What happened (so far) in this presidential election
Back to fundamentals
The 2012 presidential election has been — for most of its long, dreary slog — a bit of an anomaly.
An African American president with mediocre-to-low approval ratings, facing high unemployment, and growing anxiety among white, middle class voters who still make up the largest block of voters should have been deeply vulnerable from the start.
It didn’t help that Barack Obama’s two signature accomplishments, Obamacare and a fiercely waged campaign against Islamic terrorists, just didn’t play well with important constituencies.
Conservatives and many independents loathed his healthcare solution.
Liberals are deeply troubled by his predator drone strikes, by the continued operation of the terror camp at Guantanamo Bay, and even by some of the rah-rah that followed the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Despite some systemic advantages in the electoral college, the likelihood of Barack Obama being awarded a second term, should have been 50-50 at best. Thus the frustration through much of the campaign among conservatives, who felt that Mitt Romney was squandering a historic opportunity.
Yet until the very final stage of the race, Obama seemed untouchable. Why?
Obama was helped by the fact that he didn’t face a primary challenger — no Ted Kennedy or Bill Bradley to muddle his campaign focus.
But they key factor was Republicans more or less disqualifying themselves, turning the primary season into a circus, and then handing their banner to Romney, a persistently lackluster candidate — even by conservative measure — who seemed unwilling to lay out any kind of specific plan for his presidency.
Moments like the “47%” speech apparently locked in a theme that Team Obama had carefully worked to establish: that Romney simply wasn’t a viable choice.
That all changed with the first presidential debate. Having gone back and looked at the tape, I actually don’t think you can argue that Obama destroyed himself in the way that many pundits (including, in my own small way, myself) have suggested.
Yes, he was lackluster, passive, dull and seemed unwilling to offer even a crumb of excitement to voters. But he committed no gaffes and at several points during the exchange he did, in fact, bite back.
What no one could have predicted, however, was that this one exchange would essentially open the floodgates to the logical, proper paradigm for the entire campaign, turning it back into the toss-up it always should have been.
Romney looked plausible. He looked credible. He looked ostensibly presidential.
And that’s all frustrated voters needed. An option. A choice. Frankly, Obama is dead lucky that Romney didn’t offer up that kind of break-through performance much earlier, perhaps at the Republican National Convention.
So now we’re back where this election probably always should have been, based on the fundamentals. An impatient, anxious electorate. An angry Republican base that finally feels like it has somewhere to turn. A disappointed but still fiercely loyal Democratic base. A near-tie in the demographics.
Turn-out is key
Barack Obama still holds a tiny advantage in the Electoral College, with Real Clear Politics and Politico concluding that the president currently enjoys enough support in battleground states to eke out a 281-electoral college vote win. (That’s without Colorado or Virginia, which are currently in a dead tie according to polling surveys.)
Romney, meanwhile, has held onto his overall polling advantage, a narrow lead in the popular vote (according to surveys) of roughly 1%. (Gallup puts his lead significantly higher, around 5%.)
Those surveys are of likely voters, so in theory the state-of-play already factors in the reality that Republicans are — historically — more disciplined and diligent voters than Democrats.
Perhaps it’s appropriate that what it all boils down to in the end is voting. After all the campaign ads and the Super PACs and the fact checking and the debates and the polls, the side that goes to the polls with the most passion and zeal will almost certainly choose our next president.
In some states, particularly low-population battlegrounds like Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, a handful of votes could make all the difference.
What to watch for on election night
Here’s my road map for election night. Big early surprises could be Obama holding Florida or Virginia. If that happens, the night will probably be settled pretty quickly in his favor– especially if Florida goes Democratic. If he holds both, it’s all over.
On the other hand, if Romney surges enough to flip Pennsylvania, then the chances for an Obama victory will narrow to the vanishing point. (It’s almost impossible to imagine an outcome where Obama loses Pennsylvania and wins Florida or Virginia, but that would obviously keep the night alive.)
