How Can Romney Possibly Win?

[Chronos]

Only the middle class can judge what their interests are. What the middle class understands, even if Democrats don’t, is that in order to continue our system as it is, middle class taxes will have to go up. A lot.

Our system as it is has what percentage of unemployment, again? Anyone sane doesn’t want to continue our system as it is, we want to improve it.

[Raygun99]

@Omg_a_Black_Conservative

That’s great and all, but you clearly said “it’s all of them”. Both you and I know that’s a false statement, but I was just waiting to see if you would backtrack on it a bit.

That’s what “metapolling analysis” means. It’s taking into account all the polls.

[Raygun99]

@adaher

Let’s see who the middle class votes for then. betcha Romney wins the $30,000-$100,000 demographic by double digits.

Obama won that group by 4-5 points last time. A 15 point swing in over half the electorate would be a pretty significant move that I think we’d have noticed by now.

[Raygun99]

@Chronos

Actually, I’m pretty sure he means the 538 that didn’t exist in 2004.

A cite on this.

[adaher]

@Raygun99

Obama won that group by 4-5 points last time. A 15 point swing in over half the electorate would be a pretty significant move that I think we’d have noticed by now.

Obama won overall by 7 points in 2008. A 15 point swing among more than half the electorate would put Romney in a slight lead. Right now the race is nearly tied, which means that Romney is probably a few points ahead among middle class voters. Given that Obama won an unusual amount of support from upper middle class voters in 2008, it’s not surprising that this group is probably coming home to the GOP.

[Mdcastle]

nm

[Raygun99]

@adaher

Obama won overall by 7 points in 2008. A 15 point swing among more than half the electorate would put Romney in a slight lead. Right now the race is nearly tied, which means that Romney is probably a few points ahead among middle class voters. Given that Obama won an unusual amount of support from upper middle class voters in 2008, it’s not surprising that this group is probably coming home to the GOP.

A couple of points ahead wouldn’t surprise me. Double digits is stretching belief.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Chronos

Actually, I’m pretty sure he means the 538 that didn’t exist in 2004.

It would still be possible, and useful, to pull out that old polling data, run it through the algorithms, and see how well it worked. Anyone ever try that?

[Knorf]

@Martin_Hyde

The focus on wealth inequality is an intrinsic red herring. If the median per capita income is high and the middle class have good standard of living then it really doesn’t matter how wealthy the top 1% or whatever actually are. Economics is not a zero-sum game.

Unemployment. The inability of many working-class people to reliably pay for their own health care. The likelihood that the safety nets (Social Security in particular) would be taken away or grossly undermined if the GOP had their way. The disappearance of worker pensions. The resistance to a livable minimum wage.

It’s not a red herring.

[adaher]

@Raygun99

A couple of points ahead wouldn’t surprise me. Double digits is stretching belief.

Bush came close against Kerry. He won the $50K-$100K vote by double digits, lost by 1 point among those making $30K-$50K.

CNN.com Election 2004

[adaher]

@Knorf

Unemployment. The inability of many working-class people to reliably pay for their own health care. The likelihood that the safety nets (Social Security in particular) would be taken away or grossly undermined if the GOP had their way. The disappearance of worker pensions. The resistance to a livable minimum wage.

It’s not a red herring.

It is not at all clear that the Democrats are better on these issues. If Democrats just allow things to continue as they are, benefits will be cut automatically. And the minimum wage isn’t a middle class issue, if anything it works against the middle class since a lot of middle class folk are small business owners.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@adaher

If voter ID laws cause longer lines, that’s going to hurt Republicans, since they expect to beat Democrats in turnout this year.

If that turns out to be the case, I predict concerns about “voter fraud” will abruptly evaporate.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Chronos

Actually, I’m pretty sure he means the 538 that didn’t exist in 2004.

The popular site in 2004 was “www.electoral-vote.com” which is very similar in concept to Nate Silver’s 538. It was created by a computer scientist who admitted supporting Kerry within the site itself but insisted their methodology was party neutral. By and large it was just metapolling to predict an electoral vote result, and by and large it did predict a minor Kerry victory until 11/1. On 11/1 it predicted Kerry 262, Bush 261, with 15 too close to call.

It was regularly discussed in threads here during the 2004 election.

[Evil_Captor]

@Martin_Hyde

The focus on wealth inequality is an intrinsic red herring. If the median per capita income is high and the middle class have good standard of living then it really doesn’t matter how wealthy the top 1% or whatever actually are. Economics is not a zero-sum game.

Oh, that’s right! The wealth will “trickle down”! The job creators will create jobs! We will all benefit!

