Obama Takes Command, With a Little Help From His Friends. (Told You So.)

I know that after reading your (very fine) blog, I should be giddy with glee and relieved that Obama is going to win.  But, instead it only served to make me more uneasy and suddenly I’m hearing the words, 'Caution, fasten your seat belts, hazardous road ahead'.  (Even weirder is it's Al Green's voice!?!)

While I trust and hold Mr. Silver in the highest esteem, I'm still more than a bit cautious about popping that champagne cork just yet.

I've been reading reports about all the overt and covert plans of those GOP gazillionaires for the coming weeks and my paranoia is on high sensory alert.  In today's post, Silver states, '......would make Mr. Romney a clear underdog — perhaps even one who needs some foreign policy or economic crisis to intervene to give him much of a chance at winning.'

Now I ask myself, with all their $$$$$$$$$ could they/would they .........?  And then that little horned red being with the pitchfork comes into focus and smirks as it says, 'you betcha!'

You are giving Romney too much credit by saying he has led "at times".  He's led by insignificant margins once or twice in the whole cycle.  As Nate Silver posted yesterday evening -

"has never held a lead over Mr. Obama by any substantive margin in the polls. The Real Clear Politics average of polls put Mr. Romney ahead by a fraction of a percentage point at one point in October 2011, and he pulled into an exact tie at one point late in the week of his convention, after it was over, but he has never done better than that."

And as Mr. Silver pointed out, at this point demographic changes mean that the Republican base just isn't big enough to win by itself.

As long as Republicans double down on their exclusionary policies and continue to embrace the rabid nativists (which is a substantial segment of their base), they have little chance of building a national coalition to win the presidency.  The Republicans have made a conscious decision to embrace every wacko fringe group in their coalition in an attempt to swell the base and increase their voteshare, and now they are poised to lose decisively.

Their only hope is to jettison the worst of the nativists and hope they can cajole their coalition into an attempted rapprochement with Latino's and other immigrant groups. If their base doesn't go along with it (which is possible), they are going to be in real trouble going forward.

I watched the Sunday morning shows today, thought today was a day I should, and so I suffered through both an interview with Romney and one with Ryan.  As a result, your well-reasoned piece, replete with "arithmetic" (will that word ever be the same anymore, and not attached to Bill Clinton?), was so so so welcome.  I can't thank you enough for the assurance that, soon, I will never have to look at these two people again.  

I especially look forward to Ryan's demise.  When he's on point, he seems to me like some know it all candidate for class president somewhere.  And when he's caught red-handed, he looks to me like a large rodent in the headlights.  

Great post, A-man. And terrific analysis all along the way. If it hadn't been for you and Nate I would have been really discouraged over the last month or so. I did notice the phenomenon of Romney stuck in most of the polls in the 45 area.  I went all in in August for O, holding my breath somewhat.Couldnit be happier with this current lift.  

What bothered me was how little the tracking polls moved even when, because of the absolute emptiness of the Romney campaign, it seemed like such a clear choice. Perhaps the point is that I was following it closely and others didn't tune in until the conventions.

After watching Melissa Harris Perry discuss voter ID laws today and watching

this segment on college voters.

The most disheartening comment in that segment is the young woman saying "I don't really think my vote matters'.  For the first time in response to that I can say 'if your vote didn't matter the republicans wouldn't be working so hard to keep you from voting'.

Pennsylvania has the most strict voter ID laws btw and it's clear that if the court upholds this law it could swing the state to Romney.

Watching this and also noting that there is this organization called 'true the vote' intending to be at polls around the country (most likely in swing states) trained to intimidate and challenge voters...

I am still very concerned about how the cheating aspect and final weeks carpet bombing of political ads could turn this election. 

The worst thing that could happen to us is to have  another election where it is clear that the election is stolen.

And republicans that support today's republican party should hang their head's in shame over these voter ID laws that clearly to not even address the type of fraud they pretend it would prevent.  It is a complete farce and is only intended to make it possible for the election to be stolen.

I know I stay focused on this but I have since the Wisconsin ID law was passed writing to numerous leaders asking what they were doing about them.  And I don't think we can afford to take our eyes off of them and to keep taking whatever action we can to lessen their impact.

Let me put it another way:

Obama is ahead by something more than a field goal and less than a touchdown. Romney has to make something big happen to get the lead.

Furthermore, Obama has possession of the ball. Romney has to try to get the initiative again, and will become increasingly desperate to do so as the clock ticks down. 

Obama's been executing his strategy methodically, and with a lead going into the final stretch his ball-control, ground-game strategy is only going to become more effective. Romney is likely to take bigger and bigger risks, and perhaps to start flailing, as we get closer to Election Day.

But if that all sounds reassuring, it shouldn't. Because WE are Obama's ground game.  Romney's going to try to win this game in the air, with hundreds of millions of secret super-PAC donations. Obama's trying to win it on the ground, with his organization and his volunteers. We are his volunteers. The only thing that can fight all that filthy money is us.

The election isn't over. It's time for all of us to carry the ball.

