Reality and Impossibility

I know I have commented on this before, but it is so perplexing I can’t give up thinking about it.

Yesterday I saw an announcement from one or more polls that President Obama is leading Romney among women voters by 22 percent, there are more women voters than men, and women are mad as hell about Republican attacks on them. It is also clear that he will get the vast majority of the Black vote, perhaps even as much as 95 percent. Similarly, we know he is leading Romney by a large margin among Latino voters. As he has jumped on the Ryan budget bandwagon that threatens both Medicare and Social Security it is unlikely he will get many of the elderly to vote for him. Jews always vote democratic and Romney did not make a big impression there on his recent visit. I cannot imagine Muslims voting for Romney, nor do I think he will get much of the youth vote as the Ryan budget of which he approves threatens Pell grants and education in general. The relatively small number of independent voters that seems to still exist are unlikely to vote for Romney, at best he might expect to see a split vote. This would seem to leave Romney the Republican Tea Party base, a few independents, and of course White less educated males and assorted racial bigots. This would not appear to be enough of a vote for him to win, unless some terribly unforeseen disaster befalls Obama between now and the election in November. If this reflects the reality of the situation, and I believe it does, I am tempted to believe Obama should win in a near landslide.

The polls, however, along with all the pundits and the MSM, including even many Democrats, keep insisting it is going to be a very close election. This strikes me as a complete impossibility. It makes no sense. Perhaps I am too dumb to get it, or perhaps they are privy to information I know nothing about, maybe I am too biased to see it otherwise, but if the reality of the situation is pretty much as I described it above, a close election would seem to be either a Republican fantasy or a deliberate construction of the media who want us to believe in propaganda. If polls truly suggest a close election one can only wonder who they are polling, and what questions are they asking. It would seem obvious they are not polling a random selection of the electorate.

I would predict a virtual landslide for Obama, except for the fact that I am almost always wrong about these things. I never believed Nixon would be elected (too much five o’clock shadow, a “checkered” past, believed to be too “tricky”). I absolutely did not believe Ronald Reagan could be elected (a “B” level Hollywood star with the mind of a stubborn child), I never even thought Jimmy Carter could win (a Georgia peanut farmer with lust in his heart and a bible in his hand). I certainly did not believe George W. Bush could be elected (a known failure at everything he attempted, recovered alcoholic, born-again Christian, probably marginally retarded). Now we are confronted with Mitt Romney (a Mormon who lies constantly, a vulture capitalist who made his money shipping jobs overseas and stealing pensions, a moron with respect to foreign policy, an undiplomatic robot completely out of touch with the reality of normal everyday life, greedy almost beyond belief, and not really even wanted by his own party, the greatest flip-flopper of all time). I fear that with all these qualifications, in an American election, he probably can’t fail to get elected. It’s the American way! Sigh!

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
Franklin P. Adams