According to Gallup, “Currently, 46% of likely voters identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with 54% in 2008. But in 2008, Democrats enjoyed a wide 12-point advantage in party affiliation among national adults, the largest Gallup had seen in at least two decades.”
If this is correct, there has been shift of +20% in favor of Republicans in terms of party affiliation. I don’t trust these numbers enough to put a whole lot of stock in them; not nearly as much as good ol’ common sense observations.
Here’s five things that factored into the 2008 presidential election:
1. A large segment of the Republican base disliked John McCain (had for years) and never warmed-up to his candidacy
2. McCain was a weak campaigner; unwilling to call attention to any of Obama’s highly questionable affiliations
3. An estimated 9% of registered Republican voters cast a ballot for Barack Obama
4. Turnout for 18-24 year old voters was high and overwhelmingly for Obama
5. Obama was a virtual unknown
Contrast this with 2012
1. Whatever distrust still lingers among the Republican base for Romney is more than offset by dislike for Obama
2. Romney hasn’t run a McCainesque tiptoe-through-the-tulips campaign, and what’s more he is still benefiting from his first debate smackdown of the Chosen One
3. Most of those Republicans who can’t bring themselves to vote for Romney are far more likely to abstain than to make the same mistake twice
4. Many of the young voters of ’08 now have to live in the real world and are disillusioned and unemployed. The brighter kids in the next wave of 18-24’s know better than to drink the Kool Aid like their older counterparts did
5. We know more now, and much of it isn’t very likable to his soon-to-be former supporters
Bottom line? While nothing will sway the dyed-in-the-wool Obama supporters; i.e., those voters who are driven in large measure by a combination of all or some of the following: guilt, class envy, victimhood, earth worship and an unshakeable determination that no one (not even God Almighty) dare even suggest that abortion and homosexual behavior are moral evils, an appreciable number of those Obama voters who naively expected the ethereal “Hope & Change” thing to translate into some real improvement in American life will either switch horses or stay home.
If Obama prevails, it won’t be by anything close to 2008 margins. My sense (not that I am biased in any way) is that he will not.
I mean, think about it, even the real Messiah’s public ministry lasted only about 4 years.