Obama has some problems going in to this election, most significantly the economy and how poorly he is managing to get his message out about it. The truth is that the economy is improving under Obama, but most people do not perceive it as such because the GOP is spending more money than God to make you think it isn't. When actually pressed with facts, Romney has to admit that the economy is improving, and then spends the next 20 minutes claiming that under his leadership it would "improve faster." This despite the fact that what he wants to do is a more extreme version of what got us in the mess in the first place.
Imagine two men standing by a burning car. The first man has turned off the ignition in the car and has been carefully removing all of the flammable material from the immediate area. He has plans to clean up the mess and restore the car as soon as the flames go out and has been kicking sand and dirt on the places he can to encourage the fire to die. He is having slow success at this. He has admitted that restoring the car is probably going to be expensive and has made some phone calls to start getting the financing on the project together. He knows it is going to take some time to pay off the money he will have to borrow to get the car working again, but he also knows that he absolutely needs the car running or he won't be able to get to work and everything will just fall apart. He doesn't really want to do it this way, but he realizes he has no choice and out of all possible solutions, it's the best of the lot.
Then the second man says, "You know what will really get the car running again?" and throws a can of gas on it.
That's Obama v. Romney on the economy. And Obama doesn't seem to be able to communicate this to the people.
On the other hand, Romney has some SERIOUS issues.
1. He's a Mormon. I'm not one to hold someone's religion against them, even one as retarded as Mormonism, but the GOP base sure as hell is. A large majority of GOP supporters consider themselves to be evangelical or "born-again" Christians, and to an evangelical Christian, Mormons are a dangerous, Satan-worshiping cult. That's not an exaggeration, I have personally heard religious leaders use that exact term. By nominating Romney, the GOP is asking a large portion of their supporters to choose between a "Muslim socialist" and a "Satan-worshiping cultist." I almost expect to see a lot of Mike Huckabee write-in votes come November.
Romney simply lacks the charisma to overcome this, and the only reason the media aren't going after his Mormonism with both hands is because the Mormon church is astonishingly litigious. (To put it in perspective, the Mormons are one of the few targets the Scientologists won't go after.) They tried to offset this disadvantage with the selection of Paul Ryan as VP, but Ryan has his own baggage, from being spotted drinking $350 bottles of wine at lobbyist dinners to having voted for TARP.
2. Romney is too fucking rich. I mean, the man is shockingly rich. And the vast majority of his money comes from other-people's work and sweat. He is the caricature of a rich investor, sitting in his mansion raking in money from legacies, overseas tax haven investment houses, and capital gains, none of which require him to lift a finger to so much as cash a check. The man simply wakes up each morning with more money than he went to bed with.
This is something the average American simply can't relate to, and Romney can't seem to stop acting like the little guy on the Monopoly board. If he isn't hosting $20,000 a plate luncheons in the Hamptons for privileged, arrogant, self-proclaimed "VIPs" in hundred thousand dollar custom SUVs, then he's mentioning his wife's "several" Cadillacs, tearing down his multi-million dollar mansion just so he can build another, bigger multi-million dollar mansion with an elevator for his cars, admitting that his business interests use Chinese sweat shop child labor, or having to admit that under Paul Ryan's proposed revamp of the tax code he would pay a tax rate of 0.86%.
He's not just a rich man, he's a REALLY rich man who can't seem to stop acting like it. Even when he dresses down to be more "relatable" he's still wearing a $500 shirt and imported $1000 Italian leather shoes. He holds himself up as some paragon of the "American dream," a supposedly "self-made man," but he seems to forget the fact that he, like most other millionaires, was BORN a millionaire. His solution to rising college costs and a shrinking Federal Student Loan program is to "borrow more money from your parents." He seems utterly unaware in the Marie Antoinette comment that most Americans, especially the ones who really NEED college, have parents with no money to borrow. Sure, when you grow up a Romney or a Cheney or a Bush, calling dad for money is always an option, but for most of us it stopped being viable the instant the housing market went tits up and all of a sudden mom and dad owed more on their two bedroom bungalow than it was worth despite having made 15 years of payments.
So all things considered, I don't really think he has much of a chance. Between the Sophie's Choice being required of the evangelical GOP base and the sheer unrelatable, arrogant wealth of the man, I don't think this is Romney's year.
But I suppose I could be wrong, God help us all.