The latest Gallup Tracking Poll looks like my ex-girlfriends legs after one fourth of one beer:
Obama Romney; Romney Lead
15-Apr 45 47 2
16-Apr 43 48 5
Pew polls also confirm that as of now at least, it’s down to the wire.
As the general election campaign gets underway, Obama’s slim 49% to 45% edge over Mitt Romney is based on his continued support among women, college graduates, blacks, Latinos and lower-income voters. Obama leads Romney by 13 points among women, which is identical to his victory margin over McCain among women four years ago, according to National Election Pool exit polls. Men, who split their vote between Obama (49%) and McCain (48%), are leaning slightly toward Romney today, by a 50% to 44% margin…
Obama has lost support among several groups: Obama carried the independent vote by a margin of 52% to 44% in 2008. Today, 42% of independents favor him, while 48% back Romney. Obama also is faring worse among lower-income voters and those with less education than he did in 2008.
The problem here that it seems no one but me is either aware of or willing to talk about is the racial minority vote and the emotional appeals the Obama campaign uses to drive that voter turnout. Sorry, but a majority of Barack Obama’s appeal as a politician is race-based and that shiz translates to votes. Romney can counter if, and only if he puts the brakes on that appeal by choosing a non-white-male running mate. My pick is son-of-Cuban immigrants, Florida Senator Marco Rubio but there are plenty of acceptable options. This is an issue of marketing and optics. The point is not that the Repbulicans should play the same bogus identity-politics game that the Democrats are but rather merely to slow the dishonest attacks on their own brand. In other words: the strategy in my plan is not to try and get Republican votes by making people say of someone on the voting ticket “they are just like me regarding ethnic or racial makeup and I would like to have what I ignorantly feel is ‘one of my own’ in positions of power” in the way that skyrocketed black votes for Obama in 2008 to 96% which became 13% of the voting electorate (and my pick of Rubio should be evidence of that, since Cuban Americans are already solid Republican voting blocks and have little to no ethnic identity crossover appeal to Blacks or other Latino segments) – but rather its merely to debunk that very notion. Obama is going to try to win not by ideas and arguments and honest appraisals of Republican policies and how they may or may not benefit society – he’s going to try to win with smearing his opponents as elitists that don’t understand or care about the struggle of the underclass, which is to many minority voters, a dog whistle for “the other side is racist and you can’t trust them”. Romney can’t merely rely on his life history of helping those in need to end the effectiveness of those attacks. He needs a running mate that can show the key demographic of voters (of all races and ethnicities) that don’t follow the specifics of politics and aren’t terribly informed on policy, that he and his party are not the stuffy white-guys coming in to take down the first half-black President of the nation and, unfortunately, the only way to earn the listenership of that demographic is to match the optics of the opponent in some way and then make the argument from there. The argument will be made regardless, obviously, but if that argument comes from 2 white guys against a half-black guy and old white guy, the team with the half-black guy will get enough votes from non-politic followers across the board and especially in racial minority demographics and it will be enough to tip the election.
Romney is halfway there…
Obama trails Romney by a wide margin among white voters (54% Romney, 39% Obama), though that is little changed from 2008. But Obama has lost ground among certain groups of white voters. In 2008, whites with household incomes under $50,000 favored McCain over Obama by a slim 51% to 47% margin. Today, lower-income whites favor Romney over Obama by a 16-point margin (54% to 38%).
To sow up a victory in November, it all hinges on this decision.