Posted on 07/25/2012 6:35:57 PM PDT by mnehring
Ben Tribbett, one of the state's top bloggers, got me thinking yesterday. He is known as the guy behind the highly rated political blog Not Larry Sabato. But Ben deserves to be even better known as one of the state's best gurus on election statistics down to the precinct level.
Ben has done a lot of mentally "running the numbers" on the potential impact of former Congressman Virgil Goode's run for President as the nominee for the Constitution Party here in Virginia.
Ben is likely - and hopefully soon - to do a blog post an Obama-Romney-Goode race here in the Commonwealth. The media is currently assuming that Goode is not going to be a factor in who wins the White House. They have been assuming the president will win Virginia handily as the polls had been indicating, or that Goode's support in any poll will disappear in November.
But yesterday, a two-way poll in Virginia between President Obama and former Governor Romney showed a dead heat. The national polls are showing a dead heat, with some pundits suggesting Virginia could be the deciding state in the Electoral College.
So again, I am writing in part to encourage Ben - I know he is busy - to lay out the numbers so we all can improve our knowledge here.
We all know what Ralph Nader did in Florida to cost Al Gore the Presidency. We all know what followed in terms of the George W. Bush years. Presidential elections matter. A lot.
A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by a national reporter about Goode's candidacy for President. I said the polls were wrong in saying he would be a big factor in Southwest, where his positions on immigration policy appealed to the most conservative, Republican elements of the area. My view was this: those voters really didn't know Goode and in the end, most would vote for Romney as the viable anti-Obama candidate.
But as to Virginia, I said this: Goode is known in certain parts of the state, and has always shown support there with high name ID in surrounding areas. Goldmanusa :: Should Dems, Anti-Romney Republicans Secretly Fund Goode's Campaign for President? So I figured there was a good chance Goode could get some of those folks if they remained skeptical about Romney especially if the GOP nominee was seen as shifting to a more moderate position on immigration. But I couldn't quantify even a range of potential hard core support. Ben has given it a lot more thought and mathematical analysis.
Again, there is no way to ever know and polls tend to be very unreliable in that they generally way overstate the final vote of a guy like Goode. So one has to avoid getting stuck on a specific number.
BUT there is one thing for certain: Almost all of those who ultimately wind-up voting for Virgil Goode in Virginia would NOT have voted for President Obama.
Therefore, if you assume a close Electoral College race for President, one potential political strategy makes a huge amount of campaign sense for Democrats and those Republicans who don't want to see Romney elected President:
Give money, get money, to the Virginia campaign of Virgil Goode.
Indeed, under the new campaign rules, a group of Dems/Anti-Romney Republicans can masquerade as a pro-Goode SUPER PAC, and secretly fund the whole effort.
As Ben can show, there is an existing pool of potential 2012 voters in Virginia who Goode has a chance of wooing over to his side....with a sufficient amount of money and campaign luck.
It doesn't take a math genius to know that 50-50 Obama vs Romney race in VA could easily come out 49.5 for Obama, 48.5 for Romney and 2.0 for Goode.
Moreover, to the extent the Romney campaign comes to believe it might lose VA, then it has to make some very hard and potentially wrong strategy decisions on how to make up the 13 electoral votes.
MEANING: The viability of the Goode campaign in VA - forget the rest of the country - needs to get some more attention by the national press, indeed the VA press.
Virgil is no more qualified to be President than Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain. But in Virginia, the former populist Democrat turned Independent turned conservative Republican turned anti-immigrant Constitutional Party presidential nominee could be the nut in the coconut for the White House come November.
So, I ask you: Given the current polls, the current logic and the current realities, what is more likely to change the outcome of the presidential election? 1) Another $5 million spent on TV ADS focused on Obama or Romney in one way or another; or 2) using that same $5 million to promote Virgil Goode as a protest vote on immigration policy (or whatever), helping persuade voters they can have the biggest impact by using their vote to send both parties a message?
If you will not believe your own common sense, then Ben's numbers will make you see that Virgil Goode, with that kind of chump changed in terms of what is being spent, has as yet an unappreciated ability - with enough money - to get enough votes in Virginia to likely guarantee a win for President Obama in the Old Dominion. And that, in turn, could easily be the key to winning President Obama a second term in the White House.
As a pure matter of risk vs reward, the "risk" of losing votes because you didn't spend that $5 million on either a pro-Obama or anti-Romney ad is far, far less than the potential "reward" of spending that money on pro-Goode ads, thus generating votes for the former Congressman's presidential bid, in turn taking them from Romney, in turn helping Obama win Virginia.
I bet that right now, there are some very smart people sitting around gaming out a strategy of how to make sure Goode gets the benefit of this kind of money, if not more.
In 2000, it was Florida: In 1916, it was California. In 1888, it was New York. In 1884, it was New York again. In 1876, it was Florida. In 1800, it was Delaware. In 2012, it could be Virginia. Which means it could be Virginia's Virgil Goode who determines the 2012 presidential election outcome, one way or the other.
