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The president of the Pew Research Center, Andrew Kohut, says Romney was an especially weak candidate for Republicans and this has to be taken into account in understanding the results of the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Romney failed when it came to establishing empathy with voters compared with Obama and this was a significant factor- 53% to 43% for Romney in exit polls. Even on the economy which should have been a Republican strong point Romney failed to get an advantage over the president with both tied at 48% to 49% for Romney. Republicans were favored in their approach to government- only 43% favored activist government in 2012 compared to 52% in 2008, and 49% disapproved of the Obama health care law and only 44% approving in 2012. On social issues exit polls showed 59% believe abortion should be made legal, and on immigration 65% support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Early in the primaries some commentators said the Republicans were not fielding strong candidates for president who could relate to voters and this has turned out to be true. This also explains the Republicans retaining a majority in the House of Representatives and continuing the hold on governorships. ...

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Gillespie lists the myths and describes the reality about Ron Paul. Ron Paul is not a "top tier" candidate- with many Republican candidates assuming top tier status and fizzling out this has become a term that has lost meaning. Paul is a doctrinaire libertarian- he has positions similiar to libertarians but also has his own views on immigration and abortion. His views on the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, such as "ending the Fed" are crazy- actually Ron Paul's legislation on auditing the Fed is gaining credibility, and Fed policy is viewed skeptically by both the Tea party and Occupy movement, as well as some in the Federal Reserve such as Kansas City Fed chairman, Thomas Hoenig, and respected economists such as Alan Meltzer of Carnegie-Mellon University.Ron Paul is anti-military- Paul has support from servicemen in the military and raised more money from them than any other candidate including Obama. Ron Paul has youth support because he is against the war on drugs- the war on drugs has not worked that well and new approaches are needed. His support among youth comes from a believing that individuals are better at making the right decisions, his idealism, and his faith in making the U.S. a better place. ...

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The strategy to reach Catholics and other Christians was crafted by Mara Vanderslice and Alexia Kelley two Democratic advisers who were avangelical Christian and Catholic respectively. In a white paper they circulated they blamed Kerry's loss among religious voters on his unwillingness to talk about their faith and address their moral concerns.They suggested talking about their faith, going on Christian radio, granting interviews to reporters for Catholic media and discussing issues that Republicans were not addressing, namely poverty, immigration and the environment. In a 2006 speech "A Call to Renewal" Obama addressed these issues and his faith, and this was mailed to 40,000 pastors by his staff. Obama strategy was to grasp this aspect of the culture of life and to minimize the abortion issue by putting in the Democratic platform measures and aid programs to reduce the one million operations that occur annually. In the end Obama carried Catholic voters by 54% to 45%, and eroded but not much of evangelicals support for Republicans from 78% to 74%, and eroded Republican share of regular churchgoers to 55% from 61%. Ofcourse some of that Catholic vote was also from voters anxious about the economy and possibly some anxious about Palin's inexperience at such a criticial juncture with the financial crisis....

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AP VoteCast shows over half of Americans and 8 in 10 Trump voters think support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far. About 90 of Republicans, half of Democrats, and two thirds of Independents think support for transgender rights in government and society have gone too far. The situation about allowing transgender persons in women's locker rooms offends most women. Abortion rights is an issue for two thirds of women but half of the same women think transgender rights having gone too far, they cannot support transgender people in their daughter's locker rooms at school. Cultural issues such as these inflamed the situation with the signs in Madison Square Garden saying "transgender the hell out of locker rooms in our schools." What would FDR and Frances Perkins say about this, their whole lives spent trying to figure out a way for unemployment insurance and stabilizing employment. The net result is that only about 20-25% of women thought abortion was the issue, and 60-70% saw the economy as the main issue. ...

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Philip Rucker of the WP provides this exceptional account of people on the Staten Island Ferry in New York. Construction workers who like Tump's toughness to tackle terrorism, jobs, and other issues. Others who sees Trump's name on properties all over Manhattan, and think he will bring prosperity. And the female worker at a food pantry who says she sees too many immigrants and looks to Trump to fix this. Staten Island is one of New York's boroughs with a population of 500,000 mostly white people that is not connected to city by subway, is heavily Republican, with new immigrants creating community tensions.

