Doyle McManus at the Los Angeles Times recently talked with David Plouffe, one of President Obama's major strategists for 2012. Plouffe gives four reasons he believes Obama will be re-elected.
The first reason on his list is that the President will do better among independents because they'll see how hard he has tried to work with Republicans.
Obama has an opportunity to improve his standing among independent voters — many of whom deserted the Democrats in the 2010 midterm election — by working with Republicans toward bipartisan deficit-reduction measures.
The second reason is that Plouffe believes the President has "managed to move toward the center" without losing significant support on the left.
Third, demographics--read: more hispanics--favor the Democrats. And fourth, Obama has already run a winning campaign and knows how to do it.
In other words, the first two reasons involve the President impressing voters by showing them how much he's not a Democrat, while his third reason depends on the Democratic loyalty of a group for which he's done very little.
Of those four reasons, only the fourth is indisputable, and, Plouffe surely hopes, it may be the most important of the four.
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