National Journal : Obama's Ohio strategy : "aggressive populist message to win back blue-collar voters in Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin". Obama's Virginia strategy : "centrist message aimed at upscale white-collar professionals and college-educated suburbanites"

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"The Virginia strategy would also appeal to voters in Colorado, Nevada, and North Carolina, and would probably be bolstered by a mobilization of young voters and minority groups, who make up a significant share of the electorate in those states".

National Journal
Obama’s Choice: Ohio or Virginia
By Josh Kraushaar

The president needs white working-class voters in the Rust Belt and upscale professionals in swing states. Can he woo both?
November 16, 2011


Obama’s Choice: Ohio or Virginia


Some excerpts :

The problem for the president is that voters are in a populist mood, but he himself isn’t much of a populist. As a law professor, community organizer, and legislator, Obama lacks the biography and political touch to convince those voters that he’s a fighter for them. Even though his campaign has drawn comparisons to Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign, the analogy is weak. Obama has consistently underachieved in attracting working-class whites and seniors ever since he first campaigned for president. The latest Gallup weekly tracking poll shows his approval stuck at 39 percent with seniors, 40 percent among people with a high-school diploma or less, and 42 percent in the Midwest—all below his national averages.

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At the same time, a populist strategy is tempting for the White House because Obama’s likely opponent, Romney, is so easy to caricature as a plutocrat with little awareness of the needs and interests of middle-class families. The Obama campaign has already offered glimpses of their eagerness to portray Romney as a hard-hearted capitalist, pointing to the time he spent at Bain Capital downsizing troubled companies. Across the board, Democrats are framing this election as one about income inequality, pointing to structural parts of the system that benefit the wealthy.

There’s no question that working-class voters are skeptical about the GOP’s agenda. Blue-collar voters in the Rust Belt have shown, through protest and the ballot box, that they are not fans of the GOP’s push for entitlement reform—with the latest evidence coming from a widespread rejection of Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s collective-bargaining restraints in last week’s referendum. Even on reliably conservative turf, voters overwhelmingly voted to overturn the law.

There are signs that, relatively speaking, Obama is doing better in Rust Belt states than in the new battlegrounds. A series of Quinnipiac battleground polls conducted over the last month show Obama narrowly trailing Romney in Florida and Virginia, but narrowly leading in Ohio and Pennsylvania. And Romney’s personal favorables are a step higher in Florida (net favorable: +12) and Virginia (+9) than in Pennsylvania (+6) and Ohio (+5).

This is where the rubber hits the road. A generic Democratic nominee—or, hypothetically, Hillary Rodham Clinton—would be well-served politically to make a blatant populist play against Romney. Blue-collar voters have traditionally been a crucial part of the Democratic coalition, even though those ties have frayed over the last decade. Win enough of them back and mobilize the base, and there’s a path to victory—one that runs through the economically hard-hit Rust Belt.

Romney appears well-positioned to peel off support from Obama’s base of white professionals, so it would seem logical for the president to change course and focus on the working class. The challenge for the president, of course, would be to pull off that down-market shift while maintaining his up-market authenticity.

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POLITICO.COM : In 2007, Mitt Romney said that RomneyCare would be a model for the nation. And now Gov. Romney switches opinions. David Axelrod : "We modeled our health care program largely on what Romney did in Massachusetts"

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Romney is the Human Shield against ObamaCare critics :

Romney “can’t touch us on this. We’ll hammer him,” added a Democratic Obama ally shortly after word of the Supreme Court’s schedule came out.

POLITICO.COM
Barack Obama's Supreme Court health care gamble
By GLENN THRUSH
November 15, 2011


Barack Obama's Supreme Court health care gamble


Some excerpts :

President Barack Obama is so confident of the constitutionality of his health care law — and so happy to cast Mitt Romney as his human shield against the law’s critics — that he didn’t try to stop the Supreme Court from putting its review of the law on a fast track that will result in a ruling in the middle of the 2012 campaign.

Yet for all the administration’s public optimism about the case’s outcome, Obama’s eagerness for a final resolution to the wrangling over the law represents no small roll of the political dice, one that could roil an already agitated electorate in unpredictable ways and quite possibly drag Obama back into the most divisive battle of his presidency.

