The New Normal

Impeach first, ask questions later.  If Barack Obama were still the President, the Republicans would be trying to ride him outta town on a rail if he tried to get away with a scintilla of the crap Donald Trump did.  A major part of the problem is a substantial sector of the American populace doesn't believe Trump did anything wrong.

When we look to the veracity of the two men the difference is stark.  According to the New York Times, Trump told six times as many lies in the first ten months of his administration as Obama did in his complete eight years at the helm.  Yes, we are not that naive to think that politicians don't stretch the truth, but as a good friend of mine says, "don't piss on me and tell me it's raining," and that's exactly what Trump is doing to the American people.

Truth is an absolute

The latest tally from the Washington Post has President Donald Trump at 9014 false or misleading claims over the first 773 days of his administration.  In Saturday's speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual gathering in Washington, D.C. he told 200 misleading or false claims in a two-hour speech.  Despite this, thirty-five to forty percent of the population is unmoved.  The objective truth that Trump is lying is chalked up to "fake news."

The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was fond of saying, "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."  Apparently, in Trump's America, Trump and his supporters are entitled to their own set of facts.  It is much easier to make an argument when you start with the argument and then move to the facts than to use objective facts and tailor your argument to those facts. By contrast, it is impossible to have a constructive argument or discussion if you can't agree on the facts.

Let's turn to baseball for a quick analogy.  Here are a couple of quick, objective, and easily verifiable facts.  Outfielder Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs over the span of his 22-year baseball career and Shortstop Ozzie Smith hit 28 home runs over the span of his 19-year career.  Once we agree on the number of home runs each player hit and the positions they played, it would be foolish to argue that Smith was a better home run hitter or that Bonds was a better shortstop, however, if you believe that Smith hit 800 home runs and Bonds won 18 gold gloves at shortstop, we could argue all day long on the aforementioned propositions.

When did we lose our way

Since the solidification of the two-party system in the United States (probably the election of 1860,) the two major parties have had their disagreements on a wide array of issues.  Their positions have changed on some issues and their basis of support has changed over the years, but since the founding of the Republic, we have been a nation which knows how to compromise when it comes to getting things done.  Our Constitution is rooted in some major compromises, such as the creation of two houses of Congress, the apportionment of House seats, the separation of powers which all came about through negotiation and compromise.

This idea of compromise helped us make our way through the past 200 plus years.  We have addressed issues and come to solutions by taking two divergent points of view and forging something which wasn't always the solution that either side originally envisioned.  This was possible because parties generally agreed on the facts or at least the major facts.  Today, it seems like the problem is not coming to a compromise agreement, it is agreeing on the facts to start working to that solution.

Republicans and Democrats have almost always disagreed on how to solve a particular problem, but in most cases, they were able to distinguish fact from fiction.  They also realized that most people involved in the political process were in it because they love this country and truly want to do what they see is best for their constituents.  A lot of this changed in 1994 when Newt Gingrich grabbed hold of the soul of the Republican party, and this change was exacerbated in 2010 when the Tea Party movement began.  The final descent into the rabbit hole was the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

We need to get back on track

The only way that we will forge ahead in this great nation of ours is if we start agreeing on the facts.  We need to realize that even our political enemies may have a point now and then, and believe it or not, those same people love America just as much as you do.  Buzz and I were not big fans of George W. Bush, but we never doubted his patriotism.  And, Bush's biggest mistake was not made because he made up facts and flat out lied to us, but because he believed faulty intelligence.  20/20 hindsight is a great thing, and we can now look back at the Iraq war disaster and realize it was based on bad intelligence.

In Trump's America, the truth is not objective.  It's whatever Trump says it is.  Did Russia try to influence the 2016 Presidential election?  Nope.  The intelligence agencies say yes, but Trump says no because Vladimir Putin said Russia didn't.  Was Kim Jong Un responsible and aware of the torture of Otto Warmbier?  Experts say yes, but Trump says no because Kim Jong Un says he didn't.

