I ask because of this article, which seems to show some pretty firm opinions and pretty stark messages (at least in the first section).
While I don’t quite buy the spin that the message board commenter who pointed to it did (that it shows that “he’s toast [because] less than 1 out of 3 will vote for [him]”), does this at all show that many people have made up their minds already in the negative sense, and that’s bad for his reelection prospects (especially since many think that there’s not much chance of significant economic improvement in the next year)?
I think the polls can give us a view on the priorities of voters and how they feel about specific issues. I don’t think poll numbers on particular candidates (especially on how they would do against Obama) are very meaningful at this stage.
What Marley said. You can get a feel for the mood, or for specific issues that are concerning voters as of today. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll feel the same next year, but a President should know if he can’t make improvements in these areas of concern in the next 12-16 months, he’ll be in serious trouble.
But it doesn’t say a lot about how the 2012 election will actually turn out. The article mentions Reagan … his approval rating in 1983 was worse than Obama’s is now, and Reagan won 49 states in 1984. So it’s too early to tell who is “toast.”
Polls can tell you negatives. It’s easy enough to look at the polls for the horde of Republicans and see who doesn’t have a chance to even win the nomination.
But polls about Obama* are essentially meaningless. They can’t say who will win, they can’t even predict who will vote or why. It’s just space filling. As is true for probably 99% of all commentary on the election right now, whether poll-driven or not.
But that raises the question, why can’t we take an “I won’t vote for him” response at face value right now, especially when they have specific reasons for doing so? Do people really change their minds about such things in significant numbers?
I think it’s precisely because candidates get caught with the issues, especially incumbents. So, if for example, there is someone who says that they’re not going to vote for Obama, it’s probably for some reason, such as the economy. Then, over time, if the economy improves, the reason behind not liking Obama changes, and then this hypothetical person can change their mind. Then there’s the fact that the field isn’t really set yet, so votes against Obama don’t really account for views on the eventual opponent. Once we know the nominees, you may have some people who will hold their nose and vote for Obama because they think the alternative is worse. This is seen, I think, at the moment, where a generic Republican candidate has a higher chance of winning than any actual Republicans (if I’m not mistaken). This means dissatisfaction with Obama more than anything else because Obama is the only thing that is certain about the next election. And dissatisfaction with Obama is just one of the criteria voters use to decide who to vote for.
A poll is only about name recognition at this point.
The thing you need to look at are factional groups, and how much relative influence they have in the early contests.
The GOP has always been an alliance between the security, economic and social conservatives. Clearly, the security conservatives have held sway in the last two nominating processes. Now, not so much. Even Republcians want out of these wars.
Sure, you can tell a lot from polls, even now. You just can’t look at the numbers one-dimensionally: you can’t expect the polls in September or October, let alone January as the Iowa caucuses approach, to look like they do today.
But you can consider things like what segment of the primary/caucus electorate a candidate might appeal to, what are his/her name recognition and favorable/unfavorable numbers, how s/he’s doing in state polls of early primary/caucus states, how much work s/he’s put into those states, and come up with your own judgment of whether the current poll numbers are just the beginning for a candidate, or whether they’re as good as it gets.
For instance, if you consider the Des Moines Register’s first Iowa poll of the season, my take is that Michele Bachmann’s 22% showing is more of a starting point, and that she’s got a great deal of potential upside. She was second choice of another 18% of the voters, which gives her room for expansion of support that no other candidate matched; her favorable/unfavorables are the strongest of the pack; and she got way more “very favorable” ratings than any other candidate. Her 22% has decidedly more potential than Romney’s 23%.
Meanwhile, Tim Pawlenty’s at 6% in Iowa, despite good name recognition and having been the first candidate to go to paid ads. His potential upside’s shrinking, IMHO, simply because you’d expect some sort of return on his investment by now.
India and Pakistan have had atomic weapons for a decade.
My problem with Pakistan is that they should know better. They aren’t run by fanatics like Iran or a crazy person like Saddam or Khadafy. They are a marginal democracy that has a stake in the civilized world.
But they keep playing games like funding the Taliban and apparently they were hiding Bin Laden for at least the last six years. The guy was living right down the block from their equivlent to West Point, for crying out loud.
Now, looking at the future, India is going to be a major regional if not world power. It’s economy is growing by leaps and bounds, it embraces a lot of the values we embrace. I get annoyed as the next guy when I call customer service and Pradip…er “Bobby” is at the other end and has no clue how to help me, but the fact is, they are the up and coming power in the next century.
Wait, weren’t you complaining in another thread about Obama “surrendering” in Afghanistan? And here you’re complaining that he isn’t pulling out quickly enough?
My points are perfectly consistant. What we need is a clear goal and an execution of it… I’m not seeing one of those. if we aren’t in it to win it, let’s not prolong the agony.
I think the strategy has come down to, “I hope we don’t have helicopters evacuating embassy employees out of Kabul before November, 2012.”
At this point in Bush 1.0’s term, the idea of him losing the 1992 election was quite literally a joke, used as fodder on talk shows. Hardly anyone outside of his own campaign machine would have thought Bill Clinton was going to be the next President.
Here’s what can probably tell us stuff this far out.
What is the unemployment rate when the following incumbants stood for re-election? Except for Obama, I use the figure from Oct of that year, the last figure votes would have seen before going to the polls.
President Year Unemployment Result
Truman 1948 3.7 Won
Eisenhower 1956 3.9 Won
LBJ 1964 5.1 Won
Nixon 1972 5.6 Won
Ford 1976 7.7 LOST
Carter 1980 7.5 LOST
Reagan 1984 7.4 Won
Bush-41 1992 7.3 LOST
Clinton 1996 5.2 Won
Bush-43 2004 5.5 Won
Obama- 2012 9.1* ???
So really, the floor of where you can get re-elected would seem to be 7.4. But even that doesn’t seem to be a hard and fast rule, because Bush 41 had 7.3 and still got his butt handed to him. A more realisitic floor is probably 6%, which is where all the other guys who got re-elected were at.
Right now, it’s at 9.1%, and we’ll have to wait until Friday to see if it went up or down. But let’s assume it goes down an average of .1% every month between now and October 2012. That would still put it at 7.5% and over the line o’ defeat.