ELECTIONATE SEPTEMBER 24, 2012
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Last Monday, I wrote that “If Obama’s four point lead persists through the week, Obama should be considered a very strong favorite for reelection.” The last week has come and gone, and Obama retains a four-point advantage nationally. This argument will be elaborated on over the course of this week, but the bottom line is that Obama’s a heavy favorite for reelection.
In post-convention polls, Obama holds an average of 49 percent of the vote and leads by about 4 points. The president holds a broad advantage across the battleground states, including modest leads in Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Polls released on Friday and over the weekend were consistent with this assessment: The Gallup approval tracker jumped in Obama’s direction on Sunday; the RAND American Life Panel shows Obama securing his largest lead to date with nearly 50 percent of the vote; the highly regarded “Ohio Poll” conducted by the University of Cincinnati showed Obama up five in the Buckeye State, and a wave of Purple Strategies polls pointed toward a broad Obama lead across the battleground states.
While Obama’s 4-point lead is very modest by historic standard, it’s larger than it sounds. Only a sliver of voters are remain undecided and Obama holds approximately 49 percent of the vote, suggesting that Romney will need to fare exceptionally well among the remaining undecided voters and then further count on either low-Democratic turnout or Obama supporters switching sides. All of these scenarios are possible; none are likely. Obama is a well-known incumbent president and voters have hardened impression of his performance, as demonstrated by the stability of the race and his resilience in states where he faced months of uncontested advertisements, like Michigan, Minnesota, or New Mexico. Battleground state voters have already heard a whole presidential campaign’s worth of advertisements, suggesting that a deluge of late spending is unlikely to change the outcome. The possibility of a late swing is further reduced by the rise of early voting, as nearly one-third of voters are expected to cast ballots before Election Day.
Most assume that the heart of the race is still to come, but history suggests that most voters have made up their minds by this stage. Every candidate with a clear lead in the late September polls has won the popular vote in the last fifteen presidential elections since 1948. The debates, for instance, simply haven’t played the decisive role suggested by campaign lore. In fact, most of the biggest late movements in modern presidential history aren’t even associated with the debates, like 1948 or 1968 when there weren’t debates at all. In 1976, Ford mounted a late comeback in spite of a debate performance that included the ludicrous assertion that there was “no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” With the exception of Reagan-Carter, the elections with late movement involved unusual incumbent-party candidates who ascended to the presidency or the party’s nomination following the death, resignation, or decision not to run by an incumbent president. That’s probably not a coincidence.
To win, Romney will need to mount an unprecedented comeback against an incumbent president. Such a comeback is not impossible, but history suggests it’s improbable and factors specific to this campaign make it seem even less likely. Obama has held a narrow lead since Romney secured the nomination, despite a cavalcade of purported game-changers ranging from gay marriage and Paul Ryan to the pseudo-DREAM Act and the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. This has been an eventful campaign, but few events, including the recent spasm of violence in the Middle East, have influenced the trajectory of the race. If none of the plausible game-changers changed the game, what can?
The history of presidential elections suggests that a generic incumbent president leading by four points with 49 percent of the vote in late September probably has a 80-85 percent chance of victory, before factoring in the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of modern polling. A simple way to think about it: the race has meaningfully changed over the last month in 6 of the last 16 presidential elections (30 percent), but even a meaningful movement in Romney’s direction might only bring about a tied race, since Obama’s at 49 percent.
But this is not just an abstract race. 2012 could go down as the most stable election of the close races in presidential history, suggesting that late movement is unusually unlikely with a polarized electorate harboring well-defined views of an incumbent president. And Romney isn’t a generic challenger. According to Pew Research, Romney is the only major party candidate with a net-unfavorable rating in (at least) the last twenty-four years. Other polls tell a somewhat rosier story, but Romney’s ratings are beneath those of most—if not all—modern candidates who have gone onto win the presidency. Romney’s weaknesses seriously impair his odds of a comeback. According to a recent NBC/WSJ poll, just 21 percent of swing voters have a favorable impression of Romney. Obama’s approval ratings aren’t much better at 31 percent among swing voters, but Obama needs a far smaller share of these voters to prevail, since he holds a 4-point lead nationally. Many of the undecided voters that Romney is counting on simply might not vote, and in critical swing states like Ohio, Romney’s unfavorable rating has eclipsed fifty percent, making it even more difficult to envision how he could mount a comeback.
