Political Animal
Blog
Since I wrote about Sean Trende’s recitation of the case for predicting an Obama victory (conducted mainly by showing how things had changed since the beginning of the year) yesterday, I should note he’s performed a parallel exercise today in support of the strong possibility, at least, of a Romney comeback and victory.
I won’t go through it in detail, if only because it’s late in the day and you can read the whole piece at your leisure. But he places a lot of emphasis on (a) poll averages that do not indicate—at least yet—the kind of persistent Obama post-convention gains that are being shown by individual polls like yesterday’s bombshell from Pew and (b) a refutation of the “no one trailing in September has ever won” argument by counter-arguing that the late dates of the conventions this year are distorting the timeframe, making such comparisons premature. He also notes, accurately, that the marginally better economy is still only marginally better; that Team Mitt’s paid advertising blitz is just getting underway; and that the ultimate impact of Romney’s various gaffes may well be overstated, based on research concerning past gaffes.
Trende’s piece, along with yesterday’s, are useful reading for anyone bold enough to make hard predictions at this relatively early date. There’s not much doubt the last several weeks have provided a lot of good developments for Obama, but questions concerning how much any of them actually matter, and how actual voters absorb the “fundamentals,” provides enough suspense for me.
Facebook
Twitter
Estamm on September 20, 2012 6:27 PM:
There is a diary up on dailykos indicating that Romney's huge fundraising hauls are really not... The majority of the money raised actually can't be spent on Romney. Most has to go to the RNC and downticket races. So the huge advertising blitz won't happen.
bluestatedon on September 20, 2012 6:34 PM:
If Romney is going to win, he'll be doing it without New Mexico. The GOP is pulling people out of that state and sending them elsewhere.
www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/20/1134541/-New-Mexico-says-adios-to-swing-state-status
bluestatedon on September 20, 2012 6:40 PM:
Strong possibility? More like very unlikely possibility, considering that GOP candidates in down-ticket races have been scrambling to distance themselves from the 47% nonsense, major conservative commentators have been openly hammering Romney for well over a week, the Romney campaign has already tried to "reinvent" itself at least once, national campaign co-chairs like Pawlenty are already bailing, and the Romney campaign is getting clobbered in states like PA and Michigan, two states that should be crucial in a Romney victory strategy. If Romney pulls it off, it will be tantamount to what Truman did in 1948.
dalloway on September 20, 2012 6:47 PM:
Ads cease to be effective when the candidate is making news. People tend to believe their own eyes rather than commercial for the candidate. And lately, the news Itsy Bitsy Mittsy has been making is all bad -- I've talked to people who are actually furious at the 47% comments and are now fired up for Obama. And you know who they are? Old white guys.
square1 on September 20, 2012 7:04 PM:
A Romney comeback is an extreme longshot. Romney has always faced an uphill battle and his most recent screwup puts a few more nails in the coffin.
The only thing that I would note is that the Obama campaign only appears competent by comparison to the Romney clown show. By historical standards, Team Obama has not been particularly impressive; most great campaigns have been adept at defining their opponents. Team Obama hasn't so much defined Romney as they have capitalized on the successful attacks launched by outside entities, as well as the self-inflicted blunders of Romney himself.
It wasn't Team Obama that dug up the Boca video. It was Mother Jones. It wasn't Team Obama that knocked Romney off balance with the tax return/401k/offshore accounts issues. It was driven by liberal bloggers and liberal media outlets.
This is all to say that, in the unlikely event that some big event occurs that levels the playing field and puts an Obama victory at risk, I have considerable less confidence that Team Obama has the skills to close down the stretch.
jprichva on September 20, 2012 7:41 PM:
None of the polls has yet reflected the public's view of the Boca Moment. I don't think that will improve matters for Willard.
Which bereood, asks captcha. I have no idea but it's an intriguing question.
liam foote on September 20, 2012 7:50 PM:
For what it's worth, the predictive markets are following the Romney downward trend, spectacularly so.
InTrade now shows Obama re-election probability at 70%. The GOP and the Rove-Koch sleaze machine can throw tens of millions at this and down-ticket races, but it appears that voters are weary of the attack ads and slime and seem to be focusing more on party platforms and candidate trustworthiness.
