a very good evening

Good luck in Michigan, Mitt 😉

****

Tuesday:

9:50 AM: The President departs the White House

11:20: Tours a classroom in Yeadon, Pa

11:45 Delivers remarks

12:35 Departs Philadelphia

1:35 Arrives at the White House

2:45 Michelle Obama visits Georgetown University in Washington

****

President Barack Obama greets representatives from leading veterans’ service organizations in the Oval Office before delivering remarks on the American Jobs Act in the Rose Garden, Nov. 7, 2011. The President spoke about about tax credits included in the American Jobs Act and new executive actions that will help get veterans back to work. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

****

****

****

Nate Berkus interviews the First Lady – original video here

****

Yahoo interview – see original videos here

afternoon all

Original

****

****

TPM: President Obama and the Democrats have succeeded at convincing voters that Republicans are trying to delay economic recovery, according to a series of recent polls.

The new data suggests that about half the country, including a majority of self-identified independents, believe that congressional Republicans are using their political power to thwart Obama’s efforts to reduce unemployment, presenting Democrats an opportunity to make this argument more explicitly as the 2012 campaign moves forward – to undercut Republicans’ claims that Obama and the Dems bear full responsibility for the economy, and to make their pattern of obstruction a real liability for them.

More here

****

WH: …. On Monday morning, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a new report based on the Census Bureau’s new data which found that provisions passed as part of the Recovery Act directly lifted nearly 7 million Americans out of poverty in 2010 and reduced poverty for 32 million more. This is on top of 6 million people lifted out of poverty by these policies in 2009. And these numbers are conservative estimates that do not reflect the indirect benefits from the jobs created through these policies.

In contrast to this approach, Republicans in Congress opposed all of these measures and passed a budget that would both cut back on many of these programs and also convert them into block grants, which would prevent them from automatically expanding in hard times. Had we followed that path, many more Americans would be in poverty today.

More here

****

****

Steve Benen: The new national Gallup poll shows where the race for the Republican presidential nomination currently stands.

1. Mitt Romney: 21% (up one point from October)
1. Herman Cain: 21% (up three points)
3. Newt Gingrich: 12% (up five points)
4. Rick Perry: 11% (down four points)
5. Ron Paul: 8% (no change)
6. Michele Bachmann: 3% (down two points)
7. Rick Santorum: 2% (down one point)
8. Jon Huntsman: 1% (down one point)

The development that will get the headlines, obviously, is the fact that Cain has caught up to Romney at the national level, and Gingrich’s recent bump that’s pushed Perry to fourth place.

But what I still find remarkable is Romney’s inability to put some distance between himself and the rest of the Republican field … He’s running against misfits, clowns, and con men, and Romney’s still stuck at 21%.

More here

****

****

Reuters: President Barack Obama’s fortunes are improving slightly, although he would face a tough struggle for re-election next year if Mitt Romney were the Republican nominee, a Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Friday.

Forty-nine percent of Americans approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president, up from 47 percent in an October poll.

More here

****

President Obama meets with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the White House, November 7

****

Steve Benen: …. I’m not in a position to evaluate the merit of the claims against Cain. I would note, however, that (a) the number of accusers matters; (b) it seems unlikely all four are part of a coordinated, 15-year campaign organized by the media, liberals, racists, the D.C. establishment, and Rick Perry.

More here

****

President Obama visits a wounded warrior for a Purple Heart presentation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Oct. 10. (Pete Souza)

chat away … plus more souza magic

Added to the schedule:

White House live

****

Coming up:

Today: The President will meet with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Tomorrow: The President will travel to Philadelphia

Wednesday: The President will deliver remarks at the National Women’s Law Center’s Annual Awards dinner.

Thursday: The President will attend meetings at the White House.

Friday: The President and the First Lady will host a breakfast with veterans at the White House.

After, the President will visit Arlington National Cemetery to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony and deliver remarks; the First Lady will also attend.

Later, the President and the First Lady will travel to San Diego, California for the Carrier Classic and Honolulu, Hawaii for the start of the APEC Summit. The President and the First Lady will spend the weekend in Honolulu, Hawaii at the APEC Summit.

(Thanks Jovie)

****

ABC: …. Over the past six months, the Obama campaign’s state-level operations have blossomed, re-commissioning offices and volunteer networks kept warm by Organizing for America since 2008 while adding new outreach centers to help raise the president’s profile on the ground.

