Sometimes I just want to smack Rachel Maddow for being so darn good at her job. I recorded the season finale on Major Crimes on TNT, while I watched The Rachel Maddow Show live. The idea was I would watch Major Crimes immediately after, and then get a good night's sleep so I can get an early start making telephone calls for OFA. Darn that Rachel. She went and produced an awesome opening segment that just has to be shared far and wide.
Rachel started the segment by talking about absentee voting and early voting, and the fantastic news that here in Florida the Democrats have reduced the Republicans usual advantage in absentee voting. This was reported earlier here in distraught's diary, Florida Dems rocking the absentee vote: Republicans "nervous", "not good news", but I was excited to hear the news again from Rachel, since I've been working the phones at my local OFA office since Friday, and intend to do it every day from now until the election. This just motivates me even more to call as many people as possible and make sure the get to the polls and vote for President Obama.
There was then a review of the current state of the presidential race and recent polling, culminating in a closer look at the details of the new ABC News/Washington Post poll which shows that voters trust President Obama more on issue except one and that one is the deficit, where voters said that they trusted Mitt Romney when it came to handling the deficit.
Why is that the one issue in which Mitt Romney is seen as being better than President Obama? It's because of the thing that lost President Obama the first presidential debate two weeks ago, which was him trying to explain how Mitt Romney can't be trusted on the deficit by trying to do the math for everyone, live on TV.
After factually stating that President Obama was correct that the math in Mitt Romney's plan doesn't add up, she pointed out that when he tried to explain it during the debate he lost people by assuming that America would just understand what he was talking about.
But instead of making up punchy, memorable arguments that made him the more likeable and effective of the two debaters, President Obama instead tried to prove that thing about the math. President Obama tried in that debate setting to explain what's so wrong with thinking that Mitt Romney is a guy who should be taken seriously on the deficit. He was trying to explain that without a white board, without sound track, without a narrative way to make it into a story that people would remember.
How many times have you heard someone say, "This isn't your father's Republican Party?" I thought about all the times I've heard that when Rachel wondered why so many people have been brainwashed by the myth that it is Republicans that are good about reducing the deficit. How many times have you heard that the Republican Party is fiscally conservative? It's time we put that myth to death, and help explain to the rest of the country that may have possibly been true fifty years ago, but hasn't been true for a very long time.
How many times have you heard the Republican claim that President Obama has run up the hugest deficit in our nation's history. It's supposedly so huge that it's bigger than all the deficits of all the previous presidents combined. Not true. President Obama has actually reduced the deficit. This is the point in the segment that you will want to pay close attention because Rachel explains it all in such a way that will make it is easy for you to share with others, with pretty graphs and everything.
There is a certain happy-go-luckiness by the Republicans when they are talking about this issue. They do not get too stressed out about this issue because they know that politically, it really doesn't matter what they say. They trust that no matter what they are proposing and how it gets debunked or fact checked or whatever, they know politically they will just seem like they are going to be good on the deficit. No matter what they propose. This is the most persistent myth in the modern politics of American money.
This idea that Republicans, Republican presidents in particular, are good on the deficit. When, in fact, the exact opposite is our modern history. On Friday we learned for example the U.S. budget deficit topped a trillion dollars for the fourth year in a row [See Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for fourth straight year, Reuters, 12 October 2012]. And while that is a gianormous number, here's the context for that. Here's our budget deficit in 2012; just over a trillion dollars. And here's what it was last year. President Obama actually cut the deficit by more than $200 billion from the year before. Here's the budget deficit that President Obama was handed when he walked in the door. Your eyes are not deceiving you. You keep hearing the Republicans talk about how President Obama increased the deficit? President Obama has cut the deficit during his four years in office. The great Steve Benen put this graph together at The Maddow Blog today going through the raw data. And as Steve notes today quote over the last four decades, only two presidents have reduced the deficit this much, this quickly. And those two presidents are Bill Clinton and Barack Obama [See The wrong issue for the wrong candidate by Steve Benen The Maddow Blog, 15 October 2012]. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, now what do they have in common? Both Democrats. Historically, the Democratic Party has actually been the better of the two parties when it comes to the deficit.
Over the last 40 years, it's Democratic presidents who have been the most fiscally responsible when it comes to the deficit. And it's Republican presidents have been the most fiscally reckless. Somehow in the face of this persistent history, Republicans have successfully cultivated this myth that they're the ones you should trust if you're worried about the debt and the deficit. And so even though voters trust Barack Obama on every other issue, they still inexplicably trust Mitt Romney more when it comes to the deficit. They have great faith in Mitt Romney's deficit hawkishness. Even if all his six the studies are just stuff written on a bathroom wall.
