USA 2012: Obama v Romney
Kind of surprised we don't have a thread on this yet. If we have, sorry.
I thought 4 years ago this election was a lock-in for Obama, now not so sure. I'd still expect Obama to win it, but for it to be close.
In Romney it looks like the GOP have actually got themselves a good candidate. From what I've seen, I hope he wins it.
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
I thought the same thing. The conditions were such that I thought that Obama wouldn't need to do much at all to clinch this election. This election looks like it's going to be a lot tighter than I thought it'd be.
I'll start with the proviso that polls have a limited utility at this point in the election cycle. With that in mind, I have seen incredibly few polls putting Romney up in the swing states. About a third of the polls put Romney up in the popular election, but he's only winning in Florida at this point. In fact, he's behind even in states that shouldn't be swing states (like Virginia). Unfortunately for Romney, the electoral votes are set up in a way that he has to win a vast majority of the swing states, and short of Obama losing a good 3-4% nationally, I can't see how that could happen. I'm not saying Obama will definitely win, and the race is closer than it was before, but there would have to be a sharp swing against Obama in order for Romney to get 270 electoral votes.
Last edited by Loki; 06-08-2012 at 03:30 PM.
Hope is the denial of reality
Are you saying that if it was 52-48 on the Popular Vote to Romney (excluding the others), you expect Obama to still get elected? Has that ever happened before?
I know Popular Vote != President, but in 2000 when that happened it was 49.75 : 50.25 (excluding others) 271 to 266 in the electoral college.
Right now it's 51-49 Obama. It will be a very close race if Obama's share of the vote goes down to 48-49%. If he's over 49%, I can't see Romney winning. The problem for Romney is that he's picking up extra votes in states that are already solidly Republican. Most of the swing states have been slowly becoming more Democratic. I can't see how Romeny can win when he's losing Virginia by 3%: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...bama-1774.html
Hope is the denial of reality
Polls this far out are unreliable and US opinion and exit polls in general don't seem to have a very good track record from what I've seen.
I think its interesting for example that in Wisconsin (a safe blue state for Presidential elections recently) the governor's exit poll said that Obama was leading Romney by 7 points, while the governor's race was tied too close to call. Given that the reality is Walker carried it by 7 points does that mean Wisconsin is too close to call? And if Wisconsin is too close to call then Obama could be in trouble.
I don't get it - what exit poll for Obama?
Also the recall election, there were plenty of reasons not to vote against Walker, even if you support Obama. First of all governor is separate from president, and it wasa recall election, I wouldn't vote against him in a recall election even if I voted against him in a normal election, recall elections should be saved for politicians who deserve it, not for politicians you do not agree with.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
The exit poll for Walker's election also asked voters how they would vote for Obama v Romney.
The result was a dead heat between Walker and his opponent, 7 point lead for Obama (explainable by your logic). However the real result was a 7 point win for Walker - meaning that approximately the GOP relative to Democrats were under-sampled by 7 points. Change the Obama v Romney result by 7 points (difference between exit poll and real result) and it'll be a dead heat there. Does that make sense?
The exit polls showed that 17% of the people who voted for Walker will vote for Obama.
Hope is the denial of reality
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...ous-advantage/
Interesting piece on the topic.
Hope is the denial of reality
Spectacle or sport since you're not from around these parts?
. . .
What makes you think the GOP is in a position to decide who's a good candidate? This is the party that thought Palin was a good idea as VP, because they hadn't vetted her thoroughly. This is the party that recently concluded bizarre primaries and caucuses, where Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum won early contests after televised debates, and Newt Gingrich was hanging in because of one billionaire's funding.
Read up on Romney. Don't forget the criticisms that came from his own party....he's an empty shell, a flip-flopper, an Etch-a-Sketch, willing to say anything to get elected. Then realize that the GOP leadership has said their main goal is to replace Obama, but they don't really want to elect a president---just someone who will robo-sign the Republican legislation that comes across his desk.
Actually, the GOP didn't think Palin was a good candidate. Just look at the reaction from the top GOP strategists when the decision was made. McCain thought it was a good idea.
Hope is the denial of reality
Not for long
He thought other options would be way better as potential VP though (didn't he want Lieberman?), but wouldn't win the election, he needed something surprising, fresh, to get the headlines again. It did work - too bad the headlines became less positive when they found out how competent she was.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
The same headlines that ignored how competent Obama was?Not for long
He thought other options would be way better as potential VP though (didn't he want Lieberman?), but wouldn't win the election, he needed something surprising, fresh, to get the headlines again. It did work - too bad the headlines became less positive when they found out how competent she was.
