I'm looking at more of a 48'. A liberal Northeast Republican doesn't provide enough contrast to the liberal incumbent so core Republicans stay home.
Posted on 05/14/2012 6:57:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call that the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.
But I also said there were other possible scenarios. I can think of three.
The 1964/1972 scenario: Challenger disqualifies himself. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern were idealistic, intelligent senators who took positions on issues that made them unacceptable to most voters in years favorable to incumbents.
This could happen to Mitt Romney this year. And it might well have happened if some of his primary opponents had won the nomination. But he doesn’t seem to be the kind of candidate who would disqualify himself. Chances for this scenario: less than 5 percent.
The 1988 scenario: Affluent voters break strongly Republican. Vice President George Bush was 17 points behind Michael Dukakis after the Democratic National Convention. But he came back to win by a 53–46 percent margin.
One reason is that his “read my lips, no new taxes” promise solidified his support among affluent suburbanites. His margins in suburbs enabled him to carry metro Philadelphia, metro Baltimore, metro Detroit, metro Chicago, metro Los Angeles, and the surrounding states.
Since then, affluent non-Southern suburbanites have trended Democratic. And big-city crime rates and welfare rolls — cause for complaint in 1988 — have declined.
Republicans’ conservative stands on cultural issues and the increasing Southern influence in the party repelled suburbanites. Barack Obama carried most affluent non-Southern suburbs handily in 2008.
But Romney showed particular appeal to this constituency in the primaries. Without big margins in affluent suburbs, he would have lost Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois to Rick Santorum.
Romney’s proposed tax cuts and Obama’s proposed tax increases pose the sharpest contrast on the tax issue since Bush beat Dukakis 24 years ago. And economics is far more important than cultural issues this year. Chances for the 1988 scenario: maybe 20 percent.
The 1980 scenario: late break away from the incumbent. We remember the 1980 election as Ronald Reagan’s landslide defeat of Jimmy Carter.
It didn’t look like that during the campaign. Carter led in polls much of the time. Sometimes the race looked like the type of nail-biter that we would see in 2000 and 2004.
But Carter’s job rating was buoyed that year by approval of his varied attempts to free the hostages in Iran. Underneath those numbers, his ratings on other foreign-policy issues and the economy were weak.
Most voters were ready for an alternative but were wary of Reagan, who was 69 years old and supposedly an extreme conservative. He might have disqualified himself in any number of ways.
Instead, in his one debate with Carter, on the Thursday before the election, Reagan echoed a 1934 Franklin Roosevelt fireside chat, which he remembered but the press corps didn’t. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” he asked voters.
Opinion moved quickly. Weekend polling showed an unprecedented 10-point shift from Carter to Reagan. Pollster Pat Caddell had to go to the White House Monday morning and tell Jimmy Carter that he was not going to be reelected president of the United States.
Could something like that happen this year? It is my view that Obama was helped in 2008 by a widespread belief that, in the abstract, it would be a good thing for Americans to elect a black president. I know I felt that way myself.
This year, I sense that many, perhaps most, voters do not want the country to be seen rejecting the first black president. Such a feeling might be buoying Obama’s support despite the lagging economic recovery and the widespread opposition to his signature policies.
If that is correct, it is possible that in the last days of the campaign a large number of voters will decide, quietly and out of public view, that they just don’t want any more of what they’ve had for the last four years, and they will try the other guy and see if he can do better.
That’s what happened in 1980. Reagan carried 44 states and won the popular vote by 10 points, more than anyone else since. Chances for the 1980 scenario: maybe 20 percent.
So what remains for the chances of the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario? At least 55 percent. Still the best bet. But not the only one.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner
I'm looking at more of a 48'. A liberal Northeast Republican doesn't provide enough contrast to the liberal incumbent so core Republicans stay home.
You sense? Well I sense nonsense. Rejecting Obama will be easy; he rejected us.
