Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 11/26/2010 6:37:54 AM PST by markomalley
We're fast approaching the halfway point in Barack Obama's term. With Nov. 2 behind him, everything the president does will be calculated to boost, or at least not harm, his chances of re-election in 2012. What's not clear is whether he fully appreciates how badly the coalition he led to victory in 2008 has frayed in just two years. A look inside his poll numbers suggests that if he cannot turn around some key trends, he'll be a one-term president.
Just look at the exit polls from 2008, which reveal the demographic contours of Obama's support. Compare those with Gallup's weekly analysis of the president's approval rating, drawn from multiple polls broken down by age, gender, political philosophy, and the like. Throw in some insights from the midterm elections, and the mix shows a dramatic deterioration in Obama's 2008 support. "His majority coalition is not there," says Republican pollster David Winston. "What he put together, at least in the way he put it together, just isn't there."
Start with voters who call themselves independents. Obama won 52 percent of them in 2008; now, according to Gallup, he is at 42 percent. Obama's party as a whole fared even worse among independents in the midterms, losing them to Republicans by 19 points. If Obama does anywhere near that badly in 2012, he'll lose.
Next, women. In 2008, Obama won 56 percent of female voters. Today, he's at 49 percent. If that number doesn't improve, he'll be in deep trouble. (Obama is also down with men, from 49 percent in 2008 to 44 percent now.)
Even younger voters, a key part of Obama's coalition, are peeling away. In '08, Obama won 66 percent of voters 18-29 years of age. Now, he's at 58 percent. That might seem pretty good, but not when you consider his deterioration among other age groups. Obama has dropped 5 percentage points among voters in and around middle age, and 8 percent with voters above 65. If those trends continue, he'll lose.
Then there are white voters. In '08, Obama won 43 percent of whites. Now, he's at 37 percent -- a dangerously low number for his re-election hopes. He won 67 percent of Hispanic voters in 2008; now, he's at 58 percent. Even support among black voters, a bedrock for Obama, has ticked downward; after winning 95 percent of blacks in '08, he's now at 89 percent.
Just one group has stuck with Obama through it all. In '08, he won 58 percent of people with graduate degrees. Now, he's at 59 percent. It appears that academic types will be with Obama always, but they're not enough.
Everyone expects some of Obama's lost voters to come back in 2012. "Presidential elections are different from midterms," says David Winston. "You'll see a slightly larger turnout among younger voters, a slightly larger turnout among African-Americans, making the electorate a little more liberal. But everybody across the board turns out at higher rates."
And that includes conservatives, of whom there are more every day. Gallup has found that the number of people who call themselves conservative has gone up sharply since 2008, "fueled by heightened conservatism among independents."
"He's got to realize the reason he lost independents," says Winston of the president. "He thinks it was about communications. It wasn't. It was about substance and policy." Whether Obama can gracefully back away from the policies that got him in trouble -- federal spending, Obamacare -- is simply not clear.
Obama supporters point to the example of Bill Clinton, whose approval dipped to 40 percent after losing Congress in 1994, only to climb to 54 percent before winning easy re-election in 1996. Maybe that will happen again.
But Clinton's former pollster, Doug Schoen, doesn't see it that way. Schoen recently did a survey asking voters whether Obama deserves to be re-elected and found that 56 percent believe the president doesn't deserve another term, while just 38 percent believe he does.
Despite his problems, there are still ways Obama can win. His greatest hope, as always in politics, is that the other side will screw up. Maybe the newly empowered House Republicans will do a terrible job, or the GOP will nominate an awful presidential candidate. But that just underscores a stark reality. At this point, it will be hard for Obama to save himself. He'll need a lot of help to win a second term in the White House.
I don’t want just his defeat. I want him in prison for treason.
10% UE and he still has a chance to win? Alot of sheep sadly.
Most forms of vote fraud are frustrated by having a SINGLE Republican official or Poll Watcher present while ballots are being cast.
In the 2012 election the Republican Party needs to set a goal of having reps in EVERY PRECINCT IN AMERICA.
Yes, the dims will resist, but in the last election, TrueTheVote.org turned out over 1000 volunteers in Harris County, Texas (Houston). The dims blustered and threatened, but in the end, backed down from serious violence.
We need Freepers with fortitude nationwide to step up and commit to working the next election. If your precinct is safe, find one that is NOT and GO THERE.
THis is all assuming we will have legitimate elections in 2012. They have already signaled that they don’t give a crap about these last elections. It’s full steam ahead in the internationalist statist agenda. Don’t people see that they don’t care about elections? They have the power and they will use it to stay there, elections be dammed.
Well, prison is a good start.
Yeah, keep the money printing presses working overtime.
In the same cell with Holder.
Around this time in 1994, everyone was predicting that Clinton would lose in 1996. Hell, I don’t remember anyone who thought that Clinton could get elected dog catcher in 1996.
In politics, 2 years is an eternity. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Barack Obama has brought more power into DC than Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson
altogether.
You think the MSM shilled for him in 2008? You haven’t seen nothing compared to whats coming.
If DC has ANY say whatsoever..the Rinocratic Oligarchy isn’t going to let their golden boy go anywhere. Neither will they willingly give back ANY power.
We the People have our work cut out. 2008 was a literal drop in the bucket if we intend to have our country back. It will be a multi-election cycle effort that will require well-delineated gains each time. It will start in each of the local election precincts in each state..because the fraud by which Blue-states keep electing Red candidates is rooted in the community.
And all of his co-conspirators...the democratic party. And by the way, all these criminals should be relieved of their ill gotten financial gains that they’ve acquired through the years. It might just help to pay down the national debt.
I’m afraid plenty. But it serves to remember that Clinton never would have been elected in ‘92 had it not been for Ross Perot.
In ‘96, Clinton carried 49%, enough to prevail in the three-way race. If the GOP had run a better candidate, he might have lost.
In the 2012 election the Republican Party needs to set a goal of having reps in EVERY PRECINCT IN AMERICA.
Due to the influx of Tea Party activists in the last couple of years, we were able to put Republican poll watchers in every precinct in my county.
“Just one group has stuck with Obama through it all. In ‘08, he won 58 percent of people with graduate degrees. Now, he’s at 59 percent. It appears that academic types will be with Obama always, but they’re not enough.”
Shameful. The educated elites are bitter clingers to a failed President.
Graduate degrees in what? Law, "education", social sciences, natural science?
Forgot to include engineering to that list. Also is there a difference between people who get masters degrees vs PhDs?
Outstanding!
Freep on.
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