It's factually hilarious given that Mitt Romney really is proposing this in terms of what we spend on the military. You ready? These are current levels of military spending [blue line]; our biggest discretionary spending. That [red line] is what Mitt Romney is proposing to do. he's proposing to do adding to our biggest pile of discretionary spending. He is proposing adding two trillion extra dollars in spending just on the military. And he is proposing bringing in five trillion fewer dollars in revenue in order to pay for that [See About Mitt Romney's $5 Trillion Tax Cut, Forbes, 4 October 2012]. Barack Obama is right. The math does not work. The math might be boring, but the math doesn't work. This is like if you're living paycheck to paycheck right now, and you decide you're going to quit your job and then buy a new car at the same time. So you have less money coming in and lots more money going out. What does that make you? It makes you psyched because you got a new car and you don't have to work; plenty of time to drive it around until it runs out of gas and then what? But a decision like this, less money coming in, lots more money going out; a decision like that puts you in deep, deep, deep, debt. And if you do that at the national level, you are a lot of things but you are not good on the deficit. Except apparently, people think that you're great on the deficit. And that distance in perception; distance between the perception and reality of Mitt Romney is a political problem. If you are that bad on an issue like this and people think you're great on the issue that means something in our politics isn't working right. Someone is not doing their political job at making people understand the reality here and making you face the political consequences for it. Why is that? Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs joins us next.
I hope President Obama was paying attention to this. Rachel even provided a great parable about quitting your job and buying a car. This is something President Obama can use in the debate tonight to explain why Mitt Romney's math doesn't add up. Okay, we all know that President Obama doesn't watch Cable News, and probably missed the segment. However, the good news is that waiting in the wings was President Obama's campaign adviser Robert Gibbs who Rachel interviewed during the next segment. Surely he will go back to the President and tell him how easily Rachel explained why Romney's math doesn't add up. She made it so simply that even a 5th grader could understand it.
The video of the entire segment with transcript is below the fleur-de-orange. I've also embedded the Robert Gibbs interview also, but am too tired to transcribe it.
Direct
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Election Day is 22 days away. Three weeks from tomorrow. But today was Election Day for at least one resident of the great state of Illinois. First Lady Michelle Obama posing with her absentee ballot, which she mailed into the state of Illinois today. Shortly before posting this photo, the First Lady tweeted,
What Michelle Obama is doing here, mailing in her absentee ballot, a form of voting that is typically more popular among Republicans.
For example, In Florida in 2008, Republicans enjoyed a 17-point edge among people who chose to vote by mail with an absentee ballot; 17 points. This year one of the early signs in this election that Democrats are excited about is that, at least in Florida, Democrats seem to be closing the gap with absentee ballot mail-in voters. Democrats were still able to win remember in 2008 in Florida even though the lost absentee ballot voters by 17 points. But this year in Florida, Democrats have shrunk down the Republican advantage on absentee ballot voters; they've shrunk it down from 17 points to just 4 points. And remember they were still able to win with the 17-point gap last time around. So this has Democrats very excited, and it has the First Lady doing her big voter photo-op today.
Now the other way to vote ahead of Election Day is not to mail in your absentee ballot, but rather to vote early in person. And while Michelle Obama announced she was voting by mail, President Obama announced today that he is going to be voting early and in person. President Obama's going to be voting on October 25th, which would be next Thursday.
That form of voting, in person early voting, has traditionally leaned more Democratic. And this year it appears to be following that trend again, only with an exclamationi point. Look at this headline from yesterday. Obama grabs wide lead among those who have already voted [See Obama grabs wide lead among those who have already voted: Reuters/Ipsos poll, Reuters, 14 October 2012]. But the numbers are amazing. This new Reuters poll finds that President Obama leads Mitt Romney by 28 points among early voters [59% to 31%]. Now it should be noted that ever since this poll came out yesterday, the Romney campaign has been complaining about it and trying to discredit it. Today Mitt Romney's political director released a hair on fire memo attacking the methodology of this Reuters poll of early voters calling this flawed and untrue [See MEMO: Who Is Early Voting And What It Means For The Presidential Campaign, Mitt Romney Blog, 15 October 2012]. And you know, nobody complains about the methodology when they're ahead. Right? The Romney folks have only recently stopped complaining about the methodology of all of the polling being done. Their complaining only stopped once Mr. Romney started doing better in all of those the polls as of a couple weeks ago.
