2012 Swing States Poll

[5280]

Map 1: R – 265 Obama - 263

Map 2: R – 276 Obama - 262

Map 3: R – 269 Obama – 269

Map 4: R- 271 Obama – 267

Map 5: R -271 Obama – 267

Map 6: R - 270 Obama - 268

And discuss why you voted for certain map!

[Poundingtherock]

How do you create a map again?

[5280]

Go here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/evcalc.php

I forgot to add a 6th option on the poll, can a moderator please do so?

[exopolitician]

I saw Map 5 or Map 1.

[anvi]

I accidentally clicked Map 4, but I meant to click Map 5.

[opebo]

What's the point of all those unlikely maps?

[Mr. Taft Republican]

I went with 2.

[Yelnoc]

1

[DS0816]

None of them!

[Niemeyerite]

Yes, definitely, none of them. I voted map 2, but IMO if obama loses pennsylvania, he'll lose also iowa.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Map 3 or 5.

Go here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/evcalc.php

I forgot to add a 6th option on the poll, can a moderator please do so?

You can do it yourself...click "Edit Poll"

[Reaganite]

No republican nominee will lose Nebraska CD 2. 

I say map 2 switching Virginia and Pennsylvania and Nebraska CD 2 going republican.

The electoral map is extremely daunting for Obama after reapportionment.  The republican nominee needs to take back Indiana and NC (which should be rather easy), Ohio and Florida (which have swung back hard to the Republicans), and then several combination's of states work...Virginia and one of NH, NV, NM, Iowa, or Colorado (all states Bush won in either 2000 and/or 2004) or just Pennsylvania, or Colorado, Iowa, and NH...etc, etc. 

The point is the combination's are plentiful for the Republican nominee.  Despite our history of traditionall re-electing incumbents, I think Obama is going to be an exception. 

[pbrower2a]

No republican nominee will lose Nebraska CD 2. 

I say map 2 switching Virginia and Pennsylvania and Nebraska CD 2 going republican.

The electoral map is extremely daunting for Obama after reapportionment.  The republican nominee needs to take back Indiana and NC (which should be rather easy), Ohio and Florida (which have swung back hard to the Republicans), and then several combination's of states work...Virginia and one of NH, NV, NM, Iowa, or Colorado (all states Bush won in either 2000 and/or 2004) or just Pennsylvania, or Colorado, Iowa, and NH...etc, etc. 

The point is the combination's are plentiful for the Republican nominee.  Despite our history of traditionall re-electing incumbents, I think Obama is going to be an exception. 

1. I now see Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico all more solid for Democrats than Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, in view of the 2010 electoral results. 

2. NE-02, greater Omaha, is very different politically than the rest of Nebraska. It is far more urban, and President Obama does spectacularly well in urban areas and far better than any Democrat in recent years in Suburbia. I see no reason to expect NE-02 to vote differently from such places as Des Moines, Kansas City, and Sioux Falls.

3. I expect President Obama to have a slick campaign in 2012. He had an awesome campaign in 2008. Sure, the 2010 electorate would beat him in a rematch -- but many voters who went into hibernation in 2010 will be back in 2012.

4. By getting lots of legislation passed in his first two years, the President has shown what he would do in a second term even if he achieves little due to a Republican majority in the House. He can run against an out-of-touch GOP majority in the House much as Harry Truman did in 1948. A headline on the Chicago Tribune  not withstanding, Truman won and got a huge turnover of House seats. The analogy fails in one respect; Truman was not elected President in 1944.

5. I notice that you are new at this. Precedents are relevant. If you are to predict that President Obama is to be defeated in 2012, then you need something stronger than a gut feeling or the opinion that the incumbent President is awful. I thought that Reagan was awful and thought him vulnerable in 1984.

