I don't read yesterday's (and this morning's polls) as that favorable.  What gives?  Very early Saturday morning (I'm going by east coast time throughout this post), Nate explained that the President's chance of winning was over 80% because of the 22 polls of swing states published Friday, he led in 19 and trailed in only 1.  This seemed sensible.  On Saturday, there were fewer published polls (at least listed at Real Clear Politics) and a couple of these were not positive for Obama.  The most worrisome are a Tampa Bay Times Florida poll that shows Romney +6 and, perhaps even more troubling, a University of New Hampshire poll showing a tie in the Granite State.  The Saturday polls that show Obama ahead were not exceptionally strong for h [Read more]

Ramona asks, flabbergasted, why this guy Romney is even able to make a race out of this.  Over at Slate, Tom Scocca seems to have the answer.  Race.  Well, and gender.  It's white guys who are giving Romney a fighting chance, even though, as Daggers like Articleman and DF have concluded, it's still Obama's election to lose.  Even Time admits it. [Read more]

Many voices, from the hallowed blogs of Dag to the exalted table around which Mighty Joe Scarborough and his colleagues convene, have decried the lack of substance in this election (though I'm pretty sure I hear that complaint every time anyone is running for office - "This should be about the issues!").  Mika Brzezinski has called it the Seinfeld election - a race about nothing - though I'll leave up to the reader whether this reflects more accurately the election or her observational skills. [Read more]

Okay, I'm breathing again--raggedly, to be honest, but I'm seeing clearly and whatever fun writing I was so longing for last week will just have to wait.  Mitt Romney is closing in on the home stretch and I can't stand it.  What can I say that will change that?  We all know there is nothing I can say that will change anything this monumental and incomprehensible.  But I repeat: I can't stand it.
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Before the devastation of Superstorm Sandy put the Presidential campaigning on hold (as of course it should, no matter how close in time the election is), it was clear that President Obama had moved up in the swing states, taking as the inflection point (the point for before/after comparison) October 23, the day after the third Presidential debate.  One week after that date, it is easy to illustrate that the race has changed very slightly, but significantly, in the swing states that will decide the election.  This blog does that, by taking the polling in each swing state, using October 23 as the break point to compare polling before and after, and also comparing the Obama/Romney matchup in "apples to apples" comparisons in which a given pollster (say, ARG) polled the [Read more]

In yesterday's David Brooks column, he offered a tepid endorsement of Mitt "Thurston Howell" Romney for President.  Brooks games out what the next two years will probably look like under Romney or Obama.  There's really nothing insightful or interesting there, so here's his conclusion: [Read more]

Against my better judgment and my general belief that the cake of this unrelenting election cycle has long been baked, I'm going to give Willard Mitt "I'd Shut Down FEMA" Romney a bit of advice, 100% gratis.  Mitt Romney should spend the next week using his leadership, connections, management skills and even his own personal fortune to demonstrate exactly why he should be President by organizing a private relief effort for victims of Hurricane Sandy. [Read more]

The Eastern Seaboard is getting clobbered by a combined late-season hurricane and blizzard, flooding large areas and knocking out electricity in even larger areas. As I write this, the New York City subways are flooded, there has been an explosion at a Con Edison power station, and a large part of the Rockaways is burning while firefighters, trapped by the floodwaters, are helpless to stop it.
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There was a bit of drama in Poll Land on Sunday, as a well-respected source in Ohio released The Ohio Poll, showing a dead heat between President Obama and Governor Romney.  It was the third poll that ever showed Romney hitting 49 in Ohio (Obama has hit 50 19 times, including in the other two polls that showed Romney at 49).  Indeed, two polls posted late Sunday night corroborated the theory of this piece that The Ohio Poll was taken during a modest recession in the President's poll numbers.  Moreover, other state polls released Sunday were consistent with the race being roughly even in popular vote, with the President leading narrowly in key states.  This race remains on course for a narrow Obama victory, most likely as a result of the President winning either Ohio (where he has led this week and most of the last two months) or Virginia (where he has seemingly moved into a tie).  Here is why the data continue to favor that narrow Obama win: [Read more]

As a New Yorker, I've always been willing to vote third party in general elections.  Heck, when my wife and I moved this year and needed to re-register, we both switched form Democrat to Independent.  We'd only joined the Dems to vote for Hillary when she ran in the Senate primary.  Overall, we both have the same problems with mainstream Democrats that many of you do.

