{"id":546,"date":"2012-08-25T19:59:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-25T23:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=546"},"modified":"2012-08-25T19:59:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-25T23:59:30","slug":"why-romney-will-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/08\/why-romney-will-win.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Romney Will Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for the presidency will end with a decisive, and possibly even a landslide, victory for Romney in November.<\/p>\n<p>Polling data that hasn\u2019t even come close to supporting this contention of mine is of no relevance.<\/p>\n<p>Outside of political junkies, the rest of the electorate doesn\u2019t begin paying attention to election races until after Labor Day.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Obama has heretofore <em>outspent<\/em> Romney vis-\u00e0-vis (intensely negative) campaign ads\u2014in spite of the fact that Romney has by far and away <em>outraised<\/em> Obama in campaign donations.\u00a0 Campaign finance laws preventing Romney from spending any of the monies that he has raised for the general election until <em>after <\/em>he formally becomes the Republican Party\u2019s presidential nominee conspire to conceal this fact.\u00a0 However, after the GOP convention in Tampa at the end of this month, Romney\u2019s funds will be unleashed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In other words, Obama hasn\u2019t really even gotten hit\u2014<em>yet. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>These considerations aside, polling phenomenon depicting a razor sharp race or, more incredibly, an Obama lead, is irrelevant simply and solely because it contradicts a few basic facts that partisans of all stripes must concede.<\/p>\n<p>The first of such facts is that Obama is no longer an unknown candidate.\u00a0 He now has a record\u2014a record of which everyone is painfully aware. So, even the most na\u00efve, even the most ignorant of voters, will not fall for the same rhetoric of \u201chope and change\u201d that Obama endlessly sprouted four years ago and that succeeded in mesmerizing legions of unsuspecting Americans who ecstatically consumed the notion that he was a \u201cnew\u201d type of politician.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That Obama himself knows this accounts for why he no longer even attempts to speak along these lines.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, the President\u2019s approval rating has plummeted since the fall of 2008.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t just that Obama\u2019s numbers have fallen further and more rapidly than that of any other president.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A much touted Pew Research Center poll from earlier in the month supports what every poll reader now knows: Obama\u2019s favorability rating is actually below average for a presidential candidate at this time in an election season.\u00a0 It states that Obama\u2019s \u201ccurrent favorability ratings compare poorly with the final pre-election ratings for previous Democratic candidates.\u201d\u00a0 The poll adds: \u201cNot since Michael Dukakis in 1988 has a Democratic candidate gone into the election with favorability ratings as low as Obama\u2019s are today.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In short, Obama is not well liked.<\/p>\n<p>Thirdly, it stretches credibility to the snapping point to think that everyone who voted for Obama in 2008 will vote for him this time around.<\/p>\n<p>Not even close.<\/p>\n<p>Blacks will vote for him, certainly, but even within this demographic, his support is not likely to be quite as\u00a0high as it was four years ago.<\/p>\n<p>For one, the hope shared by far too many blacks that the election of the first black president would usher in a golden age of a sort for black Americans is now exposed for the patent absurdity that it has always been.\u00a0 Unemployment rates are high overall, but they have skyrocketed among blacks, and black youth in particular.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, though, Obama\u2019s endorsement of homosexual \u201cmarriage\u201d promises to cost him some support among blacks\u2014a likelihood that no less a figure than Louis Farrakhan foreshadows.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At the end of May, at the California Convention Center in San Diego, the Nation of Islam head\u2014a close friend of Obama\u2019s former pastor of twenty plus years, Jeremiah Wright, and one time Obama backer\u2014addressed an audience and noted in disgust that our 44<sup>th<\/sup> president is the first occupant of the White House to sanction this practice.\u00a0 Obama, Farrakhan said, is the first American president who has \u201csanctioned what the Scriptures forbid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition to Farrakhan, there is also the Coalition of African-American Pastors. Its members once endorsed Obama.\u00a0 Now, they have publically repudiated him for taking this position.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Owens asserted: \u201cWe were once proud of you, but our pride has turned to shame that you, the man holding the most powerful position in the world, would stoop to leading the country down an immoral path.\u201d\u00a0 Quinn Chapel AME\u2019s Luke Robinson added: \u201cHis support for this un-biblical behavior will destroy even more folks in our already decaying and broken society.