Since 1900 only five of thirteen incumbent Presidents seeking re-election have been defeated. Those are

a. William Howard Taft (temperamentally unsuited to be President -- better suited to a judicial career he became Chief Justice. The President might be a fine Justice of the Supreme Court in 2017 or later, but in the meantime he certainly isn't William Howard Taft as a President.

b. Herbert Hoover. He bungled the Great Depression as Obama didn't. President Hoover was elected before the economy melted down; President Obama was elected and inaugurated as the economy was melting down.  He isn't Herbert Hoover.

c. Gerald Ford. Probably an adequate President, but an inept campaigner. Having never run for any office with a larger geographic scope than a Congressional district -- he had never run even for a statewide minor office -- he bungled his campaign badly against a weak opponent.

d. Jimmy Carter. He accomplished little as President. He lost big to Ronald Reagan, but he would have lost to about any GOP nominee.

e. George H. W. Bush. Faltering economy, fading popularity of the Reagan era, and a strong opponent.

Well -- which is he? 




6. Race is a factor -- but it won't work against President Obama in 2012 as it did in 2008.   States that have had poor experience with black politicians (like much of the Deep South, where political life is largely execrable irrespective of race of politicians) didn't vote for Obama. People afraid that a President Obama would use welfare as patronage, set loose black thugs as "victims of White Oppression", take guns away from white people, vastly expand foreign aid to African countries with no strings attached, establish a harem of pretty white women in the White House, or  use Affirmative Action to load the government and saddle government contractors with incompetent black people have proved wrong.  Virginia had experience with a well-regarded Douglas Wilder as Governor, and it voted for President Obama. In 2012 the entire US will have experience with a black man as a top executive.

Many people in the South who were aghast at the idea that America could have a black President now know what it means. So if he isn't some corrupt politician or some coddler of crooks, he isn't the sort of black man that they are scared of as a leader.     

7. So far, reapportionment is no threat compared to economic failure, personal scandals, or debacles of foreign policy. If he wins the same states that he did in 2008 he still wins re-election by a wide margin of electoral votes. Far more of a threat is a campaign of intimidation by GOP operatives and GOP-connected corporations. If large corporations can convince employees that anyone who votes for President Obama is at risk of being laid off in favor of someone who votes indiscriminately for Republicans (which is illegal) effectively enough then President Obama can lose.   The GOP and its front groups ran an almost-Orwellian campaign against every Democrat up for election and succeeded in 2010. Can it do so in  2010. Can it get away with it again and succeed as effectively in 2012? Time will tell, as will electoral results.


   

[Reaganite]

No republican nominee will lose Nebraska CD 2. 

I say map 2 switching Virginia and Pennsylvania and Nebraska CD 2 going republican.

The electoral map is extremely daunting for Obama after reapportionment.  The republican nominee needs to take back Indiana and NC (which should be rather easy), Ohio and Florida (which have swung back hard to the Republicans), and then several combination's of states work...Virginia and one of NH, NV, NM, Iowa, or Colorado (all states Bush won in either 2000 and/or 2004) or just Pennsylvania, or Colorado, Iowa, and NH...etc, etc. 

The point is the combination's are plentiful for the Republican nominee.  Despite our history of traditionall re-electing incumbents, I think Obama is going to be an exception. 

1. I now see Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico all more solid for Democrats than Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, in view of the 2010 electoral results. 

2. NE-02, greater Omaha, is very different politically than the rest of Nebraska. It is far more urban, and President Obama does spectacularly well in urban areas and far better than any Democrat in recent years in Suburbia. I see no reason to expect NE-02 to vote differently from such places as Des Moines, Kansas City, and Sioux Falls.

3. I expect President Obama to have a slick campaign in 2012. He had an awesome campaign in 2008. Sure, the 2010 electorate would beat him in a rematch -- but many voters who went into hibernation in 2010 will be back in 2012.

4. By getting lots of legislation passed in his first two years, the President has shown what he would do in a second term even if he achieves little due to a Republican majority in the House. He can run against an out-of-touch GOP majority in the House much as Harry Truman did in 1948. A headline on the Chicago Tribune  not withstanding, Truman won and got a huge turnover of House seats. The analogy fails in one respect; Truman was not elected President in 1944.

5. I notice that you are new at this. Precedents are relevant. If you are to predict that President Obama is to be defeated in 2012, then you need something stronger than a gut feeling or the opinion that the incumbent President is awful. I thought that Reagan was awful and thought him vulnerable in 1984.

