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Butler County, U.S.A.

By on 11.2.12 @ 6:10AM

Suburban Cincinnati could decide the nation’s future.

SHARONVILLE, Ohio — Butler County may prove to be the key to the entire 2012 election, Ground Zero of the battle for the White House and essential to Mitt Romney’s hopes for victory. That explains why, when the Romney campaign scheduled Friday’s massive “Victory Rally” to kick off a four-day final pre-Election Day tour, they chose Butler County as the site.

An all-star cast of Republicans — including Rudy Giuliani, House Speaker John Boehner, Condoleezza Rice and Marco Rubio — will join Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan at an event in West Chester featuring Kid Rock as musical entertainment. The rally is expected to draw greater attendance than the Republican National Convention — some have dubbed it “RNC II” — and such a crowd is expected that the doors will open four hours ahead of the 7:30 p.m. start of the rally.

To understand why this suburb of Cincinnati is so essential to Republican success, it is necessary to look at the past two elections. In 2004, when George W. Bush carried Ohio by more than 100,000 votes, approximately half his margin of victory came from Butler County, where he defeated Democrat John Kerry by about 53,000 votes. In 2008, however, when Barack Obama won Ohio by a margin of 250,000 votes, the GOP margin for John McCain in Butler County was less than 40,000 votes — roughly a 4,500-vote decline for the Republicans and nearly a 10,000-vote increase for Democrats.

With this year’s fight for Ohio’s crucial 18 Electoral College votes expected to be extremely close, the difference of a few thousand extra votes for Romney in Butler County might be the difference between victory and defeat. On Election Night, then, analysts will be watching returns from this county very closely. If early returns show Romney near 65 percent here, he’ll likely be the next President of the United States. If not …

Perish the thought. Despite all talk of alternative routes to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, no Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio, and the tone of campaign rhetoric in the final week before Election Day conveys the impression that defeat for Romney would be the tragic end of the American constitutional republic.

That was part of the basic message Ann Romney brought to Butler County this week when she appeared in the county seat, Hamilton, and told how her husband mulled the decision of whether he should seek the presidency in 2012, after having lost the nomination to McCain in 2008. She explained that she asked him, “Is it too late to save the country?” Mrs. Romney then told the audience of about 200 people that “it will be too late if we have another four years” of Obama’s policies, before describing how she finally told her husband, “You must run. You have to save the country.”

Was this political hyperbole? Was it mere partisan rhetoric? Mrs. Romney would get no argument from the hundreds of conservative volunteers, both from Ohio and from out of state, who are now swarming Butler County, canvassing door-to-door or running phone-bank operations in an all-out effort to maximize the GOP vote in this, the largest cache of Republican votes in the Buckeye State. Many of these grassroots volunteers are part of a “voter education” operation run by Americans for Prosperity (see, “Ground Troops in Ohio,” Oct. 31), and the effort to recruit more soldiers for this army continues.

Yesterday at the Mariner’s Inn in West Chester, about 40 people showed up to hear former Sen. Fred Thompson at an AFP event. “We’re at a crossroads in this country,” said Thompson, as he reflected on America’s history and its founding principles. The politician-turned-actor-turned-talk-radio-host mused somberly on the situation in Europe, which he described as “coming apart at the seams,” noting that Greece, the famed cradle of democracy, is now “rioting in the streets” in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Then he turned his attention to more recent political history with a note of dark sarcasm: “So, Mister Wonderful got elected …”

Thompson mocked the almost mystical vision of Obama that persuaded many voters in 2008 to believe the Democrat was a “modern-day messiah who could make the oceans recede.” But this political messiah has clearly failed to accomplish any miracles, and Thompson remarked angrily about one of Obama’s most recent failures, the Sept. 11 debacle in Libya that resulted in the death of the U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans. Thompson recalled his own days as a young lawyer working with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the Watergate scandal, as he called the administration’s mishandling of the terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate “probably the biggest cover-up in American history — and you’re talking to an expert in cover-ups.” Students of history will recall that the ugly facts about Watergate were not known in time to prevent Nixon from winning a landslide, and there are some Republicans who grumble about the relative paucity of major-media attention to what they see as a scandal that could destroy Obama’s chances of re-election, if Americans knew the truth.

