We started out this week by
viewing the changes in the polls since last week. Obama has gained a total of
14 electoral votes since last week with New Hampshire now leaning Obama and
Missouri placed back into the undecided category giving Obama a 269-181 lead.
That was the only one of the five measures we have been following that
continues the trend we have observed in recent weeks. The head-to-head match-up
has narrowed from a 3.7 to a 3.2 point lead for Obama. The gap in favorablity
narrowed from a 6.6 to 4.8% lead for Obama, but the gap in unfavorability
increased from 1.7 to 2.4% with advantage
also to Obama. Obama’s lead in InTrade dipped by only 0.2%, but it stayed a
steep decline in previous weeks. The stopping the previous slide by winning the
day, as Brett suggested last week, seems to be working.
It was suggested that Obama might
have peaked too early. He is still doing well in the swing states with targeted
ads to populations in individual states while Romney seems to have consistent
messages to all the swing states. Romney is in a difficult situation in that he
needs to hold on to conservatives while moderating his positions. If he
moderates these positions too much, he could lose the conservatives and be
accused of flip-flopping. If he doesn’t moderate his views, he will have
difficulty appealing to undecided independents. The question is how many
undecided voters are really out there. It all appears to come down to trust –
can you trust Romney? Normally you would expect a referendum election, but as
Rachel pointed out several weeks ago that Romney turned it into a choice
election by selecting Ryan as his running mate. It now comes to Let’s Make a
Deal – do you want Obama who is standing next to me or what is behind Door
Number Two. He has not been specific on his proposals. This morning there was
talk on Morning Joe about Romney pulling his money out of Ohio as Gore did in
2000. We agreed that it is too early for such a move at this time. We discussed
whether it was a mistake to select Ryan. It may not have been a mistake if he
had adopted the Ryan strengths, but Romney seems to have muzzled him which
weighs the ticket down with Ryan’s liabilities.
Next we moved on to discussing
the debates. We talked some about the Senatorial debates in Massachusetts and
Missouri. The professional politicians, Brown and McCaskill seemed to do
better, but both Brown and Warren had an awkward moment. Romney will try to
push Obama’s buttons with the latter needing to avoid becoming annoyed and
arrogant. Both candidates must be careful not to underestimate each other.
Obama must avoid becoming too professorial. Bob Woodward indicated that he
interviewed Obama recently who is aware of his proclivity to talk too much and
is honing his skills. Romney is capable of a good debate and Obama may be
rusty. The rules for this debate are more open-ended this time. We all agreed
that a more open-ended debate favors Obama over Romney. Debate preparations
include reducing expectations with both parties working hard on this matter.
Chris Christie did not get the memo. His comments could hurt Romney’s chances
of salvaging a poor performance. If Christie is right, however, his comments
could help in the aftermath in turning the election around. We disagreed on how
important the debate is for Romney with some of us thinking it is critical and
others not thinking it will make much of an impact. It was pointed out that
Kerry did well against Bush in 2004 to close the race, but it wasn’t enough to
help him to victory. It was suggested that the leak on Romney’s zingers may
have been a pre-emptive strike by staffers who did not want the boss to blow it
with poorly timed barbs. In a rare prediction for this group, we had 60% of
those present selected Obama as the winner and 40% predicted a draw. There were
no takers for a Romney win. Next week we will be discussing the aftermath of this
debate and previewing the Ryan/Biden debate.
Trivia question of the week: In
1960, Jackie Kennedy watched the first debate on a rented TV placed on John
Winthrop’s desk with a listening party. Sitting next to Mrs. Kennedy was a
relative unknown person who would become very famous several years later. Who
was this mystery person? Tune in next week for the answer.
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