If none of those surprises occur, I think we settle into a predictable pattern of watching Ohio — the most likely crux state — and a more surprising waiting game for the outcome in Wisconsin. Obama currently leads in both those states by roughly 2-3%, which is hardly a comforting margin for error.
Third Party factor?
One last footnote: The Washington Post has a strong piece today about some of the third party candidates, their debate and their issues, which you can read here.
For purposes of this blog post, it’s worth noting that in a very, very close race, the Libertarian and the Constitution Party would drain away meaningful support from Mitt Romney in Colorado, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Virginia.
The Post doesn’t offer an opinion about the Green Party candidate’s impact on Obama, but I suspect that his lack of interest in talking about climate change could cause some liberal Democrats to pull the lever for Jill Stein. Particular states to watch for her win-loss impact: Colorado and Wisconsin.
It’s your turn
So there you go. If there’s a take-away from all this, it’s simply that you should get out and vote. Whatever you believe, whoever you support, your ballot is a big deal. Please use it.
Tags: analysis, election12, politics
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Something unexpected could happen. The stock market takes a nasty drop over the next several days, or something comes out about Romney, such as his taxes. I am also watching the registered voter polls since I read that the final results in 2008 were closer to the registered voter totals than likely voters 62% of the time. Another potential caveat is that the most followed tracking polls do not include cell phone users. Another factor is the Hispanic vote in Colorado, Nevada and perhaps Arizona. If Carmona wins in AZ, could he have coattails. Brian is right about Ohio. Maybe we will know who wins by 10 pm on election night.
I can’t wait for the campaigning for 2016 to start!
It has already started!
The old media says Obama won two-of-three-debates.
The old media says that Obama didn’t go on an apology tour.
The old media says that Obama didn’t know about Benghazi.
Maybe the old media doesn’t have the influence they once had to shape public opinion.
Why aren’t people behaving like mind-numbed robots, like in the good-old media days?
“Liberals are deeply troubled by his predator drone strikes, by the continued operation of the terror camp at Guantanamo Bay, and even by some of the rah-rah that followed the killing of Osama bin Laden.”
Sound familiar? It should.
Nice job Brian. No doubt, some here will find it full of lies and distortions. That will say more about them than your piece.
And then just today, in the new media, some Republican clown running in Indiana claims that a pregnancy caused by rape is Gods intention… Romney immediately distanced himself of course, but his kind of nut-job idea is present among too many of the Republicans for my comfort.
So we’re faced with the possibility of a Mormon and a Catholic winning this seat, and imposing their top-down opinions, methods, and agenda on the entire population. Our freedoms are more threatened by this spectre than anything in the Patriot Act.
We don’t need to wait for something unexpected to happen.
The Mormon/Catholic angle has no more validity than being worried that Obama will embrace the racist views of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Obama has been able to distance himself (correctly, I think) from that guy, why not extend the same benefit of the doubt to Romney?
Well Mike, if the current demographic trends hold, the Republican party will have to either make itself more appealing to more groups or become irrelevant in the next 5-10 years. To do the former I suspect they’ll need to purge themselves of those who hold such views as the Senatorial candidate from Indiana.
When the president lies, not only does it say a lot about him, but what he thinks of us.
And why does Brian keep bringing up the racial profile of the president?
It’s a criminal offense to consider race when making a decision to hire someone (or to fire someone, for that matter)
because they’re crazy people who let their ideology trump real-world evidence.
let’s just take a couple of jdm’s examples from the very same comment.
it’s not that the “media” just says obama won the last two debates, it’s that all the snap polls say he won. and cbs’s snap poll of undecided voters says that obama won the last debate by an even bigger margin than romney won the first. but somehow jdm is unable to accept this reality.
and it’s not that the “media” says obama didn’t go on an apology tour, it’s that he actually did nothing of the sort. in fact this whole “obama apologizing” meme is a pure figment of the right wing’s imagination. if jdm wants to debate that, then i hope he’s prepared to come to the table with actual, citable evidence. i’m not holding my breath.
