Posted on 09/04/2012 8:02:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
This week, I'm going out on a limb by publicly stating an opinion I have been expressing privately for some time: I believe Mitt Romney will defeat Barack Obama in a near landslide comparable to Ronald Reagan's win over Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Many of my friends and family, while hoping I'm right, actually think I'm crazy. My wife fears that there is now a disproportionate number of people in America who have gotten used to the idea of having things handed to them by government, rather than cherishing the opportunity to work for those things themselves.
After the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare this summer, my brother, who lives in the battleground state of Missouri, announced with resignation that, "Obama has just been re-elected." He reaffirmed that belief recently, during the Todd Akin flap in Missouri's U.S. Senate race, by once again declaring his state all but lost for Republicans, including Mitt Romney.
A close friend, with whom I have worked on numerous campaigns and who now works for a conservative lobbying organization, has a tendency to fret about all things political. He has been a basket case over the possibility of Obama, part two.
I point out to him that no president from either party since FDR's second campaign in 1936 has ever been re-elected with an unemployment rate even approaching the numbers we are seeing today. I tell him that any incumbent president who cannot get his poll numbers above 50 percent cannot and will not win.
Sometimes my friend's anxiety is temporarily assuaged, but there is no doubt in my mind that he will sleep much better after he has seen my prediction come true on November 6th. (Won't we all?)
Now comes a scientific study of presidential elections, from a pair of faculty members at the University of Colorado, which reinforces the political gut feeling that has been driving my prophecies to a large degree. The long-term model used for this study is the brainchild of Professors Kenneth Bickers and Michael Berry, working at CU's Boulder and Denver campuses, respectively. Their prototype, Bickers and Berry stress, analyzes economic data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, including both state and national unemployment figures, as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors.
Since 1980, their model has accurately predicted every presidential election. Their analysis was accurate even in those years when there was a strong third party candidate running (John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996). Perhaps most impressive, their model worked in predicting that Al Gore would win the popular vote in 2000 while losing the electoral vote to George W. Bush.
So what does the model forecast for 2012? They predict that Mitt Romney will soundly defeat Barack Obama by winning 32 states, 53 percent of the popular vote and a whopping 320 electoral votes (270 are needed to win).
"The apparent advantage of being a Democratic candidate and holding the White House disappears," Professor Berry notes, "when the national unemployment rate hits 5.6 percent. The incumbency advantage enjoyed by President Obama, though statistically significant, is not great enough to offset high rates of unemployment currently experienced in many of the states."
Berry and Bickers are predicting that Romney will defeat Obama in almost every battleground state, as well as a few the GOP hasn't won in decades. These include North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and, yes, the "show me" state of Missouri.
Bickers notes that their election prediction model suggests that "presidential elections are about big things and the stewardship of the national economy. It's not about gaffes, political commercials or day-to-day campaign tactics. I find that heartening for our democracy.
"Based on our forecasting model," Professor Bickers adds, "it becomes clear that the president is in electoral trouble."
As my little sister, who lives in the battleground state of Iowa, would say, "From his lips to God's ears!"
You got that right. A landslide is our best protection against any attempt to hold onto power. He needs to be so soundly beaten that it is impossible to pull anything like that off.
It cannot be done with force, he needs to create the facade that the election was fraudulent and that he should be the true winner.
“What a sneaky way to favor the DNC by showing their Convention in prime time, but not the RNC.
So disgusting and infuriating!”
The SRM are our blood enemies! God help me, but I really hate their guts! IMO not enough bad things can happen to those people! It infuriates me to no end that these biased, hyper-liberal, elitist, phony a-holes will once again be moderating the upcoming Obama butt-kissing, dog and pony show debates. They try to, and do, damage our candidates every day. Yet, the RNC and R&R agree to let them set the agenda and frame the debates. I don’t care what kind of supposedly impartial (HA!) League of Woman Voters commission selects these moderators, it is freaking obviously stupid and makes me crazy! Romney should tell them he’s not showing up! Screw them!! I am so sick of all this crap!!!!
Guess I'll just stick with FOX (can't get C-SPAN!).
I've been thinking the same thing. There is just no excitement for Obama this time, and there is much anger against him.
Amen!
