Doyle McManus writes an op-ed in the Los Angeles times on Team Obama's victory plan, which analyzes David Plouffe's comments at a breakfast Wednesday, July 6, 2011, organized by Bloomberg news.
"David Plouffe and others expect a tough 2012 campaign, but they believe the president will win another term," by moving to the center to attract back independent voters, rallying enthusiasm among new young and minority voters, and capitalizing on the experience base gained in the 2008 election victory.
President Obama faces an uphill struggle in his campaign for reelection next year. His job approval rating is stuck just below 50%. The unemployment rate appears likely to remain above 8% until election day. And, though it's too soon to mean much, early polling puts the nominal Republican front-runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, within striking distance. ...
In the 2008 presidential election, Obama won 52% of independents, according to a national exit poll, but by last month, his support among independents stood at only 42% in a Pew Research Center poll.
McManus reports that Team Obama sees four reasons they expect to win the 2012 election.
First, Plouffe suggested, Obama has an opportunity to improve his standing among independent voters — many of whom deserted the Democrats in the 2010 midterm election — by working with Republicans toward bipartisan deficit-reduction measures.
Second, Obama has managed to move toward the center without losing significant support among core Democratic voters. The president's job approval rating among Democrats, Plouffe said, is in the 80% to 90% range in many states. (Nationally, it's about 77%, still respectable.)
Third, demographics help the Democrats. One of the keys to Obama's victory in 2008, Plouffe noted, was high turnout among young, black and Latino voters, all groups that heavily supported the Democrat. Next year's electorate should include even more minority voters than last time.
Fourth, Obama is a seasoned campaigner who ran a long, tough election campaign in 2008, and he still has the team that helped him to victory in place.
But, Team Obama could be making a serious serious mathematical and strategic blunder if they go to far in disregarding the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. For example, we are hearing reports that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi expressed concerns that she was not informed of the latest idea of changing Social Security COLA in a way that will not keep up with inflation as measured with the CPI.
As to Plouffe's second contention — that Obama hasn't alienated liberals despite his move to the center — the Democrats can only hope he's right. Obama aides appear to believe the president has plenty of leeway to make a deal with Republicans on debt reduction because, to put it bluntly, liberal Democrats don't have anywhere else to go.
With regard to Team Obama's plan move to the center without losing liberal Democrats, McManus notices that the debt ceiling negotiations "offers both opportunity and peril. The 2012 presidential election could be won or lost in the next three weeks."
My concern is that Plouffe's equation may be overly simplistic, and may leave out key variables representing the degree of enthusiasm of the base, liberal election volunteers, and the degree to which our President appears to have core beliefs, and loyalties to constituencies he is willing to fight for, which could not only adversely affect Democratic participation rates, but also lose rather than gain independent voters.
Let's exaggerate the constrast to illustrate the point just to write the equations. Then we can argue and debate later which mechanisms seems to be strong
Mindset and Assumption Set #1: If we start with the 2008 votes as a base, and notice that we've lost independents, and assume the reason is that Obama has been too liberal, and liberal Democrats have no place to go, then turning to the right seems like a "no-brainer" net plus. We assume we keep all of our existing voters, and gain some number of independents back. The only question seems to be how fast and far can we move to the right?
So, in this Mindset, let's out do the GOP on their own traditional positions. Let's change the cost of living adjustment for Medicare and Social Security, and we can only win votes.
Mindset and Assumption Set #2: Let's add to the equation a "Level of Enthusiam" for major blocks of voters. Although, I'll grant the point that to the extent liberal Democrats are "rational" they will still vote for Obama, despite whatever strong turn to the right we might make, if level of "enthusiasm" descends to anger, disgust, and a sense of betrayal, which will leak out into the general electorate, where Obama may be in danger of appearing to all like a man with no principles, values, loyalty, or willingness to fight for core Democratic values, such as Social Security.
I've read in many places that the real reason we lost in the 2010 elections is that we lost 15% of older voters, especially white woman, who apparently believed the GOP line that we took $500 billion out of Medicare to pay for the health bill, and then lied about it, saying it was only Medicare Advantage programs, which it turns out were less than a third of the reduction.
Please don't get distracted about whether or not they were confused, or unwise to think the GOP was more trustable than Democrats, it's what they reported to pollsters.
If may be just as impossible for us to imagine a backlash from Social Security, Disabled, and Government pensioners against Democrats, and not Republicans, who should be seen as worse, but it does seem to have happened, to some extent, in 2010.
How could this be?
Here's how I understand it, from watching groups of retired folks who hang around in diners, and fast-food places especially in the mornings, in groups of 4 to 10. There is usually some irascible old fellow, who hates Democrats and will rant on about every foible, especially about lying. Follower's gradually buy into a hypnotic background feeling that Democrats are lying weasels who believe in nothing, except for getting re-elected, and can't be trusted.
Yes, the GOP also favored adjustments to Social Security, but out of the honest concern of balancing the budget, and avoiding a crisis, that the Democrats ended up agreeing with, and endorsing. But, only because courageous, disciplined, and patriotic Republicans, put their foot down and forced Democrats to go along.
Remember, I'm do not believe this. I'm illustrating a concern about Mindset #1, that Mindset #2 sees as one of the reasons why an Obama may lose more votes than if he stands firmly behind traditional Democratic positions, and does not cut Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.
Mindset #2 sees little gain from moving to the right, but perhaps enormous gains by standing firmly with traditional Democratic positions, especially defending Social Security, Disability, and government pensioners.
Proponents of this belief system wonder how many tens of millions of Social Security, Medicare, and Government pensions, who might now be Republicans, or independents, might convert to vote for Democrats because of our resoluteness in defending it. Also, how many social programs who are "latent" Democrats but don't manage to get to the voting booths might get fired up enough to greatly boost Democratic voter participation rates?
This is where the variable "Enthusiasm for Democratic Base" included in Mindset 2, but not Mindset 1, could turn out to be the crucial determinant. Having a vast army of fired up liberal Democrats volunteering for the GOTV effort could make the difference in winning.
We should analyze these assumption carefully. Perhaps, we will find people who strongly believe in these Mindsets here at Daily Kos that can help us evaluate which parts of the equation are strongest? Perhaps, even do some focused polling research?
3:57 PM PT: Sydserious brings us this link to a much better and longer article by Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/...