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No One Asked Me For Voter ID

News item: Florida’s Department of State reported this month that there are more than 53,000 dead Floridians who are registered to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

With Florida once again finding itself a pivotal state in deciding the upcoming presidential election, both sides will be doing their best to get any advantage in a statewide electorate that appears to be nearly evenly divided.

Making inroads to any special interest group could prove decisive in garnering the state’s coveted 29 electoral college votes, which could be dispositive in the national contest.

This is why both the Romney and Obama camps will be expected to make significant overtures to Florida’s dead voters – which, until this month’s revelation, had been a kind of sleeper demographic in this key state.

In the past, dead voters were considered important only in Miami mayoral races. But with the recent disclosure that there were more than 53,000 dead votes for the taking in Florida, this could be a breakthrough year for them.

For example, the 97,421 votes that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader received from Florida voters in the 2000 presidential election made him a spoiler for Al Gore, who lost Florida to George W. Bush by a mere 537 votes.

So candidates would be wise to figure out a way to get the support of Florida’s quietest demographic, a task made tougher due to the fact that there’s very little opinion polling available to know which way Florida’s dead voters are leaning, other than face up.

This is mostly because the dead-voter cohort is far less vocal than other special interest groups. You just don’t see the registered dead showing up in bunches at political rallies and chanting “Still, baby, still!”

So they’ve been ignored by politicians who have chosen to focus more on other related groups, such as the “mostly dead” (condo Democrats) and the “dead inside” (tea party Republicans).

Figuring out a way to energize the all-the-way-dead voting bloc in Florida will be the first obstacle for the Romney and Obama campaigns.

In fiscal issues, Republicans have a natural advantage with their stated opposition to the so-called death tax. But money may not be as important as health care to Florida’s dead voters, and Republicans would need to turn down their dead-bashing rhetoric on “death panels.”

Mitt Romney could be expected to talk about how he loves dead people, and always has, and if elected, on Day One, he will appoint a dead person to his Cabinet (Department of Deaducation?). Mostly, though, he’ll blame President Obama for not improving the lives of dead people.

53,000 'Dead Voters' Found in Florida...

Meanwhile, Obama may promise to amend the new health care law to include death as one of those pre-existing conditions that couldn’t be used to deny health insurance.

“America’s hardworking dead people shouldn’t be told they can no longer have health insurance just because they’re dead,” Obama could say. “That’s not fair. We’re a better nation than that.”

And to pay for health insurance for dead people, all it would take is a tax on the most expensive of caskets, Obama could say.

Pandering to dead people is the easy part. Getting them to the voting booth will be the tougher task for both campaigns.

They will have to invest in a robust get-up-the-vote effort on Election Day, which could prove costly, considering the size of the state and the number of shovels needed.

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Taxes, Coastal Kickback and the Primaries

Two of the most extraordinary events I have ever seen occur so close to an election happened this week in Horry County.

The Myrtle Beach city council announced early in the week it will seek to have state legislators eliminate the sunshine provision on the one cent tourism promotion tax so that it can continue indefinitely. Did you ever see politicians want a tax to end even when sunshine provisions are included with it?

One day later, lobbyist Mark Kelley, who includes the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, Coastal Carolina University and the Horry County Board of Education among his clients, sued the Sun News for reporting Kelley’s proximity to certain events in what has become known as the “Coastal Kickback Scandal.”

Coastal Kickback spread $239,500, in campaign donations of questionable legality, to state legislators and city council incumbents. It has been the subject of an over two year investigation by the FBI and IRS.

Kelley claims the Sun News reporting did damage to “his good name, personal and business reputation.” For the life of me I can’t imagine how you damage the good name or reputation of a political lobbyist.

The timing of these events seems totally strange just four weeks before the June 12th primary elections. The local legislative delegation was responsible for passing the law that allowed the ad tax. The law applies only to cities in Horry County and is the only local option sales tax not subject to referendum approval by the voters.

Why shed light on what is considered, by the general populace, an extremely unpopular and corrupt tax just weeks before the election?

The incumbents running for re-election are already facing questions about the tax. The issue is also drawing considerable interest from voters in districts where incumbents are not standing for re-election.

Additionally 7th Congressional District candidates Randal Wallace and Tom Rice will face increased scrutiny. Wallace is a member of Myrtle Beach city council while Rice was a leader of the Take Back May movement that led to the ad tax, which eventually led to Coastal Kickback.

