Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!

And that's among likely voters.

Gallup had the race tightening, with Romney holding a three-point edge yesterday, 50-47, but he's opening it back up. I think Nate Silver's head's about to explode.

See: "Election 2012 Likely Voters Trial Heat: Obama vs. Romney - Among likely voters."

And check NewsBusters, "Hi, Ho, Nate Silver: NYT's Star Poll Analyst Bolsters Fading Democratic Spirits Once Again."

BONUS: At Rasmussen, "Election 2012: Wisconsin President - Wisconsin: Obama 49%, Romney 49%," and "Wisconsin May Be the New Ohio."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

Obama's Credibility Gap

From Daniel Henninger, at WSJ, "Suddenly, a Credibility Gap":

Less than 14 days before the vote, Gallup has Mitt Romney leading the president by three points and in Rasmussen he's up four. This paper's poll brought Mr. Romney from chronically behind to even. Yes, 270 Electoral College votes will decide the race, but with the whole nation watching the same events, one has to ask whether what we're seeing is Mitt Romney's rise or Barack Obama's decline.

It is conventional wisdom that incumbency breeds advantages. But incumbency also brings burdens, and the Obama candidacy looks like it's buckling beneath one: Of the two candidates, the president is held to a higher standard of behavior.

There have been only two events that could be said to have caused significant movement by voters in the campaign. One was the Oct. 3 Denver debate in which Mitt Romney disinterred political skills that stunned the incumbent and woke up a sleeping electorate. Race on.

The other is Benghazi. The damage done to the Obama campaign by the Sept. 11 death in Benghazi of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American colleagues has been more gradual than the sensation of the Denver debate, but its effect may have been deeper.

The incumbent president has a credibility gap.

More at the link.

U.S. Economy Sputters Along With Tepid 2 Percent Growth in Third Quarter

At the New York Times, "US Economy Grew at 2% Rate in 3rd Quarter."

And from James Pethokoukis at American Enterprise, "Weak GDP report shows no end in sight for the Long Recession." (via Memeorandum).

The third-quarter GDP report was a nasty October surprise for a nation desperately in need of more jobs and higher take-home pay. The U.S. economy grew just 2.0% from July through September. At the current pace, the economy will grow just 1.8% this year, the same miserable pace as last year. “The economic recovery continues but at a very sluggish pace,” said economists John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics in a research note “Over the first 13 quarters of the recovery, real GDP growth has averaged only 2.2%. And at 2.3%, the pace of growth over the last year has shown no signs of picking up.”

RTWT.

Also at Weekly Standard, "Average GDP Growth Less than Half of What Obama Predicted."

Romney Team Goes All-Out in Buckeye State

I'm keeping my eyes on Ohio. It's really, really going to come down to this state.

At the Wall Street Journal, "GOP Sees Road Map in Strong 2004 Turnout for Bush; Obama, Leading in Polls, Banks on Auto Bailout and Early Voting":

Mitt Romney is making a full-court press to win Ohio and taking a page from George W. Bush's playbook to do so.


Signaling the state is a must-have part of his strategy to win the White House, Mr. Romney and his running mate are returning again and again—Mr. Romney crammed in three appearances Thursday. Romney forces this week are spending more on advertisements in Ohio than in any other state. And they are deploying multiple messages in a state as diverse as the nation.

"We've got to make sure we win here in Ohio, and when we do, we're going to take back the White House," Mr. Romney said at a rally in Worthington, a suburb of Columbus.

Romney aides believe Mr. Bush's 2004 victory in Ohio gives them a road map to winning the state's 18 Electoral College votes. One big factor is raw turnout and enthusiasm among the Buckeye State's rural areas and social conservatives.

The Romney team sees President Barack Obama's win in 2008 as having more to do with depressed GOP enthusiasm for Sen. John McCain than it did a surge of enthusiasm for Mr. Obama.

"In county after county, we're looking to reactivate voters who were turned off by McCain but are now excited about Mitt Romney," said Scott Jennings, the Romney campaign manager for Ohio. "If we can do that, we can win the state."

