Political

Memorandum

To:          Interested Parties

From:     Rick Wiley, RNC Political Director

RE:           Obama’s Rainy Day

Date:      January 31, 2012

It’s hard to imagine Florida not being the most contested prize along the path to 270 this year. Their 29 Electoral Vote haul is by far the largest among the states in play. The prototypical battleground state has given their Electoral Votes to the eventual winner of nine of the last ten presidential elections. And with so many other battleground states in the toss-up column this year, President Obama’s chances of winning reelection would amount to a four-cushion bank shot if he comes up short in the Sunshine State.

Unfortunately for Obama, Florida isn’t a walk in the park under any circumstances. Each of the last five presidential elections in Florida has been decided by 5 points or less, and three times by 3 points or less. The 537 vote margin of victory for George W. Bush in 2000 was among the closest in modern presidential history ... more

Memorandum

To:        Interested Parties

From:    Rick Wiley

RE:       GOP Voter Registration Advantage

Date:     January 17, 2012

The GOP has the momentum. It’s all in the numbers.

The Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary brought out a record number of voters—many voting Republican for the first time in their lives. With over 70 percent of Americans looking for a new direction, voters are turning decidedly to the Republican Party.

An analysis of voter registration numbers demonstrates that the promising trend is not isolated only to Iowa and New Hampshire. In every battleground state for which there is relevant registration data available, the GOP has either narrowed the registration gap or increased our lead since 2008. And that’s bad news for Democrats.

In Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, the GOP enters 2012 from a stronger position. All are states Team Obama has identified as necessary to their pathway to ... more

Memorandum

To:         Interested Parties

From:      Rick Wiley

RE:         The Latino Vote

Date:      January 11, 2012

You would have to be living under a rock to not recognize the growing importance of the Latino vote, both today and in elections to come. The facts about demographic change are indisputable. Fifty thousand young Latino adults reach voting age each month. Over one in five people under the age of 18 in America today is Latino. Over 10 million Latino voters will participate in the 2012 election.

While it is no secret Latino voters are a critical coalition for Democrat electoral success, this year Democrats, and especially President Obama, cannot take their support for granted. Like all voters, Latinos aren’t satisfied with the direction of our country, and nor are they enamored with the job the president is doing. In a poll released last month by the Pew Hispanic Center, only 36% of Latinos are “satisfied with the way things are going” in this country, and less ... more

Memorandum

To:          Interested Parties

From:       Rick Wiley

RE:         The Prototypical Swing State

Date:     January 9, 2012

Few states fit the classic definition of a “swing state” in the last decade better than New Hampshire. With fiercely independent and always engaged voters, New Hampshire has assertively swung back and forth several times. In 2002, and on the heels of a narrow win by George W. Bush in 2000, Republicans had a great year. Republicans came out of the election with a sweep of federal offices, a new Republican governor after three terms of Democrat leadership, and the largest gains for Republicans in the state legislature in decades. The state became tougher for Republicans in 2004 and swung violently for the Democrats in 2006. Both incumbent Republican US House members were defeated and Democrats flipped both chambers in the state legislature, giving Democrats control of both the Governor’s office and state legislature for the first time in a century. 

Memorandum

To:        Interested Parties

From:    Rick Wiley

RE:        Obama’s Hawkeye Hang-up

Date:     January 2, 2012

Political observers like to say Iowans have a “love affair” with Barack Obama, but four years after Iowa voters launched Obama to the presidency, the spark is gone. Iowa simply isn’t the same state it was for Obama and Chicago is working on overdrive to repair it.

Three years after his 10-point win over John McCain, the President’s promises of hope and change have been replaced with a record of failed leadership and policies that have made the economy worse. Three years after promising to create jobs, over 17,000 Iowans have lost theirs. After three years Obama looks more like a typical politician than a messiah. And as a result, public opinion toward Obama in Iowa has turned decidedly negative.   

