Pollsters dumbfounded by Trump

Polling experts agree on one thing when it comes to Donald Trump’s presidential run: They’ve never seen anything like it.

The businessman’s dominance of the Republican presidential race is forcing experienced political hands to question whether everything they know about winning the White House is wrong.

The shocks have come in quick succession, with the businessman first rocketing to the top of national polls, and then taking double-digit leads in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

In another act of political magic, Trump managed to flip his favorability rating from negative to positive in one poll during the span of a month — a feat that Monmouth University’s Patrick Murray called “astounding.”

“That defies any rule in presidential politics that I’ve ever seen,” Murray, the director Monmouth’s Polling Institute, told The Hill.

Trump’s favorability rose from 20 percent to 52 percent among Republican voters between July and August, Monmouth found.

While a later CNN/ORC poll did not find a similar shift in Trump’s favorability, the Monmouth data was yet another sign that he is a candidate to be reckoned with.

“Throw out the rulebook when it comes to Trump, that’s not even in the parameters of what we see as unusual,” Murray said.

Trump’s dominance of the race has flustered the Republican field, with many of the candidates trying their best to bring him back to earth.

But as the attacks on Trump have intensified, so has his level of support.

Polls released Tuesday show Trump lapping the field in New Hampshire, where he leads his nearest Republican rival by 24 percentage points. The story is the same in South Carolina, where the latest poll gave him a 15-point edge.

While political scientists and other experts continue to insist Trump will not win the Republican nomination, he’s converted at least one high-profile skeptic.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz had dismissed Trump from the start, and declared after the first presidential debate that his campaign was doomed.

But after convening a focus group Monday evening where Trump supporters showed an unflappable allegiance, Luntz changed his tune.

“This is real. I’m having trouble processing,” he said, according to Time.

“I want to put the Republican leadership behind this mirror and let them see. They need to wake up. They don’t realize how the grassroots have abandoned them,” he added.

Polling experts, including Marist’s Lee Miringoff, say Trump is weathering political storms that would doom other candidates because his appeal is more about attitude than ideology.

While many of Trump’s supporters identify as strong conservatives, some of the policies he’s proposed — including increased spending on the border and higher taxes on the wealthy — have prompted accusations from rivals like former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush that he isn’t a true conservative.

Miringoff said doesn’t expect those attacks to stick.

“This is the next step of the Tea Party — someone who can tap into the sentiment that people have about all the frustration and turn it into ‘We are going to make America great again,’ ” he said. 

“This is not a policy paper.”

But even if Trump is rewriting the political playbook, can he go the distance?

Via: The Hill

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Time's Mark Halperin Lamented Press Failure to Scrutinize Obamacare....But In 2010, Boasted About It

 Last Thursday, Time's Mark Halperin told guest host Laura Ingraham on "The O'Reilly Factor" that "There is no doubt that the press failed to scrutinize this program at the time of passage and during the context of the president's re-election. Any reporter who would argue otherwise would be putting their head in the sand." Romney's vulnerability on Romneycare meant it wasn't much of an issue.

"It's part of the flaws of the way the media works," Halperin added. "If the candidates aren't talking about it, it gets less coverage. But there's no doubt a disservice was done to the country and even to liberals who want this program to succeed, because it didn't get scrutiny on passage, and then again when the President was running for re-election." But James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal did the mean thing to Halperin. Oh, look, here's one Mark Halperin on March 22, 2010, boasting about the forthcoming press failure on Obamacare, right after it passed:

 In the 7½ months between now and November's midterm elections, millions of Americans will be whipped into a frenzy over the purported evils in the Democrats' health care bill, egged on by Fox News chatter, Rush Limbaugh's daily sermons, threats of state legislative and judicial action and the solemn pledge of Republicans in Washington to make the fall election a referendum on Obamacare. But in doing so, they may be playing right into the Democrats' hands. . . .

 Democrats will be joined in the fray by much of the press. For Republicans, this will seem like familiar ground, since generations of conservatives have complained that the so-called mainstream media have been biased against them. Well, get ready, Republicans, for déjà vu all over again. The coverage through November likely will highlight the most extreme attacks on the President and his law and spotlight stories of real Americans whose lives have been improved by access to health care (pushed, no doubt, by Democrats from every competitive congressional district and state).

 The louder Republicans yell, the more they will be characterized and caricatured as sore losers infuriated by the first major delivery of candidate Obama's promise of "change." The focus on the weekend's alleged racial and gay-bashing verbal attacks by opponents of the Democrats' plan should be a caution to Republican strategists trying to figure out how to manage the media this year.

Taranto added: "His indictment should have been framed as a confession."

Via: Newsbusters

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Obama's Race for the Cure

 

A good President needs a big comfort zone. He should be able to treat enemies as opportunities, appear authentic in joy and grief, stay cool under the hot lights. But humility doesn't come naturally to those who decide they are qualified to run the free world. So the sign that the Obama presidency had reached a turning point came not when his poll numbers sank or his allies shuddered or the commentariat went hunting for the right degree of debacle to compare to the rollout of Obamacare.

