Health & Fitness
Days Of Hand-Wringing And Fury
The final days of a campaign are the most emotional. That's right...even MORE emotional than before...
Sunday at my house marked the return of "NFL RedZone," which offers whip-around coverage of every game being played in the NFL. One game featured the Minnesota Vikings hosting the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Vikes fell behind early 9-0. I had no idea that I had so many Facebook friends who are Viking fans until their desperation began showing up in my news feed. Many Minnesota fans were already writing off the season and berating the coaches, ownership, and team. One sad Viking posted, "How many days until spring training?"
The Vikings ended up beating the Jags 26-23.
I thought about the Viking fan panic as I read some right-wing political columns this weekend. Yes, President Obama got a convention bounce. No, the election isn't over.
The overriding themes of the columns: why aren't we cruising to victory in this bad economy? With Obama leading at this point, shouldn't we admit that we are going to lose?
I blame the 24/7 nature of the Internet political media. Every event--like every misstep for the Vikings--leads to over-the-top proclamations of long-term doom.
Some perspective, please.
The candidate with the second convention ALWAYS steps on the bounce of the candidate nominated during the first convention. John McCain came out of the 2008 GOP event with a 2.2 percent aggregate poll lead over Obama; Obama comes away with 2 percent aggregate poll lead over Romney.
The latest Gallup and Rasmussen polls have President Obama in the lead by 4-5 points at this time. Note that Gallup had Jimmy Carter leading Ronald Reagan by 4 at this time in 1980...and I don't recall the Carter years as the days of wine and roses within the economy.
It's hard to beat an incumbent...voters must be convinced that they made a mistake--and they don't like that.
There's plenty of weeks left in the campaign and we'll go into election day basically tied...as evidenced by this TIPP poll.
Note that Obama leads among Democrats 85-6; Romney leads among Republicans 88-9...and the candidates tie among Independents 41-41.
So if a poll turn-out model samples more Democrats than Republicans, you get Obama up within the margin of error. That means that the political party that does a better job of turning out its voters will win.
And THAT means more negative ads meant to inspire fury in the base. Oh....joy!