Posts Tagged ‘ppp
01
Mar
12
afternoon all
President Obama shakes hands with a supporter after speaking about energy and energy independence at Nashua Community College in New Hampshire
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Charles Pierce: NASHUA, N.H. …. After several months of watching the Republican primary process, I can’t tell you what a cool breeze it was to watch a politician who looks at a crowd and doesn’t see a group of potential marks (Romney), a collection of your fellow Elect marching with you through the dystopic Sinai that is America (Santorum), a gaggle of goldbugs (Paul), or the class of half-bright sophomores that N. Leroy Gingrich sees every time he looks anywhere but into the mirror.
Barack Obama is not stiff. He is not bristling with unbridled id. He grins. He kids people, even the people who faint at the beginning of his speeches …. He is relaxed about the job of politics. He is the only president of the United States – real or prospective – that I’ve seen in months.
…. He talks about the challenges Americans face, but he doesn’t do it in the gloom-ridden, stalactite-festooned, minor-key funeral mass context that the Republicans talk about them. He talks in terms of “boundless ingenuity” and “unbridled optimism.”….
More here
Woot, even the ever-grumpy and ever-brilliant Charles Pierce sounds happy today!
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More here
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Bloomberg: The number of Americans filing first-time claims for jobless benefits fell to a level matching a four-year low, more evidence the labor market is healing.
Applications for unemployment insurance decreased 2,000 in the week ended Feb. 25 to 351,000, Labor Department figures showed today…..
Firing is on a downward trend as employers gain confidence in the outlook for economic growth. A smaller number of job reductions also puts those companies in place to hire additional employees as demand picks up.
More here
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Steve Benen: …. here’s the chart, showing weekly, initial unemployment claims going back to the beginning of 2007:
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PPP: There might not be any state that better represents Barack Obama’s improved fortunes in the opening months of 2012 than Wisconsin. When we polled there in late October Obama’s approval was a 44/51 spread and he led Mitt Romney by only 3 points at 46-43, representing a much closer race than the state had in 2008. Now those numbers have shifted significantly, with Obama’s approval basically flipping to 52/44. And he now leads Romney 53-39, a 14 point margin that matches what he won against John McCain there.
Obama’s 14 point lead in Wisconsin matches a trend we’re seeing in both our national and state polling across the country right now: Obama/Romney is starting to look more and more like Obama/McCain, or even something more friendly to the President.
More here
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Jerusalem Post: Poll finds vast majority of Israelis against unilateral military strike on Iran, Israeli Jews prefer Obama over all republican rivals …. The survey also polled Jewish Israelis’ feelings on the US presidential race, with respondents preferring President Barack Obama to all his Republican rivals.
More here
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Buy a mug today in honor of the Sheriff 😉
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Our Founding Elitists:
ET’s Right Turn:
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Ruy Teixeira (TNR): Judging from recent headlines, things are looking up for President Obama. The Republican presidential nominees have been serially embarrassing themselves; the White House communications department has successfully focused its messaging on jobs and economic fairness; and consumers are feeling ever more confident about the economy.
But it’s not just anecdotal evidence that suggests Obama’s re-election chances have improved – most of the polling data suggests the same. Obama has been running consistently ahead of his most likely challenger, Mitt Romney, in national polls – by an average of 4 points according to the Pollster.com website. Indeed, the closer you look at the numbers, the more reassuring the news: Obama, it seems, is well on his way to reconstructing the very coalition that elected him in 2008.
More here
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National Memo: In this Citizens United era of unregulated campaign cash, gay activists and donors are finding innovative ways to reward Barack Obama, who despite his equivocation on marriage equality is often lauded as the greatest friend to the LGBT community of any president in American history.
The reemergence of social issues on the presidential campaign trail, coupled with the reversal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, has helped Obama improve his standing with this key segment of the liberal base, a vital source of campaign funds for any Democrat running a presidential campaign.
“This kind of Republican campaign has mobilized the community like I haven’t seen since 1992,” said David Mixner, a veteran progressive strategist Newsweek once called the most powerful gay man in America. “There’s a lot at stake. I have no doubt people will be involved in some way in Super PACs. You can count on the major donors of this community doing whatever they have to do to assist in the re-election of this president.”
More here
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13
Sep
11
ponzi perry …. ooops
10
Jun
11
oh mitt….