It happened when he started apologizing. In triplicate. For not knowing what was going on in his own Administration. For failing to prevent his signature achievement from detonating in prime time. For not telling the whole truth when he promised people that Obamacare would not touch them without permission: "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."

Obama's supporters can decry a "feeding frenzy," but this is a critical moment for a President whose agenda for a second term amounted to little more than being not as lame as the other guy. The HealthCare.gov website may or may not get fixed on deadline, the senior staff may be booted and rebooted, but it is already too late to avoid a pageant of media scrutiny, Republican merriment, a rebuke even from Bill Clinton and a host of existential questions: Can this policy be saved? What is left of Obama's second term if it is consumed by fixing an unpopular policy from the first? How could a White House appear so confident and incompetent at the same time?

Via: Time

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These are the Next Gay Marriage Battlegrounds

A wave of lawsuits have been filed in courts around the nation since the Supreme Court in June overturned much of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The rulings effectively opened the floodgates to what has been a gradual push for marriage equality.

“The more people are winning, the more people are stepping up and wanting to become involved and move forward after,” says Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry. “The more we make it real — the more places gay people share in the freedom to marry — the more people see with their own eyes families helped and no one hurt.” 

On Aug. 1, Minnesota and Rhode Island became the 12th and 13th states to allow gay marriage. New Jersey followed suit on Oct. 21, after a judge overturned the state’s ban and Gov. Chris Christie dropped his appeal of the ruling. Illinois became the 15th state (plus Washington D.C.) to approve gay marriage when lawmakers passed a bill on Nov. 5. Gov. Pat Quinn is expected to sign it into law Nov. 20.

(INTERACTIVE: A Timeline of the Gay Rights Movement)

So who’s next? Here’s TIME’s guide to the states most likely to legalize gay marriage in the months ahead.

Via: Time

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Time Got It Wrong: Women Aren't the Only 'Adults' of the Shutdown

At Yahoo News, former ABC and CBS political producer Marc Ambinder picked apart a Time magazine article by Jay Newton-Small triumphantly headlined “In Shutdown, Women are the Only Adults Left.” It was so pro-“chick” that “Several women rights' groups, like EMILY's List, picked up the story for use in fundraising.” (Newton-Small reported only two of the 20 female senators – Kelly Ayotte and Debbie Fischer -- are pro-life. All 16 Democrats favor abortion.)

Ambinder rejected this article primarily because the Democrats weren’t “equally childish” to the conservative Republicans, and because the “childlike qualities” of the hardest-headed Democrats were “absolutely essential” to winning:

The idea that women were the only adults in the shut-down is attractive. But it ain't so. One, Republicans and Democrats were not equally childish in this debacle, something that Republicans themselves recognize. Two, Democratic leaders and the White House had to be hard-headed and obstinate in order to force the House Republicans to give up and to re-open the government. Those childlike qualities were absolutely essential.

Sadly, women did not play a significant role in the government shutdown. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray's role will be very important going forward, but that's because she's proven herself indispensable on budget matters and not because she is a woman. In the House, Rep. Michelle Bachmann had perhaps the biggest megaphone of any woman in Washington during the shut-down, and she wasn't on the side of the angels here.

The "angel" side is the Obamacare side, in the media minds. Ambinder suggests his female colleague Newton-Small is patronizing to women:

The women in the U.S. Senate are incredible people, but it's patronizing to say that they are even more special than their male counterparts because they are women...Until women become power-brokers in Congress, and I really do want them to become power-brokers in Congress, there is no way to assess whether simply being a woman makes one a better, more effective legislator for our times without resorting to barely-post-Victorian era notions of what women have than men lack.

Via: Newsbusters

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Poll: Redskins Name Change Wouldn’t Bother Fans

A majority of D.C. residents say a change in the Washington Redskins’ name wouldn’t impact their loyalty to the team, according to a new poll.

The survey commissioned by the Oneida Indian Nation, which has been pushing owner Dan Snyder to change a team name it considers offensive, found that 25 percent of Washington residents would be less of a fan if the name changed, while 18 percent would be more of a fan. But 55 percent said it would make no difference.

The poll is set for release Wednesday morning, but was reviewed by TIME ahead of its release. The automated phone survey of 500 Washington adults, by the firm SurveyUSA, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

“You cannot poll morality, and our hope is that Mr. Snyder will demonstrate true leadership and change the offensive name, not because of what any public opinion studies show, but because it’s the right thing to do,” Ray Halbritter, an Oneida Indian Nation spokesman, said in a statement.

Snyder has adamantly defended the team name and vowed not to change it.

Fifty-nine percent of Washingtonians said American-Indians have a right to be offended when referred to as “Redskins,” according to the poll.

Oneida Indian Nation are scheduled to meet with National Football League officials on Nov. 22.

Via: Time is UP

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TIME Interview with Mike Bloomberg

Mike Bloomberg is about to be unemployed for the second time in his professional life. The first was in August of 1981, when Saloman Brothers fired Bloomberg from the only full-time job he had ever known. The second time will be January 1, 2014, when he hands control of New York City over to the next mayor.