Many of those Republicans stare with disbelief at the poll numbers in Ohio, which show Obama leading by 2.3 points in the Real Clear Politics average for the state. How can it be, they ask themselves, that these sensible Midwesterners could be deceived by the media’s pro-Obama spin? The numbers must be wrong, they tell themselves, and in only four more days, the guessing game will be over. And if it is Romney’s mission, as his wife says, to “save the country,” then Republicans must pray that on Nov. 6, Butler County will save Romney.

About the Author

Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (50) |

Moe Blotz| 11.2.12 @ 6:34AM

No matter what happens in Ohio or anywhere else in the USA, Mitt Romney can not win without Jack's most important vote in Wisconsin.

chuck| 11.2.12 @ 8:12AM

That's what Jackass believes. He is the authority in these areas, you know.

Hey Jack, still got that new tuxedo you are going to wear to Ron Paul's inauguration?

mike 3/505| 11.2.12 @ 8:14AM

Great job Moe. Stir him up.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 10:04AM

The Contest is at TUESDAY's Civil War In Lebanon.

I afraid it's another one of those "Hit the Previously Button" deals. But, I have to find an Empty Comment Section to use, and Kaminsky never wrote anything yesterday. So I had to go to Tuesday.

C Smith | 11.2.12 @ 10:52AM

"Butler County may prove to be the key to the entire 2012 election, Ground Zero of the battle for the White House..."

There was a day when General Sam Houston "ordered" that the Alamo Mission be set to the torch. Yet the remnant of the “First Company of Texas Volunteers” under an azure blue flag emblazoned with the words “God and Liberty” would not "STAND DOWN." In the days that followed 26-year-old Lt. Col. William Barret Travis with a nondescript contingency of 20 Army Regulars, cast his lot with those preferring to "die in these ditches than give up to the enemy."
On February 24, 1836, William Barret Travis Lt. Col. Comdt. of the Alamo mission pleads:

"To the People of Texas and All Americans in the world"

"I am besieged, by a thousand.... The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword.... I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid.... If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country − Victory or Death...."

http://in-the-name-of-truth.bl.....world.html

Cobalt| 11.2.12 @ 10:53AM

Friday November 2, 2012

Romney +4.7

UnskewedPolls.com

http://www.unskewedpolls.com

"I haven't pulled apart all the pieces of Chambers' model, but my main objection to UnskewedPolls is that it re-weights the electorate twice."

"On Polling Models, skewed & Unskewed"

By Dan McLaughlin

http://www.redstate.com/2012/1.....-unskewed/

vtwin| 11.2.12 @ 11:46AM

Electoral Vote
Obama 332
Romney 206

Popular Vote
Obama 52%
Romney 48%

I’ll share my final perdition Monday.

Mark Levin| 11.2.12 @ 11:49AM

I think you will kill yourself after Mitt wins....glad you falling in love with the skewed polls

KennesawJack| 11.2.12 @ 12:14PM

I'm going to assume you meant "prediction" but, by golly, you ended up using exactly the right word. Freudian, don't you think?

John II| 11.2.12 @ 1:33PM

Twit's final perdition will happen on Tuesday.

Butch| 11.2.12 @ 4:23PM

You can have your perdition all to yourself, my man.

chuck| 11.2.12 @ 8:10PM

vtwit,

When the empty chair loses on Tuesday, will you finally just go away?

JmsA| 11.2.12 @ 9:29PM

Perdition sounds about right.

RCV| 11.2.12 @ 10:22PM

Stanford Universty's statistical analysis group just issued their analysis of all the available election data. Their conclusion: the probability of Obama winning the election is over 84%.

