QUEER QUOTE: Heterosexual Supremacist Orrin Hatch (R-UT) Says Something Nice About #LGBT Youth For #Pride

Today's Queer Quote is from Senator Orrin Hatch, who has announced his retirement (after 42 years!) and will not be seeking re-election to the United States Senate. His seat is likely to be filled by Mitt Romney (2012 GOP nominee for President).

On Thursday, in celebration(!) of LGBT pride month, Sen. Hatch tried to support LGBT youth by saying on the Senate floor:

“No one should ever feel less because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. LGBT youth deserve our unwavering love and support. They deserve our validation and the assurance that not only is there a place for them in this society, but that it is far better off because of them. These young people need us—and we desperately need them. We need their light to illuminate the richness and diversity of God’s creations. We need the grace, beauty and brilliance they bring to the world.”

This is the same guy who said (in 1977):

“I wouldn't want to see homosexuals teaching school anymore than I'd want to see members of the American Nazi Party teaching school."

As the Washington Post put it. "The Times, they are a changin'"!

Black Voter Turnout Won 2012 Election For Obama

A new report analyzing voter turnout in 2012 confirms that well-publicized efforts by Republicans to suppress voting by minorities (a.k.a. the GOP War on Voting) resulted in record Black turnout, handing the election to President Obama even though overall voter turnout was down over 2008 (and 2004). In fact, the most dramatic finding in the report is that turnout by Black voters surpassed turnout by White voters for the first time ever. For the second presidential election in a row, the Black percentage of the presidential vote (13%) exceeded the Black percentage of the electorate (12%).

This is the key excerpt from the Associated Press story:

Romney would have erased Obama's nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey's analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.

More significantly, the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same.

There is a  lot of interesting information in the article for both Democrats and Republicans. First, the article notes that only only political party (Republicans) have managed to win the presidency three consecutive times in the last 60 years (1980, 1984, 1988) so that Democrats should not be confident about 2016. It also notes that Romney was a particular weak candidates, failing to energize white voters while Obama successfully energized black voters. The much vaunted Latino vote is still  only a potential factor at the presidential level, with Latino voters making up 17% of the electorate but only 11% of the vote. This could change sooner rather than later, depending on how immigration reform ends up impacting the citizenship status of the millions of undocumented immigrants of Hispanic descent living in the United States.

However my favorite oart of the story is this description of Mitt Romney by an African American voter from Cleveland, Ohio:

"A white Mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees just doesn't quite fit my idea of a president," she said. "Bottom line, Romney was not someone I was willing to trust with my future."

And that is a summation of the 2012 Republican presidential candidate in a nutshell: "a white mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees." David Axelrod must be very proud!

Saturday Politics:Obama's Approval Rating Hits 60%

ABC/Washington Post poll shows that in the year between January 2012 and January 2013 Barack Obama's approval rating among all adults has gone up by 7 points (to a 3-year high), primarily fueled by a 17 point jump by Liberals, with even Conservatives increasing by +4.

The Post gives this explanation:

Two groups that voted against Obama in November are also beginning to tilt in his direction. Independents see him favorably by a 60-to-36 percent margin, compared with a 51-45 split a year ago. And 51 percent of those ages 65 and older now see Obama favorably, up 11 points from January 2012. Independent voters backed Mitt Romney over Obama by six points in November, and seniors favored Romney by 12 points, according to the national exit poll. 

Partisans’ opinions have changed the least over time. Fully 80 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of Obama, similar to 78 percent last January. Even more Democrats, 92 percent, say the opposite, with favorable ratings ticking up five points from last year.

It should be VERY interesting to see where the President's approval rating is one year from now, when Immigration Reform may be a done deal. And even more interesting 3 years from now when the 2016 election campaign will be in full swing.

Obama Beat Romney By 5M Votes, 51.1%-47.2%

The final vote tally in the 2012 presidential election shows that President Barack Obama won re-election by nearly 5 million votes (65,899,557 to 60,931,959, or a margin of 4,968,402) or 51.06% to 47.21%. Obama is the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win re-election with more than 51% of the vote and the first Democratic president to do so since Franklin Roosevelt.

Bloomberg News analyzed the results:

The president won the popular vote in 26 states and the District of Columbia, totaling 332 electoral votes, or 62 more than the 270 needed to win the presidency. Romney won 24 states with 206 electoral votes. Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008.

