The 2012 Election

[_Brackite]

Add it up: The prediction models look dismal for Obama. Can he still win?:
http://news.yahoo.com/add-it-up--the-pr ... -win-.html

[_krose]

I'm not buying that it doesn't even matter who the other candidate is -- that if certain numbers get below a given threshold, a president will lose. I think it matters quite a bit who the alternative is when the people face the choice of firing a president.

If Romney himself still has low approval numbers in November, it's not too likely that he will win, even if job numbers don't improve.

Bush won reelection in 2004, in large part, because Kerry was not well liked.

[_EAllusion]

I'm not buying that it doesn't even matter who the other candidate is -- that if certain numbers get below a given threshold, a president will lose.

I more or less buy that. A candidate has to be within the Overton window in order for it to not hurt, but for actual likely candidates, who they are and what they think plays a hilariously small role in the election process. Brackite is quoting one prediction model that supports the conclusion he would like to have happen, but overall those kind of index forecasting models tend to favor Obama.

e.g.

http://pollyvote.forecastingprinciples. ... -2012.html

One of my favorite forecasting models simply looks at presidential approval ratings in June, GDP growth in the year leading up to June, and the length of time the president's party has held office, and uses that to calculate relative share of two-party vote. It has been stunningly accurate (margin of error ~2%) for as long as those factors could be measured. It's not an oracle or anything, but it is able to be as accurate as it is because some basic factors underlying voter behavior that have nothing to do with "the other guy" play such a massive role in the outcome. This model presumes, successfully, that presidential elections serve as a referendum on the incumbent party. The personality and issues of the other guy end up functioning as post-hoc excuses for reverting to what would be natural voting behavior anyway.

Here's how this year's prediction from that model are shaping up:

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crysta ... tionmodel/

Pretty much what other established forecasting strategies are honing in on too.

Bush won reelection in 2004, in large part, because Kerry was not well liked.

Nah.

[_Bond James Bond]

Time flies! We're less than 100 days away. I've decided to update my projections. I used a asterisk in front of states I've added to totals. The states I'm moving are Indiana and Arizona to Romney (bringing his total to 181) and Pennsylvania to Obama bringing Obama's total to 247. A note about Pennsylvania since people might question my thinking. The Washington Post is the source material but the daily kos blog entry is a more concise explanation of ad spending:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... -ads-2012/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/0 ... he-ad-wars

From the sources we learn that Republicans neither directly through Romney or the RNC or indirectly through SuperPacs have spent any money on ads in Pennsylvania which suggests to me they're already starting to focus on other states. Obama and Company have also limited their spending, suggesting that they think Penn. is approaching a safe state. Polling is currently mixed but "money talks" according to Citizens United. Maybe I'll be wrong in which case serve up the crow pie.

Safe Obama: 247
California-55 (2008 - Obama)
New York-29 (2008 - Obama)
Illinois-20 (2008 - Obama's home state)
Washington-12 (2008 - Obama)
Oregon-7 (2008 - Obama)
Massachusetts-11 (2008 - Obama)
New Jersey-14 (2008 - Obama)
Hawaii-4 (2008 - Obama)
Minnesota-10 (2008 - Obama)
Maryland-10 (2008 - Obama)
Wisconsin-10 (2008 - Obama)
Michigan-16 (2008 - Obama)
New Mexico-5 (2008 - Obama)
Maine-4 (2008 - Obama)
Delaware-3 (2008 - Obama)
Connecticut-4 (2008 - Obama)
Vermont-3 (2008 - Obama)
Rhode Island-3 (2008 - Obama)
DC-3 (2008 - Obama)
*Pennsylvania-20 (Obama-2008)

