Andrew Malcolm at Investors Business Daily has an interesting column on whether those who are telling pollsters they intend to vote for the president really are going to do so. The vast majority of them surely will, of course. But politics, like baseball, is a game of inches. If only two percent of those saying they will vote for Obama go into the voting booth and vote for Romney instead, that’s a four-percent shift, turning a comfortable 52-48 win into a 48-52 loss. If they simply stay home, that turns 52-48 into 50-50.
There are numerous signs the Obama campaign is very, very worried. His fundraising has not been the money machine it was in 2008, despite Obama’s burning out the engines of Air Force One going, hat in hand, from one group of fat cats to another. He is running through the money he does raise at a furious pace, mostly running negative ads in toss-up states. He is trying to shore up his base rather than reaching out to the center as he would if his base were secure. That doesn’t bear much resemblance to Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning in America” campaign of 1984, does it? There are even those who say Wall Street’s recent climb, despite very gloomy economic news, is due to a growing conviction on the Street that Obama is toast.
And yet pollsters all have the race tight as a tick, as Karl Rove terms it. What’s going on?
I think what I call the Dinkins effect is in operation. David Dinkins was the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York in 1989, having defeated three-term incumbent Ed Koch in the primary. His Republican opponent was Rudy Giuliani. The polls all showed Dinkins well ahead, but he won the race only narrowly. In 1993, there was the same match-up. The polls all showed Dinkins (who had a lousy record as mayor) as narrowly ahead. Giuliani won in a walk. The reason the polls were so wrong, I think, was because Dinkins is black and some people were simply unwilling to say, even to a pollster, they were voting against the black guy. Racism is nearly extinct in this country, but the fear of being thought racist is pervasive, and the willingness of some people on the left to play the race card apparent.
Could that be why President Obama has high ratings in polls asking about his “likeability”? My dislike of his politics probably clouds my judgment somewhat, but I don’t find him likeable at all. He’s arrogant, often mean-spirited, sometimes downright nasty. He avoids taking responsibility for failure but takes all the credit for success. He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor that I can see. He’s, well, chilly. I don’t like Bill Clinton’s politics much either, but I’m sure I’d have a great time having dinner with him some night. He may be left-of-center and more than a bit of a scoundrel in his personal life, but likeable he most certainly is. Obama, simply, is not.
Also, of course, a lot of people might be unwilling to admit they think they were sold a bills of goods in 2008 by a political flim-flam man. No one likes to admit they were cheated. So they say they’re voting for Obama but then won’t.
I’d certainly advise the Romney campaign to ignore all this speculation. No one ever lost a political race because they assumed they were ten points behind and acted accordingly.
Couldn't agree more with you about Clinton's likeability vs. Obama's. With Obama what's to like? Clinton was a street kid. Obama a pampered brat of a hippie mother.
Please make that an anti-American, Third-worldist, Muslim-chasing mother.
Any evidence to support that characterization of his mother? Or is that in truth just an unsupported (and unsupportable?) charge? Clinton was a "street kid," while Obama was a "pampered brat"? Why not go with the substantive reasons not to vote for Obama rather than this sort of crap?
nI don't see anything wrong with that description and was basically that the description everyone else used that doesn’t drink the Obama Kool Aide. We get it you drink the Kool Aide…
My post responded to the description of Ann Dunham, Obama's mother, as a "hippie", which she decidedly was not. Rather Dunham was a committed third-worldist, "anti-imperialist" who earned a Ph.D. in anthropology on the subject of peasant economies and spent most of her adult life in Indonesia. She married two Muslim men, one from Kenya and the other from Indonesia, and had children with both of them. Coming from Kansas, it is unlikely she met either one casually, and certainly not at Woodstock. Whether one sympathizes or not with Ann Dunham, whom Obama said was the "most important person in his formative years", calling her a "hippie" attempts to transform this steely, highly-politicized woman into a flower child, which she clearly was not.
I don't see how Obumble can say elect me for another four years so I can run the country into the ground the rest of the way.
"There are even those who say Wall Street’s recent climb, despite very gloomy economic news, is due to a growing conviction on the Street that Obama is toast." n nI'm sure there are. And I'm sure there are those who say that the earth is flat.
Tom Friedman comes to mind.
Not to be picky, but I believe the quote "game of inches" referred to football.
I don't think I would personally like Bill Clinton very much either. He has a kind of smarmy, good ol' boy charm, but just beneath that is an amoral, lying, totally unrepentant sleaze. I suppose if I had to spend an eveing with Clinton or Obama, I would choose Clinton, but I wouldn't be too happy about it. I sure as hell wouldn't bring my daughter. It seems fashionable for people on the right to engage in Clinton nostalgia. That I don't understand. I remember the Clinton years well. He was a national embarrassment; a crude, duplicitous cad who had no respect for anyone or anything. I don't miss him.
