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CNN is out with a new poll showing President Obama leading Mitt Romney 52% to 43%. While I don’t put much stock in horse race results this far out from the election, the poll does contain a pair of questions that I feel neatly summarize what will likely be one of the inherent dynamics of this election. The poll found the election will primarily be a referendum on Obama. From CNN/ORC:
3. (Asked of Obama voters) Is that more a vote FOR Barack Obama or more a vote AGAINST Mitt Romney?
Vote for Obama 76%
Vote against Romney 23%
No Opinion 1%
4. (Asked of Romney voters) Is that more a vote FOR Mitt Romney or more a vote AGAINST Barack Obama?
Vote for Romney 35%
Vote against Obama 63%
No Opinion 3%
By historic standards this is an extremely low percentage of people who say they are planning to vote for the challenger and not simply against the incumbent. This could be the result of Romney’s history of low favorability ratings, the high level of vitriol the GOP base has directed at Obama while he has been in office or a combination of the two.
Either way I suspect the Republican party will spend most of its efforts on a message of why Obama doesn’t deserve another term instead of trying to make voters actually like Romney. With an unpopular nominee but four years of high unemployment under the incumbent, that likely seems the best strategy.
25 Comments
No it isn’t.
The election is not meaningful in any way, shape or form.
There is no choice, so how could the outcome have any meaning.
Right on. I am just about done with FDL and the continual nonsense about the election. That said, if it did matter and were a referendum on Obama then let him lose. The man has done absolutely nothing to deserve surviving a referendum…
OT: Just in case you all missed it our friend David House has good goings.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/judge-bradley-manning-supporter-can-sue-government-over-border-search.ars
“Vote Robamaney 2012: There’s No Hope!”
right, the election is a referendum on obama..so either way the country will a for “a mandate” for austerity and endless imperial wars…see how the election racket works
Don’t you understand that there will be a Lame Duck Grand Bargain (LDGB) right after he’s elected — which will usher in hope and change?
Obama sucks. The alternative is a 1%er who needs to say crazy shit on a regular basis in order to please the rightwingers.
This election is about how the American people aren’t given any real choices by the MOTU.
If people were that unhappy with Obama there would be a serious primary challenger.
Check out this online poll. You can vote every day on it.
There is something very clear:Obama fall short expectations,he is like the worse republican,nothing else.
How about adding NONE OF THE ABOVE to polling. As to why no Democratic wanker would run against the Big O; 1. there’s no there there and 2. the Democratic elite, and I specifically include Jennifer Granholm (who IMHO would be a better Prez)get all glassy eyed when talking on the Big O’s greatness. It’s those damn Republicans that make him so ineffective, not his actions, policies or politics.
“If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”
Mark Twain
You’re probably right.
But, “hope and change” for WHOM????
I think we should be watching Greece and Spain and taking copious notes.
“It’s a madhouse, a madhouse!”
Dear Firedoglake.
People are fed up with your coverage. Are you going to start doing coverage on Rocky Anderson now?
Deadly serious question.
Actually- there is a choice. It just appears that the powers that be do not want us to be aware of them and in doing so hope that we either stop voting or to vote president Oily-Bomber out of fear of “evil” Clown Car Circus.
It is time to stop the charade. Start allowing articles about Rocky Anderson here. Stop promoting the corporate political parties agenda.
Oh yes
ROCKY ANDERSON FOR PRESIDENT
Also of course, Dr. Jill Stein (Green Party).
http://www.jillstein.org/
Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza (Socialist Party USA) are another option.
http://stewartalexanderforpresident2012.org/
It would be nice to see these actual leftist alternatives on the front pages of FDL. :-)
“The alternative is a 1%er who needs to say crazy shit on a regular basis in order to please the rightwingers.”
Yeah, the choice is one who does it openly with resistance from Democrats versus one who does it secretly with the approval of Democrats. Not even Bush was as crazy as Obama with assassinating citizens, but because Obama is a Democrat, he moved the country far more to right than Bush ever did – and with the rightward movement cheered on by the Democrats.
It would be nice to see article about the alternatives to the corporate duopoly visible on FDL at all.
