Dawidziak: It's still Obama's race to lose

For those of us old enough to remember, and for many who are not, it's a cherished historical fact that the New York Mets won the 1986 World Series in seven games.

What's the relevance of the Mets' classic come-from-behind victory here in January 2012? Just this: The year before, when the Kansas City Royals lost the first two games of the World Series at home to the St. Louis Cardinals, almost every sports analyst pointed out that no team had ever lost the first two games at home and gone on to win. Of course, the Royals did come back to win the Series in seven, just as the Mets did in '86 after dropping the first two games at Shea.

Something that had never been done before was accomplished two years in a row. And that, my friends, is why conventional wisdom, in politics and sports, is often an oxymoron.

As the race to the White House heats up, here's another bit of statistical conventional wisdom that many of the pundits are pointing out: "No president since FDR has won re-election with unemployment over 7.2 percent." Should President Barack Obama win re-election, this will be nothing but an obsolete factoid that will never be quoted again.

If you're on the side that is hoping for a GOP victory this fall, you've got to be hoping that the Republicans have more in their artillery than counting on the incumbent's failures. If they do, they're doing a terrible job communicating it to the American people.

When the president was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos of ABC News in October, he was asked if he was the underdog. Obama replied, "Absolutely." This prompted Stephanopoulos to remark, "You embraced that pretty quickly." Yes, he did. It's smart politics to lower expectations, challenge your supporters and position yourself for a comeback.

The only problem is that it isn't true.

There are many reasons why Obama should be favored to win. Let's start with the fact that he's got the job. American voters have only failed to re-elect a sitting president a handful of times, and many of those elections had extenuating circumstances. For instance, there was Grover Cleveland winning the popular vote in 1888 but losing the electoral vote, and William Howard Taft losing re-election in 1912 after Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican vote as a third-party candidate.

Then there's the money. Last time out, Obama established himself as the presidential fundraising champion of all time. He's back at it, hitting the money trail hard.

This leads us to point No. 3: Now that South Carolina has shattered the inevitability of Mitt Romney, the Republican primary process has degenerated into a contest of nasty name-calling and accusations. This not only has the inescapable side effect of damaging the ultimate nominee, but it also forces the GOP contestants to spend every dime they've got. While the candidates are making a show of keeping their rhetoric aimed at the president, their real firepower is being spent on each other. And, of course, while they're going through their war chests, Obama gets the gift of time to raise as much money as he can.

Finally, while the president's approval ratings continue to be unimpressive (somewhere between 45 percent and 49 percent), the Republican party fares even worse.

The GOP can continue to quote doomsday statistics as to why Obama can't win, and the president can go ahead and cast himself as an underdog. But if the Republican opposition doesn't get its collective act together, just remember the Mets in '86. Obama's defeat might not be as inevitable as some believe.

Michael Dawidziak is a political consultant and pollster.