“Romney Style: How to Destroy Your Campaign's Credibility in Five Easy Steps”

Source: youtube.com

“Legitimate rape” still defines the race. Akin is running five ads at once, while McCaskill hopes Romney's words will come back to haunt Akin.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With some polls showing Rep. Todd Akin and Sen. Claire McCaskill in a tight contest for U.S. Senate in Missouri, both campaigns have returned in the final days of the campaign to the issue that has defined the race: Akin's remark about "legitimate rape."

The McCaskill campaign's latest ad invokes Mitt Romney's response immediately following that controversy, when Romney said Akin should quit the race.

"Is Todd Akin fit to serve in the Senate?" a narrator in the ad asks. "Mitt Romney doesn't think so."

The ad cuts to Romney saying: "What he said was indefensible. It was wrong. It was offensive, and he should step out of the race."

Meanwhile, Akin's campaign, buoyed by a last-minute influx of money and advertising from outside groups, has launched an ad blitz of its own: The campaign plans to spend $1.75 million running pro-Akin television statewide in the final week of the election, $367,000 of which will be paid by the Missouri Republican Party.

In one of those ads, an Akin supporter, Kelly Burrell, says, "I've had an abortion. I've been raped in my past." She adds, "The reason that I'm voting for Todd and that I'm so proud of him is because he defends the unborn."

But Akin's most recent ad essentially retools and shortens one he's been using on the campaign trail: It features two of the same women, including Burrell, who has also appeared with Akin on the campaign trail. In both ads and in public, Burrell has spoken about having been raped, and regretting having an abortion.

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He was actually wrong on most of his predictions. He's headed to Pennsylvania on Sunday to campaign.

Source: youtube.com

To support the President, the actor sought to take the spotlight off himself and put it onto Obama's rank and file. An anti-celebrity approach to celebrity-glutted politics.

The short campaign documentary We Hold These Truths was produced by Edward Norton in collaboration with director Bennett Miller (Moneyball) and @radical.media.

By the end of each election season, the spectre of celebrities holding forth on their political views and stirring up controversy with ill-considered remarks becomes almost as common as lawn signs and Uncle Sam hats.

But stepping into the campaign in support of President Obama's re-election, actor Edward Norton has tried to venture in exactly the opposite of that well trod path. Teaming up with director Bennett Miller (Moneyball) and @radical.media, he has created an election season documentary with nary a hint of glitz, featuring, of all things, typical Americans from all walks of life talking about the core issues of what America means to them, and how those principles lead them to their Obama vote.

The seven minute film entitled We Hold These Truths, to be released online tonight, was the result of the actor's attempt to support the campaign without making it "about himself." Having previously made a HBO documentary, By the People, about the President, Norton remained friends with Obama guru David Axelrod, who called him in July looking to "get some filmmakers to think about creative ways to address the politics of the moment outside of the standard campaign ads and short cycle news media."

"I was glad to get the call," Norton said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I had been having a conversation with friends about how frustrating it was to see the conversation reducing politics to a gladatorial wrestling match." He turned to director Miller, who had shot a series of stark talking heads pieces about the meaning of the filmgoing experience for last year's Oscarcast; pieces Norton recalled as "best part of the show." The pair talked about how they could make a short film that stepped away from the noise and got back to real people talking about what really motivates their vote.

Image by  EMMANUEL DUNAND / Getty Images

The brief piece has a Studs Terkel-like quality of folksy wisdom, featuring a broad cross-section of demographic representatives speaking of their hopes and fears for America. While the tone unmistakably leans left, (the election is described by one as, "a choice to maintain a status quo or for the rich to get richer,") the campaign and its hot button themes are hardly mentioned and it is not until the final seconds that the President's name is invoked.

That choice stems out of Norton's work as an almost anti-celebrity activist, focusing on issues that are often more about using the information age to raise up the voices of individuals, rather than seeking a platform for his own. His major cause has been his Crowdrise website, which gives individuals tools to raise money for their favorite charities.

"I don't judge anyone else's choices but for myself, I don't relate to the idea of leveraging celebrity for its own sake," he said. "I'm not a believer of do this or pay attention to this because of who I am. Even though I support the President, to me it's much more interesting to encourage people to engage than to suggest that people should model themselves on me and my views."

Asked if the team came face to face with any Romney supporters while seeking the wisdom of the people, Norton admits that the notices seeking participants revealed that it was a Democratic effort and thus their participants skewed left. However, he says that some were very critical of the President and the administration, but that the film's interest was more in basic principles than the minutiae of today's policy debates and they encouraged people to step back from those specifics.

