Minority president

By Mustang Bobby

Although I don't think it's going to happen, the Villagers are positing that the election could be close enough that Barack Obama could lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College. And they predict consternation if that happens.

One such Villager is Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post:

A win in the electoral college that is not accompanied by one in the popular vote casts a shadow over the president and his ability to govern.

If Obama is re-elected that way, "the Republican base will be screaming that Romney should be president, and Obama doesn't represent the country," McKinnon predicted. "It's going to encourage more hyperpartisanship."

Josh Marshall has a response: Spare me.

Now, the possibility of election without a national majority exposes a genuine glitch in our system. No doubt. It is also true that these are the rules we play under and there is little reason to think that we'd have just the same result if both candidates were trying to maximize raw vote nationwide. Think how many more votes both candidates would mobilize in New York, California and Texas — not to mention among African-American voters in hopelessly red states in the South. But mainly to those making these arguments I would make the following points: Get over it and most of all STFU.

When a president wins election but doesn't win with a majority of the popular vote (vide Richard Nixon in 1968, Bill Clinton in 1992), he's called a minority president and it's supposed to force him into building a coalition with the other party because he's perceived as not being a strong leader. (In Mr. Obama's case, "minority president" has a little more meaning.) But that didn't happen with Mr. Nixon or Mr. Clinton. They took the oath. They're in the Oval Office. They've got the launch codes.

The last president to lose the popular vote and win the election was George W. Bush in 2000. Not only were the Republicans perfectly happy with that outcome — we heard a lot of "Get over it and most of all STFU" from them — Mr. Bush went ahead and governed as if he had won in a landslide.

It's all a matter of perception. Act like you won big and people will think you did. As for the talk of "hyperpartisanship," all I can say is welcome back to Earth and did you enjoy your four years in the Delta Quadrant?

I would much rather that Barack Obama wins both the popular vote and the Electoral College (and Nate Silver is saying his chances are good that he will), but if he is a minority president, I hope he governs like he beat the snot out of them. The GOP will richly deserve it.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Mitt Romney, draft-dodger

By Comrade Misfit

In the campaign for the presidency in 1992, there was no shortage of Republicans bleating that the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, was an immoral draft-dodger.

In 2012, the GOP candidate, Willard Romney, used several deferments to avoid having to serve in the Vietnam War.

The same war that the GOP was sooo upset that Clinton didn't serve in.

Worse, Romney was such chicken that he ducked out of an appearance on The View, fearing his reception by women who are not GOP drones. So he sent Wife Of, also known as Queen Ann, who stated that to Mormons serving as Mormon missionaries is the equivalent of serving in the armed forces: 

[W]e find different ways of serving, and my five boys and my husband did serve missions, and did not serve in the military.

It's good to know that according to the Romney Worldview door-to-door proselytizing in France was the same as spending a year humping a rucksack and carrying an M-16 in the Mekong Delta.*
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* Not that the son of a powerful politician would have done anything like that in the first place.

 (Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

New poll: Obama's historic September lead

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Pew:

At this stage in the campaign, Barack Obama is in a strong position compared with past victorious presidential candidates. With an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters, Obama holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November, including Obama four years ago. In elections since 1988, only Bill Clinton, in 1992 and 1996, entered the fall with a larger advantage.

Not only does Obama enjoy a substantial lead in the horserace, he tops Romney on a number of key dimensions. His support is stronger than his rival's, and is positive rather than negative. Mitt Romney's backers are more ardent than they were pre-convention, but are still not as enthusiastic as Obama's. Roughly half of Romney's supporters say they are voting against Obama rather than for the Republican nominee. With the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992, candidates lacking mostly positive backing have lost in November.

And Mitt Romney, if I may venture out on a limb, is no Bill Clinton.

As Ed Kilgore writes, pretty much stating the obvious, this is really bad news for Mitt.

Foreshadows

By Mustang Bobby

(Ed. note: As Jon Chait wrote yesterday, Obama's bounce may be over, the race narrowing again for the stretch run, a "slog" already upon us. This because a new WaPo polls shows a virtual tie between Obama and Romney among likely voters. Fair enough, but there have nonetheless been unmistakable signs of discontent (if not panic) on the Republican side since last week's Democratic convention, and I suspect that's largely because while the race is very close, there isn't much room for movement with so few undecideds left and Romney needing to overtake Obama in key swing states like Ohio to have a shot at victory. Regardless, there's no reason for optimism, and so no reason to let up and assume it's in the bag. This one's going to be terrifyingly close, one way or the other. -- MJWS)

A couple of bloggers that I respect deeply are seeing signs of panic and desperation from the Republicans and the Romney campaign.

Booman:

Anyone else getting the first whiffs of panic on the Republican side? Odd thing, though. I'm seeing plenty of resignation, too. I mean, I don't think Ohio Governor John Kasich really gives two craps whether Romney wins or loses, and he really should be a little more concerned. But then I remember that George Will wrote off Romney's chances at the beginning of March. 

Steve Benen:

I'm reluctant to use the word "flailing" because the race remains very close, but for over a year, Mitt Romney has invested time and energy in telling Americans he's a competent, corporate turn-around artist who'll create jobs. Over the weekend, he was reduced to, "I will not take 'God' off our coins."

It seems as if the guy no longer knows what he wants to say to the nation, so if he keeps coming with new lines, maybe one of them will eventually resonate. I'm not a campaign strategist, but it seems to me the time for this kind of message experimentation was mid-September 2011, not mid-September 2012.

This sort of grasping-at-nutsery usually sets in much later in a campaign when all of the insiders start making plans to look for work after the election and toss the apartment guides to the Washington area that they've been scanning. George H.W. Bush railed against Bill Clinton and Al Gore's foreign policy experience -- "My dog Millie knows more about foreign policy than those two bozos!" -- when it was clear that he was not catching up in 1992, but that was in October. Here we have Mitt Romney already in the weeds of whackery, and Paul Ryan is telling us that because he once voted to send troops to war, he has more foreign policy experience than Barack Obama did when he ran. (For some reason, Mr. Romney is reluctant to bring up his dog while on the stump. Go figure.)

I'm not superstitious, but why take the chance. It is still way too early to call the race; how many times have the Tigers been five runs ahead in the third inning only to lose? But when you are seeing this kind of scatter-shot campaigning at this point, you have to wonder who is controlling the message. Certainly the Romney people did not plan this, because if they did, it's not exactly the kind of leadership you want to have running the campaign, much less the country.

P.S.: Steve M and TBogg note that the blame game is already starting.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Shades of 20 years ago?

By Comrade Misfit

The Daily Show is titling its coverage of the Republican National Convention as "RNC 2012: The Road to Jeb Bush 2016."

Which may have a bit of truth to it.

But then again, there were stories of how a lot of senior Democrats figured that they couldn't win against George H.W. Bush, who had a 91% approval rating after the Gulf War. As the stories go, they decided to sit that one out and let some of the younger kids in the party get some experience at running a national campaign.

We know how that worked out for them.

(Not that I want to see the Romneybot win, not with his unspoken motto of "Of the Plutocrats, For the Plutocrats.") 

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)