Don't Trust Your Gut

 

As I was thumbing through all things political tonight online, I ran across a blog post titled 101 reasons - Obama in 2012 will not be reelected. You see, I try to divide my time between wonky political blogs, news sites and average everyday blogs like this one. However, I must admit, this post goes FAR past the third category. It's "average" all right- in that it lacks any semblance of critical thinking or impartiality. The author rustles up 101 sure fire reasons why President Obama won't win this year. There are quite a few gems.

#6. Obama looks exhausted. As a leader he physically looks like life is a chore. He looks too skinny and will lose some votes based on his look. I know it is superficial but people vote on this.

#22.  2012 is the apocalypse?

#58.  Many people I personally know that crossed lines have told me it was a mistake.

#77.  Vegas and psychics and predictors of the sort are edging towards a Republican win.

         (Vegas has spoken. Sorry, Barack, nothing can be done)

#85.  Is Obama Keynesian or Kenyan? To date there is still some confusion in some people’s minds.

#101.  I will not vote for him and I usually vote for winners (not always). I have an even better track record with predicting elections. Sometimes I am a sucker for lost causes.

Obama read this and immediately congratulated Mitt Romney on his victory

As absurd as this blog post is, it's symbolic of a larger problem Americans face when analyzing elections, especially close elections. We trust our gut. This is probably the worst mistake we can make. As humans, we naturally are inclined to assume that most people think the way we do and have the same values. In the world of politics, I believe this is a huge mistake. However good our intentions may be, one person will never have their finger on the true pulse of America.

Like the esteemed author said, "I usually vote for winners." Well yeah, has anyone ever headed to to the polls planning to vote for the loser? (Herman Cain doesn't count) The fact is, we are a deeply polarized set of people, especially when it comes to politics. Our political beliefs are often hammered into us at an early age and we spend the rest of our lives associating with like minded people who further affirm these views for us. It's no wonder there are no swing voters left.

So, conservatives, I beg of you, please don't immediately trust your gut. I know you never supported Obama. I know you've focused solely on the negative aspects of his four years in office. What's more, I know that most of your friends and family feel the same way you do. It's easy to rely on your personal experience to predict an Obama loss. But if you're not careful, your political wisdom will be your downfall. Just look at Glenn Beck's electoral map prediction for this year's election:

R0mN3Y LaND5LiD3 YALL! Thx gL3NN!!! (This is real.)

As certain as you are that most of America feels the way you do, it's simply not the case. There are just as many folks out there who subscribe to different ideals and philosophies, and they may even have you beat. Obama has lead Romney in the polls for almost all of the campaign.

My advice to you is this: First of all, look at the polls everyday. You'll find some you like and some you don't. And if you're used to watching Fox News, why not switch the TV over to MSNBC for a few minutes? Rachel Maddow won't bite.  If you visit Drudge Report online, head on over to Huffington Post. (your kitten videos will still be on Youtube when you're done)  In the end,  it will give you a clearer picture of the closely contested race this one has turned out to be.

And after you do that, give your liberal friend a call - I know you have at least one. Let them tell you about how ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE they were that the fascist George Bush would be thoroughly creamed by the level headed, intelligent John Kerry in 2004. Because, after all, everyone they knew hated Bush!

Regarding the "Teleprompter in Chief"

If Obama's critics claim to have such a large arsenal of legitimate attacks to hurl at him, why do they continue to focus on his use of a teleprompter? It's an impotent attack thought up in a fantasy world as far as I'm concerned. Yet many on the right consider the President's reliance on a teleprompter to be some indicator of gross incompetence. I think it's time to review the history of the presidency - THROUGH THE POWER OF PICTURES!

George W. Bush

Bill Clinton

 George H. W. Bush

Ronald Reagan

Jimmy Carter

Lyndon Johnson

John F. Kennedy

Dwight Eisenhower (first to use a teleprompter)

Can we please stop talking about this now??

Guns, Religion, and the Liberals Who Hate Them

 Ok, full disclosure time: I'm liberal, most of my friends are liberal and I'm proud to be a liberal. We liberals like to pride ourselves on our tolerance and respect we have for everyone in society. But you know who we don't always respect? Blue collar white folks.

They frustrate us to no end. In any liberal circle of intellectuals, you'll often hear one or more bemoan the fact that many blue collar whites vote against their economic self interests. "Why oh why do these people hate Barack Obama? Don't they know that Democrats are trying to help them while Republicans are royally screwing them over??"

