Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s post-announcement vault to the top of the Republican field has been very impressive. The more Republicans here about him, the more Republicans appear eager to vote for him. But so far, the same can not be said of independents. While Perry bested former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by 13 points in Public Policy Polling’s latest results, Romney fared much better against Obama than Perry did. Romney tied Obama according to PPP, but Perry was down by six points. PPP reports: “Romney does better than Perry because he holds Obama to only a nine-point advantage with independents, 48-39, and because he loses only 5% of the Republican vote to Obama where Perry loses 10%.”
A similar story can be found in a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida voters released yesterday. While Romney beats Obama by an outside-the-margin-of error 8 points, 51 to 43, Perry is in a statistical dead heat with Obama 46 to 45. Gallup recently produced similar, though not as dramatic results, nationally finding Romney ahead of Obama by 2 points, but Perry tied.
A Pew poll released today sheds some light on the Romney-Perry general election performance gap. While Perry does have significantly lower name recognition among Americans than Romney does (71 percent compared to 87 percent), higher percentages of Americans also say they will never vote for Perry.
“Electability” has not fared well as a selling point in recent Democratic or Republican primaries. But if Romney continues to best Perry in head-to-head polls against Obama, that may change.
Around the Bigs
The Washington Examiner, Plan to keep your health plan? Don’t count on it: Byron York looks at a new survey of employers done by benefits-consulting firm Towers Watson showing that one in ten firms is planning to drop their employee health coverage and recalls President Obama’s promise, “No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
The Wall Street Journal, Health Law Puts Governors in Pickle: Republican governors much choose by September whether to accept federal money and design their own state run and federally regulated health exchanges, or to just allow the federal government to design their exchange from scratch.
The Wall Street Journal, Job Market Still Looks Weak: Applications for jobless claims rose 5,000 last week and the the number of claims filed the week before was adjusted by by 4,000 to 412,000.
The Los Angeles Times, Economic relapse threatens lasting damage: The failure of the U.S. economy to rebound from the last recession is inflicting long-term damage on many families and businesses that will make future economic growth harder to achieve. “That’s the danger right now: You’ve got an economy that didn’t recover,” Bank of America’s chief economist for North America Ethan Harris told The Times.
Associated Press, Views on economy, Obama role sour: A new Associated Press-GfK poll shows, that 86 percent of adults see the economy as “poor,” up from 80 percent in June and 46 percent say it has worsened. More than 6 in 10 – 63 percent – disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. Approval of his economic performance now stands at just 36 percent, his worst approval rating on the issue in AP-GfK polling.
The New York Times, New Rules Seen as Aid to Efforts to Unionize: New regulations issued by the National Labor Relations Board Thursday would force businesses to post notices advertising to workers that they have the right to unionize.
The Washington Post, Obama faces uncomfortable questions from black community, lawmakers: A growing concern among Democrats that high unemployment may decrease minority turnout for Obama’s reelection campaign has emboldened black lawmakers to criticize Obama’s economic policies, the Post reports.
The Wall Street Journal, Arizona Sues U.S. Over Voting Rights: Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne filed suit against the Obama Justice Department challenging the constitutionality of the federal government’s power to interfere in the state’s redistricting process.
Pew, Obama Leadership Image Takes a Hit, GOP Ratings Decline: Obama hits new lows in Pew’s latest poll with 49 percent of those surveyed disapproving of his job as president and only 43 percent approving. The margin of strong disapproval over strong approval has widened too. Currently, 38% strongly disapprove of Obama’s job performance while only 26% strongly approve. The poll also shows that 79 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country and 86 percent say they are frustrated or angry with the federal government.
Campaign 2012
Bachmann: At a North Charleston, S.C., town hall Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., took a question from “an undecided voter named Nikki” who turned out to be Gov. Nikki Haley. Haley then asked Bachmann what she would do to stop the National Labor Relations Board from shutting down the new Boeing factory in the state. Bachmann responded: ““If the NRLB continued their current stance, they may not last very long. Once they see what I do to the EPA, they may shape up.”
Huntsman: Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has won the approval of Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall who was one of the few journalists invited by Bloomberg to meet the Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman yesterday. Marshall was impressed: “The Obama folks are right to hope he doesn’t get near the nomination. Because I think he’d be a formidable challenger in an economic climate as bad as the one we’re in.” Marshall also reports: “What’s the sales pitch? I’m the moderate, reality-based Republican who’s not a total phony who changes his position based on the political considerations of the moment.”
Righty Playbook
In The Wall Street Journal, Alan Reynolds notes rumors that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is considering another round of quantitative easing and asks: “How is increasing the price of imported oil and industrial commodities supposed to make U.S. industry more competitive?”
Human Events‘ Audrey Hudson reports that Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is calling for investigations President Obama’s decision to grant “administrative amnesty” to illegal immigrants that graduate high school. “The President is on the verge of being lawless himself,” King told Human Events.
Townhall‘s Guy Benson responds to New York Times editor Bill Keller’s column calling for a closer inspection of presidential candidate religious views: “I’ll readily concede that not all of Keller’s questions are illegitimate, and some surely will be posed to the candidates at some point. It’s just remarkable to witness a prominent leftist discover his newfound conviction that a candidate’s background, church, friends, and even endorsers are totally fair game for a political campaign — and not the vindictive, irrelevant, “distracting” (and quite possibly racist) “smears” they were treated as during the last cycle.”
Lefty Playbook
Hurricane Irene has not even made landfall in Virginia yet, but Talking Points Memo is already attacking Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., for his belief that federal disaster belief, when it exceeds existing untapped disaster funds, should be paid for.
Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard explains why liberals are so upset about the Keystone XL pipeline: “Environmental groups are also hoping for a concrete victory. Even with a supposedly sympathetic president, they haven’t seen the big policy shifts on this front that they were hoping for. And while addressing climate change is a giant, complicated challenge, vetoing a pipeline is fairly straightforward.”
The Tax Policy Center attacks Perry’s support for the Fair Tax.
