Pew Research Center is just one polling outfit, and a bit of a pro-Obama outlier, at that. But, according to their research, Mitt Romney is the only candidate from either party to have a net-negative favorability rating in September in any election going back to at least 1988. As a cautionary tale, however, the last time the Democrat had a comparable advantage in favorability in September was in 2000, and we know how that turned out. Al Gore managed to squander his likability in the debates, and the election grew close enough to steal.
That’s probably Romney’s only hope in this situation, but he’s starting from a worse position than George W. Bush, and these numbers were compiled before the 47 percent controversy erupted.
Romney has many problems that George W. Bush didn’t share, including a party that is scurrying away from him like his name were Todd Akin. On the other hand, Romney is a more accomplished debater than George W. Bush, so he can hold out hope to do well in the debates on his own merits, rather than just dreaming that Obama sighs and rolls his eyes a lot.
The Republicans go about winning elections quite a bit differently than the Democrats. They don’t rely so much on a ground game and field offices. When Obama and Biden go into a community and hold a rally, they mine for names and organizers, and that’s really the main benefit of the event. Romney should be doing the same thing, but he’s spending as much time fundraising as he is holding events, and that could be in part because he gets no benefit from campaign events. If people don’t like you, appearing in their community doesn’t help. Still, attracting at least modestly-sized crowds should help a campaign identify enthusiastic voters who will be willing to work for the campaign, and it also helps you tighten up your voter-contact lists since you can cross-off a bunch of names that you now know will be voting for you without any nudges.
As far as I can tell, Romney’s strategy has been to load up on cash and deluge the airwaves with ads at the end of the campaign. I don’t really think he’s been forced into this strategy, either. It seems to have been the plan all along. It’s definitely a hail-mary strategy. It doesn’t invest people in the campaign. It doesn’t build a grassroots organization. It annoys people who are exposed to way too much political advertising. And it doesn’t work very well when you’ve allowed the key messenger, the candidate, to be discredited in the interim. Not only do people not like Mitt Romney, they don’t believe him. Amazingly, Bill Clinton now has a near-infinite advantage over Romney in credibility.
The Republicans’ big money advantage concerns me a lot when it comes to Senate and House races, but it causes me no heartburn in the presidential race. At this point, I pretty much want Romney to run ads because I think they’ll probably work against him.
Booman,
I don’t know about the money deluge. This times articel
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/us/politics/romney-campaign-cautious-with-ad-budget-even-in-key-st
ates.html
makes it sound like the Romney campaign has been dishonest about how much money they have raised. Hard to believe I know.
Obviously there are the CPACs and dark money, but if the article is accurate, it makes them sound way worse off than I already thought they were.
The 47% meme was a transparent attempt to divert attention from Occupy Wall Street’s changing the conversation to the 1% and the 99%. Just remember that every time you are tempted to bash Romney for his stupid statement to the 1% at a fundraiser.
In other news, safe Democrats in Congress are flush with cash they are holding on to and TPaw goes to be a financial industry lobbyist. Does that mean that the right Democratic seats in Congress are now safely bought?
Here in Ohio, we get a huge volume of ads and most people are sick to death of them.
The thing is, Romney’s ads are now mostly reactions to his own screw-ups. His people are frantically pitching stuff out there to either distract voters from his blatantly despicable comments or push some alternate issue, hoping someone will believe a fresh set of lies.
I’d like to think Romney’s toast. I can’t imagine the type of ad they could dream up that could redeem him in anyone’s eyes.
I was in Cincy every other week in in July and 1 week in August to help out my mom. I remember asking my mom how she could stand all these damn ads. I was near to slitting my own wrist in less than a week. Add to that my mom did not have cable so I couldn’t even find some random high digital channel to escape from the ads.
In Nevada, between the Presidential race and the Senate race, we are just swarmed. Every commercial break on local TV is non-stop bullshit, out-of-context quotes, insults galore. Thankfully we have DirecTV and can watch the cable networks in relative peace. Regular ads. I’d rather be sold soap than all the lies and hate they’re peddling on local TV right now. Obama’s ads are the only ones that don’t insult your intelligence though. And he’s doing pretty well. The Senate race – who knows how it will turn out but the ads are vicious on both sides with that one. Funny that none of them seem to be asking for your vote though. It’s like the goal is to get people to either not vote or to vote against the other because they’re the bigger crook.
At our house, we took care of the TV blather issue about 5 years ago by disconnecting from it completely. I thought at the time if I wanted to watch anything, I could either go to the bar where one of my kids bartends, or catch it on the ‘tubes. So far, I haven’t really felt the need.
Reactions to his own screw-ups. That’s a very interesting observation and it bodes well.
To paraphrase Kanye West, Mitt Romney don’t like people…
So today’s remake of Romney relates that he will be doing more campaign stumps to turn a corner and give us more in your face Romney so we’ll like him better. Course the 2nd part of the news is that he’ll be joined by liquid lips Ryan to shore up the eloquence factor.
The down ticket candidates are all being pressed to comment on ‘are you with Mitt or are you against Mitt’ and the ‘I’m talking about the economy’ answers don’t suggest those in the know are choosing to run with Romney at the top of the ticket.
Mark McKinnon’s comment how he feels Mitt has dug too deep a hole for himself to see a debate success pull him out is a saddened commentary.
Don’t watch much TV, so maybe I don’t have a good sense of the ads running.
