Dick Morris: What Many Polls Are Missing

[Mister Twister]

Dick Morris can and is amazingly wrong most of the time.  However, he is borrowing this line of thought from other people and thus he is correct.  There is absolutely no way that Obama is going to outperform his 2008 numbers and pollsters are using democratic sample sizes larger than 2008.  I also disagree with the myth of the Reagan polls.  Reagan did lead throughout much of the summer.  That has nothing to do with the belief that the polls are wrong in my view.

1st - The feeling isn't in the air.  I don't see the enthusiasm like I saw in 2008 where nearly every single person I knew outside of my family was voting for Obama.  I don't see signs, shirts and other campaign materials.  In 2008, all I saw was a sea of Obama signs.  This year I see much more enthusiasm for Romney and I know multitudes of people who voted for Obama that are either staying home or voting for Romney - and yes, this is post-convention.  I live in a heavily democratic city too.  In the recent primary, turnout was 48% on the republican side, 52% on the democratic side.  Make what you will.

2nd - If there is a groundswell it's deeply hidden as if democrats are embarrassed to reveal that they are voting for Obama.  I remember in 2008 seeing people proudly proclaim their allegiance.  It's not so this year.  I see dismay, dissappointment and anger by people who voted for him other than the most left wing.

3rd - Among conservatives, the anger at what Obama is doing is unbelievably deep and increases daily.  It's not even close to the anger that democrats had at Bush or republicans had of Clinton in the 90s.  Republicans truly feel that they will lose their country if the president wins another term.  Go watch the ending of 2016: Obama's America and that is exactly what republicans see in a second Obama term.  So put yourself in our shoes for a second, if that's what we see for the future, do you honestly believe that we're staying home?

So yes, its very logical to believe that the polls are using hilariously bad models. That's why I will take great pleasure in watching the false hope fade from democrats' eyes as the president gives his concession speech on election night.

You sir speak what I'm thinking about!

If he spoke what you were thinking, he would be completely silent.

[Mister Twister]

Once again, it's just eerie to me how much this sounds like what I was thinking at this time in 2004.

I don't know any democrat who thought Bush's policies couldn't be changed or defeated even if he won a second term.  Our belief is that if Obama wins a second term, the policies that are enacted will stay permanently - developing a society that functions around cradle to grave government care that in short time gives way to an economic collapse that tips the balance of power in the world to Russia and China whilst the rest of the western world collapses into chaos. 

The democratic opposition to Bush was for a much less motivating reason.  It was primarily a combination of a feeling of delegitimacy left over from the 2000 election, anti-war protest and support for gay rights.  That's not like the opposition we have to Obama.  It wasn't the end of the country if Bush won a second term.  The country would make its typical cyclical shift between democrats and republicans every 8-12 years.  It certainly did during the 2008 election.  This year truly is different.  The feelings I described in the paragraph above are not just felt by a bubble of conservatives pushing conspiracy theories.  The view is near uniform among every single registered republican, even the republican moderates I know and many independents. 

You have no clue about the anger people felt about Bush in 2004. Hell, I still get angry thinking about it. We were fighting for the morals of the nation! We were fighting for the good name of America, a country that doesn't go around invading people just because it can.

That anger isn't even close to the feeling that your country will be irrevocably lost and destroyed.