Mark Rubin on September 20, 2012 8:12 PM:
The piece ends by suggesting that if today was Election Day, Obama would win. Well, in most of the country, people are voting now or will be long before November 6. Every ballot in the box while Romney flounders makes his comeback that much tougher. Early voting makes older precedents suspect as they relate to coming back from a polling deficit.
jjm on September 20, 2012 8:17 PM:
It's been such a long descent for Mitt.He has gone only in one direction -- down. No convention bounce, no real post primary bounce. Where will he get his bounce from?
JM917 on September 20, 2012 11:04 PM:
@ bluestatedon:
You're right. As for a possible comparison of a Romney comeback to Truman's resurrection in 1948: The reason why Truman's come-from-behind victory was so unexpected was that all polling stopped about a month before the election. All the pundits and all the pollsters (including Gallup) concluded that a Dewey victory was inevitable, and they simply stopped paying attention. As a result, they missed noticing a steady drift of workers and farmers back to the New Deal coalition as Truman hammered away at his message: "Vote your interests." Dewey, "the little man on the wedding cake" who could "strut sitting down," waged such a bland and non-committal campaign (assuming as he did that he was on his way to a coronation) that he simply bored the country, while down-ticket right-wing Republican congressional candidates began to scare ordinary voters that the victorious GOP would dismantle the New Deal. Truman's relentless "give-'em-hell attacks" on "the do-nothing 80th Congress" gradually convinced voters that he and the Dems were the candidates to trust in safeguarding what had been accomplished under the New Deal and domestically during the war. Meanwhile Henry Wallace's left-wing Progressive Party challenge to Truman and the Dems fizzled dramatically. But the pundits missed how Truman's message was resonating because they all assumed that Dewey would win in a landslide.
I don't see much chance for Mitt Romney pulling off anything like that today--quite the contrary. And in any case, given the incessant polling that goes on now, such a comeback wouldn't happen under the radar.
James E. Powell on September 20, 2012 11:04 PM:
I don't think Romney can get a bounce up from anything other than a really, really devastating to Obama debate performance.
I don't see the economic news turning cheery, but I don't see any 'Financial System Collapses!' on the horizon either.
Overseas stuff, if it occurs, will not exactly benefit Romney in the same was as it has in the past for Dem vs. Rep.
Romney's only hope is a major screw up by Obama/Biden.
JM917 on September 20, 2012 11:12 PM:
I should have added to the above: All this talk about how Romney's in a death-spiral cannot lure us into complacency. We need to work like hell to ensure not only that Obama is reelected (by a thumping margin that leaves the GOP thunderstruck) but also gives Obama a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House. We've got to make this a "wave" election that sweeps the Tea Party out of effective power.
Varecia on September 20, 2012 11:41 PM:
square1, you are ever so wrong about the competency of the Obama campaign. You are thinking of it as only existing at and being about the national level buzz, when in fact the Obama campaign has been steadily chipping away for several months at the level that really matters: dedicated volunteers who have been working at it day after day in their own communities for the last 5 months. So many people simply don't read the blogs or tune into the liberal "outside entities." These volunteers have laid the essential groundwork. If you are concerned, I would suggest that you contact your local Obama campaign office and sign up ASAP.
Varecia on September 20, 2012 11:47 PM:
JM917, you are so, so right!!! Very well said.
cwolf on September 21, 2012 1:46 AM:
Romney could possibly make a comeback
...... if he was not Mitt Romney.
Anyone who believes that Mittens will suddenly stop pissing all over himself hasn't been paying attention. He's going for the all-time most bungled anything in history.
He hasn't even come close to hitting bottom yet and there are only 46 more days till Nov. 6.
Mithrandir on September 21, 2012 1:47 AM:
jprichva:
No, but it also isn't going to make things that much worse. I don't think anyone is truly surprised that Mitt might have a dismissive attitude toward the poor, for example.
Jon on September 21, 2012 9:31 AM:
@dalloway
You took the words right out of my mouth!!
Doug on September 21, 2012 2:59 PM:
"It wasn't Team Obama that dug up the Boca video, it was Mother Jones. It wasn't Team Obama that knocked Romney off-balance with the tax return/401k/offshore accounts issues. It was driven by liberal bloggers and liberal media outlets." square1 7:04 PM 20Sep12
There's a politician going around campaigning about how SC can't be changed from the inside. You may have heard of him...
Doug on September 21, 2012 3:13 PM:
That "SC" should have read "DC". Sorry