Last Call

So Mitt Romney's plan to use his conservative credentials for rallying the base to come back against the President and all that?

You're doing it wrong, Mitt.

Mitt Romney pointed to the health care law he signed as governor of Massachusetts one of his signature achievements Wednesday, a move that has drawn swift and strong rebuke from conservatives in the past.

Romney pointed to the Massachusetts health care law — the foundation for the national healthcare reform law Romney promises to dismantle if elected — as a key highlight of his record in an interview with NBC News.

“[D]on’t forget — I got everybody in my state insured,” Romney told NBC. “One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don’t think there’s anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record.”

Two things:  One, Mitt's touting Romneycare.  I'm sure conservatives are thrilled.  Two, he's vowing to repeal health care coverage for kids if he's President.  I'm sure everyone else is thrilled.  In fact, I'm pretty sure Mitt managed to piss off every single voter somehow with that statement.

Awesome.

Worst campaigner ever.

Robot/Zombie '12 Gets That Poll-Asked Look

That faint, thin, near-Biblical keening you were hearing all day at the upper registers of your detection?  The Romney campaign reading today's swing state numbers from a new OH/PA/FL poll from Quinnipiac University, commissioned by CBS News and the NY Times.  It's not just bad news for Robot/Zombie, it's pretty much a death blow.

President Barack Obama is over the magic 50 percent mark and tops Gov. Mitt Romney among likely voters by 9 to 12 percentage points in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University/ CBS News/New York Times Swing State Poll released today.

Voters in each state see President Obama as better than Gov. Romney to handle the economy, health care, Medicare, national security, an international crisis and immigration. Romney ties or inches ahead of the president on handling the budget deficit. 

Yeah.  That's how bad it got after the 47% remarks.  President Obama is up 9 in Florida, 10 in Ohio, and 12 in Pennsylvania.  And the crosstabs are unrelentingly brutal for Romney.

Obama leads 60 - 35 percent among Ohio women likely voters, while men support Romney 52 - 44 percent. White voters back Romney by a narrow 49 - 46 percent, while 98 percent of black voters back the president. Independent voters are split with 47 percent for Romney and 46 percent for Obama. 

POTUS up 25 points among women, and Romney's lead among white voters is down to 3?  Night, folks.   It's just as bad in Florida...

Women likely voters back Obama 58 - 39 percent while men are divided with 50 percent for Romney and 47 percent for Obama. Hispanic voters go Democratic 55 - 41 percent while independent voters are split with 49 percent for Romney and 46 percent for Obama.

The economy is the most important issue for 47 percent of Florida voters, while 20 percent list health care; 10 percent list the budget deficit and 8 percent list national security.

The president would do a better job on health care, voters say 54 - 41 percent and do a better job on Medicare, voters say 55 - 40 percent. Voters over 55 say Obama would do a better job on Medicare 52 - 42 percent and back the president 53 - 45 percent.

So Romney's done in Ohio without a big advantage among white voters, and he's absolutely done in Florida if he's losing the Senior vote.  And in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania women likely voters back Obama 58 - 37 percent, while men split with 49 percent for Romney and 48 percent for the president. Independent voters are split 48 - 48 percent.

The economy is the most important issue for 48 percent of Pennsylvania voters, while 20 percent list health care; 11 percent list the budget deficit and 7 percent list national security.

The president would do a better job on health care, voters say 54 - 41 percent and do a better job on Medicare, voters say 55 - 39 percent. Voters over 55 say Obama would do a better job on Medicare 52 - 43 percent and back the president 50 - 46 percent.

Romney can only manage a split among men and independents, he's losing seniors, and Obama is winning women by 21.  Done.

Romney is done.   Now all we have to do is vote.

We'll be covering this in tonight's Podcast Vs the Stupid.

Coulter (Zeit)geist, Part 2

Ann Coulter has now gone completely off the rails and straight into pure racism.

During an interview on Fox News, Coulter told host Sean Hannity that her new book “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama” proved that “everyone — blacks especially — are better off when the white guilt bank is shut down as it was for more than a decade after the O.J. verdict.”

“Liberals kept trying to push the racial narrative in their newspapers and on TV, but Americans just weren’t buying it,” she explained. “After Oct. 3, 1994 when they heard the verdict and saw black law students at Howard University cheering it, that was it.”

“And for a dozen years, we had paradise. Suddenly, people weren’t walking on eggshells, you could have [then-New York City Mayor Rudy] Giuliani enforcing sane criminal laws in New York and not caring that we was constantly being called a racist by liberals and Al Sharpton, the Clinton administration. And look what it did, it transformed the city and it saved — because the policies were continued — tens of thousands of black lives.”

