Chris :
Huh ?
Oregon 2000 election final results :
Al Gore Democratic 720, 432 46.9% George W. Bush Republican
713,577 46.52% Ralph Nader Pacific Green 77,357 5.04%
1/3/2012 8:15:52 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Good article. If there isn’t a third party candidate that sucks away
republican voters, I think Romney will beat Obama. I still remember the Ralph
Nader effect in Oregon that tipped the state to W. This guaranteed the W
win and the Gore loss in the electoral college, notwithstanding the chads
in Fl.
Chris
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 9:01 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [RC] Outlook for Obama re-election : Unfavorable ( W Post
prognosis )
W Post
Gloomy numbers for Obama
By _Charles Lane_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/charles-lane/2011/02/28/ABeqisM_page.html) ,
Published: January 2, 2012
Campaign 2012 is upon us. Time to size up President Obama’s reelection
chances. What do the data suggest?
In 2011, an average of 17 percent of the public was “satisfied with the
way things are going,” according to the Gallup Poll. That is roughly the same
as 2008 — so Obama enters this year leading a country as unhappy as the
one he inherited.
The president’s approval rating is lower than his disapproval rating. In
mid-December, Gallup had him “underwater” by eight points: 42 percent
approval and 50 percent disapproval.
This is four points better than where Obama was in September, reflecting
his political victory over congressional Republicans in last month’s _battle
over extending the payroll tax cut_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/boehner-2-month-tax-cut-would-hurt-small-businesses/2011/12/22/gIQA5ClZBP_s
tory.html) . But the impact appears to have been short-lived. His current
Gallup approval rating is the lowest ever for any incumbent president at
this point in his first term.
Obama’s ratings on the economy, the issue voters care about most,
consistently trail his overall numbers. His top legislative accomplishment —
health-care reform — remains unpopular. It’s 20 points underwater in a
December
Associated Press-GfK poll.
If Democrats saw Obama’s 2008 victory as a chance to build a progressive
majority, they have so far failed to capitalize. Gallup recently asked
Americans to rate their ideology on a liberal-to-conservative scale of 1 to 5.
The average result was a right-of-center 3.3.
More alarming for Obama, voters scored him at 2.3, to the left of center —
and put Mitt Romney at 3.5. Every other GOP contender was to the right of
the mean, except Jon Huntsman, who hit the ideological bull’s-eye. But even
Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann came closer to the middle than Obama did.
The president’s campaign plans to launch a populist attack on income
inequality. But the numbers imply that that is not a promising message;
indeed,
Gallup has recently found that the public favors pro-growth policies over
pro-equality policies, 52 to 40.
Unsurprisingly, December polls by CBS News and AP-GfK found that
majorities do not believe Obama deserves reelection. Several polls in the past
two
months put him in a statistical tie with any Republican; and front-runner
Mitt Romney is also in a statistical tie with the president.
Of course, this is how Romney stands before the Obama campaign has really
started driving up Romney’s negatives. Whomever the GOP nominates, the
Democrats will link him or her to the Tea Party and other perceived
extremists.
But Romney may be relatively invulnerable to such a strategy. He is not
only seen as closer to the ideological center than Obama is, he is also less
polarizing. According to Gallup, Romney is viewed strongly positively and
strongly negatively by equal numbers of Americans. Obama, by contrast,
inspires 11 percent more hostility than favorability, the same as Newt
Gingrich.
Even Democrats view Romney with relatively little “negative intensity.”
Of course, the election is not a popularity contest, but a state-by-state
race to get 270 electoral votes. Alas for Obama, Gallup recently found that
voters in 12 “swing states” favor Romney by five points. In 2008,
swing-state party identification favored Democrats by 11 points; now the
Democratic edge is down to two points.
On the plus side for Obama, majorities continue to like him personally and
to describe him as honest and trustworthy. His foreign-policy ratings are
strong, blunting the GOP’s traditional edge in that department. The man who
presided over the demise of Osama bin Laden scored a phenomenal 63 percent
approval rating on fighting terrorism in an early November Gallup poll.
Also, Obama now scores better than he used to in polls comparing him to
Republicans in Congress on job creation. Consumer confidence began to creep
up toward the end of 2011, while the jobless rate crept down. If those
trends continue, Obama benefits. Though low by historical standards, his
approval rating has yet to plunge below about 40 percent, suggesting that he
can
depend on a rock-solid base of support.
Yet the downside risks for the president are numerous and, from his view,
all too easy to identify: a crisis in Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East;
Europe’s financial mess; poor sales at taxpayer-supported General Motors.
In short, for all the weaknesses of the Republican opposition, Barack
Obama faces a dicey future as 2012 begins. Many factors that could affect his
chances are beyond his control.
And if he does win, the prize could be four years of fending off
center-right attempts to undo the policies of his first term, rather than
pursuing
an expansive progressive agenda. Happy new year, Mr. President.
--
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