Having ventured among the populace, wading in their tales was, Norton professes, a faith restoring mission in the intelligence of the electorate.

"It made me feel the polls are a very limited measure of the minds of most people," he said. "I was blown away that for all the cynicism about the state of the country's all the people we talked to were really well informed, thoughtful and had a lot to say. It made me feel the polls are a very limited measure of the minds of most people. It restored my faith in how much common sense people have."

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Seamus is Romney's biggest vulnerability, The Simpsons character says. Posted to the official Fox YouTube page to advertise the show's return Sunday night.

Source: youtube.com

Farah cites Civil Rights era civil disobedience.

Via: wnd.com

A investigation into the ability of the Obama campaign to accept foreign donations by the conspiracy website World Net Daily appears to have broken federal election law. The website made donations to the Obama campaign for the amount of $15 and $5 using a Pakistani Internet Protocol and proxy server, a disposable credit card, a fake address, and the name “Osama bin Laden.”

But the site's editor, Joseph Farah, said the test was worth the risk, and compared it to civil rights-era civil disobedience.

The website pointed out in its story "the acceptance of foreign contributions is strictly illegal under U.S. campaign finance law," and made the case — like other conservatives — that Obama may have secretly accepted floods of foreign small dollar donations. The Obama campaign says it catches the occasional small foreign contribution with internal checks, and an Federal Elections Commission audit of the 2008 campaign — which faced similar allegations over small contributions, which are not disclosed, refuted the theories that year.

And i running the experiment, WND appears to have broken FEC guidelines which make clear donating in the name of another is illegal.

"Contributions made by one person in the name of another are prohibited," reads the FEC's guidelines to Federal Election Campaign Act's code of regulations. "No person may knowingly permit the use of his or her name to effect such a contribution. It is also prohibited to knowingly assist someone in making or to accept a contribution in the name of another."

According to the Justice Department the penalty for making is contributions is the name of another is up to "five years in prison and a fine of not less than 300 percent of the amount involved in the violation and not more than the greater of $50,000 or 1,000 percent of the amount involved in the violation."

Joseph Farah, the editor and CEO of WND responded to a request for comment at length:

As actual journalists, not a paid shills for Barack Obama or unlimited government, we at WND.com take risks in investigating fraud, waste, corruption and abuse by officials. I wonder if BuzzFeed were around during Martin Luther King's day if you would focus on the risks of civil disobedience rather than the larger issues of social justice he raised and the specific grievances he brought to the nation's attention. I also can't help but wonder if you, as a purported journalist will cheer if I am prosecuted for investigating FEC violations by the president of the United States.

Via: wnd.com

We can all agree, thank God, on Star Wars . Using data from its Trendsetter app, Engage analyzed “likes” from thousands of Facebook users to tie consumer choices to political preference and engagement.

Via: engagedc.com

Via: engagedc.com

The infographics use data from Engage's Trendsetter app, a tool that cross-references polling data with influence and page "likes" from Facebook. Engage measures turnout by affinity toward politics and politicians, assuming that the more likely you are to "like" a politician of any party on Facebook, the more probable it is you'll vote on Nov. 6.

In the week leading up to the election, Engage is rolling out 12 infographics with BuzzFeed that break down what your preferences — for food and alcohol, television and books, movies and games — say about your politics. Wednesday we started with food, and Thursday we continued with TV shows and networks.

LINK: What Your Favorite TV Shows And Networks Say About Your Politics

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Hey girl, the president is calling. You better pick up.

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The president presses attack on misleading Romney spot. UPDATE: Romney camp responds.

HILLIARD, OH — President Obama used one of his final pre-election appearances to attack a misleading ad from Mitt Romney that suggested he had helped ship American auto jobs to China, jumping feet first back into the fray after a week of dealing with Hurricane Sandy in an allegedly non-political way.

"You got folks who work at the Jeep plant who’ve been calling their employers worried, “Is it true are our jobs being shipped to China?’” a lively Obama told a crowd of 2800 gathered in a large fair grounds barn. “The reason they are making these calls is because Governor Romney ran an ad that says so. Except it’s not true. Everbody knows it’s not true. The car company themselves told Governor Romney to knock it off."

The Obama campaign is aggressively pushing back against the Romney ad, which they believe is grossly misleading, already airing two television spots tearing it down.

The ads are airing in Michigan and Ohio, two of the states that benefited the most from the auto bailout, which propelled General Motors back into the number one car company in the world after it lost its lead to Toyota in 2007.

