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zuul
zuul's Journal
zuul's Journal
October 23, 2012
Last night’s debate was destined to be an unfair fight. It’s not just that foreign policy is the area where Barack Obama is most comfortable — where he’s had the most freedom to implement his agenda and steer the United States in a particular direction. Rather, it’s the oft-noted fact that — unlike a candidate — he is conducting foreign policy and acting as commander-in-chief. He has ordered troops into combat, made phone calls to the families of fallen soldiers, and held intense negotiations with leaders of other countries. That lends a gravity to Obama’s arguments that Mitt Romney couldn’t replicate.
Post-debate snap polls are not a good way to judge the effect of debates on public opinion, but they do give you a starting point for how the debate was perceived. In this case, Romney’s loss was on par with Obama’s in the first debate: The CBS instant poll has Obama winning the debate by a margin of 30 points, 53 percent to 23 percent; CNN shows an 8 point win, 48 percent to 40 percent, and Public Policy Polling shows Obama winning by an 11 point margin in swing states, 53 percent to 42 percent.
But there’s a key difference between now and then. When Obama lost big, Democrats and liberals entered a spiral of panic that almost certainly contributed to the public’s sense that the president was a loser (see: Sullivan, Andrew). Mitt Romney has lost two consecutive debates — one by modest amount, the other in a rout — and conservatives are spinning it as a solid performance.
The media consensus, so far, is that this debate won’t have an effect like the one in Denver. That’s probably correct: Romney was underperforming for most of the fall, and the first debate effectively reset his campaign, and brought it in line with the fundamentals.
But last night could still matter to the outcome. It’s worth considering Nate Silver’s take: “with the contest being so tight, any potential gain for Mr. Obama could matter.” A one point bounce in the polls seems insignificant, but with less than two weeks before the election, it could turn Obama’s slight lead into a small, more comfortable one. Right now, the simple fact is that for all the talk of Romney’s momentum, his path to 270 is steeper than Obama’s. At a minimum, last night’s debate won’t alter this. Let’s let Charlie Cook have the last word:
"Although this race is very close, the road to 270 electoral votes is considerably more difficult for Romney than it is for Obama...If Obama carries Ohio and Wisconsin, where he is ahead in most polling, he gets the 270 with one electoral vote to spare, so Romney could sweep Colorado, Florida, Iowa, and New Hampshire and still come up short. No matter how you cut it, Ohio is the pivotal state, and it isn’t just the history of having gone with every winner from 1964 on and with no Republican ever capturing the White House without it. To be sure, this race is so close that it clearly can go either way, but the Obama electoral path looks less steep than the one Romney must traverse, and the final debate seems unlikely to have altered that fact."
Jamelle Bouie is a staff writer at The American Prospect, where he writes a blog .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/last-nights-debate-can-only-help-obama/2012/10/23/f6c5affc-1d0e-11e2-8817-41b9a7aaabc7_blog.html?hpid=z3
Last night’s debate can only help Obama
By Jamelle Bouie, Posted 10/23/2012, The Washington PostLast night’s debate was destined to be an unfair fight. It’s not just that foreign policy is the area where Barack Obama is most comfortable — where he’s had the most freedom to implement his agenda and steer the United States in a particular direction. Rather, it’s the oft-noted fact that — unlike a candidate — he is conducting foreign policy and acting as commander-in-chief. He has ordered troops into combat, made phone calls to the families of fallen soldiers, and held intense negotiations with leaders of other countries. That lends a gravity to Obama’s arguments that Mitt Romney couldn’t replicate.
Post-debate snap polls are not a good way to judge the effect of debates on public opinion, but they do give you a starting point for how the debate was perceived. In this case, Romney’s loss was on par with Obama’s in the first debate: The CBS instant poll has Obama winning the debate by a margin of 30 points, 53 percent to 23 percent; CNN shows an 8 point win, 48 percent to 40 percent, and Public Policy Polling shows Obama winning by an 11 point margin in swing states, 53 percent to 42 percent.