None of the nearly 48% of Americans who failed to vote for the first black president is suddenly going to regret that choice. This is anecdotal, of course, but I have not encountered a single soul, either online or in the real world who did not vote for Obama in 2008 yet plans on voting for him in 2012. Has anyone? What would be the rationale? Oh yeah, Mitt Romney cut some kid's hair back in 1965.
The libs will vote for Obama because he is a socialist. The conservatives won't vote for him for that very same reason. There are probably a few in the squishy center who will stick with the black man because they don't want to be accused of racism, but that number will be far few than those who voted for Obama four years ago in order to rid themselves of "white guilt" caused by something that happened more than a century before they were born.
The operative slogan will be "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
The battle lines are much more pronounced this year. The election is going to be decided in the Great Lakes states and Florida, with a sideshow in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico.
Who ever wins two of the big three battlegrounds (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania) will limp across the finish line. Win all three and they cruise across.
Defeatism is un-American.
No one has. Bambi is going down.
Think about it: which would the Body Politic, (i.e., the interlocked Liberal Agenda Media (LAM), Democrats and RINOs), find easier to attack, marginalize and ignore?
1.) A single topic attack on them?
OR
2.) A multi-topic attack on them?
Now that their 80 + year Keynesian Rule of us has finally run out of money, we Financial Conservatives know that we have circled the prey and stand ready to attack.
AAHHHHHHRRRRLLLLWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Necessary to our attack is the attack from as many other types of Conservatives as possible. The more “hot-button” attacks, the better. Multi-pronged beats single-pronged attacks every time!
Presently the arrogant Democrats either ignore all Conservatives, try to marginalize us as “A vast, Right-Wing Conspiracy,” or accuse us of being villains, mainly through the Court of Public Opinion which is owned by the Liberal Agenda Media, (LAM).
My overarching point is that politicians come and go, political parties come and go, but the thinking that supports the idea that it is SANE to spend more money this year than was taken in as income last year remains entrenched in the policies of the Body Politic, which is the inter-dependant linkage of the LAM, Dems, RINOs, and most importantly you and I as voters.
Support and vote for who you want to, but before you do look into the eyes of your children and grandchildren and tell them that because of you voting or not voting, THEY will have to work a large part of each of their work days for the rest of their lives to pay back principle AND interest to the owners of US Federal Government Bonds that WE sold to give us OUR “Entitlements” of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obama”care,” Unemployment payments to workers out of work, Food Stamps, Housing assistance to Illegal Aliens, Free Hospital “Emergency” Medical and Dental care to Illegal Aliens AND their extended families who continue to live permanently in Mexico, Aid to Dependent Children, No child Left Behind, Federal Aid to Education of Young Socialists, “Free” Student loans to future Federal politicians and bureaucrats, etc., etc., etc.
BTW, to put all of this into perspective, if you are now paying the very low rate of only 10 % Personal Federal Income Tax, then you are currently working every one of your workdays at 10 % X 8 hours = 0.8 hours X 60 minutes = 48 minutes of EVERY work day for The Federal Plantation located at 1600 Plantation Avenue, in the District of Corruption, USSA.
Those 48 minutes per work day feed the Federal Beast for only 60 % of each year, forcing the current Sheriff of Nottingham Timmy Gee to sell more Federal Bonds that HE says that YOUR grandchildren’s descendants will be more than happy to pay off.
Did I just describe a “Bond Bubble?” Obviously not as I am just a marginalized, and ignored member of “The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.”
Yep, Hilly said it before she became Obama’s Secretary of Statements. She knew that eventually we would conspire to replace The Body Politic with a system that works.
You know, the one our Founding Fathers came up with, and clearly specified in THE US CONSTITUTION.
May God Bless America, again. (This time let us not be allowed to take His blessings for granted).
____________________
First Bachmann wins the Iowa Straw Poll. Then Romney wins the early count of the Iowa Caucuses, and within a shake of a lamb’s tail Santorum wins in the late count.
Now an FR article predicts that Ron Paul will have the majority of voting delegates from Iowa.
