United Liberty

Democrats in Wisconsin are upset that the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association aren’t sending money up to their state to defeat Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), who has been targeted after proposing perfectly reasonable changes to the state’s collective bargaining laws, in the upcoming recall election. Greg Sargent notes:

Top Wisconsin Democrats are furious with the national party — and the Democratic National Committee in particular — for refusing their request for a major investment in the battle to recall Scott Walker, I’m told.

The failure to put up the money Wisconsin Dems need to execute their recall plan comes at a time when the national Republican Party is sinking big money into defending Walker, raising fears that the DNC’s reluctance could help tip the race his way.

“We are frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association,” a top Wisconsin Democratic Party official tells me. “Scott Walker has the full support and backing of the Republican Party and all its tentacles. We are not getting similar support.”

“Considering that Scott Walker has already spent $30 million and we’re even in the polls, this is a winnable race,” the Wisconsin Dem continues. “We can get outspent two to one or five to one. We can’t get spent 20 to one.”

This may cause one to scratch their head, but the most recent poll out of Wisconsin shows that Walker has a nine point lead over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett with just a few weeks to go until the election:

Over the last few years, I’ve been explaining to friends, particularly Republicans, that young Americans are increasinly libertarian in their viewpoints. Some of them dismiss it, refusing to acknowledge the rising popularity of libertarianism. However, Jack Hunter notes that, thanks to some recent polling by Zogby, the conservative movement is being somewhat saved by libertarians:

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been focusing heavily on primary challenges to Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Dick Lugar (R-IN). This pair represent nearly everything wrong with the Republican Party in Washington as they’ve both been a consistant vote for expanding government and blowing taxpayer dollars.

There is another Senate race that deserve attention, one that we haven’t covered much. Over in Texas, David Dewhurst, who is backed by the GOP establishment nationally and in the state to succeed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, is still leading the pack, but Ted Cruz, who has received support from many of the same conservative grassroots groups backing candidates in other states, is quickly closing in:

When you look at polls, it’s not a surprise to see that ObamaCare is still unpopular with Ameicans. In fact, it’s so unpopular that Democrats admit that it’s a political liability, though one that may be off-the-table in the fall campaign thanks to the Supreme Court (though healthcare will still be around as a broader issue).

But perhaps the most important group on the issue is independent voters, who, according to a Kaiser Family poll, want ObamaCare overturned by the Supreme Court:

A growing number of Americans, 59 percent, believe the Supreme Court will find President Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment unconstitutional, and a majority of independents, 52 percent, would be happy if that happened.

The Kaiser Family Foundation released their monthly Health Tracking Poll yesterday, finding that 51 percent of Americans believe the Supreme Court should rule that Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional. Only 30 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Obama’s individual mandate.

As Ron noted on Monday, independent voters are a crucial part of the vote. And while they may agree that ObamaCare is a bad deal for them, Republicans need to put forward a workable plan to deal with the issue to show that they are committed to tackling it head-on.

While surfing the web this weekend after getting from home BlogConCLT, I came across this story at The Daily Caller, claiming that a new poll from Pew Research shows that Republicans are more open-minded and more informed than Democrats:

Yet another new survey shows that Republican supporters know more about politics and political history than Democrats.

On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey titled “Partisan Differences in Knowledge.”

The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.

“Republicans fare substantially better than Democrats on several questions in the survey, as is typically the case in surveys about political knowledge,” said the study, which noted that Democrats outscored Republicans on five questions by an average of 4.6 percent.

The widest partisan gap in the survey came in at 30 points when only 46 percent of Democrats — but 76 percent of Republicans —- correctly described the GOP as “the party generally more supportive of reducing the size of federal government.”

I spent the weekend in Charlotte chatting with some great people, however, I also heard several people making fun of libertarians and cracking jokes about how Barack Obama, as a small child, once tried dog meat — as if that is going to matter to voters in the fall. So I’m inclined to chuckle at the notion that Republicans are “open-minded.”

It looks like it just got real for Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN). As you know, the 30+ year Senator is locked in a tough primary battle against Richard Mourdock, who is running to his right and has received the backing of several prominent conservative groups. Recent polls have showed Lugar holding a small lead ahead of the May 8th primary. However, a new internal poll from Mourdock shows the Lugar down by a point, though inside the margin of error:

With the primary less than three weeks away, Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock is in a statistical dead heat against Sen. Richard Lugar, according to the results of a poll conducted for his campaign that were released on Wednesday. Mourdock leads Lugar 42 percent to 41 percent in a survey that was taken on Monday and Tuesday.