TPM: Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty … have something in common: According to new surveys from Public Policy Polling, they would both lose their respective home states to President Obama by serious margins – though as the new numbers from Massachusetts show, it’s much worse in Romney’s case.
In the new Massachusetts survey, Obama leads Romney by a landslide margin of 57%-37% – wider than the 51%-43% margin that Obama has over Pawlenty in Minnesota, and comparable to Obama’s 56%-35% lead over the other likely Minnesotan candidate, Michele Bachmann, in that state.
As it turns out, Romney is actually the strongest Republican candidate in Massachusetts. Obama leads Herman Cain by 60%-27%, leads Newt Gingrich by 63%-27%, leads Sarah Palin by 63%-27%, and leads Pawlenty by 59%-28%.
….PPP’s Tom Jensen writes: “I’m sure no one was in a lot of suspense about whether Obama would win Massachusetts next year. The bigger question is if an Obama win by 20 points against Romney…or by 30 points or more against someone else…will be enough to carry Scott Brown’s eventual Democratic challenger over the top.”
More here
Thank you Loriah 😉
04
Jun
11
maher’s musings
*** Don’t click if you can’t stand Bill Maher or if you can’t cope with hearing the half-termer’s voice! ***
On the Paul Revere thing …. I ventured in to Teabag territory again to see their reaction to her latest idiotic utterance:
“She has to be really careful what she says anywhere near a camera or microphone.”
“There was more truth in her words than there was error.”
“Did you ever get caught off guard when your mind is focused on something else? I have, many times. She IS articulate, when she’s on the same page as the interviewer.”
“Lookalikes are showing up at Palin rallies.”
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Thank you Loriah for the half-termer’s latest polling figures (from PPP):
Oh dear – look at her figures in Alaska! 😆
Rhode Island is clearly the brainiest state in the country 😉
11
May
11
morning!
In case anyone missed it, I added the video of the President’s speech in Austin here last night
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President Obama will take questions at a CBS News town hall Wednesday afternoon, but we won’t get to hear any of his answers until Thursday morning. The forum, which will be taped at the Newseum, is embargoed until it’s shown on the “Early Show” at 8 a.m. Thursday.
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Time: President Barack Obama’s approval rating has hit its highest point in two years — 60 percent — and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll taken after U.S. forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
In worrisome signs for Republicans, the president’s standing improved not just on foreign policy but also on the economy, and independent Americans — a key voting bloc in the November 2012 presidential election — caused the overall uptick in support by sliding back to Obama after fleeing for much of the past two years.
Comfortable majorities of the public now call Obama a strong leader who will keep America safe. Nearly three-fourths — 73 percent — also now say they are confident that Obama can effectively handle terrorist threats. And he improved his standing on Afghanistan, Iraq and the United States’ relationships with other countries.
Despite a sluggish recovery from the Great Recession, 52 percent of Americans now approve of Obama’s stewardship of the economy, giving him his best rating on that issue since the early days of his presidency; 52 percent also now like how he’s handling the nation’s stubbornly high 9 percent unemployment.
Full article here
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Public Policy Polling: PPP’s newest national poll finds that after a little more than 3 months in charge House Republicans have fallen so far out of favor with the American public that it’s entirely possible Democrats could take control of the House back next year.
43% of voters think that House Republicans are doing a worse job now than the Democrats did, compared to only 36% who think the GOP has brought an improvement. 19% think things are about the same. 62% of voters thinking that the Republicans have either made things worse or brought no improvement to an already unpopular Congress does not bode particularly well for the party.
46% of voters say that if there was an election for Congress today they would vote Democratic, compared to only 41% who would vote Republican. That five point advantage for Democrats is only a hair below the margin Republicans won by in the national popular vote last year. A victory of that magnitude for the Democrats next year would at the very least result in the party taking back a large number of the seats it lost last year, and it could be enough to take back the outright majority…
….These poll numbers also point to the reality that Republicans taking control of the House may have been one of the best things that could possibly have happened for Obama’s reelection prospects … voters may not love Obama as once they did but they’re finding him to be more reasonable than the alternative and that means it will be hard for the GOP to knock him off next year without a top notch nominee.
One thing is very much for certain – it’s not 2010 anymore.
Political Wire: … Stunningly, independent voters now say they’d vote Democratic for the House by a 42% to 33% margin, representing a 28 point reversal in a span of just five months.
The Obama Diary 
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