It’ll be a nail biter for sure. Just once I’d like to feel some certainty in a Republican win. It’s been six cycles of failure or uncertainty. Enough!
Filling Cabinet-level departments with Leftist radicals that his successor does not dare fire en masse should be adequate to limit the downside of not holding the top office for a while.
True. Good point.
Nope. Our polls should CONTINUOUSLY read 10 POINTS BEHIND FOR G.O.P. and then in our day to day behavior we have to BELIEVE THAT HORRID SCENARIO and we have to run scared and like we are going to get whooped. In that sense then, we deliver an Electoral College whooping to the other camp, so heavily so there is no doubt what the American People want. I think this "Landslide against Obama" kind of talk is highly presumptious and way out of whack with realities.
“I wish I could share your confidence. 2008 really shook my faith in the American electorate. I hope enough of the Koolaid drinkers have woken up.”
It is heartening to see the election night 1980 posts on YouTube-an election that the MSM considered “too close to call” that morning-and see the Ancient Ones (Kronkite, et al) stunned and unable to comprehend how such a loss was even possible. However, this electorate is not the electorate of 1980...much smaller percentage of food stamp recipients then, for starters.
1. Incumbent
2. Still has the $$$ for the final stretch. How can George Clooney host a fund-raiser in Austria/Switzerland?
3. MSM is still totally in his pocket.
4. BHO only has to focus on the “battleground/swing” states = NV, CO, IA, WI, MO, OH, NH, VA, NC, and FL.
5. The zombie apocalypse will arise to vote as never before courtesy of a resurgent ACORN which has not stopped its illegal voter registration activities - only changed its name. Good folks in NC just this last week uncovered 30,000 deceased voters still on the rolls.
6. Eric Holder’s DoJ is rapidly putting the kybosh on those red states which passed picture-voter ID laws.
7. Some state election commissions controlled by the Dems will attempt to make it harder to get ballots to overseas military in time.
8. George Soros owns the Spanish company that wrote the software that will count the votes in those states which contract with this service - wonder how many states and which contracted with this service?
9. BHO and the Dems have "lawyered up" in anticipation of challenging the vote in those states in which they expect the vote to be very close. Of course, journalists reported Romney has done the same thing. If the vote is close, the aftermath of the 2000 election, BushII v. Gore, will look like child's play compared to the 2012 aftermath.
10. One of George Soros' strategies for BHO's re-election was to get a number of states (the battleground/swing states?) to elect Democrat candidates to the position of Secretary of State, i.e., the person in state government responsible for conducting/monitoring/counting elections. I read 1 story where this strategy was not fulfilled.
11. October surprize? - choose your own flavor(s)
12. How many conservatives will not vote for Mitt Romney? They will either (1) stay home, (2) skip the POTUS block, or (3) vote 3rd party. 3rd party candidacies may well hurt Romney this go around like they did GHWB in '92 and AlGore in 2000.
13. Not convinced that Gen Y and Gen Z, i.e., the 18-30 voting block will not (1) turn out to vote and (2) vote for BHO. The young white people in this block have been saturated with the indoctrination of diversity/multi-culturalism by educators. Most of them have been led to believe that the white Republican party is the fountainhead of all evil in the U.S. “If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” - Sir Winston Churchill
14. Laura Ingraham, who subs for Bill O'Reilly on his show, "The O'Reilly Factor" exposed us to the legal gambling/odds maker website, Intrade.
She cited it back during the 2012 GOP primary. It accurately predicted Romney would win the GOP nomination. Right now it projects that BHO has a 58.4% chance of being re-elected.
15. Unlike disaffected Republicans who will not vote for Romney, the uber-left, disaffected Dems will turn out and vote for BHO.
Yikes!
I just realized our local channels, at least ABC and CBS, are covering the convention LIVE. Last week, CBS had NCIS on, and ABC had something on, but NOT the RNC Convention.
It had to be your local station only because they only had one hour for the RNC and DNC.
Oops...skip my reply. Luv ya FRiend.
You forgot though. We are in control of the electronic voting booths which is why we won the election in 2000 according to most libs. According to them we cheat but differently. lol
Sorry, not enough tinfoil to believe that scenario.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.