Did Putin Pick Donald Trump's Secretary of State ?

 There are those (especially on the right) who would consider it ludicrous to think that the United States Secretary of State was picked by Putin, and only rubber-stamped by Donald Trump. But it may not be such a ridiculous proposition. Consider this from The Daily Beast:

A new New Yorker profile of Trump-Russia dossier author Christopher Steele reports on a lesser-known memo the former MI-6 spy allegedly discussed with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators. According to the report, in late November 2016, Steele relayed information from his Russian sources that senior Kremlin officials had intervened to block Mitt Romney as President-elect Trump’s choice for secretary of State. Reporter Jane Mayer writes that Moscow had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be willing to lift sanctions related to Ukraine and cooperate with Russia’s involvement in Syria. 

Those on the right will immediately discount this simply because it came from Christopher Steele. They accept the propaganda that Steele was paid to make up a fake dossier on Trump. That is untrue. Steele was a trusted intelligence officer for a long time, and most of what was in his famous dossier has been proven to have been correct. Couldn't this information also be correct?

It is bolstered by the choice Trump finally did make to fill the office of Secretary of State -- Rex Tillerson, who is well-liked by Russia's Putin. He signed an oil deal with Russia worth many billions of dollars, and Russia awarded him the Order of Friendship (the highest award given to a foreigner). Russia got an American Secretary of State they considered to be a friend.

Did Russia have enough pull with Donald Trump to block the appointment of someone they didn't like and approve of someone they did like? It certainly looks like that could be the case. Add to this the fact that Trump tried to remove sanctions against Russia and return property seized from them by the U.S. government almost immediately after being sworn in (and was stopped only by Congress from doing so). Now has refused to impose new sanctions imposed on Russia by Congress. He also continues to deny Russian interference in the 2016 election, and has not ordered government officials to make sure the Russians don't interfere in future elections.

It all makes me wonder why Trump is so weak on Russia (and much harder on our traditional allies). What do the Russians have on him? Is it just the embarrassing "pee tape", or is it much darker (like money laundering through his businesses, or other monetary criminality)? Is it just a threat to call due the many millions loaned him by Russian banks -- a move that could destroy his business empire?

Whatever it is (and I do believe they have something on Trump), it seems to be pretty bad (at least in Trump's mind). It makes me wonder just who is calling the shots when it comes to U.S. policy on Russia -- Trump or Putin? I'm beginning to believe it is the latter -- and that we have a traitor living in the White House.

NYT Electoral College Map Has Clinton Winning 347 Votes

The electoral college map above is from The Upshot blog in the New York Times. It predicts the 2016 election will be the same as the 2012 election -- with one exception. North Carolina, which went for Romney in 2012, will go for Clinton in 2016. That would give Hillary Clinton 347 electoral college votes -- 77 votes over the 270 votes required for her to be elected.

Donald Trump likes to say that Mitt Romney "choked" in 2012, but right now it looks like Trump will do even worse than Romney did.

Trump Has Historically Low Numbers Among Hispanic Voters

Donald Trump continues to claim he will do well with Hispanics in the coming election. If he really believes this (which I doubt), then he is living in a dream world. The truth is that, as the New Latino Voice Poll shows, Trump is doing very poorly among Hispanic voters -- much worse than any Republican has done in recent elections.

This is important in Florida -- a state that Trump must carry to have any chance of winning the presidency. Hispanics make up 18% of Florida voters, and have a big impact on that state's elections. Normally, Republicans do a little better in Florida among Hispanics than they do nationally because a large segment of the Florida Hispanic vote is Cuban (and they traditionally vote for the GOP). But this year is different.

This year, Florida Hispanics are as anti-Trump as Hispanics nationwide. Only 12.9% of Florida Hispanics support Trump. That's much worse than the 39% that Romney got in 2012, or the 42% that McCain got in 2008.

And it looks just as bad nationally. In 2008, McCain got 31% of the national Hispanic vote, while Romney got 27% in 2012 -- and both of them lost. Trump is only getting 12.8%. That should worry Republicans, since the votes cast by Hispanics (as a percentage of the total votes) is almost sure to be higher than in any past election.

Romney Is Wrong - U.S. Engages In "Mass Incarceration"

 The other day, Hillary Clinton gave a speech calling for a fairer justice system and an end to "mass incarcerations" in the United States. It was a good speech, and I was happy to finally see an American politician addressing the failures of our criminal justice system.