Awesome.  I have no idea what's worse, that Ann Coulter thinks this overt racist Bell Curve garbage makes her more desirable as a pundit, that Coulter's opinion of black people (that we're unruly, barely sentient troglodytes who need white people like Bwana Giuliani to uplift us into polite society) is still acceptable in this country, or that Coulter actually believes that the first Simpson verdict absolves white America of hundreds of years of assumption of privilege.  Take your pick.

At this point, Ann Coulter simply needs to be excused from the non-FOX networks.  Oh, and her employers.

This Is What A Hero Looks Like

A veteran awarded two Purple Hearts was struck and killed while pushing his wife away from an oncoming car. 80-year-old Rubin Baum, who served as a medic in the Korean War, was standing with his wife, 62-year-old Denise Baum, trying to hail a cab in New York City.

The New York Daily News spoke with the newly widowed Baum about her late husband. According to Denise Baum, a sedan crashed into a minivan, causing the sedan to lose control and go into a spin. It hit the couple. Denise was thrown into a parked car. Her husband was pinned under the sedan.

Two Purple Hearts says a lot about a person and their commitment to doing the right thing while facing mortal risk.  This man knew what he was doing, and in the process he saved the life of someone he loved very much.

Reading this right after the University of Maryland article where students are flipping out about how their sandwiches are wrapped put it into even sharper focus.  In this screaming background noise we have in the world, these are the stories that should get our attention.  Do good, be good, make good.

Women Fail From Global Viewpoint

(CNN) -- Women have finally arrived.

From Washington to Wall Street to Twitter, writers, academics, and business leaders are pointing to the empowerment of women as key to many of the world's greatest challenges. They're publicizing the research and amplifying hard facts, like the fact that when women have equal access to agricultural resources, 100 million to 150 million fewer people will go hungry.

Or that when women participate equally in the workforce, the GDP in the U.S. the eurozone, and Japan will experience a double-digit spike. And while there's no perfect metric for the popular perception of "girl power," a 2010 Pew study found widespread public support for women's equality in virtually every nation.

The excitement over women's potential and progress is warranted. But there's still a large and disappointing disconnect between research and reality. Girls and women do indeed perform 66% of the work and produce 50% of the world's food. But they earn only 10% of the world's income and own a dismal 1% of its property.

So tell me again, where have we arrived?  How is it that half the world is second class?  While women can accomplish quite a bit in the United States, there is still a glass ceiling firmly in place.  Women are nowhere near claiming their half, even in one of the friendlier countries in the world.

If women ever unite, a whole lot of stupidity would cease.  That isn't to say new stupidity wouldn't spring up to take its place, but even that much of a break would be refreshing.  The bottom line is until we treat people equally and give them equal value, we cannot succeed.

 

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

If you want to know what the last six weeks of the campaign are going to be like, here you go.

 

Any questions?

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

National Review's Peter Kirsanow asks:

Why Isn’t Romney Up by Ten Points?

Because he's a douchebag.  Americans don't like the economy.  They dislike Romney more.  Period.  Here's my favorite part:

But here’s the thing: The most recent Rasmussen party identification poll has Republicans with a 4.3 percentage point advantage over Democrats nationally. At the same point in the 2008 election cycle Democrats had a 5.7 percent advantage. That’s a 10 point swing, a swing that began to manifest itself in the 2010 midterms, when the Democrats’ advantage fell to just 1.2 points — and they suffered an epic blowout.

The polls may be provide a fairly accurate snapshot of where the race is today. But there’s reason to believe Obama’s appreciably weaker than four years ago, and Republicans should be more optimistic than the timid souls that populate our TV screens seem to be.

You see, THE POLLS ARE ALWAYS WRONG if they show Obama ahead.  And comparing a midterm contest to a Presidential year is always a lesson for heartbreak, given the massive turnout difference.

Make no mistake, we'll be hearing how Obama "stole the election" if it's anything closer than it was in 2008, and that will be the battle cry heading into the impeachment trials.

StupidiNews

• The second day of UN General Assembly meetings finds speeches by the presidents of Iran, Egypt, and Yemen.
• Hong Kong real estate tycoon Cecil Chao has reportedly offered $65 million to any man who can "win the heart" of his married lesbian daughter, Gigi.
• The US Supreme Court will hear arguments on how much of a share the state of North Carolina should get of a multimillion dollar malpractice award.
• Spainish PM Mariano Rajoy may be delaying a bailout request for the country in order to see what kind of terms Italy may be receiving from European Union officials.
• California Dem Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a measure that legalizes robot-driven cars, at a ceremony at Google's Mountain View HQ.