Alej| 11.3.12 @ 5:05PM

Can't argue with a "perdition" from the Land Of Fruits And Nuts !

Rhoetus| 11.3.12 @ 12:51AM

ROFLMAO - vtwin put the crack pipe down and step away. You might want to dial 911.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 8:17AM

I remember, years ago, when the Japanese scoffed at us because we spend so much time kissing the asses of our Minorities. We have gone from Bull Connor, to a Black President, in the blink of an eye, and yet, they still Hate Us.

We have given them Affirmative Action, Set Asides, Extra Points at College Admissions just for the Colour of their Skin, and what has it gotten us?

While we have made so many strides in one direction, they have gone down a different road. They have become what we used to be.

Gone is the White Racist's Bullhorn. Gone are the Rallies of White Southerners Protesting Segregation. Gone are the Lynchings and the Beatings of Blacks.

Now it is Al Sharpton with the Bullhorn, screaming out Threats to "White Interlopers" who would do business in a Black Neighborhood. It's the Black Panthers in the streets, Protesting against "Crackers" with threats of Violence and Murder. Now it is White People who are being Viscously Attacked and Beaten and Raped and Murdered by these ANIMALS, because of the Colour of their skin.

We are living in a Hell, at the end of a Road paved with our Good Intentions. We have a Creature in the White House who Hates Us, Hates this Country, and Hates everything that we believe in. And he got where he is because we "Spend so much time kissing the asses of our Minorities".

Bob Grant| 11.2.12 @ 8:34AM

The good reverend Joseph Lowery believes all white people are going to hell.

I knew obama would NOT "heal the racial divide" when he chose this evil bigot to give the benediction at his inaugural.

"...when white will embrace what's right..."

This Lowery character might be more diabolical than Jeremiah "chickenssssss have a come home to roooossstttt" Wright.

Yet, obama knows nothing about this. Nothing to see here folks. Move on.

Why do I say this?

The media told me so!!!!!

SUBVET| 11.2.12 @ 9:24AM

THEY ....need a new front man to further the agenda...good-by bo hello mitt.

See it's not about dems and republicans it's about control....what !! you can't see that.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 10:04AM

The Contest is at TUESDAY's Civil War In Lebanon.

I afraid it's another one of those "Hit the Previously Button" deals. But, I have to find an Empty Comment Section to use, and Kaminsky never wrote anything yesterday. So I had to go to Tuesday.

Bob Grant| 11.2.12 @ 10:28AM

The sick, twisted hoops you make us go through to get to your game every Friday.

Methinks you get a sadistic chuckle out of this.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 11:43AM

I need a Vacant Comment Lot, so to speak, to work with. And seeing as how Ross didn't write a Column yesterday?

I had to go to Alibabba's Column, which is always a desolate wasteland.

Now quit complaining, and show us what ya got.

John II| 11.2.12 @ 1:35PM

I already entered mine, and without the tutu. I really think you stole the tutu, Timmy.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 3:31PM

I'm wearing it as we speak.

c. j. acworth| 11.2.12 @ 8:55AM

Romney isn't going to "save the country" either. But as the bus hurtles toward the cliff, he might just be able to apply just enough brake to allow the rest of us to turn it around. Woe to those who look to mortal men for salvation.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 10:05AM

The Contest is at TUESDAY's Civil War In Lebanon.

I afraid it's another one of those "Hit the Previously Button" deals. But, I have to find an Empty Comment Section to use, and Kaminsky never wrote anything yesterday. So I had to go to Tuesday.

Jack London| 11.2.12 @ 9:09AM

"How can it be, they ask themselves, that these sensible Midwesterners could be deceived by the media's pro-Obama spin?"

Actually,maybe they don't like liars such as Romney and his Jeeps in China lie as well as all his other lies.