Since 1900 only five of thirteen incumbent Presidents seeking re-election have been defeated. Those are

a. William Howard Taft (temperamentally unsuited to be President -- better suited to a judicial career he became Chief Justice. The President might be a fine Justice of the Supreme Court in 2017 or later, but in the meantime he certainly isn't William Howard Taft as a President.

b. Herbert Hoover. He bungled the Great Depression as Obama didn't. President Hoover was elected before the economy melted down; President Obama was elected and inaugurated as the economy was melting down.  He isn't Herbert Hoover.

c. Gerald Ford. Probably an adequate President, but an inept campaigner. Having never run for any office with a larger geographic scope than a Congressional district -- he had never run even for a statewide minor office -- he bungled his campaign badly against a weak opponent.

d. Jimmy Carter. He accomplished little as President. He lost big to Ronald Reagan, but he would have lost to about any GOP nominee.

e. George H. W. Bush. Faltering economy, fading popularity of the Reagan era, and a strong opponent.

Well -- which is he? 




6. Race is a factor -- but it won't work against President Obama in 2012 as it did in 2008.   States that have had poor experience with black politicians (like much of the Deep South, where political life is largely execrable irrespective of race of politicians) didn't vote for Obama. People afraid that a President Obama would use welfare as patronage, set loose black thugs as "victims of White Oppression", take guns away from white people, vastly expand foreign aid to African countries with no strings attached, establish a harem of pretty white women in the White House, or  use Affirmative Action to load the government and saddle government contractors with incompetent black people have proved wrong.  Virginia had experience with a well-regarded Douglas Wilder as Governor, and it voted for President Obama. In 2012 the entire US will have experience with a black man as a top executive.

Many people in the South who were aghast at the idea that America could have a black President now know what it means. So if he isn't some corrupt politician or some coddler of crooks, he isn't the sort of black man that they are scared of as a leader.     

7. So far, reapportionment is no threat compared to economic failure, personal scandals, or debacles of foreign policy. If he wins the same states that he did in 2008 he still wins re-election by a wide margin of electoral votes. Far more of a threat is a campaign of intimidation by GOP operatives and GOP-connected corporations. If large corporations can convince employees that anyone who votes for President Obama is at risk of being laid off in favor of someone who votes indiscriminately for Republicans (which is illegal) effectively enough then President Obama can lose.   The GOP and its front groups ran an almost-Orwellian campaign against every Democrat up for election and succeeded in 2010. Can it do so in  2010. Can it get away with it again and succeed as effectively in 2012? Time will tell, as will electoral results.


   

1. Colorado is still a lean republican state.  The GOP won 53% of the statewide congressional vote and lost the senate race by 0.9% b/c they ran a flawed candidate.  Nevada is a pure tossup state at this point.  Although, looking at Sandoval's decisive win vs Harry reid barely creeping over 50% tells us that the GOP still has strength in the state.  I agree that NM is a lean democratic state.  

States like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and NH will all be in play in 2012.  These will truly be battleground states again.  

2. Obama won Nebraska CD 2 49.97% to 48.75%.  In 2004 Bush won CD 2 60% to 38%.  Clearly, 2008 was an aberration.  GOP turnout and enthusiasm will be significantly higher and that will overcome such a small margin from 2008.

3. That is a big myth about 2010.  Yes, some Obama voters stayed home, but that's not why the Dems got a shellacking and why Obama will struggle to win in 2012.  The problem is voters that voted for Obama in 2008 have buyers remorse.  He has to convince voters to re-evaluate the choices they made in 2010.  Obama's coalition is breaking down and has been since the 2009 gubernatorial elections.  (I can go into far more detail if you would like)

4. The voters put the GOP in charge of the house precisely b/c of the legislation the Dems/Obama passed.  They want his agenda stopped.  I'm sure he will have a clever campaign but that won't be enough in this type of election.  

5. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama should never be compared in any way.  Reagan's economic record is unprecedented: (I tried to link an article with details, but I can't with less than 20 posts.  Anyone who wants the link can email me or PM me.  It goes into great specificity on Reagan's incredible economic record)

Ronald Reagan was also one of the most liked presidents in our nations history.  Simply put, the American people trusted his judgment and believed in the man and his policies.  The election results from 1980, 1984, and 1988 (Bush won so comfortably due to Reagan's popularity) speak to my point.  