Could Romney win? Yes. The race is close, Obama remains slightly beneath fifty percent, the race is likely to tighten, and Obama’s unusually dependent on low-turnout cohorts. But a Romney victory just doesn't seem like it's in the cards. Not in the abstract and not after considering the specifics of a static contest defined by the weaknesses of the Republican challenger.
29 comments
I know about Florida being a toss-up, but I didn't realize Jeapardy could also be a potential Romney win! [insert fake Romney-type laugh here -- ha ha ha etc etc]
- ironyroad
September 24, 2012 at 10:29am
"Could Romney win? Yes." But only in the sense that the Nationals "could win" the World Series.
- AaronW
September 24, 2012 at 11:16am
Never before has an embattled and vulnerable incumbent president and his supporters and political party resorted to the degree of not only misleading and distorted characterizations of his opponent and his opponent’s beliefs, values, proposals, and positions, but also outright falsehoods and fabrications that are in direct contradiction to documented facts, in the hopes that enough voters will be uninformed enough to believe those falsehoods to reelect him. Heaven help the country if he is successful. Finally, Gov. Romney is starting to fight back against this onslaught of untruths. See the following story from ABC News: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/romney-says-obama-trying-fool-voters-inaccurate-attacks-013006862--abc-news-politics.html?_esi=1
- truthman
September 24, 2012 at 11:24am
You can access the ABC News story entitled "Romney Says Obama Is Trying to Fool Voters With Inaccurate Attacks, by Emily Friedman, and referenced in my previous comment, at: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/romney-says-obama-trying-fool-voters-inaccurate-attacks-013006862--abc-news-politics.html?_esi=1
- truthman
September 24, 2012 at 11:30am
"Finally, Gov. Romney is starting to fight back against this onslaught of untruths." Thanks, "truth"man, for a nice belly laugh in the morning. Romney has been a lying weasel since the start of the campaign. One really has to wonder if he is a pathological liar.
- JEFF FREY
September 24, 2012 at 11:41am
Fabricated. truthman? You mean like Romney's ads claiming Obama has reduced the work requirement for government assistance? Don't you think your screen name is something of an oxymoron? Romney is nothing but a liar and probably a tax cheat to boot. You got something to say truthman that goes to the facts of some claim by the Obama campaign? Why, have at it. Share what you have. You want to tell us that Romney thinks he is being mischaracterized? Stick it. The Romney campaign is all lies, all the time, about Obama, about his own policy proposals, about pretty much everything.
- roidubouloi
September 24, 2012 at 11:44am
It might help Romney in the truth area if he stopped being what he's not -- a "severe conservative" -- and started being what he is -- a business-oriented but moderate and pragmatic conservative whose principal achievement is the MA model for universal health care coverage. Just sayin'.
- ironyroad
September 24, 2012 at 11:45am
I am very suspicious of the word "proof." I am so very post-post-post-post-post modern that I am pretty much back in the dark ages. I am almost as post-post as truthman. (Beware of people offering you the "truth" on the Internet.)
- skahn
September 24, 2012 at 12:00pm
irony, if I thought Romney actually was what you say, I would probably vote for him. I'm a lifelong Republican, and am thoroughly apprehensive about the side effects of an activist govermnent. But Romney is not just faking it. He has truly sipped, nay swilled the Kool Aid. This election, if it is to have real historical meaning, must be a thorough repudiation of what the GOP has become. Let's move on to ridding the House of the Tea Baggers.
