Human
Events...
Three
different ways to look at the 2012 campaign
by Michael
Barone
05/14/2012
Last week,
I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked
like a
long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states,
much
like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard
slog
scenario.
But I said
there were other possible scenarios. I can think of three.
The
1964/1972 scenario: Challenger disqualifies himself. Barry Goldwater
and George
McGovern were idealistic, intelligent senators who took positions on
issues
that made them unacceptable to most voters in years favorable to
incumbents.
This could
happen to Mitt Romney this year. And it might well have happened if
some of his
primary opponents had won the nomination. But he doesn’t seem to be the
kind of
candidate who would disqualify himself. Chances for this scenario: less
than 5
percent.
The 1988
scenario: Affluent voters break strongly Republican. Vice President
George Bush
was 17 points behind Michael Dukakis after the Democratic National
Convention.
But he came back to win by a 53 to 46 percent margin.
One reason
is that his “read my lips, no new taxes” promise solidified his support
among
affluent suburbanites. His margins in suburbs enabled him to carry
metro
Philadelphia, metro Baltimore, metro Detroit, metro Chicago, metro Los
Angeles
and the surrounding states.
Since then,
affluent non-Southern suburbanites have trended Democratic. And big
city crime
and welfare rolls -- cause for complaint in 1988 -- have declined.
Republicans’
conservative stands on cultural issues and the increasing Southern
influence in
the party repelled suburbanites. Barack Obama carried most affluent
non-Southern suburbs handily in 2008.
But Romney
showed particular appeal to this constituency in the primaries. Without
big
margins in affluent suburbs, he would have lost Michigan, Ohio and
Illinois to
Rick Santorum.
Romney’s
proposed tax cuts and Obama’s proposed tax increases pose the sharpest
contrast
on the tax issue since Bush beat Dukakis 24 years ago. And economics is
far
more important than cultural issues this year. Chances for the 1988
scenario:
maybe 20 percent.
The 1980
scenario: Late break away from the incumbent. We remember the 1980
election as
Ronald Reagan’s landslide defeat of Jimmy Carter.
It didn’t
look like that during the campaign. Carter led in polls much of the
time. Sometimes
the race looked like a 2000/2004-style long, hard slog through target
states.
But
Carter’s job rating was buoyed up that year by approval of his varied
attempts
to free the hostages in Iran. Underneath those numbers, his ratings on
other foreign
issues and the economy were weak.
Most voters
were ready for an alternative, but were wary of Reagan, who was 69
years old
and supposedly extreme conservative. He might have disqualified himself
in a
number of ways.
Instead, in
his one debate with Carter, on the Thursday before the election, Reagan
echoed
a 1934 Franklin Roosevelt fireside chat, which he remembered but the
press
corps didn’t. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” he
asked
voters.
Opinion
moved quickly. Weekend polling showed an unprecedented 10-point shift
from
Carter to Reagan. Pollster Pat Caddell had to go to the White House
Monday
morning and tell Jimmy Carter that he was not going to be re-elected
president
of the United States.
Could
something like this happen this year? It is my view that Obama was
helped in
2008 by a widespread belief that, in the abstract, it would be a good
thing for
Americans to elect a black president. I know I felt that way myself.
This year,
I sense that many, perhaps most voters do not want the country to be
seen
rejecting the first black president. Such a feeling might be buoying
Obama’s
support despite the lagging economic recovery and the widespread
opposition to
his signature policies.
If that is
correct, it is possible that in the last days of the campaign a large
number of
voters will decide, quietly and out of public view, that they just
don’t want
any more of what they’ve had for the last four years and they will try
the
other guy and see if he can do better.
That’s what
happened in 1980. Reagan carried 44 states and won the popular vote by
10
points, more than anyone else since. Chances for the 1980 scenario:
maybe 20
percent.
So what
remains for the chance of the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario? At
least 55
percent. Still the best bet. But not the only one.
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