Obama Could Lose Independent Voters This Time
Yet another bad piece of emerging news for President Barack Obama: many analysts are now concluded there is a real chance he could lose indpendendent voters this time — which would mean losing the ball game. Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift looks at a Colorado focus group set up by a respected columnist and finds many of them have given up on the idea of political “hope” and concluded Obama doesn’t deliver:
How tough an uphill climb does President Obama face with independent voters?
If the findings of a focus group conducted this week are any indication, a steep one indeed.
Nine of the 12 people gathered in Denver on Tuesday voted for Obama in ’08, but only three lean toward him at this point. They are a cross-section of America, working in real estate, health care, IT, and sales, and they’re torn between a president whose performance they say has been underwhelming and who doesn’t deserve reelection, and a challenger they know very little about beyond the fact that he’s a rich and successful businessman.
When Democratic pollster Peter Hart probed for their thoughts about Bain Capital, the private-equity firm that Mitt Romney headed, nine of the group opted out, saying they didn’t know enough to talk about it. Of the three who ventured they knew “a little,” one said “Mitt ran it,” while another said “He did well,” three words that sum up the Obama campaign’s challenge as they try to tarnish what Hart has called Romney’s “halo effect” on the economy. They aren’t biting on Bain.
It isn’t that they view the situation as totally bleak (yet):
Listening to these voters for over two hours, it was clear that their assessment of the
economy is not as bleak as one would suppose, given their disaffection from Obama. They generally agree that the economy is improving, but Obama doesn’t get credit for a recovery that, while slow, is moving in the right direction—the core of his message for a second term. A few cited what they called “little things” Obama has done for the economy, like reining in credit-card companies, but no one could cite major accomplishments that would measure up to the expectations aroused by Obama as a candidate who promised to bring about transformative change.
This Denver group was sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, and Hart’s findings add to a growing chorus of concern among Democrats not directly aligned with the Obama campaign that the president is not connecting with the voters he needs to win.
It’s clearly all about expectations nurtured in the 2008 campaign which unable to meet by external events, administration misjudgments and Republican obstructionism:
Whether it’s a failure of policy or of communications is debatable, but the sense of disillusionment with Obama’s performance is real. “He set up expectations that began 46 months ago, and they only grew over time,” says Hart. He singled out Jeffrey, a 31-year-old Web designer and home remodeler, as the voter Obama most needs and might not get. Jeffrey voted for Obama last time.
So Obama has to win these voters back — and the issue is clearly the economy.
There’s an opening, too, for Romney if he can build on the general impression voters have of him as a good businessman, and “make voters feel comfortable that he’s not going to dismantle everything we have,” says Hart, when it comes to health care and other social support programs.
And this anecdotal finding has to be the most utterly devastating one at all for Obama — something he’ll need to fix soon (if he can):
Asked which candidate these voters would like to attend a baseball game with, nobody wanted to go with Romney except to have him pick up the tab, giving Obama a substantial edge in likability. Both candidates came up short on a more subtle leadership exercise. Asked how each would perform if they were lost in the forest with nine friends, the group concluded Romney would use his super-duper expensive phone to call for help, with Donald Trump and wife Ann Romney topping the call list, while Obama would give a pep talk and then retreat to the sidelines. There’s the campaign in a microcosm.
Can he change this perception?
For Obama, this was a devastating departure from how voters responded to a similar question four years ago, when they said then candidate Obama would work with you, reason with you, and bring out the best in you. This time, says Hart, there was “no sense of leadership.” These are hard-nosed assessments five months out from the election, and the Obama campaign ignores them at its peril. Hart is a highly respected pollster with four decades of experience. Soft-spoken and generally cautious in his conclusions, people pay attention when he sounds the alarm.
It’s an alarm that fits in with the alarm recently sounded by James Carville. Is it loud enough for the White House to hear?
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Could it be independant voters know his policies have not worked well in getting the economy moving and want to know what his “Forward” vision is for the next 4 years?
For many independants, what they have seen is a President that has not led, has tried to govern by splitting Americans between the rich and middle class and is now catering to minorities through executive orders that could have been issued years ago before the election cycle began.
Could it be that independants also realize that both candidates do not have much of a plan and are waiting for one of them to announce what they will really do about job creation, debt, deficits and tax reform.
I think this is just another example of trying to read the tea leaves when the voters just aren’t paying that much attention yet. What will the independents think when they really pay attention to Obama’s policies versus Romney’s proposals? Who knows? Romney isn’t being very forthcoming with details of his proposals and doesn’t have the charisma to get away with keeping that up as the election approaches. I’ll start worrying about polls and focus groups when September rolls around.
How, pray tell, does any President “lead” when the opposing party refuses to work? Does the President just go along with everything the opposing party wants?
There are some things this President has done that I’ve not agreed with. However, I could never vote for a man that twists the truth every time he opens his mouth. And, to be honest, I think it’s a crying shame that the Republican Party can’t find a better nominee than Mitt Romney. They should have given the country Jeb Bush.
Where are principles these days?
The problem that Democrats and Republicans have with independent voters when their politicians meet in Congress to divide up the money borrowed on national credit, five trillion during George W. Bush’s Presidency and almost six trillion during Obama’s, is that all of the money goes to political party projects of faction. The only thing independent voters get from all of that borrowed money is a larger national debt and more interest to pay on it.
For that reason, independent voters are going to insist on ballot access, and Republicans are going to side with them in their effort, even though in the past the Republican Party has been the most hostile party toward independent voters. Republicans will try to get legislation passed that will turn independent voters into a third party. Independent voters will not turn into a third party, and it will not take long before independent voters outnumber all political party members in the United States. Then it will be impossible for the two-party system to remain in power.
As soon as independent voters gain ballot access, the two-party system is done.
rbwinn, you do realize that it is the Republican Party that opposed independent voters having primary ballot access, right? Right? Please tell me you know this…
Obama has the problem that the perception (I am one of those in this category) of him is that he is the cheerleader-in-chief. He has not led, he has proposed and then left congress to tear everything apart like a pack of ravenous wolves.
This kind of reinforces my suspicion that so-called independents are more akin to fence sitters and wafflers than true independents. The desire for instant gratification is strong in this electorate and the level of maturity seems low.
Joe, I really appreciate your article on several accounts — the attention to independent voters is very important. People are fed up with partisanship and partisan politics and the parties themselves. Whether “Obama has to win these [independent] voters back — and the issue is clearly the economy” — history will tell.
Certainly in 2008, the American people “rose up” against all odds to elect our first African American President. What a victory for nonpartisanship and for going a different road! It doesn’t get much more American than that!
Then there are the structural reforms needed — open primaries, initiative and referendum, independent redistricting, etc. — in order for regular people to participate. The club-house is very strong unfortunately. And we are seeing the effects of the good-ol-boys game plan.
Independents nevertheless are becoming more organized. For my money, independent voters are the future of our country.
Keep up your good work!
Nancy