The Romney campaign made public a memo from their pollster intended to buck up the spirits of activists discouraged by the release of polls over the weekend that show President Obama emerging from his convention with a bounce in his ratings. Neil Newhouse, the campaign’s pollster tells them to “not get too worked up” about the latest numbers and dismisses the reaction to the conventions as a “sugar high” that changed nothing. He may be right about the bounce, as it is more than likely that the few points gained by the Democrats in the past few days will soon evaporate and that we will be looking at a statistical tossup within the week, if not sooner. But any Republican lulled by Newhouse’s “State of the Race” into thinking that everything’s still coming up roses for Romney may be in for a rude awakening in two months. The Obama bounce is an unexpected blow to the Romney campaign that makes it clear the challenger has an uphill slog until November.
Romney entered the conventions trailing the president, and even if the Obama bounce dissipates quickly, he will likely remain behind. Failing to gain ground over the last two weeks is troubling. But even more troubling is the fact that the president managed to pad his small lead even after the release of another terrible jobs report on Friday. Those numbers added considerable weight to Romney’s arguments that the president had run the economy into the ditch from which he cannot extract it. But if more Americans are swayed by a week of liberal rhetoric and the oratory of Bill Clinton to stick with the Democrats than are influenced by the collapse of the jobs market, then exactly how is Romney going to get to 50 percent plus one in 58 days?
Newhouse believes Romney’s advantage on the economy is decisive and that history and a powerful campaign machine are on his side. His argument is that simply by remaining within the margin of error along with a cash advantage and “a winning message on the economy” means Romney will be the next president. His prediction may turn out to be right; a lot can happen in eight weeks and a clear win in the debates would change the dynamic of the race. But the thing that should be scaring Republicans is their seeming inability to convert the bad economy into a clear advantage in the polls.
The Friday jobs numbers should have negated any advantage the Democrats derived from their weeklong infomercial in Charlotte. But if even the latest Rasmussen tracking poll out today (which averages three days of result) is showing Obama up by five points after being tied only a week ago, that illustrates that the Democrats’ arguments that the problems we are experiencing are not the president’s fault are being accepted by voters. Rasmussen’s analysis, like Newhouse’s memo, argues that the economy is still the key issue. Yet the results seem to be telling us that opinion about the economy is influenced more ideology and partisan preferences than it is by the objective proof of Obama’s failure. If, despite the passage of four years, they are prepared to accept the claims of Democrats that blame for the state of the country should be placed on George W. Bush instead of the incumbent, then Obama is in a stronger position that Newhouse is willing to admit.
Optimistic Democrats quoted in an analysis published yesterday by Politico claim there are simply not enough undecided voters out there, and that this means Romney will have to win the support of an unrealistically large proportion of this group in order to prevail. That may not be entirely true, but the data from the surveys of the key swing states seem to show that Romney is trailing in most of them. Something is going to have to happen in the coming weeks for Romney turn a string of close loses into wins.
If all the Democrats have done in the past few weeks is to hold their slim advantage, that is no small achievement. The longer Obama stays in front, the harder it will be for Romney to overtake him even if his edge is within the margin of error. The GOP candidate still needs to alter the dynamic of the race in order to make up that small, crucial gap with the Democrat. That is still quite possible. No one, not even the president is immune to unforeseen developments overseas or concerning the economy. But if the sort of bad economic news we got last week isn’t enough to shake wavering voters into backing Romney, then it’s difficult to imagine what will.
JT, how many middle-class Americans (right and left) shelter their property then use State and Federal funds for nursing home care for one or both of their parents? These are not welfare queens and while they're tax consumers, they've been tax payers all of their working lives too. Enter Clinton, The Master. n nWorking-class men in OH, PA, MI; do you really think the Republican convention gave voice to their worries? I'm sure many of these men are not inclined to vote for Obama but they're not going to vote for Romney either. n nRomney has never known the kind of struggle these men have faced going on 30 years now and with no end or hope in sight. You can't separate the Obama years from the years before. Events (or the Republican brand, popular phrase these last few days) preclude that possibility. Here's what the blue-collar guys know: in a Nation where people don't trade with one another, they are dispensable and forgettable. n nAnd I think a Nation that doesn't trade with one another (not Lattes and Facebook) is destined for decline no matter who is at the helm.
eecaire – You argue that Romney has never known the struggles of blue collar men in OH, etc. Fine – I'll buy that. But what about Obama? Reid? Pelosi? Kerry? Edwards? Gore? Even Clinton, I would add – what does he really know about their struggles. He went off to Oxford as a young man and never looked back. Did the Democratic convention (think Fluke) give voice to their concerns? nAt any rate, it is clear that the Romneys care about people, unlike the list of names above.