We cannot continue like this. We need to accept that certain things are verifiable truths.  This is serious stuff that affects the American people.  This is not Trump padding his wealth to jump up a few spots on Forbes' list of the wealthiest people or continually using superlative adjectives that categorizes everything he does as "the biggest, the largest, the best, or the most."  We expect politicians to paint things in the most positive light, but we don't expect or deserve them to continually lie about things that any rational person sees as outright false.

Worse than Watergate, yeah right!

During the Nixon Presidency, Sir Richard compiled an "Enemies List."  He then used the power of the federal government, including the IRS to come down hard on the inhabitants of this list.  Any comparisons to the current Obama "scandals" pales by the Nth degree.

Benghazi 

It seems like every committee and sub-committee in the House is investigating the September 11, 2012 attack on the US Diplomatic Mission.  Of course, investigating is used quite loosely here.  The major focus of the "investigations" is to try to pin something on Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton.

Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it best when she testified before a Senate Committee.

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?   It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”

The Republicans are hell-bent on smearing Obama and Clinton and don't seem to be the least bit concerned about the very real issue of making sure such a screw up doesn't occur in the future.

As far as a cover up, just ask yourself, "what did Obama, Clinton, or anyone else have to gain by 'covering up' anything for a period of a few days?"  They didn't.  They were going with the information on hand at the time and corrected it as more information became available.

The Obama administration, unlike the Mitt Romney campaign didn't go off half-cocked and start throwing blame around.  Obama sent Ambassador Susan Rice out as a spokesperson for the administration using "talking points" which were assembled through the bureaucratic wranglings of a number of government agencies who were each defending their bureaucratic turf.  

IRS

It appears that some career Internal Revenue Service pencil pushers in Cincinnati, Ohio were overwhelmed by the influx of 501(c)(3)  applications.  (501(c)(3) refers to the IRS regulations governing non profit, tax exempt organizations which fall into one of the following categories:  Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals Organizations.)

We have the United States Supreme Court to thank for this influx.

Note that "Political" entities are not including in this list of general welfare organizations.

A large number of these applications were really for political groups seeking the 501(c)(3) haven, and many of these groups were conservative groups associated with the "Tea Party."

Let's cut to the chase on this one, first, the groups targeted probably should have been targeted and get additional scrutiny, because there sole purpose tended to be the political objective of thwarting Obama and his agenda, and second, Obama had absolutely no involvement in the targeting.

Associated Press and leak investigations

The Justice department has come under fire for grabbing the Associated Press' emails and phone logs regarding terror plots, and other press entity emails, phone logs, and the like regarding leaks of confidential or classified materials.

The condemnation of the Justice Department actions have given rise to calls for Attorney General Eric Holder's head on a platter, but the Justice Department only resorted to such tactics after interviewing over 500 persons regarding the leak of information on a terror plot in Yemen.  The leak of information put a number of US government officials who were charged with uncovering such plots in danger.

Again, Obama had no direct involvement in any of these investigations.

Why Watergate and Nixon are sooooooooooo different

The major difference between Nixon and Obama is that Nixon personally ordered the government, particularly the IRS to his dirty work, and his actions were purely politically motivated to punish his enemies and gain political advantage for himself.  None of these "scandals" personally involve Obama or his inner circle plotting to destroy political enemies with the resources of the federal government.

Let's look at some of Nixon's "finest" moments.

We all know the Watergate story.  President Richard Nixon ordered the bugging of the Democratic Party headquarters, then dove through hoops, using all the government resources at his disposal, except the Pentagon, to try to cover it up when the "third rate burglary" went awry.  Here are some of his other gems.

On September 27, 1970, Nixon ordered Haldeman to get the IRS to investigate Ted Kennedy, who was then the presumed frontrunner in the 1972 presidential contest, sharing the field with Edmond Muskie and Hubert Humphrey, who Nixon also ordered audited.

Nixon personally put White House dirty trickster Tom Charles Huston in charge of setting up the new IRS "anti-radical squad" to make sure that the laggards in IRS's bureaucracy didn't drop the ball. Huston prepared a 43-page blueprint for Nixon outlining a government agency campaign targeting Nixon's enemies.