Obama now has campaign offices in all 50 states, opening on average three new field offices each week, said campaign manager Jim Messina.  State volunteers threw open the doors to dozens more over the weekend, from Michigan to New Hampshire, in a coordinated push exactly one year to Election Day.

… Filling the new offices around the country is an army of paid staff and strategists, including social media experts to corral what have become an army of volunteers – more than 1 million nationwide.

Obama for America nearly doubled the size of its staff on payroll over the summer, growing from 168 employees in July to 327 as of Sept. 30, according to the campaign’s third quarter financial report.

But perhaps more important than boots on the ground will be campaign cash Obama will use to put ads on the air. The president has raised more than $88 million for his re-election through September, slightly ahead of the record-setting pace he set four years ago and quadruple the cash-on-hand of Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney.

On Sunday, Obama’s surrogates fanned out across the states to keep that fundraising apace, holding events in eight major cities to gather cash on the one-year milestone before the election.

Full article here

****

Touring the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C., Oct. 14

Detroit Wayne Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Mich., Oct. 14

Backstage before an event at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colo., Oct. 25

Guinness Book of World Records holder John Cassidy performs a balloon act for First Lady Michelle Obama in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Oct. 11

More new photos here

rise and shine

****

****

****

LA Times: …. President Obama brings to the 2012 campaign one strategic advantage that previous Democratic presidential candidates would have envied: the money to compete everywhere.

Flush with more cash than all the Republican candidates combined, Obama’s reelection campaign envisions an electoral map every bit as expansive as that of 2008 ….. campaign officials say they are determined to use their financial clout to keep as many states as possible in play for as long as possible.

….  So Democrats are opening offices, airing TV ads and building up campaign machinery in the upper South, in Rust Belt Midwestern states and across the Southwest.

…. Obama is raising money in buckets, packing in half a dozen fundraising trips on quick sprints west. So far, he has collected $89 million, while his nearest competitor – Mitt Romney – has picked up $32 million….

…. Obama’s advisors cite population trends showing growth of the Democratic-leaning Latino population. In Virginia, for example, the state grew 13% as a whole from 2000 to 2010, but its Latino population nearly doubled. The Obama campaign also has recruited volunteers and begun to register voters in Arizona, where Latinos have gone from 25% to 30% of the population over the last decade…..

Full article here

****

****

Michael Tomasky (Daily Beast): …. The most important and interesting poll question asked in recent memory is the one Suffolk University finally thought to ask last week …. Floridians were asked if they thought the Republicans were “intentionally stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not re-elected.” In response, 49 percent said yes, and just 39 percent said no.

…  this is a shockingly large number considering that we Americans are supposed to believe that no one in our great and celebrated system of government would ever do such a thing. But people are starting to believe it, and it will be the GOP’s worst nightmare if it gets to the point that 58 percent or so of the country agrees. Given that majorities of conservatives and Republicans will never agree with this, a number like 58 (or even 55) will mean that a substantial majority of independents think it’s true.

…. the GOP’s reputation is so low, and its image (and reality) as obstructionist so steadily solidifying, that it’s going to hang like the stink of garlic around the nominee’s neck.

…. what a beautiful thing it would be if the GOP’s obstructionism were the factor that buried its candidate next year. It’s the Democrats’ job to make sure that one year from today, as voters are doing their last-second sizing up of things, the behavior of the GOP over the last four years is one of the things they think about. If it is, Obama will win, even if the economy is ho-hum…..

Full article here

****

****

Chris Cillizza: …… A new Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests that President Obama is narrowly getting the benefit of the doubt (on the economy) – at least, at the moment.

Fifty percent of those tested agreed with the statement that Obama is “making a good faith effort to deal with the country’s economic problems, but the Republicans in Congress are playing politics by blocking his proposals and programs” while 44 percent said that the president had not “provided leadership on the economy, and he is just blaming the Republicans in Congress as an excuse for not doing his job”.

…. In a bit of a boost for Obama, 54 percent of independents – that most coveted of voting blocs – said he was making an effort on the economy while 40 percent said he had not led as required on the issue.

…. It’s why the president has signed a series of executive orders aimed at unilateral action on the economy under the “We Can’t Wait” mantra, and focused more and more in his public speeches on Republicans’ unwillingness to back plans and programs that they had supported in past years.

These latest numbers suggest he is winning that argument – albeit narrowly…..

Full article here