2012 election analysis

[Cpt Jack Hammer]

Before we begin let me say this is NOT a bash Obama thread nor a love letter to Republicans. This is just my own political analysis about the 2012 election and some thoughts on it. Please offer your opinions on it, and your own predictions about who might win the 2012 election.

Being a political junky I love reviewing and analyzing elections and making predictions.
Here's why I think President Obama is going to have a rough time winning a second term. And its not for the reasons you might think. I don't think it will be because of the Health Care bill, Foreign Policy, Economy or the perceived (By some)  socialist agenda he is promoting.

Its going to be The Mexican border. The Arizona "Papers Please" Law (Hence  forth known as the PP law) will be the thing that really hurts President Obama. here's why.

It puts him in a political rock and a hard place. If he comes out and supports the law the he loses the Latino vote. 67% of Latinos voted for him in 2008.
President Obama won NM,CO,NV,and CA. 2008 and 60-75% of Latinos in those states voted for Obama. Without the Latino vote. Obama loses NM, CO, and NV. and it puts southern California back in play. At the very least he will have to spend allot of time and money there to try to keep Latino votes. Time and money that could be spent in key battleground states like OH,MI,PA And if he looses Southern California its feasible that he could loose the entire state of California in a general election.

Now on the flip side if he comes out and opposes the PP law the moderates (62% of them voted for him 2008) and the independents ( 56% of them voted for him in 2008) Are going to start dropping off, unless he dose something about the boarder that is Comparable to the PP law. The only thing that would be comparable in there eyes would be building the wall from the pacific to the gulf of Mexico and putting the National Guard on the boarder. This isn't going to happen because Obama's ideology won't allow him to do it and his political base that got him elected would abandon him, because there for open Boarders and that certainly isn't going to happen.

Also keep in mind, independents have a boner for states rights so openly apposing state's law wouldn't sit well with them.

On top of all this the republicans the republicans will be able to use this as a major talking point for the next 2 years they will be able to say " Well we didn't like having to make this law but the federal government hasn't done anything in 40 years about the boarder so we had to act. Do you have a better plan Mr. President?"

I don't see him being able to come up with a solution that will appease Independents and his liberal base. So republicans will just pound him with it constantly.

Also keep in mind that the republicans are not going to run a lukewarm conservative like they did with McCain. Were allot of conservatives decided just to stay home rather than vote for the "Maverick" And his idiot running mate.
 I think they'll run  Mitt Romney and he will pick either Gov Tim Pawlenty or Congresswoman Michelle Bachman both from Minnesota, as his running mate. In this scenario were Obama loses the southwest he has to win all the other states he won in 2008 Romney carries Massachusetts and the running mate carries Minnesota. And i give Florida to Romney because in 2008 Romney polled better in Florida than Obama did. But it still dosn't put Romney over the top. The State that becomes most important California. And Keep in mind Obama's rock star mystique will have faded. Obama wins this scenario but its an up hill fight.

Here's what the map would look like.




The next most likely Scenario that gives the republicans a win  is if Newt Gingrich decides to run. If that happens he most likely will pick Romney as his running mate. This is the Scenario I don't think Obama can win. Gingrich Is incredibly popular within the republican party and is a conservative who could bring the T-baggers and today's republicans together. The full force of the RNC will be behind him, unlike McCain in 2008. In this scenario Gingrich takes his home state of PA, he takes Florida because he is like a god in the south. The key state here might surprise you. Virginia. Since 1948 Virginia has voted republican every time except 1964 and 2008. If the republicans can flip Virginia back and Obama looses the southwest then he has no hope of winning.

Here's the map.



 Actually in this scenario if the republicans can flip any electoral double digit state from the Democrats they win or force a tie.

 If there is a  third party candidate then all bets are off and its any ones game. But I think if Gingrich runs that won't happen.

So study it and tell me how close you think I am and post your own Scenario.

To make your own Electoral map go here

http://www.270towin.com/

[tmthforu94]

An interesting take, especially on the whole immigration bill fiasco. However...
If this election is close at all, like you say it will be, Republicans will definitely win back North Carolina and Indiana. Romney would have a hard time winning Massachusetts in a close race, and Gingrich would get killed as well.

