Rasmussen has Obama 51-42 over Romney in Virginia. Rasmussen! Every other polling outfit has an even wider spread. Meanwhile some key states like Ohio and Indiana will mobilize like never before thanks to their nutty governors’ war on unions (also women). Nationally Obama leads Romney by four and flattens the rest.
Polling this early only suggests what might happen eight months in the future, so don’t stick a fork in anything yet. Nonetheless, unless the economy craters or Israel bombs Iran and starts world war III (sadly, both real possbilities) Romney will need to call on his famous charisma and tactical genius to turn this thing around.
Maybe he should find a game changing veep! I hear that works.
BGinCHI
Don’t worry Tim, the Village Media will ride their cash-stuffed hobbyhorses to the rescue and the race will tighten up nicely.
Status? Check
Quo? Check
J.W. Hamner
I don’t think I can really take a poll seriously until the nomination is actually secured by Romney and they’ve circled the wagons and united behind him… I’m sure Nate Silver could argue otherwise, but I’m skeptical of any meaning being found in polls this far out.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
The evangelicals didn’t ride to Bob Dole’s rescue, you can sure as hell believe they won’t do the same for Mitt Romney.
Cacti
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
They didn’t for H.W. Bush either.
David Koch
PPP Louisiana poll: Santorum 42 Etch-A-Sketch 28
Afters spending a total of $200 million over the past 2 primary cycles, the presumptive frontrunner still can’t crack 30 percent in the GOP home base of the south vs two indigent clowns.
Mike in NC
Rest assured, Willard’s assigned VP nominee will be toxic.
BarbCat
Beautiful post. I’m going to enjoy this for as long as it lasts, and then worry and volunteer all the way to election day.
Ming
RMoney is going to call on the forces of the almighty dollar to run wall-to-wall lies about Obama… in the primaries the question is whether anyone likes Mitt enough to bother to vote for him; in the general, the question for the Rs will be, do they hate Obama enough to vote against him. And fueled with tons of lies, yes, yes they will.
schrodinger's cat
Megyn Kelly of Fox News. Her sneer alone will be game changing.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Romney is going to get crushed in the general, by his own mountain of contrary bullshit piled up trying to out wingnut his wingnut opponents in the primary. Etch a sketch politicking from base messaging for a primary, and tacking to the center for a general, is not without some loosely placed boundaries of the plausible. And Romney has likely blown right past those boundaries.
Romney’s dilemma is the product of a hopelessly fractured party that is currently the GOP, and I don’t think Obama hatred will be enough to get ALL the wingnuts out to vote, let alone bring on board indie swing voters, now joined by alienated women, minorities, and one legged circus performers.
And likely the biggest faction of all, evangelicals. Not the right wing godbotherers and their highly political brethren, but rank and file genuine Christians, who don’t really care to engage in the material world of politics, unless there is a candidate that lights their fire. They are notorious for not bothering to vote, and a Mormon candidate will keep a lot of them home on election day. Likely several million of them.
But as always, a two man race is fraught with arrival of the unknown, in the form of events that can sometimes make the seemingly impossible, possible.
freelancer
@Mike in NC:
A few months ago, I predicted Nikki Haley. I still think there’s a decent chance of that, but I see Romney and his dumbass campaign thinking naively enough to pick Rubio thinking that Latinos will come out in force for them. Or realizing they really, really need the Evangelical base and picking McDonnell, even though he’s toxic to everyone BUT the 27%.
BGinCHI
I’m going with Olympia Snowe.
Mitt & Olympia! It just rolls off the tongue. Also sounds super working class.
Egg Berry
I think that’s more accurate.
Cacti
@freelancer:
If it looks like Romney’s headed for a November thumping, Rubio won’t board the Titanic and kill his national ambitions this early in his career.
David Koch
@schrodinger’s cat:
not to mention this photo of her holding an aspirin btwn her knees.
dogwood
@Ming:
This is true but whether or not the R’s rally for Mitt is really not a concern for the Obama campaign. Their job is to reassemble a reasonable facsimile of the coalition they created in 08.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I tend to think polls are meaningless till about mid-August, but given the weakness of the economy, I think Obama’s a in pretty strong shape, but not a sure thing. This does put me in mind of a funny moment on the Tweety show, when his GOP goober, who seemed kind of deflated, weakly offered the defense of Romney, “If he’s so terrible, how come Obama’s barely winning?” Reminded me of Mr Burns talking to Smithers on the way out of the Yale-Harvard game, “I don’t know why Harvard bothered to show up this year! They barely won!”
Merp
In what sense is Indiana a “key state”? Obama won it last time but it wasn’t crucial, and if Obama wins it again he will have again done so well that it won’t matter.
Now it’s certainly an advantage that Indiana is in play, since it forces Republicans to spend resources there. But I don’t think there’s any scenario where Obama’s election will hinge on whether Indiana is blue or red.
Valdivia
I keep seeing how the media changes the goal posts. When the economy wasn’t picking up steam it was all ‘ if things are heading in the right direction Obama will be in good shape’ now that things are finally moving up and Obama is polling stronger we get the ‘why can’t he beat Romney by more’ The Village doing its thing.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As it has been pointed out before, a lot of incumbent presidents tend to be behind in the polls at this time when the other party is dominating the news. We’ve got the opposite right now.
dogwood
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
I think this is wishful thinking, Stuck. Republicans are reliable voters. They will turn out in decent numbers in November. While I don’t think the R’s will be registering, recruting and existing many new Republicans wilh Mitt as the standard bearer, the base will turn out However, I still think Obama will win. Romney has too many electoral votes to find (95), and too little charisma to make that happen.
jharp
I think Rasmussen did it for no other reason than they can later claim “Romney is gaining”!