General Motors regained the lead in 2011.

Both the CEO's of Chrysler and GM have disputed the claims in Romney's ad.

Obama officials feel the ad has backfired, giving Romney over a week of bad headlines, according to sources on the president's campaign.

On the final weekend before election day, Obama is scheduled to spend the majority of his time in Ohio, taking a bus tour across the state today.

He also plans to make stops in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Virginia on Saturday.

The campaign claims to be well ahead in Ohio in early voting, providing journalists with series of numbers to back up the claim.

Those numbers look like so, per a campaign press release:

Today, almost 1.7 million ballots have been requested or have already voted in Ohio that is the same number of ballots cast early in 2008.
· By the end of today, more Ohioans will have voted early in person than the total number of people who voted early in person in 2008.
· 23% of Ohio votes have already been cast, and according to public polling, Barack Obama leads 62/35 among those who have already voted [PPP]
o This means that Romney would need to win the remaining voters by 54% in order to tie the race on election day

The word — and the snide tone of the late campaign — vanished with Sandy's arrival.

President Barack Obama has forgotten Romnesia.

After using the term to deride Mitt Romney's changing positions — and to demonstrate some fight to a base worried he didn't have it in him to campaign anymore — Obama has now abandoned the portmanteau.

“You know, if you say you’re for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you’d sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have 'Romnesia,' Obama said last month, introducing the term.

“If you come down with a case of Romnesia and you can’t seem to remember the policies that are still on your website or the promises you’ve made over the six years you’ve been running for president, here’s the good news,” the riff would continue. “Obamacare covers preexisting conditions."

But Obama hasn't uttered the phrase in a speech since October 25 — days before Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast. At rallies on Thursday and Friday morning, the president's first since the storm, the line was conspicuously absent.

It is, in part, a mark of the unexpectedly muted tone of a late campaign that has largely been drowned out by Hurricane Sandy. But aides say Obama will bring the term back if Romney has another "episode." In the meantime, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton have been the water carriers for the term, which while they ruthlessly attacked Romney, also cut into Obama's own likability.

The Romney campaign had decried the term as a sign of a "flailing" campaign from the start, and aides celebrated the Obama campaign's decision to cut it from the stump speech.

"President Obama has abandoned a heavily disparaged line, which clearly hasn't worked," said a Romney adviser, who charged that Obama is still "desperately search[ing] for a closing argument hours before polls open."

Top Senate Democrat dismisses Romney argument he'll bring cooperation back to Washington.

Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threw cold water on Mitt Romney’s closing argument Friday, dismissing his repeated insistence that he would be able to work with Democrats in Congress to pursue his legislative agenda as “fantasy.”

Over the last several weeks, Romney has made his claim to the mantle of bipartisanship a central part of his stump speeches, repeatedly arguing that he can “reach across the aisle” and will meet with Democrats to plot a path forward for the nation.

But his lofty rhetoric aside, the reality is bipartisanship is unlikely to flower in Washington next year no matter who wins — a fact Reid underscored in his statement.

“Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his 'severely conservative' agenda is laughable,” Reid said.

“Mitt Romney has demonstrated that he lacks the courage to stand up to the Tea Party, kowtowing to their demands time and again. There is nothing in Mitt Romney’s record to suggest he would act any differently as president,” Reid added, warning that, “Senate Democrats are committed to defending the middle class, and we will do everything in our power to defend them against Mitt Romney’s Tea Party agenda.”

Reid has become something of a Tormentor in Chief of Romney, hammering the Republican presidential candidate over his tax returns and his faith, among other issues.

The two campaigns prepare to fight over everything from Hurricane Sandy to voter ID laws. Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Pennsylvania are the states to watch for election litigation.

WASHINGTON — Both presidential campaigns are preparing to refight the damaging 2000 recount battle in the case of a near-tie in Tuesday's vote, with a particular focus on the swing states of Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Virginia and even Pennsylvania.

The legal teams being assembled behind the scenes by both sides could have significant issues to litigate in any of those states — and likely any other decisive state where Tuesday's balloting ends up "too close to call." Extended litigation, all sides agree, is a nightmare scenario: It would deepen national divisions and call into question the legitimacy of the ultimate victor.

But both camps are both ready to fight, and both have their generals already in place. Ben Ginsberg, a key lawyer from President George W. Bush’s 2000 legal team, served as national counsel for Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign and is leading the team’s efforts this year.

