Politics Who's Gonna Win?

Spiritsoar · Aug 12, 2012

Derwood said: ↑

When you're being pummeled for a tax plan that benefits the rich and burdens the poor, why would you pick a VP candidate who wants to eliminate Medicare? Are they doubling down on their "Fuck the Poor 2012" campaign slogan?
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This. I mean, I don't want Romney elected, but what is he thinking? Elections are won by convincing the undecided in the middle, and he only seems to be aiming at the people who are going to vote for him regardless of what he says.

redux · Aug 14, 2012

ASU2003 said: ↑

I wonder how my 'private' social security would be doing now? I think my 401k is still growing at 1% or so a year, not the 7-8% that was quoted. And just hope you aren't in your 60s when a big stock market crash happens.
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Today is the 75th anniversary of FDR's signing of the Social Security Act into law.

There has never been a better program to ensure that seniors do not live in poverty in their golden years. W/o Social Security, nearly half of today's seniors would likely be living below the poverty level; with SS, the number drops to below 10%.

It also has lifted millions out of poverty among those with a severe medical disability who receive benefits as well as the children and spouses following the death of the primary wage earner in the family.

But it is socialism, so it must be stopped!

samcol · Aug 15, 2012

redux said: ↑

Today is the 75th anniversary of FDR's signing of the Social Security Act into law.

There has never been a better program to ensure that seniors do not live in poverty in their golden years. W/o Social Security, nearly half of today's seniors would likely be living below the poverty level; with SS, the number drops to below 10%.

It also has lifted millions out of poverty among those with a severe medical disability who receive benefits as well as the children and spouses following the death of the primary wage earner in the family.

But it is socialism, so it must be stopped!
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44% of seniors are in poverty? how is this social security working correctly again?

redux · Aug 15, 2012

samcol said: ↑

44% of seniors are in poverty? how is this social security working correctly again?
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Sam, look at it again, please....44% would likely be living below the poverty level if Social Security was excluded.

samcol · Aug 15, 2012

ah ok. that's great, but it still doesn't qualify as a successful program in my book. it is just another ponzi scheme for politicans to raid. at least some seniors can ride into their twilight years on the backs of younger generations who won't see a dime from the program. this is a model of success for all welfare programs.

redux · Aug 15, 2012

samcol said: ↑

ah ok. that's great, but it still doesn't qualify as a successful program in my book. it is just another ponzi scheme for politicans to raid. at least some seniors can ride into their twilight years on the backs of younger generations who won't see a dime from the program. this is a model of success for all welfare programs.
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Yeah. I think it is great that nearly all seniors can live out their lives at a level above poverty...so I guess we have a different measure of success.

And the ponzi scheme/younger generations wont see a dime chatter is just the same old conservative/libertarian rhetoric that is not supported by the facts.

Baraka_Guru · Aug 15, 2012

samcol said: ↑

this is a model of success for all welfare programs.
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Say what?

redux · Aug 15, 2012

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Say what?
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I think he means that rewarding citizens who worked hard for 30-40 years with a little bit of income security and affordable health care is just more socialist crap.

rogue49 · Sep 1, 2012

It's is interesting...an Electorial Election.
Right now, the battling comes down to around 12 states...this is what Romney & Obama will focus their attention on.

Doesn't matter if you win more in California or Texas...for the most part, it's won already...winner of that state takes all votes.

Romney is under in 10 of the 12 states...and trying to win them all, just to get to an Electorial win.
Ironically, the GOP wants an Electorial system...it allows it's less populated conservative states to balance out the others.
If it was pure popular vote...then pretty much 5 states would make the call. (CA, TX, IL, FL and NY)
I don't think the rest of the states would appreciate that...nor would the GOP currently, since Texas is the only "sure-thing"
Florida is kind of wishy-washy... (if you haven't figured that out already )

Romney Chases Obama in Swing States as Race Intensifies
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Julianna Goldman - Sep 1, 2012

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney chased each other through politically competitive states, with Obama accusing his Republican challenger of running on a “rerun agenda” while Romney pressed voters to fire the incumbent who he said has failed to create U.S. jobs.

Kicking off a series of stops leading into next week’s Democratic National Convention, Obama told Iowa voters that when he formally accepts his party’s nomination to a second term Sept. 6 he’ll offer “a better path forward” for improving the economy than have the Republicans. The president said that Romney and other Republicans provided no new ideas to help middle-class Americans earlier this week at the party’s national convention in Tampa, Florida.

“What they offered over those three days was more often than not an agenda that was better suited for the last century,” Obama said at Living History Farms in Urbandale. “You might as well have watched it on a black and white TV.”

Romney, speaking to about 3,000 voters at the Union Terminal in Cincinnati on the opening Saturday of the college football season, likened Obama to a coach who’s had a losing season.

