Posted on 08/28/2012 12:40:16 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Who’s winning the presidential race? There’s an odd disconnect between the polls and the body language of the candidates. John Harris and Alexander Burns report from Tampa, “Republicans believe Obama’s governing defects should make a GOP victory virtually inevitable, but Romney’s political defects make it only a long-shot possibility.” Likewise, Mark Halperin, after extensive discussion with Obama’s campaign team, remains convinced that the campaign is not bluffing about its belief that it remains ahead in the race and unlikely to lose barring an unforeseen external event.
Could they be spinning? Possibly, though the more self-interested spin for Obama would probably emphasize the closeness of the race (send money! volunteer!) rather than the unlikelihood of defeat. In any case, the actual behavior of both campaigns suggests agreement on this point. Obama is running the same game plan he embarked on last year. Romney has changed things up, junking his original game plan — portraying Obama as a good guy over his head and hoping to make the election a referendum on the economy — to instead emphasize hard-edged attacks on the president and use Paul Ryan to shake up the race. So, however much Romney blusters, his deeds suggest a decided lack of confidence.
The curious thing is that this take is not reflected in the national polls. A Washington Post poll of registered voters yesterday had Romney leading by a point; a CBS poll today shows Obama up by one. Note that registered voters traditionally skew their picture toward the Democrats by around a couple percentage points, since not all registered voters cast a ballot, and Republicans are usually more likely than Democrats to show up at the polls. That would suggest that Romney is actually up by a couple points.
So, what gives?
The best explanation I can muster is that the polls are assuming a much different, and more GOP-friendly, electorate than either party. ABC’s poll assumes that 78 percent of registered voters are white. That is … a whole lot of white people. The white share of the electorate has been dropping steadily for more than twenty years — from 87 percent in 1992 to 83 percent in 1996 to 81 percent in 2000, 77 percent in 2004, and 74 percent four years ago. Ron Brownstein’s recent reporting suggests that both campaigns expect an electorate that’s about 74 percent white. The same problem seems to appear in numerous other polls. Many of them don’t release their racial breakdowns, but those that do seem to imply electorates far whiter than the campaigns are banking on. As pollster Mark Blumenthal has exhaustively shown, Gallup has systematically underweighted the number of minorities in its polls, due to technical issues related to the difficulty of finding and weighting poll respondents.
Now, we don’t know what the racial composition of the electorate will look like. But it is utterly key. Assuming the 74 percent white makeup, and further assuming that Obama’s standing among nonwhite voters holds up as it has with high consistency, then Romney needs to win white voters by more than 20 points, perhaps by around 22 points, in order to prevail. Few polls show him doing that. The ABC poll has him winning whites by eighteen points.
Again, the racial composition of the electorate is a guess. It’s possible that nonwhite voters just won’t show up in the numbers either campaign seems to expect. But the best explanation I can come up with for the gap between the polls, on the one hand, and the apparent confidence of Obama’s camp (and the lack of confident in Romney’s revealed behavior) on the other, it’s that the polls are showing more white people than either campaign projects.
So polls that have been oversampling Dems by 9-19 are too Republican friendly? These people are delusional.
Does anybody outside of the New Yorker’s staff really believe Obama is confident?
What is the author talking about?? How is obama acting confident? Constantly BEGGING for money, smaller crowds at rallies, desperate ads calling Romney a felon, murderer, etc. How is that confidant?
Why? Narcissism. Just like the other boy president.
They’re probably reading FR and actually think all the 3rd party supporters will produce a Clintonian plurality win for Baraq.
Calling Romney a felon, murderer.. Breaking protocol by campaigning during RNC.. Having to fundraise 24/7... Etc.
All these things do not project a confident campaign.
As seen on FR in recent times, the non-Democrat voters are split into groups that have come to dislike each other. Disagreement has become personal attacks. Zero knows that Romney cannot hold this together. Sooner or later, his true beliefs will come out and contradict his current statements, undermining him with one or more of these groups - about like the Akin incident.
Obama must live by “Fake it ‘til you make it”. Seems like he’s been faking for a long time.
This is a liberal spinning the spinning of the spinning of the numbers.
Obviously a liberal because he’s 180 degrees from reality.
Obama’s campaign is desperate ... you can smell the fear. Obama himself cannot imagine that The Won, Messiah to all would be turned out of office after only one term .... and he’s also thinking his black skin is a free pass on everything (and it has been/is with the media).
Romney’s pick of Ryan was bold, the sign of a leader .... and it’s proved to be a great pick.
I’m wondering if Mr. Chait has been spening too much time ‘not exhaling’ with “Mr. Choom” .... causes brain damage, you know.
Party votes is always around 90-10. Obama won by 7 when Independents went 52-44 for Obama last time. In that Washington Post poll just released, Romney lead independents 60-38 when undecideds weren’t included.
And that is all you need to know. Obama will need a 9-10 point Dem turnout edge to make this a toss-up. Not very likely considering he had +7 when he had the wind at his back in 2008. Karl Rove has been plotting the voter registration numbers and GOP is killing Dems since 2008.
Pending a colossal blunder/development, this race is already over.
Sometimes arrogance can be mistaken as confidence. That’s what is occurring here. Barry the Kenyan Guy thinks everyone on the planet loves and adores him. He sees himself as the new messiah.
Why’s Obama so confident?
Because he’s won every race he’s run through character assassination, and an incredibly powerful “thugocracy” of corrupt political machine members, criminals, and a fawning and corrupt ministry of propaganda, AKA “the media.”
He hasn’t even begun to “campaign” yet.
Mark
According to many of the professional pollsters on the idiot box, indies and undecided always break for the challenger in huge proportions, like 70/30.
I’d feel confident too, if I had the rebranded Acorn organization and MSM in my back pocket.
We have to beat them by the margin of vote theft.... and that ain’t +1.
Mediocre performance has never seemed to be a hindrance to his rise to academic success nor power in the past. He’s surrounded by a coterie of sycophants, and let’s not kid ourselves...he could win.
Mediocre performance has never seemed to be a hindrance to his rise to academic success nor power in the past. He’s surrounded by a coterie of sycophants, and let’s not kid ourselves...he could win.
and that reason must be on the mind of EVERYONE !!!!!!!!!!
Semper Wondering!
*****
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