[...]

Turnout in this year’s presidential race was about 129.1 million, down from the record 131.3 million four years ago.

Obama’s national vote total fell by about 3.6 million votes from his record 69.5 million in 2008, when he was elected the nation’s first black president. In that race, he won 52.9 percent -- with a victory margin of more than 9.5 million votes over Republican John McCain -- amid a financial crisis that took hold at the end of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.

The article notes that winning the presidency in 2016 will be difficult for Republicans because there are 18 states (plus DC) that have 242 electoral votes that have voted for the Democratic candidate for 6 consecutive presidential elections, while 22 states with 180 electoral votes have voted for the Republicans. So, just like in 2012, the 2016 presidential election will most likely be decided by the usual suspects: Ohio (18), Virginia (13), Florida (25), North Carolina (15) and Colorado (9).

Saturday Politics: Obama $1.123B Romney $1.019B

The accounting continues on the monies raised and spent during the 2012 elections but the results for the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in and the Democratic incumbent out-raised his Republican challenger by just over one hundred million dollars, with both candidates breaking the billion-dollar barrier. The Blue Team (Obama-Biden campaign and other Democratic committees) raised $1.123 billion while the Red Team (Romney-Ryan campaign and Republican committees) raised $1.019 billion.

However, Obama also out-raised Romney individually, $730 million to $473 million. Obama's total for his 2012 presidential campaign was $20 below his total for his 2008 campaign, but his haul of $1.4 billion for his two presidential races makes him the most prodigious fundraiser in presidential politics ever.

The Huffington Post summarizes:

The president's campaign, Obama for America, filed its final campaign finance report on Thursday covering the last two and a half weeks of the 2012 election. The report revealed that from Oct. 18 until the Election Day on Nov. 6 the president raised $88 million and spent $176 million. That far exceeded the $66 million raised by his rival Mitt Romney and the $107 million spent by the Republican presidential nominee during the same period.

In fact, the Obama campaign's fundraising power allowed it to crush the Romney camp in spending -- at least in terms of individual campaign spending. Obama's campaign spent $723 million from April 4 up to Election Day, way ahead of the total $460 million spent by Romney's campaign. Half of the Obama campaign's spending between Oct. 18 and the election -- $83 million -- went just to television advertising.

[...]

When including the types of spending that the Obama campaign warned about in its emails, such as super PACs and other outside groups, the Republicans did outspend Democrats. The full suite of Romney committees including the Republican National Committee and Romney Victory along with various outside groups spent a combined $1.51 billion. Democratic outside groups and the full Obama group of committees including the Democratic National Committee and Obama Victory Fund spent $1.43 billion. Still, the gap is far smaller than the one the Obama camp warned supporters about.

Romney and Obama Met In The Oval Office

Mitt Romney lost the presidential election by a margin of 47.36% to 50.91%, nearly 4.5 million votes, to President Barack Obama. On Thursday, the two met at the White House.

Obama Re-Elected President of the United States!

President Barack Obama made history by winning re-election, as predicted by Nate Silver and most pre-election polling. Obama won at least 303 electoral votes, including most of the swing states of Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Wisconsin and Iowa. Florida was too close to call late into the night, but the president maintained a strong lead there with 91% of the vote counted with Democratic-leaning counties yet to fully report.

3 Weeks Until Election: Obama 247, Romney 222

There has been a dramatic change in the TPM Electoral College Scoreboard from last week's tally of Obama's 294 to Romney's 191 (103 electoral vote lead for the Democrats) with things moving in the direction of the Red team.

With a mere 21 days before the election, this week the Blue team has a scant lead of 25 electoral votes, with the total of 247 being one of the few times the Obama-Biden team has been below 270 electoral votes. The Romney-Ryan team has a total of 222 electoral votes, which is their largest total since we started monitoring the electoral vote scoreboard in August.

The primary movement has been been from states which were in the Blue column moving into the Yellow column, namely Nevada (6 EVs), Ohio (18 EVs), New Hampshire (4 EVs), Iowa (6 EVs). Additionally, Florida (29 EVs)  moved from Yellow to the Red column, and and Virginia (13 EVs) moved from the Blue team to the Red team directly.

