Romney v. Obama - Predictions

Jarod

Jarod

Well-known member
Contributor
I know the election is a long way off, but what are your predictions?

If you dont belive Romeny will be the nominee who will?

What will be the major issue?
_____

I predect President Obama will be reelected by a large popular vote margin and a small electoral margin.

Romney will be the clear nominee prior to the election but Santorum might get himself the VP slot.

The Major issue the Republicans had planned for, the Health Care Bill, will be off the table and the debt will replace that issue. President Obama will run on the improving economy and national defense.
 
The primary issue will of course be the economy especially as it relates to jobs. If 1.2 million people keep dropping out of the work force every month or two, the unemployment number will continue to fall giving the continued perception of improvement. The incumbents in both parties will do everything they can to prop up our markets through the election.

Against Romney, Obama will need the unemployment number at 8% or better in my opinion, so Obama has a little more work to do. Against any of the others it needs to stay under 8.5%, which I think is easily done (barring an unexpected increase in the labor pool). Bottom line, like Reagan, he has to be seen as having it going in the right direction. If he does, he gets reelected. If not, he is in for a hard fight.

The secondary issues:

1) national debt: Trillion dollar deficits every year of his Presidency. Not being able to get his own party to pass a budget, not keeping his promise of cutting the insane levels of deficit spending, yeah, that will be an issue Obama will have to overcome.

2) national security/defense: Israel/Iran conflict is heating up. If this escalates, how Obama handles it will obviously have a big boost/detraction potential. Right now, he has the Osama Bin Laden kill as a pro, but he has shown himself to be relatively weak overall on foreign policy. He has to shore that up.

3) health care (less of an issue if Romney is indeed the opponent): If the Catholics are still pissed about the contraception issue or if this becomes a bigger fight, that could hurt Obama. on the overall health care bill I think the resolution will be pushed until after the election, though I am not sure as to the timing of the Supremes looking at this.

4) how to handle a potential European implosion: They are doing everything they can to push the problem into the future, but it is continually getting harder to do so. Greece is going down. There is no stopping that now. The key will be if they can keep Spain and Italy from following suit. At this point, it is likely that this is pushed into 2013.
 
Romney would make things interesting; much more so than McCain did. My predicition is if Obama keeps flapping his gums like he did with that space ship to Mars idiocy, then Romney will take it.
 
The GOP blew it again. Romney is like kryptonite for the base.

Frankly, at this point, it's hard to see Obama losing. 6 months ago, I thought there was no way he could win.
 
Onceler said:
The GOP blew it again. Romney is like kryptonite for the base.

Frankly, at this point, it's hard to see Obama losing. 6 months ago, I thought there was no way he could win.
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More bullshit from the basement of Mom Onceler.

The base isn't stupid enough to vote for a radical liberal.
 
Granule said:
More bullshit from the basement of Mom Onceler.

The base isn't stupid enough to vote for a radical liberal.
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LOL - you don't know much about elections, do you?

The base won't vote for Obama, but they will stay home. Poor ol' Granule...
 
Onceler said:
The GOP blew it again. Romney is like kryptonite for the base.

Frankly, at this point, it's hard to see Obama losing. 6 months ago, I thought there was no way he could win.
Click to expand...

The base may be harder for Romney to motivate to get out the vote, but the with what Obama has been doing lately, I think the options of:

1) Staying home to protest or due to not caring

vs.

2) Another Obama term

I think the base will find it more appealing to get to the voting booths hold their noses and vote Romney vs. having another four years of Obama trying to ram the government down our throats.
 
Superfreak said:
Against Romney, Obama will need the unemployment number at 8% or better in my opinion, so Obama has a little more work to do.
Click to expand...

Unemployment's currently at 8.3%, and has been going down by about 0.2% per month for the past few months. I think it may get down to around 7%. I don't necessarily credit Obama with this, but I know voters will.

Everyone was a bit worried when the recovery stalled a while back and unemployment flat lined for a long time. What appears to have happened is that the stimulus was able to halt unemployment at around 10%. Then numbers started going backwards, and we believed we were in for a quick recovery. However, as the stimulus wore off, they flatlined again, causing most of us to believe that we were in for a long period of stagnation or even a double dip. But it appears that natural job growth and the reduction in stimulus spending were merely pulling on the unemployment numbers in with equal force in different directions, and it's taken until now for natural job growth to break away.
 
Over/Under - how many more Romney/Obama prediction threads will Jarod start before election day?
 
Superfreak said:
1) national debt: Trillion dollar deficits every year of his Presidency. Not being able to get his own party to pass a budget, not keeping his promise of cutting the insane levels of deficit spending, yeah, that will be an issue Obama will have to overcome.
Click to expand...

