Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Wealthy voters deliver for Mitt Romney

03/07/2012
A funny thing happened on the way to Mitt Romney’s victories in Michigan last week and Ohio on Tuesday:
Rich people showed up to vote. A lot.
[...]
In both states, Romney won this demographic by 14 points but didn’t win among any other income demographic. And given he won by such small margins overall — 1 point in Ohio and 3 points in Michigan — it’s not unreasonable to think he would have lost those states without the uptick in wealthy voters.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/wealthy-voters-deliver-for-mitt-romney/2012/03/06/gIQAjJhAwR_blog.html [with comments]


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Who's afraid of the low-income vote?

February 21, 2012
http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2012/02/whos-afraid-of-the-low-income-vote/ [no comments yet]


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‘Mr. Roboto’ and the Bible Belt


Mitt Romney spoke at a campaign rally in Centennial, Colo. on Feb. 6.
Rick Wilking/Reuters

By CHARLES M. BLOW
March 7, 2012, 10:50 pm

The slugfest between the Robot, “the Rooster [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/rick-santorum-penn-state_n_1322663.html ],” the rascal and the renegade will drag on.

That was one of the clear messages from Super Tuesday. After the results came in, all four remaining Republican presidential candidates signaled that they would continue in the race.

Another message was that of the remaining candidates the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney (the Terminator-esque “Rominee,” as some have called him online), has both the greatest strengths — organization, money and endorsements, and the greatest weaknesses — an inconsistent record and an absolute inability to connect with people, including the current Republican Party bases.

Romney won the most states and the most delegates on Tuesday, but he won ugly.

He has yet to win any of the most conservative states.

In a report issued early last month, Gallup identified 21 states [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/152459/Mississippi-Conservative-State-Liberal.aspx#1 ] as having an above average conservative advantage when considering self-described political ideology.



Of those 21 states, seven have held contests so far this nominating season, four on Tuesday. Romney has won only one — Idaho, a western state with a relatively large Mormon population. (Results from Wyoming, another western state with a large Mormon population, are not in yet.)



And in those states, Romney’s appeal has not been widespread, but severely limited to just a few urban areas. Of the 46 counties in South Carolina [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/states/south-carolina ], Romney won three. Of the 159 counties in Georgia [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/states/georgia ], he won three. Of the 95 counties in Tennessee [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/states/tennessee ], he won three. And, of the 77 counties in Oklahoma [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/states/oklahoma ], he won two.

A closer look at the exit polls also reveals the persistence of what has become the Romney predicament: He can’t seem to win very conservative or evangelical voters much beyond the northeast, which has voted consistently Democratic in presidential elections for a quarter century, and the western states with relatively high Mormon populations.

The same exit polls found that of Tennessee voters for whom supporting a true conservative was the most important factor in deciding whom to vote for, only 6 percent voted for Romney. In Georgia only 4 percent of those voters voted for Romney.

This disconnect will likely be drawn into even greater relief this month when more of the contests will be in the conservative south.

Of the seven states scheduled to hold primaries before the month is over, five are among the above average conservative advantage states identified by Gallup, and all are either in or near the Bible Belt.

(Hawaii and Illinois and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Northern Marianas Islands will also hold contests in March.)

Things do not look good for Mr. Roboto.

Romney is wooden and awkward. His convictions range from fickle to flimsy. He is ineloquent and dispassionate. His past actions and comments are completely at odds with his current advocacy. Most of us call this flip-flopping, but my colleague Jim Rutenberg last week had a more erudite expression for it: “ideological migration [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/us/politics/romney-faces-stubborn-question-despite-victories.html ].”

One could hardly design a worse candidate. Even Rick Santorum, with his nether region obsessions, ignites passion, and Newt Gingrich, with his truckload of baggage, is a skillful debater. And yet there is a certain inevitability in the money and the math that suggests that the worst candidate will win the nomination.

If the battle for the Republican nomination trudges toward the convention with the current crop of contenders, Romney could earn the dubious distinction of being the first Republican candidate in recent history to win the nomination while losing nearly all of the most conservative states, particularly those in the south.

Red state America would have a blue state presidential candidate. The wrong man would rule the roost. They’d have to root for a man they dislike over a president they disdain. How uncomfortable for them. How exciting for Democrats.

And the longer the nomination process drags out the better President Obama looks and the worse the Republican field looks.

A Pew Research Center report [ http://www.people-press.org/2012/03/05/gop-race-is-rallying-democrats/ ] released on Monday found that:

The Republican nomination battle is rallying Democrats behind Barack Obama. Currently, 49% of Democrats say that as they learn more about the Republican candidates, their impression of Obama is getting better. Just 36% of Democrats expressed this view in December, before the Republican primaries began. In contrast, there has been virtually no change in Republicans’ views of the G.O.P. field during this period. Just 26% of Republicans say their impression of the field has improved as they have learned more about the candidates. That is largely unchanged from December (30%).

A Wall Street Journal article [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577265413171428388.html ] put it this way:

The biggest election primary of the year comes as polls show increasing dissatisfaction with the nomination process. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Sunday found that independent voters viewed G.O.P. candidates more negatively, while even Republicans said they were less enthusiastic about voting in November. Exit polls from Ohio offered fresh evidence that the Republican electorate remained lukewarm about the contenders. About 4 in 10 voters said they still had reservations about their primary pick.

In January, Obama was singing Al Green. This month, I imagine that he’ll be in the Oval Office doing the robot. Put on Styx and make your body stiff, Mr. President.

© 2012 The New York Times Company

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/mr-roboto-and-the-bible-belt/ [with comments]


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False Equivalence Comes Home to Roost
Mar 8 2012, 7:59 PM ET
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/false-equivalence-comes-home-to-roost/254235/


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