- gwcross
September 24, 2012 at 12:01pm
Truthman, This is an interview, not an ABC News story. There is, if you care to think about it for a second, a bit of difference between the two. So when fact checkers describe the Ryan-Romney campaign as one of the most fact-free ever, that is a story. When Romney asserts that he is not lying, that is a candidate's posturing, it is not "news". So, right off the bat, you discredit yourself, by presenting something as something it is not. As for the actual substance of the interview, I agree that the debates will help the candidates clarify their views. So reducing the top rate for top earners from 36% to 28% *permanently* is not a tax reduction for the wealthy? Getting rid of tax deductions for the middle class to pay for this permanent tax cut is not "raising taxes" for the middle class? This is just two whoppers he told in the interview. And it will be interesting to see how he will "clarify" these.
- icarus-r
September 24, 2012 at 12:06pm
First, is it difficult to write an honest and intelligent column when the author wants BHO to be re-elected? Mr. Cohn, please don't transmogrify into Chris Matthews. Second, this election may be like no other US presidential election: the economy is in disarray and likely to get worse;, the US has a president who states that he has just realized that "you can't change things from the inside"; the US has a president who almost apologizes to the world for US success and "sins"; BHO has not been a strong leader; BHO has not been a good president, but he has some appeal because he is not Romney; BHO and the left are infatuated with unlimited abortion and same-sex marriage, which offends many moderate people. Third, it is amazing that Gerald Ford came as close as he did to winning the 1976 presidential election. Ford was not a good candidate, the country had Nixon fatigue, the economy was weak, and the Republican Party had little appeal. My point is that no one, during September 1976, would have given Ford a chance to defeat Carter, history or no history. Consequently, presidential elections, unlike horse racing and stock picking, can not be handicapped the way Mr. Cohn is handicapping the 2012 presidential race. Therefore, BHO can be defeated by WMR, and it would not be a surprise. Why? Because there is so much volatility in the country and the world, and no two presidential elections are alike. WMR does not have a Sisyphean task.
- john336
September 24, 2012 at 12:08pm
Now, here is what's truly puzzling for me. Why is it that they can't find better trolls? I mean, "truthman", seriously? On this site?
- icarus-r
September 24, 2012 at 12:08pm
"Never before has an embattled and vulnerable incumbent president and his supporters and political party resorted to the degree of not only misleading and distorted characterizations of his opponent" I guess someone slept through that swift boat smear campaign.
- jm3245
September 24, 2012 at 12:11pm
John: "the US has a president who almost apologizes to the world for US success and "sins";" I gather you inserted the "almost" because when Soledad O'Brien asked King to justify his lie about the "apology tour", he could not come up with anything, and had to say, "we read it as an apology", thus coming across as a douche. Nice try. The question is, why do you hate America so much that you read a simple statement ABOUT SLAVERY for heaven's sake, as an "almost apology" to the world? Because the "sin" reference was to slavery. Slavery, as you know, has been called the original sin of the Republic by everyone other than the lunatic confederate fringe. It is telling that you pick up on that word, characterise it as an apology, and then attack the president for it. On the "apology" question, if you asserted it, you would be lying. To characterise the "sin" comment as an "almost apology" is just cretinous.
- icarus-r
September 24, 2012 at 12:14pm
As to "successes" for which Obama "almost apologized" ... yup: Mossadegh in 1953; Iraq in 2003. Real successes. Cretin.
- icarus-r
September 24, 2012 at 12:16pm
Truthman comment and the responses are like an invading parasite being attacked by antibodies. It helps that his comment about Romney being a victim is ridiculous.
- Nusholtz
September 24, 2012 at 12:20pm
Surely Truthman is being satirical? One simply cannot read his comment as anything else? As for john 336, this BHO and the left are infatuated with unlimited abortion and same-sex marriage, which offends many moderate people Is just insane.
