There’s usually a button somewhere on the web page that says “ignore Rasmussen polls.” You might want to start pushing that button.
Thanks tagos, that’s a great article.
Copied it from another thread, but it is a great one.
That article was brilliant. Reminded me of Bill Maher’s “Dispatches From The Bubble.”
And you know what? Conservatives don’t want to hear it. They would rather hear comforting bullshit than uncomfortable truths.
If it would mean they would remain as impotent as they feel right now, I might be cool with that, but the same bullshit can rise up and overtake truthful discourse and we can wind up with another Tea Party movement.
Romney didn’t connect with black, Hispanic or women voters the way Obama did. Romney didn’t court labor as he should have. Romney never established himself as a capable commander in chief. Just a few of the things I believe entered into the picture.
To me the takeaway from this election is the same as 2004. If you think the incumbent is weak and put up a mediocre candidate to run on the “at least I’m not that guy” platform. you may not like the outcome.
The takeaway for me is that Obama won despite a weak economy. People were smart/educated enough with their voting to think about that in enough depth to understand who and what caused the bad economy, and why it hasn’t yet improved back to where it was.
Also, if the Republicans cannot win despite a weak economy, they really need to come towards the center to attract more votes. More angry old white guys die every day. They are replaced with more minorities and a better educated populace.
No mystery according to this source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/obama-won-the-election-thanks-to-the-very-thing-we-thought-would-sink-him-the-economy/264911/
Hmm … that sounds like the definitive statement. What do you say, OMG?
Obama is Toast.
I suspect it comes down to this:
- While the economy was seen as the most important issue by most voters, it wasn’t the only issue.
- Obama appears to have been seen as better than Romney on most of the other issues, as well as general character.
- Romney’s lead over Obama on views of how he would handle the economy may not have been that large.
- A fair amount of the blame for the current economic situation is still being placed back on GWB.
- While only a minority of people feel that they’re better off now than four years ago, it’s also only a minority who feel that they’re worse off. And, given the crap of the last four years, I suspect that an awful lot of people feel that “status quo” is plenty good enough.
So, unless you were a single-issue voter on the economy, “Romney would be better than Obama on the economy” didn’t necessarily translate to “So I will vote for Romney.”
I’m convinced. If there’s one thing about Romney’s beliefs I can be certain of, it’s his view on how the free market should work. Romney said “Let Detroit go bankrupt.” Romney has said the government’s role isn’t to pick winners and losers. Romney made his hundreds of millions picking off weaker and vulnerable companies.
I fully believe that if Romney were President in 2008, he would have done exactly what he said: not helped the American auto companies at all. They live and die on their own (spoiler: they’d have died). They go bankrupt, and Romney’s friends emerge from the dark corners of the economy to scavenge for what’s left.
In 2008 this wasn’t an outrageous idea. It was really easy to say “Car companies getting billions? Fuck them and their poor decisions! I’m hurting here too and I don’t get a bailout.” Obama went against what many believed to be the right decision and America is now better off because of it. But I’m certain Romney wouldn’t have chosen that same path.
From an AP story on exit polls:
“Still, 4 in 10 said the battered economy is starting to do better. And Obama won 88 percent of their votes…”
“The 3 in 10 who feel the economy is getting worse voted just as overwhelmingly for Romney.”
“Romney’s central message — that Obama had failed after four years of trying to fix things — didn’t sink in with enough Americans to carry the day. Voters were evenly divided over which of the two men would better handle the economy going forward.”
“Nearly 6 in 10 voters ranked the economy the top issue, dwarfing health care, the federal budget deficit or foreign policy.”
p.s The biggest flaw in the OP is the implied claim that because a minority of people thought they were better off than 4 years ago, a majority of people think the economy is headed in the wrong direction. In reality, an even smaller minority think the economy is getting worse.
I think that even though a narrow plurality may have thought Romney would be better for the economy overall, they didn’t trust that he would work in particular to help people like them. E.g., if the economy is great but nearly all the gains in after-tax wealth go to the top 1%, some people might not feel that is a good a situation as the economy being a little worse but the gains shared more equally.
I also personally think that the idea that Romney seemed to sell with some success that he would be better on the economy because of his business experience is pretty weak even if a lot of people seemed to buy it. The skills involved in buying companies and then milking them for profits (with little regard to whether you have improved or worsened the companies…or at least their employees…over the long term) says pretty much zero about how well you will hand the U.S. economy. And, to the extent that it says anything, I have a hard time understanding how what it says is good.