“operation of the terror camp at Guantanamo Bay”
Brian, what in the world is “the terror camp and G Bay”??
kind of funny that jdm has nothing to say about romney’s lies, which have been both more severe and more prevalent during the campaign. it couldn’t possibly be that he’s an unprincipled hack, could it?
(by he i mean jdm, not romney.)
“Obama currently leads in both those states by roughly 2-3%, which is hardly a comforting margin for error.”
Or to be accurate – “he doesn’t lead in Ohio”? Or Brain is his lead several percentage points above the margin of error? If that is the case your wording is accurate.
I wonder if the debates (even the first one) really had any impact on the race. I know the media like to think that they have, and that maybe the frenzy they whipped up over them to improve ratings and ad revenue, made a difference but I wonder?
The race always tightens near the end (barring any big surprises). It is only in the last few months that people (who are not political junkies like we are here) actually pay much attention. Given the overall state of affairs I don’t think it is unreasonable to think that we would still be in the same place we are today without the debates.
This election comes down to the voters, it always does. Brian, you have done a good job covering this. Thanks.
Really don’t care what the talking heads say or the polls say.
Don’t care about drones. Like it our not, they are the future.
Boots on the ground are so outdated.
Forget about the government solving your problems.
Solve them yourself.
hermit thrush: “then i hope he’s prepared to come to the table with actual, citable evidence”
The Heritage Foundation has a list of the Top-10 apologies, if you care to go there.
The snap polls? Come on.
Thirteen days from now, we will see the results of the only poll that matters. I don’t think smoke-and-mirror tactics of snap polls will mean diddly on that day.
hermit thrush: “romney’s lies, which have been both more severe and more prevalent”
To whom?
I think the nation, as a whole is not seeing it as you do. Better get out there with Obama and start stirring up the electorate.
The ship’s starting to flounder.
Brian Mann-
I also liked your (appropriate) inclusion of the possible importance of third parties to the outcome, especially with their importance to some who comment here.
Paul,
“the terror camp at Guantanamo Bay” refers to the terrorist detention facility located at the United States Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. You remember Guantanamo, don’t you? That’s the facility Bush was savagely criticized for opening and maintaining. The one Obama made a campaign issue of in 2008. The place he promised to close. The facility that’s still in active operation today. That one.
Another broken promise; one I thought would actually be a positive result of an Obama presidency. Who’s flip-flopping and lying now?
The email sent at 6:07 P.M. on Sept. 11 was sent by a person using an @state.gov email address. The subject line said: “Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU)”
Obama lied. People died.
I ponder the value of continuity. I don’t see the candidates as too far apart in reality, just in what they say. By that I mean after digesting more than the prepared statements and including some known history. How much damage would arise with the same crew for another 4 years and benefit from no need for a major transition team revision which means more uncertainty for the 8-12 months following the election? The healthcare bill has already stymied economic progress for the uncertainty it injected at a time of economic retraction.
Brian, Larry everyone
I am not happy about Guantanamo either. But after Obama was elected, Congress blocked trials or movement of Guantanamo prisoners to US soil http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136781/carol-rosenberg/why-obama-cant-close-guantanamo. So yes, Obama could be the dictator that the hard-right seems to think he is and bring them over (or free them all) anyway, but short of that he can’t complete his promise, because he has been checked by Congress.
Jeff-
I don’t ponder the value a return to the policies that got us into this predicament.
Bush’s revenue and financial oversight cutbacks (the latter begun, unfortunately under the Clinton-Republican concordat) and neocon-run war mongering , justified by “Ronald Reagan proved deficit don’t matter”, got us into this mess.
Obama has been partially successful in getting us out of it.
Of course, Romney might be better, based on his words.
Or, he might be worse, also based on his words.
Basically, to me, it’s like a choice between a moderately successful doctor vs. a faith healer. Of course some might disagree. The only people Romney has ever governed, the residents of Massachusetts, despise him so much that he doesn’t even have a campaign there. Like Obama’s state, Illinois, it is uncontestedly in the blue column.
