Voting for the least of all evils

posted at 12:04 pm on January 31, 2012 by Howard Portnoy

As Mitt Romeny stands poised to win the Florida primary, a victory that will catapult him one giant step closer to the GOP candidacy for president, the question on everyone’s mind—especially Republicans (and especially Democrats)—is whether he and, for that matter, his chief opponent, Newt Gingrich, are electable.

It is a question asked again today in an article by Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics. Trende’s conclusion is bipartite. First, he argues, the claims about Romney’s and Gingrich’s unelectability are greatly exaggerated. As evidence, he points to the example of Christine O’Donnell who—despite being written off by many pundits as one of the least electable candidates in history—lost the independent vote in the Delaware race for U.S. senator by a slender three-point margin.

But second, and more importantly, Trende notes, if the GOP frontrunners are unelectable, then the same may be said for Barack Obama. In support of this assertion, Trende offers five obstacles to re-election that the Obama camp will need to surmount if they are to emerge victorious.

While I like the picture Trende paints and concede that Obama will have a tough road to hoe—and would have an immeasurably tougher one had a Mitch Daniels or possibly Paul Ryan entered the race—I believe Trende is being overly optimistic.

Take his first of five points: that Obama is still unpopular. He writes:

Obama probably needs to be pretty close to 50 percent approval on Election Day to secure re-election.

[…]

As of this writing Obama’s job approval in the RCP Average is 46.8 percent. For the last month, his job approval in Gallup has bounced around between 42 percent and 46 percent, averaging 44.7 percent.

Putting aside concerns about another reliable time-tested metric—that no president has ever won re-election with a Gallup approval rating of under 47 percent going into Election Day—Obama’s positives have been steadily improving since mid-January in his Real Clear Politics average while his negatives have been steadily decreasing. This trend might be related to a resonance with voters of the president’s populist “economic fairness” pitch, but it’s more likely a reflection of the circular firing squad in which the leading GOP candidates have placed themselves.

In support for his second point—that the economy is still Obama’s albatross—Trende offers a battery of impressive graphics, including one that shows how weak the economic indicators are under Obama’s stewardship compared with those in previous election years. One overarching observation, that the economy is improving too slowly for the president to reap the benefits, is hard to quibble with. But that hasn’t stopped Obama from telling the crowds who turn out at his whistle stops that “America is back.” He boasts that 200,000 new jobs were added to the economy in December and that unemployment is back under 9%. True, the number of new jobs is still 50,000 shy of the sort of monthly growth needed continuously for five years just to return to the pre-recession unemployment rate, but if Obama demonstrated anything in the 2008 campaign it is that he is a great salesman. Those who underestimate his powers of persuasion do so at their own peril.

Trende’s third point, the unpopularity of Obama’s domestic agenda, is unimpeachable. The percentage of likely voters who want to see ObamaCare repealed has remained unwaveringly above 50 for close to two years, and 62% of Americans believe the 2009 stimulus created more debt. So far, these are messages that the GOP campaigners have failed to capitalize on while they beat up on each other, but presumably once a candidate has been nominated the focus will revert to these domestic failings.

Point four—head-to-head polling—is of limited usefulness even by Trende’s lights, not to mention that currently Obama leads either front-running GOP opponent in important national polls.

Which brings us to the final point: “We’ve heard it before.” My only reservation about Trende’s claim that those arguing Obama’s electability suffer from “stuck record” syndrome is that such arguments are the stuff of which tugs-of-war are made. Democratic leaders and pundits will argue that the election is not a referendum on Obama’s presidency, that the Republicans simply don’t understand what Americans need or want, and that it’s all Bush’s fault. And Republicans will take the opposite tack.

When all is said and done, and considering Americans’ conservative tendencies when it comes to choosing a leader—which is to say that on more than one occasion voters have been willing to stick with a known quantity no matter how weak—it is hard to deny that Obama’s chances of winning a second term are solid. Naturally, he won’t be able to do it alone. And he won’t have to. He will have cover from the mainstream media, which once again will assume the role of enabler in helping him promote his radical agenda by pretending it is middle-of-the-road.

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