“If you have a coach that’s zero and 23 million, you say it’s time to get a new coach,” Romney said, referring to the number of unemployed and underemployed in the U.S. “It’s time for America to see a winning season again, and we’re going to bring it to them.”

Battleground Sprint

With fewer than 70 days until Election Day, Obama, 51, and Romney, 65, have zeroed in on fewer than a dozen battleground states. After Iowa, the president plans stops over the next few days in Colorado, Ohio and Virginia before flying to Charlotte, North Carolina, to accept re-nomination. The five states combined, all won by Obama four years ago, hold 61 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

Romney will spend next week starting to prepare for his October debates against Obama, campaign strategist Kevin Madden told reporters today. The former Massachusetts governor will huddle in Vermont with advisers including U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a veteran of debate preparation for Republican presidential nominees, to get ready for the three face-offs, Madden said.

Surrogate Use

Asked whether the campaign was concerned about the prospect that Romney would surrender the media spotlight to Obama during the Democratic convention if he took a break from campaigning, Madden said: “We’ve spent a good deal of time on the campaign trail. We’ll still have surrogates out.”

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan will stump in North Carolina, Madden added.

Romney told supporters in Cincinnati he expects the Democratic gathering starting Sept. 4 in North Carolina will be a more somber affair than the Tampa event.

“They’re going to be having a convention, I guess, in Charlotte next week, and it’s not going to be as happy as ours was,” Romney said.

Later, appearing with Ryan in Jacksonville, Florida, Romney asked supporters to find voters who backed Obama in 2008 and persuade them to abandon him this time, contending that the president failed to keep promises he made four years ago.

“Each one of you needs to find one person who voted for Barack Obama and convince them to vote for Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney,” he told a rally on the St. John’s River.

Ryan said while Obama “inherited a difficult situation when he came into office,” he has “made things worse” and broken his promises. “We’re not better off, we’re worse off,” Ryan said.

Afghanistan, Iraq

Obama sought to deflect criticism about campaign promises in Urbandale by contrasting his stance with Romney’s on national security.

“Governor Romney had nothing to say about Afghanistan” in his convention speech, Obama said.

Romney also has said “ending the war in Iraq was tragic; I said we’d end that war, and we did,” the president said. “I said we’d take out bin Laden and we did,” he said, referring to the raid last year that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Iowa helped catapult Obama to the nomination in 2008, and today’s visit was his seventh to the state this year, with three of those trips since Aug. 1.

“There’s reason for me to begin the journey right here in Iowa, where it all began more than four years ago,” Obama said.

Courting Women

The president has aggressively courted women and younger voters as polls of Iowans show the race in a dead heat. According to an average of surveys compiled by the RealClear Politics website, Obama is leading Romney 45.0 to 44.8 percent.

“Iowa is very important - its six electoral votes could make the difference between Obama or Romney as president. Lately the polls have tightened up and both candidates want to get Iowa in their column,” said Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University in Ames.

The state’s unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in July, up from 5.1 percent the month earlier.

“Obama basically needs to re-energize young voters in Iowa and widen the gender gap with the Republicans so he can squeak by in November,” Schmidt said.

Obama’s campaign is working to mobilize and register new voters, particularly students, so they can cast ballots in states with early voting. They cited Iowa as one example, where their field operations have been in place since 2007 and where early voting begins the end of September.

“At this stage, it’s so important we go to states where people are starting to vote soon,” campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters traveling with Obama. “A vote on Election Day is not better than a vote before. A vote is a vote.”

In 2008, 77 percent of Colorado’s voters cast early ballots or voted by mail, Psaki said, adding that Iowa has had a tradition of that, too.

®2012 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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rogue49 · Sep 3, 2012

Here is the definition of Schadenfreude,
I'm enjoying their pain...perhaps as much as they want the powers that be to "change", maybe they can cure themselves first.

The 4th estate, the media...a sector we like to bitch about like any government or politician.
Yet, we still chew at the same slop we complain about. (like a bad diner near work...)

Perhaps if they focus less on the hype, opinions and "gotchas",
and focus more on the meat and substance, then they'd be more fulfilled. (kind of like carbs vs. protein)

And here they are complaining...about themselves.
Irony knows no bounds.

Where's the world's smallest violin to play when you need it...

Reporters: We loathe 2012 campaign
By: Dylan Byers - September 3, 2012

Is that all there is?

Presidential campaigns are supposed to be the greatest show in American politics—infused with big ideas and historical import. Yet after 16 months enduring a Republican primary and then a two-man contest so far defined by gaffes, cynicism, knife-fights, and rapid-fire news cycles, even the best political reporters want the whole thing over with.

