Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A Romney Landslide?

Dick Morris has a column out today predicting a landslide victory for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with well over 300 electoral votes.

Is he right?

Predictably, the angry left is all over this. Apparently President Clinton getting kinky with a 19-year-old intern was OK, while Dick Morris' escapades with a professional..not so much. But they seem to have forgotten that Dick Morris used to make his living as President Clinton's personal pollster. He does know politics.

So how accurate is he?

Reasonable voters saw that the voice of hope and optimism and positivism was Romney while the president was only a nitpicking, quarrelsome, negative figure. The contrast does not work in Obama’s favor.

His erosion began shortly after the conventions when Indiana (10 votes) and North Carolina (15) moved to Romney (in addition to the 179 votes that states that McCain carried cast this year).

Then, in October, Obama lost the Southern swing states of Florida (29) and Virginia (13). He also lost Colorado (10)*, bringing his total to 255 votes.

And now, he faces the erosion of the northern swing states: Ohio (18), New Hampshire (4) and Iowa (6). Only in the union-anchored state of Nevada (9) does Obama still cling to a lead.

In the next few days, the battle will move to Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (15), Wisconsin (10) and Minnesota (16). Ahead in Pennsylvania, tied in Michigan and Wisconsin, and slightly behind in Minnesota, these new swing states look to be the battleground.

Or will the Romney momentum grow and wash into formerly safe Democratic territory in New Jersey and Oregon?

Once everyone discovers that the emperor has no clothes (or that Obama has no argument after the negative ads stopped working), the vote shift could be of historic proportions.


*(Yes, I know, Colorado only has 9 electoral votes. Complain to Morris)

As I've written before, I think Mitt Romney has probably won North Carolina and Florida pretty handily, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him take Virginia, especially after Obama dissed the Navy and shipbuilding in the last debate. That would bring him up to 248 electoral votes, 257 if you include Colorado, another state where Romney is running ahead.

All Romeny would need to win if he takes Virginia and Colorado is one of the following: Ohio (18 electoral votes), Pennsylvania, (20 electoral votes) or Michigan (16 electoral votes), all of which are in play at the moment.Or he'd have to take Wisconsin( 10 electoral votes) and one of the following: New Hampshire (4 EVs), Iowa, or Nevada (6 electoral votes each).

On the other hand, if it goes down this way the only one of the big four President Obama could afford to lose and still win would be Wisconsin.

And if Romney does take Wisconsin and either Iowa or New Hampshire, both states where he's also ahead in the polls, it's over.

I personally see that as a more likely scenario, with Romney perhaps topping 300 if he happens to win either Ohio, Pennsylvania or Michigan.

I went into a few details in the earlier linked article on why each of these states are either problematical or likely pickups by Romney. As always, turnout is going to be the key.

I see a decent victory for Mitt Romney, not a landslide. And I'll narrow things down for you with a final prediction before the election.



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

As an Obama supporter, I see this is as great news.

Dick Morris, author of the hilariously titled 'Condi Vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race', has probably the worst track record for predictions of any pundit out there. He's a star on Fox because he tells their viewers what they want to hear. But he has to be the most useless political prognosticator ever.

A sampling of his nonsense:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/08/is-dick-morris-worlds-worst-political-pundit

Dick Morris certainly had a successful run with campaigns in the 1990s, but if the Dick Morris of today told me it was going to be sunny, I'd bring an umbrella. Again, the only reason he stays on the air is because he strokes the egos of the right wing hosts and audience. Rob, there are a lot of smart analysts out there who you could quote, but I'm surprised you're giving this charlatan the time of day.

I bet you won't post this comment (as louie likes to say).

Rob said...

On the other hand, Bob Shrum sees an Obama landslide, and his track record is far worse than Dick Morris'.

And need I mention demented clowns like Ed Schultz, Andrew Sullivan or Larry O'Donnell? Just to name a few?

However, I think my fisking of what Dick Morris had to say was fairly sensible.

So is this.

I would fully expect someone with your mental make up to vote for a dysfunctional wanna be socialist who appears to have handed North Africa to al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood on a silver platter.



Anonymous said...

So if you agree that Morris has a bad track record and just tells republicans what they want to hear, why bother posting his nonsense? That is, unless you're also posting what republicans want to hear, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

You bring up Shrum and Schultz, and I don't much care for them myself. But they have absolutely nothing to do with your post, except that you're using their names as a distraction from the main point. It's a fair tactic when you're defending the indefensible but, from what I understand, you agree with me about Morris. So why bring them up in the first place? Weird.