Disclaimer. I know nothing about polling.
Ash Can
I’m going to be working like hell after the conventions to make damn well sure the GOP is buried in a historic loss. Who’s with me?
Ming
@dogwood: True… it’s not the R’s that are the real issue. I worry about the low-information independent voters not coming out, and the “Obama’s no different from Bush” progressives sitting on their hands. On the positive side, it sounds like the support from Latinos may be strong and active, and I’m thinking that unless the Rs do a major about-face between now and the election on all their vagina-govering, women are going to come out in big numbers. All I know is after 2010, I’m going to do everything I can; I want no room for looking back with regret.
dogwood
@Merp:
It’s not. States like Nevada and Colorado are much closer to “key state” status, but since they are out West and not California, they don’t count to the MSM.
Spaghetti Lee
Maybe he should find a game changing veep! I hear that works.
Romney/Trump 2012!
The sense I get is that David Brooks and the rest are drooling on their keyboards, ready to get down to the business of re-introducing Romney as Teh Serious Sensible Candidate, but for tactical reasons they can’t actually do that until it’s over. I guess the drama lies in whether there will be enough time to start the primping process and bring it to fruition (I’d say yes), whether Romney can stop putting his foot in his mouth (probably not), and whether bad blood from the primary will spill over into the general election in the form of a disastrous GOP convention or a third-party Ultraconservative run (I’d argue yes-there’s just too much bad blood for even the Etch-a-Sketch to just ignore it). If unemployment starts heading down into the 7’s and Israel is kept on its leash, then the GOP better just run for their shelters and hope their party still exists when they climb out.
WyldPirate
@David Koch:
And your point is what? The same southern states will vote republican even if Satan is on the GOP ticket. I doubt very seriously that Obama carries NC as it was his slimmest margin (14k). Obama’s ground game will have to be impccable here to counteract all of the people in N C whohare Obama.
Obama winning again will turn on the Midwest and Florida. The Midwest will turn on the economy. If it sucks come election day, Obama loses. If it doesn’t, he wins
Cacti
@dogwood:
Basically, Romneybot has to win Ohio AND Florida, then flip another 4 Obama states from 2008.
That’s a mighty steep hill to climb even for a gifted politician (which Willard assuredly is not).
Keith
So this time, they need a Latino woman VP no one’s ever heard of?
amk
@Spaghetti Lee: I just hope that tundra twit gathers all those mormon hating fundie puma types and does a third party run.
WyldPirate
@Merp:
Indiana is key. It is the most conservative of the Midwestern states outside of Missouri. If Obama is sucking wind there in Oct., it is indicative of him sucking wind in the rest of the Midwest.
James E. Powell
@Cacti:
Despite the poll discussed in this post, I am counting Indiana, Virgina, and North Carolina as already flipped.
dogwood
@Ming:
The number of disgruntled progressives who won’t vote for Obama is probably comparable to the number of disgruntled R’s who won’t turn out for Mitt. The numbers are small compared to the amount of attention focused on them. and their ability go influence an election is hight overrated.
amk
@WyldPirate: How is 51-42 in IN ‘sucking wind’ ?
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@dogwood:
Maybe, and agree the main portion of the GOP base will come out to vote, but the evangelical types I described will likely not, at least in the numbers they did for Bush’s second election. They were pivotal, not only for their voter numbers, but once they accept a candidate as one of their own, they are tireless campaign and GOTV assets at the neighborhood level. And then there are all the voting blocks that aren’t part of the GOP base, but are certainly gettable votes for them.
Head to head horserace polling right now is only slightly useful, but the numbers on polling for favorables of the candidates, or whether voters like the candidates one to the next, is a useful number right now, and all of the winger candidates favorables are in the shitter, and Romney’s are just awful. It is a number that is difficult to raise, once it drops so low, and likeability is often the best yardstick to gauge the state of the race. And drives the thinking of a lot of voters.
And I wasn’t as clear as should have been with the ‘crushed’ term. I meant under the intense fish bowl of a general pOTUS election, getting crushed by the media intensity and scrutiny that comes with a presidential election. I think he will lose to Obama, but it won’t likely be a blowout landslide with Romney as the GOP pick.
Steve
So if war breaks out in the Middle East, voters will instinctively turn to Mitt Romney because of his advantage on foreign policy? Wait, what?
freelancer
@Keith:
This is part of the reason why Nikki Haley makes sense to me. She’s not-white, so if you’re a cynical Republican strategist, you can foist her on the conservative voting public (dumbass white people who weren’t going to vote for Obama anyways) with the reasonable assumption that they’ll think any non-white VP steels them against charges of surrogates being racist:
“Obviously we don’t condone the language used by our very passionate supporter. We are running a very open and tolerant campaign. I mean just look at our token ethnic on the ticket. I mean there’s your proof right there!”
And then this Etch-a-sketch gaffe looks like a quaint misunderstanding from there.
John O
@Steve:
Right! Doesn’t our history suggest we’ll stick with our “war” POTUS regardless of party, sort of like we lean towards incumbents?
Ira-NY
It is way too early for this.
You just never know when a black swan will land and change everything.
