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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HT,
Your comments are crude and offensive and even worse, wrong. The other day you accused me of borderline idiocy but you cross the border every chance you get. Your comments about Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo go way across – now it’s “obama wants it closed. with a better congress, it would be. bush wanted it open.” I have no idea what Bush wanted for Guantanamo but I do know Obama made closing it a priority. HE SAID HE WOULD BUT HE DID NOT. I guess most would call that a broken promise. What could be “a better congress” for a Democrat president than a Democrat controlled Congress?
Now Obama gets credit for “trying”? D you think that mitigates his other failures (the economy, unemployment, foreign policy, etc.) as well? I don’t question his good intentions or even his efforts; it’s his lack of results that bothers me.
first off, larry, i’m happy to concede a point. it was not right of me to have said “bush wanted it open,” and i apologize for writing that without checking into it first. this politifact article is instructive:
although obviously i way overstated the difference between obama and bush earlier, this still illustrates an important difference: i sure don’t believe obama has any objections to bringing the people at gitmo to u.s. soil. (please correct me if i’m wrong, however.) i think that kind of attitude makes it a lot more likely that obama will ultimately succeed.
i think your final comment about congress reveals a real naivete on your part. believe it or not, parties don’t march in lockstep. or maybe better put, the democratic party doesn’t march in lockstep. a “better congress” would be a congress made up of better congressmen and congresswomen, that’s all. just because they’re democrats is not good enough.
a final point. i think we should recall what you had to say the other night:
let’s think about this. you’re saying this in the wake of a tragic attack on four americans serving overseas. and there is a long list of senior al qaeda terrorists who have been taken out under obama’s watch. look, we all say things we wish we could take back — i wish i could take back the thing about bush and gitmo — but you do you seriously suggest calling what you wrote something besides “borderline idiotic”?
Let’s remember the reason for the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. We didn’t send terrorists there because we were afraid to house them on the mainland USA. We sent them there because the US department of justice ruled that the camp is outside US legal jurisdiction and our last president thought this meant they had no protection under the Geneva convention so he could do as he wished with them.
“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.”
True, the others suggested that not me. Promising something that most folks don’t want isn’t the most representative way to govern and he (or we) should not be surprised that he failed in that regard.
PNElba makes a very important point, and one which makes the description of “terror camp” accurate.
There is no doubt that the administration of the Unmentionable wanted those who would attack us to be afraid of being captured and sent there. Not a value judgement, a fact.
PNElba, that may be an excellent point. Maybe the current president, who seems quite hawkish, may not have abandoned that reasoning entirely. But most people have now made it clear that they have no interest (save a few desperate states that would probably take anybody) in having these guys on the US mainland. In fact NYC didn’t even want us to drag one lowly character up there for a trial. Thanks but no thanks.
“There is no doubt that the administration of the Unmentionable wanted those who would attack us to be afraid of being captured and sent there.”
Isn’t that how the penal system is designed to work? For real bad guys you have the “super max” out in Colorado and the like. For the really really bad guys it takes even more deterrence. Some are a lost cause. I think if you look at it even here in the US our own citizens are put in some pretty similar if not worse confinement situations.
But Knuck I do think that the real deterrence comes from knowing there is a good chance you will be caught as opposed to the conditions you will be confined under. The problem with many terrorists or potential terrorists you don’t have that deterrence. Unlike most normal circumstances they have been taught that being really really bad is really really good and in doing it they have no intention of getting caught if they succeed. That is the dilemma for this president same as the last and probably the real reason the place is still open. If we let them go we are screwed. This president doesn’t want that any more than his predecessor or the next president. The idea of letting them go sounds groovy in a smoke filled coffee house with some radical pals but once you are in charge the stakes are much higher.
Paul, I was basically with you until you said this: “The idea of letting them go sounds groovy in a smoke filled coffee house with some radical pals but once you are in charge the stakes are much higher.”
I will quibble about a couple of other things. Many terrorist aren’t worried about getting away with it, they are expecting to die. Getting caught without achieving their objective is what they don’t want. Stopping people who are willing to die is really really hard to do, especially in a free society; but I want this to remain a free and open society.
