UGA Presidential Discussion Group – June 20, 2012

UGA Presidential Discussion Group – June 20, 2012

There were only two of us present today, making it a dialogue rather than a discussion. The issue of the week was immigration. Obama’s political announcement last week has put Romney in a bind between the Tea Party that wants an anti-immigration policy and the swing voters who like the Obama position. This move seems to be part of a broader strategy for the Obama campaign to distract Romney from focusing on jobs and the economy. Romney had to disrupt his bus tour to address the new immigration policy. We expect a series of social issues paraded out by the Obama campaign such as birth control and student loans to keep the Romney campaign distracted.

We talked a little about the VP selection process. It does not bode well for Rubio, when the top of the ticket has to announce that even though they don’t discuss the process but rumors of Rubio not being vetted are false. We keep waiting for the Supreme Court rulings. It is difficult to tease out the political implications. The issue of the day was the committee vote charging Eric Holder for contempt of Congress and Obama’s response citing executive privilege. It seems that invoking executive privilege is not politically advantageous for the President unless this move is another one to distract the Republicans. There are many situations that could confront Obama that would be beyond his control including Middle East powder kegs of Egypt, Syria and Iran as well as the European money crises. If Obama continues respond quickly and decisively, he probably gains popularity and if not, Romney will benefit. To be successful, the Democrats must get better at messaging.

Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss is sure to stir up controversy. Maraniss suggests that much of what Obama wrote in Dreams of My Father was exaggerated or untrue. Republicans are citing the book as another example of Obama’s lies, while Maraniss stated that it takes literal license to reveal a deeper side of the man. We think that it will probably energize the bases but have little effect on the election. We also discussed superPAC money, the effect of reapportionment on the House elections, the debates, voter suppression in Florida, and when, if ever Georgia will become a swing state. Little came out of this series of topics that had not been covered in previous sessions.

Paul will be out again next week. Del Dunn will be back next week and willing to dialogue or discuss the election at the regular time. There will be no discussion on Wednesday, July4, but we will resume our discussions on July 11.

UGA Presidential Discussion Group – June 13, 2012

UGA Presidential Discussion Group – June 13, 2012

The discussion started on the memo to the Obama campaign from Greenfield, Carville and Seifert suggesting that he needs to refocus his efforts. Based on focus-group data including non-college-educated swing voters in Ohio and college-educated suburbanites of Philadelphia, they indicate that he needs to outline two possible visions of the future. This position expands on the statements of Bill Clinton made earlier. They state that the public acknowledges that Obama inherited the problems with the economy, but they believe that the economy is stuck. He needs to stop saying that things are not that bad or that they are improving, but he needs to explain how we are going to get out. The emphasis must be on the future. The same focus groups say that Romney is out of touch and only understands the wealthy. The situation is somewhat reminiscent of the Bush campaign in 2004. In that year the economy was going well. He focused not on the past but what we can do in the future to benefit from the booming economy. Obama should develop a message that shows that he empathizes with the problems of the middle class and that he wants to secure Social Security and Medicare.

We pointed out that there are limits to focus-group data. Focus groups are great at revealing the range of perspectives but are not good at drawing distinct conclusions. It was also pointed out that the authors are Democratic strategists who are currently on the sidelines in this campaign. On the other hand, Carville has skills to screen out irrelevant information to focus on the key information, what the political scientist Robert E. Lane “listening with the third ear.” Lee Atwater was able to get critical information by listening to clientele of biker bars, and David Broder got his information in other venues.

Discussions moved to Romney and taxes and some of the questions raised. Can Obama tie Romney to the negative aspects of the Ryan budget? How vulnerable is Romney in his immigration policy? The Supreme Court decisions on Obamacare and immigration will be announced in the next two weeks. Someone stated in the group a few weeks ago said that the ruling on ObamaCare will hurt Obama irrespective of the result and that the immigration ruling will hurt Romney. We indicated last week that the polls in June have little predictable value for November. We also noted that the national head-to-head polls and the Presidential approval ratings have been very stable indicating a very close election. The Obama campaign is data-rich and great at micro-targeting, used very effective by Karl Rove in 2004. Obama’s strategy will attempt to energize the base and mobilize it to get to the polls. Romney is noted for data mining in business, but it is not clear that he is effective in micro-targeting when it comes to politics. Fortunately he has Karl Rove to help him out here.  How important will the debates be? Romney has been successful at isolating himself from the Mainstream Media recently limiting his gaffes. Will that hurt him in the debates when Obama uses his superior oratorical skills OR will Romney benefit by exceeding low expectations?

