Many pundits have aptly described Obama’s campaign for the Presidency last election as a fill in the blank campaign. Candidate Obama never spoke of a definitive or explicit policy or idea he planned to pursue and instead simply expounded on the slogan of “Hope and Change”, which allowed each individual to define those terms as they pleased. This was the perfect campaign for a total unknown as it allowed each person to define Obama as the person best suited to match their desires. After almost a full term, we the people have a better idea what it is that President Obama aims to do and we can now define what exactly “Hope and Change” mean and how President Obama intends to “fundamentally change America” should we vote him a second term. This means that should President Obama win a second term, those who have claimed they were fooled by his “Hope and Change” message and who thought he meant something completely different when he stood for “fundamental change in America” no longer have the luxury of claiming ignorance. This time around, Barack Obama will be running on his record no matter how much he wishes to blame Congress as not cooperating as we have seen first-hand the real Barack Obama.
But that leaves us with the question of who is Mitt Romney and what does he stand for? Obviously, it is not enough to know that Mitt Romney is a wealthy person who saved the Salt Lake City Olympics and was on the board of a venture capital company, Bain Capital. We need to know what Mitt Romney’s political lineage is. We know he was once the Governor of Massachusetts and that he had some very liberal beliefs and actions. His term began in January of 2003 and ended in December of 2006 as he did not gain reelection. There are those who would claim that Mitt Romney failing to be reelected as Governor of Massachusetts is actually a recommendation just like his having actually ever won that office should count against him. Candidate Romney this time around claims that he has matured, aged, and become wise and much more conservative in the years since serving as governor. He has given a turning point for his transformation from “pro-choice” to becoming “pro-life” and has said that much of what he claimed when politicking in Massachusetts was somewhat complex where much was said with consideration of the realities of the liberal leanings of the state of Massachusetts, and not all these positions are his personal beliefs. Anyway, the Mitt Romney we have today is not the same Mitt Romney who ran for Governor of Massachusetts and a President Romney will not be like the Governor Mitt Romney. These excuses and claims have many true conservatives very nervous. Yet, they are also fully cognizant that if not Mitt Romney, they will have a second term of Barack Obama. This likely scares them even more than does the idea of a President Romney. Still, it appears that many hard core conservatives are going to need some real and solid convincing before they will be comfortable with voting for a President Romney.
This presents a peculiar picture of the coming election. We have the Democrat candidate being an incumbent President Obama who in many ways has let down the most fanatical of his supporters and base by not producing an agenda as stridently socialist as they expected. Yet, President Obama also has been perceived as possibly too far left which has made many centrist and swing voters nervous about supporting him for a second term as they fear he would swing off scale leftward since he would not be facing another election in 2016. On the Republican side we have the most conservative members and many in the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party not fully satisfied that Romney is the man who will rope in the government and return the government to within their strict Constitutional boundaries. Then there are the pro-life people in the Republican Party who must wonder which Mitt Romney will take the White House, the pro-life Mitt of the present campaign or the “I will do nothing to change Massachusetts law concerning “Roe vs. Wade” Governor Romney. So Mitt Romney also has the extreme wing of his base less than one-hundred-percent convinced he’s their man. This is the crucial stress point of this election.
The winner of this election is not necessarily the one who wins the most “swing” or middle of the road votes; it will be who gets their base excited and to the polls. The swing voters are most likely going to split at most sixty-forty and more likely fifty-fifty leaving the election to be decided by percentage of base support that make it to the polls. This election will not be won by who moves the furthest to the center but by who goes furthest from the center and really excites their radical wing of the base. In the Democrat and Republican Parties there exist approximately thirty percent of their voters sitting at the extreme polar opposite ends of the political spectrum. For the Democrats these are the socialist progressives and for the Republicans these are the constitutionalists, individualists, and Tea Party members. Neither candidate, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama need worry about those single-issue voters as they have those locked up even before the Primary Elections began. The Democrat candidate is guaranteed the pro-choice vote, the gun control vote, the ecologist vote (though some may be reluctant or choose third party), the affirmative action vote, and on and on down a litany of leftist pet causes; while the Republican candidate is guaranteed the pro-life vote (though some may be reluctant or choose third party), the pro Second Amendments vote, the anti-tax vote, pro-business vote, and on and on down a litany of rightist pet causes. What is going to matter is the percentage of these voters they can give sufficient reason to actually go and vote. Right now it would appear that President Obama is winning this part of the campaign for President and Mitt Romney still has a hard hill to climb to secure these voters.
Meanwhile, look to the press to constantly keep asking questions about which candidate is moving to the center and which one has caught the heart of the independent voters. This is a ruse which the Democrats know to ignore and to continue playing to their base by keeping their campaign left oriented. If the Republicans prove true to form, we can expect Mitt Romney’s campaign to move towards the center after the Party Conventions just as was the case with Bob Dole, George W. Bush (though he was castigated as far right by the media which actually may have helped his campaign), and most recently with John McCain. This was especially true of Senator McCain where his move to the center was so complete that he had campaign staff almost literally gagging his Vice Presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, so as to prevent her seriously conservative message from ruining his campaign which was aiming for the center of the political spectrum.
So, what should we be looking for as Election Day nears and the polls will likely all be within the margin of error? The first thing is to ignore ninety-percent of what you hear from the mainstream press. Look for internal polls which show the level of expected voters who say they will definitely be voting when they are asking those who make up the Party’s base. Whoever appears to be getting out their base most efficiently will likely be the winner. We can pretty much ignore the polls of all eligible voters as that is just some nonsense thrown out to try and add another dimension to the coverage though all know full well that these polls are next to meaningless. The most important polls for President Obama and Mitt Romney will be the under thirty voters and the over fifty voters, simply the numbers who plan to vote in both cases, and whichever poll indicates that more total people, that is total people and not merely percentage, will determine the winner of the election. So, our prediction is this, whichever candidate gets the most votes from the combination of voters under thirty and those over fifty will be the winner of the election. We fully expect that the voters between the ages of thirty and fifty to pretty much split right down the middle within a margin of plus or minus four percent which will leave the voters at the age extremes in control of the electoral decision. Of course, there are many events such as a Middle East War, the blockading of the Straits of Hormuz driving gasoline prices through the roof, or a myriad of other surprises which could drastically change everything and you can bet we will get right on any such event, well, within a few days of the event as we tend to react somewhat slowly at times. But rest assured, we will be sure to predict a winner before Christmas.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 