Michael Barone’s first mistake is to use numbers for Gallup to try to make a credible and convincing argument. Gallup lost all of their credibility in 2012 and they can’t begin to get it back until they get good results in an actual set of election predictions.
Barone’s second mistake is to think that a regional look at the president’s approval numbers can or will translate to a Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton, for example, simply sells better in many states than the president. That was true in 2008 and it will be true in 2016. If some other candidate emerges as the Democratic nominee, they are likely to have a different profile of support, too. I’m thinking of Brian Schweitzer of Montana, for example.
The same thing is true for any potential Republican nominee. Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz are going to have limited appeal in the Mid-Atlantic or Pacific Northwest, but an unscathed Chris Christie might have done well in those regions. Mike Huckabee will never win a state in New England, but Jeb Bush might have a fighting chance in Maine or New Hampshire.
How the people feel about President Obama will matter in 2016, but it will a minor factor compared to the impact of the actual candidates.
Also curiously absent from Barone’s column: the Republican Party’s approval rating in these states.
To me, his article smacks of someone sifting data to justify an existing conclusion on his part.
Kind of like someone writing this week that, “Examining January’s accident rate in and around Atlanta suggests a marked degradation in southerner’s driving skills”.
very nice. or alternatively, the phrase that came into my head, “if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride”
Anyone else have the experience that when you hit post the screen goes blank and comment is lost ?? [just happened 4 times]
If this was a right-wing blog, I would say that the NSA just skimmed your comment and dumped it into Obama’s In-Box.
well, that’s a thought! if so, I hope they all like the comment
Do you have Adblock enabled? I didn’t, and the site was loading terribly slowly and crashing at times. I installed it and not only did a ton of annoying ads disappear, but the site loaded fast and stayed stable.
Of course, I’m using Firefox as my browser; if you’re running something else, I don’t know if that app will work or if you’ll need to find another for whatever your browser is.
Thanks for the suggestion; using sometimes Firefox, sometimes Safari. the screen going blank happened with Safari. not sure if I can enable adblock at work, will see, and can try it on my own system. btw some sites now have ads that start playing loud audio even without scrolling over them. awful
Oh, I HATE that loud auto-audio! That started happening here — and I couldn’t even find the ad that was playing it, when I had multiple Booman tabs open! Adblock put a stop to it. I wonder whether Safari would have an equivalent of Adblock, if it didn’t have that app itself.
Republican hack publishes hackish Republican “analysis”. Film at 11.
I’d say they matter a lot more in the mid-terms than in the ’16 race – they will matter than as a factor of Democratic leadership and continuing/extending the Obama legacy (which Clinton or any other electable Dem will certainly run on).
Let us hope to hell that how people feel about Obama is a MAJOR factor in 2016. Without the turnout in 2012 that was not predicted (by the RW, granted) President Mittens would have given the SOTU message.