Ann Romney's grandfather may have been a coal miner but her father was the mayor. Have you seen her latest statement? She'll only end up hurting Romney by pretending to understand what she can't possibly understand. They're not entitled to the presidency. It sometimes seems that she, more than he, thinks that they are. n nNow Romney wants to keep the good parts of ObamaCare. Republicans follow and never lead. They don't want to govern and it shows. How do you expect them to earn the trust of the electorate? n nNo one is really asking Mr. and Mrs. Romney to be at odds with who they are. People are asking Mitt to give them a reason to vote for him. Is there still time to do that? I don't know.
I would argue that Republicans do try to lead, but they are up against headwinds that may make their leadership impossible – think Bush's efforts to reform Social Security, or Ryan's efforts to work with entitlements. Look what happens when Republicans try to get out front. The Democrats have them pushing Grandma off a cliff, and gin up all kinds of outlandish fears. Meanwhile, we head blissfully toward the waterfall. nOn the other hand, Chris Christie and Scott Walker have shown leadership at the state level, and have been more successful than perhaps even they thought possible. nI think Romney's quote re Obamacare has to be treated a little more circumspectly.
One missing rhetorical ingredient is the absence of the word "liberal" in Romney-Ryan-GOP campaign speeches and ads. We get "President Obama thinks government can solve every problem" but while that's gold for tea partiers, swing voters do not particularly dislike government. They do dislike liberals, which is of course why Obama will never, ever call himself a liberal if you waterboarded him. Romney and Ryan should never speak a sentence for the next 58 days without reminding voters that Obama is a liberal, too liberal: "President Obama has tried every tired liberal approach to the economy" — "Liberals like the President always think more spending is the answer" — President Obama is a nice guy but he's just too liberal" — and so on. It's not necessary or desirable for Romney to call himself conservative, although it does no harm if he throws that out once in a while.
Mr. Tobin – nI told you so. Your "inevitable nominee" continues to prove himself to be the inevitable loser.
What Americans want is to know: n1. Why they should not vote for Mr. Obama, and n2. Why they should vote for Mr. Romney. nThe answer to question 1 is easy to see, as the latest jobs reports show, as Mr. Obama's abandonment of Israel shows, as his whole record, or better lack of a record shows. Mr. Romney will have to continue to point this out because the democrats are pushing other issues and distracting voters and the press as it suits them. Mr. Romney has to pull the discussion back to what's wrong today. n nOn question 2, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have to tell Americans what they will do, how it will work, and thus convince voters to go with them. This is not a difficult process, but it takes relentless discussion so people hear it. n nThe polls are only relevant today to show the Republicans where to focus their energies, it is way too early to think these polls indicate anything more. In the end, a republican victory will be because they have shown Mr. Obama's failings and have given America a better option. But they have to constantly send the same message so that people hear it. For now, they've allowed themselves to be distracted and Mr. Romney simply has to continually pound away on his message. His message will sink in and people will vote for him. n
Romney, a reasonable, intelligent and good man can't make a move without asking the permission of the base. An angry, and hate or fear-filled base. He's starting to show a willingness to balk at that but it may be too late. n nThe Democratic convention actually looked like America's family room. The Republican convention used to look like that, but not anymore. If you can't change that, the only thing awaiting the party is the grave.
So, in your family room you folks sit around booing God and Jerusalem after having your votes overridden by party hacks like Villaraigosa? If the same events had occurred in a Republican convention the whoe thing would have been labeled a fiasco for weeks following the convention. It wasn't the Republican establioshment that was calling Dems nazis over and over like Dem party hacks. No , you are delusional. it will be especially hard for you to reconcile your fantasies with Obam being a one term loser come November. Please try to not lash out violently as you are likely going to be tempted to do. n nThink about how incompetent Obama is that he can't even manage his own party's convention without letting the mask covering his anti-Israeli and radical secularism slip. He is a loser and he is going to be beaten like a drum come November. If he carries PA it will only be by doubling the normal amount of voter fraud in Philly that they typically use to disenfranchize the rest of the state. North Carloina is out of play. Wisconsin is in play. Obama is toast.
As opposed to the debates when Republicans cheered not really for the death of the uninsured man, but for him to take his medicine which happened to be death. God fearing? Truly atheistic, probably. n nI’m not an Obama voter, yesterday or tomorrow. I see Romney lose and I see the Nation lose too. But here’s where you’re right, I don’t belong here.
