Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Who's ahead for November?

newspaper headline collage

Visual source: Newseum

Gallup:

Registered voters are nearly twice as likely to say Barack Obama, rather than Mitt Romney, is the more likable of the two presidential candidates. Obama's 60% to 31% advantage on this characteristic is the largest for either candidate on five separate dimensions tested in a May 1-2 USA Today/Gallup poll.
PPP:
Obama leads Romney by 10 in Iowa

PPP's first general election poll of Iowa since last October really exemplifies how the Republican nomination process enhanced Barack Obama's chances at reelection. Last fall Obama led Romney only 46-42 there but now his lead is up to 10 points at 51-41, matching his 2008 margin of victory in the state.

Hate to say it but I don't believe polls showing majority support for gay marriage nationally. Any time there's a vote it doesn't back it up
' @ppppolls via web PPP:
'Barack Obama's led by 7 points or more now on our last three Ohio polls,' said Dean
Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. 'It seems unlikely he'll win the state by that
much in November but it does mean he has some margin for error.'
Janet M. Davis/NY Times on GOP pushing stories of Obama's youthful ingestion of dog meat:
Our fears of consuming canines, then, have had more to do with moralistic xenophobia and exclusion than with animal welfare, public health or ethical taboo. The flap over Mr. Obama's youthful consumption of dog meat is a resurrection of the birther-conspiracy wolf dressed in dog's clothing.
Jonathan Bernstein:
It's worth taking a step back to realize just how astonishing it is that a major political party has managed to get itself on the wrong side of something called the Violence Against Women Act.
Gene Robinson deserves an encore:
But putting a chokehold on government spending at a time when economies are just sputtering back to life ' as the austerity fetishists have tried to do in Europe, and as Republicans solemnly pledge to do in the United States ' is monumentally self-defeating. Governments end up magnifying the constituent parts of the economic crisis, not minimizing them.
Huffington Post:
The Obama administration saw its first monthly budget surplus in April, with the federal government recording $58 billion, according to figures released by the Congressional Budget Office.
Michael P McDonald/pollster.com:
The Washington Post reports that voter registration is down among Blacks and Hispanics, and could pose a "serious challenge" to the Obama campaign.

Unfortunately, it is the Washington Post's statistics that are seriously challenged.

Dana Milbank:
Almost four years ago, I was watching Sarah Palin rile up a Clearwater, Fla., crowd with anti-Obama broadsides when a spectator let loose a bloodcurdling cry of 'kill him!'

To his credit, John McCain realized the Obama hatred was getting out of hand, and a few days later, when a woman at one of his events called Obama an 'Arab,' McCain did one of the most honorable things in his political career. 'No, ma'am,' he said, taking the microphone from the woman and enduring some boos from supporters. 'He's a decent, family-man citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.'

Now that the year is again divisible by four, the anti-Obama hatred is flaring anew. But I worry that Obama's current opponent doesn't have the strength of character to push back against the most dangerous voices on his side.


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