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Open Thread: Statistical Tie, Advantage Obama

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We have no idea what internal polling is showing the respective campaigns but we can try to guess.  Chait suggests the GOP has been conning the media with Romney’s momentum and it seems it was working in spite of a small pre-debate lift for Obama.  The substance of the debate isn’t the issue at this point but thank goodness its behind us with a tailwind:


Romney only has two weeks left to move the needle two points in Ohio, Nevada and Iowa, or Wisconsin and any other tilt-Obama state, and relitigating the facts and memes from last night’s debate are assured to take up at least a couple of critical days. If Romney’s deficit in Ohio is larger than one or two points, then that’s a real lost opportunity. Of course, if the Romney campaign believes they have already brought the race back to a dead-heat in Ohio, losing three days worth of lost comeback isn’t terrible – so long as the president doesn’t outright make gains as a result of the debate.

Nate Cohn – Extraordinarily Tight Race With Fourteen Days To Go New Republic 23 Oct 12

Besides agonising over the next Ohio or other state poll guessing the internals is the only game in town.

After a head-fake over North Carolina Romney’s people sent Ryan to Pennsylvania for more of the same.  So here we are:


“We know what we know, and they know what they know,” Axelrod added of Romney and his advisers. “We’ll know who’s bluffing and who isn’t in two weeks. And we’re looking forward to it.”

“Romney has not been able to knock us out of a single battleground,” added Obama campaign manager Jim Messina.

Greg Sargent – The Obama camp’s view of the race’s final stretch Washington Post 23 Oct 12

We’ll see.  “Anybody who thinks those states are in the bag is half in the bag themselves.”


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151 comments

  1. Shaun Appleby

    Makes the unusual good point that the notion of “pulling out” of a battleground is antiquated given the cash resources of the campaigns and adds:


    How then should you judge what the swingiest of the swing states are in these final two weeks if advertising dollars are no longer a good measure?  Easy. Watch where the two presidential nominees go.  Neither campaign will send their guy to a state that they don’t think is winnable. So, Obama is in Ohio and Florida today while Romney is in Nevada and Colorado today.

    Chris Cillizza – Why neither Obama nor Romney will “pull out” of any swing state Washington Post 23 Oct 12

    So Florida is still on the table, good to know.

  2. HappyinVT

    NEW ALBANY, Ind. – Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Tuesday when a woman is impregnated during a rape, “it’s something God intended.”

    Mourdock, who’s been locked in a tight race with Democratic challenger Rep. Joe Donnelly, was asked during the final minutes of a debate whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.

    “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happened,” Mourdock said.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49…

    So, again, the woman gets screwed ’cause that baby’s soooo much more important.  Until it comes out then it is off to war with the little bugger.

  3. DTOzone

    believe me, this is true. They can’t stand him and his administration. They don’t get the access they want, they don’t get the respect they think they deserve. He handpicks who he gives interviews to, etc.

    They hate him and Romney has been smart to butter them up (see the flag football game over the weekend). that’s the real strategy Romney is brilliant at- set the narrative by buying the media’s friendship.

    It’s working  

  6. Shaun Appleby

    Obama leads in latest Ohio poll, “Romney momentum” narrative use-by date expires and most polling in swing states remains consistent with Obama retaining a daunting EV advantage as things now stand.  Early voting giving heartburn to Republicans.

    This is close, folks, but very, very doable.

  7. HappyinVT

    While the campaigns eagerly pursue female voters, there’s something that may raise the chances for both presidential candidates that’s totally out of their control: women’s ovulation cycles.

    You read that right. New research suggests that hormones may influence female voting choices differently, depending on whether a woman is single or in a committed relationship.

    Please continue reading with caution. Although the study will be published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science, several political scientists who read the study have expressed skepticism about its conclusions. http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/…  

    I’m not particularly hormonal today (I don’t think) but “fuck off, CNN” makes me feel better.

  9. Shaun Appleby

    Hmmm:


    A man suspected of involvement in an attack on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi last month has been killed in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, officials say.

    The man was killed after an exchange of fire with security services in the Cairo suburb of Madinet Nasr.

    Authorities named the man only as Hazem.

    Jon Leyne – ‘Benghazi attack suspect’ dies in Cairo shootout BBC 24 Oct 12

    This could be interesting.

  10. HappyinVT

    Democrats have been worked into the most fervor over claims that Republicans will employ widespread voter suppression at the polls on Nov. 6.

