Conventional wisdom has Romney with only one pathway to 270 electoral college votes, and a very narrow one indeed.  Most analysts see the 2012 election as a replay of the last three presidential elections.  In this view, only a small number of states are in play:  Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado.  Romney begins with the McCain base of 180 ECV plus Indiana for a total of 191 ECV.  To defeat Obama, he must win Florida (29), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13) and one of the remaining four states.  Lose Florida or Ohio and the election is over.  Lose Virginia or North Carolina and he has to run the table of the remaining 4 states.

But Romney has another pathway to victory.  Call it the “Rust Belt” or “Great Lakes” strategy.  Again, one assumes the base of 191 ECV.  Of the 8 traditional “swing states”, however, Romney would only have to win Ohio and North Carolina, which are certainly the two most likely Romney pick-ups and it’s difficult to imagine him winning without those two.  This brings Romney’s total to 224 ECV.  To arrive at 270 ECV, Romney would only need to win the following three rust belt states:  Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), and Wisconsin (10).  Both RCP and 270toWin have Wisconsin, as well as Ohio in the toss-up category.  RCP also has Michigan as a toss-up and 270toWin has Pennsylvania as a toss-up,  so that this is a completely plausible result.  And if Romney wins only Pennsylvania from among these three, then a Romney win in Florida would put him over the top.

There are good reasons to believe that Romney has a better-than-average chance of success in these states.  Sean Trende’s excellent analysis of voting trends by state in presidential elections from 1980 – 2008 clearly demonstrates that Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (and Minnesota as well) are more like Ohio than they are like Blue States.  And in 2010, these states were in full tea party revolt against Obama and the Democrats.  All three elected Republican governors,  while Pennsylvania and Wisconsin elected Republican U.S. Senators and Republican majorities in both houses of their state legislatures.  In fact, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are beginning to look a lot more like Indiana.

These states, which are the core of the industrial heartland of America, are also the place where Romney’s economic message should resonate the strongest.  Here, he should renew the attacks on China that he tested in the Republican debates.  These are voters that are more interested in having “fair trade” with Asia and Latin America than they are hearing about the rich paying their “fair share” of taxes.  This is a region that has been devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs and the flight of capital.  This is a coal-producing region whose electric power grid depends on coal, where voters understand how Obama’s policies will cripple the region’s economy.  This is a region where people live in the suburbs and commute to work and who have been hurt the rise in gas prices.   Here, people’s mortgages are underwater, as home values have collapsed and the housing market has dried up.  This is a region that understands how federal regulations are a real threat to mining, manufacturing and agriculture and whose voters’ eyes don’t glaze over when a candidate talks about the EPA.  In short, this is a region where Obama has failed the greatest and where Romney can succeed.

There will be those who say that Romney can’t win Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Michigan.  There are those who believe that the Democrats have a “Blue Wall” that starts at the borders of Ohio.  To those, I would say, “In this election, it’s time for the Republicans to Go Big.”  It would be a shame to lose the presidency by a handful of votes in Florida.  Just ask Al Gore.

Barack Obama is not having a particularly good week with his friends in the mainstream media.  First the editors of Newsweek crowned him (literally, with a rainbow hued halo) “The First Gay President”.  Then CBS/N.Y. Times released their latest poll, which showed him behind Romney 43 – 46 — And this was a call-back poll of voters who had previously placed Obama in the lead.  Today, Dana Milbank in the WaPo dubs Obama “the first female president”, mocking him for being the commencement speaker at all-female Barnard College and then rushing off  to yet another guest appearance on “The View”.  Being eviscerated by conservatives for adopting the most extreme liberal positions possible on social issues is one thing and to be expected, but being emasculated by your friends who share those extreme views is quite another.

Promoted from the diaries

The Chronicle of Higher Education has banned Naomi Schaefer Riley from its Brainstorm Blog.   Ms. Riley’s offense was having the audacity to post a blog entitled:  “The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations” .

