With the presidential debates not starting until next Wednesday, the election candidates seem to be in somewhat of a political limbo. In the aftermath of the Democratic and Republican conventions, the campaign trail is far from fired up.
“We’re kind of in no-man’s land right now,” SMU political science professor Dennis Simon, said. “There’s nobody right now lighting [the elections] up.”
A poll released Monday expressed many voters’ indecisiveness and overall lack of excitement about any one candidate. By Wednesday, Barack Obama held just 49 percent of the public’s favor. Mitt Romney held a strong 45 percent. Simon says the slight lead is no surprise.
“You have an incumbent president who’s about fifty-fifty with the public, but a candidate who is perceived as not terribly likeable,” Simon said.
Simon also said Romney is struggling to recover from a series of campaign setbacks. A secret recording of Romney commenting on certain voting groups, the 47 percent, garnered a lot of media attention last week. However, Simon said it’s not just the one taping that has Romney behind.
“It’s only one in a series of incidents that whenever that campaign is poised to go up, it shoots itself in the foot,” Simon said. “There’s something in this campaign that keeps making tactical errors,”
Junior Michael Graves says the speaking gaff doesn’t really matter since neither candidate “has an incredibly strong hold.”
“I think both candidates have a lot of persuading to do for the American public,” Graves said. “Romney isn’t favored by most progressives. Obama isn’t favored by the people who feel like he broke his campaign promises. I don’t think the voters feel the excitement they did four years ago.”
According to Simon, a key factor of this year’s election is “how people look back on the Obama administration”- either with approval or disapproval. Romney attacked Obama’s foreign policy on Tuesday as the UN debates began, but Simon said this tactic is not the best approach.
“Sooner or later they’ve got to shake [it off] and try to go forward,” Simon said.
Both campaigns will attempt to get all its members on board and focus on issues that will carry them to Election Day. Simon said the debates could be the real ignition to a candidate stepping out and defining himself as America’s first choice; the power rests on Romney.
“[It will be] whether Romney can use those debates to turn around the drift toward Obama in the last couple of weeks,” Simon said.
Presidential debates are scheduled for Oct. 3, Oct. 16 and Oct. 22. The sole vice presidential debate will occur on Oct. 11.
Candidates will discuss both foreign and domestic policy in their debates focusing on issues from the economy to healthcare to China’s growing power.