    “The Republican Party in its current configuration is openly defying and attempting to destroy the U.S. Constitution,” wrote Denise Oliver Velez on the liberal blog Daily Kos.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s…

    Well done Denise even if it is Politico.  ðŸ™‚

  11. HappyinVT

    From the latest Rolling Stone interview via TPM:

    Have you ever read Ayn Rand?  Sure.

    What do you think Paul Ryan’s obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?  Well, you’d have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we’re only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we’re considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that’s a pretty narrow vision. It’s not one that, I think, describes what’s best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a “you’re on your own” society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

  12. HappyinVT

    … Would “moderate Mitt” occupy the White House?

    The sad answer is there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes. His unguarded expression of contempt for 47 percent of the population seems as sincere as anything else we’ve heard, but that’s only conjecture. At times he has advocated a muscular, John McCain-style foreign policy, but in the final presidential debate he positioned himself as a dove. Before he passionately supported a fetus’s right to life, he supported a woman’s right to abortion. His swings have been dramatic on gay rights, gun rights, health care, climate change and immigration. His ugly embrace of “self-deportation” during the Republican primary campaign, and his demolition of a primary opponent, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for having left open a door of opportunity for illegal-immigrant children, bespeaks a willingness to say just about anything to win. Every politician changes his mind sometimes; you’d worry if not. But rarely has a politician gotten so far with only one evident immutable belief: his conviction in his own fitness for higher office. http://www.washingtonpost.com/…  

  13. Shaun Appleby

    Another day of pressure on the national polling averages from Romney, with a razor-thin or no lead for Obama depending on which aggregation you prefer.  Yet the battleground bastion, especially Ohio, seems firm.  We may yet be headed for a split popular vote vs electoral college outcome.  Any win is a good win but I would love to see the top line headed our way a bit in the next ten days.

    What a nail-biter this turned into!

  18. fogiv

    i can’t vote for potus.  obamacare was a big shit sandwich delivered piping hot to my pony saddle under the bus!!1!  he didn’t even fight for the public option!!1!!

    oh wait, maybe this is socialist enuff:

    The Obama administration will soon take on a new role as the sponsor of at least two nationwide health insurance plans to be operated under contract with the federal government and offered to consumers in every state.

    [snip]

    The national plans will compete directly with other private insurers and may have some significant advantages, including a federal seal of approval. Premiums and benefits for the multistate insurance plans will be negotiated by the United States Office of Personnel Management, the agency that arranges health benefits for federal employees.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10…

    ok, but drones!!1!

  19. Strummerson

    is just weird.  Do these people really think they can depress Obama’s turnout by performing premature post-mortems, as if Romney were up ten points and holding 400 electoral votes already in his pocket?  Isn’t the curtain measuring going to turn anyone off?  

    I really hope someone makes Newt “I’m going to be the nominee” Gingrich and Jennifer “Mitt is Reagan and more” Rubin and all of the rest of them eat some public crow if they are proven wrong.

    I’m waiting for one of them to declare that Mitt will win Massachusetts and California at this point.  It’s obnoxious.

  21. HappyinVT

    BarackObama Oct 28, 4:30pm via Web

    If you’re on the Eastern seaboard, please make sure to follow the instructions of your state and local officials today. Stay safe. -bo

    Retweeted by MichelleObama

    “-bo” means POTUS wrote this himself.

  22. janicket

    In comments on the Political Ticker story about Romney involving himself in a FEMA teleconference briefing (and just what the hell does he have to contribute anyway?  Why the hell is he taking valuable time of overwhelmed governors by calling them?  Shut up and get outta the way of people with jobs to do, asshole!), this helpful metric:

    E. Johnson

    I’ve finally figured out the key to understanding Romney’s positions. First, you have to find out what he said during the primaries and assign that a factor of 2. Then take what he said at the end of each ensuing month and give them each a factor of a number larger than that of the preceding month but one that does not exceed 5. Now take what he said in each of the debates and give each a factor of 1 or 3 depending on how convincing he was. Now it gets complicated. Take all the factors and total them and divide by a factor between 7 and 11 but not 9. If you had done all these steps correctly, you should have arrived at the conclusion that Romney is an unpredictable pathological liar.

  23. rfahey22

    This whole “disaster relief” nonsense, the blatant lying in Ohio, and the so-called efforts to “expand the map” by going up in Michigan and Pennsylvania – it’s of course impossible to say, but these do not seem like the actions of a campaign that thinks it is on track to win the election.

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