But there’s a key difference between now and then. When Obama lost big, Democrats and liberals entered a spiral of panic that almost certainly contributed to the public’s sense that the president was a loser (see: Sullivan, Andrew). Mitt Romney has lost two consecutive debates — one by modest amount, the other in a rout — and conservatives are spinning it as a solid performance.
The media consensus, so far, is that this debate won’t have an effect like the one in Denver. That’s probably correct: Romney was underperforming for most of the fall, and the first debate effectively reset his campaign, and brought it in line with the fundamentals.
But last night could still matter to the outcome. It’s worth considering Nate Silver’s take: “with the contest being so tight, any potential gain for Mr. Obama could matter.” A one point bounce in the polls seems insignificant, but with less than two weeks before the election, it could turn Obama’s slight lead into a small, more comfortable one. Right now, the simple fact is that for all the talk of Romney’s momentum, his path to 270 is steeper than Obama’s. At a minimum, last night’s debate won’t alter this. Let’s let Charlie Cook have the last word:
"Although this race is very close, the road to 270 electoral votes is considerably more difficult for Romney than it is for Obama...If Obama carries Ohio and Wisconsin, where he is ahead in most polling, he gets the 270 with one electoral vote to spare, so Romney could sweep Colorado, Florida, Iowa, and New Hampshire and still come up short. No matter how you cut it, Ohio is the pivotal state, and it isn’t just the history of having gone with every winner from 1964 on and with no Republican ever capturing the White House without it. To be sure, this race is so close that it clearly can go either way, but the Obama electoral path looks less steep than the one Romney must traverse, and the final debate seems unlikely to have altered that fact."
Jamelle Bouie is a staff writer at The American Prospect, where he writes a blog .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/last-nights-debate-can-only-help-obama/2012/10/23/f6c5affc-1d0e-11e2-8817-41b9a7aaabc7_blog.html?hpid=z3
October 23, 2012
Gas prices are displayed at a gas station and mini-mart in the Mid City section of New Orleans. Pump prices have fallen quickly in the past several days, giving Mitt Romney one less thing to slam President Barack Obama with in the run-up to the election.
In a week that saw President Barack Obama poll dead-even with Republican rival Mitt Romney in the race for the White House, it may have been some relief to Democrats that gas prices have shed 17 cents in the last 12 days.
While that could help boost the president's chances for another four-year term (or at least not hurt them), the drop in prices has more to do with luck than with White House energy policy.
After refinery bottlenecks sent prices surging ahead of a seasonal switch from summer to winter gasoline blends, those kinks have been cleared and gasoline has begun flowing smoothly again.
The global oil markets, meanwhile, are awash in oil thanks to a global economic slowdown that has cut into demand. And while tighter sanctions on Iran have crimped that country’s oil exports, any shortfall has been more than made up by rising U.S. production set in motion by forces in place before Obama took office.
For all the spirited debate about the success or failure of the White House's energy policies, presidents have little control over the market forces that drive gas prices higher or lower.
“(Obama) gets blamed for high gasoline high prices -- which he has nothing to do with -- and he takes credit for higher production -- which he has nothing to do with,” said John Kingston, director of news at Platt’s. “So maybe it all sort of balances out.”
The timing of the pump price plunge comes as the candidates continue to pound each other over energy policy. After surging to more than $4 a gallon in many parts of the country, the national average price of a gallon of regular has fallen by 13 cents to $3.58 in the past week, according to Energy Department data.
The sharp slide is expected continue, according to AAA, pulling average pump prices down to between $3.40 and $3.50 by Election Day and $3.25 to $3.40 by Thanksgiving.
The prospect for that continued decline rests, in part, on continued stability in the price of crude oil, which has remained remarkably steady despite ongoing tensions with Iran over its nuclear program.
As the U.S. and its allies have tightened the noose on Tehran this year, the loss of oil revenues has plunged the Iranian economy into chaos. Crude oil sales generate about half of Iranian government revenues. Oil and oil products make up nearly 80 percent of its total exports, according to U.S. estimates. Oil analysts calculate that the sanctions have blocked sales of roughly 1 million barrels a day, or about a quarter of Iran’s production capacity.
The lost oil income has lopped roughly a third off the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, relative to the dollar, sparking a round of painful inflation for Iranian consumers and putting added pressure on the Iranian regime to end its nuclear weapons development program.
