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David Harsanyi sees momentum shift to the GOP.
In the weeks leading up to Mitt Romney’s surprising pick of Paul Ryan as his running mate, dissatisfaction and pessimism within Republican and conservative circles was reaching epidemic levels.
As Romney was being pounded daily by the Obama campaign and liberal groups with a series of brutal ads scrutinizing (and often misrepresenting) his private sector record at Bain Capital, Republicans began to grumble about the GOP campaign. A less than spectacular trip to Europe and Israel confirmed their worst fears. Romney wasn’t on point. Romney wasn’t connecting. Romney was terrible.
And Romney, most definitely, wasn’t tough enough. Popular conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham accused him of bringing a “down pillow to a gun fight.” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz played on the Romney-is-soft theme, telling the presumptive GOP’s campaign to “put their big boy and big girl pants on.”
Since that time a sea change of opinion has taken hold on the right, as a once-skeptical base has found a reason to embrace Romney (his gutsy call on picking a reform-minded conservative) and the party realists are beginning to think that the former Massachusetts governor’s tactical plan might even work.
It’s still early, of course, and the political establishment is always willing to jump ship, but there seems to be genuine and growing belief that momentum is on the GOP’s side. What is making everyone so confident? Why do they think they can win? Romney surrogates believe aggressiveness, the president’s record and a bold fiscal conservative argument have turned Romney’s fortunes. …
John Podhoretz says Romney has a distinct advantage with his convention speech.
… As far as the convention speeches go, Romney has a surprising advantage over Barack Obama: The gift of novelty. What he will be doing the nation will never have seen him doing before. People will be curious to see how Romney does, interested to hear what he says—and, in a country that has spent a decade watching “American Idol,” will be full of opinions about how he performs.
Obama’s speech will generate nothing comparable. Quite the opposite. In the four years since his nomination in 2008, he has delivered a convention speech, an inaugural address, four State of the Unions, and (by my unofficial count) eight nationally televised prime-time addresses either in front of Congress or from within the White House. He has spoken and spoken and spoken—and at least judging from the response for the past two years, his speeches have not served to push the needle of public opinion in his direction.
So the public knows what Obama has to offer. Those who love him will love him; those who think he’s OK will think he’s OK; everybody else who doesn’t like him to varying degrees are unlikely to alter their views. Which means unless he delivers a masterpiece on September 6, his speech (and the convention that preceded it) are not likely to make much of a difference for him.
For Romney, therefore, the stakes are high and the rewards potentially higher. For Obama, it may just be another day being a rather gabby president.
Podhoretz continues his campaign analysis in the NY Post.
Hurricane permitting, the GOP convention kicks off Monday, and with it, the preliminaries are over and the general election begins in earnest. How stands the race?
At first glance, and even second and third glances, every indication is that we’re in for a nail-biter. The RealClearPolitics average, which aggregates all public polls, now has Barack Obama ahead nationally by a mere point.
The two tracking polls, which survey voters every day and collect data over each three-day period, have the race tied.
There’s reason to think Mitt Romney is in better condition than the national polls show.
First, one has to consider the effect on Romney of the Obama campaign’s unprecedented barrage against him. Chicago spent an astounding $120 million over the summer, much of it on negative ads targeting Romney personally, and almost all of it in 12 battleground states. To give you a sense of how much spending that is, the McCain campaign in 2008 spent a mere $75 million in the general election against Obama in all 50 states.
Though Romney has certainly been bloodied a bit — we all know how he won’t release a lot of his tax returns — the polling from those states and nationally suggests he’s suffered mere flesh wounds. We won’t really know if the Obama campaign managed to cut deeply enough to cause a lingering infection until the general election campaign is in full swing.
But if the infection doesn’t materialize, that will mean the Obama campaign spent tens and tens of millions for nothing. On June 23, Obama was up in the RCP average by 2.4 points. Yesterday, two months later, 1 point. All that spending, and Romney’s position actually improved. …
Jennifer Rubin thinks the Dems were real lucky the storm prevented Biden from making a fool of himself in Tampa.
I suppose the Obama team thought that it was clever to send Vice President Biden to Tampa during the Republican National Convention. It’s the equivalent of trash talking. ( “You think you own Tampa? We own Tampa!”) On Friday it was announced that Biden would not go, out of concern that emergency personnel would be stretched too thin. The Obama team should count its lucky stars that it had reason to cancel.