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Under the law overturned by the US Supreme Court it was illegal to carry a gun openly and a permit was needed in New York to carry it concealed. Three Supreme Court Justices appointed by president Trump were of a disposition that opposed gun control laws- Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. The requirement under the New York law was that you had to show "good moral character" and "cause" to carry a concealed weapon or carry a gun openly. Many other states have such laws in California, Hawaii and urban states in the north east. Republican states are loosening gun control laws. This comes as many random shooting incidents are taking place in the US some in schools and grocery stores, the most recent being a shooting in Buffalo, NY. The vote was 6-3 after the Supreme Court for years had avoided hearing such cases based on Second Amendment rights from the Constitution that some had interpreted to include freely carrying guns without any common sense restrictions. This issue is second only to abortion as a cultural issue in the US on which sides are taken by the public including the Supreme Court Justices selected by Mr. Trump. Though not directly apparent these and issues of immigration, other cultural issues surrounding gay rights are putting those who would normally come together on issues of national interest on opposite sides when it comes to common sense support for everyday issues of feeding families, keeping workers employed in good factories at home, child care, education, health care, fair wages, restoring America's manufacturing leadership and bringing back manufacturing to the US. The emergence of Tech and tech companies, Silicon Valley, the finance sector in New York, has reinforced the prejudice in these opposing sides as Tech and the finance sector have largely embedded themselves into the Democratic side. Tech and finance sector employees with higher incomes have largely insulated themselves from the interests of ordinary workers and families creating a split Democratic party when it comes to supporting workers and families who form the vast majority of the American people. In a sense today the national interest is separate from these cultural issues and supporters of national interests can be found in both parties who can look beyond and above these cultural issues. It is also where many of these cultural issues can be resolved to some degree using common sense on which most informed members of Congress can agree. This is true for gun control as a group of bipartisan Senators from both parties are preparing gun control around common sense principles that today are even beyond the capacity of the Supreme Court of the US that itself now reflects a raucous public sphere. ...

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The Republican party has split shows the New Hampshire and Iowa Republican  primaries says WSJ in this video that is essential to understand 2024. Demographic expert that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) talked to in this video say Donald Trump has brought in working class voters into the Republican party, no question about that. Yet in doing so and with his style he has alienated what are suburban Republican voters, higher educated with college degrees, the country club type that was long been associated with the Republican party since 1900. Taking the Iowa and New Hampshire voters the WSJ shows in visual dynamic graphs that half of voters in both states did not vote for Trump. There are no differences between Republican voters who voted for Trump and who voted against Trump when it comes to gender, age, they are evenly divided for gender and age. Difference is in education and suburban. Higher educated, suburban Republican voters acted to vote against Trump. This means says WSJ is that the Republican party has now effectively split up. Immigration is not as important to these Republicans who voted against Trump, foreign policy is also important which is not so for Trump voters. Ukraine matters for these voters who voted against Trump. Abortion also matters and the economy matters for these Republican voters who did not vote for Trump. In the backdrop of all this is the advisers who surround the president, the chief of whom may be Jake Sullivan, not just for foreign policy but also on issues such as immigration. Where Michael Shear of the NYT who has covered the White House for 30 years shows Jake Sullivan actively pushing to close down the asylum and parole avenues that are surging migrant flows, and to get Biden to close the US Mexico border under a bipartisan deal worked out by Lindsay Graham and Chuck Schumer in the US Senate. Sullivan, Michael Burns and other thoughtful, careful advisers are helping the Biden administration navigate the Israel Palestinian conflict and the Ukraine Russian conflict. The Middle East is what tripped Jimmy Carter with the Iran hostage crisis, leading to the Reagan period and Reagan economic culture that is unwinding today with huge gaps in incomes and educational opportunities that never existed before in the US. What also tripped Jimmy Carter was the split with the party that John Kennedy and LBJ built on the foundations of the FDR Truman period, and his handling of the Kennedys that effectively split the Democratic party. This is the situation that is now happening in the Republican party as the Reagan era and its culture of extremes comes to a close. Of extremes not seen since the Great Depression of a working family struggling to live on wages near the poverty level in a automobile factory in Michigan before the UAW settlement that Biden was on the picket lines for, and the $55.8 billion pay package that was put forward for Mr. Musk at Tesla. ...

