This Election More Like 1984 than 1980

     Romney throughout this campaign has rather wistfully dreamt of it being like 1980 when Reagan was able to come into town and blow away a Democratic President presiding over a weak economy. The race has also been a favorite for the Romney team as it seems to offer hope that although Romney has never led in the entire campaign he imagines that like Reagan allegedly came back from a deficit against Carter late for a landslide victory so will he.

    This premise has always been more myth than reality, but as the campaign has been so much more difficult than he had anticipated he needed to maintain any hope at all to hold onto the myth. In truth, whether or not the debate was important for Reagan's landslide in 1980, unlike Mitt, he had led often in the race even if Gallup showed him behind late. He actually had a 30 point lead after the RNC convention that year.

    It was also a much more volatile electorate that was much less polarized ideologically and by region: can you imagine a Republican winning in places like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and California today?

    However, today's job's report does recall Reagan's Presidential campaign except not the one Romney wants-the other one in 1984. Indeed, between the debate that the conventional wisdom holds was a lackluster bust by the President, and now today's job's report this week has seemed very much like 1984-which was Morning in America.

   Rachel Maddow showed last night that Reagan was widely seen as bombing in his first debate with Mondale. Mondale was held to have clobbered him by all the mainstream press-same with Obama this week. Some wondered if Reagan were getting too old after his performance. However, unemployment dropped from 8.3% to 7.3% election year, 1984, and the debate had no impact on a historic rout.

   For more on unemployment for Reagan in 1984 see Nate Silver

   http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/jobs-news-makes-obamas-case-easier/

   Now the President with today's numbers has seen unemployment fall from 8.5% last December to 7.8% now. Indeed, it sort of recalls 2004 as well when some good economic numbers came out just before that election.

    Scott Sumner says that he suspects when the September numbers are revised it will be more in the 180,000 to 200,000 job range.

   http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=16790

   Speaking of Nate: his 538 Forecast continues to move in the direction of Obama since the debate which contradicts what the common wisdom is-including his own where he expects Romney to get a likely 1 to 2% bump. It may happen don't get me wrong. But it's interesting that 538 gave the President a 84.7% chance prior to the debate and now it's at 87.1%.

   Also, Obama's numbers against Romney actually improved at Gallup today. He went from a 49-45 to a 50-45 lead. It's a 7 day tracking average but you wonder what happened.