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President Obama continues to hold a modest lead over Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania according to a new Quinnipiac poll. The poll has Obama with 46 percent to Romney at 40 percent. This is a slight improvement for Romney since last month when the same poll had it Obama 47 percent to Romney 39 percent.
While this Pennsylvania poll is slightly closer than other recent ones, all of them show Obama with the lead. It is unlikely Obama will lose the state barring a wave election, but this poll does highlight the basic dynamics of the overall race.
Obama’s advantage is that he is better liked as a person and viewed more positively. By a 77 – 18 percent voters say Obama is a likable person, compared to 58 – 29 percent margin for Romney. Similarly, Obama has a positive net favorable rating, 49 favorable – 44 unfavorable, while Romney’s favorable rating is negative, 35 favorable – 42 unfavorable.
Despite the huge likeability gap, what is keeping the race close is that Romney holds a solid advantage on the number one issue, the economy. About 49 percent of voters think Romney would do a better job with the economy, and just 41 percent think Obama would. That is the largest advantage on the economy Quinnipiac has registered for Romney in all their Pennsylvania polling. It’s a number that must really scare the Obama campaign.
19 Comments
BETTER ON THE ECONOMY? Holy cow. The guy is a vulture capitalist 0.01%er maniac. Can Republicans really get away with trying to block every effort to fix the economy since they crashed it and blame it on Obama? What is the average IQ of the US voter?
Both P.T. Barnum and H.L. Mencken had the American public pretty much figured out.There is a large swath of the public that aren’t too swift – never have been and never will be. If the GOP ever have their way with de-funding public education you will have a larger mass of people who can’t connect the dots.
Obama’s team is doing to Willard’s Bain experience what the Bush people did to Kerry’s war record. Going into the Fall it will establish a narrative that Willard financially represents everything that has gone wrong in destroying the middle class in the last 30 years. By October all Willard will have to run on is “I’m white and he’s not”.
Excellent analysis. You may be right. I feel the debates may have some significant effect on the election. More ‘n likely only 4-5 states will determine the next president. And that may involve people who don’t know the difference between a socialist, a communist and a fascist.
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of American Democalypse 2012, coming this November. Check local listings for time and channel.
Now back to “Jersey Shore-The Reunion”.
This is a problem entirely of Obama’s making. The too-small stimulus, the federal pay freezes, busting teacher unions, the cuts in federal aid to the states resulting in state and local govt jobs being cut, the focus on austerity, the catfood commission, the “new normal” of unemployment around 8% or higher, the coddling of big banks and Wall Street. Tell me again how Obama will automatically be better than Romney on the economy? Is it the “D” after his name?
At least there is a historical record for Repubs to run deficits – and we need all the Keynesianism we can get.
Do you think Obama will just roll over now for the last time, or will he fight? Because he has pretty much perfected the game of rolling over. Maybe he will endorse Rmoney.
“The economy” doesn’t mean squat. I’m getting tired of the term, as though there’s some monolithic mega structure that is under some president’s control, or under the control of the Fed Chairman, or well understood by some f__king economist. The system is now fully rigged to squeeze productivity and wealth out of as many people as possible, in order to engorge the .01% at the top. They are in control, so no matter who gets installed (“elected”), this will continue.
People are grasping at straws because none of our so-called leaders (or those who aspire to the pretense) gives a damn about people’s livelihoods and well being. The whole election thing is a distraction, an elaborate show designed to make people think they have a voice and the power to make change happen, when in fact they don’t. Romney, Obama, Republican, Democrat — the outcome is pretty much the same.
And here I sit, writing the same old crap over and over. Gotta go. Bye.
Imo, we are on a downward spiral to borderline Third World status. The full brunt may not fully be felt for another 10-15 years or so.
The political will to radically change direction isn’t there. At least with Obama the fall will be cushioned, with a future prospect of remediation, but with Willard, Ryan, Cantor and company , with Norquist pulling their strings, the fall will be swifter and possibly permanent.
The GOP is quite brilliant in their divide and conquer strategy.
Wait until all regulations – financial and workplace are eliminated, and there won’t be a need for cliches like “new normal” and “catfood commission”.
Of course Romney’s seen as better on the economy – if he’s elected he’ll at least be able to get some traction in Congress, since the Dems aren’t blinded by a partisan other-hate that prevents any consideration of policies that worked historically and / or make economic sense currently.
In Michigan a recent poll suggests MI is a toss up, despite O playing a role in saving the auto industry. People have short memories and have the habit of voting against their own best interests. Republicans have been running negative Obama ads for the last 3 months in MI and one can’t help but think they are having an impact.
Do I detect a little bit of wistful thinking on your part, perhaps?
By October, a lot more people will realize that the only substantive difference between O and R is their skin color.
Blue
H.L. Mencken said, “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” The only difference between then and now is in the time of Mencken the “electorate” was better informed.
bgrothus–
“Maybe he will endorse Rmoney.” Good one.
Blue
I totally agree w/ you on the above, bystander. But I also feel the Democratic Party as a whole, with its decades long infiltration of DLC, neo-liberal, Third Way types is just as complicit in our downward spiral as the Repubs. It may be the only thing which slows down the trend to Third World America is divided government.
It probably has more to do with the indifference of a lot of people between one candidate sho will actively empower the vulture capitalists, and the other who will passively empower them.
Obama is actively running ads bragging about how low he has kept growth in federal spending – 6.8% for Reagan, 5.4% for Bush 1, 3.5% for Clinton, 7.7% for Bush, and 1.4% for Obama. So it’s not like he’s arguing that there’s this economic stimulus plan he really wants to do, but Congressional Republicans are blocking him.
I fail to see how a corporate raider can be good for any economy other than his own. Are people so very desperate they would actually vote for one??? The guy has proven himself to be a vivisectionist who discovered very early that the sum of the parts is greater than the intrinsic value of the whole. It was little people who built the businesses he destroyed with sweat, determination, and imagination…not by some banker who has only money. And don’t give me any crap about how they were paid for their hours. Labor is more than being about an hourly wage, but how would Willard know about that?? Mr Romney, just because you could have done what you did to the people you did it to doesn’t mean you should have. Frankly, what you did was indecent, at best.
Educate yourselves, Pennsylvania, and do it fast…there’s not a lot of time left. Your children and grandchildren are at stake. Serfs don’t pay with money in a feudal society. They pay with much more.
From a political point of view both sides are, as you say, complicit in their pandering and protection of the Wall Street types who have brought us to the brink. The big difference is that the GOP is filled full of social neanderthals, who, aside from wanting to make the American worker a feudal peasant, with low wages and fired at will, also want to spend a lot of heavy duty time monitoring your private life.
Oh…good you mentioned Romney there at the end…I wasn’t sure to whom you were referring.
Let’s see, the communists…oh yeah, the guys who hold our trade balance. Nice people to do business with. A lot like the fascists, they don’t let anyone stand in their way (unless it’s televised). Good capitalist hard-headedness. But those socialists, with their unions and co-ops, they’re evil-especially those democratic-socialists, they’re the worst.