[Dgov]

I don't think there's a way for the Republicans to win Pennsylvania without winning Indiana and Ohio, as both are tangibly more Conservative.

also I agree on North Carolina--Obama barely won there in 2008 with an incredible increase in voter turnout, which i don't think is sustainable.

[Bull Moose Base]

You're speculating on Obama's reaction to a law he opposed as soon as it passed without any effect on his approval ratings?

I did enjoy the prediction that the Republicans won't make the same mistake of a lukewarm conservative and his idiot running mate followed by the suggestion of a Romney-Bachman ticket.

[tarheel-leftist85]

Overall, thoughtful analysis.  Here's some feedback:

(1)  Romney and Obama won't really have a legitimate means of attack one another with regard to policy.  After all, O passed RomneyCare, as was his agenda from the outset.  The so-called public option was a bait-and-switch maneuver to crowd out single-payer/Medicare for All advocates.  There are analogs for pretty much every policy that has redistributed wealth *upwards*--from the bankster bailouts, to the mercenary bailouts for Iraq/Af-Pak/secret merc bases elsewhere on the Arabian peninsula and South America, to the artificial deficit "crisis" used to justify privatizing Social Security and Medicare.  O may camouflage this with some mild policy-less populism ("government can do good..." etc, but w/o such proposals as Medicare for All or a permanent WPA or letting the big banks fail/converting banking into a public utility/putting the CEOs in orange jumpsuits).

(2)  As far as the legacy parties go, w/o a strong non-partisan leftist-populist challenge, your maps look reasonable w/ the exception of Massachusetts.  Some liken O's NC win to Clinton's GA win, but Clinton won it with assistance from a strong third candidate showing.  With minorities and "creative-class" whites (who think they're superior to NC natives), he'll at least get 48% (again--absent a strong third candidate).  If any states O won swing wildly to the other legacy party they'll incl:  FL, OH, PA, IN, and IA.  VA and NC have a lot of those "creative-class" pwoggwessives that set the parameters for the American left somewhere to the right of Ronnie Ray-gun, so they should be fine with O and a split Congress privatizing SS/Medicare and distributing these funds as rents to the insurance, finance, and mercenary industries--as long as there are plenty of multi-cultural interpretive dance finger paint open-mindedness parades.  Basically, O will lose the states he won in the GE by less than 10 in which HRC was able to overcome/avoid O's caucus fraud (plus Iowa).

(3)  With a leftist-populist challenge, we could really see a devastating loss for the legacy parties (though it'd have to be in concert with a similar wave in Congressional elections).  A leftist-populist candidate that tackles any and every issue (incl. immigration:  this, like pretty much every policy goes back to the artificial tension between inflation and full-employment, or NAIRU, and the artificial constraints of federal budget "deficits," that are selectively obeyed/trespassed).  If such a challenge presented itself, i think the map would look something like this:

Green - Leftist/Populist challenge (maybe Hillary Clinton)
Blue - Romney
Red - Obama

NOTE - it might seem odd that Obama would carry the Deep South, but if whites are split, that paves the way for O to carry lg % AA states (complimented by holier-than-thou pwogwessive whites in VA and VT).  For the most part, the Indy carries states Hillary won or registered in the 40s (though, even the states O "won" in the primaries were largely caucus contests, and involved--shall we say--"creative" organizing tactics). The Rethuglican carries states O "won" in the nomination but lost in the GE (plus Pacific West states where its the Ds that fragment into indy leftists and Dem pwogwessives).

Whether it happens or not, the American electorate in ready for a real left--not a limp-wristed, multicultural festival that gives us the same Ronnie Ray-gun policies or their "opponents."  If any year is the year for it, it'll be 2012 (after 2010, when O gets the Rethug Congress he wants, and both legacy parties go about privatizing the social safety net, then we might finally see people free themselves from cultural identity tribalism and legacy party patronage).

[Dgov]

You're speculating on Obama's reaction to a law he opposed as soon as it passed without any effect on his approval ratings?

