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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (144953)	9/22/2010 9:57:44 AM
From: Little Joe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542528

"I think the Republicans peaked too early, as I have said before. It seems to me the polls against the Democrats have bottomed and are now trending slightly in their favor." Always a possibility, you never know where the peak occurs until after it does. I not sure what you are looking at as to the polls, I think it is getting uglier for the dems. As I previously noted, if O'Donnell improves in Delaware, I believe it will be a massacre. " If Obama uses the bully pulpit effectively, and the economy keeps chugging along, there is a good chance of keeping both the house and senate Democratic. " As far as the bully pulpit goes, it ain't going to happen, he has been on the bully pulpit since he won the election and the Dems situation gets worse. They won't face the fact that the message is the problem, not the delivery. "it's mostly a matter of perception right now. 90% of the people have jobs and those that don't are mostly Democratic voters, whose unemployment benefits keep getting extended by Congress," W3ell actually if you include the discouraged and use govt. statistics it is around 15% and using other estimates closer to 20%. The number of people affected is much higher. If a family has two earners and one of them is unemployed, two people are affected. Also many are working for far less than they previously made. I know of few people who do not have friends or family not affected. "who will benefit heavily from the health care plan" Don't think so. Even if the plan were a good thing it wont be implemented fully for a few years. Right now it is unpopular and a negative for Dems. "Recession is officially over" Supposedly it was over in April of last year. There are those who say the govt stats are phony. Shadow Stats says they are. But regardless, it doesn't matter. In fact, if you claim the Recession is over those who are not participating in the recovery are even more likely to blame Obama for their situation. They feel left out. Exactly what the lady who questioned Obama at the so called town hall meeting was saying. I would dispute your notion that the stock market is doing well. Also as far the average person is concerned their 401 k performance is more important and most are down. " It may not take much to change perceptions for the better between now and Nov 2." The kindest thing I can say is that is just wishful thinking. lj

To: KyrosL who wrote (144953)	9/22/2010 11:56:34 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 542528

90% of the people have jobs and those that don't are mostly Democratic voters As of last November, independent voters actually had a higher unemployment rate than Democrats and Republicans. My guess is that Rasmussen's questions related to employment status were tossed in at the end of polls being conducted for other purposes. While the methodology of the poll can probably be nitpicked to death, I suspect that the results are probably in the ballpark. Democrats & Unaffiliateds More Likely To Be Unemployed Than Republicans Thursday, November 19, 2009 Data from Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveys shows that 15.0% of Democrats in the workforce are currently unemployed and looking for a job. Among adults not affiliated with either major party, that number is 15.6% while just 9.9% of Republicans are in the same situation. These findings are from interviews with 15,000 American adults in October. The numbers show an increase in all categories from earlier in the year. The percentage of unemployed Democrats has grown less than a point from 14.2% in February. Among those not affiliated with either major party, unemployment has grown by more than two percentage points from 13.3% in February to 15.6% now. As for Republicans, the percentage unemployed has also grown more than two points after starting at just 7.8% in February. The numbers are not directly comparable to the official unemployment statistics and are not seasonally adjusted. However, the trend is clear. In February, unemployment stood at 11.8% and that grew to 13.5% in October. It’s interesting to note a shift in the composition of the workforce. In February, 45.6% of workers were working for another company in the private sector while 21.9% were self-employed or had their own company. Since then, the number working for someone else has dropped three points to 42.4% while the number of entrepreneurs has jumped three points to 24.6%. A different way of looking at the overall data is to compare the percentage of working adults. This factors in people who are retired or out of the workforce for some other reason. In February, 58.3% of Americans were working. That fell to 56.5% in October. <snip> rasmussenreports.com

To: KyrosL who wrote (144953)	9/22/2010 12:51:27 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542528

I think you're making some good observations. Do you also think, though, that many or even most of these elections are being driven by the events and facts on the ground unique to a particular state. For example, this surprised me today. Reuters) - Republican Carl Paladino, backed by the conservative Tea Party movement, has pulled within 6 percentage points of Democrat Andrew Cuomo, the state's attorney general, in the New York governor race, a poll showed on Wednesday. Cuomo had the support of 49 percent of likely voters, compared to 43 percent for Paladino, a blunt-speaking businessman who shocked establishment candidate Rick Lazio in the September 14 Republican primary, the Quinnipiac University poll found. A Quinnipiac poll of registered voters released on September 1 had showed Cuomo, the son of popular former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, with a huge lead of 60 percent to 23 percent over Paladino. That poll was released two weeks before Paladino's primary victory. Cuomo had been considered a strong favorite in the race in a heavily Democratic state. "The question was whether Carl Paladino would get a bounce from his big Republican primary victory. The answer is yes," Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement. "He's within shouting distance and -- you can count on it -- he will be shouting." Eighteen percent of those questioned in the latest poll considered themselves part of the Tea Party movement. Of those, they supported Paladino by 77 percent to 18 percent for Cuomo. The September 16-20 poll of 751 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. Paladino jolted the governor's race as he promised to cut taxes and dismantle parts of the state bureaucracy that he called obsolete. Paladino has sharply attacked Cuomo, questioning whether he had the "cojones," Spanish for balls, to debate him and saying the Democrat was riding his father's coat-tails. He has tapped into support from the Tea Party, the loosely organized conservative movement that advocates smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation of private business and has been harshly critical of Democratic President Barack Obama. Tea Party-backed candidates won several high-profile primary races around the country against more moderate establishment Republicans. 2010 Thomson Reuters Editorial Editi