Yet another high-profile veteran campaign correspondent had his Howard Beale moment this week — mad as hell (or rather, sad as hell) and not willing to take it any more — when Mark Leibovich lamented the devastating “joylessness” of the 2012 grind and wondered what the hell he was doing with his life.

“How am I ever going to get through it?” the chief national correspondent at the New York Times Magazine asked.

But his cri de couer is just the latest primal scream in a campaign that is sending a whole generation of journalists to the confessional.

“This is worse than normal, a lot less fun, and it feels impossible for us to change the conversation,” Walter Shapiro, who has covered nine presidential campaigns and now writes for Yahoo News and Columbia Journalism Review, told POLITICO.

“People are feeling grateful that it’s almost over,” added Maggie Haberman, who covered the 2008 election for the New York Post and is covering the 2012 election for POLITICO. “There has been this ongoing lack-of-enthusiasm. Neither side seems to be enjoying this race — not the Democrats or the Republicans, and not the reporters.”

If there is one narrative to anchor what often feels like a plot-less 2012 campaign, it is media disillusionment. Reporters feel like both campaigns have decided to run out the clock with limited press avails, distractions, and negative attacks, rather than run confident campaigns with bold policy platforms or lofty notions of hope and change — leaving the media with little to do but grind along covering the latest shallow, sensational item of the day.

“Until the candidates restore joy, it’s impossible for us to be joyful,” NBC News senior White House correspondent Chuck Todd told POLITICO. “The campaigns are trying so hard to manipulate us, to work the refs, to withhold access. If these candidates were comfortable, the campaign might be joyful to cover.”

“This is one big market-tested campaign, with no unknown candidate who could really blow it up, or be something different,” said Leibovich. “If last campaign was the change campaign, this is the no-change campaign.”

When Haberman and her colleague Alex Burns wrote one of the first jeremiads in June, there was no shortage of self-criticism: “The endless news cycle, infused with partisanship thanks to cable news and coupled with the Internet-age imperative to produce faster, more provocative copy, has amplified every cynical and self-indulgent impulse of the political press — POLITICO included,” they wrote.

But between June and September, amid the insufferable heat and the dog days of August, self-criticism turned to self-loathing. Self-loathing because somehow, for all the space allowed by print, the airtime allowed by 24-hour cable news, and the limitless real estate of the Internet, the media could not find a way to elevate the discussion and focus on what the 2012 campaign is actually supposed to be about: jobs, the economy, and so on.

“The fact is we are under-covering the economy, we are under-covering — but you cover the campaign that is in front of you,” Todd, who frequently voices his 2012 frustrations on his MSNBC show, Daily Rundown, told conservative radio show host Laura Ingraham in August.

“The watercooler discussion begins with ‘Can you believe that guy?,’ not ‘Will Romney or Obama give me a lower marginal tax rate in 2014?’ So the campaigns and the ideological press keep churning it out for a hungry public,” Time Magazine’s Michael Scherer wrote that same month.

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz, the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, and Shapiro all wrote their own versions of the “Worst Campaign Ever” story. Shapiro’s actually bore that headline, verbatim.

Leibovich’s piece brings the self-loathing to its apotheosis: “The treadmill existence of having to file articles around the clock, tweet nonevents as they happen and listen to the same canned speeches and campaign conference calls day after day, waiting for something, anything, to bust up the script so that you can pretend there’s news here; this can be the definition of joylessness,” he wrote.

Of course, Leibovich and other journalists could choose not to cover the gaffes and the attacks — but because the campaigns have cordoned off the candidates and failed to launch a substantive discussion, attacks and gaffes seem to be the only newsworthy items of the cycle, which only reinforces the campaigns’ desire to keep their candidate cordoned off.

“There’s no off-Broadway anymore,” CNN’s Gloria Borger, who has been covering politics for 35 years, told POLITICO. “There is a sense among the candidates—and their staffs—that nothing is off the record. And while I think we can idealize the way it used to be in the good old days, this new, high speed news cycle has had one result none of us likes: a constant barrage of scripted sound-bites and talking points, just to make sure everyone is on message, all the time.”

Because of the pace established by Twitter and the Internet, the latest “gotcha” moment snowballs faster than ever. For a reporter pressed to be ahead of the cycle, assuming conscientious objector status would be suicide. Once one credible journalist takes the bait, everyone takes the bait.

“We’re all part of the same stew, and you can see the glee in the press corps when they know they’ve found today’s ‘Gotcha,’ moment,” Leibovich said. “The arms race should and has to end at some point.”

But… how?

Some reporters believe it is just a matter of waiting 2012 out in hopes that 2016 will see the return of 2008-level excitement. Four years from now brings promise of fresher faces like Rubio, Ryan, Christie, O’Malley or Cuomo; some old favorite like Clinton; or some unknown who can restore a greater sense of enthusiasm.

