Posted on 06/21/2012 10:17:20 AM PDT by kingattax
We have grown unaccustomed to presidential landslides. The three most lopsided presidential races since 1988 fell short of the conventional definition of a landslide, which would be a ten-point difference in the popular vote between the winner of the election and the next-closest candidate. Obama in 2008 beat McCain by seven points and carried 28 states.
Clinton in 1996 beat Dole by eight points (although Clinton did not even get a majority of the popular vote) and carried 31 states. George H. Bush had a seven-point advantage over Dukakis in 1988 and carried 40 states. A quick perusal of the electoral maps in each race shows a closely divided nation and no real mandate for the victorious candidate.
But that landslide drought could end this November. Economic conditions produce landslides -- prosperity propelled Reagan and Eisenhower, for example, to huge re-election wins in 1984 and 1956. Economic distress affects voters even more.
Only once has a president persuaded Americans to re-elect him in grim economic times: FDR in his 1936 landslide re-election.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Gallup today has ZEro at 43%. Sorry, Mitt-haters, but that’s landslide territory for Romney. NO president wins with that level of support: Clinton managed once, in a three-way race with a third-party candidate taking 17%. There’s no Ross Perot to save ZEro this time around.
I hope the elderly remember that FOR THE FIRST TIME...and 2 years in a row, they did not get a COLA.
I hope the youth realize that Obama shut up the job market with his industry killing moves AND HIS DAMN OBAMACARE.
Heaven help us if he has 4 more years.
I was taught in grade school in the 60’s that when there is a seriously disappointing wheat crop in the USSR, they get a new leader.
Same here. People kept worrying about Obama in the polls last year. I was not interested because the only remotely meaningful polls are the polls this year, and even then only very close to the election, and by then we will be in a REAL sh**storm. Obama will be blathering and drooling on national TV. Frankly, if you look at reviews of his last couple of speeches, even by liberals, it appears he is in the blathering stage.
This will be a VERY interesting year. Hell, it already is a record breaker. We may even get another September 1st, 1939 event if things keep going the way they are.
uh..RCP says “NO!”
Romney needs 100 more electoral votes from these “toss up states”:
Arizona (11)
Colorado (9)
Florida (29)
Iowa (6)
Michigan (16)
Missouri (10)
Nevada (6)
New Hampshire (4)
North Carolina (15)
Ohio (18)
Virginia (13)
Wisconsin (10)
So, we can only lose NV & NH and still win....
Doesn’t look like “landslide” potential to me!
Pa will be in play.
I have some ocean front property in Utah that might interest you. :)
“Theres no Ross Perot to save ZEro this time around.”
Yet!
But I gotta wonder how many Dems are wondering "if only we'd elected Hillary..."
Gallup today has ZEro at 43%. Sorry, Mitt-haters, but thats landslide territory for Romney.
I really wish FREEPERS had a better grasp on the American election system. It is sad that a FREEPER like yourself would be so ignorant to the fact that popular vote does not elect a President and that the electoral college does. I guess it is the decrease in education that has resulted in even FREEPERS being ignorant.
RCP says PA is Obama +8
Even with LV’s it’s +6
BUT!
That LV tally was 30 days ago, so perhaps an update will help.
That's 15% more votes than McCain got ~ which is really, really, really, really tough to overlook.
The definition you want to apply to "landslide" would require Obama to get 72 million votes and McCain to have just 58 million votes. That would be a difference of just shy of 14 million votes ~ or insurmountable ~ and in fact, 40% more than Obama got.
I'm not as picky, and based on the best political theory, any landslide in an American election starts when one candidate gets as much as 53%. That's because the transition of factions from one political affiliation to the other is much faster these days.
Now this presents a problem for pollsters that may be insurmountable ~ particularly if both premier candidates are actually undergoing a relaxation of popularity ~ Romney inside Republican circles and Obama inside Democrat circles.
Let me use Obama's recent ploy with the illegal alien chillun' as an example. He took them hostage ~ if illegals want their children born abroad to be made legal their legal relatives have to vote for Obama. The polls didn't budge with Hispanics. Or, alternatively, the legal Hispanics with illegal relatives are wildly enthusiastic about the idea but the legal Hispanics witout illegal relatives thinks he's crude beyond belief ~ imagine, taking children hostage in modern America? Who'd do that eh!
So, a wash ~ maybe.
But does that do anything to that 10 million voter advantage Obama had? It may not. Most of these polls imagine that if people drop the Democrat they'll vote for the Republican, but what if all that happens is they just don't vote for the Democrat? Then a loss on one side doesn't translate to a gain on the other side ~ except in the polls. The pollsters tend to throw outliers out ~ people who don't intend to vote for President just don't count ~ but if all you do is replace them with somebody who says he's going to vote for President you end up raising the Republican's percentage while dropping the Democrat's percentage.
That's not happening here. The difference is 15% and it consists of people who'd rather not vote at all than vote for a Republican (whereas last time they voted for Obama). Add to that the number who'd rather not vote for President than vote for a Leftwinger and you have a doggone good possibility that Obama can win even while losing upwards of 10 million votes from the last election.
We would see a political landslide, if a small government conservative was the final choice for ‘12 POTUS! Two leftists candidates, as the final, major candidate picks for ‘12 POTUS=the left has, already, won the race for ‘12 POTUS!
Latest Bloomberg poll (if Mitt haters want to believe it)shows the anointed one with a 13-point bulge over Romney.
The Libertarian Party is trying to get their candidate on ballots.
I am sure that Philadelphia will churn out enough votes for Obama, even if they have to hit 300% of the eligible voters this time.
Demographic changes are making voters less responsive to policy failure.
In the past, the abject failure of performance of a president like Jimmy Carter could result in the voting public making an evaluation of his policies and rejecting him in a landslide.
In our day, the percentage of the voting public that evaluates presidents (and politicians generally) on the basis of policy success has declined.
Massive immigration, the emergence of unmarried women with children as the dominant family form in major population groups and the indoctrination by government schools and popular culture have created voting blocs that are impervious to conventional policy failure.
Consider that two giant states, California and New York, are beyond reach no matter how badly Obama does in office. His success or failure in conventional terms such as in how government policy affects the economy and how he has conducted foreign policy are for the most part irrelevant to the voting base that will hand him victory in these states.
With a bow to Nathan Hale, I only regret that I have but one vote to give for my country.
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