‘swing-state unemployment down, obama’s chances up’

Kansas City Star: The improving economy is swinging the pendulum in President Barack Obama’s favor in the 14 states where the presidential election will likely be decided …. What’s made the difference is that unemployment has dropped more sharply in several swing states than in the nation as a whole. A resurgence in manufacturing is helping the economy – and Obama’s chances – in the industrial Midwestern states of Ohio and Michigan.

…. After an agonizingly slow recovery, several swing-state economies are finally accelerating:

– The job market is improving in Michigan and Ohio. In Michigan, unemployment fell to 8.5 percent in March from 10.5 percent in March 2011. And in Ohio, it dropped to 7.5 percent from 8.8 percent over the same period….

Many blue-collar workers in Ohio and Michigan credit the federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler for saving tens of thousands of auto industry jobs … “There’s a feeling the administration went out of its way to protect jobs that are very important,” says Paul Allen Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State University…

– Unemployment is down over the past year in the 10 other states the Associated Press identifies as swing states: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin…..

More here

****

Chat away, back later

rise and shine

****

11:15 AM: PBO hosts Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico for the North American Leaders’ Summit.

12:00 PM: Attends a working lunch with Harper and Calderon.

1:15 PM: Holds a joint press conference with Harper and Calderon.

White House live

****

USA Today: President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation’s dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side.

In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.

The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney’s support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group. Romney’s main advantage is among men 50 and older, swamping Obama 56%-38%.

…. In the poll, Romney leads among all men by a single point, but the president leads among women by 18.

More here

****

David Javerbaum (NYT): A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney. The recent remark by Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom that upon clinching the Republican nomination Mr. Romney could change his political views “like an Etch A Sketch” has already become notorious. The comment seemed all too apt, an apparent admission by a campaign insider of two widely held suspicions about Mitt Romney: that he is a) utterly devoid of any ideological convictions and b) filled with aluminum powder.

…. according to the latest theories, the “Mitt Romney” who seems poised to be the Republican nominee is but one of countless Mitt Romneys, each occupying his own cosmos, each supporting a different platform, each being compared to a different beloved children’s toy but all of them equally real, all of them equally valid and all of them running for president at the same time, in their own alternative Romnealities, somewhere in the vast Romniverse.

And all of them losing to Barack Obama.

More here

****

Rupert Cornwell (UK Independent): Obamacare is in the hands of the unelected – The Supreme Court has the power to trump Congress and consign to history the US’s boldest attempt at universal healthcare.

….. If the so-called “individual mandate” is rejected, then the whole financial edifice of Obamacare comes crashing down. With the stroke of a judicial pen, unelected judges would have voided the most important piece of health legislation since the Medicare and Medicaid Acts in 1965, and destroyed the boldest effort yet to give America what is taken for granted in every other industrial country: universal health coverage.

…. The biggest casualty of all, however, could be the reputation of the Supreme Court itself … it would be shown once and for all as just another player, albeit a mightily powerful one, in the partisan warfare that has brought the American political system almost to the point of dysfunction. Maybe, that will induce one conservative justice at least to step back from the brink on Obamacare. But don’t bet on it.

More here

****

Morons with Signs

This. Just. Cracks. Me. Up.

****

****

Tuesday: PBO will deliver remarks at the AP Luncheon during the ASNE Convention.

Wednesday: PBO will host an Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House. Christian leaders from across the country will join the President at this breakfast for a time of prayer, reflection, and celebration of Easter. Also on Wednesday, the President will sign the STOCK Act, which makes clear that Members of Congress are subject to the same insider trading laws that apply to everyone else. This was legislation the President called on Congress to pass in his 2012 State of the Union Address.

Thursday: PBO will sign the JOBS Act, which includes key initiatives the President proposed last fall to help small businesses and startups grow and create jobs.

Friday: PBO will deliver remarks at the White House Forum on Women and the Economy. Later, the President and the First Lady will mark the beginning of Passover with a Seder at the White House with friends and staff.

****

Morning everyone 😉

afternoon all

****

Greg Sargent: Despite birth control controversy, Obama suffers no erosion among Catholics

Since the birth control controversy broke, it has been an article of faith among even some neutral commentators that the battle would cause Obama to lose crucial support among Catholic swing voters.