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Ohio Tied at 48 Percent in Latest Rasmussen Swing State Poll."

Café Royal's Reopening

At the Los Angeles Times, "Where Oscar Wilde hallucinated and Bowie partied, a hotel is born":

London’s Café Royal, born in 1865 and reborn through the decades as a party place where Oscar Wilde hallucinated on absinthe and David Bowie celebrated the “retirement” of his alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust, is about to be reborn again. In its new life, the Café Royal will be a luxury hotel that mingles historical gravitas with contemporary interior design.

The new Café Royal, due to open Dec. 1 after a four-year closure for revamping, includes 159 guest rooms, two fancy restaurants, a brasserie, an indoor pool and a spa. Oh yes, and a café.

Continue reading.

'My First Time'

At Twitchy, "Obama’s creepy ‘My First Time’ ad has conservatives asking, what about my first job?"

Creepy, yeah. I just didn't realize Lena Dunham was so scuzzy.

Watch it: "Obama campaign — Young female voters should lose voting virginity with Barack (Update – Did Obama copy Putin ad?)." And: "Is the Obama campaign taking commercial ideas from Vladimir Putin?"

Who Has Best Ground Game?

From Gerald Seib, at the Wall Street Journal, "Key to Victory? Who Has the Best Ground Game." The piece came out a couple of weeks ago but it's worth a read, considering all the attention on GOTV efforts.

John Sununu: 'When you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being President of the United States...'

Sununu's comments are perfectly reasonable and totally obvious, but here it comes, "Sununu cites race as factor for Powell’s Obama endorsement" (via Memeorandum).

Obama's Economic Recovery Worst Since Great Depression

From John Merline, at IBD, "Obama Economic Recovery Is As Bad As It Appears":

In a previously off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register, President Obama argued that the economic recovery he's overseen isn't as bad as his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, claims.

"In many ways, because of the actions we took early on, we're actually ahead of pace in the typical recovery out of a recession like this," Obama said.

It's a point Obama and his supporters have made on occasion throughout the campaign. Earlier this year, Obama told attendees at a fundraiser about the "extraordinary progress" the economy was making.

His deputy campaign manager recently claimed that Obama created more jobs than Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush had at similar points in their economic recoveries. First Lady Michelle Obama told a local Washington, D.C., radio station that the country was in the midst of a "huge" recovery.

But the data are clear that Obama's economic recovery — which started in June 2009, five months after he was sworn in — has been worse than any recovery since the Great Depression.

Overall economic growth has been slower in this recovery than in any of the previous post-World War II recoveries, according to the Minneapolis Fed, using data from Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the 12 quarters since the Obama recovery started, real GDP has climbed 6.7%. That's below even the GDP growth rate in the 12 quarters after the 1980 recession ended — despite the fact that there was the intervening deep and prolonged 1981-82 recession.

Continue reading.

Get-Out-the-Vote

From Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal, "Election May Hinge on Get-Out-the-Vote Efforts":

James Garcia, Romney’s Colorado state manager, says that the campaign has already contacted twice as many potential voters by phone, and three times as many at the door, as John McCain’s campaign had at the comparable point in 2008. In Colorado, about 1.9 million people have requested mail-in ballots, and the campaign expects to personally contact more than 1 million of them. In Colorado and other swing states, Obama has built an even more extensive operation—far larger than even his breakthrough organization in 2008.

Well, it won't be long now, in any case. Everyone's theories will be put to the test on November 6th.

Jessica Davies

At Zoo Today, "Jessica Davies Will Drive You Nuts."

Romney Hits 50 Percent in New ABC News/Washington Post Poll

From Alana Goodman at Commentary, "Romney Hits 50% in WaPo/ABC Poll":

Today’s WaPo/ABC national tracking poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama, 50 percent to 47 percent (a “statistically insignificant” margin as WaPo makes sure to note at the top of its story). Still, it’s the first time Romney hit the 50-percent mark in this poll, and a sign Romney’s momentum isn’t fading:

As Romney hits 50, the president stands at 47 percent, his lowest tally in Post-ABC polling since before the national party conventions. A three-point edge gives Romney his first apparent advantage in the national popular vote, but it is not one that is statistically significant with a conventional level of 95 percent confidence.