But making our system fairer and ending the mass incarcerations is not going to be an easy thing to accomplish. Almost immediately, failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke up against Clinton's idea. He said:

We don’t have mass incarcerations in America. Individuals are brought before tribunals, and they have counsel. They’re given certain rights. Are we not going to lock people up who commit crimes?

Romney is either a liar or an idiot, but either way he is wrong. Any honest person that looks at the statistics will be able to see that (see charts below). The United States has by far the largest prison population rate per 100,000 citizens of any country in the world. And it has the largest number of people in prison -- nearly 2.5 million people. No other country is close. China (with a much larger population) is the closest, with about 1.6 million prisoners. The truth is that the United States has about 5% of the world's population, but has 25% of the world's total prison population. That seems to me to be the definition of mass incarceration.

And no Mitt, neither Hillary Clinton nor anyone else is suggesting that we stop locking up criminals -- just that we limit those incarcerations to the criminals that need to be locked up to protect the public. All other countries lock up their criminals. Why do they not have a prison to population rate as high as ours? Are Americans more dishonest or criminal-minded than people in other countries? Of course not.

The sad fact is that while other countries lock up their criminals, the United States decided that was not enough. We decided to use our prisons to solve our social problems. The mass incarceration started with President Nixon's "war on drugs" in 1971. That has been an abysmal failure, but it has been continued by every president since then. They have all failed to realize that drug abuse is a social and medical problem -- not a criminal problem. And while the "war on drugs" has not reduced drug availability, it has filled our state and federal prisons (mostly with low-level and non-violent drug offenders).

That was bad enough, but then the federal government and many states passed new sentencing guidelines that gave judges no leeway in sentencing and vastly increased the length of those sentences. This also had an effect on our prison population -- causing it to balloon (again with many low-level and non-violent offenders).

We like to claim we are a free and democratic country that supports human rights -- but our prison population shows something else. It makes us look like a police state. And it makes us the laughingstock of the world. We need to change our criminal justice system and stop the mass incarceration -- regardless of what Mitt Romney and his right-wing buddies think. You cannot solve social and medical problems by criminalizing them -- and we were foolish to think that could be done.

(Note -- the caricature of Mitt Romney above is by DonkeyHotey.)

 (This image of prison population rates is from chartsbin.com.)

(This image of the history of U.S. prison population is from politicalblindspot.com.)

Romney Is Out - GOP Field Still Has No Real Leader

(The caricature of Mitt Romney above is by DonkeyHotey.)

Mitt Romney has been dipping his toes in the presidential waters for the last couple of weeks, and it looked like he was preparing to run for that office a third time. All that ended on Friday, as Romney announced he will not be seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Why did Romney change his mind? Perhaps the biggest reason is that Wall Street and many other big donors balked at another Romney candidacy. They got a lot of bad publicity the last time he ran, and they weren't too thrilled at the prospect of a repeat of that. Add to that the fact that Rupert Murdock, the owner of Fox News, doesn't like Romney -- making it a pretty sure bet that he would not be getting a lot of good press from Fox News (the publicity arm of the Republican Party).

Romney has never been liked very well by the teabaggers, who control the party in many states, and without the support of Fox News and Wall Street it became clear to Romney that he could not overcome that teabagger dislike. Romney finally accepted that getting the nomination in 2016 would be an extreme long shot, so he dropped out.

Some think this makes Jeb Bush the clear favorite. I don't think so -- at least not yet. Fox News conducted a poll of Republican voters between January 25th and 27th (and asked who they supported if Romney didn't run), and the results are in the chart below. It shows Bush with a small lead, but a long way from a prohibitive lead (and at least two others within the margin of error).

Public Policy Polling also did a survey of the Republican hopefuls between January 22nd and 25th, but since Romney was included in the poll it cannot give us a real picture of who is leading. They did also ask respondents if their view of the individual candidates was favorable or unfavorable, and that tells us a little.

It shows Bush with a substantial favorability rating -- but five other candidates (Paul, Huckabee, Carson, Cruz, and Perry) all had higher favorability ratings. Only one GOP hopeful, Chris Christie, had a higher unfavorable than favorable rating. That means Christie's chances are looking dimmer, but the nomination could still go to anyone.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Both of those polls also questioned Democrats about their preference. The results, shown in the charts below, are no surprise. Hillary Clinton is still the prohibitive favorite.

