It's Election Prediction Time (Updated)

Four years ago my buddy Dug and I made a bet on the presidential election. I picked McCain and he picked Obama. Yeah, that didn't turn out so well for yours truly. The payoff was that I had to wear an Obama t-shirt and publicly post some pictures to ensure my shame was forever. If you're interested you can find them and the back story here, here and here. The score is Dug 1, Me 0.
Well, it's that time again. I sent Dug an e-mail and he agreed to another challenge. Same rules.

Before I get into my pick and reasoning a few words about Dug. We've never met personally but I consider him a buddy. Without categorizing him I think I can say, with little fear of contradiction, that he's center left in his political outlook. He's also a father, husband, friend, hard worker and church goer. In other words he's a fine man. If a little addle pated politically (Love ya Dug!). He's also one of those on the left side of the spectrum you can have an honest conversation with. He never takes things personally, refrains from name calling and ad hominem attacks and is as honest in his outlook as the day is long. He's logical, consistent and really, really smart. I'd like him to do a guest post but he may only respond in comments.

And for those on the right who are either meh on Romney or who hate him totally and completely, this isn't a treatise on his positives or negatives. It's my prediction on who's going to win the election and why.

Ok. On to the meat of the issue and the smack talk. I'm picking Romney to win in November. Here's why.

You don't have to look any further than the economy. Remember the misery index? It's the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate. Take a look at that chart. While the index under Obama is no where near Carter's in 1980 there are a couple of comparison points I'd like to highlight. Bush Senior had a 10.52 and was hammered by Clinton who, wait for it, ran on It's The Economy Stupid. In the final year of Bush Junior's administration it was at 9.65 and the Republicans were hammered by Obama on, admittedly among other things, the economy. Obama's current misery index is 12.1, the highest it's been since Reagen in 83 who was still trying to pull us out of the malaise of Jimmy Carter's 20.76. Obama himself said that if he didn't turn things around he'd be looking at being a one termer. The current debt is just a tick under 16 Trillion and counting. The current unemployment rate is 8.3 and I don't for a second believe that's the real number. That's just what the current administration is willing to admit to.

Obama ran on Hope and Change. He promised the most transparent administration in the history of America. How's that worked out? Where did all that stimulus money go? Fast and Furious anyone (if you scroll through Attkisson's site you can find all her reports on the subject)? Solyndra, Tesla, the list goes on and on and on. Prevarication, deflection and equivalism. Honesty seems to be missing from this administration and the people have taken notice.

Obama and his supporters are running as negative and dishonest a campaign as I have ever seen. Remember Joe Soptic? Get ready for more of that from a campaign that's becoming increasingly desperate. Gone are the lofty speeches and calls for unity. Now it's "you didn't build that."  Obama seems to be running on race and economic status. You can't criticize him without someone calling you a racist or a rich, greedy hater. Jobs? He hasn't met with his job creation council since he created the thing. They're going to try and beat Romney over the head with medicare? Good luck with that.

Let's talk about polls. Right now Gallup and Rasmussen have Romney up by 2 and AP has Obama up by 1. Any way you cut it that's a dead heat at best and for the incumbent President a disaster of the first order. And let me throw in a tickler, the University of Colorado, Boulder analysis. The authors have called every presidential election since 1980 and they're calling 2012 for Romney by a landslide. By both the electoral and popular vote.  May be specious but with their track record it's worth considering. Heck, Romney's ahead of Obama in Michigan!

Romney has negatives, no argument from me. Romney Care scares me but the day the Supreme Court returned it's 5-4 verdict on Obama Care's constitutionality he vowed to repeal it. He's a strong, upstanding man who has shown more and more fire as the election cycle has progressed. He picked a good man for Vice and is confronting Obama on substantive issues. He has the answers American voters seem to be looking for. He also has a hell of a war chest that he can't even tap until after the nomination process is done. The blitz to the election should be a doozy. I may have to cancel my cable until it's done and I'm a political wonk. He's moral, as honest as a politician seems to be capable of in these days and straight forward. He's likeable and photogenic. I know, I know things that shouldn't count. But they do and I'm talking about why he's going to be elected not the ethics of our election process.

I'm of the opinion that the numbers of undecided voters is much smaller than many are saying. Or hoping. If that's the case I see a low Democratic turnout. Democrat enthusiasm seems to be low and turn outs for candidate appearances favors Romney. Indicators are that  Obama has


America has been paying attention. The Tea Party is busy nominating and electing true conservatives with plans to take the Republican party back. The elections of 2010 were only a harbinger. Here's the bottom line for me and I'm just going to say it as a layman. Barack Obama has done virtually nothing positive in three and a half years and he's going to get his metaphorical ass handed to him in November.

Romney will win and become the 45th President of the United States.

Dug? You're up my friend. I've got a nice t-shirt all picked out for you.

Six

Update:
Dug responds in comments but I thought it best to go ahead and put it here in the original post. With his permission I put in a link to his blog so you can see he's not a slavering monster but if you do go over there to comment please be kind.

 eric, you are a credit to your "warrior" class. a real saladin. also, you are kind beyond measure, and i'm proud to "know" you .

i am not the polling data ninja you are, nor a student of the misery index, except when it falls in my lap. i've got my own misery index to worry about. and my predictions are more like when someone picks their fantasy football wins based on uniform color.

on the other hand.

on the other hand, as much as you laud our good friend and well-haired governor romney, who made a much better governor than he would (not will) make a president, he is no stranger to lies, damned lies, and statistics himself. let's not put him on too high a white horse.

i don't think i need to cite lots of articles and such (mostly because i'm a lazy liberal, not one of those fervent, researching liberals), but i suspect you know as well as i do that continuing to regurgitate sound bites like "you didn't build that" is disingenuous at best, and outright deception at worst. the quote obviously refers to infrastructure that supports and enables business, and not the businesses themselves. the quote works. the quote is true. just as an example.

i'm not defending the joe soptic ad. i'm just saying, let's not decide our election based on who we think is running the most honest, fair, above board, no bullshit campaign. no such thing. unless you really do believe obama is a muslim (not that there's any religious test in this country or anything). then maybe we should just shake hands and go our separate ways.

i'll leave you with two things.

1. the stimulus didn't just work pretty well, but it actually saved the country. and it wasn't big enough, because congress wouldn't vote for anything over 800.

2. obama/biden in a squeaker in november. i will wear my hair like romney (i'll need a wig for that), his t-shirt, and sarah palin underpants if i'm wrong.