Consider the Rassmussen daily tracking poll. In 2008, five months before election day, the day Hillary Clinton formally dropped out of the race, Obama led McCain by seven points.
During the next five months of continuing charges that Obama was a Kenyan-Muslim-socialist, McCain picks Palin, Obama picks Biden, the October financial meltdown and bailout package, the debates, and on and on. . . After all that, on election day, Obama won by 6 points.
Which means after all that, the polls only changed by ONE POINT – which is, in public opinion research terms, not at all!
Most of Romney’s critics have been preemptively discredited. The people speaking against him are the mainstream media, ivory-tower academics, Hollywood liberal elites, layabout students, etc. And you know how those people are, don’t you? And when the occasional Republican says something, he can be singled out from the herd with “that doesn’t sound like the X I know.”
It’s rather a brilliant strategy, really. Gain your audience’s trust by marginalizing and dismissing those who disagree with them. They are beyond untrustworthy. When they criticize Romney it probably reinforces his stature to some people.
I used to follow 538 daily back in 2008 during the election. In the days and weeks after Mccain picked Palin, McCain was actually winning in the poll predictions. Many of the swing states turned red and Obama was losing the election.
The McCain camp tried to keep Palin out of the media (the same way Romney is trying to avoid all media outlets other than echo chamber softballs like fox and talk radio). But once Palin started going on the news, the maps and predictions on 538 changed. Soon Obama was doing as well or better than he was before Palin. It actually made me gain faith in people, because people must’ve been paying attention to what Palin was saying on the news.
If you’re actually informed you most certainly do.
[ul]
[li]Want “smaller” government? Democrats win on that score.[/li][li]Want fiscal responsibility? Democrats win on that score.[/li][li]Want personal responsibility? Democrats win on that score.[/li][li]Want a strong and rising Stock Market for maximum investment payoff? Democrats win BIG on that score.[/li][li]Want less government intrusion into your personal life? Democrats winon that so hands-down it’s not even a contest.[/li][li]You want less federal government spending? Democrats—particularly President Obama—win on that score.[/li][li]Want the immigration reform championed by Republicans (introduced by Orrin Hatch)? Democrats will give it to you![/li][/ul]
The problem is, Republicans have been selling lies for so many years that millions of people believe them. And Democrats have been so bad at debunking those lies that they don’t enjoy nearly the support they should if even half the low-information voters paid attention to reality.