KennesawJack| 11.2.12 @ 9:50AM

Jeeps in China wasn't a lie Jackie Boy. At least it wasn't according to that right wing news outlet, that Republican Party Spin Machine known as the Washington Post. Fiat has announced they WILL be building some of the Jeep models in China. Nice try, though.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 10:06AM

The Contest is at TUESDAY's Civil War In Lebanon.

I afraid it's another one of those "Hit the Previously Button" deals. But, I have to find an Empty Comment Section to use, and Kaminsky never wrote anything yesterday. So I had to go to Tuesday.

And, stop wasting your time with that "Cigarette" from London.

gene| 11.2.12 @ 9:28AM

"......no Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio....."
Enough of the Bovine Scatology.
Respect the past. Learn from it, but do not let it direct all of your decisions. Harry Truman went to bed on Election Night 1948 knowing that he had been elected when every expert in the country said the opposite. He won without the deep south and NY. Without much of the entire North East.
He also stated that an Expert is someone who does not want to learn anything new, because then he would not be an expert anymore.
This is very true and appropriate for this Election.

".......then Republicans must pray that on Nov. 6, Butler County will save Romney......."

What incredible fornicating bovine scatology.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 10:06AM

The Contest is at TUESDAY's Civil War In Lebanon.

I afraid it's another one of those "Hit the Previously Button" deals. But, I have to find an Empty Comment Section to use, and Kaminsky never wrote anything yesterday. So I had to go to Tuesday.

Who Knows?| 11.2.12 @ 9:51AM

Just remember, by definition half the population is below average, no matter what you measure.

So, OF COURSE Obama has at least 45% of the vote locked up.

It’s déjà vu all over again for me. In 1992, when I found out Clinton had been exposed as a pot smoking, womanizing, draft dodger, I got loaded on some cheap wine, and went to bed totally sure he couldn’t win.

My assumption about the American voters, that they wouldn’t put up with such a radical, was blasted to hell. They fooled me once, but after 20 years, the old memory isn’t far enough gone for them to fool me yet again!

For any other oldsters out there, here’s another golden memory---Clinton MADE Limbaugh, and from the early 90’s the latter used to play political parodies. Remember Paul Shankin (was it?) and…

“I’m a young man, and I can’t leave my mother…”, referring to Bill Clinton.

Can’t get it out of my mind!

Then there’s Hillary, who’s famously known for “It Takes a Village”, and “Do it for the children”, among many other things.

Face facts---it’s true that around HALF, or more, of living Americans consider themselves CHILDREN, already.

America’s youth culture is triumphing, big time!

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 10:06AM

The Contest is at TUESDAY's Civil War In Lebanon.

I afraid it's another one of those "Hit the Previously Button" deals. But, I have to find an Empty Comment Section to use, and Kaminsky never wrote anything yesterday. So I had to go to Tuesday.

markenoff| 11.2.12 @ 1:20PM

I must correct you. It is not true that "by definition half the population is below average". This would only be true if whatever characteristic you are measuring is distributed among the population being measured along a constantly sloping contiuum; ie a straight diagonal line. It is possible for a majority to be below average and for a majority to be above average depending upon the distribution.

For instance, 3 people take a test. Two score 100, one scores 70. Average is 90 but 2/3s (a majority) are above average.

Three others take a test. One sores 100, two score 70. Average is 80 but 2/3s are below average.

In 1992 it was the 18% who voted for Perot who made the difference.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 3:32PM

Have you SEEN a T.V. Guide, lately?

Alej| 11.3.12 @ 5:10PM

The accepted "average," mean, IQ of Caucasian America is 100. Half above, half below.

100 is just above drooling.

gene| 11.2.12 @ 10:08AM

When the bottom falls out, those with steel in their spines will get up in the morning and start picking up the pieces. They will kick *ss and take names and do what needs to be done. Just like other generations facing trials and tribulations.
The buttheads will fall by the wayside or complain from up in the "peanut gallery".