I wrote an article where I did an exclusive interview with Rocky Anderson, based upon questions asked beforehand by commentators here at FDL. It never even got to the “visible” recommended area of the side bar. No matter how many recommends and/or comments it received. People had to search the FDL files to find it. It was attacked and smeared by some of the fine front pager folks at FDL though.
I would also welcome articles regarding Jill Stein (or Roseanne Barr) for the opportunity to ask some very straightforward questions. Not that I would expect the campaign to answer them. Speaking as one who worked with the Green Party for ten years and left in disgust.
Also I would love an article about the Socialist Party candidates, including Stewart Alexander.
A media which refuses to inform the public of the facts and so inform it’s readers/viewers/listener have proven themselves to be the enemy of an informed public. That makes them the enemies of democracy itself. I am a decades long media activist, schooled in the Noam Chomsky principles of the five filters of media and the guidance of the ideals of his book Manufactured Consent.
Actually- correction. I was attacked and smeared by some of the fine front pager folks at FDL.
The idels of the article itself was ignored. Which was the pretty blatant attempt. It is called shooting and smearing the messenger, to make the message itself attacked.
This is pretty standard Democratic Party tricks and manipulations.
The Democratic Party and their hacks are scared. As they should be.
Bingo- Put perfectly.
Which is why the Democratic Party and their hacks want us demoralized and not knowing about the alternatives. They want to pretend that they have a mandate.
They do not.
Remember
ROCKY ANDERSON FOR PRESIDENT
or
Stewart Alexander for president
I used to also promote Jill Stein out of a sense of fairness and in solidarity. I do not do that any longer. They have obviously made their choice on how they want to move forward.
Of course we have a choice! We can either vote for the guy who forced all his constituents to purchase health insurance, or the guy who forced all his constituents to purchase health insurance.
I think calling Romney a 1%er with the implication that Obama is not (NOT that eCAHNomics did that), is a bit disingenuous, since Obama will very likely be a 1%er himself within a year or two out of office, like Clinton and Gore in 2001. Maybe Obama empathized with most people at some point in his life, but I think that time had long passed by his first year as president.
The past four years have been a real wake up call. Americans supported the most “liberal” president that the mainstream media would allow them to, and he ended up being to the right of Reagan. I believe now is the time to seriously advocate liberal third party candidates. Fearing the repercussions only keeps us all in an ever darkening grey twilight.
The poll responses that respondents can choose:
How is it that the only possible choice for a liberal/progressive ideologically opposed to what Obama stands for (Reagan republicanism) either makes no sense (#3) or suggests you’re a Birther opposed because you think Obama is a liberal?
When I watch mainstream television media (CNN and MSNBC primarily), I do not see my point of view presented. It’s either the far rightwing perspective of Rick Santorum-Gingrich-et al, or the right-of-center pro-corporate, pro-war, pro-unregulated free market philosophy of Obama-Democratic Party-Romney-Republican-establishment.
The media has done a masterful job of restricting the issues in this upcoming election, as usual. Nowhere is this more evident than on shows like Morning Joe.
With this CNN poll along with Jon Walker’s headline here at FDL, the fix is in and complete: “This Election Is a Referendum on Obama”. The tough questions will never get put to Obama so nobody will know just what it is that they’re rubberstamping with their vote for him. Obama will be able to do what Nancy Pelosi did just prior to the 2006 election when she stated quietly a couple of weeks before the election that should Democrats get control of the House, impeachment of Bush-Cheney would be off the table. Once the election was over and Democrats got control of the House, she could say about Democrats failing to hold Bush-Cheney to account, “The election was a referendum on whether to impeach them, and we said before the election we wouldn’t.”
Obama did something similar just before the 2010 midterms. He broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress. More caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republicans:
This after Republicans couldn’t have been clearer, from even before Obama got into the White House, that they had no intention of working with him or Democrats.
The reason to do that is to be able to spin after the election, “We told you what we were going to do before the election, so our success in retaining our seats means you were voting for what we broadcast.” It also has the curious effect of discouraging your base from showing up to vote.
I agree. You get to choose from the two right wings of the $$ Party. Still the thought of a GOP wing Pres. is so sickening Barry seems almost ok.