• In April 2009, after three months in office the Des Moines Register measured Obama’s job approval at 64% - double the 29% who disapproved. However, an NBC ... more
  
  

To:          Interested Parties

From:    Rick Wiley, RNC Political Director

RE:          The Jewish Vote in 2012

Date:     12/16/2011

While Independents will cast the deciding vote in next year’s Presidential Election, it will be the support that Barack Obama receives from traditional Democrat constituencies that will determine how many Independents he needs in order to win.   Not only must these constituencies supply him with votes, they must also provide the foot soldiers and financial resources to fuel his campaign.

One such constituency that overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008 was Jewish Americans.  In 2008, 78% of Jewish voters supported the President, up from the 74% who supported John Kerry in 2004.   Early in his Presidency the President enjoyed job approval ratings from Jewish voters in the low-80’s.

Between January 2009 and September 2011 however his approval in the Jewish community dropped by nearly 30 points.  An annual survey of Jewish opinion by the American ... more

Memorandum

To:          Interested Parties

From:       Rick Wiley, RNC Political Director

RE:          Arizona in play?  Really?

Date:       12/9/2011

The Obama campaign confidently talks of widening the 2012 battleground map into traditionally Republican states they failed to carry in 2008. At the top of their list is Arizona, a state that Obama lost by 8.5 percent in 2008 and has only favored a Democrat once in a Presidential election since 1948 – Bill Clinton won there in 1996 with less than 47% of the vote. The rationale, they say, is demographic changes favor them, and Obama’s chances will be better without an Arizonan like John McCain also on the ballot.

Recent polling from PPP should throw a little cold water on the Obama campaign’s enthusiasm. In a survey conducted last month, Obama only managed a dismal 41% job approval rating. As is the case in many states, Obama’s numbers today represent a significant slide since earlier this year. In May, PPP found voters in Arizona ... more

Last week USA Today and Gallup released the results of their first “Swing State Poll” conducted in 12 of the most important battleground states in next year’s election.   An ominous finding for the President is only 37% of voters in swing states feel they’re better off today than they were when he was elected three years ago.  And at a time when economic concerns dominate the political landscape, swing-state voters said a Republican candidate would do a better job handling the issues of the federal budget deficit and debt (+16%) and the issue of unemployment (+7%).   It’s important to note all 12 of these swing states were won by the President in 2008.  

The swing state with Obama’s widest margin of victory is Michigan - and on Wednesday that’s where our Republican candidates will be.  At 8:00pm (EST) at Oakland University in Rochester they’ll participate in a Michigan Republican Party-sponsored debate where they’ll share their solutions for getting the country’s economy in order ... more

Memorandum

To:           Interested Parties
From:      Rick Wiley
RE:          Obama’s Real Problem
Date:       October 6, 2011

The Obama campaign is running out of ways to win in 2012. As President Obama admitted earlier this week, Americans aren’t better off now than they were four years ago and the voters are blaming Obama. Just yesterday it was revealed that 70% of Americans believe President Obama has hurt the economy. Today, 40% of Americans “strongly” disapprove of how the President his handling his job – the highest disapproval rating of his presidency.

While Team Obama will shrug at national top-line worries, looking deeper doesn’t look any better.

We all know Republicans aren’t buying what he’s selling and Obama’s chronically low approval ratings suggest Independent voters aren’t likely to bail him out next year. The only option left for Obama is to run a campaign to turn out his Democratic base. Forget for a moment that battleground states like Ohio, Colorado, ... more

"It's a very difficult district for Democrats…” said DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz.

Perhaps the Chairwoman is right.  Perhaps Chuck Schumer saw the handwriting on the wall in 1998 and calculated that it was safer to abandon this “very difficult” district (that he won with 75% of the vote) for the safer bet of a statewide US Senate race.  Perhaps the stress of holding a district that he won by an average of 35 points (when opposed) was what drove Anthony Weiner to stray from the straight-and-narrow.   How could you not have nightmares about the 29% that George W Bush hung on Al Gore there in 2000?

Seriously?   Perhaps she is wrong.

Here are the facts:

• The district represents territory that hasn’t sent a Republican to Congress since the 1920s.
• Since the current district was drawn in 2002 no statewide Republican candidate has carried it except for George Pataki.
• The closest that any Republican had gotten against former Rep. Anthony Weiner was 20 points, and that was Bob Turner ... more