His gamble: If the conservative Roberts court upholds the Affordable Care Act, it validates a titanic two-year legislative struggle. If the law is struck down, it would put the issue to bed four months before Election Day, fire up the Democratic base and energize angry party donors who’d see the decision as a second Bush v. Gore, a wallet-widening rallying cry.

“This issue would put the Supreme Court more front and center in a way that would focus Democrats on the fact that there will likely be two more appointments in the next term,” said former Obama staffer Bill Burton, co-founder of Priorities USA Action, a Democrat-allied PAC. “When we talk to Democrats across the country, they are mindful of the fact that President Bush appointed two justices to the court. The consequences of a President Romney appointing two more could have a devastating impact on issues that matter to progressives across the board.”

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NYT : Jeffrey Sachs : We are at the end of 30 years of increasing inequality - The Rich and Wealthy have dominated American Politics during that Period - Now a new Progressive Movement will change the swing of the pendulum

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History of American Inequality and the movements against it :


The New York Times
The New Progressive Movement
November 12, 2011

By JEFFREY D. SACHS
Jeffrey D. Sachs is the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the author, most recently, of “The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.”


The New Progressive Movement


Some excerpts :

Both parties have joined in crippling the government in response to the demands of their wealthy campaign contributors, who above all else insist on keeping low tax rates on capital gains, top incomes, estates and corporate profits. Corporate taxes as a share of national income are at the lowest levels in recent history. Rich households take home the greatest share of income since the Great Depression. Twice before in American history, powerful corporate interests dominated Washington and brought America to a state of unacceptable inequality, instability and corruption. Both times a social and political movement arose to restore democracy and shared prosperity.

The first age of inequality was the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, an era quite like today, when both political parties served the interests of the corporate robber barons. The progressive movement arose after the financial crisis of 1893. In the following decades Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson came to power, and the movement pushed through a remarkable era of reform: trust busting, federal income taxation, fair labor standards, the direct election of senators and women’s suffrage.

The second gilded age was the Roaring Twenties. The pro-business administrations of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover once again opened up the floodgates of corruption and financial excess, this time culminating in the Great Depression. And once again the pendulum swung. F.D.R.’s New Deal marked the start of several decades of reduced income inequality, strong trade unions, steep top tax rates and strict financial regulation. After 1981, Reagan began to dismantle each of these core features of the New Deal.

Following our recent financial calamity, a third progressive era is likely to be in the making. This one should aim for three things. The first is a revival of crucial public services, especially education, training, public investment and environmental protection. The second is the end of a climate of impunity that encouraged nearly every Wall Street firm to commit financial fraud. The third is to re-establish the supremacy of people votes over dollar votes in Washington.

None of this will be easy. Vested interests are deeply entrenched, even as Wall Street titans are jailed and their firms pay megafines for fraud. The progressive era took 20 years to correct abuses of the Gilded Age. The New Deal struggled for a decade to overcome the Great Depression, and the expansion of economic justice lasted through the 1960s. The new wave of reform is but a few months old.

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Wall Street Journal : Obama's Big Defeat in Virginia's Election - Republicans are stealing the Obama voters, and Democrats are cowardly and ungratefully abandoning President Obama. - Obama needs the White Workers but ....

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Very Grave Development :

Obama's reelection hangs on the decision of White Workers ( specially males ) of voting for him. The West is not enough to win the Presidency, Obama needs the White Industrial Workers of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, etc .....

I am mentioning states that voted for Obama in 2008, and where White Workers voted in a proportion or percentage high enough to allow an Obama Victory ( but lower than 50% in total, John McCain won the White Worker Vote ).

Democrats are cowardly and ungratefully abandoning the Obama ship in Virginia !....

Wall Street Journal

Obama's Virginia Defeat

Democrats were trounced in Tuesday's state legislature election, despite the president's heavy investment of time in the state.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

NOVEMBER 11, 2011


Obama's Virginia Defeat


Some excerpts :

Elected state Democrats—who form the backbone of grass-roots movements—couldn't distance themselves far enough from Mr. Obama in this race. Most refused to mention the president, to defend his policies, or to appear with him. The more Republicans sought to nationalize the Virginia campaign, the more Democrats stressed local issues.

State House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong felt compelled to run an ad protesting that it was a "stretch" for his GOP opponent to "compare me to Barack Obama." After all, he was "pro-life, pro-gun and I always put Virginia first." (Mr. Armstrong lost on Tuesday.)