If Paul’s plan to cut 1 TRILLION dollars in year-to-year Federal spending, AND abolish 5 Federal Departments are the main reasons for Iowa Delegates to thaw out their opposition to Paul, then it might later be said that “as Iowa goes, so goes the Nation.”
BTW, “T” is for Texas, Tampa and those of us who are TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY!”
_____________
Here are some more reasons to vote for Ron Paul in the remaining Primary elections:
1.) It will drive the Liberal Agenda Media (LAM) and their Rove-style political consultants NUTS!
2.) It will deny statistical support to Romney.
3.) It could result in an OPEN Convention in Tampa.
4.) It would irritate the snot out of the GOP-E.
5.) It will put the GOP-E on notice that we think that their RINO Party has done NOTHING since we sent 89 TEA Party men and women to the US Congress in 2010.
6.) An OPEN Convention is our ONLY chance of a successful DUMP ROMNEY campaign.
7.) A superb, true “Dark Horse” Republican Nominee needs an OPEN Convention to replace Romney.
BTW, did I mention the sheer joy of watching the GOP-Endorsers publicly eating crow?
___________________
What the Liberal Agenda Media has never figured out, is that the 2012 National Election will be the last National Election where Campaign topics other than the National Debt will be debated again.
IOW, when the grim reaper of financial reality forces Federal Politicians in “both” parties to pay the US Bond owners before payments to our Entitlement recipients, it will terminate discussion on the main topics that we chatter about so far in 2012.
This National election is all about the money, your grandchildren’s descendant’s money.
Ron Paul is to old and to disliked as being different from what most voters picture a US President to look and sound like to win the Nomination.
HOWEVER, Ron Paul as an Anbody-but-Romney candidate in Tampa is our last, best chance to have an OPEN Convention in Tampa, and for that alone he deserves our Primary voter support.
Paul has soldiered on through this entire Primary Campaign. Let us help him establish a beachhead on the Shores of Tampa!
My Favorite Dark Horse was R Sc US Senator Jim DeMint, but I have been told by those in the know that Jim will not run for POTUS.
Fortunately, there are many other great potential nominees who would be far more acceptable to us than any of the Primary Candidates so far, but a “Dump Romney” action requires an OPEN Convention.
For those who object to Paul as a Nominee, then treat him as a tired old political soldier who will, with our help, win the Battle to achieve an OPEN Convention in Tampa.
THEN the delegates can win the War, and choose the best Nominee to solve our National Debt Problem.
Remember, this election is all about the money, your grandchildren’s descendant’s money - - - - .
What is the best way that you can use your Primary vote to help the financial future of YOUR descendants?
>Defeatism is un-American.
Realism isn’t.
In 1948 Truman lost a million or so votes to Henry Wallace for standing up to Stalin, and lost another million or so votes to Strom Thurmond because the Democratic national convention adopted a civil rights plank. Let's hope that Obama loses at least an equivalent number of regular Americans who are turned off by his kowtowing to the gay activists, the Occupy Wall Street crowd, and to the race baiters.
“The battle lines are much more pronounced this year. The election is going to be decided in the Great Lakes states and Florida, with a sideshow in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico.
Who ever wins two of the big three battlegrounds (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania) will limp across the finish line. Win all three and they cruise across.”
Florida and Ohio are “the keys” this year. Romney MUST win BOTH of them. Without either, he loses.
Pennsylvania may look contested for a while, but may ultimately “slip” towards the Obama side. PA is a very “divided” state — the “T” (center) of the state is a different world than are the two “southwest corners”.
Nevada will go for Romney (Mormon vote there will push him over).
Colorado and New Mexico? These are two states that have become “lost to the blue”. New Mexico has become the second state (CA was the first) to attain a “non-Euro majority”. It may be close, but probably will go to Obama.
Colorado has been “tipping left” for years and is all-but “toppled over”. Was there not a “gay marriage referendum” there one or two elections back that -lost-, making it the only state to validate gay marriage by popular vote? I may have that wrong, Coloradans please jump in and correct me. In any case, Obama should win CO — perhaps not by a wide margin, but he’ll win.