As you can imagine, this blog generated a firestorm of responses demanding that the CHE purge Riley’s blog from its web-site and terminate her services.  The initial response of editor Liz McMillen was to encourage CHE readers to “view this posting as an opportunity—to debate Riley’s views, challenge her, set things straight as you see fit. “   McMillen reminded CHE readers that

When we created the Brainstorm blog five years ago, we hoped it would be a forum for debate — where views about higher education, academic culture, and ideas could be aired and discussed and often challenged. It is a blog for opinion, sometimes strong opinions, not news reporting by the staff. The writers on the blog—13 in all, from institutions around the country—fall on different points of the ideological and political spectrum. They are not staff members of The Chronicle nor do they represent the views of the staff or of the newspaper.

CHE then changed its mind and caved in to liberal outrage by terminating Ms. Riley.  Here is part of McMillen’s explanation, which you can read in full here:

Read More →

The Obama campaign has made its first ad buy, which is described in Dan Spencer’s diary.  The ad will appear in nine states:  PA, OH, FL, VA, NC, CO, NH, IA, and NV.  This buy reveals a great deal about Obama’s electoral college strategy:

1.  The buy coincides identically with the states that are identified as swing states on the 270toWin Electoral College Map and ignores the Electoral College Map currently projected by RCP which is much more favorable to Obama.

2.  Obama concedes all of the states that McCain won in 2008 (including Arizona and Missouri) plus Indiana, giving Romney a base of 191 electoral college votes.

3.  The map is wide open, with both Romney and Obama having multiple paths to victory.

4.  The Obama campaign believes that it is in trouble in Pennsylvania, which is the key state to an Obama win.

5.  If Obama wins Pennsylvania then Romney must either win Florida or expand the map to Michigan and/or Wisconsin or the election is over.

6.  In turn, if Romney wins FL, OH, and NC (his 3 most likely states out of the nine), Obama must win PA or the election is over.

7.  If Romney wins PA plus OH and NC, Obama would have to win FL or the election is over.

8.  Pennsylvania and Florida are therefore the two most important states on this map.  If either candidate wins both, he will win the election.  Yes, Romney would have more work to do, but if these two fall to Romney the rest of the map will also.

In the past two weeks, Romney has closed the gap in national polls according to Real Clear Politics.  The average of five national polls taken since April 22 (and leaving off the National Journal’s poll of all of the adult population taken before that date) shows Romney with a 46.8% to 46.2% advantage.

More to the point, the new USAToday/Gallup poll of 12 battleground states has Obama with only a 2% lead (47% to 45%) well within the margin of error.  An analysis of this poll gives the following results:

1.  Arizona and Missouri are considered Red States, unlike the RCP Electoral College map which has them as toss ups.

2.  The 12 battleground states polled include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,  New Mexico, and Nevada (which RCP has as leaning Democrat), as well as the RCP toss up states of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Iowa.

3.  The “persuadable” voters in these states (7% undecided and 24% who could change their minds) are predominantly Republican or Republican-leaning voters.  Obama has only a 40% approval rating among persuadables and Romney is considered by 2 – 1 to be better equipped to handle the economy.

4.  The “gender gap” in this poll is 20 points, far greater than the 12 point gender gap that Obama had over McCain in these same states in 2008, and therefore certain to close in future polls.

5.  This is a poll of registered voters, which typically tilts more towards Obama than a poll of likely voters would.

Conclusion:  Based on polling 6 months out from the election, Romney is clearly positioned to win.   In fact, this could be a Romney landslide

RealClearPolitics has revised its electoral college map today and now shows only nine states in the “toss up” category.  Nevada and Pennsylvania have been moved to the “Leans Obama” category, giving Obama a total of 253 electoral college votes.  Romney is shown with 170 electoral college votes and a very narrow pathway to victory.  In order to defeat Obama, Romney

1.  Must win Arizona.  This is a traditional Red State and if Romney loses Arizona he would have to win all of the other toss up states except for New Hampshire.

2.  Must also win Florida and Ohio.  Winning either of these puts Obama over the top.

3.  Probably must win both North Carolina and Virginia.  If Romney loses either of these two, he would have to run the table with the four remaining states.

