I posted this in the “You gotta laugh” thread, but it really deserves a string of its own, being a separate topic. Here is the current categorical breakdown of EV’s, around the nation from electoralvote.com. It is based on the most recent polls in each state. (Example: released last Th., Obama over the Rom-bot in Virginny by eight percent, right now.)
Strong D (Obama), 187 EV’s.
Weak D (<10 % lead), 67 EV
Barely D, 49 EV
Tied, two states, CO and AZ (!), 20 EV
Barely R (Rom-bot), 45 EV’s, of which 29 are just in FL.
Weak R, 94 EV’s, and
Strong R, just 76 EV’s.
Now let us play what-if. Assume, for the sake of argument that Obama carries all those states and DC where he is currently “strong” and the next category, “weak” (e.g. less than ten percent ahead, now). That totals 254 EV’s and he then needs just 17 more to win a second term.
(To you skeptics: this really is a strong position – the Rom-bot’s equivalent number, beyond his “strong” plus “weak”, is 101 more EV’s!)
Now consider these tossup states and their EV’s. (I am not considering Missouri as likely, I may be wrong.):
Florida, now in play with the Ryan Plan pissing off the AARP, 29 EV’s.
Ohio, 18.
Michigan, 16.
North Carolina, 15.
Arizona, 11. (Same AARP problem, plus Brewer, plus Arpaio!)
Colorado, 9, and,
Iowa, 6.
Here are possible paths to 17 or more to make the nut:
Florida, by itself, 29 votes.
Ohio, by itself, 18 votes.
(No Republican can be elected President without both of those states.)
Or,
Michigan plus Iowa.
NC plus Iowa.
Arizona plus Iowa.
Arizona plus Colorado, call it the Western Gambit.
Michigan plus NC.
Michigan plus Colorado.
Michigan plus Arizona.
North Carolina plus Arizona, or,
North Carolina plus Colorado.
So if the President holds his 254 votes, then there are at least 11 ways to make the minimum to win this election, and four more years in office. Now imagine you are the Rom-bot’s handlers, and you have to strategize how to prevent any of these.
(Now add in a wild card: if Missouri becomes a likely Obama vote, that adds four more possible winning combinations, with either: Michigan, or North Carolina, or Arizona, or Colorado. Wait, it gets better! Nebraska can split its EV’s, and if Obama wins two of them, than add in [CO + IA + NB's 2], or [MO + IA + NB's 2], e.g. two more minimum combinations. Is this fun, or what?)
Camp Romney should be ordering Pepto-Bismol by the caseload.
They will need it. They have so many different ways to lose this, 17 minimum combinations of EV’s.
Ah, but you’re leaving out the Libertarian Party. Now Lyndon LaRouche is a piece of shit, and i have less than zero time for the party itself. But Gary Johnson is the party nominee now, and i have more than a few minutes for him. And could well siphon votes from both parties via those elusive Indies.
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/issues
Pornilicious One:
Lyndon LaRouche is not a Libertarian, he hangs at the extreme end of the Democrats, where his True Believers cause nothing but trouble. (I write from personal experience with those creeps.)
I suspect that Johnson will siphon more disgruntled small-gummint conservatives, than anyone from the liberal side.
He’s a big pro-legalize weed proponent. There’s the college kids there
I don’t agree with all of his positions, but i don’t agree with all Obama’s either. He makes a lot of sense on some of the difficult issues. I see nothing on his platform about HCR though.
Kevin. If the election were to be held tomorrow I would guess that Obama would win, perhaps not by a lot, but a reasonable assessment of the odds seem to give him the edge. Current polls though are showing that the swing states are tightening up.
However, prognosticating also involves assessing how events and circumstances might change and then how that might change polling and possible voting patterns. Six more months of not much over 100,000/Mo job growth creates varies the variables towards Romney and away from Obama, whereas 200,000/Mo job growth for six months blows them in Obama’s direction. I’m guessing that the lower figure is more probable.
The stock market is pretty high right now. There is no shortage of people ready to argue that it should go higher, and others who say it may go down. The WSJ did have an editorial the other day on at least one variable that will exert downward pressure. Most people understand that bond prices vary inversely with interest rates so as to maintain current yields. There is some of the same effect with stocks with high dividend yields. Right now the federal tax rate is 15%. For next year that is slated to go back to ordinary income tax rates plus there is the 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income over $200K. That means that the maximum rate jumps from 15% to 43.4% for those in the top marginal rate with over $200K in investment income.
