Mr. 47%

[pbrower2a]

If polling is any indiction, Mitt's 45% is likely to fall.

The more people learn about him, the less they like.

So Romney's likely to do worse in 2012 than the 47% McCain got in 2008?  I find that very hard to believe.

No record of military heroism (or martyrdom). McCain didn't have business dealings to defend.

[pbrower2a]

If polling is any indiction, Mitt's 45% is likely to fall.

The more people learn about him, the less they like.

So Romney's likely to do worse in 2012 than the 47% McCain got in 2008?  I find that very hard to believe.

No record of military heroism (or martyrdom). McCain didn't have business dealings to defend.

So you think it's possible Obama beats Romney 55-45 or 56-44?  Sorry, but that's just fantasy.  Not that Obama will win, but that he can win a significant victory with the current economic conditions.  Nominal Republicans are not going to abandon Romney to vote for Obama.

Anyone who thinks McCain was a popular nominee for the Republican party is smoking some really good stuff.  He was anything but.  Romney may not be popular either, but the desire to beat Obama is over the top and the economy stinks.

I did not say that Obama beats Romney 55-45 or 56-44. I said that nothing about Mitt Romney says that he has any strong appeal that John McCain had. It will be hard for Mitt Romney to make as catastrophic a choice for VP as did McCain, which might give an electoral result that looks much like Obama vs. McCain.

Sure, the economy stinks -- but it also stank in 1936 and the incumbent President won. Lowered expectations on the US economy four years after the bottom might not have the same effect as three and a half years after a less-severe meltdown, and people might not give as much credit to President Obama in 2012 as they gave FDR in 1936... but there is much more leeway for re-election of the President.   

Oh, yes -- there was much hatred among America's economic elite to "That Man" and his "Jew (sic!) Deal".  (Hey, folks -- I'm simply repeating the callow term then in use. Jew is always rightly a noun and never an adjective,  and Judaism is arguably the most humane religion that humanity has ever known, at least in modern times). I also remember the visceral contempt that many liberals had for Ronald Reagan in 1984 and how strong that was against a President whose political skills are similar to those of President Obama.

[pbrower2a]

The suggestion was that if anyone had room to fall further in the polls, it was Romney from his current 45% perch.  If that were to be the case, it would signal Obama winning by 10 points or so.  That's not going to happen.

As for 1936, the situations are similar, but not so much.  FDR won a decisive victory because there was a widespread belief things were improving.  After all, unemployment had gone from 25% to 15%.  In terms of 1984, once again there was a widespread belief things were improving.  It was morning in America.

Obama can't run on a view that things are improving so comparing 2012 to 1936 is a stretch.  Unemployment has gone from 8% to 10% back to 8%.  It's probably even rising again.  And I would also say Obama's failure to convince most Americans to believe in his programs suggests his political skills aren't as good as Reagan's.

The recent economic meltdown parallels the first half of the three-year meltdown that began in the autumn of 1929.  Causes were much the same. it may be that our institutions (bank deposit insurance, welfare, unemployment insurance, Social Security) are much stronger than they were in 1932 if they were available. President Obama deserves no credit for those. But he and the Democratic majorities of the 111th Congress that primed the pump.  The 112th Congress is a travesty of good government unless one accepts its ideology at face value. 

Unemployment is a lagging indicator. Firms are slow to fire (maybe our sales force needs to work harder) at the start of an economic downturn and slow to hire at the end of the downturn.