It didn't hurt him mostly because he didn't do anything about it.  If he had gotten out in front of the issue and tried to milk it, he probably would have suffered more.

Also, once it goes into effect and Doesn't turn Arizona into a Pseudo-Nazi police state, i expect support to go even higher, especially since the individual aspects are more popular.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/12/poll-finds-broad-support-for-arizona-immigration-law/

[Yelnoc]

-snip-

I really do not think that a challenge from the far-left is likely.  The "Progressives" know that splitting the party will result in a Republican victory, and when push comes to shove they will unite around Obama.

[tarheel-leftist85]

-snip-

I really do not think that a challenge from the far-left is likely.  The "Progressives" know that splitting the party will result in a Republican victory, and when push comes to shove they will unite around Obama.

i won't.  they have the same, identical, exact policy agenda.  they just market to different tribes.  i think *enough* Dem party loyal will at least sit out much as happened with the Rethugs in 2008 (turnout was not much higher than 2004--especially in states like OK and WV, where IIRC turnout decreased).  *enough* of the loyal in both parties are tired of being thrown under the bus for both parties' mutually-reinforcing neoliberal/corporatist agenda.  tribalism might have been effective for the past 40 years, but it is probably less so now than ever.

when they see both parties' fingerprints on social security privatization, both legacy parties will point fingers at each other, both will try to reach out to their respective tribes and muddy the waters, but people will finally understand there is literally no difference in policy outcomes between the legacy parties--and they won't be extorted ("socialist big guvmint" versus "racist teabaggers"--all tribal scapegoating) with Sarah Palin or O scare tactics.

and what is considered "far-left" by the legacy parties, the corporate media/punditocracy, and the academy is to the right of what is mainstream.  you won't hear the most "left" of the "left" in either legacy party discussing modern monetary theory (that deficits are artificial constructs) or the positive economic implications of full-employment (which can only be fueled by another WPA-like program, not just "stimulus" thrown at MNCs and at households to buy foreign goods).  the public, even the "conservatives," are to the left of that.  they know that a day's work (real work--infrastructure, teachers, social workers, health care, development of nationalized energy source, etc., etc.--there are jobs for all, we don't have to throw no-strings-attached welfare to MNCs to "create" jobs the way both parties say) for everyone leads to a well-functioning society in all respects, not to hyperinflation the way "experts" within the ideological confines of the legacy parties want us to think.  they know that both parties, despite rhetoric on the supposed need for balanced budgets (of course, at the expense of the social safety net), deficit spend, but both conveniently ignore this supposed virtue when writing blank checks to rent-seeking economic sectors (finance, mercenaries, oil, telecom, insurance, etc); they need to know why both parties selectively adhere to this mythical virtue.  the government budget is not analogous to household budget.  because we're a sovereign nation with a fiat currency, the government can literally print it's way out of any nominal deficit, without having to borrow from foreign bankers.  won't that cause inflation?  maybe, but if the money is spent on productive means (like a jobs program ensuring full employment), that puts an upward pressure on wages, such that wage growth exceeds inflation.  regardless, budget deficits are tantamount to more household wealth.  if anything, surpluses are of concern.  of course, depending on how that money is spent (welfare to rent-seeking corporations vs. social safety net/jobs program), will determine which households are made wealthier.  and like a govt surplus, a surplus with the wealthiest households amounts to a shortage of cash for the remainder of households.

[You kip if you want to...]

LOL at your MA prediction.

Why would it flip? I thought New Hampshire was Romney's homestate now... or is it Utah?

[pbrower2a]

First, I am going to dispose of Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Newt Gingrich. Sarah Palin got her exposure to a nationwide audience and has shown herself completely unfit for the Presidency. She was the great blunder of John McCain, whose effort wilted. She is too off-the-wall to win over moderates, and she would lose in an Eisenhower-style landslide to a mediocre Obama. She lacks the time in which to remake her scatterbrain image.  

Rand Paul has what many consider good ideas, but those good ideas come with very bad ones attached. Voting for Rand Paul is the electoral equivalent of buying a luxury car with great performance but whose engine poses a risk of exploding.  