- Sophia
September 24, 2012 at 12:35pm
Permit me to clarify: standing up for women's rights, for our ability to control our own bodies, and for people's rights IN GENERAL to equal protection under the law, should not offend "moderate people." Moderate people should be offended by anybody who tries to abridge our Constitutional rights, period, and that goes for voting rights and attempts by religious groups to impose their dogmas within the framework of a state that guarantees religious freedom. This means, you are free to be religious and I am free from YOU.
- Sophia
September 24, 2012 at 12:38pm
icarus - I was thinking the same thing about the trolls. I mean, who are these people? Are they just a symptom of (very poorly targeted) campaign spending? If so, why can't they hire anyone who can make a half decent argument, or at least not commit basic logical fallacies (I'd ask the same about Seattle, but I don't suspect he's a shill; there are different issues at work there). Or are they true believers, out proselytising? I mean, I'm all for someone attempting to engage some of the rather homogenous views here, but this that ain't.
- Nari224
September 24, 2012 at 3:18pm
BTW has everyone caught up with the latest story about Romney and airplane windows?
- ironyroad
September 24, 2012 at 3:34pm
You folks who think Gov. Romney has been lying and Pres. Obama has been telling the truth are in for a big surprise. First, no one has presented any evidence here that Gov. Romney is less truthful than Obama. I'd like to see someone lay out that case instead of simply making accusations. If you want evidence of the president’s blatant fabrications, simply watch a selection of his attack ads. If you are at all informed, which it seems from the postings on this site, most of the posters here are not, you will see lie after lie after lie, broadcast to millions every night, with no regard at all for the truth. Is this a person we want to return to the White House? A person so desperate to retain his job that he is willing to stoop to the lowest form of behavior to achieve that? Please inform yourselves. The evidence you seek is easily available on the newsstand and the web. Read a variety of sources, not just the ones that support what you believe, but also ones that have a different view. Then make a considered judgment, instead of one filled with bias and invective. Good luck.
- truthman
September 24, 2012 at 3:59pm
Sucks to lose, don't it, truthman? I do love seeing an entitled, selfish, self-righteous ass like Romney get KOed--not just defeated, but embarrassed. It's as American as apple pie. And if it makes you feel better to call Obama a liar, name-caller, illegitimate president or whatever other filthy epithet strikes your demented fancy, it's no skin off my nose. It's actually fairly entertaining. "I'm melting! I'm melting!" Ding dong, truthman, the witch is dead.
- AaronW
September 24, 2012 at 4:24pm
As ever, I am late to the party, but "truthman" is still at it. "No one has presented any evidence here" aside from...clear and explicit statements regarding Romney's lies, which you've chosen to ignore in favor of repeating ridiculous statements. Probably a terrible idea, but let me indulge you by comparing the worst of both sides' ads: Romney's worst: Used a clip of the President saying "If we talk about the economy, we'll lose," conveniently omitting that the President was actually quoting a statement attributed to his opponent, not something he himself was saying in any way. When it was pointed out that this is pretty much the definition of taking something out of context, Romney's staff instead chose to brazen it out and say that context doesn't matter a whit. If you can find a more dishonest ad, I'll be impressed. Obama's worst: Had a Super PAC run an ad with an unemployed worker at one of Bain Capital's little projects talk about how Bain stripped him of his health insurance, after which his wife died of brain cancer as the family looked on helplessly. The Romney campaign responded by accusing the Obama campaign of saying that Romney contributed to this woman's death, highlighting the most ugly, hard-hitting fact of the whole affair: he did. Romney's worst ad stunned with how brazenly he lies; Obama's worst ad was stunning because of how bareknuckled he was in presenting a hard truth about how utterly conscienceless his opponent really is, stripping workers of livelihood and health in pursuit of profits stolen from those who truly work in this country. So remind me again why I should entrust the most powerful office on the face of the earth to a man so desperate for wealth and power that he'll say absolutely anything, and proves it daily?
- janus
September 24, 2012 at 4:38pm
Ironyroad--yeah, Mitt wondered why the plane windows couldn't be opened to deal with the smoke inside the cabin during his wife's flight last week. Incredible.
