Well, unemployment dropped to 8.3% in January. That can’t hurt.
Better still if the Dems retake the House. But that would take a lot of energy on their side.
Or an implosion by Mitt Romney. An incumbent President can have very long coattails.
And at close on Friday, Nasdaq hits an 11-year high in response to the jobs report. That can’t hurt either.
Didn’t the CBO recently publish estimates that unemployment was going to go back over 9% by the end of the year or something?
Come to think of it the CBO recently announced that federal employees are overpaid relative to their private sector counterparts.
Well, anything could happen this far from election day. However, actual events appear to be trending well for Obama at the moment.
Don’t be so sure about Indiana, their governor is pissing off a lot of voters.
By eliminating the guild-like control of the unions and giving workers the right to choose to belong to an union or not.
Let’s focus on the thread topic, shall we?
In thought we finished that… No, ther is little chance Obama will lose the election.
I think it is insanely early to predict a winner for the Presidential election. I would like Obama to win, but too much can happen in the next ten months.
It’s also hard to work out the probability of IBM bankruptcy over the next 30 years – yet they manage to sell long obligation bonds. I agree a lot can happen over the next 9 months, but I am 90%+ certain that the next President will be Obama or Romney. Not 100% – the unexpected can indeed happen.
InTrade gives Obama a 57.6% chance of re-election as of now, which sounds about right. I fully expect the odds to drift both lower and higher than that figure between now and November. Those who think Obama is shoo-in can make big dineros at Intrade if their cogitation is apt. But I believe such certainty to be folly. (IMHO, YMMV, etc).
Known Unknowns
Expect a deluge of attack ads from Romney’s Super-Pacs. Obama’s Super-Pacs are currently midgets in comparison: I believe the ratio is currently an overwhelming 4:1. Also Obama’s approval rating of 47%, isn’t surprising given the economy, but it’s also not especially strong. Romney’s base may be bonkers, but he will probably be able to tack back towards the center before mid April.
I think a lot depends on how this shift will be perceived in the “liberal” media. Once he’s the anointed GOP nominee Fox News will give him a pass on everything but if the mainstream media don’t go along Romney will have trouble. There’s a lot of crap to back off of. If they pin it on him every time he does so and create a flip-flopper narrative, he’s gonna have an uphill battle.
For Obama it’s really all about the economy. His narrative is already established so the big question is how is he going to spin the weak recovery. If he continues to try to claim credit for things getting better he’ll seem out of touch to a lot of people who don’t see any improvement. But highlighting the negative doesn’t help him much either. He’s gonna get blamed for not doing more about it, after all.
I think Romney’s main problem will be that he’s so reflexively unsympathetic. The media’s main bias is that they want people to consume what they create, and with every attempt to sound like an ordinary Joe, Romney will always go ahead and say something that makes me think of Veronica’ father in the Archie comics.
For the record, for the past two years now I’ve had a standing $50 straight-up bet that, barring death or some other reason he’s unable to fulfill the duties of office, Obama will win reelection in 2012.
Two years, zero takers. My right-wing friends, for all their bluster about not being able to wait until November when we get some “real leadership” back in the White House, all seem to realize that they’ve got nothing.
Well yes. The fact that he’s such a stiff makes it more likely the mainstream media will Gore him.
He should grow a beard. Gore became so much more likable when he grew the beard.
Also he needs to gain like 30 pounds. And win a Nobel prize
A three variable model of the economy, approval ratings and incumbancy puts Obama’s odds at 85%, assuming 2% GDP growth during the first 3 quarters and a 47% approval rating in June. Play with the model here. I give Obama a 75% chance. Intrade puts him at 60%.
I move the model’s odds down towards 50-50 for the following reasons:
- There is error in my forecast of the economy.
- There is error in my forecast of June’s approval ratings.
- There are wildcards. Of course there are always wildcards. But here they go:
a. Any third party effort destroys simple US predictive models. There’s always a chance that somebody will drop $50 million on American’s Elect.
b. Romney, IMHO, is a below average candidate but not as weak as Dukkakis was. Obama is an above average candidate, but is over-rated: Clinton was stronger. Again IMHO. This moves us away from 50-50 a bit.
c. We have a tsunami of Super-PAC money backed by crazy and corrupt, influence peddling billionaires. Anything new makes one doubt whether historical trends will hold.
d. Romney will probably get stronger as he pivots towards the center.
e. It’s not clear whether the media will call him out on his ignorance and fabrications. I sure can’t keep up with all of them.
f. Scalia could decide to do Romney a favor by over-turning the ACA, with novel legal theories nobody had considered in 2009.
g. Voter suppression continues apace: Republicans try their best to disenfranchise populations that don’t favor them, based upon trumped up and empirically vacuous theories of voter fraud.
So you need a ~<~10% margin to cover the dishonesty of Republican politicians and poor character by their base.
As we get closer to June 30th, I expect my subjective probability of Obama’s re-election to trend upwards. But there is always room for surprises.
As always, these models are based upon the historical record, which is based on both parties fighting the fight good and hard. If either side lowers their guard, they will be clocked. But presumably that won’t happen for long.
ETA: It turns out that Romney only tacked towards the center a little after mid April. See the Student Loan controversy, where he agrees with Obama but disagrees with the Republican House. Of course Romney doesn’t do anything grand like try to cut some sort of deal. It’s not his style and it would upset his base.
Those that distinctly feel the economy trickling upwards will vote Democrat, those that barely notice it will vote Republican.