Last week, I noticed this blog comment: "Romney was not my first, second, or third choice, but I will crawl over ground glass to vote for him."Then a landslide it's going to be. All signs are pointing to an epic day for grassroots conservative turnout --- not just Republican turnout, but conservatives for whom Romney wasn't their first pick but who now see him as the bulwark against continued Obama-Democrat statism and political and economic decay.
A lot of Republicans -- and, judging from polls, a lot of independents -- feel this way. If there are enough of them, Romney will win, and win big.
Are there? Well, there are some signs. I've written here before that politics is all about showing up. And in recent months, people on the Right have been doing a lot of showing up. They've showed up at Romney-Ryan events in unprecedented numbers. They made Dinesh D'Souza's "2016: Obama's America" a huge hit despite a virtual blackout from traditional media. They stood in line for hours at Chick-fil-A restaurants to buy chicken sandwiches in response to politicians' bullying. They packed houses at the "Hating Breitbart" premiere.
Will they now pack the voting booths and vote for Romney, and against Obama, in similarly unprecedented numbers? If they do, Romney will win in a landslide.
Mitt Romney is ahead by a single percentage point in Ohio - the swing state that many believe could decide the election, according to internal polling data provided to MailOnline by a Republican party source.Well, don't get cocky, kid.
Internal campaign polling completed last night by campaign pollster Neil Newhouse has Romney three points up in New Hampshire, two points up in Iowa and dead level in Wisconsin and - most startlingly - Pennsylvania.
If the Romney campaign's internal numbers are correct - and nearly all independent pollsters have come up with a picture much more favourable for Obama - then the former Massachusetts governor will almost certainly be elected 45th U.S. President.
Two days before the election, CBS posted additional portions of a Sept. 12 "60 Minutes" interview where President Obama seems to contradict himself on the Benghazi attack. As the Benghazi investigation gets more attention and focus, CBS is once again adding to the Benghazi timeline. In the interview, according to the latest portions, Obama would not say whether he thought the attack was terrorism. Yet he would later emphasize at a presidential debate that in the Rose Garden the same day, he had declared the attack an act of terror.Continue reading.
That moment was one of the most intense exchanges in the second presidential debate. Romney was on the offensive on what conservatives believed was a serious vulnerability of Obama -- the handling of the Benghazi attack and what he called it from the beginning.
The town hall questioner asked, "Who was it that denied enhanced security and why?" Obama did not provide a direct answer, but said: "When I say that we are going to find out exactly what happened, everybody will be held accountable, and I am ultimately responsible for what's taking place there, because these are my folks, and I'm the one who has to greet those coffins when they come home, you know that I mean what I say."
Romney pounced, saying, "There were many days that passed before we knew whether this was a spontaneous demonstration or actually whether it was a terrorist attack. And there was no demonstration involved. It was a terrorist attack, and it took a long time for that to be told to the American people."
On rebuttal, Obama seemed rehearsed, but indignant. "The day after the attack, Governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror... And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive. That's not what we do. That's not what I do as president. That's not what I do as commander in chief."
Governor Romney walked forward and started questioning ...
ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration. OBAMA: Please proceed.Obama -- who had clearly won the moment (largely thanks to Candy Crowley) -- clearly wanted to move on from that victorious moment -- and quickly...
ROMNEY: Is that what you're saying?
OBAMA: Please proceed, Governor.
ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
OBAMA: Get the transcript.
CROWLEY: It -- he did in fact, sir. So let me -- let me call it an act of terrorism -- (inaudible) --
OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy? (Laughter, applause.) CROWLEY: He did call it an act of terror. It did as well take -- it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.
ROMNEY: This -- the administration -- the administration -- (applause) -- indicated that this was a -- a reaction to a -- to a video and was a spontaneous reaction.
CROWLEY: They did.
ROMNEY: It took them a long time to say this was a terrorist act by a terrorist group and -- and to suggest -- am I incorrect in that regard? On Sunday the -- your -- your secretary or --
WASHINGTON — Against the backdrop of a sharply polarized nation, the long and mean-spirited 2012 presidential contest is barreling toward the finish with the outcome still in doubt.A nice piece, except for that quote from Andrew Kohut, the progressive hack.