And, bin Laden is dead.
And, GM is alive and well.
Enough with the “Congressional opposition” excuse for Obama’s failures. Didn’t the Democrats control both Houses of Congress in 2009 and 2010 and don’t they continue to control the Senate now? Just more excuse making or is it perhaps that Obama is even disliked by his own party as was recently said about Romney?
Per my above on Romney’s support in Massachusetts, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/romneys-massachsetts-woes-a-bad-omen/#postComment, 34%, Obama beating him by about the same percentage.
here’s the link to heritage’s “apology” list, which apparently jdm is too lazy to provide himself. spoiler alert: the words “apology” and “sorry” are nowhere to be found in the obama quotes provided there. heritage and jdm both have a really strange idea of what an apology is.
also check this out from the wapo’s live blog of the last debate:
the fact checkers are by no means infallible, but on this one it’s not even close. jdm is dead wrong.
by the way, jdm, if during a debate you accuse someone of going on an “apology tour” where no such apologies were actually given, then that kind of makes you a liar. based on the reporting i’ve seen from the benghazi story, that alone makes romney more of a liar than obama. and goodness me, that’s not even to touch everything else romney said!
larry is basically right about closing guantanamo. it’s true that obama was blocked by congress, but he was blocked at a time when democrats held both houses. democrats in congress opposed him. so?
It’s the economy stupid! From FOX business (so it must be accurate):
http://www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2012/09/04/history-shows-markets-gdp-outperform-under-democrats/
I wonder if any Republican president has ever apologized for something done by the USA or one of its representatives. One president comes to mind, but he’s a president whose name we dare not mention on this blog.
Again from FOX news:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119156,00.html
The current POTUS has never had a filibuster proof majority (that requires 60 Senators) in the Senate. Which is partly why the filibuster rule, one never provided for in our Constitution by the way, needs to be removed from Senate proceedings. The problem, however, is whenever one party or the other becomes the minority, they of course refuse to remove it as it can be of great benefit to them. As we’ve seen from both parties. The current minority party in the Senate has taken filibustering to a new level, however.
Oh, yeah, but that’s different. See, that’s not the same at all. It’s just, somehow, totally different.
[As in, it actutally was an American president apologizing to the rest of the world. Unlike that list of Obama’s so-called apologies.]
“Paul,
“the terror camp at Guantanamo Bay” refers to the terrorist detention facility located at the United States Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.”
Larry, Decaf, man Decaf!
My point, which sailed over you is that describing the facility as a “terror camp” is a mis-characterization. I was curious why he described it as a “terror camp” as opposed to a prison for terrorists, which is what it is.
“But after Obama was elected, Congress blocked trials or movement of Guantanamo prisoners to US soil”.
No state in it’s right mind wants that cast of characters hanging out.
Tom, he must have seen that coming. He never should have made that promise in the first place. I can only assume that he did it to pander to some of the more clueless voters.
Sorry, yeah – “terror camp” was a poor choice of words as I was writing on deadline. Paul nailed the full footnoting that gives a clear sense of what I was trying to say.
–Brian, NCPR
I think I get it now. This is a lot like the time when George W. Bush finally admitted that there were, in fact, no WMDs in Iraq, nor evidence that there was connection between Iraq and 9/11, and thereby apologized to Saddam Hussein for invading his country.
Newt, GM is a house of cards. If you look at the 5 year average for the stock the where they are now is a blip on the screen.
And I saw this at Reuters:
“In July 2011, reports began to surface that GM had engaged in an extraordinary inventory build-up. In particular, an article published by Bloomberg on July 5, 2011 revealed that GM may have been unloading excessive inventory on dealers, a practice known as ‘channel stuffing’, in order to create the false impression that GM was recovering and sales and revenues were rising.”
GM was, and is, a bad investment. This stuff about Obama saving the company and the auto industry is rubbish. The type of bankruptcy that Romney supported is not much different than the bankruptcy they went through. The only difference is that it hurt the federal budget more the way we did it.