My prediction for the electoral vote totals:
Romney, 270; Obama 268.
Potentially the closest electoral vote tally in American history.
One of the most important states may become Nebraska. Why Nebraska, you’re thinking?
Because NE awards its electoral votes based on congressional districts (if I have that right), the electoral vote there may end up a “split decision”. If there is no split, Romney will take the state and achieve his 270 vote victory. If, however, Obama has the strength among blacks to win the district that encompases Omaha, he could pick up an extra electoral vote making the tally 269-269, which will throw the election to the House.
Maine also awards electoral votes proportionately, but Obama will will all of them.
It’s too bad the Republicans, who control the Pennsylvania legislature, didn’t have the gumption to push through a proposal that was made this year to establish proportional electoral votes for that state. It would have forever changed PA, properly diluting the undue influence of both Pittsburgh and the cesspool of Philadelphia, and given Republicans a real voice there. The Pubbies had their chance — why did they back away?
I think Ron Paul is a kook, but I voted for him in the NC primary for just the reasons you cited.
I hope folks in upcoming states follow your advice. That is what I would do if I hadn't already voted for Santorum in Michigan. No one who cares about Liberty should be voting for Romney in a primary.
On behalf of my children and unborn grandchildren, I thank you. This status quo nonsense has to stop.
Dim: CA, OR, WA, NV, CO, NM, MN, IL, MI, PA, MD, DE, DC, NJ, CT, RI, MA, NH, VT, NH, ME = 256 electoral votes.
GOP: AK, AZ, UT, ID, MT, WY, ND, SD, NE, KS, TX, AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, TN, KY, SC, WV = 170 electoral votes.
OH 18 - Obama + 4.6, this one appears to be slipping away.
FL 29 - Obama +0.5, Romney might pull this one out.
NC 15 - Obama + 2.4, This one will be close.
any one of these gives Obama enough to clinch.
Assuming Romney wins all three of the above, he must then not allow 14 of the following to slip away:
VA 13 - Obama + 3.2
IN 11 - Romney + 9
WI 10 - Obama + 10
MO 10 - Romney + 3
IA 06 - No polls on RCP.
He has a lot of work ahead of him, especially considering he is already moving to the Left before firming up his support on the Right.
If Romney can get 98 hard delegates from TX (155), CA (172), and Nebraska (35), there is nothing that the Paulites in all their dreams can do to stop him. If he did manage to find a way to win the convention without winning a single state, who would vote for the Loon?
Does Santorum still have control of his Delegates? If so, Summer Soldier Santorum could put on his Valley Forge Winter Uniform and fight the RINOs for an OPEN Convention.
All we need is a beach head!
Santurum, Santorum, he’s our man,
If he can’t do it,
Newt can!
Newt, Newt, he’s our man!
If he can’t do it,
Paul can!
Paul, Paul - - - you damn well better not RINO-out on us now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn good question and disgustingly simple answer.
We have an asshat Quisling as the state GOP chairman. He raises a lot of money for the GOP establishment and was worried that Pennsylvania's adoption of the district system would dilute his influence in the national GOP.
So he twisted arms, made threats and ensured the bill introduced by our Senate Majority Leader and backed by a super majority in the House and our Governor never got out of committee. Had this bill been enacted, we would have had a serious shot of getting a NET 12 electoral votes out of Pennsylvania and possibly as many as 14 (a 17/3 split).
You can do the math on how much such a scenario would've complicated Obama's electoral prospects. And I'd argue that even giving them 3 in a blow-out election would have been a good thing since it would mute Democrat opposition to repealing it if and when they gained a majority in both houses of Pennsylvania's legislature and the governor's office.
Have a nice life enjoying being ruled by Obama or Obamalite.
Cowards and traitors always call their treachery "realism".
Somehow analyzing where things stand is support for Left or Lefter?
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