"READING THE TEA LEAVES — HANDICAPPING THE 2012 NATIONAL ELECTION"
PACIFIC OIL CONFERENCE
GRAND SIERRA RESORT, RENO, NEVADA, SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

If Obama wins, it will be in spite of the economy and because of his campaign. If Romney wins, it will be because of the economy and in spite of his campaign. Watching both campaigns, neither one of them have done a good job in their messaging. Both of them have to get better before we move on.

There is no way that Romney can make it without Florida. Unfortunately, we're back to the days of hanging chads. We won't know who's going to win until election day and maybe not after that.

Obama is in Ohio every day this week.

The unrest in the Middle East is a negative for Obama. I think he owns it. He can't point to George Bush and say he did it.

If I were to guess, I would guess Republicans would be 51-53 in the Senate but it all depends on what happens between now and election day.

Whether Obama or Romney wins, you're going to have a House that's going to be stingy with money and not be willing to fund some of the things the President wants. I still think there is going to be a substantial move when the Republicans come back to cut spending. I think getting the money out of the House is going to be hard.

You may see Boener having to cut deals with moderate Democrats to get some deals out of the House.

How does Washington change as the result of this election? If Obama wins, he's going to try to get things done through Executive Orders and regulatory agencies. Card check is something we're very concerned about. Energy policy jumps in there in a big way. Romney says we'll achieve energy independence by building out our own resources. Obama says we'll achieve energy independence by reducing consumption.

The mood a year ago in the country was throw all the bums out. Now look at what we're looking at. Out of 435 seats, 41 are in play. When it comes down to it, throw the bums out isn't really what they do.

You will see Congress try to put riders on appropriation bill but, really, the Courts are where the battle is going to be.The Super PACs are going to take their money and file legal challenges to everything that happens. It's going to be four years of lawsuits.

Ron Paul is entertaining and has some good ideas but he's going to work in the fringe. He's never going to have the gravitas to be in charge of something major.

Baby Boomers created this mess and we ought to fix it. I think our generation wants to fix it but I don't think our kids are going to let us. They like government that's going to take care of them and provide free this and free that and free health care.

A lot of the polls show the benefit of a lot of younger voters going Obama's way. But they don't vote and they don't vote in the numbers they say they will.