Posted on 09/11/2012 7:02:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Conservatives may have this objection or that when they see a poll with Obama in the lead: They oversampled Democrats! They’re not screening for likely voters! Yet the general picture they are giving of the race seems accurate enough: The president got a bounce from his convention, and a tight race with a slight lead for him has become a tight race with a slightly bigger lead.
The Obama campaign has long been invested in the idea that his reelection is inevitable, and has spun much of a political press happy to agree. (By the way, shouldn’t Democratic press aides be paid at a discount?) So far this effort has not produced any panic or demoralization among conservatives, and we don’t think it will. This magazine believes in preemption, though, so let’s make the case for a measured confidence.
President Obama is running for reelection with an unemployment rate that has not carried an incumbent to victory since the Great Depression. His major policy initiatives — the stimulus bill, the health-care legislation — are so unpopular that he barely mentioned them in his own convention address. The public sees him as well to its left. The opposition has achieved rough financial parity. In key swing states, the president remains below 50 percent — sometimes well below. He has no plan to make his second term a happier one for the country than the first. And Rasmussen shows a bigger national than swing-state bounce for the president; if this is any indication, his bounce is disproportionately happening outside swing states: He has probably made blue states bluer.
The map is harder for the Republicans than the Democrats — but it also presents opportunities. The Democrats start with more large states. They won so big last time that Romney will have to take back a lot of ground to succeed. Romney is likely to regain the lead soon in North Carolina. Florida now seems to tilt at least slightly Republican: That is, in a competitive national election, all else equal, it will go GOP. Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, and New Hampshire all seem to be in play. There are several paths to 270.
The Democrats, it seems to us, made better use of their convention than the Republicans made of theirs. The Republican message, especially in the most-watched addresses, seemed less coordinated, deliberate, and focused. Republicans spent too much time explaining what a nice guy Romney is and how happy he is about female empowerment, and not enough time explaining how he would improve the national condition.
Both party coalitions are strong. In the absence of shocks, presidential races will be tight. The Democratic base vote in presidential elections has been growing for nearly three decades. Obama has the benefit of incumbency — and it is a benefit, even in trying (but non-disastrous) times — and of a public that still has unhappy memories of the Bush administration.
Romney is nonetheless in the hunt, and he may even enjoy the great advantage, in politics as in life, of being underestimated.
What? Most white people don't even know where Watts is...
Obama’s poll numbers are like his job numbers fake made up,not real,spin.
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I am unsure about the riots scenario. *Unless* (and if) Romney wins with a thin margin. In that case I feel pretty sure that the Democrat warlords will whip their black constituents into a frenzy with the hope and intent that they do in fact run amok.
I feel that the racial violence many fear is inevitable. If it is, then better sooner than later. I feel sad for the innocent non-blacks (history has shown that black rioters go after pretty much everyone that is not black) that will be killed or injured. However, my gut feeling is that Obama and his racial whore mongers have pushed things beyond peaceful resolution...deliberately. If the boil has to be lanced, so be it.
But for anyone that thinks such a scenario will open the eyes of white liberals, you are wrong. Any violence will be promptly spun into hate warfare by TEA Party radicals.
Until such time as the national Republican party leadership stands up in mass and denounces the lies about conservatives, the media will be successful. And that is not going to happen. They detest us more than they do the Democrats.
I was thinking police and small business owners, not necessarily people walking through for the thrill of it.
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