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By Steve Deace

The Five Final Deciding Questions

The debates are over, and although most of my fellow pundits were quick to tell us before they started that historically they don’t impact the eventual outcome, this time they certainly have.

This race hasn’t been the same since the first debate. Mitt Romney’s rout of a beleaguered and bored-looking Barack Obama dramatically altered the trajectory of the race from leaning strongly to the president to a toss-up/leaning Romney. The president bounced back somewhat in the second debate, and was much stronger in the final debate Monday night, but he’s still not been able to regain the momentum he lost in the first debate in Denver.

If Romney goes on to win this election that first presidential debate will go down as the biggest debate game changer in modern American political history.

So with the debates concluded, the campaign has now entered its final phase. The popular vote is trending Romney, but the Electoral College remains razor close and the president still has more routes to 270 than Romney does—although Romney’s path is much easier than it was at the beginning of October.

Heading down the stretch, the answers to these five questions may determine the eventual outcome:

1) Will there be an October surprise? For example, the president clearly has a foreign policy edge over Romney, so could there be an unforeseen circumstance on the global stage that gives Obama one last chance to appear as a strong leader? Something like a rogue nation such as Iran doing something to insert itself into the election if it thinks it can handle an Obama second term more easily than a President Romney? Another potential October surprise could be the final two economic forecasts before the election, which will be on the rate of growth and unemployment. Will there be much more robust or negative numbers there when par for the course is expected? Or could it be something totally unforeseen, like George W. Bush’s revealed long-ago DUI on the eve of the 2000 election, which nearly cost him enough votes to give Al Gore the presidency?

2) Will the automobile industry bailout be the marriage amendment of 2012? In 2004, an instate fight for an amendment protecting marriage on the ballot in Ohio helped George W. Bush massively turn out the evangelical vote in that state, catapulting him to the win there and thus re-election. This time the Democrats are hoping an important but under-the-radar issue like the automobile industry bailout can do the same for Obama. The bailout wasn’t popular for Republicans, which is why Romney opposed it during the primaries, but it remains popular in Ohio. The Buckeye State is Obama’s firewall. With Ohio he stands a decent chance of denying Romney’s path to 270 Electoral College votes, and no Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio. If Romney wins Ohio its game, set, and match for the Obama Regime. This issue gives Obama his best chance of accomplishing that task, because he has no other record of economic achievement to run on.

3. Which base is more energized come Election Day? For much of this election cycle Democrats have been more energized than Republicans, who have been disappointed in the lack of leadership they’ve seen from many of the folks they just voted for in the Tea Party uprising of 2010. However, Romney’s rout in the first debate energized Republicans more than Democrats for the first time in 2012. Democrats have been trying to reignite that spark. Will Obama’s win in the final debate do it? Will something happen in the final two weeks that will do it? Obama is going to dominate traditional Democrat groups like blacks and Latinos, and Romney will dominate traditional Republican groups like evangelicals. Neither candidate has much cross-over appeal to the other’s base, which Obama was able to peel off some from John McCain in 2008. Without that cross-over appeal base turnout is even more important. Therefore, it won’t be the percentage each candidate gets of that group that matters as much as it will be the actual turnout of those groups.

4. What kind of coat-tails will each candidate have? For example, could a strong Romney win in Missouri ironically carry the embattled Todd Akin across the finish line there? Republican Linda McMahon has run a good campaign in Connecticut, but could she get swept up in Obama’s win in that state? Currently, Real Clear Politics is forecasting 10 U.S. Senate seats as toss-ups. Four of those are in states that Romney will likely win, two of them are in states Obama will likely win, and the rest are in true battleground states that could go either way. To get to 51 in the U.S. Senate, and thus repeal Obamacare, the Republicans need to win 8 of those 10 toss-up Senate seats.  That is a tall order, and more than likely not possible without Akin’s seat in Missouri, which the party establishment still refuses to assist with.

5. No one else wants to say it, but since I’ve made a career out of saying stuff others don’t want to openly talk about so I will. Between ACORN, the Secretary of State project, lack of Voter I.D. laws and lack of enforcement of voter fraud laws already on the books, and recent elections featuring districts and towns with more registered voters than the census says lives there, there is widespread anticipation from conservatives the Democrats are prepared to cheat if necessary. The progressive mantra seems to be “if you’re not cheating you’re not trying.” We know a multitude of attorneys were poised to do so in Wisconsin for the Scott Walker recall, but he won “outside the margin of cheating” so it was a moot point. If we’re right to be paranoid about this, then can Romney win going to need to win a state like Ohio by more than 2 points, or outside the margin of cheating? If it’s closer than that zany high jinks are sure to ensue.

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