Before I lived here, I lived in New Mexico.  That's a purple state that's blue leaning.  But I had reason to vote Green as often as possible because, during the 90s, the Greens were earning major party status there.  It didn't work out, but the votes were worth whatever they might have cost anyone. [Read more]

Time is running out on Mitt Romney's campaign for President, which seems to have roared back into a competitive posture, but not the lead its cheerleaders in the media would wish.  Here's what the polls showed in another day that provided some good news for Obama, and no more good news for Romney. [Read more]

October 26 was a good day for President Obama's re-election prospects, though not for the portrayal of his campaign in conservative media.  The volume of positive state polls for the President provide very good news for him as the campaign heads to its last full week, though as we discussed yesterday, it can be challenging to reconcile them with national polling that tends to show an even race or a tiny Romney lead.  Meanwhile, the Romney campaign and its allies in media are very assertively advancing the argument that Romney is surging.  This blog explains the implausibility of that claim, and how President Obama is closing in on re-election, with ten days of campaigning ahead. [Read more]

Today was a strange day of polling, like many others in 2012 -- it showed that Mitt Romney apparently leads in national polling, but is unlikely to win the Presidency.  All campaign long, the national and state polls have been subtly but clearly irreconcilable.  Today was more of the same, as the Obama momentum from the President's debate win Monday seemed to continue in state polls, but not in national polls.  The path to the White House is clarifying further, and it runs through Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin.  Here's what today's data set showed. [Read more]

Republicans can't seem to keep from diving into the nexus between rape and abortion during this "jobs, jobs, jobs" election.  Aside from the obvious - that this is probably a bad political play for a party that has a big gap with women voters nationally - it's been quite common during this cycle.  The latest such comment from a running GOPer comes from Richard Mourdock, the Tea Partier who primaried Indiana's Dick Lugar.  Mourdock recently made comments that have people comparing him with Missouri's Todd Akin. [Read more]

There's just no nice way to say this.  Greece's creditors are murdering Greece's citizens.  When Greece went to the Troika (the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission) for a loan to keep itself solvent in 2011, the country had to agree to stop covering hospital treatments for unemployed, uninsured citizens.  These people, sick and with no hope of finding work, are now required by the terms of the loan agreements to pay for medical treatment up front, in cash.

A few have been saved by underground charitable organizations. [Read more]

Today was undoubtedly a good day for President Obama.  Both national and state polls suggested that he gained as a result of his debate win on Monday, state polls showed that Mitt Romney's electoral path is narrowing, and the national political story of the day impliedly aids President Obama.  Here's an analysis of the day's data. [Read more]

I don't have anything to say about the election today. It's crunch time.

If you're ready to knock on some doors, makes some phone calls, or dig deep for one last donation, the Obama campaign could use you. Just follow the link.

Someone keep Mitt Romney out of Boca Raton.  Last time he was in town, it was all 47% and I'd be President if I were Mexican.  Tonight?  Oy.  You know how you can tell Barack Obama peeled the bark off of his debating opponent this evening?  Click on RealClearPolitics.com.  It's burying the snap polls about the debate.  (What debate?  There was a debate?)  Or look around the Internet -- Kudlow tweeted that Romney was on Valium, and Hannity is angry that Libya was not a topic this evening.  This was Denver in reverse -- Romney assuming the role of the front-runner who didn't want to disagree, and who accepted harsh criticisms without rebutting them.  Just as Romney won the CBS poll of undecided voters by 24 in Denver, President Obama won that poll tonight by 30.  It is hard to see after tonight how President Obama does not win re-election. [Read more]

So tonight Mitt Romney is going to try to outflank President Obama on foreign policy. Romney doesn't know much about foreign policy, but both Romney and Obama represent long-standing traditions of American thought on international security. The President represents the practical tradition designed to guide policy by the party in office, whichever party that is. Romney speaks for the strand that is designed only for opposition figures. Romney's tradition was developed not to protect America from foreign enemies but to attack domestic political opponents, and it has no other genuine value.

A quick bit of history on where these two strands of thoughts come from:
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For two years, the prehistory of this race was one of Bush-Kerry -- an incumbent during war with a middling economy, a firm base, a modest deficit with independents, a middling flip-flopping opponent with big hair from Massachusetts, and just enough popular desire to stay the course to win a narrow re-election.  The race now looks a bit more like Bush-Gore:  it is rational to think that the Democrat might win the Electoral College and lose the popular vote, the Republican electoral path is narrower, but the Republican candidate has surprising momentum through the debate cycle and heading toward the wire.  I still see President Obama's re-election as likely, but I am downgrading the probability of his winning from 80% to roughly 65%, as a result of the week's event [Read more]