Interesting details election will be especially nasty, and very, very close

[LINCOLN REPUBLICAN]

http://www.scrippsnews.com/content/watch-get-ready-especially-nasty-presidential-race

What is scary about this election is that 46 percent of Americans absolutely would never consider voting for Romney and 46 percent absolutely would never consider voting for Obama this November. And most of them feel viscerally that the other guy is a horrible, terrible, no-good person who will ruin the country.

What's even scarier is that the experts think the election will be decided by less than 1 percent of voters. (Even though the experts are often wrong, half the population will be seriously bitter come January.)

[HagridOfTheDeep]

This whole paragraph is a huge mischaracterization and really shows you how biased the article is:

"Do we want to trim the deficit by cutting out the services we like, or not? Do we want to change the tax code, or not? Do we want to let the really rich have more control of the reins, or not? Do we want to cut entitlement benefits such as Medicare and Social Security and make Americans take more responsibility for their own retirements, or not? As we going to continue to be a nation that welcomes immigrants, or are we going to shut the doors?"

I guess people just don't understand Republicans or something.

[shua]

http://www.scrippsnews.com/content/watch-get-ready-especially-nasty-presidential-race

What is scary about this election is that 46 percent of Americans absolutely would never consider voting for Romney and 46 percent absolutely would never consider voting for Obama this November. And most of them feel viscerally that the other guy is a horrible, terrible, no-good person who will ruin the country.

What's even scarier is that the experts think the election will be decided by less than 1 percent of voters. (Even though the experts are often wrong, half the population will be seriously bitter come January.)

I didn't see any evidence of these numbers.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The critical swing state of 2012 will most likely be a landslide compared the critical swing states of the 1876, 1884, 1916, and 2000 elections.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

It's pretty much true that the actual number of swing voters is relatively small, but these numbers are absurd and look made-up.

[Vosem]

The critical swing state of 2012 will most likely be a landslide compared the critical swing states of the 1876, 1884, 1916, and 2000 elections.

That seems pretty doubtful to me.

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

[T]he experts think the election will be decided by less than 1 percent of voters.

Almost every political scientist and (credible) politics reporter whom I read says that the election could be a landslide in either direction.

[Keystone Phil]

So now Winfield thinks the election will be "very, very close" as opposed to the Romney landslide/"Mitt will take California 52-48" prediction he made not too long ago?

Yeah, this one's over.

[pbrower2a]

This whole paragraph is a huge mischaracterization and really shows you how biased the article is:

"Do we want to trim the deficit by cutting out the services we like, or not? Do we want to change the tax code, or not? Do we want to let the really rich have more control of the reins, or not? Do we want to cut entitlement benefits such as Medicare and Social Security and make Americans take more responsibility for their own retirements, or not? As we going to continue to be a nation that welcomes immigrants, or are we going to shut the doors?"

I guess people just don't understand Republicans or something.

Maybe some Americans understand the Republicans too well, and the rest accept every GOP claim or those of its political allies uncritically. Some of us read between the lines, and nearly as many don't. 

[All life is a blur of Republicans and meat.]

I seriously doubt this one will be that close. We have an incumbent president and people will make up their mind about him, one way or the other.

It's much more likely that 2016 will be a very close election, assuming Obama wins.

[True Federalist]

This whole paragraph is a huge mischaracterization and really shows you how biased the article is:

"Do we want to trim the deficit by cutting out the services we like, or not? Do we want to change the tax code, or not? Do we want to let the really rich have more control of the reins, or not? Do we want to cut entitlement benefits such as Medicare and Social Security and make Americans take more responsibility for their own retirements, or not? As we going to continue to be a nation that welcomes immigrants, or are we going to shut the doors?"

I guess people just don't understand Republicans or something.

No, its that the politicians pretend to not understand the budget.  If we want to trim the deficit we need some combination of tax hikes and spending cuts.  This is not the era of Reagan and definitely not that of JFK.  We are not at the point on the Laffer curve where a cut in taxes leads to an increase in tax revenue.  The object lessons that Europe is providing on what happens when a government continues to spend beyond its revenues are sinking in with a significant portion of the electorate.  Whether it will be significant enough remains to be seen.  But it does mean that we do face serious choices if we're serious about cutting the deficit.   Unfortunately, so far neither party has been all that serious about the defiict.

