Keep it Calm Conservatives

Yesterday, I had a lengthy discussion with a friend who was quite worried that Mitt Romney was not doing better in the polls. He wanted to know how president Obama could possibly lead in any of the battleground states after all the bad news of the last few months. It was an eye-opening discussion. After all, here was a reasonably intelligent and well informed person who was having a panic attack because Romney did not have a big lead. The truth is that my friend was actually buying into the talking points that the left has been tossing out there to try to demoralize conservative voters.

Let's look at the record and see what the actual facts are.

1. In the battleground states, Romney is doing quite well over the last two months. The current RCP averages of recent polls compared to what those same averages were at the start of May are as follows:
a. North Carolina -- May Obama up by 2%; now Romney up by 2%
b. Virginia -- May Obama up by 4%; now Obama leads by 2.4%
c. Michigan -- May Obama up by 5.3%; now Obama leads by 1.8%
d. Ohio -- May Obama up by 4.8%; now Obama leads by 2.6%
e. Wisconsin -- May Obama up by 7.5%; now Obama leads by 3.5%
f. Florida -- May Obama up by 0.4%; now Obama leads by 1.7%
g. Colorado -- May Obama up by 6.5%; now Obama leads by 3.0%
h. Iowa -- May Obama up by 4.0%; now it is a tie*.
i. Nevada -- insufficient public polls for results
j. New Hampshire -- May Obama up by 6.3%; now up by 2.5%

In the same time period, Arizona moved into the Romney column and Pennsylvania moved into the Obama column. In each the move was about a 2% swing in the vote.

Another key point about the polling is this: in not a single one of the battleground states is Obama above the 50% figure in the polls. Indeed, in most of these states Obama is at 47% or below. This is extremely important. Americans know by now who Obama is and what he does. They either like him or they do not. If he cannot claim the allegiance of half the voters at this point, he is going to find it extremely hard to move the level of support higher as the election approaches.

2. During the last week, the media has been talking almost non-stop about the reaction by the Romney campaign to the Obamacare decision from the Supreme Court. The problem which many overlook, however, is that no one was watching, and those who were have already made up their minds. Remember the recent poll in which more than half of all Americans either did not know that the Supreme Court had ruled or they thought that the decision had gone the other way. We also get exaggerated coverage of Romney's "problem" with healthcare due to Romneycare in Massachusetts. The cries are out there: Romney has to explain his own plan for health care immediately! These folks need to calm down. No one who wants to get rid of Obamacare is going to vote for Obama and against Romney because of Romneycare. No one is going to vote against Romney if he takes his time and unveils the outlines of his healthplan later this month or in August. Sure, some pundits are going to tell us all how the campaign is missing a big opportunity. That is the result of the 24hour news cycle. All those news shows have to fill out their time with something.

3.) The real key so far to the election is this: Obama has thrown all sorts of charges against Romney. Romney outsourced jobs while at Bain Capital is one of these. Of course, the charge is a lie, and it is being disclosed to be a lie to millions of Americans. Obama will continue with it, but eventually the truth will break through. Another lie from Obama is that Romney used Bain to make money by buying companies and firing the workers. The problem here is that while about 20% of Bain's investments did fail, on the whole those investments produced over 100,000 new jobs. for his part, Obama has invested tens of billions of taxpayer money into the "green" energy ventures of his friends and contributors only to see them fail one after another. Obama borrowed money from China to give the cash to his friends, but the country got no jobs in return.

I will not go down the whole list. Obama has made all sorts of crazy charges at Romney. And through it all, Romney has moved up on Obama, not the reverse. Indeed, pretty soon, most Americans are going to just tune out the mud being thrown by Obama; he has taken his shot and he has missed.

Look, anything can still happen in the election. For example, if there is an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israel or by the USA, the whole outlook could change in a day. Many other game changers are out there as well. But right now, Romney is doing fine. He has withstood the Obama charge. He will continue to sell his economic expertise and his steady hand. The undecided are those who do not really like Obama. If Romney shows them that he up to the job of president, he will get the lion's share of these undecided votes. In other words, conservatives, calm down and enjoy the election.