Why Isn’t Mitt Romney Up by Ten Points?
That’s what Jonah Goldberg wants to know:
Notwithstanding the erosion in support, Obama remains tied with or slightly ahead of Romney in most polls. Yesterday’s Ohio Newspaper Association poll is typical. It shows Obama with a five-point lead in Ohio, despite a sizeable Romney advantage among independents. That pol , however, employed a voter sample that gave Democrats a six-point advantage over Republicans. In this regard, it is similar to most other major polls, which (as Da Tech Guy points out) average a 6–7 point Democratic advantage. Last week’s NBC/WSJ poll had a five-point Democrat advantage and had Obama up by five. Last week’s Washington Post poll of Virginia voters had a twelve-point Democratic advantage and Obama leading by eight.
But here’s the thing: The most recent Rasmussen party identification poll has Republicans with a 4.3 percentage point advantage over Democrats nationally. At the same point in the 2008 election cycle Democrats had a 5.7 percent advantage. That’s a 10 point swing, a swing that began to manifest itself in the 2010 midterms, when the Democrats’ advantage fell to just 1.2 points — and they suffered an epic blowout .
Romney also has one major drawback as the GOP standard-bearer. He’s always saying things like, “I believe in the free enterprise system,” or “I believe in America.” These are nice things to say, and I wouldn’t vote for a candidate who wouldn’t or couldn’t say them, or who sounds like he’s speaking a foreign language when he does say them.
(Cough, cough, Mr. President Empty Chair.)
What Romney doesn’t do is explain why he believes in America or free enterprise or much of anything at all. He’s reassured the base, mostly, but he doesn’t posses that sunny philosophical core like Reagan had, which allowed Reagan to make the sale to independents.
That’s why they called him The Great Communicator. Not because he could give a speech — but, boy, could he give a speech — but because at his center was a man who had done some very solid thinking over a number of years, and who could effortlessly impart the results and the process to his audience.
I suspect Romney hasn’t had to do a whole lot of philosophical soul-searching, having been raised as a decent and hardworking Mormon, and having lived his life as a decent and hardworking Mormon. Reagan started out as a Hollywood liberal, and had to work his ass (and brain) off to move himself to the right. It was those years of effort which allowed him to make it look so easy.
Ronnie fought the Commies in Hollywood, tho.
Where is Ryan? It’s like someone or the DTM put him down a sinkhole.
Read Peter Kirasanow’s (sp?) response to Jonah’s corner post:
The first column of numbers below contains the percentage of votes received by Obama in 2008 from the respective groups. The second column contains Obama’s current support from registered voters according to Gallup’s most recent three-week rolling average (August 27–September 16). Keep in mind that registered voter polls often over-predict Democrat support.
Men 49 – 44
Women 53 – 52
18-29 66 – 59
East 59 – 57
Midwest 54 – 49
South 45 – 42
West 57 – 48
White 43 – 40
Black 95 – 89
Hispanic 67 – 66
Dem. 89 – 92
Rep. 9 – 5
Ind. 52 – 43
Republicans presently have a three-point edge in voter enthusiasm. In addition, Rasmussen’s most recent party-identification poll gives Republicans a 4.3 percentage point advantage. At the same point in the 2008 election cycle Democrats enjoyed a 5.7 percentage point advantage
Obama beat McCain by 7.2 points.
Make of the above what you will.
Let’s also remember Reagan was not up 10 points at this stage when he was running against Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Reagan was down six in October.
Also, Republicans swept statewide offices in Ohio two years ago. Ohio has lost two House seats, one R, one D. They merged Marcy Kaptur’s seat (Toledo) and Dennis Kucinich’s (Cleveland) and there was bad blood in the primary. Which may depress turnout by some donkeys.
Or maybe the Rasmussen party ID figure is simply wrong. If you believe Rasmussen’s number, we’d pick up an additional 30 seats in the House and sweep to a solid majority in the Senate. And it would show that the voting public has been impressed by Congress since January 2011.
Romney has always been a squishy RINO who’s simply unable to make an authentic case for conservatism–he can’t make it, so he fakes it, badly. The guy who argued that the individual mandate was a bedrock conservative approach was never going to be able to articulate an actual case for conservativism just like Elizabeth Warren could never articulate an argument for Cherokee heritage.
Yeah, why not vote for Obama who was like Reagan, according to Andrew Sullivan.
Don’t complain when you and yours lost your jobs and pick up disability checks for the rest of your life because Romney didn’t sound conservative enough.
Sullivan is bipolar twerp with a man crush on 0bama. There was and will forever only be one Reagan.
I’m voting for Romney, against Obama, because I’m neither an idiot nor a leftist (but I repeat myself).
But, I’m not willing to do what the left did in 2004 when they advanced theory after theory as to why Lurch and Silky were really ahead (or really did win, DIEBOLD!!!!)
The choice of messenger matters. As Stephen noted, Reagan had grappled with these issues in a resolute manner–he had to convince himself before he could convince others.
Because, let’s be frank, if things go the way they seem to be going, on November 7 we’re going to hear a LOT about how the real reason Romney lost was because he went too conservative, did too much to court his base, picked an actual conservative like Paul Ryan as his running mate, etc.
About how Republicans need to moderate, move to the middle, change our stance on any number of issues (immigration especially).
Which will be a sick joke. If Romney doesn’t believe what he’s saying, persuadeable voters will not be very persuaded. We need someone who believes conservative principles at his core, not someone who treats conservatism as bullet points in a presentation.
…on November 7 we’re going to hear a LOT about how the real reason Romney lost was because he went too conservative, did too much to court his base, picked an actual conservative like Paul Ryan as his running mate, etc.
The correct reaction to anyone peddling such nonsense will be to laugh in their face.
Rasmussen releases its nation-wide party ID polling. What’s really needed is state-by-state party ID. Perhaps they do this for their “swing state” polls, I don’t know. If you’re polling in New York, you can’t get a good result by re-weighting to the national party ID number. Same for Utah.
The question still remains: why is Rasmussen the gold standard for determining party ID?
I can see the argument for weighting along the lines of demographics–those are set figures determined by census etc. They’re stable parameters–men vs women, religion, ethnicity, age etc.
But, party ID is almost as fluid as candidate support. If the party ID for 2004 had matched that of 2000, we’d have had President Kerry.
West 57 – 48
I’m surprised at that, that’s a drop for the West.
Well, neck-and-neck in D+10 polls IS up by ten, isn’t it?
No matter how far short of Reagan conservatism or articulation Mr. Romney may come, he is far, far better than Mr. Obama.
Anyone who loves the United States, please keep this in mind when voting.
Man I miss Reagan.
Yes, Reagan could enunciate his principles. He could explain them clearly. He spoke at a high (Presidential) level, not like some guy running for Congress. Romney doesn’t, except when he starts to talk about business, which is his passion. Then his talk elevates.
Obama won, because he touted high principles (transparency in government, smart diplomacy), while McCain argued about how many times Obama voted to raise taxes, and doing all the usual hair-splitting while doing it.
We want our village leader to be wise. Reagan was wise. Obama sounded it, but is a fool. McCain sounded like a fool, and he is a fool.
Mission accomplished, teachers’ unions.