|
There were a lot of different clips last night from the 70 minute off-the-cuff talk that Mittens gave. Later last night, David Corn, the responsible journalist who posted the video, said there was more and he'd be posting today to Mother Jones, where he is Washington Bureau Chief. The bit that struck me most was not that 47% of people don't pay income taxes, because there's a specious element to that, and we'll come back to it. What I heard was that 47% of Americans were going to support Obama no matter what, and that there were 5 - 10% he had to reach to win the election. Let's parse, shall we? We know that there are a lot of people who don't pay Federal Income Taxes. Normally, they're the very poor, the low-income elderly, and the über rich. A lot of them pay payroll taxes, except, again the über rich, plus state taxes, use taxes and sales taxes. Most of those people pay a far higher percentage of their income in overall taxes than Mittens does. Hey, **I** pay more in Federal Income Taxes than Mittens does, and I make a tiny fraction of what he earns. But let's subtract out from his 47% the über rich, and that other population that won't be voting for Mitt (or anyone) because they're currently incarcerated. And that huge non-voting bloc of people under the age of 18, which actually counts within the total numbers. A lot of kids under 18 actually have Social Security numbers AND pay payroll taxes. Now let's add in the total number of people who DO pay income taxes and would never consider voting for Mittens and Eddie Munster. Hey!!! THAT INCLUDES ME!!! AND PROBABLY YOU!!! Next, let's add to Mitten's 47% the elderly Social Security recipients who pay no taxes, and barely make ends meet, who are part of the 75% of people polled who opposed making Medicare a voucher system. You can see where I'm going with this: we thought what he said last week about Libya was untenable, but this is even worse. It's hard to imagine someone having lived as many years as Mittens has who could be so incredibly block-headed to assume there were no recording devices. And now he has alienated a whole bunch of what might have been his base...ah well, good for us, and I've got some numbers that show that. You've heard me say many times that to win Pennsylvania, a Republican has to win Chester County, PA. And that's always a worry to me because Chester County has always been a higher Republican-to-Democratic registration advantage than any of the other counties surrounding Philadelphia. In fact, except for Delaware County, which has a very slight Republican registration edge, Bucks, Montgomery, Lehigh and Berks all have more registered Democrats than Republicans. But I pull the state numbers. which are very detailed, and available on a weekly basis. The spreadsheet is HUGE, so I can't reprint it, but if you want the data, go to this site, and click on the "current voter registration statistics" link and you'll get the most recent numbers. I look at the total number of registrations processed, by party, by week. Every week this year, more Republicans than Democrats. Blah, blah, sad....but then, what's that? The week of 21 May - more Democrats, by a few....then, the week of 11 June, almost double the number of Democrats compared to Republicans....and all of a sudden, the vast majority of weeks, MORE DEMOCRATS....for the year, through the week of 17 September? 4,337 Democrats to 4,153 Republicans. I SEE A TREND!!! And I know from the forms that we collect, there are more new Democratic registrations than Republican registrations. (It's important to me that you know we process ALL FORMS at our voter registration site, because it's the right thing to do....) So here's what I'm thinking. Karl Rove, Sheldon Adelson, Joe Ricketts, the Koch brothers and their brethren know that what Mittens said is what Mittens, and they, believe. Remember the book The Family by Jeff Sharlet? These are two overlapping groups. They believe ALL of us to be so stupid that spending billions will buy them the election. But they forgot people like me, and all MY brethren, who go out with clipboards and voter registration forms. The people who make the phone calls, knock the doors, and put $25 at a time into the campaigns. We're not 47% percent, we're more than 50.1%, and that's what it's going to take to win against the forces of evil. Am I confident? Not as much as I would be if they weren't also behind the Voter Suppression laws. But they cannot buy me, and they cannot change my resolve. Not me and not all the people who stand with me. MILLIONS of us. I hope that you, too, will join us (if you haven't already)..... Elections are won one voter at a time.
Get yours today. |
.jpg)