- ballston
September 24, 2012 at 5:13pm
Here is something interesting: Romney said in an interview earlier this year that God has not spoken to anyone, as far as he knows, since Moses and the burning bush. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiQdIwUrejc Romney is denying that Jesus, who spoke to a lot of people, is God, that God talked to Paul, Joseph Smith, and that the prophets who followed Smith in the LDS church are getting revelations as well as evangelicals. If God has talked to no one since Moses, Romney really ought to be a Jew.
- Vekert
September 24, 2012 at 5:24pm
john336, When Obama said you can't change things from the inside, he meant that Republicans in Congress are determined that he will not accomplish anything to help Americans, because that might help him get re-elected. In relationship to the American people, Republicans are saboteurs (remember, the approval rating among Americans of a Republican-House-controlled Congress is in the teens). So Obama has vowed to go "outside" to the American people and ask them let Congressional Republicans know that they want the government to help them in their lives, because the private sector is intentionally helping them very little right now. truthman, One lie that Romney is telling to this day is that Obama took his, Romney's, suggestion to take GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy. Hardly. Obama, being a better businessman than Romney, knew that there was no available private capital that could save the auto industry and Romney thought there was. Romney is proof that business people make bad presidents. When they're running for the office, they don't even know the state of the market. And they take that ignorance into the Oval Office. What a wasteland a President Romney would make of America! He'd be reading Ayn Rand for economic advice!
- magboy47.
September 24, 2012 at 5:27pm
ballston -- the comment thread on Taegan Goddard's blog is priceless. Lots of "Why don't submarines have screen doors?" remarks. And "When I'm president, Air Force One will have windows that open!"
- ironyroad
September 24, 2012 at 5:37pm
No, Sophia, this "truthman" name is not at all ironic. This deluded, quite possibly insane individual is utterly convinced that he has THE TRUTH that all of us evil lying liars are trying to wipe out, and he will bravely ejaculate whatever twisted mess of distortion he can find against us. When you've spent a good chunk of your life dealing with fundamentalists you learn to spot the signs very quickly, and this thing is as much a political equivalent of that particular religious species as you ever need to see. Now pardon me while I go throw up.
- cspencef
September 24, 2012 at 7:40pm
Why The President’s Campaign Is Based On A False Narrative Of The Past. What I’ve been reading on this site tends to validate what I read in a September 18 op-ed in The New York Times titled, “Breaking Up the Echo,” by Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor. He said hearing both sides of an argument doesn’t soften those with rigid views unless the person presenting the other side was originally supporting those rigid views. I think there is some very good writing being displayed here, truly talented writing. If only it were backed by facts and intelligent discussion instead of sneers and invective. But, to return to the subject: It is clear that some of Gov. Romney's ads may quote things out of context, mislead, and even lie. That happens in campaigns, and I object to it. For example, I object when Republicans insist or imply that President Obama said successful entrepreneurs didn't build their businesses, when Obama was clearly referring to infrastructure like roads and bridges when he said: “you didn't build that.” But Obama’s ads go beyond that. One of the worst lies Obama tells in his ads is that Romney’s plan is to raise taxes on the middle class by $2,000 a person. That is NOT Romney’s plan, and Obama knows it. Romney’s plan is to REDUCE taxes for the middle class. The fact that Obama THINKS the result of Romney’s tax plan will be that Romney will be forced to raise taxes on the middle class is irrelevant. It is NOT Romney’s plan to raise taxes on the middle class. But lying attack ads are NOT the chief issue. A certain level of such foolishness happens in most campaigns. In this campaign, the lying goes well beyond the ads. In this campaign, the entire structure of President Obama’s campaign is based on a false narrative of economic history. On a daily basis, on every talk and interview show I’ve seen for months, Obama and his supporters make one false statement after another about what has happened in the past and about what Republicans want to do. Among those fabricators is Bill Clinton, who gave a great speech at the DNC that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to, even though much of it contained the false narrative I've mentioned. For example, take the constant Democratic refrain that “Our opponents want to go back to the failed policies of