White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Barack Obama with former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and former First Lady Barbara Bush at the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Texas, April 25, 2013. White House Photo by Pete Souza.

Much like the Mark Twain evoked at the president’s last news conference, Organizing for Action wants people to know that the president reelected in November is “not done yet.”

President Barack Obama invited the question when he appeared in the West Wing of the White House on the 100th day of his second term. Things haven’t gone so well, so far, he was reminded. Had he lost his “juice?” he was asked.

“As Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point,” Obama replied.

So today, six months from Election Day, the day when Obama became the first president since Eisenhower to win two terms with more than 51 percent of the vote and the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to do so, his permanent campaign committee, the OFA organized to press his agenda, maintains it’s not over yet:

Six months ago today, we made history. And we’re not done yet. twitter.com/BarackObama/st…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 6, 2013

Original post is Obama: ‘Not Done Yet’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chris M. Rogers/Getty Images

Skeet shooting

A question came up at the White House today:

Just how much skeet shooting does President Barack Obama do at Camp David?

He said in an interview with The New Republic released over the weekend that he and friends go shooting “all the time” on the range that President Dwight Eisenhower opened at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains named for his grandson David.

There are pictures of John F. Kennedy shooting skeet there, pictures of George H.W. Bush and his young, at the time, son Jeb shooting skeet there.

But the Camp David Web-site offers no photo album of the 44th president’s riflery (make that shotgunry).

“I don’t know how often,” the president shoots skeet at the mountain retreat, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today in response to a reporter’s question at the West Wing press briefing.  “He does go to Camp David with some regularity, but I’m not sure how often he’s done that.”

If there’s a photo of the president shooting skeet, Carney said, he hasn’t seen it.

Asked why this hasn’t been mentioned before — the president revealed it when asked in the TNR interview if he’d ever shot a gun, at this time when Obama is promoting a plan to curb gun violence — Carney explained: “Because when he goes to Camp David, he goes to spend time with his family and friends and relax, not to produce photographs.”

There is, however, video of the Kennedys at the Skeet Range — they liked to relax, and produced a lot of photographs, too.

Original post is More on Obama’s Skeet-Shooting: Camp David for Fun, Not Photos by Political Capital.

Photograph by Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Mitt Romney speaks to media about debate prep and the DNC Convention at Lui Lui Wood-fired Italian Restaurant & Bar in West Lebanon, Vermont, on Sept. 5, 2012.

Trivia question:

In which state did Dwight D. Eisenhower win his largest share of the vote in 1952?

The answer may surprise you: Vermont.

Eisenhower took more than 71 percent of the vote in Vermont at a time when Yankee Republicanism was thriving in the Northeast. The next session of the U.S. House won’t include a Republican from New England.

On Nov. 6, Vermont gave Mitt Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, just 31 percent of its votes. President Barack Obama’s 67 percent marked his best showing after the 71 percent he took in his birth state of Hawaii, which wasn’t a state when Eisenhower was elected.

Another state that underscores the nation’s political and cultural shifts is West Virginia. Romney, aided by strong opposition to Obama’s energy policies, won 62 percent there, his fifth-best showing among the 50 states. In 1952, when the state generally voted Democratic along with most of the South, West Virginia gave Eisenhower 48 percent of the vote, his seventh-lowest percentage among the 48 states then in the union.

Original post is Ike’s Best State: Mitt’s Second-Worst by Political Capital.

Photograph by Luke Sharrett/The New York Times via Redux

Gen. David Petraeus testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill.

Written with John Walcott

Eisenhower did it.

Al Haig declared he was in charge.

Wesley Clark tried it, too.

But David Petraeus, the retired four-star general, ex-commander of U.S. Central Command and commander of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan now serving as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has no designs on elected office, a spokesman says.

The question was prompted by a question to Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee: “Governor, have you met with General Petraeus in New Hampshire?’ Romney, who had spent some time at his lake house in Wolfeboro and told reporters he was having guests over, ignored the question. “Thank you so much,” he said, “good to see you.”

The Drudge Report was citing an “insider” as saying that President Barack Obama had whispered to a top fundraiser this week that he believes Romney wants to make Petraeus his running mate. The report said Romney was believed to have secretly met with the general in New Hampshire.

Preston Golson, CIA spokesman, was forthcoming and happily on-the-record on this one:

“Director Petraeus feels very privileged to be able to continue to serve our country in his current position and, as he has stated clearly numerous times before, he will not seek elected office.”

Original post is Petraeus as Romney Running Mate? `Not’ Seeking Elected Office by Political Capital.

Photograph by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama at a campaign event in Portland, Oregon, on July 24, 2012.

The slow growth reported for the second quarter is enough to allow President Barack Obama an edge in his re-election bid, according to a forecasting model based on the economy and polling data.

