Monday Open Thread [9.10.12]

President Obama’s re-election campaign and supporting committees brought in more than $114 million last month – the first time the incumbent has outraised Mitt Romney since April. Mittens raised $111 million.

Josh Marshall has a simple axiom:

[T]he more Romney goes hard Culture War, the more his campaign chiefs are getting freaked by the polls.

Mark Halperin, the odious holder of all Conventional Wisdom, rules that Mitt Romney is in trouble:

The danger for the Romney campaign right now is the congealing conventional wisdom that the Republican emerged from Tampa and Charlotte meaningfully behind and facing some tough electoral college reality.

This CW is driven by the post-convention polls showing a bump for President Obama; prominent Politico and New York Times stories citing key Republicans acknowledging that Boston is behind in Ohio and other must-win states; Obama outraising Romney in August; and weak Romney and Paul Ryan answers in interviews, on such topics as health care, the US military, and the budget. The “Fox News Sunday” round table yesterday sounded like a post-mortem explaining a Romney loss.

Romney still has the debates, millions and millions in TV ads, and weeks of campaigning to try to turn things around. But he faces the immediate threat of quiet and loud we-told-you-so’s from Republicans who last year had the very worries they fear are being manifested now. Romney is an awkward, unlikable candidate. The author of RomneyCare is ill positioned to attack ObamaCare. And Romney’s shifting positions make him an easy mark for an aggressive White House.

Until Romney breaks this cycle, he is in danger of living out the Haley Barbour dictum, in politics bad gets worse.

Josh Goodman has an interesting report on “Democrats seeking comeback in state legislatures” at The Seattle Times. Goodman explains:

“In November, three-quarters of the nation’s state legislative seats will be on the ballot. With only 11 governorships up this fall, it’s the legislative races that will do the most to determine the direction of state policy over the next two years…The 2012 elections give Democrats their first chance to bounce back nationally from the Republican landslide victories in 2010, which gave the GOP more legislative seats than it has had since 1928. As of this June, Republicans outnumbered Democrats in state legislatures 3,975 to 3,391..”

“He says he’s got a 53-point plan or whatever, I don’t know.” — — Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), quoted by the New York Times Magazine, commenting on Mitt Romney’s economic agenda.

John Kerry, the next Secretary of State and current senior Senator from Massachusetts, gave a barnburner of a speech in Charlotte last week where he joked about Sarah Palin seeing Russia from her house. This pissed off the most thin skinned politician in the history of the United States, a hypocrite who can certainly dish out the attacks but can never take them… former half term Governor Sarah Palin. Here is her response:

“How does he even know my name? I mean aren’t these guys supposed to be these bigwig elites who don’t waste their time on the little people like me, me representing the average American who yeah I did say in Alaska you can see Russia from our land base and I was making the point that we are strategically located on the globe and when it comes to transportation corridors and resources that are shared and fought over, Alaska and I as the governor, had known what I was doing in dealing with some international issues that had to do with our resources that could help secure the nation,” Palin said. “So it’s funny that he would take a little pot shot like that, but it’s funny he even knows my name. “

He knows your name because he is not a moron like you, Sarah.