This story still would have pretty much looked the same either way:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/01/news/companies/gm_bankruptcy/
HT, I certainly was right (not basically) about Obama and Guantanamo. Everyone continues to scream about Bush but when it comes to Obama, we get “so?”.
Hmmm. Heritage Foundation lists apology tour references.
hermit thrush disagrees.
Heritage Foundation? hermit thrush? This is a tough one.
I go with Heritage Foundation.
Bush started the auto industry bailout but Obama “saved” GM. Bush gets killed for Guantanamo but Obama gets a pass. Bush ended his presidency with a Democrat controlled Congress but is blamed for bringing us to the edge of an economic cliff. I guess the Democrats couldn’t save us from that. Obama started his term with a Democrat controlled Congress but couldn’t get anything done because of “congressional opposition”. Isn’t it great when you can be selective about what you remember?
JDM –
In our world we see Heritage foundation listing apology tour references and then Factcheck.org, Politfact.com, and the Washington Post fact checker sites saying it’s not true.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/02/obamas_apology_tour.html
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/09/romney-gets-it-backward/
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/09/romney-gets-it-backward/
I know, I know, the Heritage foundation posted “facts” and the fact checking sites post only opinion.
I wonder if a conservative president would ever actually apologize to another country if it was in the best interest of the USA? They would and they have. Even so, it’s pretty hard to see where Obama apologized on his “tour” when his statements are read in their entirety. Many would call what he said diplomacy (unless of course you hate Obama).
Yes Larry, it sure is.
no larry, i don’t think you’re completely right about guantanamo. after re-reading what you’ve written, i think even my “basically” may have been too generous.
the problem is with
there’s been no flip-flopping or lying about it. obama signed an executive order mandating the closure of guantanamo right after he was elected. he reiterated his desire to have it closed just last thursday on the daily show. you can call it a “broken promise” if you want, since it in fact hasn’t come to pass, but the reason it hasn’t come to pass is because of opposition to obama.
and that’s the reason i said “so?” above. obama wants it closed. with a better congress, it would be. bush wanted it open. there’s a world of difference between the two.
Besides the apology tour, Obama is no leader.
He signed the executive order as hermit thrush noted, and at the time had 60 senators and the majority of the House.
As hermit thrush also correctly notes, this was not enough for the president to push through something that he felt was his mandate.
As hermit thrush notes, ” obama wants it closed. with a better congress, it would be”
60 senators and a House majority wasn’t good enough, apparently.
What we have is a failed presidency.
this could hardly be more wrong.
according to romney, “the federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing,” but nothing more. but this would have led to the liquidation of gm and chrysler, since there was no private financing available at the time. the whole american auto industry would have likely gone down with them.
it takes a special kind of liar to get up there on the stage and lie about this like mitt did during the last two debates. but make no mistake, he’s trying to put one of the greatest used-car sales jobs on us we’ve ever seen.
“but the reason it hasn’t come to pass is because of opposition to obama”
HT, the people that “oppose” the closure of that facility are the American people by a huge margin:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/119393/americans-oppose-closing-gitmo-moving-prisoners.aspx
With this, like with support for the Affordable Care Act the president sides with the minority of Americans. He may side with the majority of Jon Stewart viewers on these issues but not with most of the country.
of course you’re correct about guantanamo, paul. but i think your comments would be better directed to jdm than to me. they perfectly explain why obama couldn’t just push through closing guantanamo. it’s not like he suffered some mystical failure of leadership. democrats balked because it was unpopular!
and that’s a shame. saying “No state in it’s right mind wants that cast of characters hanging out” is a shame. i mean, who do you think we have imprisoned down there? do they have super powers or something? they can only be safely contained on a subtropical island fortress? it’s the height of irrational fear.
OK, fine, Paul. But that still doesn’t make it reasonable to suggest that it was a campaign promise he reneged on. It hasn’t been for lack of trying.