I know that many here are thinking cry me a river, but (to use easy math) if a $100 stock is generating a $10 or 10% dividend that is $8.50 after federal tax. Next year for some top taxpayers the after tax yield could be reduced to $5.66. For that same stock to generate a 8.5% after tax yield, that stock price needs to fall by a third to $66.59 ($5.66/66.59=8.5%)
Now, I’m not predicting that the market will fall by a third. Many dividend paying stocks are held in IRA or pension funds where the taxes are not paid until distributions are made, but there will be a factor exerting a downward pressure on a part of the market. After all, why own the stock at that point – why not just sell the stock and own a tax free muni? A couple of thousand points off the DOW will hurt Obama and help Romney. Does anyone really expect a couple of thousand points more on the DOW?
It’s a complex multivariate equation, and your guess is as good as mine. The only prognostication I’m really confident in is that it will be tight until October and then we may start to get a better clue.
T’dog, you may be correct. It is, after all, early May, six months to go.
But this jellyfish just again, this week, failed to stand up to one of his own supporters, this time a woman who asserted without explanation that the President should be tried for treason. The Jellyfish just stood there, and sometime later told a reporter in private that he “did not agree”.
Well, isn’t that just so special?
The contrast with McCain’s conduct in 2008 is stunning, and sickening.
This guy is a spineless wonder and everyone is beginning to see that clearly. Now that we are not distracted by the rest of the clowns in the carnival car, the situation will come into sharper focus each week.
When we vote for a President we vote for a leader. That involves a spine, and cojones, and this jellyfish has offered no proof for the presence of either feature.
Even Grover Norquist has explained to his buddies, in public at the CPAC meeting, that all they are looking for is a willing signature for other people’s ideas, and that Mitt is the guy for that job. His own notions are simply not relevant. Just his presence in the right chair!
Even his own wife has stated that he is limp, and once offered to take over the pressers, while standing right next to the guy.
My post up top simply outlines how many ways the Obama campaign managers can have fun this Fall. The situation here in Nevada is becoming more solid for the President each week, as the GOP continues to eat their young. (Check out past weekend’s NV-GOP convention!)
The Democratic voter reg. and GOTV machinery are now quite effective in Clark Co., NV.
Still, I will take nothing for granted. I expect to have blisters on both feet at the election-watch party, just like last time.
Kevin
I’m with tommy, a lot of shit can happen in six months, especially in today’s world. At least I think that’s what he’s saying. I don’t like to miss an opportunity to agree with tommy, since it happens so rarely.
Really though, I honestly think you’re underestimating how much damage a panicked GOP machine can do. You’re probably not underestimating The Weasel, he really is a doofus, but let’s not forget how to spell “swiftboating”. It’s not as if Obama is somehow invulnerable, right? To win he still needs enthusiasm from a lot of the folks who put him over the top last time, many of whom are disillusioned by him now, plus he got one hell of a boost from the timely economic implosion, and another one from the fact that Palin was so patently unqualified.
Romney doesn’t have to up his game all that much to keep it close, especially if the economic picture is bleaker, which it may well be.
For myself, if it wasn’t for the SCOTUS implications, I wouldn’t really give a shit at this point.
Well, that and the sheer aesthetic calamity that would be having Romney’s face in the news several times a week.
g, I”m saying that if you peer into the horizon it is easier to spot storm clouds for Obama than it is for Romney. Will they peter out before they hit shore? Damned if I know, but I don’t see many rainbows. Also, for all the insults about Romney being a jellyfish, there are plenty who think Obama is a space cadet. The election is most likely a referendum on Obama more than anything else, and to use an equine analogy (did you catch the Derby Saturday?), how many people really want another 4 years of keeping a tight rein on a pretty horse that wants to run in a direction they don’t want to go?
Time to review predictions?
Tommydog:
what makes you think that the Jellyfish, who really is one, can even convince people of what direction he will go?
The guy is all over the place, except that he does respond like a trained seal when the right wing nuts bark their instructions – just like Grover told them he will.
At some point, people will notice. They look for leadership in a President. We have that now, but the Jellyfish cannot demonstrate a trace of it.
tommy
More like a tired old nag that’s running out of feed, to my eye.
I knew the agreement wouldn’t last long, I just knew it.
g, if we agreed too often I’d quit visiting.