Others fear that with every election cycle, campaigns are further battening down the hatches, setting precedents of media control that ultimately render the press powerless to do anything but wait at the mercy of a scripted quote, like dogs waiting for scraps.

John Harris, the editor-in-chief of POLITICO, suggests another approach.

“It seems to me that one thing journalists need to remember is that they are people who command great respect within the profession. They have the authority to write what they’ve written, but they underestimate their ability to help elevate and infuse things with some purpose,” Harris told POLITICO. “People want reporters to cover this like they’re doing something important with their lives.”

“Yes, we have to live in the moment. But we also want to finish a campaign and not just see an endless stack of clips, or tweets. We want to see our work and be able to say: that was good, that showed originality,” he continued. “And we shouldn’t be beating ourselves up, knocking the hell out of ourselves. We should have some fun.”

In other words, if that’s all there is, keep dancing. Break out the booze. Have a ball.

And report like you give a damn.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC
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Tully Mars · Sep 3, 2012

These guys from U of Colorado seem to think Romney/Ryan walk away with this in a landside-

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120831/OPINION/308310019/Computer-projection-November-election-s-Romney-Ryan-landslide.

And they've been correct every election since they started in 1980. Even picked Bush would not win the popular vote in 2000 but still take the White House.

dippin · Sep 3, 2012

Tully Mars said: ↑

These guys from U of Colorado seem to think Romney/Ryan walk away with this in a landside-

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120831/OPINION/308310019/Computer-projection-November-election-s-Romney-Ryan-landslide.

And they've been correct every election since they started in 1980. Even picked Bush would not win the popular vote in 2000 but still take the White House.
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Not to nit pick, but this has to be clarified a bit. Their model is new, so they weren't around to make predictions before the fact in previous elections. "Predict" here is used in the statistical sense, where the statistical model, with its variables, has the same result as what actually happened. These things are useful, but they are not exactly the best predictors of future elections.

Tully Mars · Sep 4, 2012

dippin said: ↑

Not to nit pick, but this has to be clarified a bit. Their model is new, so they weren't around to make predictions before the fact in previous elections. "Predict" here is used in the statistical sense, where the statistical model, with its variables, has the same result as what actually happened. These things are useful, but they are not exactly the best predictors of future elections.
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So you're saying they predicted after the fact? I read the article, which is an opinion piece, and didn't see that. That makes me feel better. Hell with 20-20 hindsight I could statistically predict the Titanic will sink on it's first voyage.

rogue49 · Sep 4, 2012

Tully Mars said: ↑

So you're saying they predicted after the fact? I read the article, which is an opinion piece, and didn't see that. That makes me feel better. Hell with 20-20 hindsight I could statistically predict the Titanic will sink on it's first voyage.
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"There are three kinds of lies:
lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Tully Mars · Sep 4, 2012

rogue49 said: ↑

"There are three kinds of lies:
lies, damned lies, and statistics."
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So you're saying the Titanic sank? I never manged to sit through that whole movie.

rogue49 · Sep 4, 2012

Tully Mars said: ↑

So you're saying the Titanic sank? I never manged to sit through that whole movie.
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Well, Titantic the movie flew...2+ billion dollars globally so far.
The real thing didn't do as hot.

Let's hope that the Presidency and our government doesn't make the same mistake with the iceberg...

Derwood · Sep 6, 2012

Nate Silver has Obama's chance of winning at around 75% pre-conventions, and Romney didn't have much bump at all from his convention

rogue49 · Sep 10, 2012

Talk about a convention bounce...

Obama now has above an 80% chance of winning according to FiveThirtyEight, the polling/stats analysis site.

And most places have Obama in a decent electorial win momentum.
RealClearPolitics (a conservative leaning aggragate) - With no toss ups.
Intrade
Politico
Electorial-vote.com
and so on...

September is void of any remaining events of note. (unless Fate has plans...)
So likely only the debates in October have any potential impact (3 presidential, 1 VP...first is on 10/3)

Right now, Romney has a serious uphill battle to get a path to a win...
Most of the "toss-up" states are leaning to Obama, with only NC and MO to Romney...right now, it's Obama's to lose.

So, do the Dems start redirecting effort and energy and funds to the various campaigns throughout the states
to keep their hold on the Senate and minimize any gain in the House.
Or really start a "get out the vote" push to get more voters out to the polls, which would lean more to the Dems.
Or all of the above

If they're smart, they'll turn up the fire even more...and do all of the above.
GOP is not looking as healthy or vigorous as it was.

rogue49 · Sep 15, 2012

Interesting how the public's opinion can turn.
They're so fickle.