Hillary Currently Leads All The Leading GOP Candidates

This is exactly why I think Hillary Clinton should be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016. The most important thing is to keep an extremist GOP candidate out of the White House (and they are all extremists -- even those touted by the media as being "moderates", like Bush and Romney).

Hillary currently leads all the leading GOP candidates by double-digits -- and that's before those Republicans start beating up on each other in the primaries. This is the kind of margin that could easily be called a "blowout", and could approach "mandate" status (especially if a bunch of Democrats could be sent to Congress on her coattails).

This is from a new ABC News / Washington Post Poll. It was conducted between January 12th and 15th of a random national sample of 1,003 adults, and has a margin of error of 3.5 points.

Here are some of the reasons they give for Hillary's large margin:

The poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds several reasons that Clinton leads all five potential GOP candidates tested:

•   She’s stronger in her base, backed by nine in 10 or more Democrats who are registered to vote, as well as by at least eight in 10 liberals and about six in 10 moderates.
  
  
•   As with Barack Obama, the recovery helps Clinton. About three-quarters of registered voters who rate the economy positively support her, and she leads overwhelmingly among those who say they’ve gained ground financially under Obama’s presidency. But she also leads, by 16 to 20 points, among those whose finances have just held steady
  .
  
•   Clinton has a strong advantage among those who see income inequality as a major problem, and she runs essentially evenly vs. these potential Republican nominees among those who think it’s a problem, but not a major one. She trails only among those who don’t think the income gap is a problem – just 16 percent of registered voters.
  
  
•   Women favor Clinton by 20- to 24-point margins, men by non-significant 2- to 7-point margins. She’s also strong among racial and ethnic minorities, adults under 40 and lower- income voters. 
  

Republicans Still Like Romney - But The Public Doesn't

Recently, there has been a fair amount of talk about the possibility of Mitt Romney running for president again on the Republican ticket. This is probably because of the failure of any of the other candidates to separate themselves from the rather large pack of possible candidates (or show they would stand a chance of competing with Hillary Clinton if nominated). I have already posted about one poll which showed that right now Romney would have a small lead among all the candidate (but even though he had a lead, he only got about 21% support).

Now there is a new poll showing Romney still has support among the Republican base. It is the YouGov Poll, taken between October 18th and 20th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults with a margin of error of about 4 points. They didn't ask who the base Republican voters would vote for, but instead asked them their opinion of Romney (and the other leading candidates). It turns out that Romney has a significantly higher favorable rating among Republicans than any of the other candidates do (an 8-9 point margin, slightly exceeding the survey's margin of error).

This would seem to say a Romney candidacy is a possibility. But should the Republicans nominate him again? The answer is probably NO. While Romney is viewed very favorably by Republicans, that does not extend to the general public. Look at the charts below, and you will see that Romney has an upside-down rating among the general public (36% favorable and 47% unfavorable). And almost every demographic group has that unfavorable opinion of Romney. Only one group (those 65 & older) give him a significant favorable rating. Two other groups, whites and rich people, are split in their opinion of him (with the difference being within the survey's margin of error).

The news for Romney goes downhill from there. Every single demographic group (even the elderly, the whites, and the rich) say they do NOT want Romney to run for president again. And by large margins, every single demographic group, by large margins, thinks Hillary Clinton would easily beat Romney if he was the Republican candidate.

I personally don't think Romney will run, and after the 2012 fiasco, I seriously doubt the teabaggers (who control the GOP) will let him get the nomination again. Even though no clear favorite has emerged yet, I just don't think a Romney candidacy is viable (at least not in 2016).

Gallup To Investigate Its Election Screw-up

Traditionally, the Gallup Poll has been one of the most reliable polls in this country. They having been at the polling game for a long time, and established a pretty good reputation for accuracy. But they blew it in the last presidential election, and because of that they have somewhat tarnished that stellar reputation. On the day before the election, their survey had Mitt Romney ahead of President Obama by 1 point. That was within the margin of error, but it still predicted the wrong man would win -- and it was the only major poll predicting a Romney win (even the Fox News Poll had the race as a dead heat).