Obama’s ‘America’ ad seems like it killed any chance for Mitt to run as an ethical businessman. The other Obama ads I’ve seen are positive ads.
I’ve wondered why they have never run a Romney flip-flop ad. It seems like that was a real killer against Kerry, and there’s so much to mine there against Mitt. Maybe they’re saving that for a closer?
I think they probably agree with Bill Clinton: better to define Romney as an out-of-touch reactionary plutocrat.
Last Sunday’s Redskins game had an Obama ad saying Romney would raise taxes on the middle class while giving the wealthy (like himself) a tax cut. It was followed by a Romney ad saying nuh-uh! Obama will raise taxes on the middle class. The pair of ads ran several times.
So Romney is telling anyone who will listen that he didn’t get any money from his dad. After seeing the list of the prep school education, first house paid for at $42,000, Harvard education paid for and how Ann says they lived in a basement apartment living off stocks they owned…I notice that never once is there a mention of either one of them going out and getting a part time job or two while in college.
Oh yeah, only the lazy 47% lower themselves to work for their education.
Romney Just Saying He Grew Up Poor In Memphis Now
Reminds me of Raising Arizona:
You ate SAND? You were lucky! </Four Yorkshiremen>
Why is Mitt raising more $$$?
Is there any way that he could funnel the campaign funds into his pockets?
Is he gathering funds for another try at office (senate from who know where?)?
Unless he’s lied, he has more funds than he could spend in a realistic manner. What gives?
Must see take down of Romney with out of contest comments
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-campaign-releases-out-of-context-video-mocking
Yeah, and this has been his strategy for over a year—both in the primaries, and now in the general.
At the risk of being immodest, I’ll quote myself from five months ago:
“It’s one thing to rely on a small “SWAT team” of senior campaign staff to pull off victories in key primary states over several months. But will that model work this fall when all 50 states have the same election day? And if not, will Romney’s campaign be able to make the transition in time to have a reliable field staff in all 15 (or so) swing states?
For the Obama campaign there’s a different question: will all that face-to-face and online organizing prove an effective defense against the coming deluge of Republican superPAC television attack ads?”
http://masscommons.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/romneys-swat-team-v-obamas-community-organizers/
can someone please tell me what I’m not seeing in terms of all the press I see and read about Romney being a good debater. Last night, some of the village were commenting on Romney at the Univision forum and many were saying that Obama will have his hands full with Romney…uh what?
Did I miss something? Is Romney better one on one than in the clown parade that was the GOP primary. The only one on one debates I’ve seen from him is the one with Ted Kennedy and from what I read the one he had for Gov of Mass was nothing to call home about.
Seriously, enlighten me please.
I don’t get it either. Romney got obliterated by Teddy. And the debate for Mass. Governor wasn’t anything special. And the primary debates this year? Hahahahahaha!!!!
It could be nothing but spin…..or Mitt is setting himself up for another self inflicted injury.
Also, no reason for Dems to push back against the idea that Romney is a good debater, since it sets a higher bar and all.
Al Gore managed to squander his likability in the debates, and the election grew close enough to steal. That’s probably Romney’s only hope in this situation,
Good to be cautious, but no. Most people didn’t know much about Al Gore in September, 2000, despite being a VP for 8 years, and so there was an opportunity for Rove & Co to define his image – which they did. Obama is defined. They’ve been screaming muslimsatanliberalmarxistsocialistniggerredistributionist for 5 years and they have no where else to go with that.
On the other hand, Romney isn’t that well known to the low info voters and for them his image is just now being defined. So far the low info voter has vaguely heard that Romney’s team ran a poor convention, that he said some stupid stuff at the time of the Libyan crisis so that even people in the GOP bitched about it, and he was caught on a secret video talking to very wealthy people saying nasty things about the lower middle class. The trend is bad.
Those few who tune into the debates to finalize their decision (I don’t believe anyone is truly undecided right now – they may just not be admitting it to themselves) will have a vague awareness of this. They’ll see Obama doing his usual competent, no drama, level-headed discussion of issues in a way that respects his audience. If you aren’t in the hate-Obama group already you are comfortable with that style.
Then they’ll see Romney. Can he possibly create a positive impression with the low info voters? I suppose it’s theoretically possible but I’ve seen zero evidence that he can. Contrast, for example, the two candidates Univision appearances. Romney can’t help himself – he says shit about Obama in a direct, nasty way – forget that he’s lying (of course he is, but the low info voter won’t be able to verify that) – it’s that he comes across exactly as his emerging image suggests – overprivileged, arrogant, and more than a bit annoyed that he has to appeal to low lifes to get this position.
Obama, by contrast, puts down Romney but in a way that sounds almost sympathetic – you know, when I hear someone say something like that I think that they haven’t really met enough people in this country, because when I meet Americans I see the hardest working people.
The image is set. The breitbart nazis are desperately trying to find the 2012 version of a Rev Wright tape in hopes that if they scream nigger REALLY LOUD this time the middle voter will listen. But what we Democrats are hoping for is that someone releases the secret Romney tax returns. If, in just one of those years, Romney paid no taxes it will be a major landslide, because that issue will dominate the news until the election.
Excellent analysis. And don’t forget, way back in the spring Romney, when he released his (partial) 2010 returns and estimates for his 2011, promised to release the 2011s when they were done and filed — which will be in mid-October. The issue’s going to come roaring back then, less than a month before the elections.