News Observer Blog
Submitted by robchristensen on 2012-10-26 13:05

A new poll by a Democratic leaning group shows President Barack Obama up 47-43 over Republican Mitt Romney in North Carolina.
The survey was conducted by Grove Insight Oct. 23-24. It was commissioned by Project New America, a Colorado based group.
It is the third poll released this week that shows North Carolina is still up for grabs. A survey commissioned by the Civitas Institute found Romney leading Obama by 48-47 percent margin. A poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic leaning firm found the race in the state tied at 48.

The Grove Insight survey found that Obama's growing lead can be attributed to a shift to him by women voters.
The poll surveyed 500 likely voters using live interviewers and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent.

Source:
http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/new_poll_shows_obama_with_small_lead_in_nc#storylink=cpy

I will certainly rethink some of my subscriptions and contracts!

This is obscene!

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/102512%20-%20JobDestroyers3.pdf

Hurricane Sandy One Stop Location Emergency Closings

http://www.ncsbe.gov/

Please see Rose's post below for counties that are involved

Updated: Oct 26, 2012 4:49 PM EDT
Posted By Josh Mabry, Continuous News Manager - email


A view of the accident scene. (FOX5)


LAS VEGAS (FOX5) -
Sen. Harry Reid was transported to University Medical Center Friday after a highway accident involving multiple vehicles in his Las Vegas motorcade.

The crash happened at 1:10 p.m. Friday afternoon along North I-15 near Charleston. The accident involved two Metro vehicles, two Capital Police vehicles and two civilian vehicles, according to NHP.

Source:

http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/19927403/reids-motoracade-involved-in-crash

WASHINGTON -- The Obama campaign sees no major event that can now alter the trajectory of the election, the president's top adviser told The Huffington Post in an interview Thursday. And with President Barack Obama holding slim but discernable leads in several critical battleground states, there is a continued sense of confidence that a second term is in the offing.

"In my view we have got the lead and the ball and now it is a matter of executing the final ten days of the campaign," David Axelrod said in a telephone interview.

"Governor Romney profited from that first debate primarily by recouping those voters who he had lost in his dismal month of September when they had such an uninspired convention and when the 47 percent tape came out," Axelrod continued. "But that is all that happened. We've had two debates since. I haven't seen -- in the things that I have looked at -- I haven't seen momentum since that time. I think the race has settled in, and it has settled in with us with a small but durable and discernable lead in these battleground states both in the aggregate and individually. The question is how does he change that dynamic now? There is no big intervening event."

"I'm doubtful as to whether [even the October jobs numbers] will be a defining event," he added.

The aura of cautious optimism is one that both campaigns are hoping to project, with each able to muster a slate of statistics to make their case. On Friday, for example, an ABC/Washington Post tracking poll showed movement towards Obama, with the contest settling in at 49 to 48 percent in favor of Romney. But that narrative turned just an hour later, when the Gallup tracking poll showed Romney expanding his lead to a five-point margin among likely voters, at 51 to 46 percent.

Axelrod and others in the Obama campaign see all this as largely irrelevant noise. For them, the electoral landscape has always been defined by certain states. And the campaign's entire operation -- a massive, expensive Get Out The Vote enterprise -- has been constructed to work within these confines.

Prior experience is the Obama campaign's not-so-secret weapon. In 2008, they had to put a ground game together in a matter of months. They've been building for this election over the course of five years. And while the Romney campaign has made major progress from where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) left off in 2008, there is a benefit to having this be your second rodeo.
Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/david-axelrod-2012-campaign_n_2025169.html?1351278397

Jeep in China
by Gualberto Ranieri
October 25, 2012 4:24 PM
There are times when the reading of a newswire report generates storms originated by a biased or predisposed approach.

On Oct. 22, 2012, at 11:10 a.m. ET, the Bloomberg News report “Fiat Says Jeep® Output May Return to China as Demand Rises” stated “Chrysler currently builds all Jeep SUV models at plants in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. Manley (President and CEO of the Jeep brand) referred to adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output from North America to China.”

Despite clear and accurate reporting, the take has given birth to a number of stories making readers believe that Chrysler plans to shift all Jeep production to China from North America, and therefore idle assembly lines and U.S. workforce. It is a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.



Source:

http://blog.chryslerllc.com/blog.do?id=1932&p=entry

Early Vote Spinning
Michael P Mc Donald
Associate Professor George Mason University
Now with over 3 million people voting across the country, the campaigns are spinning the early vote. Here are my takeaways so far:

Iowa is firming up for Obama. The early vote confirms the polls showing an Obama lead, but by a narrower margin than 2008. Romney still has time to make up ground, but with over 300,000 people voting the clock is certainly ticking.

The early vote indicates that Florida and Ohio are close. We knew that already.