Liberals do the same thing when they contrast Reagan with whatever GOP candidate is currently in the running for the presidency. It's rather a cynical exercise. n nThe truth about Bill Clinton is, he's less of an ideologue than Obama and more willing to sacrifice his principles when pressed hard to do so ("The era of big government is over"), but returning a moral fiend like him to the White House would have been a disgrace. No rapists in the White House, please.
Um… he WAS returned to the White House.
But we didn't have the new media in 1996. Obama would have a cakewalk without it — but now you have young folk still in their 20s holding his feet to the fire — the WARN act, Fast & Furious, etc. The world has changed…
Not so much.
It was also the case the when Mayor Dinkins ran for RE-election we were all told that if we didn't RE-elect him it was because of eeeeevil raaaaaaacism. There was no concept of "he had a chance, he got his shot at it" – none AT ALL. Either you vote for the black guy (black democrat maybe I should say), or you're a racist – QED. No less an authority than likeable then-President Bill Clinton came to NYC to tell the racist New Yorkers that. This, um, advice was not much appreciated as I recall. Bill Buckley wrote a most amusing column about it. n nI wonder if President Clinton will spend any time at the convention reminding people that if we don't RE-elect President Obama it will demonstrate how racist we all are? n nAnd you know, you just KNOW, that should Romney prevail over Obama in November (no matter what on this earth happens between now and then) to the editors of the NY Times, the Washington Post, et al. RACISM will be the ONLY reason, and we are going to hear that for the following four years.
"And you know, you just KNOW, that should Romney prevail over Obama in November (no matter what on this earth happens between now and then) to the editors of the NY Times, the Washington Post, et al. RACISM will be the ONLY reason, and we are going to hear that for the following four years." I sure hope that is what we hear because it will mean that Romney is president. n nBTW, it should nt be forgotten that team Obama, along with a complying press corps (pronouced cor, not corpse) condemned Bill and Hillary as racists as well.
That 1993 election was really something! However it was NOT the runaway jocon asserts it was–Dinkins nearly held on. Were it not for the high vote on Staten Island he might have because on Staten Island alone, ther was a referendum asking for "independence" from New York City. The population there, thinking Dinkins might be reelected, came out in drives, at presidential election levels, to vote for it along with Rudy. Rudy won the the non-binding vote was forgotten, but Rudy's victory was certainly a ground up one!
Should he lose, it is likely that Obama himself will lead the charge to indict the USA as racist, his harridan of a wife at his side fangs bared. Nothing about that preening pair of self-entitling, taxpayer-bred vampires suggests even a remote acquaintance with the notion of "a good loser." Oh yes, off hand I can think of about two-dozen Democrat hacks posing as journalists these many years now who may be counted on to amplify the calumnies. There's that, too. n nThe stench they will emit — over and above their usual foulness — if we Americans ungratefully reject the salvation they offer us is stomach-turning to contemplate. It's almost enough to make one vote for His Emptiness simply to avoid the hurricane of invective we'd be in for.
"If only two percent of those saying they will vote for Obama go into the voting booth and vote for Romney instead, that’s a four-percent shift" n nFor this to be true would not President Obama have to be already receiving 100% of the vote?
No. It is a 4 point shift regardless. n nLets say it is 50% Obama, and 50% Romney. Think of it as 100 voters (percent is "per hundred" incidentally) — and 50 are gonna vote for Obama, 50 for Romney. n nThen two voters (two per hundred or 2%) decide instead to vote for Romney — who still is getting all 50 of his people voting for him, along now with two of Obama's people – who also don't vote for Obama because in this example we all only vote once. n nThat means 48 votes (not 50) for Obama, and 52 votes (not 50) for Romney, which is your 4 point shift. Remember it is reducing the total number of votes for Obama CONCURRENT WITH increasing the number for Romney. n nAnd lets say that Obama had 51 voters and Romney had 49 — and then two (or 2%) of Obama's guys decide to vote for Romney instead (that's 51-2=49 — 49 voters in our example, 49% as well. nNow Romney *gets* these two votes, (that's 49+2=51) which means he now wins with 51 votes in our example (or 51%). n nNow lets say it is 50-50 (and instead of dealing with millions of voters, let's again presume that there are only 100 Americans eligible to vote, and 50 are going to vote for Obama, and 50 for Romney. Now if two of Obama's voters simply don't vote (FOR ANYONE) — say they go get stoned and forget where the polling place is or something — then it becomes Obama 48 (50-2=48) while Romney retains his 50. Now as we only have 98 voters, the percentages get messy with decimal points and the rest but forget about that. n nThe 4 point gain — regardless of who has what percentages — is because Romney GAINS the Obama votes. They count on both columns. Now if there is a third party candidate that some of either candidate's votes shift to, then this doesn't happen, but that is not the example presented here….
Perhaps their answers are genuine. It doesn't matter as long as half the electorate can't be roused to even vote at all. People are fine answering a few questions but when it comes to dusting the Cheetos off their chest and heaving themselves out of the chair to go and lumber off the polls and vote, there's less enthusiasm.
Independent voters are getting fed up with Obama's use of the race card. It is only the last day of July! Obama's campaign is self destructing. The race card can only be used effectively at the end of the campaign.