This wasn't always the case. Working class whites used to be strongly Democratic. They lined up to vote for folks like FDR, Kennedy and even Jimmy Carter. Their bosses at the country club were the ones who voted Republican. Then a curious thing began to happen. Many of these blue collar white folks began to shift to the GOP, in the south especially, but also across the nation. Thus began the rise of the Reagn Democrats. These white voters, who often lived paycheck to paycheck and had little education, suddenly loved Mr. Trickle Down economics. The trend has continued today. Barack Obama improved on John Kerry's 2004 performance almost everywhere in America, except Appalachia, the home base of working class whites. Barack Obama is still so detested in West Virginia that 40 percent of Democrats who voted in their party's primary this year thought a federal inmate would make a better President than the Big O.

Keith Judd: Eyes you can trust, a pony tail you can believe in.

Of course, this is just too much for us liberals. "Can't they see how stupid, ignorant and (dare I say it) racist they are??" And yes, voting in a primary for a federal inmate is stupid. But are liberals making things any better with their constant derision and phony moral outrage?

In fact, no, they're making it worse. The patronizing attitude of well off, well educated liberals in fact does more to turn working class whites away from the Democratic party than anything else. Many liberals feel like they need to inform these poor, misguided voters that they're voting wrong. Because they're obviously too dumb to think for themselves, we liberals apparently need to make their choices for them.  I'm sure if I were a middle aged coal miner or factory worker, nothing would make me happier than to hear a 23 year old Princeton Grad with no job and a nasty sense of entitlement tell me who I should vote for and why.

Party leaders aren't helping the situation much either. President Obama has never fallen back into the good graces of this demographic after he cracked out this little gem back in 2008.

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

This quote perfectly embodies what I hear from liberals all the time. You start off with a genuine sense of concern for struggling people, but in the end it's only a thinly veiled way to explain why they're so ignorant/racist/bigoted. Beyond the controversial comment is a real economic issue that needs to be addressed. Many people are in fact being left behind. As a liberal I think someone like Barack Obama is a better man to help these folks catch up than Mitt Romney would ever be. But the message will always be lost on a group of people when you end up insulting them.

In the end, the message from both parties is economic as well as cultural. Clearly, economic issues aren't always the most important issue for voters. They often will vote for the politician or party that they think understands them best. After so much derision and condescension leveled at them, I don't blame these working class whites one bit for insisting that Obama doesn't "get them".

VP Nominee Paul Ryan gave a speech in Pennsylvania this week where he rehashed Obama's 2008 comment. Speaking to enthusiastic supporters he remarked, "People like to cling to their guns and religion? Hey I'm a Catholic deer hunter. I am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion!"
The crowd erupted in applause.

The Mormon Mask

 Mitt Romney takes some time to enjoy a Full House rerun

Mitt Romney says he lives for laughter. In a futile attempt to appear down to earth and human, he's spoken to the press many times about droll pranks he often plays on members of the Romney brood. Classmates recall a young Mitt Romney dressing up in a cop uniform and pulling motorists over- just for shiggles (shits and giggles) I guess. I hope to god this isn't true, for Romney's sake of course. 

The venerable James Lipton has apparently spent his time away from Inside the Actors Studio examining Governor Romney's laugh, and he's not impressed. 

All jokes aside, I can't help agreeing with him. Americans certainly don't care if their president is a stand up comic, but he or she at least has to have a lighter side.  Romney doesn't laugh for fun it seems. He tends to laugh to diffuse tense or awkward moments, which in turn makes all of us feel tense and awkward.

But I'm going to throw Mitt a bone here. Perhaps his awkwardness isn't an inherent part of his personality, but an effect of his Mormon upbringing. I ran across an article detailing something called "the Mormon mask".  This is apparently a thing. The reasoning goes that Mormons have historically faced skepticism and even hostility from those around them. The mask is essentially a defense mechanism that allows LDS members to simply grin and bear it/kill them with kindness/make their haters their motivators. This would definitely explain Romney's tendency to laugh awkwardly when faced with a direct attack. At the same time, I'm skeptical of the whole thing. Yes, Mitt has probably experienced discrimination against his faith, but his privileged upbringing likely shielded him from harsher attacks. 

Despite all the speculation, Romney's personal faith shouldn't be a deciding factor in one's decision to vote for him or not, but as the first Mormon nominee for President, it opens the doors to further analyze a unique and often misunderstood set of beliefs.

A Curious Georgia Poll

Georgia is not a state that has been polled much this election cycle. Unlike its neighbors to the north and south, North Carolina and Florida, its allegiances are not really in question. Since Bill Clinton won the peach state in 1992, Georgia has been safe Republican territory. The general consensus is that Mitt Romney will have no trouble winning Georgia this year.