[Frodo]

[T]he experts think the election will be decided by less than 1 percent of voters.

Almost every political scientist and (credible) politics reporter whom I read says that the election could be a landslide in either direction.

Interesting -would you mind citing examples here? 

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

[T]he experts think the election will be decided by less than 1 percent of voters.

Almost every political scientist and (credible) politics reporter whom I read says that the election could be a landslide in either direction.

Interesting -would you mind citing examples here? 

Jonathan Bernstein, Steve Kornacki, and Nate Silver come to mind. I'll see if I can dig up a couple of links.

[LINCOLN REPUBLICAN]

I am simply quoting the article. 

I am not saying this election will be that close.

[Politico]

This whole paragraph is a huge mischaracterization and really shows you how biased the article is:

"Do we want to trim the deficit by cutting out the services we like, or not? Do we want to change the tax code, or not? Do we want to let the really rich have more control of the reins, or not? Do we want to cut entitlement benefits such as Medicare and Social Security and make Americans take more responsibility for their own retirements, or not? As we going to continue to be a nation that welcomes immigrants, or are we going to shut the doors?"

I guess people just don't understand Republicans or something.

No, its that the politicians pretend to not understand the budget.  If we want to trim the deficit we need some combination of tax hikes and spending cuts.  This is not the era of Reagan and definitely not that of JFK.  We are not at the point on the Laffer curve where a cut in taxes leads to an increase in tax revenue.  The object lessons that Europe is providing on what happens when a government continues to spend beyond its revenues are sinking in with a significant portion of the electorate.  Whether it will be significant enough remains to be seen.  But it does mean that we do face serious choices if we're serious about cutting the deficit.   Unfortunately, so far neither party has been all that serious about the defiict.

The only thing Europe has taught us is that ever-increasing spending/taxes eventually leads to a situation where you are running out of ways to further tax people. Obama wants us to replicate their mistakes and poor results. Romney wants us to avoid Eurosclerosis.

We can both reduce taxes and even more greatly reduce spending without incurring a severe recession. We can do this and get the deficit back into manageable shape. We can do this and restore confidence in America. No, Obama can't. Yes, Romney will.

I still suspect this will be a win for Romney. It will probably not be close, or at least no closer than 1992 was. Outside chance of it being as close as 1976/2004. It will be 1980 if we go into another recession, which appears unlikely.

[Chaddyr23]

Also Europe's shown us that austerity in times of weak economic growth creates even weaker economic conditions. Im sorry but Romney lost me when he wasn't man enough to raise his hand for 1:10 taxes to spending cuts. I mean cutting Dept of Education and treating the Dept of Defense as the golden calf of the budget really shows that this is not the party of Eisenhower, Reagan or even Dole.

[Politico]

Also Europe's shown us that austerity in times of weak economic growth creates even weaker economic conditions.

They had no choice. Over the course of many years and pro-spending/pro-tax/pro-deficit policies, they have led themselves to a situation where they are now "maxed out" on their credit limit, to give an imperfect but relatable analogy. We still have a choice: Replicate their mistakes or learn from them.

[True Federalist]

We can both reduce taxes and even more greatly reduce spending without incurring a severe recession. We can do this and get the deficit back into manageable shape. We can do this and restore confidence in America. No, Obama can't. Yes, Romney will.

Perhaps Romney would care to actually point out where he'll cut back spending?  He claims to want to cut spending by $500 billion by 2016, but he's already placed over half the spending on his do not cut list, and that doesn't include the interest payments that he can't cut or the fact that he wants to increase defense spending.  He talks the talk, but he has shown no interest in walking the walk.  There has been too much talk from both parties about how they want to cut spending to take seriously any figures pulled out of thin air.  That's why Romney does not have the advantage you think he has.  There are too many voters disillusioned with the same old snake oil that Romney is trying to peddle.