Newt Gingrich has never won even a statewide office, and never tried. The last three Presidents to have become President without ever winning a statewide office were Hoover, Eisenhower, and Ford. Hoover was the most popular member of the Cabinet during most of the 1920s, so that is a poor analogue. Eisenhower liberated a huge chunk of Europe from the Devil Incarnate, so that is a ludicrous analogue. Gerald Ford became president after having never held any political office outside the House of Representatives. No analogue. Worth remembering: Gingrich has had plenty of opportunity to run for a Senate seat from Georgia or the Governorship. He has a history of marital infidelity which might not trouble Republicans who are more tolerant of rogues. He does not know how to run a statewide campaign, and he has no record as an administrator of anything. Jimmy Carter at the least had a record as an administrator.

Dark horses? How often do they succeed in wining election once nominated? Think of Barry Goldwater and George McGovern as examples.   Willkie, Dewey, Stevenson, Nixon (1960) , Humphrey, Ford, Mondale, Dukakis, Dole, Gore, Kerry, and McCain were all party insiders and lost. Say what you want about Daniels, Thune, or the like -- we don't know everything.

So it comes down to Huckabee and Romney. Huckabee has yet to show any ability to appeal Up North to people other than Republicans -- which is obviously not enough. So far his exposure is largely toward Republican-leaning people on FoX News. So far he sugarcoats his right-wing tendencies, but the fountains of exposure by not-so-reliably right-wing journalism will dissolve away the sugar. Palatability of the residue is so far unknown.  

With about 47% of the vote, Huckabee does much like this:

 


deep red                  Obama 10% margin or greater  
medium red              Obama, 5-9.9% margin  
pale red                   Obama, margin under 5%
white                        too close to call
pale blue                  Republican  under 5%  
medium blue             Republican  5-9.9% margin  
deep blue                 Republican over 10%

It does look familiar -- basically much like November 4, 2008. I think that Huckabee would swing North Carolina.

This is how I see him doing against Obama with 51-52% of the vote in 2012:
 

deep red                  Obama 10% margin or greater  
medium red              Obama, 5-9.9% margin  
pale red                   Obama, margin under 5%
white                        too close to call  
pale blue                  Republican  under 5%  
medium blue             Republican  5-9.9% margin  
deep blue                 Republican over 10%



Huckabee probably wins 51% or 52% of the popular vote but loses in the Electoral College. Obama wins  by smaller margins in most of the Northern states that he won in 2008 and is trounced by bigger margins in most of the states that he lost in 2008. But he still wins due to the polarization of the electorate. Huckabee has to win about 53% of the electoral vote to win Ohio and Nevada while winning Florida and Virginia decisively.  It doesn't matter that Huckabee is winning 80% of the vote in some states against a President extremely unpopular in those states; Obama is picking up (or holding onto the "right" ones) by lesser margins -- mostly close ones.   The Blue Firewall holds, as people in the North are unwilling to vote for a Southern right-winger in adequate numbers in a close election to make a difference.

Usually a difference of 5% of the popular vote is good for about 100-150 electoral votes -- not this time.

Next installment -- Mitt Romney, and I will show a big difference. Northerners do not vote readily for Southern right-wingers, but one of their own? They did vote for Ronald Reagan.  

[Derek]

Obama a rockstar??? Amongst who? The far left?

[tarheel-leftist85]

Obama a rockstar??? Amongst who? The far left?

