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Unless Something Is Wrong With the Polls…

It looks like Obama is going to get his second term. Of course there is a chance that Obama could somehow lose Wisconsin and Pennsylvania even as he wins Ohio. Or there is a chance that somehow the polls in Ohio are all wrong for a reason we will only discover after the campaign. But […]


It looks like Obama is going to get his second term.

Of course there is a chance that Obama could somehow lose Wisconsin and Pennsylvania even as he wins Ohio. Or there is a chance that somehow the polls in Ohio are all wrong for a reason we will only discover after the campaign. But Ohio is the key state and Romney has never really achieved anything like a lead there. Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner has laid out his forecasting and he comes to the sensible result of Obama 290, Romney 248. I think he is right that Obama won’t break 300. For a looser take on things that argues for a Romney win, look to Jay Cost at The Weekly Standard.

Everyone will take what they want from a Romney defeat. Democrats will exult in a demographic shift that is favoring them with every election. Social conservatives will say that Romney never excited the base. Elite conservatives will castigate the party for not making efforts to attract and win over more Hispanic voters. Social liberals in the Republican party will blame the “war on women” and the incessant chatter about contraception and rape. Hard-core restrictionists will argue that Republicans failed to maximize their appeal to alienated white voters. Anti-war conservatives will say that Romney didn’t sufficiently repudiate the deeply unpopular Bush legacy and voters were afraid of blowing up the world again. Post-election analysts want their political coalition to become more like themselves.

But the truth is that the election was winnable for Republicans and perhaps several of the above strategies could have paid off. But Romney’s history, his personality, and his campaign were not suited to winning a national race during a bad economic downturn. He is one of the most intensely “disliked” presidential candidates in a long time. He is not a natural campaigner.

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