did Romney have it in the bag until his "binders full of women" or his "47%" comment?

Politics & Elections
1

Reason I ask is that I’m scared to death that over the next five months Biden is going to mutter something stupid (i.e. like the “you ain’t black” comment) and screw this whole thing up. Something that he thinks is innocuous (or that gets filmed surreptitiously) is going to torpedo his chances.

He’s riding pretty high right now, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that - at least according to one betting market - he’s up to a 57%-ish chance of winning right now. I know that it took forever for him to finally climb even with Trump on the predictit betting market, so this made me happy to see.

I (a middle-aged white guy, lifelong Texan) only really started giving a shit about “politics” on Election Night 2008. Even though I hadn’t ever cared enough to vote, I was on the Senator Obama bandwagon that night big-time.

Though as a comparison (the best analogy in my head) is that I was just as much on the Cubs’ bandwagon throughout their World Series run in 2016. For me in both cases it was a total “holy shit, this is a great time in history, what a wonderful time to be alive and witness this!” thing. But in both scenarios, if it would’ve gone the other way, I wouldn’t have lost a minute of sleep.

But somewhere along the way, 2008 - 2012 happened (recalling it, I thought it was the era of the President Obama “tan suit” or the “mustard on a hamburger” scandals, but apparently it wasn’t).

Nonetheless, I remember during that time how much this “Fox News” channel got on my nerves whenever I would give them a moment of my attention. Just finding the most penny-ante bullshit stuff to bitch about the President for.

So naturally as the 2012 election approached (of course again I couldn’t be bothered to go vote - I didn’t get motivated enough until 2016 - but that’s a different thread), I had my fingers crossed again for President Obama, while watching the election returns at home on TV.

Not so much in a “I hope you beat Romney for the sake of our country” (like I feel with Biden now), but rather “I hope you beat Romney so I can watch these scumbags on Fox News melt down and I can get a good laugh out of it”.

I was of course elated on Election Night 2012, watching Karl Rove stammer and stutter, and Megyn Kelly walk down to the basement and finally seeing them face reality. I’m guessing it’s probably the way the other side felt, four years later.

But afterwards, I never really cared enough to dig back into it and do a post-mortem to understand “daily polls”, etc., like we’ve all done with 2016.

So looking back on it, those of you who were much more engaged than I was back in November 2012, was it 50 / 50 until either (or both) of Romney’s comments? In your mind was it Romney 55 / 45 (or the other way around) until he said what he said? Did either of his comments really even “move the needle” as far as you recall?

For reference, the “47%” comment was on September 18th, and the “binders” comment was on October 16th. The election was on November 6th that year.

I think it’s a given that Trump could literally pull in a crumble from his back pocket, the original Declaration of Independence, and take a piss on it and his approval rating would crater from 39.5% to 39.44%.

I’m just afraid that Biden could be recorded saying something stupid and innocuous like “no, not the dark one - I’ll take the white one” and it’ll get picked up by Hannity and his ilk as a “47%” soundbite, instead of the truth that Biden was caught on a hot-mic at Baskin Robbins, deciding between two flavors of chocolate ice cream.

And just our luck, something stupid like that will send his Predictit chances from 57% down to around 25% and we’ll be in for an unimaginable final four years. And “but the ice cream!” will be the “but her emails!” that finally finishes us off as a country.

2

I wasn’t watching back then, but I have heard about it. And, as far as I know, Obama was well ahead the entire time. I believe that’s when FiveThirtyEight made a name for itself, as, despite the press, it had always showed a comfortable lead for Obama, and got the numbers right in the end.

That said, a 57% chance of winning is not good at all. That sort of thing is exactly the mistake people made in 2016, and is why FiveThirtyEight now would call that more like a 4 in 7 chance, or a 1 in 2 chance.

3

No, the election result ended up being pretty much where the polls had been for all of 2012 except about two weeks in October (after Romney did well in the first debate) and a few days in September (after the Republican convention).

To the extent that there was any big event that decided the election, it was the hurricane, but I don’t think there was one.

4

Nope. Obama had it. You probably don’t remember the Republican primaries and the endless parade of ‘not Romney’ candidates.

The first debate was a bit of a hiccup for Obama. But, that’s fairly common for incumbent presidents. The challenger has been through plenty, the incumbent is used to people agreeing with him. Binders full of women was a funny quote and it’ll be used for the foreseeable future. I’ve seen it in reference to rumors about Amy Klobuchar throwing binders as well as Biden trying to find the perfect VP.

