Bain Attacks Erode Mitt's Favorables

Yesterday, I touched briefly on two contradictory polls on the issue of Team Obama's Bain attacks and whether they were hurting Mitt Romney. A USA Today/Gallup poll found that "By more than 2-1, 63%-29%, those surveyed say Romney's background in business, including his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, would cause him to make good decisions, not bad ones, in dealing with the nation's economic problems over the next four years." So, despite the Obama attacks on his Bain record, Gallup found most thought Romney's Bain years were a positive.

But a Reuters/Ipsos poll released the very next day found that over a third of respondents said "that what they had heard about Romney's taxes and his time at Bain Capital private equity firm had given them a less favorable impression of the Republican candidate."

My take on all of this was that it was Reuters' finding that was probably truest, since Team Obama wasn't changing their strategy. Based on their behavior, I deduced that their own tracking was showing it working. And today Greg Sargent points to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll [pdf] that suggests the same thing. It finds that Obama leads Romney 49%-43%, that Romney's favorables are underwater at 35% favorable to 40% unfavorable, that 52% say they don’t identify with Romney’s "background and set of values," and "43 percent say they’ve seen, heard, or read something in the past few weeks that gives them a more negative impression of Romney."

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Romney Wants to Shake that Etch A Sketch Now

I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.
-Romney 2012 Communications Director Eric Fehrnstrom, on what happens once the primaries are over.

There you go. With Rick Santorum out, it's time to shake the Etch A Sketch. While it's possible that the search for the Not-Romney will switch back to Newt, most observers believe it's unlikely. And you Ron Paul supporters need to accept facts; it's been over for a very long time. It's gonna be Mittens, whether you like it or not.

It's going to be fun watching the hyper-partisan right shake their own Etch A Sketches. After months of bashing Romney as someone just short of a commie, it'll be interesting to see them line up behind him and declare him History's Finest Candidate. The Inevitable has indeed become The Inevitable; it's time for the heretics to see the error of their ways and rejoin the fold.

But admitting error and embracing reality are not acts that come easily to many conservatives. Some seem incapable of doing them at all. And it may be that the search for the Not-Romney will continue -- among the two candidates who are Mitt Romney.

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Can Democrats Blow the Upcoming Payroll Tax Fight?

It's hard to see how Democrats could lose this one -- at least, in a PR sense. As Democrats prepare a push to extend a payroll tax break, Republicans oppose it. All of a sudden, tax breaks add to the deficit. They didn't used to, but they do now. Republicans are consistent only in their disregard for logical consistency. When the tax cuts benefit the very rich, they don't add to the deficit. When they don't... Well, that's a different story. And, of course, there's the fact that President Obama is for extending these particular cuts, which -- by the reactionary reasoning of the party -- means they must be bad.

New York Times:

It is hard to find a tax cut that Congressional Republicans dislike. Unless it is a tax cut pushed by President Obama.

In a turning of the tax policy tables, Democrats are increasingly hammering on Republicans who oppose the president’s proposal to extend for a year a payroll tax cut passed last year with bipartisan support.

That tax cut -- which reduces workers' contributions to Social Security this year to 4.2 percent of wages, from 6.2 percent -- expires in December. The White House would like to extend it for another year. But Republicans in Congress are balking, arguing that such a cut adds needlessly to the nation’s budget deficit, and should be replaced with an overhaul of tax policy instead.

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The Deficit isn't Caused by Jets Alone

I'm not sure what to think. On Monday, The Hill ran a piece reporting the White House had basically caved on the Bush tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans.

The White House, seeking an agreement to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2, on Monday said it would not insist that any deal include an end to former President George W. Bush’s controversial tax rates on the wealthy.

President Obama's tactics are coming into focus as he huddles with congressional leaders to try and break the deadlock on increasing the debt ceiling.

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In Recall, Fake Democrats are at Wisconsin Taxpayers' Expense

This is what's known as "fiscal responsibility" among Republicans.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A Republican effort to stall recall elections by forcing Democratic primaries to be held will cost taxpayers at least tens of thousands of dollars, a check of local election clerks shows.

Meanwhile, the top Senate Republican said Tuesday that all GOP recall targets were familiar with the plan to delay the recall elections by fielding fake Democrats in primaries. Earlier, some of those recall targets claimed they didn't know about the plan.

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Comparing Weaponry in the Wisconsin Ad Wars

Earlier this week, the Republican Governors Association announced an ad buy for Wisconsin in support of Governor Walker. My first impression of the spot was that it seemed lazy and unlikely to make any difference. It's basically everything Walker has been saying all along, adapted to attack ad format. This hasn't been working for him so far and it's unlikely that converting it to ad form will make it work any better. By this time, everyone knows the facts -- that is, everyone who cares to know the facts -- and all this messaging has been spectacularly ineffective.

But you know the GOP motto; if something is failing, do more of it.



When it came out, Greg Sargent did some adbusting. The spot was "premised on a serious distortion that borders on an outright falsehood," Sargent wrote. I don't know why the equivocation though -- the ad doesn't border on being a lie, it is a lie. Walker doesn't need to do away with collective bargaining to balance the budget. He has a balanced budget now. In fact, the ad doesn't even mention bargaining, as if there's someone in Wisconsin who has no idea what this is all about and can be hoodwinked. Like I say, lazy. Not to mention insulting to people's intelligence.

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