Suburbia vs. Swing States, the Economy & our Electoral College

            The majority of urban voters are in favor of Obama. The majority of rural voters are in favor of Romney. It looks like those living in the suburbs will therefore be deciding the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election, and a recent poll by the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University concludes just that. According to the poll Obama and Romney are tied among suburban voters, but the GOP candidate has an edge among registered independent suburban voters. Predications for election outcomes vary depending on such factors as voters’ gender, economic status, race, and the amount of college education. But if suburbanites are in fact deciding the outcome of this race, the economy is likely to be the largest factor. Support for the current president changes with suburbanites’ faith in the economy. With upwards of 70% of these people are still dissatisfied with the direction in which our country seems to be headed and a nearing half are living paycheck-to-paycheck, support for Obama in suburban areas could be dwindling.

           Obama visits the Ohio Air National Guard base today where he may run into some animosity from people unhappy about the President’s proposal to cut the military budget. Obama may also feel the disappointment from people who think the high unemployment rate over the last four years is the President’s doing, and blame the President for the layoffs involved in the closing of the Ohio American Energy’s coal mine. For the Romney campaign though, political news from Texas this morning may inspire this GOP team. Last night’s political runoff in this southern state shows America’s right leaning states may be moving even further towards the conservative side, as wanting stronger conservative leadership in Washington is becoming more popular. Texas’ Ted Cruz joins Florida’s Marco Rubio as yet another Tea Party Republican candidate to make it into the Senate. According to ABC News Political Director Amy Walter this means Washington will be as polarized and uncompromising as ever. Therefore, whoever wins this year’s Presidential race may have a great deal of bipartisan work to do over the next four years if any bill proposals are to be passes.

            Instead of building a solid future economic plan like those in suburbia would like, or boasting about why we should elect him over his opponent like most of America would prefer, both Presidential candidates are putting their money on negative advertisements in hopes of convincing the public not to vote for the other guy. While Americans feel the President can do a great deal to help the economy, Mr. President is doing nothing. Obama sees he has the leg up in most of the key battleground states and therefore his campaign doesn’t see it to be worthwhile to take risks which may give Romany and his team the ammunition to fire back. Romney’s side to this debate really isn’t any better: Romney says he wants to lessen the deficit, cut taxes, and bring down spending, but he gives no information on how he plans to accomplish such things. It’s unclear if one guy can out-do the other with negative advertising, but we will for sure find out. If this Presidential race has proved anything it is that Presidential candidates do not have to actually care about the economy if they just plan their campaign around negating their opponent.

            One should never put all of his or her eggs in a single basket, and its arguable both presidential candidates have done so with relying on negative advertising to give them their seat in the White House. While one poll might point out the plausibility of the suburbanites of American choosing who will lead us for the next four years, another poll by CBS News, the New York Times, and Quinnipiac University finds that significant swing states are leaning left with very little chance of changing their minds. Perhaps then the suburbs may not be as important as we originally thought, and the importance should really be placed on swing states. With all this talk surrounding the swing states in America, how important is a swing state voters’ vote versus a non-swing state voters’ vote? We have grown up being told that all of our votes matter; that every single person’s vote is important. Some however do not believe this to be the case. Regardless of why the Electoral College was originally put into place, it would appear it was established because those running this country did not believe the American people could pick the President themselves, therefore needing supposedly more intelligent and more qualified people to pick the country’s Commander-In-Chief. I’d like to believe we Americans are educated enough to choose our leader without having to rely on others to choose for us, but with people believing everything they hear on television and the radio about our candidates I sometimes feel it is a good thing the Electoral College is still around, no matter how outdated and irrelevant it might actually be. Let’s face it, if you’re a republican in California or a democrat in Texas, you’re state’s delegates are almost guaranteed to vote against you. When it comes down to it, the next U.S. President will probably be chosen by a mere one million people from swing states such as Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. Citizens of swing states have had to deal with an overwhelming amount of (negative) campaigning from both sides of the aisle, and they can only expect the campaigns to become more intense over the next few months as we continue to approach Election Day.