North Carolina started in-person early voting and the early vote numbers shifted dramatically towards registered Democrats. This is expected, as more registered Democrats voted early than Republicans in 2008 and 2004. A point of interest is that North Carolina allows unregistered voters to register and vote all in "one stop." This has the potential of shifting likely voter models since unregistered voters don't make the likely voter screen.

My detailed analysis follows, based on the raw data I report here.

(scroll down in article to see state by state analysis,his NC reporting is much
more in sync with what I have thought to be more accurate than Nat'l Polls)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p-mcdonald/early-voting-spinning_b_1989094.html

Roll Call Staff
Janie Lorber
Oct 24 3:33PM

President Barack Obama appears to have wildly outraised his Republican opponent among text message donors, capitalizing on the newly approved digital fundraising option.
Last month, Obama’s campaign reported paying $84,655 in fees to m-Qube Group’s payvia mobile payment service, which manages text-to-donate programs for both presidential campaigns. Mitt Romney’s campaign paid just $1,152, Federal Election Commission records show. The fees — a percentage of the total amount raised via text — suggest that Obama outdid the former Massachusetts governor by about a 73-to-1 ratio among texting donors.
Both candidates launched text-to-donate programs in late August, heralding the newly approved technology as a way to empower small-dollar donors in the post-Citizens United era. A spokesman for the Obama campaign declined to release the total amount raised via text message. The Romney campaign did not return repeated requests for comment.

More from Source:

http://www.rollcall.com/news/Obama-Campaign-Quick-to-Capitalize-on-Text-to-Donate-Option-218432-1.html

Our campaign is about inclusiveness, and we’ve always been focused on bringing new people into the process. As our supporters vote early in huge numbers around the country, we have the perfect example: We’re turning out voters who have been traditionally less likely to participate, sometimes called “sporadic” voters.

A common misconception about early vote is that both parties have a set number of voters, and all early vote does is let some of them cast their ballots before Election Day. That’s simply not true. What early vote does is help us mobilize sporadic voters by giving them more time and more convenient ways to make their voices heard. It also broadens the universe of voters and frees up more of our get-out-the-vote resources later, especially on Election Day. When you look inside the numbers so far, among sporadic voters it’s not even close.

More sporadic Obama voters are voting than sporadic Republicans in the battleground states. Along with the more than 20,000 people who came out to see the President yesterday in Ohio and Florida after he dominated the final debate, these trends are a sign both of enthusiasm for President Obama and our organizational strength.

Here are some numbers illustrating the progress we’re making:

Non-midtermvoters: Across nine battleground states, Democrats have a 19.7 point advantage in ballots cast among non-midterm voters. More than half (51.5 percent) of non-midterm voters who have voted already are Democrats, while fewer than a third (just 31.8 percent) are Republicans.

For example, in North Carolina, 51.5 percent of those who have already voted are Democrats, compared with just 25.1 percent who are Republicans. That’s a major advantage. And among these non-midterm voters who have voted in North Carolina so far, 87 percent of them are youth (under 35), African-American, Latino, or new registrants (registered after the 2008 election).
All voters: Among all voters, Democrats have a 10.7 point advantage over Republicans. Just under half (49.6 percent) of voters who have cast ballots are Democrats, while just 38.9 percent are Republicans. In the only two states—Colorado and Florida—where Republicans lead right now in total ballots cast, Democrats are cutting into traditional Republican leads there; we’re doing better today than at this point in 2008. And once in-person early voting is included (it just started in Colorado on Monday and starts in Florida this weekend), Democrats will take the lead.

The plan we’ve been building from the beginning is modeled exactly for this—to broaden the electorate, and make sure as many Americans as possible have a chance to take part in this historic election. That’s why we’ve spent years building neighborhood teams that are stronger than last-minute, turnkey phone bank operations. Our volunteer leaders will be getting the people in their precincts to the polls because they’ve registered them, called them, went to their doors—because they know them.

Overall, we’re winning early vote in the battleground states that will decide this election—a key part of our plan to get to 270 electoral votes. We’re outperforming our early vote margins in key states compared to 2008, and we’re ahead of where we were against John McCain—and most importantly, ahead of Mitt Romney.

You can’t fake a real ground game, and you can’t underestimate early vote. When more people get to vote, it’s a good thing.
Source:
http://www.barackobama.com/news/entry/inside-the-early-vote-numbers

Some good comments at bottom of article

Politcal Wire
October 24

Assessing the Ground Games


Molly Ball: "We may not be able to fully size up the campaigns' ground games and their effect until Election Day -- and maybe not even then. But what struck me most, in talking to Republicans about their ground game, was the extent to which they admitted they weren't even playing the game."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/10/24/assessing_the_ground_games.html