Robert Bauer, who was President Clinton’s lawyer, served as Obama’s White House counsel and is now leading the campaign’s efforts just down the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Although their offices are less than 2 miles apart in Downtown Washington, D.C. — with Bauer’s firm, Perkins Coie, located a few blocks from the White House and Ginsberg’s firm, Patton Boggs, located just east of Georgetown — their eyes are focused elsewhere as each team prepares for countless possible flash points on Election Day.

The outlines of the fight have become perennial: Democrats focus on to access to the polls, mounting “voter protection” efforts connected to encouraging early voting and averting problems related to implementation of voter ID laws, in discussing their legal efforts. Republicans are talking up concerns about “voter fraud,” from questions about fraudulent registrations to efforts that would result in people voting in multiple states.

Both sides already have shown their willingness to engage: The Obama campaign successfully challenged a provision in Ohio's early voting law, and the Republican National Committee sent a letter to several state's secretaries of state — including in Ohio and Colorado — warning of "voting machine errors"

University of California, Irvine, law professor Rick Hasen, one of the country's leading election law experts, told BuzzFeed on Thursday that the states in which a close outcome would most likely lead Ginsberg and Bauer’s legal teams into court would be Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Automatic recounts are triggered if the elections in those states are within 0.5 percent in Florida, Colorado or Pennsylvania or 0.25 percent in Ohio.

With the Real Clear Politics electoral map showing 11 states in the toss-up category — including Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Pennsylvania, with their 89 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win the presidency — Election Day could hinge on the outcome in any of these states.

One unexpected unknown is the impact of Hurricane Sandy, which BuzzFeed reported already has had an impact on early voting — and which could continue to have an impact going forward. Concerns on that front center on Pennsylvania, the likeliest of Sandy's victims to be in play on Tuesday.

"The question there is whether election officials will be able to get their polling places open and, if they need to move some polling place locations, if they’ll be able to get the information to voters in time," Hasen said.

The primary concern, though, is in Ohio, where a recent court ruling would lead to the counting of thousands of provisional ballots cast that weren’t counted in 2008. Hasen said the increased number of provisional ballots makes it more likely such ballots — despite being a very small percentage of overall votes — nonetheless could prove decisive. Ohio’s provisional ballots, however, don’t even start being counted until Nov. 17.

“It’s entirely plausible that if the election comes down to Ohio, we won’t know the winner of the election for a couple weeks,” Hasen said, alluding to a recent video of a four-year-old girl weeping over election chatter. “That would make the Bronco Bama girl cry a lot more.”

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a Republican, lost an appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on the issue of whether voters ballots should be counted if they are in the right polling location but are sent, due to poll-worker error, to vote in the wrong precinct. For now, they will be counted, but DeWine and his staff still could appeal that ruling.

In Florida, ongoing questions — lingering, really, since 2000 — continue to be raised about the state's election preparation.

"I don’t think Florida has its act together," Hasen said. Noting problems already found with tens of thousands of ballots in Palm Beach County, Hasen said, "Aside from the fact that this doesn’t give people confidence that they’re votes are being fairly and accurately counted, Florida remains a place where there’s a lot of partisanship in how elections are run and a lot of variation with how elections are run across counties. It’s very closely fought and highly polarized place.”

In Colorado, questions about the partisanship of the Republican secretary of state, Scott Gessler, could lead to a difficult recount. "If it comes down to Colorado," Hasen said, "I expect there is going to be litigation and a tough recount atmosphere.”

Questions about voter registration issues, including voting in Virginia's college communities, could be at play in the Old Dominion state should Obama be able to pull out a win there.

In Pennsylvania, the implementation of an unusual court ruling regarding the state's voter ID law could arise in any post-election litigation. Under the ruling, the state can ask for ID at the polling place but it can’t deny someone a ballot if they don’t have ID, and rules around the requirement that voters without ID be given a provisional ballot have already led to soem confusion.

If the election gets closer in Pennsylvania, as the Romney campaign already claims it has, then expect Democrats to be looking for evidence of voters being turned away from the polls because they lacked an ID.

And while voting technology has improved from a dozen years ago, Hasen and other observers argue that other elements of election administration have gotten worse.

“Election law has become part of parties’ political strategy. You have election legislation being passed on party-line votes to help one party or another,” he noted. “We still have partisans running our elections, Democratic and Republican election administrators administer elections differently, even when they’re trying to do a fair job.”

Hasen also added one other way an “overtime” election would be different — and, in his view, more difficult — this time around.

“The other piece of this is the rise of social media, which was not around in 2000, which I think exacerbates partisan tensions in the event that we have an election go in to overtime.”