NotMax
Why do I have the nagging suspicion that, somewhere, a Republican operative has been assigned to find out if the bakery from which the Reagan cabal got that infamous key-shaped cake is still in business…
Chris
The worst part of it is, that’s probably exactly what he’ll do.
eemom
but, but…..Jonathan Chait wrote a mean column about Obama!
And some people on this blog know a bunch of white men who hate him!
We are doomed, DOOMED I tell you.
Redshift
@dogwood: We’re not really talking about disgruntled, thought, we’re talking about unexcited and unmotivated. There’s considerable evidence that there are a lot more Republicans grudgingly accepting Romney than Democrats in a similar situation with Obama.
Mark S.
@Steve:
My guess is a solid majority of the country wants nothing to do with another war in the Middle East. The second to last thing the Republicans should want is to turn the election into a debate on foreign policy.
The last thing thing they should do is to run on the Ryan Plan, but they might very well do that.
ETA: God I can’t wait for the site rebuild to be done and I never see this fucking mobile site again.
Spaghetti Lee
@Redshift:
Do you mean Democrats are happily accepting him, or that they’re not even grudgingly accepting him?
I can’t be bothered to find any now, but I know there have been polls posted here that show that Obama’s approval rating among Democrats is well above 80, maybe approaching 90. Do you think Romney has similar numbers with Republicans? I kinda doubt it.
amk
+1
Redshift
@Ash Can: I’m already working, though it’s not yet in the “like hell” category. If there’s voter registration going on somewhere near you (you plural, that is), put in some shifts. We need to register enough new voters to overcome effect of the voter suppression laws.
As Dean succinctly put it, we need enough to overcome the margin of cheating.
Redshift
@Spaghetti Lee: I guess that wasn’t worded terribly well. What I was trying to say was that even a lot of the people who do support Romney are “settling,” but there’s no evidence that Obama’s supporters are unenthusiastic.
Mnemosyne
My co-worker just heard the Mitt Romney dog story today. Now, she’s a huge Obama supporter (I always try to buy her an Obama souvenir when I go to Chicago) but she is quickly getting to the point where she actively HATES Romney. IIRC, she never hated McCain as much as she hates Romney.
WyldPirate
I think many are underestimating the stupidity of the American electorate and the effectiveness of the Reich-wing noise machine.
Krugman nails it in his just published column:
.
Obama hasn’t sold much of anything to the electorate since the election. On top of that, the GOP noise machine has been very effective at obscuring his legitimate achievements. If gas prices continue to skyrocket and the economy so much as twitches towards the negative, he’s in trouble even against the Mittster.
Cacti
@WyldPirate:
Hey everybody, concern troll is concerned!
Triassic Sands
The narrowness of Obama’s lead over Romney — the worst “frontrunner” in the history (my lifetime, anyway) of the Republican Party — is depressing.
No matter how disappointed people are with Obama, the simple fact remains that he is competent and qualified to be president, something that can’t be said of Willard Romney. While Santorum and Gingrich are also plagued by an overwhelming core dishonesty, neither is in Romney’s league. Rachel Maddow is right; Romney has taken dishonesty to an unprecedented level.
What is so sad is that millions of Americans are so stupid, ignorant, or filled with hatred (choose one or more)that they are willing to vote for Romney (or Santorum, or even Palin, if she were in the mix).
The GOP needs to die and disappear. It is so corrupted by rigid ideology and acceptance of failed and unworkable policies that it represents a genuine danger, first and foremost to poor Americans, but also to women and children. On a more general basis, the Republicans pose a real threat to every living being on the planet. They have to go.
amk
@WyldPirate: your ‘concern’ for obama’s well-being duly noted.
Martin
The teenager is getting smarter: “Um, if they really believe that prayer works, why do they vote? We should issue a challenge – we vote, you pray, and may the best effort win!”
If only…
WyldPirate
@Cacti, @amk:
Keep on whistling past the graveyard, dickheads.
amk
@WyldPirate: keep on ‘sucking wind’ shithead.
xian
@WyldPirate: obama won the midwest when he saved the automobile industry.
xian
@WyldPirate: that logic is backward. if he is sucking wind in the most liberal midwestern state then yes.
WyldPirate
@Triassic Sands:
And they are wreaking havoc at the state level across the nation. They damn near have the government at gridlock on the national level and stand a good chance of taking over the Senate in November with the White House not out of reach..
JGabriel
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Exactly, Nate Silver did post on this last year sometime (too lazy to search for it and link at the moment).
The upshot, if my memory serves correctly, was that sitting presidents were usually in pretty good shape for re-election as long as their favorables were in the upper 40s (>47) or higher starting 6-8 months before the election, i.e., around now — and if their opponents favorables weren’t too hot, then so much the better.
.
JGabriel
@WyldPirate:
As he usually is.
.
Cacti
@WyldPirate:
And keep pretending you’re a concerned lefty, rather than a peckerwood.
LiberalTarian
I say re-elect Obama. Then go balls out over this kind of shit.
feebog
So many navels, so little time to gaze. Once RMoney is the nominee, and the conventions are over, then I’ll pay attention to the polls. But there are a few facts to lean on in the meantime;
1. The economy is improving, as long as that happens, its advantage Obama.
2. The Republican war on women is creating a huge backlash, if they continue to fuck that chicken, advantage Obama. In fact, even if they stop right now, advantage Obama.
3. The Republican war on brown people has already demonstratably created a backlash. When your support is 14% among latino voters, you are in serious trouble (I’m lookin’ at you Mitt). Big advantage Obama.
