Five More Days

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First, this morning Nate Silver has the President’s chances of winning the election up to 79 percent, which is 8 points higher than a week ago. It would appear the late deciders are going in his direction. See also “Oct. 31: Obama’s Electoral College ‘Firewall’ Holding in Polls.”

(And I just noticed the lights are on in the hallway, which I hope means all the power is restored to the building. Maybe I’ll have heat and hot water pretty soon.)

George Will spins a column entirely out of straw men to argue that the Obama campaign has become “empty” and “strident.”

Seems to me the Romney campaign is, like, stoned. They think they’ve got Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota — all solid blue, Nate says. They think they have a shot at Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Nate says, not likely. Paler blue, but still blue.

I gather that the Romney camp thinks Obama voters in these states won’t be enthusiastic enough to vote (or will be prevented from voting). Only Romney supporters are enthusiastic enough to vote. That’s how they are figuring it. Also Karl “I have THE math” Rove has some theory about why the polls are wrong, which Sam Wang shoots down.

Update: I’ve been playing with this interactive map. Going by Nate Silver’s numbers, if President Obama only wins states that are solid blue, meaning that he has at least a 90 percent chance of winning, then Romney wins. But if Obama wins just the states in which he has at least a 75 percent chance of winning, then he’s got 281 electoral votes, and Obama wins.

Obama can lose all of the tossup states — Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado — and still win the electoral college vote. Romney has to win all of the tossup states plus Ohio, or if not Ohio at least two other states Obama is likely to win. If Romney loses either Florida or Virginia, the odds that he will pick off enough upsets to make up the difference grow very long.

For example, if Romney loses Virginia, he’s got to pick off all three of the states in which Obama’s chances of winning are above 75 but less than 80 percent — Ohio, Iowa, and New Hampshire — to get to 272.

So, while a Romney win is possible, he’s got to pull off some upsets to do it.

19 thoughts on “Five More Days”

  1. Karl Rove and Dick Morris both agree that it’s Mitt in a landslide!

    Hmm…
    Karl Rove actually knows people who are in a position to suppress the votes, flip the machines, and challenge the results if President Obama wins.

    Now, if it was Dick Morris and Bill Kristol, I’d say, “YAY!!!”
    Those two are NEVER right!
    And I’d say it was time we can pop the champagne when that happens – Obama’s sure to win!

    What worries me, is what will ever happen if Morris and Kristol ever take opposite sides on an issue?
    I suspect that’s the moment the Universe ends.
    ‘That is the way the world ends,
    This is the way the world ends.
    Not with a bang, but with wimps.’

  2. Mitt’s comments on picking up trash from a football field as a response to the assistance needed in the Hurricane Sandy aftermath says just what he thinks about the people who suffered damage: trash. If this has not revealed what the man is made of, nothing will.

    Chris Christie’s honest acknowledgment of Obama’s effectiveness and the need for FEMA’s organized, professional response gave me the first positive feeling I have ever had for him.

    I hope when Mitt’s canned goods arrive wherever they’re going, they get thrown back.

    • Bill B — I find it extraordinary that Mitt thinks picking up trash from a football field was an act so valiant and heroic that he even thought of it, never mind bring it up in a speech.

  3. OT:
    Here’s what I want to see from the Romney supporters in NY, NJ, CT, PA, and WV – a sign in front of their destroyed homes that say, “HANDS OFF, FEMA! KEEP YOUR FEDERAL DAMN MONEY TO YOURSELVES. I BUILT THIS! I’LL REBUILD IT!! BY MY DAMN SELF!!!”

    C’mon Conservatives – how about a little philosophical and ideological consistency?
    FOR ONCE!!!

  4. Bush did something vaguely similar (2000? 2004?) directing campaign resources to California and even setting foot in the state to campaign, even though everyone else knew that there was no way he was going to carry the Golden State. His team, like Romney’s, tried to create the illusion that he was so far ahead, that California was now a possible win for him.

    I don’t know what this tactic is about, whether it’s to get the best turnout possible, or to help down ticket races or what. I suspect that swing state voters have been so bombarded with advertising, that they probably need a break, otherwise voters just stay home out of resentment. I suspect there are studies showing the timing of campaign advertising versus its effectiveness, and perhaps that campaigning until the last hour in a state that’s been saturation bombed with advertising is useless or even counter-productive.

    Another theory I have is that it helps to create a fiction of victory, demonstrated by real activity in states that are in no way going to turn for you, to push the states you do have a chance in, into your column.

    Anyway, just my ideas, would love to see what the research has to say about these late hour moves.