In terms of the key swing states, here's how things look right now in the race. In Pennsylvania it's President Obama now with a 4-point lead; the President down three points in that poll in just the span of a couple weeks. In Ohio President Obama up by 5 points in a poll released over the weekend. In Florida it's Mitt Romney up by 1 point. In North Carolina, it's Mitt Romney by two points; in Virginia, Mr. Romney leading by 1 point. In Iowa, the latest poll in Iowa shows the race there to be tied. A new USA TodayGallup poll of just the swing states that was released tonight shows Mitt Romney with an overall 4-point lead in the swing states combined [See USA Today/Gallup: Romney Has 4-Point Edge In Swing States, Talking Points Memo, 15 October 2012]. And just as the Romney campaign is complaining about the methodology of the poll of early voters that shows President Obama with a nearly 30-point margin among early voters, now it's the Obama campaign's turn to complain for the first time about the methodology in this new swing state poll. The Obama campaign's chief pollster releasing a memo earlier tonight attacking this USA Today / Gallup poll as unsound [See Latest Gallup/USA Today Numbers (PDF), Benenson Strategy Group, 15 October 2012]. And whatever you think about the methodology, you can see why the Obama campaign would be worried about a poll like this. I mean if other polls bare out this kind of margin in swing states specifically, that would imply there's been a change in the race in Mr. Romney's favor. Right now, though, that poll does sort of stick out. It's sort of an outlier in terms of being much more favorable to Mr. Romney than everything else that is happening with polls like this at the national level and at the combined state level.
All of the national polls released today show the race is essentially a dead heat. Gallup Daily Tracking shows Mr. Romney up by 2. The right leaning Rasmussen poll has Mr. Romney up by 1. Investors Business Daily has the race at a tie. A new Politico/George Washington University poll has President Obama up by 1. And the new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Mr. Obama up by 3. And here's where it gets interesting. We get a ton of polling stuff every day now. Right? You can look at swing states, you can look at national numbers; you can look at trends. Every day there's at least one super interesting and illuminating thing in the polling.
And right now the thing that is most important, I think most intriguing in the data, out of all the snapshots of the race you can do right now is this. This right here is probably the most interesting thing. Look, it's when ABC news and Washington post polled voters. They didn't just ask them who do they like in terms of who they're going to vote for. They asked voters which candidate would be better on a series of issues. And here's what they found. On the issue of dealing with the economy, it's President Obama by 4; dealing with taxes, President Obama by 5; handling health care, Obama by 6; handling international affairs, Obama by 10; handling an unexpected major crisis, Obama by 12; handling Medicare, Obama by 15. The only issue in the ABC news/Washington post where the president loses is this one: the issue of dealing with the deficit where it is Mitt Romney holding a 3-point lead over President Obama; the president leading on every other issue except the deficit.
Why is that the one issue in which Mitt Romney is seen as being better than President Obama? It's because of the thing that lost President Obama the first presidential debate two weeks ago, which was him trying to explain how Mitt Romney can't be trusted on the deficit by trying to do the math for everyone, live on TV. Saying something that sounded in translation essentially like See you have a very large number with a trillion in it, and then some smaller amalgamation of some other trillions that when you add them up, then subtract them from the 5 trillion, you get a number that's in appropriately negative or positive. Do you follow me? President Obama during that first debate was trying to do the math over and over and over again as a way of explaining that what Mr. Romney is proposing economically would be a recipe for massive deficits. And really there is no way mathematically that you can do the things Mr. Romney says he's going to do without running up massive deficits. But instead of making up punchy, memorable arguments that made him the more likeable and effective of the two debaters, President Obama instead tried to prove that thing about the math. President Obama tried in that debate setting to explain what's so wrong with thinking that Mitt Romney is a guy who should be taken seriously on the deficit. He was trying to explain that without a white board, without sound track, without a narrative way to make it into a story that people would remember. He just listed these very large numbers over and over again, assuming that people could do the arithmetic and get the punch line. And Mitt Romney did not do that. Mitt Romney, instead of trying to rebut President Obama point by point, simply made the reasonable sounding assertion that, Well, never mind all your numbers, I've got six studies that back me up.
Video of Mitt Romney at 1st Debate: I will not under any circumstances raise taxes on middle income families. I will lower taxes on middle income families. Now you cite a study. There's six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it's completely wrong.
