Don't know if it was posted here, but of course Romney is already backtracking/flip-flopping today.

His staff also bought $5,000 worth of goods at Wal-Mart and handed it out to supporters at a campaign event so it would look like he was raising donations for Sandy victims.

Donations which the American Red Cross discourages people from giving (they prefer money so they can better target their response).

"The restaurateur, TV personality and game show hose."

Deliberate typo ...? (from Inca's last link)

That Wally World run would be dimestore and bootleg for the Mayoral Campaign of Hubba Bubba, Texas, much less the POTUS.

Don't they have laws on "treating" in the USA? Not very subtle, Romney handing out groceries for votes.

Also, what is the Campaign Rule that says candidates must have a crowd behind them when they speak? I assume it's all been thoroughly researched and focus-grouped, and the People Who Know are confident it's what swing voters want to see on TV. But I just saw Romney on stage, with suitably grave demeanour, offering his thoughts, prayers etc to the victims of Sandy, while behind him girls were giggling and saying "hello mum". It happens a lot - who listens to the candidates when there's a sea of silly faces to scan?

Mayor Bloomberg (On the president) says, NY would love to have him, but we’ve got lots of things to do. A polite brush off relating to the stretching of resources a visit from the president would cause. Why would Governor Christie not give out the same signal?. In many respects wasn't New Jersey hit worse than NY?

Christie is a Republican governor of a Democratic state. By getting the President to New Jersey and on record, he's made sure that the recovery bureaucracy will be looking out for his constituents.

Not to mention the fact that national and international publicity hasnt done his own Presidential ambitions any harm.

So it's sort of in Christie's interest that Obama wins too then?. Supposing that a President Romney would get the automatic nod in four years time leaving the Governor of NJ a full eight years until the next GOP nomination.

tbh, he looks like a fat cunt to me.

Four Florida polls came in yesterday, two of them had Romney narrowly ahead, one had the O-Man ahead by two, and the fourth had them tied.

Whatever the truth, those of us who had written off Florida for Obama have been proved wrong.

Seeing polls tighten in Florida and Virginia gives me a good feeling, especially as an indicator of other states as a whole.

After a few days, I remembered how Republican the Jersey Shore is, and those northern towns probably went for Christie in 2009 as well.



Still, seeing CC bitch-slap Romney and the Fux and Fiends hosts with an open hand was the first time that I felt that he was inspired by his hero Bruce Springsteen, instead of invoking Springsteen to appear as one of the people when he's actually a Koch Brother puppet.

Nate Silver now has Obama over 300.

That sounds seriously hubristic.

Not to mention Tim Stanley will be writing another column as we speak.

Is it hubristic, or is it just what his model is producing based on new polls? I'm out of my depth when it comes to statistics, but it doesn't seem like Silver tweaks the model to arrive at desired results.

Anyway, all signs are reassuring, but I won't rest easy until this damn thing is over.

I'm saying he should tweak the polls down, because I'm superstitious.

Tim Stanley had another go yesterday about "history" suggesting Obama would lose. History seemed to consist mainly of what he did his doctorate on- the 1980 Democrat primaries. Did he mention before he had a doctorate?

Well, to be fair, I think you do have to go back pretty far—maybe to FDR?—to find an incumbent president reelected under such low growth and high unemployment conditions. But as with FDR, a lot of people realize that the Republican alternative consists largely in implementing the economic policies that created the recession in the first place, and are willing to give the incumbent Democrat another chance.

The right wing desperately wants people to think of Obama as the second coming of Jimmy Carter, but it's not happening. And not to mention that voters under forty-five don't (or barely) remember Carter as president, but only as the nice Southern man who builds houses for poor folks.

The attacks that Silver has gotten over the last few weeks are ridiculous. People are too stupid to understand that what he's saying is that in 79% of the outcomes of his models, Obama wins, and not that Obama is going to win 79% of the vote, or that Silver is guaranteeing an Obama win because his model is not at 50/50. Or, they do understand that, and they're just attacking him because he was right last time, and he's saying that Romney's chances don't look good.

It's really a perfect storm of right-wing stupidity: unfounded accusations of liberal bias, contempt for gay men and eggheads, a refusal to engage in rational argument, misunderstanding of math, faith that the country and thus the electorate is inherently right-wing, all topped off by plugging their ears and shouting when they hear things they don't want to hear.

Or, in the case of Politico and their ilk, because it's antithetical to the horse race bollocks they hold so dear.

Not coincidentally, it's a lot like the attacks leveled against Sabrmetrics by baseball "traditionalists."