Opinions

1. Steve Kornacki updates us on Orrin Hatch’s reelection campaign, and makes a good point about Super PACs.

2. Digby raises a good question and suggests an answer about libertarians and the GOP: Why is it that libertarians universally choose the Republican Party?

3. Mitt Romney today revised his promise on jobs – instead of a 4% unemployment target, now it’s 6%. Steve Benen explains what’s wrong with that.

4. Why you shouldn’t care what the Gallup “pro-choice” and “pro-life” numbers are: the underlying policy positions are pretty stable. From John Sides.

5. And Adam Serwer looks closely at the Gallup numbers, and emphasizes that people can call themselves “pro-life” while also believing abortion should be legal.

6. Okay, yes, it’s too early to talk about the electoral college…but if you must, Harry Enton has a good overview.

7. Ta-Nehisi Coates on Appalachian opposition to Barack Obama.

8. Another good explainer about the lawsuit over contraception, from Scott Lemieux

9. “I'm fairly certain this is the first-ever attack ad to feature the phrase ‘he was recently videoed publicly intoxicated being spanked.’” That’s Tim Murphy, reporting on what I think is fair to say is an interesting Texas House Democratic primary.

10. Annie Lowrey plays “who will be the next Secretary of the Treasury?”

11. A good Ed Kilgore post on civil rights history.

12. On the same topic, Jonathan Chait’s epic takedown of a really foolish conservative phony history.

13. Might as well link to my own contribution.

14. And Jackie Calmes on a White House moment to remember.

It’s not 2004 any more.

I’ve been looking at Republican Senate candidates’ Web sites today, and one of the things I was looking for was whether Republicans believe same-sex marriage is still a winner for them. The answer? A solid maybe, but perhaps leaning towards a “no.”

I looked at the 16 candidates most likely to wind up in the Senate in January, because they are running either for an open seat or against a perceived weak Democratic incumbent. Of those 16, half included their support of “traditional” marriage on the issue pages of their site.

What’s more, that was essentially the only issue about gay men and lesbians that attracted any interest. Only one of the candidates — Viriginia’s George Allen — took a position on any related issue. For what it’s worth, Allen still thinks it’s 2004 (or maybe he thinks it’s 1964, or something): He uses his issue page to oppose adding sexual orientation to the hate crimes list (that’s already happened) and adoption by same-sex couples. Allen also endorsed a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, which only a few of those who mentioned the issue specified.

Jamelle’s post about Florida is excellent — he’s exactly right about Florida.

But I have a better suggestion: Just ignore the state polls entirely right now.

Regular readers have heard me write about this many times, but really — just ignore them. If either candidate wins by three percentage points or more, and probably if it’s more than a single full percentage point, the electoral college will take care of itself. And if it gets close enough that variation in the states matters, it’s too early to really be able to get reliable clues from the states.

That’s especially true because we’re at the mercy of relatively unreliable polls at the state level. That’s not (usually) because there’s anything wrong with the pollsters. It’s because there just aren’t enough surveys yet.

The latest poll from Quinnipiac University shows President Obama with a six-point deficit in Florida, 41 percent to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent. Romney also gets much better ratings on the economy — 50 percent say that the Republican is better able to handle the economy, compared to 40 percent for Obama. Forty-four percent say that they approve of the president’s job performance, and his unfavorables have risen to 50 percent.

Predictably, this poll has led to warnings of doom for President Obama. But I’m not too surprised by the outcome. Florida has only gone for the Democratic nominee in two of the last eight presidential elections — Bill Clinton in 1996 with 48 percent of the vote, and Obama in 2008 with 51 percent of the vote. What’s more, relative to their national vote totals, both presidents underperformed in Florida; Clinton by 1.2 percent and Obama by 1.9 percent.

Given Florida’s demographics, it’s not hard to understand why the Sunshine State is less-than-friendly territory for Democratic candidates. In 2008, an excellent year for Democrats, 49 percent of Florida voters were above the age of 50, and 71 percent were white. Among whites, Obama lost every single age group by double digits; his best performance was among whites aged 18 to 29, whom he lost by 10 points, instead of 12.5 points for whites over the age of 45, and 22 points for whites aged 30 to 44. 

At this point, it’s conventional wisdom that President Obama has run a spendthrift administration. Annual deficits have been above $1 trillion since he entered office, and the most important legislation of his administration, the Affordable Care Act, will cost nearly as much over the next 10 years. He signed an $831 billion stimulus package, and pressed Congress for more money to support food stamps, unemployment benefits and fiscal aid to states.

It’s for all of the above that conservatives have excoriated Obama for increasing the debt load. Mitt Romney, in particular, has placed debt at the center of his campaign for the presidency. His Web site asserts that we have a “moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in,” and his most recent speech — to a crowd of supporters in Des Moines, Iowa — was a near-jeremiad on the peril of public debt. “A prairie fire of debt is sweeping across Iowa and our nation, and every day we fail to act that fire gets closer to the homes and children we love,” said Romney, who blames the president for the conflagration.