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In extensive ranging comments Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg describes her positions on Supreme Court cases to Adam Liptak of the NYT. She hopes the next president after this one will be a fine one and is not perturbed by liberals who would like to see her leave so that another liberal could be appointed in her place. Ginsberg is 80 years, but says she works with her trainer twice a week, and works just as hard as in previous terms. She loves her work and will go on as long as she is able to do it. Her work leading the liberal opinion of Justices on the bench shows a senior justice in command of the issues. She has a framed copy of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on a wall and sees it as a response by Congress to her dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Rubber Company. That 2007 ruling said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imposes strict limits for workplace discrimination suits. She sees the present Congress as too timid to take up more issues related to affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act. On the court's decision for the Voting Rights Act Ginsberg said in her dissent "It is like throwing away your umbrella after a rainstorm because you don't need it." Her views on Roe vs. Wade are that the law was too sweeping in making abortion rights constitutional and could have taken a different approach of striking down the law in Texas....

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In a crucial demographic Donald Trump's provocative remarks cause a stir and a slide by 13 percentage points. In late July NYT/CBS polls show 72% support among Republican women. McCain won 89%, Romney 93%, George W. Bush 93%.  Divisive tactics hurt particularly with women, say experts. In states such as Pennsylvania this is evident, as Trump has 27% there for women overall and Clinton 58%, according to one poll. The Rutgers Center for Women and Politics has studies on how women diverge in their concerns and lives from men- from lower pay, longer life expectancy, and role of government in helping them,  to cite a few. Clinton has released television ads in 5 swing states directly appealing to mothers, showing children, and emphasizing kitchen table issues, job creation. College educated white women in particular carefully look at the issues, and make independent judgements based on character and temperament, and are less likely to ignore repeated provocative remarks or clearly sexist comments. ...

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Seen in a larger context, the Biden tax pledge seen from the southern and midwestern and less well off states is not about taxes, it is about federal revenues that build the infrastructure and services in these states that increase the standard of living. This happened in the 1930's and 1940's under FDR and Truman, in the 1950's under Eisenhower, in the 1960's under Kennedy/LBJ. And is happening again under Biden today. Lets not forget that president John F. Kennedy says in his speeches that these regions in America in the 1860's under Lincoln were in development close to what prevailed in the 1960's in India, Ceylon, Chile, Turkey or China. The Biden pledge not to increase taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 is significant because it grasps the situation in America where extraordinary gains in wealth since 1980 have gone only some of it to the top 1-2% in midwestern states and southern states, and most of it to the top 3-5% in coastal states population in the east and west, New York and California, where the finance and tech industry are based. In Michigan and Wisconsin only 2% of households make more than $400,000, in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Florida 3%. WSJ shows a map of the US showing this for individual states. The core southern states have 2% of households with incomes over $400,000- including Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, with Mississippi less than 1%. It is only segregation in the late 1960's and culture issues such as abortion that have turned them from Democratic states to Republican states as they were the largest beneficiaries of taxes diverted into investment in these places since FDR/Truman and John Kennedy/LBJ. It was JFK who came up with the phrase "a rising tide lifts all boats" when he opened federally funded projects in Arkansas. Seen objectively the large investments made under Lincoln, FDR/Truman, Kennedy/LBJ from tax revenues are what changed this region from conditions that prevailed in less developed countries that John Kennedy points out in his speeches, true for the midwest, parts of the west, and the southern states alike.  President Kennedy said on Feb. 25, 1963 to the American Bankers Association Symposium on Economic Growth: "Today, many Americans tend to think of developing underdeveloped countries in terms only of faraway nations. But in 1863, even measured by 1963 dollars, our own per capita income--and this should be a source of encouragement to many who are laboring with the problem of underdevelopment in far-off countries--our own per capita income was less than $1 a day, approximately the same as Chile's. Nearly 60 percent of our labor force was engaged in agriculture, the same percentage as is today engaged in the Philippines. An estimated 20 percent of our population was illiterate, the same percentage of the population of Ceylon. Only one-fifth of our 34 million people lived in towns or cities of over 5,000 in population, as is roughly true now of Turkey. In 1863, this Nation had fewer railroad tracks laid than India has today, and its children had a shorter life expectancy than a child born this year in Thailand or Zanzibar."   ...

