It’s extremely rare that I agree with Mark Halperin about anything, but I think his take on the conventions in Tampa and Charlotte is totally accurate. The Democrats out-organized and outperformed the Republicans by a very wide margin. Their speakers were so strong that the president gave no better than the fourth best speech in Charlotte. His speech was probably the third best of those delivered last night, after Joe Biden and John Kerry. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama both gave much better performances than the president. It’s not that his speech was bad, though. It was ten or twenty times better than Mitt Romney’s forgettable performance. The Dems just have a lot more talent than the Republicans. And we didn’t even employ Hillary Clinton, who is traveling abroad and doing her job.
Nate Silver now gives the president a better than 77% chance of being reelected, although that number will come down dramatically if the Democrats don’t show any bounce from the convention in the polls.
I share Markos’s confusion about Mitt Romney’s advertising strategy. By giving up in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he appears to be resigned to a strategy than calls for winning every swing state. It’s only early September and Romney has settled on a strategy that cannot conceivably deliver more than 291 Electoral Votes.
I want you to think about that, because it has more significance that just for this election. Romney has outright ceded 247 Electoral Votes to Obama. To give you an idea what this means, if Romney loses Florida, he loses. If he loses Ohio and New Hampshire, it’s a 269-269 tie. If he loses Ohio and Iowa, he loses. If he loses Virginia, Iowa, and New Hampshire, he loses.
Going forward, the Republicans are not going to see an improved map. Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and North Carolina are all going to continue moving away from them. I don’t think Florida will remain a swing-state much longer. The modern GOP is just barely plausible as a national party that can win the White House right now. And, if they don’t make some major changes in their messaging and even their beliefs, they won’t even have a case to make to donors that they have any chance of winning whatsoever by 2020 at the latest.