Safe Romney: 181
Texas-38 (2008 - McCain)
Tennessee-11 (2008- McCain)
Kentucky-8 (2008 - McCain)
Louisiana-8 (2008 - McCain)
Alabama-9 (2008 - McCain)
Mississippi-6 (2008 - McCain)
Alaska-3 (2008 - McCain)
Oklahoma-7 (2008 - McCain)
Kansas-6 (2008 - McCain)
Nebraska-5 (2008 - McCain)
North Dakota-3 (2008 - McCain)
South Dakota-3 (2008 - McCain)
Montana-3 (2008 - McCain)
Wyoming-3 (2008 - McCain)
Utah-6 (2008 - McCain)
Idaho-4 (2008 - McCain)
Georgia-16 (2008 - McCain)
West Virginia-5 (2008 - McCain)
South Carolina-9 (2008 - McCain)
*Arizona-11 (2008-McCain)
*Indiana-11 (Obama-2008)

Tossup: 110
Florida-29 (Obama) (Obama-2008)
Ohio-18 (Obama) (Obama-2008)
Colorado- 9 (Obama) (Obama-2008)
Nevada-6 (Obama) (Obama-2008)
Missouri-10 (Romney) (McCain-2008)
New Hampshire-4 (Obama) (Obama-2008)
Iowa-6 (Obama) (Obama-2008)
North Carolina-15 (Romney) (Obama-2008)
Virginia-13 (Obama) (Obama-2008)

If Pennsylvania is moved to the Democratic column things get precarious for Romney quick. At 247 Obama, needing only 23 votes, could win with Florida (29) or Ohio and Nevada (24 combined votes) besides dozens of other combinations. At this juncture Romney would have to take every state on the board although he could let a few small states slip away.

3 months out let's keep the fun going. My gut at this point from my original post is that I probably will miss on Iowa, Florida, and maybe one other , but I think I'll get at least 47 states correct.


*Edit of course as soon as I post that bit about Penn. not having any Republican ad buys they'd buy a big one lol. Oh well I'll leave it based on a PPP poll the other day that showed Obama up 11 besides other non-Rasmussen polls that show Obama with leads. Crow eating a bit but I still think Penn is going Democratic.

[_Bond James Bond]

I'll probably wait til closer to the election to make some more moves (after Conventions) but really I could probably add Missouri to the Romney column and Colorado and Nevada to the Democratic column. In that case it would be Romney with 191 votes and Obama with 262.

[_Bond James Bond]

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-an ... aseID=1781

Florida: Obama 51-45
Ohio: Obama 50-44
Pennsylvania: Obama 53-42

(In my previous post I said it was a PPP poll but it was this Quinnipiac/NYTimes poll). These are some good numbers for Obama.

[_EAllusion]

Pennsylvania is one of the states where Republicans have put in place a variety of voter suppression policies. If the polling there gets to within 5%, I'd consider it a question mark since we don't know how those policies are going to impact just yet. And Pennsylvania is movable to that range.

[_Bond James Bond]

Pennsylvania is one of the states where Republicans have put in place a variety of voter suppression policies. If the polling there gets to within 5%, I'd consider it a question mark since we don't know how those policies are going to impact just yet. And Pennsylvania is movable to that range.

Too true. Gotta love voter suppression. I'm shocked the Democrats haven't used some of their money towards "get-your-documents-together" drives in places like Florida, Ohio, Penn, Virginia, Nor. Carolina.

[_EAllusion]

Too true. Gotta love voter suppression. I'm shocked the Democrats haven't used some of their money towards "get-your-documents-together" drives in places like Florida, Ohio, Penn, Virginia, Nor. Carolina.

Part of the voter suppression legislation in Florida makes it extremely difficult to do "get your documents" drives without running into state penalties. With the exception of the NAACP, most of the voter registration groups - e.g. league of women voters - have simply pulled out in response. I'm not sure how it works in other states. It's pretty disgusting how undersold the story is. WI's laws are mostly on hold. The most ridiculous thing there, in my opinion, was Walker's attempt to shut down DMV's in Democrat heavy areas as a supposed budget measure and "compensate" by opening new ones up in Republican heavy areas. In the end, that probably wasn't a bad thing because it made it more blatant what the purpose of the ID law was, which in turn makes it easier to make a case that it is unconstitutional.

[_Drifting]

Can someone tell me the top five things (policies) that Romney stands for?