Our first discussion point was on
the campaign doldrums we appear to be in at the time. It was noted that Obama
is spending money in the swing states. The success of this spending is being
judged two ways: (1) Obama is defining Romney in key states before Romney has a
chance to define himself and (2) Obama is wasting his money as the prime purpose
for advertising at this point in the campaign is to generate more money, but Romney
is out-raising Obama. The first argument is being advanced by the political
types and the second by the ad people. We may see who is right later. Romney is
spending money in NC, while Obama seems to be conceding the state, at least
right now.
Obama and Romney seem to be quarreling
over outsourcing, in-sourcing and offshoring. The fight over economics seems to
be boiling down to economic nationalism, which would favor the Democrats, vs.
economic recovery, which favors the Republicans. With respect to booing at the
NAACP convention, we concluded that they would not hurt Romney. Also, the
Quinnipiac poll suggests that the race is tightening at the national level, but
the battle in the swing states is more important. We talked about the ability
of the President to set the agenda which can be a very useful technique in the
campaign. Obama may attempt to use foreign policy to hurt Romney. He probably
can’t do too much domestically beyond the immigration policy he instituted last
month. Something like the McCain announcement of Palin as VP candidate right
after the Democratic convention in 2008 might be in the Obama playbook.
We talked again about the VP
selection process. We concluded that Chris Christie would not be the selection
as Romney did not like it with Christie’s poor punctuality, and he would
probably overshadow Romney. Portman still seems to be the best possibility,
particularly if he could bring in Ohio. The Condi Rice balloon does not seem to
hold water, to mix metaphors, as she brings the baggage of the Bush
administration, particularly with respect to the Iraq War. On the Democrat
side, it looks like Biden is on the ticket to stay. There seemed to be some
movement when the VP pre-empted the President’s gay- marriage position, but
Biden has avoided gaffes lately. There appears to be a real battle about voter
suppression/voter fraud efforts in FL and TX. The Republicans appear to be
winning that battle.
In previous sessions, we have
looked at possible models for this election. Earlier the 1980 and 1948
elections appeared to be models, but we have concluded that Romney is no Reagan
and Obama is no Truman. The 1992 and 2004 Bush re-election efforts might be
more appropriate. GWB had 9/11 to his benefit in 2004, but his popularity was
beginning to wane. Karl Rove was very effective at micro-targeting in 2004.
Axelrod and Plouffe seem to have more experience with it than the Romney
managers, but it is not clear that they will be as successful as Rove. Obama
probably cannot count on the 18-21 vote this year as he did in 2008. The more
important demographic group, however, may be 22-25 of those who voted for Obama
in the last election. Will they come back for Obama or have they become
disillusioned?
Our final discussion was about
the ObamaCare decision by the Supreme Court. Romney calls it a tax; Obama, a
penalty. That brought on a rant about the hypocrisy of both sides. During the
legislative debate, Obama said it wasn’t a tax, and the Republicans said it was
a tax. On the second day of the oral arguments, the Solicitor General called it
a tax and the opponents argued that it was not a tax. The four dissenters on
the Court said it was not a tax, the four liberals said it didn’t matter
whether it was a tax or not. Only the Chief Justice called it a tax, which
became the justification and deciding vote for ruling the individual mandate
would not be overturned. Romney is now saying it was a penalty in MA but is a
tax at the national level. Kudos to Rachel who said in an earlier session that
oral arguments before the Court would not make that much difference in the
decision – a comment that was not considered worth mentioning then but turned
out to be very perceptive!
