I’m afraid we’re looking at another nearly dead-even election that will come down once again to one or two swing states.
EVERY state that went to Gore and Kerry will go to Obama in 2012. That’s a given, which means he’ll be CLOSE to an Electoral College majority right off the bat.
EVERY state that went to John McCain in 2008 will go to ANY Republican nominee in 2012.
Now, what about the traditionally conservative states that went to Obama in 2008? All of them will go back to ANY Republican. Those states went for Obama because they were sick of the wars and frightened by the bad economy. Obama has completely alienated those states and he won’t win them back.
Which means ANY Republican nominee will ALSO be close to an Electoral COllege majority.
That means we’re right back where we were in 2000 and 2004. Could that mean ANOTHER election in which the Electoral College and the voting public pick different winners? Yup. ANOTHER election where it all comes down to Ohio or Florida, and we’re left wondering if the “winner” was really the winner? Yup.
Sigh… hope nobody on either side was hoping to get much sleep on Election night in 2012 (much less hoping to win by a landslide).
I just read this article the other day that said, according to a recent poll, North Carolina will likely stay blue. So there’s that little glimmer of hope.
Now, not that this can’t change, but I just remarked to someone this morning that even with a nationwide approval rating around 40%, Obama seems to be holding fairly consistent leads against named candidates (not generic Republicans) in Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada and Florida. At least, that’s my impression of tracking the polls on Real Clear Politics.
Lots of things could change, of course, but at the moment it still seems like the odds are strong for re-election.
IF my analysis is correct (that remains to be seen, of course), Obama certainly has a very strong chance of winning re-election… in PRECISELy the same way George W. Bush did.
All Obama has to do is hold on the the reliably Democratic states (which he should do easily) and one or two key “purple” states (entirely possible).
But I don’t think ANY of the historically Republican states he flipped last time will go for him again.
CAN he win? Definitely- and if I had to put 5 bucks on the line, I’d guess that he will. But it will be MUCH closer than last time, and he’ll have even LESS of a mandate to work with than before.
If the thief named Rick Scott has an approval rating approaching 40%, then that’s a bad sign for Obama. If it’s below 30% as it has been at times, then Obama should have an easy time in Florida, although Scott is trying his hardest to suppress the vote.
At the end of the day the only way a candidate can beat Obama is to convince voters they would do a better job. I don’t know that any of the GOP potentials have the credibility. I think John Huntsman could if he had enough political clout to be a real contender, I think he has great mainstream appeal and I think he’d be a good President. You have to be a better politician to get there, though, and his campaign is essentially irrelevant.
It’s sort of what happened in 2004: Bush was really unpopular but the Democrat candidate was easily cast as someone Americans would not want as President. Bush had his issues with public opinion at the time, but Kerry was just not inspiring and not convincing of any significant number of swing voters that he would be a good President.
It’s never enough to just run as “not-incumbent” you need to run as a real, legitimate candidate that clearly makes the campaign about why people should want to buy into what you’re selling. If you sell your product by saying “the other guy’s product is shit” you obfuscate the message too much.
Look at paper towel commercials. Lots of classic ones show competitor’s paper towels shredding and tearing up. But the key point of that ad is always the Brawny paper towels can hold 200 lbs of water without breaking and also absorb it all completely. You have to hit at your opponent but not at the cost of not properly advertising yourself. If the GOP avoids nominating a complete lunatic they still run the very real risk of someone like Romney running as a “don’t buy that guy’s paper towel” candidate without actually demonstrating why his paper towel is better.