“Switch hitter Goode isn’t that candidate.”
And neither is Romney.
“If you put Romney in, who’s going to fight for us? Are you willing to elect Hitler to represent you?”
Godwin’s Law.
It’s bad enough when leftists and Democrats are compared with Hitler on this forum (utter extremist hyperbole) but that takes the cake.
FACT: Obama is WORSE than Romney .... by a wide margin.
Romney will be one our side on a number off issues and will sign off on conservative budgets and tax reform that obama will veto.
Voting for Goode will just make it easier for Obama.
Throwaway vote. That’s no ‘fighting’ anything.
Elections: It’s to decide who will get into office.
If the result of your vote is to make it easier for Obama to win re-election, then that’s the consequence of your vote.
Do YOU want to make it easier for Obama to get re-elected???
“The bad news: They might give it to him in the form of a small idiotic minority like the gift of Nader to us in Floriduh back in 2000. Just look at the imbeciles on this thread and their pretense of “purity”. Yeah, yeah, let’s reenact Picketts Charge, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?”
History repeats itself because dunderheads keep saying that ‘this time its different”
Republicans George Allen lost VA in 2006 by a mere 500 votes.
If you think it cant happen again in your state, think again.
If your vote REALLY was the deciding vote between Obama and Romney, how would you vote?
Then vote that way, because ... well, it just might happen that way!
Perhaps you are a DU troll as someone else suggested.
You’re wasting your time arguing with the pinheads who will vote 3rd party to make a point. They are narrow minded single issue voters who don’t care if Obama gets re-elected. It’s ironic that they b*tch about Romney being pro-choice but they will vote for a 3rd party candidate that will get them the abortion loving Obama for 4 more years.
Kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
That assumes (falsely) that the votes were Romney's to begin with.
In a word, yes.
Would he institute Fast and Furious in order to propagandize against guns?
Would he have instituted amnesty as O did?
Would he destroy the economy with worthless, Marxist, destructive ideas?
Would he race bait endlessly?
Would he sue Arizona, then refuse to implement the law?
Would he have gutted welfare reform?
Would he continue to devastate the military?
Would he have forced Catholics and Evangelicals to pay for abortion?
Would he have stopped drilling in the gulf, stopped the Canadian pipeline, destroyed the coal industry?
Etc, etc, on and on and on ad nauseum. You could show the difference all day, but the idiots would keep saying we have to be "pure" so they answer yes to any question of comparison you give them.
Sorry, O is the worst, most destructive, anti-American, anti-everything we love and stand for, to say we want to give him another four years is simply insane.
Here's what we know:
1. O is a dedicated radical leftist who is the most destructive, divisive, anti-american, pro-marxist, pro-muzzie, pro-death, pro-enviro, pro-race baiting preezie ever.
2. Romney is not trustworthy as a conservative, even though he has run as one.
3. We can trust one of them to destroy everything we love and stand for, and we don't know how the other will govern.
It's simple, we die with the one, or we work on the other.
I stand with Palin, Newt, Perry, Santorum, Cain, Rush, Levin and every pother conservative we have supported on this forum; ABO, we can't stand another four years. Kindly think about it.
Because he believes that killing unborn children is wrong.
“Romney will be one our side on a number off issues and will sign off on conservative budgets and tax reform that obama will veto.”
So apparently budgest + tax reform is more important to you than unborn children. Why am I not surprised?
Not at all. I said ‘a number of issues’ that are all important and Romney will be better on pretty much all of them. Obama is the most pro-abortion President ever, and Romney has pledged to be pro-life, reverse Obama’s policies like mexico city policy and HHS policies and Planned Parenthood funding, and appoint judges who take a Scalia stance not a ginsburg stance on Roe v Wade. Romney has echoed support for repealing Roe v Wade. Obama is running ads now calling Romney ‘extreme’ for being prolife.
You can admit that those differences are real and vote the more conservative viable candidate.
Or you can vote 3rd party, engage in the fantasy that it will make a difference and watch Obama in his second term do even more damage on this and other issues.
“Romney has pledged to be pro-life, reverse Obama’s policies like mexico city policy and HHS policies and Planned Parenthood funding, and appoint judges who take a Scalia stance not a ginsburg stance on Roe v Wade. Romney has echoed support for repealing Roe v Wade. Obama is running ads now calling Romney ‘extreme’ for being prolife.”
Romney’s blowing smoke up your ass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI
“You can admit that those differences are real”
Or I can speak the truth that Romney is lying to you.
“Or you can vote 3rd party, engage in the fantasy that it will make a difference”
If you’re voting to ‘make a difference’, why aren’t you supporting Obama?
I vote for the candidate that I trust, who doesn’t lie to me about his stances. That rules out Romney and Obama.
You couldn't possible be any more wrong. This surely proves my point.
Your delusion proves mine.
LLS
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