4. The RMoney campaign is seriously outgunned (can you say etch-a-sketch?). Come the general, this is going to become even more apparent. Advantage Obama.
JGabriel
WyldPirate:
I could be wrong, but everything I’ve read indicates that the demographics have gotten better for Obama in VA and NC. Frankly, I’m more worried about PA, OH, and Indiana.
Okay, I’m not really worried about IN, since I don’t think we’re gonna win it again, and I think we win the general without it. But PA and OH worry me.
.
Mnemosyne
@xian:
I thought the same thing. It’s like saying that Obama’s campaign is in trouble if he’s polling behind Romney in Mississippi.
If Obama is polling ahead of Romney in Indiana at the beginning of October, then we’re talking historic blowout.
Rock
Obama could very easily lose. He polls within the margin of error over Romney in OH, and as someone said before you should already consider VA and NC flipped. It’s pretty easy to see CO and WI flipping as well. If gas prices do spike, I think we would see Romney win rather easily.
It’s unfortunate, but a fact that Obama is at a disadvantage to Romney in terms of money and media bias (is it controversial to say that?). There is also, of course, the issue of racism. For Obama to win he needs a strong economy, no war in the mideast, and to beat the Romney campaign like he beat McCain’s .
Yutsano
@JGabriel:
OH shouldn’t. There’s still a huge Kasich backlash happening there and Republicans have been putting their foot in it talking about opposition to bailouts and unions. OH should be Obama territory come November.
PA worries me. Unless Pittsburgh and Philly save us again.
Mnemosyne
@Rock:
Actually, he’s not, because the Republicans who were counting on Citizens United to win the election forgot one little thing: that corporate money can’t pay for stuff like campaign staff or field offices. It can only pay for ads. And ads only get you so far if you don’t have the infrastructure to capitalize on the ads.
Also, too, am I the only one who realizes that Obama has not actually started his campaign yet? He’s done a few general appearances, but the campaign is still holding fire until there’s an actual Republican candidate. Do you really think that Plouffe and Axelrod haven’t noticed everything we’ve been pointing out about Romney’s gaffes?
ETA: According to the New York Times, the Obama campaign has $172 million on hand. Romney has $75 million. The Koch brothers can’t make up that deficit just through ad buys.
WyldPirate
@xian: @amk:
Tim F.’s link is 51-42 in VA. Obama carried VA. By 6 pts in 08 and IN.by 1%. VA. Is trending more moderate due to growth in NoVa while Indiana is more like a southern state with the exception of around Chicago and Indianapolis.
xian
@Mnemosyne: not saying i’m surprised WP has trouble with basic reasoning
eemom
I know I’ve used up my quota for damn, some people are fucking idiots today — but damn, some people are idiots for getting worked up over Obama’s supposedly slim lead in polls when he hasn’t even fucking started to campaign yet.
And where he’s leading by a decidedly non-slim margin in a state like Virginia where no Democrat before him won since 1964.
Have I mentioned that some people are fucking idiots?
(Just for you, xian.)
cthulhu
@freelancer:
Haley is floated quite a bit these days and I would normally say she’s not a bad choice but for three factors. Though she’s clearly no Palin, such a choice (and, in fact, any woman not known nationally) will have the clear taint of the political calculation of 2008. While that might possibly be overcome by starting to increase her national presence now, the GOP’s war on women will make ANY choice of a female to seem especially cynical to Dem and independent women. And though she is a member of an ethnic minority, it’s not one most people seem to have strong opinions about (nor makes up much of the electorate in any pivotal states) so it would be tough to sell as ground-breaking. In Haley’s particular case, her home state might as well be counted in the R column for the next, oh, 10 Pres elections now.
I agree that, on the face of it, Rubio wouldn’t take the VP slot if he has the sense that Romney-bot 3.0 will blue screen big time. On the other hand, he might do it despite an expected loss for the exposure and positioning himself to outflank Jeb in 2016. It’s unlikely he would take any responsibility for a Romney loss and one could see him outshining the top of the ticket on the campaign trial all in the name of helping Romney get elected. Rubio certainly won’t go rogue but he could make many in the GOP end up with the feeling “oh, if only the ticket had been reversed…”
xian
@Rock, re “you should already consider VA … flipped”: based on what?
David Koch
@Triassic Sands:
Eeh. He’s leading by 12 pts in the well respected Pew poll, with steady growth since the fall and with a 13 pt enthusiasm lead and a 20 pt gender gap.
http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/03/3-14-12-20.png
http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/03/3-14-12-18.png
NotMax
Scene I’d like to see if there are any Obama/Romney debates —
Obama: Also, a reminder to any viewers and listeners interested that they can go to [insert URL here] 24/7 to see the last 10 years of my tax returns.
In the spirit of fairness, I’d like to now relinquish the rest of my time to Mr. Romney so that he can tell all of you where to go if you want to see the last decade of his tax returns.
Mnemosyne
If you want to know how stupid the people that Rasmussen polls are, apparently 69% of them say that people who are struggling with their mortgage should sell their homes rather than get government help.
I guess if those underwater homeowners wish and hope and pray enough, the magical Home Buying Fairies will appear and take those houses off their hands.
Martin
One of the Dem superpacs is putting GOTV money into GA and TX. Romney is going to have to earn those states. Dems are on offense.
WyldPirate
@Mnemosyne:
I see it working both ways. Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have large rural/small town populations. Obama’s margin was razor thin in Indiana in 08. Trouble in IN. Spells trouble in other rural populations and among swing voters in other states.
