One poll has Mittens’s lead in South Carolina nose-diving. And see the latest number’s at Nate’s place —
| South Carolina | VOTE PROJECTION |
CHANCE OF WIN |
|---|---|---|
| Mitt Romney | 25.5% | 43% |
| Newt Gingrich | 24.7 | 41 |
| Ron Paul | 16.4 | 8 |
Yesterday, Mittens had a 31.8 vote projection and 55 percent chance of winning. Newt’s vote projection is about the same as yesterday’s, although his chance of winning has gone up. Santorum has slipped a bit lower overnight, so he’s not getting the former Romney votes. It looks as if the votes falling away from Romney are being picked up mostly by Ron Paul, with some votes going to Perry and Huntsman.
Steve Benen has a post up about the impact of the Bain Capital documentary, which is posted below in its entirety:
Let’s also note the target audience. Ed Kilgore noted the video is “a heat-seeking missile aimed directly at the white working class id.†This is incredibly important in a 2012 context — if Romney is going to win the presidency, he’s going to need to crush President Obama with white working-class voters who tend to support the GOP anyway. This short film, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, tells this constituency that Romney is not only indifferent to their struggles, but he and people like him caused their economic plight.
So be sure all your bagger friends get a link to the documentary. This is something bigger than just Mittens.
Benjy Sarlin at TPM discusses whether the Bain story coming out this early in the campaign will inoculate voters from caring about it later.
“I would have preferred to wait, yes, to keep the bottle of whup-ass fresher,†one Obama campaign strategist told TPM. “At the same time — and this is important to note — having the Republicans eat their own actually makes the Bain story more potent than we ever could because it instantly validates it as a line of attack and falls on independent ears as a matter of legitimate debate, not as a partisan line of attack.â€
And when the real Bain attack comes, it will be anything but old news to the voters it needs to reach. After all, it’s hardcore Republicans who are paying the closest attention to the GOP campaign and its Bain moment right now, and they’re not voting for President Obama anytime soon. …
… Once Democrats decide its time to make their ultimate Bain push, they’ll have the resources to flood the zone with TV spots, direct mail (likely referencing Bain layoffs in targeted swing states), and a small army of Democratic lawmakers and operatives reinforcing the story 24/7 on cable news. Think 2004, when the entire GOP apparatus (including, awkwardly, Mitt Romney) worked in unison to drive home the John Kerry “flip flopper†meme.
And consider the irony that distribution of this little film is made possible by a SuperPAC; this is what the GOP establishment wanted.
Update: In a new post, Nate Silver is urging caution about reading much into the decline in Romney’s numbers. We’ll get a clearer picture in a couple of days. Romney appears to be gaining in Florida. I postulate, though, that South Carolina television is being plastered with outtakes from the Bain documentary, but Florida television is not.
To know MITT 3.0, is to not like MITT 3.0.
He doesn’t have the political skills that a Little Boots had, where he could take his inherited prep-school sense of superiority and relate to them through his faux Texas accent, swagger, and moronic “charm.”
Little Boots was made warmer than Al Gore by the MSM, and that was enough.
Mitt’s a cold-blooded cyborg who just can’t relate to anyone except his fellow “Have’s,” “Have More’s,” and “Want-it-All’s.”
And when he does try, he actually makes Bush, like when he told that poor woman who was working 3 jobs how “Amercian” her story was, sound like a Psychiatric Councilor exuding empathy. And that’s pretty f’in hard to do! And it doesn’t seem right now that the MSM’s going to lend him a helping hand,
Maybe, if nothing else happens in the future, we have the OWS folks to thank to that!
After all, when you look at MITT 3.0, you realize how true some of the old sayings really were – “Familiarity DOES breed contempt.”
I’m thinking Romney would be easier for Obama to beat than Paul (due to the anti war faction Paul could attract), Gingrich would be even easier for Obama to defeat.
I believe Obama will still pull the Balck and Hispanic (minus the country club Miami Cubanos). The Jewish vote will be split between liberal Jews and the hard core Zionistas.
My money (at this point) is on Obama.
The haters are still vocal, but when it comes time for Obama to debate Romney, Obama will eat his lunch.
I particularly like Romney’s line about Obama wanting to turn the US into a European socialist state….tell THAT to a bunch of out of work folks who are about to have their unemployment run out. No wonder Romney is reluctant to release his Tax return info.
I watched Gingrich’s video (I didn’t realize it came from his camp) and it sobered me right up about Romney. I no longer see him and Obama as roughly equivalent. I formerly thought the worst Romney could do was green light the bad ideas coming out of a Republican Congress (which is bad enough), but he’s much worse than that.
One of the mental counter-arguments I had going in Romney’s favor is that “well, he didn’t screw up Massachusetts that badly” – but now I realize this was probably because it’s a strongly blue state with a Democratic legislature. No telling what kind of damage he could do as POTUS.
I suspect people are hard at work quantifying his claim as “job creator” at Bain Capital. It would just require a lot of legwork to run through Bain’s history and then visit all the towns that were affected – sort of like what the movie producers did. I think we’re going to get an answer on this in a few weeks or months.
Until you’ve met someone like Romney (I have) it’s very hard for people to realize that there are very likeable guys out there who get their kicks being vulture capitalists, with all the destruction this entails. And they all have a similar set of tics – an inability to tell the truth, a weird feeling of hollowness, and so on.
Sigh. No bagger friends here.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/12/10142991-guess-whos-raising-money-for-romney-bigwigs-from-private-equity-firms
Interesting article, Swami. The owner of the Miami Dolphins may be a very rich man; but, he surely has a really crappy team. I remember the glory days of the Miami Dolphins.
This is only the January 12 and I am already so weary of election coverage. Not sure I will make it to election day sane.
I know, Bonnie, but there is obviously NOTHING going on anywhere else in the entire world. Even NPR is guilty.
The mini-documentary was more effective than I expected. The point was clear that Bain wrecked companies for huge profits. Perry is not know for being a gifted speaker, but I heard a clip on NPR, ‘I know the difference between venture capital and vulture capital.” Romney’s defense that Bain didn’t loot every company it acquired has the same credibility as an accused rapist who can prove he didn’t attack every woman he met. If Romney can avoid discussing the companies he drowned for huge profits, he will win the debate. If ‘we’ keep the discussion on the ones he clearly rolled… Romney is in deep trouble with his base.
I tend to think the Obama campaign is prepared to Bain-boat Romeny, but they want til he has the nomination. A huge issue will be the Romney tax returns, which many say will prove Romney is paying at a LOWER rate than a middle-class family.
OT and under the radar.. About 10 days ago, Obama requested an increase in the debt ceiling, which the House and Senate could, by prior agreement, object to and Obama could, by the same agreement, veto. The increase in the debt ceiling was never in question, so it looked like Obama had deliberately timed the request to deprive the Tea Party of the theatrics. I was not surprised when the GOP screamed that the timing was unfair and deliberate because they are in recess, but I was surprised when Obama withdrew the request at their insistence until they WERE in session. IMO, Obama set the GOP up to give his recess appointments the next week cover,
The GOP announced formally and publicly that the budget request was out of order- because they were in recess. So a legal challenge to the appointments contradicts the previous demand. Ooops. I will never know for sure if Obama was smart or just lucky here, but my gut says it was all planned.
He’s got their number, finally. Brilliant.