IT’S THE one number ricocheting around the Romney campaign headquarters that is likely to be the most depressing. Only 23% of those polled by Pew believe Mitt Romney “connects with ordinary people.” Does anyone believe there is anything Mitt Romney can do to change this fact?
President Obama’s 43-point advantage on relating to ordinary people translates to an advantage that cannot be overestimated.
Mike Allen on “Morning Joe” revealed the extent to which Team Romney is relying on a late shift to their candidate, which they believe revolves around the debates. Allen said in a two-day period Mitt Romney did 5 mock debates, with Rob Portman playing Barack Obama. Portman is the former White House budget director for President George W. Bush, so that gives you a sense of the focus.
They also have to be assuming that Romney’s prep will throw Barack Obama off his stride and equalize Romney with the President, finally offering an alternative that people can choose.
One number you’ll also hear a lot out of Romney supporters, trying to keep their base from bolting after all this bad polling news, is that 14-point lead Carter had over Reagan in 1980, with the Gipper going on to beat Carter by a landslide, creating the “Reagan Democrat” who helped make it possible. The problem is no one believes Mitt Romney can peel off Democrats to make a mirror image a reality. It’s just not a believable goal.
The latest Pew numbers come after a slew of polling, particularly in battleground states, showing Mitt Romney in an Electoral College hole.
“in a two-day period Mitt Romney did 5 mock debates”
Hope Obama is preparing too, he can be painful to watch in debates.
Yeah, he isn’t very good at them.
Portman is also a budget man, so the econ aspect will be intense, so doubt.
And you think Mittens is a good debater? Maybe he’ll bet Obama $10.000 seeing as that worked so well for him last time. The guy stunk up the primary debates, so I don’t see a dog changing his spots.
No need to be so defensive.
It’s simply a statement of fact re: Obama, which gives Romney at least a tiny opening, when what he really needs is a hail Mary debate miracle, which I wrote about at length yesterday, saying Romney is going to lose unless he gets one.
Wasn’t being defensive, just thought a little humor would be nice this morning.
Got it.
How do they define ordinary?
Wow, it’s really sad how uninformed “ordinary” people are here in the US. It really helps though, having a liberal media shoving bull down your throats every minute of the day.
I guess it’s a backhanded compliment in a way. The left only holds their people to substandard levels of accomplishment, while expecting so much more of their Republican counterparts, which is highly evidenced by what you see and read in the “news”.
Personally, I’m surprised that you on the left are not offended by the lies told by the Obama administration regarding this latest terrorist attack on 9/11. It reeks and it shows that the obama damnimstration believes you are all stupid.
What lies have the Obama administration told? Please show us the FACTS that show the administration has lied. Give us some links to these facts, please.
cjoblak@hotmail.com September 20, 2012 at 10:09 am
Are you talking about the parsing of statements from the Administration about whether it was a planned terrorist attack?
If so, I wrote about that yesterday, but have been skeptical from the start about the claims it was “unplanned.”
I’m not at all prepared to say they “lied,” because there is no proof of that yet, with the intel expert who testified in front of the Senate committee yesterday saying it was not.
Sen. Susan Collins challenged this assessment openly.
1.”Wow, it’s really sad how uninformed “ordinary” people are here in the US.”
Well it IS unfortunate so many on the right rely on faux not news and limpwithnoballs for their information.
2.” It really helps though, having a liberal media shoving bull down your throats every minute of the day.”
Yawn….when are you wingnutters going to stop with this old bogus chestnut? There IS no “liberal media” there is the CORPORATE media…but LIBERAL MEDIA? ONLY those who drink the fetid swill spewed forth from faux and such “believe” this.
3.”I guess it’s a backhanded compliment in a way. The left only holds their people to substandard levels of accomplishment, while expecting so much more of their Republican counterparts, which is highly evidenced by what you see and read in the “news”.”
See answer to #2
4.”Personally, I’m surprised that you on the left are not offended by the lies told by the Obama administration regarding this latest terrorist attack on 9/11. It reeks and it shows that the obama damnimstration believes you are all stupid.”
Any thing to back this up? As opposed to Lyin Ryan with his blistering marathon speed or Mitt da Twit and his retroactive resignations?
No? What a surprise…NOT!