WH Taft only lost b/c of Teddy's interference in the election.  Bush only lost b/c of Ross Perot.  The economy was in far better shape in 1992 than it will be in 2012.  Obama did nothing to stabilize the economy.  Economists state that we would have come out of the recession faster had he not passed that horrid "stimulus".   So, your comparisons are off in the opposite way...Taft and Bush lost b/c of third party candidates.  Yes, this may seem to strengthen your argument about incumbents (which in general I agree with), but that assumes the underlying factors for Obama will be better than they were for these other Presidents and I don't think they will for reason stated above.  

Unemployment will still be over 9% come 2012 and the Health Care Bill becomes more and more unpopular as we learn more about (especially with independents).  

6. I think you are way off base if you think people are going to vote for Obama b/c of his race.  People are concerned about the economy, jobs, healthcare, etc.  They don't care about the man's race, they care about results.  And the results thus are are poor at best.  

7. You assume Obama will win the same states and he most certainly will not.  Indiana and NC are all but gone.  Florida and Ohio are also strong bets to return the GOP.  That puts the GOP at 253 EV's without Virginia, NH, Colorado, NV, Iowa, or NM...all states that voted for Bush in 2000 and/or 2004.  That doesn't even include states with razor thin margins in 2000 and 2004 such as Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania most of which swung heavily towards the GOP in 2010.  

I think you are confusing corporations with the corrupt unions around the country.  They are the ones that intimidate their members into voting Democrat.  

The 2012 election will be decided based on the strength of the economy and healthcare.  Those are both winning issues for the GOP.  The country just had a two year taste of full scale liberalism and we didn't like it one bit.  

Also, the demographics are not favorable for Obama.  This goes back to his crumbling coalition.  

But, as you said...time will tell.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

What's the point of all those unlikely maps?

^^^

NOTA

[tmthforu94]

None of them are likely, because Democrats won't win a CDin Nebraska. I'd probably go wiht 2, though.

[Thomas D]

I voted map 4.

The thing with map 2 is I don't see how Obama could win VA and lose PA.

[Mr. Taft Republican]

I voted map 4.

The thing with map 2 is I don't see how Obama could win VA and lose PA.

Well, Obama could run a really moderate campaign and Santorum could be the Republican nominee.

[Thomas D]

I voted map 4.

The thing with map 2 is I don't see how Obama could win VA and lose PA.

Well, Obama could run a really moderate campaign and Santorum could be the Republican nominee.

In my dreams

[pbrower2a]

1. Colorado is still a lean republican state.  The GOP won 53% of the statewide congressional vote and lost the senate race by 0.9% b/c they ran a flawed candidate.  Nevada is a pure tossup state at this point.  Although, looking at Sandoval's decisive win vs Harry reid barely creeping over 50% tells us that the GOP still has strength in the state.  I agree that NM is a lean democratic state.  

But the Hispanic vote in Colorado (as also in Nevada, California, and Washington) was enough to make the difference between the Democratic incumbents winning and losing those states in a bad year for Democrats. Note that Pennsylvania voted for a corporate stooge for a Senate seat and Florida voted for a Medicare cheat for Governor. Those are arguably as bad choices as "Crazy Lady" Angle, Buck, and Carly "I made a sweatshop out of Hewlett-Packard" Fiorina.

If anything I am suggesting how Colorado and Nevada are going with respect to some states that haven't voted for a Republican nominee for President since at least 1988 (PA, WI) or have voted only once for a Republican nominee for President (IA, NH). The shift is relative, and a Democratic gain with respect to the national average must be offset elsewhere. That is different from any nationwide shift to the advantage of Republicans or Democrats irrespective of the cause.     

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Except for Michigan, I concur. Michigan has too large an African-American population to be a target for the GOP except in a GOP landslide. Except for the large African-American population in Greater Detroit (which urban area remains larger than the Twin Cities or Milwaukee areas), Michigan is more like Minnesota or Wisconsin in its politics.   

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Don't be so sure. Democrats long ignored Omaha, but they have found that Omaha is the advertising conduit for western Iowa in anything close to a nail-biter of an election. Omaha may be a comparatively-conservative urban area, but it is no more conservative than Dallas. Barack Obama found ways in which to appeal to suburban voters. Advertising on Omaha-area TV and radio stations need no longer be assumed 'wasted' in eastern Nebraska. As far as I can tell, NE-01 (eastern Nebraska aside from Greater Omaha) is in play in 2012.