\u201d Robinson declared: \u201cHis pronouncement is in fact a direct attack on the God of the bible and the Christian faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But even if, from some sense of blind racial loyalty, blacks do vote for him in the same numbers as they voted for Obama in 2008, there are other groups that most certainly will not.<\/p>\n<p>Take Roman Catholics, as a prime example.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Although the media has done a splendid job of diverting the public\u2019s attention from it, the Catholic Church has been besieged by the Obama administration.\u00a0 The Affordable Health Care Act\u2014\u201cObamacare\u201d\u2014is an unprecedented attack against both religious liberty and freedom of conscience.\u00a0 Catholic clerics around the country have alerted their congregants to this.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Catholics will <em>not <\/em>be voting for Obama in anything like their numbers in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Independents constitute another group that threw its weight behind Obama in the last election.\u00a0 Precisely because, as with everyone else, independents now have a track record with which to gauge Obama, there is no way that he will garner nearly as much support among them in November.<\/p>\n<p>Fourth, 2008 marked the end of George W. Bush\u2019s second term.\u00a0 As evidenced by voters\u2019 readiness to cashier congressional Republicans in the mid-terms of \u201906 and Bush\u2019s 30% approval rating two years later, the country had GOP fatigue.<\/p>\n<p>Matters are otherwise now.<\/p>\n<p>The economy has gone from bad to worse during the course of Obama\u2019s first term. And it is <em>the economy <\/em>that is voters\u2019 <em>top priority. <\/em>Even in those polls that show Obama leading Romney, the latter consistently ranks higher in voter confidence when it comes to this most crucial of issues.<\/p>\n<p>Small business owners and young adults who owe tens of thousands in student loan debt but who can\u2019t find a job know about Obama\u2019s abysmal handling of the economy better than anyone.<\/p>\n<p>They also aren\u2019t bound to be suckered by him again.<\/p>\n<p>Fifth, when we consider that Republicans are more enthused now than they had been in a long time, Romney promises to elicit every bit as much and significantly <em>more <\/em>support than John McCain received in \u201908.\u00a0 From the rise of the Tea Party to the Republican tsunami of the 2010 midterm elections and the recent explosion of support for Chick-fil-A, there is no conceivable reason to deny this.<\/p>\n<p>There is one final consideration that portends a sweeping Romney victory.<\/p>\n<p>Congressman and former presidential contender Ron Paul has a significant and devoted following of young voters.\u00a0 Their passion is second to none.\u00a0 Doubtless, some of them will refuse to vote for either Romney or Obama.\u00a0 But there is reason to suspect that some of them will.<\/p>\n<p>Paul and Romney never showed any signs of having a strained relationship, and even though Paul hasn\u2019t as of yet endorsed the latter, neither has he endorsed anyone else, like he did in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nor do I think it is likely that he will.<\/p>\n<p>Ron\u2019s son Rand, Kentucky Senator and a rising star in the Tea Party, <em>has <\/em>endorsed Romney.\u00a0 Paul Sr. is retiring.\u00a0 Junior is not, and the father doesn\u2019t want to make unnecessary waves for the son.\u00a0 Moreover,Rand has been allotted a speaking platform at the GOP Convention\u2014a turn of events that can only help Romney among young Paul supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Barring any unexpected revelations to the effect that Romney is a killer or a closet enslaver (Obama\u2019s and Joe Biden\u2019s attempts to convince us of this have thus far failed), it looks like it\u2019s going be a clean Romney victory in November.<\/p>\n<p>originally published at The New American<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for the presidency will end with a decisive, and possibly even a landslide, victory for Romney in November. Polling data that hasn\u2019t even come close to supporting this contention of mine is of no relevance. Outside of political junkies, the rest of the electorate doesn\u2019t begin paying&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Romney Will Win<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/08\/why-romney-will-win.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Romney Will Win\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for the presidency will end with a decisive, and possibly even a landslide, victory for Romney in November. Polling data that hasn\u2019t even come close to supporting this contention of mine is of no relevance. Outside of political junkies, the rest of the electorate doesn\u2019t begin paying&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/08\/why-romney-will-win.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-25T23:59:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Romney Will Win","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/08\/why-romney-will-win.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Romney Will Win","og_description":"The contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for the presidency will end with a decisive, and possibly even a landslide, victory for Romney in November. Polling data that hasn\u2019t even come close to supporting this contention of mine is of no relevance. 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