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"No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people." FDR said this  on October 31, 1936, it could also be president Biden.The current Media and Hollywood efforts to choose presidential candidates of their choice runs contrary to "We the People," contrary to views of ordinary Americans, of voters, workers and families. President Kennedy was told he should not take the nomination because he was too young. Kennedys' response was that it was he not Humphrey that went to state after state and won the votes in the primaries, no one else made the effort to run in the primaries in each state. President Biden has the support of 14 million in the primaries. George Chidi from Atlanta reports that undecided voters number about 1 million in the swing states and most are much older than the average. Most may feel insulted by talk about age when they are in the same category.  A 102 years old Lockheed engineer in Atlanta suburbs says he is a Republican but will not vote for Trump. There is also the women's vote in Georgia and Atlanta suburbs with abortion ban as the issue as it was in Kentucky and Kansas. How many vote will also be a factor, making energizing the base a key factor. The idea that one party is doing better than the other is refuted clearly by some of the people in Georgia shown here, and the age factor does not get the prominence the Media have given it, as long as the government is functioning well. Media has failed to look at the policy details of each candidate in a colossal failure that calls for alternatives. Older voters who are the major part of the 1 million or so voters in swing states that are undecided also say that the fact is that with both the candidates- as it is with administrations that are led by young presidents seen as too young to lead (JFK) the opposite of today- many of the decisions are made with an experienced group of advisers around the president. Many if not all also realize that the vast experience of an older president is also an asset. Much of Biden's legislation for chips science, infrastructure, the Inflation Reduction Act have not happened in Germany, France or the UK, and would not have happened in the US without the ability of president Biden to get the bipartisan support from being the one with the most experience in Congress in a long time. The result is the hundreds of thousands of jobs created each month and a growing economy, inflation down from 9 to 3% as the first step to further cost of living action to support ordinary workers and families. Only LBJ comes close and he signed landmark legislation for Medicare and Medicaid, and for civil rights into law 60 years back. By removing America from the wars that Reagan and Bush started and Obama and Trump failed to end president Biden has given the US an opportunity to inspire and lead the free world in a way that has not happened in many decades and build a growing economy, a bright future for the Nation. ...

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On major issues- her pledge to sign into law the Lankford Biden bipartisan Immigration and Border Bill after Trump blocked it in Congress for electoral advantage,  Cost of Living going up under Trump with his tariff plan, on abortion restrictions, the BBC says what Harris says is True.  Lyrarc has done its own fact check with effort for broad understanding of how her vision differs from Trump's- "As a prosecutor, when I had a case, I charged it not in the name of the victim. But in the name of. “The People.” For a simple reason. In our system of justice, a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us." Every day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and said five words: “Kamala Harris, for the People.” And to be clear: My entire career, I have only had one client. The People This is True. It is also most revealing about this candidate regardless of sex, creed, color or race. It tells so much about this person and the influence that Gandhi and the struggles of India for independence have influenced her views on life through the influence of her mother and her grandfather who had great influence on her life and work- mother Shyamala Gopalan and P.V. Gopalan Shyamala's father a senior Indian Civil Service head for India's Department of Labor 1954 who lived and worked with the ideas an ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. On Immigration she makes a pledge to sign the Lankford Biden immigration law the first in four decades that closes the Border with Mexico and fixes asylum policy. "But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign. So he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security. Here is my pledge to you: As President, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed. And I will sign it into law." Trump blocked it for personal advantage at the elections to use this as an issue which has blocked a permanent solution. Confirming this is a month old interview in NYT by Republican Senator Lankford saying the legislation he drafted would have passed Congress in December 2023 and signed into law by Biden. It came up in Congress in February by this time Trump was made nominee of the party and he blocked it so that he could use the issue in an election. This says a lot about character and more than mere fact checks shifts focus on the characters of the two people running. Steve Kerr coach of the men's basketball Olympic team says decency humility, values and character, a clear authenticity are essential in a leader. People ask yourselves what you would have done in this situation, and what would Kamala have done, would she have blocked a bill that would permanently fix the Border and change US asylum policy?  Biden went on to do this by executive action bringing migrant flow numbers down to where they were under Trump and Obama, and more than that put together a bipartisan bill with Republican Senator Lankford that Kamala can now sign into law.    ...

