CNN: Obama Leads 52-46 Among Likely Voters

      The best tell of all of how Romney is doing is his campaign's memo today: declaring that We're not losing. Winners never alert the media to announce that they aren't losing. Another bad sign is Romney's digression into accusing the President of a nefarious second term plan to remove "God" from the coinage along with Romney's declarations that he himself, "loves God.'

     "The Mitt Romney campaign circulated a statement Monday from its pollster, Neil Newhouse, conceding that President Barack Obama "has seen a bounce from his convention" in daily tracking polls but urging readers not to "get too worked up about the latest polling."

     "Newhouse characterized the recent shift to Obama as "a bit of a sugar-high from the conventions" and argued that the "basic structure of the race has not changed significantly":

All Signs Point to a Tight Race: Those watching the daily tracking polls know that, while the President has seen a bounce from his convention, his approval has already begun to slip, indicating it is likely to recede further. In eight states, Pollster.com's reporting of the most recent statewide polls puts the margin between the two candidates at less than three points, virtually guaranteeing a tight race.

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/obama-poll-bounce_n_1870689.html

     Yes, that Newhouse-We will not be dictated to by the fact checkers. Turns out they also won't be dictated to by the pollsters either. It's all a liberal conspiracy you see-I mean what isn't?

     
In a related development, Rich Lowry of the National Review shares a comment from an unnamed Romney adviser who describes as "horses**t" reports that the Romney campaign "knows it's losing and that Ohio is slipping out of reach" in the wake of a weekend automated poll by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) showing Obama with a 5 percentage point lead in Ohio:

Nobody in Boston thinks we're going to lose. We're in a tight race. We had a 4-5 point bounce after our convention and it evaporated when they had theirs. Now they have a 4-5 [point] bounce. It's going [to] evaporate in September. We feel good about the map. We're up with advertising in Wisconsin and I think North Carolina is going to come off the board. On Ohio, they've been spinning for months now that it's out of reach. There was a Columbus Post-Dispatch poll last week that had it 45-45.
That's a more accurate picture of the state of the play there than any of the spin. PPP has these polls that just put chum in the water for the media. Sometimes I think there's a conscious effort between the media and Chicago to get Republicans depressed.

     Well the conspiracy may go deeper than that-it was Krugman who pointed out that the facts have a well known liberal bias.

      What's almost sad is the earnest desire of the Romney campaign to believe that this is 1980. For them-it's always 1980, forever 1980. They ignore the fact that this election is in fact nothing like 1980.

      There were some polls that showed Carter with a late lead, but in reality, Reagan had led much of the Summer. Indeed, after the RNC that year he had a 30 point lead. What's striking about this race, is Romney's failure to at any point take a lead in over a year. Obama's leads are often small, but always present.

       For more please read

       http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line

       http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2012/09/romneys-1980-dreaming.html

       Another try for the Romney team is that they recession is so bad that Obama simply can't be re-elected. If this is so why has he led for the entire election season? They've had to elevate the idea of millions of swing voters all making a decision at the last minute and all realizing at once that this is actually a bad economy and all the President's fault to an article of unquestionable faith. It's simply become a dogma for them,

       The very idea that it just might not be so, is unthinkable for them. Particularly funny is the claim that pollsters are all liberals so we should just ignore them considering the most blatantly biased pollster, Rasmussen, as well as Gallup-which has shown a Romney bias all year-show Romney behind by 5 points in each.

      However, the worst poll yet for Romney was just released-after the memo. It's by CNN and there is a lot to "depress Republicans" here. Greg Sargent at The Plum Line tells us:

      "The new CNN poll will turn a lot of heads, because it finds Obama up six points over Mitt Romney, 52-46, among likely voters, a sample that’s supposed to be more favorable to Republicans. That’s up from a 48-48 tie just before the convention. What’s more, the poll was taken Sept. 7-9, which means two of the three days of polling were conducted after Friday, the day the weak jobs numbers came out."

       "The CNN poll mirrors Gallup’s findings: Romney is only leading among white voters by 55-42; Romney may need to crack 60 percent among them to win, while Obama’s target is 40 percent. Romney does hold a sizable lead among independents, 54-40."