The 47% comment hurt. But, even Republican coworkers of mine agreed with me that Romney came off as the asshole CEO who’d announce layoffs, salary freezes and no Christmas bonuses one day and the next day announce massive executive bonuses and stock options for the important people.

He was absolutely the wrong candidate for a country that was finally digging itself out of recession hell in 2012.

Edit: Lecture time. Get out and vote!

5

I don’t think so, and quite frankly those are ridiculous things to disqualify a candidate for. Romney simply wasn’t exciting and and unexciting candidates don’t win. Plus he was going against a fairly popular incumbent. In hindsight he didn’t have a chance, and while those comments didn’t help, they weren’t a significant factor imo.

6

538 made a name for itself in the 2008 election, when they called every state except Indiana correctly. As far as the 57% chance of winning, I suppose that depends on the perspective of the particular race. It would be a great number for Doug Jones and his Alabama senate race, a terrible number for, say, Jeff Merkley in his Oregon senate race, and an OK number for Biden at this point.

This. Romney didn’t and still doesn’t excite the base the way Trump does.

My hypothesis is that since the 2000 election we’ve been stuck in a pattern where the POTUS races are all about turnout and demographics. Obama and Bush were good at turnout, Romney, McCain, Gore, and Clinton not so much.

Given that, I wouldn’t be too comfortable with this year’s race either way. The demographics of the upper midwest probably haven’t changed much since 2016, favoring Trump. On the other hand Arizona and North Carolina have trended blue demographically, favoring Biden. Biden is also set to do better than Clinton did with turnout. In other words, this is likely to be a tight race all the way through to election day.

7

You can see the daily poll averages for 2012 here: RealClearPolitics - Election 2012 - General Election: Romney vs. Obama

The 47% quote was made public in September, but it’s a bit hard to tease out any dip from that from the usual post-convention bounce fading away. Either way, Romney’s best numbers were after that became public, not before it, so it’s hard to blame that quote for any possible loss.

It’s also somewhat interesting to compare that graph to the one so far this year: RealClearPolitics - Election 2020 - General Election: Trump vs. Biden

You may notice that Biden’s current polling lead is already much higher than any lead Obama had in 2012. There are certainly gaffe’s he could make that would hurt this lead, but as I read the current polls he has to lose voters to Trump, not just fail to win over undecideds.

The big concerns, and why it’s only 57% on the betting market, are the EC (Biden has to win by at least 4% to feel safe, unless he can reduce the gap between national and state polls in PA, MI, and WI, or possibly AZ, FL, and NC) and, to put it kindly, shenanigans with voter access.

8

This sounds right to me, although I think Florida (and Georgia) are already lost causes due to the high likelihood of shenanigans in those two states in particular. At this point I think it’s more likely that Texas will flip before Florida due to that issue. That leaves PA, MI, WI, AZ, and NC as the 5 states to really focus on. The next two states that could possibly flip, TX and MN, are unlikely to make a difference. If we get to the point where Minnesota is a concern, that means Biden has likely already lost. If we get to the point where we’re talking about flipping Texas, that means Trump has already lost.

9

He had it in the bag in the same sense that the Lions have the Super Bowl in the bag until the season starts. He wasn’t a bad candidate, he just had the misfortune of running against a good incumbent. He wouldn’t have been a terrible president, but you’d have gotten the same old Republican tax cuts and right wing judges. The better candidate won. Had he run in 2016 and not 2012, we’d have been better off today.

10

Don’t be so sure about Florida. After the hurricane, a lot of Puerto Ricans moved to Florida, they’re already citizens so they can vote, and they’re highly motivated to vote against Trump. It’s possible that Republicans in Florida can find a way to disenfranchise them, but not at all something to be taken for granted. And Florida was never exactly what you’d call solidly Republican to begin with.

11

Gaffes have little effect. So that particular worry of yours can be taken off your mind. What sunk Romney was he never intended to win. He was the controlled opposition put forth by the Uniparty. What you need to worry about is that enough people will believe Trump is an outsider, and not a member of the Uniparty. If the mainstream media and the Uniparty would realize this they would start uniformly praising Trump as a strategy to defeat him.

12

I wouldn’t go that far. I’m sure Romney wanted to win. But he’s experienced enough to know the odds were against him. When you’re running against an incumbent, it’s not enough for you to do a good job. You have to do a good job and your opponent has to do a bad job. Incumbents have a strong advantage.

