Obama reelection 2012

[cardboardbox]

Pretty good ad if you feel you're better off now than three years ago:

[chancellor]

Dems pasted in local elections in Virginia. Lost heavily in counties Obama carried significantly first time around. Linky: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...inion_newsreel

[nots]

Dems pasted in local elections in Virginia. Lost heavily in counties Obama carried significantly first time around. Linky: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...inion_newsreel

Virginia is going to be a challenge for President Obama this time around for sure. All he really needs to do is keep Ohio in his pocket and it becomes pretty difficult for any GOP candidate to beat him. The GOP candidate needs to pick up 96 EVs that President Obama won last time. Virginia, NC, Indiana look very realistic. After that it's going to get very difficult for Romney.

[cardboardbox]

After that it's going to get very difficult for Romney.

Unlikely if the economy is poor, even for Romney.

[nots]

Unlikely if the economy is poor, even for Romney.

Economy is pretty poor now. Obama leads Romney 45-42 in Ohio in most recent poll. Romney doesn't win Ohio, its over. Looks like economy is showing very slow, but unmistakeably positive movement.
How will Romney overcome that?

[cardboardbox]

Economy is pretty poor now. Obama leads Romney 45-42 in Ohio in most recent poll. Romney doesn't win Ohio, its over. Looks like economy is showing very slow, but unmistakeably positive movement.
How will Romney overcome that?

you know as well as I do that those polls mean absolutely nothing right now. You have to wait until Romney or whoever is the nominee before paying attention to the polls. If Obama is still ahead 45-42 in Ohio in the middle of next summer, then yes, things might be difficult for Romney.

If the economy continues to improve at its current rate, the unemployment level will not change much in a year. And thats being generous because adding 80k jobs like we did in October means the unemployment rate will generally rise. I agree that there are signs of improvement but with only 9 months until voting decisions are hardening, he's running out of time to prove to the electorate that he made the economy better.

[OaklandA's]

I agree that there are signs of improvement but with only 9 months until voting decisions are hardening, he's running out of time to prove to the electorate that he made the economy better.

It seems pretty clear that Obama has made the economy better. When he started in 2009, the economy had just had 5 consecutive months losing over 400,000 jobs/month, including 800,000 jobs lost in January 2009 alone. There had been 13 straight months of negative jobs growth. Not only did Obama stop that negative trend, he actually has turned it slightly positive. You can argue that the economy has not improved fast enough, but it's hard to argue that he has not made it better.

[nots]

It seems pretty clear that Obama has made the economy better. When he started in 2009, the economy had just had 5 consecutive months losing over 400,000 jobs/month, including 800,000 jobs lost in January 2009 alone. There had been 13 straight months of negative jobs growth. Not only did Obama stop that negative trend, he actually has turned it slightly positive. You can argue that the economy has not improved fast enough, but it's hard to argue that he has not made it better.

At some point the economy was going to stop losing 400K jobs/month simply because most large companies were done reducing the size of their workforce--giving President Obama credit for that happening is technically correct, but it is a rather shallow truth.
It would be like me pointing out that the unemployment rate has spent more months above 9% under his watch then it has in the previous 60 years combined. Technically a very factual statement, but there are certainly underlying causes that proceed him.

[nots]

you know as well as I do that those polls mean absolutely nothing right now. You have to wait until Romney or whoever is the nominee before paying attention to the polls. If Obama is still ahead 45-42 in Ohio in the middle of next summer, then yes, things might be difficult for Romney.

If the economy continues to improve at its current rate, the unemployment level will not change much in a year. And thats being generous because adding 80k jobs like we did in October means the unemployment rate will generally rise. I agree that there are signs of improvement but with only 9 months until voting decisions are hardening, he's running out of time to prove to the electorate that he made the economy better.

Polls mean nothing yet but peoples positions are hardening?
Tough to debate with you if you are going to claim both things are true.

[cardboardbox]

Polls mean nothing yet but peoples positions are hardening?
Tough to debate with you if you are going to claim both things are true.

I think what I posted was very understandable but perhaps changing "are hardening" to "harden" makes it easier to read?

[cardboardbox]

34-60 approval/disapproval on economy:

About 60 percent of voters said they disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy, the highest on record. Just 34 percent approve of the job he is doing on the matter.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_1...t-record-high/

[Lucky]

Polls are fun to watch, even now, but I agree with cbb that you can't drawa lot of valid conclusions from them.

I thought Obama was a huge underdog in 2008...an African American campaigning for the top spot? And I still believe he won because the GOP ran the weakest imaginable ticket against him.