Kevin
Damn Kevin, you did this last election too. Ain’t it a bit soon to be going into pom-pom waving mode?
Here’s a prediction, one I’ve been making all along: the SCOTUS will uphold the mandate next month. Which is going to set the GOP crazy base on fire, at least for a while.
I see signs that Obama is growing out of his desperate need to be seen to be reasonable, as opposed to a drive to get out front and lead, so there is some hope that he would do a better job of inhabiting his in a second term than he did in his first.
If the Republicans had been able to field a mensch I wouldn’t give him very good odds. But Romney is no mensch. And he’s so far from being a mensch that there is just no way he can even pretend he resembles a cardboard cut-out of a mensch. Romney in office would make Obama, with all his hesitations, look like a towering pillar of strength. He really doesn’t have any skeleton at all.
The way things are going in the rest of the world, a 5.66 yield on blue chip is still going to look like a good investment. The world is awash in money right now (if you are one of the few) and they are all seriously panicked that they are going to be caught holding cash when the bottom drops out of the euro. I was talking to a guy last week who manages a few billion in oligarchical type funds, and he was absolutely convinced that at some point in the near future confidence in the euro is going to cease to exist, and that it would happen more or less overnight. I have no idea if this is true, but I know that his perception of it was very true. And if he thinks it, well… quite likely it is a meme that others in his world are batting around with some vigor. And if the euro did tank, where do you want your wealth to be? Gold is already through the roof. etc.
But, yeah, it’s a very long time between now and November.
I have always assumed from his posts that Kevin is a card carrying party insider and that he has to – or that it would look bad if he didn’t.
I think Natasha might have been when younger but I don’t get that impression from anyone else.
Back in December – and based on nothing at all – I would have given it to the GOP by a sliver.
After the primary I’d say that the president gets back in by default – unless something bad happens that he fluffs.
Expat, and Gunny:
I used to be a party insider. Those days are long past.
But our system always devolves down, by election day, to two choices. No more. This is not a parliamentary system, there is no LD Party, there will be no coalition.
We have the guy who is there now, warts and all. And we have the Other Guy, who looks more repellent every day, to me. Thems is the choices. Take one.
I am not waving pompoms. I am being realistic. I look at who would come in with this Jellyfish: the religious crowd, the neo-cons and the corporate lobbyists. It will be the Cheney Administration all over again, with an even weaker figurehead than even Dubya was.
They will find us a new war to fight, within a year. That is what they do. They will do it again.
Expat, you continue to operate on a delusion: that the Republican Party is something other than what it has really become. They are not conservatives any more.
***
Tommydog: I am not insulting the Jellyfish, I am describing him, factually.
The SC ruling is another variable that acts in Romney’s favour, either plus a bit or plus a lot. If the SC upholds ACA a majority of the public will be unhappy. Perhaps the Rs do go ape shit, but that helps Romney a lot. If it strikes down ACA, a majority of the public will be relieved. That helps Romney a bit, certainly as regards any arguments he makes that should a SC judge retire in the next four years, a likely occurrence, that a majority of the public might like his proposed nominees more than Obama’s.
The most current national polls listed on RCP now have Romney with a very slight lead (we can call it tied given margins of errors), and swing state polls have tightened considerably.
Heh, heh. I’ll suggest that should Obama do that, it’ll seal his fate and give Romney the win. Too many people realize that with probably both Republican controlled Senate and House, that it’ll just be 4 years of a pissing match. There was a movie once where someone told an inept general that the “men wouldn’t follow you into a whorehouse.” People don’t follow leaders to where they don’t want to go and there is not a lot of evidence that a majority of the country sees the world as Obama sees it.
Expat:
to this comment of yours,
I have often questioned your reasoning, but I have never smeared your motivations.
But here I find that you have “always assumed” that mine are subject to someone’s orders. I am glad that you finally let that out, so I don’t ever in this life, have to pay any attention to what you write, any more.
You keep posting here, and elsewhere, making excuses for a political movement that has become seriously repulsive to any decent human, but you have the fucking gall to smear MY motives?
The more I think about that remark, the madder I am.
NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO SAY OR THINK.
Fuck you.
Tommydog:
one more post, then I’ll be out the rest of this day – and just as well, I say.
To this,
I also see no evidence that most of the people in this country see the world as the Jellyfish perceives it. He is a deeply devoted member of an odd cult, and his economic notions are full of violence towards the vast majority of the people. His notions on foreign policy are being fed to him by the neo-conservatives. It is an ugly mix.