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In the last year of his presidency Obama faces questions about his domestic and foreign policy. Here Greg Jaffe looks back at Obama in 2004 and cites the episode with Farr Curlin, a doctor who opposed abortion and taught at the University of Chicago. Curlin wrote to Obama asking him to consider Catholic teachings when using phrases such as taking away women's rights, at the time Obama won the Senate Democratic primary from Illinois in 2004. Obama came back to the email exchange with Curlin during the fight for the Democratic nomination for president with Hillary Clinton, in speeches and in his book Audacity of Hope, appreciating Curlin's views and calls for openness and understanding of others views. Curlin appreciates Obama's thoughtfulness and sincerity, but points out today in 2015 that Obama has in his actions accelerated the trends in societal change, deepening old divisions. Much of the rest of the article describes the president's anguish at the recent Charleston and other shootings in America, showing Obama as a Christian struggling with his faith. As the article points out Americans have become increasingly disillusioned by the difference between the rhetoric and policy- leaving America deeply divided not just on social issues, but on economic issues with widening disparity in incomes and shrinking of the middle class which some see as accelerating during the two terms of Obama's presidency, and on the issues of foreign policy where 2015 brings the largest number of displaced people and refugees worldwide numbering millions. The lesson of the presidency may be that thoughtfulness is not enough, that thoughtfulness has to be carried into clarity of purpose, that ideals have to be translated into action requiring courage and not avoiding elements of risk. ...

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This exceptional and detailed WPost report by Rosenwald, Boorstein and Clement on Pope Francis's popularity, also shows that on other aspects of the Catholic community's openness in the pews change is slow and gradual. In the parishes and on the pews for practicing Catholics there are not many signs of change. And Catholics who do not go to church are not coming back to the pews in increasing numbers. A slight surge under Pope John Paul II after his visit in 1993 for World Youth Day faded out, and this time the situation with Pope Francis's visit looks to be no different. About 1 in 8 Americans consider themselves former Catholics, according to the 2014 Pew Religious Landscape Survey. The Post-ABC poll of September 7-10, 2015 shows 45% of self-identified Catholics saying they attend Mass about once a week or more frequently, 19% attending monthly, and 35% saying they attend less frequently or never. There is a large gap between Pope Francis's popularity among Catholics with about 75% holding strongly favorable views, compared to 47% strongly favorable for the Catholic Church. Kathleen Cummings of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, says the difference is because Pope Francis has accentuated the positive. The Pope's own roots in Argentina and his practice of a more humble Catholicism as a bishop, his intermingling with people in the subways in Buenos Aires and in poorer neigborhoods of the city, not only affirms the original teachings of the Church, but also affirms this at a time when the bishops and the Church have drifted away from the original message, in a period of increasing social disparities in the Western World, Latin America and Asia. The Pope has called for helping immigrants, migrants, refugees, the poor, and the environment. Most people in the U.S. are comfortable with the Pope's activism on social issues and saying this before a joint session of Congress in the U.S. on September 25, 2015. To shake up the lethargy in the Church hierarchy Pope Francis described the bishops of the church in the Christmas 2014 message as "lords of the manor, superior to everyone and everything," and having "spiritual Alzheimer's." The extent of support for the Pope's activism shows how the public now views the need for someone of the Pope's stature to speak out on issues of social, economic and environmental change. Only 14% of Americans in the September 2015 Post/ABC poll say Pope Francis should be less active. 30% of Catholics say more active is better, and 50% say continue the way he is. And over half of non-Catholics want him to continue to speak out. Issues of the role of women in the church, abortion and same-sex marraige continue to create differences. By focussing on the original teachings of the church for humility, a humble church, and serving the poor and less fortunate, the Pope has reached the hearts of most Americans and people around the world, in a way unimaginable only a few years before....

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This article in the Economist points to polls showing women with college degrees favoring Clinton over Trump by large margins of 57% to 38%. A Brookings Institution expert says this could translate into a gain of 4 million voters for Clinton. Many of these voters overlap with suburban women. The Clinton campaign has presented Trump as one who could not be relied on to have responsibility for the U.S. nuclear weapons because of a volatile temperament. Other experts point to concern by women of what the anti-women comments by Trump would do to the condition of women in the workplace.