liberal Mediscaring, I think. Two: It builds on the new identity RomneyÂ’s forged for himself as a policy wonk by picking Ryan as VP. I flagged that in my very first post after Ryan was announced: It felt like, until last week, MittÂ’s campaign had been about nothing in particular except how bad ObamaÂ’s been on the economy. Now, suddenly, heÂ’s an entitlement reformer par excellence, bold enough that heÂ’s actually willing to bust out a de facto blackboard for his cause.

Karl Rove agrees that the Democrats really should have read ObamaCare before passing it to find out what's in it. They are vulnerable on Medicare. And if you don't believe him, Jay Cost agrees.

My previous thought had been campaigns wouldn't matter much; that the trajectory of the election was already determined by the economy, and that Romney was ergo destined to win. Sure, people still have to cast their votes, I reasoned, but we know, for a fact, the great bulk of the factors that will shape their decision. And those factors do not presage well for Obama.

Beginning last Friday, I began to lose my confidence; after all, one can only stand on a prediction for so long without seeing supporting evidence (such as poll movement). Kind of hard to just keep repeating a theory while not seeing any evidence for it.

But now I'm feeling confident again, and revising my thought that "the campaign won't matter much:" This campaign could matter, and turn a 52-47 loss for Obama into a 56-43 landslide for Romney. (I know, the numbers didn't change much; but the little difference matters.)

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. We'll have to see how it plays, but right now I think the Democrats are panicking once again. Previously, they panicked; but they always knew they had the MediScare card in up their sleeve, ready to be played.

And it turns out they had it trumped and played back on them. So now what? That was their backstopper, that was their Plan A (and also their Plan B, and Plan C).

If that's out, what do they have? Run on gay marriage?

You know who's not panicking? Chris Matthews. You know why? Because he's stupid and doesn't follow the news very much.

This might be a tea leaf too far, but you know when you've got the wind in your sails? When you're loose and joking around. When you have them on the defensive, ridiculing them.

That's just a feeling. Our optimism could be ill-founded. And yet, there's a reason for it. It didn't just come out of nowhere.

And forgive the use of this word, but when even the Washington Post is calling Joe Biden fundamentally unserious, he's becoming -- become? -- Palinized. He's a liability, and Obama's got a shit-ton of liabilities on his hands already.

I do not believe he will be on the ticket.

Combine that with silly-shit desperation moves like this -- the White House criticizing the Ryan plan for not balancing the budget fast enough for their liking-- and it sure seems that one side is making first downs and the other side is coming apart.

Cascade? What I was getting at in my prediction was the idea of the preference cascade. I've been predicting it for, oh, two and a half years now. I'm still waiting. Hence, my waning confidence.

And just as I was publishing I checked my email. JackStraw sends this as evidence of the tipping point tipping over.

Radford bakery that turned Biden away sells out of 'freedom cookies'

The viral reaction to Chris the Baker shows the continuing resonance of "You didn't build that" in the presidential campaign.

Another such sign, a direction arrow if you will, is here.

Speaking of that, I was talking to a friend. He wanted to know my take. I basically told him most of the stuff you just read (except this was before my confidence was restored).

I mentioned that what I always want to hear about is how this is playing in the real world, not with partisans, but you know, average joes who don't follow this stuff.

He sent this -- check out comment 2.

Even Crabby Brokedown Dave Letterman: Even he thinks Biden is the new Palin.

Letterman: TheyÂ’re saying Paul Ryan could be a big boost for the Republican ticket. Hey, Joe Biden is a big boost for the Republican ticket.

via @ahmalcom

Posted by: Ace at 04:13 PM | Comments (247)
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Only ABC gave it any significant coverage.

Tony Perkins, head of the FRC, noted, correctly, that leftist groups' casual branding anyone they disagree with as "hate" groups, outside the pale, deligitimized, and, for all intents and purposes, dehumanized, contributes to the unhinged's willingness to kill.

After all, we all know if that if we had a time machine, we could, morally, go back in time and kill Hitler. Well, you don't need a time machine to go to the FRC, and if they're just like Hitler.... might as well shoot them, eh?

@comradearthur used that analogy. I think he's right.

Chris Matthews, of course, did not cover the story at all. I assume he is on the "pro" side of murdering Republicans, because he used to rage quite insanely if someone so much as criticized Obama. That, he contended, could lead to political violence.

Well here is actual political violence, and he's apparently okay with it. Not even worth a mention.

I've talked about this before-- if the liberals' position is that a failure to expressly and vigorously repudiate political violence encourages violence (something I actually agree with), what does it say when they absolutely refuse so condemn a shooting of a man at a conservative organization?

By their own logic-- they're encouraging it. And I think, actually, this is not just cheap logic. I think in their hearts they don't mind this.

They're comfortable with it.

Eggs, omlettes. Sometimes some breakage is required.

CNN, of course, covered itself in almost as much glory.

Posted by: Ace at 02:46 PM | Comments (275)
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"Anger" -- as in saying Obama is attempting to divide us with anger -- is viciously racist rhetoric.

So viciously racist, in fact, that Toure drops the completely non-racial bon mot on it -- the "n***erization" of Barack Obama.

I'm so glad that we have Toure to police our dialogue and make sure that no hot-button racist cant is part of our national political discussion.

@cuffymeh observes: "That Toure fellow sure is subtle with his dog whistles."

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (377)
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