I’m tired of political scientists who look at historical economic data and say that Mitt Romney should be leading in the polls. I see a lot of this coming from people on the left, and I think it may have something to do with the left’s propensity to see history as unfolding in some kind of deterministic dialectical way. People on the right are much more inclined to give credit to the “great men in history” approach to understanding events. That’s why they fetishize Winston Churchill, for example.
I’m trying to think of the right kind of analogy to explain my dissatisfaction. Remember Mike Tyson at the end of his professional career, after he had suffered defeat, gone to jail for rape, and then decided to bite off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear rather than continue to fight him man-to-man? At that point, Tyson had lost everyone’s sympathy and their trust. You wouldn’t expect the prognosticators to predict future victories, nor would you expect the judges to be unbiased against him. But what if you had him fight a featherweight fighter? What if you had him fight some guy you picked up off the street? In those cases, Tyson’s declining performance and erratic behavior would not be an indicator that he was about to lose. Not at all. Mitt Romney should not be ahead in the polls because he’s a featherweight. He’s no match for the president as a politician.
And, frankly, this is a highly unfair analogy because President Obama hasn’t behaved erratically or showed any signs of ring-rust. He hasn’t lost people’s trust. And the Republicans, now led by Mitt Romney, have done everything they can think of to prevent a robust economic recovery. Do the experts factor Republicans’ culpability for the economy into their equations? When was the last time a political party intentionally sabotaged the economy and the country’s credit rating during a period of high unemployment? Are the people supposed to be completely unaware of this record?
When has a party been so openly hostile to so much of the electorate? Over the last four years, the Republicans have waged a War on Women, who make up more than 50% of the electorate. They have vilified Latinos, who are the fastest growing demographic in the country. They’ve passed laws aimed mainly at disenfranchising blacks. They’ve waged a cultural war against gay rights. They’ve attacked Muslims’ right to build mosques and worship as they please. They’ve alienated the scientific community by denying that climate change is occurring. They’ve waged an unprecedented war on public sector employees and unions in general. That’s a lot of people who need to disregard the way they’ve been treated in order to cast a vote against Obama because of the economy. Forget the GDP or the unemployment rate, any party that alienates this many people should be behind in the polls.
How’s that for political science?
