Chad’s Morning Brief: Election Eve, Joe Straus at War Against Conservatives in Texas, & More

Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of November 5, 2012. Give us your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11 am.

1. One More Day (link)

Tomorrow millions will head to the polls and depending on how close the voting is, we should know who will win the Presidential election. The candidates will spend the day traveling thousands of miles in a last ditch effort to win support. How close is this election? If you believe the polls, very close. According to FOX News:

The candidates are once again tied nationally with two days remaining before Election Day, according to a Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll released Sunday.

Among likely voters, Obama and Romney are deadlocked at 48 percent. And for the first time this year, they are tied among independents voters, at 46 percent each, the poll says.

“After all we have been through, we can’t give up now. “I’m not ready to give up the fight,” Obama said during his first event Sunday, an outdoor event in Concord, N.H., where he was introduced by former President Bill Clinton and that was attended by more than 14,000 people.

At practically the same time, Romney argued the president had four years to improve the country and warned that another Obama term might result in more economic decline.

“The same course we’ve been on, will not lead to a better destination,” Romney told a crowd of about 4,400 in Des Moines, Iowa. “Unless we change course, we may be looking at another recession."

Before the candidates hit the trail, their top campaign officials expressed confidence about victory Tuesday and argued about who had the edge in battleground states and in early voting.

“They are in deep trouble,” Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They understand the battleground states where they’ve been working is not working out for them.”

Rich Beeson, Romney’s political director, said the campaign has found success in a final get-out-the-vote effort that reached out to people who are not core Republicans or vote regularly.

"We've done a much, much better job of getting our low propensity voters out to vote," he told Fox. "And we've got all of our high propensity voters ready to go vote on Election Day."

On the criticism that the campaign has failed to lock down Republican-friendly Florida, Beeson said: “For them to go down and spend more money down there is a little bit like Barack Obama's government right now. They want to throw money at the problem and hope it fixes it, but at the end of the day, Gov. Romney will carry Florida by a significant margin.”

One more day. At stake? The future of the United States.

2. Straus Officials vs Conservatives (link)

Well this is an interesting article from RedState.com that appeared on Sunday. According to Erick Erickson, emails from officials working for Texas Speaker Joe Straus show hostility towards conservatives and members of the Tea Party.

Tea party activists are called “idiots,” allies of U.S. Rep. Joe Barton are called “mother f***ers,” and decorated U.S. Marine and State Rep. Van Taylor is dismissed as“stupid,” by a top Straus political strategist.

Despite efforts by grassroots organizations, new media writers and others, most of the coordinated efforts against conservatives by Straus and his allies regarding Texas redistricting have been hidden from view. Speaker Straus has exerted various privileges and exemptions to keep the public from seeing emails or any other evidence of their activities. In fact, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has most or all the emails because of the re-districting litigation, but has not released them at the apparent request of his client, the Speaker.

However, in a batch of emails RedState has managed to get hold of (through other sources), it has become clear that Straus’ key strategists were openly hostile to conservatives. In particular, his top confidant Gordon Johnson (a Straus horseracing partner and former lobbyist) was clearly running the show — not the speaker’s chief of staff or other official office members.

But let’s be clear, this fits a pattern. Some readers may recall a post I wrote a few months back in the heat of the battle between Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst. In that, a friend in Austin detailed a conversation overheard at a coffee shop between a Dewhurst and a Straus staffer. The conversation was similarly dripping with disdain for the Tea Party and all things conservative.

Keep an eye on this story. It's no secret that Straus and conservatives in Texas don't have the best relationship in the world. This won't help things.

3. Revenge! (link)

Over the weekend President Obama called for voters to take out their "revenge" by voting for him. Mitt Romney told supporters told people to vote for him for love of the country. Naturally, Team Obama is trying to walk back their candidate's comment.

Team Obama’s campaign manager is trying to muffle the political impact of President Barack Obama’s call for ballot-box “revenge” by claiming that Gov. Mitt Romney is himself touting revenge.

“The Romney campaign’s message today is revenge, ours is the President’s plan for the middle class,” campaign manager Jim Messina tweeted Sunday morning. “I’ll take that contrast any day.”

 

“Don’t boo, vote! Vote! Voting is the best revenge,” Obama said Friday at a rally in Springfield, Va.

Romney cited that comment in a speech later that day and has emphasized it over the weekend. The campaign on Saturday released a TV ad using the comment to highlight Romney’s own end-of-campaign themes: “love of country,” optimism, hope and change.

The ad is titled “Revenge Or Love Of Country.”

Both campaigns conduct numerous polls to gauge the impact of each day’s events. Messina’s effort to spin the revenge controversy suggests that it is alienating late-deciding voters in key swing states.

Isn't that just typical of these two men. You can tell Mitt Romney loves this country. Obama? Well, he likes revenge.

4. Newspapers Endorse Romney (link)

I don't know if people care who the newspaper endorses, but it is interesting to see how many papers have flipped from 2008 and then supporting Barack Obama to now backing Romney. Add the New York Daily News to the growing list. According to FOX News:

The Daily News joins nearly a dozen other major U.S. newspapers in switching endorsements from Obama to Romney, according to the University of California, Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project.

Only one newspaper, The San Antonio Express-News, which endorsed the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain, has switched to endorsing Obama, according the survey.

The 11 papers, according the study, that also switched to Romney are:

The New York Daily News

Long Island Newsday

Houston Chronicle

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Orlando Sentinel

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Nashville Tennessean

Des Moines Register

Illinois Daily Herald

Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Press-Telegram

Other Top Stories:

The Turnout Game

NAACP Takes Over Polling Station in Houston?

Redskins Loss Predicts Romney Victory

Whites Lose Majority Status Across Region

These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11 am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.