# Is it too early to say Romney has lost? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 18, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066 "2012-09-18T13:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/61 "2012-09-19T20:28:37Z")
Yes, it’s too early. But Romney is dead meat. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/62 "2012-09-19T20:35:26Z")
Hey I’m not spiking the football, I’ve just got the end zone in sight, and right now the linebackers have all proven to be too fat, too stupid and too slow. The secondary? We’ll see… ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/63 "2012-09-19T20:36:24Z")
If the election were held today I’d say Romney was solidly doomed. Although I haven’t seen any post MJ polls yet, I wonder how much of an affect that really had. But election season doesn’t really start until the debates, so it’s not over yet. Not that I have much faith in Romney doing well there. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/64 "2012-09-19T20:39:51Z")
I don’t know. As of today, Pew has Obama with [an 8 point lead](http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/19/obama-ahead-with-stronger-support-better-image-and-lead-on-most-issues/). > [@Pew Research](#): > > At this stage in the campaign, Barack Obama is in a strong position compared with past victorious presidential candidates. With an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters, Obama holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November, including Obama four years ago. In elections since 1988, only Bill Clinton, in 1992 and 1996, entered the fall with a larger advantage. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/65 "2012-09-19T20:44:17Z")
Obama has also[surged to a 14-point lead](http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/poll-obama-romney-wisconsin-paul-ryan.php?ref=fpb) in Wisconsin, according to a poll by the Marquette University Law School. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/66 "2012-09-19T21:08:04Z")
Yeah there have been some very good polls for Obama in the last couple of days which I don’t think have yet been incorporated by Nate. I think this video is going to hurt Romney very badly. He spent a good deal of his convention trying to soften his image as an out-of-touch plutocrat and all that work is permanently erased. I don’t think there is anything he can now do that will persuade swing voters that he cares much about ordinary people. His reamaining line of argument is that he will be a more competent economic manager. However he hasn’t built a persuasive case on that front either. All he has is his Bain experience and the usual Republican boilerplate. If that was enough to win he would be doing much better now. He still has the debates and his final ad barrage but unless he comes up with fresh arguments they won’t matter much. The conventions are effectively a massive free ad where you can lay out your arguments in detail. If you can’t make the sale with that it’s not clear that a big round of 30 second ads will work. I also think that Obama will narrow the money gap in the next few weeks, both from his enthusiastic supporters and business groups who think he will win and hedge their bets. As for the debates, Romney has given an awful lot of ammuniation in the last two weeks to Obama. This is where I disagree that the Libya comments are irrelevant if they don’t move the polls immediately. I think such blunders can be used to build narratives and frames which can be deadly over the course of a campaign. Obama has been crafting a narrative of Romney as inexperienced and incompetent on the international stage. He will undoutbedly use the foreign policy debate to build on that and Romney has given him a lot of raw material. I think Romney is in serious danger of falling below the C-in-C threshold which would doom his campaign. I don’t know whether Romney has lost already or not. At what point can you say that? If you think he has less a than 10% chance? Romney is not there yet. I would give him about a 20% chance, perhaps even 15%. I think his position is somewhat worse than current polls indicate. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/67 "2012-09-19T21:11:44Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > Yeah there have been some very good polls for Obama in the last couple of days which I don’t think have yet been incorporated by Nate. Yeah, and also - Silver’s model is built to discount good polls for Obama right now because it’s trying to correct for the post-convention bounce. If his lead holds up for another few days to a week, I think we’ll see his 538 numbers jump back up again. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/68 "2012-09-19T23:31:00Z")
[Damn, today was a good day of polling for Obama.](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/president/) I wonder how much of this good news in the polls can be taken back to the Romney tapes. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/69 "2012-09-19T23:46:44Z")
I’ve changed my mind. It’s not too early. Let’s declare Obama the winner and skip the election. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/70 "2012-09-20T00:11:08Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > But I will say that if Mitt _does_ win it, he will not be the one to blame if the US slips further into a crumbling dystopia. The responsibility for that will rest squarely on the shoulders of the electorate who have lost the capacity for critical thought. If Romney loses overwhelmingly he’ll still get 46% of the vote. If he wins, he’ll do it with about 51%. Unless you want to argue that 51% is substantially larger than 46%, we can agree that the verdict is already in re: the electorate’s “capacity for critical thought.