[Knorf]

@adaher

It is not at all clear that the Democrats are better on these issues. If Democrats just allow things to continue as they are, benefits will be cut automatically. And the minimum wage isn’t a middle class issue, if anything it works against the middle class since a lot of middle class folk are small business owners.

You’re right that Democrats often seem to give little more than lip-service to those issues. But they’re far, far more likely to pass legislation that directly benefits middle- and lower-class people than the GOP are.

[etv78]

@Peremensoe

I’ll take that bet.

Me too! Romney conistently LOST that demographic during the primaries.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Evil_Captor

Oh, that’s right! The wealth will “trickle down”! The job creators will create jobs! We will all benefit!

I love how often liberals on these boards use the “trickle down” argument against me. I’ve never advocated trickle down economic theories, unlike most liberals I actually have a deep understanding of and appreciation for the science of economics.

In fact around a year ago on these very boards I proposed the following budget plan, which contains no trace of trickle down economic theory:

@Martin_Hyde

The cuts I (a Republican) would like to see:

[ul]
[li]End Farm Subsidies[/li][li]Enact all reforms/cuts listed here (Warning: PDF) - They are all small but add up to $200bn or so by 2015 and in the scheme of the 2030 budget they are an important part of fixing things. This is essentially the best aggregation of all those “little things that are too small to care about.” Even accumulated it’s only about $200bn savings in the FY 2015 budget, but we’re still talking about 0.2tn in savings in budget year 2015 and with a ~1tn or so deficit that’s something.[/li][li]The above PDF includes some defense cuts, but I would go much further. First cut the Navy to 230 ships.[/li][li]Second, complete withdrawal from Iraq/Afghanistan by 2015. No advisers, no trainers, no presence.[/li][li]Cap total military deployments in Europe and Asia to 100,000. This is roughly a 26% decrease.[/li][li]Reduce standing military size to pre-Iraq war levels.[/li][li]Reduce nuclear arsenal further (aim for around 1,000 warheads.)[/li][li]If health insurance continues as it is, raise Medicare age to 68.[/li][/ul]

Now, all told that’s about 30% of our deficit problem out to 2030. To fix it, you have to tax, and these are the taxes you implement:

[ul]
[li]Return Estate Tax to Clinton Levels[/li][li]Return Investment Taxes to Clinton Levels[/li][li]Allow Bush Tax Cuts to Expire, both on incomes above $250,000 and below.[/li][li]Currently income over $106,000 is totally exempt from payroll tax. When we introduced payroll taxes the top limit meant that about 90% of all income was subjected to the payroll tax, right now about 80% of all earned income is subject to the payroll tax. We should periodically adjust the upper limit so that it captures about 90% of income so that we are still capturing the same portion as income across the board goes up with inflation and economic growth.[/li][li]5.4% surcharge tax on earned income > $1m[/li][li]Vastly reduce and/or eliminate mortgage deductions for high income households[/li][li]Implement a 5% national sales tax[/li][li]Implement a Bank Tax that is assessed on the value of the bank’s holdings. Banks with under $50bn in holdings would be assessed no tax. It would be around 0.15% (0.0015) on banks > $50bn, so Goldman Sachs would owe about $1.4bn a year. Banks above $1tn would owe 0.35%, so Bank of America would owe almost $8bn a year. This is both a revenue gain and designed to make being so large a less competitive proposition, we should not want overly large banks. Obviously like all taxes it is passed on to consumers, but since pretty much all credit unions, most small municipal banks, and even many regional banks will not have more than $50bn in holdings it means ordinary consumers will have little to be worried about if they bank with those entities. The very fact that those alternatives will exist for ordinary consumers means even the big banks will probably pass these costs on to large institutional clients who may be too big for a smaller bank to server and who are the reason some of these super banks have such large holdings in the first place.[/li][/ul]

I’ve also proposed this alternative rate table that would substantially reduce the deficit:

@Martin_Hyde

You could also structure the taxes to be:

75k-100k @25%
100-200k @30%
200-500k @33%
500k-1m @ 35%
1m+ @ 40%

[BrainGlutton]

@Martin_Hyde

I highly suggest you look at exit polling for the 2004 election.

Yes, let’s!

[Knorf]

@Martin_Hyde

I’ve never advocated trickle down economic theories, unlike most liberals I actually have a deep understanding of and appreciation for the science of economics.

If true, then you would be unlike most anyone, not just liberals.

[Martin_Hyde]

@BrainGlutton

Yes, let’s!

That’s embarrassing that you would like to such literal garbage. My god, are you people still engaging in the CT bullshit about Bush stealing the election?