However, Romney does now boast a statistically — and substantively — important lead on the economy, which has long been the central issue of the race. When it comes to handling the nation’s struggling economy, 52 percent of likely voters say they trust Romney more, while 43 percent say they have more faith in the president.

More remarkable than Romney’s advantage on economy is his advantage with independents. It’s not even close:

These advantages with independents undergird a sizable, 19 percentage-point Romney lead over Obama on the horse race. Should that advantage stick, it would be the sharpest tilt among independents in a presidential election since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide win. (Reagan won independent and other unaffiliated voters 63 to 36 percent, according to the exit poll). Obama won them by eight in 2008.

The poll’s party ID breakdown isn’t terrible: D/R/I is 34/30/32. In 2008, the numbers were 40/33/28. Considering the enthusiasm shift since then, you’d expect Republicans and Democrats to be more evenly split this time around, but plus-4 for Dems isn’t nearly as bad as some of the previous WaPo/ABC polls have been.

More at the link.

Two really important things to watch on election day: Democrat turnout number relative to election year polls (which will demonstrate the widespread pro-Dem sampling bias we've seen all year) and the turnout numbers among core Democrat and Republican supporters. If the enthusiasm gap favors the GOP, it's going to be hard for Obama to win.

At the clip is an awesome Greta Van Susteren interview with Donald Rumsfeld. It's worth your time.

Thanks for reading...

Marine Cpl. Nicholas Kimmel Throws First Pitch

Video at MLB: "2012 World Series: Game 2."

And from USA Today, "Triple amputee war veteran throws first pitch."

Plus, at the New York Times, "World Series Game 2: Giants 2, Tigers 0," and "After a Few Rounds, Detroit’s Bad Old Days Return."

'Fear versus hope, anger versus optimism, Obama versus Romney...'

At Legal Insurrection, "The Anger Versus Optimism Election."

'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!

Or he re-boosts O's chances. It's déjà vu with the wonder boy of the New York Times.

At The Other McCain, "Polls Continue to Show Trend Toward Romney — Nate Silver Notwithstanding":

Excuse me for my continued attention to Nate’s graveyard-whistling, but no matter how clear the evidence of a pro-Romney trend, the Grand Swami at the New York Times won’t stop. He’s now raised the likelihood of Obama’s re-election to 71.0%. (The one-tenth of a percentage point being necessary to the pretense of scientific exactitude.)

Is Nate Silver hustling an insider-trading scam with InTrade? Or is he merely acting as an Obama pompom girl? Either way, the poll-watcher at the nation’s most influential newspaper cannot be unaware of how his coverage functions to shape elite opinion, which is in turn reflected in other media coverage that then influences mass opinion, and believing that Nate Silver is acting as an honest neutral broker in this transaction requires a faith in human goodness that I lack.

You can say that again. More at the link.

Plus, linked at The Other McCain, Ted Frank at Point of Law, "2012 election: why Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com might be wrong and Romney might be doing better than Silver thinks."

And Erin Burnett gives Silver the "Grand Swami" treatment at CNN, "'Romney no longer gaining ground in polls," says Nate Silver'."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

Hypocrisy and Lies in Obama's (Permanent) War on Terror

ICYMI, here's my Tuesday essay at PJ Media, "Does Obama Really Want to Bring the Benghazi Killers to Justice?":

Running for office on a platform of humanitarian idealism is one thing. Carrying out an effective counter-terrorism policy amid an enormous range of domestic and international constraints is another. What’s most likely is that the invocation of “bringing the terrorists to justice” is just a horribly dishonest ruse that this administration keeps alive for convenient but coldly calculated political utility. And as such, it’s clear that Republican attacks of deceit and dishonesty against Obama — with growing claims of a cover up on the entire Libya debacle — are in fact embedded in a history of national security duplicity that this president has foisted on the American people since taking office. The election on November 6 will ultimately reveal whether the country has had enough of it.