"More than a bit of a scoundrel" is a bit of a euphemism for a Bill Clinton, who has been credibly accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick (Clinton has never denied the allegation). This was covered in the national press in the late 1990s, so Mr. Gordon must have heard about it. It's interesting how conservatives as well as liberals agree to let Bill Clinton off the moral hook for this. Hard to imagine this would have happened had Dick Cheney been so accused, however.
Of course if every black voter votes for Obama because and only because he's black AND he loses then MSNBC will go nuclear on American Jews as traitors. But that's probably in play anyway.
Spot on. I've long been of the opinion that Obama's relatively high likeability rating is a false positive—the product of a fear of being though racist if you say you don't like him. How ironic it will be if the Left's so-often-played race card turns out to be the joker in the deck.
The post reads like more or less arbitrary speculation. n nObama clearly is likable to a certain sort of person, and there are a great many of them. That they vote, and much worse that they often have wide influence, is a serious problem but they exist in large numbers. n nHow large is what makes this horse race tight. It's doubtful it has much to do with race. I've known a great many kinds of people over my 5+ decades and I've never met one who is afraid to tell a pollster on the phone whom they would likely vote for. I would search elsewhere for explanations.
I agree, Jeff. Mr. Gordon's point ( I hesitate to call it an argument) is uncharacteristically weak. I think the answer is less mystifying – most people who are going to vote in November aren't really that fired up right now. It's not even August – people are still anticipating the family vacation, thinking about getting ready for a new school year, trying to escape the heat, etc. I do think, however, that Obama's (at best) mediocre numbers should be discouraging to Democrats, and I sense that in the last couple of weeks Romney is really getting into the swing of the campaign. Remember – the Republican ad blitz is still to come, while Obama has already carpet-bombed the playing field with negative ads. And yet the race is essentially even… nI also ponder the possibility that many people are considering a vote for a Republican for the first or one of the first times in their lives. I base that on my own circle of friends and colleagues in my very liberal community. There is NO enthusiasm for Obama – none at all – and folks who know my politics have indicated in various ways that their vote is, more than it ever has been, up for grabs. Will most of them plunk down for O? Of course – but these are highly motivated, quite partisan voters, actually. They are not people I would have expected such comments from a mere 4 years ago. If they are moving toward the fence, what about those millions of people who started closer to the fence? Where are they? I suspect many of them are still claiming – to themselves as well as pollsters – that they will vote for Obama while slowly intellectualizing a vote for Romney or someone else. I made that transition back between 1995 and 1998. It was a slow process, but one, looking back on it, that I knew was inevitable long before I would actually admit it to myself.
Here's the thing I thing republican pundits are missing I am NOT the only registered republican who is very disappointed in the RNC. I really wanted to vote for Cain. I REALLY wanted a president who understood the concept of the word "Trajectory" and someone who had made a schedule for employees and calculated payroll – qualities almost NO American elected official seems to have. Instead I am stuck with two candidates I can not vote for. The RNC has missed the boat as to exactly why Oh Bummer is unpalatable – his assault on religious freedom – for me is the bottom line as to what is most wrong with Oh Bummer, but I do not perceive Romney as anyone who has compassion on the poor and marginalized of America. While he certainly understands finance and business, He does not calm my fears for the members of the middle class, who have lost so much in the last 8 years that they are now close to being poor, and those who were truly poor 8 years ago, but are now destitute, and many are homeless. IF I were to consider voting for Romney, he would need to present a workable plan that addresses the needs of the needy, & the uninsured, while preserving America's greatest strength – freedom.
Problem with this analysis is we would have seen it in 2008, and we didn't the RCP avg of all the polls was right on the final result 53-46. 2008 was not surprisingly close and McCain didn't win anything that was unexpected. In fact quite the opposite. Obama won IN and NC.
I cannot believe Pubs , any likely voter polled , would cast a vote for the leftist naif in the WH or for candidates up and down the ticket unless they are so ideologically bent they should change parties. The GOP has to unite Indies, Libertarians, and Reagan Dems to have a chance to offset the now majority 'dependent' non producers that is now the DEM base. So turnout will matter big time. If Americans continue to put liberal Dems back in office, the nation is done. Period. So if the worthless CBS poll today is real, we are all done. But, something makes me think this is pure propaganda by the MSM to prop up Bama. We shall soon all see.
It was the Tom Bradley effect before it was the David Dinkins effect.
And before that it was the David Duke effect. n nDuke was the Klansman (can't remember if current or former) who always seemed to wind up with about 4%/5% more votes than any poll suggested he would, and it was because of the folk who never would publicly admit they intended to vote for him. n nHard to believe that the same state that gave us Bobbie Jindell also gave us David Duke….
The Bradley Effect wasn't fatal to it's eponymous source, and therefor wasn't so named, until '93, but probably had its effect on him no later than '73, before Duke. And it was Oklahoma which gave us Duke, although voters in the 81st District of the LA House gave themselves Duke in '90. Otherwise he lost. But I quibble.