Poll Finds Obama Is Erasing Romney’s Edge on Economy
By JEFF ZELENY and MEGAN THEE-BRENAN - September 14, 2012

President Obama has taken away Mitt Romney’s longstanding advantage as the candidate voters say is most likely to restore the economy and create jobs, according to the latest poll by The New York Times and CBS News, which found a modest sense of optimism among Americans that White House policies are working.

But while the climate for Mr. Obama has improved since midsummer, and Mr. Romney has failed to shift sentiment decisively in his favor, the poll found that the presidential race is narrowly divided. The outcome could still turn on unexpected events and how the candidates are perceived after their three debates next month.

With their conventions behind them and the general election campaign fully engaged, the Democratic Party is viewed more favorably than the Republican Party. The poll also found that more likely voters give an edge to Mr. Obama on foreign policy, Medicare and addressing the challenges of the middle class. The only major issue on which Mr. Romney held an advantage was handling the federal budget deficit.

The nationwide poll was conducted during a turbulent week in the campaign, with a new torrent of television ads from Mr. Romney, a disappointing jobs report for Mr. Obama and both candidates reacting to deadly violence in Egypt, Libya and across the Arab world.

Among those considered most likely to vote, the president was the choice of 49 percent to 46 percent for Mr. Romney, including those who said they were leaning in one direction or another. It is within the survey’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for each candidate.

The president holds a 10-point advantage on who would do a better job handling foreign policy, with 4 in 10 voters very confident of Mr. Obama’s ability to handle an international crisis, compared with about one-quarter who say the same about Mr. Romney. The survey was largely conducted before foreign affairs took on heightened importance when the United States ambassador to Libya and three other Americans there were killed on Tuesday.

While the poll reflects a prevailing sentiment among Mr. Romney’s advisers that he must find a way to change the dynamics of the race, the findings also highlight a lingering discontent running through the electorate. A slim majority of likely voters still disapprove of how Mr. Obama has handled the economy and 7 in 10 rank the economy as fairly bad or very bad.

But with only two weeks before the first wave of early voting begins in some states, the presidential race has taken on a new sense of urgency, the poll found, with enthusiasm increasing among voters. A plea for patience, which Mr. Obama delivered at the Democratic convention, appears to be resonating with some voters.

“I believe the country is going in the right direction, little by little,” Anita Young, 42, an independent voter from Ardmore, Pa., said in a follow-up interview. “Are things moving fast enough? No, of course not, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

The president’s job approval rating of 51 percent among all Americans marks the first time he has surpassed a majority in the poll by The Times and CBS News since immediately after Osama bin Laden was killed, in May 2011. The number of adults who say the country is on the right track has increased to 40 percent, though 54 percent say it is on the wrong track.

The coalition that helped sweep Mr. Obama into office four years ago is at least partly intact. He holds a 12-point advantage among women, while Mr. Romney holds the upper hand among men by 8 percentage points. But independent voters, who supported Mr. Obama by eight percentage points in 2008, are now breaking for Mr. Romney by six percentage points.

The poll found that a majority of voters embrace the president’s vision of a country that emphasizes community and shared responsibility over self-reliance and individual responsibility, a distinction at the core of the debate between the Republican and Democratic tickets about the proper role of government.

But with the nation’s unemployment rate still above 8 percent, a recent spike in gas prices and another impending budget showdown in Washington, a cloud of pessimism still looms, which creates an opening for Mr. Romney among frustrated voters who are looking for a change.

Looking forward, 45 percent of likely voters say they believe the next generation of Americans will be worse off and 31 percent say it will be better. On this question, there is a sharp divide among race, with black men and women far more hopeful about the future than white men and women.

When asked who understands their needs and problems, Mr. Obama has a 20-point advantage over Mr. Romney among women, compared to an 8-point advantage among men. Since a Times/CBS News poll in early March, Mr. Romney has made significant gains with voters in finding a personal connection and showing empathy; the latest survey finds 46 percent of likely voters say he understands their challenges and 48 percent say he does not.

“We’re getting further behind,” said Gregory Sowin, 55, an independent voter from Kewaskum, Wis., who owns a bar and a construction business and is frustrated by health care and other policies of the administration. In a follow-up interview, he said, “Romney can’t do any worse than Obama has done, and I’m betting my future that he can do better.”

This is the first poll by The Times and CBS News of the election cycle to take a measure of those considered most likely to vote. The nationwide telephone survey was conducted from Sept. 8 through 12 among 1,170 registered voters, including those who were weighted by their responses to questions about voting history, attention to the campaign and likelihood of voting.