Sec,
You are even more uninformed and ordinary than I originally thought.
cjoblak@hotmail.com, I find the fact that you visit taylormarsh.com rather regularly and then complain about the “liberal media” humorous. It’s like going to a steakhouse and complaining about people who aren’t vegetarian.
hehehehehe
http://tinyurl.com/cttpf2l
Can’t help myself, I like reading Taylor Marsh’s articles, whether I agree with all of her politics or not.
Can’t blame you there, cjoblak. Still–let the reader beware.
The debates will come and go and nothing will change. People are building them up as they always do any major event to maximize interest and ratings. IMO people have already chosen their candidates. The so-called undecideds are non-voters. Too much is being made of them. They should be ignored.
As for Romney, we know who he is now. The real Romney would make people run screaming from the room, so nobody gets to see the real Romney. It was the real Romney that wrestled that kid to the ground in HS and gave him a forced haircut. The same Romney made the 47% comment.
Spot on.
Ramsgate – It would be great for the debate & the country if Romney was the type of candidate who actually could call Obama on his drone policy, Afghanistan, etc. A Ron Paul-esque debate on foreign policy is MUCH needed. We can be engaged w/o being isolationist, however, so it would require someone smarter than Paul.
But then that would mean Republicans would have to actually be real conservatives!
Right on TM. Too bad, it would never happen.
Ramsgate,
I have sneaking suspicion that the debates will be the final nail in Romney’s coffin. He has to swing for the fences to make any dent in No Drama Obama. And when you swing for the fences, you have an excellent chance of striking out.
I see a Gerald Ford Moment in this debate as a possibility, and I see R-Money providing that moment.
Mitt is desperate, and desperate people do really, really stupid things that they later deeply regret.
Opinions ride the breeze, facts stay bolted to the ground.
“As you can see, no incumbent party has ever held on to the White House while leading by fewer than four points two weeks after its convention; no incumbent president has ever won re-election while leading by fewer than five points (more on the 2004 comparisons later). In other words, winning under these circumstances would be unprecedented.
And given the frequent comparisons to 2004, it’s worth bearing in mind where that race stood at this point. George Bush led by 6.8 points as opposed to Barack Obama’s current 2.9 percent. His bounce peaked at 50.4 percent, as opposed to Obama’s 49 percent. If Obama continues to run behind Bush on either metric by similar margins through Election Day, he loses.”
start quote:
facts stay bolted to the ground.
end quote
And without logic, they’d might as well be bolted to the back of the closet.
Let me see if I can make this understandable: Every Presidential election is different. There are competing trends and truisms that apply to all of them. It used to be, for instance, that Presidents were less popular in re-election than when first elected. Reagan bucked that trend in a big way, and Little Bush didn’t follow it either (fortunately for him). So, yes, there are all sorts of statistical trends that suggest this and that, but the basic problem here is that there is a sitting President who ought to be vulnerable, and an opposition candidate who clearly can’t handle the job of getting elected.
There was a time not too long ago when I figured this would be Obama’s only term. Right now, short of some truly cataclysmic event, I don’t see that happening now. Romney is not making headway where he needs to, and one of the more definite trends in politics we’ve noticed is that sitting Presidents are formidable opponents.
But Obama is running against Romney CO. And Romney does not have one tenth the likability of Bush; the man you could have a (near) beer with.
“History does not repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes” said Mark Twain. But note it only rhymes sometime. As Cjuo359 pointed out there are intervening forces that short-circuit your analysis.
Mitt has surrendered a whole swath of voters known as women. As this campaign progresses, backlash against Cristianist over-reach only gets worse. The number of women who think barefoot and pregnant is the way to go is remarkably small. Women understand it when you speak insultingly to them, when you treat them like brain-damaged children, and they will desert you in droves at the polls.
Mitt has also vaporized any support he might have gotten from Latinos. W and crew understood this demographic and went after it hard. W did a credible job and gained a good plurality of that vote. But it has been four long years since W left and the Republicans have not merely burned that bridge–they napalmed that sucker to the ground. You might want to Google up Pete Wilson in your spare time CO. He is the reason the Golden State is so deeply Blue that the GOP is almost a vestigial party.
Final point, W was a hell of a campaigner, it was the only thing he did well. Romney, so far, has been a clown show. Run an awful campaign, and you too can possibly go down as the first candidate to loose to a sitting president who never broke a 50% approval rate. (And by the way CO Obama did break 50% right after the Clinton bounce.)