At philly.com, Nathan P. Shrader, a Republican Committeeman from Philly’s Kensington community, has written what deserves to be considered a classic op-ed, entitled “Disappointed Republican talks about why he’s dumping Mitt.” Do read the whole thing, which concludes: “Einstein once said that “character is doing what’s right when nobody’s looking.” When nobody but a group of wealthy donors was looking, Romney took the opportunity to assail the patriotism, work ethic, decency and moral fiber of the people he seeks to lead. This isn’t character. This is despicable. My fellow Republicans, and all voters with a sense of right and wrong, should ditch Romney. He just isn’t worth it.”
Associated Press’s Jennifer Agiesta reports on the campaign to win ‘likely voters,” noting: “With six hard-fought weeks left in the campaign, just 7 percent of likely voters have yet to pick a candidate, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. When combined with those who are leaning toward one candidate or the other but far from firm in their choice, about 17 percent of likely voters are what pollsters consider “persuadable.”…That includes 6 percent who give soft support to Obama and 4 percent for Romney…Persuadables look a lot like other likely voters, and they’re similarly distributed around the country, which makes it tricky for the campaigns to specifically target them. About 52 percent are male and 48 percent female. They do skew slightly Democratic.”
Via Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly: ” Lyin’ Ryan is at it again, this time telling an audience of senior citizens that Obamacare includes death panels. Maybe he’s taking Sarah Palin’s advice that Romney/Ryan need to “go rogue.”
The New York Times editorial, ‘Voter Harassment, 2012,” describes how a tea party offshoot connected to the Koch brothers, “True the Vote” is expected to interfere with voting rights in minority precincts: “In 2009 and 2010, for example, the group focused on the Houston Congressional district represented by Sheila Jackson Lee, a black Democrat. After poring over the records for five months, True the Vote came up with a list of 500 names it considered suspicious and challenged them with election authorities. Officials put these voters on “suspense,” requiring additional proof of address, but in most cases voters had simply changed addresses. That didn’t stop the group from sending dozens of white “poll watchers” to precincts in the district during the 2010 elections, deliberately creating friction with black voters.”
Despite the ‘war on early voting,’ Bill Turque reports at the Washington Post that “Early votes are expected to make up the majority of ballots cast in battlegrounds such as Florida, North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado, where as many as 80 percent of all voters may be early. Two states, Oregon and Washington, conduct elections exclusively by mail, sending ballots to all registered voters about three weeks before the election…The volume of pre-Election Day activity is expected to surpass 2008, when about 33 percent of 131 million votes cast in the presidential contest were early.”
At Bloomberg Businessweek, John McCormick adds: “All of the key battleground states except New Hampshire and Virginia allow early, in-person voting, while all provide absentee ballots before Election Day…Voters in Ohio similarly can begin casting ballots on Oct. 2, in North Carolina on Oct. 18 and Nevada on Oct. 20. In total, six of the nine top battleground states will have early, in- person voting under way by the third debate between Romney and President Barack Obama on Oct. 22…More than half voted early in North Carolina and Florida, and 45 percent did so in Nevada, records show. Obama carried all four states.”
Ari Shapiro’s “Ads Slice Up Swing States With Growing Precision” at npr.org, the first of a two-part series, illuminates political ad strategy in the final six weeks of campaign 2012. Among Shapiro’s nuggets: “Jon Bross is the media director for Vladimir Jones. He says election season is always a test of his patience, and his flexibility. With TV rates skyrocketing, he has to look elsewhere…”Digital, cable television are excellent alternatives. Print media only sees, for example, 5 percent of the political ad dollars, so that market is a little bit more open for us,” he says. “You simply have to be more creative when the circus comes to town.”
At The Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky’s says of Romney’s campaign collapse: “…it isn’t happening because of Mitt Romney alone, or even the now-hated Stuart Stevens. It’s happening because of the factions and their guns. It’s happening because of a party and movement that are out of control and out of touch…Face it, Republicans: he was and is your best candidate, and he’s tanking now more because of you than because of him.” If Tomasky is right, a ‘wave election’ may be in the making.
Roger Bybee has an Alternet post, “Take a Look at What Paul Ryan Did to His Own Congressional District, and Be Very Scared for Your Country,” the teaser of which notes: “Child abuse and suicide is skyrocketing, the number of battered women has tripled, foreclosures have tripled, wages plummeting, and more.”
The ‘Lipstick on a Pig’ Award for the last week goes to…