Last week there were only 3 states (Colorado, Florida and North Carolina) representing 53 electoral votes that were in the Undecided yellow column. This week there are an astonishing 7 states (Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado) that are in the Yellow Undecided/Toss-Up category totaling 69 electoral votes.

Basically the presidential race is tied with either result being not unthinkable result. This is pretty astonishing. There is still a lot of time left before the election, with 2 presidential debates (Tuesday October 16th and Monday October 22nd) still yet to happen.

4 Weeks Till Election: Obama 294, Romney 191

There are now exactly 28 days until election day on November 6, 2012. In this week's summary of the TPM Electoral College Scoreboard, the Democratic ticket has 294 electoral votes (down from last week's total of 332) while the Republican ticket remains constant at 191 electoral votes.

The movement by the Democrats is primarily due to polls showing that Colorado (9) and Florida (29) have slipped from being leans Democrat (light blue) back into the Undecided/Toss-up (yellow) category.

The general impression is that the President's lackluster performance in the first presidential debate has given the Romney-Ryan a boost in the polls which should be reflected in the current and next batch of polls.

Saturday Politics: New Yorker Covers Debate

The New Yorker has a cover which generally captures the national zeitgeist about the first presidential candidates' debate on Wednesday October 3rd. Most people felt that President Obama lost the debate as he repeatedly declined to engage an animated Mitt Romney who constantly prevaricated about his public positions and policy proposals while attempting to convince the large audience that he is no longer "severely conservative."

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Saturday Politics: Romney and Ryan Kissing!?

Hat/tip to TowleRoad

6 Weeks Until Election: Obama 328, Romney 191

There are 42 days (6 weeks) until election day. In this week's TPM Election Scoreboard the Obama-Biden campaign leads the Romney-Ryan campaign with 328 electoral votes to 191. Last week, the margin was 274 for the Democratic and 206 for Republican ticket. Of course, it takes 270 electoral votes to be elected president.

The primary explanation for the change  of 54 electoral votes for the Blue Team is the movement of Iowa (6), Wisconsin (10), Florida (29) and Virginia (13) from Undecided (Yellow) to leans Democrat (Light Blue) totaling 58 electoral votes with New Hampshire's 4 electoral votes moving from leans Democratic to Undecided. North Carolina's 15 electoral votes moved from Leans Republican to Undecided, thus reducing the Red team's total by 15 from 206 back down to 191.

The total of only 19 electoral votes being undecided (New Hampshire and North Carolina) is the smallest number in the 6 weeks I have been monitoring the electoral vote projections since early August.

GRAPHIC: Who Pays What Taxes In America?

The internet and political chattering classes are going absolutely bonkers about the revelation that Mitt Romney has nothing but contempt for 47% of the American electorate, when he was caught on video saying:

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax.My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

The graphics above show what the distribution of tax payers is in the United States, and it is true that roughly 53.6% of taxpayers pay federal income tax, but it also true that another 28.3% pay federal payroll taxes.

Ezra Klein points out that current tax policy has generally been crafted by Republican presidents and Congresses of the last couple decades:

Part of the reason so many Americans don’t pay federal income taxes is that Republicans have passed a series of very large tax cuts that wiped out the income-tax liability for many Americans. That’s why, when you look at graphs of the percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, you see huge jumps after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform and George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. So whenever you hear that half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, remember: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped build that. (You also see a jump after the financial crisis begins in 2008, but we can expect that to be mostly temporary.) 

Some of those tax cuts for the poor were there to make the tax cuts for the rich more politically palatable. “Do you think we wanted to include a welfare payment to people who don’t pay taxes and call it a tax cut?” A top Bush administration official once asked me. “No. But that’s what we needed to do to get it done.” 

But now that those tax cuts have passed and many fewer Americans are paying federal income taxes and the rich are paying a much higher percentage of federal income taxes, Republicans are arguing that these Americans they have helped free from income taxes have become a dependent and destabilizing “taker” class who want to hike taxes on the rich in order to purchase more social services for themselves.

As Bill Clinton says, "It takes a lot of brass to blame a guy for something you did yourself."

7 Weeks Till Election: Obama 274, Romney 206

There are 49 days (7 weeks) until Election Day 2012. In today's Electoral College Scoreboard, President Obama leads with 274 votes to Mitt Romney's 206 votes. Last week, Obama-Biden 2012 led with 256 votes to 206 for Romney-Ryan 2012.