Mourdock’s slight advantage is well within the margin of error, but it represents a departure from most of the public polling taken on the race, which has mostly shown Lugar with a lead.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of Lugar while 39 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion of him. Forty-six percent said they held an favorable opinion of Mourdock while 22 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion.

Count me among those that believe Mitt Romney — or any Republican, for that matter — will have a tough time defeating Barack Obama in the fall. It’s not that Romney can’t win, but his lackluster primary campaign doesn’t exactly bode well for his future.

Whether conservatives want to admit it or not, Romney is probably their best hope for beating Obama. The only other candidate that was running close with him was Ron Paul, who never had a real shot at being the nominee. There is little doubt, however, that this election is going to be close, as Gallup’s first tracking poll indicated yesterday:

For all the pessimism, Obama’s number still aren’t that great. The Washington Examiner noted yesterday that his numbers are worse than Gerald Ford’s, who was going up against Jimmy Carter in 1976, at the same point in the campaign. And with a still-slow economy, high unemployment, and a river of red ink still flowing from Washington, Obama is going to throw everything he can at Romney to keep attention of him and his poor number.

Of course, we still have more than six months to go until election day, and anything can and will happen. But for Republicans that believe Romney can’t take down Obama, this should be a bright spot.

While it’s true that President Barack Obama saw a marginal bump in his approval ratings last month, the issue of gas prices continues to hang over his head. Obama has finally decided to approve part of the Keystone XL pipeline, but outside of that small step his response to rising gas prices has been lip-service and to wage rhetorical warfare on oil companies.

Obama may think that these tactics are going to appease voters, but according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, Americans are starting to notice his inaction as gas prices hit their wallets hard:

A third of all Americans say surging gasoline prices have caused serious financial hardship in their households, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with more than six in 10 reporting some pinch.

President Obama continues to be harshly reviewed for his handling of the situation, even as he eludes some of the direct blame.

With all of the excitement over this week’s arguments in the Supreme Court, the on-going race for the Republican nomination for president has largely fell off the radar. However, there is still plenty of news to share, but not all of it is good, depending on which candidate you’re backing.

Republicans in Wisconsin will head to the polls next Tuesday, April 3rd, to cast their votes in the race. And while Rick Santorum had been doing well there recently, it looks like Mitt Romney has surged to the front in the latest poll:

The GOP race for president has flipped in Wisconsin since last month, with Mitt Romney overtaking Rick Santorum in the latest poll by Marquette Law School.

Romney leads Santorum 39% to 31% in a survey of GOP primary voters taken last Thursday through Sunday.

Ron Paul is running third in the poll with 11%, followed by Newt Gingrich with 5%.

The new numbers represent a major shift from Marquette’s February poll, which showed Santorum leading Romney in the state 34% to 18%, followed by Paul at 17% and Gingrich at 12%.

They are also roughly consistent with a poll done almost one week ago on March 21 by Rasmussen Reports, which showed Romney leading Santorum 46% to 33%.

If Santorum loses in Wisconsin, the pressure will only increase on him to drop out of the race. Many are saying that if he wants to be a player in 2016, assuming Romney doesn’t beat Barack Obama, than he needs to bow out very soon. But people close to Santorum say that a exit from the race is unlikely.

Despite the delegate math looking very favorably to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are continuing to hope that they can peel enough support away to prevent him from winning the nomination outright. And while a brokered convention may be a slight possibility, Romney’s rivals will need to improve their numbers if they hope to catch up, as Tim Carney noted last week at the Washington Examiner.

For Santorum, a lack of campaign organizaton may lead to an embarassing situtation in his home state of Pennsylvania. According to The Daily, Santorum could win the state and still not take home any delegates:

As Rick Santorum desperately tries to make a dent in Mitt Romney’s formidable delegate lead, he faces an unlikely obstacle on the primary calendar: his home state of Pennsylvania.

Yes, Santorum is currently favored — though hardly a lock — to win the popular vote in the state he represented in Congress for 16 years.

But Pennsylvania’s non-binding primary rules for distributing delegates raise the prospect that Santorum, who has said he’ll win the vast majority of the state’s delegates, could actually come away from next month’s primary empty-handed at a time when he can ill-afford it.

Which means the April 24 primary could represent yet another chance for Romney — who kicked off his Pennsylvania campaign this week by trotting out supportive Republican leaders — to finally deal Santorum a knockout blow.