Breaking News: President Obama Loses Bid For Re-Election – Events of the Week of June 1 – 7 End President’s Hope for Prevailing

Having the Fall election Is Becoming a Formality

When historians are able to objectively review the 2012 election cycle they will almost certainly identify the events that happened during the first week of June as factors which made it impossible for Barack Obama to be elected to a second term.  Assuming that Mr. Romney does not do something incredibly stupid in the period leading up to the fall election Mr. Obama’s small chances of winning a second term were fatally wounded in the week of June 1 to June 7.

The events of that week could not have been worse had they been scripted by the Republican National Committee.

1. First up was the June 1 employment report for the month of May.  That report showed a rise in the unemployment rate and a fall in job creation, confirming the weak trend in the employment data that started earlier in the year.  Slow employment growth is now being firmly embedded in the minds of voters, and even if the unlikely event of robust employment growth takes place later in the year it will be very difficult to erase the current image from the minds of voters.

2. On June 4 voters in Wisconsin overwhelmingly voted for Republican Gov. Scott Walker in his recall campaign.  The recall campaign ended up wasting tens of millions of dollars the Democrats and their allies cannot replace and provided a huge boost for Republican chances in the Midwest.  Even worse the recall election gave the Republicans a chance to try out their ground game, and they now know how to turn out the vote for Mr. Romney in the fall.

Some Democrats were heartened by the fact that Mr. Obama was favored over Mr. Romney in the exit polls.  They should not be.  Looking at the exit polls, they predicted a much closer race than was actually case.  This means the exit polls were a skewed sample. 

3. Member of both parties in Congress were outraged that details of U. S. cyber attacks and drone attacks against Iran and terrorists had been leaked to the press.  They demanded and got a criminal investigation started by the Justice Department.  Having the Justice Department investigate the White House for leaking classified data is just never ever a positive.  Even if no criminal activity is determined, the vast majority of Americans believe the stories were leaked for political purposes.

          If any suspected deliberate leaking is found, it will be bigger than Watergate and Monica combined.    It would mean not only the President but the Democratic Party itself would be toast for the fall elections.

4. Former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers both announced they were in favor of extending all the Bush era tax cuts, and obviously implied that the economy was very weak.  Since Mr. Obama is on record as not wanting to extend the Bush era tax cuts for wealthy Americans this made the Democrats look weak and divided.  Of course, one reason the Democrats look weak and divided is because they are weak and divided.

5. In a statement designed to attack Republicans for cutting jobs and spending in the public sector Mr. Obama said the private sector of the economy was doing fine.  Apparently Mr. Obama felt that Republicans needed more weapons with which to attack him, and so wanted them to have a nice gift before the election heated up.
6. In May Mr. Romney raised more money than Mr. Obama.  So it may be that in addition to the $1 billion to be spent by outside groups against the President Mr. Romney himself may be able to outspend Mr. Obama.  

An electoral college forecast follows this Post and using the non-scientific, subject, state of the art guessing ability of The Dismal Political Economist it shows a strengthening of Mr. Romney's lead in electoral college votes.  Polling will soon start to confirm all of this.

So is it too early to start speculating on what a Romney Presidency would be like?  Not really.  As argued in this space earlier, this election cannot be won by Mr. Obama.  It can only be lost by Mr. Romney if for some reason he veers off message or actually endorses specifics.  Hard to see that happening.