Rasmussen reports

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Mitt Romney earning 50% of the vote and President Obama attracting 43% support. Four percent (4%) would vote for a third party candidate, while another three percent (3%) are undecided.

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Thirty-seven percent (37%) give the president good or excellent marks for his handling of the economy. Forty-eight percent (48%) say he’s doing a poor job. Consumer confidence has slipped four points since last week’s government report on job creation and unemployment. The number who believe their personal finances are getting better slipped from 30% a week ago to 28% today. The number who fear their finances are getting worse increased from 43% before the jobs report to 47% today.

Dick Morris suggests that Obama is headed towards a landslide defeat. While polls are important, Morris says that right kind of polls mean much more. He points to likely voters as a true indicator. Morris notes that Romney lead 48-43, but Romney’s number has already increased since Morris did published his analysis.

If the election were held today, Mitt Romney would win by a landslide.The published polls reflect a close race for two reasons:

1. They poll only registered voters, not likely voters. Rasmussen is the only pollster who tests likely voters, and his latest tracking poll has Romney ahead by 48-43.2. As discussed in previous columns, a study of the undecided voters in the past eight elections in which incumbents sought a second term as president reveals that only Bush-43 gained any of the undecided vote. Johnson in ’64, Nixon in ’72, Ford in ’76, Carter in ’80, Reagan in ’84, Bush in ’92 and Clinton in ’96 all failed to pick up a single undecided vote.

So when polls show President Obama at 45 percent of the vote, they are really reflecting a likely 55-45 Romney victory, at the very least.

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Over the period of May 4-6, I completed a poll of 400 likely voters in Michigan and found Romney leading by 45-43! And Michigan is one of the most pro-Democrat of the swing states.

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If the election were held today, Obama would lose by at least 10 points and would carry only about a dozen states with fewer than 150 electoral votes.

Sleep well children, the media has your back. And remember nobody likes a bully.

I watched the new re-election campaign ad this morning, it showed the President asking Americans to stick with him, asked for their continued support – he`s asking for your vote.

This is a new concept for this President, his time in office has been dominated by TELLING us what he was going to do – and then doing it, with no regard for established law, or when majorities of citizens loudly said NO!

I don`t recall this President asking our opinion about where and to who, the hundreds of billions of stimulus tax dollars went, I don`t recall this president asking Americans if it was sound policy to first rush through 500 million to Solyndra, then go around established contract law and let private investors (his backers) step in front of the taxpayers for any repayment. ( taxpayers lost all of the 500 million)

I don`t recall this President asking Americans if it was o.k. to not only disregard bankruptcy procedures and bail out two auto companies, but then give a large percentage of those companies to union control, (the people that caused the demise of the companies to begin with) nor do I recall his asking our thoughts about deciding which PRIVATE OWNED dealerships would simply no longer be in business.

I don`t recall Obama asking Americans if it was o.k. to decide, on the weight of HIS determination alone, if legislation duly passed into law by Congress and Presidential signature, was Constitutional – Obama alone “deemed” the DOMA unconstitutional and instructed his AG to not enforce it.

I don`t recall this President asking Americans if it was good energy policy, at a time of extreme fiscal problems and very high unemployment, to aggressively enact regulations that would result in less available energy due to plant closure, (…under my plan, energy costs would necessarily skyrocket..)   while at the same time, giving BILLIONS to foreign countries for their ability to drill for oil in the same places and at the same depths of water that he would not allow American interests to operate.

This President has consistently TOLD the American people what he will do and when we, as a people have said no, he simply has TOLD us we did`nt understand him clearly. Only now does he ASK us for something – he`s asking for four more years to TELL us what`s best for us and the Republic, only this time he will be unencumbered by having to ask us for anything, or answer to us for anything – no re-election to worry about this time around.

Of course, there was one other person he asked for something – he asked the Russian Presidents towel boy, Medvedev, to PLEASE tell Vladimir that he will have “more flexibility” after the election…….

Vote wisely, both Presidential and Congressional – the Country you save may be your CHILDREN`S.

Speaking to thousands of soldiers at the annual Red Square military parade, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Wednesday that the country is a force for world security and that Russia will stand up for its positions.

Putin’s speech, two days after his inauguration for a third term in the Kremlin, came less than a week after the nation’s military chief of staff warned that Russia would consider pre-emptive strikes, if a dispute with the United States over a Europe-based missile defense system worsens.

Russia vehemently opposes the planned placement of radars and missile interceptors in Romania and Poland, saying they would undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent. The United States says the system is needed to protect against potential missile attacks by Iran and that the installations could not act against Russian missiles.

Putin did not mention any country specifically in his speech Wednesday, but he said: "Russia consistently conducts its policy for strengthening security in the world, and we have the great moral right to fundamentally and insistently stand up for our position."

Remember in Romney was criticized for claiming that Russia was our number one geopolitical foe? His remarks were made shortly after President Obama’s open-mic gaffe. I seconded Romney’s claim, with hard facts to consider.

• Russia is the main oil and natural gas supplier in Europe
• Russia deals in about 2 percent of the global commerce and is currently the largest country outside the World Trade Organization.
• According to the US Treasury Department, Russia holds 30 percent of its reserves in U.S. Treasuries
• As recently as 2009, Russia refused its own entry into the WTO over objections that its Custom Union partners, Belorussia and Kazakhstan, be tied to Russia’s accession.
• In 2007 Russia canceled the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty and revved up their own military posture on the western border.
• Russia’s leaders have given up on becoming part of the West and have started creating their own Moscow-centered system.
• Russia is willing to spend an estimated $600 to 700 billion over ten years to move away from its soviet era weaponry.
• Russia has steadily veered towards reimperialization, struggles with implementing a market economy, shown no use for political pluralism, and autocratic control from the Kremlin increases each year, with each passing election.

