My brother in Australia sent me a Daily Beast article titled “Michael Tomasky on The (Possible) Coming Obama Landslide”. It’s a good article, relying heavily on data and articles from Nate Silver’s fantastic site. But the title of the article (no doubt written by a copyeditor) is misleading – nowhere in the text does Tomasky even use the term “landslide”. Instead he points out what many have discussed – the difficulty of Romney’s path to 270 electoral votes.
So regarding the headline of the Tomasky article, is an Obama landslide possible? Yes. But its chances (depending on how one defines "landslide") are substantially less, at this point, than the chances of a Romney victory.
And, for the hell of it, try the poll: who do you think will win the popular vote and by how much?
Nate's model currently gives Obama a 72-28 chance for November, and he'd be a 77-23 favorite if the election were today. But I've played a lot of gambling games and I know how easy it is to lose situations when you're a 3-1 favorite. In one of Nate's articles today (“Models, Models, Everywhere”), he talks about how anything that happened to suddenly give Romney a two-to-four point boost in Florida is also likely to give him that same boost in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico.
“One or two of the statistical methods, for instance, assumes that the outcome in each state is independent of the outcome in the next one. Ohio might move in one direction — and Michigan, just as easily, in the opposite one.
That’s simply not a credible assumption. The failure to appreciate correlations in risk is one of the things that led to the recent financial crisis. A change in economic conditions, or a substantial gaffe or scandal in the campaign, is likely to be reflected to some degree in all states, and move all of their numbers in the same direction. Our model assumes that the uncertainty in different states is largely, but not entirely, correlated. If you believe the contrary, you probably ought not be let anywhere near a job function in which you are asked to manage risk — although the credit-ratings agencies might be happy to hire you.”
So suddenly, Obama could go from favorite to underdog. This is why the half-decent jobs report for July was SO important -- a bad one would have been exactly the kind of thing that could have given Romney that boost, but this one didn't. Yet there could still be many a slip 'tween the cup and the lip – and, to give just one example, one day's trading when Wall Street crashes 500 points could do it.
Some thoughts about the strategy the current situation might suggest below the squiggle:
I don't know what specifically defines an Obama landslide -- for me, a meaningful definition would be a victory so large that his coattails come close to pulling in a Democratic majority in the House. The very least that such a margin could be, I'd think, would be 6% in the popular vote. It could happen -- since he's probably at 2.5% or so now, he's further from that than he is from losing.
But there are probably fewer "game-changers" that would have a huge positive impact for Obama than there are negative ones (how often can you kill bin Laden?). For Obama to get to even minimal "landslide" territory would probably require a number of small incremental boosts, like monthly job numbers and a Dow that steadily improve between now and November; the drip-drip of continued gaffes by Romney; or something specific, negative and unspinnable, about Mittens' tax returns/Bain career/Utah residence being made public. Could happen, but... It seems as though, to use a baseball metaphor with which Nate would be familiar:
1. Obama’s chances of getting a large victory depend on “playing smallball”: bunts, stolen bases, hit-and-runs -- lots of successful events that, while each only improves his chances minimally, in total could add up significantly
2. Romney needs to swing for the fences: home runs that will make a substantial movement away from Obama in many states.
Sabermetrician Bill James has pointed out that the trouble with smallball (which he termed “long offense”) is that there are many places where things can go wrong and not work out as hoped. That’s why in the playoffs, when all the teams are good and unlikely to make many mistakes, teams that rely on short offense, i.e., home runs, tend to do better than long offense teams.
But, and this is key, whereas Obama’s team can actually strategize to improve things incrementally, Romney’s team can’t decide (I hope!) to suddenly have Wall St. crash. Romney’s chances for victory are dependent on circumstances that are substantially beyond his control. And that is never a good place to be.
Of course, scary times still lie ahead. Romney is going to have a lot of cash to spend on advertising, and he'll almost assuredly get a bump from the GOP Convention. In 2008, McCain/Palin actually were polling ahead right after the convention. So we just have to try to maintain our equilibrium if that happens in early September, and remember that it's likely just a bump -- I'm trusting Nate to keep reminding me of that!
So who do you think will win the popular vote and by how much?