Patterico's Pontifications

4/9/2012

American Crossroads, Obama start shaping battlegrounds

Filed under: 2012 Election — Karl @ 9:43 am



[Posted by Karl]

The American Crossroads SuperPAC is planning an anti-Obama ad blitz to give cover to likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney:

The prolonged and hard-fought nominating contest, Mr. Romney’s advisers said, has put his campaign nearly two months behind on its initial plan to build political and field operations in the dozen states where both sides agree that most of the general election will be fought: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. (In the final phase of the campaign, Romney officials believe that the election could come down to just four states: Colorado, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.)

Republican elected officials and strategists acknowledged in interviews that Mr. Romney had significant ground to make up — Mr. Obama leads in many early polls of swing states.

BuzzFeed looks at ObamaHQ in Chicago, but the main thing is to look at the map to see how far ahead they are in setting up field offices in key states.  I noted last November that Team Obama was peppering Colorado with offices, but you can see he’s doing the same in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina (there are few in Nevada, but the population is concentrated there also).

National Journal’s Alex Roarty is intrigued that Team Romney is targeting the Mountain West as potentially decisive, instead of states like Pennsylvania.  He really shouldn’t be surprised.  The left eyes the Mountain West and Southwest as fertile ground for its Emerging Democratic Majority, but it’s one of Romney’s strongest regions in this campaign.  Even now, while the polling generally favors Obama, the latest Purple Poll has Romney within the margin of error in the Mountain West and Southern Swing states.

–Karl

21 Responses to “American Crossroads, Obama start shaping battlegrounds”

  1. Ding!

    Karl (f07e38)

  2. ahhh. so you’re saying it’s up to Team Romney to salt this fertile ground for so Team Obama reaps a bitter harvest in November?

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  3. feets!

    Always with the spicy comment.

    Karl (f07e38)

  4. Their burn rate is pretty remarkable, given their lagging fundraising, no?

    JD (34d969)

  5. Hot Air says that Santorum is forcing Mr. Romney to spend millions in Pennsylvania.

    It’s hard not to conclude that the Santorum is thinking that he’d be in a whole lot better shape in 2016 if Obama wins, and in not very good shape at all in 2016 if Mr. Romney wins.

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  6. JD,

    Afaik, their burn rate is large. But I’m guessing they think the fundaising will pick up for the general, when they really start dialing up the fear of a GOP POTUS/Congress.

    Karl (f07e38)

  7. Choosing between “Justice demands we regress to the world mean” and “Manage the decline” is hard to sort out.

    Slowly turning up the heat is certain to boil the frogs. OTOH frogs just blend into the background and melt away rather than fight.

    A plague of frogs does not really figure to strike fear in a bolshevik’s heart.

    What to do?

    gary gulrud (d88477)

  8. Found this of interest, given the subject of Karl’s post…

    “Late last week I heard from a theologian of liberal leanings, someone with whom I have been in (often friendly) correspondence for years. He wrote me to voice his objections to my recent “diatribes” against President Obama. That didn’t particularly surprise me. What did surprise me is how he framed his objections. He didn’t take issue with the facts I’ve presented or even my interpretation of the facts. Rather, his concerns were expressed this way:

    When I read your constant barrages aimed at the first black president, I think to myself, “Doesn’t Pete, the devout Christian, understand what it took to get to this place? And where would Pete have been in the years of the freedom struggle that finally eventuated in some measure of equality for African-Americans and even a black president?” Isn’t there some way you can temper your attacks on Obama with this history in mind?”

    http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/09/obama-and-racial-double-standards/#more-790542

    Colonel Haiku (7efa05)

  9. There are no battleground states in a landslide.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  10. It’s SO depressing to read this. How can ANYONE say that. No, I understand how, but I don’t understand how a THINKING person can do that.

    I don’t know anyone who won’t vote for a black. I know a lot who won’t vote for distributionist, Statist nasty people who are not acting in a way that gives honor to the office. I’d vote for a number of blacks who happen to be conservatives. But even those blacks get tarred with the racist brush! They’re “Uncle Tom”s who just submit to the Man. UGH.

    Perpetuating racism is simply disgusting, and that’s all this does. It’s not racism from the anti-Obama crowd, it’s the very real and blatant racism from the pro-Obama crowd. This liberal asking we ignore the lies, threats, poor policies and malfeasance of this Presidency merely because POTUS IS black. How SHAMEFUL.

    Now, I will admit, when Obama himself plays the race card, he doesn’t exactly make me feel good about blacks with chips on their shoulders. When Holder ignores the voter intimidation of the New Black Panthers…I feel he is just a bigot. So does that make ME an anti-Black bigot?