the past that got us into this mess in the first place.” Here’s the way Bill Clinton put it at the DNC: “They [Republicans at the RNC] couldn't, because they want to go back to the same old policies that got us in trouble in the first place.” What is one of those “failed policies,” according to Democrats? It’s the deregulation of the banks, of which the chief event was the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act, which repeal allowed banks to move beyond commercial banking to the riskier activities of investment banking and trading for the bank’s own account. And when did that “failed policy of the past” begin? Under George Bush, you say? NO, it was in 1999, under Bill Clinton. It was under Bill Clinton that the deregulation of banks that was a partial reason for the financial crisis took place. In Bill Clinton’s words at the DNC, “You got to give one thing: It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.” For an interesting compilation of the untruths in Bill Clinton’s speech, see: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/06/Fact-Check-Top-Ten-Clinton-Lies What were the other “failed policies of the past that got us into this mess in the first place?” The financial crisis that began in 2008, the last year of Bush’s second term, and that pushed unemployment to 10.0% by October 2009, had virtually nothing to do with tax rates or the Bush tax cuts. The cause was a collapse of the housing bubble, a bubble that both the Republicans and the Democrats encouraged and allowed to happen by their mindless assumption and goal that everyone should and could own a house, whether or not they could afford one, because house prices would keep rising forever. Anyone who knows markets knows such an assumption is fantasy. Once the majority assume prices will never come down, their buying pushes prices to levels from which a significant decline is GUARANTEED. Officers and directors of the banks, investment banks, insurance companies, mortgage lending companies, and rating agencies involved in creating and selling mortgage-backed securities and related derivatives, as well as the money managers and analysts of the firms that bought those securities should have known early on that housing was a bubble that had to burst – that house prices would eventually revert to the mean. Unfortunately, group think and greed took over. The point is that it was NOT the Bush tax cuts that caused either the housing bubble or the resulting financial crisis. Politicians who claim otherwise are either lying or don’t know any better. In fact, without those cuts the crisis arguably might have been worse. And NO ONE, not ONE PERSON, Republican or Democrat, is proposing that we go back to the “failed policies of the past that got us into this mess in the first place,” despite the oft-repeated charge by President Obama and his supporters that the Republicans are proposing just that. Those failed policies were: (1) the desire on the part of many Republicans and most Democrats for nearly everyone to own a house and (2) the assumption that house prices would keep rising forever. NO ONE is proposing that we go back to that!!! To say otherwise is a lie, a BIG lie. When President Obama says, as he does on countless occasions: “They believe that if we spend trillions of dollars more on tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy, that it’ll somehow create more jobs. I think they’re wrong. We tried it their way through most of the last decade, and it didn’t work,” he is blatantly lying about what are historical facts. The President’s supporters think if they repeat that canard often enough, they can rewrite history. The truth is, it DID work. The most recent example is the Bush Administration. Previous examples during the past 51 years include the Clinton Administration, the Reagan Administration, and the Kennedy/Johnson Administration – that’s two Republican administrations and two Democratic administrations. You don’t believe me? Do the research! And read on. You’ve heard differently from the Democrats, but don’t be fooled. They’re lying because the truth does not support what they want to do, which is to expand government and increase taxes to do it. I’m old enough to have voted in all those elections, beginning with Kennedy. I lived through and paid taxes during all those administrations. I’ll discuss the last two here. Bill Clinton’s tax cuts of August 1997 were followed 3 years later by the LOWEST unemployment rate in U.S. history – 3.8% in April 2000 and 3.9% in September-December 2000, as well as a budget surplus. It was after Clinton cut capital gains tax rates and certain other taxes in 1997 that we achieved both the lowest unemployment rate in history and a budget surplus. You didn’t know that Clinton cut taxes in 1997? That may be because Democrats are prohibited from mentioning it. It was the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 5, 1997 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Relief_Act_of_1997). The Act also exempted from