Yeah, Obama's all about political expediency. It's a really disgusting and decrepit reputation, and the full record will become more clear in the fullness of time. It's going to take a long time before the full history of this administration's duplicity is revealed. That said, the picture comes into focus a bit more day by day. See the Washington Post for another data point of deceit, "Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists":

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”

The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.

Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.

“We can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us,” a senior administration official said. “It’s a necessary part of what we do. . . . We’re not going to wind up in 10 years in a world of everybody holding hands and saying, ‘We love America.’”

Endless wars? Where is all the leftist outrage to those endless wars we used to hear about? Oh yeah, that stuff only counts when a Republican's in office. There is at least one key exception, which I've noted before, and that's Glenn Greenwald. See, "Obama moves to make the War on Terror permanent." Discussing WaPo's article, Greenwald writes:

This was all motivated by Obama's refusal to arrest or detain terrorist suspects, and his resulting commitment simply to killing them at will (his will).

Right.

This was all motivated by Obama's craven political expedience and epic moral bankruptcy. Personally, I'm not nearly as exercised about the U.S. drone warfare program as is Greenwald. I like killing terrorists. What I don't like is a president who as a candidate campaigned up and down against the Bush administration's national security policies. And then once taking office, knowing that the wheels of national security keep turning no matter who occupies the Oval Office, Obama took the path of least resistance and adopted the "gutsy call" persona designed exclusively to keep himself in power. Obama doesn't like drones and kill lists because they fit his preexisting views on war and peace. He likes them because they're f-king easy. The military gets pet war-fighting projects, the Pentagon keeps its orders for high-tech weaponry chugging along, and the White House can repeatedly announce how "we've got al Qaeda on the run," when all it's really done is fight a long-distance war of attrition, while simultaneously making things worse with a complete FUBAR foreign policy that assists Islamic extremism. It's almost too much to comprehend, like a Rube Goldberg contraption in foreign affairs, but that's what's been happening. Benghazi is blowback for the president's spineless "leading from behind" approach to toppling the Gaddafi regime. And what's especially priceless is the administration's cheerleaders in the press, who won't actually vet this administration's policies. Greenwald has more on that, and it's very good, "Joe Klein's sociopathic defense of drone killings of children."

I'll have more later...

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds, linking that piece at WaPo, slams Obama as "President Dronekiller." I love it!

Hillary's Tumultuous Closing Chapter

At the Wall Street Journal, "For Clinton as Top Diplomat, Tumultuous Closing Chapter":

Just weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was poised to glide out of office as secretary of state with job-approval ratings near 70% and a political buzz suggesting she is already the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate to beat.

Then, disaster struck at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Mrs. Clinton calls the "terrible events"—involving the death of a U.S. ambassador—"one of the most challenging" periods of her four-year tenure. At that moment, U.S. foreign policy, largely overshadowed by economic concerns in the presidential election, roared to the forefront.

Mrs. Clinton long has said she would leave the job after one term. Now, however, in a sign of how much the tragedy has shaken her final days, she indicated in an interview that she may be willing to stay a bit longer.

"A lot of people have talked to me about staying," Mrs. Clinton said, declining to be more specific. When asked if current events will force her departure date to slip, she said it was "unlikely," but for the first time left open that possibility for the short term.

With presidential voting just days away, the suggestion she might stay could offer a sense of stability for Barack Obama as he makes his closing arguments. Mrs. Clinton has strong appeal among women voters as well, a possible swing constituency on Election Day.

Traveling with Mrs. Clinton in recent weeks, through New York, Asia and Washington, provides a close view of her role executing foreign policy for Mr. Obama, her onetime nemesis. In the Benghazi crisis, she made a previously undisclosed call to Libyan President Mohammed Magarief seeking immediate help in finding the missing U.S. ambassador, and later held a one-hour private meeting with him at the United Nations to urge him to disarm the militias and turn the tragedy into a "positive moment to propel Libya forward."

