2012 Presidential Election

[billmac91]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...12-a-snapshot/

By Elizabeth Hartfield
@LizHartfield
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Oct 26, 2012 6:00am
Early Voting 2012: A Snapshot
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ap early voting lt 121025 wblog Early Voting 2012: A Snapshot

(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In 2008, about 30 percent of the national vote was cast via early or absentee ballots. This year, the expectation is that about 40 percent of Americans will cast a vote early, observers said.

“The big picture is [that] early voting is up,” said Michael McDonald, director of the United States Elections Project. ”More Republicans appear to be voting early [than in 2008], and Democrats are also voting early.”

More than 7.7 million people nationwide have cast a ballot already, McDonald calculated.

There appear to be two reasons for the increase, he said.

First, the Romney campaign is doing a much better job of mobilizing the early vote than the McCain campaign did. The McCain campaign did very little to mobilize the early vote in 2008 and it was vastly outnumbered by the Obama campaign.

This cycle, the Republican National Committee reports that Republicans are making up a larger share of the early voters than they did last cycle – and they’ve put a comprehensive program in place with 119,000 volunteers who have made 44.8 million contacts total since the spring.

The other reason for the increase may be that voters find early voting convenient.

Here is a closer snapshot of where things stand in the battleground states where in-person early voting is allowed.

COLORADO

A total of 325,810 votes have been cast so far – 126,539 from registered Republicans and 120,965 from registered Democrats, plus 75,030 from “unaffiliated” voters.

FLORIDA

So far, 925,604 mail-in absentee ballots have been cast – 414,016 from Republicans and 363,881 from Democrats. Early in-person voting has not started yet in Florida. It kicks off on Saturday, Oct. 27.

IOWA

Voters have cast 399,858 ballots in the state – with 183,780 from Democrats and 126,872 from Republicans. Democrats currently have the advantage, but Republicans said they were performing much better than they were in Iowa at this point in 2008. At the same point in 2008, Democrats had about a 24-percentage-point lead in the early vote, Republicans said, whereas this year it’s about 8 percentage points.

NEVADA

Democrats boast the advantage over Republicans – 101,935 to 79,058 – among the 218,616 votes cast so far statewide.

OHIO

A total of 808,051 ballots have been cast so far – with 618,861 absentee ballots returned and 189,190 additional in-person votes. Ohio does not register voters by party. Numbers are up in rural and urban counties, which bodes well for both Republicans and Democrats.

VIRGINIA

Virginia allows for in-person ballot casting ahead of Election Day – but state officials call it it in-person absentee voting and voters need an excuse to do it.

In any event, 247,862 votes already have been cast. The state does not register by party, but the Obama campaign reported earlier this week that more ballots have been cast in precincts Obama won than precincts McCain won. However, the Republican National Committee pointed out that absentee and early voter activity is down from 2008 in the Democratic counties of Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax, and it’s up in Republican-leaning Loudoun County.

WISCONSIN

Wisconsin is the great unknown. Every municipality in the state handles its election procedures differently. There are more local election officials in Wisconsin than in the entire rest of the country combined. As a result, the state doesn’t report out complete numbers of their early and absentee votes as they come in. To make matters even more vague, voters don’t register by party in Wisconsin either.

[KI4MVP]

So Obama plan is to grow the government and issue more regulation in the private sector. Spend more money then we take in, and just tax the rich. I don't know about you, but that sounds like the same ideas that he had the past 4 years, where we almost doubled the national debt. No thanks to that.

what's wrong with asking for a plan where the math actually works?

what Romney has promised. By 2016, he says federal spending will be below 20 percent of GDP, and at least 4 percent of that will be defense spending. At that point, he will cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, meaning it can never rise above that level.

All that’s hard enough. Romney will have to cut federal spending by between $6 and $7 trillion over the next decade to hit those targets. As my colleague Suzy Khimm has detailed, those budget promises already require cuts far in excess of what even Paul Ryan’s budget proposes.