Again, in 2012 I think he is an underdog...maybe no so much so as before, since he does have the benefit of being the incumbent. But again, it is going to boil down to who the GOP runs as their ticket. I'm assuming now that it will be Romney heading it up. Anyone else and they'd be better off bringing back McCain or Dole. The idea of the GOP actually pushing Cain, Perry, Gingrich or one of the other roster fillers out there is laughable. The more interesting question is who they pair with Romney. We saw in 2008 that it does matter these days. I think the Obama/McCain matchup would have gone to Obama regardless, but weighting him down with Palin made it a rout.

She has shown her colors now...she's has no interest in serving her country by making government better. She is part of the tea party mentality which wants to do away with government altogether.

I've always respected the intellectual arguments of the GOP versus the Democrats...larger government or smaller government. But at least the responsible GOP knows we need some government, and that it needs to be efficient and effective.

So, Obama is likely a single termer, unless the GOP screws him by pairing him with someone on par with their last VP candidate.

[onejayhawk]

Virginia is going to be a challenge for President Obama this time around for sure. All he really needs to do is keep Ohio in his pocket and it becomes pretty difficult for any GOP candidate to beat him. The GOP candidate needs to pick up 96 EVs that President Obama won last time. Virginia, NC, Indiana look very realistic. After that it's going to get very difficult for Romney.

I think the Atlantic seaboard is critical to Obama's chances. Virginia, North Carolina and Florida represent 57 electors, which is about 1/6 of the needed total. Any one of them could go either way, at this point. According to UVa the tally looks like this.

If you DO NOT INCLUDE the “Leans” states, i.e., just counting “Likely” and “Safe,” the numbers are as follows:

•196 Democratic EVs
•170 Republican EVs
•172 Undecided

The Democrats hold an edge on leans, so Obama has a leg up, but generally all the states that are now leans wind up in active play. I said the Atlantic Seaboard was critical. There is such another area in the rust belt. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio, 65 electors, are all in play. Only about half that total leans even slightly to the Democrats.

J

[Cobain's Ghost]

I think the Atlantic seaboard is critical to Obama's chances. Virginia, North Carolina and Florida represent 57 electors, which is about 1/6 of the needed total. Any one of them could go either way, at this point. According to UVa the tally looks like this.

If you DO NOT INCLUDE the “Leans” states, i.e., just counting “Likely” and “Safe,” the numbers are as follows:

•196 Democratic EVs
•170 Republican EVs
•172 Undecided

The Democrats hold an edge on leans, so Obama has a leg up, but generally all the states that are now leans wind up in active play. I said the Atlantic Seaboard was critical. There is such another area in the rust belt. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio, 65 electors, are all in play. Only about half that total leans even slightly to the Democrats. Plus the Republicans have a new decade bonus of at least 10, perhaps 18-20 electors, either new in Republican states, or deducted from Democrat states. That alone is as much as Virginia.

J

small potatoes, but i think mitt romney would have a good chance to swing colorado back to the republican side.

[onejayhawk]

I have been waiting for this to pop up, and it favors re-election. UVa has a formula to predict the likelihood of Presidential change, either in person or in party.

The Time-for-Change model is based on three predictors: the growth rate of the economy in the second quarter of the election year (Q2GDP), the president’s net approval rating in late June or early July of the election year (JUNEAPP) and the time-for-change factor (CHANGE), which takes on the value of zero if the president’s party has been in office for one term and one if the president’s party has been in office for two or more terms. The model predicts the incumbent party’s share of the major party vote (PV).

Each of the three predictors is assigned a weight based on a regression analysis of the 16 presidential elections since World War II and the results are as follows:

PV = 51.7 + (.11*JUNEAPP) + (.54*Q2GDP) – (4.4*CHANGE).

Based on the president’s average net approval rating in recent national polls, between -10% and -5%, and the estimated growth rate of the U.S. economy during the second quarter of 2011, 2.5%, Obama would be expected to win approximately 52% of the national popular vote.

The article qualifies even this faint praise with

In an article in the Nov. 6, 2011 Sunday New York Times Magazine, election guru and pundit Nate Silver, based on a statistical model of U.S. presidential elections, that Barack Obama faces a very difficult battle for a reelection if his opponent is Mitt Romney and if economic growth does not improve markedly in 2012.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/aia2011111001/

cited article

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/nate-silver-handicaps-2012-election.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=silver&st=cse

This from the NYT article:

• First, many of us understand that Barack Obama inherited a terrible predicament. We have a degree of sympathy for the man. But we have concerns, which have been growing over time, about whether he’s up to the job.
• Second, most of us are gravely concerned about the economy. We’re not certain what should be done about it, but we’re frustrated.
• Third, enough of us are prepared to vote against Obama that he could easily lose. It doesn’t mean we will, but we might if the Republican represents a credible alternative and fits within the broad political mainstream.

Of course the NYT has a reputation of crying wolf at every mouse it sees.

J