This strategy has always been the bread and butter approach for political activists, especially with the growing independence of the executive branch. Empower the House and the Senate with the mandate, and they can keep a president in check.

Phillip Klein | Beltway Confidential

Mourdock’s victory not only means that this particular Senate seat is likely to be more conservative (assuming he goes on to win the general election in this traditionally red state), but it also puts Republican Senators everywhere on notice that no seat is safe anywhere in the country. Any elected Republican that doesn’t pursue a small government agenda once in office risks suffering the same fate as Lugar. Had Lugar hung on, then a lot of people would have dismissed the Tea Party as a passing fad from 2010. But now it’s clear that the movement has been underestimated once again. Tea Partiers have a lot more staying power than skeptics expected.

With the Republican presidential nomination going to the ideologically malleable Mitt Romney, supporters of limited government have recognized that their best hope for advancing the conservative agenda rests on the ability to elect as many principled conservatives to Congress as possible. That is, lawmakers who will be willing to fight for smaller government even if it means standing up to a president of their own party. The more victories the Tea Party racks up, the greater the chance that Romney will be forced to govern as a limited government conservative if elected, even if his natural inclination is to migrate to the left.

Same-sex marriage was already illegal in the state but the vote moved to make the measure permanent as a state constitutional amendment. The most controversial part of the amendment is the banning of civil unions and domestic partnerships for gay or straight couples. Those who practice family law say it could have unintended consequences.

The Amendment will make it increasingly harder to be changed in the future. It was a strategy by the state to prevent federal encroachment and to defend the DOMA as a states right issue. Not unlike the other 29 states that have clearly decided marriage is to be a preserved institution between one man and one woman despite what national polls say.

The Pentagon’s civilian workforce, which expanded dramatically during President Obama’s first three years, is not facing any significant reductions even as the Defense Department is slashing ground troops by more than 10 percent, retiring ships and combat planes, and putting off the purchases of some new weapons.President Bush’s last budget, for fiscal 2009, pegged Defense Department civilians at 739,000, according to the department’s latest “Green Book” budget document on total spending.

This year, the number of civilians sits at 801,000, an increase of 62,000 personnel, or 8 percent; it is expected to decline by 1 percent next year.

Some defense analysts say this was not supposed to happen.

But it did….

… historical examination is in a lot of cases overstated just as the temptation to declare political realignment is. Right after 2008, that seemed to be the forgone conclusion, though political realignment in favor of the Democrats was hardly a universal idea, only to see it all disappear in congressional and state elections two years later. The other side of the coin is to declare Obama all but defeated if we use historical data to judge his chances for reelection considering the economy and the nation’s mood. That, too, is somewhat overstated if we look at current polls. Both parties are equally strong nationally, and like always, will fight it out over a few swing states. That point is the key — the bellwether states that will decide the election. When the mood in the country is ripe for change, these swing states are not as ideologically locked down as the solid blue or red states are accordingly. Though recent demographics look to be having a strong influence in states like Nevada, New Mexico, and certainly Colorado, citing a locked-in ceiling as a disadvantage for Romney is premature and probably false.

It is only an assumption. We cannot account for large swings in either direction.

At any rate, Sean Trende has delved into the theory that Romney is already at a large disadvantage on electoral votes. He argues for caution and warns against relying too much on historical trends.

Cillizza and Balz echo Ron Brownstein, who has referred to a “blue wall” — those states that have voted for Democrats in five straight elections. Taken together, they add up to 242 electoral votes, which would suggest a ceiling for Mitt Romney of 296 electoral votes.

While the facts recited here are correct, the conclusions are questionable. As Harry Enten demonstrated a few weeks ago, it is dangerous to rely on “rules” from previous elections, especially when there are so few observations; the conclusions being drawn are based upon five elections. There are multiple problems here. We might start by asking: Why limit ourselves to the past five elections? It’s true that Republicans haven’t won, say, Pennsylvania since 1988, but I don’t think it’s any more salient than the fact that Republicans have won Pennsylvania in one of the six previous elections, or that Obama managed to eke out a win in Indiana during the Democrats’ perfect storm of 2008.

Recall that political scientists published peer-reviewed articles in the late ‘80s and early 90s regarding the Republicans’ “lock” on the Electoral College based upon the Republicans’ electoral dominance in nine of ten elections from 1952 through 1988. Of course, they saw the pattern broken in the following election. Awarding the Democrats a “near-lock” on the Electoral College today based upon half as many observations is an even riskier venture.

Here is where we agree almost entirely.

In which of these years would we expect the Republicans to win states that leaned Democrat by more than a point or two? The answer is almost certainly “none.” In other words, the “big blue wall” is merely a construct of how the coin flips have landed the past five cycles, not an intrinsic feature of our politics. So what about this year? It really remains to be seen. The signs so far are that this year won’t be like 1996 or 2008. It also doesn’t seem likely to be 1980, absent a spectacular collapse in Europe.

The most likely scenario is somewhere between 2004 and 1992 — but in reverse, with a three-to-four point Democratic win and a similarly sized Republican win representing the poles (again, under roughly current conditions). But this is an important distinction.