Obama is not far-left, he's a neoliberal/corporatist.  There are plenty of fanboiz that never see him losing (especially a woman, cue the pwogwessive disdain for powerful women).  And neither "opposing" side seems to want to acknowledge that ObamaCare = RomneyCare -- forced subsidization of the parasitic insurance/pharmaceutical industries.  Obama is renewing no-bid contracts for the mercenaries just like Bush did and like Rethuglicans will do.  They literally all have the same agenda -- just different niche markets or tribes.  Obama is somewhere to the right of Ronnie Raygun.  But all these cultural/status-inflating tribes can fight it out.  Meanwhile Social Security and Medicare are privatized because of a budget deficit "crisis," though oddly, there's plenty for future corporate bailouts.  But we as a public get to decide between a family values traditional pious cowboi parade and a "creative-class" pwoggie O-bot fanboi open-mindedness multi-cultural interpretive dance fingerpaint parade, between happy hour at the WH or bush-clearing at the ranch.  DEW-mocracy, bro!  This country will never have a serious discussion about the myths of NAIRU, monetarism, or inflation.  Just tribes and niche marketing.  As much as i could never stand to look at or hear Bush, it's worse with O--and his clinging fanboiz....talk about infatuation!  It's usually people that will refuse take a stand on economic issues, but they stand for "equality" or "open-mindedness" and reject the "far-right" (pot and kettle).  They are more "educated" that those "bitter" dirty Christians so they know that free-trade and public-private partnerships are the problem to all life's troubles via pwogwessive "think"-tanks like Brookings.

[pbrower2a]

OK -- Mitt Romney. He won't have a particularly strong appeal in the South as Huckabee has. He is not part of the culture. If Obama should win 52% of the vote, then the electoral map might look something like this:

Obama of course wins with 52% of the vote, but with far-smaller margins in most Northern states than in 2008. Romney is much closer to the Northern culture than was John McCain, and it shows. But the margins of Obama defeats in most of the South (if not the Mountain West other than perhaps Arizona)     


deep red                  Obama 10% margin or greater  
medium red              Obama, 5-9.9% margin  
pale red                   Obama, margin under 5%
white                        too close to call
pale blue                  Republican  under 5%  
medium blue             Republican  5-9.9% margin  
deep blue                 Republican over 10%

It does look familiar -- basically much like November 4, 2008. I think that Huckabee would swing North Carolina.

This is how I see Romney doing against Obama with 51-52% of the vote in 2012:
 

deep red                  Obama 10% margin or greater  
medium red              Obama, 5-9.9% margin  
pale red                   Obama, margin under 5%
white                        too close to call  
pale blue                  Republican  under 5%  
medium blue             Republican  5-9.9% margin  
deep blue                 Republican over 10%
 


Northerners might not vote for a Southern right-winger, but as Ronald Reagan showed in 1980 and 1984 they can vote for one of their own if things go right for the GOP, like a failed President that many want to wash their hands of. Romney does not win the state in which he was born (the African-American population is just too large)  or the state in which he was governor (it is Massachusetts), but he does win everything that George W. Bush ever won plus Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states that Kerry barely won in 2004.  

Usually a difference of 5% of the popular vote is good for about 100-150 electoral votes -- and this time Romney shows the potential of a higher ceiling for electoral votes -- if a lower floor as well.  A 5% difference in the popular vote makes a huge difference for Romney because Romney and Obama, being from essentially the same part of the country, do not so polarize the electorate on regional lines. Part of the ironic difference is that Florida and Virginia are less stereotypically Southern in their politics than they used to be.

[tmthforu94]

Pbrower, I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you on South Carolina and voting for Obama over Romney. Though it's difficult to judge until you see head-to-head polling. I also wouldn't consider Arkansas and Mississippi to be slight, nor Louisiana and Alabama being lean.

[pbrower2a]

Pbrower, I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you on South Carolina and voting for Obama over Romney. Though it's difficult to judge until you see head-to-head polling. I also wouldn't consider Arkansas and Mississippi to be slight, nor Louisiana and Alabama being lean.

I could have traded Georgia for South Carolina, which would be even more shocking, but I see South Carolina as a political snake pit. Such stands to catch up to the GOP by 2012. Other Southern states?  In 2008 most white voters had extreme misgivings about voting for any black man. They might have far fewer misgivings in 2012. Huckabee does better against Obama because he isn't a d@mnyankee as both Obama and Romney are.

My intention is to show the difference between Huckabee and Romney. Romney has no special strength in the South; he has a religion with few followers in the South.  Culture matters greatly in American politics in recent years. Romney has a lower floor than Huckabee in electoral votes because all that he has to offer the South is his conservatism.  Huckabee has more solid support in the South (if not the West), so he is practically assured of winning about as many electoral votes as McCain got in 2008.

