And this explains a significant component of the GOP’s tactics. Accusations of giving over sovereignty to the U.N. (or birtherism or any number of egregious lies about Obama and his record) are part of trying to ensure that GOP votes don’t stay home in disgust because the GOP nominee is a dud. If the threat of an Obama re-election seems horrifying enough, they’ll vote for the dud.
The 13 keys to the white house has also been correct and Lichtman is predicting Obama will win. Well, one of the two has to be wrong. I wouldn’t put much stock in either one personally
It also explains the “gonna put y’all back in chains”, “Romney is a felon”, and “Romney killed my wife” lines of attack. You have to make sure the Dem base gets out to vote even if the incumbent is a dud.
True, true, false but if the woman had lived in Massachusetts she might have done better.
+1.
But I think Romney is just going to lose ground.
Romney has a good chance because he’s running against Obama.
It pains me to say it, but its a close tie between Carter and Obama for lack of leadership. We’ve seen it constantly. Remember how close we came to defaulting last summer? There was no leadership to break the deadlock. We got a single golf game between Boehner and Obama.
We got to get some leadership. I’m not a big fan of Romney, but he’s the only choice we got.
Not sure exactly what you mean there. Among actual battleground states, the black turnout was surely critical in swinging Virginia and North Carolina blue last time. Maryland would not have been a Democratic lock (for President) the last five times without black voters.
If the debate becomes a significant factor, then it will be Romney who will be buried, depending on how much he weasels out of tough questions or simply flubs one. Obama simply is a much better debater.
[third grade]Would you say he is a master?[/third grade]
Yes, but the original machines are still out there. Another problem with the machines (in addition to the easily tampered with issue) is that they could have just plain bad programming. Those machines that provide NO documentation for audit were about the worst idea ever. How can anyone prove that they are not altered or tampered with at the time of the vote?
I would love to see a funded study that compares how polling in advance of an election compare to actual election results and exit polling on a county-by-county basis to see if there is a statistical difference between the results in those counties where certain manufacture machines are used and those counties that use no machines at all (if there are any still left).
Any deviation between polling and actual results should be approximately the same across all counties. But if there is a significantly higher deviation in those counties using xyz polling machines, wouldn’t that make you wonder why? The machine shouldn’t impact how often people lie about their vote. Maybe the machine interface is confusing or maybe the manufacturer is a bad-actor.
How does he win? He wins the states he is expected to win and of those potentially in flux he wins FL, NC, VA, and OH. He still loses PA, CO, NV, WI, MI, and NH. Or some other combination that is far from impossible that gets him to 270 or more, loses OH and wins PA, or even MI … Sure it would be tough if he loses FL, he’d need to run OH, PA and at least a CO (but of course WI or MI would do too). Not impossible.
Who bothers to come out that day? Ryan can come off almost rational and will likely debate well. He’s no Palin. He may not scare that many voters away yet the combination of pandering with him to fiscal conservative Tea Party group and pandering to the birther style group at the same time my get the GOP base out. A lot of the demographics that voted for Obama before don’t usually vote …
Romney has not lost yet. (Oh the odds are against him … but there are lots of ads yet to be bought and his PACS have lots and lots of money.)
With the economy in the tank and people appreciably worse off than they were four years ago surely the question should be how can he possibly lose?
The obvious disputing of your premise aside: by losing more than 270 electoral votes. Which pathways to an electoral college victory do you see as probable events?
And here I thought Blacks had been voting overwhelmingly Democrat since the early 1930’s.
I started to type something, but this is a lot more convenient to link to.
Hispanics, maybe. Immigrants, you’ll have to define by what you mean (do you mean immigrants of Hispanic origin?).
$2 billion of campaign funding?
How can he win? Are you serious? The Republicans could not have picked a worse candidate (well they could have, but still) and yet I think he has a good chance to win.
Why? To me it is simple. Obama was given a mandate to change things in Washington. By the people of this country. In four years, he has changed little, and if anything has kept the status quo in many areas.
How many Americans can say they are better off now than they were 4 years ago? I know a couple of people who have been unemployed for Obama’s entire term. They also voted for Obama. Guess who they aren’t voting for this time around?
I think this is where the election will get interesting. Many moderate voters rolled the dice on Obama because they saw McCain as more of the same inside the beltway bullshit. I met John McCain and was amazed at the guy’s energy while on the campaign trail. But there is no way in hell Id vote for anyone dim enough to put Sarah Palin on the ticket. What scared me is how many people actually liked her. It tells you how uninformed this country is. Sarahnwas and is one of them… Middle America. I’d say us, but I can’t include myself in a subset that she is in.
Anyway, like many Americans I was hopeful for a successful Obama presidency. This country is in deep doo-doo, and he has done nothing to change it. NOTHING. If anything, it has become worse, especially for middle aged Americans who have been out of the workforce for so long. They can’t seem to find their way back onto the ride, so to speak.
So even if Romney has lost all the votes you claim, and I doubt that he has completely, a lot of Obama voters tired of Bush and Cheney are not pleased with what they got with their vote.
I predict a very close election. And right now, I don’t have a feel for which way it will go. If you told me at the beginning of the primaries that good ole Mitt would have taken the nomination, I would have been shocked. Well, he did that. I will not be shocked this fall if he beats Obama.
Your response is long on subjective impressions are lacks much objective response to ‘how does he get to 270’? Anecdotes probably aren’t very predictive.
Willard could theoretically win in the iOS game called “Vote!!!” in which the candidates beat each other up with microphones, bratwurst, yard signs, chickens and light sabers. At present, the game is favoring Obama by about 2:1 based on how many players are choosing to play which character, but with the “vote count” at just under three-quarters of a million, that could easily change rather quickly.
Frankly, I think the way Romney could win is by making the electoral map look like this on Election Day.
Looking at Nate Silver’s %'s I already consider Colorado, Florida and Iowa to be lost to Romney. Virginia is very much on the brink of going red and with Ryan on the ticket I think it likely Wisconsin is up for grabs.
I really think that is Romney’s most likely route to the White House.
What would qualify a president as indecent? Given Obama’s support for abortion, I think you’re being overly generous.