4.  Must win either Missouri or Colorado.  If he wins both, he wins the election.  Lose both and lose the election.

5.  If he doesn’t win both Missouri and Colorado, he must win either Iowa or New Hampshire.

Given this map, Romney has two major decisions.  First, does he play the hand that has been dealt him or does he try to expand the map?  Second, who does he choose as a VP running mate given this map?  This would seem to narrow the choices to Rob Portman (Ohio), Marco Rubio (Florida), or Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire).  He has time to make both of these decisions and should do so very carefully, ignoring all other distractions and competing interests.  The goal is 270 and the path to victory is clear.

In an amazing convergence of polling data, the latest Rasmussen Daily Tracking poll, the Gallup Daily Tracking poll, the Fox News poll, and the CBS/NYTimes poll all have the Obama/Romney match-up as a tie at 46 to 46 with 8% undecided.  Given the different methodologies, time frames,  polling samples and divergent political views of these organizations, this can’t be a coincidence.   It also can’t be good news for Obama, since independents are breaking strongly for Romney in all four polls and making up for  Obama’s big lead among African Americans, Hispanics and women.  And a majority of the undecideds are independents.  This will, of course, all change tomorrow when new data comes out, but it won’t change within the margin of error.  For right now, this is a tie election.

It’s difficult to win re-election in bad economic times.  Just ask Bush 41 and Jimmy Carter.  It’s impossible to win re-election when you don’t have a consistent winning message.  Right now, the Obama campaign is lurching about from one message to another, changing course each week.  This week, the message is “I killed Osama Bin Laden (and maybe Mitt Romney wouldn’t have).”  Last week, the message was “I will keep student loan interest rates low (and maybe Mitt Romney won’t).”  The week before, “I’m for the Buffet rule (and Mitt Romney is a millionaire).”  Then there was, “I will protect a woman’s right to free contraception (and Mitt Romney wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant).”

To win, Obama has to find a message that resonates with voters and then stick to it.  He could try: “I’ll raise taxes”, but that didn’t work out too well for Walter Mondale against Reagan.  Or “My opponent is an extremist”, but that didn’t work for Jimmy Carter against Reagan.

When Robert Gibbs was asked on Meet the Press what “big idea” Obama would campaign on, he said:

Well, look, the biggest idea that we’re running on is to continue moving in the right direction of fixing this economy.

Really, that’s their big idea.  Only 32% of voters (RCP average) think the country is moving in the “right direction”, according to current polls.  Even  elements of the Democratic base don’t buy this contention.  If the Obama campaign chooses to make “stay the course” the rationale for re-election, Romney will win in a land-slide.  Just ask George H.W. Bush.

The day began with the SCOTUS announcing its decision in  United States v. Home Concrete & Supply, LLC.   In a5 – 4 decision written by Justice Breyer, the court ruled against the Obama administration and the IRS attempt to impose additional taxes and penalties on Home Concrete even though the statutory limit of 3 years had passed.  The IRS simply decided to extend the limit to 6 years, unsuccesfully claiming extenuating circumstances as their justification.

Then the court heard oral arguments in Arizona v. United States concerning the constitutionality of Arizona’s immigration law.  It went so badly for the U.S. Attorney that at one point Justice Sotomayer told him to “move on, this isn’t selling.”  Mainly the Justices couldn’t get a handle of why the Obama administration was opposed to receiving state assistance in enforcing immigration laws and why states can’t check an individual’s citizenship status.

Looks like Good Guys 2, Obama 0.  If you’re keeping score.

If Mitt Romney chooses Marco Rubio as his running mate, they will share a compelling family narrative that will have great appeal to voters,  particularly in the Hispanic community.

Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico and Marco Rubio’s father was born in Cuba.  Romney’s grandfather fled Mexico with five year old George in 1912 at the beginning of the Socialist Mexican Revolution.  Rubio’s parents fled Cuba in 1956 at the beginning of the Communist Cuban Revolution.  Both families gave up everything that they owned to come to America.  Both families struggled to make ends meet, overcame great odds, and achieved success.

It’s the American dream.  And Romney-Rubio is the dream ticket.