But Ryan’s budget includes more than $700 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade, Romney’s budget won’t. And Romney promises that there will be no other changes to Social Security or Medicare for those over 55, which means neither program can be cut for the next 10 years. But once you add up Medicare, Social Security and defense and you’ve got more than half of the federal budget. So Romney is going to make the largest spending cuts in history while protecting or increasing spending on more than half of the budget.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indulged this idea back in May. If Social Security and Medicare are spared from cuts, then to get federal spending under 20 percent of GDP while holding defense spending at 4 percent of GDP, “all other programs — including Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education, environmental protection, transportation, and SSI — would have to be cut by an average of 40 percent in 2016 and 57 percent in 2022.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-is-a-fantasy/

Does it seem even remotely possible Romney can do what he's promised? Cut taxes then increase defense spending by an average of $200 billion/year while cutting overall spending by an average of $700 billion/year? And the clip above isn't even accurate, it says hold military spending to 4%. Actually, the 4% is a floor on spending that represents a 20% increase in spending.

[cavsfan1985]

what's wrong with asking for a plan where the math actually works?



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-is-a-fantasy/

Does it seem even remotely possible Romney can do what he's promised? Cut taxes then increase defense spending by an average of $200 billion/year while cutting overall spending by an average of $700 billion/year? And the clip above isn't even accurate, it says hold military spending to 4%. Actually, the 4% is a floor on spending that represents a 20% increase in spending.

I don't disagree. But we have 4 years of Obama to know his numbers don't add up.

Also, any spending increase would have to be passed by congress.

[Rich]

The GDP in 2009 was $13.8636 trillion. Federal spending was 25.2% of that, or around $3.493 trillion. Here's the kicker, the spending included $253 billion from the stimulus package. If you were to take that out, spending is 23.38% of the GDP (lower than any year Obama has been in office). So, if you want to say the 2009 budget is on Bush, don't forget to take out the stimulus package Obama signed and was added onto it.

Here's the major problem I have with people who want to put the 2009 spending increase on Bush. They then want to turn around use this effin chart to tell me how the jobs turn-around is due to Obama.



Somehow, they want to take credit for the supposed economic turn-around in 2009 while simultaneously pinning all the blame for the spending increases in that same year on Bush. It is one or the other. It is not both.

[KI4MVP]

Here's the major problem I have with people who want to put the 2009 spending increase on Bush. They then want to turn around use this effin chart to tell me how the jobs turn-around is due to Obama.



Somehow, they want to take credit for the supposed economic turn-around in 2009 while simultaneously pinning all the blame for the spending increases in that same year on Bush. It is one or the other. It is not both.

the blame is the recession, which didn't end the day the president changed. There are 3 points in time. The bottom of the recession, the technical end of the recession, and the time actual job growth returns. The three things never happen at the same time. This is what happens when you don't stop the bleeding

[KI4MVP]

Well what is the number then? You say he is wrong, tell us what the real number is.

I don't have all of the data to calculate the correct number, but it only takes basic high school algebra to see that the $60,000 number is intentionally wrong. These debates would be easier to have and real answers would be easier to find if fantasy math wasn't used to make arguments.

I'm one of the people who thinks both sides actually have valid points, but too many people on both sides are too interested in the appearance of winning a debate than they are being correct. For instance, I know Max is smart enough to know the $60,000 average is bogus math, yet he's happy to rep a reference to that number.

I actually considered Romney, but have some serious concerns

- his healthcare plan worked in Mass, yet he promised to kill effectively the same plan for the country. He says he wants states to handle it, but most states haven't and won't actually do anything. The healthcare crisis in this country is too important to be ignored. And his promises here strike me as saying what he thinks polls well instead of what he actually believes because as governor he's been quoted as supporting every thing he now says he's against, especially the individual mandate, that he previously said was necessary.

- his promise of cutting spending would be easier to accept if he wasn't dumping an average of $200 billion/year over 10 years into growing military spending. That $200 billion has to come from somewhere. Even without that $200 billion, it's going to be quite tough to get the deficit under control.