The only people in Horry County who consider the ad tax a good idea are the members of Myrtle Beach city council and the beneficiaries of the tax (the Myrtle Beach Chamber and the large hotel and golf course owners who have cut their corporate marketing budgets by over 90 percent).

Who else thinks using public tax dollars for marketing certain “special” large business interests is a good idea?

Government taxes should not be used to fund or replace normal costs of doing business. This is government interference in the marketplace (picking winners and losers among businesses) as well as corporate welfare to the extreme.

After the city shed light on this campaign issue, Kelley’s lawsuit added fuel to the fire by re-introducing the Coastal Kickback Scandal into the forefront of political discussion.

The lawsuit could prove to be a public service of a sort. Depositions of the main players in Coastal Kickback could provide great theater as the details of the campaign contributions are finally brought to light.

There was already considerable controversy about the upcoming elections with the recent candidate filing mess. Now, Horry County voters will also be treated to discussion of the unpopular ad tax and the murky details of Coastal Kickback.

It’s going to be an interesting election season.

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by DANA LOESCH

“You can be powerful and stylish, too” said Obama. “That’s what Michelle would say.”

Oh THANK HEAVENS. Whew! I don’t know about you, but ladies, I feel completely at ease after hearing that I can be both powerful and stylish. I’m grateful that in a commencement address to a women-only college the President didn’t condescend to his audience with a speech on fashion magazines and beauty.

“Until there are women who tell her ignore our pop culture obsession over beauty and fashion and focus instead on studying and inventing and competing and leading, she’ll think those are the only things that girls are supposed to care about.”

Yes, in the year 2012, please imagine that your female audience cares for economics, please tell them how difficult it’s going to be for them to find a job because one out of two college grads can’t find employment. Tell them how you planned to secretly double their student loan rates anyway after the election. Please tell them, Mr. President, that on your watch women are hardest hit, so the odds stack up immeasurable against them. Hide from them, for the sake of your own reelection chances, how the female sex has been hardest hit by the unemployment numbers, with 324,000 of my sisters dropping from the job pool entirely because the prospect of employment is hopeless.

This President has a problem with the ladies. For such a “fabulous” speaker he has a proven inability to articulate adequately to women why they should support him beyond “free” birth control pills. A campaign/commencement speech that has all the grace of a Derek Zoolander eulogy on how women can be powerful, stylish, and should be leaders because, fashion magazines doesn’t cut it.
This is why Democrats are tanking in the polls with women.

When women go to purchase a new car, they don’t want to be told about the cup holders. They want to know about the milage, the engine, is it all-wheel drive?

Democrats can’t stop trying to sell women on cup holders.

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by MIKE FLYNN

Is Obama in over his head?

Obama and his allies in the media clearly live in the latter world. Unfortunately for them, the voters live in the other.

Today’s Rasmussen poll should be a shocking wake-up call that the Obama campaign needs to quickly find a way into the real world:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Mitt Romney earning 50% of the vote and President Obama attracting 43% support. Four percent (4%) would vote for a third party candidate, while another three percent (3%) are undecided.
This is the first time Romney has reached the 50% level of support and is his largest lead ever over the president. It comes a week after a disappointing jobs report that raised new questions about the state of the economy. See tracking history.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) give the president good or excellent marks for his handling of the economy. Forty-eight percent (48%) say he’s doing a poor job. Consumer confidence has slipped four points since last week’s government report on job creation and unemployment. The number who believe their personal finances are getting better slipped from 30% a week ago to 28% today. The number who fear their finances are getting worse increased from 43% before the jobs report to 47% today.

Romney has only just wrapped up the GOP nomination. Obama has been campaigning for… well, he’s never actually stopped campaigning. He has access to all the tools of the Presidency and benefits from a sycophantic press corps, who focus their considerable resources on diverting attention away from the sad state of the economy. We’re told ad nauseum that Obama is “winning” the news cycle and forcing Romney to respond to him, rather than drive his own campaign. And yet, Romney is absolutely crushing Obama.

The problem for Obama and the compliant media is that the economic news is so bad that their old trick of focusing on social issues, which few people really care about, isn’t working. When you can’t find a job, worrying about whether Billy marries Bob is pretty far down on your priority list.

Don’t get me wrong; there are people who care passionately about social issues. They see both gay marriage and free birth control as fundamental civil or human rights. There just aren’t that many of them. Obama’s campaign needs to find a way to talk to the 99% of us who are worried about the economy and our children’s future.

Even messianic politicians ignore the voters at their peril.

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