President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney remain statistically tied in national polling, as they have been for much of the campaign. But the Democratic incumbent is clinging to a marginal advantage in enough key states to make him a slight favorite to gain reelection in a race that could still go either way.
Analysts in both parties expect Tuesday's vote to more closely resemble the tight 2000 and 2004 elections, which came down to a single state, rather than Obama's expansive 2008 victory. After years of weak economic growth and stalemate in Washington, opinion surveys show an electorate that is more divided than ever, especially along lines of race, age and party.
"We are deeply divided, and that has made a contribution to the closeness of the race. But the public is also divided about these candidates," said independent pollster Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "They look at Romney now as a somewhat acceptable candidate, but they still have doubts about him personally with respect to trustworthiness and with respect to how empathetic he'll be to people like themselves. They also have doubts about Obama and about his ability to turn things around."
The future of a divided Congress is also up for grabs. Republicans are virtually certain to keep their majority in the House of Representatives. But barring a late GOP surge at the top of the ticket, Democrats are expected to retain control of the Senate, despite a potential loss of seats.
Romney has sought to frame the election around Obama's handling of the economy, and an uptick in the unemployment rate going into the final weekend of the race allowed the Republican to tell voters that joblessness is worse now than when the president took office. At 7.9%, unemployment is also the worst for any incumbent seeking reelection since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Many of our friends who saw genius in the crease of Barack Obama's trousers four years ago lament that he might be cruising to re-election had he only focused first on the economy and postponed his liberal social priorities. This may be true, but it also misjudges the man and his Presidency.Man, that's such a penetrating analysis it's almost depressing, and I mean from Obama's point of view. The poor guy. What a horrible existence and what a disastrous legacy. Government for government's sake, going against all that's great about this country. Tearing down personal liberty in the name of morally bankrupt statism. But that's what Democrats are about, and that's why Obama's doing as well as he is. A large chunk of Americans, roughly half if the polls are to be believed, have lost the initiative and moral bearing that built up this nation as the leader of the free world. From ObamaCare to the Middle East, this president has lied and bungled his way through a disgraceful interregnum. If he's reelected it will take that much longer to dismantle the apparatus of mindless bureaucracy, and not to mention the ideology of hate and recrimination.
Mr. Obama has governed from the left not because he miscalculated his priorities but because these are his priorities. His first term is best understood as a race to put himself in the pantheon of the great progressive Presidents—Wilson, FDR, LBJ—who expanded the state's control over the private economy and over the wants and needs of the American middle class.
The price of this governing choice includes a weak recovery, achievements like ObamaCare that are unpopular, the loss of the House in 2010, and a polarized electorate. Unable to run on his record, he has conducted a low-down re-election campaign based on destroying his opponent's character. If the polls are right, even if he wins re-election, he will do so as the first President since Wilson to win with a smaller margin than he did the first time.
But for Mr. Obama, this won't matter. His great progressive gamble will have paid off. His second term will be about preserving the government gains of his first term, especially ObamaCare, and using regulation to press government control wherever else he can.
President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney entered the final days of the presidential race tied in a state that the campaigns only recently began contesting, a Tribune-Review poll shows.Right.
The poll showed the race for Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes locked up at 47 percent in its final week. Romney was scheduled to campaign in the Philadelphia area on Sunday, and former President Bill Clinton planned to stump for Obama on Monday. The campaigns have begun to saturate the airwaves with millions of dollars in presidential advertising.
“They’re both in here because of exactly what you’re seeing” in this poll, said Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling & Research, which surveyed 800 likely voters Oct. 29-31. Most of the interviews occurred after Hurricane Sandy inundated Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. The poll’s error margin is 3.46 percentage points.
Nearly 60 percent of people say the country is on the wrong track, and economic concerns continue to dominate. Almost half of likely voters say economic issues are the primary driver of their choice for president.
“I’m concerned about all the young people graduating from college, whether they’re finding jobs,” said Pauline Hoxie, 84, a Republican from Jersey Shore in Lycoming County. Her grandson graduated with a degree in graphic design but works a manual labor job because he can’t find openings in his field, she said.
Democrats shrugged off the Romney campaign’s late play for Pennsylvania, sending emails to supporters and journalists showing past Republican presidential candidates doing the same thing. Pennsylvania hasn’t given its electoral votes to the Republican candidate since 1988.
