Actual headlines from the must-read political junkies site realclearpolitics, all from the past 6 days:
Whites, Independents Will Sink Obama: Ben Domenech, The Transom
Mitt’s Many Mistakes Will Doom Him: Robert Shrum, The Daily Beast
Bottom Line: Romney 315, Obama 223: Michael Barone, DC Examiner
Obama in Good Shape With 3 Days Left: Greg Sargent, Washington Post
Au Revoir, Mr. President: Emmett Tyrrell, American Spectator
Why Romney is Likely to Win: Jay Cost, Weekly Standard
Obama’s Electoral College “Firewall” Holding: Nate Silver, NYTimes
Don’t Be Surprised When Obama Loses: Dan McLaughlin, Red State
Obama Set to Scrape Out a Victory: John Cassidy, The New Yorker
Polling Data, Early Voting Point to Romney Victory: Karl Rove, WSJ
Romney Doomed By Objections to Auto Bailout: Bob King, USA Today
Mitt Set to Win, Maybe By a Mile: Michael Graham, Boston Herald
Obama Still Likely to Emerge as Winner: Mark Melman, The Hill
And finally this:
You’re Stupid If You Think It’s Close: Paul Krugman, New York Times.
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So we got some dueling realities here. Such is life in the great noise machine of modern political discourse.
With just hours until election day, it’s Advantage Obama (see our cool interactive map), but with a caveat the size of Wisconsin (or Pennsylvania?): He is leading in many states by less than 4 percent in the polls.
You get 2-to-1 odds if you bet on Romney at Intrade — so he’s not a longshot.
Chris Cillizza takes apart a new NBC/WSJ poll and says the gender gap has re-emerged in Obama’s favor. And Rove, Barbour say Sandy turned out to be the October Surprise — to Obama’s political benefit.
Let’s discuss the Krugman item for a second. Krugman writes, “state polling currently points overwhelmingly to an Obama victory.” He’s basing that on Nate Silver’s work. It’s true to a point: Silver now gives Obama an 86.3 percent chance of winning. But as we discussed the other day, Obama having an 86.3 percent chance of winning doesn’t mean it’s not close — unless you think, for example, Obama up by 3.0 percentage points in Iowa according to the RCP state polling average, and 2.9 points in Ohio is not “close.” Maybe it’s semantics. Here’s what I see: Romney’s up 1.8 percent in Florida. Obama is up 0.6 percent in Colorado. Obama is up 0.3 percent in Virginia.
Close enough to say “close.”
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Carl Cannon, the Washington editor of RCP, says the focus on the battleground states has effectively disenfranchised the majority of Americans:
‘Only swing voters in swing states matter, and there are fewer of both than in any time in recent U.S. history -- at a time of incomparably large campaign war chests. “Never has so much money been spent,” Obama pollster Joel Benenson told RCP, “in pursuit of so small a group of voters.’ Carl links to the viral video of 4-year-old Abigael Evans who is in tears after hearing a news report on the campaign, saying, she’s crying “Just because I’m tired of Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney.”
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