Thursday Open Thread [10.18.12]

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Housing starts are at their highest level in four years. The unemployment rate is at its best point in four years; consumer confidence is at its best point in five years; the federal budget deficit is at its best point in four years. Just this week, reports on retail sales, industrial production, and new housing construction showed sharp and unexpected improvements. This probably isn't what Republicans wanted to hear.

The Men Of Morning Joe Mansplain Women Issues To Mika

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How Mika didn't pull a Tagg Romney is beyond me.  This morning Mika brought up the fact that Mitt Romney lied about the binders.  Here's the lie:
ROMNEY: And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, “How come all the people for these jobs are — are all men.” They said, “Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.” And I said, “Well, gosh, can’t we — can’t we find some — some women that are also qualified?” And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks,” and they brought us whole binders full of women.
Mika pointed out that this was a lie. Whoa!  That was simply too much for the men of Morning Joe.  How dare she bring up something that the men declared unimportant; how dare she point out that Mitt lied again.  Joe Scarborough declared the women in binders topic ridiculous and desperate - which tells me that he's afraid of it.  Mark Halperin stated that "that's not what this election should be about" and how they "shouldn't be parsing individual statements said live during a debate" and asked, wistfully, if we could just talk policy for the next three weeks.  I intend to hold him to that.

The Polling Report [10.18.12]

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According to the Hollywood Reporter, the ratings for the cable network coverage of Tuesday's presidential debate have numbers surged ahead of the first debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney. That's good. Now we have to see if the President repaired any of the damage he did to himself in the polls. Obama has regained the lead in all national polls but the Gallup poll (which is now looking like an extreme outlier when compared to the other tracking polls) and Rasmussen (although Obama is improving in that poll as well). Looking at the Gallup poll, while I will not parse that poll like my conservative brethen, I will point out something that is extremely interesting:
East-- Obama 52, Romney 48 (O+4) Midwest--Obama 52, Romney 48 (O+4) South --Romney 61, Obama 39 (R+22) West--Obama 53, Romney 47 (O+6)
Anyway, here is our map. No changes from yesterday despite more polls:

Tagg Romney Threatens President With Violent Assault

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"Well, you want to jump out of your seat and rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him." -- Tagg Romney, in an interview on WPTF-AM, when asked how it felt to hear President Obama call his father a liar during last night's debate. Well, what a violent bully this Tagg Romney is. I wonder what horrible single mother raised this violent and disgusting thug? Who taught him that when things do go your way you get violent? I wonder if Tagg You're It is going to get a call from the Secret Service.

A rare “fail” video

There is some NSFW language about 20 seconds in, but that just adds to it. It is rare because as these guys realize how ridiculous it looks it just gets…

More Debate Reaction

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It is horrible that this is true, but half the battle of these debates is the media narrative. With a week to go before the next debate, the rest of the week will be dominated by the media discussing just how great the winner of the debate was and just how evil and horrible the loser of the debate was. It is a vicious circle that tends to compound the polls. A 50% Romney victory the night of the debate turned into a 71% victory two days later. Now the shoe is on the other foot. John Cassidy finds that "the overwhelming majority of the pundits proclaimed the President the victor":
Even Charles Krauthammer and Laura Ingraham said that he won on points. With this type of unanimity, the media narrative for the next few days, which is at least as important as the debate itself, will run in favor of Obama and against Romney. The G.O.P. candidate [...] will be criticized for his blunders on Libya, guns, and women.
Check inside for more reactions and some videos of the highlights of the debates.

Last Night’s Debate: Libya

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Delaware Dem is buried under polling numbers, so I'm jumping in on this - with DD's blessing! There are two separate issues concerning the exchange on Libya last night.  I'll deal with the easy one first.

The Polling Report Part II: The Senate Forecast [10.17.12]

Our last Senate Forecast Update was seven days ago, so we are due to update our little chart. I have gone back and looked at all the Senate polls from the past week, including today's wealth of YouGov polls, and updated the chart. Based on all the Senate polls of the last week, the Democrats in the Senate would pick up Massachusetts and Maine (well, Angus King will pick it up, but he is nearly assured of caucusing with the Dems, especially if President Obama wins election and the Dems retain the Senate), while the Republicans looks set to pick up Montana and Nebraska. There are two races that are exactly tied at this moment: North Dakota and Virginia. If the Dems lose both of the tied races, then the final tally would be Dems 51, GOP 49, a net pickup for the GOP of two seats.

Wednesday Open Thread [10.17.12]

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Both national polls that were taken immediately following last night's presidential debate at Hofstra University show President Obama besting Romney by 7 percent. A CNN/ORC poll indicates that 46 percent of voters who watched the debate said that the president won, while 39 percent said Romney won (and the sample in the poll was about 8 percent more Republican than polls taken among all Americans this year). In a CBS News instant poll taken right after the debate, 37 percent of "uncommitted" voters said the president won, 30 percent gave Romney the edge, and 33 percent said it was a tie. A snap poll by Public Policy Polling in swing state of Colorado gave President Obama a 48-44 edge, while CO Independents said that the President won by 58-36 percent. For those who want a detailed point-by-point review of the debate in print as well as video, The New York Times has an interactive transcript of the Hempstead debate with a dynamic fact-checking sidebar.

The Polling Report [10.16.12]

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Holy mother of God do we have a lot of polls today. We have so much polls that I have divided this Polling Report up into two sections. The first section deals with the Presidential race, and the second section, which will be posted later this afternoon, deals with the down ballot races for Senate and Governor, in which we will have a Senate Forecast update. So here is our new Electoral College map as it stands here today. Remember, my methodology is as follows: 1) the map is based exclusively on the polls below and on the most recent credible poll from that state if there is no poll from the state below; 2) we do not base our projections in the map upon any Rasmussen or Republican polling outfit, 3) if we have two or more polls on a single day from the same state, we average the results together, and 4) the map legend reveals why each state is colored the way they are colored.