  5. A lot of the polls are just wacky– glad we have Nate and Wang to sort the wheat from the chaff. We all know Rasmussen leans consistently to the right, which is fine, as long as they are consistent. Then you get stuff that is absolutely beyond credibility, like a poll that says the gender gap has disappeared. In a year where the GOP has doubled down in a HIGH PROFILE hate fest (contraception, probes, Akin, Mourdock) directed towards women, that seems unlikely even in a low-information-voter heavy country like ours.

  6. … picking up trash from a football field was an act so valiant and heroic

    It just says how disconnected this guy is from real work. I had a boss who was born into wealth, and somewhat of a George W Bush clone psychologically. He was tasked with moving our office across the hall – which only involved moving four people total, and he had movers to do the grunt work. When the job was complete, he thought it was this amazing result – even though it happened despite some needless tiff between him and the movers. Anybody else with experience in the real world would’ve looked at it as no more complicated nor worth commenting on than cleaning out a basement.

  7. What I find telling about the “clean up the football field” analogy is that it goes straight to the heart of “let the locals do it” philosophy Romney is trying to hide from now. There has been no mention of loss of power to the football field, or a need for heavy equipment. No matter how many willing neighbors you might get in Brooklyn to pitch in and clean up “trash”, they can’t siphon out the subways with soda straws.

  8. Bill B. – Romney revealed what he really thinks of other people at the cookie-caper-campaign stop. He all the way around insulted the women hosting the event, the cookie maker (who could have been sitting right next to him) the women in general as 7/11-type shoppers (white trash in Romney’s book) and he put the fucking cookie which he’d just manhandled and breathed on back on the plate for someone else to pick up and EAT.

    Maybe he was spawned and raised by she-wolves? No, she-wolves teach their children to be polite and considerate of others.

  9. At this point I don’t think the election scare tactics are working. They might backfire. It’s still a close race and not one that is making people curl up in fetal position and wetting themselves. I find it motivating so maybe others do too.

  10. Do see Charles Pierce, Why I’m Voting to Re-Elect President Obama. It’s one of his better columns.

    …I am casting my vote for him (again) because of something that Dr. Jill Stein said the other night on TV…..I live in the bluest of blue states, and I felt that, in casting my vote [for Stein], I would absolve myself of complicity in the drone strikes, and in the inexcusable pass given to the Wall Street pirates, and in what I am sure is going to be an altogether dreadful Grand Bargain while not materially damaging the most important cause of all: making sure that Willard Romney is not president. And I might have done it, had Jill not gone on TV and talked about how those people who are voting for the incumbent president simply to make sure that Willard Romney is not president are doing so out of “fear.”

    Horse hockey.

    It is not fear. It is simple, compelling logic. We have two major political parties…..One of them is inexcusably timid and tied in inexcusably tight with the big corporate money. The other one is demented.

    This is not “fear” talking. I watched the Republican primaries. I went to the debates. I saw long-settled assumptions about the nature of representative democracy thrown down and danced upon. I heard long-established axioms of the nature of a political commonwealth torn to shreds and thrown into the perfumed air. I saw people seriously arguing for an end to the social safety net, to any and all federal environmental regulations, to the concept of the progressive income tax……I saw all of this and I knew that each one of them had a substantial constituency behind them within the party for everything they said, no matter how loopy. When you see a lunatic wandering down the sidewalk, howling at the moon and waving a machete, it is not fear that makes you step inside your house and lock the door. It is the simple logic of survival. Fear is what keeps you from trying to tackle the guy and wrestle the machete away from him. And, as much as it may pain some people to admit it, the president is the only one stepping up to do that at the moment.

    It is vitally important that the Republican party be kept away from as much power as possible until the party regains its senses again….

  11. …and if we all connect equipment with bushings to bicycles then get on and pedal like hell we might be able to light up the dark parts of Manhattan. Forget not needing FEMA and government, we don’t even need the power company.

  17. Yeah, I’m with those above trying to picture the “football field” analogy in action after Sandy. I saw astonishing footage of devastation on Staten Island this evening. So, there you are, standing by the wreckage of your house, next to your neighbor who’s just standing by their foundation, because their house got swept away, and the neighbor on the other side who just lost a relative, and all of you are supposed to just “clean your lane”? And once you’ve spent all day clearing the wreckage, and you haven’t made a dent in it, where do you sleep? Or eat? And what do you tomorrow?

    Yeah, Mitt, loading a truck with canned goods and peanut butter is a real help. Sure. Unh-hunh.

    • The “clean the lane” thing reminds me of the dimwits who argued, after Hurricane Katrina, that “first responders” could just be volunteers. Yes, if you are trapped inside a tottering jumble of building materials, exposed electrical wires and leaking toxic/combustible stuff, the crew from the Methodist ladies Bible Study club is just what you need.

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