President Obama did not show good judgment in selecting Biden as the man to step into the presidency at a moment’s notice. Biden is not only long-winded but misguided on virtually every point of foreign policy. His “y’all back in chains” remark is symptomatic of his willingness to say or do anything. Even Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) has called him out for his race baiting. (“Did he think it was cute . . . Yes, he did. Was it something stupid to say? You bet your life it was stupid.”) He is perhaps the last person you’d want in a crisis. It points not only to poor judgment but also Obama’s vanity (Don’t admit an error.).
Obama could have dumped Biden this year; lots of presidents including Democratic idol FDR made a change. But the idea that Obama might need someone’s help (specifically, Hillary Clinton’s) was likely too much to stomach.So he’s stuck with a man who is thought by many to be foolish and slightly out of it.
Meanwhile along comes smart, disciplined, vibrant Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). According to the latest CNN poll, voters — despite his newness on the national scene (for most people) and his status as a mere congressman — find Ryan to be more likable than Biden. Ryan’s favorables are +6, while Biden is at -1. A majority of voters think that the choice of Ryan was excellent or good, and by a substantial margin, they find him to be qualified to serve as president (52 to 43 percent). By a huge 57 to 39 percent, voters think that picking Ryan reflects favorably on Romney’s ability to make important decisions.
So why stick Biden in the same city to highlight that unfavorable comparison? This was arrogance getting the better of the Obama camp. It is fortunate it had reason to cancel.
Imagine what could have occurred. Since his opponent is in town, Ryan might have strolled out from the convention to a Biden event one day. Shake his hand and even suggest a little impromptu debate. Yikes!
Well, there will be time for a full debate in October. It should be an illuminating face-off: fresh ideas vs. hackneyed politics, mathematical precision vs. absurd invention (“The vice president should know better than to spout off half-baked facts in service of a dubious argument.”) and conservative reformer vs. defender of the status quo.
In the meantime, the Romney-Ryan campaign should do all they can to highlight the differences between the two men and what they say about the men at the top of the tickets.
Blogger Joel Runyon has an encounter with an old man at a coffee shop.
… The old man turned back at his coffee, took a sip, and then looked back at me.
“In fact, I’ve done lots of things that haven’t been done before”, he said half-smiling.
Not sure if he was simply toying with me or not, my curiosity got the better of me.
Oh really? Like what types of things?, All the while, half-thinking he was going to make up something fairly non-impressive.
I invented the first computer.
Um, Excuse me?
I created the world’s first internally programmable computer. It used to take up a space about as big as this whole room and my wife and I used to walk into it to program it.
What’s your name?”. I asked, thinking that this guy is either another crazy homeless person in Portland or legitimately who he said he was.
“Russell Kirsch”
Sure enough, after .29 seconds, I found out he wasn’t lying to my face. Russell Kirsch indeed invented the world’s first internally programmable computer and as well as a bunch of other things and definitely lives in Portland. As he talked, I began googling him, he read my mind and volunteered:
Here, I’ll show you
He stood up and directed me to a variety of websites and showed me through the archives of what he’d created while every once in a while dropping some minor detail like:
I also created the first digital image. It was a photo of my son.
At this point, I learned better than to call Russell’s bluff, but sure enough, a few more google searches showed that he did just that. …
Runyon has a follow on to the above post.
After debating a few days whether or not to even share last weeks post, I hit publish. Over the first few days, it got some traffic along with some residual views from views from my six pack transformation. But Sunday, the piece really took off. It hit the top of Hacker News for 6+ hours, and got featured on BoingBoing (twice!). In short, over the last few days, the story has received over ~350,000 visits in the past few days and been shared 40,000 times on facebook and 8,000+ times on twitter.
After melting some servers, Russell’s words still reverberated.
Nothing is withheld from us which we have conceived to do.
Do things that have never been done.
All this started from talking to some old man I didn’t know in a coffee shop. It was an incredible conversation and even more incredible experience. Here’s 7 things I’ve learned from my encounter with Russell Kirsch:
Make Stuff
This is really simple.
Make stuff.
Go create something. The only limit on you is what you can imagine. So imagine some impossible things. Then stop waiting around and go create them.
You Are Not That Important – Be Humble
I could have missed out on an incredible encounter if I would have treated Russell like anybody else you see at a coffee shop.
I could have thought I was too important for a tangential conversation with a stranger about Macs and PCs but instead I chose to listen.
On the flip side, a few people commented that Russell needed to learn humility – saying he sounded arrogant. If anything came across like that, it’s my fault in the story telling. If anything, Russell was one of the most humble people I’ve ever met. …