Pennsylvania: Some major trending for the governor right now that is being totally under-reported by the media. Some counties looking like they will be upwards of 70% Romney. #s will be played tight via media reports during early hours of election night, but watch for a call by around 8:30 or so for the governor. And that my friend, is when the entire liberal establishment really starts to do the backside pucker.
CANTON, Ohio–The first words from Republican state Rep. Christina Hagan when she addressed the huge crowd braving a damp chill for a Mitt Romney rally here last Friday night might have sounded more natural coming from a pulpit than from a campaign podium.More at the link.
“God is pretty good, isn’t he?” Hagan called out to encouraging applause from the virtually all-white audience of nearly 10,000 sprawled across a high school baseball field. A few moments later, she added, “I am not looking for applause. Nor am I looking for a handout.” With those two pointed remarks, Hagan briskly encouraged her audience to see itself as a community whose shared values are under siege from others—unnamed, but not difficult to picture—who supposedly don’t share them. Earlier that afternoon, about 100 people gathered for an early-vote rally at the Friendly Inn Settlement House, a community center that provides family services to residents of the surrounding Carver Park public-housing project in Cleveland. In this room, almost everyone was African-American—and the sense of siege was powerful here, too.
Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, actor Jesse Williams, and local elected officials portrayed the election between Romney and President Obama as a critical turning point, particularly for the black community. Speakers denounced Romney’s secretly recorded comments about the “47 percent” as a signal of contempt for the people in the room. “How do you say you want to be president ... when you have disdain for 47 percent of the population?” asked fiery Democratic state Sen. Nina Turner. Anyone touring Ohio, the epicenter of Campaign 2012, is confronted not only with the visceral passion, but the cavernous divisions that this election has provoked. Here, and in all likelihood nationally, Obama and Romney are assembling coalitions that are inimical in their demography and priorities yet almost equal in size. Uniting Americans behind any common purpose after an election that appears certain to divide them that deeply and closely looms as a daunting, perhaps insurmountable, challenge for whichever man wins next week.
This year, Princeton, N.J., has hired sharpshooters to cull 250 deer from the town's herd of 550 over the winter. The cost: $58,700. Columbia, S.C., is spending $1 million to rid its drainage systems of beavers and their dams. The 2009 "miracle on the Hudson," when US Airways flight 1549 had to make an emergency landing after its engines ingested Canada geese, saved 155 passengers and crew, but the $60 million A320 Airbus was a complete loss. In the U.S., the total cost of wildlife damage to crops, landscaping and infrastructure now exceeds $28 billion a year ($1.5 billion from deer-vehicle crashes alone), according to Michael Conover of Utah State University, who monitors conflicts between people and wildlife.More at the link.
Those conflicts often pit neighbor against neighbor. After a small dog in Wheaton, Ill., was mauled by a coyote and had to be euthanized, officials hired a nuisance wildlife mitigation company. Its operator killed four coyotes and got voice-mail death threats. A brick was tossed through a city official's window, city-council members were peppered with threatening emails and letters, and the FBI was called in. After Princeton began culling deer 12 years ago, someone splattered the mayor's car with deer innards.
Welcome to the nature wars, in which Americans fight each other over too much of a good thing—expanding wildlife populations produced by our conservation and environmental successes. We now routinely encounter wild birds and animals that our parents and grandparents rarely saw. As their numbers have grown, wild creatures have spread far beyond their historic ranges into new habitats, including ours. It is very likely that in the eastern United States today more people live in closer proximity to more wildlife than anywhere on Earth at any time in history.
In a world full of eco-woes like species extinctions, this should be wonderful news—unless, perhaps, you are one of more than 4,000 drivers who will hit a deer today, or your child's soccer field is carpeted with goose droppings, or feral cats have turned your bird feeder into a fast-food outlet, or wild turkeys have eaten your newly planted seed corn, or beavers have flooded your driveway, or bears are looting your trash cans. And that's just the beginning.
MIDDLETOWN, Dauphin County —— When Mitt Romney suggested several weeks ago that he would win Pennsylvania, the challenge seemed almost insurmountable.Well, the GOP ticket's taking it to Obama in the Keystone State. It frankly doesn't look nearly as close as Ohio, but Team Romney's got information that I don't --- internal polling, especially --- so I'll just hang onto my seat like everyone else. Twenty electors is a huge prize, and a win in Pennsylvania would basically throw the map wide open for the GOP ticket. Penn and Ohio for Romney and I'd have to agree with Price Foley: kiss it goodbye for the Democrats. I'll have more on this later...
