The latest survey from Public Policy Polling gives Pres. Obama a commanding 12-point lead over Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. Obama has surged to a 53-41 lead, a 14-point swing from ten months ago when Romney led 46-44.
The reason for this huge boost in Obama’s fortunes in this swing state is two-fold: an improvement in his own public image and a decline in Romney’s.
Romney is improving with his partisans (up from 63% to 77% favorability with Republicans), but has slipped drastically from a barely positive 43-42 favorability spread overall to 40% seeing him favorably and 54% unfavorably now. That negative movement is entirely with Democrats (from 25-58 to 8-89) and independents (43-40 to 38-53).
On the flip side, 52% approve and 45% disapprove of the president’s job performance, up 10 points on the margin from 46-49 last summer. Obama is also consolidating support with his base (from 83% to 92% approval) but also with independents (from 39% to 51%).
PPP surveyed 1,163 New Hampshire voters with a margin of error of +/-2.9%. The automated telephone interviews were conducted May 10-13, 2012.
In the classic swing state of New Hampshire, Romney closed his only office immediately after the January 10 primary. To the astonishment of local Obama organisers, a “for lease” sign was hung outside the Romney headquarters four days before the vote was held. Obama, by contrast, has seven offices up and running in the state, with more than 25 paid staff.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The Obama campaign today officially embraced the “Obamacare” epithet. The “I Like Obamacare” campaign includes an online petition, an #ILikeObamaCare Twitter hashtag, and a Facebook page that allows people to “like” Obamacare.
Today is the two-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. Since then, the law that almost everyone calls Obamacare has been doing exactly what the other side has hoped it wouldn’t do: It’s been working. It’s about time we give it the love it deserves. Let everyone know: “I like Obamacare.”
Progressive advocacy groups Colorado Health Access and Progress Now Colorado launched a similar campaign last fall:
President Obama’s speech in Manchester this week was briefly interrupted by a mic check protest organized by Occupy New Hampshire. The protest, which called attention to the violent suppression of the Occupy movement, was criticized by more than one Blue Hampshire commenter as “rude.”
Guilty as charged. As we’ve seen from groups like Act Up and Code Pink, provocative and, yes, rude protests can be effective at creating a public awareness of issues not being addressed by politicians and the media. And despite criticism of the initial protests, this public attention has led to mainstream acceptance and political action.
So was the mic check action successful? Certainly, if you measure success by the attention it generated. Every major news organization covered the protest. It was the opening story on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Rachel Maddow devoted over eight minutes to it.
Or how about this account from Ryan Glen Hirsch, the Occupy protester who handed the president a note with the mic check message?
So when Obama started making his way to the door, Hirsch found himself close enough to tell the president, “I am really sorry we interrupted your speech, but here is a copy of the mic check. Just wanted to be sure you got the message.”
Hirsch said the president acknowledged his apology and made a comment about his own intentions to be more vocal about the movement.
When President Obama traveled to Manchester today to present the case for his American Jobs Act, he was interrupted by a “mic check” protest organized by Occupy New Hampshire. The call-and-response protest demanded the President speak out against the “campaign of fear and intimidation used against Occupy protesters.”
”Mr. President. Over 4,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested. While Banksters continue to destroy the economy. You MUST stop the assault on our First Amendment rights. Your silence sends a message that police brutality is acceptable.”
The President stopped speaking and listened to the protesters before they were drowned out by the audience. He later acknowledged the Occupy movement in his speech:
“A lot of the folks who’ve been down in New York and all across the country in the Occupy movement, there is a profound sense of frustration, there’s a profound sense of frustration about the fact that the essence of the American dream, which is that if you work hard, if you stick to it that you can make it, feels like that’s slipping away, and that’s not the way things are supposed to be, not here, not in America.
“This is a place where your hard work and your responsibility’s supposed to pay off, it’s supposed to be a big, compassionate country where everybody who works hard should have a chance to get ahead, not just the person who owns the factory, but then men and women who work on the factory floor.”
Four New Hampshire state representatives have joined an election law complaint challenging President Obama’s right to be on the ballot for the 2012 New Hampshire primary.
The 85-page complaint was filed by Birther Queen Orly Taitz, who claims President Obama is using a fraudulent Social Security number and a forged birth certificate.
Reps. Harry Accornero (R, Laconia), Laurence Rappaport (R, Colebrook), Carol Vita (R, Middleton) and Lucien Vita (R, Middleton) notified Taitz they are joining as additional complainants.
The Ballot Law Commission will meet today at 2:00 p.m. in Room 307 of the Legislative Office Building to hear the complaint.
Earlier this month, Congressman Frank Guinta took to the editorial pages to lambaste President Obama’s jobs bill as an attack on the work of charitable organizations.
You may be surprised to learn just how big [nonprofit organizations] role is, and even more surprised to hear what some people in Washington are trying to do that would hinder their efforts to provide much-needed services. …
[T]he jobs bill that President Obama submitted to Congress last month contained harmful consequences to nonprofit groups.