On Tuesday, Iran said it would halt oil exports altogether if Western sanctions tighten any further.
"We have prepared a plan to run the country without any oil revenues," Iranian oil minister Rostam Qasemi told reporters in Dubai. "If you continue to add to the sanctions we (will) cut our oil exports to the world. ... We are hopeful that this doesn't happen, because citizens will suffer. We don't want to see European and U.S. citizens suffer."
Until recently, the threat of a full cutoff of Iranian oil production would have been enough to send crude prices soaring. But with global demand slowing because of sluggish economies, the oil markets have remained surprisingly stable.
That could change if Iran ups the ante and moves to restrict oil shipments from other oil producers in the region. One long-standing worry in the oil markets is the potential crimp in supplies from military action in the Strait of Hormuz, the global pinch point bordering Iran through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil flows every day.
An Iranian blockade remains a constant threat to global oil supplies. Last month, more than 30 nations, led by the U.S. Navy, conducted naval exercises that included efforts to thwart a simulated mining of critical shipping lanes.
The results were not reassuring, according to a report by PBS Newshour.
Of the 29 simulated mines that were dropped in the water, “I don’t think a great many were found,” retired Navy Capt. Robert O’Donnell, a former mine warfare director for his service, told the NewsHour. “It was probably around half or less.”
U.S. oil refiners are getting an even bigger break on crude prices. That's thanks to a steady rise in North American production captive to a pipeline system that was designed and built before recent production surges in Canada and revived U.S. oilfields. Much of the credit goes to advances in technology that have had little to do with U.S. energy policy. But the gains have been both unexpected and dramatic.
Since 2009, shortly after Obama took office, U.S. oil output has risen by roughly 1.6 million barrels per day, ending a more than tw-decade decline in production. The glut of oil has depressed domestic prices compared to the global benchmark, providing U.S. refiners with a discount of about $20 a barrel below the global price of about $110. That lower U.S. price will continue to help keep U.S. pump prices in check.
The domestic oil boom has also helped cut unemployment in energy-producing states, adding roughly 1.7 million new jobs this year, according to IHS Global Insight’s energy research group. That number could rise to almost 3 million by 2020, the firm said in a study released Tuesday.
http://economywatch.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/23/14646886-falling-pump-prices-could-give-obama-a-lift?lite
Falling pump prices could give Obama a lift
By John W. Schoen, NBC News, Oct. 23, 2012Gas prices are displayed at a gas station and mini-mart in the Mid City section of New Orleans. Pump prices have fallen quickly in the past several days, giving Mitt Romney one less thing to slam President Barack Obama with in the run-up to the election.
In a week that saw President Barack Obama poll dead-even with Republican rival Mitt Romney in the race for the White House, it may have been some relief to Democrats that gas prices have shed 17 cents in the last 12 days.
While that could help boost the president's chances for another four-year term (or at least not hurt them), the drop in prices has more to do with luck than with White House energy policy.
After refinery bottlenecks sent prices surging ahead of a seasonal switch from summer to winter gasoline blends, those kinks have been cleared and gasoline has begun flowing smoothly again.
The global oil markets, meanwhile, are awash in oil thanks to a global economic slowdown that has cut into demand. And while tighter sanctions on Iran have crimped that country’s oil exports, any shortfall has been more than made up by rising U.S. production set in motion by forces in place before Obama took office.
For all the spirited debate about the success or failure of the White House's energy policies, presidents have little control over the market forces that drive gas prices higher or lower.
“(Obama) gets blamed for high gasoline high prices -- which he has nothing to do with -- and he takes credit for higher production -- which he has nothing to do with,” said John Kingston, director of news at Platt’s. “So maybe it all sort of balances out.”
The timing of the pump price plunge comes as the candidates continue to pound each other over energy policy. After surging to more than $4 a gallon in many parts of the country, the national average price of a gallon of regular has fallen by 13 cents to $3.58 in the past week, according to Energy Department data.
The sharp slide is expected continue, according to AAA, pulling average pump prices down to between $3.40 and $3.50 by Election Day and $3.25 to $3.40 by Thanksgiving.