An electoral vote is an electoral vote, and you can figure that the GOP would seek out one of the four electoral votes of Maine if the state were on the margin.       

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Maybe I have over-rated John McCain as a candidate in 2010. I have seen stories in which some mass employers told their low-paid and unsophisticated employees to vote Republican if they want to keep their jobs. Such might not be so successful in 2012. Some demographic shifts favor President Obama and Democrats in general. One is that the young-adult vote has established a proclivity for voting Democratic and that new voters in the Presidential election, born between 1990 and 1994, are much more liberal than the US average.

Odd-year and midterm elections generally (2006 was a blatant exception, and then only because of corruption and extremism in the GOP) favor the conservative party that has the older, richer, and religious-Right voters that become more important when the vote is smaller. But the trend from 2000 to 2008 is likely to continue in 2012. The Religious Right is not now expanding. President Obama is a candidate far more adept than was either Gore or Kerry, and incumbents have huge advantages over challengers. Think about it -- if Dubya could get re-elected (he was one of the worst Presidents in American history), then President Obama would have to be execrable to be defeated by a Republican challenger.   

Americans now have less faith in corporate power and privilege, and the only reason for employees to vote Republican on behalf of executives and tycoons is fear of those executives and tycoons.     

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Corporate America funded a smear campaign upon all Democrats in 2010 through shadowy front groups that will be less capable of hiding in 2012. Besides, even if those front groups are capable of forcing pain on workers on behalf of the super-rich, that pain could cause people to turn on those that they voted for out of fear or delusion in 2010. Sure, Americans will be stuck with newly-elected turkeys in the Senate for six years, but every House seat will be up for grabs (at least in name) in 2012.

It could be that President Obama and the Democratic majorities in both Houses pushed too far and too fast for many tastes, especially for those of the quasi-aristocratic classes of America. (Make no mistake -- the US is beginning to look more like a land dominated by aristocratic elites than a modern democracy, and economic inequality is more characteristic of a fascist dictatorship than a modern industrial democracy). 

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The Reagan "miracle" came with a price of intensifying economic inequality and a gutting of safety nets that culminated in the Panic of 2008. For good reason, Ronald Reagan  was known as the Great Communicator. Barack Obama is the new Great Communicator.     

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President Obama consistently polls stronger nationwide than either House of Congress and either political party in a time of extreme cynicism toward politics. The GOP will be in need of a great miracle to undo the effectiveness of President Obama. Mark my words -- the GOP majority in the House is not going to have time in which to convince Americans that pure plutocracy -- the sort that one sees depicted in old Western movies in which some railroad baron uses his power to ensure that anyone that he dislikes will not be hired by anyone, will not get to ship his cattle or grain on the rail line, and might not even get to buy a drink in the saloon.

The better, and more relevant analogue might be to Harry S. Truman, who was able to turn over much of the House in 1948 while winning re-election. The big difference may be that because pollsters shut down about sixty days before the election and won't do so in 2012, Republicans will see 'it' coming.

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And if Teddy Roosevelt didn't see himself with a chance in 1912, he would have waited until 1916 against someone likely not Woodrow Wilson.

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Ross Perot ran as a centrist and probably picked up what might have been some Democratic votes. I have little to say about that election in view of so little being shown. In any event, George H W Bush had little legislative achievement and had no idea of what to do in a second term.

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The economy was in execrable shape in 1936 -- worse than in 1928 -- and FDR still won re-election. The relevant issue on 2012 will be whether things are better in 2010 than they were in 2008 -- unless the GOP offers so bungled a solution that Americans reject it.   

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Wrong! Ask my stockbroker whether early 2009 was the optimum time in which to invest in the market! The fault with TARP, according to Keynesian economists, is that it relied more heavily upon tax cuts than upon government investment. The government investment worked more effectively. The tax cuts were necessary for political reasons that one must excuse.

