The Harris Poll describes the president as “far ahead” and contains dire news for the GOP challenger. The sitting Democratic president, coming off a rough first term including foreign crises and a moribund economy, leads across the board.
“In the suburbs,” the poll says the president leads “by a massive 66-30 percent. Voters between 50 and 64 years of age prefer” the incumbent “by 63-34 percent, and he has now soared to a 67-25 percent lead with those who are 65 and over.” Even among voters calling themselves conservatives, the president “has a substantial 57-39 percent edge. Together,” the Harris poll notes, “these groups of voters form the base of the modern Republican Party.” Indeed.
The president also has a huge edge among swing voters: Small-town voters prefer him 60-35. College educated voters back him 61-35. Voters under age 30 back the president strongly, 71-27, and even Catholics support him by a whopping 68-29. Overall, independent voters give him a 63-32 edge.
The poll’s findings, in short, are bleak for the GOP challenger. It concludes:
“Basking in the euphoria of the American people closing ranks behind their leader in the White House, President Obama dominates the political scene…”
Did I type “Obama?” My mistake, it should read “Carter.” The poll was taken January 22, 1980.
We all know how that turned out.
Today’s polls have the incumbent deadlocked in a tie with his challenger or leading slightly four months from the election, indicating softness that has not yet translated into a Romney lead because the Republican has not yet made the sale. Mitt Romney has his opening to turn Obama into a one-termer like Carter. He just has to take that opening and exploit it successfully.
Those who live by the polls today, will panic and may die by those very same polls before November.
Read another way; the polls are less than useless!
How did it turn out? This is how it turned out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege1980.svg
Thanks! You made me smile!
PS. We another Reagan, a man who believes in unity not the divider-in-chief Obama.
By all logic, common sense, and decency, a turnip should be able to win a landslide against the worst president ever and one of the most dangerous individuals the planet has ever produced.
Unfortunately, marxists have deprived the country of logic, common sense and decency.
And just as unfortunately, we have Romney instead of a turnip running against the worst president ever. He and his backers were willing to do or say anything to destroy his republican opponents. As predicted many times, the worst thing he has said about obama so far is that he is a nice guy whose policies have failed. Yes, a turnip would be more compelling.
What it really means is that Romney and his establishment pals don’t want to win. Like John McCain and John Roberts, their mission is to maintain a position in the reception line.
That’s very interesting. Blind-siding people with a perceptual slant is instructive. Got any quotes by Hitler that are almost word-for-word like something Obama said?
Romney ain’t Reagan.
No, and neither is anyone else.
Face it, leaders like RR don’t come along very often. We may have our doubts about Mr. Romney but we sure as h___ should have no further doubts about Mr. Obama and his political intentions or ability to lead the country.
You are never going to get a “perfect” candidate but for crying out loud, the choice here is no less clear than if it were Reagan vs. Carter again.
In 1980 Reagan wasn’t Reagan.
He was a John Bircher Exttremist who no one would ever vote for.
Point made. Thanks.
Romney may not be Reagen however Obama is many times worse than Carter. My thought is that Obama will poll in the low 40′s until election day where he will lose worse than Carter!
@#4 Fall Burton: “Got any quotes by Hitler that are almost word-for-word like something Obama said?”.
Here’s one – slightly stretched:
“Give me ten years and you will not be able to recognize Germany!!” – A Hitler. Said in 1934. You know what Germany looked like in 1944 after the US Air Force and RAF Bomber Command did their thing…
“Give me another four years and you will not be able to recognize the United States”??? Works for me…
Yer twistin’ my melon, man.
Reagan wasnt Reagan in 1980.
What helped Reagan win in 1980 more than Carter being a horrible incumbent was the clear choice presented between the two in terms of both vision and character. Reagan was also helped by a third Party candidate, John Andersen( A republican) in a very interesting way. Carter refused to debate Andersen and Reagan at the same time, and as a result looked small and petty to the American public. Reagan did debate Andersen and looked gracious as a result. After this debate, one in which Carter didn’t even participate, the question of character crystallized in the minds of Americans and it became clear that Reagan was the better of the two.
The Reagan we all think about today, didn’t come into being until after he left office. Until 1984,Reagan, The conservative icon, was very much a work in progress and there was many people on the right who still had their doubts.
Its worth noting that people didnt vote for Reagan because he was a “great man” or even a “great candidate” because in 1980 he was neither of those things. Reagan was a flawed and complicated man who many people today would dismiss outright as simply not conservative enough or worse, since he was the head of a union and the Governor of California and a freakin’ Hollywood actor for Gods sake, he was hardly any sort of conservative. ( harrumph!)
