The real debate: Watch the swing states, not the national polls

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on September 07, 2011 at 5:05 PM, updated September 07, 2011 at 5:14 PM

bachmann.jpgMichele Bachmann: the liberals would love to see her compete in the swing states.

Forget all the nonsense about who's leading in the various national polls.

Start thinking about who could win the swing states.

That's pollster Larry Sabato's analysis in the Wall Street Journal. Here's the key paragraph:


Those who follow national polls like to look at popular-vote totals, which are fun but not dispositive.

Sabato's got a much better angle of attack. As he notes, most of the red states will go to whatever Republican is nominated. Most of the blue states will go Democratic. The fight is for those swing states.

Here's where it gets interesting. I have long argued that liberal journalists should not be covering contests among conservatives, and this shows why.

Consider the way the mainstream media played the Iowa Straw Poll results. As I and others have noted, the outcome was a statistical tie between Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul. Yet the media  ignored Paul and built up Bachmann beyond all reason. 

Now imagine you're a Democratic-leaning reporter who wants to see Obama re-elected. How better to accomplish that goal than by promoting a Republican who's likely to lose in those swing states?

It's hard to imagine Bachmann winning in those states. Meanwhile Paul lines up  better than Bachmann against President Obama in the national polls you can see here. But most of the numbers in those polls are meaningless for determining  how the swing states will turn out. That polling hasn't been done yet.

But Paul's philosophy of limited government and liberty is likely to go over much better in the seven states Sabato lists than is Bachmann's end-times apocalyptic approach to the Mideast and her economic illiteracy at home. Bachmann looks like a candidate tailor-made to win the red states and not much else. So does Rick Perry, another big favorite of the mainstream media, though in  Perry's case he's leading some polls and can't be ignored.

I'm not a big Mitt Romney fan, but I can see why so many mainstream Republicans like him. He's got a really good chance in those swing states.

When you watch that debate tonight, look for where Perry ends up on key issues. On foreign policy questions as on economic questions, Paul has been providing the debating points - though you'd never get the TV talking heads to admit it. His questions about monetary policy that were derided as nutty back in 2008 are now mainstream in the GOP. And on foreign policy, it's the candidates backing the failed neoconservativism of the Bush years who are now stuck defending Obama's continuation of those policies.

So the pressure's on Perry to state where he stands. That should be fun.

As for how he'd do in the swing states if he got the nomination, that might not be so pleasant to watch.