 The scheme included tapping phones without warrants, infiltrating organizations that had been critical of the President and, purging IRS agents who refused to tow the Republican line. Huston told the President, "we won't be in control of the government and in a position of effective leverage until such time or we have complete and total control of the top three slots" at the IRS. Nixon also enthusiastically authorized a series of "black bag jobs" including breaking into offices, homes and liberal think tanks like the Ford Foundation and the Brookings Institute which Nixon believed was home to many former Kennedy Administration officials.

On September 8, 1971, Nixon raged at his counsel and Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, John Ehrlichman, about the IRS's lack of progress on finding dirt on his enemies. "We have the power but are we using it to investigate contributors to Hubert Humphrey, to Muskie, and the Jews? You know they are stealing everybody....  Are we looking into Muskie's return? Hubert's? Hubert's been in a lot of funny deals. Teddy? Who knows about the Kennedys? Shouldn't they be investigated?"

On October 6, 1971, Nixon ordered H.R. Haldeman (his Chief of Staff) to have the IRS audit Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler. "I want Otis Chandler's income tax," Nixon told Haldeman. Nixon then called his Attorney General and former law partner, John Mitchel, and ordered Mitchel to fire the Los Angeles Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "The fellow out there in the Immigration Services is a kike by the name of Rosenberg." The President explained to Mitchel, "He is to be out."

Nixon told Mitchel, "I want you to direct the most trusted person you have in the Immigration Service to look at all the activities of the Los Angeles Times... let me explain as a Californian, I know everybody in California hires them... Otis Chandler... I want him checked with regard to his gardener. I understand he is a wetback. Is that clear?" When the Attorney General replied, "Yes, sir." Nixon crowed triumphantly, "We're going after the Chandlers! Every one, individually and collectively, their income taxes... every one of those sons of bitches." 

There's a lot more.  See Robert F. Kennedy's comparison of Obama to Nixon.

So the next time somebody says the Obama "scandals" are worse than Watergate or Nixon, tell them to hit the history books.

Obama will be re-elected, so says the Univac 3000

After a 60 hour power loss caused by the second 100 year storm in the past two years, Buzz has the Univac 3000 up and running and we're ready to post the OVC Presidential election prediction.  It's Obama in a relatively close popular vote but a rather comfortable electoral win.

It looked a bit scary for Democrats after Barack Obama mailed in the first debate, but although Mitt Romney surged, he never quite overtook Obama.  Romney's "Mittmentum" has disappeared, and Super Storm Sandy pushed a good portion of the undecideds to Obama.  The Univac 3000 calculates that the Sandy factor may account for up to a percentage point gain, which in this election is a heckuva lot, for Obama.

There have been no great swings in this election cycle, and neither candidate has broken that 50 percent mark in national polls, but then again, neither candidate has fall below 45 percent either. Face it, we live in a polarized nation where up to 90 percent of the electorate falls into the unpersuadable category.  This has wreaked havoc on the aging circuits of the Univac 3000.

This may come as a shock to our Republican friends, but not everybody thinks Obama is a Communist or the anti-Christ or hates this country, maybe just 45 percent do.  It may also come as a shock to our Democratic friends that not everybody realizes that Romney is a snake oil salesman, hell bent on his latest business conquest - the Presidency.  Again, only 45 percent understand this.

With that said, let's move on to the predictions.

Safe Romney (191)

Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3).

Safe Obama (241)

California (55), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Connecticut (7), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (20), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3),
Washington (12).

The leaning Obama states put him at 271

This leaves 110 electoral votes up for grabs, but as we all can see Obama is much closer to the 270 prize.  Some of the remaining states are very, very close, but a few others are relatively certain.

North Carolina (15) will fall into the Romney column, bringing him to 206.  Likewise, Nevada (6), Wisconsin (10), and Ohio (18) have been consistently polling in favor of Obama, and there is no reason to think they will jump into the Romney column at the last minute.  This puts Obama at 271, which is more than enough, but we still have a few more states to discuss.

First, a few notes on the four we just pushed into their respective columns.

Hispanic Vote and the New South

This is the last election where Nevada will even arguably be a toss up state.  Until the GOP stops the vitriolic anti-immigrant rhetoric, they will continue to get swamped in the Hispanic vote. George W. Bush got 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004.  Romney (the self-deportation candidate) will be lucky to break 28 percent.

