Mitt Romney is not my favorite candidate. I find his foreign policy dangerous and foolhardy from a financial perspective. I think his budget proposals do not provide the budget cuts we need. I am a Ron Paul supporter.
But discussing the future is always fun, and I think Mitt Romney will win in 2012, so I thought I should explain why I am making such a prediction.
Here are the reasons:
1)The worldwide economy is about to tank. You may have heard that JP Morgan is reporting a $2 billion trading loss. This sounds a lot like 2008 to me. I predict chaos as the entire banking system, which is a house of cards, begins another collapse. Meanwhile, Europe is falling to pieces and even India and China reported slowing growth today. There is no real job growth in the U.S. economy, which is on life support and addicted to Fed money-printing. Sorry to report: things are about to get even worse.
2)Any polls you read now should be taken with a grain of salt. Things will change rapidly in the months ahead. Obama will be blamed for the coming economic mess, just as Bush was blamed in 2007-2008. His poll numbers will tank.
3)Unfortunately, politics is about analyzing how different voting blocks are likely to turn out and for whom they will vote. This is why you hear (admittedly racist) phrases like “the black vote” and the “Latino vote.” It is impossible these days to analyze politics without using these phrases. Sorry. With that in mind, it is important to note that certain voting blocks, the black vote, the Latino vote, the youth vote and the suburban vote, were essential to Obama’s 2008 victory. With that in mind, black and Hispanic voter registration is down. The youth vote is apathetic. Suburban voters find Mitt Romney more appealing than McCain. Jewish and Catholic voters are less enthusiastic for the president.
4)The usual Democratic tactic of portraying every Republican candidate as either a)stupid or b)a wild-eyed radical intent on taking away your birth control, is less likely to work with Romney, who, like it or not, has a moderate, technocratic image. Romney, unlike many other recent Republican candidates, is not stupid. It is easy for the swing voter to imagine Romney as a competent manager of the republic, which is why he is polling better with independents.
5)To be clear: as of today, May 11, the electoral map doesn’t look great for Romney. The Realclearpolitics map shows Obama way ahead.
However, I simply don’t believe things will turn out that way. I think the final vote will be closer to this: Romney will get more than 300 electoral college votes. He will take at least 52 percent of the popular vote. He will take Wisconsin, Michigan, NH, Florida, Ohio, VA, NC, Iowa, Missouri, Colorado and Arizona, as well as his usual base in the South and West. That is my prediction as of today.
Note number one: I could be wrong. Even though I correctly predicted the 2010 election with eerie accuracy (I said the Republicans would pick up at least 60 seats in the House, and they did), and I correctly predicted Romney would win the nomination when other writers on this blog said it would be Newt Gingrich (ahem!!!), I have made my share of bad predictions. I also predicted Romney would beat McCain in 2008, and I predicted the Republicans would take the Senate in 2010. So, my record is spotty at best. The prediction game is fun because you can always point to your amazing analytical skills when your prediction comes true and then ignore your incorrect predictions.
Note number two: I am not convinced a Romney presidency is a good thing for the Church. Presidents tend to be vilified. Romney is likely to disappoint a lot of people. Did Bush’s presidency help the Methodist church? I think not. I worry about negative effects for the temple and other sacred institutions. Just sayin’.
Note number three: I will be unenthusiastically voting for Romney in Colorado in 2012. I hate his foreign policy, and he doesn’t come nearly close enough to cutting the amount that is needed (if he cuts anything at all). Depending on how bad the coming crisis is, we may even get another TARP and stimulus with a Romney presidency. So, to be clear: I think he will make a lot of very, very bad decisions. Still, I can name three policy issues where he will be significantly better than Obama: 1)he will appoint better federal judges 2)his energy policy will be much, much better (it would be impossible to be worse) and 3)he will appoint better bureaucrats of the federal agencies. Weak tea, I know, but this is where we are in 2012. There is one additional point that is an intangible: his image of competence, compared to the incredible failure of the Obama presidency, may help in the years ahead. Sometimes such an image can help.