[pbrower2a]

 

(continued)

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I do not see one or more third-party nominees doing enough to keep President Obama from being re-elected. Carter would have lost without John Anderson in the election -- he was that poor a President. Any incumbent who took office before the start of the 2007-2009 economic meltdown  (analogy -- Hoover -- would get the blame for circumstances not of his choosing; had Al Smith been elected in 1928 he would have faced much the same problem and been defeated in 1932. But being elected toward the end of the economic meltdown, President Obama could be more in the position of  FDR in a 2012/1936 analogy.    But whether Obama wins re-election with 50.2% of the popular vote and 272 electoral votes or by a 60-40 margin with 500 or more electoral votes the man in the White House will be the same.     

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Unemployment is a lagging indicator. Employment is one of the last things to fall during an economic downturn and one of the last to recover. The Health Care Bill is becoming less unpopular over time.   When it is broken into its components and not identified as part of the bill, people seem to like it. If Reactionaries try to repeal it piecemeal then they will at best make it better (for which Obama gets credit for the rest) or make fools of themselves and risk a 1948 scenario when one wave election undoes another. 

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Maybe I wasn't so clear. Americans who voted for Obama voted for him despite his race, and not because of it. Even without overt racism, many white voters who might have voted for Bill Clinton, especially in the arc from New Orleans to Charleston WV, had obvious misgivings. Suppose that he ends up a Clinton-like President sans a Monica Lewinsky. He might win back a bunch of the old Clinton-but-not-Obama vote.

The results are a mixed bag, and the not-so-great parts are those that he inherited. If stocks failed to recover from the 1929 crash until 1952, much the same can be expected of real estate (no full recovery until 2020 or so?). Afghanistan has been a mess for a long time.   

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Barack Obama is a far-stronger campaigner than either Al Gore or John Kerry. If George W. Bush could be re-elected, what is to say that a far-more successful President won't be?  Obama didn't write off states like Virginia, Indiana, and North Carolina that Gore and Kerry wrote off. If Georgia or Missouri are close in a close election, then expect him to campaign there.

The GOP is at risk of more states drifting D due to their demographics -- most notably Arizona and Texas.

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Corrupt unions? What about corrupt corporations who have near-fascist ideologies that can tell their undereducated, cowed workers that if they want to keep their jobs that they had better vote for politicians who might accede to wage cuts and tax shifts that hurt the working poor? The union vote includes, for all practical purposes, family members who know well why life is still good for them.     

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And if the GOP majority in the House proves buffoons as I expect? What then happens?

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The Hispanic vote is growing. The Religious Right is shrinking. Trust in giant corporations and their executives is little more than fear of consequences of running afoul of tycoons and bosses. The secret ballot does wonders in letting people vote their consciences instead of their fears. 

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Indeed it will.  Barack Obama built upon the Gore-Kerry coalition and will lose none of what he started with. He will have to maintain some of his gains, which is no sure thing. I just can't see a southern Reactionary making inroads into the North, and I can see no charismatic Republican  with a message that transcends the old GOP core coalition. I see him doing well in holding onto the Hispanic vote in 2012, and that will be enough to win every state that either Gore or Kerry ever won and both Colorado and Nevada, those alone being enough for winning 270-275 electoral votes even should he lose all of Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.

He will have to campaign -- but such will be a good thing. I really don't want him to win a landslide and let it go to his head. But if he does win a landslide, then let him  act more like Dwight Eisenhower than like LBJ, Nixon, or Reagan in his second term.

[feeblepizza]

None of them.

[Napoleon]

None, in my opinion. Trade PA in map 2 for IA and WI and you're probably closer to what will really happen if it is a close election.

[albaleman]

Map 1, though all of them are unlikely.

[Reaganite]

It wasn't the Hispanic vote that did in Ken Buck.  It was the women vote.  The GOP took 38% of the Hispanic vote in 2010 as a whole.  That's the second highest % since 1994.

Michigan had a huge Republican wave in 2010 and was a very close state in 2000 and 2004.  I full expect it to be a very close race in Michigan.  

Nebraska CD 2 will vote overwhelmingly for the GOP in 2012 and I am willing to bet on it.  One fluke election does not change the traditional voting habits of people.  

