Arguing the Polls

In Pete Du Pont's September 27th article, in the Wall Street Journal, he attempts to persuade the reader that despite being ahead in the polls, President Obama does not have this election locked up and republicans need to get out and vote for governor Romney.  He, like many right leaning columnists, is hoping that this bandwagon effect will be absorbed by the readers of the WSJ and subsequent publications.  He hopes to reach the affluent and the aspiring, the investor, people with portfolios, the upper middle class republicans.  The general demographics of the readership of the WSJ are 82% male with an average age of 57.  Although, for the uninformed reader, he informs them that Mitt Romney is the republican candidate and that the democrats went with their incumbent and then reminds us that the "polls are volatile and close" and that the election is not over.
In this commentary titled "The Election Isn't Over" he cites polling companies such as Rasmussen Reports, where the president is up in August and then tied with Romney in late September; Gallup shows Romney up in August and President Obama up now; a conservative leaning political polling site, RealClearPolitics.com has the president at a base of 179 in the electoral college and Mr. Romney at 150.  I can't dispute the poll numbers, his opinion or the obvious high unemployment and slow economic recovery, but I can elaborate on the president's policy that Mr. Du Pont vaguely and carelessly mentions.
Pete Du Pont writes that higher taxes are coming with "ObamaCare's new 3.8% tax on investment income."  The 3.8% tax is not a sales tax but a tax on "unearned income" you would gain from investments, rentals, or home sales over the exemption amount of $250,000 for single and $500,000 for married couples.  This tax would only be added for some people with incomes above $200,000 and some married couples with income greater than $250,000.
In the end, Pete Du Pont's argument was honest and concrete.  I desperately wanted him to be wrong about the national debt or the tax penalty and the amount of people it would affect.  Mr. Du Pont states that "Mr." Obama continues to score poorly on job approval.  It's all relative....I think he's doing fine.