But Gallup has performed a new analysis of its tracking data that should complicate this assertion: It finds that Obama has suffered no meaningful downturn in recent days among that consistuency, even among church-going Catholics.

More here

****

****

TPM

****

Later this afternoon, President Obama hosts another round of interviews with television stations – today’s lineup: KLAS, Las Vegas; WAGA, Atlanta; WFLA, Tampa; and WBTV, Charlotte, N.C.

****

Steve Benen

****

Ezra Klein

****

President Barack Obama meets with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in the Oval Office

****

****

coming up (chat away)

Monday: The President will travel to Las Vegas to make remarks on the American Jobs Act. He will also participate in a campaign event while in Las Vegas. In the evening, the President will participate in campaign events in Los Angeles and spend the night there.

Tuesday: The President will tape an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” before departing for San Francisco. In San Francisco, the President will participate in a campaign event. In the afternoon the President will travel to Denver and participate in campaign events. He will spend Tuesday night in Denver.

Wednesday: The President will deliver remarks on the American Jobs Act in Denver. That afternoon, the President will return to Washington, D.C.

****

Psst, you might not read this anywhere, but in the space of a week the President’s approval has gone up six with Gallup (to 44), and his disapproval has gone down seven (to 47) – a swing of 13 points. In one week. And that was before he announced the Iraq war was over.

I know, sensible people ignore these things, but we’re always told about the bad polls, so I thought I’d pass on the encouraging news 😉

****

Clarence Page (Chicago tribune): How important is it to have presidential candidates who, when talking about Libya, know where Libya is?

Rep. Michele Bachmann accidentally raised that question last week during the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas …. “The president, he put us in Libya,” she complained. “He is now putting us in Africa.”

…. Bachmann’s flub would not be a big deal if it didn’t appear amid a Republican field infected with a nose-thumbing strain of willful ignorance about the rest of the world.

This was evidenced recently, for example, by Herman Cain …. “When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan, I’m going to say, you know, I don’t know,” he remarked in an interview…

For the record, if he meant the Republic of Uzbekistan, that former part of the Soviet Union has been an important ally in America’s actions in neighboring Afghanistan….

…. A recurring theme of this pre-election year has been the search for “the grown-up in the room”. As Moammar Gadhafi’s death vindicates President Obama’s Libya policy, his persistent critics are looking more like munchkins. I mean no disrespect to munchkins, by the way, wherever they may be on the map.

Full article here

****

LA Times: Why is Barack Obama’s presidency a tale of two situations?

On the foreign-policy front, the administration has had a string of successes: Osama bin Laden killed; major Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen killed; and this week, of course, Moammar Kadafi killed. And on Friday, the president announced that all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by year’s end.

An unpopular war will be officially over for us soon. Terrorists and terrorist groups that threaten us are dead or on the run. Libya’s longtime strongman has been overthrown, thanks in part to Obama’s policy that had the U.S. and NATO working together.

But here’s a question: If Obama has been so successful in foreign policy, why has he been so unsuccessful on domestic issues?

…. domestically the problem is that Obama’s opponents have turned criticism into obstructionism. Unlike his foreign policies, Obama’s efforts to fix the economy have been thwarted at every turn by Republicans. Take the president’s jobs bill …. Republicans won’t even agree to spend $35 billion on teachers, police and firefighters ….

The bottom line? It’s wrong to say the president’s domestic policies haven’t worked when those policies haven’t even been given the chance to work.

Abroad, Obama has been allowed to set policy, and those policies have been given time to work. And, for the most part, they have.

Perhaps if Republicans gave the president that same leeway on domestic policy, we might be winning some battles at home, too.

Full article here

Thanks Layhawke and bjw2

****

Link to NYT article

Thanks Marlz

****

Eclectablog

****

kaboom!

First Lady Michelle Obama joins KaBOOM! Knight Foundation and members of Congress on the Congressional Day of Service during an event to build a new playground at Imagine Southeast Public charter School in Washington, DC, June 15

climate change

The swing set used by President Barack Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha is covered in snow at the White House on February 6, 2010 in Washington, DC. The region is expected to get anywhere from 18 inches to 30 inches of snow before the storm moves on.