But when Paul Ryan asked a raucous Pennsylvania crowd of GOP faithful Saturday afternoon if they were ready to help the Republican ticket win the state, he was serious about the prospects.
"It feels really good to be standing in here with Pennsylvania today," the Republican vice presidential candidate said.
Throughout Ryan's 30-minute remarks inside a Harrisburg International Airport hangar, the crowd was deafening, at times chanting, "Three more days, Three more days."
A month ago, with President Barack Obama holding a 7- to 10-point lead over Romney in several Pennsylvania polls, the GOP likely did not expect to be having huge political rallies here with less than 72 hours until Election Day.
For most of the year, Pennsylvania was widely considered a sure thing for the Democrats. But in recent days, the Republicans have launched a concerted effort to win its 20 electoral votes. Democrats say the Republicans are looking to make up for shortcomings in other key states, but Republicans insist they see an opening in Pennsylvania.
Ryan's campaign stop touched off a whirlwind three days of political activity in Pennsylvania. Romney will headline a rally in Bucks County on Sunday. And former President Bill Clinton will hold three events across Pennsylvania on Monday to make the closing pitch for Obama.
When Romney was last in the state in September for a Philadelphia fundraiser and a rally in the suburbs, he said he'd win Pennsylvania. At that time, neither campaign and no super PAC was airing ads on Pennsylvania television. And Obama had a comfortable lead in the polls.
In the last week, both campaigns bought air time, as did a handful of GOP super PACs. And the most recent public poll showed Obama's lead in the state had narrowed to 4 points.
Pennsylvania has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election for the last 20 years. Independent pollsters have called it the Republicans’ white whale. Indeed, polls show Mr. Obama ahead, albeit by a shrinking margin. And his senior political strategist, David Axelrod, even joked this week that he would shave off his mustache of 40 years if they lose here.That's the enthusiasm gap, and it could be decisive in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
But there is a tangible sense — seen in Romney yard signs on the expansive lawns of homes in the well-heeled suburbs, and heard in the excited voices of Republican mothers who make phone calls to voters in their spare time — that the race is tilting toward Mr. Romney.
CINCINNATI — Johanson Perez, a 29-year-old night baker at Panera Bread who is not a fan of President Obama, had a "70-comment fight" on Facebook with a friend over Donald Trump's $5-million offer for the president's school and passport records.Continue reading.
"I'm sure we won't be as close after the election as we were before," said Perez, who'd stopped for lunch at Price Hill Chili, a neighborhood institution on the city's west side. "It's almost like he's in a cult."
At a nearby table, political independent Greg Littel, 20, a University of Cincinnati student who favors Obama, said he was dismayed by vandalism in his liberal neighborhood.
"The political conversations have been more hostile and people have been taking that physically out on each other," Littel said. "All the cars with Romney bumper stickers have been keyed."
Over a sandwich at the bar, Ed Miller, 79, a Republican real estate agent and former minor league shortstop, said one of his oldest friends, an Obama supporter, stopped speaking to him recently. Miller had just given the man's grandson an expensive basketball signed by University of Kentucky coach John Calipari.
"I played ball with this guy!" Miller said. "How can you be so uniformed, so ignorant, about what's going on? If Obama gets in here for four more years, our country is gone. I mean flat-out gone."
The headline of Thursday’s Staten Island Advance screamed in bold “14 DEAD SO FAR — HOMES RAVAGED, LIVES RUINED.” But many people here feel no one is listening to their pleas for help or coming for support. Only after one horrific tale emerged did the rest of the city and country pay attention to Staten Island. That event took place in one of the most devastated areas on the island, along Father Capodanno Boulevard. There, a young mother named Glenda Moore tried to reach a shelter and lost her two sons, Brandon, 2, and Connor, 4, after their car stalled in the suddenly rising floodwaters and they tried to escape.No FEMA response. President "I" Candy had to fly out to Las Vegas for more important business.