The Hispanic vote is the fastest growing minority vote in the nation, and the GOP is on the wrong side of this.  Not only will this knock out Nevada, but watch for Arizona to be in play in four years, and Texas to be competitive in eight. (Remember, the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 which passed in California in 1994, solidified the Hispanic vote in California and destroyed any chance the GOP had of capturing this electoral rich state.)

North Carolina is a state which is fighting to shed its Old South image.  The state which regularly elected Jesse Helms to the Senate is now competitive and will only become more competitive for Democrats as the population grows with an influx of Northern moderates and liberals.  Unfortunately for Obama, old habits die hard, and there is still a lot of the Old South in this state.

New Hampshire and Iowa

It is a bit ironic that the two states which start this whole insane process with the first caucus and first primary are still in the too close to call column.  You would think that they would have made up their mind much sooner, because the 2016 campaign begins November 7, 2012.

Iowa (6) has been consistently polling in Obama's favor, so we see no reason why it would unexpectedly shift to Romney. New Hampshire (4), location of one of the many Romney homes, has been all over the map, but recently has been polling in Obama's favor.  The Univac 3000 gives it to Obama.

Colorado and Virginia

Colorado (9) and Virginia (13) has been true toss up states.  They were solidly GOP until Obama snatched them in 2008, and the Univac 3000 puts them in the Obama column again.

Colorado is another state which has a quickly growing Hispanic population, and as we've mentioned before, this does not bode well for the GOP.  Romney pulled ahead in polling in this state after the first debate, but the growing Hispanic population will self-deport Colorado's 9 electoral votes out of the Romney column and right into Obama's lap.

Virginia is a battle of three states.  Northern Virginia (the DC suburbs) and a few other urban areas are solidly Obama, the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads area is split, and the rest of the state is solidly Romney.

The Obama campaign is pushing for a big margin in its strongholds, as is Romney in his strongholds, so it comes down to the military friendly Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Hampton Road area.  Romney has pandered to this area to such a great degree that it has paled in comparison to his regular pandering.  We are surprised that Romney doesn't arrive in the Newport News shipyard in a battleship.

With all of this said, the Univac 3000 predicts Obama's margins in Northern Virginia will be too much for Admiral Romney to overcome.

Florida, Florida, Florida

It may be Florida, Florida, Florida, but it won't be decisive, decisive, decisive this year.  Florida is the battleground state, which despite its 29 electoral votes just doesn't matter anymore.  The Democrats and Obama have expanded the map so much that Florida will not play the pivotal role it played in 2000 when the Supreme Court awarded it to Bush and made him the 43rd President.

On a fair playing field, the Univac 3000 would award Florida to Obama, however, GOP Governor Rick Scott and the GOP apparatus in the legislature and State agencies have tilted the field in Romney's favor.  Voter purges, restrictive voter registration laws which pushed even the League of Women Voters out of the voter registration business in the state (overturned by the Courts, but too late,) and cutbacks on early voting have severely hurt Obama's chances in the Sunshine State.

The Univac 3000 gives Florida to Romney, not because he won the battle of ideas in the Sunshine State, but because the GOP was able to keep enough Democratic leaning voters away from the polls.

Obama 303, Romney 235

Our prediction is 303 for Obama and 235 for Romney.  The Univac 3000 puts the popular vote total at 50.5 percent for Obama and 48 percent for Romney.  1.5 percent will cast their ballots for a third party candidate.

The Utile Plast Candidate

Mitt Romney has proven he can be both plasticy and malleable.  These two qualities are what makes Mitt Mitt.  They are also the qualities which will propel him close, but not quite to the Presidency.

When Buzz and I were in South Carolina doing a pro bono scouting trip for the Chicago Sun at the University of Charleston this past January, we stumbled upon a Mitt Romney rally and decided to stick around. It was a day before the South Carolina primary, and the crowd was excited to see the former Massachusetts Governor.

In a rally highlighted by the appearances of Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Governor Bob McDonald of Virginia, we were able to observe Romney up close and personal.  We came away with one overriding impression:  This guy exudes plastic.

