Day 1199 – A New Hope

In 2008, Obama had nearly a 200 electoral vote advantage over John McCain. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Republican only needs to get 97 of those 2008 electoral votes in 2012 to beat Obama. There were 7 states where the margin of victory was less than 10%. Those states are Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Colorado and New Hampshire. Of the six states in that group that held Senate races in 2010, 5 went red and Colorado stayed blue by 1%.

There are other factors which will make Obama, not the Republican nominee, fight an uphill battle. First, he has almost no voters who regretted choosing McCain over him the last time. However, there are many who either have no interest in voting for him or actively regret their choice. Obama also has to run on a poor record instead of the myth that surrounded him in 2008. Much of his support is gone. Oprah is begging for viewers on Twitter. ACORN is back underground. The campaign no has to advertise that they’re taking PAC money.

Republicans took an 80 member deficit in the House and turned it into a 60 member surplus. Democrats have to defend twice as many seats as Republicans in 2012. Presidential approval is hovering around 50%, and there’s a built in likeability gap of about 5% from people who will like him if Obama were murdering them during the polling. Given that, he is highly unlikely to win at this point. The electorate is just not that into him.

I thought the McCain campaign could pull it out in the end. They might have, were it not for a series of bad choices to praise Obama and exile Sarah Palin. I expect the Republicans to do a less terrible job this time. It’s not over. It’s only just begun.

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