    This meme is one of single most destructive facets of this administration and this President, a man who was supposed to bring us together, but instead has worsened race relations. Liberals with this line-of-thinking do nothing but worsen the divide, as the rest of us refuse to play along.

    I despise Obama, but I don’t give a crap that he’s black. But he can’t use it as an excuse, either, nor as something to attack those who oppose his horrible policies. I am entitled to disagree and even dislike this man. I didn’t love Bush because he was white…he made tremendous errors and I was often angry with him too. So what? Did that mean I hated whites?

    Race cannot be used as a crutch, a prop, something to forgive lies and bad governance. We should be color-blind about this, and yet, the liberals try to tar as all as racist, but then ask for special privileges for POTUS. You can’t have it both ways. Either I treat Obama like a MAN, a human being, good or bad…and I evaluate his decisions based on anything BUT color, which is as it should be…or I’m a racist who decides that his decisions are all race-based and either good because he’s black or bad because he’s black.

    It all revolves around color and affirmative action and grievance and victim mentality. It’s wrong for a President. he sinks or swims on his RECORD, and no, he gets no breaks for being black, sorry, that’s just insane and racist in itself.

    Liberalism…the loss of sanity and the addition of artificial grievance. Always angry and facts mean nothing. Destructive…ALWAYS.

    Mo (37f572)

  11. Check the 2012 staff pix @ BuzzFeed….
    Whiter than a TEA Party Rally.

    The Lightworker is really into diversity.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  12. Mo – just excellent post. Clear and precise. And exactly the way I feel about the state of race relations in this country. For the first time in my life, I am truly sick of the race card. It has been so overused in recent times that as soon as the usual bunch began attacking Zimmerman; I actually assumed he must be as innocent as the Duke LaCrosse guys. I am happy to deal with people like Lloyd Marcus, Allen West, Marco Rubio because they are proud Americans not race baiters. But I no longer will give credence to people like Sharpton,Jackson and Sheila Jackson Lee or any other person who bases their beliefs on race alone. I am 50 this year and very saddened by the way racialists have divided this country to the detriment of all.

    TexasMom2012 (cee89f)

  13. “Romney officials believe that the election could come down to just four states: Colorado, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.”

    I don’t really get the calculation that puts NV in the ‘decisive’ column. Housing and Employment puts the state at the bottom of the misery index. Moreover, its only 6 votes.

    Who are all the folks on the dole in NV that the state is fertile ground for the Soviet?

    Give McBain IN, NH & MA McVain lost that only gets him to 338. FL & NC for 296 is an uphill bayonet fight. He could drop MO if he’s careless.

    gary gulrud (d88477)

  14. Obama is going to lose my home state of NC in November, 2012.

    m (7719b0)

  15. Roarty, from the previous National Journal segment is distracted by ‘small shiny objects’

    narciso (4ae4e7)

  16. Florida is to this election what air is to breathing. Ergo if that article is accurate then it’s more than a little bit disconcerting.

    If Team Romney really believes the election will come down to CO, NV, OH and VA, then they better know something the rest of us don’t know about Florida. Florida alone is worth more than VA, NV and CO, combined. Florida has an above-average percentage of blacks and turnout among that demographic will in Nov. be substantial. No GOP presidential candidate has cleared even 52% of the vote in Florida since 1988.

    If Romney doesn’t win Florida then the chances of him winning this election will fall somewhere between a 2-7 in Texas Hold ‘Em and a 50-1 shot at the Breeders’ Cup. Romney better focus a lot more on Florida and a lot less on the likes of NV and CO.

    Tsar Nicholas II (cb2d5b)

  17. “The notion of Rick Santorum being the early front-runner in 2016 from (April) 2012 is a non-starter,” Galen said. “There is a lot of talent in the Republican Party that he’s going to have to climb over.”*

    Duh. This Santorum person has already amply demonstrated that Mitt Romney has a broader appeal than he does.

    Think about that for a second.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  18. having a broader appeal doesn’t make mitty conservative. It makes him a true blue rino.

    sickofrinos (44de53)

  19. 16. Begala blows away everything I sorta kinda maybe thought decided the VP pick’em: It’s who da candidate likes.

    IOW, McDonnell is still a strong contender, but Portman from othewise lost OH is stronger.

    Pleasing the base, with Ryan or Rubio, never really got within a length of the leader.

    Tell me why re: FL why seniors would prefer Willard to Stalin’s Bootblack?

    gary gulrud (d88477)

  20. From James Taranto’s Best of the Web today by the Wall Street Journal

    Bye-Ku for Rick Santorum

    I want to throw up
    All religions make me sick
    Oops, wrong Kennedy

    (The wrong Kennedy is a reference to the fact that the trope of wanting to throw up seems to come from a 1981 hardcore punk song “Religious Vomit” by the Dead Kennedys.)

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


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