I agree our tax code needs substantial, powerful reforms. But we must ensure we don’t penalize the very groups that are doing so much to help our communities.
In a letter to the editor, Joan Jacobs sets the record straight on the jobs bill provisions — and takes Guinta to task for choosing to protect the tax privileges of the top 1% over putting people back to work.
Mr. Guinta should know better. President Obama’s proposed limitations would apply only to families with taxable incomes over $250,000. And for that top 1 percent, the change would be modest. Their tax deductions for charitable giving would be reduced from the high 35 percent they get now to the 28 percent most of the rest of us get.
Among the many good things that would result from the Jobs Act: preventing layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters; modernizing more than 35,000 schools; expanding access to high-speed wireless Internet service; and helping veterans get hired. An estimated 18,000 long-term unemployed in New Hampshire could benefits from this legislation.
Frank Guinta and his tea party Republican allies in Congress are doing everything they can to kill the American Jobs Act. Their overriding goal is to protect the tax privileges given to the top 1 percent, even if it means turning their backs on the rest of us.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” the 1993 legislation that allowed gays to serve in the military only if they kept their sexual orientation private, is no the longer the law of the land. Tuesday at midnight, DADT was officially repealed and the military can no longer prevent gays from serving openly in its ranks.
President Obama, who signed the Repeal Act into law last December, celebrated the policy’s end as a “giant step.”
For more than two centuries, we have worked to extend America’s promise to all our citizens. Our armed forces have been both a mirror and a catalyst of that progress, and our troops, including gays and lesbians, have given their lives to defend the freedoms and liberties that we cherish as Americans. Today, every American can be proud that we have taken another great step toward keeping our military the finest in the world and toward fulfilling our nation’s founding ideals.
In New Hampshire, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen also voiced strong support:
“We need our best and bravest Americans serving in our military,” she said. “The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell strengthens our country’s security, enhances our military readiness, and most importantly, it is the right thing to do.”
Granite State Republicans were less enthusiastic. Gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne had expressed approval of DADT, saying it “has worked.” When contacted by the Portsmouth Herald for their reaction, Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Congressman Frank Guinta declined comment.
Following President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress outlining his jobs plan, comments by the GOP Congressional leadership struck a tone of conciliation and compromise. Not so for local Republicans, who disparaged the proposal as a “second stimulus plan” by likening it to the 2009 Recovery Act.
“The stimulus didn’t work to rejuvenate our economy the first time. Another version under a different title will have the same failing effects, while piling up even more debt for our grandchildren to repay,” said NH State Republican Party Chairman Wayne MacDonald.
Rep. Frank Guinta (NH-01) released the following statement after President Obama’s address to a Joint Session of Congress this evening: … “We can’t afford to waste hundreds of billions of additional dollars on a second stimulus plan.”
Of course, all of this criticism is based on the incorrect assumption that the 2009 Recovery Act didn’t work. But as the Congressional Budget Office has continually found, the Recovery Act created or supported millions of jobs, keeping the unemployment rate up to two points below where it otherwise would have been. At its height in the third quarter of 2010, Recovery Act funds were supporting up to 3.6 million jobs.
Last week, a mailer went out across the state from the American Action Network thanking Congressmen Bass and Guinta for “protecting” Medicare.
The mailer is one of the most deceptive pieces of campaign literature I’ve ever seen. It accuses President Obama of ”trying to radically change the Medicare Prescription Drug Program with Medicaid-style price controls.” Meanwhile, Guinta is praised for joining a “bi-partisan effort to block President Obama from balancing the budget on the backs of seniors with these drastic changes to Medicare.
New Hampshire voters will soon be receiving calls holding Reps. Bass and Guinta accountable for “playing games with the debt ceiling.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “We Don’t Quit” campaign will feature automated calls in 60 districts around the country, including both New Hampshire districts. Here’s part of the message:
“Congressman Frank Guinta and Speaker Boehner would rather our economy default just to protect tax breaks for Big Oil companies and billionaire jet-owners. Republicans quit negotiating with President Obama on raising the debt ceiling.
“This is serious. Guinta’s billionaire buddies will be ok. But we will pay the price if government can’t pay its bills. Our Social Security and Medicare benefits are at risk. Interest rates would spike for our credit cards, car loans, and mortgages. Our 401(k) retirement accounts would drop. And, gas and food prices would skyrocket.
“Enough is enough. Call Congressman Frank Guinta and tell him not to gamble our future to protect tax breaks for Big Oil and billionaires.”
New Hampshire GOP Chair Jack Kimball says if President Obama is reelected in 2012, the deaths of those who fought and died for this country will have been “completely in vain.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m looking at what has happened. All that we treasure lost: people, the loss of life, people who are psychologically and physiologically damaged for life, the sacrifices of the families that supported then. All of this.
And I wonder what we did. Look at who we put in the White House. You think about that and we realize the profound responsibility that we have this time. In my view, if we reelect this man, all that all of the people fought and died for is completely in vain.
