Romney Pays No Taxes ...

... under the Paul Ryan tax plan.

Actually, he does pay a small amount. Matthew O'Brien of The Atlantic estimates that in 2010, a year for which we do have Romney's full tax return, Romney would have paid an effective tax rate of 0.82%. As in < 1%. The only reason he'd even pay that is because of his income on his speaking fees which, you know, is "not very much" according to Romney himself.

I'll agree with the pundits on this: Picking Ryan sure was "bold."

Some Initial Thoughts on the Ryan Pick

1) The timing makes little sense to me. Romney has just a few opportunities to truly reset the race. The VP pick, the convention, and the debates. Why make this move on a Saturday ... on a Saturday at 8:45AM EST ... on a Saturday at 8:45AM EST during the last weekend of the Olympics? It is as if Romney is trying to get people to ignore the news. Why not wait until Monday or Tuesday when more will tune in?

2) Picking Ryan is a clear admission the Romney team thinks they are behind and need to change the dynamic and conversation in the race. If you're comfortable with where you are, you pick Pawlenty, Portman, etc. Ryan brings many things to the table that are good for Romney. He's respected by tea party people, he's from Wisconsin, he's smart, and he's telegenic. But he's also a candidate who brings risk to the Romney campaign. He reinforces the pre-existing Obama narrative: Romney wants to give tax cuts to wealthy people while balancing the budget on the backs of the rest of us by cutting Medicare, etc.

3) Picking up on that last point, Romney runs stronger with seniors than younger voters. Picking Ryan gives Obama an opening to gain ground with seniors. The Obama campaign has already sent out an email on Ryan highlighting his plans on Medicare which would be devastating to a very popular program. Also, Ryan is a young guy and he looks even younger than he is. Perhaps this was an intentional effort to reach out to younger voters by Romney but it could hurt him just as much or more among older voters.

4) Does Ryan deliver Wisconsin? No. He's popular in his district but I don't think that matters statewide. Many people have misread Scott Walker's recall victory as an endorsement of Walker's policies. It was more a rejection of the recall mechanism in dealing with policy differences. Moreover, the Obama campaign will wrap Walker's assault on unions around Romney. I think that could hurt Romney just a little bit in states like Ohio and Michigan.

5) I've said all along VP picks don't make much of a difference in the long run of a campaign though they can hurt a candidate. Does Ryan hurt Romney? Certainly not in the short term. Indeed, Romney may even get a minor bounce until people learn more about Ryan and the "newness" of the story fades. In the longer run, I figure it makes no difference and could mildly hurt Romney in terms of reinforcing Obama's narrative.

6) This pick looks an awful lot like Jack Kemp in 1996. A smart conservative darling gets picked to try to smooth out some of the "non-conservative" warts of the nominee. Conservatives swoon over the VP pick in the short term and few remember the pick in the long run and it doesn't make a difference.

News That Doesn't Matter

If it's news but doesn't matter, is it really news?

Romney plus RNC raised $100 million in July while Obama plus DNC raised $75 million. Does that matter? No.

Look ... both sides are going to have far more to spend than they need and, given that only a few states are actually in play, that money will be so concentrated on those states that the saturation point will be reached even earlier.

How the two sides are spending their money is a different question. The Obama campaign has been investing more heavily in their ground game by opening more offices, hiring more staff, and investing in GOTV efforts. The Romney campaign has emphasized advertising to a greater degree. It isn't black and white obviously as both sides have enough money to conduct both an air war and a ground war. But the differing emphases are pronounced enough that it could make a difference. I really don't know which side is making the better bet empirically. But I will say I generally think the Obama team is the smarter and more experienced group of the two.

Movement?

A couple of days ago, Quinnipiac released polls in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania showing Obama with leads of 6, 6, and 11 points respectively among likely voters.

Yesterday, Pew Research Center released a national poll showing Obama with a whopping 10-point lead with Romney's unfavorables ticking up to 52%.

This morning, the monthly jobs report held moderately good news for Obama ... a gain of 163,000 jobs in July. We've said previously that averaging job gains of even 125,000 a month would probably be good enough for the President to get reelected.

Finally, Nate Silver's model has Obama's probability of winning ticking up a bit over 70% and that has not yet factored in the decent jobs report.

So, is there real movement in the race here or just statistical noise? Let's break down each piece of news here. The Quinnipiac polls are probably the most positive indicator in all this as they are a good pollster and the Ohio and Florida numbers are surprisingly strong for Obama (please don't get me started on Pennsylvania again). Quinnipiac has moved to a likely voter screen here though and, while that normally gives a slight bump to the Republicans, it could do almost anything depending on how they are screening likely voters. So, it is entirely possible there is no movement here at all and Obama's lead in Ohio and Florida in these polls is just a function of a bad likely voter screen. Similarly, it could be statistical noise though these polls had very large sample sizes (over 1,000 likely voters in each state).

The Pew poll shows a very large lead for Obama that is out of step with other polls. Pew has had a significant house effect towards Obama for some time now so the "lead" would need to be discounted some just for that reason alone. Nate Silver discussed this at length last night.

The jobs numbers are decent for Obama but not incredible. The new numbers basically stem the erosion of confidence in my view rather than boosting Obama. This is good news for Obama no doubt but it is not a "game-changer."

Taking all that together, I think it is fair to say it has been a good couple of days for Obama but "no movement" is a good day for him right now. He doesn't need the dynamic of the race to change. I am not sure we're seeing actual movement in any numbers here. We'll know more in a week or two but count me as one who believes the breaking news here is ... nothing, nothing is happening.

