Mitt Romney wants to be President so very, very badly. Luckily for Mitt, he is still the favorite of a very weak and damaged field of GOP candidates. Let's say Mittens cruises through the nomination process relatively unscathed (as he has been so far) and becomes the GOP poster boy for 2012. That's scary right, because Romney is the strongest candidate! Not so fast. Here's why:
Note: my first diary, please be kind! Thanks
There are a few major factors that will affect the election. These factors are environment, incumbent, candidate, and narrative - which I have ordered according to importance in the election.
Environment
This is the crack in the cornerstone of Obama's reelection chances. The economy continues to improve in a notably lackluster way thanks to the general public being mostly unable to understand the power of supply and demand and Keynesian economics and the GOP's absolute and unwavering obstruction of any policy that could help the nation recover.
With unemployment expected to be around 9% by White House estimates, Obama's steepest hill to climb is going to be because of the economy. So how does this relate to Romney?
Romney has already staked out incredibly unpopular economic positions in states vital to his election. He fully supported SB5, has a brilliant plan to keep people in hard-hit states like Arizona, Nevada, and Florida in their homes: do nothing, and wants to lower taxes for the real citizens of the US: rich people and corporations while doing nothing for the middle class.
The media will tell you no President has been elected with unemployment higher than 7.2% since FDR. And it will sound scary and make you think that since there is no way unemployment will be down to that unless Jesus starts paying out to the faithful on a biweekly basis, there is just no way that Obama can be reelected. Bull. There have been 12 Presidents (including FDR) since FDR. One was assassinated. If you went and asked a statistician to create a predictive model based on 11 occurrences you would get laughed at. The margin of error in a sample size that small is enormous. That's like saying no President will ever be reelected if unemployment is 7.2% - plus or minus 20 or so percentage points. Expanding the sample to every single Presidency doesn't make it much better either as a sample of 44 is still tiny in statistical terms and I'm not quite sure how reliable employment figures were in the 1780s.
Incumbent
Incumbents that suck lose. And then there is Obama, who is so many leagues above any GOP candidate you would need light years to measure the distance between the two. Not to sound partisan, but Obama has grace, dignity, charisma, intelligence, and an ability to convey thoughts and ideas that is so far beyond Romney's singular ability to say many things that meaning so little it is laughable. Romney will do what he does best against a competent opponent or tough question: hedge and ramble platitudes until the clock runs out and hope his opponent trips up on a real answer.
The problem when debating a Harvard professor is that the professor won't be the one forgetting three federal agencies or insulting members of Congress on a personal level. Mitt has no concrete ideas - if that doesn't become obvious when the primaries whittle down to two or three, it will be painfully so when Obama has solutions and Mitt has jumbled GOP talking points.
Obama also leads or is tied to Romney in nearly every swing state and on a national level. Just take a look here for a daily compilation of public polls. And that's not all: by about a 11-12 point spread, people just don't like Romney while they do like Obama. This is America. We like pretty things and nice people. Low Information Voters are not going to vote for Milquetoast Man when they could cast a ballot for Captain America.
Candidate
I've alluded to this several times already, but Romney is just a crappy candidate. People don't like him (see above) compared to Obama, and that's before labor, OFA, and the Democrats expose the real Romney to the electorate.
Romney is also anathema to the GOP base. He is the true father of the healthcare mandate and Obama will make sure to chain that around his neck. If 2012 is about choices, why choose someone who's signature policy is nearly identical to the incumbent that you already know? And as a founding member of Bain Capital, Romney made it his job to help the ultra rich by gutting companies of employees and employee benefits and then selling the new company - Now with less fat! to the highest bidder. How well do you think this past experience will play in an economy doing barely more than treading water in employment?
Romney is also plain weird. He's awkward and he comes off awkward, whether it's in a debate or in person. That won't look too good for him in comparison to the charismatic Obama, who can whip up and energize a crowd just by walking on stage. Who's really going to get excited about Mitt Romney?
Narrative
Oh, the lovely liberal media. You know, the one that consistently blankets Obama in negative media coverage far more often and frequently than any other major figure in the news? The one that sipped sweet Earl Gray at the Tea Party table while mocking and largely ignoring OWS? The media narrative is incredibly important because it focuses the public on issues and determines what politicians talk about. Republicans win when the media talks about debt. Democrats win everything else because the Republicans have no other talking points. Note to every Democrat everywhere at every level of every part of government: STFU about it. If you mention it, talk about how your jobs bill is going to lower it.
Thanks to a little more discipline and backbone from the Democrats, Obama's relentless focus on his jobs bill, and the steady stream of OWS that has finally percolated into the news, Americans are beginning to focus the real reasons why our infrastructure is decaying, jobs aren't coming back, and wages are stagnant. People are beginning to realize that the GOP is only here to obstruct Obama, and those that began to turn away from Obama and the Democrats in 2010 are quickly seeing what happens when you let tea leaves steep in boiling water - it makes for a bitter brew for everyone at the table.
2012 is not 2010. Say that to yourself 1000x. The electorate will be much browner, much more liberal, younger, and far more exposed to reality than the old white electorate of 2010. Minorities still support Obama in similar numbers as in 2008. Us Millenials still support Obama by gigantic margins, and while pollsters rate our enthusiasm lower (Note: Millenials hate Republicans and there is no exciting Democratic primary so fully expect this number to change) - there is no reason to expect our support to drop.
Taking in these factors, as well as their trajectory heading into 2012, shows that the contrived media theme of "it's gonna be real close" may not actually be really accurate when you sit down and look at all of the converging factors. Or I could be hopelessly optimistic. But right now, I feel confident about Obama's reelection, and if he is reelected I believe we will hold the Senate, and depending on Republican popularity and voter enthusiasm, we could conceivably retake the House.