Among the wider spectrum of registered voters in this poll after the Democratic National Convention last week, Mr. Obama has a stronger command of the race. The poll found that 51 percent of those voters supported Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., while 43 percent supported Mr. Romney and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

But among the probable electorate, which models likely voters and typically reflects the tendency of Republicans to turn out more consistently at the polls, the candidates are running far closer. When these likely voters were asked about the trajectory of the United States over the last four years, 35 percent said the country was better off, 41 percent said the country was worse off and 23 percent said it was about the same.

The president’s base of supporters is more enthusiastic and loyal, with 62 percent saying they will vote for him because they like him and 30 percent because they dislike Mr. Romney. But among Mr. Romney’s supporters, 50 percent say they like him and 39 percent say they are supporting him because they do not like the direction Mr. Obama is taking the country.

With less than eight weeks remaining until the election on Nov. 6, just 5 percent of voters have not yet decided which candidate to support, while about 1 in 10 voters who already support a candidate say they could still change their minds.

Allison Kopicki, Marina Stefan and Dalia Sussman contributed reporting.
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rogue49 · Sep 18, 2012

This seems to be the current state of things...
Or is it just the calling out a moment by moment horse-race??
I'm finding even many of the conservative pundits frustrated by some of the unforced errors of the Romney campaign...and the lack of excitement.

What is your perception??

Why Barack Obama is winning
By: Jonathan Martin - September 18, 2012

Unemployment is over 8 percent. Nearly 60 percent of Americans, according to a new poll, believe the country is on the wrong track. The number of people on food stamps is at a historic high and the median net worth of American families is at a 20-year low.

If it was true that winning elections is mostly a matter of numbers — as some political scientists and campaign operatives like to argue — Barack Obama’s reelection as president should be close to a mathematical impossibility. For much of this presidential election cycle, Republicans were counting on precisely this.

But 2012 is proving that politics isn’t just about numbers, and some traditional leading indicators look as if they are losing their predictive power.

With Obama holding a narrow but so far sturdy lead over Mitt Romney in polls, many incredulous Republicans sound like the Michael Dukakis character in a 1988 Saturday Night Live skit: “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.”

The phenomenon is the result of three powerful factors, according to interviews with some two dozen political veterans from both parties.

The first is a rapidly changing, deeply polarized electorate — one in which external circumstances don’t necessarily swing large numbers of voters whose minds are deeply made up — and also one that, on balance, is becoming more Democratic due to demographic trends. In an environment like this, Obama has not seen his political bottom fall out, as happened to George H.W. Bush in 1992, when Al Gore cited a barrage of statistics and taunted, “Everything that should be down is up, and everything that should be up is down.”

(POLITICO’s Swing-State Map)

But a more hardened political landscape also means that — at the margins — candidate skills and attributes matter more than ever.

Obama’s durability, according to polling and interviews, is the result of a unique connection with voters as someone who broke racial barriers in 2008, his ability to evade much the blame for the recession and a brutally effective campaign.

Romney’s inability to capitalize on trends with the economy and national mood that would normally create a wide opening for a challenger is in large measure a reflection of his own defects as candidate and failure to sell himself to voters, according to these same sources, many of whom are Republicans hoping to beat Obama.

“He came into the general election with a very negative [image] rating and he has not effectively addressed that,” said longtime GOP pollster Jan van Lohuizen, who worked for Romney in 2008. “What they’ve been doing for five months hasn’t worked. At some point, they need to come to the conclusion that it’s not worked.”

“We’re running a good campaign so far but we’re not running a great campaign,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). “We’re going to have to run a great campaign to beat this guy.”

Below are the three political engines that are helping Obama defy the traditional laws of political gravity:

A Democratic landscape

The state-by-state polls this fall make it clear: The 2008 presidential election was no anomaly. The Upper South and interior West are now competitive terrain and will be in future White House races. That means Democrats have more margin for error than Republicans when it comes to cobbling together 270 electoral votes.

“The map has changed to give any Democrat the better grip on the electorate,” said van Lohuizen.

As more voters, both transients from other states and immigrants, have poured into states like Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina, political demographics in these places have been transformed. It’s the new Democratic coalition there and in traditional swing states that is bolstering Obama.

“Despite a high unemployment rate, anemic economy, and upside-down right track/wrong track, Obama is being kept afloat by a solid base of support among African-Americans, Hispanics, liberals, single and college-educated women, and union households,” said longtime Christian conservative strategist Ralph Reed. “Those groups alone add up to about 46 percent of the electorate.”

Plus, Republicans have their own firm conservative base that doesn’t move based on exterior conditions. So in this polarized era, there are just more entrenched voters — individuals who don’t split their tickets and move from their party loyalties as they did in the past.

“The number of people we’re trying to win over is very small,” said longtime Republican Don Fierce. “That’s what’s different from 1980 or other campaigns in the past — there’s such a small number that are there to move.”