I think you may be quite surprised by the vote this November.
Kevin. I apologize if you were offended by my banter.
Welcome to the club of those who regularly feel that they have their motivation smeared either directly or by association.
I suppose I should cop to admitting that in the interests of pure laziness I used an example of a 10% dividend because I figured anyone could follow the arithmetic. (Or perhaps that I could do the arithmetic). In reality a high dividend stock is more likely yielding in the 5% range rather than 10%, so that 5.66% figure would be cut in half in a real world example.
3.33% is still nothing to sneeze at.
5.66% / 2 = 2.83%
At some point we get into coughing territory.
if the alternative is losing 40-50% in a week, that’s an easy cough to treat.
Alternative is losing 40-50% in a week? You’re suggesting that’s what happens if Obama doesn’t get his way? Sorry, I’m missing the logic.
At this point nobody knows what is going to happen. its that simple.
Romney would do better to actually show some leadership skills.
So far none are in evidence.
And what is his campaign actually about? Isn’t it important to set a narrative early on?
He is simply voting on the “I’m not Obama” platform – and in truth that may be enough to get him elected. Lots of people hate Obama.
Lots of people have very short memories of how conservative policies have ruined the economy in this country.
Tommy -
o/t, but if you’re a map-head (i am too), there’s a motherlode here -
http://electionate.com/about/
Tommy, no that’s not at all or anywhere in the ball park with what I wrote that you responded to and got us into this particular cul de sac. It’s perfectly clear up above, but if you won’t read what I wrote what is the point of talking about what I wrote? It’s at 1:02 on the 8th.
Tommy
That’s become a common mantra, but is it true? In many polls, there has always been a percentage (and not negligible: in some it’s been 10-20%) who were not “happy” with the ACA because it either didn’t go far enough, or was flawed.
That’s the problem (as I have said over and over again on CiF) with taking the ‘headline’ on the press release, and not delving into the questions that were asked, or the detail of the responses.
And why I tend to discount most polls that simply have a range of “Are you very satisfied with” . . .to “very dissatisfied with” (or versions thereof) unless there were questions that qualify it with “Why are you. . .?”
(And an awful lot don’t, and even with those that do — Gallup often, for example — you have to dig very deep.)
It’s like polling people about whether they like furry animals as pets. And concluding that (say) 20% of people must prefer a snake or a lizard to a cat because none of them were asked “Are you allergic to fur?” .
A poll that doesn’t have these kinds of ‘control’ questions is worthless.
It’s a bit like the Romney support. If you assume that the Republcans who vote in primaries are the most committed (which seems logical), by extrapolation, he’s never had much more than the uncommitted, undoubting, unquestioning, support of more than about 25-30% of Republican voters so far.
And that, interestingly, is about the same proportion who consistently put things like abortion and evangelical Christian values — the stuff that keeps making the news — high on their list of issues. (At least when they are not the main or predominant focus of the survey.)
All he can campaign on, successfully, I think, is being “not Obama”, for all the various reasons he can either spell out plainly or just hint at.
I agree Red, this doesn’t hold water:
It will energize the Teaheads, sure, but they are already foaming at the mouth at the thought of a second term, so when the SCOTUS upholds ACA it’s going to count as a victory for the incumbent.
It seems that pollsters have quit polling on the health care law, or if someone can find a new one it’d be interesting to review, but from last March’s Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/toss-individual-health-insurance-mandate-poll-says/2012/03/18/gIQAaZtpLS_blog.html
We’ll see next month, but should the SC strike it down any howls will likely be limited largely to the Guardian.
Bluthner, are you trying to make a link between a possible collapse of the Euro and an argument that Americans will be better off should dividend taxes be hiked in such event? As with bond prices, a major reduction in after tax yields will have a push down effect on stocks – not universally, but there will be a downward draft.
In many polls, there has always been a percentage (and not negligible: in some it’s been 10-20%) who were not “happy” with the ACA because it either didn’t go far enough, or was flawed.
Yep. You can count me in that bunch. And forgive me if i’m wrong here, but also i believe Gunny, Lefty, Bimballace, Jen Abel, Kevin(?) – no right wingers here.
No, not at all. Not even close. Not even in the ballpark.
PS
Yeah, me too.
I participated in two phone polls about the ACA, before it passed in Congress. You know the drill, press 1, or 2, or 3 etc if you “agree, somewhat agree” and so on…
It was impossible in both cases to express the actual reason for “disagreeing” by reason of the way the questions were designed.