You couldn't resist getting in an insult, I see. Very grown up of you. But since we're in agreement here, does that reflect on your mental acuity as well? Or are you just mad that you had to face up to the fact that Morris duped you into passing on another one of his fantasies?

PS Your responses don't have to be so ad hominem. We get it. You hate libruhls. Gotcha. You can disagree without being disagreeable. (Though you found a way in your last comment to agree and be disagreeable...)

louielouie said...

it's not that the emperor has no clothes. the emperor's followers, and that's what they are, have none either. and they don't know it.
dumber than a sack of hair.
debt at 16 trillion and rising.
who cares?
real unemployment going over 15%.
who cares?
having to go to canada and UK for any factual MSM news.
who cares?
the UK dumps future wind farms and hussein goes all in.
who cares?
the US is in league with the very people who brought down the twin towers.
who cares?
ff knows why i started putting that comment at end of my posts.
the leader is a narcissist.
so are his followers.
i bet you won't post this comment.

louielouie said...

..... and now that halloween has passed, what is the most important topic in ALL the media going to be today?
the topic that has anon's mouth full of worms?
the topic that has anon simply moist?
what were the costume's the daughters wore last evening?
not benghazi, not election funding, and not selling off gov't motors.

Rob said...

What's wrong Anonymous?
Are we feeling overly sensitive today? I didn't insult you in the least, I merely pointed out the truth about whom you're supporting and what it says about your mental makeup.

As for hating liberals, you've got that one wrong as well.

One of the misfortunes in our political discourse is that unlike in Canada and Australia, the left was allowed to take over that word to describe themselves. In fact, the left are neither tolerant, open to new ideas or 'progressive' in any real sense of the word.That's why you've never seen me refer to Liberals on this site unless I'm talking about the conservative Canadian or Australian political parties.

Nor do I hate the majority of the people you're describing. I've talked to enough of them to realize that the majority are simply dupes who've been indoctrinated a certain way, with the public schools and most universities as willing partners.

A lot of them get smart and grow out of it once they're faced with real life, others don't.

As Rush Limbaugh once famously said, referring to the left, 'liberalism is like acid, it disfigures and destroys everything it touches'.

For my part, I tend to think of the majority of people on the left as irresponsible children. They make messes and then leave other people to clean up after them.

As for the hard left, I don't particularly hate them either, although I do hate their childish and frequently treasonous behavior. It needs to be exposed and fought at every turn if we're to preserve a free society, since the left's preferred model is statist totalitarianism. If they all left the country as they always threaten to do if they don't get their way and went elsewhere, I'd get along famously with them.

Anonymous said...

They make messes and then leave other people to clean up after them.

Isn't that exactly what the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq War, the deregulation of the finance industry, and the rest of the republican program do to America? Obama was elected expressly to clean up the mess that you guys made. And now you're upset that he didn't do it fast enough and you want more of the same poison that made the mess? Brilliant.

Glad you agree with me about Dick Morris. Glad we cleared that up. Maybe you can devote your next post to the Psychic Friends Network...

Rob said...

Gee Anonymous...Your BFF Barack Obama is taking CREDIT daily for ending the Iraq War...I guess we agree that he's lying.

And as for the rest of what you refer to as 'the Republican Program', Senator Obama and the rest of the Dems voted for almost all of it, didn't they?

The Bush tax cuts were credited with providing a soft landing and a turnaround for the recession George W. Bush inherited from Mr. Bill and the dot com implosion even by most economists on the left side of the aisle, and besides..isn't BO always gassing about how he's going to cut taxes on what he dubs 'the middle class'?

OK, we both know he's lying as usual, but that's what he's saying, no?

And wasn't it BO and his Dem friends who fought Bush tooth and nail on any oversight attempt on Fanny and Freddie? What was that about the 'financial industry'?

Actually, from a strictly financial POV, Bush's first term was vastly superior to BO's in terms of spending, deficits and creating economic activity.And that's an objective statement easily proven.

In fact, Bush really went off the rails economically only when the Dems took over in January 2007, according to the CBO figures.

And I say that when I rank GWB as one of our 5 worst presidents ever.It pisses me off that people like you make me defend him.

Although I will say that BO makes Bush look almost like Mt. Rushmore material.

You say I want more of the same poison? No, that would be you.

Rob said...

A clarification an that first sentence. Bush and Maliki had all thE agreements about us leaving Iraq done before Bush left office. All Obama had to do was reap the benefits of the surge strategy he and the Dems did everything they could to sabotage.