The cover story of this week’s TIME magazine is about what Bloomberg will do next, with a clear focus on his enormous wealth and his determination to spend it down changing the world to fit his vision. We live now in a new age of mega-philanthropy, when newly minted billionaires have enormous powers to influence politics and how we live our lives. To report the story, I travelled in late September with Bloomberg to Paris and London, where he reviewed grant proposals and launched new philanthropic efforts and met with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

To read the full story, click here.

Below are some additional excerpts from Bloomberg’s conversation with TIME in London.

On what he will do next:

I’ve said I’m not a consultant. I would want to own the company. I’m not a teacher. I want to learn, but that’s not my bag. I’m not an investor. I delegate that to others. I’m not an author. I wrote one book, did a book party, know what it’s like. I wrote every word in the book no matter what anybody says. But I’ve done it once. I want to do things. And I think the first answer to your questions is if you came to me and said, “I’m just retired or lost my job or whatever. What should I do?” My answer is wait a little while, a couple of months, and see what’s out there because of the things that will become available to you that you never ever even remotely thought about. And it would be a shame to commit yourself. And whatever’s available to you day one is going to be available two months later if it isn’t “So what?”

Via: Time

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THE BIG FAIL: Former Obama Econ Adviser Steven Rattner Says Obama Is “At The Bottom Of The Pack” Of Recent Presidents When It Comes To Economic Growth

Obama Auto Bailout Czar Steven Rattner Said That Obama Is At The “Bottom Of The Pack…When It Comes To Plain Economic Growth.” MSNBC’s MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “Yeah. We looked at post-debate polls that suggested people seemed to favor the president’s performance in the debate, but they gave Mitt Romney higher marks for his ability to handle the economy. So Steve Rattner is here with charts this morning to explain why that may have come out that way. Charts on the economy. Steve, take it away.” OBAMA CAR CZAR STEVEN RATTNER: “Sure. Well, as we all know, the president is facing – has been facing – a pretty stiff economic headwind. And what I want to do is lay out how his economic situation compares across a bunch of different indicators to those of other people who have run for president recently. And you’ll see interesting results in terms of how the economy’s performed. So one measure people often look at is real GDP which is obviously how much has the economy grown. So for each of these presidents we start with the beginning of their first term, and then we progress ourselves out to their re-election point. And what you can see not surprisingly, because we talk a lot about the weak economy, is that by this measure, Obama is really pretty much at the bottom of the pack. And the other four presidents that have preceded him all had substantially better performance when it comes to plain economic growth. Now, economic growth alone is not a recipe for re-election, as you can see, because Bush 41 did not get re-elected, and Jimmy Carter, of course, did not get re-elected.” (MSNBC’s ” Morning Joe,” 10/18/12)

Rattner Acknowledged The Last Time The Country Experienced Such Slow Economic Growth Was During The Great Depression. MSNBC’s WILLIE GEIST: “Steve what about the argument that you would hear looking at that chart from the Obama White House that that trough you see on the chart right there took a lot of digging to get out of, and that’s why they’re at 3.1%.” RATTNER: “That’s precisely the argument, but remember, we are still growing pretty slowly, 1.3%, 1.5%, it’s not the kind of growth rates we’ve had in the past. So it is a slow-growth economy. And I think when people are asked how does the president handle the economy, it obviously factors into their view. But if you look at a couple other measures -” TIME’s MARK HALPERIN: “Can I ask you a quick question? When did we last have a period of, a four-year period of GDP growth this low?” RATTNER: “I think you’d have to go back to -” MSNBC’s JOE SCARBOROUGH: “You’d have to go back to the ’30s?” RATTNER: “I think you’d have to go back to the ’30s. Four years like this, yeah. I think so.” SCARBOROUGH: “The early ’30s, maybe?” (MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” 10/18/12)

 Via: GOP.com

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FLASHBACK: JournoList plotted to kill Jeremiah Wright story in 2008

Now that The Daily Caller has uncovered and published video of President Barack Obama’s “other race speech,” liberal media figures are once again trying to quell coverage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story — just like in 2008.

Records obtained by TheDC in mid-2010 showed that “at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate,” after ABC News’ Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos asked then-Sen. Obama about his controversial reverend during an April 2008 debate.

“Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage,” TheDC’s Jonathan Strong reported.

Among those who were uncovered to be part of the plan to quell Wright coverage were Richard Kim of the Nation, Michael Tomasky of the Guardian, Thomas Schaller of the Baltimore Sun, Holly Yeager of the Columbia Journalism Review, Slate magazine contributor David Greenberg, columnist Joe Conason, Chris Hayes of the Nation, and Spencer Ackerman — then of the Washington Independent.

Strong reported that Ackerman even once “urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, ‘Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.’”

Before TheDC even released this new video, the Democratic Party tried to discredit it by citing JournoList members like the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and Ben Smith — now the editor of BuzzFeed but formerly of Politico — commenting on the video before they had seen it.

Via: Daily Caller

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