Ohio (18). The anti-Romney auto bailout ads have Obama running well enough among blue-collar voters for him to lead most polls. But many polls anticipate a more Democratic electorate than in 2008. Early voting tells another story, and so does the registration decline in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County. In 2004, intensity among rural, small -town and evangelical voters, undetected by political reporters who don't mix in such circles, produced a narrow Bush victory. I see that happening again. Romney.PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Stacy McCain, "WEST CHESTER, OHIO: MASSIVE CROWD FOR ROMNEY-RYAN RALLY":
I’ll have more photos later, but right now I just want to tell you how awesome tonight’s rally was. Rudy Giuliani’s speech was off the hook — the best takedown of the Obama administration I’ve heard this entire cycle, bar none. What Rudy said about Benghazi was particularly brutal.Read it all at the link.
So not only did the administration know within 24 hours that this had been an act of terrorism, they knew within four hours which specific Islamist group was responsible for the raid. (Remember, those August cables mentioned at least ten active jihadist militias in the city). The US staff in Benghazi sent explicit warnings about a lack of security at the consulate in August, as requests for reinforcements were being routinely denied. They also fired off urgent cables mere hours before the assault began, informing Washington that a terrorist attack had been set into motion. Why do these details matter? Because the White House -- the president, the Secretary of State, the UN Ambassador -- continued to insist for days that this 9/11 terrorist attack was connected to (non-existent) spontaneous protests over an obscure online video. Clinton even denounced the video while standing next to the caskets of the fallen upon their return. This was a completely false storyline, pushed for reasons that remain unclear -- although I think the motives are becoming more readily apparent by the day. The president has said that his administration has been fully transparent, updating the public on critical information as it's come in -- even feigning great offense that anyone would suggest otherwise. The flat truth is that his White House has done nothing of the sort.There's more at the link.
The liberal "news" media’s refusal to cover this story exposes how corrupt they have become. Four Americans died in Libya in a coordinated terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11. The Obama Administration has been caught in a maze of falsehoods. This reeks of a cover-up. This scandal could and would derail the Obama re-election efforts. ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, and the New York Times are so vested in the re-election of Barack Obama that they are deliberately spiking this huge story. It’s sickening.RTWT.
How big is this story? Bigger than Watergate. No one was killed in that burglary, and no one covered up the truth about the deaths of four brave Americans.
Now there are rumblings that one or more of these so-called news networks have emails from the National Security Advisor’s office telling a counter-terrorism unit to stand down. If that’s true, they must tell the American people what they know, and how long they’ve known it. And if it isn’t true, then the networks need to say so. Their silence is deafening.
The final monthly jobs report before Election Day offered a mixed bag of economic evidence that quickly became political putty for the presidential candidates, with the unemployment rate ticking up to 7.9 percent but the economy adding a better-than-expected 171,000 jobs.James Pethokoukis has an analysis, "Is this as good as it gets? | October’s dismal ‘New Normal’ jobs report":
At the same time, the number of unemployed grew by 170,000, roughly the same amount -- to 12.3 million.
The October numbers allow President Obama to argue the economy is technically growing under his watch. But they also allow Mitt Romney to argue that the new jobs are not making much of a dent in the unemployment problem. Both campaigns quickly set to work putting their spin on data that, if nothing else, underscores the slow pace of the recovery.
"That's 9 million jobs short of what (Obama) promised," Romney said at a rally in Wisconsin shortly before noon. "Unemployment is higher today than when Barack Obama took office."
The rate was 7.8 percent the month Obama took office. "Today's increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill," Romney said in a separate written statement. "When I'm president, I'm going to make real changes that lead to a real recovery, so that the next four years are better than the last."
1. If we suddenly had a string of months where job growth was the same as in October, it would take 7 more years — until 2019 ! — to get back to the Bush unemployment low of 4.4%. Even if we averaged 210,000 jobs a month, we wouldn’t close jobs gap until 2021.More at the link. And see Gateway Pundit, "October Unemployment Jumps to 7.9% – Making Obama Worst Jobs President Since Great Depression."
2. We are now 41 months into the recovery, and we have recovered just 55% of the 8.9 million lost private sector jobs from the Great Recession. During the Reagan recovery, it took just 10 months.
3. Back in early 2009, White House economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted the unemployment rate would be 5.2% in October 2012 if Congress passed the $800 billion stimulus. As the above chart shows, they weren’t even close.
