Signs and portents

Somehow, I'm getting the feeling more and more that this is going to be a Republican year, at least where the presidency is concerned.

True, most polls continue to show President Obama with a modest lead over Gov. Romney. The sole exception is the Rasmussen Poll, which measures the response of only likely voters- and thus probably gives a better picture of how the election will actually go. Yes, the Rasmussen Poll has a Republican bias- but only because registered Republicans are more likely than registered Democrats to actually vote.

The Rasmussen result varies from day to day. On some days, the president is ahead by a point or two or three; on some days, it's Gov. Romney. But the edge seems, on average, to go to the challenger, and that confirms an impression I get that becomes stronger and stronger that Mr. Obama is in deep, deep trouble.

The Obama campaign's financial problems- and ensuing panic- is part of it. Then there's the continued bad economic news- and the essentially non-existent prospect of things getting any better before Election Day. And now, a new poll shows that two-thirds of the American people agree that things have gotten worse since Mr. Obama took office.

Then, too, there's the front page of the Des Moines Register- a newspaper whose editorial policy is so far to the Left that conservatives often render the paper's slogan, "Iowa's Best Read Newspaper," with a tongue-in-cheek deletion of the "a" in "Read-" these last few days. On Sunday, the Register featured an article on how many Iowans who voted for the president last time out feel betrayed. "I want my vote back," one said.

Today, a front page article pointed out that while Iowa's evangelicals- a powerful voting bloc in this state- did not support Gov. Romney in the caucuses, they seem to be lining up for him so strongly now as to greatly increase the prospect of blue state Iowa itself turning red this November.

I've always seen TV ads as a clue as to the relative prospects of presidential campaigns, and especially the degree to which they are "on message" with a message that stands a good chance of being effective. We're already deluged with them in Iowa, a swing state.

There is something about the Obama ads which strike me, for lack of a better term as tone-deaf. They seem to reflect a campaign and a candidate that are out of touch- that just don't "get it" in the same way that Michael Dukakis's campaign didn't "get it" in 1988, and George Bush the Elder's campaign didn't "get it" in 1992, and John McCain's didn't seem to "get it" in 2008.

The Obama campaign seems- understandably, and in, fact, very wisely- to be modeled on the Bush campaign of 2004, which re-elected an unpopular president by making his opponent the issue. But the Obama campaign simply can't seem to grasp the point that Gov. Romney isn't vulnerable in the ways they think he is.

Whether it's a claim that Romney favors "tax breaks for the wealthy" and a demand that the wealthy "pay their fair share" (the top 10% of Americans in income currently pay 52% of the income taxes!), or their current obsession with Gov. Romney's record with regard to outsourcing as a CEO and as governor of Massachusetts (as if were a CEO's responsibility to provide employment for as many people as possible rather than a profit for his shareholders, and as if sending a comparatively small bunch of jobs overseas as a successful exercise in reducing government spending had the same impact or significance in a strong economy as it would today), the ads are misfiring. People are simply refusing to react with the indignation the Democrats seem to think they ought to display. The fact is that the voters favor capitalism, and- unlike the Obama campaign, apparently- understand it. The president's attacks come off as attacks as much on free enterprise as on his Republican challenger, and only increase what the polls indicate is a widespread perception of Mr. Obama's political philosophy as extreme.

The Romney campaign, on the other hand, has run some very effective commercials. One series has countered the Democratic claim that, in effect, Gov. Romney has no more of an idea how to fix the economy than the president does by detailing precisely what actions "President Romney" would take, and by what day of his administration!

Another particularly effective ad (featured at the top of this post)features a quotation from the liberal Washington Post (!) on the unfairness and inaccuracy of one particular (and unidentified) Obama attack ad, coupled with a statement that the president used "vicious lies" against Hillary Clinton four years ago, too- and concluding with the president's own secretary of state angrily saying, "Shame on you, Barack Obama!"

Yes, it's early. Yes, it's tough to beat an incumbent president. And yes, those polls of registered (as opposed to likely) voters continue to show Mr. Obama ahead. But as time goes on, those little intangibles that often portend so much in presidential campaigns seem to me more and more to be telegraphing that in that last weekend before the election, it will be against the president and for Gov. Romney that the voters will be breaking, and that our first African-American president will be followed next January by our first Mormon one.