OMGABC, when your premises are not in accord with the outcomes, check your premises.
The first problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of what caused the economy to collapse.
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The housing bubble was caused more by Barney Frank and the House Committee on Financial Services that refused to listen to GW Bush who recommended reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Limiting loans to what was affordable was seen a a racist policy by the Dems. Now ask yourself what percentage of Americans even knew about that backstory.
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In late 1990’s Brooksley Born warned both the President and Congress about OTC derivatives. Congress passed a law preventing her from regulating those derivatives. This was before Bush was even President but the story is not widely known. Even if it were, the linkage between the derivative market and economic collapse would not be understood by most Americans.
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The TARP package was signed by Bush. It was very unpopular by many Americans that didn’t buy into the “too big to fail” mantra. Obama carried it out and I think from what I have seen on this board that there is a bias crediting Obama with the implementation of TARP and thereby saving our banking system.
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Giving unregulated money to the banks via TARP was a clusterfuck because the banks took the money and did not open up credit as was the intention. Notice this was the exact same problem Hoover/Roosevelt had with the RFC but apparently no one in Congress of GW reads history books. Also, TARP money going to pay executives that made the bad decisions rubbed Americans the wrong way. All of this was under Bush.
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Because the economy is constantly in overdrive thanks to Neo-Keynesians & Supply-side Economists (Read Dems and Pubs respectively) and Pussies (George Bush who raised taxes because the Dems promised to lower spending and then they immediately raise spending MORE than the new taxes) we found out that we are at the point that we can’t stimulate the economy during down-times. The last time we had a reasonable tax/spend system was under Clinton but when Bush took over we lowered taxes, raised spending and each side blamed the other for being the irresponsible one.
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The money pit of the Iraq War. Blame GW Bush for that but the fact is that the Dems in Congress went along with it too.
So unless we want to look how Obama voted as Senator, I think it is fair to put responsibility of the recession directly on pre-2006 Congress (yes Dems, that’s pretty much you) and Bush for ineffectual handling of the economy and his blindspot where his little war was concerned. So most Americans rightfully do not blame Obama for the collapse.
But what about how he handled the recovery. My personal opinion was that he spent 4 years trying to convince every the economy was recovering when it really wasn’t. Credit was still unavailable for most Americans. Unemployment and underemployment was at depression era levels. The stimulus funding was ineffectual because of the years of maximum stimulus by claimed Keynesians (but Keynes said save in good times to stimulate in bad times not continual over [deficit] spending). But then things started turning around. As soon as unemployment got below 8% the election was over. Jobs numbers have started to improve (2nd derivative).
I personally think that it is part of a cycle and not a result of 4 years of Obama blowing sunshine up everybody’s ass but Americans give credit and blame about economic conditions to the President usually incorrectly. So just like Bush took the blame for a housing bubble he fought against, Obama gets credit for the economy naturally turning around on its own.
There is a difference between dominant issue and dispositive issue. For example, I think economy was the dominant issue but if you lose on all the other issues, being better on the economy might not be enough to make me vote for you.
There is not perfect overlap between those majorities. There might be people who think that the economy is the dominant issue but also think that Obama is better on the economy, while some people who think Romney might be better on the economy think that a woman’s right to choose or foreign policy are more important.
For example, I think the economy was the most important issue but I thought Obama would be better than Romney. EVen if I thought Romney was better on the economy, he was so weak in other areas I care about that I don’t think that any advantage Romney might have on the economy could overcome his flaws in foreign policy, tax policy, or regulatory policy (especially of the financial sector).
Here’s one possible scenario for you:
The electorate consists of 5 voters: A B C D and E.
A and B voted for Romney; C D and E voted for Obama.
A and B thought Romney would be better at handling the economy than Obama. So did C, but C prefered Obama for other reasons.
A B D and E said the economy was the dominant issue (or at least three of them did), and they voted for the candidate that they thought would be best at dealing with it.
Of the Obama supporters (C D and E), at least one is no better off now than four years ago, but they don’t blame this on Obama’s presidency.
I don’t see any contradictions there.
I agree with that.
There’s also another way to phrase the question in the OP: “Why was Romney such a poor candidate that the electorate could agree with him, but didn’t want to vote for him?”
Addendum: I don’t think Romney was a terrible candidate. In some aspects, he ran a very good campaign, but I think he was undone on a few key matters.