Win or lose, I think it's important to not over-state the role of demographics, or make any too strong claims about an "ascendant coalition." e.g. It's worth remembering some of the claims, hopes and expectations which followed 2008, and which often involved the destruction, implosion or end of the Republican Party. That could still happen, but it wasn't quite as close as some thought.

As far as demographics goes, the surprise in other countries is that right-wing parties can indeed turn and move very far, very fast, in terms of capturing or neutralizing advantages. In Canada, they worked very hard for roughly one term, and managed to turn enormous blocs of immigrants in their favour - and won a majority when no one, and I mean no one, had seen this coming. There are an awful lot of things which can be promised to immigrants, and the entire history of not just North America, but large stretches of the world, seem to me to show how swiftly these surprising moves can take place. So be slightly aware that demographics - whether around race or immigration, sex or age - can swing.

Secondly, I don't really see any ascendant coalition, frankly. What the 
Republicans have done is carve out their territory - poorly, I would say - and the Democrats often look and feel to have simply hauled together the remaining bits. That is, there is no strong internal logic to the Democratic crowd, and most importantly, no ideological or policy thrust to their show. Are they actually pro immigration? Education? The middle class? Peace? They may appear that way, relative to a band of political freaks, but I'm not sure it's much more than that. 

Quite simply, the Republicans haven't yet had that moment when they've had to truly face down the insurgents, or.... be completely taken over by them. In Canada, the right-wing extremists first split the party, then starved and killed off the old guard, then remerged the two parts, taking over in the process. They then put a ferociously right-wing guy in charge, but taught him how to sound and move moderately. They won. Cameron in Britain is an interesting second path. Issues like greening, or youthfulness or immigration - all these things can be shifted.

As for this election, Romney is a dreadful candidate. The GOP has a dreadful 20 years history (perhaps 40)(hell, maybe 50.) And their policies stink.

But. They face an incumbent presiding over an awful economy. They have piles of money. They are happy to cheat. They have enormous media channels, channels which are tilted. And their opponents may just have hit their high water mark in terms of excitement and momentum. If it is broken - by events, by ads, by mis-steps - I still dread an E-day in which, even with early voting, the juice just isn't there to turn out the vote.

I have noticed here in SW FL that there is a growing awareness of the issues in this election.  I have had friends tell me they found the speeches that were made at the DNC convention by women exciting.  Like me they have waited a long time to see women display their political muscle in an election.  These older women are not happy with the war on women's health and Ryan's plan for SS and Medicare.    

After the ruling by Judge Hinkle striking down the unfair 3 rd party voter registration regulations a week or so ago,  Saturday my door was knocked on by someone asking me if I was registered to vote.  She gave me a paper with a number on it for information and to call for a ride to early voting.   Also told me to pass it on to someone that I might know that needs help voting.  I live in a poor neighborhood so GOTV is working this area.  They only have this month to get people registered to vote.   

Yet the biggest reason last week that President Obama moved ahead by a modest but apparently decisive margin was the speech made by the last Democrat before him to win either of Ohio or Florida – Secretary of State Clinton’s husband, Bill.  The center is shrinking but available to persuasion in a down economy, and putting Medicare-cutting Paul Ryan forward, and doubling-down on the lie that President Obama eviscerated the Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform was just too easy.  President Clinton easily rebutted that falsehood, in a way that will carry through the fall.  He also spoke to those persuadable voters in a way the GOP convention did not really attempt, from Chris Christie’s stern anger to Clint yelling at the chair, and in a way Paul Ryan could not as an iconic movement conservative

It occurs to me that the debates could be a significant wild card here. If Obama does an Al Gore, arrogantly rolling his eyes and sighing at Mitt, and  in doing so forgets about directing "feel your pain" messages to the television camera, and Mitt practices up on a bit of "feel your pain" humility....

oh hell, I'm ready to bet both of these very cool, rational cucumbers are going to be happy to say no to town hall formats, they can then both check their watches and lord it over each other as many times as they want

Pew found equal modest "bounces" for both, with Obama's speech viewed a little more positively than Romney's after both were done.

http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/10/democratic-convention-highlights-...

Their polls are interesting on the conventions' popularity contests. Clinton was the one who won the convention popularity contest, 29% of watchers said he was the highlight, and 36% of the Dems. Clint Eastwood at the GOP was second with 19% of all watchers and 20% of the Repubs saying he was the highlight.

The candidates themselves came in behind and nearly equal. Mitt Romney's speech was considered the highlight by 17% of all watchers and 25% of Repubs.  Barack Obama's speech was considered the highlight by 16% of all watchers and 24% of the Dems.

In all, their summary at the link gives me a bad sense that it's still a "none of the above" election where people say right now that they are decided and will vote but many of those may not bother to turn out to vote after all.

In a great example of silly polling, Civitas shows Romney up 10 in NC after his convention.  Click through to the internals, which show Obama winning the black vote 66/30.  In 2008, NC black vote was about 98/2.  Reallocate it accordingly, consistent with Civitas concluding that 21% of NC voting pool is black, and you get Obama up 49-47.