Embrace the War on Women for the Win

About a year ago, I wrote about a model of US Presidential elections by UCLA's Lynn Vavreck.  Vavreck's model, like almost every poli-sci model of this type with any predictive power, is mostly based on what's happening in the economy.  But Vavreck claims her model is still more accurate by taking a careful accounting of the campaign messages.

Here's how I described Vavreck's model last year:

The basis of Vavreck's model is the application of economic conditions to the current "in"-party and "out"-party.  Whichever party is currently being helped by economic conditions, usually the "in"-party in times good and the "out"-party in times bad, should run what Vavreck labels the "clarifying" campaign.  This is precisely what you might expect: If the economic winds are at your party's back, then you campaign on the economy.

But there's another successful campaign style that Vavreck's study illuminates, which she labels the "insurgent" campaign.  The insurgent campaign relies on identifying an unpopular position of your economically enabled opponent, but the key is that this must be a position that the candidate cannot easily walk away from, which allows the insurgent candidate to define a non-economic difference.  According to Vavreck, insurgent campaigns have been successful even in the face of prevailing economic winds on several notable occasions.

A year later, predictions based solely on economics are not good for President Obama.  Here's a graph of the "Bread and Peace" model by Douglas Hibbs, which uses income growth per capita, the most powerful economic indicator for this purpose, as well as incorporating a variable for military fatalities:

This model predicts a 45.5% share of the popular vote for the President.  It's consistent with similar models that rely primarily on income growth per capita.

Vavreck suggests that the best position to be in is to be an incumbent with the economic winds at your back, in which case you run a "clarifying" campaign that links you to the good economy.  Otherwise, your best hope of winning is to run an "insurgent" campaign, which is characterized by highlighting an unpopular and inescapable position of your opponent.

By selecting Paul Ryan to be his running mate, Mitt Romney has provided the perfect opportunity for Barack Obama to run an "insurgent" campaign against him.  Todd Akin has teed it up perfectly.  Paul Ryan has spent his career bragging about how he's more pro-life than anyone else.  He's sponsored legislation to narrowly define rape in order to further his agenda.  He's supported the Blunt amendment, which would have allowed any employed with moral objections to opt out of providing birth control.

In broader terms, this supposedly fringe position is actually the mainstream GOP position now.  House Republicans threatened to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood last year. They can't run from that.  Republicans have attempted, in the past year, to pass legislation mandating ultrasounds for women who are seeking an abortion.  They can't run from that either.  To improve matters even more for Obama, the draft of the official 2012 GOP party platform calls for a no-exceptions federal ban on abortion.  Rachel Maddow did a great run-down of how this extremism has become mainstream in the Republican party over the last few decades, which you can view here.

This is what makes the collective GOP freakout about Akin so great and underscores what an opportunity this is for Obama.  Akin only said what pretty much the entire GOP has been trying to legislate for years.  There are no moderates in the GOP left to stand on this issue.  Romney, who was once a moderate, has moved to the right to appease the base.

Now he's cemented his new-found extremism by selecting Paul Ryan.  This is what is required of an insurgent issue.  Paul Ryan can't disavow Paul Ryan.  Romney can't say he picked him, but doesn't really agree with him on this stuff without alienating the base.  That's the key here.  The base of the GOP really supports this stance.  Independent voters, not so much.

The wedge is now pointed toward the GOP.  All Obama has to do is push it.  Better still, he doesn't even need to move to the left.  The beauty of the position that they're in is that they can't simultaneously maintain it and talk about it in public.  All Obama needs to do is talk about it as the level-headed, down-the-plate kind of guy he is - a lot.  Unfortunately, he appears to be doing the opposite presently.

Of course, behind the scenes he should be doing as much as he can to make the rest of the year look like this: