Party Like It is 2008

++Birtherism is back in force. Even though the Arizona Secretary of State backed down, Sheriff Arapio has sent deputies from his Dead Case Posse out to Hawaii to investigate and Donald Trump has also sent a private investigator out to Hawaii to prove the President wasn't born in the United States. This is all beginning to feel like a replay of the last election.


++Cubs' owner Joe Ricketts, who wanted to run attack ads against President Obama on Jeremiah Wright, has now found a new vehicle--making Dinesh D'Souza's book attacking President Obama into a movie. The chief attack on President Obama is that he has a "de-colonial mentality". 


++I have also been sent several right-wing viral e-mails suggesting that the Solicitor General has been told that the Supreme Court verdict is 5 to 4 against healthcare and that the Obama White House is now going to pressure the Supreme Court to change their ways. I don't know how to read this. If true, the decision would be truly horrible for Americans and for the legacy of the Supreme Court. Or should we take the myth of pressure as a way to rationalize to conservatives the Supreme Court upholding the health care law. The problem with these e-mails is they are often so incoherent you don't know what the ultimate political point. We know the basics--they hate President Obama but I can not fathom the rest.


++Also received a viral of how wonderful Willard Romney is and how he built so many businesses and volunteered for his "church" for free. This was about the time last campaign that we would received viral e-mails about John McCain's record, his wonderful marriage and family and how he was an American hero as opposed to that black guy. The problem with this e-mail was that the writer said that Willard's name was Willard Mitt. Please get these details right. Milton. Mitt is the nickname he got after a relative that used to play football--not him.


++Another e-mail suggested that Barack Obama can't practice law. Who cares?


++The big story spread by Huffington Post but circulated this weekend was that Obama smoked dope. Where were the MSM when this happened? Gee, I remember a New York Times piece about this during the last campaign. The real question here is how does that impact on his enforcement of crackdowns on medical marijuana. That is a real issue.


++A flap that I have overlooked because it is nuts is the kerfluffle over Elizabeth Warren. It seems--like me--Elizabeth Warren is 1/32nd Cherokee Indian and apparently listed her Native American roots on a Harvard list. The Brown campaign has tried to make it out like she was hired as an affirmative action candidate at Harvard on an erroneous basis. First, Ronald Reagan's Solicitor General Fried was the one who recommended her to Harvard Law School and he said in a letter printed a few days ago that he never knew she was native american. For the record, if you are 1/32nd Cherokee, according to the nation, you are a Cherokee. Apparently, none of this has moved the voters in Massachusetts.


++So the Romney campaign is still sputtering about the Obama Bain ads. As every Democratic pollster has noted, they struck home. Romney tried to change the subject by talking about education policy, where he thinks President Obama is in trouble. This doesn't register on voter concerns but maybe it will emerge as an issue.


++Newt Gingrich said Romney will get 40% of the Hispanic vote. George W. did but he spoke Spanish, had a Spanish-speaking brother who was Governor of Florida who had a Latino son. He also did not advocate the Arizona immigration laws as a model for the country as has Romney and did not advocate "self-deportation". The problem is that Romney has no Latino surrogates, no African American surrogates or LBGT surrogates. Only this past week Republican women are trying to cobble together a woman's caucus because the gender gap has morphed into a giant chasm. 


++So where are we? Steve Singisier of the Dailykos, their polling guru, says that the next ten days in the 2012 election cycle will be the most watchable days until the election day itself. We have been flooded with polls. I have 25 polls listed today and apparently a ton are expected this week. By and large Singisier says that Obama incrementally has a better week this week. He basically is on his 2008 numbers or exceeding them. He is polling above last election in Ohio,Tennessee, and Arizona.  While I have written off Indiana Obama only trails by 46 to 40 there. With Dick Lugar losing to a tea party candidate, Democrats have a renewed life in the state. Nationally, Obama leads in all the polls, except Rasmussen where he is 1pt behind. Bottom line--take Huffington Post's  electoral  vote count at 284-181.