It has been a long time since a Presidential candidate lost independents by a big margin yet won the election. Not since the days where Democrats had a dominant registration advantage thanks to the South.
However, with Romney up 1.5 nationally now, it’s doubtful that Obama will maintain leads in Ohio or Virginia.
Either Romney must fall behind in the national polls, or Obama must fall behind in the swing state polls. Romney will not win by 1.5 points and lose the electoral vote.
Eh, whatever bounce that Romney appears to have gotten out of his debate appears to be tapering off nationally anyway, and as long as Biden is able to beat Ryan tonight that’ll probably halt any further surge from Romney. I will concede, though, that Obama can’t afford another lopsided debate defeat.
Derp, sorry. Here’s the link I was referring to. Obama by no means has the lowest average approval rating of any US president and in fact is trending up (though he did start with near universal approval). His first term lowest so far has troughed at 38%, meaning only Eisenhower and JFK beat him in terms of consistently avoiding disapproval (and both with much higher marginal tax rates!). It’s worth keeping in mind that a subsection of the American population (extremists on either side) will always vehemently oppose a president no matter what and fewer than half of polled Americans will have voted for the president at any time. Sometimes it’s referred to as the crazy 27%, but 90% of Americans approved of Daddy W.'s job record at one point… and he didn’t get reelected. Hrmm.
No signs of tapering yet. Romney was at +0.8 Monday, +1.0 Tuesday, and +1.5 Wednesday. A bit early to say it’s tapering. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
The thing about Biden is that he’s a loose cannon. He’s a smart man who is prone to saying extremely stupid things in public, so he could stomp Ryan or he could shoot himself in both feet before inserting them into his own mouth.
I suspect that a Biden win will have less effect on Obama’s campaign than a Biden loss given that the VP debate is less of a boost for the incumbent; the bigger effect will be down to how Ryan performs and whether he avoids any major gaffes.
Well, the thing that I think most of the democratic base is expecting is out of the Ryan and Biden debate is for Biden to basically go out as the attack dog and essentially eviscerate Ryan. I mean, he really is the best debater this cycle next to Romney, so as long as he can avoid any gaffes this debate could do some real damage to the Romney ticket.
Having watched Biden, I think he’ll do well, but evisceration isn’t his thing. He’s a serious man who talks seriously about policy. I think the Ryan-Biden debate will be the most informative of the debates, but it’s unlikely to be a fight so much as a seminar.
To paraphrase Inigo Montoya – you keep referring to the national polls. I do not think you understand how the election works. There is no national election for president; there are just 51 state elections.
Yes, the wider the popular vote margin, the less important the EC map is. You don’t even have to look at it if one candidate is ahead by enough popular vote points, whatever that number might be. So, one could look at that site and say, as you do, that Romney is in a better position, because he has that one point lead, or one could look at the EC map there and say Obama is in a better position, because he’s closer to 270 and only needs a few states that he still has a decent lead in to get there. I might ask, if your one point margin is enough to assure Romney of a win, why isn’t he doing better on the EC map? But I wouldn’t ask that because I could imagine various reasons why the two don’t “agree”, such as different polling firms being used for the state-by-state polls and the general election.
“Acting sooner” how – sending in actual American troops? In Libya, Obama was faced with a situation where there was an ongoing civil war, and he had a chance to apply just enough pressure to keep the favored side in it viable long enough to win it, and that’s how it worked out. Now we have the desired result there, with no American troops on the ground to be targets of resentment/resistance/terrorism and no need to debate when or how to pull them out again.
“Acting sooner” how – sending in actual American troops? In Libya, Obama was faced with a situation where there was an ongoing civil war, and he had a chance to apply just enough pressure to keep the favored side in it viable long enough to win it, and that’s how it worked out. Now we have the desired result there, with no American troops on the ground to be targets of resentment/resistance/terrorism and no need to debate when or how to pull them out again.