Gallup now says they are going to investigate their polling methods, and make any adjustments necessary to improve their political polling. I think that's a smart move. But one clue to what went wrong can be seen in the chart above. It shows that Gallup was less than a point away from the actual result in their survey of registered voters. That had Obama winning by 3 points (and in the actual results, he won by 3.9 points).

But as elections draw nearer, a lot of polling organizations try to narrow down the registered voter numbers to a "likely voters" number to be more accurate. They use a series of questions to try and determine which of the registered voters they question are actually likely to vote. Unfortunately, when Gallup (and several other organizations) whittled their results down to likely voters they actually got further from the real vote, instead of closer.

The only major organization whose narrowing to likely voters got them closer to the actual outcome was the Pew Research Center (who narrowed it down from 7% in favor of Obama to 3% in favor of the president -- a very good result). Why did Pew's move to likely voters get them closer to the result, while the other organizations got further away? It seems that Pew included more people in their likely voter sample (keeping more of the registered voters in that sample), while the other organizations, including Gallup, was stricter in their likely voter guidelines (keeping less of the registered voters in their sample).

The result was that Gallup (and many others) underrepresented the people who actually voted -- and this was especially true of minorities and young people (both of which voted in larger numbers than many polls thought they would). Obviously, most of the polling organizations (with the exception of Pew) need to do a better job of predicting likely voters (the people who will actually vote).

I still think Gallup does a very good job in most of its polling (and I use their results often on this blog). But they screwed up in the 2012 presidential race by misidentifying likely voters. I hope they can correct this before 2014 (and especially before 2016).

Willard Actually Thought He Would Win

I have to admit this surprises me a little bit. It seems that Willard Mitt Romney went into election night supremely confident that he had won the presidency. And he wasn't the only one. His veep nominee and his entire campaign staff were also convinced he had won. They even got a permit and bought fireworks for a big show over Boston Harbor as soon as the networks announced he had won. Here's some of the comments his aides gave to CBS News:

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

"There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't," said another adviser. "It was like a sucker punch."

"He was shellshocked," one adviser said of Romney.

Obviously, Willard and his people were living in a dream world of their own construction. Those of us in the real world knew that his momentum had stopped two or three weeks before the election, and the president had the "big mo" going into election day. At best it was going to be a smashing Obama victory (which it was), and at worst it would be a nail-biter. But only those living in the alternate reality of Fox News could believe Willard had it in the bag.

Compare this to 2008. McCain knew he would probably lose. He and his aides prayed that the polls were wrong and a miracle would happen, but they generally live in the real world (except for his veep nominee) and they weren't shocked at how things turned out -- disappointed, but not shocked.

How could Willard think he had the election won? How could he have convinced himself of that in light of all the evidence there was to dispute it? Here's how CBS News describes the way Willard's campaign was able to delude themselves:

Romney and his campaign had gone into the evening confident they had a good path to victory, for emotional and intellectual reasons. The huge and enthusiastic crowds in swing state after swing state in recent weeks - not only for Romney but also for Paul Ryan - bolstered what they believed intellectually: that Obama would not get the kind of turnout he had in 2008.

They thought intensity and enthusiasm were on their side this time - poll after poll showed Republicans were more motivated to vote than Democrats - and that would translate into votes for Romney.

As a result, they believed the public/media polls were skewed - they thought those polls oversampled Democrats and didn't reflect Republican enthusiasm. They based their own internal polls on turnout levels more favorable to Romney. That was a grave miscalculation, as they would see on election night.

Those assumptions drove their campaign strategy: their internal polling showed them leading in key states, so they decided to make a play for a broad victory: go to places like Pennsylvania while also playing it safe in the last two weeks.

Those assessments were wrong.

They made three key miscalculations, in part because this race bucked historical trends:

1. They misread turnout. They expected it to be between 2004 and 2008 levels, with a plus-2 or plus-3 Democratic electorate, instead of plus-7 as it was in 2008. Their assumptions were wrong on both sides: The president's base turned out and Romney's did not. More African-Americans voted in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida than in 2008. And fewer Republicans did: Romney got just over 2 million fewer votes than John McCain.

2. Independents. State polls showed Romney winning big among independents. Historically, any candidate polling that well among independents wins. But as it turned out, many of those independents were former Republicans who now self-identify as independents. The state polls weren't oversampling Democrats and undersampling Republicans - there just weren't as many Republicans this time because they were calling themselves independents.