There have been some nationwide matchups between Obama and Huckabee and Romney (both about a 2% difference yesterday according to PPP); on the same day Obama showed a far-larger gap against either Palin, Gingrich, or (Rand) Paul. "Generic Republican" might be even or even have a slight edge against Obama, but that fellow goes into hibernation in January of the year of the Presidential election and never wakes up until the campaign season is over. 

[tmthforu94]

Pbrower, I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you on South Carolina and voting for Obama over Romney. Though it's difficult to judge until you see head-to-head polling. I also wouldn't consider Arkansas and Mississippi to be slight, nor Louisiana and Alabama being lean.

I could have traded Georgia for South Carolina, which would be even more shocking, but I see South Carolina as a political snake pit. Such stands to catch up to the GOP by 2012. Other Southern states?  In 2008 most white voters had extreme misgivings about voting for any black man. They might have far fewer misgivings in 2012. Huckabee does better against Obama because he isn't a d@mnyankee as both Obama and Romney are.

My intention is to show the difference between Huckabee and Romney. Romney has no special strength in the South; he has a religion with few followers in the South.  Culture matters greatly in American politics in recent years. Romney has a lower floor than Huckabee in electoral votes because all that he has to offer the South is his conservatism.  Huckabee has more solid support in the South (if not the West), so he is practically assured of winning about as many electoral votes as McCain got in 2008.

There have been some nationwide matchups between Obama and Huckabee and Romney (both about a 2% difference yesterday according to PPP); on the same day Obama showed a far-larger gap against either Palin, Gingrich, or (Rand) Paul. "Generic Republican" might be even or even have a slight edge against Obama, but that fellow goes into hibernation in January of the year of the Presidential election and never wakes up until the campaign season is over. 

Romney wasn't that weak in the South. If he had managed to score victories in New Hampshire and Iowa, he would have won Georgia, where he won 30% in real life.  He would have also probably won Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, and West Virginia. He got 23% in Tennessee and 29% in Missouri. He also was a close second against McCain in Florida, with 31%. Romney barely lost to Huckabee in the West Virginia caucus. These are the only states (and Arkansas, where Huckabee had a huge lead) that occured in the South while Romney was still running. Those aren't what I would call "weak" numbers. If Romney had just barely been the frontrunner, he would have won a majority of southern states.

[defe07]

It doesn't seem feasible for any Republican to win MA! The best they can do is win NH, CT and maybe, just maybe, at least 1 EV in ME.

[Cpt Jack Hammer]

Ok so now I feel like the guy taking general math in high school who accidentally walks into advanced AP calculus class. LOL!
 So many great things said here I can't even begin to respond. But let me say this I think Romney could retake Mass. He was very Fairly popular in a traditionally Liberal state and his successor repealed allot of what Romney did in office endearing Romney to the people even while out of office.

[pbrower2a]

Pbrower, I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you on South Carolina and voting for Obama over Romney. Though it's difficult to judge until you see head-to-head polling. I also wouldn't consider Arkansas and Mississippi to be slight, nor Louisiana and Alabama being lean.

I could have traded Georgia for South Carolina, which would be even more shocking, but I see South Carolina as a political snake pit. Such stands to catch up to the GOP by 2012. Other Southern states?  In 2008 most white voters had extreme misgivings about voting for any black man. They might have far fewer misgivings in 2012. Huckabee does better against Obama because he isn't a d@mnyankee as both Obama and Romney are.

My intention is to show the difference between Huckabee and Romney. Romney has no special strength in the South; he has a religion with few followers in the South.  Culture matters greatly in American politics in recent years. Romney has a lower floor than Huckabee in electoral votes because all that he has to offer the South is his conservatism.  Huckabee has more solid support in the South (if not the West), so he is practically assured of winning about as many electoral votes as McCain got in 2008.

There have been some nationwide matchups between Obama and Huckabee and Romney (both about a 2% difference yesterday according to PPP); on the same day Obama showed a far-larger gap against either Palin, Gingrich, or (Rand) Paul. "Generic Republican" might be even or even have a slight edge against Obama, but that fellow goes into hibernation in January of the year of the Presidential election and never wakes up until the campaign season is over.  

