Saturday, September 22, 2012

Romney - Not Making The Case Yet

Which is not to say that Obama should be re-elected.  I closely watch the polls, but they are still probably bunk this far out from the election.  Some polls show Obama pulling away, others show a very tight race, which should bode well for Romney.  Significantly, no one is showing Romney pulling away.  National polls matter only in the overall trend of the race anyway, and the trend is flat. The swing states are where the election will be won and lost and here are Obama's numbers according to Purple Strategies polling data on Friday as reported on RCP:

48% - Ohio
47% - Florida
46% - Virginia
48% - Colorado
48% - North Carolina

I care little about Romney's numbers in these states; this polling shows that every one of these states are winnable if he makes the case between now and election day.  With Obama unable to crack 50%, and uncertainties over voter turnout, this the good news.  The bad news is that it is still tight.  What is lacking on Romney's part has been the presentation of a coherent set of policies, or at least a broad outline, that will convince the American people that he knows where he wants to take us.

What is left between now and November 7 are the debates, and events.  It is possible that an unknown event could throw Obama off course, but if he can survive the debacle in Benghazi, I'm not sure what it would take for the public to turn on him in significant numbers.  In the debates, Romney needs to go on the attack, but also to blunt Obama's criticism that Romney is pushing George Bush's policies on the economy.  The problem for Romney is that absent a clearly articulated vision, he can't defend against the charge.  Fortunately, there is an easy answer.  He picked Paul Ryan as his running mate, he needs to launch a vigorous and full throated debate over the future of medicare and why Ryan's plan will save it for future generations of seniors.  As voters have become more educated, I believe this will win enough votes from seniors to defeat Obama; because his lack of leadership can be tested.  All Romney has to then ask is "Why have you failed to produce a plan for Medicare in your four years in office, other than gutting its funding to support your so called health care reform, which didn't really reform anything?"

I look forward to that debate.  Romney has shown he can go for the jugular in debates against fellow Republicans; will he do so against Obama?

6 comments:

  1. I am continually amazed at the lack of a solid message when the left has provided so much material. The lack of any Madison Ave skills baffles me. I sometimes wonder if we are so stupid we can’t sell common sense, math, and liberty, do we deserve to win? We should have no problem handing them a 30 second spot of broken promises. Or 15 seconds on the Greek model = bad math, so let’s not go down that path. They need to fire their advertizing staff. Alas, they live in a different world and somehow believe selling message in the same old manner is the only way to get it done.
    Dawg

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  2. B-Daddy: Have I not taught you yet that the public poll numbers are not, absolutely not, to be trusted??? See:

    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/09/23/skewed-and-unskewed-polls/

    http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/09/new-poll-has-obama-and-romney-in-statistical-dead-heat-in-pennsylvania/

    http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/09/23/romney-campaign-unleashes-battleground-blitz-this-week/

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  3. Why all this pablum about elections, polls, making the case..yadda, yadda and freakin' yadda. Stop with misdirection and please can't we get to the real issue of whether Mitt has a fake tan or a real one?

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  4. Seriously, Steve is right, and now we have the serious issue of the Packer game last night.

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  5. Bdaddy needs to post something

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  6. Chill out peeps. My main point is that Romney could be doing a much better job and totally dominating this election.

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