3. Undecided voters. The perception is they always break for the challenger, since people know the incumbent and would have decided already if they were backing him. Romney was counting on that trend to continue. Instead, exit polls show Mr. Obama won among people who made up their minds on Election Day and in the few days before the election. So maybe Romney, after running for six years, was in the same position as the incumbent.

The campaign before the election had expressed confidence in its calculations, and insisted the Obama campaign, with its own confidence and a completely different analysis, was wrong. In the end, it the other way around.

National Polls Trending Toward Obama

In the national polls taken before October 28, Willard Mitt Romney had done fairly well for a couple of weeks. Several polls showed him with a small lead and others showed him tied with the president. Nothing had really changed -- the red states were still red, the blue states were still blue, most swing states were still leaning toward the president, and the president still had the best chance of winning the electoral college. But it was enough to give the Republicans some hope, and many of them began to brag of a surge by Willard. It also had some Democrats starting to worry.

Well, in the last week or so things have changed. Every single poll since October 28th has trended toward the president -- and not a single one has Willard leading anymore. If there really was a small surge in the polls for Willard, it has now disappeared. Here are those latest national polls:

Pew Research Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............47%

The last poll issued by Pew (early in October) had Willard leading by 4 points (45%-49%). That's a 7 point turn around in that poll. Two other polls also show Obama in the lead -- by 1 point. They are:

NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............47%

ABC News/Washington Post Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............48%

Four other polls recently released show the race for the presidency is a tie:

CNN/Opinion Research Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............49%

Politico/GWU/Battleground Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............48%

Rasmussen Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............49%

Fox News Poll
Obama...............46%
Romney...............46%

Those last two (Fox and Rasmussen) are interesting because they normally lean toward Republican candidates (by at least a point or two). It should make Democrats feel good if they are not showing Willard in the lead. There was some talk last week about a split between the popular vote and the electoral college (with a different candidate winning each). I now think that won't happen. I think the president will win both, and on Wednesday morning we'll be celebrating his re-election to serve a second term.

Reminder

Today is voting day across this country, and by late tonight we'll know who our president will be -- and who will be going to Washington to either work for him or against him (since bipartisan compromise seems to be a thing of the past).

 The Republicans have tried to keep George W. Bush hidden throughout this campaign, and didn't even want him to attend their convention. And the last thing they have wanted to do is discuss the unmitigated disaster that was his eight year term in office. Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) is now talking about "real" change. Sadly though, all he has to offer is a replay of the Bush administration -- because he wants to follow the same old policies, both economically and in foreign policy. And they would have the same outcome -- more wars that can't be won, more jobs outsourced to foreign countries, more hardship for most Americans, and massive tax cuts for the super-rich (and corporations).

The bottom graphic above is just to remind you of the horrible legacy left by George W. Bush, and inherited by President Obama. It is amazing, considering the obstructionism of congressional Republicans, that President Obama has been able to accomplish as much as he has. If he had a few more Democrats helping him (and I don't mean blue dogs) he probably could have accomplished much more. At least he has the economy moving in the right direction (although weakly).

The only question to be answered now is do Americans want to move forward and heal the economy, or do they want to go back to the failed policies of George W. Bush? We'll know tonight.

A Terrible Person

There are few things in this world more frightening than the thought of a Romney presidency. Throughout this campaign, Willard has shown himself to be completely devoid of any hard-core beliefs (other than cutting his own taxes), honesty (his lying has been numerous and continuous), ethics (having committed both voter fraud and tax fraud), or compassion (supporting policies that would hurt the poor, the elderly, women, unemployed people, children, veterans, immigrants, minorities, gays/lesbians, etc.). A Romney presidency would be even more disastrous for most Americans than the Bush presidency was.

The blogger over at the excellent site called The Rude Pundit sums up Willard's candidacy pretty well (and I agree with every word he wrote). Here is just some of what he had to say:

On some level, it seems as if the campaign of Mitt Romney is a mad sociologist's experiment in seeing how many lies people are willing to either believe or let pass and still vote for a candidate. The Rude Pundit wouldn't be surprised if on next Wednesday morning, Romney was revealed to be the robot we all suspected he was and the scientist controlling the levers and buttons gave a press conference where he said that he was using the machine to try to gauge just how racist and stupid the nation actually is.