Nate Silver's much-celebrated model is, like other poll averages, based simply on analyzing the toplines of public polls. This, more than any other factor, is where he and I part company.RTWT at the link.
If you read only the toplines of polls - the single number that says something like "Romney 48, Obama 47" - you would get the impression from a great many polls that this is a very tight race nationally, in which Obama has a steady lead in key swing states. In an ordinary year, the toplines of the polls eventually converge around the final result - but this year, there seems to be some stubborn splits among the poll toplines that reflect the pollsters' struggles to come to agreement on who is going to vote.
Poll toplines are simply the sum of their internals: that is, different subgroups within the sample. The one poll-watchers track most closely is the partisan breakdowns: how each candidate is doing with Republican voters, Democratic voters and independent voters, two of whom (the Rs & Ds) have relatively predictable voting patterns. Bridging the gap from those internals to the topline is the percentage of each group included in the poll, which of course derives from the likely-voter modeling and other sampling issues described above. And therein lies the controversy.
My thesis, and that of a good many conservative skeptics of the 538 model, is that these internals are telling an entirely different story than some of the toplines: that Obama is getting clobbered with independent voters, traditionally the largest variable in any election and especially in a presidential election, where both sides will usually have sophisticated, well-funded turnout operations in the field. He's on track to lose independents by double digits nationally, and the last three candidates to do that were Dukakis, Mondale and Carter in 1980. And he's not balancing that with any particular crossover advantage (i.e., drawing more crossover Republican voters than Romney is drawing crossover Democratic voters). Similar trends are apparent throughout the state-by-state polls, not in every single poll but in enough of them to show a clear trend all over the battleground states.
If you averaged Obama's standing in all the internals, you'd capture a profile of a candidate that looks an awful lot like a whole lot of people who have gone down to defeat in the past, and nearly nobody who has won. Under such circumstances, Obama can only win if the electorate features a historically decisive turnout advantage for Democrats - an advantage that none of the historically predictive turnout metrics are seeing, with the sole exception of the poll samples used by some (but not all) pollsters. Thus, Obama's position in the toplines depends entirely on whether those pollsters are correctly sampling the partisan turnout.
That's where the importance of knowing and understanding electoral history comes in. Because if your model is relying entirely on toplines that don't make any sense when you look at the internals with a knowledge of the past history of what winning campaigns look like, you need to start playing Socrates.
When the bodies of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans killed in Benghazi, Libya, arrived at Andrews Air Force Base after the Sept. 11 attack, they were greeted by the president, the vice president and the secretaries of state and defense. Conspicuously absent was CIA Director David Petraeus.More:
Officials close to Mr. Petraeus say he stayed away in an effort to conceal the agency's role in collecting intelligence and providing security in Benghazi. Two of the four men who died that day, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, were former Navy SEAL commandos who were publicly identified as State Department contract security officers, but who actually worked as Central Intelligence Agency contractors, U.S. officials say.
The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Of the more than 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the deadly assault, only seven worked for the State Department. Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principal purpose of the consulate, these officials said.
The coordinated attacks stirred up a political hornet's nest over whether the administration provided adequate security and whether it was forthcoming with its assessment of what happened. In the election season, that cast a shadow over the Obama administration's foreign policy record.
Nearly eight weeks after the attacks, a complete accounting hasn't emerged in public view. The brunt of the public criticism for security lapses has so far been directed at the State Department, rather than the CIA, which, by design, operates largely in the shadows. Critics in Congress say the CIA has used secrecy in part to shield itself from blame—a charge officials close to the agency deny.
This account of the CIA presence in Benghazi sheds new light on the events, and how the essentially covert nature of the U.S. operations there created confusion. Congressional investigators say it appears that the CIA and State Department weren't on the same page about their respective roles on security, underlining the rift between agencies over taking responsibility and raising questions about whether the security arrangement in Benghazi was flawed.
The CIA's secret role helps explain why security appeared inadequate at the U.S. diplomatic facility. State Department officials believed that responsibility was set to be shouldered in part by CIA personnel in the city through a series of secret agreements that even some officials in Washington didn't know about.
It also explains why the consulate was abandoned to looters for weeks afterward while U.S. efforts focused on securing the more important CIA quarters. Officials say it is unclear whether the militants knew about the CIA presence or stumbled upon the facility by following Americans there after the attack on the consulate...