Romney wasn't that weak in the South. If he had managed to score victories in New Hampshire and Iowa, he would have won Georgia, where he won 30% in real life.  He would have also probably won Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, and West Virginia. He got 23% in Tennessee and 29% in Missouri. He also was a close second against McCain in Florida, with 31%. Romney barely lost to Huckabee in the West Virginia caucus. These are the only states (and Arkansas, where Huckabee had a huge lead) that occured in the South while Romney was still running. Those aren't what I would call "weak" numbers. If Romney had just barely been the frontrunner, he would have won a majority of southern states.

I am looking at relative strengths and weaknesses of the two potential candidates. I am contrasting 52% of the vote going to Obama and 52% of the vote going to either Romney and Huckabee. That is the interesting zone, the one in which President Obama ranges from moderately effective and marginally flawed as President. How states vote will matter greatly in 2012, much as has been true since 2000. Remember that the 2000 Presidential election shows that the States elect the President, and the People don't (Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote) -- which remains a possibility in 2012. Such would more likely burn Huckabee than would burn Romney. I am not trying to discuss conditions in which a landslide is possible for either Obama, Huckabee, or Romney.  

I consider Huckabee and Romney very different candidates. They have vastly different cultures. About all that they obviously have in common is that they will run as conservatives and that they have no military records. I could argue that the lack of a military record would deny either of them one of the strongest assets that John McCain had in 2008, but that isn't part of this discussion.

Political culture puts some states out of reach for certain candidates. As shown in the elections of 1992, 1996, and 2000, Northerners can vote for what they perceive as a Southern liberal or moderate. So can Southerners, as shown in 1976, 1992, and 1996. The problem for Al Gore in 2000 was that he was heavily seen in the South as someone no longer Southern, but decidedly liberal. The elections of 2000, 2004, and 2008 demonstrate clearly that the Blue Firewall is practically off limits for a Southern right-winger.   The elections of 1980, 1984, and 1988 demonstrate that Northerners can vote for a right-winger who is one of their own.

Culture plays a huge role in determining who can be elected in certain places. Beyond question, James Inhofe could never be elected in Vermont, and Pat Leahy could never be elected in Oklahoma, to the US Senate.  So do demographics, which explain why Romney has no chance of winning Michigan despite having been born there. (Michigan has too large an African-American population for a conservative Republican to have a chance in a statewide election there) but a significant chance of winning either Minnesota or Wisconsin, both of which have far fewer African-Americans than does Michigan.  

Mike Huckabee can relate more easily to Southern white people, and even to some southern blacks, than can Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney has what most Southerners consider an exotic and incomprehensible religion. He will have to explain his religion, which will distract from establishing his ideas on public policy and foreign affairs before the Obama campaign does such on his behalf and to the detriment of the Romney campaign. Mike Huckabee has no such problem in the South. Romney can relate easily to Southern Baptists and would have an advantage at that over Obama in Missouri (which the Republican nominee must hold), and perhaps have some chance of flipping Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. That is of course in a close election.

I am not saying that Romney would be weak in the South; under almost any scenario short of an Obama blowout he wins most of the South. Heck, McCain won most of the South, and the arguments in mid-November 2008 weren't that Obama had succeeded in changing Southern minds but instead that Florida, North Carolina, and especially Virginia weren't as Southern as they used to be. He just wouldn't win by the huge margins that McCain won by, let alone by the margins that Huckabee would win by, in much of the South.

Huckabee's strengths in the South in a close election would not help him much. It would not matter to the the anybody-but-Obama GOP whether Huckabee wins Arkansas 75-25 or Romney wins the state 52-48; the state has the same 6 electoral votes to offer in either case.   But it would matter greatly whether Romney wins Ohio (a likely "battleground" state that can decide the election) 51-49 or Huckabee loses Ohio 51-49. As a Northerner, Romney has a better chance of winning Ohio.  (I can't be so sure about Florida or Virginia, though; they aren't particularly "Southern". Missouri may now be more "Southern" than either of those two states. As the Obama strategy showed in 2008, margins win in a close election.