Virginia Democrats were happy to identify with one top official: Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is providing a lesson in the benefits of smart GOP governance in battleground states. Criticized as being too socially conservative for Virginia when he was elected in 2009, Mr. McDonnell has won over voters by focusing on the economy and jobs. His approval ratings are in the 60s, and he helped raise some $5 million for local candidates. He's popular enough that Democrats took to including pictures of him in their campaign literature, and bragging that they'd worked with him.

Mr. McDonnell has been particularly adept at connecting with the independent, white-collar voters Mr. Obama used to win Virginia in 2008. That crowd lives in North Virginia's booming exurb counties of Prince William and Loudoun, and presidential races hinge on their votes. Mr. Obama's 2008 victory in Virginia rested on his significant wins in both Loudoun (8%) and Prince Williams (16%).

Yet Tuesday's results showed the extent to which that support has reversed. Loudoun in particular proved an unmitigated rout for Democrats. Republicans won or held three of four of the county's Senate seats. It swept all seven of the county's House seats. It won all nine slots on the county's Board of Supervisors, and pretty much every other county office. In Prince William, the story was much the same. This is what happens when a recent Quinnipiac poll shows Mr. Obama's approval rating among Virginia independents at 29%.

Democrats are now arguing that turnout (about 30%) was too low to prove anything, but then again, the particularly low Democratic turnout suggests that, on top of everything else, the White House really does face an enthusiasm gap. It's still got time to try to remedy that problem, and some other Virginia fundamentals. But going by Tuesday's results, Mr. Plouffe might need to start considering Electoral Plan C.

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How to set off a Big Recession : the expected cuts will come on top of the expiration of extended unemployment benefits, the end of a payroll tax cut, and continuing reductions in state and local budgets — all when American consumers (whose spending is 70 percent of the economy) will still be reeling from declining jobs and wages and plunging home prices

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SALON.COM
Robert Reich : Don’t even think about cutting the deficit
Until unemployment is back down to 5 percent, budget reduction shouldn't be part of the conversation
Thursday, Nov 10, 2011

By Robert Reich

Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. He is also a blogger and the author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future."

Robert Reich : Don’t even think about cutting the deficit


Some excerpts :

The biggest trigger on the minds of Washington insiders is $1.2 trillion across-the-board cuts that will automatically occur if Congress’s supercommittee doesn’t come up with at least $1.2 trillion of cuts on its own that Congress agrees to by December 23.

That automatic trigger seems likelier by the day because at this point the odds of an agreement are roughly zero.

Here’s the truly insane thing: The triggered cuts start in 2013, a little over a year from now.

Yet no one in their right mind believes unemployment will be lower than 8 percent by then.

The cuts will come on top of the expiration of extended unemployment benefits, the end of a payroll tax cut, and continuing reductions in state and local budgets — all when American consumers (whose spending is 70 percent of the economy) will still be reeling from declining jobs and wages and plunging home prices. Even if Europe’s debt crisis doesn’t by then threaten a global financial meltdown, this rush toward austerity couldn’t come at a worse time.

In other words, what will really be triggered is a deeper recession and higher unemployment.

Democrats on the supercommittee are acting as if they haven’t met an unemployed person. They’re proposing $2.3 trillion in deficit reductions — half from spending cuts (including $350 billion from Medicare), half from tax increases. To make the tax increases palatable to Republicans, Democrats want to give Congress a chance to find the new revenues by overhauling the tax code. If that effort fails, automatic tax increases would be triggered. The top tax rate won’t rise (another bow to Republicans) but top earners’ itemized deductions will be limited.

Oh, and by the way, under the Democrats’ proposal, spending cuts and tax increases, triggered or not, would start in 2013.

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The U. S. Suprme Court grants some certioraris, denies many others - "Papers Please" SB-1070 and Obamacare are pending and Certioraris have not yet been granted for these two - Read here the last SC pdf document of court orders

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Great Delay for the Two Greatest Hot Potatos :

The U. S. Supreme Court is not in a haste to be burned with the Hot Potatos of Arizona Immigration Law and Red Hot ObamaCare. That is Wisdom, Shrewdness, Sagacity. The Justices have the quality of being discerning, sound in judgment, and farsighted.

It is a good idea to avoid the two ticking bombs and wait for more jurisprudence of lower courts and for more political developments, like the Elections that took place on last tuesday.