The only change from last week to this week is that Ohio has changed from being a a"yellow" (undecided or too-close-to-call) state to a "light blue" (leans Democratic) state, giving its 18 electoral votes to the Democrats and thus making it increasingly unlikely that Republican candidate would win the election.
It takes 270 electoral votes to be elected President. No Republican presidential candidate in modern times has been elected without winning Ohio.

Saturday Politics: Romney Doesn't Know What "Middle Class" Means

Wowsa. Remember I posted awhile back that there was an important graphic that may explain what happens in the 2012 elections awhile ago? That graphic demonstrated that most people felt that President Obama's policies would favor poor people and middle-class people while they also felt that Mitt Romney's policies would favor wealthy people.

Now it becomes clear that Romney doesn't even understand what the words "middle-class" mean! In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopolous Romney claimed that people making $200,000-$250,000 are middle class.

The Washington Post has the deets:

“No one can say my plan is going to raise taxes on middle-income people, because principle number one is (to) keep the burden down on middle-income taxpayers,” Romney told host George Stephanopoulos. 

“Is $100,000 middle income?” Stephanopoulos asked. 

“No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less,” Romney responded. 

His campaign later clarified that Romney was referencing household income, not individual income. 

The Census Bureau reported this week that the median household income — the midpoint for the nation — is just over $50,000.

As you can see from the graphic at the top of this post, people making more than $200,000 are in the top 4% (not 50%, as Romney claimed!) of all income earners in the country. Maybe Romney was referring to the median household income of Republicans? Or of Republicans who have donated to his campaign?

Yet another example of Republicans seeking to exist and have a political discussion in a world which is based on their own fevered dreams, completely unrelated to a fact-based reality.

Simply astonishing.

8 Weeks Until Election: Obama 256, Romney 206

For the first time since I have been posting these electoral college scoreboard updates every Tuesday since August 14, 2012, Mitt Romney has broken the 200 electoral vote barrier, and only trails Barack Obama 206 votes to 256 votes, with 76 electoral votes up for grabs. There are now exactly 8 weeks (56 days!) until election day: November 6, 2012.

Obama's projected electoral vote count is down 18 points (Ohio) from last week's total of 274 while Romney's total  is up 15 (North Carolina) from 191. This is because North Carolina (15) has been shifted from undecided to leans Republican and Ohio (18) got shifted from leans Democrat to undecided.

The undecided "swing" states totaling 76 votes for this week are: Iowa (4), Wisconsin (10), Florida (29), Virginia (13) and Ohio (18).

9 Weeks Until Election: Obama 274, Romney 191

There are now exactly two months until election day, which turns out to be 63 days or 9 weeks away. In this week's Scoreboard, Obama-Biden has 274 electoral votes compared to 191 electoral votes for Romney-Ryan. This is a change from last week's total of 258 for the Democratic ticket and 161 for the Republican ticket.

The main explanation for the change is Michigan (16) moving from Undecided to Leans Democrat, thus giving President Obama more than the 270 electoral votes needed for re-election.

10 Weeks Until Election: Obama 258, Romney 191

There are 10 weeks (70 days) until Election Day. In today's round up of the presidential race, the score is Obama 258, Romney 191. Obama is down 7 electoral votes from last week (down Michigan's 16 up Colorado's 9) , while Romney is down 29 (Florida). This just means that those states have moved from being in either the blue or red category and have become yellow (undecided).

It takes 270 electoral votes to be elected. This week Iowa (6), Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Michigan (16) and Wisconsin (10) are "too close to call."

hat/tip to Talking Points Memo.

The Graphic That May Decide The Presidency

Matt Yglesias points out this chart signals doom for Mitt Romney's desire to be President. According to a poll from the Pew Research Center, 71% of people think Romney's policies will help "wealthy people" while 42% of people think those policies will help "Middle-class people" and only 33% of people think Romney's policies will help "poor people."

On the other hand, President Obama's policies are viewed by people as more likely to help middle class people (52%) and poor people (62%) as opposed to wealthy people (38%).

12 Weeks Until Election: Obama 317, Romney 191

Every week  on Tuesdays I will post the latest polling on the presidential election. The election is 84 days (12 weeks away). As of August 14th, the current electoral college standings are 317 votes for Barack Obama and 191 votes for Mitt Romney, with 30 votes "too close to call."