To your point about the terrorist trials; I believe they should be tried in a court of law on American soil. We should stand on principle and not change our principles because of fear. I have faith in our justice system. America should lead by example.
hermit thrush “it’s not like he suffered some mystical failure of leadership. democrats balked because it was unpopular!”
Again, I agree with you. He doesn’t suffer from mystical failure of leadership.
He fails in real leadership.
It doesn’t count when the president signs an executive order that doesn’t get carried out.
This president will go down in history as an epic fail!
HT,
I’ve already explained the use of sarcasm to illustrate a point and I stand by my comments on crossing the borderline into idiocy. Is there anything President Perfect has failed at for which you do not have an excuse?
Despite the tired and tiresomely repeated claims by some on the Inbox that President Obama is an incompetent who has succeeded at nothing, he sure is popular with our allies and others around the world – he comes out on top against Romney, by a substantial amount, in 20 of 21 countries http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/10/23/poll-finds-20-of-21-countries-strongly-prefer-obama-exception-pakistan/.
Pakistan is the exception that prefers Romney.
But most people have now made it clear that they have no interest (save a few desperate states that would probably take anybody) in having these guys on the US mainland.
True, but what does this say about Americans?
larry, if you think that’s an appropriate topic for sarcasm, then i don’t know what to tell you. obviously i have no problem with throwing a few elbows around in the comments, but to me, what you wrote is beyond the pale.
On Gitmo Pnle is correct and I think the reasoning holds still. We can’t convict ANY of these guys under our normal justice system. Think of it where are the witnesses the evidence the right to face their accuser, and on and on? Politically how would it play for Obama and Holder to start losing these cases? We could not have convicted Bin Laden in a truly fair trail.
Certainly we are not afraid of keeping these guys in our mainland supermax prisons. Come on half of them are illiterate goat herders who were on the wrong side if they even knew what side they were on. Some are very dangerous but we lock up very dangerous people all of the time.
HT,
It’s OK with me if you consider my comments “beyond the pale”. However, it’s Obama who keeps bragging about killing ObL and in my estimation, that makes him an appropriate target for sarcasm. In a more serious moment, I wrote: “There’s something inherently ugly and desperate about a President who continues to brag about killing people.”
I also find it curious that even after criticizing my comment, you felt it necessary to point out that, in fact, Obama has a higher body count than al Qaeda. What makes a particular comment “beyond the pale”?
hermit thrush “a “better congress” would be a congress made up of better congressmen and congresswomen, that’s all.”
In other words, a fantasy league.
Most presidents are able to get some of their major agendas through even in the realm of political reality.
Not this president.
He campaigned in 2008 as if the world was a fantasy world.
He campaigned this time around as if he hadn’t presided over the disaster of the past four years.
Yeah. A fantasy league fits your comments just about right.
In the real world, Obama is a failure.
“illiterate goat herders”
No sooner do I ask what makes a comment “beyond the pale” and I am handed an example.
Obama never accomplished anything, says the same tired comments. Here is a reminder of the reality, for those with really short memories:
‘ The legislative achievements have been stupendous — the $789 billion stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance). There has also been a cascade of new policies to address the financial crisis — massive interventions in the housing and credit markets, a market-based plan to buy the toxic assets that many banks have on their books, a plan to bail out the auto industry and a strict new regulatory regime proposed for Wall Street. Obama has also completely overhauled foreign policy, from Cuba to Afghanistan. “In a way, Obama’s 100 days is even more dramatic than Roosevelt’s,” says Elaine Kamarck of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “Roosevelt only had to deal with a domestic crisis. Obama has had to overhaul foreign policy as well, including two wars. And that’s really the secret of why this has seemed so spectacular.” ‘
From: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1893496,00.html
And after an amazing first 100 days in office, Obama got passed the first substantive health care legislation in over 4 decades. He ended US participation in the Iraq war. He ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He signed the Ledbetter Act. I could go on and on and on.
So don’t go posting in the In Box that Obama is an incompetent who didn’t change anything and didn’t achieve anything. That is total BS, and foolish, trollish waste of everyone’s time. You can argue all you want that Obama’s achievement’s are bad for the country, and I’ll disagree but respect your opinion. But I have nothing but contempt for people who claim that Obama has failed to accomplish anything he set out to do. In most ways, like it or not, he more or less did.