I have six studies that say actually I'm great on the deficit issue. No worries. All this mumbo jumbo giant numbers stuff you're getting from this president guy doesn't make any sense to me either. Look! Here's a small number; six. I've got six studies that say I'm fine. Those six studies for the record are not actually studies. Two are blog posts by a conservative think tank. One is a report by a conservative think tank. One is a paper by a former George W. Bush advisor, and the fifth and six are a blog post and a Wall Street Journal op-ed by a Mitt Romney adviser [See Romney’s Unraveling Claim That Six Studies Validate His Tax Plan, Talking Points Memo, 15 October 2012]. Calling those things studies is like calling me the homecoming queen. It's very flattering, but come on; come on. The Romney campaign has been trying to wish away the math with this six studies magical incantation. They've been trying to use this six studies thing for so long that even the Sunday morning show on Fox is now calling bull pucky on it.
Ed Gillespie: Six different studies have said this is entirely doable ...
Chris Wallace: Those are very questionable. Some of them are blogs. Some of them are from the AEI, which is hardly an independent group.
Ed Gillespie: These are very credible sources.
Chris Wallace: One is from a guy who is; from a blog from a guy who was a top adviser to George W. Bush. These are hardly non-partisan studies.
See how Ed Gillespie doesn't look worried there? He's like waiting for the interviewer to stop talking. He's just kind of waiting. I'm just going to go back to my talking points as soon as you're done.
There is a certain happy-go-luckiness by the Republicans when they are talking about this issue. They do not get too stressed out about this issue because they know that politically, it really doesn't matter what they say. They trust that no matter what they are proposing and how it gets debunked or fact checked or whatever, they know politically they will just seem like they are going to be good on the deficit. No matter what they propose. This is the most persistent myth in the modern politics of American money.
This idea that Republicans, Republican presidents in particular, are good on the deficit. When, in fact, the exact opposite is our modern history. On Friday we learned for example the U.S. budget deficit topped a trillion dollars for the fourth year in a row [See Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for fourth straight year, Reuters, 12 October 2012]. And while that is a gianormous number, here's the context for that. Here's our budget deficit in 2012; just over a trillion dollars. And here's what it was last year. President Obama actually cut the deficit by more than $200 billion from the year before. Here's the budget deficit that President Obama was handed when he walked in the door. Your eyes are not deceiving you. You keep hearing the Republicans talk about how President Obama increased the deficit? President Obama has cut the deficit during his four years in office. The great Steve Benen put this graph together at The Maddow Blog today going through the raw data. And as Steve notes today quote over the last four decades, only two presidents have reduced the deficit this much, this quickly. And those two presidents are Bill Clinton and Barack Obama [See The wrong issue for the wrong candidate by Steve Benen The Maddow Blog, 15 October 2012]. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, now what do they have in common? Both Democrats. Historically, the Democratic Party has actually been the better of the two parties when it comes to the deficit.
Over the last 40 years, it's Democratic presidents who have been the most fiscally responsible when it comes to the deficit. And it's Republican presidents have been the most fiscally reckless. Somehow in the face of this persistent history, Republicans have successfully cultivated this myth that they're the ones you should trust if you're worried about the debt and the deficit. And so even though voters trust Barack Obama on every other issue, they still inexplicably trust Mitt Romney more when it comes to the deficit. They have great faith in Mitt Romney's deficit hawkishness. Even if all his six the studies are just stuff written on a bathroom wall.
It's factually hilarious given that Mitt Romney really is proposing this in terms of what we spend on the military. You ready? These are current levels of military spending [blue line]; our biggest discretionary spending. That [red line] is what Mitt Romney is proposing to do. he's proposing to do adding to our biggest pile of discretionary spending. He is proposing adding two trillion extra dollars in spending just on the military. And he is proposing bringing in five trillion fewer dollars in revenue in order to pay for that [See About Mitt Romney's $5 Trillion Tax Cut, Forbes, 4 October 2012]. Barack Obama is right. The math does not work. The math might be boring, but the math doesn't work. This is like if you're living paycheck to paycheck right now, and you decide you're going to quit your job and then buy a new car at the same time. So you have less money coming in and lots more money going out. What does that make you? It makes you psyched because you got a new car and you don't have to work; plenty of time to drive it around until it runs out of gas and then what? But a decision like this, less money coming in, lots more money going out; a decision like that puts you in deep, deep, deep, debt. And if you do that at the national level, you are a lot of things but you are not good on the deficit. Except apparently, people think that you're great on the deficit. And that distance in perception; distance between the perception and reality of Mitt Romney is a political problem. If you are that bad on an issue like this and people think you're great on the issue that means something in our politics isn't working right. Someone is not doing their political job at making people understand the reality here and making you face the political consequences for it. Why is that? Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs joins us next.
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