In the months leading up to the attack, Mr. Stevens and others sent a series of diplomatic messages to the administration warning that security in Benghazi was deteriorating. Nevertheless, security at the consulate wasn't beefed up and Mr. Stevens's movements weren't restricted, according to congressional investigators.William Kristol has commentary on this, at the Weekly Standard, "Clinton vs. Petraeus — But Where's Obama?"
On the night of the attack, the consulate, on a 13-acre property, was protected by five American diplomatic security officers inside the walls, supported by a small group of armed Libyans outside. The CIA's security force at the annex sometimes provided backup security for the ambassador when he traveled outside the consulate.
Outside of Tripoli and Benghazi, the nature of the security relationship between the consulate and the annex wasn't widely known, and details about that arrangement are still the subject of dispute. The night of the attack, many top officials at the State Department in Washington weren't initially aware that the annex had a security force that answered to the CIA and provided backup security for the consulate.
Soon after the shooting started, a diplomatic security officer at the consulate hit an alarm. By 9:40 p.m. local time—3:40 p.m. on the East Coast—the officer called the annex's security team, the U.S. embassy in Tripoli and the diplomatic-security headquarters in Washington.
It took a seven-man team from the CIA security roughly 50 minutes to get to the consulate after it was alerted, according to administration officials.
Within 25 minutes, the team headed out of the annex to the consulate compound, a senior U.S. intelligence official said. It took another 25 minutes to reach the compound, in part because the team stopped to get heavy weapons and came under fire as they moved in, the official said.
The CIA team left the consulate around 11:30 p.m. with all American officials from the compound, except for the missing U.S. ambassador, the senior U.S. intelligence official said. They came under fire as they left.
Shortly after they arrived back at the annex, the annex began receiving small-arms fire and RPG rounds, the official said. The CIA security team returned fire and the attackers dispersed around 1 a.m.
The congressional investigator said the delay showed that the secret CIA-State security arrangement was inadequate...
A new video from the Syria conflict that circulated via the Internet on Thursday showed antigovernment fighters armed with rifles kicking and summarily executing a group of prisoners, apparently soldiers or militiamen, in what human rights activists called evidence of a war crime and another indication that both sides were increasingly committing atrocities.More at that top link. The video is here.
Independents’ DayAnd see, "Fox News poll: Race for the White House a dead heat."
Americans have grown largely frustrated with both parties and the trend toward political independence is really the biggest political story of the past two decades. Independent is not synonymous with moderate since voters disaffected with the partisan status quo range from very liberal to very conservative. The universe of independents is a parallel to the overall electorate, but more unpredictable in voting habits.
But with both parties dug in deeply, the independent vote is the most promising field of persuadable voters.
Self-identified Democrats usually outnumber self-identified Republicans. Republicans therefore rely on the aforementioned turnout advantage combined with support from independents to win elections. That’s certainly the case this year.
If the combination of organic enthusiasm and effective ground game for Republicans can offset the Democrats numerical advantage, then it would be support from independents that could put Romney over the top.
And in that measure, Romney is succeeding by a wide margin.
In the latest FOX News poll, Romney holds a 7-point lead among independent voters, with 16 percent on the fence or supporting a marginal candidate. Romney lost 2 points of his advantage with the group from the beginning of the month as the pool of undecided voters shrank from 25 percent.
But it seems highly unlikely that the incumbent will get half of those remaining. Of those who consider themselves unaffiliated and undecided, the challenger, especially one with majority favorability and an equally matched voter outreach, has a clear advantage over the incumbent.
My own Forecasting Model says there's a greater-than-zero chance that Nate Silver will be a laughingstock Nov. 7dailycaller.com/2012/11/01/is-…
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 2, 2012
In a phone conversation, Mr. Silver described the wager offer as “half playful and half serious.”You think?
“He’s been on a rant, calling me an idiot and a partisan, so I’m asking him to put some integrity behind it,” he said. “I don’t stand to gain anything from it; it’s for charity.”
He added that he is feeling the strain of being under attack and vulnerable to criticism as Election Day approaches.
“It’s a high-stress time,” he said.
I can understand and sympathize with that.
But whatever the motivation behind it, the wager offer is a bad idea – giving ammunition to the critics who want to paint Mr. Silver as a partisan who is trying to sway the outcome.