What helps Democrats is that the country’s changing face has let them play offense on traditionally Republican turf without having to worry about liberal bulwarks. The population-heavy coastal states Democrats have had a lock on for two decades remain out of reach for Republicans.

Former Democratic Florida governor and Sen. Bob Graham, who held statewide office for 26 years, recalled that in 1980, the number of electoral votes that were considered solidly Democratic and Republican were about equal.

“Now, that number is noticeably tilted toward Democrats,” Graham said.

The problem for the right is that what Democrats have steadily lost with lower middle-class whites over the years, they’ve made up for with middle-class and wealthy women — creating a yawning gender gap that puts Republicans at a disadvantage in the very states that now make up the presidential battlegrounds.

“We lost Bubba a long time ago; he’s done,” said Democrat James Carville of working-class white males. “But what we didn’t realize at the time is that we picked up all the post-college white women by the same amount. You walk into any grad school class today, the women are all our voters.”

And, Carville added, it’s both racial minorities and such working women who are uneasy about some of the nostalgic language Republicans use when it comes to taking back the White House.

“They keep saying they want to restore America — but to a vast number of Americans, they weren’t part of that America,” he said.

What frustrates Republicans the most, and will surely be Topic A for many in the party if Romney loses, is the party’s apparent structural problem with Hispanics — something that is hampering the nominee in Florida and the West.

“Republicans, including Romney, hurt themselves among Hispanic votes in the primary this year,” said former Mississippi governor and Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, alluding to the hard line GOP candidates took on immigration. “And you add to that Obama has totally politicized the issue of immigration to the point that he preferred having the issue to having a bill.”

Looking past November, Barbour added: “In the future, and not distant future, Republicans have to come to grips with the right policy on immigration.”

The incumbent’s staying power

In 2008, Obama marketed himself as a global phenomenon, and his political skills were widely described as something almost unworldly in origin. Hardly anyone — not even hard-core Obama loyalists — believes this any longer, after a first term of repeated setbacks and dwindling popularity.

But the fact that Obama has lost some luster shouldn’t diminish the fact that he remains in the minds of many voters a historic figure — not just another embattled incumbent.

As the first black president, his most durable strength is with minorities, whose loyalty is largely impervious to external factors like the economy. Minorities have been harder hit by the recession than whites, yet surveys show that they feel better off now than before Obama and are more optimistic about the future than whites.

“This is a huge thing in American history,” said Cole, a historian with a doctorate and Native American, about the pride in Obama felt by minorities.

But Obama’s sustained support isn’t just from loyal African-Americans and Hispanics, it’s also from white voters who are themselves proud of what the country did in 2008, retain warm feelings toward the president and his family, and don’t want to see them fail. This is not mere white guilt. Swaths of centrist voters believe the president inherited a mess and that George W. Bush and the Republicans are more to blame for the dismal economy than Obama and the Democrats. A CNN poll earlier this month had 62 percent of “moderates” faulting Bush and the GOP and just 30 percent of the centrists blaming Obama and the Democrats. It’s clear Obama possesses a measure of goodwill with many voters that doesn’t fluctuate with the monthly jobless statistics.

“People like his personality, like his family, like his story and what he says about the country just by having been elected,” said longtime Democratic strategist and presidential campaign veteran Bill Carrick. “And I think the other piece is that people really do believe he got dealt a really bad hand of cards. They’re willing to give him more of a chance.”

Further, Obama benefits from longstanding skepticism about just how much he or any leader is able to turn the country around.

“Expectations are lowered,” said one of George W. Bush’s most senior advisers. “With the exception of the short period after Obama was elected, there’s been a net wrong track since at least 2003 — that’s unprecedented and resets expectations.”

In the view of seasoned hands in both parties, Obama has also run the better campaign. Since the Dartmouth GOP primary debate in October, when they determined Romney was likely on his way to the Republican nomination, the president’s high command has been almost exclusively focused on trying disqualify the former Massachusetts governor. In an effort to pre-empt a pure referendum on the state of the economy, Chicago has spent the past year highlighting Romney’s business record, exotic investments and personal lifestyle to cloud what until recently had been Boston’s all-jobs-all-the-time message.

“I thought everybody assumed they’d run a very good campaign in 2012 and they have run a very good campaign,” said Barbour. “I don’t underestimate David Axelrod and the Obama campaign. “They’ve been very adroit at changing the subject.”

At the GOP convention, Barbour summed up the Obama message on Romney in perhaps the most memorable sound bite of the 2012 election: “He’s a wealthy plutocrat married to a known equestrian.”

Cole, a political strategist before he entered elected office, also offered praise for Chicago.