I also accept the reality that my state has strong conservative leanings. But every now and then there are hints that Georgia may not be as safe as people think. This week 20/20 Insight, a polling company,  released a poll showing Romney only leading Obama by 3 points, within the margin of error.

Now, in 2008 Obama only lost the state by 5 points, but that was during a very strong year for Democrats. Most agree that this election will be much closer, forcing states like Georgia back to safe Republican territory.

It remains to be seen whether Obama will hold onto the crucial TI vote this time around

Is this poll junk? It could be, as many polls are, especially since the few other Georgia polls floating around show Romney leading by 7 to 9 points. But there's also the possibility that 2008 represented a small realignment in the Georgia vote. To further examine this, let's take a look at the ol' electoral map.

courtesy NYT.com

The map to the left shows the 2008 Presidential election results. Obama does best in Atlanta and the surrounding urban counties like Fulton, Dekalb and Clayton. He also wins the smaller cities like Savannah and Augusta, as well as several rural counties in the black belt (more on this fascinating region later). McCain cleans up in the Atlanta suburbs and other rural regions. All in all, McCain wins 52 to 47.

courtesy AJC.com

             To the right is the 2008 swing map. Counties in blue voted more Democratic than they did in 2004. Counties in Red voted more Republican.  Most of the state experienced a blue shift, typical of the large Democratic swing nationwide. Appalachian North Georgia swung to McCain- again, typical of Obama's trouble connecting with voters in that region of the country. The strongest Obama shift, however, takes place in several suburban Atlanta counties. The counties to the south and east of Atlanta swung especially strongly to Obama. This includes Gwinnett, the second largest county in the state. In 2004, George Bush received 66 percent of the vote in Gwinnett. Four years later, McCain only managed 54 percent.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the swing we saw in this region of Georgia could be more permanent than ephemeral. The reason? Demographics. The minority population in Metro Atlanta is exploding. In the past decade, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities have moved to the state in droves, changing Georgia dramatically. According to the Census Bureau Georgia is now only 55 percent non Hispanic white. Minorities are a much larger percentage of the population here than they were only 5 years ago. 

The African American population has grown tremendously in the south metro region, in counties like Henry, Rockdale and Newton. Gwinnett county, once known as a lily white suburban community, is now a majority-minority county. Whites represent only 43 percent of the population there and no race or ethnicity holds a majority. More diversity often heralds political changes, which is the main reason I expect these suburbs to continue to swing toward the Democrats. 

Will it be enough to swing the state to Obama? Not a chance. Republicans still win about 75 percent of white Georgians and this will offset any minority votes. It's a sad picture, but racial politics are alive and well in my fair state. Still, if current trends continue, look for Georgia to be up for grabs in future elections.

Hey there

Welcome to Freedom Haters and Bible Thumpers. I hope you guessed  by the red white and blue background that this blog will focus on politics, specifically the 2012 Presidential election.

So here's the thing: Despite what your favorite news folks are telling you, this election is not groundbreaking, dramatic, unprecedented or exceedingly important. It's your standard presidential election, which the American public suffers through every four years.

What we have here is a highly anticipated, yet predictably dull sequel. 2008 was a blockbuster like no other, complete with epic battles, massive destruction and new heroes and villains. Four years later, things are looking a little bland. After four long years, the right doesn't see the massive Obama backlash  they had hoped for. Conversely, the left is disappointed that their guy hasn't been vindicated with an easy reelection.  (Obama still leads in the polls...but not by much) What remains is a particularly nasty campaign to solidify support of  two polarized bases while not completely sickening the few undecideds out there. With all the issues out there, true politicos are wondering why the American people aren't talking about what really matters.

However, amid all of the mud slinging, attack ads and harsh words, there is a quiet undercurrent. It's often hidden, but in it lies two clear visions for our nation. Look beyond Romney's triangulating and Obama's posturing and you'll find different ideals and visions, not just for the future of our country, but for America itself. Let's say America is a track team. Are we only as fast as our slowest runner or do we pass the baton to the fastest guy on the team? Do we all cross the finish line together or do some of us get left behind for the sake of beating the other guys? If you can excuse my weird analogy, I really believe that's what this election is truly about. In tough times, the different paths we can take become abundantly clear. If nothing else, this election is about choices, and I for one can't wait to see what 50 to 60 percent of registered voters decide is the right path to take.

So I hope you'll check back here often. Whether you're a latte sipping, Prius driving, gay loving, vegan eating freedom hater or a trailer dwelling, gun toting, camo wearing slack jawed bible thumper, I think you'll like what you see.