"People call me 'mad,'" the no-doubt crazy-haired sociologist would say. "But I programmed the Romney 5000 to say, with a straight face, things that objective truth demonstrated otherwise. And nearly half of you didn't care. So ask yourself: Are you racist? Stupid? Or both? Because my research shows that there are no other options, even for you rich people." Of course, he'd have to disable the robot because it had been set on self-destruct all along and nothing happened. 

Look, the Rude Pundit is used to lying Republicans, especially ones running for President. We went through two campaigns with George W. Bush, and that bastard wouldn't have told a truth to Americans if Facts and Reality had held a knife to his nuts and screamed at him to tell the world he believed in them. 

But there is something so deeply galling, so disturbing in how Romney lies. The post-primary campaign began on a lie, that Obama was dissing "job creators," and it now ends with a lie, that those "job creators" are moving their jobs to China because Obama failed them, a lie so ludicrous that the CEO of Chrysler has had to refute it. In between, Romney has unleashed a stream of lies, each one easily proven false, but he has been relentless and, c'mon, there's only so many hours in a day. The lies about the President and his policies are of a piece with Romney's lies about himself.

See, we use the cute phrase "flip-flop" to describe Romney's change in positions. But they're not mere shifts in position. They're lies that get to the core of the man's beliefs, such as they aren't. And we could ask if Romney was lying in the past, when he was very moderate, then intensely conservative, or now, when he's somewhat more moderate again. But, except for abortion, Romney refuses to admit that he's changed his position. That's the big lie, the one he has gotten away with more than any other, the one that's winked at as if "That's just Mitt." It's not that Mitt Romney has terrible policies. It's that he's a terrible human being.

Swing State Polls (Final Edition)

Are you sick of swing states polls yet? I know I certainly am! But election day is finally here, so this is the final edition. Here are the latest -- and tonight we'll find out if they mean anything:

COLORADO

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............52%
Romney...............46%

FLORIDA

InsiderAdvantage Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............52%

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............50%
Romney...............49%

Pulse Opinion Research Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............50%

Zogby Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............45%

Gravis Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............49%

IOWA

American Research Group Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............49%

NEVADA

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............51%
Romney...............47%

NEW HAMPSHIRE

WMUR Poll
Obama...............51%
Romney...............48%

American Research Group Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............49%

New England College Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............46%

NORTH CAROLINA

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............49%
Romney...............49%

OHIO

Pulse Opinion Research Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............46%

Zogby Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............44%

University of Cincinnati Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............49%

Rasmussen Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............49%

SurveyUSA Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............44%

Gravis Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............48%

PENNSYLVANIA

Pulse Opinion Research Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............46%

Angus Reid Poll
Obama...............51%
Romney...............47%

VIRGINIA

NBC/WSJ/Marist Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............47%

Pulse Opinion Research Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............48%

Rasmussen Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............50%

Zogby Poll
Obama...............52%
Romney...............44%

WISCONSIN

Pulse Opinion Research Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............48%

Can Willard Defy Historical Precedent ?

(This caricature of Republican candidate Willard Mitt Romney is by DonkeyHotey.)

In the history of this country it has been very difficult for a presidential candidate to lose either their birth state or their current home state and win the presidency. It has been done a few times, but not many. Here are the exceptions:

George W. Bush won his home state (Texas), but lost his birth state (Connecticut) in 2000 and 2004.

George H.W. Bush won his home state (Texas), but lost his birth state (Massachusetts) in 1988.

Richard Nixon won his birth state (California), but lost his home state (New York) in 1968.

Woodrow Wilson won his birth state (Virginia), but lost his home state (New Jersey) in 1916.

Abraham Lincoln won his home state (Illinois), but lost his birth state (Kentucky) in 1860 and 1864.

That's only five presidents who have won without winning both their birth state and home sate. That shows us just how difficult that is. But if Willard Mitt Romney is to win the presidency, he must pull off  an even more difficult feat. He must win without winning either his birth state or his home state.

Willard was born in Michigan, where his father was a pretty popular governor. But that doesn't seem to be helping him there. All the polls taken in Michigan show Willard trailing by several points. Short of an election day miracle, he is going to lose Michigan.

What about his home state? Actually, he has two home states. He has a home in Massachusetts, where he is registered to vote, and he has a home in California, where he lives when he is not campaigning. And a snowball has a better chance of surviving a summer in the Mojave Desert than Willard does of winning either one of those states.

