Despite a lack of any evident positive momentum over the last week ... the Romney camp is suddenly bursting with talk that it will not only win but win handily....
This is a bluff. Romney is carefully attempting to project an atmosphere of momentum, in the hopes of winning positive media coverage and, thus, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Chait suggests that the press corps is falling for it--that it's being "suckered." Yet his disappointment in this sudden, and successful, bamboozlement is nothing compared to my distress over the last several months, which is how long Obama has consistently led in the electoral college count while the press corps and its attendant pundits have howled Close, it's so close, it could go either way, this thing is going right down to the wire!
Even when Obama's electoral count was so overwhelmingly favorable that the argument couldn't stick without snickering, the press had a backup. Remember it? This race will be close, it will, no doubt, go right down to the wire.
True, the race has tightened. Every race tightens. That does not mean, though, that Obama has ever been seriously vulnerable. Do I and others frequently despair at how foolishly close the race actually is? Of course. Should it even be a contest? No. The fact that it is ... does that mean we've an exasperatingly fickle, profoundly uninformed electorate? Absolutely. But: Is there, or has there ever been, any real evidence to suggest that Obama might very well lose this thing? Not a dram.
I am curious PM. Are you ready to make a prediction on final EV count?
I will go out on a limb and give Obama 322 EV's with an outside chance at 348.
Posted by: japa21 | October 23, 2012 at 03:03 PM
2.5 to 1
http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/us-presidential-election/winner
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | October 23, 2012 at 03:27 PM
I've been worrying about Ohio, especially given that its loathsome GOP governor has outsourced the vote-counting to a Bain-affiliated Texas company, amid reports of polling showing the state tied.
This morning on the radio I heard that Obama's got a five-point lead in a new poll, with a margin of error only half that. And that poll can't be taking into account last night's debate, I would think.
Still worried, but feeling better.
Posted by: Janicket | October 23, 2012 at 08:56 PM
Your post is nearly prescient. This morning I was watching the Morning Toad show, which follows Morning Joe and sure enough there was Todd himself, accusing the Obama campaign of trying to falsely challenge Mitt's Amazing Momemtum by factually pointing out the electoral college projections. This would be the same man who has made his living for the last year or so calling the closeness of this election based on an irrelevant popular vote.
Posted by: Peter G | October 24, 2012 at 09:30 AM