- I have serious problems with his promised tax cut when my calculations show my own taxes will go up dramatically. How can a party promise no tax increases and turn around and impose massive tax increases to many middle class to upper middle class families. I have two kids in college, a 3rd starting next year. I struggle to make that work. Paying more taxes is only going to make things worse. I also have serious concerns over what cut he'll make to education, including college financial aid. For many people this tax cut is a stealth tax hike that will hit far more people than anyone thinks. I don't know how that's supposed to be better than raising income taxes on the wealthy.

How is this stealth tax increase acceptable to the same people who held the whole country hostage on viewing their pledge to not raise taxes to mean they can't extend temporary tax cuts on most of the country without extended it to everyone.

[Rich]

the blame is the recession, which didn't end the day the president changed. There are 3 points in time. The bottom of the recession, the technical end of the recession, and the time actual job growth returns. The three things never happen at the same time. This is what happens when you don't stop the bleeding

The blame for what is the recession? The increase in spending in 2009? Because I disagree. A recession does not make a government increase government spending.

[KI4MVP]

The blame for what is the recession? The increase in spending in 2009? Because I disagree. A recession does not make a government increase government spending.

It most certainly does, especially as a percentage of GDP, as it's usually shown.

1 - by definition a recession means the GDP declined, which means even flat spending is going to be a higher percentage of GDP

2 - spending also increases because there are more people who need government assistance, including unemployment

3 - a major factor in the great depression is the president then decided that the best course of action was to let the economy work itself out. During the recession, temporary tax cuts were made, and then extended, banks were bailed out, the auto industry was bailed out, stimulus bills were passed, etc. these all added to spending.

In 1929, the president believed none of that was needed, that the economy would sort itself out. He even raised taxes to offset the cost of #2. This recession actually started off with worse jobs loss than the great depression, but the government acted to halt it before the whole economy collapsed.

[camakazee]

The blame for what is the recession? The increase in spending in 2009? Because I disagree. A recession does not make a government increase government spending.

It doesn't make the government increase government spending, but that's exactly what we see during a recession. A government typically increases spending, cuts taxes, or does both during a recession to stimulate the economy and increase aggregate demand. That isn't a political stance, that's Friedman/Keynesian economics.

[KI4MVP]

adjusting for inflation instead of the GDP and you get this

FOR the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration.

[cavsfan1985]

adjusting for inflation instead of the GDP and you get this

It shows local government has shrunk. Obama has nothing to do with that.

[KI4MVP]

It shows local government has shrunk. Obama has nothing to do with that.

it also shows the federal government grew more under either Bush than it has under Obama and shrunk under Clinton. The two democrats have better managed the size of the government than the two republicans.

[cavsfan1985]

it also shows the federal government grew more under either Bush than it has under Obama and shrunk under Clinton. The two democrats have better managed the size of the government than the two republicans.

Well non- military spending went up because of a thing called 9/11. But Obama grew it another 8% then what Bush did.

[Walter White]

I'm wondering if all the people that voted for Obama in this RCF poll are actually voting for Obama, or they just think he will win and are actually voting for Romney? I voted for who I will vote for.

[KI4MVP]

I was mistaken, the last graphic I posted wasn't adjusted for inflation. Here's another chart worth discussing



it's not quite shown right, 2009 was Bush's budget (with Obama's stimulus added). But you can see, reagan, bush, and the 2nd bush all grew the number, while Clinton held it steady, and Obama hasn't really grown it or shrunk it vs the budget he inherited. How are the republicans considered the party of smaller government when they have no track record of success?

I'm also still waiting for one republican to explain how adding 20% to military spending helps us get smaller government or how stealth tax increases disguised as tax cuts are okay. More people will get tax increases under Romney's plan than Obama's plan. Am I the only one who hears alarm bells when a small business owner who is struggling to put his kids through college gets a massive tax hike under this tax cut plan? Am I not supposed to be the prime target for Romney's help?