I’ll concede that xian is right that if Obama is “sucking wind ” wind in a state like Michigan or Ohio–as in dead heat–he’s in real danger of losing; particularly after what the auto bailout did for those two states.
MikeJ
@David Koch: And look at the trend. In six months he gained 12 points. At that rate he’ll be up 31 points in November.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
I can hardly wait for the Obama/Romney debates. Romney melts down after a college student questions him about birth control — his debate meltdown is going to be fucking epic.
Yutsano
@Martin:
I have not lived a good enough life for the FSM to give Obama Texas. Call me crazy but he might get Arizona even with the large Mormon population.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: I thought housing was doing okay in VA? It’s not like NV and FL where lots of people are profoundly underwater.
Spaghetti Lee
@WyldPirate:
Indiana I’m not optimistic about. But whenever people start talking about MN, WI, and MI, I feel obligated to point out that Wisconsin and Michigan have a 5-0 record of voting Dem in presidential elections since 1992, and Minnesota 9-0 since 19-freakin’-76. Sure, the vote is closer than say, Hawaii, but when a coin comes up heads 9 times in a row, I’m going to think I might not be dealing with a 50-50 chance. Iowa’s voted Dem 3 of the last 5, but they do only have 6 electoral votes.
Funny thing about rural Wisconsin and Minnesota is that there are some strong Democratic tendencies in certain places. The areas around Lake Superior in particular have been Democratic since FDR. If either of those states goes Republican, blame the suburbs.
xian
@Mnemosyne: he gets even more testy when challenged than Shrub, if that’s possible.
Mnemosyne
@WyldPirate:
Except that, as others have said, Indiana has far more in common with neighboring southern states like Kentucky than it does with Midwestern states like Minnesota or Wisconsin. I think you’re vastly underestimating how conservative Indiana is compared to the rest of the Midwest. It’s not just a rural thing — Indiana in many ways considers itself culturally part of the South, not the Midwest.
Phil Perspective
@eemom: Which is funny because 6 or 9 months ago, Chait was on his knees saying “Please, Sir, may I have another?!!”
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
I don’t think that poll had anything to do with Virginia specifically. It was just a general poll that caught my eye on the Rasmussen site when I was looking at the Virginia one.
Phil Perspective
@Mnemosyne: Which makes me laugh cause then those dumb asses homes will go down in value, also, too. And what will they do when they realize that?
butler
He was the first Dem to win Indiana since LBJ. Hell, even Clinton lost by more than 5 points during his 96 rout. Its not a Blue State. Its about 10 shades redder than all the other midwestern states, and yet Obama is STILL beating Romney there in the estimation of the most conservative pollster. This is in no way bad news for him.
Obama
butler
He was the first Dem to win Indiana since LBJ. Hell, even Clinton lost by more than 5 points during his 96 rout. Its not a Blue State. Its about 10 shades redder than all the other midwestern states, and yet Obama is STILL beating Romney there in the estimation of the most conservative pollster. This is in no way bad news for him.
Obama
Martin
@WyldPirate: Don’t overgeneralize those rural voters. There’s been a number of articles lately describing the GOPs collapsing support in the hinterlands. Apparently those folks that voted for the teatard governors thought they’d take the budget cuts out only on the black cityfolk. They’re shocked, shocked I say, to discover that their DMV office closed, state farm support got yanked, and the local schools are closing because the funding got choked off. This isn’t what they had in mind. Meanwhile, these health insurance co-ops and support for rural clinics are exactly what they needed as its hard for them to get group policies and local care.
Phil Perspective
@Mnemosyne: Actually, he’s not, because the Republicans who were counting on Citizens United to win the election forgot one little thing: that corporate money can’t pay for stuff like campaign staff or field offices. It can only pay for ads. And ads only get you so far if you don’t have the infrastructure to capitalize on the ads.
You are wrong. They can pay for campaign staff and field offices. The SuperPAC’s have chosen not to do that. Why, I don’t know. Hell, even the actually campaigns themselves have hardly set up any field offices. Do you know how many field offices Mittens had in NH earlier this year? One. Uno. Do you know how many Obama and Clinton each had in NH in 2008? 12!! And the GOP wonders why turnout has been so shitty.
Phil Perspective
@butler: Don’t forget that Mitch Daniels is shitting on everyone there, including cops and firefighters.
Mnemosyne
@Phil Perspective:
Per Wikipedia, SuperPACs are not legally allowed to coordinate their efforts with the campaign. Paying campaign staff and field offices is pretty much the definition of coordinating with the campaign. So I’m pretty sure that you’re wrong.
Martin
@Yutsano: If Obama can mobilize the Latino vote in Texas then he’ll win the state. And if Obama can win Texas, the GOP as we know it is at an electoral deadend. They’ll need a full reboot to get back in the game.
I mentioned this a while back, but in 08 the campaign eas eerily accurate in their primary projections. Independent of the news cycle, they could anticipate where they could win and then reliably engineer the result. Obama is sizing up a run on Texas. The pipeline announcement today is part of that. If he makes that move, it’s game over. It’ll mean they’re confident they can get to 270 and can afford to reshape the electorate.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: You’re correct.