Mark Levin| 11.2.12 @ 11:46AM

if Bill Cunnningham says Mitt will win Ohio, I will take his word

Dave Williams| 11.2.12 @ 12:29PM

Boehner a Republican all-star????? Please. Once we get Mitt into the White House and take the Senate, squishes like him are the next to go.

Rhoetus| 11.3.12 @ 1:00AM

Boehner is a cry baby.

Simon Templar| 11.2.12 @ 2:07PM

Ok, now it is some county in Ohio. Last week it was some county in Virginia, before that it was Florida, then before that, Iowa, the before that, Colorado, then before that, independent voters, before that soccer moms. Please shut up. you give freedom of speech and conservatives a bad name with such drivel and useless, distraction bullshit, yes, bullshit.
Do we want to win? Then vote, fight them at every turn, leave no stone unturned, thrown back, and countered.

TLP| 11.2.12 @ 3:34PM

The Governor is a Republican, as is the State Legislature.

Just sayin.

MacWell™| 11.2.12 @ 3:40PM

If "we the people" do not come out in droves next tuesday, you all know, as well as I do, that this election WILL be decided by the courts, and not us.
Only America is at stake folks, think about it when you are thinking about staying home, and letting someone else take care of it.
VOTE!
Like your life depends on it, because it just might.

E B | 11.2.12 @ 4:15PM

Obama and the media seem to think they can get away with portraying Romney as someone he isn't. I've searched for and read dozens of personal accounts which agree Romney is kind, caring, hardworking, helpful, honest, humble, thrifty, and funny. That's the man we saw in the debates. I've not seen any such accounts of Obama, and I've looked. Yet the media still praises Obama and covers up his failures and criticizes Romney for his sucesses, day in and day out. The same media that references polls weighted unrealistically towards Democrats - above even 2008 levels.

Read both sides for balanced coverage. How can you make an informed opinion on any topic if you consider only one point of view? You can't. Thanks for listening.
www.conservativemormonmom.blogspot.com

Rhoetus| 11.3.12 @ 12:58AM

We all watch the campaign on TV, the signal being fed by either a satellite dish or a cable service. I don't see the need for any candidate to camp out in a particular local. I am not butt hurt 'cause Romney or Ryan didn't have a rally in my home town.

Oatley| 11.3.12 @ 4:21PM

RCP is an average of polls, most of which have been over sampling D's, thus, RCP is an average of bad data.

woodsman1st| 11.3.12 @ 7:44PM

I fear that Mitt Romney is going to need a landslide victory to offset all of Obummer's fraudulent votes from the graveyards, illegal aliens, peoples dogs and cats, and voting machines that are already being reported as showing Obama's name when Romney's name is the choice. In the news today the NAACP has taken control of the voting in Huston Texas; where they are intimidating voters, moving obummer voters to the head of the lines and all kinds of illegal activities that the authorities are turning a blind eye to.
So for the very future if you want Romeny to win; if you want America to win; then PLEASE DO NOT SIT ON YOUR DUFFS ON NOV 6TH. VOTE!
If you know somone that cannot get down to vote,. give them a ride; ask around in your neighborhood, surely there are some old folks that need a ride to vote, I know that as a 77 year old senior citizen who is disabled it would break my heart if my kids didnt give me a ride so I can vote!

Vote for America; VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY!

BackToBasics| 11.3.12 @ 10:54PM

I share your concerns about the democrat voter fraud that is being perpetrated in the battlegound states.

If this election is stolen by Obam, they Republicans still will not do anything to fix democrat voter fraud that has been ongoing since at least the Kennedy-Nixon electtion in 1960!

bison cookie| 11.4.12 @ 8:00AM

PELOSI HOLDS SECRET FUNDRAISER WITH ISLAMISTS, HAMAS-LINKED GROUPS. Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi headlined a high-dollar fundraiser in May that was attended by U.S.-based Islamist groups and individuals linked by the U.S. government to the Hamas jihad group and to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood movement. The donors at the undisclosed May 16 event … READ MORE: http://bwcentral.org/2012/11/p.....ed-groups/

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