Early in the campaign, Obama decided not to go after the white, working middle class vote. He figured the white middle class ex-workers now on the public dole would be voters who could make up for the loss. But it seems they represent about half of Romney’s 47%, and since Romney has offered them all jobs if he is elected, most will go with Romney.
It seems Obama chose unwisely.
And now, after two disappointing debates, where independents continued to jump ship at an accelerating rate, Obama has decided to pull the plug on negative advertising that was designed to suppress their votes by convincing them Romney was no better than he is, i.e., they may as well stay home.
Instead, over the last three weeks, he’s putting all his money into firing up his base.
Only Obama has made several miscalculations about his “base”.
Who are they, and how many are they? This is what we’ve always waited for, a real head-count of the Stupids, since for years we’ve been told they number as many as we do, and now Obama is betting his entire table winnings on it.
For four years the conventional wisdom of the GOP Establishment has been telling us that 40% of the voters are GOP, 40% are Democrats and the remaining 20% are swing voters, aka independents. We’re told, this is a law, and every campaign must be built on 1) trying to lure a majority of that 20% into the GOP camp, and 2) for God’s sake, don’t scare them off with talk of God, love of country, or even a hint of homoabortionophobia.
But since the rise of the Dark Lord in the East (ooops!), and the passage of his Obamacare, we have been yelling that those old numbers don’t work anymore….for while there is both a new Enemy abroad in the land…
….there is also a New Army arising in the land to fight it. An aroused citizenry.
In 2010 we proved our point.
But old shibboleths die hard, for the lure of Establishment respect is great. In fact, several prominent conservative writers succame (per Isaiah Thomas) to the allures of the Beltway Country Club, abandoning the ol’ time religion of the Cause altogether just to be invited to cocktail parties, evan as they swore, back at the old meeting hall, they didn’t drink.
These soothsayers all say it’s still close to a tie, and the old rules still apply. The Tea Party will evaporate like mist in the night, if it hasn’t already. 2012 was an anomaly.
The New Reality
Someday we may look back and thank Barack Obama for this brief whiff of Satan’s whiskers he’s given us, for the world is no longer split 40-40-20. Instead, we’re split between the Alert and the Stupids. In real life and death situations there are no “independents”, fence-straddlers. (“There are no atheists in foxholes.”)
We could still lose this, I know, but if we do, it will be because the Stupids and the Gimmes, with their hands out, actually outnumber the workers and producers of this country. In which case it was all lost anyway, (and Part II of the Revolution begins the day we learn this.) Either way we will know just how many of them there are, and people like me are interested in those kinds of numbers.
This is news we can use, for this vote from the Stupids, and they will be well-catalogued by age, sex, ethnicity, economic circumstance, etc, will allow a new generation of campaign consultant to reframe how candidates of the future will try to secure votes…on both sides, since the Democrats should find themselves, slowly or swiftly (it’s up to them), moving back toward the center in 2013.
Obama seems confident that there are enough Stupids to see him through, but quite frankly, it’s the only card, in a poorly dealt hand he dealt to himself, he can play.
Just consider the people he thinks will vote for him, but won’t in the numbers he expects.
Binders for Women
Of all the arcania to come out of the second debate, Mitt Romney’s “binders for women” comment had to be the most arcane, so it was natural that Obama would use that as his lead attack theme in trying to mobilize the stupid women in his camp. I repeat , Stupid, personified by that lady in the Luntz focus group from Nevada after the debate who, when asked why she still favored Obama, she said it was because he would protect her reproductive rights.
But these numbers pale to the women who have abandoned Obama, angrily I might add, due to lost jobs. Screw the contraceptives (no pun intended), they think. They want jobs, income security. And two dollar gas.
Then there is Bishop Jackson in Virginia Beach who has launched a million dollar campaign directed at black Christians, not just over gay marriage, but the entire paternalistic arrangement between African-Americans and the Democrat Party in general. Black preachers in America have voices that can creep into even the most hidden recesses of the Democrat plantation, and while they may may not vote for Romney, they sure won’t vote the Democrat ticket either. Look for damage here all the way down the ticket.
Then there are the Latino voters, who, thanks to Univision practicing a type of competitive journalism (competitor Telemundo is owned by Obama-partisan NBC) not seen in America in decades, widely broadcast to Mexicans just how little the Obama administration considered them and their lives while selling guns to drug cartel gangs south of the border for Dios only knows what reason. Hundreds have died, and now ordinary Mexicans know how, and by whose hands indirectly is responsible.
What Obama has done, unintentionally, is drive a wedge between the Uninformed and the Stupids, never knowing there was a difference. More than he ever imagined weren’t stupid at all. They were simply lost, and while maybe not yet found, it would behoove the next generation of Republican candidate, in 2o14 and further, to go find them, for they are seeking to be found.
Of all the great errors the ever-so-smart Beltway consultants have made in handicapping this election, their greatest mistake (even more than misunderestimating Mitt Romney) has been in missing altogether the rising anger against Barack Obama for all the personal lies he told them by the many Obama voters from ’08.
So, now, in three weeks, we actually get to count just how many Stupids there really are.
This is why I am optimistic.