“They’re running a great race, well-conceived and well put together,” said the Oklahoman. “You contrast this to George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign. This is really comparable in quality to Karl Rove’s campaign for Bush in 2004.”

Veterans in both parties cite the summer, when Romney had secured the nomination and was attempting to introduce himself to voters, as the pivotal period in which Obama’s taunting of the Republican was most effective.

“They’d say ‘Bain,’ or ‘tax returns’ or ‘felon’ and Romney would scream fire and we’d be talking about it for a week,” noted longtime Democratic consultant Joe Trippi.

Cole pointed to Romney’s deficit in Ohio as the most vivid example of the damage done to the GOP standard-bearer during the summer.

“If Mitt Romney doesn’t win, we’ll be reminded that negative ads work and the sooner the better,” he said, noting that Romney was financially unable to strike back with full force before the August convention. “They picked a good moment when Romney couldn’t respond as effectively as they would have liked. Super PACs are fine but they don’t let you establish the case for the candidate like the candidate’s own campaign.”

The challenger’s flaws

Romney’s advisers have started coming in for the predictable criticism that’s inevitable in a campaign that’s losing. But as big an issue is the candidate’s own profound weaknesses — he has a résumé that’s uniquely vulnerable to attack during difficult economic times and has little in the way of political self-awareness.

“Put any three consultants of either party in a room six years ago and you can’t tell me they wouldn’t have told him: Get rid of the Swiss bank account,” Trippi said. “He just seems impervious to what things sound like or look like and that they make people who otherwise might vote for him very wary.”

Beyond his background, Romney also is often his own worst enemy on the stump. Look no further than the video that came out Monday in which Romney is captured at a fundraiser earlier this year telling donors that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay income taxes and are essentially wards of the state. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said. It’s hard to imagine George W. Bush using such language in any setting, public or private.

What frustrates Republicans about Romney and his campaign is that they knew they had an image problem coming out of the GOP primary and he’s been unable to turn it around. An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll last week in Ohio showed the Republican is still 10 percent “under water” in his favorable and unfavorable rating. And the national CBS/New York Times poll revealed more likely voters indicating “no” than “yes” when asked if they felt Romney understood their needs and problems.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who served as Bush’s point man on Capitol Hill in 2000 and does the same for Romney now, said the GOP nominee has a challenge that’s “the mirror image” of what Ronald Reagan encountered in 1980.

“People need to become convinced a person can do the job but also be comfortable about having them around for the next four years,” Blunt said. “People in ’80 were comfortable with Reagan as a person because they knew him but weren’t sure about him being president. People think Romney can do the job but are not ready to check that second box yet about whether this is somebody we want to have around in good times and bad for the next four years.”

Blunt, who thought Ann Romney’s speech was the most important of the convention because it put a warm face on the candidate, said Boston’s ability “to round [Romney] out as a person is important. We’ll see if they do some more of that.”

Asked if he thought they needed to, Blunt didn’t hesitate: “Yes, I do.”

What Republicans hope is that Romney’s difficulties relating to voters will ultimately pale in comparison to the job ahead of the next president. Yet even in making the case that policy matters more than persona, seasoned GOP officials concede Romney is a tough sell.

“He’s never had a beer, he’s never had a Coca-Cola, he doesn’t look natural out there — but I really don’t think this is an election cycle [in which] voters will decide based upon whether they can invite Mitt into the living room for a beer,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), an 18-year congressional veteran. “But he is somebody who you would call if you had a business that was in trouble.” (Romney, a Mormon, doesn’t drink alcohol but actually will enjoy a Diet Coke, something not barred by his church.)

Asked if his party had nominated somebody with difficulty relating to average Americans, Barbour artfully evaded the question, saying: “That’s what he’s got to do.”

Another former GOP governor, however, was blunter, arguing that Romney’s current deficit is explained in part by his personal style.

“He’s a rich guy who’s also awkward,” said the former governor. “That may matter at the margins, but in a tight race, 2 [percent] to 3 percent matters.”

This is not to say Romney’s strategy has been totally sound.

Florida’s Graham called Romney’s campaign “inexplicable.”

“He seems to have made an effort to run away from his record as governor in Massachusetts when in my judgment, that should have been one of his major strengths,” Graham said. “You ask Americans their biggest concerns and after jobs and the economy, they’ll start to talk about gridlock and partisanship. And, coming from a Democratic state, he’s got an ideal record to talk about that.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC
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My questions is this...let's say the Romney campaign does not succeed,
will its lack of excitement or potential failure affect all the rest of the campaigns throughout the nation...creating a negative vs. the GOP.
Either from lack of voters and momentum,
or actually a reminder of what they DON'T like about the GOP, versus the Dems or otherwise.

Any insight?

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