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It's time once again to begin seriously taking a look at the electoral math for the upcoming election. I know, I know, everyone else is court-watching this week, but instead I decided to spend some time poll-watching, for those of you who may be getting tired of endless Supreme Court speculation and analysis.
For political wonks, this has been a week of waiting. Starting last weekend, we've all been waiting for Mitt Romney to address the issue of Barack Obama's new immigration policy. This waiting has been fruitless, and will continue for some time to come, apparently. Picture a phone ringing endlessly with nobody there to answer it... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
But while the phrase sounds noble, in reality what the different branches of our government regularly engage in is much more like a tug-of-war. This is what we're seeing today, between the Executive and Legislative branches. More on this in a moment.
Republican senators are backing up Mitt Romney's vacillation on the new changes in immigration President Obama announced last Friday -- with even more vacillation. To put it another way, Mitt Romney is effectively leading his party... into a morass of uncertainty.
Mitt Romney, candidate for president, seems not to be able to make up his mind. George W. Bush famously labeled himself the "Decider" when in office, but it seems Mitt is proving to be the "Can't Decider" this time around.
Marco Rubio's chances of becoming Mitt Romney's running mate just got a little worse. Granted, he is still a senator from Florida -- the biggest prize among the "battleground" states this November. But Rubio's signature issue was just completely and brilliantly co-opted by President Obama, which tends to significantly lessen Rubio's value to Romney as a vice presidential choice.
Obama is positioning himself as the candidate in the race who tells the truth to the American public, and contrasting himself with Romney's unsupportable spin. Obama should keep up this pressure, and sprinkle every speech he makes with such "this is not political spin" statements. It is an effective rhetorical tool for him to use, and I would encourage his re-election team to use it as frequently as possible. Sooner or later, the media may even take notice.
Where are the grand messages of the campaigns? Being held in reserve for the post-convention season, perhaps? That's at least an understandable answer, but ultimately not a very satisfying one. Neither Obama nor Romney has yet clearly articulated what their big ideas are for the next four years, and both of them are missing the chance to pound their message into the American psyche for the next two or three months.
May was not all that exceptional a month for Barack Obama, poll-wise. Both approval and disapproval rates were up slightly, but not significantly. It is a bit odd to have both numbers increase within the same month, but this is mostly due to the fact that the numbers themselves are so close to being even (statistically, this does odd things right around the point where they perfectly balance).
Pete Hoekstra (Republican Senate wannabe) has a new idea -- let's make the government bigger, and add a new layer of bureaucracy! Of course, this would normally be sacrilege for a Republican to suggest, but on this issue, he's making an exception. The issue? Presidential birth certificates. No, seriously, this is a guy who used to be in Congress (and is running again), not some egomaniac from New York City.