NY Times Sunday Magazine has it's cover story preview piece up by Nate Silver from this coming weekend. As we are just under one year from Election Day, let the prognosticating begin:
Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election
Silver highlights
three fundamental misgivings shared by much of the American electorate.
which likely aren't representative of this community but Nate seems to know how to take a pulse from his track record.
• First, many of us understand that Barack Obama inherited a terrible predicament. We have a degree of sympathy for the man. But we have concerns, which have been growing over time, about whether he’s up to the job.
• Second, most of us are gravely concerned about the economy. We’re not certain what should be done about it, but we’re frustrated.
• Third, enough of us are prepared to vote against Obama that he could easily lose. It doesn’t mean we will, but we might if the Republican represents a credible alternative and fits within the broad political mainstream.
Silver's piece presents 4 different scenarios come next November:
Obama vs. Romney both in a stagnant and an improving economy
Obama vs. Perry (or Cain, both are similarly placed in a scale providing measuring degree of conservatism) in a stagnant as well as an improving economy.
The scenario's outcomes might be what you expect but some of the numbers are surprising.
A president’s approval rating toward the end of his third year, therefore, has been a decent (although imperfect) predictor of his chances of victory. Reagan saw his approval rating shoot up to 51 percent in November 1983 amid the V-shaped recovery from the recession of the previous year — the first sign that he was headed for a big win. Obama’s approval rating may have rebounded by a point or two from its lows after the debt-ceiling debacle — but not by much more than that. In late October, it ranged between 40 and 46 percent in different polls and averaged about 43 percent.
There have been two presidents stuck with similarly low approval ratings a year in advance of the next election. Gerald Ford had a 44 percent approval rating a year before his loss to Carter. Johnson had a 41 percent approval rating in November 1967, and although he was eligible for another term, he opted not to run. His vice president, Hubert H. Humphrey, did, and he lost.
In fact, since 1944 (when approval ratings first became reliable), there have been five cases in which the incumbent party’s president had an approval rating below 49 percent a year ahead of the election — as Obama almost certainly will, unless he finds the cure for cancer after our issue goes to print — and each time the incumbent party lost.
Most interestingly, there is no mention in the article of the growing "Occupy Effect", an obvious intangible as we move closer to November 2012. There is mention of Sarah Palin as a Tea Party candidate which would suck votes from the Republican nominee.
Take a look and lets discuss.... http://www.nytimes.com/...