In failing to carry either his birth state or his two home states, Willard cedes 82 electoral votes to the president -- California (55), Michigan (16), and Massachusetts (11). That's a pretty good deficit to start out with, especially considering the president will win both his home state (Illinois) and his birth state (Hawaii).

Can Willard do it? Probably not, but there is a faint historical sliver of hope. It has been done once before -- by James Polk. In 1844, Polk lost both his home state (Tennessee) and his birth state (North Carolina), but still managed to eke out an electoral college win over Henry Clay. We'll find out tomorrow if Willard can duplicate Polk's feat.

Swing State Polls

There's only one day left until election day, and the swing state polls are still being furiously released. Whether they are right or wrong, here are the latest:

COLORADO

YouGov Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............47%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney................48%

FLORIDA

Zogby Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............49%

YouGov Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............48%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............46%
Romney...............46%

IOWA

YouGov Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney................47%

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............50%
Romney...............48%

MICHIGAN

Foster McCollum Poll
Obama...............46%
Romney...............47%

YouGov Poll
Obama...............51%
Romney...............44%

NEVADA

YouGov Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............45%

NEW HAMPSHIRE

YouGov Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............43%

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............50%
Romney...............48%

New England College Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............45%

NORTH CAROLINA

YouGov Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............49%

OHIO

Columbus Dispatch Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............48%

Zogby Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............42%

YouGov Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............46%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............44%

PENNSYLVANIA

Susquehanna Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............47%

Morning Call Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney................46%

YouGov Poll
Obama...............52%
Romney...............44%

VIRGINIA

Zogby Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............44%

YouGov Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............46%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............46%

WISCONSIN

YouGov Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............46%

Do You Really ?

Do you really want a president that keeps his money in offshore accounts to keep from paying his fair share of taxes? Who refuses to release his tax returns so he can hide that tax avoidance? Who wants to give the rich massive new tax cuts, and pay for that by cutting social programs and raising taxes on the middle class? Who wants to return to the same trickle-down economic policy that threw this nation into a deep recession? Who thinks companies should be rewarded for sending American jobs to foreign countries? Who wants to cut subsidies for clean energy and keep subsidies for oil, coal, and gas? Who wants to deny women equal pay and the right to make choices about their own bodies?

I certainly don't!!!

The Prognosticators

There have been a ton of polls coming out -- both for the nation as a whole and for the swing states in particular. And if you've been paying attention, then you know that there is a wide variety in what they say. So, who is going to win this election? The political section of the Denver Post (titled Election 2012) decided to find out by questioning some political prognosticators -- nine of them. They give their answers in terms of the electoral college vote they expect each candidate to win (since the president is NOT elected by popular vote in this country). Here are their answers as reported by Ryan Teague Beckwith:

Drew Linzer
Political Science professor at Emory University
Prediction:
Obama..........332
Romney..........206

Josh Putnam
Political Science professor at Davidson College
Prediction:
Obama..........332
Romney..........206

Sam Wang
Statistical Analyst for the Princeton Election Consortium
Prediction:
Obama..........319
Romney..........219

Nate Silver
Statistician and Poll Analyst at NY Times blog FiveThirtyEight
Prediction:
Obama..........303
Romney..........235

Scott Elliott
Conservative Analyst at website called Election Projection
Prediction:
Obama..........290
Romney..........248

Real Clear Politics
Political website
Prediction:
Obama..........290
Romney..........248

Talking Points Memo
Political website
Prediction:
Obama..........285
Romney..........191
Toss-up..........62

Jay DeSart and Thomas Holbrook
Political Science professors at Utah Valley University and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Prediction:
Obama..........281
Romney..........257

Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Computer Science professor at Vrije Universiteit (Netherlands)
Prediction:
Obama..........281
Romney..........215
Toss-up..........42

Swing State Polls

There are just a couple more days until the election is over, but the swing state polls look like they will be happening right up until the final minutes. here are the latest:

COLORADO

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............45%
Romney...............47%

FLORIDA

Miami Herald/Mason-Dixon Poll
Obama...............45%
Romney...............51%

NBC/WSJ/Marist Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............47%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............47%

IOWA

Des Moines Register Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............42%

Project New America Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............44%

MICHIGAN

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............52%
Romney...............46%

NEW HAMPSHIRE

WMUR Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............47%

OHIO

NBC/WSJ/Marist Poll
Obama...............51%
Romney...............45%

We Ask America Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............46%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............46%
Romney...............45%

Project New America Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............45%

PENNSYLVANIA

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............52%
Romney...............46%

VIRGINIA

We Ask America Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............48%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............45%

WISCONSIN

We Ask America Poll
Obama...............52%
Romney...............45%

Project New America Poll
Obama................48%
Romney...............43%

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............51%
Romney...............48%

Should Intentions Or Predictions Be Polled ?