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/71 "2012-09-20T01:47:39Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > 538 reports no uptick for Obama at all so far. As outrageous as Romney’s comments were, it appears many people have no problem with the idea of the President who doesn’t care about half the population. **RJ** , few if any polls so far have been done in the mere 48 hours since the video became public knowledge; let’s wait a week. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/72 "2012-09-20T02:28:15Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > **RJ** , few if any polls so far have been done in the mere 48 hours since the video became public knowledge; let’s wait a week. Oh, I agree. But you know, gaffes don’t usually make a difference. Granted, this is more than a gaffe… this is an astoundingly horrible thing for a Presidential candidate to say. For almost 30 years I’ve followed politics in both the USA and Canada and I quite honestly cannot remember a Presidential candidate, or a person leading a major party in a Canadian federal election, saying something so… well, so cynical and sociopathic. “I’m not gonna bother with people who won’t vote for me” is the antithesis of an honest commitment to public service. I’ve never heard a sane politician say that. But, the thing is, people hear what they want to hear. A lot of people will hear the tape (or a version of it) and say “Gosh, yeah, he’s so right. Fuck those leeches. Government, hands off my Medicare!” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/73 "2012-09-20T03:07:03Z")
This gaffe didn’t help Romney’s campaign but it didn’t wreck it. I think it’s important to remember that Romney was saying mildly derogatory things about Obama voters. That’s not a deal breaker to winning an election. Now if he had been taped saying something like _“As long as those right wing dittoheads vote for who they’re told to vote for, I’ve got a chance to win this thing”_ then I’d be saying it’s time for Obama to pop the champagne cork. But this is really no worse than Obama making his gaffe in 2008 about bitter voters clinging to their guns and God. Yes, he offended a lot of voters but they were pretty much all going to vote for McCain anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/74 "2012-09-20T03:28:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > This gaffe didn’t help Romney’s campaign but it didn’t wreck it. > > I think it’s important to remember that Romney was saying mildly derogatory things about Obama voters. No. He said derogatory things about\* the 47% who pay no federal income tax\*. He made the leap that all of them MUST be Obama voters. Many of them may well be, but many of them are not. He insulted anyone over 65 who is depending on social security. Think some of these might be Republicans? He insulted serving military and many veterans. Think some of these might be Republicans? He insulted folks who are getting by on low wages and supporting children. Think some of these might be Republicans? Granted, many who are in the 47% don’t even know it, and probably are not aware that Romney insulted them. But I will bet that there are a few Republicans who are pissed off at Romney right now. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/75 "2012-09-20T03:36:56Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Its hubris. They have so internalized the denigration of Mittens Romney that they no longer even notice when they belittle him. Well played. Well played indeed. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/77 "2012-09-20T04:11:11Z")
> [@doublejm1](#): > > It’s still early, but in light of his recent gaffes, Romney knows he has to bring his A game to those debates. I see. Then so far he’s been running for president with his B game. Sorry, but I’m pretty sure we’ve seen his best, and it’s really a C-, but we’re grading on the curve, so I’ll throw him a B. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/78 "2012-09-20T05:58:33Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Also, Gallup reports that [Obama has lost his convention bounce](http://www.businessinsider.com/gallup-tracking-poll-obama-vs-romney-2012-9). I [don’t agree.](http://prespredict.com/) BTW, if I’m mostly convinced Romney will lose, is there any way to make money off of this? Isn’t betting on the election against the law in the US? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/79 "2012-09-20T08:07:18Z")
As John Mccain said, it’s always darkest before pitch black. Things are pretty low right now, tracking polls excepted. The Senate races are breaking the Democrats’ way and everyone’s swing state polls except Gallup look bad. The only consolation I have is that the party identification in most polls is oversampling Democrats to the point where it is predicted more Democrats will turn out than in 2008. But on the other hand, when has Presidential polling ever been wrong? Since 1948? Maybe pollsters are finding more Democratic enthusiasm than analysts have predicted. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/80 "2012-09-20T08:14:19Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As John Mccain said, it’s always darkest before pitch black. ??? - this totally doesn’t make sense Shouldn’t it be “It’s always darkest before dawn”? > [@](#): > > The only consolation I have is that the party identification in most polls is oversampling Democrats to the point where it is predicted more Democrats will turn out than in 2008. But on the other hand, when has Presidential polling ever been wrong? Since 1948? Maybe pollsters are finding more Democratic enthusiasm than analysts have predicted. Where is the evidence that most polls are oversampling democrats? ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/81 "2012-09-20T08:32:04Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by **adaher** As John Mccain said, it’s always darkest before pitch black. > > ??? - this totally doesn’t make sense > Shouldn’t it be “It’s always darkest before dawn”? I think it was a joke, unless he meant “always darkest before the pitch forks and torches come out.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066.md?page=5)