Running for president is hard on my self unit.
The first
Presidential Debate will occur on October 3rd in Denver. The debate will be moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS. It will divided into six segments of fifteen minutes each and will be concerned with domestic policy.
Mitt Romney has had three distinct opportunities to win the office of president of the United States. First, he had his victory over the rest of the Republican field in the primaries. Second, he had his vice presidential choice. Third, he had the Republican Convention. In each of these circumstances, be it his largely negative campaign in the GOP primary, the flunked rollout of Paul Ryan, or his lackluster convention, Mitt Romney has blown a key opportunity. He is now down to his final opportunity, the debates. But really, it is the first debate that counts more than any of the others.
But if there is one thing that makes the stakes for Romney higher than any other, it is this article published a few days ago by Reuters:
Southern whites troubled by Romney's wealth, religion
Sheryl Harris, a voluble 52-year-old with a Virginia drawl, voted twice for George W. Bush. Raised Baptist, she is convinced -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- that President Barack Obama, a practicing Christian, is Muslim.
So in this year's presidential election, will she support Mitt Romney? Not a chance.
"Romney's going to help the upper class," said Harris, who earns $28,000 a year as activities director of a Lynchburg senior center. "He doesn't know everyday people, except maybe the person who cleans his house."
She'll vote for Obama, she said: "At least he wasn't brought up filthy rich."
White lower- and middle-income voters such as Harris are wild cards in this vituperative presidential campaign. With only a sliver of the electorate in play nationwide, they could be a deciding factor in two southern swing states, Virginia and North Carolina.
Reuters/Ipsos polling data compiled over the past several months shows that, across the Bible Belt, 38 percent of these voters said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is "very wealthy" than one who isn't. This is well above the 20 percent who said they would be less likely to vote for an African-American.
In Lynchburg, many haven't forgotten Romney's casual offer to bet Texas Governor Rick Perry $10,000 or his mention of his wife's "couple of Cadillacs." Virginia airwaves are saturated with Democratic ads hammering Romney's Cayman Islands investments and his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns.
The article goes on to note that Romney continues to have a problem with the voters who usually vote against their interests. For many, Obama's race will trump all other concerns. But, for another significant number of these working class white voters, Romney's wealth and Mormonism remain a significant impediment to their turning out for him.
This is the worst news for the Romney Campaign. Without a massive advantage among these white voters, Mitt Romney has no chance of winning. So far, he has blown every opportunity to give these voters an opportunity to vote FOR him. The Romney Campaign has mainly focused on why they should not like President Obama. But that does not mean they are going to come out and vote for Romney. They may just decide to stay home. In fact, that is more likely than not if this Reuters article is correct.
And if it is correct, then all our likely voter models are off.
What has to worry the Romney Campaign is if there are a group of rural, evangelical, lower middle class white voters who simple don't think there is much difference between a Black Muslim and a Rich Mormon. Either way, they aren't "one of us." If these folks don't bother to vote, it is curtains for the GOP across the board.
Therefore, Mitt Romney has to perform an act of acrobatics that even a political genius like Bill Clinton would find difficult:
1. Convince these anti-Obama voters to come out in favor of a Rich Mormon.
2. Convince enough 2008 Obama voters to switch sides and vote for him.
And he's got one opportunity to do both these things at once: the first debate. He's got to throw enough culture war red meat to these folks to get them amped up against Obama, while simultaneously conveying a message that does not turn of the folks who voted for Obama and don't want to be made to feel like they made the wrong choice. I don't know how he could possibly pull it off but it is do or die at the first debate.