Polls still show Obama ahead with Electoral College votes.
by Geoffrey Stevens
This United States presidential election has been dominated by two emotions, both of them negative. One is disappointment in Barack Obama. The other is discomfort with Mitt Romney.
It’s been a nasty election, one singularly devoid of intelligent substance. So perhaps it is appropriate that disappointment and discomfort should be determining factors.
These emotions are not likely to sway core supporters of either party, although they may cause some of them to stay at home on election day. The effect is felt primarily among “independent” voters, those who do not identify with either party.
In 2008, Obama and Joe Biden won the national popular vote by 7.2 percentage points over Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin. That hefty margin was built on an eight-point edge among independent voters. That advantage is long gone. Today, according to the Gallup organization, Romney and his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan, lead Obama/Biden by 10.6 points among independents.
In 2008, Obama and Joe Biden won the national popular vote by 7.2 percentage points, a hefty margin was built on an eight-point edge among independent voters.
This does not necessarily point to a Republican victory next week (there are still more registered Democrats than Republicans), but it does presage a desperately close election.
As of Sunday, Real Clear Politics, a website that aggregates the major national polls, had Romney marginally ahead in the national popular vote — 47.9 percent to 47.0 percent. But it also had Obama slightly ahead in the struggle to get to 270 Electoral College votes, the magic number needed to win the White House. RCP gave Obama 201 electoral votes to 191 for Romney with 146 votes parked in states that were deemed too close to call.
Another poll aggregator, FiveThirtyEight (named after the total number of Electoral College votes), was a bit kinder to Obama. It gave him the edge in popular support (50.3 percent to 48.7). It projected Obama/Biden would win a narrow victory in the Electoral College with 295.5 to 242.5 for Romney/Ryan.
The outcome will be determined by what the backroom pros call their “ground game” — their ability to identify and target their own sympathizers and to get them to the polls.
The ground game is doubly important this year because of the way the campaign has unfolded. Romney did not exactly burst out of the Republican primaries on the crest of a wave of public enthusiasm. He won the nomination because he was the least disreputable of a motley collection of libertarians, clowns and wingnuts. (Do you recall Rick Perry, the Texas governor who couldn’t remember which federal agencies he wanted to abolish, or Newt Gingrich, who thought it would be a neat idea to attack Iran?)
The ground game is doubly important this year because of the way the campaign has unfolded.
Romney won the nomination by pandering to the extreme right and disowning his own moderately progressive (for a Republican) record as governor of Massachusetts. Since then, he has crawled back toward the centre, more or less — leaving voters confused or uncertain about his true intentions.
Is he a moderate or a closet ideologue? Can this rich man relate to middle-class Americans? He tries to look presidential, but somehow he falls short. He looks more on edge than authoritative. Can ordinary voters feel comfortable with a man who seems uncomfortable in his own skin? Can they picture him in the Oval Office? His momentum after the first debate it has dissipated.
As for Obama, when he blew the first debate, he lost his lead and any momentum he might have had. He’s been playing catch-up ever since, and not very successfully. He badly underestimated the economic distress that ordinary families are feeling and the extent to which they blame him and his policies. Their disappointment is palpable every time an interviewer asks a citizen, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” The answer is always “No.”
Obama won four years ago with a message of hope: “This election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again. …Don't tell me we can't change. Yes, we can… Yes, we can heal this nation.”
Americans don’t believe him anymore, which is why Obama is in peril of losing to a mediocrity like Mitt Romney.
About Geoffrey Stevens
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He welcomes comments at the address below. This article appeared in the Waterloo Region Record and the Guelph Mercury.
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