I maintained then, and still do, that the Healthcare polling was busted. I still suspect the question “would you favor a healthcare plan modeled on “medicare for all”, or perhaps modeled on the Veterans Administration” would poll better that conservatives think, and not just by a little bit.
We’ll never know, of course.
And Rip, thanks for the backup on the gay rights thread—it was appreciated. You too MM.
Gunny -
I’m used to that sort of shit on CiF now, mostly due to my un-PC views on illegal immigration. (Also for my unPC views on partyline-feminism.) It’s ignorable for the most part. I also ignore the folks on Huffpo that think illegal immigrants should be lined up and shot.
Amy. thanks for the link to the maps. Some are pretty neat. I haven’t had time to peruse them all.
On ACA you guys are reminding me of the jilted lover whose ex-girlfriend flips him the bird as she storms away and who then says “she must still like me, she waved”.
Gunny, yes, I have always believed that too.
And if the ACA is repealed or deemed unconstitutional, there will be a shit storm. The TP will be elated – but probably nobody else.
People hated the individual mandate. That does not mean they do not want better heatlh care. More to the point, it does not mean they wanted to maintain the status quo.
Let’s not forget the amazing number of potential voters who, one way or another, claimed to have no opinions during the recent primary extravaganza. I’m inclined to take them at their word. What kind of deep involvement, what kind of broadly informed reasoning do we now expect them to embark on before November?
I think these people mostly “make up their minds” — there just has to be a better way to say that — in one of two ways: either some transitory event pisses them off (say, gas prices spike) or they perceive a consensus in people they consider their peers. Now that 92.4% of us live entirely in information siloes, the latter tendency has to be at least as strong as it usually is. And nobody really wants to talk about that. All of us who believe in the politics we endorse shy away from acknowledging our dependence on people who can be persuaded that they “agree” with us but have never spent five minutes thinking about any of it.
Gunny -
o/t, but i have my popcorn on deck for when you get to the Dinkins guy on MT’s latest who said investment in rural broadband is beyond idiocy…
PS
I think that really is the old CiF troll “PresidentD”, who was prolific on Tomasky’s threads when I first came on board. He pretty much disappeared right after Obama won in ’08.
Tommy will remember him, I bet. He was pretty good at what he did, way better than either version of ngavc.
I’d like to help populate Mike’s new blog, but the comment architecture there is just too frustrating. I think it’s even more unstable with me being on a satellite link with big “ping” times—it just drives me nuts and it’s not worth it. So I’ll not be back very much, I think.
I tried to comment on Mike’s blog day before yesterday. I could log in all right, and ‘like’ other people’s posts, but my comment never appeared. It was pretty anodyne, but did mention that we missed him at the ‘G’. Maybe that got me modded? And the troll count is pretty damn high. I’ll happily read, because he still has plenty of interest to say, but happily stay silent.
One thread yesterday when i got back to it had like 100 new comments on it, i just said fuck it and didn’t bother. But CiFA sucks now, and at least MT is talking about some stuff that i’m interested in. Like congressional races for one. Just too bad he’s at the Beast now, i feel kind of dirty even looking at the rest of that site.
Bluth -
I doubt you got modded, i think the comment system just sucks. It probably either got eaten, or it’s there but you just couldn’t find it in all the dross.
I remember PresidentD. He was actually pretty darned good. I assume he got modded at some point and didn’t bother coming back under a new moniker.
Dangit, so the famous Tomasky now has blog going, you guys are all here, and then there’s still stuff happening on CiF.
I need more screens.
Pornstar:
Just had a quick look. Oh dear.
“This has all got very boring, because there are only boring people around not talking about anything that isn’t boring. And because I am such an unimaginative and uninteresting writer with such boring and unimaginative friends the only thing I can think of is to bore you terribly by writing very boringly about how bored we all are.”
(The ‘new’ CiFA guy.)
At least they haven’t yet got to The Atlantic stage of being so bored they can only write tediously every other day about how boring their colleagues are, but it’s probably only a matter of time.
I had another look at the DB. Can’t bring myself to register there, even for MT. It really is a tacky site.
Yeah. Thankfully, as is practically standard, the BTL stuff is way more interesting than the ATL guff. Except for the trolls.
I wish MT would ditch the Beast and go back to the Graun. Or that the Graun would hire Gunny.