UGA Campaign Discussion Group – September 19, 2012

Mitt Romney’s 47% comment was the first topic of discussion. We wondered why the Democrats waited so long to release the video tape. It was in the possession of Jimmy Carter’s grandson who might have run out of patience with Romney’s bashing of his grandfather or it might have been part of the Obama game plan of endless distractions. Much of Romney’s wounds appear to be self-inflicted. Romney apparently approved of the Clint Eastwood stunt. He had poor timing on criticizing the Administration’s response to the Egypt and Libya situation then doubled-down on his follow-up the following day. The 47% remark was back in May, but his hurried response late in the evening seemed poorly worded that did not help his cause. We suspect that it will hurt Romney as it feeds into the narrative of the out-of-touch rich guy. We agreed that the Democrats are still not doing well at messaging. They talk about the poor and not the working poor.  David Brooks had a highly critical commentary of Romney this week. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?_r=0). The comment was reminiscent of the Obama “cling to their guns and religion” remark. The major difference was that Obama clarified his statement when heard in context while the Romney one seemed to reinforce his misstatement. We noted that Randy Newman has a new song out “I’m dreaming of a white President.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvLeQbwuKys

The quote of the day came from David Brooks as well in The Social Animal was “In fact, you’re more likely to find that people become Democrats first, then place increasing value on equal opportunity, or they become Republicans first, then place increasing value on limited government. Party affiliation often shapes values, not the other way around.” It certainly challenges our assumptions. Rachel indicated that her dissertation will argue that several factors including microtargetting will discredit the view of David Brooks.      

We visited the forecast models that appeared in Larry Sabato’s newsletter last week http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/forecasting-the-presidential-election-other-crystal-balls/.  Of the thirteen models eight favor Obama and five favor Romney, but the average of the two-party vote gives Obama only 50.3%. Models favoring Romney give him a higher percentage of the vote than those that favor Obama. We noted the Holbrook model that heavily emphasizes the economy only gives Obama 47.9% of the two-party vote which suggests that the campaign matters. We also noted that Campbell’s model favors Obama. His model favored McCain in 2008.

In looking at the changes in the RCP polls in the last week, most likely to reflect the situation in the Middle East, Michigan has gone back to the Democrats. Romney closed the head-to-head race by 0.5% (now 48.1 to 45.4) and has decreased the differences in favorable ratings by 0.6% (48.1 t0 45.4). Obama opened up the difference in unfavorable ratings by 0.7% (43.7 for Obama to 44.2).  The biggest movement was Intrade which swung to Obama by 12.5 points (67.9 to 32.5). While the national polls show a close race, the battleground polls are tilting those states more to Obama. Obama is even edging close to Romney as to who is best to handle the economy. We think that barring a major change in events the absolute critical state for Romney is Florida.

We are unable to understand why Romney is spending more of his time in safe states raising money than in swing states campaigning. We are also awaiting his campaign advertising blitz. Obama has a very strong ground game built in the 2008 primary season. The question is whether he can re-instill the level of enthusiasm his supporters exhibited in 2008. We also debated as to whether either candidate would get more positive votes than negative ones against his opponent. It looks like it will be more of a base election.

The debates are gaining more and more importance, particularly for Romney. Obama’s biggest liabilities are arrogance, condescension and disdain. Romney is vulnerable when he goes unscripted. Obama will try to get under Romney’s skin. As Paul has indicated in the past, visual overrules verbal.

Once again Israel became a topic. Netanyahu walked back his apparent endorsement of the Romney campaign saying some nice things on Meet the Press about Obama. He would obviously prefer a Romney Presidency. One of wondered why Obama is not stonger on messaging about what we are doing in Iran, but the rest of us think the less he says about Iran and ObamaCare the better. Neither is a winning issue for the Democrats.