US Elections 2012 Obama v Romney Official Thread

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Marf said:

Looks like it.

lower than 8% EOSeptember, are the October figures available?

7.9

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Marf said:

Guam said:

unrepentant said:

7.9

And this weeks real figure is?

This is no different to governments here, who massage the numbers to look good into an election <ignoring the seasonal temp jobs impact at this time of year>

So the downward trend from October '09 to now has all been massaged? If not can you point out where on the google graph the masseur starts?

Ignore the troll. The fact is that Obama has done a fantastic job reversing a situation where 800,000 jobs a month were being lost under Bush to where more people are in the workforce now than when he took over. It's a great achievement that will be recognised next Tuesday when the voters return him to office to continue the good work and reject Romney and his backward thinking policies.

Independent analysts at Moody's analytics and macromedia dvisors are already predicting that the economy will create 12 million new jobs over the next 4 years. Obamanomics work.

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Guam said:

Ah here we go with the Insults again, you just cant resist can you, you are well suited to american political life thats for sure.

Invective and racist attacks next up?

Yeah the economy is fine and yet Unemployment is higher than during the carter administration <and he was roundly viewed as a failure>.

BTW you still havent answered my question of last night?

First off, I have no interest in what you say and I don't read your posts unless they included in a post by a poster whose opinion I value. Please don't quote my posts, no post I make (apart from this one) is directed at you in any way and I have no interest at all in interacting with you.

I have never made a racist post in my life and I bitterly resent the suggestion from someone like you that I have. Don't do it again.

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Mermaid said:

UR, do you think stock markets sell off regardless of who wins?

I think that stock markets make their own rules and their movements are often completely irrational. I'm not sure that the result of this election will cause a major shift one way or the other. If Obama wins, they've already factored it in because everything is based on future predictions. Given the steep rises in the past two years there may be a correction at some point as profit taking occurs but who knows? If I did I'd be a wealthy man!

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Now that's a graph worth seeing. Now 32 continuous months of private sector job growth. The last 12 months of Bush were 12 continuous months of private sector losses and Obama inherited that appalling situation where we were losing 800,000 jobs per month. A great turnaround.

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speedy_thrills said:

There is usually a way to interpret complex statistics as being in your favour.

In truth government has played little part in economic recovery except for intervention measures in cyclical industries and keeping public spenig going. They've been too busy infighting to implement serious improvements.

Not in this case. Look at Europe post 08. Austerity measures implemented by various governments lead to double dip recession and huge job losses. Obamanomics stimulated the economy leading to recovery, growth and job creation and avoided deep recession and ensured that the USA emerged earlier and stronger from the downturn.

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longblackcoat said:

I find it truly amazing that both candidates seem perfectly happy to quibble about the use of funds to bail out banks or car makers, to try to score points over whose tax plans will raise more revenue, or who can cut a few billion from welfare, yet they're perfectly happy to keep hosing cash into the military. To question the military spending is deemed to be somehow un-American, and to demonstrate a lack of patriotism, yet to me the very idea of arguing fiercely over the costs of a healthcare plan, say, that could be funded with some of the small change from the military programmes, seems absurd.

I have absolutely no time for Romney, but to say that Obamanomics works is only to say that a badly broken arm is better than amputation; true, but you'd rather avoid both. Obama could and should have diverted more of the country's resources inwards, and stimulated the US economy. He's done very little of this - or, at least, he could have done hugely more - and after four years, the patient is still in intensive care, albeit not breathing without emergency oxygen. But it's still a very sick patient.

Have to take issue with you there. Obama is proposing cuts to the military, agreed with his generals, for which he is derided by Romney who wants to increase military spending against the advice of the military. Obama has pulled out of Iraq and is coming out of Afghanistan, both unbudgeted wars that Bush took us into.

Obama has stimulated, has pointed the money inwards and has been roundly abused for doing so! The auto bailout was necessary and has been extremely successful.

The ship of state is an unwieldy and complex machine and cannot be turned around overnight. Given what he inherited the turn around has been speedy and the patient is now up and walking around. Under the republicans the patient would be dead.

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Captain Cadillac said:

They're at it again..... More voter fraud. And guess who said group is aligned with? Ghosts of ACORN anyone?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/03/hitler-...

Nice one Skip. Ignore all the countless cases of Reprublican voter fraud exposed over the past months and highlight this BS. It's like Nathan Sproul never existed.

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FunkyNige said:

Sorry to dive into this thread, but New Scientist had an article a few weeks back about the polls vs forecasts in the run up to this election. Makes some interesting reading (they say it's not even close) but it is a month old and I haven't been keeping up to date with what has happened since then.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528840.200...

A glance at the electoral college map has shown for a long time that Romney would effectively need a miracle to win. It's why the GOP have spent much of the past year or two trying to rig the ballot by excluding as many poor and ethnic (democrat) voters in swing states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio as possible and why the likes of Nathan Sproul have been paid by them to do what they do. It also explains the desperate campaign that Romney has been running in Ohio, repeatedly showing the ad claiming that Chrysler are moving Jeep production to China, despite the company insisting that it is not and is in fact hiring in Ohio.

The bookies have been pretty unwavering. Obama has been odds on all the way, Romney has been a long odds outsider and still is.

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Brilliant article from the editorial board of the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney...