taxation the profits on the sale of a personal residence of up to $500,000 for married couples and up to $250,000 for singles, increased the estate tax exemption, and included certain other tax relief provisions for family farms, small business, retirement accounts, taxable gifts, and for lower income families with children, in the form of a tax credit for each child. In 1993, Clinton had raised the top rate on ordinary income from 31% to 39.6%. The economy arguably would have done even BETTER had he NOT done that. Some of that increase was offset by the 1997 tax reductions, after which the economy DID do even better. For more data on Clinton’s tax increases of 1993 and his tax cuts of 1997 see: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/03/tax-cuts-not-the-clinton-tax-hike-produced-the-1990s-boom. George Bush’s tax cuts of 2001-03 were followed 3 years later by the SECOND LOWEST unemployment rate in history – 4.4% in October and December of 2006 and in March and May of 2007. That’s solid evidence that those cuts worked as intended, despite Democrats’ desperate attempts to rewrite history. George Bush provided jobs for millions of the middle class, which was what he, as a good Republican, had set out to do, through policies that created jobs and made it possible for millions to avoid becoming dependent on the government for their survival. You will laugh scornfully, because you’ve been brainwashed by the left, but Republicans believe in and honor the individual, and that extends to unborn individuals, as well. Republicans believe in the dignity and worth of the individual, no matter what an individual’s race, creed, color, religion, or income status. What Republicans want most is to free folks from unwarranted dependence on the government by lifting them up, providing them with jobs and a decent income, and giving them pride in their independence and pride in their accomplishments. THAT’S the way we build “an economy built to last,” with a strong, free, independent citizenry that has not been weakened by feeding at the government trough. The way to do that is to maximize job creation by shifting the risk/reward ratio for job creation in the direction of LESS RISK and MORE REWARD. That’s what tax reduction for those with the capital needed to create jobs (the “rich”) is all about. Obama has been doing the OPPOSITE, which is why the recovery is so poor. He just doesn’t get it. The Democrats never mention that Bush achieved the second lowest unemployment rate in history with his tax cuts. They talk only about job creation under Bush’s entire term, and not about the record non-farm payroll employment of 138.0 million he achieved in January 2008, or 4.7 million MORE jobs than we have right now. Yes, that employment peak was partly due to the housing bubble, and therefore was unsustainable. But the housing bubble represented a government-sponsored misallocation of resources. It can’t be proved, because in economics, we aren’t allowed do-overs, but it’s likely that had the government not intervened and encouraged and helped finance unsustainable investment in housing, that the resources misdirected into housing would have been directed by the market into more productive and sustainable investments, with an equally positive effect on employment and unemployment, but WITHOUT the damage that followed. Remember, the increase in unemployment to a peak of 10.0% in October 2009 was caused by the bursting of the housing bubble and the resulting financial crisis, and NOT by the Bush tax cuts or ANY tax cuts. It was the housing bust that caused the “mess we’re in,” which bust had nothing to do with the level of tax rates. Nothing. No, the Democrats won’t tell you any of those facts, because it doesn’t suit their purpose. As I said in my first post near the beginning of this thread, the degree of lying by the incumbent in this campaign is unprecedented, unmatched certainly in any campaign I’ve seen in five decades of observing them. Lies about documented economic history and lies about verifiable facts, not matters of opinion or conjecture; big lies that are believed by many because they are repeated so many times by so many of Obama's supporters that, by golly, they must be true. When the entire philosophy and structure of a candidate’s campaign and his criticisms of his opponents and his opponent’s proposals are based on a false narrative of what has happened, not only in the recent past, but also throughout economic history, one has to say such an individual has gone too far. Not only that, but the risks of that individual continuing in office and the possible harm that person might do are too great to tolerate. That person must be stopped. And that is what the election of Gov. Romney, flawed though he might be in his ability to communicate, would accomplish. It would keep a man who is truly at odds with the historic values of our free society and therefore could do it further harm away from any further ability to hurt the country.
- truthman
September 27, 2012 at 7:40pm