From his smile to his freshly pressed jeans to his automaton wave to his sculpted on hair, he just didn't seem real.  He was, as some commentators have noted, an almost alien or robotic presence. 

And don't think this is just the usual OVC anti-Republican bias, because Buzz and I also met Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, and Buddy Roemer all up close and personal this past year.  None of them had the same qualities, in fact, Santorum and Roemer both struck these two middle aged former hippies as two real genuine dudes.

But, perhaps plastic is not the most descriptive term would could use, because whereas plastic is quite rigid, Romney the candidate is quite malleable, but in a plastic sort of way.  We turned to the Google to see if both qualities could co-exist in the same product.  We found it.

There is an Australian product which is described as a non-toxic, biodegradable plastic that can be shaped in minutes, is re-useable and is virtually indestructible.  This product is call Utile Plast.

Romney campaigned in the Republican primary as the "severely conservative" former Governor of Massachusetts, but in the past month he has become the Governor of compromise, a Republican Governor of a state with an 87 percent Democratic legislature.  Apparently, just like Utile Plast, both of these qualities did exist in the Governorship of Romney.

He could be considered "severely conservative" in the fact that he vetoed 800 bills during his four years as Governor, but he can also be considered a real "aisle crosser" in the fact that he passed a healthcare reform package with the overwhelming support of Democrats.  (The healthcare reform plan which, by the way, is the model for Obamacare.)

Romney would have been the perfect candidate for the pre-internet, pre-television, per-youtube days, because he caters his message to the crowd before whom he speaks. 

Back in that Golden Age of politics, a politician could cater his message to a particular crowd, because there weren't thousands of people with iphones recording your every spoken word.  This subtlety seems to have been lost on the Romney team.

The most blatant example of this is in Ohio, where Romney must rue the day he penned that infamous "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" editorial.  (Yes, we did read the editorial, and we know that Romney did not pick the title.) Today he says that he is the auto industry's best friend.

The Utile Plast candidate also has the advantage, because of the Republican answer to any criticism of "that's just the liberal media."  So when Romney changes his position on a major issue and the media calls him on it, he just says, "well that's the liberal media."

Romney reaped the benefits of his malleablity after the first debate.  He closed the gap and even passed Barack Obama in a number of national polls.  That momentum and surge has now peaked, and recent polls, particularly in the battleground states, have edged back in Obama's favor.

The Utile Plast candidate just doesn't seem to have enough to push him across the finish line.

Romney gets trapped inside the right wing bubble

Mitt Romney thought he "had him" last night in the second Presidential debate, but he ended up being smacked down by a woman named Candy (one of Buzz's fantasies, but that's another story.)  We're talking about the question of whether or not Obama referred to the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens as an act of "terror" the day after the attack in Barack Obama's Rose Garden press statement.

Romney said that Obama failed to mention that the attack on the Libyan consulate in Benghazi was an act of terrorism the day after the attack.  After Obama said he said it was an act of terrorism in his Rose Garden speech on September 12th, Romney thought he caught the President in a lie.  Debate moderator Candy Crowley instantly fact checked Romney and told him that the President had indeed referred to the September 11th attack as an act of terror.

Romney is new to the right wing bubble, after all, he was "Moderate Mitt" when he ran against Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994 and when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002.  He failed to recognize one of the most important rules of the right wing bubble:  don't make statements outside the bubble if there's somebody there to fact check you.

Some of the reasons right wing talk radio is so successful is because the radio host controls his or her callers, can drone on for hours unchallenged, and most importantly, controls the microphone.  Rush Limbaugh doesn't have a Candy Crowley instantly fact checking him.

The right wing has been relentless in its attacks on the Obama administration for the Libyan attack on September 11, 2012.  Republican Congressman Darryl Issa (Chair of the House Government Oversight Committee) has even taken to conducting hearings while the rest of Congress is home campaigning for their jobs.  The conclusion they reached before the hearings started was that Obama lied to the American people and engaged in some sort of cover up to hide his foreign policy failures.

Our advice to Governor Romney is to read our primer on right wing talk radio.