At the same time, she has faced rising violence in the Islamic world, a complex U.S. relationship with China and testy exchanges with Israel's prime minister over Iran's nuclear threat. These issues and others have gained prominence in the closing days of the U.S. presidential race. They also stand to shape Mrs. Clinton's legacy as secretary of state and her future political prospects.

As she rode to Andrews Air Force Base last month to meet President Obama for the arrival of the American bodies from Libya, Mrs. Clinton pressed the leader of one country where protests were still erupting outside the U.S. embassy. "Get your people there now," she said to him on the phone. "No excuses." Minutes later, she was out of the car, comforting the victims' families.

With President Obama occupied with re-election, Mrs. Clinton is doing much of the foreign-policy heavy lifting. And in the aftermath of the Libya attack that took the life of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Mrs. Clinton put her own imprint on the debate by accepting blame. "I take responsibility," Mrs. Clinton said in an interview in her office.

Well, sounds like just more Democrat CYA to me. All of these people are all messed up by political calculations. Hillary's been found wanting in the 3:00am moment she said she'd be prepared to meet. It's almost Greek tragedy territory. She's getting old. And now she's willing to stay at State longer to try to patch up the damage of President Clusterf-k in Libya, and perhaps the entire Middle East? Alas, too late for that Madame Secretary. Hit the exits as soon as you get the chance. Distance yourself of the presidential imposter in the Oval Office. Perhaps the public will be as forgiving of you as they have your husband.

'We Are Going to Win'

At the Wall Street Journal, "Romney Tells Iowans ‘We Are Going to Win’."

And here's the fantastic new ad from Team Romney:

Harvey Weinstein's 'SEAL Team Six' Boosts Obama Footage in Shameless 'Gutsy Call' Promotion

Well, it's not like it's a surprise or anything.

At London's Daily Mail, "GOP's outrage after Harvey Weinstein's SEAL Team Six film on bin Laden take down was 're-cut to add MORE Obama footage'."

And see Vanity Fair, "Why Mitt Romney Was Cut from a Harvey Weinstein Movie":

Disappointing news for anyone hoping that Mitt Romney would abandon his political career, pack his worldly belongings into a beat-up VW, and move to Hollywood: a scene featuring the presidential candidate was cut from a forthcoming action film produced by heavyweight Hollywood Harvey Weinstein. The film—which could have been his big breakthrough—was slated to premiere merely two days before the election.

The movie is SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden, a 90-minute drama that will premiere on November 4 on the National Geographic Channel. Directed by John Stockwell (Crazy/Beautiful and Blue Crush), the film will include President Obama at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner and taking a lonesome stroll “thanks to the magic of editing,” as The New York Times puts it. The Romney scene was removed at the behest of the National Geographic Channel, on the grounds that it gave the impression that the former governor had opposed the plan to apprehend Osama bin Laden. According to the channel’s chief executive, Howard T. Owens, “We wouldn’t air this if it were propaganda.”

Shoot, probably better Romney was edited out.

It's airing November 4th? No political favoritism there, no sir. And hey, Weinstein's in the tank. He's been hosting Hollywood fundraisers for the president. I doubt Weinstein will be making a film on the Libya debacle, however. That wouldn't fit the "gutsy call" narrative so well.

The Posionous Fruit of a Pro-Jihad President

At Atlas Shrugs:

On September 11, when the White House was receiving emails pleading for help in the face of an Al Qaeda attack on our consulate in Libya, Ambassador Stevens, and his staff, Obama issued this statement regarding the attack on our embassy in Cairo, happening at the same time:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy.

Reading Obama's statement in light of what we know and what we know he knew takes Obama's treason to a whole other level. Blaming free speech and supporting sharia in light of mayhem, madness and murder of Islamic supremcism is the act of an enemy. It's an act of war from inside the Oval Office. But it is consistent with Obama's pro-jihad leanings...

More at the link.

And don't forget, Pamela's written the book on this.