Elendil_s_Heir:
I’d say Obama has about a 60% chance of being reelected. If the economy continues to limp along and Romney is able to keep from sticking his foot in his mouth again, the President could quite possibly be defeated. Barring some major upheaval, if the economy picks up a bit and Romney reveals himself even more often to being something of a political klutz, Sasha and Malia could enjoy another four years of White House living. There’s certainly plenty of political ammo the Dems can use against ol’ Mitt.
In any event, I don’t think Obama will do as well as he did in 2008 - North Carolina and Indiana are almost certainly going to be out of reach for him this time around, for instance.
From Feb. 3, 2012. I consider myself vindicated.
congratulations! We need to work out a payment plan.
July 23, 2011
Other than that, the election will be Obama vs. Romney, with Obama the winner. There is simply no enthusiasm for Romney as a candidate, while Obama is raising several times as much money as him, and AFAIK, a couple of times what all the Republican candidates are raising collectively. If he were consistently behind in every poll, I might think otherwise. But he is consistently ahead in almost every poll against specific names. (Single polls mean nothing. If the universe of polls don’t say the same thing, feel free to disregard any outlier no matter how tempting it looks.)
The power of incumbancy, plus more money, plus the demographic factor that the Republicans have alienated several large groups. That’s what any Republican has to overcome. I can’t see Romney being the one to do so.
I’m not giving myself any special pats on the back or celebrating my precience. I said those things because they were blindingly obvious. The only way the outcome could change was a huge outside event, and none of them ever occurred.
I will point out the line about never believing in individual polls. We should have made that a sticky. How many times since have people pulled a number out of context and tried to make something of it? Large amounts of silliness followed.