Obama has alienated much of the traditional democratic coalition.  White working class and suburban voters fled the Dems in 2009 and 2010.  Young adults grow up and realize the Dems are the party of class warfare and massive government.  When they realize how much Dems want to tax the people, they quickly change their tune.  In 2004, when both party's were motivated, Bush won handily.  

Obama was and is a bad candidate.  The stage was set for the Dem candidate to win with 55+ % of the vote.  Obama trailed McCain up until the Lehman Brothers collapses and McCain's pathetic handling of the situation.  McCain was an terrible candidate for the GOP.  

Dems didn't lose b/c of a mythical smear campaign.  They lost b/c they are liberals and b/c of their embarrassing record of nearly destroying the country.  You need to face reality that America is still and will likely be for the foreseeable future, a Center-Right country.  A Dem president is simply and aberration.  

Economic Inequality?  Oh, you mean actually rewarding the achievers and those with ambition, work ethic, and strong sense of purpose.  How does letting people keep their own money with lower taxes equate to being a bad thing?  Also, did you know that more blacks moved into the middle class under Ronald Reagan than any other time in American history?

Obama is nothing compared to Ronald Reagan as a man, as a President, or as a communicator.  

Didn't Obama just claim their massive losses were b/c of poor communication even though that was just a ridiculous excuse?  They lost b/c of bad policy and dumping on the will of the people.  

My point on Taft and Bush is that they were better Presidents than given credit for.  It took legitimate third party candidates to beat them.

This will not be another Truman election.  Obama is NOT Harry Truman.  The Dems have had the House majority for only 4 out of the last 16 years.  They will NOT retake the House.  Most of the seats won the the GOP have R+ PVI's.  These were seats held by longtime "conservative" Dems and the people had finally had enough.  These districts will not got back blue.  

Government "investment" is the problem, not the solution.  There were virtually no tax cuts in the so called "stimulus".  Obama's policies have failed and there is no way around it.  

Obama will not win re-election.  The map it too daunting and his policies are too toxic.  

Unemployment was around 7.5% in 1992 and around 7% in 1980.  Both incumbents lost.  That will be the case in 2012 as unemployment will be higher than either of those.

The most recent poll has 60% of Americans favor repeal of the Healthcare debacle.  

I've never heard of or read of one instance of corporations bullying it's employees to vote a particular way.  While, union thuggery is common knowledge.  Besides, most rich CEO's are Dems.  Why are they going to bully people into voting for the GOP??  

Obama's "magic" has worn off and his great campaigning led to historic defeats of his party.  There is ZERO chance he wins Texas or Arizona...and you might as well lump Indiana and NC in there too.  Voters in these states DO NOT LIKE Obama's job performance.  He is badly underwater in Indiana, NC, Florida, Ohio, NH, Pennsylvania, etc, etc.  

Just b/c you like the job he is doing doesn't mean others do.  

And if Obama continues to be an amazing buffoon, what then?

Yes, the Hispanic vote is growing, but they don't all vote Democrat.  The GOP will get around 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2012 (perhaps more if Rubio is the VP nominee) and that will be enough.  Once the immigration is resolved, Hispanic vote will quickly trend to the GOP.  

And the GOP got 60% of the white vote in 2010.  That's the most in the last 16 years and perhaps longer than that.  That number will most likely be even higher in 2012.  

Therin lies the problem.  There is not enough non-white vote in key states such as NH, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio, etc to overcome such a deficit.  Florida is a different animal b/c cubans vote strongly for the GOP.  

Dems assume that Hispanics will vote Dem at the rate African-Americas do and that's simply not the case.  This is a voting bloc up for grabs.  Bush won 44% of the Hispanic vote in 2004.  

Plus, the GOP ground game will have built in advantages with sitting Governors aiding them.  

Obama virtually can't win losing Ohio, Florida, Indiana, NC, and Virginia (all traditional GOP states that will go back to the GOP in 2012).  Add those states to McCain's states and the GOP is already at 266.  That means the GOP needs one remaining state and the list of likely states is a long one...Iowa, NH, Colorado, NV, and NM were all Bush states in 2000 and/or 2004.  Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota were all extremely close in 2000 and 2004 and had moved strongly to the GOP since 2008.  

So, as you see things simply don't look good for Obama despite being an incumbent.