Yes, it is definitely an insult to call suspected terrorists “illiterate goat herders”. Of the almost 800 total detainees about 600 of them should be known as “persons released without charge and therefore likely to be innocent, though likely illiterate and much more likely to be sheep herders than goat herds.”
Of the 166 that remain 86 are known as “people who have been approved for transfer home or to third countries” but who remain at Gitmo.
So that leaves 80 people of whom only 6face formal charges. What are we afraid of?
Let me get this straight, Conservatives are criticizing Obama because he didn’t push through legislation that they didn’t like on straight line party votes? So trying to be bipartisan was wrong.
Jeesh!
TomL,
You did go on and on and on. As I said earlier, I don’t doubt Obama’s good intentions or his efforts, but bottom line: his policies and initiatives have failed. The economy hasn’t recovered, unemployment is what it was when he started (unless you add in the underemployed and those who’ve given up), half the people oppose his health care plan and even some of his supporters are unsure what effect it will have, terrorists have recently committed another outrage against us and Iran continues to move towards nuclear capability. These are not opinions; they’re facts. We can certainly quibble about how many, how much or how soon but it all adds up, in common language, to this: he hasn’t done anything.
Well, Larry, unemployment is in fact lower (albeit not by much) than when Obama came into office, and the trajectory gives the fuller story: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 . The stock market is a leading indicator of economic activity and employment (so say the economists) – how do you think that has changed since he came into office? Check it out: http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/djia2000.html . If you look at the actual data, in common language things are improving.
forgive me, larry, for feeling compelled to correct your apparent ignorance of obama’s record on terrorism. which also ties in with:
i guess significantly weakening al qaeda doesn’t count as anything. i guess staving off a depression doesn’t count as anything. i guess an above-average recovery from a financial crisis doesn’t count as anything. i guess saving the american auto industry doesn’t count as anything.* i guess ending the war in iraq doesn’t count as anything. i guess ending the bush-cheney torture policy doesn’t count as anything. i guess major progess on gay rights doesn’t count as anything.
*yes, as you noted earlier, bush deserves some credit for this too (just as he deserves credit for tarp). but the major steps were taken by obama, and notably opposed by romney.
Very few Americans would tell you they are economically better off today than they were four years ago. Go down to Stewarts and ask the first guy you see who is getting his coffee or filling up his truck. Go to the grocery store and ask that woman with the two kids in the shopping cart. Ask the old lady at the pharmacy. I’ll go with what they say.
Larry:
Those are real people.
Obama does best in the fantasy league.
One poll in the past month said that 20% were doing better, 50% doing the same and 30% are worse off than four years ago in their personal life.
To add to Hermit’s point, we do house terrorists inside the continental United States at present so the idea that those currently occupying our little chunk of Cuba are some how so dangerous that they couldn’t been held in any one of the federal “Super Prisons” is absurd.
“I will quibble about a couple of other things. Many terrorist aren’t worried about getting away with it, they are expecting to die. Getting caught without achieving their objective is what they don’t want. Stopping people who are willing to die is really really hard to do, especially in a free society; but I want this to remain a free and open society.”
Knuck, I don’t see a quibble here. I totally agree. I said above that the fact that these folks don’t expect to be in a position to be captured poses a challenge.
“We should stand on principle and not change our principles because of fear.”
Again, I basically agree. When would we ever try a POW in an American court?? We are not compromising principals by giving these guys the same treatment as we would any POW.
Like I said Paul, I agreed with most of what you said and was just quibbling over some minor points.
I also agree that we would try POW’s in a military court. But the prisoners in Guantanamo are not traditional POW’s.
In fact most of them were found to be held in error and released. The War on Terror is not a declared war and the administration of the Un-named created a legal black hole. It was a terrible precedent to set.
I believe we are justified in dealing with a very small number of detainees in some fashion that is outside the traditional legal system, but that should be reserved for a very small number of high leadership positions in enemy networks and not used against 15 or 16 year old boys.
When we act in ways that are not good examples of our highest ideals we diminish ourselves and we weaken our position in world affairs. That is as Conservative a position as any I can think of.
Colin Powell endorses Obama.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57539893/colin-powell-endorses-barack-obama-for-president/