The 53-46 Paradigm and the 7% Solution

So, it's a mere 4 months till the midterms, and the pundits are all a twitter about the remote possibility of the Republicans taking back the House. We've seen polls, we've seen disparate numbers, we've seen endless speculation and a parade of stats that both sides are toting out to bolster their viewpoints. There are numbers flying everywhere, but in reality, the only numbers that count are the numbers that were soldified in November 2008. 53-47, the margin by which Mr Obama won the election. The only numbers that matter.

In Ezra Klein's excellent article in the Wash Post http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/research_desk_responds_how_par.html, he makes the point that independents are broken into 3 categories. Those leaning dem, those leaning republican, and those truly swing voters who have no allegiance to either party. Call them the perot voter, the anderson voter, the crist voter, the bloomberg voter. Personally, i fall into the Independent leaning democrat category, though my Jewish 79 year old mom is a Floridian democrat who is thinking about voting for Crist, and therin lies the msot interesting race of all. If Crist comes out of that race with a win, it will shake the political system to it's core, for Crist may be the most credible indie politician since Bloomberg, and together they could pull in a lot of voter power. Maybe in 2016...

What's most obvious to me about all this incumbency/house takeover chatter in this political cycle is that it is not really addressing the only group of voters who truly matter in the next cycle of elections, the 7 percent of indie voters who are truly swing voters. These were the people that Obama so deftly appealed to in 2008, and if the democrats want to not only solidify their control over the house, but ensure their win in 2012, these are the voters that need to be swayed. And in truth, these swing voters might represent the truest sense of what is going on in politics right now.

The fact that Mr Obama's numbers are still hovering around 50 percent, even after all of the momentous and I believe very beneficial change he has already brought to this country says a lot about where these swing voters are. So when it all comes down to it, what do these 7 percent of Americans want? Even though they are a bit disgruntled about things right now, these are intelligent voters, and I do not believe they will be swayed by the Republican know nothing politics of obstruction, but this discourse also lends some momentum to the idea that Mr Obama would be best served by dealing with what these swing voters are really thinking.

Unemployment for whites is about 8 percent, so I'm really at a loss as to why white male voters, a lot of them swing indie voters are being polled as leaning away from Obama and democrats in congress. Something is not right about the pundit's numbers. And I've maintained that if by some disaster the Dems lose the house this fall, it will be because they were terrible campaigners. Martha Coakley anyone? And since deficit eduction is really a red herring in an economy that a number of economists believe needs to grow first and worry about it's debt later, I don't see the 7% really being too hot and bothered about that. So maybe dems have an easier time of getting these indies to vote for them this fall, and maybe Republicans are going to be in for a surprise come November, as long as that crucial 7 percent realizes that's it's truly in THEIR best interests to keep the Dems in control of Congress.