The prospect for that continued decline rests, in part, on continued stability in the price of crude oil, which has remained remarkably steady despite ongoing tensions with Iran over its nuclear program.
As the U.S. and its allies have tightened the noose on Tehran this year, the loss of oil revenues has plunged the Iranian economy into chaos. Crude oil sales generate about half of Iranian government revenues. Oil and oil products make up nearly 80 percent of its total exports, according to U.S. estimates. Oil analysts calculate that the sanctions have blocked sales of roughly 1 million barrels a day, or about a quarter of Iran’s production capacity.
The lost oil income has lopped roughly a third off the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, relative to the dollar, sparking a round of painful inflation for Iranian consumers and putting added pressure on the Iranian regime to end its nuclear weapons development program.
On Tuesday, Iran said it would halt oil exports altogether if Western sanctions tighten any further.
"We have prepared a plan to run the country without any oil revenues," Iranian oil minister Rostam Qasemi told reporters in Dubai. "If you continue to add to the sanctions we (will) cut our oil exports to the world. ... We are hopeful that this doesn't happen, because citizens will suffer. We don't want to see European and U.S. citizens suffer."
Until recently, the threat of a full cutoff of Iranian oil production would have been enough to send crude prices soaring. But with global demand slowing because of sluggish economies, the oil markets have remained surprisingly stable.
That could change if Iran ups the ante and moves to restrict oil shipments from other oil producers in the region. One long-standing worry in the oil markets is the potential crimp in supplies from military action in the Strait of Hormuz, the global pinch point bordering Iran through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil flows every day.
An Iranian blockade remains a constant threat to global oil supplies. Last month, more than 30 nations, led by the U.S. Navy, conducted naval exercises that included efforts to thwart a simulated mining of critical shipping lanes.
The results were not reassuring, according to a report by PBS Newshour.
Of the 29 simulated mines that were dropped in the water, “I don’t think a great many were found,” retired Navy Capt. Robert O’Donnell, a former mine warfare director for his service, told the NewsHour. “It was probably around half or less.”
U.S. oil refiners are getting an even bigger break on crude prices. That's thanks to a steady rise in North American production captive to a pipeline system that was designed and built before recent production surges in Canada and revived U.S. oilfields. Much of the credit goes to advances in technology that have had little to do with U.S. energy policy. But the gains have been both unexpected and dramatic.
Since 2009, shortly after Obama took office, U.S. oil output has risen by roughly 1.6 million barrels per day, ending a more than tw-decade decline in production. The glut of oil has depressed domestic prices compared to the global benchmark, providing U.S. refiners with a discount of about $20 a barrel below the global price of about $110. That lower U.S. price will continue to help keep U.S. pump prices in check.
The domestic oil boom has also helped cut unemployment in energy-producing states, adding roughly 1.7 million new jobs this year, according to IHS Global Insight’s energy research group. That number could rise to almost 3 million by 2020, the firm said in a study released Tuesday.
http://economywatch.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/23/14646886-falling-pump-prices-could-give-obama-a-lift?lite
October 23, 2012
Brit Hume on Faux: 'Pres did a good job.'
Chris Wallace: 'Romney was big picture, President tried to start fights.'
October 23, 2012
Tweety: 'Nothing said about the drug trade, Europe, Latin America . . .'
Well, at least he's not attacking the President, yet!
October 23, 2012
Robme's closing statement:
'The president is responsible for the failed economic policies of Dumbya' . . . 'I know what it takes to get this country back' (how many times did he say that during the campaign?
October 23, 2012
POTUS to Robme . . .
'Governor, you did NOT say you would help with the auto bailout. Let's check the record!'
October 23, 2012
Is Mitt's mascara running?
October 23, 2012
Boom . . . 'you are familiar with jobs being shipped overseas . . .
because you shipped jobs overseas!' Potus to Robme!
October 23, 2012
Bob: Time to 'Divorce Pakistan?' . . .
Robme: 'I don't blame the adminsitration for the fact that the relationship with Pakistan is strained' . . .
Just give up and go home, you jackass! You're done!!!
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Number of posts: 14,624