People in 1980 didn’t vote for “Reagan the conservative messiah” because that person simply did not exist, that person came into popular understanding long after he left office and largely as a boogeyman of the left. To the right, no man is ever pure enough to sleep with holy mother liberty and we always treat those men who wish to seek her hand with contempt until they are safely away from power. Then and only then do we award them as “true conservatives”.
People in 1980 voted for Reagan because he shared their belief that this was a great county and he championed that idea. The incumbent in office saw America as a flawed, stupid and largely dangerous country that simply could not be trusted on the worlds stage. Americans in the 1980 simply rejected the incumbent and his ideas wholesale and instead decided that there was nothing wrong with the country that a change in management could not immediately solve. in 1980, the Office of President was awarded to Ronald Reagan, but the house and Senate remained largely in the same place it had since 1970, in the hands of Liberal Democrats.
( Two other Factoids about 1980. 1) David H. Koch, the current boogeyman- supporter-of-the-republicans to the left, didnt support Ronald Reagan in 1980. He ran against him as the VP of the Libertarian ticket. 2) The “Windfall Profits Tax” that Carter used foolishly in an attempt to punish “Big Oil” was repealed – in 1988 at the very end of the Reagan Presidency. So the good news is that laws ( even taxes!) can be repealed! The bad news is that even in the best of circumstances, it can sometimes take awhile. )
You make excellent points. Reagan was a divorced (that meant something back then) grade B movie actor who had been governor of the wild and crazy state. Kalifornicate. That place the black sheep in the Midwest ran away to. Where the debauched denizens of Hollyweird resided.
One speech put him in the White House. That and Carter’s buffoonery. Even today he is only great because he is measured against all the third rate presidents of the 20th century. Herbert Hoover was a bigger man than Reagan. Don’t get me wrong. I liked Ronny. He’s really all I have to hang onto as presidents go in all my 62 years. He did grow in office. A lot. And if you compare him to George W (spit) Bush he is a veritable giant of a man.
I am afraid I am going to have to disagree.
While you are correct in that Reagan of say, 1988, wasn’t the same Reagan of 1980 – I would consider this a sign of just how smart he really was and how his views and positions were not schlerotic musings set in concrete.
As circumstances changed, so did his thoughts on the best approach for dealing with them. This is a far cry from the simpleton the Left still insists that he was.
A “simpleton” that beat them twice in national elections and sheparded a good portion of his agenda through a congress controlled by the opposition no less!
This is not to say he was not always consistent in his basic belief system, as he clearly was. There are audio and video records of his views going back decades previously that show just how consistent he was in his political philosophy. The thing is, most of the country really wasn’t that familiar with those old speeches.
What the public WAS familiar with was a failed president who had not risen to leadership when needed, who allowed our military to deteriorate to the point it couldn’t even mount a successful rescue attempt to retrieve our diplomats being held hostage, who allowed stagflation to take hold, had a horrible unemployment situtation, and generally failed to lead the country out of the “malaise” it was suffering through at the time.
What those circumstances did was create an environment wherein Reagan was able to win election to his first term, at which point he could begin to try a more conservative approach to the nations ills.
There was still recalcitrance on the part of congress, but by his second term the nation could see success and he handily beat Mondale in 1984.
His policies led to the defeat of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, a conflict that had been going on for almost a half century and had led to numerous smaller conflicts and millions of dead the world over.
That alone should place him easily in the ranks of great presidents.
But Reagan had something else going for him besides policy.
He was a natural leader, and people naturally followed him, and he generally made good decisions based on his own core sensibilities. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a darn fine president the likes of which we could really use right now.
yeah, believe if you will. i did some research the other night, since i remember polls stating that mondale had it wrapped up, right before the dem convention. others too. mondale got slammed by reagan. when the dem is about to get creamed they always ramp up the dem poll numbers going into the dem convention.
these polls are probably run by people w/ pseudo-journalism affirmative action degrees, like those in the msm. the polls always show te dem’s right there in the fight. being embarrassed the day after the election won’t be anything new for the socialist poll takers.
unreliable? understatement.
I work at a small hospital in DFW area and lately I have had several people tell me that they are getting a lot of pollster calls. All of them have said that they just tell the pollsters whatever they want to hear, basically they mean they tell them yeah Obama’s great when in reality they have no intentions of voting for him. Believe me I get an ear full about their dislike of the current govt. Mostly the health care issues. These people are 45 plus and are very distrustful of the media etc. I wonder how many others out there are doing the same thing. These people have been demonized for the last 3 1/2 years they are not about to say anything to any one.I am hoping there are millions. Also in my small circle of workers about 2 out of every 5 or so african americans at work have said they will not vote for him over the gay marriage issue. That will help also. One even asked me how to get hooked up with the tea party to see who they are recommending to vote for in our state elections. I know that has been hard for them to reach out to people and to come to grips with this administration.