The Persuadables

Buzz and I have come to a saddening conclusion.  This year's Presidential election will be decided by people who really don't give a damn about Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

Unlike Buzz, me, and all of our readers, the people who will decide this election just aren't engaged in politics now or probably ever. 

Buzz begins his day by pouring over all the latest polls and punching that data into the Univac 3000, checking for subtle changes which might give him even the smallest insight into electoral trends.   He then takes this material and produces a multitude of charts, diagrams, and graphs to supplement the OVC Daily Briefing memo.  All of this is presented at the morning staff meeting.

I begin my day by checking the latest WNBA news and setting my lineup for my WNBA Fantasy Basketball team.  I don't mean to brag, but I've won the league seven years in a row, but I digress.

Poll after poll in the last few months have consistently shown two things - each candidate has a floor percentage of which they seldom, if ever drop below, and a ceiling, of which they never rise above.  Most changes in the individual polls can be attributed to statistical sampling variations.  In other words, poll results vary greatly depending on who you sample.

The trick to good polling is to tailor your sample to represent the voting public as a whole.  If you have too many Democrats in your sample, your poll win inflate Democratic numbers, and vice versa if you include too many Republicans.  So what the pollsters do is massage the numbers to reflect past voting trends and put forth a calculated guess as to how the raw data collected translates into the numbers they release in the poll.

Some polling outfits are run by Democrats or liberal leaning folks, and some are run by Republican or conservative folks.  These polls may favor the political leanings of the folks conducting them, or contrary to what would seem to be common sense, may tend to overcompensate for the pollsters' biases and lean in the opposite direction of the pollster. 

After all, pollsters do not make money from the general public on their polling, they make money by the candidates or organizations who commission the polls.  The more accurate the polling results are, the more chance the pollster has of getting work.

With all of this said, Buzz tells me that if we averaged out all of the polls, a sort of poll of the polls, we'd be able to minimize the individual prejudices and biases of the pollsters.  I told Buzz that RealClearPolitics has already done this.

The RCP average of polls is an excellent source of information, and believe it or not, it has been a very accurate predictor of election results over the past ten years.  RCP does include what the pollsters refer to as an outlier (a poll that seems to be out of whack with all the others,) but do to the averaging of all the recent polls, an outlier won't throw the numbers off that much.

Over the past few months, there has been very little variation in the numbers.  Obama's numbers have ebbed and flowed, as have Romney's. Neither has dropped below the middle to low forties, and neither has jumped above the mid to high forties. 

What this means is that both of the major party candidates are guaranteed to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 percent of the vote come November. The trick is getting at least 51 percent of the remainder.

These undecideds are what this election is all about.  They are referred to as the swing voters, but Buzz and I like to call them the Persuadables.  Whoever wins the majority of these voters will win the election.

This presents two issues as Buzz and I see it.  First, you gotta identify these voters, and number two, you gotta convince them that you deserve their vote. 

We'll talk more about how this works later.  Gotta get to the morning meeting.

A Look Ahead to November

Pollster George Gallup (1901-1984)

Political Journalist Jeff Greenfield once said, when talking about polls conducted months before the election, that "65 percent of people surveyed said the would be 'surprised' if the 'election were held today.'"

Polls, polls, everywhere polls

Polling has become a daily obsession for many political junkies, Buzz and I included. It used to be that you would see a few polls a month, but now we have two major daily "tracking" polls and a plethora of other polls which cover everything from the Presidential race, Senate contest, House contests, Presidential approval ratings, favorability and unfavorability ratings, and even continuing polls on particular issues, such as the Affordable Care Act or "Obamacare."

Polling is done through survey sampling, wherein a polling organization randomly contacts people to get their opinions on a single subject or a series of subjects.  One such survey is Presidential election preference. It is, of course, impossible to survey every voter, so polling organizations will take a sample of the population and then interpret the raw data into a poll result.  The Gallup daily tracking poll is an example of this.

