Has Romney Been Running Under the Radar In PA?

Pennsylvania is the forbidden fruit for Republicans; desired but always out of reach. News reports over the last 24 hours indicate that Romney is going to make a major push in that state. Paul Ryan visited the state on Saturday, and Romney has dispatched 60 plus staffers to the state — with more on the way. There are polls showing Romney ahead.

Has this plan been in the works for some months?

From all appearances, the poll cited below by TD is from a reputable polling firm. I spent some time last night perusing their website and, although it seems like a small outfit, it does appear to be a legitimate pollster.

In fact, one of the most striking things is that the firm, Susquehanna, has been tracking a below-the-radar campaign by Romney in that state.

Although keen political observers like Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard have dismissed this unknown pollster (Tweeting that “Romney up in PA? Meh. Haven’t seen any ads here for him. As of last ad buys, he thought he was down more than he can make up.”)

A news item was posted to their website commenting on the closeness of the race based on their polls and, most importantly, that Romney was spending money on advertising.

After two SP&R polls showing Romney and Obama still in a tight race in the Keystone State, Romney released two TV Commericals that specifically target the region.

This ad is sponsored by the “Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania.”  The two polls referenced above were sponsored by the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh Tribune. The more recent poll was also sponsored by the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania.

It’s been widely reported that the RNC is sitting on huge sums of cash. It would not be a stretch to imagine that these state level Republican groups, in coordination with the RNC, have been laying the groundwork for a final two-week Romney blitz in Pennsylvania, a well-orchestrated roll-out and the ginning up of excitement in a state which Romney would love to poach.

Remember that during the Republican primaries, Gingrich seemed to have stopped Romney cold with a victory in South Carolina. As Byron York wrote at the time, Romney had to do three things to win in Florida a mere 10 days later:

1) attack Gingrich with a level of ferocity not yet seen in the already-contentious Republican presidential campaign; 2) raise the level of his performance in debate; and 3) improve his on-the-stump message to give voters more substance and fewer platitudes.

In the battle that now rages, Romney has been doing all three nationally and in Pennsylvania. He’s got twice the amount of time he had going into Florida, and the Republican state committee has been softening things up for just such a pincer move, typical of Romney and his brilliant strategists. Win or lose in Pennsylvania, it’s going to make Obama spend precious resources there.

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Body Language Says it All

Are human beings just advanced chimpanzees? In body language, it seems little has changed.

First, look at this picture carefully:

I think it fairly well captures the power dynamics on display in Denver last Wednesday night. The social cues — Romney’s dominance and Obama passivity — was glaringly on display. Although Romney won on words as well as optics, it may have been Obama’s beta presence which contributed to his weak performance.
Consider Peggy Noonan’s words:

“It wasn’t just Mitt Romney’s strong performance. It was President Obama’s amazingly weak one. He’s never been punctured before. But by debate’s end Wednesday night, if you opened the window this is what you could hear: Ssssssss. The soft hiss of air departing from a balloon.

And—amazingly again—he did it to himself. He didn’t fight, he didn’t show, he wasn’t awake and hungry. He just said the same-old-same-old and let it go. He couldn’t even meet Mr. Romney’s gaze, never mind his arguments.” [emphasis added]

Notice the words she employes: strong, weak, punctured, couldn’t meet Romney’s gaze. Because Obama is emotionally fragile, the presence of the confident Romney changed the center of gravity in the room. Now check out this video by Harvard Business School professor, Amy Cuddy. She studies body language and power, and interestingly the first minute shows Obama in his element, surrounded by his acolytes — and he displays shockingly different body language, not the naughty school boy being lectured by his domineering father.

Considering Obama’s submissive body language, it’s no wonder then that Peggy Noonan thinks that “The impact of the first debate is going to be bigger than we know. It’s going to affect thinking more than we know, and it’s going to start showing up in the polls, including in the battlegrounds, more dramatically than we guess.”

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Dark Horse Herman Cain Rocks It

“Not on our watch!”

You will not regret spending 30 minutes to watch this.

I love how Mr. Cain confronts the race card head on.

His speech is honest, hard-hitting, and passionate.

Well done, Mr. Cain. Bravo!

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Wow: Sunday WaPo Editorial Calls for Obama to Step Aside in 2012

I don’t know how much credibility  Schoen and Caddell have as Democratic advisers, but the very fact that the Washington Post is publishing this  proposal is odd at minimum, if not stunning.

One and done: To be a great president, Obama should not seek reelection in 2012

By Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. Caddell
Sunday, November 14, 2010

If the president goes down the reelection road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock, at a time when we can ill afford it. But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity and common purpose.

~~

The best way for him to address both our national challenges and the serious threats to his credibility and stature is to make clear that, for the next two years, he will focus exclusively on the problems we face as Americans, rather than the politics of the moment – or of the 2012 campaign.

Quite simply, given our political divisions and economic problems, governing and campaigning have become incompatible. Obama can and should dispense with the pollsters, the advisers, the consultants and the strategists who dissect all decisions and judgments in terms of their impact on the president’s political prospects.

Obama himself once said to Diane Sawyer: “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” He now has the chance to deliver on that idea.

~~

Obama owes his election in large measure to the fact that he rejected this approach during his historic campaign. Indeed, we were among those millions of Democrats, Republicans and independents who were genuinely moved by his rhetoric and purpose. Now, the only way he can make real progress is to return to those values and to say that for the good of the country, he will not be a candidate in 2012.

Should the president do that, he – and the country – would face virtually no bad outcomes. The worst-case scenario for Obama? In January 2013, he walks away from the White House having been transformative in two ways: as the first black president, yes, but also as a man who governed in a manner unmatched by any modern leader. He will have reconciled the nation, continued the economic recovery, gained a measure of control over the fiscal problems that threaten our future, and forged critical solutions to our international challenges. He will, at last, be the unifying figure globally he has sought to be, and will almost certainly leave a better regarded president than he is today. History will look upon him kindly – and so will the public.

It is no secret that we have been openly critical of the president in recent days, but we make this proposal with the deepest sincerity and hope for him and for the country.

I can’t imagine the Post publishing such an “opinion” without cause. Ideas anyone?  Do you think this is related to the WSJ’s bizarre suggestion a couple of weeks ago that Obama had not yet decided whether to run for re-election?  Why Would Donors Be Wondering in Nov. 2010 Whether Obama will Run for Re-election

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