Malcolm X supported Barry Goldwater. Malcolm X!!!! n nGo review the footage of the '64 Convention. Look at the faces in the crowd. As they say in Brooklyn: geh'head, geh'head. n n
Of course he did,Malcom X was for a total,legal separation of the blacks away from the white,so was Goldwater,so is the extreme wing of the GOP today.
Wrong. n nMalcolm X was for the development and rise of economic Black man, first and foremost. His early years were filled with hate for the white man, and why not? His Ballot or the Bullet Speech was Founding Father material. n nGoldwater had desegregated his business before any legislation demanded he do so. In X's eyes he was an honest man.
eecaire is nothing more than a mouthpiece spouting Democrat talking points. Predictable, predictable, predictable and boring, boring, boring. However, the points that are made by Jonathan are right on point and the analysis by Jonathan is very perceptive and should, definitely, be taking very seriously by those in the Romney campaign. It is definitely going to be a very touch slog for the Romney people. The party preferences, demographics, electoral votes and logic of incumbency are all in favor of Obama. He will be a disaster for the country, eecaire, but he has the edge right now and the trends are in his direction. We conservatives have much to fear from the ideas of eecair and from Obama right now.
Well, panic has set in because a modest rise in the polls (five is modest) has panicked us all.Look, no one ever said that this will be easy. Obama is the incumbent and it is always difficult to unseat an incumbent- especially as he is the first black President. Polls are, at best, a snapshot of time and for now, Obama may very well be in the lead. The debates are coming and two more job reports. This will be close and every logical person thought this would be close. The key is to remember that, in the past forty years- the lead in September (Carter, Dukakis, George W. Bush in 2000 ) evaporated at election time. So, let's be hopeful and go and vote Obama out.
Better to get the panic out of the way now and it never hurts to fire up the base with some good old fashioned fear. We shouldn't become complacent. n nMy only real frustration is that if the republicans had had a similiarly revealing and incompetent convention they would have been raked over the coals by the press. Villaraigosa would be a household word. All anyone would know happened at the convention was that the Dems disenfranchised their own base in order to pretend not to stiff israel or adhere to a radical secularism. The only other thing people would know was that DNC leaders are apt to call their political rivals nazis and Clinton talked for 50 minutes almost exclusively about himself. Not to mention that if we held the same level of calling spin and opinion "lies" that the press applied to Ryan we would have to come up with whole new words to describe Debbie Wasserman Schultz's behavior. n nThis bounce will fade but it wasn't even deserved in the first place.
Could not agree with you more! but then, the media is in the tank for Obama (and every democrat) and we just have to work around that.
We shouldn't reject some of what eecaire says so quickly. He may have phrased the problem incorrectly—Democratic convention looked like America's living room—but he does indeed have a point about how the parties looked at their conventions and how they sounded. Look, my friends, this is the twenty-first century. Americans are accustomed to seeing a mixture of races, rather than almost everyone looking like she was the queen of the county fair in the South or Midwest, or he looking like a Donny Osmond clone. Moreover, today is not the wild west!! The Republicans talked like all one had to do is to go West(young man?)and with a little hard work they would find success. People feel vulnerable and we should not ridicule them. And minorities, single women and those dependent upon government feel particularly vulnerable. The Republican convention did not talk to these people. In addition to the aforementioned irrelevant talk, all they did was to pander by parading some black and Latino faces. I'm as conservative as anyone can find. I've publicly stood up to left-wing attacks and union thugs. But my party just does not know how to covey its message, This,along with a very weak candidate, explains it all.
No, it doesn't explain it all. To claim-as you do- that the Republicans "pandered" by parading some black and latino faces is an affront to these same faces. Do you think Mia Love is just a panderer? do you think that Rubio, Martineze, Jindal, Haley, Sandoval are just faces that pander? Outrageous ! These faces have bravely gone against their own interests ( see how Justice Thomas, Allan West, Condi Rice have been vilified by their own race!) and the republican party is not just a WASP party. guess what?neither Romney nor Ryan are WASP.s! nNo- the talk at the Republican convention spoke of old truths, truths tahe have stood the test of time ,unlike the liberal (almost socialistic) positions that have never succeeded to build a prosperous society.
How do Republicans communicate their message to minorities who, it seems, don't want to hear it, without seeming to pander? I disagree that the convention merely paraded minority faces. These were successful people who happened to be Republicans and minorities. Sure, they get to speak because of their ethnicity, but how in the world is that our fault??!! What else can we do? Romney goes to the NAACP, speaks honestly, courageously and, poof. Republicans advocate school choice to get minorities out of truly awful school systems – poof. Republican policies have been successful in dealing with crime that mainly impacts minorities – no gains. nWhat do we have to do? nAnd should Republicans be reaching out to single mothers and those dependent on government? What I mean is, people who see themselves as a particular demographic to be pandered to, like "single mothers", may not be worthy of outreach, at least by serious Republicans. We all know lots of single mothers, and their situations vary from mother to mother. If they can appreciate that a less pervasive federal government is, ultimately, good for them and theirs, welcome on board.
