As KB is on vacation I have agreed to guest blog a bit, although I see that Typepad is not putting names on the bottom of the posts. As I believe Madame Flint may also be blogging, I will put my initials in the text of my posts at the end.
A couple months ago I guest blogged about the state of the presidential race. I am not going to take the time to track down that blog post, but essentially I said that I saw Obama with a slight lead and an easier route to 270. But, I said, a better analysis would have to wait until mid-summer. Well, that time is here.
I see nothing to change my position. Let me note two pieces of information. First, Nate Silver at 538 blog has Mr. Obama about a 2-1 favortite. Also, Intrade odds today are about 56% Obama, 40% Romney. Both of these numbers represent an increase by Obama as compared to the last month, likely reflecting Obama's win at the Supreme Court last week, and as such represent a blip.
Still, most polls and models are showing Obama ahead slightly and ahead in almost all battleground states. I think Romney will almost certainly win North Carolina, Missouri and Arizona, and probably Florida. But that's not enough to get to 270.
The early advertising tells us what each campaign is up to and what they think their best arguments are. Romney, of course, is going to hit the president on a mediocre to poor economic record and then tout his own business acumen. Obama does seem to be running a largely negative campaign. As he does not have much in the way of a positive record to run on, he must make Romney unacceptable. Thus all the ads essentially painting Romney as an out of touch plutocrat.
In the end I think this will be enough. Romney is nowhere near the best the Republican party has to offer. But given that this primary field was perhaps the worst in my lifetime for either party, Romney essentially was the only one who could pass a smell test. He is not a formidable candidate as, say, Mitch Daniels might have been. The Obama campaign will successfully caricature him (and of course there is something there to caricature) render him unacceptable to enough people. This election does remind me of 2004. Romney, like John Kerry, is essentially an acceptable but uninspiring figure, not the kind of guy who convinces a nation to oust an incumbent president. And like 2004, an incumbent president with some very noticeable weaknesses will win, and win ugly.
I should note that I think Silver is essentially correct in giving Romney about a 35% chance to win. This means that there are any number of scenarios that allow Romney to win. He is not a dead man walking like Bob Dole in 1996. While I strongly suspect that the election's structure is in Obama's favor, Romney just needs hard work and a little luck to pull it out.
JDS
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