Washington Post said:

THROUGH ALL the flip-flops, there has been one consistency in the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: a contempt for the electorate. How else to explain his refusal to disclose essential information? Defying recent bipartisan tradition, he failed to release the names of his bundlers — the high rollers who collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. He never provided sufficient tax returns to show voters how he became rich. How, other than an assumption that voters are too dim to remember what Mr. Romney has said across the years and months, to account for his breathtaking ideological shifts? He was a friend of immigrants, then a scourge of immigrants, then again a friend. He was a Kissingerian foreign policy realist, then a McCain-like hawk, then a purveyor of peace. He pioneered Obamacare, he detested Obamacare, then he found elements in it to cherish. Assault weapons were bad, then good. Abortion was okay, then bad. Climate change was an urgent problem; then, not so much. Hurricane cleanup was a job for the states, until it was once again a job for the feds.

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Blib said:

Like most Western, 21st Century politicians. He knows which way the wind blows.

Hmm...

Fortunately for us in the USA we have a president who doesn't bend with the wind. Say what you like about Obama but he is very consistent about his beliefs and policies. Romney is just an empty suit, a Blairite politician who will say whatever he thinks people want to hear.

As the article says, he treats the electorate with utter contempt, believing that those who vote republican are too stupid to remember what he has said last year or last week and will vote on what he says today. Fortunately there are more thinkers than lemmings and he will not prevail.

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Latest desperate move from Camp Romyan.

They are now suggesting that Chris Christie was led to believe that he was to be Willard's running mate until he was usurped by Ryan. Therefore he has sour grapes and that is why he has praised Obama. This is clearly nonsense as there is no way that Christie would have been interested in being Willard's sidekick as he would have been a shoe in for the nomination himself had he chosen to run. He also gave the keynote speech at the RNC, albeit a speech that was all about Christie and not much to do with slippery Mitt.

Clearly knowing that they are done the Romyans already have surrogates whispering about Christie and Sandy being responsible for slipperry's failure, no mention of course of the pisspoor mendacious candidate himself..

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deeps said:

Romney is currently available to back at odds of 4.5, Obama 1.28, on the exchanges, which suggests that punters with the most clout strongly believe in an Obama victory. That said I've had a few quid fun bet on Romney at those odds.

Basically Obama is 2/7 odds on, Romney is 7/2 against. The bookies see it as a one horse race.

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Hmmm....... Looks like Harry Reid may be vindicated.........

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-29/romney-av...


http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?arti...

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Mermaid said:

Morningside said:

Sorry if I am late to the party but why does Mitt come across as a slimy evangelist.

This guy was not the choice of the Republican party last time.

He wasn't the choice of 70% of them this time.

When this is over and the dust settles I predict that Willard Mendacious Romney will be remembered as possibly the worst candidate ever to have run for the highest office.

Obama should be making his acceptance speech by 6am UK time tomorrow.

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Munter said:

Stu R said:

http://americablog.com/2012/11/romney-staff-refusi...

wtf

If that's real and not people causing a fuss deliberately, then someone needs to take a good long look at themselves.

Still. A swift punch to the nose of the "staffer" ought to get you and yours removed from the scene swiftly I'd think.

True story widely reported here last night.

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fluffnik said:

Obama strikes me as more a social/political church goer than a true believer, Romney however seems to have enthusiastically embraced Mormonism, flaky founder 'n all...

Obama does not let his religious beliefs dictate his political decision making.

RCP even have him leading in Virginia now. My wife (along with many many others) has spent quite a bit of the past week calling undecideds in Ohio for the Obama campaign. Shew reports very positive feedback.

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turbobloke said:

Two conventions done away with today - travelling back to base a certain Radio 2 DJ couldn't resist pointing out after playing a record that Stevie Wonder was an Obama man, adding iirc that Brad Pitt was also in favour of the sitting man, this broke with the tradition of BBC political impartiality meanwhile IDS has 'come out' to tell the world that Romney is "not stupid" while warning that Obama's economic recovery is fuelled by debt, this is spot on and so runs contrary to the tradition of British politicians not making any sense. No, hang on, it must be the other one about not commenting during a USA election

Obama's economic recovery is "fuelled by debt" whereas CMD's recovery is ............. nonexistent!

IDS should wind his neck in, Obama's the man his boss is going to have to do business with for the next 4 years.

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CommanderJameson said:

turbobloke said:

vonuber said:

I think Romney is going to win this.

Interesting observation. All the money appears to be on BO.

Yet this pops up on the DM website only a couple of hours ago.

Two major new polls show Romney ahead as Obama stages massive rally in Wisconsin

Gallup and Rasmussen both have methodological problems, it seems. Rasmussen in particular does some seriously weird st with its samples, trying to adjust for a perceived over-sampling of Democrats. Gallup? They're just spectacularly wrong at the moment; perhaps their combination of a seven-day rolling average plus telephone sampling plus unusual ways of interpreting the responses - all causes skew.

Five Thirty Eight is probably the most reliable source, as it weights the polling organisations on their historical accuracy, amongst other things.

That article is possibly the worst piece of lazy junk journalism I have yet seen about this election.

To suggest that the Gallup poll gives Romney a boost is ludicrous, Obama's average lead has gone up today AFTER it came out. Reason - the last Gallup poll gave Romney a 5 point lead which was absurd, the new one shows him with a 1 point lead. Romney's chances reduced dramatically after that poll, if you pay any attention to what Gallup says. It's all irrelevant anyway as Obama is winning 10/12 of the states that matter and Romney needs most of them and the headline figure has no bearing on that. Romney's chances of winning are down to 14% or less than 7/1 according to FiveThirtyEight. Many people are suggesting Obama will win 303-334 electoral college votes, I have not read any independent pundit today that sees him winning less than 294. The finish line is 270.

I've said 294-309 for some time, I'll stick with that but I won't be surprised if it's more..