Gallup describes its daily tracking poll as follows. "These are the results when registered voters are asked: "Suppose the presidential election were held today. If Barack Obama were the Democratic Party's candidate and Mitt Romney were the Republican Party's candidate, who would you vote for Barack Obama, the Democrat or Mitt Romney, the Republican?" Those who are undecided are further asked if they lean more toward Obama or Romney and their leanings are incorporated into the results. Each seven-day rolling average is based on telephone interviews with approximately 3,050 registered voters; Margin of error is ±2 percentage points"

The latest Gallup Presidential Daily tracking poll shows a two point lead by President Barack Obama over Governor Mitt Romney 47 percent to 45 percent.  Since April, Obama's numbers have ranged from 43 to 50 percent.  Romney has ranged from 42 to 48.

There are a number of things we can learn from Gallup.

First and foremost, it is readily apparent that both Romney and Obama have a base support in the mid 40s.  These voters, in all likelihood, are entrenched and no matter how much either candidate spends or how much conditions change in the economy or any other issue, these voters will not change their preference.

These entrenched voters are solidly in either the Obama or Romney column. Certain voters will never vote for Obama and others will never vote for Romney.

With that said, there is only about 10, maybe 15 percent of the population who fall into the "persuadable" category -- that is voters who have either not made up their minds or will change their minds before election day in November.

How can Obama or Romney seal the deal on these voters?

The Obama camp believes that if the "persuadables" learn the "truth" about Romney, they will vote for Obama.  Conversely, the Romney camp believes that if the "persuadables" learn the "truth" about Obama, they will vote for Romney.  

Obama has attempted to move the persuadables by attacking Romney's strength -- his business record. Romney believes that his years as a businessman in the private sector makes him the perfect candidate to fix the economy. Obama has portrayed Romney as a "vulture" capitalist who was more interested in making large profits for his investors than creating jobs. He has already spent millions of dollars getting his point across, in an attempt to define Romney before he can define himself.

Romney has said repeatedly that Obama is a big spending liberal who is running up enormous deficits year after year and passing that debt onto future generations.  Obama is a big government guy who believes that the capitalist system doesn't work, and the government is the only one who can get us out of a poor economy. 

Just too early to tell

The most important thing to know about persuadables is that they are not obsessed with politics.  Probably the last thing on the persuadables are thinking about on these hot summer days is politics in general and the Presidential election in specific.

We do know one thing for certain -- the Obama camp, the Romney camp, and their respective surrogates will spend over a billion dollars to persuade the persuadables.

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

Buzz and I felt like we were watching Casablanca, particularly the part where Captain Renault closes down Rick's Cafe Americana for gambling, as we watched Republicans last week doing back flips over President Barack Obama's political use of the killing of Osama Bin Laden

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" Renault says as he is handed the gambling winning for the evening. Claude Rains' line has become the classic line that symbolizes hypocrisy.

In the alternative universe that is Fox News and most of talk radio, we heard constant references that Obama was "spiking the football," and that such action on the part of the President was totally inappropriate. Obama was acting un-Presidential.

Lost in the clamor and faux outrage was the May Day 2003 "Mission Accomplished" spectacular of former President George W. Bush.  Bush donned a Naval aviator suit, hopped aboard a Lockheed S-3 Viking, and landed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.  He then gave a speech in which he declared that "major combat operations in Iraq (had) ended."  Behind him, was a large banner which read "Mission Accomplished."

It is ironic and tragic that the Iraq war continued for another eight plus years.  In fact, more than 90 percent of US casualties occurred after the "Mission Accomplished" moment. In other words, Bush spiked the ball before the game really started.

If Obama touting his actual "mission accomplished" in the killing of Bin Laden was un-Presidential, we will have to work on a term to describe Bush's 2003 "Mission Accomplished" moment.

We believe what is really troubling those on the Republican side of the spectrum is that fact that most Americans are very satisfied with Obama on foreign policy and national defense.  Foreign policy and national defense have traditionally been a Republican issue, and they have not been shy about waving the flag and claiming that the Democrats' policies were downright dangerous to America.

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that Obama has a 17 point lead on Romney on Foreign Policy and a seven point lead on handling terrorism.  Both of these issues have been reliable strongholds for the Republicans in recent history.

Obama has neutralized the "strong on defense" issue for the time being.  It will be extremely difficult for Republican soon-to-be Presidential nominee Mitt Romney to claim that Obama is soft on terrorism, not that he won't try.