Sorry, but I respectfully disagree with much of your analysis.
The Wisconsin polling isn’t just phone polls,its exit polls of a real election, every single person who was interviewed was a legitimate voter of some sort.. so to say, that poll means nothing, is flat out wrong, it tells you way more than any other poll we will see for a long time.
I agree that polling 5 months out is not indicative of the final outcome, however, to say it holds no meaning is also untrue.
You are correct that right now Romney doesn’t have the base as rock solid as folks would like because some conservatives are still bitter, and probably will only get grudging support ever from many. However, to extrapolate that anger over the bitter primary season, and the fact romney is not a hard core conservative will equate to votes for his oponent in the fall is lunancy.
Going to HOLD your base argument, lets look at that for a minute... Your proposition that because Romney isn’t as ideologicall conservative as many would like (myself included) that the republican voters by far are going to no show the election, well, that’s just not reality. Hell even here on FR, where you are finding the right of the right congregating, you have a few folks screaming they’ll never vote for him, but the overwhelming majority, are saying the same things the polling has been showing for months.... crawl over broken glass, and then through salt flats to vote Obama gone. While the enthusiam for the candidate may not be what Palin could do for crowds in ‘08, dont confuse enthusiams for your candidate, with enthusiams to get the guy whos currently there gone. All of Palin’s enthusiams didn’t do jack on election day.. Republican turnout was supressed. The “enthusiam” for Obama had nothing to do with Obama, he had nothing.. he was elected on the simple fundamentals of folks were tired of Bush.
‘08 was a referendum on Bush.. 12 is a referendum on Obama. A referendum he is destined to lose and lose big. The republican candidate, really is irrellevant, so long as it wasn’t a complete neophite who clearly would not be able to handle the pressure, or someone who could be painted as a scarier alternative to Obama. Like it or not Romney can’t be painted as scarier than OBama to the swing voter, and he’s not going to collapse under the pressure of the campaign. Now any candidate who met those qualifications would beat Obama in the fall, regardless of their name, and is Romney my choice for who I would have liked to have faced off? Nope, but he’s the guy whos going to do it, and he’s going to win.
Furthermore, the idea there is somewhere for Obama to grow his support is laughable, he’s LOST support in nearly every part of his base in every poll conducted, and most importantly the single biggest group he must carry to have any shot of winning. The blue dog democrat, Obama has utterly austracised this group. While this group is largely portrayed as elected democrats from souther states, where Obama has no chance of winning, the reality is, its a very sizeable group of the party across the midwest. Most of the democratic voters in the rust belt are blue dogs. They are socially conservative working class whites, and Obama has disenfranchised this group horrifically.
He’s lost support in the sub 30 crowd, can’t get support when 50% of them can’t find jobs. He’s lost massive support in working class white democratic voter, etc etc etc.. You can’t win elections by that.
The data has been there for months, Obama cannot win, its not even going to be close. If at this stage of the game, a sitting democratic president is polling under 50% in places like Michigan and WI, the game is over.
I agree the numbers will move around between now and November, but its not going to be nearly enough to save this disaster.
Can you name anyone who voted for McCain who is saying, okay I’m going to give Obama a chance this time? I know I can’t... Hell I’ve had a hard enough time finding swing voters I know that voted for Obama last time who are even willing to admit they did it these days, let alone say they plan on doing it again.
Every major group of the democratic coalition, Obama has lost support in, and isn’t going to get it back.. youth, done, blue dogs, done, Catholics, done... He can’t make up the support he’s lost by getting a little more out of gays or blacks.
Obama lost the base a long time ago of his party, and he’s losing the Swing vote by 3-5 to 2-1... he’s toast.
End of the day, On election day, fewer people will be employed than the day Obama took office... that’s cold hard reality, that he can’t overcome.
As should you.
Let's say the Electricians union shows up between 9 and 10 AM. Those early reports will be that 100% of the voters say they're voting for old doufous, the local Mafia union boss. Then, later on that day 10 times that number of people from the Peace and Bombs movement show up ~ but the pollster is already downtown writing his report.
My references to polls are always to expressed preference, and that's whether they are saying registered voters, cats and dogs, probable voters, or people from another country.