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The incompetence of Palin was lightyears away from his, though (according to her own aides at that time, she couldn't understand even basic facts). And I wouldn't know, I didn't read the newspaper then, but McCain played out the inexperienced angle quite a lot IIRC. Oh, and there is a difference between incompetence and inexperience, AFAIK Obama was (and is) not incompetent. Inexperienced? Sure.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
I'm sure his last words before retirement will be "Et tu Palin".
Hope is the denial of reality
I'll admit most of my knowledge comes from the film Game Change :P Good film though.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Here is what I see:
Economy: Its still going to be in a shaky place - this is a problem for Obama. How long can he put all the blame on Bush after 3 1/2 years of being the president?
Health Care: The American people haven't seen costs go down. Romney should hammer Obama over this.
National Security: Obama actually gets the edge for being the president when the American military killed Osama.
Guns/Environmental/Death Penalty: Not going to be a big factor.
Social Issues: Toss up... GOP couldn't get the pro-death Obama policies to stick and Romney is very shaky on abortion as well. The general sentiment of the country is moving towards accepting gay marriage however its still a strong get out the vote card for the GOP.
Assuming the economy doesn't have a resurgence and there isn't a major gaffe by Romeny in the debates I'm calling it for Romney. The economy being the driving factor.
It's the economy, stupid.
May not be true in every election, doubly is so this one. The author of Romneycare would be stupid to hammer the author of Obamacare. He should concentrate on the economy and utterly ignore Health Care. Others can hammer Health Care by proxy, he needs to go on the economy.
There are some critical differences between Romneycare and Obamacare. In addition the simple line "what works in one state shouldn't be force fed onto all 50 states" rings true. In any event Romney is short hand for the Romney campaign.
One problem with the economy logic. It could mean either that the economy is bad during the election or it could mean that the economy is getting worse. The economy will be bad in November, but it won't be worse than it was a year ago. It's not clear which of the two people care more about. As things stand now, the economy isn't doing great and yet Obama is in the lead.
Hope is the denial of reality
They just need to play out Obama's lines of "if you don't pass the stimulus unemployment will go to 8%" to show just how wrong he was on the economy. And it puts Obama in an ackward position - if he says the economy is doing fine it makes him come off as cold detached with all of the people having difficulties right now. The economy (minus unexpected resurgence) is going to hurt Obama. Plus polls this far out don't mean too much. Heck polls like 2 months prior to 08 election had McCain up.
They don't mean everything, but they do mean something. Obama's been consistently in the lead; it's not a one-week blip. McCain might have been up for a week here and there, but never held the lead for long.
Hope is the denial of reality
I don't remember that. From June-the election in November Obama had a clear and consistent poll lead. The only significant blip being the week following the GOP primary:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...225.html#polls
I remember a significant bump occurred after Palin was selected, it only lasted for a week or so but the point is that polls are often wrong this far out... need I remeind you the ups and downs of the Republican primary? Now if the polls are all showing for Obama in Sept and Oct then yeah... he's probably going to win. Five months from then? Not that worried.
There was a bump after the Convention, as there always is after Conventions - as I said, and why its normal to take polls around either Convention with a very large pinch of salt. Palin got selected at the Convention but I doubt its accurate to point all the bounce in her direction, whoever he'd chosen there'd likely have been a bounce.
Anyway the psephological evidence from '08 is that the polls were right this far out. Alternative elections may show other evidence, but '08 was a terrible example to give. June 2008's polling evidence was remarkably accurate.
If Romney can't win on the economy he won't be President.
Saw Clinton speak recently and he called it for Obama. I disagreed with his logic in every area besides one, which is something I've been saying for a while: Clinton pointed out that, come August and September, the media will start trying to shore-up Obama's weaknesses by piling onto anything they can find about Romney.
"The Economy" is problematic for both of them, because we're connected to what happens in the EU. And where that goes....nobody knows. Some say Merkel, the ECB and IMF will decide who wins.
I'm interested to see how "Keynesian" Romney might actually be, if things go from worse to worser.
<related tangent: the political trap for the Fed, with their dual mandate to focus on employment and inflation. It's absurd to think monetary 'intervention' can do all the heavy lifting, while congress refuses to pass any policies that could help in the short term. Even Romney acknowledges that deep and immediate cuts in federal spending would throw us into a deeper recession, and we see evidence of that in certain European Austerity measures.>
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