Incumbents can be beat. Clinton beat Bush, Reagan beat Carter, and Ford beat Carter. But before that you have to go back to Roosevelt beating Hoover and Wilson beating Taft.

Trump is definitely vulnerable. He would need to work to get himself up to the level of Hoover.

As for gaffes, it’s inevitable that Biden will make them. He always has. Against a normal candidate, it might cost him the election. But he’s running against Trump, who will say more stupid things in an average week then Biden will say in the entire campaign.

13

You should probably be careful. Posting truthiness like this so openly will have UN black helicopters over your house in no time. To the bunker!!

14

They can skip the helicopters: they have me cowering in my “bunker” due to a virus.

15

I felt the meme about Romney strapping the family dog in its kennel to the top of the family car did far more damage than the ‘binders full of women’ meme. There was a lot of outrage over that. Do what you like to people, but if you’re perceived as an animal abuser, this country will turn on you like a… uhhh… rabid dog.

His 47% comment, that “there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what” because they are “dependent upon government … believe that they are victims … believe the government has a responsibility to care for them … these are people who pay no income tax,” also made him look like a hopeless Winston.

Romney looks reasonable today only because he is contrasted with the horror show currently occupying the Oval Office. He’s got a few more scruples than most current Republicans, but that’s not a high bar.

As for Biden, so long as he can hold a pen, I think he’s got what it takes to win in November. He’s doing very well at this point in the race. His lead against Trump is ahead of what others were in recent races at this time in the contest, like nearly double. I recently saw this broken down by a political pundit by percentages. My recollection is that Hillary Clinton’s lead in June of 2016 was around 4%. Obama’s in 2012 was 4.2%. Biden’s lead is 7.8%.

Not that we should take anything for granted. Vote!

16

People still underestimate how well liked Obama was at the end of his first term. He was intelligent, educated, and articulate, and he had a wonderful way of communicating. The earliest president I can remember is Reagan, and Obama is by far the one I like the most. I think he was going to get reelected anyway.

17

That’s not quite right (at least the approval rating part). Between March and September of 2012 (basically right up until the Democratic Convention), Obama’s approval rating was pretty much even. It bumped up to +4 or so by election time, but nowhere near the highs of 2009. He got a post-relection bump but was then pretty negative for most of his second term (not nearly as bad as Trump is now, but not that much better).

Cite: RealClearPolitics - President Obama Job Approval

He did have pretty high “personal approval” numbers, IIRC, but I don’t have a good cite right now. And his “strong disapproves” were never as bad as Trump’s either, of course.

18

No, Romney did not have it in the bag - not by a long shot. What it did, though, was to frame him and reinforce a persistent perception about him in the minds of voters, which was that he was heartless and didn’t have compassion for the average working class American.

The irony was that people were giving Mitt Romney a serious look because the perception was that, although the economy was gradually improving, Obama wasn’t doing enough to get the country back on its feet fast enough and thought that perhaps he was wasting too much time on pet issues like healthcare (never mind that healthcare and economics are very much interrelated).

People were undecided about Romney and were still checking him out because of his touted successes as Mass’s governor and as a businessman. But when that video leaked, it was devastating because it gave voters the impression he didn’t care.

I am struggling to think of anything that Biden would likely say that would be on the order of that kind of gaffe. The “You ain’t black” comment wasn’t devastating, but that was absolutely not the direction he wanted to go in and he’s fortunate that Trump came in right behind him and made himself look many times worse with his tweets about shooting looters. Trump bailed him out this time, but he might not the next time.

That said, it ultimately comes down to economics and how the country feels about itself. Trump is in serious trouble right now, and I suspect that the inevitable resurgence of COVID-19 just might be what finishes him off.

19

Agree with all of this.

I am increasingly optimistic about Biden winning, as long as he doesn’t suffer a health catastrophe of some kind. COVID-19 is coming back, and it when it flares up again, I am hoping it will once and for all make people realize that living in MAGA Land and rejecting science is not the direction our country should be going in, although I know probably a good 35% of the country would vote for him if he strangled someone on live TV. Democracy unfortunately allows idiots and scumbags to vote. It’s up to the rest of the country to outnumber of out-vote them.

20

Romney would be 1000x better than Trump. But almost any American would be 1000x Trump including my dogs.