       "A few other key findings. The poll finds that Obama has taken a tiny lead over Romney among likely voters, 50-49, on who would better handle the economy. While that is a statistical tie, Romney led Obama on this question in previous CNN polling."

       "On Medicare, Obama is more trusted than Romney among likely voters by 54-43. That’s another jump; previous CNN polling showed it far closer. Bill Clinton’s speech, of course, focused heavily on debunking Romney’s core attack line that Obama is looting Medicare to pay for Obamacare, and on emphasizing that Obama and Dems strengthened the program."

       "Obama holds a clear lead, 51-41, on who “has an optimistic vision for the country’s future,” and a sizable edge, 45-39, on who “has a clear plan for solving the country’s problems” — both shifts from the last CNN poll, which showed Romney had an edge on both. Both parties, of course, focused their conventions on making the case that their candidate was the one with the clearer affirmative case for where to take the country."

     "On which candidate is in touch with the problems facing the middle class, Obama leads by 57-37. On which is in touch with the problems facing women, that’s 59-34. These topics, too, were focused on by both conventions."

     "As many have been pointing out today (see Jonathan Bernstein for a good look at this), polling in the immediate wake of conventions is volatile and we may not have a clear sense of where things really are until next week. But for now, the evidence seems to be mounting that the Dem convention is producing a real bounce and was more successful than the GOP gathering at accomplishing its core goals."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line

     I love the way they always have to "warn" us that it's volatile and not to count Romney out. This is the media's mantra. They didn't foresee the Obama bounce-believing that Friday's jog numbers would kill the President. It hasn't be now we're led to believe that Romney's unicorn will be those debates. There's no compelling reason to think he'll set the world on fire there.

    The conventions were supposed to be his unicorn. Instead they have been the President's unicorn. So now it's those debates.

     In truth this is nothing like 1980. When was the last race where the incumbent led start to finish until October until the challenger blew him away in some debates?

      What's apparent is that this Dem convention was very effective. It's particularly impressive that Obama moved the needle on handling the economy. The optimistic vision measure is one that will really help him going forward as Romney sees his only hope in playing Chicken Little and telling us it's the end of the world.

       That Obama has such a strong lead among likely voters is particularly worrisome for Romney. Obama's now over the magical 50% mark that we kept hearing was impossible for him. This means he got a 6 point bounce according to CNN at this point.

       What we are seeing consistently is Obama hitting 50 or getting close both in states like Ohio and most of these national polls.

        "A new CNN/ORC poll out this afternoon confirms what many strategists and analysts have been saying about the conventions: that President Obama had an advantage going into the two-week stretch and comes out with a slightly bigger advantage."

       "Obama takes 52 percent in the poll of likely voters -- breaking the 50 percent mark -- compared with 46 percent for Mitt Romney. When the poll is expanded to registered voters, Obama leads by an even bigger margin, 53 percent to 45 percent."

       "The poll also shows that support for Obama comes largely from enthusiasm about the president himself, compared with Romney voters who are split between supporting Romney and mostly just opposing Obama. Of likely voters who support Obama, 74 percent said their vote was for him, compared with 23 percent who said they were voting against Romney. Of Romney supporters, 48 percent said their vote was for Romney and 47 percent said their vote was against Obama."

        "Over the two-week convention period, Obama's favorability rating rose and Romney's fell. Obama now stands at 57 percent favorable and 42 percent unfavorable, compared with 52 percent favorable and 47 percent favorable before both conventions (in a CNN poll taken Aug. 22-23). Romney was viewed favorably by 48 percent and unfavorably by 47 percent of those surveyed after the convention, compared with 50 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable just before the conventions began."

     I found that question about enthusiasm for the President himself, welcoming. It confirms what's been clear all along: hatred is a shaky campaign strategy.  The whole Romney campaign has been based on the hope that there are those who hate the President more than those who love him. They are being proven wrong.

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2012/09/why-tampa-flopped-hatred-is-not-movement.html