WyldPirate
@Mnemosyne:
I agree with that assessment. Frankly, I was shocked that Indiana went for Obama in 08. What I’m basing my guess on is that a lot of mushy-middle, uninformed fence-sitters in other states of the Midwest will tend to go the way voters in Indiana do.
cthulhu
@Mnemosyne:
My sense is that even the large IN cities are unusually conservative compared to similarly sized metro areas in other parts of the US. And the rural density is higher compared to, say, western states like CO and AZ where, if you get the top 1-3 urban/suburban areas, you’ve got the state.
xian
@WyldPirate: even though there’s no evidence of this and it makes no sense
RadioOne
No one even bothers to have any fun with politics anymore. It’s like the re-election of Barack Obama is the most important thing ever, and if any of us are going to comment on the 2012 election, we all have to go into this super serious pundit-pollster mode to be made relevant. We all have to be either Nate Silver, or Chuck Todd, or Charlie Cook, to be relevant to this election. I think that’s a sad fate for liberals; we used to have much more fun.
Catsy
@Ira-NY:
There are no more black swans left for the GOP candidates. It is too late for anyone else to get in and have even a whisper of a chance of getting the nomination–or of having the GOTV and fundraising infrastructure to prevail if by some long shot none of the other three managed to cross the threshold.
It is going to be one of these three. And not a single one of them can beat Obama barring the kind of one in a million disaster that is so unpredictable you simply can’t account for it when evaluating the election.
Newt and Santorum are both incredibly toxic in the general, especially to exactly the kind of independents and moderates they need to win in order to overcome their staggering negatives.
And as for Romney… he might possibly be the worst serious candidate I’ve ever seen. The entire GOP base hates him, and he’s transparently phony. He radiates insincerity and predatory capitalism. There are literally hours of video documenting his oblivious sense of wealthy privilege and blatant soulless flip-flopping, enough so that weeks of campaign commercials could be run simply by juxtaposing Mitt Romney against Mitt Romney. Any VP he picks will have to be an extreme right-winger to have even a prayer of getting the base out to vote. And Obama will hand him his balls in any head-to-head debates.
We still need to get our asses out to vote and do our part, but I simply refuse to wring my hands and get emo about the possibility that an asteroid might hit the Earth or that the entire world economy will implode. Because barring some kind of unpredictable game-changer like that, Obama is going to be re-elected.
Mnemosyne
@WyldPirate:
As someone who grew up in Illinois, I think you’re completely misunderstanding what the rural Midwest is like. There are regional differences even in rural areas and rural Wisconsin doesn’t even vaguely resemble rural South Carolina. That’s like deciding that Romney is going to win Vermont because it’s one of the most rural states.
cthulhu
@Martin:
I don’t know if Obama can pull this off this cycle, but surely this is what Karl Rove most fears and why there is so much screaming from the lever-pullers in the GOP that the party has to tone down the attacks on the brown people. If TX flips, the GOP will have to kiss off the Presidency for several cycles.
And in this regard, the Dems need to be promoting good Latino candidates up the ranks as soon as possible. We’ve got PLENTY of great options to work with but there needs to be some commitment on the part of the party. I think the thing that often holds them back in the party is that they tend to be on the more liberal/progressive side and, well, we know what the problem the Dem elites have with that fact.
WyldPirate
@xian:
Uninformed fence-sitters do stupid shit. The economy crashing right before the election and Grandpa Mcwalnuts lunacy during that period–with no small assist from Palin—played a big roll in swinging the tide towards Obama.
Romney is a lot of things, but he’s not stupid enough to pick an ignoramus like Palin as a running mate.
You saw the same thing happen in 2010. Rethugs lied their asses off, young folks and minorities stayed home, and that was basically all it took to get a historic set of wins for the Rethugs, particularly at the state level.
If Obama’s gotv effort doesn’t match 08, it will be close. In a sane country, Romney or any other Rethugs wouldn’t top 40%. The US has an insane electorate.
Yutsano
@cthulhu:
There’s a general Sanchez running for the open seat in Texas who for whatever reason is getting next to no support or notice. I’m finding this criminal. I may have to drop Patty a note. :)
WyldPirate
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think I mentioned South Carolina.
Sure there are differences between rural areas in different states. There are huge differences between eastern and western NC in the rural areas, mostly based on race. Those differences aren’t nearly as pronounced in the Midwest in the rural population.
amk
@cthulhu: San Antonio mayor Julian Castro seems to be a charismatic feller.
Both the twin brothers are worthy of promotion as dem faces in a state that has an idjit for govnor.
bemused senior
polling averages for trial heats Obama v Rmoney:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html
Jewish Steel
Maybe they should try a specific one?
Mnemosyne
@WyldPirate:
You’re leaving out the remarkably stupid decision by too many Congressional Democrats (many, but not all, Blue Dogs) to run against Obama and his agenda and position themselves to his right.
Instead of embracing PPACA and the stimulus and declaring those policies the greatest thing since sliced bread, many Democrats slunk home to their districts vowing to repeal all of the legislation they’d voted for. And, naturally, voters thought, “Why the hell should I send this guy back to Washington if he voted for all of this stuff that he admits was horrible legislation? Shouldn’t I vote for the Republican who won’t make the mistake of voting for what Obama wants?”
Frankly, the Democratic establishment fucked up the midterms. Even pretty solid liberals like Barbara Boxer insisted that it would be suicide for Democrats in Congress to submit a budget, which is how we ended up having to trade DADT for an extension of unemployment and the Bush tax cuts.
