Monday, September 10, 2012

With the Conventions Over, Assessing the State of the U. S. Election - It Has Reached the End of the Beginning

And Why Mr. Romney is Still the Favorite

After the end of the party conventions America now heads into the general election, with about two months of awful campaigns, awful TV ads and awful other stuff to endure.  Here is the real stuff.

  1. The conventions are meaningless political theater.  After the weekend football games no one will really remember what they were about, what was said or why they mattered.  They didn’t change anything in the race, because Mr. Obama's bounce will fade.  At this point the race is still essentially a tie.

  1. As political theater both conventions would have closed out of town, and not made it to Broadway.  The local community theater group could have done a better job if they had that level of funding.

  1. The best part of the Republican convention, the absence of Sarah Palin.  Thanks Mitt, we owe you one for that.

  1. The worst part of the Democratic convention, the reminder of what a great President Bill Clinton could have been had he simply behaved in a decent manner in his personal life.

  1. The only thing left to decide the election, the debates.  And the performances themselves will not matter, what will matter is how the news media reports the results.

  1. The debates themselves will be excruciatingly awful.  Mr. Romney will spend the entire time not answering the questions, and Mr. Obama’s hems and haws and uh’s will make whatever he says disjointed. 

As for the election itself, this Forum continues to believe that the polling that counts, the one in November will result in a win for Mr. Romney.  This is in contradiction to current polling and opinion, but that is because the polling reflects voter sentiment today.  Furthermore the movement to likely voters and not registered voters in the polling will be to the advantage of Mr. Romney.  And finally, the overwhelming money that will flow into the race means Mr. Romney can outspend the President, and in politics money wins, at least most of the time.

A deciding factor, a second term for Mr. Obama would be boring.  It would be a repeat of the last four years.  Americans want something different, doesn't matter if it's worse, just be different.

Mr. Romney had two strategies available to him.  One was to determine that the Republican base would vote for him no matter what he said or did, and so he would move to the middle to attract independent and dissatisfied Democrats.  He rejected that strategy in favor of the second strategy.  That strategy is to fire up the base by taking hard line Conservative positions, selecting a hard line Conservative running mate and hoping the dissatisfied will join his camp anyway.

This is the far more risky strategy, and one that is less likely to succeed than the first one.  Hence Mr. Romney's current weakness in the polls.  This means for a closer race than was previously thought, but a race still in Mr. Romney's favor.


Here is the way the election will look on election day based on information today.




States













Certain

Competitive

Certain

Competitive

Romney

Romney

Obama

Obama









Alabama
9


California
55
Colorado
9
Alaska
3


Connecticut
7
Iowa
6
Arkansas
6
Arizona
11
Delaware
3
Maine
4
Georgia
16
Florida
29
D. C.
3
New Jersey
14
Idaho
4
Missouri
10
Hawaii
4
Pennsylvania
20
Indiana
11
Montana
3
Illinois
20
Washington
12
Kansas
6
Nevada
6
Maryland
10
Minnesota
10
Kentucy
8
New Hampshire
4
Massachusetts
11
New Mexico
5
Louisiana
8
North Carolina
15
New York
29
Ohio
18
Mississippi
6
Virginia
13
Oregon
7


North Dakota
3
Michigan
16
Rhode Island
4


Nebraska
5
Wisconsin
10
Vermont
3


Oklahoma
7






South Carolina
9






South Dakota
3






Tennessee
11






Texas
38






Utah
6






West Virginia
5






Wyoming
3









Totals



Certain
167

117
Certain
156

98
Competitive
117


Competitive
98


Total
284


Total
254




Notice that unlike others this prediction has the Midwestern states of  Wisconsin and Michigan in Mr. Romney’s camp.  Move Michigan to Mr. Obama and see what happens.  

No there are no guarantees here, if you want a guarantee goes to Sears. And even then watch out.


2 comments:

  1. No way Obama loses. He's the incumbent president, which carries a lot of power to affect the election, and he has his Chicago political thugs to "find" the necessary votes wherever needed...especially if they rely on a voice vote like that in the Democratic convention.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another reason that Obama will be re-elected.

    Because He's More Likeable

    “Obama’s going to win. You know that, don’t you, Neal? Obama’s going to win, not because he’s the best or most qualified candidate … but because he’s the most likeable.” He then asked me to look back over all of the presidential elections I could remember, and to tell him one time where the less likeable candidate won.

    I couldn’t. ....

    Really … this makes no sense. If you had your life’s savings infested in one company, and you had a say in who that company would hire as it’s new CEO, would you go for the man with the most experience; the man most likely to keep that company profitable and viable? Or would you go with the man you would most like to have a beer with?

    ....our government educated voters are so abysmally ignorant on issues of governance and economics.

    ReplyDelete