I don’t know, the economy is breaking badly for Obama–bad weekly unemployment statistics issued just today (382,000,up by 15,000 from last week http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/13/news/economy/unemployment-benefits/index.html)

Normally, voters vote their pocketbooks. Obama is definitely in the lead, but this ain’t over.

It would have been nice if 3 years of continuing Bush policies, plus assassinating American citizens and signing an indefinite detention law, would result in a closer election. Oh well.

There are only two swing states this cycle : Florida and North Carolina. The others are pipe dreams to give the networks something to fill in the dead air between important announcements from their sponsors.

Early voting starts here in Colorado in about four and a half weeks. If Obama is still in the lead then, Romney’s efforts will be increasingly futile. If Romney is actually going to put up a fight, he has to start locking up a state per week. So far nothing.

The problem is not that people don’t want to vote for the fool Romney, it’s that they do want to vote for the war criminal and Wall Street toady, Barack Obama.

This member of the fastest growing political party in the nation – former Democrat – will be voting for Jill Stein in the “swing” state of Florida.

Vote A.B.O.O.R. – anyone but Obama or Romney

I like the way the polls are moving toward Obama because the bigger his perceived lead is going into election day, the more difficult it becomes for the Republicans to pull off some kind of ballot scam and steal the election.

The other thing that is a big positive IMHO is that we’re seeing a lot of GOP stalwarts make pointed and very public expressions of their doubts about Romney. He is getting hammered from the Right (George Will, Fortune Magazine, and many others) for his various gaffes, especially his godawful commentary on events in the Middle East. What is especially interesting about this is that conservative politicians and TV personalities don’t usually stray off the reservation. They almost always honor the tribal codes, for fear of being banished– Omerta is their highest value. But a lot of them are beating up on Romney of late, which suggests that they have already come to the conclusion that the GOP ticket is toast. They wouldn’t be jeopardizing the coming election with their negative comments if they thought Romney had a decent chance of winning, because they would be putting themselves at risk of sanction. I’m betting that it won’t be long that we start hearing complaints from down-ticket Republicans that the top of the ticket is killing them.

I think we can only blame Romney for that. Can’t even necessarily blame the GOP. They tried and tried and tried and tried to finmd somebody else, anybody else.

I think this falls under “shit happens” category.

In red states..vote Jill Stein, Green Party/Frog Party….Ribbitt.

Heard her vice-presidential candidate on Bill Moyers the other night.

Liked her a lot. She said that the people of this country aren’t going to just live in poverty with food and housing in our view. We are going to take it.

Why only red states Willard?

The “three cornered” hats are arriving next week from the Phillipines.
Got one for you.

Simple, in red states, Romney will win anyway. Third party vote shows both parties we don;t like either one without helping romney. Now, if one is a republican/conservative and lives ina blule state but doesn’t want to vote for romney, vote third party. Same thing.

But, if you live ina purple/swing state, you got to hold your nose and vote R or D, lesser of two evils. This way all votes “count”.

The PTB have to nominate a toad like Romney to make Barry look like a reasonable alternative and you still think votes count?

You being far too logical about this. Ribbit.

I live in Detroit’s western suburbs. The amount of campaign paraphernalia on display is far less than four years ago. Based on what I’ve seen, Obama’s ground game isn’t as strong as it was four years ago, and Romney’s is minimal (an improvement over McCain, who punted the state a month before Election Day).

A 10-point win by Obama statewide would be enough to elect Syed Taj in MI-11–assuming that the national and state parties get out the word that the Republican, Kelly Bentivolio, is a Tea Partier with an anger-management problem and links to a 9/11 truther film.

The Republicans have only themselves to blame for this. They set the bar too high, they wanted someone sane.

I’d vote for Jill Stein even if I lived in the swingiest of states (my home state, Iowa, is a relative lock for obama). I’m not interested in sending a message to anyone. I’m interested in building up a third party.

Presidential elections don’t have to be this way.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.

When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.

The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.

The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc

Same here in Iowa about the election signs and stickers. I saw my first one yesterday–a romney sticker on the back of a hummer.

Four years ago, plenty of leftover Obama stickers/signs everywhere from the caucuses.

In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree that, at most, only 6-12 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-take-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. At most, 12 states will determine the election. Candidates will not care about at least 76% of the voters– voters in 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and in 16 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning could be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. In 2008, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. More than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans, have been just spectators to the general election.

Now, policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states – that include 9 of the original 13 states – are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing, too.

The number and population of battleground states is shrinking as the U.S. population grows.

States’ partisanship is hardening.

Some states have not been been competitive for than a half-century and most states now have a degree of partisan imbalance that makes them highly unlikely to be in a swing state position.
• 41 States Won by Same Party, 2000-2008
• 32 States Won by Same Party, 1992-2008
• 13 States Won Only by Republican Party, 1980-2008
• 19 States Won Only by Democratic Party, 1992-2008
• 9 Democratic States Not Swing State since 1988
• 15 GOP States Not Swing State since 1988

http://www.fairvote.org/presidential-elections-state-by-state-hardening-partisanship

This election swings on getting out the former Confederate state’s white, male, college educated, urban oriented, bow hunting, single/divorced 1%ers who are thinking of becoming vegetarians in 2015. Obama needs this important group to tip over the Mittster. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, George and Dick are plotting to file suit in federal court claiming they were the real losers of the Florida recount, the SCOTUS decision, and it’s all really Al Gore’s fault. The economy, the phony wars, 911 were really on his watch. It was his shadow gov’t pulling the strings. His tax cuts, too. I saw this in a poll of likely voters from Nutscratch, Alabama on TeeVee. It must all be true because none of the people polled could explain the term, ” cognitive dissonance. “

Karl Rove is wasting millions of Koch Brothers money on carpet-bombing the Twin Cities TV airwaves with his craptacular ads. Why? To reach the voters in Western Wisconsin and the northern part of Paul Ryan’s district.

Interestingly, Ryan himself has started running congressional campaign ads in his home CD. He must figure that Mittens is toast.

Ryan knows that when he loses VP and also loses his Congressional seat, he’s also toast. The GOP and Villagers will go on to the next fair-haired intellectual in their midst. Goddess save us, I can’t imagine who that might be.

. . . fastest growing political party in the nation – former Democrat

Thanks for that, you gave me my first smile today.

Is Ryan in fact still on the ballot for his congressional seat?

I live in Mason City IA and we are bombarded as well. Our ABC affiliate is out of Austin MN and NBC and Fox come out of Rochester.

Same thing here I guess. Mitt stand no chance in MN and little chance in Iowa, so the ads must be aimed at someone, somewhere, unless he thinks Iowa is still in play as he apparently thinks WI is.