I expect President Obama to operate in 2012 much as he did in 2008 in an election that he thinks that he can lose; I expect him to offer More of the Same if he was even marginally successful as President.  Sure, the campaign staff will decide where the ad blitzes take place in which he is ahead or behind by 15%, his campaign won't do much advertising. He will do what works. He will make huge numbers of campaign appearances in "battleground" states and relatively few in states deemed "safe" for himself or his opponent.

 

[DS0816]

Obama a rockstar??? Amongst who?…

The youngest voting-age group: 18-29. Also, 2008's newest voters.

[sentinel]

LOL at your MA prediction.

Why would it flip? I thought New Hampshire was Romney's homestate now... or is it Utah?

Massachusetts and New Hampshire would NOT flip if Gingrich or Romney was on the ticket. New Hampshire is more likely than Massachusetts, but still --not gonna happen.

[pbrower2a]

Obama a rockstar??? Amongst who?…

The youngest voting-age group: 18-29. Also, 2008's newest voters.

President Obama isn't much of an entertainer. He's more of an Ed Sullivan than a Frank Sinatra. So far as I can tell he can't sing, dance, or play a musical instrument.

That said, we have to look at the world of the 18-29 age group (and, really, if we are looking at 2012 the age group now between ages 15 and 31). If it voted much unlike America as a whole (the age group then under 25 voted for John Kerry and not for Dubya, again unlike Americans older than themselves) then it must see things differently. Tellingly, the youngest voters in Texas voted about 55-45 for Obama, in contrast to the state at large, where Obama got clobbered by a slightly-larger margin.

This is clearly the best-educated group of people of such age ever in American history. At the least the start of a college education is more the norm than is dropping out of high school. It has more technological gadgets -- iPods, cell phones, DVD and Blu-Ray players, game consoles, and personal computers -- than earlier generations whose electronic gadgets were comparatively primitive. It attributes those to science and engineering, and not to investors and corporate bureaucrats.

Does it have things great so that it has cause for political conservatism? Hardly! Much of that age group is stuck in cr@ppy, low-paying work that can't support a family. Members of that group who seem fortunate to have educations and the possibility of advancement into the professions have paid a high price for education already  and will be paying off student loans for a long time. They are heavily in debt, and debtors as a rule have no desire for deflationary economics that conservatives often cherish.

They have seen American capitalism at its arguable worst in decades -- crony capitalism, predatory lending as a norm, wars for profit, and of course a depression for paid work in the years in which they were becoming adults. They know the huge disparities between executives and workers and attribute those disparities to the conscious choices of powerful people instead of to some "free market".  Educated as they are, they know their history and they can contrast the Presidency of George W. Bush to those of anyone else after Herbert Hoover -- and they see Dubya as at best awful.

Even those who have started businesses are more concerned with revenues (which improve as the clientele gets better pay) than with costs (employee costs and taxes) that conservatives generally concern themselves. That could change, but not for a couple decades.

They are more minority -- especially Hispanic -- and the GOP has done badly in reaching out to Hispanics, even beginning to lose a reliable hold on Cuban-Americans in Florida. They are less Protestant (in part due to the growth of the Hispanic  component) and especially less Fundamentalist. In recent years, Protestant fundamentalists have been teaching that people who want delights beyond the grave they must acquiesce in economic disparities and harsh management that a right-wing order implies. The Culture Wars of the Right no longer offer much to youth who want their delights in This World and not the Next.

[Хahar 🤔]

This thread=hurricane of dumb.

[Derek]

LOL at your MA prediction.

Why would it flip? I thought New Hampshire was Romney's homestate now... or is it Utah?

Massachusetts and New Hampshire would NOT flip if Gingrich or Romney was on the ticket. New Hampshire is more likely than Massachusetts, but still --not gonna happen.

New Hampshire and Maine could flip in fact Obama would lose Maine today. It's surprising but true. NH is as purple as it gets.

[justW353]

I love it when out of staters convince themselves Mitt Romney is the big cheese (or even semi-popular) up here in the Bay State.

And by that, I mean I hate it.  Romney has ~35% approval here.  Even my Republican relatives can't stand the guy.