I think the American people are kind of in shellshock when it comes to the national debt. This is one obvious spot where the Republicans could hammer Obama, but Republican attempts in congress to cut even a small part of the budget seem to have come out hurting the party more than anything else. If they can keep it down to a vague promise to help with the deficit and avoid having to give any specifics, they can use it. If they try to be clear about exactly what they'll cut, the Obama campaign will use that against them.

Superfreak said:
4) how to handle a potential European implosion: They are doing everything they can to push the problem into the future, but it is continually getting harder to do so. Greece is going down. There is no stopping that now. The key will be if they can keep Spain and Italy from following suit. At this point, it is likely that this is pushed into 2013.
Click to expand...

I've been hearing that the euro is going to implode "any day now" for the past year. I think a lot of people really want the euro to implode, and it's getting in the way of they're thinking.
 
Onceler said:
The GOP blew it again. Romney is like kryptonite for the base.

Frankly, at this point, it's hard to see Obama losing. 6 months ago, I thought there was no way he could win.
Click to expand...

The situation hasn't changed much at all since Obama's honeymoon period. He has almost always been just slightly favored over the closest Republican rivals, the most important of which is Romney (although Huckabee polled better against Obama). For a few brief periods, he's been slightly disfavored. And that's about it. I don't see how you could've come to any strong conclusions one way or the other. Of course, things could change in the course of the campaign. People look at 2008 as if it was a certain thing, but initially Obama only seemed slightly favored. It was only after the economic collapse began that things began breaking wildly in Obama's favor.
 
General Sherman said:
I've been hearing that the euro is going to implode "any day now" for the past year. I think a lot of people really want the euro to implode, and it's getting in the way of they're thinking.
Click to expand...

Wasn't talking about the Euro imploding specifically, but that will take a beating. I don't think it is 'any day now'. As I stated, I think it is likely 2013 at the earliest at this point, but it should be something the candidates address. Bottom line, the Europeans are finding out that they can't continue to promise their citizens the world as they do not have the means to pay for it. Greece is likely to be kicked out (or it will ask to be let out) of the Euro. At a minimum, the Euro needs to come into parity with the dollar.
 
General Sherman said:
The situation hasn't changed much at all since Obama's honeymoon period. He has almost always been just slightly favored over the closest Republican rivals, the most important of which is Romney (although Huckabee polled better against Obama). For a few brief periods, he's been slightly disfavored. And that's about it. I don't see how you could've come to any strong conclusions one way or the other. Of course, things could change in the course of the campaign. People look at 2008 as if it was a certain thing, but initially Obama only seemed slightly favored. It was only after the economic collapse began that things began breaking wildly in Obama's favor.
Click to expand...

Right now you have the Reps bashing each other which is bringing them all down and also providing fodder for Obama to use against his eventual opponent. (you would think they would realize this). Once the Rep nominee is known, then the Obama bashing will ramp up significantly from where it is at now. I think the polls will tighten significantly at that point unless the jobs numbers improve significantly (assuming Romney here)
 
General Sherman said:
I think it may get down to around 7%.
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from what I have heard, even Obama doesn't think it's going to get below 8%.......the issue is going to be the economy and Obama's insurmountable obstacle is convincing voters that he has ideas that he didn't think of during the first four years.......
 
Superfreak said:
Wasn't talking about the Euro imploding specifically, but that will take a beating. I don't think it is 'any day now'. As I stated, I think it is likely 2013 at the earliest at this point, but it should be something the candidates address. Bottom line, the Europeans are finding out that they can't continue to promise their citizens the world as they do not have the means to pay for it. Greece is likely to be kicked out (or it will ask to be let out) of the Euro. At a minimum, the Euro needs to come into parity with the dollar.
Click to expand...

For an international currency to be truly effective, IMO, the countries involved have to cede some of their sovereignty, and allow a central authority to prevent them from making bad decisions. Otherwise, one bad actor can jeopardize the entire system for everyone else. The euro is a great idea in boom time, however, it's structure is inherently weak and leaves it ill prepared to deal with things when the shit hits the fan.
 
General Sherman said:
Unemployment's currently at 8.3%, and has been going down by about 0.2% per month for the past few months. I think it may get down to around 7%. I don't necessarily credit Obama with this, but I know voters will.

Everyone was a bit worried when the recovery stalled a while back and unemployment flat lined for a long time. What appears to have happened is that the stimulus was able to halt unemployment at around 10%. Then numbers started going backwards, and we believed we were in for a quick recovery. However, as the stimulus wore off, they flatlined again, causing most of us to believe that we were in for a long period of stagnation or even a double dip. But it appears that natural job growth and the reduction in stimulus spending were merely pulling on the unemployment numbers in with equal force in different directions, and it's taken until now for natural job growth to break away.
Click to expand...

It is actually the reduction in the labor force that is causing the number to drop dramatically right now. 1.2 million left the labor force last month. That is friggin huge. But it is not something most people will see or read about. So the perception is that things are improving.
 
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