Mike, first of all, you don't beat up on groups that most people respect and which have become middle-class entry level positions for many minorities: teachers, firemen, and police. Secondly, you don't continue to ridicule civil service government workers, many of whom are minorities. Thirdly, you emphasize your policies and contrast them with the Democrats and how the latter inhibit success and the Republican encourage opportunity. I heard too little about this in the testimonies. n I don't believe people can be fooled. Again, remember what the Republican audience looked like. Does this show that the party is really a twenty-first century group? I don't believe in quotas, but I do believe that people want to feel comfortable if they consider themselves to be "outsiders" and , when convincing rhetoric is absence, , they simply will see everything else as a scam. I would guess that many of us on this blog are Jewish, so we should have some idea about this and not be dismissive of it. As a Jewish conservative/Republican, I have felt it, but my strong ideological commitment to conservative ideas has enabled me to overcome such estrangement. Most are not so ideologically committed, so they will not feel comfortable in a party like the Republicans. It may be unfortunate. I strongly believe it is, because minorities will only thrive in a strong market economy with standards and tradition. But we have to learn a way to convey that. We haven't. Romney is about as inept of a candidate to succeed in such an effort, so I fear this election will be lost because of it. After November, it just may too late. n
I appreciate your response. Interestingly, I'm not Jewish, but I am a public school teacher in a very liberal community, so perhaps the sense of estrangement (and overcoming it) you speak of is something I can sort of understand! nI like your suggestions in your first paragraph, though I'm not sure that Republicans beat up on groups like teachers. Look how much money the public sector unions dump into campaigns against Republicans, and how vile they behave (Madison…) nUnfortunately, I do believe people can be fooled, and have been. That is why Republicans can't convey their message, I think. Republicans try to emphasize their policies and contrast them with Democratic policies, but people have to be listening – with open minds – to hear that. Look at Obamacare – a left-leaning individual has to really be willing to commit time and intellectual energy to understanding the problems with that legislation. But it is so much easier to just mouth the Party propaganda. nAnother point, which addresses, I think, your larger point – the black vote. It is a sign of some societal sickness that 95% of that demographic can be relied to vote for one particular party from election to election. If we were talking about the Somali demographic, or some other small, relatively tight-knit group, I might understand it. But a population as big and diverse in every way imaginable as the black population, voting voluntarily with more reliability than Stalin's coerced minions? How in the world can Republicans break through that wall, which, I think, does great harm to blacks? nWhich is why I see the "But the convention audience was so white" argument as circular. Minorities refuse to give Republicans a chance and instead embrace the Party whose policies continue to harm them while simultaneously mocking any member of their group who dares think outside the racial box. It's also why those minorities who spoke at the convention are so darn impressive – it takes a brilliant, committed, confident individual to walk off the ideological plantation. So when a Mia Love or Gov. Martinez speaks at the Republican Convention, they are probably truly some of the best we've got – they aren't tokens, merely being paraded. Compare Love to, say, Rangel. The gerrymandered minority Democrats tend to be among the least impressive and most corrupt politicians in Congress. nFinally, I do see Romney as able to convey the right message. He is clearly a compassionate man interested in helping others. If voters can't connect to that, we can't blame it on Romney.
Mike, first of all let me start with those areas which I agree with. Republicans have minorities who are "darn impressive" and they should be showcased and praised for their "courage" in rejecting the opinions of their racial brethren(such as making financial contributions to their candidacies). Secondly, there is indeed something "sick" about the almost universal commitment to the Democratic party that blacks have. But I do not agree that people can be so easily fooled. Most people don't read Commentary, National Review, the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, or the publications of Chicago school economists. They work hard(or at least think they do), take pride in their families, enjoy friendships and have favorite forms of entertainment. And they are very practical and pragmatic. It's the latter characteristics which I think Democrats and liberals successfully appeal to and why parading minorities(or women)for such transparent reasons will not work. This is not to say that certain political gimmicks should not be employed. Parties have always used them. But, we conservatives need much more. It is a tactical challenge and will take time to convince them and that's what is so frustrating.
First off the polls in question over-sampled democrats of course these polls are going to show Obama in the lead. One of the polls over sampled democrats by 6 percent and Obama only ended up being ahead by 2 points. That doesn't paint a good picture for our dear leader… There are two months to go.