The U.S. economy grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate from April through June, in line with forecasts and slowing from a revised 2.0 percent rate during the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department reported today.

“It puts Obama just barely above the break-even point,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta and developer of the forecasting model. “Mainly it tells me we’re heading to a very close election and Obama is a slight favorite.”

Abramowitz said today that his model projects Obama will receive 50.5 percent of the popular vote in November and has a two-thirds probability of winning. The model doesn’t project the Electoral College outcome, and it is possible for candidate to win the popular vote without an electoral-vote victory, as occurred in the 2000 contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

In three quarters of the 16 presidential elections since World War II, the outcome has been within 1.5 percentage points of this model’s projection, Abramowitz said.

The forecast is based on the initial second-quarter gross domestic product report and the Gallup Poll’s presidential job approval rating for the last three days of June, when the figure for Obama was 48 percent. Abramowitz uses GDP as a broad measure of the economy and second-quarter data because the political impact of earlier economic performance already is reflected in public opinion polling.

The economy has been the focal point of this year’s presidential campaign. Gross domestic product is not the only indicator. Obama also is running for re-election at a time of slow job growth, with unemployment holding at over 8 percent for the longest stretch since World War II.

A number of election forecasting models have been developed that attempt to predict presidential election results based on economic data — either alone or in combination with polls — though authors differ on the best economic measures.

Other forecasters have drawn on predictors including income growth, payroll growth, unemployment rate changes, leading economic indicators, stock market performance and consumer confidence. Typically, they concentrate on the trajectory of the economy during the election year, though some also give lesser weight to the economy’s performance earlier in a president’s term.

Abramowitz concentrates on gross domestic product growth because it is “a very broad measure of the performance of the economy that correlates with a lot of other things.”

Third-quarter GDP growth is no better than second-quarter growth as a predictor of an election outcome, and by the time it is available polling data alone is a superior predictor, Abramowitz said. The first estimate of third-quarter growth this year will be released October 26 — 11 days before the election.

There’s a “lag” in the time it takes the public to incorporate objective economic data in political perceptions, and late in the campaign there are fewer undecided voters “open to persuasion,” he said.

Strong economic growth historically has helped presidents win re-election, though it hasn’t always been a prerequisite.

Among the seven U.S. presidents returned to office since World War II, GDP growth has averaged 4.7 percent during the first nine months of their re-election year, above the overall 3.2 percent average since quarterly figures first were issued in 1947. So far this year, the average growth rate has been 1.75 percent as Obama approaches the Nov. 6 election.

Ronald Reagan, whose experience with a deep recession early in his term has parallels to challenges Obama confronts, presided over an economy that grew at an average 6.3 percent rate during the first nine months of 1984. As Bill Clinton headed to re-election in 1996, growth averaged 4.5 percent.

Even so, a weak economy hasn’t necessarily meant defeat. Dwight Eisenhower, who like Obama remained personally popular with voters, was re-elected despite a sluggish economy in 1956. GDP grew at an average 0.3 percent annual rate during the first nine months of a year in which Eisenhower won a landslide victory with 57 percent of the vote.

Bush was also re-elected with below-normal growth, averaging 2.8 percent during the first nine months of 2004.

High growth hasn’t always translated into re-election for incumbents.

Two of the three presidents defeated for re-election since World War II lost despite above-average growth during the first three quarters of their election years. Voters rejected Gerald Ford in 1976 with growth averaging 4.8 percent amid discontent over the Watergate scandal and his pardon of predecessor Richard Nixon.

George H.W. Bush was ousted in 1992, though growth averaged 4.3 percent. The public was still angry over the 1990-1991 recession, and the unemployment rate continued to climb through June of the election year.

Original post is Obama Holds Slim Election Edge With Slow Growth in Economic Model by Political Capital.

Photograph by Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

White House press secretary Jay Carney, a former TIME magazine Washington bureau chief, put on his editor hat today.

“Do not buy into the B.S. that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration,” he told reporters on board Air Force One on the way to Colorado where the president will deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy later today.”I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness.”

In an unusual move he told the reporters that since they seemed a “little wooly-headed this morning” (the press had to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base at 6:15 am) he would read them excerpts from an Obama-friendly story, “Obama Spending Binge Never Happened” by Rex Nutting at MarketWatch, that ran yesterday.

Carney quoted from the story which says: “Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.”

“I simply make the point, as an editor might say, to ‘check it out,’” he told the reporters.

Carney said Nutting’s point is a “fact not often noted in the press and certainly never mentioned by the Republicans.”

After the lecture Carney abruptly moved on: “Next question.”

Original post is Jay Carney Lectures Reporters: Don’t ‘Buy into the B.S.’ by Political Capital.