Good Monday to you all, here are the stories we are watching in ‘The War Room’ today, April 2, 2012:
Polls lead the day. USA Today/Gallup finds that the GOP’s War on Women is back-firing in a big way in the swing states when it comes to voter sentiment. The poll has Obama leading Romney 51-42 thanks to a big shift in women voters, especially those under 50: “In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney’s support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30 percent. The president leads him two to one in this group.” This echoes the Pew poll released last week, and Talking Points Memo has noticed that the gender gap is starting to trickle-down to some key Senate races as well. Prediction: Keep it up, and Democrats will take back the House as well.
One race where this doesn’t seem apparent though is the Elizabeth Warren v. Scott Brown Senate race in Mass. A new poll from the Boston Globe finds a virtual tie with Brown coming in at 37 percent, Warren at 35 percent – and a whopping 26 percent still undecided. Keep your eyes on that one.
Tuesday’s Republican primary horse races are nearly upon us. Let’s start in Wis., where we find Romney is starting to look more inevitable by the minute. Here are the numbers from PPP: Romney 43, Santorum 36, Paul 11, Gingrich 8. Md. appears to be on the verge of a blowout: Romney 52, Santorum 27, Gingrich 10, Paul 9. Notable stats from this poll: Romney is starting to lead with groups that had previously gone to Santorum. With Tea Party voters, Romney is up 8 pts. in Wis. and 9 pts. in Md. With Evangelicals though, we find a huge difference. Romney is up by 7 pts in Md., but in Wis. he is down by 12.
Looking desperate, Santorum takes one last swing in a new ad in Wis., morphing Obama’s face into Romney’s – but one has to wonder if that is a wise strategy given Obama’s steadily rising approval number. Might make Mitt more appealing to those independents and Democrats that Santorum is currently leading with.
The thought crossing everyone’s mind, even when you really don’t want it to: Where is George W. Bush, anyway?
Fighting back against Big Oil. Last week we, and many other sources, pointed out that the misleading ads running on energy and gas prices across the nation were being funded by the oil industry and those who benefit greatly from it; this week, Obama-friendly Pac Priorities USA has a new ad out that takes a swing at the Romney campaign on its cozy relationship with the industry. About time.
Fighting back against Paul Ryan’s radical budget/Medicare plan. AFSCME and Americans United for Change are targeting GOP House members – including Ryan himself – with a new ad denouncing their votes to end Medicare as we know it. The Hill reports the ad buy is in the “five figures,” and you can watch the one running against Ryan here.
Also of Ryan interest: President Obama will address Ryan’s budget tomorrow at an AP luncheon, according to Politico. Ezra Klein highlights two charts today from the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities that spell out everything you need to know in advance.
Fighting back against the insanity in general: Two of our favorite columnists hit it out of the park when it comes to calling out how radical today’s GOP has become. A must-read from Paul Krugman on the Ryan budget: “For on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history. And when I say fraudulent, I mean just that.” Krugman points out that not only is the budget cruel, it doesn’t even reduce that deficit the Republicans so love to complain about. And E.J. Dionne is calling the radical takeover of the GOP a “coup,” looking at recent events and pointing out just how extreme Republicans have become. Key sentence: “This is nuts. Yet mainstream journalism and mainstream moderates play right along.” Yup. Fortunately you have us.
Video of the Day: Mitt Romney gets a preview of what a Republican voting precinct will look like this November. And he thought closing down factories was funny!
http://youtu.be/EOE8_Jc1kgo
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