The biggest problem that Obama is going to have in November is not Republicans, but idiot Democratic candidates who think that they need to declare their opposition to Obama and his policies instead of expressing their support for him and riding Obama’s very popular coattails to victory. As Harry Truman (I think) said, if you give people a choice between a Republican and a Democrat who talks like a Republican, people will choose the Republican 9 times out of 10. If only the Democratic establishment would remember that.
Mnemosyne
@WyldPirate:
Yes, but as we all keep trying to point out to you, you’re trying to equate the rural population of a culturally Southern state like Indiana with the rural population of a culturally Midwestern state like Wisconsin. They’re two different animals and they vote differently if you look at the actual voting history of the states and not your navel.
ETA: And I find it funny that you can see differences in the rural populations between different areas of a single state, but keep insisting that the rural populations of Indiana and Wisconsin are identical even though they’re different states.
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: Oops, fergot the word Senate. Hopefully that clarifies matters. :)
dollared
@WyldPirate: I’ve got to agree with you. Not about Wisconsin versus Indiana, which is like the difference between Minnesota and Mississippi, but the bottom line is that the media and $3B of negative ads and ratfucking of all kinds will make this a close election.
We can only hope that the media continues to buy into the Repubs are crazy meme. Because if they cover Mitt’s lies like they did GWB’s, the race is a tossup. $3B will buy a lot of votes – or chase a lot of sane people away.
And the Obama GOTV will categorically not be as effective. He will lose 2million swing state votes to Voter ID. It’s very scary.
Martin
@Yutsano: And the need to win Senate races + redistricting ops with the House are part of why I think Obama will go into Texas. The state GOP is really swinging for the fences both on redistricting and voter id, and that may have a benefit for Dems if they can mobilize.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ash Can:
:: waves hand wildly in air ::
:: jumps up and down ::
:: points to self ::
:: yells “Me, me!” ::
Triassic Sands
@WyldPirate:
Given the setup in the Senate it is highly, highly unlikely that the Dems can hold the majority. It’s more about who is running and the states they are from then it is about national trends, how bad the Republicans are and the campaigns they’ll run, and the influence of the presidential race. I actually think the Democrats could have a better chance of regaining control in the House, where everyone is up for re-election and the horribleness of the GOP will matter more than in Senate races. Of course, post census
redistricting, uh, gerrymandering could matter a lot.The likelihood of the Republicans controlling both Houses in January 2013 is why this will be the most important presidential election of my lifetime (in my opinion). If the Republicans get control of all three houses — Senate, House, and White — the poor people in this country are going to be screwed.
@David Koch:
It’s much too early for the polls to have any real meaning. My “depression” arises out of the feeling that Romney is such an abysmal candidate (and human being) that no one outside of his immediate family or making more than $200,000 a year should even consider voting for him. And even those two groups shouldn’t be in the bag for Romney. First, his immediate family knows him best, so unless he’s brainwashed them all or is using threats of no inheritance, they ought to be (secretly) planning to vote against him. As for the rich, only those wealthy people who lack a) a brain and b) a conscience or sense of compassion (i.e., all Republicans) should be willing to vote for Mitt. And it’s depressing how many of my fellow Americans qualify.
The most recent Pew poll I’ve seen (Obama +12) is from March 7-11, while the more recent PPP poll has Obama at +4 and under 50%. (The three most recent polls all have Obama up by low single digits, although the other two are Fox News and Rasmussen.) Right now the polls seem to be fairly volatile and after the nominee is finally chosen they should be more meaningful. Getting the nomination should ordinarily help a candidate’s poll performance. A lot of the grumbling in the GOP will subside as winger voters focus themselves and their hatred for Obama on the only choice left to them — the only choice that stands between them and the nightmare of SOCIALIST HELL that Obama represents (in their teeny-weeny minds).
Note: That’s not David H. Koch is it? If so, Dave, could you lend me a million dollars, please? (I won’t pay it back, but I’d rather pretend it’s a loan than a gift, otherwise I’ll feel like just another liberal freeloader in a world of conservative economic Übermenschen.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Mark S.:
That’s the last line from “MacArthur Park,” right?
Triassic Sands
PS The current poll numbers from Virginia are pretty encouraging. If someone could tell me that Obama has Virginia in the bag, I’d probably consider the election in there too — barring any of the plethora of potential disasters we face actually happening.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rock: Wisconsin?
kay
Indiana doesn’t belong in the upper Midwest column, because outside “Michiana” it’s not like MI or OH or certainly WI.
Put it with Missouri. GOP leaning.
Indiana isn’t a rust belt bellweather for Democrats, IMO.
It belongs in the Missouri column.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: Agreed. My experience of Indiana is that it is a culturally southern state pretty much from the moment you get south of Merrillville on I-65. It is Midwestern purely by an accident of geography. It is more helpful to think of it as North Kentucky than as East Illinois or South Michigan.
CarolDuhart2
@Mnemosyne: I think the answer is that they can do GOTV for themselves, but not coordinate with the campaign. We see how well that worked back in 2004 when outside groups did Kerry’s GOTV and ended up overlapping each other with little effectiveness. Back then I was working GOTV with the local Democrats and ran in to several different groups essentially knocking on the same doors. I ran into people who didn’t speak English, kids who were with Americans Act, and then there was us. All we had was a vague map, no instructions as to whose doors to knock on and we made up what to say. We couldn’t even coordinate with the other doorknockers as to who they already contacted.
I doubt though, the one percenters who are in the Super Pacs are going to want to do door to door. There’s no control that way.