It comes down to numbers. And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney.Well, let's not get cocky.
He maintains a small but persistent polling edge. As of yesterday afternoon, there had been 31 national surveys in the previous seven days. Mr. Romney led in 19, President Obama in seven, and five were tied. Mr. Romney averaged 48.4%; Mr. Obama, 47.2%. The GOP challenger was at or above 50% in 10 polls, Mr. Obama in none.
The number that may matter the most is Mr. Obama's 47.2% share. As the incumbent, he's likely to find that number going into Election Day is a percentage point or so below what he gets.
For example, in 2004 President George W. Bush had 49% in the final Gallup likely-voter track; he received 50.7% on Election Day. In 1996, President Clinton was at 48% in the last Gallup; he got 49.2% at the polls. And in 1992, President George H.W. Bush was at 37% in the closing Gallup; he collected 37.5% in the balloting.
One potentially dispositive question is what mix of Republicans and Democrats will show up this election. On Friday last week, Gallup hinted at the partisan makeup of the 2012 electorate with a small chart buried at the end of its daily tracking report. Based on all its October polling, Gallup suggested that this year's turnout might be 36% Republican to 35% Democratic, compared with 39% Democratic and 29% Republican in 2008, and 39% Republican and 37% Democratic in 2004. If accurate, this would be real trouble for Mr. Obama, since Mr. Romney has consistently led among independents in most October surveys.
Gallup delivered some additional bad news to Mr. Obama on early voting. Through Sunday, 15% of those surveyed said they had already cast a ballot either in person or absentee. They broke for Mr. Romney, 52% to 46%. The 63% who said they planned to vote on Election Day similarly supported Mr. Romney, 51% to 45%.
HRC is calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate mass spam texts that are taking aim at President Obama, marriage equality, and a number of other progressive issues. Recently, HRC supporters have received unsolicited anti-gay text messages such as: “Obama endorses the legality of same-sex marriage. Say No to Obama at the polls on Nov 6.” The Washington Post reports that the texts originated from ccAdvertising, a firm specializing in political phone and text outreach – and with a history of spamming cell phone users with unsolicited content. HRC’s letter to the FCC is available here.Shoot, if that landed in my inbox I'd forward it to everyone on my contact list. The freaks.
Since many Americans pay for their text messages on an as-used basis, ccAdvertising is costing money to some cell phone users by spamming them with these unwanted messages.
It appears ccAdvertising tried to hide their identity on their website – a violation of the terms of service with their online host, GoDaddy. As a result, GoDaddy revoked ccAdvertising’s anonymity and their leading role in sending the text messages became clear. It remains to be seen who is funding the firm’s unsolicited anti-equality texts. The Washington Post reports that ccAdvertising’s chief operating officer is Republican Jason Flanary, who is currently running for Senate in Fairfax County, Virginia.
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HOBOKEN, N.J. — New Jersey was reeling on Wednesday from the impact of Hurricane Sandy, which has caused catastrophic flooding here in Hoboken and in other New York City suburbs, destroyed entire neighborhoods across the state and wiped out iconic boardwalks in shore towns that had enchanted generations of vacationgoers.
Though the storm raged up the East Coast, it has become increasingly apparent that New Jersey took the brunt of it. Officials estimated that the state suffered many billions of dollars in property damage. About a quarter of the state’s population — more than two million people — remained without power on Wednesday, and more than 6,000 were still in shelters, state emergency officials said.
At least eight people died, and officials expressed deep concerns that the toll would rise as more searches of homes were carried out.
On Wednesday, President Obama visited the state and viewed the destruction with Gov. Chris Christie.
“The entire country has been watching what’s been happening,” Mr. Obama said at a stop in Atlantic County at the Brigantine Beach Community Center in Brigantine. “Everybody knows how hard Jersey has been hit.”
Perhaps as startling as the sheer toll was the devastation to some of the state’s well-known locales. Boardwalks along the beach in Seaside Heights, Belmar and other towns on the Jersey Shore were blown away. Amusement parks, arcades and restaurants all but vanished. Bridges to barrier islands buckled, preventing residents from even inspecting the damage to their property.
Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare.
Two days after Hurricane Sandy struck, such distress was not limited to New Jersey.