Simple Math

Mitt Romney seems intent on making the whole case for his candidacy on the economy's poor performance and on his (Romney's) superior qualifications and background in the private sector actor. Some problems:

1) The Obama campaign has been hammering Romney on his Bain years and it appears to be resonating with voters ... -1

2) People want to know that, even if Romney can fix the economy, he's credible as a foreign policy actor. He just returned from a trip that suggests otherwise ... -1

3) Many have criticized Romney for running strictly on his biography and failing to offer clear ideas for how he would fix the economy. But he has offered a tax plan. Brookings finds that Romney's tax plan would actually increase the tax burden for 95% of Americans while cutting taxes for the wealthiest 5% ... -1

So that's a negative 3. What effect has it had on the race? None, so far. The national polls don't show much movement. If anything, they show Romney closing just by a bit but nothing really. The state polls seem to be moving in favor of Obama if anything. But ... nothing really.

Then none of it matters, right? I wouldn't quite say that. All of this is laying a foundation for the race to come. It is setting the strategic environment. I guess we might say the ingredients for the cake are being gathered. So, while we don't know what the cake will look like, the chef is going to be constrained by what is in the kitchen and what's not.

Nate Silver's forecast has moved around very, very little since it was introduced. But, right now, it is near the high point for Obama's chances of winning - 69%. That sounds about right to me.

Pennsylvania, Michigan, National Poll Results ...

... nothing.

Just nothing, nothing, and nothing happening.

PPP has a poll out this morning with Obama up by 6 in Pennsylvania.

PPP also has a poll out in Michigan showing Obama up by 14 (he's not ahead by 14 but he's surely ahead) and Mitchell Research has Obama up by 1. He's probably up by 7 or so.

Nate Silver calls it "the incredibly steady presidential race." NBC/WSJ sees no change in the national numbers.

In the news, there's Obama's "you didn't build that" comment and Romney's work with Bain and Romney's trip overseas and ... whatever. It is all just nothing. The dynamic is just not changing to this point. Obama is leading by a small amount. Not enough to be comfortable but enough to know you'd rather be holding his cards than Romney's right now.

Simple Thoughts

Every day the story of the campaign is Bain Capital, whether Romney was running the company from 1999-2002, Romney's tax returns, etc., is a bad day for Romney. It is bad not so much because he's losing a lot of ground with it. It is just that he's not making the case to those he wants to turn against the President.

I said some months ago that Romney needed to get a bunch of his tax returns out there and be done with it. He should have listed to me then. But there's still time. It is mid-July. People are on vacation and generally not paying much attention. He should get this stuff out there and be done with it now.

Thankfully, he won't listen.

A Campaign About Nothing

You probably remember this ...



... which seems a lot like this ...



Romney needs to make it a campaign about something. But, so far, ... nothing.

Romney - Mentor of Pretzels

If I were a pretzel and I wanted to learn how to tie myself into a twist, I couldn't do much better than watching Mitt Romney talk ...



He agrees with the dissent which means it is not a tax and it is unconstitutional but the majority said it is a tax and that means it is a tax and it is constitutional but that means Obama broke his pledge and raised taxes ... but don't go thinking that that means Romney also raised taxes when he imposed a tax ... I mean, penalty.

Random Thoughts ...

... I haven't had much time to write lately but I do have some random tidbits to share. Every blog I read seems to have some entry like this (called "remainders" or "outliers" or some such). I don't do that but here's my version of it.

CBS News reports that Roberts was originally on board with the conservatives to strike down the mandate but not the whole law and then he "switched." VERY interesting article and worth a read. Who knows who the sources are and who knows if it is all accurate? But here's the interesting question for the reporter who broke the story. Does this constitute a switch? No! As I pointed out the other day, Roberts did not uphold the mandate. And the CBS News article indicates that he never quite wanted to strike down the whole law. Here's how the article puts it:

In the court's private conference immediately after the arguments, he was aligned with the four conservatives to strike down the mandate. Roberts was less clear on whether that also meant the rest of the law must fall, the source said. The other four conservatives believed that the mandate could not be lopped off from the rest of the law and that, since one key part was unconstitutional, the entire law must be struck down.

So where's the shift here? Roberts never bought the commerce clause argument or the fact that there even was a mandate. And he apparently never wanted to strike down the whole law.

Obama seems to be doing just a tiny bit better of late. Nate Silver had a typically good piece on this the other day and the latest Gallup Poll (which is generally a very, very bad poll) has Obama doing a bit better. Is there any there there? In other words, is Obama actually doing better and, if so, why? It's hard to know for sure on the first question as it is not a big change and so it could well just be statistical noise. If we assume he's doing better, is it related to the healthcare decision? It is possible. We've also seen a little blip up in the number of people who approve of the law and a significant majority now says the Republicans should drop the issue and move on. But these are all pretty small movements so nothing very significant to see yet.

Charlie Cook is a genius but his recent piece dismissing the "obsessive" electoral vote watching is just dead wrong. One of Cook's main arguments is that we've had 56 presidential elections and the Electoral College has only failed to give the popular vote winner the victory 3 times. Sorry Charlie ... but that's a lot of times!!! And it almost happened in 2004 again. And it obviously happens more often when you have a very close election ... ya know, like in 2012. The Electoral College watching matters. Specifically, watching Ohio and Virginia matters.