General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My brother, a lifelong republican, told me he was voting for Obama this morning..... [View all]BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)I think conventional wisdom may be wrong. The logic the seasoned watchers use is simply that in "normal election cycles" (if there is such a thing anymore) most of the fence-sitters don't really settle in until the last 3 or 4 weeks. They only start paying attention in earnest after the conventions, after Labor Day.
I think that could be very wrong this year. What is different is that this time, there has been a solid, unrelenting 3 years of non-stop attacks on the President. Obama hasn't been campaigning for the most part. He has been governing. But the Republicans had absolutely no interest in governing. They have done nothing but obstruct. Instead of doing their part in governing, they have been actively campaigning the entire time, trying to ruin Obama.
That takes its toll. But the Republicans have a big problem. Almost all of those attacks were based on huge lies. And the biggest was "Obamacare". Obama was very clever to get that set up such that major benefits of the ACA kick in before the election. A lot of people who entered this election cycle counting themselves as decided against Obama are starting to saw, "hey, there really aren't death panels. I still have my doctor. And now I can't be cancelled as long as I pay my premiums. Maybe Obama did something good after all."
The problem with being a compulsive liar is that once people start to doubt one thing you say, they start looking to see if it is a pattern. And when they look, what do they see? They see a candidate with a really ugly business record and a string of tax evasion schemes a mile long. They see a man lying about the welfare-to-work program. They see a man lying about the Obama savings in Medicare. And then they look at the running mate. Ignoring the social issues, which are a huge factor for some people, we have a guy who won't answer the most basic questions about his own budget plan, such as when it would produce a balanced budget.
That's where we are today with 11 weeks to the election. I bet there are at least 5% of Romney's "committed" who are having serious misgivings. And maybe I am naive, but I don't see those same vulnerabilities in the base of Obama's "committeds". Obama has been pretty straight up. Anybody who has been committed to him doesn't have any new information that should change their thinking. I guess there could still be a September surprise, but I doubt that.