John of Indiana
Indiana’s gonna “mobilize”? That’s news to me. People here are still pissed about the pony and the fact that Barry didn’t get them laid. They stayed home in ’10, they’ll stay home this year, or vote for some Libertarian spoiler.
I figure we’ll send Todd Rokita back to Congress, Dick Lugar is going to lose his primary to the Teabagger Mourdock, the Dominionist Mike Pence will be Governor, and A ReTHUGlican To Be Named Later will get the White House nod.
Michael
@kay: I worked in Indiana for Obama during the primaries last year, and I can say with certainty that this is 100% on point.
The easiest path to electoral victory now remains what it was in 2008: Kerry states plus Virginia, New Mexico, and 1 of Iowa/Colorado.
I don’t see any of the Kerry states being seriously competitive this time around except maybe PA. Virginia’s demographics have been trending strongly in a direction favorable to Obama for a number of years now. New Mexico is the classic GOTV state: Dems significantly outnumber Repubs in voter reg, its a “minority-majority” state with an enormous Hispanic population, but they have awful turn-out, while the GOP voters are reliable. You have a vote margin for Gore in the hundreds(!) in 2000 and ~5,000 in 2004, Bush’s narrowest. Obama cleaned house there in 2008 with his largest MOV in contested states. That’s what a great ground game gets your there (disclaimer: that’s where I worked in the general election).
So that’s your base of 269 electoral votes: Kerry states plus VA (trending D) and NM (should be reliably blue with Obama’s GOTV operation). Then you just need 1 more state. Colorado, with its growing Hispanic population and strong liberal voting blocs in the urban centers is your natural next target, and of course Obama won big there as well in 2008. Iowa still benefits from the ~14 months Obama spent campaigning there, shaking hands and attending backyard bbqs, in 2007. Plus the GOP base there is precisely the type that Romney is weak with: rural evangelicals.
That’s your starting point. Everything else then is running up the totals and making the other campaign spread itself thin in states like NC, GA, IN, TX, FL, OH, MT, MO
Michael
@John of Indiana: I’d agree that IN will be the toughest state for Obama to keep from 2008, and probably a longer shot than flipping some McCain states with more favorable demographics (GA, MO).
I think the victory in IN in 2008 is almost entirely attributable to the fact that IN was considered a huge primary contest, but there was an long lull between PA in early April and IN in May, so both Obama and Hillary dumped enormous resources and field operations into the state. When the general came around, you had the benefit of both campaigns’ volunteer operations, voter lists, etc, and McCain didn’t even put up a fight there bc he likely considered it so safe as to not be worth it. The fact that IN went blue whereas MO went red is more a testament to how a great and unopposed ground game can flip a close election, whereas the GOTV effort in MO was also great but McCain put money in there too.
If both campaigns spend equally in both states, MO should go blue before IN does. The 2008 outcome was the result of a quirky confluence of circumstances.
kay
@Michael:
What do you see in PA? I don’t know much about it, although I canvassed in Pittsburgh in ’08, that was really to spend time with one of my sisters (that’s what she was doing that weekend). That’s my whole PA political experience. Canvassing in Pittsburgh, once.
Why is OH safer than PA?
Michael
@kay: Oh, I wouldn’t say Ohio is safer than PA, just Kerry didn’t win OH so it wasn’t in the universe of states I was talking about there ;)
I only worked a little bit in rural PA in March before heading out to IN early, and then did a little primary/GE bridge work in Philly in June, but the sense I got was especially in the rural areas, Obama’s natural coalition is weaker – he’s not as popular with college students and recent college grads, e.g., in those areas than he is nationally. The goal there is always going to be run up the score in Philly and Pittsburgh, and then have huge field ops in the more rural areas to try to mitigate the losses there. That being said, I’m no expert on PA and I could be wrong. This is a state that hasn’t vote Republican since 1988, after all
Michael
That being said, the GOTV work the GOP is doing for Obama with their anti-union stuff in Ohio might actually make it a safer bet than PA, where my impression is that the GOP has been far less hostile to swing blocs of voters generally.
Michael
And to add, when I worked in PA, it was right in the middle of the Rev. Wright scandal, so I might have a weird picture of people’s leaning out there.
Obama did win the state comfortably as I recall. To say its the weakest Kerry state is NOT to say that its particularly weak
John of Indiana
@Michael: I attributed Obama’s 2008 win here to Howard Dean’s “50 state strategy”. It was the first time in my memory that the DNC spent any money in Indiana, and it worked. In 2010, spending was back to its “normal” level. It will be interesting to see if they make the same mistake twice or if they’ll go back to the ’08 strategy.
And I agree with all the comments here that Indiana really should be called North Kentucky. You get outside of major metro areas and the IU campus in Bloomington and the state is red, red, red…
xian
@Michael: I’d put money on PA going blue again in ’12.
xian
@Michael: it was also partly about the Gary, IN corner of the state, which is in the Illinois media market.
Mark S.
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ha!
grandpa john
@xian: RCP ave has Obama at 5+
grandpa john
@MikeJ: Couple of things I learned fro Nate Silver
1. A single poll is useless, it could be an outlier,
2. Polls with out cross tabs are a waste of time If you dont know the traits of the people polled you learn nothing.
3. the significance of polls is to determine trends.
Mnemosyne
@Michael:
That’s one of the things I’ll be fascinated to see — if, as appears to be the case right now, Obama is going to have tens of millions more to put into his ground game than Romney does, I think Romney could be in for a major shellacking.