Elephant Watcher Analysis of Obama and Romney

I have found this interesting site that I actually looked at through the Republican nomination. Its called Elephant Watcher (I can already here some of you saying that this is going to be biased to the Republicans). The answer is no. What they do is calculate all the candidates' chances of winning as the race goes on. They accurately predicted John McCain would win the nomination in 2008 when Elephant Watcher was formed. Originally, it was just for the Republican races of nomination (hence the name Elephant Watcher), but they decided to go further into the general elections. In 2008 they accurately predicted that Obama would win the election instead of McCain. They then closed and waited for the 2011 primaries. In them they gave Chris Christie the likely chance to win the nomination. When he decided to actually not enter the race and endorse Romney, Elephant Watcher predicted he would win the nomination and they were right.

As of now they have made the strengths and weaknesses of Obama and Romney.

First will have Obama. Here are his strengths according to the EW:
1. As the incumbent, Obama is the "default" option. The most basic question--whether Obama is qualified to be president--has been already litigated.
2. Voters generally approve of Obama's handling of foreign policy: killing Bin Laden, leaving Iraq, etc.
3. Obama is still the first black president. The African American vote will no doubt be in his pocket.
4. Though the economy is stagnant, Obama can at least claim it is not in a state of free-fall like it was when he took office.

However, the president does have weaknesses:
1. For most voters, the economy of the last four years has been the worst in their lives. Obama has not really made any signal achievements for which he can get credit for repairing the economy.
2. Much of Obama's liberal agenda (cap and trade, tax increases on the rich,etc.) was proposed, but failed to pass. This disappointed voters on the left, while alienating voters on the right.
3. Obamacare, Obama's most famous accomplishment proved to be unpopular. Its constitutionality is currently being considered by the Supreme Court.
4. The eloquence and novelty that gave Obama his win 2008 has been sapped by time.

Strategy: Obama must attack Romney. Off course he can talk about his achievements in foreign policy and being able to keep the economy from total disaster, but attacking Romney is his best bet. He must make him look out of touch and as a bad businessman. He must prove to the voters that he is the safe "default" choice.

Now for Mitt Romney. Here are his strengths:
1. Realizing the economy is likely the voters' main concern, Romney's long experience as a businessman helps the people see him as an economic expert.
2. Romney looks and sounds like a president. He appears intelligent and well-informed.
3. Romney's campaign is well-organized and well-financed and appears much more determined than most Republican presidential campaigns.
4. Understanding the importance of debates, Romney has beat Perry, Gingrich, and Santorum in them. He is an effective debater.
5. Like Obama with the Black vote, Romney, being a Mormon, will have the Mormon vote in his pocket which will help in swing southwestern states.

Weaknesses:
1. Romney is more of a logos speaker. He does not seem to use pathos and ethos like Obama might.
2. Romney's privileged background opens him to criticism of being out of touch with the common man.
3. Romney's history of changing his political positions will add to his burden of explaining where he stands on issues.
4. Many voters may be skeptical of electing a Mormon president. It is unclear how Romney's religion will effect the election.

Strategy: Romney must persuade voters that Obama is handling the economy poorly, and that by being a businessman he has the experience to fix it. Romney can point out the areas of weakness in the economy and how they negatively effect the average American. In doing so, he eliminates the weakness of being out of touch with the common man. The more specific Romney's solutions, the more convincing his expertise will appear.

That is Elephant Watcher's analysis. Currently they take the average of the latest and only the most reliable national polls. Currently, Romney is winning with 0.8% in average of all the polls.

Elephant Watcher calculates that Romney has a 65% chance of winning the nomination, while Obama has a 35%.

http://www.elephantwatcher.com/p/candidate-profiles.html

I highly expect this Elephant watcher to be wrong and that Obama will pull off a victory in the upcoming elections.

Pretty interesting analysis. Seemed to be pretty fair. When was this made?
@Viking Socrates
It all depends on the economy.

Predicting Obama would beat McCain isn't a big feat. Obama polled ahead of McCain the entire time, except for a short while after Palin was announced VP. McCain was also always a strong contender in the primaries & another easy guess.

Look at their polls tab. Here is the most recent one they have listed. 05/31 R+0 Obama 49, Romney 46 (CNN/Opinion Research*) On the side however they have Romney at 65% to Obama 35%.

Well there calculations change over time. So depending on how the election goes we might see a change.

@RickPerryLover they do not always listen to what the polls say. Just because a candidate is leading one day, does not mean he is leading tomorrow. For example, even winning the Iowa Straw Poll, Michelle Bachmann never rose above 3% in their calculations. Perry was seen as the perfect opposite to Romney and at one time took second place with over 20% chance of winning the nomination. Off course he crashed. They never saw Herman Cain is a possibility for being the nominee and he never rose above 5%. Newt Gingrich was their highest second place candidate when he rose to 32%, but he crashed off course. Santorum never rose above 12%. If you want to see their analysis of the GOP candidates, here it is:

http://www.elephantwatcher.com/p/candidate-profiles-archive.html