The November sitting is over. Oral arguments are scheduled to resume on November 28, the first day of the December sitting. So November is almost blank.

This is the last PDF document of Supreme Court Orders - Issued on November 7 of 2011


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Obama needs to focus on building support among Independents, which include large numbers of white working-class and middle-class families, win the heartland states stretching from Pennsylvania to Iowa that gave Obama one-third of the 365 electoral votes in 2008

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This is an Important and excellent article in "The New Republic" by William Galston, I agree with him, this is a dangerous election - First I comment my impressions, feelings, intuitions and crazy divinations, right or wrong, and later I present the article of William Galston :

The other option for Obama that Galston rejects is bad and poor strategy for the President : that is "2008 on steroids" :

This is "mobilizing huge numbers of upscale professionals, unmarried women, young adults, and minorities—the coalition that reelected Colorado Senator Michael Bennet in 2010. This approach implies a focus on “new majority” states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, North Carolina, or even Arizona and Georgia, which the Obama team reportedly regards as being within reach".

That focus on Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Unmarried Women, Intellectuals and Professionals with Great Education, Women's Rights, Gays, Lesbians and others, won't work so well as capturing the White Working Class Men in the Midwest and center of the Nation.

Obama should concentrate in Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, Add North Carolina if you Wish.

Latinos in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, etc .... won't be enough. To think that Obama can capture Georgia or Arizona is extremely naive and a very difficult proposition but it is not impossible.

To think that Obama is going to capture Texas is Madness, but as always I say that nothing is impossible and that State should be worked for Obama and the Democrats. The more grass roots people working in Texas for Obama, the better. That would endanger the Republicans.


The New Republic
Why Obama’s 2008 Coalition Won’t Save Him This Time
By William Galston

November 8, 201


Why Obama’s 2008 Coalition Won’t Save Him This Time


Some excerpts :

For reasons that I’ve laid out at length in “One Year to Go: Barack Obama’s Uphill Battle for Reelection in 2012,” the latter is the course more likely to succeed in the end. Briefly: It won’t be possible to recreate the political context that permitted the extraordinary mobilization of young adults and Hispanics in 2008. And it’s no accident that no Democrat since JFK has won the presidency without carrying Ohio, which is a demographic, economic, and political microcosm of the country as a whole. Most Democrats remember that Obama’s share of the popular vote topped John Kerry’s by 5 percentage points. They are likely to forget, however that liberals contributed less than one point to that increase, while moderates contributed about two and a half points and conservatives, about one and a half. Reenergizing the party’s liberal base is a necessary but not sufficient condition for victory next year.  

This latter strategy—rebuilding support among Independents—implies that Obama’s task is one of persuasion as well as mobilization. He will have to convince some of the voters he has lost since his inauguration to give him a second look and another chance. This may seem to be mission impossible. If it turns out to be, his chances of winning reelection are remote.

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VIDEO and Speeches of Cenk Uygur against Mitt Romney - 20% of conservative voters say they are less likely to vote for Romney because of his religion. It's even worse among very conservative voters, 32% of whom have no qualms about discriminating against him because of his faith.

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Those are shockingly high numbers of people who have already eliminated him (unjustly), and those are just the ones admitting it.


See an anti-Romney Video of Cenk Uygur at the bottom of this page :



Huffington Post
Huckabee the Scrivener: The Man Who Could be President, But Prefers Not To
By Cenk Uygur
November 10, 2011

Huckabee the Scrivener: The Man Who Could be President, But Prefers Not To

Some excerpts :

But conservative voters are right about their central arguments against Romney -- he is a flip-flopper, he is a slimy politician and he will say anything to get elected. These Republicans are thirsting for a real conservative to vote for. Meanwhile, there has been an absolute implosion of the other conservative candidates. Bachmann lasted about five seconds. Herman Cain is in a tailspin now, but was obviously never qualified to begin with. And Rick Perry might as well have screamed "Allahu Akbar!" as he blew himself up in last night's debate.

Huckabee is an unquestioned social conservative, so I think he would win Iowa and South Carolina with relative ease. But more importantly, he is an excellent fake populist. I'm confident that in the end, like all Republicans, he would do whatever the big banks want him to do. But he talks a good game about feeling your pain and being against the powerful that are screwing you. He is the definition of folksy. And the country is in desperate search of folksy as opposed to slimy.

