Wandering Reveries

At least, that’s the argument made by Richard Stevenson of the New York Times. There are certainly similarities between the re-election campaign of President Bush in 2004 and President Obama in 2012. One sticking point in the analogy is the economy. How much will a bad economy hurt the President in his re-election campaign.

In 2004, Iraq was not nearly as important an issue as the economy will be in this election; according to CNN’s exit poll, only 15 percent of voters considered Iraq to be important issue (behind the economy - 20% - and morality - 22%). By contrast, the economy dominates this cycle, and the question will be how the President has handled it - either well or badly. According to one study by Douglas Hibbs, income growth between 0-2 percent (or negative) has corresponded to a share of the popular vote under 50 percent. Of the incumbents with income growth 2 percent or less, 3 of the 5 lost. As of September, income growth was at 1.1 percent (Source).

However, the President is leaving nothing to chance and has been seeking to define his potential opponents before they even get out of the Republican primary - a strategy that is becoming more common since the Clinton campaign employed in the 1996 election. The President will also have a lot of cash to spread around the electoral map. Rest assured, this will be an interesting cycle.

(Source: The New York Times)

Writing in the Washington Post, David Nakamura talks about the Obama campaign’s new messaging. One has to wonder whether some voters have become disillusioned, especially new voters, who were inspired by Obama’s candidacy, and whether or not those voters will stay home in 2012 (I don’t think one can assume they will vote Republican). Get out the vote efforts are incredibly important, i.e., getting your voters to turn out and hoping your opponent’s voters will stay home. As discussed in a previous post, independent voters may not be the deciding factor in the 2012 election, so can the President and his team get voters to turnout, because the GOP has demonstrated that is their focus. In that regard, the President has a significant factor in his corner: the ability to raise large sums of money which can be devoted to the GOTV effort. In 2008, Obama spent $899k specifically on GOTV (Source), and if his fundraising success continues, I think one can expect that to top $1 million in 2012 - not counting the spending of independent groups.

As an aside, Dallas Morning News columnist Wayne Slater thinks an Obama/Perry general would resemble Carter’s campaign against Reagan in 1980. I’m quite sure Governor Perry appreciates the comparison.

The Gallup approval ratings numbers for the President have received a lot of attention recently, especially as the President’s approval rating recently dipped below 40 percent. According the Los Angeles Times analysis by David Lauter, the states in play are Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Georgia, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. This list is similar to that put together by Chris Cillizza last week (discussed here). You can read the full analysis from Gallup here, which includes a breakdown of the most Democratic and Republican states.