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The VP forgets an important word.

Source: youtube.com

Robert Bork as Romney's Supreme Court nominee, Roe v. Wade is overturned, and Medicare is voucherized with the help of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock in Romney's first 100 days, OFA imagines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY9_WLLuhB4

Source: youtube.com

Republicans quickly pounce on the comments.

Source: youtube.com

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At a raucous rally, Romney skips the “closing argument” and opts for a pep rally. “One final push will get us there.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney waves to the overflowing crowd after delivering a speech in West Allis, WI, November 2, 2012.

Image by Brian Snyder / Reuters

WEST ALLIS, WI — The speech Mitt Romney delivered to a warehouse full of roaring partisans here Friday morning was billed by the campaign "a closing argument" — but it felt more like a thought experiment.

As the campaign prepares to enter its frenetic final 72 hours, Romney used this rally outside Milwaukee not to change voters' minds, but to compel his most ardent supporters to action with an old motivational speaker's trick: Help them visualize the win.

"This Tuesday is a moment to look into the future and imagine what we can do, to put the past four years behind us and start building a new future," Romney told the crowd. "On November 6th, we come together for a better future. And on November 7th, we'll get to work," he added.

Republicans believe they can overcome President Obama's slim but persistent lead in most swing states by out-hustling disillusioned Democrats. But as the cable news chatter has begun to shift from describing the race as an un-callable toss-up to advantage Obama, Romney needs his base to believe victory is close enough that it's worth spending the weekend knocking on doors and making phone calls.

So, he described his proposed reforms in absolute terms, not conditionals: It was "when I'm president," not "if." He laid out his plan to tun the Oval Office into a dispenser of legislative initiatives and sweeping executive orders designed to jump-start the national economy.

He pledged to begin dismantling Obamacare immediately. He promised a fast-moving, wide-scale review to identify unnecessary regulations. And he said he would send a bill to Congress right away calling for an immediate 5% cut to nondefense discretionary spending.

He used the words "day one" at least half a dozen times, urging his supporters to consider how different the country will be with him at the helm.

The Republican audience, which hasn't seen Romney in their state in months, ate up it up, hollering, pumping their fists in solidarity, and interrupting the speech on two separate occasions to chant, "Four more days!"

Then, after providing a vague sketch of what victory would look like, he told the audience it was up to them to color in the picture.

"We have journeyed far and wide in this great campaign for America's future. And now we are almost home," Romney said. "One final push will get us there. We have known many long days and short nights, and now we are close."

Presidential candidates often pepper their speeches in the waning days of the race with musings about a palpable, unquantifiable "energy" they feel across the country — a mysterious momentum that doesn't show up in polls but that could ultimately swing the election their way.

It's mostly a trick, of course, but one that can command real results if voters truly buy into it.

And in that raucous Milwaukee warehouse, there were a lot of people buying into it.

"I'm excited!" exclaimed Darlene Johnson, a supporter from a nearby suburb wearing a bright red Romney T-shirt. "I believe he's gonna win, you bet. And I've placed 500 or more phone calls for him. I worked out of the Waukesha Victory Center, and I'll give my heart and soul to this campaign."

Johnson said she planned to spend the next four days distributing campaign materials door-to-door and talking family friends into voting for Romney.

"Just like with Ronald Reagan's 'Do it for the Gipper,' we've gotta do this," she said.

A very meme-worthy rally.

President Obama looks through his teleprompter as he participates in a campaign rally at Springfield High School in Ohio. (Reuters

President Obama points at a supporter during his rally in Springfield, Ohio. (Reuters)

President Obama points at a supporter as he enter his event in Springfield, Ohio. (Getty images)

President Obama greets a supporter while campaigning in Springfield, Ohio. (Getty)

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Social media is where more of on-the-ground political conversation is happening than ever before, largely through link sharing. It's the site of Glenn Beck's social revival, and a high impact for Rachel Maddow.

As news organizations and political campaigns alike struggle to understand what will go most viral on the new playing fields of Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the social web, at Newswhip, which tracks content on Facebook and Twitter, has sampled a week's worth of news from the "leading left- and right-wing news sources" it tracks using its Spike system to get a sense of what sharing looks like for partisan publications.

One surprising result, at least in this Newswhip study: Glenn Beck's startup The Blaze has quickly surpassed its conservative competitors by many measures of sharing, even as it holds a lower profile in the elite conversation.