The Obama gaffe and Romney response were discussed. The “just fine” private economy reinforces the anti-Obama voters while cutting back on “police, firemen and teachers” feeds the pro-Obama folks. Neither statement is likely to reach the level of having “voted for the war before I voted against it.” Thom Mazloom of the M Network which analyzes campaign ads has said that swing voters know Obama’s things-are-bad-but-are-getting-better position and view the attack ads as political opportunism. Two of us had seen a commentary recently without remembering the source that shows that the undecided voters are leaning to Romney while those not registered to vote lean to Obama. There appear to be at least three structural differences in this election from previous ones. First, there is a concerted campaign in Florida to clean up the voter rolls, perceived by Republicans as fraud prevention and by Democrats as voter suppression. From a strategic standpoint it would appear to help the Republicans when the number of registered voters decreases and aid Democrats as they expand. There has been some talk about the Justice Department suing Florida over the issue. That might be a politically risky strategy in a key swing state. Second, the campaign financing in light of Citizen’s United could be a major factor in the campaign. It is widely perceived that the ruling favors the Republicans, particularly with the unlimited PAC funds. It is not clear that the advantage will be enough to sway the election, but outside money spent on ads could free up funds in the Romney camp to devote to getting-out-the-vote effort in November. Third, innovations in the way we vote – early voting, mail-in ballots such as in Oregon, and being able to vote in locations in the same state other than the registered precinct – all can affect the way to approach the electorate. These innovations are not completely new to 2012, but they are much more of a part of the system now than they have been in the past. The explosion of social media in this year’s campaign will also be an important factor. 

Paul announced that he would miss the next two weeks. Rob Shewfelt will facilitate the discussion next week. We are looking for a volunteer for Wednesday, June 27.

UGA Presidential Discussion Group – June 6, 2012

UGA Presidential Discussion Group – June 6, 2012

Paul introduced us to the PollyVote website (http://pollyvote.forcastingprinciples.com) which provides a summary of predictive models for the Presidential election. The models at this point give Obama a slight edge (51.9 vs. 48.1), but it appears that it will be a very close election. We noted that it is very early to make conclusions. Campbell indicates that polls in June tend to be off by about 7.5% and that the lead of the frontrunner narrows about 2%. Dick Wirthlin, Ronald Reagan’s pollster, claimed that strategists assume that it will be close election. If it is to be a landslide, there is little that the campaigns can do to change the outcome. Thus, the strategists are looking how to ensure a narrow victory.

We then headed to a website we had visited earlier (www.270towin.com). The site has 217 electoral votes for Obama, 191 for Romney and 120 undecided (PA, NC, NV, FL, VA, OH. NH, CO, WI). We played with the model by coloring NC red and PA blue. That makes FL and OH critical states for Romney. There are few scenarios that give Romney the win without those two states.

We looked at the Gurian model based on past performance by party in federal elections 2000-2008, revised from that described in the May 2 post on this blog. He has 7 states leaning to the Republicans (NC, AZ, MO, VA, FL, OH, CO) and 11 to the Democrats (ME, WA, MI, OR, NM, WI, PA, MN, NH, NV, IA). The states for each party are listed from the most likely to win to the most problematic. The analysis puts CO as the pivot state, meaning it would put Romney over the top for winning the election if each party holds on to the leaners. Any win by Obama in one of the Republican leaners would lead to his victory if he holds on to all of his leaning states. In other words, it looks like an incredibly close Electoral College battle at this point. It is entirely possible that one candidate could win the popular vote and lose the election. Are you listening Al Gore?

Next we talked about the Wisconsin recall election and the implications for the Presidential contest. This morning Chuck Todd indicated on Morning Joe that there was little chance Wisconsin would put Romney over the magic 270, i.e. it would not be the pivotal state as discussed above. If Romney wins Wisconsin, he will win the election. He also suggested that Barrett was a poor candidate in that he allowed the Republicans to rerun the 2010 election and point the finger at the Democrats for being divisive. Another candidate might have been able to paint the Republicans as the divisive party. Another factor in favor of Walker was the money advantage which was not as much as advertised if you consider the labor money, but it was still an advantage. The role of extra money might portend the race in the Fall.    

The rest of the session was devoted to a grab-bag of topics. How much will the fairness/ envy issue play a role in deciding the election? The press is beating up Obama over his ads on Romney at Bain Capital. Many pundits say it is a losing strategy to bring up the wealthy, but attitudes against wealthy athletes, Tea Party resentment of Wall Street and the bailouts seem to suggest something else. Both candidates may be trying to excite their base before going after the Independent/ Swing voters. Also, the press narrative is that the campaign will be a very negative one, and the Obama ads are negative fitting into that narrative. We know who Obama is, but neither campaign to this point has been able to define Romney. We agreed that the Obama campaign has been ineffective to this point, and that Clinton has had both a positive and a negative impact on the Obama effort. The other thing that has been happening is that the negative ads the Obama campaign is running are affecting his likeablity scores. At the same time Romney is becoming more likeable. In this respect, Obama reflects Carter who went negative on Reagan and suffered as a result. Romney, however has been avoiding the mainstream media and seems to be getting away from it. He has not demonstrated Reagan’s ability to come across well when the media spotlight is on him. There was some suggestion that Obama might do better staying in Washington and looking Presidential. This year may not be the best one to be associated with Washington, and apparently Obama gets depressed when sequestered in the White House. He gets pumped up when he is out campaigning.