The Right Opinion
Three Different Ways to Look at the 2012 Campaign
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 it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.
But I 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 to 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 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 a 2000/2004-style long, hard slog through target states.
But Carter's job rating was buoyed up that year by approval of his varied attempts to free the hostages in Iran. Underneath those numbers, his ratings on other foreign 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 extreme conservative. He might have disqualified himself in a 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 re-elected president of the United States.
Could something like this 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 chance of the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario? At least 55 percent. Still the best bet. But not the only one.
COPYRIGHT 2012 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
3 Comments
India
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 11:54 AM
"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."LOL... Have we learned yet that people are not abstracts?
billy396
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 1:37 PM
The GOP needs to keep the focus on objective facts. The only thing that Oblunder has is attacks against Romney, and even those attacks are minor unimportant things. The GOP must focus on all of teh broken vows and promises that were endlessly repeated in the 2008 campaign - he would close Gitmo in his 1st year, he would post bills on the internet so that people could see what ws being done. He promised to broadcast everything from the House and the Senate live on C-SPAN. That he would end the recession and bring back a healthy, booming economy, and further that if he didn't accomplish this in his first term, that "It's going to be a one term proposition." That he would end the war in Iraq in such a way as to bring the troops home without leaving Iraq in violent convulsions. That he would go over the federal budget “line by line” to weed out waste and corruption and would thereby save so much money that it would go a long way to balance the budget. As it happened, we have a wildly bigger civilian federal budget than ever before and deficits on a scale that are reaching a cataclysmic level. It truly appears that he's using the Cloward-Piven strategy plan by the book, in an effort to bankrupt America. He has increased government control and interference in banking, insurance, health care, and many more things too numerous to mention, all while completely ignoring our Constitution, in particular states' rights. It amzes me that Oblunder simply proposes things out of thin air, then if he can't force them through Congress, he simply passes another "executive order", or else has new regulations written up by one of his unconstitutional bureaucracies. Read Article 1, Section 1 of our Constitution - it clearly states that ONLY the Congress can make any rules that carry the weight of federal law. That one line invalidates ANY new federal laws or regulations that carry the weight of federal law, that are based on the EPA, HHS, HUD, or any other unelected bureaucrat. Under what Constitutional authority can any President pass new laws based on unlimited "signing statements" or "executive orders"?
BoFromTexas
Monday, May 14, 2012 at 10:59 PM
Why in the Sam Hill was it "a good thing to elect a black (purple, green, blue, magenta, chartreuse) president? What has a man's color got to do with anything except perhaps his life experiences? If Barone agreed with the idiots, then he should not be talking to conservatives. Any sixth grader would have asked, "What hope are you promising us? Of what change are you speaking,for there is good change, and there is bad change?" No intelligent individual buys a "pig" in a pokesack. The reason--the pig might turn out to be a rattlesnake or a possum when dumped out of the bag. Basing a vote on race was stupid for anyone who even thought it should be a factor. Those who voted for O because of race should have their voter cards cancelled (if they actually had one).