In fact, I think he is far more electable than Romney is when it comes to taking on Obama. President Obama struggles mightily at faking populism. And in reality, he has an enormous track record of helping the big banks in getting almost everything they ever wanted (he made the fatal mistake of once hurting their feelings though by calling them "fat cats"). Romney is the most obviously pro-Wall Street candidate in history, when the country is in a massively anti-Wall Street mood. I think Huckabee stands an excellent chance of cleaning both of their clocks.

But apparently, he would prefer not to. Who stands this good a chance of being the next president -- and doesn't take it? Jesus, how good is that Fox News salary? I know that people think he has grown too fat and comfortable, but now that there isn't even that much time before the first caucus he wouldn't even have to discomfort himself that much. If he doesn't get in, he will go down in history as Huckabee the Scrivener - the man who could have been president and preferred not to.

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Will Huckabee Challenge Romney in 2012?

Uploaded by TheYoungTurks on Oct 15, 2011

Will former Governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee jump into the Presidential Race and challenge fellow Republican Mitt Romney in the GOP primary? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur explains.

Will Huckabee Challenge Romney in 2012? 

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VIDEO : Raquel Teran from Promise Arizona, Pro Jerry Lewis Activist, went door to door and almost bed to bed to wake up people ! - These activists will work for President Obama in November 2012, door to door and bed to bed

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Russell Pearce recalled with help from Latino youth : The future of Arizona, as seen in the latest US Census numbers, will be a youth that is minority, mostly Latino. Today they are working with Republicans, Democrats, and Progressives to ensure a better future for Arizona by helping to recall Russell Pearce!

Uploaded by WhatABCs on Nov 9, 2011

Russell Pearce recalled with help from Latino youth

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Yesterday's Elections : The Obama campaign is holding up last night's victories in a number of state and local elections as an illustration of the grassroots muscle in position to held the president in 2012. Vote Shows Organizing Muscle

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POLITICO.COM
Barack Obama camp: 2011 vote shows organizing muscle
By ALEXANDER BURNS
November 9, 2011


Barack Obama camp: 2011 vote shows organizing muscle


Some excerpts :

In a "Year Out" memo this morning, field director Jeremy Bird makes the case that Democratic organizing efforts are already paying off:

By now most of you have seen some of the results from yesterday’s elections. Voters in Ohio overwhelming rejected Governor John Kasich’s anti-worker bill, standing strong against a Republican agenda that seeks to put a greater economic burden on the shoulders of hard working middle-class families.

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx cruised to re-election with more than 67% of the vote, demonstrating strong Democratic support in a North Carolina city where voter turnout and support will be critical for President Obama in 2012. ...

Continue Reading

As many of you know, this past Sunday marked one year until the 2012 election. As part of this milestone, supporters of Barack Obama came together across the country and organized 2,120 local grassroots events, ranging from voter registration drives in Nevada, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Missouri; to voter education drives in places like Wisconsin and Colorado aimed at protecting voting rights; to get-out-the-vote drives in Ohio, Virginia, Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Indiana; to direct voter contact events in New Hampshire, Michigan, and Washington. ...

The goal of this Year Out organizing drive was to focus on state and local organizing priorities while reinforcing our core campaign organizing goals: building our neighborhood teams; bringing new voters into the political process; reaching out directly to core constituencies; building the most expansive GOTV operation ever; and protecting voters rights.

By all these measures, this past week has been a huge success. ...

Colorado had 537 volunteers participate in its Day of Action on Saturday - with 58 staging locations run by volunteer leaders. In addition to thousands of one-on-one conversations on the phones and at the doors, Colorado volunteers scheduled 118 one-on-one meetings, where they will sit down face-to-face with Obama supporters and independents in the state.

In the past few days, we also opened campaign offices in Portsmouth (NH), Minneapolis (MN), Anne Arbor (MI), Henderson (NV), Fort Collins (CO), and St. Louis (MO). We just finished opening six additional offices in Wisconsin – Madison, Green Bay, Waukesha, Kenosha, and two in Milwaukee – after opening a host of local offices in Iowa over the past few weeks. The local offices will serve as campaign headquarters for our local neighborhood teams – meeting places to strategize, socialize and reach out to voters in their communities. We are opening an average of three offices per week in the past month.

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