FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Press conference.

Debate.

Different.

I will stop posting this point anymore because I think it's pretty clear and we're both getting repetitive, but in closing ...

Press conference.

Debate.

Different.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Forget about who "wins" tonight's debate. To me, the onus is on Romney as the challenger, and as the one who is behind. He based a campaign on people reflexively voting for him because they didn't like Obama, and that strategy has turned out to be a failure. Romney is going to have to, tonight in the next few debates, make the case what he will do in the next four years, and how he will do it. In other words, he'll have to do something he and Ryan have steadfastly refused to do during the campaign: spill some details. If Romney can't convince people why he would do a better job in the next four years, then Obama wins. That's just a general rule of running against an incumbent. At least with Obama, there's four years in office to give you some idea what he might do in the next four.

Of course, the dirty secret of the Romney campaign is that if he (and other Republicans not running in extremely safe districts) actually explain what they would do, they'll lose. Look at Tommy Thompson's insurmountable lead gone in Wisconsin after his video on eliminating Medicare and Medicaid, or, hell, even everyone's favorite expounder on legitimate rape in a state he should have won going away. Christ, even Paul Ryan couldn't bring himself to explain the math of his magical budget plan to a friendly audience of Chris Wallace at Fox News.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Yeah, it's funny how "hide our message" wasn't a winning campaign strategy.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

I don't know if that exists anywhere in his body. It sounds a bit like Pauly Shore doing Lawrence Of Arabia.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Wait, we're complaining about a politician actually fully answering questions rather than firing off a sound byte?

As Jed Bartlett said, what are the next 10 words?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

People are willing to vote against Obama. Romney needs to convince them he's not a robot, and that he can make things better.

Now, that might be hard to do, but it's not like people are wedded to Obama. They're ripe for the taking.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Someday I want to visit this underground world you've discovered.

The undecided numbers are already lower than they've ever been. And that includes the people who say they're undecided but really aren't. This is by far the longest presidential campaign the country has ever had and the most exposure each candidate has ever had within a campaign.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Maybe six months ago they were.

But in every poll -- on managing the economy, on who's looking out for the middle class, on foreign policy, on whatever -- over the last few months Obama has improved against Romney in all of them. Particularly troublesome for Romney is that he's lost a lot of ground on where he thought he would win -- on who would be the better steward of the economy. Six months ago, people outside Republican circles barely knew who Romney was, relatively speaking, and were ready to give a Republican a chance. But -- as previous polls showed during the Republican primaries -- the more people got to know Romney, the less they liked him.

Also, even if Romney wins, the GOP can't possibly run another presidential campaign where it focuses it message squarely on white males. The demographics won't allow it, and already Romney is losing what little ground he had with the fastest-growing demo -- Hispanics. From the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/gops-image-taking-a-beating-among-latinos/2012/10/03/83f05a52-0d7f-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_blog.html

The new NBC/WSJ/Telemundo poll contains a striking finding: Obama is leading Mitt Romney among likely Latino voters by 50 points, 71-21. That’s a pretty big deal — a significantly bigger spread than Obama’s 67-31 margin over John McCain in 2008. But there’s also some important stuff down in the internals.

As Sam Stein notes, a key finding here is that virtually all the Latino respondents are showing a high interest in the election. That bodes well for high Latino turnout, which could be crucial to Obama’s hopes.

But I’d point to another finding: The GOP’s positive ratings among Latinos are abysmally low, and the negative ratings are (for Republicans) alarmingly high.

The poll finds that only 21 percent view the Republican Party positively, lower than at any other point since May of 2010 in this poll. The percentage viewing the GOP negatively is at 52 percent, higher than at any point since September of 2008. That’s 31 points under water.

Republican operatives have warned recently that the GOP simply must figure out a way to begin winning over Latinos, given the demographic changes inexorably transforming the electorate. But it looks as if the demands of the GOP base on immigration — as reflected in Republican immigration positions during the primary and during the pitched battles over the Arizona law and the new Obama policy for DREAMers — may be badly eroding the party’s image among this key constituency and making any real outreach impossible.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Along those lines, Bob one Southern pundit thinks an Obama win would be the end of Nixon's Southern strategy that the GOP has used for decades now.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/why-do-so-many-republicans-really-hate-obama/

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Don't post stuff from the Washington Examiner, Yankee Fan. It makes you look like an idiot.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

They haven't even been subtle about it -- both Willard and his little buddy Lurch have said several times publicly that they can't reveal any details about their "plan," because then they'd lose.

Gee, ya think?