(Caricatures above are by DonkeyHotey.)

I present a lot of polls on this blog, but I have repeatedly warned that, at best, they are only an educated guess at where any election stands -- and that it is much better to look at a lot of polls than to put your faith in any one poll. All you have to do is look at the swing state polls I have been posting almost daily to see that different polls can have very different results, even when polling the same states. These differences are because of factors like what questions were asked, how the questions were asked, who responded to the poll, how those respondents were weighted demographically, whether it was a cell phone or landline or internet poll, or various other factors (including the innate bias of the polling organization).

The other day I posted about a different sort of "poll" -- betting parlors, where people actually bet money on which candidate will win an election. A professor from Nottingham University did a 12 year study of American elections -- comparing the predictions of polls to those of the betting parlors. He found that the betting parlors were better at predicting the election winners.

Now there is a new academic study showing that a specific kind of polling is more accurate than the normal polling done and reported by most polling organizations. The study was done by professor Justin Wolfers at the University of Michigan and David Rothschild who is an economist at Microsoft Research.

Most polls ask their respondents who they intend to vote for. Wolfers and Rothschild say that asking a different question yields more accurate results. They think the poll respondents should instead be asked who they think will win the election (instead of who they plan to vote for). A few polls do ask this question every now and then (Gallup is one of them), and when Wolfers and Rothschild compared voter intention polls with voter prediction polls, they found the prediction polls were significantly more accurate. They said:

The question allows people to consider not only their views but also those of their relatives, friends and colleagues, he said. Some voters may also give more-honest answers about their own plans, rather than naming a candidate who briefly intrigues them, as happened in the Republican primaries this year. And an expectations question allows people to take into account speeches, debates and news media reports. More information produces better results.

Take for instance the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry. While polls showed the race to be fairly close, an October poll by Gallup, asking respondents who they thought would win, showed that 56% thought Bush would win while only 36% thought Kerry would win. Bush won fairly easily. And that's not the only election where the prediction question proven more accurate than the intentions question was. In presidential elections since 1952, when voters were asked to predict the winner they turned out to be right 81% of the time. But when the polls showed only who voters said they would vote for, they turned out to be accurate only 69% of the time. That's a statistically significant difference.

So, who are the voters predicting will win the presidency in this election. Several polling organizations have asked this question (Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, Politico/George Washington University, and Quinnipiac/CBS/New York Times). In all of those polls, Obama was picked to win by margins ranging from 13% to 24%. The most recent, the Gallup Poll taken in mid-October, showed that 54% think President Obama will win, while only 34% think Willard Mitt Romney will win.

While this should give Democrats a little encouragement, it is by no means a guarantee. Remember that the prediction polls have been wrong 19% of the time (and intentions polls wrong 31%). The only poll that really matters is the one on November 6th at voting sites around the nation. So be sure to vote this year. Voting is not just a right, but the duty of every responsible citizen -- and it determines the future we all will have.

Swing State Polls

Once again we have a flood of swing state polls:

COLORADO

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............46%
Romney...............46%

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............50%
Romney...............46%

Denver Post/SurveyUSA Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............45%

FLORIDA

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............46%

IOWA

Gravis Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............45%

MICHIGAN

Rasmussen Poll
Obama...............52%
Romney...............47%

Public Policy Polling
Obama...............52%
Romney...............46%

NEVADA

Mellman Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............44%

NEW HAMPSHIRE

New England College Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............44%

Gravis Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............49%

OHIO

CNN/ORC Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............47%

Rasmussen Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............49%

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............47%
Romney...............45%

We Ask America Poll
Obama...............50%
Romney...............46%

VIRGINIA

Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Obama...............48%
Romney...............45%

We Ask America Poll
Obama...............49%
Romney...............48%

WISCONSIN

We Ask America Poll
Obama...............52%
Romney...............45%