The data from Newswhip's sources, which range from the progressive magazine Mother Jones to Fox News — though Newship says it "deliberately excluded plenty of 'mainstream media sources' that people on either side might consider to be biased," so there are limits to what it's looking at — offer a complex picture of what goes viral: Some of it is affirmation or good news for partisans, like Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama was for Democrats; some is the mirror image of that — stories casting your foe in a bad light, like a Fox News report accusing President Obama of abandoning Americans in Benghazi.

And while the inclusion of online media giant Huffington Post skews the numbers for biggest social reach, the key figure may be in the middle, the most interactions per story, owned by Maddow Blog on the left and The Blaze on the right.

One crucial question, which the figure doesn't answer: Are these sites getting more sharing because they are more ideological than partisan, each tied more to the beliefs of liberals or conservatives respectively than to their candidates? Another: Are people sharing in the hopes of persuading what are often relatively politically diverse groups of Facebook friends? And is some content too shrill, or too slanted, to share?

The data below, which again comes from the limited set of outlets that Newswhip tracks and considers to be "leading left- and right-wing news sources," don't answer all those questions, but they offer clues for media organizations and political campaigns alike.

Source: blog.newswhip.com

The video from The Four 2012 backs marriage initiatives on the ballot in four states this year. “No one speaks more to young people than Lady Gaga,” says Ellner.

Via: youtube.com

Lady Gaga released a video Friday in support of the marriage equality measures on on the ballot Tuesday in four states — Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. The singer's video is the latest from a social media campaign, The Four 2012, launched by leaders in media and LGBT rights.

"Hey everybody," Lady Gaga says in the video. "I just wanted to remind those of you who live in Maine, Minnesota, Washington, or Maryland, that you can actually vote for marriage equality on the ballot this year."

"No one speaks more to young people than Lady Gaga," said Brian Ellner, a co-founder of The Four, in a statement. "And they support equality more than any other group. If we are going to win and make marriage equality history on Tuesday in all four states, we need young people to get out and vote in record numbers."

Ryan Davis, another co-founder, added: "We're reaching millions of young voters in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington over the next four days, focusing on getting out the vote, and Lady Gaga has just become a major amplifier of equality."

Lady Gaga has been an outspoken advocate for marriage equality and LGBT rights. After President Obama announced his personal support for gay marriage, the singer tweeted, "Obama, congratulations on being the first sitting President to support marriage equality. Feels like the future, and not the past."

Last month, the Four 2012 released a video featuring Google employees in support of the marriage equality vote. "This is going to be the civil rights issue of our generation," said one Googler in the video.

Both videos are part of The Four's $200,000 ad campaign, funded by Jason Golberg, founder of Fab.com, an online design company.

A bet that American Jews care about things other than Israel. Republicans “can't talk about gay rights, they can't talk about the environment,” says Harris.

With Republican Jewish groups spending record amounts to help Mitt Romney woo Jewish voters on the subject of Israel, a major Democratic group has focused on keeping Jews in the fold by focusing on another set of issues on which they share more with Obama.

David Harris, the president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, predicted between 1 million and 1.5 million voter contacts to swing Jewish voters in Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin. But unlike Republican efforts which focus almost entirely on Israel issues, Harris says Israel is the subject of less than half of the group’s contacts.

“The [Republican Jewish Coalition] and the rest of them can only talk about Israel and only through distortions,” Harris said. “They can’t talk gay rights, they can’t talk the environment. Those are the issues Jewish voters care about.”

The Democratic effort includes direct mail, online ads, and web videos, all targeted at the swath of Jewish voters “who could possibly be swayed by the $10 million campaign of smears and distortion,” Harris said. About 40% of those are on the subject of Israel, he said.

Most Jewish voters don’t rank Israel in the top five issues that decide their vote, Harris maintained, unless a presidential candidate is thought to be rabidly anti-Israel.

“They are trying to move this president towards that place, and that’s ridiculous,” he said of the harsh ads from conservative groups opposing Obama.

One NJDC mailer split-screens a defense of Obama on Israel and an impassioned attack on his Republican challenger on abortion and Obamacare.

“American Jews care a lot about ObamaCare," Harris said. "They are the most pro-choice demographics of any.”

Harris declined to say how much his group has raised for their election push, saying only it was into the seven figures.

“They’re giving out iPads and iTunes gift cards, they are mailing into Pennsylvania,” Harris said, “while we’re engaged in the efficient, strategic targeting of votes.”

“Could we help if we reach the right 20 or 30,000 Jews in Colorado, maybe that keep it for the president — that’s what we’re trying to do.”