Huh, did not know that Marley! Ignorance fought for the day, go have some coffee.
'Cause he’s a bit condescending to everybody, maybe?
Hmmm. Fair enough. I didn’t remember Bush being ahead in the polls; I thought they were actually polling about level. Mea culpa.
I was in the same boat, only I was 50 in 2004. What was MY excuse, dammit? 
As past elections go, the Kerry example probably offers the most hope for Romney, despite the fact that he lost. Kerry made up about a five point deficit after the first debate, after a dissapointing set of conventions left him trailing by something like six points through September. And in defence of your 20-year old self, for a while in October it wasn’t so crazy to think the momentum would continue and he’d get the last point or two he needed to put him over the top.
A similar jump by Romney would put him back in the lead. And while its kind of hard to see Romney charming America during the debates, Kerry wasn’t exactly a bundle of charisma either.
Also President Obama isn’t visibly stupid, the way Shrubya [del]was[/del] is.
Link to debate-expectations memo released by a Romney advisor (sorry, I’m on my phone and can’t make the link pretty):
See my post #266.
Romney can pack it in, he is losing the halloween mask metricalso:
Ah, but in the TV show True Blood there’s a subplot about a bunch of vampire-hunting rednecks using Obama masks.
So you should take True Blood fans out of the equation.
Comparing the two elections, I think Kerry was a better candidate than Romney. He had similar weaknesses to Romney, for example a reputation as a flip-flopper, but I think the latter just makes more unforced errors. I think Obama is clearly a better candidate than Bush, a much better speaker in every format. However he has to deal with a sluggish economy which wasn't a problem in 2004. Rove set the gold standard for a ground campaign in 2004, particularly the famous GOTV operation in Ohio but the Obama campaign has taken it to a whole other level particuarly in the use of super-detailed data analysis. They have clearly borrowed from the 2004 Rove playbook in terms of attacking and defining their opponent early and I think they have been even more ruthlessly effective in that regard.
So aside from the economy I think Obama is in better shape in every other respect. Some time back I thought Romney had a money advantage unlike Kerry in 2004 but apparently it was a bit of an illusion . I don’t fully understand the details but I believe that Obama has massively outraised Romney in small donations which gave him significantly more flexibility in launching a big ad campaign early. Presumably Romney will now unleash his big media onslaught but it may be too late and he will probably be matched dollar for dollar by Obama. I would bet that a lot of business money is going to Obama now simply because they believe he will win.
I think this has been Romney’s problem. He’s never had to actively beat an opponent. He’s just had to hang in there until his opponent self-destructed.
The problem for him is that not every opponent self-destructs. McCain didn’t in 2008 and it doesn’t look like Obama will in 2012. But Romney is still pacing himself like he’s in the lead.
No, but it’s not too early to celebrate!
Whoops-sorry. And I’ve been following this thread!
I read an explanation in an article that either 538 or electoral-vote linked to, but can’t find it now.
Apparently Romney has been raising money jointly with the Republican Party from the fat-cat donors, while Obama relies mainly on small donations directly to him over the internet.
The significance of this is that by law, presidential candidates are entitled to the lowest possible ad rate on t.v. - provided they pay for it with their own campaign money. If they pay for it with money from other sources, such as pooled money with the party, the networks are entitled to charge the market rate, not the special low-low-low rate for presidential campaigns - even though the substance of the ad is the presidential candidate.
So, even though Romney and the Republicans have raised a lot of money from the fat-cats, when they go to spend it they’re finding air time is a lot more expensive than it is for Obama - so Obama, due to his reliance on 21st century social media, is able to buy more air time more cheaply.
Obama’s funding strategy has also paid another dividend - it doesn’t eat into his valuable campaigning time. Mitt had to take a week off from campaigning earlier this month, because he had to do another round of fat-cat fundraising events to keep his campaign going - while Obama, relying on the magic of the interwebs and PayPal, was able to keep campaigning as the little donations kept coming in without him having to take any time.
Interesting case study of how the very different approach of the two candidates to fund-raising has had some significant implications for their ability to campaign in ways unconnected to the actual dollar amounts that they’ve raised.
Interesting point and of course it was at a fundraiser where Romney made the 47% comment which will possibly cost him more votes than his entire ad campaign wins.
Could Romney have pumped his own money into his campaign either outright or by making a loan? 50 million would have come in very handy a few months back and he can certainly afford it.
He could have, but instead his campaign borrowed 20 million in the middle of summer. It’s very much like the line from The Producers - the first rule is to use other people’s money, not your own …
You should not use your own money in a campaign. If you don’t have enough support to raise enough money, you don’t have enough support to win the election.
That appears to be outdated.
‘Super PACs’ Finally a Draw for Democrats
The Democratic Super PACs still trail the Republican ones in total donations, but it’s not as one-sided as it once was. The print edition had a list of fourteen donors who had given a minimum of $1 million. And more is coming.
I read similar things and found it similarly fascinating. But there’s one other major component.
A lot of the anti-Obama ads are coming from SUPERPACS, who have no commitment to where their money is spent. If they start sensing that Romney is in trouble, they’re likely to rechannel that money to smaller local races down ticket where it can be better used. So perhaps good for the GOP’s long-term ground game, but bad for Mitt, who can do nothing about it.